FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to comment during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday when Ted Cruz asked about reports that the special agent accused of orchestrating the entrapment of a group accused of trying to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during the 2020 election has been promoted since then and now runs the FBI’s Washington D.C. field office, including the January 6 case.

Wray admits to Ted Cruz that the FBI special agent in charge of the Detroit field office during the Whitmer kidnapping debacle is now in charge of the DC field office during the J6 investigation. pic.twitter.com/DUsXbBX0Vt

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 4, 2022

“I can tell you that that case, as I understand it, is now pending a retrial,” Wray said about the group of mentally-ill Michigan men accused of planning to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during the first year of Covid, right before the 2020 election.

Cruz said: “So the guy in charge got a promotion and is now in charge of the January 6 investigation? … That is astonishing.”

“That doesn’t sound right to me,” the FBI director said, before clarifying that it was right.

SEN. TED CRUZ: [The Whitmer kidnapping case] ended up a debacle, where the four people who went to trial — two were acquitted, two received mistrials. None of them were convicted on even a single charge, and the basis of the defense was entrapment. That the paid [informants] for the FBI suggested and had incited the conduct.

How many FBI agents were disciplined or reprimanded after that disastrous case and the misconduct that led to every defendant being acquitted or having a mistrial on every charge?

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI: I can’t comment on any personnel matter. I can tell you that that case, as I understand it, is now pending a retrial.

CRUZ: The special agent in charge of that case has now been sent to the Washington D.C. office, and now leads the investigation regarding January 6. Is that correct?

WRAY: That doesn’t sound right to me.

Steven D’Antuono (Credit: Reuters)

CRUZ: That does not sound right? The name of the individual is Steven D’Antuono. He was run out of the FBI Detriot field office.

And by the way, I will point out that the lead investigator… are you aware he was apparently fired for allegedly beating his wife after coming home from a swingers’ party, and he had made multiple derogatory political posts about President Trump, showing political bias. Are you aware of that?

WRAY: I am aware of, I think, the incident you are describing. An action that was taken about it… To clarify on the first part of your question, Mr. D’Antuono was the special agent in charge of the [Detroit field office] and is now the assistant director in charge of the Washington field office. I thought you were asking about the agent who was responsible–

CRUZ: So the guy in charge got a promotion and is now in charge of the January 6 investigation?

WRAY: The guy in charge of the whole Detroit field office is now in charge of the whole Washington field office.

CRUZ: That is astonishing.

(RealClearPolitics, 8/04/2022)  (Archive)

FBI Washington Field Office ADIC, Steven D’Antuono: “Even if you’ve left D.C., agents from our local field offices will be knocking on your door if we find out that you were part of the criminal activity at the Capitol.” pic.twitter.com/1O7xCrv9UW

— The Hill (@thehill) January 13, 2021

SWEDISH TELECOM GIANT LM ERICSSON & ITS U.S. DIVISION ERICSSON INC. SUED BY 862 AMERICANS FOR ALLEGED PROTECTION MONEY PAYMENTS TO AQ, AQ-IN-IRAQ & ISLAMIC STATE

Plaintiffs are 862 Americans, comprised of 286 GOLD STAR FAMILIES, including numerous former hostages and families… pic.twitter.com/awRKzjZ4Qq

— Michael Rae Khoury (@Vltra_MK) February 20, 2023

Link to latest Civil Complaint vs Ericsson: https://t.co/5oUggtmt4H

— Michael Rae Khoury (@Vltra_MK) February 20, 2023

Link to @PLVSVLTRAINTEL‘s The Ericsson Report: A Matter of National Security: https://t.co/oNtR2MKy2y

(published 2 months before the Civil Case was filed)

— Michael Rae Khoury (@Vltra_MK) February 20, 2023

Sparacino Press Release:

SWEDISH TELECOM GIANT LM ERICSSON & ITS U.S. DIVISION ERICSSON INC. SUED BY 862 AMERICANS FOR ALLEGED PROTECTION MONEY PAYMENTS TO AQ, AQ-IN-IRAQ & ISLAMIC STATE

Plaintiffs are 862 Americans, comprised of 286 GOLD STAR FAMILIES, including numerous former hostages and families of hostages, and dozens of severely injured service members.

Each Plaintiff was injured, or is the loved one of someone who was killed or injured, during attacks committed by Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, or a proxy acting at their direction, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria from 2005 through 2021.

Plaintiffs say Ericsson KNOWINGLY supported a terrorist campaign that attacked, killed, and wounded thousands of Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria, including Plaintiffs, by aiding the terrorists through Ericsson’s regular protection money payments to terrorists, Ericsson’s intentional obstruction of United States counterterrorism policy, and Ericsson’s deliberate facilitation of the terrorists’ use of Afghanistan’s cellular networks as a weapon.

“Plaintiffs say while Americans were risking their lives between 2005 and 2021 to help rebuild places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, LM Ericsson, Ericsson AB, Ericsson Inc., Ekholm, and Ibrahim facilitated illicit Iraq-related and Afghanistan related transactions that they knew terrorists such as ISIS and al-Qaeda used to finance attacks against Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria,” said Ryan Sparacino, the Founding Partner of Sparacino PLLC. “As alleged, even though the terrorists openly proclaimed their desire for protection money and other assistance to help prosecute their campaign to kill Americans in the Middle East and the U.S. government publicly opposed illicit transactions that flowed protection money to terrorists, Ericsson defied the United States – and its obligations under the Anti-Terrorism Act – in pursuit of profit.”

Mr. Sparacino continued: “Plaintiffs allege that when Islamic State overran Mosul in 2014, responsible businesses suspended operations to avoid funding ISIS, but Ericsson calculated that pulling back was ‘premature.’ Instead, the Complaint details that Ericsson’s cold calculation was that paying terrorists protection money to ensure safe passage through Iraq would be better for its business. As we will show in court, Ericsson continued its long-standing practice as a corporate criminal on a global crime spree where ‘money talks’ regardless of what the law demanded.”

Indeed, Plaintiffs say that Ericsson explicitly chose illegal options over legal alternatives while knowing that their money was flowing to terrorists. For example, when Ericsson was presented with a ‘Speedway’ (unlawful) and a ‘legal way’ (lawful), Plaintiffs allege Ericsson chose the low road.

“Plaintiffs allege it was Ericsson that made that choice, but it was Plaintiffs who suffered the consequences,” Sparacino said.

The filing of today’s Anti-Terrorism Act Complaint against Ericsson followed an extensive investigation (which continues today) that started after Ericsson’s Iraq-related disclosures in February 2022, including extensive time spent investigating the terrorist campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria and how al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, and Islamic State funded themselves through illicit corporate deals with companies like Ericsson.

Sparacino PLLC is the same firm that currently represents more than 1,200 American clients who recently secured a comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Act victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a separate Anti-Terrorism Act matter (that is also about how corruption in Iraq financed terrorism) against Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GE Healthcare, AstraZeneca, and Roche, captioned Atchley et al. v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd., et al., Case 1:17-cv-02136 (D.D.C.). Sparacino serves as lead investigative counsel in both the Schmitz and Atchley cases, following a similar investigative approach in each.

Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart (Credit: public domain)

“The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort donated to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — months after he left the local US Attorney’s office to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.

Sources tell The Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an “unannounced raid on my home.”

Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.”

Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release.

According to the Herald, which cited court documents, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida US Attorney’s Office effective on New Year’s Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein’s cohorts the following day.

Epstein, who was found dead in August 2019 of an apparent suicide in the Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had hired a stable of high-powered lawyers for his defense in the late 2000s, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Ten months after starting work for Epstein’s co-conspirators, according to Federal Election Commission records, Reinhart gave $1,000 directly to the Obama campaign and another $1,000 to its fundraising arm, the Obama Victory Fund. Though the records show the judge made mostly small-dollar donations to his law firm’s political action committee in subsequent years, Reinhart also donated $500 to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign in November 2015.

Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit by two of Epstein’s victims that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018. (Read more: New York Post, 8/09/22)  (Archive)

President Joe Biden’s administration was involved in the raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence through a “special access request,” according to documents obtained from the National Archives by America First Legal.

On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Mar-a-Lago on the grounds of retrieving alleged classified documents. According to the establishment media, Biden administration officials were “stunned” to hear of the unprecedented action. The Archives also claimed that it had “not been involved in the DOJ investigation.”

But documents show the FBI obtained access to the records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the DOJ, contradicting what the Archives told Congress, America First Legal revealed Monday:

 

Notably, despite the Archives’ claim that it had “not been involved in the DOJ investigation,” the documents show that the Archives’ official responsible for administering all access requests for Presidential records, John Laster, was involved in preparing the 15 boxes for FBI review as late as August 23, 2022:

On October 25, 2022, Acting Archivist Wall wrote to then-Ranking Members James Comer and Jim Jordan, claiming “NARA received the 15 boxes from President Trump on January 18, 2022, and then discovered that they contained classified national security information. Shortly after the discovery, NARA consulted with its Office of Inspector General (OIG), which operates independently of NARA. As DOJ has disclosed publicly in court filings, NARA’s OIG subsequently referred the matter to DOJ on February 9, 2022.”

If the OIG acted independently in making a referral to the FBI, then Mr. Laster would not have involved himself in the FBI’s review of the 15 boxes in his capacity as the Director of the White House Liaison Division “responsible for all access requests for Presidential records.” Similarly, the FBI affidavit before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida that provided the probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant against Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, stated, “[on February 9, 2022] the Special Agent in Charge of NARA’s Office of the Inspector General sent the NARA Referral via email to DOJ.” However, the evidence is that the Biden White House and the Department of Justice coordinated to obtain the Trump records, and perhaps create a pretext for a law enforcement raid, by way of a “special access request.”

“The special access statute authorizes special access requests to an incumbent president only when the records in question are needed for ‘the conduct of current business’ of the White House,” America First Legal explained. “Providing documents to the DOJ for purposes of a criminal investigation is not the ‘current business’ of the White House.”

Reed D. Rubinstein, senior counselor and director of oversight and investigations, released a statement ripping the White House’s reported role in the FBI raid of Trump’s home.

“The evidence further suggests that Biden officials in the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Justice unlawfully abused their power and then lied about it to the American people,” he said. “This government, it seems, acknowledges no limits on its power to harass, intimidate, and silence its political opponents.” (Read more: Breitbart, 4/10/2023)  (Archive)

“The FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and broke into a safe in his palatial home, the former president said Monday.

Trump said in a message on his social media forum Truth Social that his home had been “raided, and occupied” and was “currently under siege.”

FBI agents were reportedly searching for classified documents that Trump allegedly brought with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency ended — which, if true, could be a violation of federal law.

The National Archives and Records Administration said it had found classified material in 15 boxes at the residence earlier this year and alerted the FBI. The agents executed a search warrant Monday to look for additional presidential records Trump may have relocated to his Florida estate.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”  (Read more: New York Post, 8/08/2022)  (Archive)

Every “But her emails” hat or shirt sold helps @onwardtogether partners defend democracy, build a progressive bench, and fight for our values.

Just saying!https://t.co/4TiUxjmRNY pic.twitter.com/rflM8fTAbw

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 9, 2022

Hats are available for pre-order again.

Crisis averted.https://t.co/4TiUxjmRNY

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 9, 2022

“The search warrant for the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Monday suggests he is being investigated under the Espionage Act of 1917 — the same law that Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating in 2016.

Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted Thursday that he personally approved the warrant application, which seeks broad discretion to search Trump’s home based on three statutes: 18 U.S.C. section 793, on the mishandling of defense information; 18 U.S.C. section 1519, relating to the destruction of federal documents; and 18 U.S.C. section 2071, which punishes hiding, moving, or destroying federal documents. Section 793 is from the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the First World War.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating the latter when she used an unsecured private email server in her own home to handle her communications, including emails with classified information, during her time in office.

The relevant part of section 793 punishes “gross negligence” in the handling of defense information, and failure to report the loss or destruction of that information. Clinton was accused of both; her staff even physically destroyed her mobile phones.

Then-FBI Director James Comey, who intervened in the case after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was caught meeting with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an airport in Arizona, said that while Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information, she did not intend to violate the statute. The statute does not, however, include any requirement of intent, leading conservative critics to argue that Comey had been looking to exonerate her. (Read more: Breitbart, 8/12/2022)  (Archive)

Twitter has suspended journalist Paul Sperry after he made several tweets about this week’s FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, where they spent up to 9 hours rifling through the former president’s private office, Melania Trump’s wardrobe, and eventually took 12 boxes of material. According to the Wall Street Journal, the records included a letter from former President Barack Obama, and correspondence between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The boxes contained some documents subject to a federal law requiring official records to be turned over when a president leaves office as well as some material archives officials described only as “classified national security information,” prompting them to refer the matter to the Justice Department for investigation. -WSJ

Sperry, meanwhile, tweeted several hot-takes on the raid, which appear to have gotten him suspended.

(Zero Hedge, 8/10/2022)  (Archive)

In Part One we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}.  In Part Three we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}.  Here in Part 4, we begin to assemble the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.

It is important to remember, the presidential records act –the presented pretext for the document conflict– is not a criminal statute.  An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.

The DOJ-NSD warrant, and the subsequent raid on Mar-a-Lago can only be related to records the U.S. government deems “classified” and material vital to national security interests.  Hence, DOJ National Security Division involvement.

In prior outlines we have exhaustively covered the details of President Trump’s desire to publicly release information about DOJ and FBI conduct in their targeting of him during the fabricated Trump-Russia claims.  However, to understand the nature of the documents he may hold, we first review the declassification memo provided by President Trump to the DOJ upon his departure from office.

In broad terms there are two sets of documents that intermingle and are directly related. First, documents that highlight the activity of Hillary Clinton’s team in creating the false Trump-Russia conspiracy theory (2015/2016).  Second, documents that highlight the activity of government officials targeting Donald Trump within the same timeframe (Crossfire Hurricane), that continued into 2017, 2018 and 2019 (Robert Mueller).

Think of the two sets of documents as evidence against two teams working in synergy.  Team one (Clinton) was outside government. Team two (DOJ/FBI) was inside government.  The documents pertain to both groups but are also divided.  That helps to explain the wording of the memo above.

The documentary evidence against the outside group (Clinton et al) would also involve government documented evidence as the DOJ/FBI inside group interacted with them.  Notes from interviews, materials provided, FBI 302 summaries of interviews, etc.

We can extract a lot of information on the first sets of evidence from the lawsuit filed by President Trump in March of this year, mostly against the outside actors. [LINK HERE]

The lawsuit was filed against specific persons and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation.  Within the subjects of the lawsuit we find names and groups including:

Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.

In addition to being named in the lawsuit, many of those names were interviewed by the FBI as part of the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation, and/or part of the ongoing investigation of the Trump-Russia fabrication. Each of those interviews would carry an FD-302 report summarizing the content of the interview, the questions and answers given.

The totality of those 302 documents is a lot of evidence likely consisting of hundreds of pages.

For the government officials on the inside, in addition to 302’s (ex Bruce Ohr) there would be documents of communication between them.

Think about the full unredacted text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok as an example.  The DOJ publicly released over 600 pages of those text messages, and that wasn’t all of them.  The text messages were also redacted, under claims of privacy and national security.  We can assume any version of these text messages declassified by President Trump would not be redacted.  Hence, you go back to the January 20th memo and see the notes about “privacy.”

We also know there are many pages of communication between DOJ lawyer Lisa Page and her boss in the FBI Andrew McCabe.  Almost none of them were ever made public; but they exist.  This internal communication is likely the type of material contained in both the “binder,” left for the DOJ to release, and the boxes at Mar-a-Lago to be used as evidence against the named defendants in the lawsuit.

Bruce Ohr has 302’s and emails relating to his involvement as a conduit between Fusion GPS and the FBI.  Some of those were released in redacted form, and some of them were never released.  Additionally, Nellie Ohr, Bruce’s wife, who worked at Fusion GPS invoked spousal privilege when called to testify before the House committee investigating the issues.  However, it is almost certain the FBI interviewed her so there are likely 302’s on Nellie Ohr.

Chris Steele, Igor Danchenko and Rodney Joffe were also interviewed by the FBI.  Those 302’s were never released.  Presumably John Durham has stakeholder equity in that part of the Trump-Russia hoax, but the documentary evidence prior to January 20, 2021, that exists outside the special counsel could also be records at Mar-a-Lago.

Then we get to the big stuff…. The records and evidence in unredacted and declassified state, that would drive the DOJ-NSD to claim vital national security interests.

The NSA compliance officer notified NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers of unauthorized use of the NSA database by FBI contractors searching U.S. citizens during the 2015/2016 presidential primary.  That 2016 notification is a classified record.

The response from Mike Rogers, and the subsequent documentary evidence of what names were being searched is again a classified record.  The audit logs showing who was doing the searches (which contractors, which agencies and from what offices), as noted by Director Rogers, was preserved.  That is another big-time classified record.

In addition, we would have Admiral Rogers writing a mandatory oversight notification to the FISA court detailing what happened.  That’s a big and comprehensive classified record, likely contained in the documents in Mar-a-Lago… and then the goldmine, the fully unredacted 99-page FISA court opinion detailing the substance of the NSA compromise by FBI officials and contractors, including the names, frequency and dates of the illegal surveillance.  That is a major classified document the Deepest Deep State would want to keep hidden.

These are the types of documents within what former ODNI John Ratcliffe called “thousands of pages that were declassified by President Trump,” and given to both John Durham and Main Justice with an expectation of public release when the Durham special counsel probe concluded.

In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him.  However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.

These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveals the background of how the DC surveillance state exists.  THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.

The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward “simple records”, held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago.   Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption as it now exists amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.

Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state.  The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct.

President Donald Trump declassified the material then took evidence to Mar-a-Lago.  The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas.  From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat.

Given the nature of their opposition, and the underlying motives for their conduct, there is almost nothing they will not do to protect themselves.  However, if you peel away all the layers of lies, manipulations and corruption, what you find at the heart of their conduct is fear.

What do they fear most?…

…..THIS!

People forget, and that’s ok, but prior to the 2015 MAGA movement driven by President Donald J Trump, political rallies filled with tens-of-thousands of people were extremely rare; almost nonexistent.  However, in the era of Donald J Trump the scale of the people paying attention has grown exponentially.  Every speech, every event, every rally is now filled with thousands and thousands of people.

The frequency of it has made us numb to realizing just how extraordinary this is.  But the people in Washington DC are well aware, and that makes President Trump even more dangerous.  Combine that level of support with what they attempted in order to destroy him, and, well, now you start to put context on their effort.

The existence of Trump is a threat, but the existence of a Trump that could expose their corruption…. well, that makes him a level of threat that leads to a raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago. (Conservative Treehouse, 8/11/2022)  (Archive)

(Conservative Treehouse has generously given us permission to chronicle and republish any relevant information to our timelines.)

“Yesterday, Attorney General Merrik Garland announced the DOJ had filed a motion (available here) to unseal “the search warrant and property receipt” relating to the search of former President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate.

Below is the search warrant and accompanying attachments, first put out by Jack Posobiec and Human Events. Huge hat tip to them.

The PDF of the unsealed search warrant and attachments is available here via Courtlistener. I’ve also posted all the pages below.

Some observations: (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 8/12/2022)  (Archive)

“According to Paul Sperry, the federal agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid are under investigation by Special Counsel John Durham.

“Developing: Sources say the FBI agents and officials who were involved in the raid on former President Trump’s homework in the same Counterintelligence Division of the FBI that investigated Trump in the Russiagate hoax and are actively under criminal investigation by Special Counsel John Durham for potentially abusing their power investigating Trump in the Russian fraud and therefore have a potential conflict of interest and should have been RECUSED from participating in this supposed “espionage” investigation at Mar-a-Lago” Sperry said in a social media post on Saturday.

Paul Sperry/GETTR

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/13/2022)  (Archive)

Paul Sperry continues to post about the Mar-a-Lago raid on GETTR:

(Much more: Paul Sperry/GETTR)

“… I can sum up the Trump documents very succinctly–the documents show that there was a coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI, and DOD starting in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election. Part of this effort involved using NSA-produced intelligence. Oliver Stone’s movie, Snowden, has a scene that accurately describes what NSA was collecting and how it could be used:

When the conspiracy started in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton by the leadership of the CIA, the FBI and DOD, Donald Trump was not the only target. Few believed at the time that Trump had a snowball’s chance in the raging inferno of Hell to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. There were active searches for compromising intel on all of the leading Republican candidates, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and on Bernie Sanders.

The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure his taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts, and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as “liaison reporting.” This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.

This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don’t have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.

Let me give you one example of how intelligence intercepts were used to target specific individuals. Ask yourself, “how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar?” Papadopoulos was living in London and communicating with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager at the time. Those communications were intercepted by the UK’s GCHQ and passed, through liaison channels, to the NSA. That information was used in turn by the CIA and the FBI, working with British Intelligence, to ensnare Papadopoulos. He was offered a job, for example, at a firm tied to British Intelligence and subsequently introduced to Joseph Mifsud.

I am confident that some of the documents Trump has show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was “masked.” But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names “unmasked.” You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report.

Here is another example, we also know that Felix Sater–a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann)–initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don’t take my word for it, that’s what Robert Mueller reported:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov’s purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Sater’s communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies–GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the “bait” to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.

By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta’s email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:

“That’s good, sooner it’s clarified the better, and the stronger the better,” Budowski replies, later adding: “Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.”

By late December, the intelligence/law enforcement operation targeted Donald Trump as it became clear that he was likely to win the Republican nomination.

I believe Donald Trump is holding trump cards that irrefutably show that the CIA, the FBI and DOD were communicating in Top Secret channels about these activities and that the coordination also included foreign intelligence personnel in at least the UK and Australia.

I hope this helps you understand the desperation of the U.S. national security agencies to keep this stuff hidden. The revelations, if they come, will be devastating. (Larry Johnson/Gateway Pundit, 8/15/2022)  (Archive) 

“Tea Party Patriots Action has filed a federal complaint against the judge who authorized the FBI raid on President Donald J. Trump’s home.

“Judge [Bruce] Reinhart should be disciplined and removed as a federal magistrate because of his failure to meet the standards of ethical conduct and character necessary for the public to have confidence in the nonpartisan role of a judge in a matter of this extreme public interest,” asserted Jennifer Martin, CEO of Tea Party Patriots Action, in the Aug. 16 filing.

One justification Martin provides for Reinhart’s removal is a statement the judge made on his personal Facebook page following the 2016 presidential election.

Noting that Reinhart recently recused himself from a separate case involving Trump due to a “conflict of interest,” Martin also pointed out that the judge has been accused of unethical conduct in the past.

“Judge Reinhart has a history of ethical issues,” she said, “the most noteworthy being his resignation from the US Attorney’s office in Miami on January 1, 2008, and the very next day representing as counsel for employees of the late Jeffrey Epstein, who was under investigation by that same prosecutor’s office at the time of Reinhart’s employment and departure.”

Adding that Reinhart should have recused himself when first approached by the FBI, Martin continued: “The entire episode of the unprecedented search of the former President’s home, authorized by a political appointee of President Trump’s successor, and approved by a federal magistrate who has been outspoken in his opposition to and loathing of President Trump threatens the principle of ‘equal justice under law’ and the confidence of the American people in an unbiased judiciary.” (Read more: RSBNetwork, 8/24/2022)  (Archive)

Judge Amy Berman Jackson (Credit: public domain)

“Judge ruled in 2012 that a president’s discretion to declare records “personal” is far-reaching and mostly unchallengeable.

When it comes to the National Archives, history has a funny way of repeating itself. And legal experts say a decade-old case over audio tapes that Bill Clinton once kept in his sock drawer may have significant impact over the FBI search of Melania Trump’s closet and Donald Trump’s personal office.

The case in question is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration and it involved an effort by the conservative watchdog to compel the Archives to forcibly seize hours of audio recordings that Clinton made during his presidency with historian Taylor Branch.

For pop culture, the case is most memorable for the revelation that the 42nd president for a time stored the audio tapes in his sock drawer at the White House. The tapes became the focal point of a 2009 book that Branch wrote.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C. ultimately rejected Judicial Watch’s suit by concluding there was no provision in the Presidential Records Act to force the National Archives to seize records from a former president.” (Read more: Just the News, 8/17/2022)  (Archive)

Sen. Chuck Grassley (Credit: Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

“In an Aug. 17  letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Grassley demands an accounting for alleged political bias influencing high-level investigations, particularly out of the FBI’s Washington, D.C., office.

“Starting on May 31, 2022, I’ve written three letters to you regarding political bias that has infected the FBI’s Washington Field Office,” Grassley, R-Iowa, writes. “Two of those letters provided specific and credible allegations based on numerous whistleblowers that have approached my office with information that one can only conclude is indicative of a deeply rooted political infection that has spread to investigative activity into former President Trump and Hunter Biden.”

(…) Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Brian Auten: Discredited over Carter Page spy warrants but still handling sensitive cases. (Credit: Twitter)

In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.

Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019 when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

In congressional testimony this month, Wray confirmed that “a number of” former Crossfire Hurricane team members are still employed at the bureau while undergoing disciplinary review. In the meantime, Wray has walled off the former Russiagate investigators only from participating in FISA wiretap applications, according to the sources.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked Wray for copies of recent case files and reports generated by Auten and whether he is included among the team the FBI has assembled to determine which of the seized Trump records fall within the scope of its counterespionage investigation and which fall outside of it.

Some former FBI officials worry that Auten, a top bureau expert on Russia and nuclear warfare, will have a hand in analyzing the boxes of documents agents seized from Trump’s home on Aug. 8 to help determine if any of the alleged Top Secret material he kept there might have been compromised, potentially putting national security at risk.

“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”

An examination of the bureau agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid reveals other connections between them and FBI officials who played key roles in advancing the Russiagate hoax.

Jay Bratt: who happens to be a Democratic National Committee donor, has been coordinating the Mar-a-Lago investigation with Alan Kohler, who heads the FBI’s counterintelligence division.

Kohler replaced Bill Priestap in that post after Priestap stepped down from the bureau amid criticism of his role in the Russiagate probe. Kohler had worked at FBI headquarters under Priestap, specializing in countering Russian intelligence threats.

Before that, he worked in London as the FBI’s liaison with British intelligence and law enforcement. The sources say Kohler was close to Stefan Halper, an academic and longtime FBI contractor whom the bureau ran as an informant in a failed effort to suborn Trump campaign officials. He also worked closely with Stephen Somma, a lead case agent in the Crossfire Hurricane probe whom Horowitz said was “primarily responsible” for some of the worst misconduct in the FISA warrant abuse scandal. Somma is a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, where he has been reassigned to the China desk.

Alan Kohler: Said to be close to Russiagate informant Stefan Halper.
American Security Today

In 2019, Kohler was promoted to special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s Washington field Office, where he worked alongside then-assistant agent-in-charge Timothy Thibault, who was reassigned by Wray just days prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, after whistleblowers raised questions about political bias. They asserted that Thibault, who has taken aim at Trump and Republicans on social media, worked with Auten to falsely discredit evidence of alleged money laundering and other activities against Hunter Biden and prevent agents from investigating them.

The Washington field office’s counterintelligence division is now run by Anthony Riedlinger, who previously worked at FBI headquarters as a section chief under Priestap. Some of the agents involved in the raid on Trump’s home came from that Washington field office, according to the sources and FBI case documents.

Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at Justice, traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early June and personally inspected the storage facility while interacting with both Trump and one of his lawyers. Trump allowed the three FBI agents Bratt brought with him to open boxes in the storage room and look through them. They left with some documents. After leaving, Bratt made a request to Trump’s lawyer for increased security at the facility and asked to see surveillance footage from the security cameras. The lawyer complied with the requests. Months went by before the Justice Department took the politically explosive step of sending FBI agents unannounced to Trump’s home, seizing documents, photos, and other items not just from the storage facility but from multiple rooms on the property, including the former president’s office.

Chris Swecker (Credit: (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Former assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the search warrant that agents obtained is quite wide-ranging. He pointed out that it authorized the seizure of any information in any form related to “national defense information,” which he said “does not necessarily include classified material.”

“This is a huge, broad search warrant and a huge, broad investigation leveled against the former president,” Swecker said.

What’s more, he said the physical search of the former president’s residence was far more sweeping than first reported and included unsupervised snooping in several dozen bedrooms, as well as numerous storage rooms and closets, including those of the former first lady. FBI agents took numerous boxes and containers of documents and other material, including several binders of photos and even three passports held by the former president.

Although Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the DOJ seeks to “narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” details of the warrant reveal agents had the authority to seize entire boxes of records – including those potentially covered by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege – if just a single document inside the container were marked with a classified marking.

Agents were allowed to also seize any containers or boxes “found together with” ones containing classified papers, according to ATTACHMENT B (“Property to be seized”) of the warrant. In addition, the FBI agents were given the authority to confiscate “any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021,” which covers Trump’s full term in office. That meant they were able to take any item related to the Trump administration.

All told, dozens of boxes and containers were removed from Trump’s residence, very few of which actually contained classified information, the sources said.

Rachel Maddow reports Donald Trump has issued a directive to the intelligence community to cooperate with William Barr in investigating the Trump-Russia investigation and reports that David Laufman calls the directive “a grotesque abuse of the intelligence community.” (Credit: MSNBC)

According to Federal Election Commission records, Bratt has given exclusively to Democrats, including at least $800 to the Democratic National Committee. The sources said he is close to David Laufman, whom he replaced as the top counterintelligence official at Justice. An Obama donor, Laufman helped oversee the Russiagate probe, as well as the Clinton email case, which also involved classified information.

A Senate investigator told RCI that Laufman was the “mastermind” behind the strategy to dust off and “weaponize” the rarely enforced statutory relic – the Foreign Agents Registration Act – against Trump campaign officials, a novel legal move that the investigator noted is similar to the department’s current attempts to enforce the Presidential Records Act against Trump – which is a civil, not a criminal, the statute – by invoking the Espionage Act of 1917.

Laufman signed off on the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored email, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance.

Suddenly resurfacing as a media surrogate for the Justice Department defending the Mar-a-Lago raid, Laufman has been a key source for stories by the Washington Post, CNN, and other outlets.

On CNN, for instance, he claimed the documents seized from Trump’s storage were “particularly stunning and particularly egregious,” and their discovery “completely validates the government’s investigation” into the former president – though he quickly added, “Whether this investigation transforms into an outright criminal prosecution remains to be seen.”

Swecker said that there is strong reason to fear that the FBI’s counterintelligence division might politicize this case.

“For sure, the FBI has dug themselves into a huge hole because of how they handled the Clinton (email) case and then Crossfire Hurricane and Hunter Biden,” Swecker said. “Myself and many of my colleagues think they are treading on very thin ice here.”

“Unfortunately,” he added, “you can’t recuse an entire FBI division.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 8/18/2022)  (Archive)

Trump/Truth Social, 8/19/2022

“Former President Donald Trump filed a motion requesting an independent review of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago during an FBI raid on his home earlier this month.

“Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” Trump’s motion said. “Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.”

Trump’s Motion for Judicial Oversight And Additional Relief requests the court appoint a Special Master, prohibit the FBI from further review of the seized documents until the Special Master is appointed, order the government to release a more detailed property receipt, and return any item seized that was not within the search warrant’s scope.

The property receipt released shortly after the Mar-a-Lago raid only mentions nondescript items, including “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents,” “Leatherbound box of documents,” and “Various classified/TS/SCI documents.”

Trump’s motion comes just days after he announced he would file a Fourth Amendment motion “concerning the illegal Break-In” of Mar-a-Lago.

“My rights, together with the rights of all Americans, have been violated at a level rarely seen before in our Country,” Trump said on Friday.

In a statement after Trump’s attorneys filed the motion, Trump noted the FBI wanted Mar-a-Lago staff to turn off the estate’s security cameras during the raid. Trump also noted the FBI took his passports and broke into his personal safe with a “safe cracker.”

Trump also laid to rest claims that the FBI seized any classified documents.

“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home,” Trump said. “ALL documents have been previously declassified.”

“We are further demanding that the DOJ be forced to turn over a REAL, without ‘plants,’ inventory of my property that was taken and disclose where that property is now located,” Trump continued. “We are demanding that all items wrongfully taken from my home be IMMEDIATELY returned.”

“This Mar-a-Lago Break-In, Search, and Seizure was illegal and unconstitutional, and we are taking all actions necessary to get the documents back, which we would have given to them without the necessity of the despicable raid of my home, so that I can give them to the National Archives until they are required for the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum.”

“I will never stop fighting for the American people, our Country, and the Rule of Law,” Trump concluded. “Make America Great Again!”

The case was assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The case is Trump v. United States Government, No. 22-cv-81294-AMC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Breitbart, 8/22/2022)  (Archive)

(Credit: William J. Hennessy Jr./News 7 Miami)

Judge Bruce Reinhart in a filing on Monday morning announced that formally he rejects “the Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”

“The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases,” Reinhart wrote. “I do not need to reach the question of whether, in some other case, these concerns could justify denying public access; they very well might.”

“Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing,” he added.

This is a stinging rebuke for a Biden administration that was relying on the Florida judge, who is himself an Obama donor, to provide the Department of Justice with political cover for the FBI’s “unprecedented” raid on the former president. If a law enforcement action is “unprecedented,” there is a higher probability that it was unlawful from a judicial point-of-view.

It remains to be seen how much of the search warrant affidavit will be redacted, as the judge previously gave the Department of Justice until Thursday to submit its advised redactions for the document out of argued national security concerns.

“Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that by the deadline, the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal,” the motion stated.” (Read more: BeckerNews, 8/22/2022)  (Archive) (Reinhart Orders On Motion to Unseal)

The New York Post protested decisions by Facebook and Twitter to suppress coverage of the Biden laptop, after the social media platforms concluded the data was unverified and of questionable origin. The New York Post, 10/15/2020

“FBI whistleblowers allege that the Bureau’s leaders ordered agents not to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop, according to a letter Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson sent to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking that he investigate the matter.

Prior to the 2020 presidential election, some of the content of a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, became public and appeared to show damaging information on the then-presidential candidate. Media outlets derided the laptop as misinformation or Russian disinformation at the time.

“After the FBI obtained the Hunter Biden laptop from the Wilmington, Del. computer shop, these whistleblowers stated that local FBI leadership told employees, ‘you will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop’ and that the FBI is ‘not going to change the outcome of the election again,”‘ the letter, which the Daily Mail obtained, reads.

“I hope you understand that the longer your office stands on the sidelines and delays investigating the FBI’s actions, the harder it will be for you to uncover the truth and hold individuals accountable for wrongdoing,” Johnson continued.

Then-FBI Director James Comey announced in 2016 that the Bureau was reopening its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prior to the presidential election, a move many critics said affected the race’s outcome.

“While I understand your hesitation to investigate a matter that may be related to an ongoing investigation, it is clear to me based on numerous credible whistleblower disclosures that the FBI cannot be trusted with the handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Johnson further wrote.

The FBI announced earlier this month that it was “aggressively pursuing” its investigation into the laptop.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 8/24/2022)  (Archive)

FBI Special Agents Association logo (Credit: Twitter)

“According to FBI whistleblowers, Chris Wray personally removed concerns by rank-and-file members that the agency had become too politicized in deciding which cases to open.

FBI agents made this complaint to Senate Judiciary Committee members.

On August 25, 2022, investigative reporter Paul Sperry writes:

BREAKING: FBI Director Christopher Wray allegedly removed concerns raised by rank-and-file agents from this year’s final report by the FBI’s Special Agents Advisory Committee (SAAC) about FBI leadership becoming “too politicized” in deciding which cases to open and which investigations to pursue, FBI whistleblowers have told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The SAAC Executive Council, representing more than 10,000 agents from the bureau’s field offices, holds its meetings with the director at FBI headquarters twice a year.

More Paul Sperry:

“The FBI is now acting as both the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party.

The FBI interfered in the 2016, 2018, 2020 elections–and now the 2022 election–against Trump/GOP & for Democrats.

For 6 years, the FBI has been falsifying evidence or suppressing exculpatory evidence to frame Trump targets; destroying evidence that would incriminate the bureau; lying to both the IG and Congress; spying based on fraudulent warrants; opening investigations based on false pretenses; criminally leaking classified intercepts to the media; spreading false propaganda; and conducting corrupt searches and seizures. Yet no one is in jail for any of it. Not even dirty FBI lawyer Clinesmith, who confessed to forging a wiretap document.

Biden family whistleblower announced last week that it was top FBI official Tim Thibault who buried the information he gave the bureau on the Biden family’s criminal acts.” (The Gateway Pundit, 9/07/2022)  (Archive)

“During a discussion with Joe Rogan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the removal of content, specifically citing the example of the pre-2020 election Hunter Biden laptop story. In his response Zuckerberg says the background context is important because the FBI came to Facebook and told them Russian disinformation was about to drop, just before the New York Post article was published.

This discussion comes on the heels of an FBI whistleblower approaching the Senate Judiciary Committee with evidence the Washington DC field office was specifically working to cover up any discoveries around the Hunter Biden laptop (per Chuck Grassley). Add the Zuckerberg statement to the whistleblower claim and the resounding implication is the FBI taking advanced proactive measures to stop information they deem adverse to the interests of democrats. The issue surfaces at 05:00 of the video below. WATCH (prompted): (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022) (Archive)

Tucker Carlson and Harmeet Dhillon Discuss Facebook Suppression of Hunter Biden Laptop Story

During a segment on his broadcast this evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Center for American Liberty founder and lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon about how Facebook censored and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 election. {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH: (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022)  (Archive)

Jimmy Dore also does an excellent job covering this story:

“Kash Patel released a statement Friday on Truth Social where he blasted the corrupt Deep State for not keeping his name redacted in the affidavit used to raid President Trump’s home.

Kash also shared some other insightful information.

Patel wrote on Truth Social that he was basically viciously attacked by the Deep State by them not redacting his name from the warrant used to raid the President’s home.  Then Patel shared this:

…This cartel of corruption inside our government is so devoid of concern about national security, they could not be bothered to see the judge in person.  Instead, they literally called in the raid on the home of a former President via the FBI’s best friend, Zuckerberg’s WhatsApp.

This isn’t the first time that we heard that the warrant to raid the President’s home with gun-toting FBI agents was attested to over a WhatsApp call.

Far-left Law and Crime reported that the warrant was attested to over WhatsApp.

The cover sheet was “[a]ttested to” by an FBI special agent “by Phone (WhatsApp),” the form reveals. Indeed, the form is titled as an “application for a warrant by telephone or other reliable electronic means.”

The criminal cover sheet document indicates, in the usual perfunctory fashion, that no other relevant matters are proceeding before other magistrate judges in other sections of the same federal district where the Mar-a-Lago-related proceeding is ongoing. Warrant applications routinely include such attestations to flag the judiciary if prosecutors are seeking search warrants from multiple magistrates.

What we didn’t know is that the FBI uses WhatsApp as their “best friend”.  WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.  What does Patel know about WhatsApp’s use by the FBI?

It appears the FBI uses WhatsApp to hold conversations that they can hide.  Are there any other reasons for using WhatsApp?

Below is Kash Patel’s Truth.

(@Kash/Truth Social)

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/28/2020)  (Archive)

“A Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild banking family has been outed as a fraud after she allegedly infiltrated former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, according to reports.

Inna Yashchyshyn, 33, lied to ritzy resort members that she was the heiress to the reputed family’s mass fortune, Anna de Rothschild, according to a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

She appeared at numerous Mar-a-Lago functions mingling with the likes of Trump, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and others while she held the position as president of United Hearts of Mercy, founded by Florida-based Russian oligarch and former business partner Valery Tarasenko in Canada in 2015, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Yashchyshyn and her group dine after a golf fundraiser. She went under the fake name Anna de Rothschild. (Credit:OCCRP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

After hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the foundation, processor Stripe Inc., suspected fraud and halted the funds for the campaign which was supposed to help families devastated by the COVI-19 pandemic.

Yashchyshyn, 33, is now the subject of several federal investigations after it was revealed she is not in fact a member of the Rothschild family. She’s additionally under investigation by Canadian authorities for alleged financial crimes.

In actuality, Yashchyshyn is the Russian-speaking daughter of an Illinois truck driver. It’s unclear when she came to the US.

She allegedly made several trips to the ex-president’s Florida estate with her fake identity to make connections with some of the nation’s biggest leaders, according to the paper.

Federal records obtained by the Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project showed Yashchyshyn had two fake passports from the US and Canada with the name “Anna de Rothschild.” A Florida driver’s license in her name listed a $13 million Miami Beach Mansion where she never lived.

Yashchyshyn formerly worked in a suburban Miami business connecting pregnant Russian women to Americans looking to adopt a child, the Post-Gazette reported.

However, her web of lies unfolded amid a legal dispute she had with her former associate, Tarasenko.

According to Tarasenko, a 44-year-old businessman raised in Moscow, she made multiple trips to Mar-a-Lago in an effort to make contacts and create new streams of business.

Photos from 2021 show the brunette hanging out with Trump, Graham and others, according to the reports.

Yashchyshyn (left) is under investigation by US and Canadian officials. (Credit: OCCRP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

“It wasn’t just dropping the family name. She talked about vineyards and family estates and growing up in Monaco,” John LeFevre, a former investment banker and author, told OCCRP.

She used “her fake identity as Anna de Rothschild to gain access to and build relationships with U.S. politician[s], including but not limited to Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and [former Missouri Gov.] Eric Greitens,” Tarasenko said, according to an affidavit obtained by the Post-Gazette.

She said under oath that she has never used another name and has not broken any laws. She told the Post-Gazette that she had never heard of Anna de Rothschild.” (Read more: New York Post, 8/26/2022)  (Archive)

(Timeline editor’s note: Please check our tag on Ukraine for more information about their meddling in the 2016/2020 presidential elections, and their involvement in Impeachment I, Russiagate, Spygate, and possibly the 2024 presidential election.)

 Sperry/Gettr, 8/27/2022

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 Post 1,  Post 2, Post  3

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

Sperry/Gettr 8/27/2022 Post 1, Post 2

Sperry/Gettr Post 1, Post 2

(More: Paul Sperry/Gettr)

“The redacted affidavit released Friday by the Justice Department related to the recent FBI raid on former President Trump’s Florida estate shows the agency in part made their case to return Aug. 8 by saying agents in May had already collected 184 sensitive documents from Mar-a-Lago.

This is a developing story…

“The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location,” the affidavit said.

“There is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES,” the affidavit continued, following redactions. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”

Documents retrieved earlier this year from Mar-A-Lago included “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” according to the affidavit. “Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes.”

Trump reacted to the release of the affidavit on his Truth Social account Friday afternoon, saying:

Trump Truth Social, 8/26/2022

Judge Bruce E. Reinhart (Credit: public domain)

A judge ordered the redacted document released.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in the order, “I find that the government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the affidavit,” and added that the redacted portions were needed for protecting witnesses, agents, and parties who were not charged, in addition to the strategy and scope of the probe.

The department blacked out the names of witnesses and agents to protect them and the agency’s investigation, but the document, which allowed for the warrant in the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid at Mar-a-Lago, is expected to provide at least some new details.

Trump posted on his Truth Social account on Friday morning, criticizing the raid on his home prior to the affidavit release:

Trump Truth Social, 8/26/2022

(Read more: JusttheNews, 8/26/2022)  (Archive)  (Affidavit)

Techno Fog has more:

The Trump Search Warrant Affidavit has been released

Here it is – with redactions

Techno Fog

The DOJ just released the affidavit submitted in support of the search warrant of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

Here it is for download.

As expected, the judge allowed the Government to heavily redact the affidavit before it went public. In yesterday’s order, the judge found that parts of the affidavit must remain sealed because:

disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e).

This aligns with the DOJ representations that (1) information in the affidavit “could be used to identify many, if not all” of the witnesses; (2) the affidavit would provide a “roadmap for anyone intent on obstructive the investigation.”

Affidavit allegations:

(Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 8/26/2022)  (Archive)

Timothy Thibault (Credit: public domain)

“Former Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault was reportedly escorted out of the Bureau’s headquarters on Friday, amid whistleblower allegations that he showed political bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations.

The Washington Times reported eyewitness accounts that “Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.'”

Whistleblowers alleged that Thibault concealed the partisan nature of evidence from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to secure their approval to open an investigation into former President Donald Trump. That investigation culminated in the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.

The public release of the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant revealed the warrant application relied heavily on information from news articles, including a CBS Miami piece titled “Moving Trucks Spotted At Mar-a-Lago” and a Breitbart News article in which former Trump adviser Kash Patel discussed the classified status of documents the bureau previously removed from the estate on behalf of the National Archives.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley confirmed to Just the News prior to the raid that Thibault had been removed from his post and reassigned to an unspecified position.” (JusttheNews, 8/29/2022)  (Archive)

“A top FBI agent at the Washington field office reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings.

Timothy Thibault, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, was allegedly forced out after he was accused of political bias in his handling of probes involving President Biden’s son, sources told the Washington Times on Monday.

The agent was escorted out of the field office by at least two “headquarters-looking types” last Friday, the sources said.”  (Read more: New York Post, 8/29/2022)  (Archive)

Morrison & Foerster LLC. Not surprising. https://t.co/P8aK6Vtdhp pic.twitter.com/wxFDAwIK5q

— Annie_E (@ds_abp) August 31, 2022

Brandon’s tagged in several entries and has a healthy mini-timeline going.

Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell to complain about President Trump’s abuse of power after removing Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)

“The U.S. intelligence community will assess the potential risk to national security of disclosure of materials recovered during the Aug. 8 search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter dated Friday from National Intelligence Director (DNI) Avril Haines to House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff and Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney also said the Justice Department and DNI “are working together to facilitate a classification review” of materials including those recovered during the search.

Schiff and Maloney said in a joint statement they were pleased the government was “assessing the damage caused by the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.” Politico reported the letter earlier.

US House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff speaks to the press with US Democratic Representative from New York Carolyn Maloney, August 15, 2022. (Credit: Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images)

The Justice Department on Friday disclosed that it was investigating Trump for removing White House records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources – among America’s most closely held secrets.

Haines said DNI “will also lead an Intelligence Community (IC) assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents” including those seized.

A spokesman for Trump, Taylor Budowich, accused Schiff of being reckless with U.S. intelligence and asserted Democrats had “weaponized the intel community against President Trump with selective and dishonest leaks.” (Read more: Yahoo News, 8/27/2022)  (Archive)

Tucker Carlson covers my @TheGrayzoneNews report exposing the Pentagon’s invitation of multiple Ukrainian Nazis to Disney World, where comedian Jon Stewart honored a former fascist militant for his “personal example.”

Read the Grayzone investigation here: https://t.co/NWiqV4Yue0 pic.twitter.com/CGMIyTZS5G

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) September 7, 2022

Defense Department-sponsored “Warrior Games” featured liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarding a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion at Disney World. The Pentagon refused to tell The Grayzone whether US taxpayers funded the foreign competitors’ travel.

This August, during the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida this August 19-28, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”

Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun.

Ihor Halushka’s Sonnenrad Black Sun tattoo is visible on his left elbow. (Credit: The Grayzone)

(Read more: The Grayzone, 8/31/2022)  (Archive)

“Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows.  This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for.  For the past five years, Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.

Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required ‘Wood’s file’.  McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump’s National Security Advisor.

Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort.  Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.

It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.

It was Mary McCord who then took up the lead congressional position within the impeachment construct created by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, and it was Mary McCord who then joined the January 6 Committee in the committee fight to obtain President Trump’s white house records.

Mary McCord surfaces today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to outline what her team has currently constructed, including the specific targeting approaches her DOJ-NSD and Lawfare crew have put together.

As noted by McCord, the ‘obstruction of justice’ angle is a repeat of the threat used by the Deep State to keep the criminal conduct of the DOJ-NSD from being exposed.  WATCH:

When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’).  That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important.  It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.

When the Carter Page title-1 search warrant application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin.  Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016).

John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.

♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents.  The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.

♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson.  In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ.  Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.

♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission.  Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint.  It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules.  Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General?  Michael Atkinson.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to?  Mary McCord.

Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment.   As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

♦  During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’) which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith.  Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.

When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.

♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith.  In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome.  Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.

As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.

Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus?  Mary McCord.

♦ SUMMARY:  Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier.  Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn.  Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee.  Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.

You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.  Then, as if on cue to keep the entire corrupt system protected, this happened:

November 4, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)

Mary McCord is the epitome of a person using a position to abuse the power within it.

Former Obama White House Counsel Lisa Monaco is now the Deputy Attorney General.  John Carlin is back inside the DOJ-NSD as the Biden administration continued the Obama administration targeting of President Trump.   Mary McCord returns back inside the House J-6 investigative committee put together to purposefully target Donald J Trump…

Now does the timing of Mary McCord surfacing publicly, immediately after the underlying search warrant used in the raid against Donald Trump, make sense?

McCord is the architect, the actual person putting lawfare strategy into lawfare ink and action, for the Trump targeting operations.” (Conservative Treehouse, 8/28/2022)  (Archive)

(Credit: Lee Smith/Twitter, Mar-a-Lago/Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)

“Columnist Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History, said colleagues and peers of his — whose judgment he trusts — speculate that the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, was a search for documents related to its “Russiagate” surveillance operation of the 45th president.

“I think the best way to understand this is in the context of a six-year-long operation targeting Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s aides, and Donald Trump’s supporters,” Smith said on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak. “I have different colleagues and people whose insight and whose wisdom I trust very much, and they believe that what the FBI was looking for were documents related to … what the FBI called the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, but what most of the rest of us know as the Russiagate operation meant to target candidate Trump, then President-elect Trump, and then President Donald J. Trump.”

Smith said the people whose speculation he was relaying “have much more insight” and “much more knowledge” about the FBI’s operations than he.

(…) “We need to remember these [are] intelligence agencies that Hillary Clinton was using to spy on the Trump campaign and to smear the Trump campaign,” he remarked. “This was in the Obama administration. There is no way that any of this happened without the White House knowing about it.”

Smith said it was “good news” that whistleblowers within the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) provided information to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) office about political and partisan internal efforts to suppress information about Hunter Biden.

The existence of whistleblowers within the FBI and DOJ, Smith surmised, could lead to some restraint among the bureaucracies’ worst “anti-Trump” operatives due to fear of exposure.

He remarked, “Thanks to the whistleblowers — and to thanks to Charles Grassley’s letters — now we have anti-Trump operatives at the DOJ and the FBI worried about who they can trust. Under our circumstances at present, that’s very important, and it’s very good news, because we want them looking at each other. We want them fearful of each other. We want them suspicious.” (Read more: Breitbart, 8/28/2022)  (Archive)

Jeremy Bash (Credit: Screenshot MSNBC)

“A national security lawyer tapped by President Joe Biden to lead his Intelligence Advisory Board was one of 50 former intelligence officials to claim in an open letter that the October 2020 publication of Hunter Biden’s emails appeared to be part of a “Russian information operation.”

Jeremy Bash served in several roles during the Obama administration, including CIA Chief of Staff, Defense Department Chief of Staff, and House Intelligence Committee Chief Counsel. He currently serves as Managing Director of Beacon Global Strategies and as an advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Bash also contributed to CNN and MSNBC during the Trump administration.

After the New York Post published emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop, Bash signed onto a letter claiming that the release “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

“If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this,” the officials, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director Michael Hayden wrote in the letter.

The letter writers acknowledged that they “d[id] not have evidence of Russian involvement,” and the Daily Caller News Foundation later verified the authenticity of the hard drive. Nevertheless, Twitter suspended the New York Post after it shared the story, citing its rules surrounding hacked material. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan on Aug. 25 that the social media giant marked the story as “potential misinformation” after the FBI warned the company that Russia would seek to influence the election.

Bash doubled down on the claims in the letter during an Oct. 19, 2020, appearance on MSNBC.

“This looks like Russian intelligence, this walks like Russian intelligence, this talks like Russian intelligence,” Bash told host Nicolle Wallace. “This effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic Russian playbook disinformation campaign. And let’s recount exactly what happened in July 2019, when President Trump talked to Zelensky, he said, ‘talk to Rudy Giuliani. He’s my guy on trying to dig up false dirt on Joe Biden.”

And then Rudy Giuliani suddenly comes forward with these mysteriously created emails, probably hacked through a Russian intelligence operation. We have to acknowledge the fact that the president of the U.S. is supporting, is condoning, is welcoming, a Russian intelligence operation in 2020,” Bash continued. “This is collusion in plain sight.”

(Read more: Daily Caller, 8/29/2022)  (Archive)

“The Biden Department of Justice lobbed a pre-election grenade at the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump in a midnight filing on Tuesday by attaching a photo of alleged ‘top secret’ documents the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago.

The now-infamous photo is undoubtedly circulating throughout Americans’ email inboxes this morning, flooding social media channels, and is being heralded on the morning television shows. It would not be surprising if Attorney General Merrick Garland already has the photo framed and mounted and hung proudly in his office.

The ‘top secret’ documents photo, labeled ‘Attachment F’ (you can guess what the ‘F’ stands for) is indisputably provocative. The TS/SCI documents are splayed dramatically across the ornate blue carpet with white cover sheets neatly laid on top of them.

The obvious first question many people are asking about this photo is: Why are ‘top secret’ documents that are arguably so sensitive to national security that a court-appointed, independent “special master” should not be privy to them, being spread out for a publicity style photo? The attachment is not sealed, although the Department of Justice has asked for numerous redactions for the search warrant affidavit that purportedly justified the unprecedented raid on the former president.

So, why this photo? Why now? This is precisely the question that legal analyst Jonathan Turley is asking about Attachment F.

“Notably, this filing includes this picture which is being widely distributed,” Turley notes on Twitter.

 “It can, however, leave an obviously misleading impression that secret documents were strewn over the floor when this appears to be the work of the FBI agents. The picture is Attachment F and the textual reference on page 13 simply says ‘Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status’. It is curious that the DOJ would release this particular picture. The point is to state a fact that hardly needs an optical confirmation: the possession of documents with classified cover sheets.”

Thus arises the second question: If this is indeed a staged photo, then why the need for the box on the right-hand side? If you take a closer look, it shows a Time magazine cover that one might interpret as a veiled threat.

Let’s take a look at the actual Time magazine cover, which is from March 4, 2019.

It’s none other than Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential challengers spying on him while he is in the Oval Office. The cover story headline is “Knock, Knock…”

The Time magazine cover that is not-so-subtly displayed in the FBI’s staged photo is yet another sign that the bureau is unable to do its job in a professional and apolitical fashion. This compounds the problem of the apparent political timing of the FBI raid on August 8, which came over eighteen months into the Biden presidency, and despite the documents allegedly being an ‘urgent’ matter of national security.

The Time cover provoked a politicized response from whom we can only assume is the target audience. Business Insider didn’t miss the message.

“A photo released by the Department of Justice showing the documents found during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid has also unveiled a curious discovery — a framed image of an unflattering TIME magazine cover featuring former President Donald Trump,” BI reports.

“The cover, which appeared to be placed in a gold frame, was from a March 4, 2019 edition of the publication,” the report noted. “It showed 15 of Trump’s Democratic challengers at the time — including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — peering into the Oval Office at a nervous-looking Trump who is seated in his chair.”

It may also be the case that the FBI was merely using the photo to leak information to the press.

“The TIME magazine cover, along with Trump’s other personal items commingled with the classified, demonstrates that he was personally handling them,” CNN commentator Asha Rangappa remarked. “Thanks for highlighting key evidence of his guilt!”

New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman also noted the Time magazine cover.

Along with some framed Time Magazine covers https://t.co/fyfoqvdXXH

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 31, 2022

A Bloomberg reporter went further and provided a passage that he thought was relevant.

“Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status,” the filing reads, referring to the photo “of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office.'”

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) August 31, 2022

It is unclear why the DOJ felt it was necessary to attach a staged photograph that is not sealed showing “top secret” documents so sensitive that a “special master” should arguably not be privy to them.(Read more: Becker News, 8/31/2022) (Archive)

Donald Trump Has Perfect Response to FBI’s ‘Gotcha’ Photo of ‘Top Secret’ Docs Scattered All Over Mar-a-Lago Floor

Trump/Truth Social, 8/31/2022

Trump Truth Social, 8/31/2022

Kash Patel also shares his opinion of the photo with Benny Johnson:

(Credit: Clipping from Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/31/2022)

“Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Wednesday on FNC’s “Jesse Watters Primetime” that he did not think the Department of Justice found what it was looking for during the raid of former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, FL home.

“The judge would appoint the special master, and it would be an extension of the court,” Ratcliffe explained. “I do think that it’s the right thing to do. The DOJ’s position is number one. We don’t need a special master. We’ve already — we’ve already sorted everything and looked at everything. Take our word for it that it was done. As you pointed out, they had attorney-client privilege in there, so the taint team that was looking at this didn’t do their job.”

“And, you know, all of this, listen, you presided over a lot of cases,” he continued. “I was a former federal prosecutor, United States attorney. Let me tell you what this is about. Good prosecutors with good cases play it straight. They don’t need to play games. They don’t need to shop for judges, they don’t need to leak intelligence that may or may not exist. And in this case, this tells you that the government didn’t find what they were looking for. There weren’t nuclear secrets in Melania Trump’s underwear drawer, and they’re trying to justify what they’ve done. They’re not playing it straight before the American people. I think that that’s going to play out.” (Breitbart, 9/1/2022)  (Archive)