Jake Sullivan (Credit: public domain)

President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, served alongside the president’s son Hunter on a national security think tank board for two years before joining the Biden 2020 presidential campaign, an archived web page shows.

Both Sullivan and Hunter Biden served on the board of the Truman National Security Project between 2017 and 2019, according to an archived version of the organization’s website. Hunter, who served on the board starting in 2012, was on the board of Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, at the same time.

The Truman National Security Project exists to train and organize left-of-center professionals in the defense and foreign policy space. It was founded in 2004 by Democratic activist Rachel Kleinfeld and Matthew Spence, who went on to serve in multiple defense roles in the Obama administration. The organization still lists Sullivan as an emeritus member.

(…) Before 2017, Sullivan served in the Obama administration as then-Vice President Biden’s National Security Adviser. He was present on a trip to Asia during which Hunter Biden and his wife also traveled with Joe Biden. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/22/2023)  (Archive)

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions, facing a storm of criticism over newly disclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States, recused himself on Thursday from any investigation into charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election.

(…) Mr. Sessions insisted there was nothing nefarious about his two meetings with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, even though he did not disclose them to the Senate during his confirmation hearing and they occurred during the heat of the race between Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Sessions was advising on national security.

In his account on Thursday of the more substantive meeting, which took place in his Senate office on Sept. 8, Mr. Sessions described Mr. Kislyak as one of a parade of envoys who seek out lawmakers like him to glean information about American policies and promote the agendas of their governments.” (Read more: The New York Times, 3/02/2017)

The DOJ files a motion to dismiss the evidence against General Flynn on May 07, 2020. The government moved to dismiss with prejudice the criminal information filed in this case pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48 and as an exercise of its prosecutorial discretion.

Exhibit 5 is included with the filing and it is a clipping from Comey’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on March 2, 2017.

DOJ motion to dismiss – Exhibit 5: 2017 Comey transcript says FBI, Intel “tasked” to find out why Moscow not responding to expulsions, sanctions and “turned up these calls.” While intel close hold, “our people judged was appropriate..to have..Flynn’s name unmasked.”

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 20, 2020

(Exhibit 5 – DOJ Motion to Dismiss)

The next day, the White House issued a formal statement demanding investigation into the claims.https://t.co/8poj0DpPkU

— MonsieursGhost (@MonsieursGhost) December 18, 2021

“On March 6, 2017, Page forwards to Strzok a Washington Examiner article sent to her from the General Counsel’s Office discussing how the GAO determined many sensitive US government offices and officials were being housed in property owned by companies connected to foreign governments like China, posing a security threat.

Page asked Strzok, “Did you hear about this?”

Strzok replies, “I hadn’t, thank you.”

Strzok forwarded the article to Dina Corsi, of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, “FYI.” A redacted official in the Counterintelligence Division responds, “Thank you for highlighting this to us!” Strzok forwards that response to Page, and says, “Our property ci. folks hadn’t heard either.”  (Judicial Watch, 8/28/2020)

March 7: Trump’s provocation was instrumental in hoodwinking @AdamSchiffCA into being “HAPPY” to call for an investigation into Trump’s claims, making initiation of investigation into FBI coup a bipartisan operation. Schiff smells impeachment blood. https://t.co/noXO0LDstV pic.twitter.com/VQWV9OXN3X

— MonsieursGhost (@MonsieursGhost) December 18, 2021

James Comey testifies before Congress in March 2017 after his misleading “Gang of Eight” private briefing for top lawmakers. (Credit: AP)

“The FBI deceived the House, Senate and the Justice Department about the substance and strength of evidence undergirding its counterintelligence investigation of President Trump, according to a recently declassified document and other material.

A seven-page internal FBI memo dated March 8, 2017, shows that “talking points” prepared for then-FBI Director James Comey for his meeting the next day with the congressional leadership were riddled with half-truths, outright falsehoods, and critical omissions. Both the Senate and the House opened investigations and held hearings based in part on the misrepresentations made in those FBI briefings, one of which was held in the Senate that morning and the other in the House later that afternoon. RealClearInvestigations reached out to every member of the leadership, sometimes known as the “Gang of Eight.” Some declined to comment, while others did not respond to queries.

The talking points were prepared by Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer who later resigned from the bureau amid accusations of anti-Trump bias, and were used by Comey in his meeting with Hill leaders. They described reports the FBI received in 2016 from “a former FBI CHS,” or confidential human source, about former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Carter Page (no relation to Lisa Page) allegedly conspiring with the Kremlin to hack the election.

Paul Manafort was falsely alleged to have “managed” Trump-Russia collusion. (Credit: The Associated Press)

Quoting from the reports, Comey told congressional leaders that the unidentified informant told the FBI that Manafort “initially ‘managed’ the relationship between Russian government officials and the Trump campaign, using Carter Page as an intermediary.” He also told them that “Page was reported to have had ‘secret meetings’ in early July 2016 with a named individual in Russia’s presidential administration during which they discussed Russia’s release of damaging information on Hillary Clinton in exchange for alterations to the GOP platform regarding U.S. policy towards Ukraine.”

Carter Page was allegedly an intermediary. (Credit: AP)

But previous FBI interviews with Carter Page and other key sources indicated that none of that was true – and the FBI knew it at the time of the congressional briefings.

The Lisa Page memo anticipated concerns about the quality of information Comey was relaying to Congress and suggested he preempt any concerns with another untruth. The memo advised Comey to tell lawmakers that “some” of the reporting “has been corroborated,” and to point out that the informant’s “reporting in this matter is derived primarily from a Russian-based source,” which made it sound more credible.

Igor Danchenko: American-based, not Russian-based. (Credit: AP)

By this point, however, the FBI knew that the main source feeding unsubstantiated rumors to the informant, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to dig up dirt on Trump, was American-based.

The FBI first interviewed that source – a Russian national named Igor Danchenko who was living in the U.S. and had worked at the Brookings Institution – in January 2017. Danchenko had told them that the anti-Trump dirt he funneled to Steele was dubious hearsay passed along over drinks with his high school buddies and an old girlfriend named Olga Galkina, who had made up the accusations about Carter Page and Manafort that the FBI relayed to Congress.

Christopher Steele: Dubious hearsay from Danchenko’s drinking buddies and an old girlfriend became part of the dossier. (Credit: AP)

Danchenko is now under criminal indictment in Special Counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation for lying about the sourcing for his information. The source to whom he attributed spurious charges against Trump – including his being compromised by a sex tape held by the Kremlin – was a fabrication, according to the indictment. He never spoke with the person as he claimed. Another source turned out to be a longtime Hillary Clinton campaign adviser.

The FBI did not tell the Gang of Eight that Danchenko was working for Steele and did not really have any sources inside the Kremlin, according to the script prepared for Comey, which was recently declassified as part of pre-trial discovery in Special Counsel John Durham’s probe. The FBI also concealed Steele’s identity and the fact he was working for the Clinton campaign.

From FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s misleading memo prepping Director Comey to brief Congress. (Credit: Department of Justice/Sussmann trial)

‘Crowning’ Deception

Adding to the deception, Comey referred to the unnamed informant by the codename “CROWN,” making it appear as if Steele’s dossier was a product of British intelligence, although Steele had not worked for the British government for several years and was reporting entirely in a private capacity. According to the talking-points memo, Comey also withheld from Congress the fact that Steele had been fired by the FBI for leaking information to the media. Instead of sharing that critical information about his reliability and credibility – to say nothing of his political and financial motivations – Comey hid the truth about his star informant from the nation’s top lawmakers.

“If asked about CROWN/Steele” during the briefing, the memo anticipated, Comey was to tell lawmakers only that “CROWN, a former FBI CHS, is a former friendly foreign intelligence service employee who reported for about three years, and some of whose reporting has been corroborated.”

Meanwhile, FBI headquarters officials were duping the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in similar fashion in order to continue to obtain warrants to spy on Carter Page. They led judges on the secret surveillance court to believe Danchenko was “Russian-based” – and therefore presumably more credible.

Brian Auten: Let a false claim influence spy warrants. (Credit: Patrick Henry College)

The official in charge of vetting the Steele dossier at the time – and interviewing him and his primary source Danchenko to corroborate their allegations – was FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten. By March 2017, Auten knew the “Russian-based” claim was untrue, and yet he let case agents slip it into two FISA renewal requests targeting Page.

Auten seemed to become concerned about the falsehood only when the Senate Judiciary Committee asked to see the Page spy warrants. He then reviewed the FISA applications in advance of Comey briefing the panel on March 15 and raised concerns with then-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who was assisting with redactions to the documents before sharing them with Congress. Auten wondered in text messages whether a correction should be reported to the court. But no amendment was ever made.

Kevin Clinesmith falsified evidence for spy warrants.

Years later, in a closed-door 2020 hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee investigators finally caught up with Auten and asked him about it.

“The FISA applications all say that he’s Russian-based,” then-chief Senate Judiciary Committee investigative counsel Zach Somers pressed Auten. “Do you think that should have been corrected with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?”

Auten said he raised the issue with Clinesmith, who was convicted last year by Durham on charges related to falsifying evidence in the FISA application process. “And what response did you get back?” Somers asked. “I did not get a response back,” Auten replied.

Fraud and More Fraud

And so the “Russian-based” fraud lived on through the FISA renewals, which also swore to the court that Danchenko was “truthful and cooperative.” (Attempts to reach Auten for comment were unsuccessful. The FBI declined comment.)

The five-year statute of limitations for criminal liability related to the invalid FISA applications expires at the end of this month. It has already expired regarding false statement offenses that may have been committed during the March 2017 Gang of Eight briefings.

However, legal experts say Durham could bypass the statute by filing conspiracy charges. Some former FBI attorneys and prosecutors believe the special counsel is building a “conspiracy to defraud the government” case against former FBI officials and others. (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 6/09/2022)  (Archive)

March 9: Nunes & Schiff send demand to DOJ for “any applications to the FISA Court, any orders that court released, and any copies of warrants issued by federal judges” relating to surveillance of Trump Team.

The deadline is March 13th.

archive.is/8uf5e

(@MonsieursGhost, ThreadReader, 12/18/2021)  (Archive)

March 9 & 10: coincidentally, @carterwpage is interviewed by FBI for the first time since opening of Crossfire, on same day that bi-partisan demand for any surveillance warrants is issued. (@MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2021)

All five of Carter Page’s interviews with the FBI during March 2017:

1. 3/09/17 <—- added tonight
2. 3/10/17
3. 3/16/17
4. 3/30/17
5. 3/31/17 pic.twitter.com/Em9iaY5Rnu

— La Cosa Jostra (@codyave) May 12, 2019

March 13: Deadline is here and DOJ wants an extension of time. CNN goes out of their way to note that the SENATE Intel Committee has no such deadlines, and further that Richard Burr has got all the answers he needs from “conversations”.

CNN, 3/13/2017

Nunes responds by threatening to serve subpoenas at THE BIG SHOWDOWN, which is the March 20th “House Intelligence Committee Hearing on Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election”.

The run-up to March 20 testimony was chaos. IC wasn’t responding to oversight. Democrats were threatening to subpoena Trump over wiretap claims. These morons seriously thought POTUS could be impeached for what they THOUGHT was a ‘slander’ of Obama.

The Washington Post, 3/15/2017

(Read more: @MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2021)

“On the heels of the explosive release of Wikileaks’ “largest ever publication of confidential documents” originating from the CIA, Wikileaks editor Julian Assange recently revealed startling information regarding the intelligence community’s plans to impeach President Donald Trump and replace him with Mike Pence, his vice president.

Assange, tweeting early Tuesday morning, claimed that two intelligence officials close to Vice President Mike Pence “stated privately this month that they are planning on a Pence takeover.” However, as Assange noted, they did not say if Pence was aware of the plan or if he had agreed to it.

Perhaps more surprising was the revelation that the push for a “Pence takeover” goes beyond the intelligence community. Another tweet from Assange asserted that Hillary Clinton “stated privately this month that she is quietly pushing for a Pence takeover” as “Pence is predictable hence defeatable.” As MintPress has previously noted, a major cornerstone of Trump’s negotiation strategy and politicking is his unpredictability – a clear point of concern among U.S. establishment insiders.

Though the suggestion that such a “takeover” could be taking place may be shocking to some, it is not altogether surprising, given that the intelligence community’s hostility towards Trump has been evident for some time.” (Read more: Whitney Webb/Mint Press News, 3/16/2017)  (Archive)

Judge Andrew Napolitano (Credit: Fox News)

(…) “Sources have told me that the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ — a foreign intelligence agency that, like the NSA, operates outside our constitutional norms — has the digital versions of all electronic communications made in America in 2016, including Trump’s. So by bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints.

Thus, when senior American intelligence officials denied that their agencies knew about this, they were probably being truthful. Adding to this ominous scenario is the fact that three days after Trump’s inauguration, the head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, abruptly resigned, stating that he wished to spend more time with his family.

I hope the investigations of Trump’s allegation discover and reveal the truth — whatever it is. But the lesson here is terribly serious.

We face the gravest threat to personal liberty since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 proscribed criticism of the government.

We have an unelected, unnamed, unaccountable elite group in the intelligence community manipulating the president at will and possessing intimate, detailed knowledge about all of us that it can reveal.” (Read more: Fox News, 3/16/2017)

March 15: Trump makes appearance w Tucker, asked about wiretap claims. Aside from clarifying that ‘wiretap’ is catch-all for #SpyGate surveillance en toto, Trump states two times for effect: “WE HAVE IT BEFORE THE COMMITTEE. WE’RE SUBMITTING SOME THINGS.” (@MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2021)

On Page 7 of the “Deputy Director McCabe Office of Professional Responsibility Investigation, Part 1 of 2”, there was a complaint received by the Inspection Division’s Internal Investigations Section on March 15, 2017.

The day before the complaint was received, True Pundit published the article “EXCLUSIVE: FBI’s Own Political Terror Plot; Deputy Director and FBI Brass Secretly Conspired to Wage Coup Against Flynn & Trump.”  It regards a media leak involving a statement overheard in early February 2017, allegedly made by FBI EM [Executive Management]. Specifically, the alleged comments were made by DD A. G. McCabe and pertained to General Michael T. Flynn and the POTUS.”

(Public Meme)

True Pundit:

“Mere days before Gen. Michael Flynn was sacked…” [Before February 13, 2017].

IE. “Early February 2017“.

“FBI DD McCabe gathered more than a dozen of his top FBI disciples”

I.E. “FBI EM [Executive Management]

“McCabe emphatically declared at the invite-only gathering with raised voice: Fuck Flynn and then we Fuck Trump”.

“Specifically, the alleged comments were made by DD A. G. McCabe and pertained to General Michael T. Flynn and the POTUS.”

(Read: The_War_Economy, 12/12/2018) (Archive)

Jennifer Boone and Charles McGonigal (Credit: public domain)

March 16: Boone and McGonigal discuss @carterwpage‘s “Top Secret FISA” being briefed to House HPSCI tomorrow”. Already worried about possible leaks.

Coincidentally, Page is being interrogated at same moment in New York, and they’re also worried he’ll go AWOL if FISA goes public. (MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2021)

“Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are “arrant nonsense,” the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday.

President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that Britain’s GCHQ was behind the surveillance.

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, told BBC News the idea that Britain had a hand in spying on Trump was “just crazy.”

“It belies a complete lack of understanding of how the relationship works between the intel community agencies, it completely ignores the political reality of ‘would the UK government agree to do that?’” Ledgett said.

There would be no advantage for Britain’s government in spying on Trump, given the potential cost, he said.

“It would be epically stupid,” said Ledgett, who is due to retire shortly.

Current and former NSA officials have described an acrimonious relationship between intelligence agencies and the Trump administration.” (Read more: NBC News, 3/18/2017)  (Archive)

The Guardian reports an official GCHQ denial before following less than a month later with an exclusive which strangely contradicts the substantive claims. (MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2021)

“In the first part of this research into the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) we outlined how the committee was engaged in the 2017 effort –with specific evidence of communication– to support Robert Mueller and the ‘soft coup‘ team. [See Here] When you understand what the group was doing in early 2017, you understand why the FBI had to use DOJ official Bruce Ohr as a go-between to contact with Chris Steele.

Now we move on to overlay several data-points that happened throughout 2018 that are connected to a much more troubling part of the overall issues.  In 2018 the DOJ and FBI covered-up the corruption evident during the 2017 pre-Mueller effort.

The problem for Attorney General Bill Barr is not only investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of…. A branch of the United States government (Legislative) was attempting a coup against the leader of another branch of government (Executive); by using the Senate Intelligence Committee and designated corrupt agents within the executive branch cabinet.

This 2017 and 2018 time period covers Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, Jeff Sessions as AG, Rod Rosenstein as Deputy, Chris Wray as FBI Director, David Bowditch as Deputy and Dana Boente as FBI legal counsel.  I’ll lay out the evidence, you can then determine who was powerful enough to have made these decisions.

As a result of a FOIA release in mid-December 2018, Judicial Watch revealed how the State Department was feeding “classified information” to multiple U.S. Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration:

The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).

Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a June 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department after it failed to respond to a February 2018 request seeking records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Democratic Senator Ben Cardin (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-01381)).

The documents reveal the Obama State Department urgently gathering classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.  (read more)

The impeachment program was a plan, an insurance policy of sorts; a coordinated effort between corrupt politicians in the Senate and hold-over allies in the executive; however, because she didn’t want to participate in this – Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her vice-chair position to Senator Mark Warner.  [Background Here]

This is the pre-cursor to utilizing Robert Mueller.  A plan that was developed soon after the  election.  The appointment of a special counsel was always the way they were going to hand-off and continue the investigation into Trump; but they needed a reason for it.

The continued exploitation of the Steele Dossier was critical; thus they needed Chris Steele to be solid.  And the continued manipulation of the media was also critical; thus they needed Fusion-GPS to continue.  [Dan Jones paid both]

While Mark Warner was communicating with Adam Waldman and Dan Jones as a conduit to Chris Steele, the FBI/DOJ team was communicating through Bruce Ohr to Chris Steele (and by extension to Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS).

Part of Warner’s role was to weaponize the Legislative branch to advance the ‘Muh Russia conspiracy’, a fundamental necessity if a special counsel was going to have justification.

The SSCI, and the security protocols within it, were structurally part of the plan; hence the rapid information from Obama’s State Dept. to the SSCI and Senate participants in the last moments prior to departing.

♦ On March 17th, 2017, the Senate Intelligence Committee took custody of the FISA application used against Carter Page.   We know the FISA court delivered the read and return Top-Secret Classified application due to the clerk stamp of March 17, 2017.

(Page FISA Application, Link)

The FISA application (original and first renewal) was delivered to Senate Security Director James Wolfe.  Senator Mark Warner entered the basement SCIF shortly after 4:00pm on March 17, 2017, the day it was delivered (texts between Warner and Waldman):

Now, when SSCI Security Officer James Wolfe was indicted (unsealed June ’18), we could see the importance of the March 17th date again:

(Wolfe Indictment Link)

We can tell from the description within the indictment FBI investigators are describing the FISA application.  Additionally Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with his reporter/girlfriend Ali Watkins.  The FISA application is 83 pages with one blank page.

The logical conclusion was that Wolfe text Ali Watkins 82 pictures of the application.

FBI Investigators applied for, and received a search warrant for the phone records of journalist Ali Watkins.  Ms. Watkins was notified in February 2018, three months after Wolfe was questioned by FBI investigators in December 2017.

However, despite the overwhelming (public) circumstantial evidence that Wolfe leaked the FISA application, he was never charged with leaking classified information.  Wolfe was only charged with lying three times to federal authorities, and he pled down to one count of lying to the FBI.

CTH made the case in mid 2018 that someone at the DOJ had influenced a decision not to charge Wolfe with the leaking of the FISA application; despite the FBI and DOJ having direct evidence of Wolfe leaking classified information.

The logical reason for the DOJ not to charge Wolfe with the FISA leak was because that charge could ensnare a Senator on the powerful committee, likely Mark Warner.

Remember, the SSCI has intelligence oversight of the DOJ, DOJ-NSD, FBI and all associated counterintelligence operations. Additionally, when the FBI was investigating Wolfe for leaking classified documents, according to their court filings they had to inform the committee of the risk Wolfe represented.  Who did they have to inform?.. Chairman Burr and Vice-Chair Warner.

D’oh. Think about it.  A gang-of-eight member (Warner), who happened -as a consequence of the jaw dropping implications- to be one of only two SSCI members who was warned by the FBI that Wolfe was compromised…. and he’s the co-conspirator.  The ramifications cannot be overstated.  Such a criminal charge would be a hot mess.

Thus, the perfect alignment of interests for a dropped charge and DC cover-up.

Then, in an act of serendipity, James Wolfe himself bolstered that suspicion when he threatened to subpoena members of the SSCI as part of his defense. [See Here]

(…) Attorneys for James A. Wolfe sent letters to all 15 senators on the committee, notifying them that their testimony may be sought as part of Mr. Wolfe’s defense, according to two people familiar with the matter.

(…) Mr. Wolfe’s defense lawyers are considering calling the senators as part of the proceedings for a variety of reasons, including as potential character witnesses and to rebut some of the allegations made by the government in the criminal complaint, these people say.  (link)

Immediately after threatening to subpoena the SSCI (July 27, 2018), the DOJ cut a deal with Wolfe and dropped the charges down to a single charge of lying to investigators.  However, someone doing the investigative legwork wasn’t happy with that decision.

Our overwhelming CTH circumstantial evidence that Wolfe leaked the FISA application went from a strong suspicion, to damn certain (after the plea deal) when the DOJ included a sentencing motion in mid-December 2018.

On December 15th, 2018 the DOJ filed a response to the Wolfe defense teams’ own sentencing memo (full pdf), and within the DOJ response they included an exhibit (#13) written by the FBI [redacted] special agent in charge, which specifically says: “because of the known disclosure of classified information, the FISA application”… Thereby admitting, albeit post-plea agreement, that Wolfe did indeed leak the damn FISA:

(link to document)

Right there, in that FBI Special Agent description is the bombshell admission that James Wolfe leaked the Carter Page FISA application to his concubine Ali Watkins at Buzzfeed.

We know the special agent who wrote exhibit #13 in the December filing was Special Agent Brian Dugan, Asst. Special Agent in Charge, Washington Field Office.  The same investigator who originally signed the affidavit in the original indictment.

So with hindsight there was absolutely no doubt that James Wolfe leaked the 83-page Carter Page FISA application on March 17, 2017.  Period.  It’s all documented with circumstantial and direct evidence; including the admissions from the FBI agent in charge.

So, why was James Wolfe allowed to plea to a single count of lying to investigators?

Back to where this started….

A branch of the United States government (Legislative) was attempting a coup against the leader of another branch of government (Executive); by using planted and designated corrupt agents within the cabinet…

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/11/2019)

March 17: the FISA document containing SECRET & TOP SECRET national security info concerning C
Carter Page is sent to SSCI at the last minute on Friday before BIG SHOWDOWN on Monday the 20th.

March 17, 9:30pm: later that same evening, FBI small team is discussing contact from @nakashimae from WaPo who also has the leak and is requesting comment!

(@MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2021)

Christopher Steele (l) and Bruce Oh. (Credit: public domain)

“In March 2017, two days before former FBI Director James Comey testified to lawmakers that the bureau had an open counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s campaign, former British spy Christopher Steele sent an urgent message to Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr hoping that “important firewalls will hold” when Comey testified.

The text message from Steele, who compiled the infamous unverified dossier on Trump, was sent on March 18, 2017 to Ohr and obtained by SaraACarter.com from a government source, familiar with the ongoing investigation.

Ohr was demoted twice by the Department of Justice for not disclosing that his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS, the now-embattled research firm which paid Steele for the documents. Ohr has been deposed for questioning by the House Judiciary Committee and is expected to speak to lawmakers behind closed doors on Aug. 28.

In the text, Steele writes Ohr, “Hi! Just wondering if you had any news? Obviously, we’re a bit apprehensive given scheduled appearance at Congress on Monday. Hoping that important firewalls will hold. Many thanks.”

Ohr writes back later that day, saying “Sorry, no new news. I believe my earlier information is still accurate. I will let you know immediately if there is any change.”

It is not certain, based on the limited communications obtained by Congress between the pair, what Ohr was referring to when he discussed “earlier information” that he delivered to Steele.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/15/2018)

March 18, 12:30am: later into the night, Pete Strzok and Lisa Page discuss @nakashimae’s prior reporting and likelihood she has a Source at HSCI.

March 18: for some reason, Strzok and Small Team are now obsessing over Trump’s breakout claims from the 4th…

March 19: Its Sunday, but the Small Team is not resting. They are reviewing additional oversight requests and also preparing for @Comey’s testimony on Monday the 20th.

(@MonseursGhost, 12/17/2021)

Trump and Manafort at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 21, 2016 [Credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters]

“Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.”

Manafort’s name was reportedly listed in the 400-page ledger 22 times, although his actual signature wasn’t authenticated and any payments made to him remain unverified. The documents implicating Manafort had been released by Serhiy Leshchenko.

On March 20, 2017, Leshchenko released another set of documents, this time alleging to show that Manafort took steps to hide payments related to his work for former Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych. Leshchenko’s documents “included an invoice that appeared to show $750,000 funneled through an offshore account and disguised as payment for computers.”

In a strange twist, it was reported by Politico in late February 2017 that a hack of the phone belonging to one of Manafort’s daughters revealed a text containing a blackmail threat that Manafort has attributed to Leshchenko. It’s not known with any certainty who actually sent the text, which contains an attachment that references “the Yanukovych accounting book” and lists an email address for Leshchenko.

Leshchenko became the subject of an investigation in Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court ruled that Leshchenko, along with NABU Director Artem Sytnyk “acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort’s surname and signature were found in the so-called “black ledger” of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions,” the Kyiv Post reported on Dec. 12, 2018.

The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release “led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state.”

The Hill recently reported that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko stated that he was opening “a probe into alleged attempts by Ukrainians to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Surprisingly, the report, which focuses on Sytnyk, makes no mention of Leshchenko—or of the December court ruling which determined that both Leshchenko and Sytnyk violated Ukrainian law.” (Read more: themarketswork, 4/11/2019)  (Archive)

“Representative Elise M. Stefanik is a young, freshman republican congresswoman from the Albany New York area.  And using a probative questioning timeline, she single-handily pulled the mask from FBI Director James Comey, yet no-one seemed to notice.

Obviously Ms. Stefanik has not been in the swamp long enough to lose her common sense.

In the segment of the questioning below Rep. Stefanik begins by asking director Comey what are the typical protocols, broad standards and procedures for notifying the Director of National Intelligence, the White House and senior congressional leadership (aka the intelligence Gang of Eight), when the FBI has opened a counter-intelligence investigation.

The parsel-tongue response from Comey is a generalized reply (with uncomfortable body language) that notification of counter-Intel investigations are discussed with the White House, and other pertinent officials, on a calendar basis, ie. “quarterly”.

With the statement that such counter-Intel notifications happen “generally quarterly”, and against the backdrop that Comey stated in July of 2016 a counter-Intel investigation began, Stefanik asks:

”When did you notify the White House, the DNI and
congressional leadership?”

BOOM!  Watch an extremely uncomfortable Director James Comey outright LIE… by claiming there was no active DNI -which is entirely false- James Clapper was Obama’s DNI.

Watch it again.

Watch that first 3:00 minutes again.  Ending with:

“Because of the sensitivity of the matter.”  ~ James Comey

Director Comey intentionally obfuscates knowledge of the question from Rep Stefanik; using parseltongue verbiage to get himself away from the sunlit timeline.

The counter-Intel investigation, by his own admission, began in July 2016.  Congress was not notified until March 2017.  That’s an eight month period – Obviously obfuscating the quarterly claim moments earlier.

The uncomfortable aspect to this line of inquiry is Comey’s transparent knowledge of the politicized Office of the DNI James Clapper by President Obama.  Clapper was used rather extensively by the Obama Administration as an intelligence shield, a firewall or useful idiot, on several occasions.

Anyone who followed the Obama White House intel policy outcomes will have a lengthy frame of reference for DNI Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan as the two primary political operatives.   Brennan admitted investigating, and spying on, the Senate Intelligence Committee as they held oversight responsibility for the CIA itself.

The first and second questions from Stefanik were clear.  Comey’s understanding of the questions was clear.  However, Comey directly evaded truthful response to the second question.   When you watch the video, you can see Comey quickly connecting the dots on where this inquiry was going.

There is only one reasonable explanation for FBI Director James Comey to be launching a counter-intel investigation in July 2016, notifying the White House and Clapper, and keeping it under wraps from congress.    Comey was a participant in the intelligence gathering for political purposes – wittingly, or unwittingly.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 3/20/2017)

Andrew McCabe (Credit: Getty Images)

“The FBI opened an investigation into an unauthorized media leak of a comment made by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe about former national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Trump, according to bureau documents released Monday.

The documents show that the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs received a complaint about an alleged leak that involved “a statement overheard in early February 2017.”

“Specifically, the alleged comments were made by DD AG McCabe and pertained to General Michael T. Flynn and the POTUS,” one document states.

The investigation into the unauthorized media disclosure appears to have started on March 20, 2017.

The document states that McCabe was a witness in the investigation, and that the subject, or the person who leaked the comment, was unknown.

A spokesperson for McCabe declined to comment.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/16/2018)

Rep. Trey Gowdy attempts to question FBI director James Comey about how many people have the power to ‘unmask’ the name of a U.S. citizen in communications intercepted by the intelligence services. This information would serve as the basis for any investigation into who has been leaking classified documents.

Transcript

GOWDY: Admiral Rogers said there are 20 people within the NSA that are part of the unmasking process. How many people within the FBI are part of the unmasking process?

COMEY: I don’t know for sure. As I sit here, surely more, given the nature the FBI’s work. We come into contact with U.S. persons a whole lot more than the NSA does because we may be conducting — we only conduct our operations in the United States to collect electronic surveillance — to conduct electronic surveillance, so I don’t — I can find out the exact number, I don’t know it as I sit here.

GOWDY: Well, I think, Director Comey, given the fact that you and I agree this is critical, vital, indispensable, a similar program is coming up for reauthorization this fall with a pretty strong head wind right now. It would be nice to know the universe of people who have the power to unmask a U.S. citizen’s name. Because that might provide something of a roadmap to investigate who might’ve actually disseminated a masked U.S. citizen’s name.

COMEY: Sure. The number is relevant but what I hope the U.S. — the American people realize is the number’s important, but the culture behind it is in fact even more important. The training, the rigor, the discipline. We are obsessive about FISA in the FBI for reasons I hope make sense to this committee but we are — everything that’s FISA has to be labeled in such a way to warn people this is FISA, we treat this in a special way.

So we can get you the number, but I want to assure you the culture of the FBI and the NSA around how we treat U.S. person information is obsessive and I mean that in a good way.

GOWDY: Director Comey, I am not arguing with you and I do agree that culture is important, but if there are 100 people who have the ability to unmask and the knowledge of a previously masked name, then that’s 100 different potential sources of investigation and the smaller the number is, the easier your investigation is.

So the number is relevant. I can see the culture is relevant. NSA, FBI, what other U.S. government agencies have the authority to unmask a U.S. citizen’s name?

COMEY: I think all agencies that collect information pursuant to FISA have what are called standard minimization procedures, which are approved by the FISA court that govern how they will treat U.S. person information. So I know the NSA does, I know the CIA does, obviously the FBI does. I don’t know for sure beyond that.

GOWDY: How about the department of — how about Main Justice?

COMEY: Main Justice, I think does have standard minimization procedures.

GOWDY: All right, so that’s four. The NSA, FBI, CIA, Main Justice. Does the White House have the authority to unmask a U.S. citizen’s name?

COMEY: I think other elements of the government that are consumers of our products can ask the collectors to unmask. The unmasking resides with those who collected the information.

And so if Mike Rogers’s folks collected something and they sent it to me in a report and it says U.S. person number one and it’s important for the FBI to know who that is, our request will go back to them. The White House can make similar requests of the FBI or of NSA but they can’t on their — they don’t own their own collect and so they can’t on their own unmask. I got that about right?

ROGERS: No, that’s correct.

COMEY: Yeah.

GOWDY: I guess what I’m getting at, Director Comey, is you say it’s vital, you say it’s critical, you say it’s indispensable. We both know it’s a threat to the reauthorization of 702 later on this fall. And by the way, it’s also a felony punishable by up to 10 years.

So how would you begin your investigation, assuming for the sake of argument that a U.S. citizen’s name appeared in the Washington Post and the New York Times unlawfully. Where would you begin that investigation?

COMEY: Well, I’m not gonna talk about any particular investigation…

GOWDY: That’s why I said in theory.

COMEY: You would start by figuring out, so who are the suspects? Who touched the information that you’ve concluded ended up unlawfully in the newspaper and start with that universe and then use investigative tools and techniques to see if you can eliminate people, or include people as more serious suspects.

GOWDY: Do you know whether Director Clapper knew the name of the U.S. citizen that appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post?

COMEY: I can’t say in this forum because again, I don’t wanna confirm that there was classified information in the newspaper.

GOWDY: Would he have access to an unmasked name?

COMEY: In — in some circumstances, sure, he was the director of national intelligence. But I’m not talking about the particular.

GOWDY: Would Director Brennan have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen’s name?

COMEY: In some circumstances, yes.

GOWDY: Would National Security Adviser Susan Rice have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen’s name?

COMEY: I think any — yes, in general, and any other national security adviser would, I think, as a matter of their ordinary course of their business.

GOWDY: Would former White House Advisor Ben Rhodes have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen’s name?

COMEY: I don’t know the answer to that.

GOWDY: Would former Attorney General Loretta Lynch have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen’s name? COMEY: In general, yes, as would any attorney general.

GOWDY: So that would also include Acting AG Sally Yates?

COMEY: Same answer.

GOWDY: Did you brief President Obama on — well, I’ll just ask you. Did you brief President Obama on any calls involving Michael Flynn?

COMEY: I’m not gonna get into either that particular case that matter, or any conversations I had with the president. So I can’t answer that.

(RealClearInvestigations, 3/20/2017)  (Archive)

March 20: Comey & NSA Director Rogers testify at a HSCI hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Comey acknowledged his agency was investigating whether members of the Trump campaign collaborated w Russian Government.

After @DevinNunes openly asks for whistleblowers to come forward with information about leaking or surveillance of Trump campaign, a whole series of events transpires, causing the infamous “unmasking” news conference.

(@MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2017)

On March 6, 2009 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presents Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red “reset” button. (Credit: public domain)

Starting in May 2010, The Washington Examiner reported, drawing on emails obtained by Citizens United, “Clinton Foundation staff pushed Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve a meeting between Bill Clinton and a powerful Russian oligarch as her agency lined up investors for a project under his purview.”

Viktor Vekselbert (Credit: Dmitry Lovetsky/The Associated Press)

His name was Viktor Vekselberg of Renova (a Clinton Foundation donor) and the project under his purview was the Skolkovo Innovation Center, which is being built near Moscow. The following month, Bill Clinton would receive $500,000 for a speech in Moscow from a Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin, a Clinton Foundation donor, a Skolkovo executive, and which talked up Uranium One, whose sale the Clinton State Department would approve, and whose executives together contributed $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.

This shocking set of emails that the Examiner reported on shows the nexus of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department, Bill Clinton, Russian oligarch Vekselberg, and Skolkovo, “Russia’s Silicon Valley,” the Putin project to transfer Western technology to Russia that was championed and driven by Mrs. Clinton — and, what do you know, 17 out of 28 tech companies that hitched up with Skolkovo also contributed to the Clinton Foundation? What a coincidence. Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s support for Russian WTO membership made the whole global flow so much easier.

No wonder Herd Media, the Uniparty Congress and FBI Director James Comey never noticed a thing. Oh, except that Putin “hated” Hillary Clinton, “wanted to do her harm,” as Comey told Congress this week. Grrr. Maybe hypersonic technology wasn’t enough. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

Let’s pick up with an Army report on Skolkovo written in 2012 (released in 2013) to assess “the implications … for U.S. policymakers.”

Although military activities are not an official cluster of activity, the Skolkovo Foundation has, in fact, been involved in defense-related activities since December 2011, when it approved the first weapons-related project—the development of a hypersonic cruise missile engine. The project is a response to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, part of the Prompt Global Strike program.

Fast forward to November 2016, shortly after Donald Trump was elected president when the US Air Force released a report on — no way — the Russian and Chinese hypersonic missile threat to the United States.

The United States is vulnerable to future attack by hypersonic missiles from China and Russia and is falling behind in the technology race to develop both defensive and offensive high-speed maneuvering arms, according to a new Air Force study.

“The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are already flight-testing high-speed maneuvering weapons (HSMWs) that may endanger both forward deployed U.S. forces and even the continental United States itself,” an executive summary of the report says.

“These weapons appear to operate in regimes of speed and altitude, with maneuverability that could frustrate existing missile defense constructs and weapon capabilities.”

In a functioning democratic republic, the executive branch decisions and procedures and corruption that led to this defense cataclysm would actually alarm security officials, lawmakers, and even arouse media curiosity, if nothing else. But Skolkovo, the money, the corruption, the treachery, the danger, inspire no reaction at all.

Not even this plain, shocking language, from the Army, circa 2012:

Skolkovo is an ambitious enterprise, aiming to promote technology transfer generally, by inbound direct investment, and occasionally, through selected acquisitions. As such, Skolkovo is arguably an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage—with the additional distinction that it can achieve such a transfer on a much larger scale and more efficiently.

Hillary Clinton, her State Department, the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton did much to make Skolkovo possible — did much to activate what was, according to the Army report, “arguably” a massive “clandestine industial espionage” operation. Not that any of this is in the past. This plain-sight-“research”-cum-collusion with the Russian government goes on, and goes on unchecked — and despite the Obama administration’s supposedly hard-as-nails, cold-as-ice, tough-on-Russia finish.

The Army report continues:

Implicit in Russia’s development of Skolkovo is a critical question—a question that Russia may be asking itself—why bother spying on foreign companies and government laboratories if they will voluntarily hand over all the expertise Russia seeks? Since multinational institutions hire talent worldwide and seek access to foreign markets without regard for national interest, only the U.S. government would be in a position to persuade them to scale back their commitments in Skolkovo if U.S. relations with Russia continue to deteriorate.

However, given the global dimensions of Skolkovo’s technology transfer program, it is not clear how much leverage U.S. industry has. Therefore, the key issue for U.S. policymakers is balancing the benefits of constructive technological engagement with Russia against the risks that Russia could leverage transferred scientific knowledge to modernize and strengthen its military.

Whether that is the key issue for U.S. policymakers, circa 2017, one thing seems clear. They haven’t heard of it, and they don’t care.

More proof that the hysteria over “Russian influence” on Donald Trump has nothing whatsoever to do with official Washington’s (read: the Swamp) concern about the national security of the American people. They are concerned about protecting the Swamp they live in and profit from, and that is all. (The Daily Caller, 3/21/2017)  (Archive)

“The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that some of the communications of the Trump transition team were “monitored” after the election as part of an “incidental collection.”

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said these surveillance operations produced “dozens” of reports which eventually unmasked several individuals’ identities and were “widely disseminated.”

Nunes would not confirm if Trump’s own communications were specifically monitored, saying only that it was “possible” that the president’s communications were picked up.

Nunes said none of the reports he had read mentioned Russia, and he was unsure whether the surveillance occurred at Trump Tower, as Trump has suggested.

He said he believes the intelligence collections were done legally, but he is concerned because they were apparently not related to the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election and because they were “widely disseminated” across the intelligence community.

Nunes said he told House Speaker Paul Ryan earlier Wednesday and was set to tell Trump and the White House later in the afternoon.” (Read more: Fox News, 3/22/2017)

https://youtu.be/VFWPOa3uUWk

Dennis Montgomery (Credit: New York Times)

“The same day House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes gave a press conference disclosing that President Trump had been under “incidental surveillance,” Attorney and FreedomWatch Chairman, Larry Klayman, sent a letter to the House Committee on Intelligence imploring them to pursue the claims and evidence presented under oath at a Washington DC FBI Field Office by his client – CIA / NSA Whistleblower Dennis Montgomery – who Klayman claims “holds the keys to disproving the false claims…that there is no evidence that the president and his men were wiretapped”

When Montgomery attempted to deliver this information through the appropriate channels two years ago, the former CIA and NSA contractor wasn’t given the time of day:

When Montgomery came forward as a whistleblower to congressional intelligence committees and various other congressmen and senators, including Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who, like Comey, once had a reputation for integrity, he was “blown off;” no one wanted to even hear what he had to say.

As a result, Montgomery went to attorney and FreedomWatch founder Larry Klayman – who then approached the FBI:

Under grants of immunity, which I obtained through Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Curtis, Montgomery produced the hard drives and later was interviewed under oath in a secure room at the FBI Field Office in the District of Columbia. There he laid out how persons like then-businessman Donald Trump were illegally spied upon by Clapper, Brennan, and the spy agencies of the Obama administration.

Montgomery left the NSA and CIA with 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information, much of which is classified, and sought to come forward legally as a whistleblower to appropriate government entities, including congressional intelligence committees, to expose that the spy agencies were engaged for years in systematic illegal surveillance on prominent Americans, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen such as Donald Trump, and even yours truly. Working side by side with Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence (DIA), James Clapper, and Obama’s former Director of the CIA, John Brennan, Montgomery witnessed “up close and personal” this “Orwellian Big Brother” intrusion on privacy, likely for potential coercion, blackmail or other nefarious purposes.

He even claimed that these spy agencies had manipulated voting in Florida during the 2008 presidential election, which illegal tampering resulted in helping Obama to win the White House.

Given the fact that the FBI had Montgomery’s testimony and evidence for over two years, Klayman traveled to Washington DC last Thursday to meet with Committee Chairman Devin Nunes in the hopes that he would ask FBI Director Comey why the FBI hadn’t pursued Montgomery’s evidence. When Klayman arrived to speak with Nunes, he was “blown off” and instead shared his information with committee attorney Allen R. Souza – who Klayman requested in turn brief Nunes on the situation.

During my meeting with House Intelligence Committee counsel Allen R. Sousa I politely warned him that if Chairman Nunes, who himself had that same day undercut President Trump by also claiming that there is no evidence of surveillance by the Obama administration, I would go public with what would appear to be the House Intelligence Committee’s complicity in keeping the truth from the American people and allowing the FBI to continue its apparent cover-up of the Montgomery “investigation.”

And, that is where it stands today. The big question: will House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes do his job and hold FBI Director Comey’s feet to the fire about the Montgomery investigation?

Klayman has detailed all of this in a NewsMax article, followed up with an official letter to Chairman Nunes today, requesting that he question Comey on Montgomery’s evidence. Perhaps this explains Nunes’ impromptu press conference today admitting that Trump’s team was under “Incidental Surveillance” before making his way to the White House to discuss with the President.”

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/22/2017) (Klayman letter to Nunes)

On March 23, 2017, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt emails FBI Asst. Dir. Michael Kortan saying:

Schmidt’s email is forwarded by Kortan to Lisa Page. Page forwards it to Strzok and Moffa, saying “Just wanted you both to have this.”  (Judicial Watch, 8/28/2020)

(Timeline editor’s note: Other emails and articles also misspell Alfa Bank just as it does in this email.  It’s also unlikely Jared Kushner met anyone at Trump Tower in late December 2016.)

On March 24, 2017, reporter Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post emails two unidentified FBI officials, noting that, in his review of government records relating to Hillary Clinton, he discovered a page in which “a box is checked to indicate the material is ‘Grand Jury Material.’ Is that right? I don’t think anyone had ever been aware of a sitting grand jury in the Clinton case.”

The Zapotosky email then gets forwarded to other FBI officials, including Page, and a lengthy, redacted email exchange follows. Eventually, Page adds Strzok to the exchange, saying, “Adding Pete, just to double-check my work.” Strzok’s response is also redacted. One of the redacted officials replies to Strzok, saying, “AD Kortan asked if this could just be about legal process to get access.” Strzok responds, “It might be [redacted].” (Judicial Watch, 8/28/2020)  (Archive)

March 27, 2017, then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, held a brief press conference and stated he was provided intelligence reports brought to him by unnamed sources including ‘significant information’ about President-Elect Trump and his transition team.

These reports included unmaskings of President Trump campaign officials; and included Donald Trump himself…. You know what that means:

1.) …”On numerous occasions the [Obama] intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

2.) “Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration; details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

3.) “Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition members were unmasked.”

4.) “Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities, or of the Trump team.

“The House Intelligence Committee will thoroughly investigate surveillance and its subsequent dissemination, to determine a few things here that I want to read off:”

“Who was aware of it?”
“Why it was not disclosed to congress?”
“Who requested and authorized the additional unmasking?”
“Whether anyone directed the intelligence community to focus on Trump associates?”
“And whether any laws, regulations or procedures were violated?”
“I have asked the Directors of the FBI, NSA and CIA to expeditiously comply with my March 15th letter -that you all received a couple of weeks ago- and to provide a full account of these surveillance activities.”

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/13/2020) (Archive)

Statement for the Record

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
James B. Comey
June 8, 2017

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee

Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

March 30 Phone Call

James Comey (Credit: ABC News)

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week — at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, “We need to get that fact out.” (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some “satellite” associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a tbrought up “the McCabe thing” because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing “the cloud” that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later. (Read more: CNN, 6/8/2017)

“Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has been leading a congressional investigation into President Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, had extensive contact last year with a lobbyist [Adam Waldman] for a Russian oligarch [Oleg V. Deripaska], who was offering Warner access to former British spy and dossier author Christopher Steele, according to text messages obtained exclusively by Fox News.

“We have so much to discuss u need to be careful but we can help our country,” Warner texted the lobbyist, Adam Waldman, on March 22, 2017.

“I’m in,” Waldman, whose firm has ties to Hillary Clinton, texted back to Warner.”

(…) Secrecy seemed very important to Warner as the conversation with Waldman heated up March 29, when the lobbyist revealed that Steele wanted a bipartisan letter from Warner and the committee’s chairman, North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, inviting him to talk to the Senate intelligence panel.

Throughout the text exchanges, Warner seemed particularly intent on connecting directly with Steele without anyone else on the Senate Intelligence Committee being in the loop — at least initially. In one text to the lobbyist, Warner wrote that he would “rather not have a paper trail” of his messages.

(…) “Waldman noted repeatedly that Steele was concerned about leaks and was “spooked” by all of the attention he had received around the world. Steele, he said, was skittish about talking to Warner.

Warner texted back on March 30: “We want to do this right private in London don’t want to send letter yet cuz if we can’t get agreement wud rather not have paper trail.”

(…) “Over the course of four months between February and May 2017, Warner and Waldman also exchanged dozens of texts about possible testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee from Deripaska, Waldman’s primary Russian billionaire client.” (Credit: Fox News, 2/28/2018) (Link to text messages)

Daniel J. Jones (Credit: Zero Hedge)

“A group of wealthy donors from New York and California have forked out $50 million to fund a Russia investigation being conducted by Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS and a former Senate staffer for Dianne Feinstein.

That bombshell revelation is made in a footnote to the House Intelligence Committee’s newly released report on Russian interference in the presidential campaign.

While the dossier project failed to help former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton win the presidency, Fusion GPS and Steele have continued their investigative work.

That’s according to statements from Daniel Jones, a former Feinstein staffer who runs the Penn Quarter Group (PQG), a Washington, D.C., consulting firm.”

(…) “The House report states that in March 2017, Jones told the FBI about a project he is working on with Steele and Fusion GPS that is being funded to the tune of $50 million by 7 to 10 wealthy donors from New York and California.

In late March 2017, Jones met with FBI regarding PQG, which he described as ‘exposing foreign influence in Western election,’” reads the committee’s report.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 04/27/2018)

Reinhold Niebuhr (Credit: Britannica)

On March 30, 2017, a redacted official emails Moffa and Strzok, advising them to read Gizmodo about the “D’s [Director’s] private Twitter acct.” Moffa replies, “I did not already know but I just read the whole thing. I have to say I didn’t expect that …” The unidentified official replies, “[I]f true, my respect for the D only solidifies when I see that he named himself after America’s preeminent 20th-century political theologian.” (Gizmodo revealed that day that Comey used the Twitter handle “Reinhold Niebuhr,” who was a prominent American Marxist and Protestant theologian.)

(Judicial Watch, 8/28/2020)

Evigny Buryakov (Credit: ABC News)

March 31: Evgeny Buryakov, Russian agent indicted in same case involving @carterwpage‘s FISA, is quietly released “early” from DOJ to ICE custody prior to being deported.

At this point, @AliWatkins & @nakashimae have been sitting on FISA leak for 14 days.

(MonsieursGhost, 12/17/2022)

Wikileaks Vault 7 Logo (Credit: Wikileaks)

“WikiLeaks’ latest disclosure of CIA cyber-tools reveals a technique used by the agency to hide its digital tracks, potentially blowing the cover on current and past hacking operations aimed at gathering intelligence on terrorists and other foreign targets.

The release Friday of the CIA’s “Marble Framework” comes less than a month after the WikiLeaks dumped onto the Internet a trove of files — dubbed “Vault 7” — that described the type of malware and methods the CIA uses to gain access to targets’ phones, computers and other electronic devices.

“This appears to be one of the most technically damaging leaks ever done by WikiLeaks, as it seems designed to directly disrupt ongoing CIA operations and attribute previous operations,” said Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California at Berkeley.

The material includes the secret source code of an “obfuscation” technique used by the CIA so its malware can evade detection by anti-virus systems. The technique is used by all professional hackers, whether they work for the National Security Agency, Moscow’s FSB security agency or the Chinese military. But because the code contains a specific algorithm — a digital fingerprint of sorts — it can now be used to identify CIA hacking operations that had previously been detected but not attributed.” (Read more: Washington Post, 3/31/2017)