February 1, 2016 – A NABU press release says Ukraine will receive special computer equipment from British and American governments

“According to agreements on international technical support, the British government is going to provide the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine with equipment for its forensic lab. The US Federal government for its part is going to hand over equipment for converting case materials to electronic format, as reported by Artem Sytnyk in his interview for the Channel 112.

The Director reminded that the Memorandum of cooperation in joint investigations would soon be signed between the NABU and the FBI.

Artem Sytnyk also pointed out that, according to the law “On the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine”, the only sources of funding allowed for the NABU were state budget and financial support under the international technical assistance.” (National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), 2/01/2016)  (Archive)

A month later NABU publishes another press release that states:

“The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has provided the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) with computers, advanced analytical software, and high-speed scanners which can digitize paper documents and make them electronically searchable. Thanks to this equipment all physical documents can now be digitized which will enhance investigative abilities by providing a means to search through disparate data and link clues from various sources. The FBI will also provide the NABU with a database server that allows for advanced analysis and a platform for shared resources.

As told by Keith Hall, an FBI Supervisory Special Agent, a team of the FBI experts will come to the NABU to provide training and support on these tools.

“My colleagues and I will be providing consultancy to the detectives, analysts and IT specialists of the NABU. We will conduct training sessions on the proper usage and maintenance of the equipment and software provided” – said Hall.

The arrangements on cooperation with the FBI in the sphere of conducting collegial investigations were made in the course of a working visit of the Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to Washington, D.C.” (NABU, 3/02/2019)  (Archive)

February 2, 2016 – The hearsay whistleblower chairs a meeting with FBI and Treasury officials re Paul Manafort

“On February 2, 2016, according to White House logs, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting in Room 374 of the Eisenhower Executive Office, which seems to be a planning session to re-open an investigation of Paul Manafort (Note: one of the crimes of which Manafort was accused was money laundering, an area covered by the Department of the Treasury). The attendees were:

Jose Borrayo – Acting Section Chief, Office of Special Measures, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

Julia Friedlander – Senior Policy Advisor for Europe, Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Michael Lieberman – Deputy Assistant Secretary, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Scott Rembrandt – Anti-Money Laundering Task Force, Assistant Director/Director, Office of Strategic Policy, Department of the Treasury

Justin Rowland – Special Agent (financial crimes), Federal Bureau of Investigation

It appears that Paul Manafort became a vehicle by which the Obama Deep State operatives could link Trump to nefarious activities involving Russians, which eventually evolved into the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.  Remember, the key claim of the follow-up Steele dossier, the centerpiece of the Mueller investigation, was that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was the focal point of a “well-developed conspiracy between them [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership.” (Read more: American Thinker, 12/06/2019)  (Archive)

February 2, 2016 – Bloomberg’s report that Burisma investigation was dormant when Biden had prosecutor fired, is incorrect

Bloomberg reported that “at the time Biden made his ultimatum [to fire prosecutor], the probe into the company — Burisma Holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky — had been long dormant”

This appears to be untrue.

Bloomberg’s statement is based on information from Kasko, the rival to prosecutor Shokin. In May 2019 interview, Shokin says that they had been planning to interview Hunter Biden and Devon Archer.

Shokin says that he “finally crossed the threshold on February 2, 2016, when we went to the courts with petitions for re-arresting the property of Burisma.”

If Shokin had seized Burisma property on Feb 2, 2016, then the Prosecutor General’s investigation of Zlochevsky and Burisma was obviously not “dormant” as reported by Bloomberg. So … can seizure of Zlochevsky property on Feb 2, 2016, be confirmed or not?

There are public reports that the Prosecutor General Office (Shokin’s PGO) seized all of Zlochevsky’s “movable and immovable property” under suspicion of “illicit enrichment” under Part 3 of Article 368-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

This doesn’t prove that Biden’s demands that Shokin be removed were connected to Shokin’s seizure of property belonging to Hunter Biden’s patron and employer, Zlochevsky, but it does show that and others are shoveling disinformation about “dormant.”

The Atlantic Council had been demanding Shokin’s removal on the grounds that he had been insufficiently zealous in prosecuting Yanukovych associates.

On Jan 19, 2017 (two days after Joe Biden visit to Ukraine), Atlantic Council had signed a “cooperative agreement” with Burisma (Hunter’s connection).” (Read more: Stephen McIntyre/Twitter, 9/23/2019)  (Archive)

A State Department official claims someone tried to hack her private email account two years earlier, in early 2014.

Wendy Sherman is interviewed by the FBI. Sherman served as deputy secretary of state under Clinton (the third highest ranking post), and as under secretary of state for political affairs. Her name will later be redacted in the FBI summary of the interview, but the Daily Caller will identify the interviewee as Sherman due to details mentioned elsewhere in the interview.

Sherman served as chief negotiator on a nuclear deal between the US and Iran, which was agreed to in 2014. In the FBI summary of her interview, she said that she was not aware of any specific instances where she was notified of a potential hack of her State Department or personal email accounts or those of other department employees. However, she “explained [she] was sure people tried to hack into [her] personal email account and the accounts of [redacted] team approximately two years ago during [redacted] in the Iran negotiations. Specifically, [redacted] received a similar email. [She] reported the incident to [State Department] Diplomatic Security who reportedly traced the emails back to a [redacted].”

Elsewhere in the interview, she said that it “was not uncommon for [her] to have to use [her] personal Gmail account to communicate while on travel, because there were often times [she] could not access her [State Department] unclassified account.”

The Daily Caller will later comment, “While it is no surprise that hackers would attempt to infiltrate the negotiating teams’ email accounts — the US government has robust spy operations that try to do the same thing — Sherman’s use of a personal account while overseas likely increased her chances of being hacked.” (The Daily Caller, 9/24/2016) (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/23/2016)

Colin Powell writes, “I didn’t tell Hillary to have a private server at home.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell writes an email to former Reagan White House chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein. “I didn’t tell Hillary [Clinton] to have a private server at home, connected to the Clinton Foundation, two contractors, took away 60,000 emails, had her own domain.”

On the same day, in a separate email to Condoleeza Rice, who succeeded him as secretary of state, Powell writes, “Been on the phone and email all afternoon. Hillary and Elijah Cummings have popped off.”

Also on this day, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a memo after reviewing the email practices of the past five secretaries of state. It was determined that 12 emails obtained by the inspector general contained classified national security information, two of which went to the personal email account of Powell and ten of which went to the personal email accounts of the immediate staff of Rice. The memo also states that the information was not marked as classified.

Representative Elijah Cummings (D) releases a statement in response to the OIG’s findings, and concludes, “Based on this new revelation, it is clear that the Republican investigations are nothing more than a transparent political attempt to use taxpayer funds to target the Democratic candidate for President.” (House Oversight Committee, 02/04/16)

Two days later, Rice writes back to Powell, “I don’t think Hillary’s — ‘everyone did it,’ is flying.” (Politico, 09/13/16)

The hacker website DCLeaks.com will publish Colin Powell’s hacked emails on September 13, 2016.

The FBI is unable to obtain any of Clinton’s BlackBerrys to examine them; two useful Clinton iPads are found, but they only contain three previously unknown emails.

The FBI’s Clinton email investigation determines that Clinton used 11 BlackBerrys while she was secretary of state, and two more using the same phone number after she left office. On February 9, 2016, the Justice Department requests all 13 BlackBerrys from Williams & Connolly, the law firm of Clinton’s personal lawyer David Kendall.

Williams & Connolly replies on February 22, 2016 that they were unable to locate any of them. As a result, the FBI is unable to acquire or forensically examine any of Clinton’s BlackBerrys.

The FBI also identifies five iPads associated with Clinton which she could have used to send emails. The FBI obtains three of them, though it’s not clear if they come from Williams & Connolly or other sources. One iPad was given away by Clinton shortly after she bought it, so it is not examined by the FBI.

Out of the other two, one contains three previously unknown Clinton emails from 2012 in the “drafts”” folder. The FBI assesses the three emails and determines they don’t contain any potentially classified information. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

February 17, 2016 – Hunter Biden and partners try to help CCP-linked company purchase Westinghouse and their nuclear reactor technology

(…) Lawmakers told Just the News that the story of CEFC fits a pattern that Hunter Biden was willing to take money from countries or companies adversarial to the United States, including helping them try to acquire prize assets like the Michigan-based Heninges firm that Just the News reported Hunter Biden helped sell to a Chinese firm tied to the People’s Liberation Army.

That transaction was deemed so sensitive – because Heninges produced windshield technology for U.S. fighter jets – it had to get special approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States during the Obama-Biden years.

(…) House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is leading the impeachment inquiry with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, said Wednesday that the Biden family’s close and lucrative relationship with China leaves Americans wondering whether foreign policy decisions today are being influenced today by business ties from the past.

“We’re very concerned. And when you look at the Biden administration, there’s no question in my mind that they’ve had a soft on China policy,” Comer said on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show. “And there are certain policy decisions that this administration has made that are counter to what any American would want with respect to foreign policy relating to China.”

Some of the evidence about CEFC’s pursuit of Westinghouse was secured from the laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop and was later seized by the FBI in December 2019. The FBI shortly thereafter authenticated the laptop.

Gilliar and his partners, Hunter Biden and Walker, discussed in one email a “CEFC / [Westinghouse]” deal, though the contours of the proposed agreement were unclear in that correspondence.

“Good to see a couple of weeks ago, further to our discussions we have prepared a deck for my visit to CEFC board on Monday in Beijing, It has been made clear to me that CEFC wish to engage in further business relations with our group and we will present a few projects to them,” Gilliar wrote to Jim Bernhard of Bernhard Capital in February 2016.

“I attach [sic] the decks and a covering [sic] letter that lay out the principals as I see of a Westinghouse play, we have been a little presumptuous that you wish to be included, but we hope so ?” he added.

Gilliar also made clear that Hunter Biden was intimately familiar with the proposed deal. “P.S Im  [sic] sure H can give you the heads up on the play if you need more details,” Gilliar wrote.

You can read the email below:

Attached to the email were two documents. One was a signed cover letter marked to be sent to CEFC China Energy, the energy conglomerate that began courting Hunter Biden while his father was finishing his last term as vice president. Some of the earliest communications with CEFC uncovered by the House Oversight Committee date to late 2015.

The cover letter mentioned by Gilliar, obtained by Just the News, sheds light on the extent of the planned deal, clearly detailing the scope of the team’s plan for helping CEFC acquire Westinghouse. This included facilitating CEFC’s dominance of the Chinese and global nuclear energy market and masking the acquisition behind firms that wouldn’t raise alarms in western capitals.

The letter shows Gilliar and team believed CEFC was uniquely positioned to acquire from Toshiba an ownership stake in the American nuclear company due to the Japanese conglomerate’s “market weakness” and the “indecision of the Japanese Nuclear industry.”

Gilliar highlighted how the Chinese market was highly dependent on international support by companies that use Westinghouse technologies. Additionally, China still had restrictions on the technologies that it could export. “The original license agreement with Westinghouse was only domestic,” Gilliar pointed out.

Yet, Gilliar and his team saw an opportunity for CEFC to fill an important role in the Chinese domestic nuclear market and around the world through the acquisition, and in the process, liberate China from its dependence on foreign nuclear technology.

(…) The documents make clear the team’s ambitions were nothing short of achieving a commanding influence for CEFC over the global nuclear power plant sector. “In summary, utilizing the U.S. face of Westinghouse, combined with the economic power of CEFC (China) is the perfect solution to control this global sector,” Gilliar wrote CEFC.

You can read the signed letter and the confidential report (parts 1 & 2) below:

There was just one problem: “It would be highly unlikely that Toshiba would sell Westinghouse to Chinese or Korean interests, certainly not for an attractive price,” one memo stated.

But Gilliar proposed a solution for CEFC: his company—the European Energy and Infrastructure Group—and Bernhard Capital Partners would “implement an acquisition structure” that would “create the correct support in Washington that guarantees CEFC to receive the right support and U.S. promotes for its operations.”

This plan would place the appearance of a layer between CEFC—a China-based company with close connections to the ruling Chinese Communist Party and component of its national energy strategy—and the iconic U.S.-based energy company. (Read more: Just the News, 3/13/2024)  (Archive)

A Platte River Networks employee is interviewed twice by the FBI and gives contradictory answers.

Platte River Networks (PRN) is the computer company managing Clinton’s private server from June 2013 until at least October 2015, and PRN employee Paul Combetta played a pivotal role in the deletion of Clinton’s emails from her server.

On February 18, 2016, Combetta is interviewed by the FBI for the first time. He says that between March 25 and 31, 2015, he realized he failed to change the email retention policy on Clinton’s email account on her server, as Clinton’s lawyer (and former chief of staff) Cheryl Mills told him to do in December 2014. This would result in the deletion of some of her emails after 60 days. However, he claims that despite this realization, he still didn’t take any action. Additionally, on March 9, 2015, Mills sent him and other PRN employees an email which mentioned that the House Benghazi Committee had made a formal request to preserve Clinton’s emails. Combetta tells the FBI that he didn’t recall seeing the preservation request referenced in the email.

On May 3, 2016, Combetta has a follow-up FBI interview, and his answers on key issues completely contradict what he said before. This time, he says that when he realized between March 25 and 31, 2015 that he forgot to change the email retention policy on Clinton’s email account, he had an “oh shit!” moment. Then, instead of finally changing the policy settings, he entirely deleted Clinton’s email mailbox from the server,  and used the BleachBit computer program to effectively wipe the data to make sure it could never be recovered. He also deleted a Datto back-up of the data. And he did all this without consulting anyone in PRN or working for Clinton. Furthermore, he admits that he was aware of the mention in the March 9, 2015 email from Mills mentioning the Congressional request to preserve Clinton’s emails.

A September 2016 FBI report will simply note these contradictions. There will be no explanation why Combetta was not indicted for lying to the FBI, obstruction of justice, and other possible charges. There also will be no explanation why his answers changed so much in his second FBI interview, such as him possibly being presented with new evidence that contradicted what he’d said before. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

February 18, 2016 – FBI documents show evidence of “cover-up” discussions related to Clinton emails and Platte River Networks

“Judicial Watch announced that it uncovered 422 pages of FBI documents showing evidence of “cover-up” discussions related to the Clinton email system within Platte River Networks, one of the vendors who managed the Clinton email system.

(…) FBI notes of an interview with an unidentified Platte River Networks official in February 2016 (almost a year after the Clinton email network was first revealed) show that Platte River “gave someone access to live HRC archive mailbox at some point.”

The same notes show that an email from December 11, 2014, exists that reads “Hillary cover up operation work ticket archive cleanup.” The interviewee said that the “cover up operation” email “probably related to change to 60 day [sic] email retention policy/backup.” The subject indicated that he didn’t “recall the prior policy.”

The notes also indicated, “[Redacted] advised [redacted] not to answer questions related to conv [conversation] w/DK [David Kendall] document 49 – based on 5th amendment.”

The subject said that “everyone @ PRN has access to client portal.”

A December 11, 2014, Platte River Networks email between redacted parties says: “Its [sic] all part of the Hillary coverup operation <smile> I’ll have to tell you about it at the party”

An August 2015 email from Platte River Networks says: “So does this mean we don’t have offsite backups currently? That could be a problem if someone hacks this thing and jacks it up. We will have to be able to produce a copy of it somehow, or we’re in some deep shit. Also, what ever [sic] came from the guys at Datto about the old backups? Do they have anyway [sic] of getting those back after we were told to cut it to 30 days?”

In March 2015, Platte River Networks specifically discusses security of the email server.

[Redacted] is going to send over a list of recommendations for us to apply for additional security against hackers. He did say we should probably remove all Clinton files, folders, info off our servers etc. on an independent drive.

Handwritten notes that appear to be from Platte River Networks in February 2016 mention questions concerning the Clinton email system and state of back-ups

The documents show Platte River Networks’ use of BleachBit on the Clinton server. The BleachBit program was downloaded from a vendor called SourceForge at 11:42am on March 31, 2015, according to a computer event log, and over the next half hour, was used to delete the files on Hillary’s server.

The documents also contain emails and handwritten notes written in June and July 2015 from the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General discussing “concerns” over classified information. A redacted sender writes to State Department Official Margaret “Peggy” Grafeld that “inadvertent release of State Department’s equities when this collection is released in its entirety — the potential damage to the foreign relations of the United States could be significant. ICIG McCullough forwards the concern, saying: “Need you plugged in on this.”

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/08/2019)

February 18, 2016 – VP Biden calls Ukraine president Poroshenko to thank him for firing Prosecutor General Shokin

Biden demanded the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fire his Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin.

Petro Poroshenko responded by firing Viktor Shokin on February 16, 2016.

Biden responds with a phone call to thank Poroshenko on February 18, 2016. The video begins with their call.

February 19, 2016 – Poroshenko’s office announces receipt of Shokin resignation

Ukraine’s embattled prosecutor-general has officially submitted his resignation, a spokesman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter.

The presidential administration has received an official letter of resignation from Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, presidential press secretary Sviatoslav Tsegolko wrote on February 19.

Calls for Shokin’s resignation mounted after Deputy Prosecutor-General Vitaliy Kasko resigned on February 15, accusing Shokin of hindering corruption investigations.

There were media reports that Shokin had resigned as early as February 16, but other reports said he had gone on an extended vacation.

During a telephone conversation on February 18, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told Poroshenko that the United States welcomed his efforts to replace Shokin, which Biden said “paves the way for needed reform of the prosecutorial service.”

(Radio Free Europe, 2/19/2016)  (Archive)

The FBI trusts Clinton’s account and does not check if her latest private server contains any of her old emails.

In December 2014, a hrcoffice.com domain was created on a different private server, and apparently Clinton switched to using an email account on that server around that time.

On February 22, 2016, Williams & Connolly, the law firm of Clinton’s personal lawyer David Kendall, tells the FBI in a letter: “Secretary Clinton did not transfer her clintonemail.com emails for the time period January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 to her hrcoffice.com account.” This time period represents Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

The FBI apparently trusts Clinton’s lawyer. A September 2016 FBI report will state: “The investigation found no evidence Clinton’s hrcoffice.com account contained or contains potentially classified information or emails from her tenure as secretary of state. The FBI has, therefore, not requested or obtained equipment associated with Clinton’s hrcoffice.com account.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

February 24, 2016 – Hunter Biden’s Ukraine gas firm, Burisma, presses Obama State Department to end corruption allegations

“Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple contacts with the Obama State Department during the 2016 election cycle, including one just a month before Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating his son’s company for corruption, newly released memos show.

During that February 2016 contact, a U.S. representative for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with Undersecretary of State Catherine A. Novelli to discuss ending the corruption allegations against the Ukrainian firm where Hunter Biden worked as a board member…

Just three weeks before Burisma’s overture to State, Ukrainian authorities raided the home of the oligarch who owned the gas firm and employed Hunter Biden, a signal the long-running corruption probe was escalating in the middle of the U.S. presidential election.

Hunter Biden’s name, in fact, was specifically invoked by the Burisma representative as a reason the State Department should help, according to a series of email exchanges among U.S. officials trying to arrange the meeting. The subject line for the email exchanges read simply “Burisma.”

At the time, Novelli was the most senior official overseeing international energy issues for State…

And Tramontano was a lawyer working for Blue Star Strategies, a Washington firm that was hired by Burisma to help end a long-running corruption investigation against the gas firm in Ukraine…

Tramontano and another Blue Star official, Sally Painter, both alumni of Bill Clinton’s administration, worked with New York-based criminal defense attorney John Buretta to settle the Ukraine cases in late 2016 and 2017. I wrote about their efforts previously here. (Read more: John Solomon, 11/4/2019)  (Archive)

February 25, 2016 – Texts show Strzok and Page were worried about being too tough on Hillary Clinton during email investigation

“FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were concerned about being too tough on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the bureau’s investigation into her email practices because she might hold it against them as president, text messages released on Thursday indicated.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released new messages between bureau officials Page and Strzok, who were having an affair and exchanged more than 50,000 texts with each other during the election.

“One more thing: she might be our next president,” Page texted Strzok on Feb 25, 2016, in the midst of the presidential campaign, in reference to Clinton.

“The last thing you need [is] going in there loaded for bear,” she continued. “You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more [DOJ] than [FBI]?”

Strzok replied that he “agreed” and he had relayed their discussion with someone named “Bill.” (Read more: Fox News, 1/25/2018) (Text Document 2/26/2016)

February 26, 2016 – Podesta emails reveal the Clinton campaign discussing a ‘Trump swift boat project’

“The Clinton campaign discussed assembling a “swift boat project” earlier this year to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to newly released emails from WikiLeaks.

In a Feb. 26, 2016, exchange involving Democratic strategist Joel Johnson, as well as Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri and chairman John Podesta, assembling a group to destroy Trump was discussed.

Swift-boating refers to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that accused John Kerry of fabricating his exploits to win decorations during his military service in Vietnam when he ran for president in 2004.

The term “swift-boating” has since become synonymous with nasty campaign tactics. (Read more: The New York Post, 10/24/2016) h/t x22report.com

 

Jake Sullivan is interviewed by the FBI; he claims he never felt any unease about the many above top secret emails he sent to Clinton.

When Clinton was secretary of state, Sullivan first served as her deputy chief of staff for policy and then as the director of policy planning. The interview will remain secret until it’s mentioned in a September 2016 FBI report.

The FBI determined that seven email chains containing 22 emails were sent by Sullivan to Clinton were later deemed classified at the “top secret/Special Access Program” (TP/SAP) level, which is above “top secret.”

As a result, much of the interview regards these emails. The FBI asks Sullivan to review about 14 emails he sent or received “on unclassified systems” that were later determined to contain classified information up to the TS/SAP level.

Sullivan gives some reasons why the emails may have been sent on Clinton’s unclassified server. According to the FBI, “With respect to the SAP, Sullivan stated that it was discussed on unclassified systems due to the operational tempo at that time, and State [Department] employees attempted to talk around classified information. Sullivan also indicated that, for some of the emails, information about the incidents described therein may have already appeared in news reports. … Sullivan did not recall any instances in which he felt uneasy about information conveyed on unclassified systems, nor any instances in which others expressed concerns about the handling of classified information at State.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

Sullivan will also give his explanation of an email in which he wanted to send her a secure fax, but the fax machine wasn’t working and she told him to “send nonsecure.”

February 28, 2016 – Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, and Timothy Thibault travel to the Czech Republic and attend the same seminar

(…) FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault, a name previously unknown to most SpyGate sleuths, was recently brought to the public’s attention through some astonishing revelations from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Politically motivated activism by Thibault included the shutting down of an investigation into Hunter Biden in October 2020. Thibault did so by labeling information relating to Hunter as false information—even though many of the details were known to be accurate at the time. Grassley said that Thibault’s Democratic National Committee (DNC) partisanship had “impacted his official decision-making on sensitive public corruption investigations” and had “likely affected investigations briefed to, and approved by, senior Justice Department and FBI officials.” But there was another new piece of information within Grassley’s disclosures that’s been bothering us of late: Thibault’s association and interaction with Bruce and Nellie Ohr in Prague.

Grassley disclosed that Thibault, “while overseeing and directing the FBI’s most significant federal public corruption investigations, traveled to the Czech Republic to attend the same seminar with Bruce and Nellie Ohr in late February 2016.” As we shall see, that trip to Prague was more integrated and potentially much more significant than Grassley’s letter has indicated. Grassley rightly observed that, at the time of the trip, Nellie Ohr was employed by Fusion GPS, working to fabricate anti-Trump propaganda for use by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC, and she was also involved in the fake Alfa-Bank narrative. Her husband Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official, was instrumental in pushing the Steele dossier, along with information from Glenn Simpson, into the FBI, and he maintained close contact with Steele until November 2017. Of particular note is the fact that in the days that followed the February 2016 Czech conference, the FBI’s New York field office suddenly requested permission to open an investigation into Carter Page. (Read more: Nation and State, 8/12/2022)  (Archive)

February/March – June, 2016: Lisa Page testifies there were lots of disagreements between the FBI and DOJ over Clinton’s private server

“As Page noted during her testimony, “there were lots and lots and lots of disagreements between the FBI and the department.” One issue of ongoing contention was Clinton’s actual email server:

“There was a great deal of discussion between the FBI and the department with respect to whether to proceed, obtain the server which housed the bulk of Secretary Clinton’s emails, pursuant to consent or pursuant to a subpoena or other compulsory process.”

Additionally, access to the laptops of Clinton’s aides and personal lawyers was an area of particular contention:

“There were, I think, months of disagreement with respect to obtaining the Mills and Samuelson laptops. So Heather Mills and—Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were both lawyers who engaged in the sorting. Once it had been identified that Secretary Clinton had these emails—I’m guessing it’s pursuant to the FOIA request, but I don’t really know—she—well, our understanding is that she asked her two lawyers to take the bulk of the 60,000 emails and to sort out those which were work-related from those which were personal and to produce the work-related ones to the State Department.

“They did so. That 30,000 is sort of the bulk of the emails that we relied on in order to do the investigative technique, although we found other emails a jillion other places. We, the FBI, felt very strongly that we had to acquire and attempt to review the content of the Mills and Samuelson laptops because, to the extent the other 30,000 existed anywhere, that is the best place that they may have existed.”

“And notwithstanding the fact that they had been deleted, you know, we wanted at least to take a shot at using, you know, forensic recovery tools in order to try to ensure that, in fact, the sorting that occurred between—or by Mills and Samuelson was done correctly.”

According to Page, the ongoing dispute with the DOJ ran from “February/March-ish of 2016” to June of 2016. Page also noted one other critical factor in the investigation: “the FBI cannot execute a search warrant without approval from the Justice Department.”

Notably, Page, an experienced lawyer, thought the legal case could be made that the Mills and Samuelson laptops should be made available for forensic examination. As she noted, the frustration within the FBI came, in part, from the DOJ’s “unwillingness to explain their reasoning.”

Page noted that the issue regarding the laptops rose to “the head of the OEO, the Office of Enforcement Operations, which is the unit at the Justice Department that would have to approve a warrant on a lawyer—because, of course, these were all lawyer laptops. It rose to that individual, it rose to George Toscas, over the course of this three months or so.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

February 29, 2016 – Biden shares anti-Hillary Clinton column with aides, family amid 2016 campaign

“President Biden sent his inner circle a devastating analysis of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s looming legal troubles during the 2016 race after he opted against running, according to an email stored on his son Hunter’s infamous laptop.

“Interesting,” Biden wrote in the subject line of the email, which contained a link to a column published by Real Clear Politics.

In it, University of Chicago political science professor Charles Lipson wrote that Clinton, then the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch faced “a treacherous bridge to cross” due to the FBI investigation of Clinton’s private email server.

Lipson said it was “clear that CIA and FBI investigators already fear an administration whitewash and have leaked damaging information to the press.”

He also predicted that if then-FBI Director James Comey recommended prosecution, “he will put [the Department of Justice] and the White House in a very tight box.”

As a veteran prosecutor, Comey “will only present strong, winnable cases” and “won’t present one or two charges,” Lipson said.

“He will present evidence of dozens and dozens of felonies,” he wrote.

“Indictment on even a few felonies is a torpedo beneath the waterline for Clinton.”

(Read more: The New York Post, 4/12/2022)  (Archive)