Felix Sater (Credit: Stephen Voss/Redux)

“A former Trump business associate and witness in the special counsel’s probe provided “extensive” cooperation to U.S. spy agencies in numerous terrorism and mafia-related investigations, according to a court filing unsealed Friday.

Felix Sater provided the FBI, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency with intelligence on a broad range of topics over the course of more than a decade, Benton J. Campbell, the then-U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in an Aug. 27, 2009 court filing.

(…) Sater, an American citizen born in Russia, formally began cooperating with the U.S. government on Dec. 10, 1998, as part of an agreement that required him to plead guilty to racketeering and money laundering charges related to a $40 million stock scheme.

Over the course of the next decade, Sater obtained intelligence regarding mafia activities in New York, Russian organized crime schemes in Cyprus, and al-Qaeda activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Sater was credited with obtaining Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone numbers and with providing information about an assassination attempt against President George W. Bush.

Sater’s lawyers said in an Oct. 19, 2009 filing also unsealed Friday that he worked with U.S. military intelligence to covertly obtain details about a Russian anti-missile system.

The court filings, which were unsealed in response to a lawsuit media companies filed, confirm details of BuzzFeed News’ reporting in March 2018 on Sater’s expansive resume. Sater disclosed his informant work to BuzzFeed in an effort to push back on the media narrative that he was linked to Russian intelligence and Russian organized crime.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/23/2019) (Wall Street Journal, 8/23/2019)

Thomas Eager (l) and Bill Taylor (Credit: public domain)

“The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Taylor has been called by House Democrats to appear next week to provide a deposition as part of the investigation being led by Schiff into President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Taylor himself has evidenced a close relationship with the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council, writing analysis pieces published on the Council’s website and serving as a featured speaker for the organization’s events. He also served for nine years as senior advisor to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, which has co-hosted scores of events with the Atlantic Council.

As Breitbart News reported, Thomas Eager, a staffer on Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee, took a trip to Ukraine in August billed as a bipartisan “Ukraine Study Trip” in which ten Congressional staffers participated.

Eager is also currently a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.” The pre-planned Ukraine trip was part of the fellowship program.

Burisma in January 2017 signed a “cooperative agreement” with the Council to specifically sponsor the organization’s Eurasia Center, the same center that sponsored Eager’s Ukraine trip.

A closer look at the itinerary for the August 24 to August 31 trip shows that the delegation’s first meeting upon arrival in Ukraine was with Taylor. (Read more: Breitbart, 10/17/2019)  (Archive)

Former 2016 Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page joined FNC’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” for a conversation about his experience as a government witness:

CARTER PAGE: Great to be with you, Maria.

MARIA BARTIROMO: You had an esteemed career. I want to start there because our viewers know that we’ve covered this story very effectively from the get-go, poking holes in this whole idea of collusion, poking holes in the FISA court situation, but you had worked with the government for a long time before they actually turned on you. Tell me your career as a government informant after you worked at the Pentagon and after in the Navy tell us about it.

CARTER PAGE: Well I got out of the Navy in ’98 and I was on a research fellowship at a foreign policy think tank and that was actually the first time as a civilian (as you mentioned I spent a lot of time doing intelligence tasks in the military) but that was the first time when I actually did stuff as a civilian, and so one of the guys I worked closely with was Chris Stephens, [sic] who was the Iran desk officer at the State Department in ’98-99, and we had a long ongoing dialogue, and so a lot of similarities between what happened with him, and the lack of responsibility by these Democrat administrations. That was during the Clinton administration, but the loss of his life was really a continuation of that.

MARIA BARTIROMO: So the bottom line is you’ve worked as a government informant for what, two decades?

And somewhere along the line, they obviously turned on you, because they wiretapped you.

CARTER PAGE: Yeah.

MARIA BARTIROMO: And somewhere along the line, they obviously turned on you because they wiretapped you. Fast forward to 2013 or so when you are an informant for the government about a spy ring in New York, involving three Russians.

CARTER PAGE: Yeah, well listen. It was something where there was a lot, they did an indictment. I spent time with the FBI in 2013 giving them all of the information they needed.

MARIA BARTIROMO: This is under the Obama administration.

CARTER PAGE: It was under the Obama administration and then a number of top officials, Attorney General Holder, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and [former Assistant Attorney General] John Carlin in January of 2015, a year before the start of when I joined the– I was a volunteer on the Trump campaign, they had this indictment… of the three Russians. So I was one of the main sources on “Male #1.”

MARIA BARTIROMO: That’s interesting because you were “Male #1” — we’re looking at a timeline in 2013 you’re male number one and they indict these people and the indictment comes down in January 2015 and they name you as Male #1.

CARTER PAGE: Well there’s this big thing about masks and unmasking, and I was very lightly masked and there are a lot of problems in that indictment and they really kind of put me out on a limb.

MARIA BARTIROMO: That’s what I want to ask you because then you start getting death threats your life was in danger… We’re taking a pivot looking at how the government has treated government informants…

I’m back with former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page and you were telling us about this case that you helped the government with. Tell me what happened in 2015 after the indictment was handed down on the Russians.

CARTER PAGE: Well really, in March of 2016, they called me in to come to testify in the Southern District of New York on that case.

There were so many falsehoods and misrepresentations in their indictment the prior year. I said I am not going to lie in court. Similar to their false court filings, which the DOJ and the FBI has submitted in this case. So it was a long back and forth with them but I told them, I am a man of my word and I’m not going to, you know, provide false testimony like they’ve done. It is very similar between the false testimony which they did and that case against the Russians, and the false testimony which they did a few months later in October of 2016 with their start of the FISA abuse.

MARIA BARTIROMO: You never actually testified in the spy ring circus in terms of that, but this all goes to government informants and you could look at Patrick Byrne from Overstock.com, right?

CARTER PAGE: Well its basically, the government is taking control of people’s lives I mean, look, I’ve lost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and he lost a couple hundred million off his market cap just based on these falsehoods.

MARIA BARTIROMO: You mean the stock lost hundreds of millions of dollars, not you?

CARTER PAGE: Well I’ve lost, you know, massive amounts of money.

(RealClearPolitics, 8/25/2019)

Michael Atkinson (Credit: public domain)

(…) On August 26, Atkinson forwarded the complaint to Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence. Maguire, though, didn’t believe it satisfied the requirements of the whistleblower statute. It didn’t concern an intelligence activity, and it didn’t concern a member of the intelligence community; it was about the president.

The Justice Department agreed. “The complaint does not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community,” the Office of Legal Counsel noted in a September 3 memo. “Rather, the complaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand.”

Seemingly closed down, the anti-Trump operatives had a back door into official intelligence channels, the same entrance they’d used for the Steele dossier — the media. A September 5 Washington Post editorial reported that Trump was “attempting to force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.” (Read more: Just the News, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

The European Council of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. (Credit: Council of Europe)

“The conscientious judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgment a fortnight ago which utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the case of the late Mr. Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgment in the mainstream media at all.

The myth is that Magnitskiy was an honest rights campaigner and accountant who discovered corruption by Russian officials and threatened to expose it and was consequently imprisoned on false charges and then tortured and killed. A campaign over his death was led by his former business partner, hedge fund manager Bill Browder, who wanted massive compensation for Russian assets allegedly swindled from their venture. The campaign led to the passing of the Magnitskiy Act in the United States, providing powers for sanctioning individuals responsible for human rights abuses, and also led to matching sanctions being developed by the EU.

However, the European Court of Human Rights has found, in judging a case brought against Russia by the Magnitskiy family, that the very essence of this story is untrue. They find that there was credible evidence that Magnitskiy was indeed engaged in tax fraud, in conspiracy with Browder, and he was rightfully charged. The ECHR also found there was credible evidence that Magnitskiy was indeed a flight risk so he was rightfully detained. And most crucially of all, they find that there was credible evidence of tax fraud by Magnitskiy and action by the authorities “years” before he started to make counter-accusations of corruption against officials investigating his case.

This judgment utterly explodes the accepted narrative, and does it very succinctly:

The applicants argued that Mr. Magnitskiy’s arrest had not been based on a reasonable suspicion of a
crime and that the authorities had lacked impartiality as they had actually wanted to force him to
retract his allegations of corruption by State officials. The Government argued that there had been
ample evidence of tax evasion and that Mr. Magnitskiy had been a flight risk.
The Court reiterated the general principles on arbitrary detention, which could arise if the
authorities had complied with the letter of the law but had acted with bad faith or deception. It
found no such elements in this case: the inquiry into alleged tax evasion which had led to
Mr. Magnitskiy’s arrest had begun long before he had complained of fraud by officials. The decision
to arrest him had only been made after investigators had learned that he had previously applied for
a UK visa had booked tickets to Kyiv and had not been residing at his registered address.
Furthermore, the evidence against him, including witness testimony, had been enough to satisfy an
objective observer that he might have committed the offense in question. The list of reasons given
by the domestic court to justify his subsequent detention had been specific and sufficiently detailed.
The Court thus rejected the applicants’ complaint about Mr. Magnitskiy’s arrest and subsequent
detention as being manifestly ill-founded.

“Manifestly ill-founded”. The mainstream media ran reams of reporting about the Magnitskiy case at the time of the passing of the Magnitskiy Act. I am offering a bottle of Lagavulin to anybody who can find me an honest and fair MSM report of this judgment reflecting that the whole story was built on lies.

Magnitskiy did not uncover corruption then get arrested on false charges of tax evasion. He was arrested on credible charges of tax evasion and subsequently started alleging corruption. That does not mean his accusations were unfounded. It does, however, cast his arrest in a very different light.” (Read more: Craig Murray, 9/16/2019)

(Credit: Lazaro Gamio/Axios)

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has released a report on former FBI Director James Comey’s leaking of personal memos to his attorneys, a personal friend, and the media.

Comey had told the IG that he believed the memos shared with his attorneys did not contain any classified information.

However, the IG noted that specifically: “Memos 1 and 3 contained information classified at the ‘SECRET’ level, and that Memos 2 and 7 contained small amounts of information classified at the ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ level—although Comey redacted all classified information in Memo 7 before sending to his attorneys.”

The IG report also noted that “Comey considered Memos 2 through 7 to be his personal documents.”

Comey maintained copies of Memos 2 through 7 at his personal residence—a fact that he failed to report to the FBI. Comey also provided James Rybicki, his chief of staff, with a copy of these same memos to maintain at FBI headquarters.

On May 14, 2017, Comey provided electronic copies of Memos 2, 4, 6, and 7 to one of his personal attorneys, who subsequently shared the memos with two additional attorneys several days later on May 17, 2017. Memo 2 contained six words, four of which were names of specific countries that the FBI later deemed to be classified.

Leak to the Media

On May 16, Comey provided a copy of Memo 4 to Daniel Richman who was a “close personal friend” in addition to being one of Comey’s attorneys. Comey directed Richman to “share the contents of Memo 4, but not the Memo itself, with a specific reporter for The New York Times.”

Richman did have a security clearance at this time, but there appears to be no demonstrable “need to know” that is also a requirement for gaining access to classified information.

This memo contained information that was deemed by the FBI to be “For Official Use Only” but did not contain any classified information. The IG noted: “We found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the Memos to members of the media.”

The same day that Comey’s two additional attorneys gained access to his memos—May 17, 2017—former FBI Agent Peter Strzok sent a text to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page noting, “F’in Pamela Brown knows there were two phone call memos.” Brown, a reporter for CNN, had reported on the existence of Comey Memos the night prior during a segment with Anderson Cooper but had yet to mention the phone call memos.

The Strzok text regarding Brown is notable for two reasons. One, Strzok was clearly familiar with the contents of Comey’s Memos, and two, Brown had to have learned of the “phone call Memos” from a source other than Richman—who had only received a copy of Memo 4, which detailed a physical meeting and did not mention any “phone call Memos.” It is not known who provided Brown with the additional information.

Notably, the FBI “first learned that Comey had shared Memo 4 with Richman while watching Comey’s public testimony before SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] on June 8, 2017.” Nor did Comey inform the FBI that he had shared Memos 2, 4, 6 and 7 with his personal attorneys. It was only after the FBI questioned Richman regarding Memo 4 that the FBI learned that Comey had also provided the additional memos to his attorneys.

Comey Kept Memos at His Home

The June 8, 2017, date is particularly notable because only the day before, on June 7, 2017, did Comey provide the copy of his memos that he kept in his home safe to the FBI at the request of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Although the existence of the Comey Memos were well-known by this time, it does not appear that FBI personnel knew that Comey kept his own memo copies at home—until he turned them over.

The IG report highlighted Comey’s retention of his memos at his personal residence, noting: “We found it particularly concerning that Comey did not tell anyone from the FBI that he had retained copies of the Memos in his personal safe at home, even when his Chief of Staff, the FBI’s Associate Deputy Director, and three SSAs [Supervisory Special Agents] came to Comey’s house on May 12, 2017, to inventory and remove all FBI property.” Why Comey chose to not disclose this information to the FBI remains unknown.

According to the IG report, “[O]n June 7, 2017, Comey provided the SSA who came to his home with Comey’s signed originals of Memos 2, 4, 6, and 7, which were the only Memos that Comey said he had retained at his residence.” Notably, the “SSA said he had been advised ahead of time that Comey had Memos to give to him.” The report does not disclose who advised the SSA, but it may have been Special Counsel Mueller.

Comey told the IG that “he voluntarily gave his signed originals of Memos 2, 4, 6, and 7 to the SSA at his house that day, not because he had concerns that they contained classified information, but “because Special Counsel [Robert Mueller] asked for them.”

How the Special Counsel came to learn that Comey had a personal copy of his memos at his house remains unknown, particularly as it appears that no one else within the FBI was aware of this fact until Comey turned the memos over.

Comey had previously viewed the FBI copies of his memos that had already been officially classified by the FBI on June 7, 2017, in preparation for his June 8 testimony. As a result, Comey was now aware of what the FBI deemed “SECRET” or “CONFIDENTIAL.” As the IG report noted, “By not immediately reporting that he had provided Memo 2 to his attorneys when Comey first learned that the FBI had designated a small portion of Memo 2 as classified at the ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ level, Comey violated FBI policy.”

Lisa Page Obtains Memos Ostensibly for McCabe

Others within the FBI also had copies of Comey’s Memos. According to the IG’s report, “Page told the OIG that McCabe also allowed her to look at Memos 2, 3, and 4, but asked her not to share them with anybody. Page told the IG that “she decided to make and keep copies of these Memos because they were ‘just of the nature that [she] felt like there should be one other copy somewhere else.’” Page claimed not to know “if others in the FBI were keeping copies of the Memos.”

However, it appears that Page attempted to hide her possession of Comey’s Memos from other officials within the FBI. On May 10, 2017, Comey’s former chief of staff James Rybicki was contacted by Page who requested “a full set of the Memos.” Rybicki, who told the IG that Page said her request was made on behalf of Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, then made three copies of Comey’s Memos—one for himself, one for Page to pass along to McCabe, and one for FBI General Counsel James Baker. Notably, May 10, 2017, may have been the date that McCabe opened an investigation into President Donald J. Trump.

Page told the IG a somewhat different version of events, noting that “she did not think McCabe had asked her to assemble copies of the memos; she said she thought she did it on her own because she “knew that it needed to get done.” Additionally, Rybicki told the IG “that he was ‘surprised’ when he learned that Page already had copies of some of the Memos because he ‘didn’t think anybody maintained a copy’ other than him, and didn’t know how she got them.”

Comey told the IG that he considered “Memos 2 through 7 to be his personal documents,” but this assertion was roundly dismissed by other FBI officials. According to the IG report, “All of the FBI senior leaders interviewed by the OIG stated that the Memos were official government records.” McCabe told the IG that Comey’s Memos served as a “record of [Comey’s] official engagement with the President.” Baker said the memos were “related to official business” and that “they were discussed in the office in connection with [Comey’s] official responsibilities.” Rybicki said he had “treated the Memos as FBI records.” The FBI’s Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap characterized the memos as documents “produced by the Director in his capacity as Director … they’re FBI work product.”

Whistleblower Provided IG Memos

Interestingly, “shortly after Comey’s removal, a set of the seven Memos was provided to the OIG by a Department employee, who claimed whistleblower status,” the IG revealed in the report. The number of individuals within the FBI who had access to Comey’s Memos was comprised of a very small group. The IG noted that the whistleblower “viewed the Memos as extremely sensitive documents and was concerned that there should be a separate set deposited somewhere for safekeeping.” This means that the IG obtained possession of the Comey Memos very early on—since mid-May 2017.

Additionally, the IG revealed that it was then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who referred the matter of Comey’s Memos to the Office of the Inspector General for review in July 2017. McCabe may have been unaware that the IG already was in possession of Comey’s Memos via the unknown whistleblower.

Genesis of Comey’s Memos

In regards to the genesis of the Memos, Comey told the IG that it was his Jan. 27, 2017, dinner with President Trump that prompted him to begin the process of maintaining Memos detailing his interactions with the president. However, Comey had already written an earlier memo regarding a meeting with President Trump on Jan. 6, 2017, where Comey provided the president with details of the “salacious” information from the Steele dossier. Comey also told Congress a slightly different story, testifying on June 8, 2017, that he began creating memos from his very first interaction with President Trump, based on a “gut feeling.”

The IG report provides some intriguing details surrounding the Jan. 6, 2017, meeting, and the manner in which that meeting was pre-determined to be fully documented by Comey.

“Witnesses interviewed by the OIG also said that they discussed Trump’s potential responses to being told about the ‘salacious’ information, including that Trump might make statements about, or provide information of value to, the pending Russian interference investigation.

“Multiple FBI witnesses recalled agreeing ahead of time that Comey should memorialize his meeting with Trump immediately after it occurred. Comey told the OIG that, in his view, it was important for FBI executive managers to be ‘able to share in [Comey’s] recall of the … salient details of those conversations.’ Comey also said that an additional concern, shared by the members of his management team, was that if the briefing became ‘a source of controversy’ it would be important to have a clear, contemporaneous record because Trump might ‘misrepresent what happened in the encounter.’”

It appears from the IG’s report that President Trump had no knowledge that Comey was transcribing their interactions. The FBI’s General Counsel, James Baker, told the IG that “it was his understanding that the small group of people who had access to the Memos ‘really didn’t want anyone to know the Director … was recording at this level of detail his interactions with the President’ because any perception that Comey was ‘keeping … book’ on the President would upset any effort to have an effective and ongoing working relationship.”

It should also be noted that Comey failed to keep any memos of his meetings with Obama and other Obama-era officials.

Memo 3 was one of those deemed to contain information classified at the “SECRET” level. In regards to this particular memo, Comey told the IG that he gave one copy to Rybicki, with instructions for Rybicki to show it to McCabe and Baker, while keeping the other copy in his desk drawer—located in his secure office. On May 10, 2017, the day immediately following Comey’s firing, a Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) was assigned to inventory the contents of Comey’s office. As noted in the IG report, “According to the inventory, no hard copies of any of the Memos were found in Comey’s office.”

Five days later, on May 15, 2017, following a conversation with Comey, Rybicki notified the SSA that there “were additional documents belonging to Comey stored in the reception area near the former Director’s office.” Among these documents were six of the original Comey Memos. According to the IG, this was the first time the SSA learned of the existence of the Comey Memos. Rybicki told the SSA that “he did not tell anyone about the Memos during the May 10 inventory because he understood that process to only include Comey’s office.”

Comey Violated FBI Policy

The IG found that “Comey’s actions violated Department or FBI policy, or the terms of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement” and concluded that “Comey’s retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement.”

The IG recognized that the “responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties” and pointedly noted that “Comey failed to live up to this responsibility.”

The IG’s report also noted, “By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.”

The IG provided a copy of his findings to the DOJ for a prosecutorial decision regarding Comey’s conduct. The DOJ declined prosecution. It is not known when the IG’s findings were first submitted to the DOJ. The IG then prepared this more comprehensive report that focused on whether Comey’s actions violated Department of FBI policy.

It was previously reported that the DOJ had declined prosecution of Comey. According to a source for Fox News, “Everyone at the DOJ involved in the decision said it wasn’t a close call,” one official said. “They all thought this could not be prosecuted.”

To underscore the difficulties the DOJ faced in pursuing a successful prosecution is the fact that Comey’s Memos were only classified by the FBI after Comey had leaked them. Additionally, the IG found no proof that “Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the Memos to members of the media.”

A failed prosecution at this juncture would prove problematic to the overall investigation of Spygate. The IG’s pending report on FISA abuse is far more important and potentially significantly more damning. (themarketswork.com, 8/30/2019)

(Republished with permission.)

“Having just completed a first review of the IG Report on James Comey, with numerous highlights for further overlay and research, here are my thoughts upon initial review.

First, there is absolutely no doubt James Comey used his memos akin to FD-302 investigative reports from an FBI agent. Meaning, from beginning-to-end he considered himself an investigative agent against the President-elect and then President Trump.

Note: The recording of his encounter with the target, President-elect Trump should be “treated like FISA derived information in a counterintelligence investigation.”  During this January 6th operation, Comey was the active FBI agent gathering evidence for later use.  The collected intelligence would be shared with the team via memo #1.

Remember the Lisa Page Texts from the same date?

The FBI redacted almost all of that text because it outlines the distribution of the evidence Comey was collecting.   Comey’s memos were essentially FD-302 reports, and the officials within the DOJ and FBI didn’t want that exposed.  Lisa Page text was heavily redacted because it would have shown the January 6th encounter was an operation against Trump.

Every encounter and every aspect of every action within that encounter was conducted in what Comey perceived as an official investigative capacity.

President Trump was the target of Comey’s operations and he wrote his memos as investigative notes therein. Example: Comey ran the, operation:

So the “small group”: Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Baker, Priestap, Rybicki, et al, were running a counterintelligence operation against the incoming administration.

There are parts of the IG report highlighting a stunning amount of self-interest.

Example:  Who made the decision(s) about what “was” or what “was not” classified?  Or, put another way: who was making the internal decisions about Comey’s exposure to legal risk for sharing his investigative notes (memos) outside the department?

The answer is the same “small group” who were carrying out the operation:

James Baker, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, James Rybicki and Lisa Page were determining what parts of James Comey’s investigative notes needed to be classified.

The corrupt FBI was in position to police itself.   This is not a conflict of interest, it is better described as a profound conflict of self-interest.

The information the ‘small group‘ wanted to use to frame the target would be visible, not classified; however, any material that would outline the construct of their corruption in targeting the target would be hidden, classified.  You can’t make this stuff up folks.

The “small group” WAS the sources and methods they were protecting.

Everything needed to understand that level of corruption is outlined in the way the IG report discusses the handling of James Comey’s investigative notes (ie. memos).  AND the fact that James Comey kept them hidden, yes hidden.  Read this stuff!

First, “no hard copies of any of the memos were found in Comey’s FBI office.”:

So, if the memos were not held in Director James Comey’s official FBI office, the next logical question is where were they?

Well, when Special Agents went to James Comey’s house, he still kept them hidden and never informed the agents:

If Mr. Altruism, James Comey, was simply fulfilling the duty of a concerned and dedicated FBI Director, why not tell the FBI agents -picking up FBI records- that he had copies of FBI investigative notes in his “personal safe” while they were there?

What honorable justification exists for keeping them hidden from valid investigators?

Obviously me, you and God are not the only ones able to see the sketchy nature of this construct.  In fact, an internal FBI whistleblower came forward soon after that search of Comey’s home to request official “whistleblower status protection” from the IG.

Think logically…. What would prompt someone inside the FBI; who at some point gained access to the Comey memos; to request ‘whistleblower protected status’?

Doesn’t the “whistleblower request” indicate the requesting FBI official saw something nefarious in the way this was all going down?

Who was that ‘whistleblower’?

Well, first, Captain Obvious would tell you it has to be someone who actually gained possession of those memos right?…. this is not a big group.  Second, you only need to read a few more pages of the IG report to see who it was:

The “whistleblower” was the Supervisory Special Agent described in page 38 as above.

The memos were “stored” in a “reception area“, and in locked drawers in James Rybicki’s office.  [“Drawer safes” are silly FBI legal terms for fancy locked drawers]  Also note…

“Reception area“?  “May 15th“?

Well, (#1) apparently no-one wanted to be the one holding the hot potato of investigative evidence (Comey memos); that ownership would outline them as participatory members in carrying out the targeting of then President Trump.  Oh, yeah, those investigative notes were not in “the office of the FBI Director” on May 10th, when you were here searching the last time,… for some mysterious reason.. they, uh,… well, they were discovered…  in the “reception area“… yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket!   Right under the four month old copy of People Magazine, n’ stuff.

….ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME WITH THIS?

…AND (#2) the very next morning, GUESS what happened?…

Now we see why the FBI Supervisory Special Agent in charge of inventorying Comey records asked the IG for official “whistleblower status.”

Sketchy warning flares surrounded the SSA agent right there in the FBI executive suites.

Of course the SSA gave the Inspector General the seven memos, asked for whistleblower protection, and likely told the IG the way they were produced stinks to high heaven.   Good grief. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/29/2019)

James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, and Michael Flynn testify before the House Intelligence Committee in 2014. (Credit: CSpan screenshot)

“As the Trump DOJ attempts to sift through exactly what the Obama administration was pulling during the 2016 US election, Attorney General William Barr and his team of investigators are pursuing the following information, according to RealClear Investigations‘ Paul Sperry.

• Agendas for former CIA chief John Brennan’s secret interagency task force meetings on alleged Trump-Russia collusion in the spring, summer and fall of 2016, which he sent in envelopes to FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

• A series of papers that task force, known as the “fusion cell,” drafted for the White House.

• A classified August 2016 document Brennan hand-delivered in a sealed envelope to Obama containing information from someone Brennan described as “a critical informant close to Putin.” The informant is  believed to have beeen a Russian source recycled from a largely debunked dossier compiled by ex-British agent Christopher Steele for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

• An email exchange from December 2016 between Brennan and Comey in which Brennan is said to have argued for using the Steele dossier in early drafts of the task force’s January 2017 intelligence assessment, which spread the narrative that Vladimir Putin personally ordered a hacking operation to harm Hillary Clinton’s election chances against Donald Trump.

• All drafts of the Russia intelligence assessment, or ICA, along with classified footnotes revealing the sourcing behind it.

• Confidential source reports, known as FD-1023s, summarizing briefings between FBI agents and the informants and assets they jointly handled with the CIA, including Christopher Steele, Felix Sater, Azra Turk, and ex-Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, who apparently lured Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page overseas, where he secretly tape-recorded them.

• Transcripts of conversations Halper recorded prior to July 31, 2016, in which Papadopoulos allegedly “denies any illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” according to Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.

• Copies of all FBI, CIA and State Department records related to Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor whose statements regarding Papadopoulos allegedly triggered the original Russia-collusion probe.

• Diplomatic cables between Australia and the U.S. that mention former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer’s tip to the FBI that Papadopoulos allegedly bragged about Mifsud telling him the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

• Queries former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power made to the NSA between January 2016 and January 2017 to unmask the identities of Trump figures caught up in upstream collections, or intercepts, of foreign nationals — including logs that remain under lock and key at an Obama Foundation storage site outside Chicago.

• An Obama “interagency memorandum of understanding” signed by the FBI and CIA enabling outside contractors — including possibly Clinton campaign contractor Fusion GPS — to gain “improper access” (per a court opinion) to raw FISA data from November 2015 to April 2016.

• Classified notes from late spring 2016 of Comey briefing White House officials on “the [Carter] Page information.”

• At least four previously undisclosed, sealed Comey memos memorializing his conversations with Trump that are said to document the investigative steps taken by the FBI, as well as the codename and true name of a “confidential human source” — and evidence obtained from this source, including the identification of at least one Trump target.

• Allegedly rejected FISA applications for warrants to spy on Page filed in June and July of 2016.

• FISA applications to monitor Papadopoulos, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in 2016 — in addition to all versions of the Page applications that were approved from October 2016 to June 2017, along with supporting materials.

• All summaries of interviews the FBI conducted with Steele in 2016, known as FD-302s, as well as the unredacted 302 reports of the FBI’s dozen interviews with Justice official Bruce Ohr, who provided back-channel briefings from Steele after the FBI terminated him in November 2016.

• FBI 302 reports summarizing 2016 meetings with Russian oligarch (and FBI informant) Oleg Deripaska, who reportedly scoffed at the idea that Trump colluded with Moscow when agents visited him in New York.

• FBI 302s of agents’ Feb. 10, 2017, interview with Mifsud during which the Mueller Report says Mifsud lied to agents.

(Zero Hedge, 8/28/2019)

“In an explosive response filing today, which includes the phrase ”sunlight is the best disinfectant,” attorney Sidney Powell has outlined the soup-to-nuts construct of the malicious government action taken during their targeting her client Michael Flynn.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Clip from Attorney Sidney Powell’s filing on behalf of Lt. General Michael Flynn.

In the 19-pages (full pdf below), Ms. Powell walks through the history of the DOJ, FBI and intelligence apparatus weaponization against Mr. Flynn and lays out the background behind everything known to have happened in 2016, 2017 through today.

From the corrupt DOJ lawyers who were working with Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele, including Mr. Weissmann, Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Zainab Ahmad; to the 2015/2016 FISA database search abuses; to the CIA and FBI operation against Flynn including Nellie Ohr; to the schemes behind the use of DOJ official Bruce Ohr; to the corrupt construct of the special counsels office selections; to the specifics within the malicious conspiracy outlined by hiding FBI interview notes of Mike Flynn,… all of it…is a stunning filing that many CTH readers are well prepared to understand.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/30/2019)

“There are two sets of documents that outline a precise picture.  Robert Mueller’s lead FBI Agent David Archey made sworn declarations to the court, without knowledge of FBI “whistleblower” information provided to DOJ Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.

There is a distinct conflict within the IG report on James Comey (and memos) (Available Here) and the David Archey declarations (Available Here).  However, beyond the conflict, there’s an even more alarming picture of how Robert Mueller was deployed when all the information is overlaid on a timeline.   A very clear picture emerges; very clear.

In June 2017 CNN (and other media) filed a FOIA suit to gain the Comey memos.  As the lawsuit progressed through a lengthy battle -where the Mueller team did not want to turn over those memos- Mueller’s lead FBI agent, David Archey, made sworn declarations to the court.  Those statements became known as the “Archey Declarations.”  Inside those declarations, agent Archey provided a specific outline of the FBI and the memos.

Note the date – Agent Archey states the “investigative team” came into full possession of the Comey memos: “on or by May 12th, 2017.”

(Page #3 of Exhibit A – Archey Declarations)

The “investigative team” would be Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and then James Baker as lead counsel for the group.  The “Director’s staff” would be James Rybicki, who is identified by Archey as having “maintained” possession of the memos.

So this “small group”, particularly James Rybicki, is the center of the team.  This team is also confirmed by the IG Horowitz report. This team had the memos on May 12th, 2017.

Now we move into the aspect where the motives and ideology become clear when we look at the IG custodial record of the memos, as outlined by the Supervisory Special Agent in charge of Comey’s documents within the IG report, compared to the Archey declarations.

The FBI Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) in charge of Comey’s document retrieval is the “whistleblower” who eventually went to the IG.  I’ll explain why and how below; and to make understanding easier we shall use “SSA Whistleblower” to describe him.

♦ On May 10th, the Comey memos were not in Comey’s office [per IG report].  At the time of the search and review of Comey’s office, there were no hard copies found by SSA Whistleblower.

Now, keep in mind “by May 12th” James Rybicki had all the Comey memos in his possession, per Mueller team FBI Agent David Archey.

♦ On May 12th, SSA Whistleblower went to James Comey’s house along with James Rybicki and Deputy FBI Director David Bowditch.

(IG Report – Comey Memos – Page 34) 

During this May 12th visit, James Comey never told SSA Whistleblower he had the memos in his personal safe.  James Rybicki was also present for this retrieval visit and also never told SSA Whistleblower that he was holding the memos in his FBI HQ office.

♦ On May 15th, three days later, James Rybicki then tells SSA Whistleblower he knows the location of the Comey memos; and Rybicki informs SSA Whistleblower he has additional relevant material.

(IG Report – Comey Memos-Page 38) 

From the IG Report: “Rybicki told the SSA that he did not tell anyone about the Memos during the May 10 inventory because he understood that process to only include Comey’s office.”   Very sketchy.

At this point, SSA Whistleblower had to suspect something sketchy was happening.  Keep in mind the following day May 16th, 2017, Comey sent memo content to his friend Daniel Richman with instructions to leak to the New York Times. (Article published 5:00 pm May 16, 2017)

If Rybicki didn’t inform SSA Whistleblower on May 15 about the Comey memos, then SSA Whistleblower would have found out from leaked media reports the next day May 16.

If Rybicki didn’t tell SSA Whistleblower about the memos on May 15, then it would have looked like the ‘small group’ was hiding and leaking the memos.  An intellectually honest review of the timing, and considering Rybicki had indeed been hiding the memos, leads to the conclusion Rybicki knew the NYT leak was coming; Rybicki was coordinating with James Comey; Rybicki/Comey were trying to avoid team scrutiny. [Further evidence of this surfaces in the Mueller contact timeline.]

By May 16th, 2017, SSA Whistleblower, had to see the sketchy nature of how this was unfolding.   As a result this scenario from the IG report now makes sense:

If we overlay the FBI “small group” contact with Robert Mueller an even more clear picture emerges.

“Crossfire Hurricane” – During 2016, after the November election and throughout the transition period and into 2017, the FBI had a counterintelligence investigation ongoing against Donald Trump. FBI Director James Comey’s memos were part of this time period as the FBI small group was gathering evidence.  Then Comey was fired…

♦ Tuesday, May 9th – James Comey was fired at approximately 5:00 pm EST.  Later we discover Rod Rosenstein first contacted Robert Mueller about the special counsel appointment less than 15 hours after James Comey was fired.

♦ Wednesday, May 10th – From congressional testimony, we know DAG Rod Rosenstein called Robert Mueller to discuss the special counsel appointment on Wednesday, May 10th, 2017, at 7:45 am. [See Biggs questions to Mueller at 2:26 of video]

According to his own admissions (NBC and CBS), Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe immediately began a criminal ‘obstruction’ investigation. Wednesday, May 10th; and he immediately enlisted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

A few hours after the Rosenstein-Mueller phone call, James Comey’s office was being searched by the SSA Whistleblower per the IG report on Comey’s memos.

(IG Report – Comey Memos – Page 33) 

♦Thursday, May 11th – Andrew McCabe testified to congress. With the Comey firing fresh in the headlines.  McCabe testified there had been no effort to impede the FBI investigation.

Also on Thursday, May 11th, 2017, The New York Times printed an article, based on information seemingly leaked by James Comey, about a dinner conversation between the President and the FBI Director.   The “Loyalty” article [link].  The IG report shows: “[Daniel] Richman confirmed to the OIG that he was one of the sources for the May 11 article, although he said he was not the source of the information in the article about the Trump Tower briefing“.

♦Friday, May 12th –  Andrew McCabe met with DAG Rod Rosenstein to discuss the ongoing issues with the investigation and firing.  Referencing the criminal ‘obstruction’ case McCabe had opened just two days before.  According to McCabe:

“[Rosenstein] asked for my thoughts about whether we needed a special counsel to oversee the Russia case. I said I thought it would help the investigation’s credibility. Later that day, I went to see Rosenstein again. This is the gist of what I said: I feel strongly that the investigation would be best served by having a special counsel.” (link)

According to Andy Biggs questioning of Mueller, on this same day, May 12th, evidence shows Robert Mueller met “in person” with Rod Rosenstein.  This is the same day when SSA Whistleblower went to James Comey’s house to retrieve FBI material and both Rybicki and Comey never informed the agent about the memos:

(IG Report-Comey Memos-Page 34)

May 12th, is the date noted by David Archey when FBI investigators had assembled all of the Comey memos as evidence.  However, no-one in the FBI outside the “small group” knows about them.

♦ Saturday, May 13th, 2017, another meeting between Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller, this time with AG Jeff Sessions also involved. [Per Andy Biggs]

♦ Sunday, May 14th –  Comey transmitted copies of Memos 2, 4, and 6, and a partially redacted copy of Memo 7 to Patrick Fitzgerald, who was one of Comey’s personal attorneys.  Fitzgerald received the email and PDF attachment from Comey at 2:27 p.m. on May 14, 2017, per the IG report.

♦ Monday, May 15th, McCabe states he and Rosenstein conferred again about the Special Counsel approach. McCabe: “I brought the matter up with him again after the weekend.”

On this same day was when James Rybicki called SSA Whistleblower to notify him of Comey’s memos. The memos were “stored” in a “reception area“, and in locked drawers in James Rybicki’s office.

(IG Report-Comey Memos-Page 38)

♦Tuesday May 16th – Per the IG report: “On the morning of May 16, Comey took digital photographs of both pages of Memo 4 with his personal cell phone. Comey then sent both photographs, via text message, to Richman”

On this same day, Rod Rosenstein takes Robert Mueller to the White House for a meeting in the oval office between President Trump, VP Pence, Robert Mueller, and Rod Rosenstein.    While they were meeting in the oval office, the following story was published by the New York Times (based on Comey memo leaks to Richman):

Also during the approximate time of this Oval Office meeting, Peter Strzok texts with Lisa Page about information relayed to him by Tashina Guahar (main justice) on behalf of Rod Rosenstein (who is at the White House).

Later that night, after the Oval Office meeting – According to the Mueller report, additional events on Tuesday May 16th, 2017:

Interesting that Tashina Gauhar was taking notes presumably involved in the May 16, 2017 meeting between, Lisa Page, Rod Rosenstein, and Andrew McCabe. 

This meeting at Main Justice appears to be happening in the evening (“later that night”) after the visit to the White House with Robert Mueller.  This meeting appears to be Lisa Page, Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe; along with Tashina Gauhar taking notes.

Why is Tuesday, May 16th, 2017, date of additional importance?

♦ Wednesday May 17th, 2017:  Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe go to brief the congressional “Gang-of-Eight”: Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Richard Burr and Mark Warner.

(…) “On the afternoon of May 17, Rosenstein and I sat at the end of a long conference table in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol. We were there to brief the so-called Gang of Eight—the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Rosenstein had, I knew, made a decision to appoint a special counsel in the Russia case.”

(…) “After reminding the committee of how the investigation began, I told them of additional steps we had taken. Then Rod took over and announced that he had appointed a special counsel to pursue the Russia investigation and that the special counsel was Robert Mueller.” (link)

Immediately following this May 17, 2017, Go8 briefing, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein notified the public of the special counsel appointment.

What is clear from a review of all the related and released information is the FBI small group (McCabe, Page, Strzok, Rybicki, Baker) were hiding the ongoing FBI investigation from other FBI officials (including the SSA Whistleblower), inside the department after Comey was fired.

McCabe launched a “criminal investigation” (obstruction) on May 10th, and Rosenstein was in immediate contact with Robert Mueller about being a special counsel after conversations with the FBI small group. The small group was then releasing information to their media allies, and hiding the releases from FBI agents outside the small group; until they no longer needed to do so (May 15).

On May 15th, it appears the SSA was finally notified of the Comey memos because the small group already knew Robert Mueller was going to be appointed.

Comey, his lawyers and Lawfare allies, together with the small group, coordinated to leak and publish the NYT article (May 16th) the day Mueller was interviewing President Trump in the oval office. They knew Mueller was going to be appointed the following day, May 17th.  The NYT leak was cover and ammunition for Rod Rosenstein to fulfill his role.

This is the Special Counsel as the insurance policy deployed.

Everything was a set up by the small group; exclusively executed by the small group; kept hidden from other FBI agents and officials; Mueller’s visit with President Trump was part of that investigative effort.

This overall conspiracy/plan is why the SSA turned to the Inspector General and requested Whistleblower protection.  This is also why IG Horowitz was motivated to carve out the Comey memos in his report.  KEY POINT – OIG Michael Horowitz has outlined the Special Counsel appointment as fraudulently predicated.

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/31/2019)

(Republished with permission.)

“When we were investigating Fusion GPS, they were actively involved in working to smear me to obstruct justice, to derail our investigation — and so, I’m gonna hold these guys accountable, and this is just one of many steps we’re gonna continue to take,” continued Nunes.

Nunes filed a $9.9 million federal conspiracy lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia alleging that the Fusion GPS behind the anti-Trump Steele dossier coordinated with another group to file several fraudulent and harassing ethics complaints intended to derail his investigation.

The complaint named Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability (CfA) said the “smear” tactics kicked into action shortly after Simpson “lied” in his closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017, as well as before the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017.

“The bank records produced by Fusion GPS revealed that the Clinton campaign, the DNC and Perkins Coie paid for Fusion GPS’ anti-Trump research,” Nunes’ complaint stated.” (Sara A. Carter, 9/05/2019)

“A conservative watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information Lawsuit against the FBI seeking information about two bureau officials it accuses of being “spies” for former FBI Director James Comey in the White House.

The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, announced on its website Wednesday that the FBI missed a deadline to respond to its July FOIA request and filed its lawsuit in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit seeks a wide array of records, including “all” of Comey’s emails from April 1, 2016, to May 31, 2017.

The FOIA request was made following a report by RealClearInvestigations that explored possible misconduct by Comey for what two U.S. officials described as essentially “running a covert operation against” President Trump starting in 2017 even as he was assuring Trump he was not the subject of any investigation.

Anthony Ferranti (Credit: public domain)

Jordan Rae Kelly (Credit: public domain)

The report said longtime FBI official Anthony Ferrante worked as a cybersecurity adviser on the National Security Council and was sharing information about Trump and his aides back to FBI headquarters. Ferrante, who after leaving the government joined business-advising firm FTI Consulting was hired by BuzzFeed to verify parts of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, now may be tied to an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses by the DOJ and the FBI being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

After Ferrante left the White House job in April 2017, he was replaced by another FBI official, Jordan Rae Kelly, who signed security logs for Ferrante to enter the White House while he was contracted by BuzzFeed. Kelly left the White House last year and also joined FTI Consulting.

“The indications are those individuals were reporting directly back to James Comey,” Sekulow said on Fox News late Wednesday. “So what he did was he took counterintelligence investigation that was taking place during the presidential campaign, brought it into the White House when the president was sworn in as no longer president-elect but in fact as president.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 9/05/2019)  (Archive)

US Senators Ron Johnson (l) and Chris Murphy (r) make a statement for the media after their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outside the Presidential Office in Kiev, Ukraine, Sept 5, 2019. (Credit: public domain)

“Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset” and it would be viewed as election meddling and “disastrous for long-term U.S.-Ukraine relations” to bend to the wishes of Trump and Giuliani.

“I told Zelensky that he should not insert himself or his government into American politics. I cautioned him that complying with the demands of the President’s campaign representatives to investigate a political rival of the President would gravely damage the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on in Washington these days, and support for Ukraine is one of them,” Murphy told me today, confirming what he told Ukraine’s leader.

The implied message did not require an interpreter for Zelensky to understand: Investigate the Ukraine dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and you jeopardize Democrats’ support for future U.S. aid to Kiev.

The Murphy anecdote is a powerful reminder that, since at least 2016, Democrats repeatedly have exerted pressure on Ukraine, a key U.S. ally for buffering Russia, to meddle in U.S. politics and elections.

And that activity long preceded Giuliani’s discussions with Ukrainian officials and Trump’s phone call to Zelensky in July, seeking to have Ukraine formally investigate whether then-Vice President Joe Biden used a threat of canceling foreign aid to shut down an investigation into $3 million routed to the U.S. firm run by Biden’s son.

As I have reported, the pressure began at least as early as January 2016, when the Obama White House unexpectedly invited Ukraine’s top prosecutors to Washington to discuss fighting corruption in the country.

The meeting promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.

U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, the former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who organized and attended the meetings.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/23/2019) (Archive)

(…) Seemingly closed down, the anti-Trump operatives had a back door into official intelligence channels, the same entrance they’d used for the Steele dossier — the media. A September 5 Washington Post editorial reported that Trump was “attempting to force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.”

Now that the article had sparked interest in a part of the unfolding operation, Atkinson produced another piece of the puzzle. He notified the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on September 9 that he had a whistleblower complaint. Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Adam Schiff was on relay. That same day, he and two other Democratic committee chairmen announced the opening of an investigation into Trump, Giuliani, and Ukraine. They cited recent press reports, a less than subtle reference to the September 5 Washington Post op-ed. It was the same process used during the Russiagate operation: A report based on a fraudulent document is leaked to the press, which publishes it, and intelligence officials cite it as a pretext to justify starting an investigation.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

Jeffrey Danik and Robert Mueller (Credit: public domain)

“The Department of Justice is seeking former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s text messages and according to government sources, those will play a significant role in understanding the FBI’s probe into both President Donald Trump’s campaign and the bureaus’ handling of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to send government emails.

Lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to get the text messages during the litany of Congressional investigations that have culminated in Attorney General William Barr appointing Connecticut prosecutor John Durham to investigate the FBI’s handling of the election probe. Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes, R-CA, said his committee was stymied by the FBI when they attempted to retrieve McCabe’s communications.

“The House Intelligence Committee tried to get the McCabe texts in the last Congress, but we were stonewalled,” Nunes told SaraACarter.com on Monday. “This is the kind of issue that really needs more transparency. There’s been too much unnecessary secrecy surrounding the entire Russia investigation- the American people deserve to know exactly what happened.”

The text messages between FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his then lover FBI attorney Lisa Page were regarded as a trove of information for congressional investigators. Page and Strzok’s text messages were turned over and for the most part – other than the details of the pairs private romantic relationship- to lawmakers during the congressional probes. The lawmakers were able to read the texts as part of the ongoing investigations either in-camera or when certain portions were declassified and made public.

(…)  Judicial Watch also sought the text messages earlier this year. The government watchdog group filed a motion in May to obtain McCabe’s text messages on behalf of FBI supervisory special agent Jeffery Danik.

Danik, who served 28 years in the FBI, filed a motion against the Department of Justice last year for refusing a Freedom of Information Act Request to turn over the texts, as well as McCabe’s FBI emails. Danik had originally filed a FOIA to obtain the communications two years ago.” (Read more: SaraACarter, 9/09/2019)

“Today Michael Flynn and his attorney Sidney Powell returned to federal court for a status hearing before Judge Emmet Sullivan.  Generally status hearings are uneventful; however, this hearing falls on the heels of an explosive filing by Flynn’s defense outlining allegations of serious prosecutorial misconduct; and claims the DOJ is withholding Brady material.

Before getting into the heart of the proceedings, here is Ms. Sidney Powell appearing on Fox News to discuss the events today.  In this interview Ms. Powell confirms something we have previously presented; Rod Rosenstein authorized Robert Mueller to target Michael Flynn Jr. in order to provide leverage for a Flynn guilty plea.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/10/2019)

General Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“An attorney for Michael Flynn said in federal court Tuesday she may seek a dismissal of charges against the former national security adviser, citing “egregious conduct and suppression” of exculpatory information in the case.

Prosecutors handling the case had a surprise of their own, telling Judge Emmet Sullivan that they are now reserving the option of recommending jail time for Flynn, instead of just probation. Prosecutors with the special counsel’s team last year recommended that Flynn receive probation without jail time because of his substantial cooperation in several investigations.

But Flynn’s situation has changed dramatically since then. He no longer has to meet with the special counsel’s team since the Russia probe has ended. And in June, he hired a new legal team that has aggressively challenged the government’s investigation of Flynn.

Flynn’s defense attorney, Sidney Powell, told Judge Emmet Sullivan that the legal team has no plans to pull out of a plea deal that Flynn struck with the special counsel on Dec. 1, 2017. Instead, Powell is questioning the basis of the government’s case against Flynn and may seek to have charges thrown out altogether. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/10/2019)

“Since June 6, 2019, immediately upon accepting Mr. Flynn’s defense, new counsel for Mr. Flynn has requested the following information in unredacted form pursuant to Brady and its progeny. Thoroughly stymied in our efforts to obtain this information from the government, despite its obligations to produce it, we necessarily enlist the aid of this Court in enforcing its standing Order.

The 40 Items

1. A letter delivered by the British Embassy to the incoming National Security team after Donald Trump’s election, and to outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice (the letter apparently disavows former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question and declares him untrustworthy).

2. The original draft of Mr. Flynn’s 302 and 1A-file, and any FBI document that identifies everyone who had possession of it (parts of which may have been leaked to the press, but the full original has never been produced). This would include information given to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on January 24 and 25,2017.

3. All documents, notes, information, FBI 302s, or testimony regarding Nellie Ohr’s research on Mr. Flynn and any information about transmitting it to the DOJ, CIA, or FBI.

4. All payments, notes, memos, correspondence, and instructions by and between the FBI, CIA, or DOD with Stefan Halper—going back as far as 2014—regarding Michael Flynn, Svetlana Lokhova, Mr. Richard Dearlove (of MI6), and Professor Christopher Andrew (connected with MI5) and Halper’s compensation through the Office of Net Assessment as evidenced by the whistleblower complaint of Adam Lovinger, addressed in our brief. This includes David Shedd (former Deputy Director of DIA) and Mike Vickers, who were CIA officers; James H. Baker; former DIA Director LTG Stewart; former DIA Deputy Director Doug Wise; and the DIA Director of Operations (DOD). This should also include any communications or correspondence of any type arising from the investigation or alleged concerns about Mr. Flynn that contained a copy to (as a “cc” or “bcc”) or was addressed directly to the DNI James Clapper and his senior staff; to CIA Director Brennan and his senior staff; or to FBI Director Comey, his Deputy Andrew McCabe, and senior staff.

5. The Flynn 302 dated January 19, 2017, mentioned in the Mueller Report.

6. All and unredacted Page-Strzok text messages. Mr. Van Grack’s October 4, 2018, letter asserts: “To the extent the text messages appear to be incomplete or contain gaps, we do not possess additional messages that appear to fill such gaps.” The government should be compelled to identify to whom “we” refers, where the originals are, and whether any of the gaps have been filled or accounted for.

7. All documents, reports, correspondence, and memoranda, including any National Security letter or FISA application, concerning any earlier investigation of Mr. Flynn, and the basis for it. (The existence of these earlier investigations was disclosed in the Mueller Report; see Vol. II at pp. 24, 26.)

8. All transcripts, recordings, notes, correspondence, and 302s of any interactions with human sources or “OCONUS lures” tasked against Mr. Flynn since he left DIA in 2014.

9. The unredacted Page-Strzok text messages as well as text messages, emails and other electronic communications to, from, or between Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, John Carlin, Aaron Rouse, Carl Ghattas, Andrew Weissmann, Tashina Gauhar, Michael Steinbach, and Zainab Ahmad, regarding Mr. Flynn or the FISA applications or any surveillance (legal or illegal) that would have reached Mr. Flynn’s communications.

10. All evidence concerning notification by the Inspector General of the DOJ to the Special Counsel of the Strzok-Page text messages, including the actual text of any messages given to the Special Counsel, and the dates on which they were given. Although the Inspector General notified Special Counsel of the tens of thousands of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page no later than July 2017—the prosecutors did not produce a single text message to the defense until March 13, 2018.

11. All evidence of press contacts between the Special Counsel Office, including Andrew Weissmann, Ms. Ahmad, and Mr. Van Grack from the departure of Peter Strzok from special Counsel team until December 8, 2017, regarding Mr. Flynn.

12. Unredacted copies of all memos created by or other communications from James Comey that mention or deal with any investigation, surveillance, FISA applications, interviews, or use of a confidential human source or “OCONUS lures” against Mr.Flynn.

13. An unredacted copy of all of James Comey’s testimony before any Congressional committees

14. The James Comey 302 for November 15, 2017, and all Comey 302s that bear on or mention Mr. Flynn.

15. Notes and documents of any kind dealing with any briefings that Mr. Flynn provided to DIA after he left the government.

16. Any information, including recordings or 302s, about Joseph Mifsud’s presence and involvement in engaging or reporting on Mr. Flynn and Mifsud’s presence at the Russia Today dinner in Moscow on December 17, 2015.

17. All notes, memoranda, 302s, and other information about the McCabe-Strzok meeting or meetings with Vice President-Elect or Vice President Pence (these meetings were referenced in the Mueller Report at Vol II, p. 34).

18. All Mary McCord 302s or interviews, including when she knew that Mr. Flynn did not have “a clandestine relationship with Russia.”

19. Any Sally Yates 302s or other notes that concern Mr. Flynn, including treatment of her meetings with FBI Agents on January 24 and 25, 2017, her meetings with anyone in the White House, and the draft 302 of the Flynn interview on January 24 she reviewed or was read into.

20. An internal DOJ document dated January 30, 2017, in which the FBI exonerated Mr.Flynn of being “an agent of Russia.”

21. All information provided by Kathleen Kavalec at the Department of State to the FBI regarding Christopher Steele prior to the first FISA application.

22. Any and all evidence that during a senior-attended FBI meeting or video conference, Andrew McCabe said “First we fuck Flynn, then we fuck Trump,” or words to that effect.

23. The two-page Electronic Communication (EC) that allegedly began the “Russia Collusion” investigation.

24. All information that underlies the several FISA applications, including any information showing that any of the assertions in the applications were false, unverified, or unverifiable.

25. All documents, notes, information, FBI 302s, or testimony regarding any debriefing that Bruce Ohr gave to anyone in the FBI or Department of Justice regarding Christopher Steele.

26. Testimony, interviews, 302s, notes of interviews of all persons who signed FISA applications regarding Mr. Flynn or anyone that would have reached Mr. Flynn’s communications, without regard to whether those applications were approved or rejected.

27. All FISA applications since 2015 related to the Russia matter, whether approved or rejected, which involve Mr. Flynn or reached his communications with anyone.

28. Information identifying reporters paid by Fusion GPS and/or the Penn Quarter group to push “Russia Collusion,” communications regarding any stories about Mr. Flynn, and any testimony or statements about how the reporters were used by the government regarding Mr. Flynn.

29. FBI 302s of KT McFarland, notes of interviews of her or her own notes, and text messages with Mr. Flynn from approximately December 27, 2016, until Flynn’s resignation.

30. Any information regarding the SCO’s and DOJ’s destruction of the cell phones of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (after being advised of the thousands of text messages that evidenced that has been classified or otherwise not available to the public from the published Inspector General Report.

31. Any information regarding eradication of cell phone data, texts, emails, or other information belonging to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that created the “gap” identified by the IG.

32. Information about any parts of any polygraph examinations failed by Peter Strzok after Mr. Flynn was first the subject of any FBI investigation—authorized or unauthorized.

33. Brady or Giglio material newly discovered by the government (and by the Inspector General in his separate investigations) in the last two years.

34. A full unredacted and copies of the recordings of Mr. Flynn’s calls with Ambassador Kislyak or anyone else that were reviewed or used in any way by the FBI or SCO in its evaluation of charges against Mr. Flynn.

35. All FBI 302s, notes, memoranda of James Clapper regarding Mr. Flynn, and the cell phone and home phone records of Mr. Clapper and David Ignatius between December 5, 2016, and February 24, 2017. Although not previously requested, the government should be compelled to produce:

36. Unredacted scope memos written for the Special Counsel and any requests by Special Counsel that mention Mr. Flynn or his son.

37.All FBI 302s or any notes of interviews of David Ignatius or any other reporter regarding the publication of information concerning Mr. Flynn and/or the reporters contact with James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, Michael Kortan, or anyone in the FBI, DNI, DOD, DOJ, or CIA regarding Mr. Flynn.

38.FBI 302s and interview notes of Jim Woolsey, including notes by SCO members of conversations with Woolsey about Mr. Flynn, Flynn Intel Group, the Turkey project, and his separate meeting with officials of Turkey after the meeting that was the subject of the FIG FARA filing.

39.All communications between Mr. David Laufman, Ms. Heather Hunt and any other member of the National Security Division regarding the FARA registration for Mr.Flynn and FIG and notes, reports or recordings of their interaction with Covington & Burling with regards to the filing and its contents. See Def.’s Resp. to the Ct.’s Order of July 9 & Gov.’s Filing of July 10, Ex. D, July 11, 2019, No. 17-232-EGS

40. Unredacted notes of the (redacted) and Strzok from the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24, 2017.

In response, Judge Sullivan issues the following order:

(Flynn Motion to Show Cause and Compel/Scribd Document, 9/11/2019)

Senators Ron Johnson and Charles Grassley have a few questions that are put in a letter dated September 12, 2019, to State Department OIG Steve Linick who reviewed a meeting between State Dept officials and Christopher Steele. The review or lack thereof appears to have left them with more questions than answers. Here is a clipping of the relevant part of their letter:

(Grassley/Johnson/Linick Letter, 9/12/2019)

Andrew McCabe (Credit: Lancaster Dems)

“U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe — the former deputy and acting director of the FBI — appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general, but he rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding misleading statements concerning a Hillary Clinton-related investigation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, “The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office.” (Read more: Fox News, 9/12/2019)

“U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to U.S. Department of State Inspector General Steve Linick today seeking an explanation as to why his office did not issue a report on its investigation into the October 2016 meeting between Christopher Steele and Orbis Intelligence employee Tatyana Duran, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary Kathleen Kavalec, and then-Special Envoy Jonathan Winer. The senators also seek to understand why the state department OIG did not interview all parties present at that October 2016 meeting.

“We write seeking to understand why the OIG did not issue a report on its investigation and did not interview employees who most likely have relevant information regarding the subject matter of the inquiry,” the senators wrote.

The senators asked the state department OIG about its failure to interview Mr. Winer in light of him introducing Mr. Steele to high-ranking state department officials with direct access to their counterparts at the FBI days before the FBI sought a FISA order to surveil a Trump campaign official.

The senators also learned the state department OIG discovered at least one department official, Mr. Winer, utilized non-official email accounts to conduct official department business, and they have requested an explanation as to why the OIG did not interview Mr. Winer about his use of personal email when he directed others to upload those emails to classified systems within the department.  In addition, the senators learned that the state department OIG determined a department employee may have engaged in anti-Trump political conduct, in violation of the Hatch Act, and the OIG referred that individual to the Office of Special Counsel for Investigation. That Hatch Act investigation is ongoing.

The Office of Special Counsel is the permanent, independent investigative agency for personnel matters in the federal government and is not related to Robert Mueller’s temporary prosecutorial office within the justice department.

The full text of the letter can be viewed here.

Sens. Johnson and Grassley’s May 9, 2019, letters to the state department and the FBI can be viewed here.

(GrassleySenate.gov, 9/12/2019)

(…) On September 13, Schiff subpoenaed [Admiral] Maguire to get the complaint. That same day, he put out a press release about the subpoena, which forced the whistleblower’s complaint into the public for the first time. HPSCI had always treated whistleblower’s complaints with discretion — but the point of the Ciaramella dossier operation was to force the complaint into the public.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: Brendon Smialkowski/Agence France Press/Getty Images)

“State Department investigators probing Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state discovered nearly 600 security incidents that violated agency policy, according to a report the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained.

The investigation, conducted by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, found 38 individuals were culpable for 91 security violations. Another 497 violations were found, but no individuals were found culpable in those incidents.

The investigation concluded Sept. 6, and the report was issued Sept. 13.

(…) The FBI determined that thousands of the emails on Clinton’s server contained some level of classified information. Some of those emails were found to have information classified as top secret, the highest level of classification.

State Department investigators reviewed all of Clinton’s emails, obtained hundreds of statements, and conducted dozens of in-person interviews with current and former State Department officials, according to the report.

Investigators determined personal email use to conduct official State Department business “represented an increased risk of unauthorized disclosure.” Clinton’s use of the private server “added an increased degree of risk of compromise as a private system lacks the network monitoring and intrusion detection capabilities of State Department networks,” the report stated.

Investigators said there was “no persuasive evidence” of “systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

One reason that investigators were unable to assign culpability in the 497 incidents was because of the duration of the investigation. Many of the subjects of the probe, including Clinton and her circle of aides, has left the State Department by the time the investigation began.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/18/2019)  (Archive)

“Reports that the CIA conducted an emergency exfiltration of a long-time human intelligence source who was highly placed within the Russian Presidential Administration sent shock waves throughout Washington, D.C. The source was said to be responsible for the reporting used by the former director of the CIA, John Brennan, in making the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election for the purpose of tipping the scales in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. According to CNN’s Jim Sciutto, the decision to exfiltrate the source was driven in part by concerns within the CIA over President Trump’s cavalier approach toward handling classified information, including his willingness to share highly classified intelligence with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a controversial visit to the White House in May 2017.

On closer scrutiny, however, this aspect of the story falls apart, as does just about everything CNN, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have reported. There was a Russian spy whose information was used to push a narrative of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election; this much appears to be true. Everything else that has been reported is either a mischaracterization of fact or an outright fabrication designed to hide one of the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history — the use by a CIA director of intelligence data specifically manipulated to interfere in the election of an American president.

The consequences of this interference have deleteriously impacted U.S. democratic institutions in ways the American people remain ignorant of — in large part because of the complicity of the U.S. media when it comes to reporting this story.

Oleg Smolenkov (Credit: public domain)

This article attempts to set the record straight by connecting the dots presented by available information and creating a narrative shaped by a combination of derivative analysis and informed speculation. At best, this article brings the reader closer to the truth about Oleg Smolenkov’s role as a CIA asset; at worst, it raises issues and questions that will help in determining the truth.

(…) Every Russian diplomat assigned to the United States is screened to ascertain his or her susceptibility for recruitment. The FBI does this from a counterintelligence perspective, looking for Russian spies. The CIA does the same, but with the objective of recruiting a Russian source who can remain in the employ of the Russian government, and thereby provide the CIA with intelligence information commensurate to their standing and access. Turning a senior Russian diplomat is difficult; recruiting a junior Russian diplomat like Oleg Smolenkov less so. Someone like Smolenkov would be viewed not so much by the limited access he provided at the time of recruitment, but rather his potential for promotion and the increased opportunity for more essential access provided by such.

The responsibility within the CIA for recruiting Russian diplomats living in the United States falls to the National Resources Division, or NR, part of the Directorate of Operations, or DO — the clandestine arm of the CIA. In a perfect world, the CIA domestic station in Washington, D.C., would coordinate with the local FBI field office and develop a joint approach for recruiting a Russian diplomat such as Smolenkov. The reality is, however, that the CIA and the FBI have different goals and objectives when it comes to the Russians they recruit. As such, Smolenkov’s recruitment was most likely a CIA-only affair, run by NR but closely monitored by the Russian Operations Group of the Agency’s Central Eurasia Division, who would have responsibility for managing Smolenkov upon his return to Moscow.

The precise motive for Smolenkov to take up the CIA’s offer of recruitment remains unknown. He graduated from one of the premier universities in Russia, the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, and he married his English language instructor. Normally a graduate from an elite university such as Maurice Thorez has his or her pick of jobs in the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense or the security services. Smolenkov was hired by the Foreign Ministry as a junior linguist, assigned to the Second European Department, which focuses on Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Baltics, before getting assigned to the embassy in Washington.”  (Read more: Consortium News, 9/14/2019)

The London offices of Orbis Business Intelligence. (Credit: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said Friday that U.S. officials received as many as six warnings that dossier author Christopher Steele was an unreliable source of information regarding President Donald Trump.

Graham discussed the assessment of Steele during a radio interview with host Sean Hannity, but he stopped short of describing all of the information regarding the former British spy because much of it is classified.

“There’s four events that I’m aware of, five actually, where the system was informed that Christopher Steele was an unreliable informant when it came to Trump,” Graham told Hannity.

“Some of them I can’t tell you yet until we get this stuff declassified. But I think it’s going to be five; it may be six,” the South Carolina Republican added later.” (Daily Caller, 9/14/2019)

Judge Reggie Walton (Credit: public domain)

“A federal judge compared White House involvement in an investigation of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to a “banana republic,” and accused people “at the top” of undermining the “integrity” of the judicial process, new documents revealed Friday.

The chilling statements were disclosed in records obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a lawsuit. The attack by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on White House pressure emerged amid mounting controversy over Attorney General William Barr’s manipulation of criminal cases involving allies of President Donald Trump or those he perceives as enemies.

The Justice Department announced Friday that it wasn’t pursuing any criminal charges against McCabe — a frequent target of Trump’s — for allegedly misleading investigators about a leak to the media concerning an FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation.

Walton, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush and serves in the District of Columbia, chided DOJ prosecutors in September for repeated delays in deciding whether to bring charges against McCabe and keeping him under a cloud of suspicion, which he suspected served White House interests.

“I fully appreciate the complexity of the assessment, especially — unfortunately, to be candid — in light of the way by the White House, which I don’t think top executive officers should be doing,” he said, according to a transcript of a discussion when prosecutors requested yet another delay.

“I don’t think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. I just think it’s a banana republic when we go down that road and we have those type of statements being made that are conceivably … influencing the ultimate decision,” Walton said. “I think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive that there is undue, inappropriate pressure being brought to bear.” (Read more: Huffington Post, 2/14/2020)  (Archive)

The White House Press Secretary released the following statement on September 17, 2019:

At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.

In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.

(whitehouse.gov/briefing, 9/17/2019)

Greg Miller (l) Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, and AAron Blake (r) (Credit: Washington Post)

(…) On September 18, three of the Washington Post’s top collusion conspiracy theory reporters, Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Shane Harris wrote that the whistleblower’s complaint involves “Trump’s communications with a foreign leader” and a “promise” that was made. The release of the transcript would show no promise was made.

On September 19, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake showed two of the pieces together. He wrote that the complaint dealt with Ukraine and hinted it had to do with foreign aid. “Lawmakers were concerned,” wrote Blake, “that the administration was failing to provide $250 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is intended to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia.”

By declassifying the transcript of his call with Zelensky, Trump had gained a step on his opponents. The Steele dossier was made of rumors and whispered accounts of things that never happened, but Ciaramella’s fiction was based on a real dialogue that anyone could now read for themselves to know the truth. Trump’s reluctance to hand out U.S. taxpayer dollars to a foreign government was unlikely to turn supporters against a president who had campaigned on America First. That his adversaries saw it rather as a vulnerability highlighted how far Washington was from the rest of America.” (Read more: Justthenews, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records about FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, who was the Legal Attaché in Rome who helped circulate the Steele dossier (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02722)).

The suit was filed after the Justice Department and FBI failed to respond to an August 10, 2018, FOIA requests seeking:

• All records of communications, including emails (using [his or her] own name or aliases), text messages, instant chats and encrypted messages, sent to and from former FBI Legal Attaché in Rome, Special Agent Michael Gaeta, mentioning the terms “Trump”, “Clinton”, “Republican”, “Democrat”, and/or “conservatives.”

• All SF50s and SF52s of SA Michael Gaeta.

• All expense reports and travel vouchers submitted for SA Michael Gaeta.

On August 28, 2018, Bruce Ohr testified before a joint task force of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees that Christopher Steele, author of the Clinton funded dossier, gave two reports from the dossier to Gaeta.

In the July 30 meeting, Chris Steele also mentioned something about the doping — you know, one of the doping scandals. And he also mentioned, I believe — and, again, this is based on my review of my notes — that he had provided Mr. Gaeta with two reports…”

The only thing I recall him mentioning is that he had provided two of his reports to Special Agent Gaeta.

Gaeta reportedly was authorized by then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to meet with Steele at his office in London to receive reports from the dossier

The purpose of the London visit was clear. Steele was personally handing the first memo in his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.

For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele’s reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele’s firm, Orbis.

“The FBI is covering up its role in the Russiagate hoax,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch has had to fight the FBI ‘tooth and nail’ for every scrap of information about the illicit targeting of President Trump.” (Read more: September 18, 2019)

“In the days leading up to last week’s release of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff implied that he was unaware of the substance of the allegations in the document, which centered on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president.

But a report from The New York Times on Wednesday raises news questions about Schiff’s claims.

According to the newspaper, Schiff had a general idea of the substance of the complaint by the time it was filed on Aug. 12. That’s because the would-be whistleblower approached a Schiff aide on the House Intelligence Committee. In turn, the aide directed the individual to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG), and briefed Schiff on the subject of the complaint.

Schiff and his staff “knew at least vaguely” what was in the complaint when it was filed, according to The Times.

But Schiff played coy for weeks when discussing the mysterious complaint. During his many interviews about the allegations against Trump, he did not reveal that his office had been in contact with the whistleblower or that he had any awareness of the person’s allegations.

(Congresswoman Elise Stefanik/Twitter/9/27/2019)

In a Sept. 19 press conference, he suggested that he did not know what the whistleblower was alleging. He also asserted that he might not even know that a complaint had been filed if Michael Atkinson, the IC IG, had not contacted Congress earlier last month regarding the complaint.

“In the absence of the actions, and I want to thank the inspector general, in the absence of his actions in coming to our committee, we might not have even known there was a whistleblower complaint alleging an urgent concern,” Schiff said during a press briefing on Sept. 19.

Schiff left out the part about his staff member directing the whistleblower to contact the IC IG in the first place.

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/02/2019)

On Sunday, September 30, 2019, Nancy Pelosi appears CBS 60 Minutes and says the following:

“He told me it was perfect, that there was nothing on the call,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” referring to a conversation she had with President Trump before the Trump administration released the transcript.

“But I know what was in the call,” Pelosi continued, before quickly adding, “I mean, uh, it was in the public domain.”
(Read more: Sarah Carter, 9/30/2019)

(Congresswoman Liz Cheney/Twitter/9/30/2019)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko (Credit: Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

“In an interview with media outlet Hromadske, Prystaiko said Ukraine was an independent state and would not take sides in U.S. politics even if “in theory” the country was in a position to do so. He added that Kiev appreciated the assistance it received from Washington.

Zelenskiy’s office has so far declined to comment on the allegations.

“I know what the conversation was about and I think there was no pressure,” Prystaiko said. “This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on many questions, sometimes requiring serious answers.”

Trump dismissed the Sept. 12 complaint from the whistleblower within the intelligence community as a partisan hit against him.

Trump had spoken Zelenskiy less than three weeks before the complaint was filed. Trump is due to meet Zelenskiy during a United Nations gathering in New York.

Prystaiko said Zelenskiy had the right to keep conversations with other leaders confidential.

“I want to say that we are an independent state, we have our secrets,” he was quoted as saying in the interview.” (Read more: Reuters, 9/21/2019)

On September 22, 2019, Pompeo and Giuliani appear on the three Sunday news shows, Giuliani also appears on Fox News Sunday.

Giuliani suggests Biden removed Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and approved the new prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko as part of an effort to “frame” Paul Manafort and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Giuliani also asserts that the new Prosecutor dropped a case against George Soros’ organization Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC)  for producing information to smear Manafort.

I went there as a lawyer defending his client. I — I have known about this for five months. I have been trying to get people to cover this for five months. So, I knew it would be very, very hard to get this out.

And what I’m talking about, this, it’s Ukrainian collusion, which was large, significant, and proven with Hillary Clinton,with the Democratic National Committee, a woman named Chalupa, with the ambassador, with an FBI agent who’s now been hired by George Soros who was funding a lot of it.

Hillary Clinton meets with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in New York, September 2016 (Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

When Biden got the prosecutor fired, the new prosecutor, who Biden approved — you don’t get to approve a prosecutor in a foreign country, unless something fishy is going on.

The new prosecutor dropped the case, not just on Biden’s kid and the crooked company that Biden’s kid work for, Burisma. That was done as a matter of record in October of 2016, after the guy got tanked.

He also dropped the case on George Soros’ company called AntAC. AntAC is the company where there’s documentary evidence that they were producing false information about Trump, about Biden. Fusion GPS was there.

Go back and listen to Nellie Ohr’s testimony. Nellie Ohr says that there was a lot of contact between Democrats and the Ukraine.

The complete interview is here.

Two days after Biden announced his candidacy, Giuliani attempted to call attention to “possible conspiracy (collusion) between DNC and Clinton operatives and Ukrainian officials to set up members of the Trump campaign.”

(Twitter)

Giuliani tweets on March 22 that attention should be paid to “some real collusion between Hillary, Kerry and Biden people colluding with Ukrainian operatives to make money and affect the 2016 election.”

Giuliani also suggests an investigation would show Biden was involved in the 2016 election interference coming out of Ukraine. On Oct. 1, Giuliani wrote in no uncertain terms, “Joe’s wide range of corruption included obstructing an investigation of Dem 2016 election interference.”

(Twitter)

A minute later, Giuliani tweets, “this is corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration” involved an “illegal impact from Ukraine on the 2016 election. I was investigating this as an attorney to vindicate my client. It began and was largely done before Biden announced his run for President”

(Twitter)

On Sept. 19, 2019, Giuliani has an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo:

“The prosecutor was removed because he was investigating the son, and he was investigating Soros’s charity or whatever the hell it was, AntAC. The new prosecutor that came in dismissed both cases,” Giuiliani said. “If you listen to Joe Biden’s tape, he convicts himself. He says, ‘I told the president of the Ukraine, if you don’t dismiss this guy, you’re not going to get your 1.2 billion dollars.’”

Two days after the Sunday morning shows, Giuliani was back on Fox News, this time in an interview with Laura Ingraham, where he took another opportunity to spell out that the investigation into the 2016 election investigation targeted Biden too.

INGRAHAM: But how are you defending him [Trump] by investigating Biden? How — please spell it out for us.

GIULIANI: Because one of the things that the prosecutor that Biden had fired and then the prosecutor that Biden helped to put in, one of the things they did was to dismiss a case against an organization that was collecting false information about Donald Trump, about Paul Manafort, and feeding it to the Democratic National Committee.

INGRAHAM: OK, that explains it to people. I don’t think people understood that.

On Sept.29, Giuliani tells ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, “What the President’s talking about is — however, there is a — load of evidence that the Ukrainians created false information, that they were asked by the Obama White House to do it in January of 2016.” He later added, “This is not about getting Joe Biden in trouble. This is about proving that Donald Trump was framed by the Democrats.”

On October 2, Giuliani appears on Sean Hannity’s show on Oct. 2, asserting that Biden was not the target of his search, but became a part of his investigation nonetheless: “I didn’t go looking for Joe Biden. The Ukrainians brought me substantial evidence of Ukrainian collusion with Hillary Clinton, the DNC, George Soros, George Soros’s company. They put it in my lap. They came and gave me a testimony.” How did that supposedly implicate Biden directly? Giuliani stated, “They – the Ukrainian oligarch, Zlochevskyi, didn’t pay millions for Hunter Biden’s non-existent skill. He paid millions to buy the Vice President’s office, and it was a good deal for Zlochevskyi. He got Hunter Biden off the hook. He got Soros’s company out of jeopardy. … If anybody would care to investigate, they could find everything I just said.”

Secretary Pompeo’s appearance on Sept. 22 with Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan asked Pompeo about Giuliani’s pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden, Pompeo’s response was highly consistent with Giuliani’s allegations that Biden interfered in the 2016 election.

“BRENNAN: I want to also ask you about Ukraine. The President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is publicly calling for an investigation by the Ukrainian government into Joe Biden, who is, obviously, a– a political opponent of the President. Is it appropriate for the President’s personal attorney to be inserting himself in foreign affairs like this?

POMPEO: If there was election interference that took place by the vice president, I think the American people deserve to know. We– we know there was interference in the 2016 election and if it’s the case that there was something going on with the President or his family that caused a conflict of interest and Vice President Biden behaved in a way that was inconsistent with the way leaders ought to operate, I think the American people deserve to know that.”
Sec. Pompeo on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sept. 22, 2019

“We’re going to see President Zelensky this week. I do hope — I do hope that if Vice President Biden engaged in behavior that was inappropriate, if he had a conflict of interest or entered — or allowed something to take place in Ukraine which may have interfered in our elections in 2016, I do hope that we get to the bottom of that.”

Sec. Pompeo on Fox News Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019

“America cannot have our elections interfered with. And if that’s what took place there, if there was that kind of activity engaged in by Vice-President Biden, we need to know.”

Sec. Pompeo on ABC’s This Week, Sept. 22, 2019

(h/t Just Security, 10/21/2019)  (Archive)

Joe Biden (Credit: Council on Foreign Relations)

“Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has locked into a specific story about the controversy in Ukraine.

He insists that, in spring 2016, he strong-armed Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor solely because Biden believed that official was corrupt and inept, not because the Ukrainian was investigating a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, that hired Biden’s son, Hunter, into a lucrative job.

There’s just one problem.

Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative.

And they raise the troubling prospect that U.S. officials may have painted a false picture in Ukraine that helped ease Burisma’s legal troubles and stop prosecutors’ plans to interview Hunter Biden during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For instance, Burisma’s American legal representatives met with Ukrainian officials just days after Biden forced the firing of the country’s chief prosecutor and offered “an apology for dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures” about the Ukrainian prosecutors, according to the Ukrainian government’s official memo of the meeting. The effort to secure that meeting began the same day the prosecutor’s firing was announced.

In addition, Burisma’s American team offered to introduce Ukrainian prosecutors to Obama administration officials to make amends, according to that memo and the American legal team’s internal emails.

The memos raise troubling questions:

1.)   If the Ukraine prosecutor’s firing involved only his alleged corruption and ineptitude, why did Burisma’s American legal team refer to those allegations as “false information?”

2.)   If the firing had nothing to do with the Burisma case, as Biden has adamantly claimed, why would Burisma’s American lawyers contact the replacement prosecutor within hours of the termination and urgently seek a meeting in Ukraine to discuss the case?

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have tried to get this information to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) since the summer of 2018, fearing it might be evidence of possible violations of U.S. ethics laws. First, they hired a former federal prosecutor to bring the information to the U.S. attorney in New York, who, they say, showed no interest. Then, the Ukrainians reached out to President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/26/2019)

Eric Ciaramella

“If you have read any of the documents that came from Fusion-GPS, Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele, you will likely find an amazing amount of similarity to the format and writing in this “whistleblower” complaint.

It was obviously written by a Lawfare member.

The complaint is the same structure as the Steele Dossier.  No direct knowledge; no direct evidence to the claims; second-hand gossip, rumors from people who might have known another person to have overheard something, mixed with prior media reports to narrate a story as told by the author. Here is the complaint:

The complaint is based on the July 25th phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.  Here’s the transcript of that call:

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson.  ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay ‘whistle-blower‘ complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was “blowing-the-whistle” based on second-hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie ‘hearsay‘.

Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.

If the DOJ-NSD exploitation of the NSA database, and/or DOJ-NSD FISA abuse, and/or DOJ-NSD FARA corruption were ever to reach sunlight, current ICIG Atkinson -as the lawyer for the process- would be under a lot of scrutiny for his involvement.

Yes, that gives current ICIG Michael Atkinson a strong and corrupt motive to participate with the Schiff/Lawfare impeachment objective.

Atkinson’s conflict-of-self-interest, and/or possible blackmail upon him by deep state actors who most certainly know his compromise, likely influenced his approach to this whistleblower complaint.   That would explain why the Dept. of Justice Office of Legal Counsel so strongly rebuked Atkinson’s interpretation of his responsibility with the complaint.

In the Justice Department’s OLC opinion, they point out that Atkinson’s internal justification for accepting the whistleblower complaint was poor legal judgment.  [See Here]  I would say Atkinson’s decision is directly related to his own risk exposure:

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/26/2019)

Kurt Volker (Credit: Reuters)

“Kurt Volker, the U.S. special representative to Ukraine, resigned Friday amid fallout from a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump regarding a phone call in July with Ukraine’s president.

Volker was one of five State Department officials that House Democrats said Friday they want to depose as part of an impeachment inquiry of Trump. The whistleblower complaint focuses on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader.

Beginning earlier this year, Volker served as a liaison between officials in the incoming Zelensky administration and Rudy Giuliani, the Trump lawyer who pushed the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

(…) Volker helped Giuliani set up meetings with Zelensky aides. But the whistleblower complaint also says that Volker and Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, met with Giuliani in an effort to “contain the damage” to national security.

Volker and Sondland also met with Ukrainian officials to help them understand the “different messages” they were receiving from Giuliani and official diplomatic channels.

Volker, who served as ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, joined the Trump State Department in 2017. He was also executive director at the McCain Institute, founded by late Arizona Sen. John McCain.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/27/2019)

(Credit: Communities Digital News)

“Attorney General William Barr reportedly listened to an audio recording of the mysterious professor at the center of the special counsel’s probe during a surprise trip last week to Italy.

Barr met with Italian intelligence officials during the trip, The Daily Beast reported citing Italian officials, and John Durham accompanied him. Durham is a federal prosecutor who is leading an inquiry into FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering activities related to the Trump campaign.

A source in Italy’s Ministry of Justice said that Italian officials played a tape for Barr and Durham, according to The Daily Beast. Another source said the Italians showed the U.S. officials other evidence related to Joseph Mifsud, who was once a Maltese diplomat and has held university positions in the U.K. and Italy.

The tape was a deposition that Mifsud gave after applying for police protection explaining why he might be in harm’s way, according to The Beast. The report said Italian Ministry of Justice records show that Mifsud applied for police protection.

Mifsud was scrutinized in the special counsel’s investigation because of his relationship in 2016 with George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide. Papadopoulos said Mifsud told him during an April 26, 2016 meeting in London that he had learned from Russian government officials that Russia had “dirt” on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands” of her emails.

(…) The special counsel portrayed Mifsud as a possible Russian agent; however, the Malta-born mystery man also has close ties to Western diplomats. He has visited the U.S. State Department and held a position at Rome’s Link Campus University, which has close ties to Western intelligence agencies.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/02/2019)  (Archive)

“The Trump-Zelensky transcript contradicts the whistleblower complaint in three notable instances, raising questions about the credibility of the whistleblower and his or her purported White House sources.

First, WB claims that his sources told him that after “an initial exchange of pleasantries” Trump “used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests.” The transcript shows that the leaders discussed meetings in Poland and DC before ending the call.

Second, WB claims that aside from the cases “purportedly dealing with the Biden family and the 2016 US election … no other ‘cases’ were discussed.” But the transcript shows that Trump and Zelensky talked of a potential probe of Marie Yovanovitch. (misspelled as Ivanovich)

Zelensky: “if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country” in regards to Yovanovitch.

In the transcript, Yovanovitch’s name is misspelled “Ivanovich” and Zelensky appears to have misstated her title as “Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine.”

WB claims the loading of the call transcript onto a secure system amounted to an abuse of that system since the “the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.” The transcript was labeled (properly) “SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN.”

The “SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN.” label was appropriate since the call contained Trump’s views on foreign nations, including Germany, a key U.S. ally. Unauthorized disclosure of such information has the potential to harm national security.

Pelosi kicked off impeachment before the White House released the transcript of the call and before the complaint was made public. As a result, she may not have been aware that the complaint is based on hearsay, some of which has now been contradicted by the call transcript.” (Ivan Pentchoukov @IvanPentchoukov/Twitter, 9/27/2019)

“The U.S. State Department has ramped up its probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server usage, with investigators questioning numerous aides of the Obama-era official in recent weeks, according to a report.

On Saturday, the Washington Post reported State Department officials informed up to 130 Clinton aides that they were found to be “culpable” of handling information that was classified lower than they should have been when transmitted through the private server.

Although some former Obama administration officials have attempted to discredit the investigation by accusing the Trump administration of targeting them, one official retorted that “the process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of political bias.”

“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” another official affirmed. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about three and a half years.”

An FBI examination of Clinton’s server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed “Secret” and 22 deemed “Top Secret”. An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department.” (Read more: Breitbart, 9/28/2019)

“The DOJ responds today to the Flynn motion for additional evidence; ie. Brady material requested by Flynn’s defense.   In the governments’ response filing (full pdf below), the DOJ rejects any additional efforts to provide evidence, and requests Judge Emmet Sullivan proceed directly to sentencing:

Additionally, the government filed a weird appendix, intended to highlight the amount of Brady material the prosecution has turned over to the defense team.  However, it is notable the appendix is full of “summaries of” instead of the raw underlying evidence. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/01/2019)

(Timeline editor’s note: Of the 40 document requests listed by Sidney Powell and ordered by Judge Sullivan, the prosecutor’s response deemed half of the items on the list to be either “not relevant” or “not helpful.” We are curious as to whether it is the prosecutor’s responsibility to make that kind of determination.)

Senator Warner lobby’s against William Barr’s nomination as AG in January, 2019. (Credit: public domain)

“Attorney General William Barr is harming America’s relationships with its closest allies by pressuring them to produce intelligence about the Russia investigation in an effort to help President Trump politically, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee charged Thursday in an exclusive interview with NBC News.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who has presided with his Republican counterpart over a two-year, bipartisan investigation into 2016 election interference efforts, said Barr’s outreach to foreign governments, confirmed by the Department of Justice, threatens to undermine decades of U.S. intelligence sharing.

“U.S. intelligence leaders have expressed their concerns to me privately on this,” said Warner, who is committee vice-chairman. “This idea that Australia’s intelligence product might be being used to go after a political opponent in domestic American politics… That’s just not what the intelligence community is about.”

The senator said he is particularly worried about the foreign requests and their impact on an intelligence-sharing pact known as the Five Eyes, which includes the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. Those countries cooperate extremely closely, sharing communications intercepts and other intelligence.

“Throughout the last 75 years, every administration has valued the sanctity of the five eyes relationship,” Warner said. “It appears this administration doesn’t value that relationship because if you did, you wouldn’t ask your allies for their intelligence for political purposes.”

Warner added: “Can you imagine if the CIA was asked to provide damaging evidence on a political opponent in Australia? There would be outrage in our political establishment.” (Read more: NBC News, 10/02/2019) (Mark Warner Tagged)

John Brennan (Credit: public domain)

“The special prosecutor investigating the spy operation against the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump will question former CIA Director John Brennan, according to Brennan’s remarks aired on Oct. 2.

“I am supposedly going to be interviewed by Mr. Durham as part of this non-investigation,” Brennan said on MSNBC, referring to U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Attorney General William Barr assigned Durham, a career prosecutor, to investigate whether Obama administration officials who surveilled Trump’s campaign did so legitimately.

Brennan made the comments as news surfaced that Barr and Durham expanded their investigation overseas to Italy, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Roughly a week prior to Brennan’s comments, Barr and Durham spoke to senior Italian intelligence officials.

“I don’t understand the predication of this worldwide effort to try to uncover dirt, either real or imagined, that would discredit that investigation in 2016 into Russian interference,” Brennan said.

The Department of Justice didn’t respond to a request for additional information.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/03/2019)

“…The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General has released a notification stating that a former U.S. Attorney within the DC Circuit was caught leaking grand jury information to an “unauthorized individual”:

(Link to pdf)

Unfortunately, “criminal prosecution” for leaking grand jury material “was declined”.

The Asst. U.S. Attorney (AUSA) is not identified by name, but the IG release notes the attorney is no longer working for the DOJ ; likely fired as an outcome of getting caught.

….with the name not being released, that leads to speculation. Also with the recipient not being named, that too leads to speculation.  Was the leak to the media, or was the leak for allied members of the ‘resistance’ in government (ie. congress).  Regardless, it is safe to accept the leaker and recipient are part of the Lawfare Alliance.

One possibility for the identity of the leaker is Asst. U.S. Attorney Deborah Curtis who recently withdrew from cases involving: Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Concord LLC, all cases stemming from Mueller and the scheme team prosecutions.

To be clear, we don’t know who the leaker is.  Heck, it could be Andrew Weissmann for all we know… but the timing with Curtis is, well, very conspicuous.  However, regardless of the identity of the U.S. Attorney, the primary takeaway is several-fold.

First, we see a U.S. Attorney in DC is leaking grand jury information.  That is a big deal; it shows the scale of corruption with the DOJ in/around Washington DC.

Second, we see Main Justice declining to prosecute the attorney for leaking the grand jury information.  That too is a big deal.  No outsider would ever be permitted to escape that level of accountability.

Third, once again, we can see the scale and scope of total corruption within the system.

Lawfare is a very serious problem.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/02/2019)

“For two days the mainstream media were breathlessly reporting on an “urgent request” from the State Department Inspector General for a closed-door meeting.

Media sources whipped their left-wing audiences into an anticipatory frenzy with predictions of devastating information soon to come from an “explosive” and “highly unusual” request.  It must be connected to President Trump and Secretary Mike Pompeo hiding devastating information, they said…

Well, the super-anticipated ‘closed-door’ briefing was held today, and the IG handed out packets of information related to revelations of Democrats colluding with the Ukraine government.  The exact opposite of what the media and the professional left anticipated.

WASHINGTON –  The State Department’s Inspector General shared a packet of months-old news stories and other Ukraine-related documents during an “urgent” briefing with Congressional staffers on Wednesday, sources told the Daily Caller.

Sources familiar with the meeting said the IG handed over a packet containing, among other old materials, news articles written this past spring by The Hill’s John Solomon about Democratic ties to Ukraine.

[…]  The briefing was a huge blow to Democrats, who were expecting bombshell information regarding the Trump administration’s contact with Ukraine and investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden.

In fact, several news outlets reported earlier in the day that the briefing would be about State Department leadership retaliating against career employees who wanted to cooperate with the Democrats’ investigation into Trump. (read more)

Whether the briefing was a set-up to embarrass the media is now being debated.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/02/2019)

“Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records about the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor after then-Vice President Joe Biden threatened to withhold aid. The lawsuit was filed yesterday against the U.S. Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:19-cv-02893)).

The suit was filed after the State Department failed to respond to a May 7, 2019, FOIA request seeking access to the following records:

1.       Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to Viktor Shokin’s investigation of Mykola Zolchevsky and Shokin’s resignation at Ukraine’s Prosecutor General.

2.       Any and all records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the Department of State and any official, employee, or representative of the Office of the Vice President regarding Viktor Shokin.

In a widely distributed video, Joe Biden confirmed that he successfully pressured, under threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. government aid, the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin, who had allegedly launched an investigation into Burisma, which had purportedly paid Biden’s son Hunter $50,000 a month.

“The latest assault on President Trump is an obvious attempt to protect Joe Biden from the corruption scandals involving his son,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch’s latest lawsuit will be the first of many to try to get to the bottom of this influence-peddling scandal.”

(Judicial Watch, 10/03/2019)

“Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson interviewed a second whistleblower with alleged knowledge about the call between President Donald Trump and the leader of Ukraine.

Democrats have led an impeachment inquiry over the call.

The first whistleblower’s attorney, Mark Zaid, confirmed on Oct. 6 that he’s also representing the second whistleblower. Like the first whistleblower, the second one is also a member of the intelligence community. According to Zaid, the anonymous official has firsthand knowledge of some of the events described by the first whistleblower. Both “made a protected disclosure under the law and cannot be retaliated against,” the attorney wrote on Twitter.

(Twitter)

Zaid didn’t clarify whether the second whistleblower has filed a formal complaint, revealing only that he or she has spoken with Atkinson. Zaid didn’t reply to a request from The Epoch Times for clarification.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/06/2019)

Apparently, the presumption of innocence is but a quaint memory now.

Brennan clarifies his true opinion of due process in an interview with Lawrence O’Donnell:

“People are innocent, you know until alleged to be involved in some kind of criminal activity.”

This  also caught the attention of Glenn Greenwald and he tweets a video clip of Brennan’s recent comment as well as an additional example of his distorted opinion of our most basic rights:

“There is a lot to unpack in a decision today by the Director of National Intelligence to declassify (with redactions) a 2018 FISA court ruling about ongoing unauthorized database search queries by FBI agents/”contractors” in the period covering 2017/2018.

BACKGROUND: In April 2017 the DNI released a FISA report written by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer that showed massive abuse, via unauthorized searches of the NSA database, in the period of November 2015 through May 2016. Judge Collyer’s report specifically identified search query increases tied to the 2016 presidential primary.  Two years of research identified this process as the DOJ/FBI and IC using the NSA database to query information related to political candidates, specifically Donald Trump.

Judge James Boasberg (Credit: public domain)

Now we fast-forward to Judge Boasberg in a similar review (full pdf below), looking at the time period of 2017 through March 2018.

The timing here is an important aspect.

It is within this time-period where ongoing DOJ and FBI activity transfers from the Obama administration (Collyer report) into the Trump administration (Boasberg report).

It cannot be overemphasized as you read the Boasberg opinion, or any reporting on the Boasberg opinion, that officials within DOJ and FBI are/were on a continuum.  Meaning the “small group” activity didn’t stop after the election but rather continued with the Mueller and Weissmann impeachment agenda.

Remember, the 2016 ‘insurance policy’ was to hand Mueller the 2016 FBI investigation so they could turn it into the 2017 special counsel investigation. Mueller, Weissmann and the group then used the ‘Steele Dossier’ as the cornerstone for the special counsel review.  The goal of the Mueller investigation was to construct impeachment via obstruction. The same players transferred from “crossfire hurricane” into the Mueller ‘obstruction‘ plan.

Within Judge Boasberg’s review of the 2017 activity, he outlines an identical set of FISA violations from within the FBI units and “contractors” as initially outlined by Judge Collyer a year earlier.  Judge Boasberg wrote his opinion in October 2018 and that opinion was declassified today (October 8th, 2019). Boasberg is reviewing 2017 through March 2018.  [Main link to all legal proceedings here]

(Via Wall Street Journal)  The intelligence community disclosed Tuesday that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court last year found that the FBI’s pursuit of data about Americans ensnared in a warrantless internet-surveillance program intended to target foreign suspects may have violated the law authorizing the program, as well as the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

The court concluded that the FBI had been improperly searching a database of raw intelligence for information on Americans—raising concerns about oversight of the program, which as a spy program operates in near-total secrecy.

(…)  The court ruling identifies tens of thousands of improper searches of raw intelligence databases by the bureau in 2017 and 2018 that it deemed improper in part because they involved data related to tens of thousands of emails or telephone numbers—in one case, suggesting that the FBI was using the intelligence information to vet its personnel and cooperating sources. Federal law requires that the database only be searched by the FBI as part of seeking evidence of a crime or for foreign intelligence information.

In other cases, the court ruling reveals improper use of the database by individuals. In one case, an FBI contractor ran a query of an intelligence database—searching information on himself, other FBI personnel and his relatives, the court revealed.  (more)

As with the Collyer report, I am going line-by-painstaking-line through the Boasberg report (yeah, swamped); and what is clear is that in 2017 the FBI ‘bad actors’ and ‘contractors’ were continuing to try and subvert the safeguards put into place by former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.   The 2017 non-compliance rate is similar to the 2016 review.

Judge Boasberg touches on the April 2017 Judge Collyer report.  Here is the carefully worded DNI explanation of the connective tissue (emphasis mine):

(…)  The FISC also concluded that the FBI’s querying and minimization procedures, as implemented, were inconsistent with Section 702 and the Fourth Amendment, in light of certain identified compliance incidents involving queries of Section 702 information.

These incidents involved instances in which personnel either misapplied or misunderstood the query standard, such that the queries were not reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime. Some of these instances involved queries concerning large numbers of individuals.

While stating that the Government had taken “constructive steps” to address the identified issues, the FISC held that these steps did not fully address the statutory and Fourth Amendment concerns raised by the compliance incidents.

(…) Additionally, the FISC considered the scope of certain new restrictions regarding “abouts” communications that were enacted in the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017. “Abouts” collection is the acquisition of communications that contain a reference to, but are not to or from, a Section 702 target. As the NSA explained in April 2017 (see NSA’s April 28, 2017 Statement), the NSA stopped acquiring any upstream internet communications that are solely “about” a foreign intelligence target and, instead, limited its Section 702 collection to only those communications that are directly “to” or “from” a foreign intelligence target.

NSA’s 2018 Targeting Procedures contained the same limitation. Although the Government did not seek to resume “abouts” collection, the FISC, with assistance from amici, reviewed whether the “abouts” restrictions applied to any other types of Section 702 acquisitions currently being conducted. While the FISC held that the “abouts” restrictions apply across Section 702 acquisitions, it found that current Section 702 acquisitions did not implicate the “abouts” restrictions. (read more)

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/09/2019) (Archive)

Here is the October 2018 Boasberg Opinion:

“According to a new book, FBI agents claimed the discovery of thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop was an “oh s***” moment, with one admitting there were “ten times” as many as former FBI Director James Comey has admitted to publicly.

The book, titled ‘Deep State: Trump, the FBI, and the Rule of Law,’ written by James B. Stewart, paints a picture of an agency stunned by the findings.

Thousands of additional emails were discovered after investigators found them on devices used by Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin. The agents had been probing the former Democrat congressman’s explicit texts with a 15-year-old girl.

“The agents called the discovery an ‘oh s***’ moment as they combed through Weiner’s iPhone, iPad and laptop,” Stewart writes.

(…) Stewart writes that an FBI agent – described as “determined” – was dismayed that the agency under Comey’s direction wasn’t pushing to complete the investigation.

“I’m telling you that we have potentially ten times the volume that Director Comey said we had on the record,” the agent told Stewart. “Why isn’t anybody here?”

(…) Stewart writes that the discovery of a treasure trove of emails fell through the cracks because top FBI officials were “overwhelmed” by the Russia probe.”(Political Insider, 10/09/2019)  (Archive)

(…) Yovanovitch seems to have lied when she testified to Schiff’s underground double-secret hearings.

During her October deposition to the House Intelligence Committee,  Yovanovitch told U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) under oath, about the email she received from congressional staffer Laura Carey, adding that she never responded to it.

Per Tucker Carlson, she did respond, but she used her personal email account to respond to Laura Carey just two days after the “whistleblower” filed the complaint, and about a month before it became public and ignited the lastest Democratic Party effort to change the results of the 2016 election.

Tucker Carlson reports that it appears as though Obama’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, perjured herself under oath, according to new email evidence pic.twitter.com/EBTh6GgXOZ

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 8, 2019

The “emails obtained by Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” showed that in fact, Yovanovitch had responded to Carey’s initial Aug. 14 email, adding that she “would love to reconnect and look forward to chatting with you.”

On Aug. 14, Carey reached out to Yovanovitch before noting that Carey had resigned from the State Department to join the House Foreign Affairs Committee staff performing oversight work. Aug. 14th was two days after the whistleblower complaint was filed and a month before that complaint became public. But we also know the whistleblower went to Adam Schiff’s team before filing the claim. The question is, did Schiff’s office tell other Democrats on Capitol Hill what was in the complaint? And was that the “quite delicate” and “time-sensitive”  matter that Ms. Carey wrote Yovanovitch.

“In fact, it turns out that she did respond.In fact, she said she ‘looked forward to chatting with you’ to that staffer. And as Congressman Zeldin pointed out, the ambassador’s original answer, which was dishonest, was given under oath.” And that, folks, is called, “perjury.”

Zeldin told Tucker Carlson on Thursday it was “greatly concerning” that Yovanovitch may have testified incorrectly that she did not personally respond to Carey’s email. Note: “Testifying incorrectly” is a nice way of saying she lied.

“I would highly suspect that this Democratic staffer’s work was connected in some way to the whistleblower’s effort, which has evolved into this impeachment charade,” Zeldin said. “We do know that the whistleblower was in contact with [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff’s team before the whistleblower had even hired an attorney or filed a whistleblower complaint even though Schiff had lied to the public originally claiming that there was no contact. Additionally, while the contents of the email from this staffer to Ambassador Yovanovitch clearly state what the conversation would be regarding, Yovanovitch, when I asked her specifically what the staffer was looking to speak about, did not provide these details.

(…) I specifically asked her whether the Democratic staffer was responded to by Yovanovitch or the State Department. It is greatly concerning that Ambassador Yovanovitch didn’t answer my question as honestly as she should have, especially while under oath.”

(Marie Yovanovitch Transcript, October 11, 2019)

It appears Ambassador Yovanovitch did not accurately answer this question I asked her during her “impeachment inquiry” deposition under oath. https://t.co/2Ju420Pkpb pic.twitter.com/WACsyksMzW

— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) November 8, 2019

(Read more: LidBlog, 11/14/2019)  (Archive)

“The first hints that Giuliani was up to something in Ukraine came to Yovanovitch in November and December of 2018, when she heard that Giuliani was meeting with Yuriy Lutsenko, then the top prosecutor in the country.

Yovanovitch later testified that she learned from embassy staff that “basically there had been a number of meetings between Mr. Lutsenko and Mayor Giuliani, and that they were looking, I should say that Mr. Lutsenko was looking, to hurt me in the U.S.”

By around February, Yovanovitch said, a senior Ukraine official named Arsen Avakov told her he “was very concerned, and told me I really needed to watch my back.”

The official flagged for Yovanovitch that Giuliani, along with his now-indicted middleman Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were meeting with Lutsenko and “were interested in having a different ambassador at post,” according to her testimony.

She thought it was “exceedingly strange,” and testified that, while she understood that the men had business interests in Ukraine, nobody at the embassy had met Parnas and Fruman. Avakov told Yovanivith [sic] that Giuliani reached out to him in early 2019, according to her testimony.

Avakov thought Giuliani’s outreach was “dangerous,” Yovanovitch said, because Ukraine has had bipartisan support in America and to “start kind of getting into U.S. politics, into U.S. domestic politics, was a dangerous place for Ukraine to be.” (Read more: TalkingPointsMemo, 11/04/2019)  (Archive)  (Yovanovitch Transcript)

Max Blumenthal visits The American Foreign Policy Society while they were hosting neo-nazi Andriy Parubiy inside the Senate on July 2, 2018, as Nazi violence rages in Ukraine. (Credit: Max Blumenthal/Mint Press News)

The Nation writes in December 2016:

“In Ukraine today, power is split between Kiev and heavily armed ultranationalist battalions, which have a long record of not only clashing with Kiev but also defying the will of the EU and Washington.

The ultranationalists’ influence via a policy of veto-through-violence is best exemplified by their continued derailment of the Minsk Accords, the agreement for settling the conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. Minsk is also the key to lifting the anti-Russian sanctions that are hurting European economies and fomenting resentment in countries like France and Italy. It’s no surprise that Paris, Berlin, and the UN have repeatedly stressed that Minsk remains the only solution to the Ukraine conflict. For Ukraine’s far right, however, the accords—which require Kiev to grant Donbass special status, including the right to use the Russian language—are anathema. Accordingly, whenever the West nudges Ukraine to fulfill its Minsk obligations, the far right steps in, often with violence.

In addition to stymieing the Ukraine peace process and resolution of EU-Russia sanctions, the far right has flouted the rule of law, fostered instability, and undermined basic democratic institutions within Ukraine. Gangs tied to the Azov, Aidar, Right Sector, and Tornado battalions have had gun battles with police, intimidated court proceedings, overturned local elections, torched media buildings, attacked undesirable Soviet monuments, violently threatened journalists, and overtly spoken of overthrowing the government.

It is difficult to imagine any stable administration tolerating three years of such brazen challenges to its monopoly over the use of force, yet nearly all of the far right’s actions have gone unpunished.

(…) One reason behind Kiev’s inability and unwillingness to rein in the battalions is because they remain the fiercest, most battle-hardened units in the armed forces; it’s hard to send in the National Guard to restore order when the National Guard itself consists of ultranationalist formations. An equally disturbing reason is that Ukraine’s far right enjoys the support of two extraordinarily powerful politicians: Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

Both men played a critical role in harnessing neo-Nazi street muscle during the winter 2013–14 Maidan uprising that resulted in the ouster of corrupt, albeit democratically elected, president Viktor Yanukovych. Parubiy’s ties with the far right go back decades: He co-founded and led the Social-National Party of Ukraine, which used neo-Nazi symbols and whose name, according to Der Spiegel, is an intentional reference to the Nazi Party.

Avakov, in turn, developed Maidan’s “self-defense” formations into heavily equipped paramilitary units that fought in Donbass as well as brutally suppressed any hint of secession in Russian-speaking cities that had not yet fallen to the rebels. In the process, these units amassed a horrific record of rape, torture, kidnapping, murder, and possible war crimes, as attested by numerousAmnesty International and United Nations reports.

After becoming interior minister, Avakov has promoted figures such— as a veteran of the neo-Nazi group Patriot of Ukraine and the Azov Battalion who recently became acting chief over Ukraine’s National Police. The National Police—which was funded, equipped, and trained by Washington—was once held up as a shining example of Washington’s guiding Ukraine toward democracy. The fact that it’s now run by a man with neo-Nazi ties is a particularly ironic example of unintended consequences.” (Read more: The Nation, 12/05/2016)  (Archive)

Considering Avakov’s violent history, why was the US Ambassador to Ukraine placating his fear of Giuliani, as well as meeting with him to discuss providing security for Ukraine’s upcoming election?

Avakov tweets on March 21, 2019: “Meeting with US Ambassador Marie Yovanovich discussed urgent issues of ensuring fair and transparent elections, security and preventing provocations at polling stations during voting.” (Credit: Yulia Babich/Twitter)

In a series of tweets by @UkraineLiberty, Yovanovitch’s relationship with Arsen Avakov is further highlighted via her testimony against Trump:

(Credit: @UkraineLiberty)

“Judicial Watch is investigating if prominent conservative figures, journalists and persons with ties to President Donald Trump were unlawfully monitored by the State Department in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama appointee. Yovanovitch testified “in secret” to the House impeachment inquiry against Trump on Friday, October 11, 2019. Her “secret” testimony was leaked to the New York Times during the hearing.

Judicial Watch has obtained information indicating Yovanovitch may have violated laws and government regulations by ordering subordinates to target certain U.S. persons using State Department resources. Yovanovitch reportedly ordered monitoring keyed to the following search terms: Biden, Giuliani, Soros, and Yovanovitch.  Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department and will continue gathering facts from government sources.

Prior to being recalled as ambassador to Ukraine in the spring Yovanovitch reportedly created a list of individuals who were to be monitored via social media and other means.  Ukraine embassy staff made the request to the Washington D.C. headquarters office of the department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. After several days, Yovanovitch’s staff was informed that the request was illegal and the monitoring either ceased or was concealed via the State Department Global Engagement Center, which has looser restrictions on collecting information.

“This is not an obscure rule, everyone in public diplomacy or public affairs knows they can’t make lists and monitor U.S. citizens unless there is a major national security reason,” according to a senior State Department official. If the illicit operation occurred, it seems to indicate a clear political bias against the president and his supporters. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who has also led American embassies in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, was appointed ambassador to Ukraine by Obama in 2016. She was recalled by the State Department in May and remains a State Department employee in Washington D.C.

(…) The prominent conservative figures — journalists and persons with ties to President Donald Trump — allegedly unlawfully monitored by the State Department in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch include:

Jack Posobiec

Donald Trump Jr.

Laura Ingraham

Sean Hannity

Michael McFaul (Obama’s ambassador to Russia)

Dan Bongino

Ryan Saavedra

Rudy Giuliani

Sebastian Gorka

John Solomon

Lou Dobbs

Pamella Geller

Sara Carter

Judicial Watch continues its investigation of these matters and will update its reporting as the situation unfolds.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 10/18/2019)

UPDATE: The Yovanovitch transcript was released and she was questioned about Crowdtangle during her deposition against President Trump on October 11, 2019. She claims to be unaware of the software while pointing to the State Department as being responsible for monitoring social media accounts.

The discussion begins on page 92 of  the Yovanovich transcript:

(Yovanovich Transcript, 10/11/2019)

“In the mind of Fiona Hill (lead image, right), the recently departed senior director for Russia at the National Security Council (NSC), everybody in Washington is vulnerable to Russian attacks of one kind or another, but not her.

Instead, she admitted in testimony to the Congressional committees investigating impeachment evidence against President Donald Trump,  that she’s on an attack operation of her own.  “I’m sorry to be very passionate but this is precisely…why I joined the [Trump] administration. I didn’t join it because I thought the Ukrainians had been going after the President.”  She says the reason she joined up was to fight the Russians.

“I thought it was very important to step up, as an expert, as somebody who’s been working on Russia for basically my whole entire adult 1ife, given what had happened in 2016 and given the peril that I actually thought that we were in as a democracy, given what the Russians I know to have done in the course of the 2016 elections… I’m extremely concerned that this is a rabbit hole that we’ re all going to go down in between now and the 2020 election, and it will be to all of our detriment.”

Hill testified that she’s certain that “what happened in 2016” was that the Kremlin intervened to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. “We’re in peril as a democracy because of other people interfering here. And it doesn’t mean to say that other people haven’t also been trying to do things, but the Russians were [the ones] who attacked us in 2016, and they’re now writing the script for others to do the same. And if we don’t get our act together, they will continue to make fools of us internationally.”

“He’s [President Vladimir Putin] looking out there for every opening that he can find, basically, and somebody’s vulnerability to turn that against them. That’s exactly what a case officer does. They get a weakness, and they blackmail their assets. And Putin will target world leaders and other officials like this. He tries to target everybody.”

So, in the logic of Hill’s analysis of how the Russians operate against everybody, including herself, what evidence is there that Hill hasn’t, by concealment, calculation, corruption, or by mistake, succumbed to Putin’s attack,  too? Not once was Hill asked by either the Democrats or Republicans during the deposition, nor did she volunteer her own explanation, of how she managed to inoculate herself and is now telling the truth.

If Hill is telling the truth, and equally if she isn’t,  she has inflicted serious damage on her own colleagues and superiors,   the US Government’s Russia-hating professionals. In her testimony Hill depicts them as lying to each other and to the press; constantly scheming for and against the President; incapable of coordination among themselves, agreement with their allies, or negotiation with their enemies. Most valuable of all to the Kremlin, Hill reveals that the American warfighter is predictable in everything he or she understands, plans or does.

To reveal this much is precious intelligence for Moscow because the Russian secret services and Putin would be less willing to believe it if it had come from home-grown agents. Either Hill is a willing dupe, or she is the fool she is warning her colleagues to beware of.

On October 14, Hill gave ten hours of question-and-answer testimony before the Congressional committees on intelligence, foreign affairs and oversight. The record comprises 446 pages of verbatim transcript. This has just been released in unclassified, partially redacted form; click to read in full.

(…) Hill’s testimony reveals, though she doesn’t admit it, that Trump had come to distrust the intelligence analysis and policy advice he was getting from Hill as the coordinator of all the government agencies involved in Ukraine and Russia. She admitted to knowing little personally and directly of what Trump and his senior aides and advisors discussed and decided among themselves. What she knew was indirect, down the White House staff chain,  and by hearsay.

Her preoccupation, Hill emphasized repeatedly, was with Russian plotting in Washington, and in Hill’s assessment, the Russian successes. Christopher Steele, whom Hill had known as her counterpart intelligence officer for Russia at the British MI6 years before, had been lured, she testified, by the Russians into the “rabbit hole” Hill called the Golden Showers dossier.   Victoria Nuland, former Assistant Secretary of State, was tricked by the Russians into promoting the Steele dossier to NSC officials. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, ex-Ambassador to Ukraine, was victimized by the Russians who eavesdropped on his telephone calls with Nuland when he and she were plotting the Kiev putsch of February 2014.

Left to right: Christopher Steele; Victoria Nuland; Geoffrey Pyatt. (Credit: John Helmer)

Hill swore on oath that she too was targeted by Russian agents when she was writing her last book on President Vladimir Putin in 2012.   “My phone was hacked repeatedly, and the Brookings system was hacked repeatedly,” she told the Congressmen. “And at one point, it was clearly obvious that someone had exfiltrated out my draft…And then, mysteriously, after this I started to get emails from people who purported to have met me at different points in my career, people I kind of vaguely remember. I’d look online, and there would be these, you know, Linkedln pages or there might be, you know, something I could find out some information for them. And they’d start offering me information, you know, that somehow purported to, strangely enough, some of the chapters that I was actually working on. And when I would go to meetings in Russia, people would basically, you know so that I was being played, or they were attempting to play me as well.”

Hill was not asked if she reported this to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the time.  That she didn’t report the alleged plot not only discredits her making the allegation now, seven years later; it also warns the Russian services to tell Putin that there is nothing US officials like Hill don’t imagine or won’t fabricate.

For Hill, those Americans who have been targeted the most are so obviously innocent, it’s a Russian operation to think, say, broadcast or publish otherwise. She is convinced, for example,  of the innocence of former Vice President Joseph Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in taking money from Ukrainians seeking to influence US policy, when they were in charge, or when Clinton was running for president. (Hill said she is just as certain Paul Manafort was guilty of taking Ukrainian money.)

As for the current allegation against the Bidens, father and son, that they were corruptly trading US Government favour for cash paid through the Ukrainian oil and gas exploration company Burisma, Hill revealed she had seen no intelligence report on the subject during her time in office. “From your knowledge of Burisma, are they a corrupt company? DR. HILL: I don’t know a lot about Burisma, I’ll be frank… And you never heard of any reason why anybody should be investigating Vice President Biden? A[nswer]. …correct… And are you aware of any evidence that Vice President Joe Biden in any way acted inappropriately while he was Vice President…A[nswer]. I’m not.”

For details of the Burisma case, and the involvement of Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, read this.

Hill also expressed the unqualified conclusion, after her professional assessment of the US intelligence, that the narrative of the anti-Trump forces in Congress and the press is accurate.  “Do you have any reason,” she was asked by Daniel Goldman, head of investigations for the intelligence committee, “to doubt either the facts alleged in the [Mueller] indictment or the Intelligence Community’s assessment that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election? A[nswer]: I do not. Q. And do you have any reason to believe that Ukraine did interfere in the 2016 election? A[nswer]: I do not. We’re talking about the Ukrainian Government here when you say Ukraine, correct? A. Yes. Yes, I do not.”

Neither Goldman nor the Republican Congressmen asked Hill what she knew of Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian oligarch acting for the Ukrainian Government in sending large sums of money to the Clinton Foundation and Hill’s employer, Brookings.”  (Read more: John Helmer, 11/12/2019) (Archive)

George Kent (Credit: public domain)

“The second witness in the first public “impeachment inquiry” hearing to be called to testify Wednesday by House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) will be George Kent, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the State Department.

Kent already testified once, on October 15 — behind closed doors and long before an “impeachment inquiry” was authorized. The transcript was only recently released.

Democrats are making Kent one of their two leadoff witnesses because for two reasons. First, he comes across as a likable curmudgeon: while he has sharp criticism for President Donald Trump, he also has a quick wit. Second, he has many negative things to say about the role of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, acting as President Trump’s personal lawyer and also as a player in U.S.-Ukrainian relations. Democrats will use Kent’s testimony to lay the foundation for an attack on Giuliani that they hope will paint the president in the worst possible light as well.

(Giuliani also published an op-ed on Tuesday evening in the Wall Street Journal, which will appear in print on Wednesday:  “My client’s call with the Ukrainian president was innocent, and the House inquiry is a travesty.”)

Key Democratic Talking Points

1. Kent will testify that he believes that Giuliani, through dubious sources in Ukraine, was part of a “campaign of slander” that led to President firing Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. One of the key articles in the campaign was published by John Solomon in The Hill, in which former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko claimed that Yovanovitch had given him a “do not prosecute” list. She was alleged to be anti-Trump. She denies all of the claims.

• What Democrats aren’t telling you: Yovanovitch may be the innocent victim of a campaign of slander. However, new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Trump in their phone call that he also thought she was “bad.” He said: “I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.” All ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president; there was nothing illegal in her dismissal.

2. In their summary of Kent’s testimony, Democrats claim: “With respect to President Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Biden, Mr. Kent stated: ‘I do not believe the U.S. should ask other countries to engage in politically associated investigations and prosecutions.’” He also said that Trump’s actions were wrong.

• What Democrats aren’t telling you: Kent only learned about the request because the president released the transcript. He also had no firsthand knowledge of any connection between aid and investigations. Asked by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), “Do you have any firsthand knowledge of United States aid to Ukraine ever being connected to the opening of a new investigation?”, Kent answered: “I do not have direct knowledge, no.”

3. Kent told the closed-door hearing that he had heard from Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland that “POTUS wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to microphone and say investigations, Biden, and Clinton.”

• What Democrats aren’t telling you: Kent himself expressed misgivings about Hunter Biden serving on the board of Burisma, a company associated with Ukrainian corruption.  He testified that in 2015, “I raised my concerns [with the vice president’s staff] that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of milljons of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest.” He was told that then-Vice President Joe Biden could not be reached to deal with the problem because Biden’s other son, Beau, was dying of cancer. Hunter continued on the board, even though, Kent said, there were concerns in the State Department about Burisma.

Another key point: Kent testified the U.S. has made aid to Ukraine conditional on reform in the past. For example, the U.S. made sovereign loan guarantees from 2014-2016 conditional on reform in the Ukrainian prosecution services. Asked whether he thought former Vice President Biden had used a “quid pro quo” in his now-infamous threat to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless Ukraine fired its chief prosecutor, Kent said he preferred the term “conditionality for assistance,” saying that governments use it, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (Read more: Breitbart, 11/13/2019)  (Archive)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“Inside an otherwise innocuous court filing (full pdf below), General Mike Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, files a motion to compel (MTC) in an effort to gain discovery of the content from two cell phones belonging to Joseph Mifsud.   [Hat Tip Techno Fog]

Apparently, according to the information within the filing, the DOJ has somehow gained custody of two cell phones belonging to Mr. Mifsud:

The filing notes that “Western intelligence” likely tasked Mr. Mifsud against General Flynn as early as  in order to set up “connections with certain Russians” for later use against him.  Essentially, an intelligence entrapment scheme.

Unfortunately, the filing only identifies the cell phones along with the request for the production of the content therein.  However, the fact the DOJ has two cell phones belonging to Joseph Mifsud opens up a whole bunch of questions:

#1)  How did the US Dept of Justice gain custody of Mr. Mifsud’s cell phones?

#2) Were these Blackberry cell phones issued by U.S. intelligence? (unknown agency)

#3) Why has the U.S. DOJ taken custody of those cell phones?

#4) If #2 is yes, wouldn’t that automatically destroy the “Mifsud as a Russian intelligence asset” narrative?

#5) [Less important] How the heck did Sidney Powell find out about them?

Something is certainly happening here. The cell phone models are from 2011 and 2014.

With U.S. Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr traveling to Italy to listen to the taped deposition of Joseph Mifsud last month…and now the discovery that the DOJ has his cell phones from a period of keen interest in the Russia collusion-conspiracy framework…it would appear Mr. Mifsud might just be the Maltese Fulcrum.

In response to the defense Motion to Compel, the U.S. Dept of Justice told Ms. Powell: “if they determine the information is discoverable or relevant to sentencing” they will produce them.

(View complete document on Scribd)

(Conservative Treehouse, 10/15/2019)

Carter Page in Washington D.C. on May 28, 2019. (Credit: Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

“A former Trump campaign associate who was wiretapped by the FBI sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 21, demanding that the government provide him with the opportunity to review, before it is made public, the forthcoming inspector general’s report on potential surveillance abuses in his case.

In a lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court in Washington, Carter Page accuses the DOJ of violating his privacy rights by failing to grant him the opportunity to review the report before the document is published.

The DOJ Office of Inspector General is expected to soon release a voluminous report examining potential surveillance abuses tied to secret court warrants that the FBI obtained to spy on Page.

Page additionally alleges that the DOJ violated his privacy rights by disclosing copies of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to the New York Times prior to giving him an opportunity to review the documents.

In addition to requesting damages and the prosecution of the officials involved, Page is asking the court to order the DOJ to hand over all of the documents he has long sought to review and amend.

“The DOJ, its employees and officers, including those in the affiliated agency of the FBI under their jurisdiction, acted intentionally or willfully in violation of Dr. Page’s privacy rights,” the lawsuit states.

“As a result of the DOJ’s violations of the Privacy Act, Dr. Page has suffered adverse harmful effects, including, but not limited to, mental distress, emotional trauma, embarrassment, humiliation, and lost or jeopardized present or future financial opportunities.”

Page filed a formal Privacy Act request in May 2017. The request remains unfulfilled.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/27/2019)  (Archive)

(Credit: Communities Digital News)

“The star witness in the Schiff Pelosi impeachment farce, Ambassador William Taylor, has long-standing ties and a financial relationship to a Burisma funded think tank, according to Breitbart News investigative reporter Aaron Klein. Klein also reports that Taylor has a long-standing relationship with David Kramer, the advisor to Senator John McCain who leaked the Steele Dossier to Buzzfeed.

More ominously a Schiff staffer on a Burisma funded trip to Ukraine in August met with Ambassador Taylor to discuss the “whistleblower” complaint.  The Atlantic Society, funded by Burisma, also receives funding from the George Soros Open Society Foundations. It is a trifecta of corruption undercutting Taylors testimony.

According to Breitbart:

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who provided key testimony to the Democrats’ controversial impeachment inquiry yesterday, has evidenced a close relationship with the Atlantic Council think tank, even writing Ukraine policy pieces with the organization’s director and analysis articles published by the Council.

The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

In addition to a direct relationship with the Atlantic Council, Taylor for the last nine years also served as a senior adviser to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), which has co-hosted events with the Atlantic Council and has participated in events co-hosted jointly by the Atlantic Council and Burisma.

Another senior adviser to the USUBC is David J. Kramer, a long-time adviser to late Senator John McCain. Kramer played a central role in disseminating the anti-Trump dossier to the news media and the Obama administration. Taylor participated in events and initiatives organized by Kramer.

The links may be particularly instructive after Breitbart News reported that itinerary for a trip to Ukraine in August organized by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council for ten Congressional aides reveals that a staffer on Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a meeting during the trip with Taylor.  The pre-planned trip took place after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his August 12 complaint and reportedly after a Schiff aide was contacted by the so-called whistleblower.” (Read more: Community Digital News, 10/23/2019) (Archive)

“A key Democratic witness against Trump admitted in congressional testimony last month that he was not part of the July 25 phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents, that he didn’t see a transcript or readout of it until late September when it was declassified and released, and that he has never even spoken to President Donald Trump.

William Taylor, the charge d’affairs of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, told lawmakers in secret testimony two weeks ago that his opinions about an alleged quid pro quo demanded by Trump were formed largely from conversations with anti-Trump staffers within the diplomatic bureaucracy.

William Taylor (Credit: Ovsyannikova Yulia/Getty Images)

“[Y]ou’ve never spoken to Mr. [Rudy] Giuliani?” Taylor was asked.

“No, no,” he replied.

“Has anyone ever asked you to speak to Mr. Giuliani?”

“No,” Taylor said.

“And if I may, have you spoken to the president of the United States?” Taylor was asked.

“I have not,” he said.

“You had no communications with the president of the United States?”

“Correct,” Taylor said.

He also admitted he had never spoken to Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s chief of staff.

When asked who exactly he had spoken to about the brouhaha, Taylor confirmed that his only contacts about the matter were with John Bolton, the former national security adviser who was fired by Trump, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Tim Morrison. Both Hill and Vindman are rumored to have been sources for the so-called whistleblower who filed a complaint against Trump in August.

Taylor also testified that his knowledge of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky wasn’t first-hand knowledge.

(Read more: The Federalist, 11/06/2019)  (Transcript)

Updates may be added:

The Justice Department is defending the role played by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and by the FBI in determining that Russia hacked Democratic systems in 2016, assuring Congress it got the information it needed to carry out its investigation into Russian interference.

Adam Hickey, the deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Security Division, defends assessment by CrowdStrike and FBI that Russia interfered in 2016 election, October 23, 2019. (Credit: CSpan)

Adam Hickey, the deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Security Division, made the comments while appearing on a panel before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to discuss election security for the upcoming 2020 presidential election. President Trump has long said he believes in a conspiracy theory that posits without evidence CrowdStrike is owned by a wealthy Ukrainian and that a missing DNC server is hidden in Ukraine.

“Looking back at the FBI’s activities investigating the 2016 election, it has been reported that the FBI never obtained the original servers from the Democratic National Committee that had allegedly been hacked by Russia, instead relying upon imaged copies,” Arizona Republican Debbie Lesko asked. “First of all, is that correct?”

Hickey replied that federal investigators were able to obtain evidence on Russian interference, noting that “it’s pretty common for us to work with a security vendor in connection with an investigation of a computer intrusion,” a reference to CrowdStrike.

(…) Former FBI Director James Comey told Congress in early 2017 that “our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that’s involved” and testified a few months later that his FBI investigative team “had gotten the information from the private party [CrowdStrike] that they needed to understand the intrusion.”

The U.S. Intelligence Community and special counsel Robert Mueller agreed with CrowdStrike’s assessment that the Russian government hacked the DNC. The DOJ has argued in court that Mueller’s investigation did not rely solely on CrowdStrike’s determinations but rather uncovered evidence of their own pointing to Russia during the investigation.

Lesko followed up on Tuesday by asking whether CrowdStrike “still has possession of the Clinton servers,” and Hickey said he didn’t know.

The DNC claimed in 2018 court filings that the Russian hack in 2016 led them to “decommission more than 140 servers, remove and reinstall all software, including the operating systems, for more than 180 computers, and rebuild at least 11 servers.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 10/23/2019)  (Archive)

“The State Department utilized a powerful Facebook-owned social media tracking tool linked to leftist billionaire George Soros to unlawfully monitor prominent U.S. conservative figures, journalists and persons with ties to President Donald Trump, according to an agency source. The State Department veteran identified Crowdtangle as the tool used to closely watch more than a dozen U.S. citizens, including the president’s son, personal attorney and popular television personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, among others.

Last week Judicial Watch launched an investigation into the unlawful monitoring, which State Department sources say was conducted by the agency in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama appointee. Judicial Watch has obtained information indicating Yovanovitch may have violated laws and government regulations by ordering subordinates to target certain U.S. persons using State Department resources. Yovanovitch reportedly ordered monitoring keyed to the following search terms: Biden, Giuliani, Soros and Yovanovitch. Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department last week and continues gathering facts from government sources. This week Judicial Watch filed another FOIA request for information related to the State Department’s use of Crowdtangle.

A private, invitation-only engine, Crowdtangle describes itself as a leading content discovery and social monitoring platform that can help identify influencers and track rivals. It was launched in 2011 to organize activism via social media and Facebook purchased it in 2016. Crowdtangle monitors more than 5 million social media accounts and uses dashboards to track keywords, data and specific topics across platforms. For years Facebook has made Crowdtangle available to the mainstream media and in January founder and CEO Brandon Silverman announced he will give access to select academics and researchers in order to help counter misinformation and abuse of social media platforms. “To date, Crowdtangle has been available primarily to help newsrooms and media publishers understand what is happening on the platform,” Silverman writes. “We’re eager to make it available to this important new set of partners and help continue to provide more transparency into how information is being spread on social media.”

A leftwing, Soros-funded organization called Social Science Research Center (SSRC) is charged with determining who is granted access to Crowdtangle. Earlier this year Facebook announced that SSRC will pick researchers who will gain access to its cherished “privacy-protected” data. The statement assures that “Facebook did not play any role in the selection of the individuals or their projects and will have no role in directing the findings or conclusions of the research.” That is left up to the SSRC, which claims that selected researchers will use privacy-protected Facebook data to “study the platform’s impact on democracy worldwide.” The nonprofit describes itself as an international organization guided by the belief that “justice, prosperity, and democracy all require a better understanding of complex social, cultural, economic, and political processes.” In 2016 Soros’s Open Society Foundations gave the SSRC nearly $500,000 for a Latin America human rights and public health initiative and a global “equality and antidiscrimination” program.

The 2018 Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy report confirms that the State Department uses Crowdtangle and considers it an important tool for social media managers to conduct official agency business worldwide. The State Department’s head of Public Diplomacy training also encourages the use of Crowdtangle to educate personnel about polling data consumption and “the difference between impression and reach.” The State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) actually includes a link to Crowdtangle and reveals the agency uses it to track social media posts. Nevertheless, ordering subordinates to target certain U.S. persons, as sources say Yovanovitch did, using State Department resources would constitute a violation of laws and government regulations. “This is not an obscure rule, everyone in public diplomacy or public affairs knows they can’t make lists and monitor U.S. citizens unless there is a major national security reason,” a senior State Department official told Judicial Watch last week when the story broke.” (Judicial Watch, 10/23/2019)

In February 1987, an anonymous phone tip was called into the Tallahassee police department reporting that six children were dirty, hungry, and acting like animals in the custody of two well-dressed men in a Tallahassee, Florida park. That phone call would kick off the Finders scandal: a series of events and multiple investigations even more bizarre than the initial report.

The trail would ultimately lead to allegations of a cult involved in ritual abuse, an international child-trafficking ring, evidence of child abuse confirmed and later denied, and ties with the CIA, which was alleged to have interfered in the case. No one was ever prosecuted in the wake of the initial 1987 investigation or a 1993 inquiry into the allegations of CIA involvement: official denials were maintained, and authorities stated that no evidence of criminal activity was ever found. However, documents that have emerged over time beg significant questions as to the validity of the official narrative.

In contrast with other historical human trafficking rings covered in the independent press, including those I have previously discussed, the Finders scandal presents as something of a phantom. This is in consequence of the lack of adult victims who have come forward, an absence of hard evidence viewable to the public, and an absence of extensive trials or convictions. Further impeding the willingness of most journalists to cover such a story were claims of ritualistic abuse that were hyped by corporate media at the time of the incident, as well as allegations of a CIA-led coverup that were less widely recognized by the legacy press.

The story is further complicated by the fact that it takes place in three basic stages: the initial 1987 investigation spread across multiple states and law enforcement agencies; a subsequent 1993 inquiry into allegations of a CIA coverup and interference in the 1987 investigation; and the emergence of Customs Service documents detailing new aspects of initial searches of Finders properties which was followed by the publication of hundreds of documents from both investigations to the FBI vault in 2019.

By initially sensationalizing the issue via the framing of the Finders as a satanic cult, the media profited from immediate shock value while permitting this very sensationalism to become the premise for dismissing other aspects of the story and Finders ties to the CIA to remain unexplored.

THE 1987 INVESTIGATION

On February 4, 1987, two men dressed in suits and ties in the company of six bug-bitten, dirty, hungry children were arrested in Tallahassee, Florida, on charges of child abuse after a concerned citizen called local police. Initially, Tallahassee police were concerned that the children might have been kidnapped and were being trafficked across state lines. The U.S. Customs Service, the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), and the FBI became involved in the attempt to identify the two men based on suspicions of interstate criminal activity including the possibility of child pornography.

The story exploded on a national scale after investigators linked the pair, identified as Douglas Ammerman and Michael Houlihan (also referred to as Michael Holwell), with a Washington D.C.-based group known as the Finders, which authorities publicly referred to as a “cult.” Initially, Tallahassee police reported that at least two of the children showed signs of sexual abuse.

Houlihan and Ammerman first told police that they were transporting the children to a school for brilliant children in Mexico. However, this explanation as to the purpose of the children’s trip would change significantly, with Finders members later stating that the group were on an adventure in Florida. The Finders group was found to have multiple properties in Washington, D.C. and a farm in rural Madison County, Virginia. It also became clear that the Finders were highly skilled with early computer technology, which would become a major aspect of the case as it unfolded.

Doug Ammerman and Michael Holwell sit in Leon County Court during a bond hearing related to charges of child abuse. (Credit: Tallahassee Democrat)

News reports across the country headlined allegations of ritual abuse for approximately six days after the initial arrests, before a tidal shift by both the media and authorities began on February 10. The New York Times reported on that day:

Local police officials announced here today that six children found last week in Florida had apparently not been kidnapped and that there was no evidence to show that the secretive group that has been raising them is a cult involved in child abuse. The statement from the Metropolitan Police Department conflicted with accounts from the police in Tallahassee, Fla., where the children were found, unwashed and hungry, last week. Officials there said this morning that at least two of the children had signs of sexual abuse.

As described by the Times and the Chicago Tribune, the children were placed in police protective custody after threats were received at the shelters where they had originally been housed. Eventually, the mothers of the children were reported to have been Finders members and the children were said to be transported by Houlihan and Ammerman with the full consent of their parents. Hence, suspicions of kidnapping and trafficking rapidly lost credibility, though issues of abuse remained. The original strong allegations of sexual abuse of at least two of the six children were eventually contradicted by Florida authorities.

In March 1987, Houlihan and Ammerman were released with charges dropped for lack of evidence, and all of the children were eventually returned to their mothers. The official and media consensus was that the entire issue was a miscommunication blown out of proportion and that the Finders were simply a 1960’s-esque “alternative lifestyle community” with unusual education methods.

THE 1993 INQUIRY INTO AN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY COVERUP

U.S. Customs Special Agent Ramon J. Martinez claimed in a memorandum that during his participation in the searches of two of the Finder’s properties in Washington he witnessed evidence of the Finders’ intent to traffick children and other potentially criminal acts. Martinez wrote that he was unable to review the evidence collected at the locations after multiple attempts to do so, and that he was eventually told by a third party at the MPD precinct that the Finders group had come under the protection of the CIA, which had interfered with the investigation by deeming the issue an “internal matter,” and had the case files labeled “Secret,” with no further action to be taken or evidence available for review. Clearly, Martinez’s account detailing what he witnessed presents a strong counter-narrative to the official story.

A man named Skip Clements allegedly communicated the U.S. Customs documents and other records to then-Florida Rep. Tom Lewis (R) and North Carolina Rep. Charlie Rose (D). Stemming in part from their protests, as well as the prospect of CBS’s 48 Hours producing a segment on the Finders story (which never aired), the Department of Justice announced it would investigate allegations of CIA interference in the 1987 investigation in late 1993. The previously mentioned congressmen claimed publicly that the Finders may have benefited from protection of the U.S. government agencies, with U.S.News & World Report writing in December 1993, (as the DOJ investigation was getting underway), that Lewis had asked:

Could our own government have something to do with this Finders organization and [have] turned their backs on these children? That’s what the evidence points to…. I can tell you that we’ve got a lot of people scrambling, and that wouldn’t be happening if there was nothing here.”

The DOJ’s investigation resulted in a verdict of no evidence of CIA interference and no evidence of criminal activity on the part of the Finders, and it represented the official and legal end of the story.

THE 2019 PUBLICATION OF FBI VAULT DOCUMENTS

Eventually, Customs documents including Ramon Martinez’s memo made their way onto the internet. The exact method by which this occurred remains murky, with the best copy of the documents being hosted by the website of now-deceased Ted Gunderson, who served as an FBI special agent in charge and head of the Los Angeles FBI.

I contacted Martinez in 2017 and confirmed that he authored the document and that it is genuine, but to date, he has otherwise refused to go on record to comment on the matter with me. Martinez has had limited communication with some other independent journalists, including Derrick Broze of the Conscious Resistance, who produced a documentary on the Finders case in 2019. I also described aspects of the Martinez memo and the Finders case as part of a report on alleged intelligence-tied child abuse scandals penned in August 2019 in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s death and renewed public interest in the overall subject matter.

Just months after Epstein’s death, in October 2019, the FBI began releasing hundreds of Finders investigation documents to their Vault. The publication sparked a storm of attention, but virtually no corporate press coverage aside from a piece by Vice, which framed any interest in the subject as a conspiracy theory.

On their face, the contents of the FBI Vault documents appear to contradict the allegations made by former Special Agent Martinez: they include statements from multiple officers involved in the investigation from various agencies to the effect that they experienced no overt interference in their work from the CIA. Yet, when one looks closely, the documents also corroborate significant aspects of Martinez’s allegations and substantiate questions regarding the Finders’ links with intelligence.

There is the admission that Isabelle Pettie, the wife of Finders leader Marion Pettie, worked for the CIA during the Cold-War era (Pettie also admitted that his son worked for the CIA-linked, Iran Contra-era Air America), and that it was her visas to North Korea, North Vietnam, Russia and elsewhere that had been approved by the State Department. Key documents from the MPD investigation are labeled secret, just as Martinez had claimed, which is bizarre on its face if we are to believe that the Finders were simply an odd “alternative living” commune.

These and other corroborating details add credibility to Martinez’s claims regarding having witnessed other documents that indicated international child trafficking, as well as his assertion that he was told that the case had been deemed a “CIA internal matter.”

The FBI’s Vault publication includes records from the preliminary Tallahassee police department investigation, the MPD investigation, heavily redacted records from the U.S. Customs Service, documents from the Washington Metro Field Office (WMFO) of the FBI, and other agencies, as well as the correspondence and documentation of the 1993 inquiry, mostly from the WMFO to FBI Headquarters. The documents are scattered throughout the three published sections in no coherent order, and are interspersed with news reports from the time ranging from the initial arrests and the child custody issue to the 1993 inquiry into CIA connections with and protection of the group.

Bizarrely, a map relating to the McMartin Preschool scandal is also included in the publication for no known reason, since at this time the cases are completely unrelated aside from both having contained allegations of satanic abuse. Regardless of the intent behind the document’s inclusion, it serves to further associate the Finders with the so-called “moral panic” scandals of the era, which I would argue distracts from the issue of intelligence ties to the case.

A FRESH LOOK

Before moving further into analysis of the available evidence, it’s important to recognize a number of problems we face in understanding the information published in the FBI’s Vault. First, a multitude of large, often critically placed redactions plague the documents, the most important of which are not labeled with privacy exemptions but are instead labeled “S,” presumably meaning that the information is classified as secret.

Another problem involves the fact that information requested by some agencies — especially during the 1993 preliminary inquiry into a CIA coverup — was not provided to the relevant investigating agencies. Then there is the phenomenon of information disappearing outright, including vanishing evidence and instances of records never having been kept, resulting in conflicting accounts of the existence of critical pieces of evidence.

This series will challenge both the sensationalism and the silence of establishment media surrounding the Finders narrative by examining the allegations made by the U.S. Customs documents in view of the FBI’s more recent Vault publications, which shed fresh light on the connections between the Finders and the U.S. intelligence apparatus. (Read more: Mint Press News, 6/03/2021) (Archive) (FBI Vault Release – The Finders 10/24/2019)

Finders
Operation Mind Control
https://archive.org/details/OperationMindControlResearchersEdition
https://vault.fbi.gov/the-finders
https://vault.fbi.gov/the-finders/the-finders-part-01-of-01/at_download/file
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/02/08/cult-member-defends-2-men-in-child-abuse-case/d404251c-8540-49e1-8178-beb41efc8ee2/
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1987-02-12-0110040233-story.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-releases-information-on-the-finders-a-secretive-group-accused-of-child-sex-abuse_3128475.html/amp
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/03/18/two-finders-released/35b2bc13-e56d-4c72-a587-97fe83f9b7da/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/03/04/finders-to-sell-dc-property-move-to-florida-leader-says/781b5534-75e8-4d30-afa7-35f0cfa64c86/

Finders
https://vault.fbi.gov/the-finders
Benz Murictoft
https://twitter.com/benzmuircroft
Majestic Angel
https://twitter.com/MajesticAngel01
The Unknown Observer
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMzg1vNky9_w6vl3sT7bj6w
Seekers & Settlers

 http://seekersandsettlers.tripod.com/seekers.html

https://archive.is/D2OMD
https://archive.is/9Bvve

“The Justice Department has reportedly triggered a criminal investigation into the origins of the Mueller inquiry, which remains a sore spot for President Donald Trump, who condemned Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “witch hunt.”

The move, first reported by the New York Times, is a shift in tactics: In May, the Justice Department launched a review into whether the Mueller probe was lawful, but on Thursday it was revealed that the department had decided to pursue a criminal investigation.

The criminal investigation, overseen by Attorney General William Barr, will equip prosecutor John Durham with greater investigative powers, including the ability to issue subpoenas for witnesses and documents, and file criminal charges.

The Mueller probe, which found that Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election was “sweeping and systematic,” and investigated contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials was published in April.” (Read more: Forbes, 10/25/2019)  (Archive)

Ron Johnson (l) and Charles Grassley (Credit: public domain)

“Top Republicans on Wednesday demanded that Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson explain why the watchdog hasn’t said if it’s investigating “a number of leaks of highly sensitive information” in recent years — and released several previously unpublished texts and emails from since-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, specifically asked the ICIG why Strzok texted bureau colleague Lisa Page on Dec. 15, 2016: “Think our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried and political, they’re kicking into overdrive.”

“What are they worried about, and what are they kicking into ‘overdrive?’ Johnson and Grassley wrote. “Who are the ‘sisters,’ and what does it mean to say that the ‘sisters have [been] leaking like mad’?”

Additionally, the senators pushed to know whether the ICIG was looking into Strzok’s email to FBI colleagues on April 13, 2017, when he wrote that an unidentified “agency” might be the “source of some of the leaks” to the media that he’d been seeing.

“I’m beginning to think the agency got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn’t shared it completely with us,” Strzok wrote, according to documents that the senators included in their letter to the ICIG. “Might explain all these weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as a source of some of the leaks.”

In a June 6, 2017 email to Page, Strzok mused, “Think there will be a crescendo of leaks/articles leading up to Thurs.”

(Scribd)

And, a Dec. 13, 2016 text message apparently showed Strzok trying to set up a Skype meeting with a reporter. “Text from reporter: retrieving my password for Skype,” he wrote.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz faulted the FBI last year for repeated violations of its media communications policy, noting that agents had received gifts from reporters and leaked regularly.

Then, on April 6, 2017, Strzok wrote to senior FBI leadership to complain about a New York Times article entitled, “C.I.A. Had Evidence of Russian Effort to Help Trump Earlier Than Believed,” claiming it painted the FBI in an unfavorable light and got key facts wrong.

“Mike, below is inaccurate, favors the CIA at the expense of the FBI in particular, and is at odds with what Apuzzo and Goldman know,” Strzok wrote. “Most importantly, it’s at odds with the D’s [FBI Director’s] recent public testimony that we’ve been looking at links (which necessarily imply favoring Trump) since July ’16.”

Read the full letter to Atkinson, including the newly released Strzok Texts here.

(Read more: Fox News, 10/24/2019)  (Archive)

“A multifaceted “criminal conspiracy” to destroy former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was launched by persons across the national security state apparatus to prevent audits of intelligence agencies’ operations, said Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History, in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Rick Manning.

“General Flynn’s lawyer, Sydney Powell, has done a fantastic job of unearthing a whole bunch of new information which clarifies what we’ve known — what we’ve suspected — for quite a long time, that large parts of the intelligence community targeted General Flynn,” Smith stated.

Smith added, “Sydney Powell has brought forth a whole bunch of important information … about how they tinkered with the FBI’s interviews. They also ambushed General Flynn in the White House for an interview, and we know how that went down. It was James Comey who asked his deputy director Andy McCabe to send agents down there to go after General Flynn.

Smith remarked, “Keep in mind, this is a very, very large operation against General Flynn that started long before Donald Trump was elected, and this was the other terrific thing that Sydney Powell has done with her work.”

“Stefan Halper, who was identified by the Washington Post and the New York Times as the confidential human source who was sent to spy on the Trump campaign,” noted Smith. “Now, what Sydney Powell has found, is that he had a handler at the Pentagon. So we’re talking about the Department of Justice, we’re talking about the FBI, but we’re also talking about the Pentagon. We are talking about a number of different agencies involved in targeting General Flynn.” (Read more: Breitbart, 10/25/2019)

Prepared Floor remarks by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa comments on recent findings of deliberate mishandling of classified information by State Department officials October 28, 2019.

TRANSCRIPT

“Clinton family associate Sidney Blumenthal has made legal threats to the publisher of a forthcoming book featuring allegations against Democrats in connection with the Russia investigation in an attempt to stop publication, Fox News has learned.

A source familiar with the matter told Fox News that Blumenthal claimed the book – “The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History,” by Lee Smith – was defamatory.

“Blumenthal tried to stop it from being published,” the source told Fox News, saying the Hillary Clinton confidant sent threatening letters to Smith and publisher Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group.

Fox News reached out to Blumenthal, who did not immediately respond.

The book, which is scheduled for release Oct. 29, includes allegations about the origin of the Russia probe and the involvement of Democratic operatives with the unverified anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The source said that the publisher’s legal team found Blumenthal’s legal claim “meritless,” and they intend to release the book as planned.” (Read more: Fox News, 10/25/2019)

(Graphic Credit: Truthfeed)

“Judicial Watch announced today it received through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit 13 pages out of 42 responsive pages of communications between former FBI official Peter Strzok and DOJ official Bruce Ohr that the DOJ claimed previously it could not find.

(…) In the lawsuit, Judicial Watch challenged the DOJ’s extraordinary claim that there were no records of communications between Strzok and Ohr in light of the preeminent role both individuals played in the anti-Trump collusion investigation. In addition, Ohr himself testified before Congress that he did, in fact, meet and communicate with Strzok.

The documents show contact between Ohr and Strzok in the weeks after the 2016 presidential election, during the presidential transition, and in the days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page arranges a November 21, 2016, meeting from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at FBI headquarters. “Required attendees” include Ohr, Strzok, and FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Jonathan Moffa.

On November 29, 2016, Ohr attempts to arrange a meeting between Strzok, Page, himself, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Bruce Swartz.

Ohr writes to Strzok and Page under the subject Meeting with Bruce Swartz: “Thanks again for taking the time to chat today. As I mentioned, I would like to set up a short meeting for us with Bruce Swartz. Would next Monday at 5:30 p.m. work? Also, is there any chance you guys could come over to our building?”

Page responds: “Unfortunately, Pete is briefing HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] from 5-6:30 on Monday. Just about any other time that day would work. And we’re happy to come to you (especially because Bruce S. always has good snacks…)” [smile emoticon]

Ohr responds to Page: “No problem – is 6:30 (or later) that day too late? Otherwise we may be into the next week. I will ensure the snacks are up to snuff!”

Page writes to Ohr at 5:46 p.m.: “Unfortunately, it is. Have a flight later that night. Sorry about that.”

Ohr responds at 6:32 p.m.: “Got it. I’ll find a few dates/times for the week after and shoot them to you.”

A meeting with importance classified as “high” is scheduled for December 5, 2016. Strzok, Ohr and Swartz are scheduled to meet from 5:30 to 6 p.m. at Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) 2213, and later is canceled.

On January 4, 2017, a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) official in the Office of Special Measures [a unit within FinCEN set up to sanction foreign and domestic financial institutions] forwards to Ohr an unclassified but fully redacted FinCEN document, which Ohr then forwards to Strzok on February 1, 2017.

Ohr writes to Strzok: “Pete – As we discussed. I will forward the classified document as well, as well as one more unclassified document.”

January 30, 2017, FinCEN sent protected information and its password to [Redacted].

On February 1, 2017, at 2:11 pm Lisa Holtyn, Ohr’s assistant, sends to members of Bruce Ohr’s former team at Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) password protected information from FinCEN, saying “I’ll send the password separately.” Minutes later, she sends the same email to Bruce Ohr. Seconds after that, Ohr forwards the email to Strzok, followed by the password.

“Ohr and Strzok clearly were working regularly with each other during the time the illicit Spygate operation heated up against President Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It speaks volumes that Judicial Watch was forced to drag the DOJ and FBI into court in order to force the agency to admit to documents they’ve obviously had all along.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 10/29/2019)  (Archive)

Sarah Carter writes in August 2018:

(…) “Ohr stated during his hours-long testimony that the FBI failed to disclose this pertinent information to the nation’s secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when it sought an application to spy on Page. The FBI also failed to disclose that when it sought the application, it was using senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr as a cut-out for a source the bureau had terminated.

Ohr had also communicated with senior members of the FBI, including former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, at the bureau but stated that his superiors at the Justice Department were not aware that he was being used as a source for the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign, according to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/31/2018)

The U.S. Justice Department has reportedly triggered a criminal inquiry into the origin of the Mueller investigation.

“The word “coup” shifted to a new level of formalized meaning last week when members of the political resistance showed up to remove President Trump wearing military uniforms.

Not only did U.S. military leadership remain silent to the optics and purpose, but in the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman he admits to giving instructions to ignore the instructions from a sitting United States President.

In the absence of push-back from the Joint Chiefs, from this moment forth, the impression is tacit U.S. military support for the Vindman objective.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official, testified before congressional committees conducting an impeachment inquiry on October 29, wearing a full military uniform.

To date, there has been no visible comment from U.S. military sanctioning Lt. Col. Vindman for his decision; or correcting the impression represented by Vindman’s military appearance.  The willful blindness is concerning, but it gets much worse.

Beyond the debate about the optics of the “coup“, within the testimony of Lt. Col Vindman, the witness readily admits to understanding the officially established policy of the President of The United States (an agreement between President Trump and President Zelenskyy), and stunningly admits that two weeks later he was giving countermanding instructions to his Ukrainian counterpart to ignore President Trump’s policies.

The coup against President Donald Trump went from soft, to hard.  Consider…

The testimony from Lt. Col. Vindman is available here.

Borrowing from Roscoe B Davis, here are some highlights:

Representative John Ratcliffe begins deconstructing Lt. Col Vindman, while his arrogant attorneys begin trying to interfere with the questioning.

(Vindman’s testimony with Congressman Ratcliffe continues on Conservative Treehouse linked here:)

This next section is very interesting and very important.

Congressman John Ratcliffe begins questioning Vindman from the perspective of an Article 92 violation, coupled with an Article 88 violation.  President Trump is Lt. Col Vindman’s superior.  President Trump sets foreign policy. 

Two weeks after President Trump has established an agreement with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, and established the policy direction therein, Lt. Col. Vindman is now giving contrary instructions to the Ukranian government.  Vindman’s lawyer recognizes where the questioning is going and goes absolutely bananas:

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 11/09/2019)

Alexander Vindman (Credit: The Associated Press)

“Transcripts are being released from various impeachment inquiry witnesses and it’s becoming clear exactly why Adam Schiff wanted to keep all this stuff secret.

(…) There are other questions involving the original whistle-blower (reported to be Eric Ciaramella). We know he was not legally privy to anything on the telephone call between Trump and Zelensky, which has formed the genesis of this matter. That means that whoever gave him the contents was illegally leaking classified information. Perhaps the whistle-blower himself is protected by statute for simply passing that information along, but whoever gave it to him certainly isn’t it for their original crime.

That leads us to Alexander Vindman. He’s become a central figure in these discussions after he marched up to Capitol Hill, proclaiming himself a patriot, and shared all his deep concerns about Donald Trump. He accused the President of “subverting” U.S. foreign policy, which gives you a window into the perverted minds of some of these bureaucrats that assume it is they who actually run things.

It’s been suspected that Vindman was the one who leaked to the whistle-blower and now that his testimony has been released, it seems fairly certain.

In these transcripts, we see Jim Jordan pressing Vindman on who outside of the chain of command he talked to about the call. Then we see Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell jump in and stop him from answering. But it’s what they say when they stop Vindman that gives the entire thing away.

(Scribd pdf)

The problem is that Jordan never asked about the whistle-blower. This means that both Schiff and Swalwell accidentally confirmed here that Vindman is indeed the source for the ICIG complaint. In short, if Vindman answering the question about who he talked to would give up the whistle-blower’s identity, that means Vindman was the source.

(…) Last I checked, it’s a crime to share classified information with people not legally able to receive that information. We’ve been told from the beginning of this ordeal that the whistle-blower himself did not have the proper clearance to access the phone call.

The rough transcript of the call, according to the complaint, was first classified as secret and later top-secret, ensuring that only those with the highest clearances would be able to read it.

Not only did Vindman share concerns about a call classified at the highest level, he gave exacting details and quotes to the whistle-blower.

(Read more: Red State, 11/08/2019)  (Transcript)

“Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe refused to say Wednesday what parts of the Steele dossier the FBI verified before using the salacious document in surveillance warrant applications to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

McCabe, a CNN analyst, appeared on a panel with former CIA officials John Brennan, John McLaughlin and Michael Morell to discuss the intelligence community’s role in the 2020 election.

A journalist asked McCabe during a Q&A session to describe what parts of the dossier, authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, the FBI verified before using it in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications to spy on Page.

“Would you be able to say with specificity what the FBI verified in the Steele dossier before using it in FISA applications?” Jerry Dunleavy, a reporter at the Washington Examiner, asked McCabe.

“Specifically, what was verified in the dossier before it was used?” Dunleavy added.

McCabe was succinct and abrupt.

“So the answer to your first question is ‘no,’” he said, “I will not go into specificity about what the FBI verified prior to the FISA or after.”

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/31/2019)

Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson arrives for a closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence Committee in Washington, D.C., Oct. 4, 2019. (Credit: Eric Baradat/Agence France Presse/Getty Images)

(…) RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official’s status as a “whistleblower” is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate” — as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.

Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old [Eric] Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

“He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,” said a former NSC official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Also, Ciaramella huddled for “guidance” with the staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former colleagues also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff’s office had recently recruited from the NSC. (Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the impeachment inquiry.)

Alexandra Chalupa and Eric Ciaramella (Credit: public domain)

And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said. The operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American who supported Hillary Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican campaign to the Russian government. “He knows her. He had her in the White House,” said one former co-worker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015.  She visited the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.

(…) A CIA officer specializing in Russia and Ukraine, Ciaramella was detailed over to the National Security Council from the agency in the summer of 2015, working under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He also worked closely with the former vice president.

Federal records show that Biden’s office invited Ciaramella to an October 2016 state luncheon the vice president hosted for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Other guests included Brennan, as well as then-FBI Director James Comey and then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper.

Several U.S. officials told RealClearInvestigations that the invitation that was extended to Ciaramella, a relatively low-level GS-13 federal employee, was unusual and signaled he was politically connected inside the Obama White House.

Former White House officials said Ciaramella worked on Ukrainian policy issues for Biden in 2015 and 2016 when the vice president was President Obama’s “point man” for Ukraine. A Yale graduate, Ciaramella is said to speak Russian and Ukrainian, as well as Arabic. He had been assigned to the NSC by Brennan.

He was held over into the Trump administration, and headed the Ukraine desk at the NSC, eventually transitioning into the West Wing, until June 2017.

“He was moved over to the front office” to temporarily fill a vacancy, said a former White House official, where he “saw everything, read everything.”

The official added that it soon became clear among NSA staff that Ciaramella opposed the new Republican president’s foreign policies. “My recollection of Eric is that he was very smart and very passionate, particularly about Ukraine and Russia. That was his thing – Ukraine,” he said. “He didn’t exactly hide his passion with respect to what he thought was the right thing to do with Ukraine and Russia, and his views were at odds with the president’s policies.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 10/30/2 019) (Archive)

“During an interview with Margaret Brennan of CSPAN, former CIA head John McLaughlin along with his successor John Brennan both basically admitted that there is a secretive cabal of people within US intelligence who are trying to ‘take Trump out.’

“Thank God for the ‘Deep State,’” McLaughlin crowed as liberals in the crowd cheered.

Former CIA director John McLaughlin on Trump’s impeachment: “Thank God for the deep state” pic.twitter.com/t4pQhFOBuj

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 31, 2019

“I mean I think everyone has seen this progression of diplomats and intelligence officers and White House people trooping up to Capitol Hill right now and saying these are people who are doing their duty or responding to a higher call,” he added.

“With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed everything else,” McLaughlin said, referring to the unnamed ‘whistleblower’, who it seems worked for Obama, Biden And Brennan.

🚨BREAKING 🚨

The White House “whistleblower” is Eric Ciaramella.
– Registered Democrat
– Worked for Obama
– Worked with Joe Biden
– Worked for CIA Director John Brennan
– Vocal critic of Trump
– Helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation hoax
https://t.co/4rSdvIvkyZ

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 30, 2019

“This is the institution within the U.S. government — that with all of its flaws, and it makes mistakes — is institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth,” McLaughlin claimed.

“It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth — it’s engraved in marble in the lobby.” he continued to blather.

Brennan also expressed praise for the deep state and admitted that the goal is to remove the President.

“Thank goodness for the women and men who are in the intelligence community and the law enforcement community who are standing up and carrying out their responsibilities for their fellow citizens.” he said.

.@JohnBrennan on the whistleblower coming from the intel community: They’re “ighting in the trenches here and overseas … I’m just pleased every day that my former colleagues in the intelligence community continue to do their duties.” pic.twitter.com/7YW9lkQMj0

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 31, 2019

There you have it. Two former CIA heads admitting that there is a plot to take out a duly-elected President.” (Read more: Summit News, 10/31/2019)

The entire event can be viewed here.

Tim Morrison,(r), National Security Council’s Russia and Europe Director, is escorted to a closed-door deposition in Washington, on Oct. 31, 2019. (Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

“Tim Morrison, a top official with the National Security Council, told lawmakers Thursday that he did not believe “anything illegal was discussed during the conversation” between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the opening statement reviewed by SaraACarter.com.

Morrison, who is the outgoing senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and a deputy assistant to the president, told lawmakers that the transcript of the call was accurate but he contended that some of the details provided by other witnesses did not coincide with his regarding certain aspects of the Ukrainian issue. House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff, D-CA, who has been criticized for his continued anti-Trump partisan rhetoric by Republicans, has been pushing for Trump’s impeachment.

Morrison told the closed-door panel of lawmakers Thursday that he reviewed the Memorandum of Conversation regarding the July 25 phone call that was released by the White House. He said he listened to the call, along with others. He noted it occurred from the Situation Room.

“To the best of my recollection, the MemCon accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call,” he said, regarding the transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky.

He also said  he had “no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August  28, 2019.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 10/31/2019)  (Deposition Transcript)

“Just why does investigative journalist Lee Smith believe the so-called “Steele dossier” was not actually written by Christopher Steele?

Who does he think did the authoring? How has the mainstream media been complicit in the Spygate scandal? What are the broader implications for America? And why does Smith believe that all of this, including the current impeachment inquiry against President Trump, is part of a broad coup attempt against the President?

This is American Thought Leaders and I’m Jan Jekielek.

Today we sit down with Hudson Institute senior fellow Lee Smith, author of “The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History.”

Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack sends a letter to Flynn’s defense team today containing a stunning, almost impossible to comprehend, admission of a mistake central to the claims of the prosecution.  In March 2018 the FBI presented notes taken by agents Pientka and Strzok, now they say they made a ‘mistake’.

For almost two years the DOJ misidentified, misattributed, and never corrected that the authors of the Flynn interview notes were actually reversed.  All of the notes attributed to FBI Agent Peter Strzok actually were taken by FBI Agent Joseph Pientka, and vice-versa:

What kind of f**kery is this?  The DOJ never confirmed the authorship of the FBI notes that are central to the FD-302, upon which the entire prosecution claim of Flynn lying to investigators is based? …Seriously?

The entire FBI case against Flynn; meaning the central element that he lied to FBI investigators (he didn’t); is predicated on the FD-302 interview reports generated by the two FBI agents; later discovered to have been edited, shaped and approved by Andrew McCabe….  And for almost two years the entire outline of their documented evidence has been misattributed?

C’mon man.  This is sketchy as heck.

Obviously what triggered this re-review of the notes was a smart sur-surreply from the defense that highlighted how Peter Strzoks notes were far too neat, organized and well constructed to have been written during an actual interview. [SEE HERE]

For the prosecution to now reverse course and say the agent attribution was transposed, is either the biggest screw-up in a high profile case…. OR, the prosecution now needs to reverse the note-takers due to the exact, and common sense, reasons highlighted by the defense.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 11/05/2019)  (Archive)

UPDATE:

Michael Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, appears on Fox Late Night to discuss the stunning letter from the DOJ that for the past two years they have attributed the wrong notes to the wrong FBI agent. – Conservative Treehouse

Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja (l) and George Nader (Credit: Getty Images/The Associated Press)

“Two Lebanese-American businessmen — including a witness in then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe — are among eight people charged with conspiring to funnel more than $3 million in illegal foreign campaign contributions to an unnamed candidate in the 2016 elections, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday.

In an unsealed 53-count indictment, prosecutors alleged that Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, CEO of an online payment processing company, and George Nader, who has acted as a liaison between President Trump’s top advisers and officials within the United Arab Emirates, conspired to conceal Nader’s $3.5 million in campaign contributions to an unnamed 2016 presidential candidate by making them in the name of Khawaja, his wife, and his company, Allied Wallet Inc., all while Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain the campaign’s political influence.

Prosecutors also alleged that Khawaja donated $1.8 million to several political committees, which allowed him to host a private fundraiser for a presidential candidate and a private fundraising dinner for an elected official in 2018, according to the Justice Department’s press release.

(…) Nader — who has acted as an intermediary between the Trump administration and UAE crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi and was also a key witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 elections — is in federal custody on unrelated charges of importing child pornography and traveling with a minor to engage in sexual activity, both of which he has pleaded not guilty to, the Justice Department said. He had pleaded guilty to a federal child pornography charge in Virginia in 1991. (Read more: Fox News, 12/03/2019)  (Archive) 

Tracy Beanz @tracybeanz does a deep dive into the Nader indictment and finds the Clintons meeting with George Nader and Andy Khawaja throughout her 2016 presidential campaign, taking foreign donations. Her Twitter thread follows:

(…) All throughout the 2016 campaign season, from May through October of 2016, the Nader coalition was meeting directly with HRC and WJC. Nader references meeting HRC and WJC a few times. As per the indictment, Nader was taking monies from “Foreign Country 1” to funnel to Khawaja.

Khawaja would then launder that money through himself, his wife, his company and others to skirt the law when it came to political donations. It is important to remember, this money is coming from a foreign country, and if we are to use the Mueller Report as our fact set then the country is Saudi Arabia via MBZ, and in cooperation with the UAE. So, again, the Clinton camp and the DNC were taking millions from a foreign government, in return for meetings and influence. The indictment alleges that these committees and the candidate weren’t aware that the funds were coming via Nader, only thought that they were coming via Khawaja. I have a hard time believing this, as Khawaja was closely tied to Nader.

In addition, most of the evidence here comes from WhatsApp messages. We are going to take a trip back to
the Mueller investigation for a moment. The Mueller investigation only spoke about Nader in relation to things that happened after the election- they didn’t even mention what Nader had been doing in private meetings with HRC the entire campaign. Completely irrelevant I guess, that the man they considered a conduit between Prince and Russia in regards to the Trump campaign, paid millions of dollars, given to him by a foreign government, to sit and meet with HRC and a former POTUS over and over.

Interestingly, the day before the infamous Phoenix meeting on the tarmac, WJC was at an event hosted by Khawaja. Amazing. So again, the Mueller Report only focuses on Nader and a tiny interaction with POTUS and camp, but completely ignores quite a few things.

1. They ignore that he is meeting HRC and WJC with his money, received from SA (likely) and UAE, and is being used to make illegal donations to HRC, the DNC, and a PAC.

2. They ignore that Nader is a pedophile. They have his WhatsApp messages during the Mueller investigation.
They come to the conclusion in the report that nothing came of the Prince meeting in Seychelles, and that Nader never made the introductions of the Russian, Dmietriev, to the Trump transition. But they ignore this supposed Russian connected player is meeting one on one with HRC and WJC throughout the entire campaign, even talking about sitting in VIP at the convention, but deciding not to because it was “too visible.” They bought the seats though, they sure did.

(…) Here is the indictment:

A few excerpts:

On June 26, Khawaja has a private event for HRC featuring WJC:

Another private home fundraiser on June 24, Nader tells Foreign Government he will be meeting with HRC and WJC:

Here we learn of a private three-person event with just the candidate and also the plans to attend convention. They also arrange for more “Baklava” the code name they use for money, because the HRC camp pushes back on the amount vs access and wants more for it.

Another meeting/event and talk about more coming from the “Bakery”:

“Big sis” is HRC. Nader met with her in NY and is also having dinner with her. I mean for a big bad Russian colluder, you’d think Mueller would have mentioned this, right?? Forget what the legacy media tries to tell you with headlines like this. THERE ARE NO TRUMP TIES.

Nader didn’t have dinner with POTUS over and over and raise money with private events for him, but he did do that for Hillary. From the Mueller report:

Here is the ONLY place that the report mentions any connections to HRC campaign etc:

Addendum: in his criminal case for pedophilia, many of his attorneys have withdrawn.

In addition, he was formerly represented by Obama admin and WH “fixer” Kathryn Ruemmler. 

(Tracy Beanz@tracybeanz, 12/05/2019)  (Archive)

“We have conducted an in-depth analysis of Obama-era White House visitor logs, and we have learned a good deal about the people who controversial CIA employee Eric Ciaramella met with while assigned to the White House.

Ciaramella reportedly was detailed to the Obama White House in 2015 and returned to the CIA during the Trump administration in 2017.

Real Clear Investigations named Ciaramella as possibly being the whistleblower whose complaint sparked impeachment proceedings against President Trump. As reported by the Examiner, Fox News’ legal analyst Gregg Jarrett indicated that a key takeaway was the “reported direct relationship” Ciaramella had with former President Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and national security adviser Susan Rice, as well as the “Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.”

The visitor logs also reveal Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor hired by the DNC during the 2016 election, who coordinated with Ukrainians to investigate President Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, visited the White House 27 times.

The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Eric Ciaramella while he was detailed to the Obama White House:

• Daria Kaleniuk: Co-founder and executive director of the Soros-funded Anticorruption Action Center (AntAC) in Ukraine. She visited on December 9, 2015

The Hill reported that in April 2016, during the U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Embassy under Obama in Kiev, “took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and (AntAC).”

• Gina Lentine: Now a senior program officer at Freedom House, she was formerly the Eurasia program coordinator at Soros funded Open Society Foundations. She visited on March 16, 2016.
• Rachel Goldbrenner: Now an NYU law professor, she was at that time an advisor to then-Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. She visited on both January 15, 2016 and August 8, 2016.
• Orly Keiner: A foreign affairs officer at the State Department who is a Russia specialist. She is also the wife of State Department Legal Advisor James P. Bair. She visited on both March 4, 2016 and June 20, 2015.
• Nazar Kholodnitzky: The lead anti-corruption prosecutor in Ukraine. He visited on January 19, 2016.

On March 7, 2019, The Associated Press reported that the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

• Michael Kimmage: Professor of History at Catholic University of America, at the time was with the State Department’s policy planning staff where he specialized in Russia and Ukraine issues. He is a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He was also one of the signatories to the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group Statement of Principles. He visited on October 26, 2015.
• James Melville: Then-recently confirmed as Obama’s Ambassador to Estonia, visited on September 9, 2015.

On June 29, 2018, Foreign Policy reported that Melville resigned in protest of Trump.

• Victoria Nuland: who at the time was assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs met with Ciaramella on June 17, 2016.

(Judicial Watch has previously uncovered documents revealing Nuland had extensive involvement with the Clinton-funded dossier. Judicial Watch also released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department’s “urgent” gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Trump taking office.)

• Artem Sytnyk: the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau director visited on January 19, 2016.

On October 7, 2019, the Daily Wire reported leaked tapes show Sytnyk confirming that the Ukrainians helped the Clinton campaign.

The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Alexandra Chalupa, then a DNC contractor:

• Charles Kupchan: From 2014 to 2017, Kupchan served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) in the Barack Obama administration. That meeting was on November 9, 2015.
• Alexandra Sopko: who at the time was a special assistant and policy advisor to the director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, which was run by Valerie Jarrett. Also listed for that meeting is Alexa Kissinger, a special assistant to Jarrett. That meeting was on June 2, 2015.
• Asher Mayerson: who at the time was a policy advisor to the Office of Public Engagement under Jarrett had five visits with Chalupa including December 18, 2015, January 11, 2016, February 22, 2016, May 13, 2016, and June 14, 2016. Mayerson was previously an intern at the Center for American Progress. After leaving the Obama administration, he went to work for the City of Chicago Treasurer’s office.

Mayerson met with Chalupa and Amanda Stone, who was the White House deputy director of technology, on January 11, 2016.

On May 4, 2016, Chalupa emailed DNC official Luis Miranda to inform him that she had spoken to investigative journalists about Paul Manafort in Ukraine.

Spreadsheets of visitor records are grouped alphabetically by last name and available here: (Read more: Judicial Watch, 11/08/2019)

Lawfare founder Benjamin Wittes sent a curious tweet appearing to defend former DOJ lawyer Lisa Page; who was previously assigned to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The tweet comes out of the blue; and there’s nothing currently in the public sphere or headlines about Ms. Page. It seems rather odd:

My hunch is Ms. Page may have spoken honestly to Horowitz or Durham about her experience as part of the ‘small group’.  If accurate, and considering McCabe threw Page under the bus to protect himself against an internal investigation about his media leaks, Ms. Page’s current disposition may very well be adverse to the interests of the coup plotters.   [Additionally, Ms. Page had no involvement with the FBI FISA construct.]

Michael Bromwich is Andrew McCabe’s attorney.  Bromwich is a Lawfare member.

Perhaps the former Deputy Director is being positioned as the ‘fall guy’. (Conservative Treehouse, 11/08/2019)

Andriy Derkach (Credit: Interfax-Ukraine)

(Chrome translated)

“People’s Deputy of Ukraine Andriy Derkach, initiator of a criminal case on interference in the US elections, released documents from which it follows that the first deputy director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Gizo Uglava for several years provided the US Embassy in Kiev with information that negatively affected the course events in Ukraine and the USA.

At a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday, he made public the documents received from investigative journalists, including correspondence between NABU officers and representatives of diplomatic missions of foreign states in the framework of criminal proceedings opened under article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “High Treason”. In particular, the documents that the people’s deputy possesses indicate that Uglava, through her assistant Polina Chizh, transmitted information to the US Embassy, ​​which, he said, is an important part of the “puzzle” of interference in US elections and international corruption.

According to Derkach, he has already transferred these documents to the State Bureau of Investigation (GBR) and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The parliamentarian also initiated the creation of a temporary investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada, and filed a petition for the court to resume the investigation of interference in the election in the United States by divulging pre-trial investigation.

“According to the correspondence, repeatedly, starting from July 14, 2017, from the electronic mailbox of the assistant to the first deputy of NABU Gizo Uglavy [and] Polina Chizh, the lists of criminal proceedings were sent to the legal specialist of the anti-corruption program of the US Department of Justice of the US Embassy in Ukraine Anna Emelyanova, that NABU detectives do, “Derkach said.

Gizo Uglava (l) and Polina Chyz (Credit: public domain and Karlheinz Wedhorn/DOD)

Derkach issued a letter in which Polina Chizh, a NABU employee, received an order from Anna Emelyanova, an employee of the US Embassy, ​​to provide information on the case of Nikolai Zlochevsky, the former Minister of Ecology and owner of the Burisma Group.

The MP also announced the amount of funds transferred to the representatives of the Burisma Group, among which Hunter Biden also appears. According to documents, Burisma paid at least $ 16.5 million in favor of Hunter Biden, Alexander Kwasniewski, Alan Apter and Devon Archer.

At the same time, Derkach claims that international corruption of this magnitude could not take place without the participation of the fifth president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. “International corruption of this magnitude, as well as interference in the election of the US president, could not have occurred without the participation of Petro Poroshenko,” he said.” (Read more: Interfax/Ukraine)  (Archive)

Alexandra Chalupa (Credit: Facebook)

“A longtime Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist says she’s itching to testify in the House’s public impeachment hearings to beat back Republican assertions that Ukrainian officials used her as a conduit for information in 2016 to damage Donald Trump.

“I’m on a mission to testify,” said Alexandra Chalupa, who Republicans identified as one of nine witnesses they would like to testify publicly when the House begins public impeachment proceedings this week.

Chalupa, founder of the political consulting firm Chalupa & Associates, LLC, and a co-chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Ethnic Council, has been at the heart of efforts by allies of President Donald Trump to draw an equivalence between Russia’s large-scale hacking and propaganda operation to interfere in the 2016 election with the actions of a small cadre of Ukrainian bureaucrats who allegedly worked with Chalupa to research former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s Russia ties.

In 2017, Chalupa told POLITICO reporters that officials at the Ukrainian Embassy were “helpful” to her effort to raise the alarm about Manafort. “If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with,” she said.

But she also downplayed the idea that the embassy was conspiring to interfere in American politics. “There were no documents given, nothing like that,” she said. “They were being very protective and not speaking to the press as much as they should have. I think they were being careful because their situation was that they had to be very, very careful because they could not pick sides. It’s a political issue, and they didn’t want to get involved politically because they couldn’t.”

Andrii Telizhenko and Rudy Giuliani in New York on May 22, 2019. (Credit: Andrii Telzhenko/Facebook)

Andrii Telizhenko, a 29-year-old former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy who says he was tasked with helping Chalupa dig up dirt on Manafort in 2016, has gone further, claiming there was direct coordination between the DNC and the Ukrainian government.

Telizhenko met with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani earlier this year to discuss “Ukrainian collusion” with Democrats during the election, and Giuliani told Fox News last month that “Telizhenko has direct evidence” of the coordination.

Telizhenko’s claims have not been proved, however. The DNC has said Chalupa conducted the Manafort research on her own, and the so-called black ledger outlining off-the-books payments Manafort received from Ukraine’s pro-Russia Party of Regions—and that ultimately forced Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign—was released by an independent Ukrainian government agency and publicized by a Ukrainian member of Parliament.”  (Read more: Politico, 11/12/2019)  (Archive)

Alexander Dubinsky (Credit: public domain)

“A Ukrainian MP says a document leaked from Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General contains claims against Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky, as well as Hunter Biden and his partners – who allegedly received $16.5 million for their ‘services’- according to Alexander Dubinsky of the ruling Servant of the People Party.

Dubinsky made the claim in a Wednesday press conference, citing materials from an investigation into Zlochevsky and Burisma.

“Zlochevsky was charged with this new accusation by the Office of the Prosecutor General but the press ignored it,” said the MP. “It was issued on November 14.”

“The son of Vice-President Joe Biden was receiving payment for his services, with money raised through criminal means and money laundering,” he then said, adding “Biden received money that did not come from the company’s successful operation but rather from money stolen from citizens.”

According to Dubinsky, Hunter Biden’s income from Burisma is a “link that reveals how money is siphoned [from Ukraine],” and how Biden is just one link in the chain of Zlochevsky’s money-laundering operation which included politicians from the previous Yanukovich administration who continued their schemes under his successor, President Pyotr Poroshenko.

“We will reveal the information about the financial pyramid scheme that was created in Ukraine and developed by everyone beginning with Yanukovich and later by Poroshenko. This system is still working under the guidance of the current managerial board of the National Bank, ensuring that money flows in the interest of people who stole millions of dollars, took it offshore and bought Ukrainian public bonds turning them into the Ukrainian sovereign debt,” said Dubinsky, adding that “in both cases of Yanukovich and Poroshenko, Ms. Gontareva and companies she controls were investing the stolen funds.”

Franklin Templeton named

According to Interfax-Ukraine, MP Andriy Derkach announced at the same press conference that deputies have received new materials from investigative journalists alleging that the ‘family’ of ex-President Yanukovych funneled $7.4 billion through American investment firm Franklin Templeton Investments, which they claim have connections to the US Democratic party.”

“Last week, November 14, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), unnoticed by the media, announced a new suspicion to the notorious owner of Burisma, ex-Ecology Minister Zlochevsky. According to the suspicion, the Yanukovych family is suspected, in particular, with legalizing (laundering) of criminally obtained income through Franklin Templeton Investments, an investment fund carrying out purchases of external government loan bonds totaling $7.4 billion,” said Derkach, adding that the money was criminally obtained and invested in the purchase of Ukrainian debt in 2013 – 2014.

“The son of Templeton’s founder, John Templeton Jr., was one of President Obama’s major campaign donors. Another fund-related character is Thomas Donilon. Managing Director of BlackRock Investment Institute, shareholder Franklin Templeton Investments, which has the largest share in the fund. It is noteworthy that he previously was Obama’s national security advisor,” Derkach added. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 11/14/2019)  (Archive)

Andriy Derkach (Credit: public domain)

“Ukrainian members of parliament have demanded the presidents of Ukraine and the United States, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, investigate suspicions of the legalization of $7.4 billion by the “family” of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych through the American investment fund Franklin Templeton Investments, which they said has ties to the U.S. Democratic Party.

At a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday, MP Andriy Derkach announced that deputies have received new materials from investigative journalists about international corruption and the participation of Ukrainian officials in it.

“Last week, November 14, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), unnoticed by the media, announced a new suspicion to the notorious owner of Burisma, ex-Ecology Minister Zlochevsky. According to the suspicion, the Yanukovych family is suspected, in particular, with legalizing (laundering) of criminally obtained income through Franklin Templeton Investments, an investment fund carrying out purchases of external government loan bonds totaling $7.4 billion,” Derkach said.

With reference to the investigation, he emphasized: it was money criminally obtained by the “family” of Yanukovych and invested in the purchase of Ukrainian debt in 2013-2014.

For his part, MP Oleksandr Dubinsky from the Servant of the People faction said that according to investigators, “the Yanukovych ‘family’ illegally obtained $7.4 billion and laundered the funds through an investment fund close to some representatives of the U.S. Democratic Party in the form of external government loan bonds.”

Meanwhile, Derkach said that several facts indicate Franklin Templeton Investments’ relationship with the U.S. Democratic Party.

“The son of Templeton’s founder, John Templeton Jr., was one of President Obama’s major campaign donors. Another fund-related character is Thomas Donilon. Managing Director of BlackRock Investment Institute, shareholder Franklin Templeton Investments, which has the largest share in the fund. It is noteworthy that he previously was Obama’s national security advisor,” Derkach said.

The MP said that the presidents of Ukraine and the United States should combine the efforts of the two countries to establish facts of corruption and money laundering with the participation of citizens of both countries.” (Read more: Interfax, Ukraine 11/20/2019)  (Archive)

Today’s largely boring testimony included a few fireworks – notably when House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) prevented Republicans from recognizing Rep. Elise Stefanik to ask Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch questions about Hunter Biden and Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

And when Stefanik was allowed to question Yovanovitch, she pointed out that the Obama State Department prepared her to answer questions about perceived conflicts of interest regarding the unusual Biden arrangement.

(…) As Bloomberg reminds us, Yovanovitch testified in private on Oct. 11 that she felt she was recalled following a “concerted campaign” by President Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Because she left Ukraine in May, she clearly doesn’t have any direct knowledge of Trump’s efforts to elicit a quid pro quo – or as the Dems are now calling it, a bribe.

Yovanovitch testified that she felt “threatened” by the way Trump spoke about her on the July 25 call, which is at the center of the impeachment issue. Trump called her “bad news” and said “she’s going to go through some things.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 11/15/2019)

“Representative Elise Stefanik brought to light interesting information today surrounding how the Obama administration was concerned about issues surrounding Vice-President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his connection to a corrupt Ukraine company Burisma.

During questioning, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch admitted the Obama White House spent time briefing her on how to respond to congress if questions about Hunter Biden and Burisma were raised.  This testimony highlights the concerns by the Obama administration about a clear issue with the Biden family and corrupt Ukraine interests.”

This admission by former Ambassador Yovanovitch directly contradicted her testimony that was made only minutes before the admission.  From her opening statement:

[Yovanovitch Opening Statement November 15th, Page #8]

(Conservative Treehouse, 11/15/2019)

John Solomon reports:

(…) “Memos newly released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on my behalf detail how State officials in June 2016 worked to prepare the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to handle a question about “Burisma and Hunter Biden.”

In multiple drafts of a question-and-answer memo prepared for Yovanovitch’s Senate confirmation hearing, the department’s Ukraine experts urged the incoming ambassador to stick to a simple answer.

“Do you have any comment on Hunter Biden, the Vice President’s son, serving on the board of Burisma, a major Ukrainian Gas Company?,” the draft Q&A asked.

The recommended answer for Yovanovitch: “For questions on Hunter Biden’s role in Burisma, I would refer you to Vice President Biden’s office.”

The Q&A is consistent with other information flowing out of State. As I reported yesterday, when a Burisma representative contacted State in February 2016 to ask for the department’s help in quashing the corruption allegations, Hunter Biden’s role on the company’s board was prominently cited.

And a senior State Department official who testified recently in the impeachment proceedings reportedly told lawmakers he tried to warn the vice president’s office that Burisma posed a conflict for Joe Biden but was turned aside.” (Read more: John Solomon Reports, 11/05/2019)

According to Shapley, the FBI was able to match the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID to verify it. (Credit: Hinter Biden)

The FBI “verified” the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop in November 2019 and a federal computer expert assessed “it was not manipulated in any way,” IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley told Congress in explosive testimony released Thursday.

Investigators probing President Biden’s son for tax fraud and other crimes were not given full access to the laptop’s contents, however, Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee during his May 26 deposition.

“The computer guy said that they could do a CSV list that shows when everything was created … the whole discussion was about can we rely on this information on the laptop, is it Hunter Biden’s? And their opinion was, it was, and it was not manipulated in any way,” he said.

Shapley confirmed key details in the chronology of the laptop, whose existence was first reported by The Post in October 2020 but dismissed as a “Russian plant” by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

“In October 2019, the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID,” Shapley said. (Read more: The New York Post, 6/22/2023)  (Archive)

After nearly two years of reporting on Ukraine issues, here are 15 questions I think could be most illuminating to everyday Americans if the ambassador answered them.

U.S. Embassy Kiev (Credit: public domain)

Ambassador Yovanovitch, at any time while you served in Ukraine did any officials in Kiev ever express concern to you that President Trump might be withholding foreign aid assistance to get political investigations started? Did President Trump ever ask you as America’s top representative in Kiev to pressure Ukrainians to start an investigation about Burisma Holdings or the Bidens?

What was the Ukrainians’ perception of President Trump after he allowed lethal aid to go to Ukraine in 2018?

In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine’s national bank?

Back in May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting you might have made comments unflattering or unsupportive of the president and should be recalled. Setting aside that Sessions is a Republican and might even have donors interested in Ukraine policy, were you ever questioned about his concerns? At any time have you or your embassy staff made comments that could be viewed as unsupportive or critical of President Trump and his policies?

John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros’ main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros’ vision. Can you explain what role your embassy played in funding this group and why State funds would flow to it? And did anyone consider the perception of mingling tax dollars with those donated by Soros, a liberal ideologue who spent millions in 2016 trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump?

In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports?

Now that both the New York Times and The Hill have confirmed that Lutsenko stands by his account and has not recanted, how do you respond to his concerns? And setting aside the use of the word “list,” is it possible that during that 2016 meeting with Mr. Lutsenko you discussed the names of certain Ukrainians you did not want to see prosecuted, investigated or harassed?

Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention’s requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country?

Marie Yovanovitch (Credit: U.S. Embassy, Ukraine)

On March 5 of this year, you gave a speech in which you called for the replacement of Ukraine’s top anti-corruption prosecutor. That speech occurred in the middle of the Ukrainian presidential election and obviously raised concerns among some Ukrainians of internal interference prohibited by the Geneva Convention. In fact, one of your bosses, Under Secretary David Hale, got questioned about those concerns when he arrived in country a few days later. Why did you think it was appropriate to give advice to Ukrainians on an internal personnel matter and did you consider then or now the potential concerns your comments might raise about meddling in the Ukrainian election or the country’s internal affairs?

If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate?

At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky?

At any time since you were appointed ambassador to Ukraine, did you or your embassy have any contact with the following Burisma figures: Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, lawyer John Buretta, Blue Star strategies representatives Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, or former Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko?

John Solomon obtained documents showing Burisma representatives were pressuring the State Department in February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company and were invoking Hunter Biden’s name as part of their effort. Did you ever subsequently learn of these contacts and did anyone at State — including but not limited to Secretary Kerry, Undersecretary Novelli, Deputy Secretary Blinken or Assistant Secretary Nuland — ever raise Burisma with you?

What was your embassy’s assessment of the corruption allegations around Burisma and why the company may have hired Hunter Biden as a board member in 2014?

In spring 2019 your embassy reportedly began monitoring briefly the social media communications of certain people viewed as supportive of President Trump and gathering analytics about them. Who were those people? Why was this done? Why did it stop? And did anyone in the State Department chain of command ever suggest targeting Americans with State resources might be improper or illegal? (John Solomon, 11/15/2019)  (Archive)

Peter Strzok (Credit: public domain)

“The Department of Justice released documents Monday outlining a slew of “security violations” and flagrantly “unprofessional conduct” by anti-Trump ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok — including his alleged practice of keeping sensitive FBI documents on his unsecured personal electronic devices, even as his wife gained access to his cellphone and discovered evidence that he was having an affair with former FBI attorney Lisa Page.

The DOJ was seeking to dismiss Strzok’s lawsuit claiming he was unfairly fired and deserves to be reinstated as chief of the counterespionage division at the FBI. In its filing, the DOJ included an August 2018 letter to Strzok from the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which said in part that Strzok had engaged in a “dereliction of supervisory responsibility” by failing to investigate the potentially classified Hillary Clinton emails that had turned up on an unsecured laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner as the 2016 election approached.

The situation became so dire, OPR said, that a case agent in New York told federal prosecutors there that he was “scared” and “paranoid” that “somebody was not acting appropriately” and that “somebody was trying to bury this.”

The New York prosecutors then immediately relayed their concerns to the DOJ, effectively going over Strzok’s head — and leading, eventually, to then-FBI Director James Comey’s fateful announcement just prior to Election Day that emails possibly related to the Clinton probe had been located on Weiner’s laptop.

Additionally, DOJ and OPR noted that although Strzok claimed to have “double deleted” sensitive FBI materials from his personal devices, his wife nonetheless apparently found evidence of his affair on his cellphone — including photographs and a hotel reservation “ostensibly” used for a “romantic encounter.” Strzok didn’t consent to turning over the devices for review, according to OPR, even as he acknowledged using Apple’s iMessage service for some FBI work. (Read more: Fox News, 11/19/2019)  (Archive)

“A year after Ukraine official and alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella left President Trump’s White House, a picture of him shaking Barack Obama’s hand was published on a close friend’s wedding website.

The Oval Office photograph, obtained by the Washington Examiner, is circulating among Trump allies who consider it evidence that the alleged whistleblower is biased against Trump and had partisan motivations when he filed an Aug. 12 complaint that sparked impeachment proceedings.

In the photograph, a smiling Ciaramella, then Ukraine director on the National Security Council at the White House, is shown shaking Obama’s hand. They are standing in front of a portrait of Abraham Lincoln by George Henry Story.

A Republican close to the White House said the photo was evidence Ciaramella supported Obama and its selection for the wedding website indicated he considered the Oval Office image a “glamour shot.” “This photo confirms that career intelligence and foreign service officials serving at the highest ranks of the Trump White House have their own agenda and their own policy viewpoints,” the Republican source said.

The website for the September 2018 wedding of Mat Calabro, a Connecticut high school friend of Ciaramella, is now defunct. The two friends traveled through Central and Eastern Europe together in the summer of 2005, and Ciaramella was the best man at Calabro’s wedding in Newport, Rhode Island.” (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 11/20/2019)

Fiona Hill testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on November 21, 2019. (Credit: Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

“Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council (NSC) official who is testifying in Thursday’s impeachment inquiry, admitted in her closed-door deposition to having worked with Russia “dossier” author Christopher Steele.

Steele, a former British spy, was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to find dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. The firm was paid by Trump’s political opponents, particularly the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. His “dossier” produced a slew of unsubstantiated, salacious accusations, some of them were proven false outright. But the FBI used it to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign associates.

Hill was asked directly about her work with Steele. She portrayed it as a product of circumstance and said that she believed he was being fed misinformation by Russians, perhaps as payback for his past spying on them. (Some of the information also came from Ukraine, though Hill dismissed Ukrainian interference as a “fictional narrative.”)

“He was my counterpart when I was the director, the national intelligence officer,” she testified. She added: “So inevitably when I had to do liaison meetings with the U.K., he was the person I had to meet with.” She said that she had worked with him from 2006 to 2009 — and added that he had reached out to her in 2016, during the election: “That was prior to the time that I had any knowledge about the dossier. He was constantly trying to drum up business, and he had contacted me because he wanted to see if I could give him a contact to some other individual, who actually I don’t even recall now, who he could approach about some business issues.”

She said that she saw a copy of the “dossier” in January 2017, the day before it was published by Buzzfeed, adding that “it seemed to be about half of Washington, D.C., had it.” She later said she was “shocked” he was responsible.

According to her résumé, Hill was also once on a regional board of George Soros’s Open Society Institute. (Breitbart, 11/21/2019)

“As House Democrats wrapped up the public impeachment hearings on Nov. 21, Senate Republicans sent the latest round of records requests as part of a growing inquiry into the Obama administration’s actions related to Burisma, the Ukrainian gas firm that hired Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

From left to right, Senators Lindsey Graham, Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson (Credit: public domain)

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote to the National Archives requesting records of January 2016 White House meetings with senior Ukrainian officials. The senators’ reference events detailed in an April 25 article by investigative reporter John Solomon, who quoted firsthand witnesses to report that Ukrainian officials who attended the White House meeting were encouraged to reopen an investigation involving the chairman of the Trump campaign and stand down from an investigation into Burisma.

On the same day, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) requested records from the State Department regarding the communications in 2016 between Biden, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and their respective offices.

Graham also requested information about a March 2, 2016 meeting between Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business partner, and then-Secretary of State John Kerry. The meeting took place weeks after Ukrainian authorities seized the assets of Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma. Archer and Hunter Biden were on the board of directors of Burisma at the time of the seizure.

The Nov. 21 letters are the latest request by the Senate Republicans, all three of whom have described the requests as an investigation. On Nov. 6, Grassley and Johnson sent a request for an extensive list of documents and information pertaining to the Bidens and Burisma to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. On Nov. 15, they asked for Suspicious Activity Reports from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on a list of key players in the Burisma matter, including Hunter Biden, Archer, and their firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners. The Nov. 15 letter specifically referred to the Burisma inquiry as an active investigation.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 11/26/2019)  (Archive)

“Rudy Giuliani claims that US diplomats have been acting to further the interests of billionaire George Soros in Ukraine in what he described as a “massive pay-for-play” scheme which included falsifying evidence against President Trump.

“The anti-corruption bureau is a contradiction,” Giuliani told Glenn Beck, regarding Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), which Joe Biden helped establish when he was the Obama administration’s point-man on Ukraine.

As a bit of background, in December of 2018, a Ukrainian court ruled that NABU director Artem Sytnyk “acted illegally” when he revealed the existence of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s name to journalist and politician Serhiy Leshchenko in a “black ledger” containing off-book payments to Manafort by Ukraine’s previous administration. The ruling against Sytnyk and Leshchenko was later overturned on a technicality.

In December, The Blaze obtained audio of Sytnyk bragging about helping Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US election.

“They took all the corruption cases away from the prosecutor general, they gave it to the anti-corruption bureau, and they got rid of all the cases that offended Soros, and they included all the cases against Soros’ enemies,” Giuliani told Beck.

The Soros Connection

“One of the first cases they dismissed was a case in which his [Soros’s] NGO, AntAC, was supposed to have embezzled a lot of money, but not only that, collected dirty information on Republicans to be transmitted, gotten by Ukrainians, to be transmitted to this woman Alexandra Chalupa and other people who worked for the Democratic National Committee,” Giuliani continued.

“The first case that [former prosecutor Yuri] Lutsenko tanked was that case at the request of the ambassador,” he added. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 11/21/2019)  (Archive) 

Michael Horowitz (Credit: public domain)

“An FBI official is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.

The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“Justice Department prosecutor U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel connected to the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, which awarded multiple contracts to FBI informant Stephan Halper. Halper, who was informing the bureau on Trump campaign advisors, is a central figure in the FBI’s original investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, SaraACarter.com has learned.

(…) Multiple sources confirmed to this news site that Durham has spoken extensively with sources working in the Office of Net Assessment, as well as outside contractors, that were paid through the Pentagon office.

(…) In 2016, Halper was an integral part of the FBI’s investigation into short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page, and George Papadopolous. Halper first made contact with Page at his seminar in July 2016. Page, who was already on the FBI’s radar, was accused at the time of being sympathetic to Russia. Halper stayed in contact with Page until September 2017.

(…) According to the DoD Inspector General’s report the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) “did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper; therefore, ONA CORs could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We determined that while the ONA CORs established a file to maintain documents, they did not maintain sufficient documentation to comply with all the FAR requirements related to having a complete COR.” (Read more: Sara Carter, 11/22/2019)   (Archive)

Bill Taylor (Credit: Fox News)

“It was evident several weeks ago that U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, is one of the current participants in the coup effort.  It was Taylor who engaged in carefully planned text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up a narrative helpful to Adam Schiff’s political coup effort.

Bill Taylor was formerly U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (’06-’09) and later helped the Obama administration to design the laundry operation providing taxpayer financing to Ukraine in exchange for back-channel payments to U.S. politicians and their families.

Rudy Giuliani (Credit: Anthony Devlin/Shutterstock)

Today Rudy Giuliani has released a letter to Senator Lindsey Graham outlining how Bill Taylor has blocked VISA’s for Ukrainian ‘whistle-blowers’ who are willing to testify to the corrupt financial scheme.   Unfortunately, Senator Graham, along with dozens of U.S. Senators currently serving, may very well have been a recipient for money through the aforementioned laundry process.  So, good luck with the visas.

U.S. senators write foreign aid policies, rules, and regulations thereby creating the financing mechanisms to transmit U.S. funds.  Those same senators then received a portion of the laundered funds back through their various “institutes” and business connections to the foreign government offices; in this example Ukraine. [ex. Burisma to Biden]

The U.S. State Dept. serves as a distribution network for the authorization of the money laundering by granting conflict waivers, approvals for financing (think Clinton Global Initiative), and permission slips for the payment of foreign money.   The officials within the State Dept. take a cut of the overall payments through a system of “indulgence fees”, junkets, gifts and expense payments to those with political oversight.

If anyone gets too close to revealing the process, writ large, they become a target of the entire apparatus.  President Trump was considered an existential threat to this entire process.  Hence our current political status with the ongoing coup. The letter.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because, well, in reality, all of the U.S. Senators (both parties) on the Foreign Relations Committee [Members Here] are participating in the process for receiving taxpayer money and contributions from foreign governments.

Mitch McConnell (Credit: Getty Images)

A “Codel” is a congressional delegation that takes trips to work out the payment terms/conditions of any changes in graft financing.  This is why Senators spend $20 million on a campaign to earn a job paying $350k/year.  The “institutes” is where the real foreign money comes in; billions paid by governments like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Ukraine, etc. etc.  There are trillions at stake.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds the power over these members (and the members of the Senate Intel Committee), because McConnell decides who sits on what committee.  As soon as a Senator starts taking the bribes lobbying funds, McConnell then has full control over that Senator.  This is how the system works.

The McCain Institute is one of the obvious examples of the financing network.  And that is the primary reason why Cindy McCain is such an outspoken critic of President Trump.  In essence, President Trump is standing between her and her next diamond necklace; a dangerous place to be.

So when we think about a Senate Impeachment Trial; and we consider which senators will vote to impeach President Trump, it’s not just a matter of Democrats -vs- Republican.  We need to look at the game of leverage, and the stand-off between those bribed Senators who would prefer President Trump did not interfere in their process.

McConnell has been advising President Trump which Senators are most likely to need their sensibilities eased.   As an example, President Trump met with Lisa Murkowski last week.  Senator Murkowski rakes in millions from the Oil and Gas industry, and she ain’t about to allow horrible Trump to lessen her bank account any more than Cindy McCain will give up her frequent shopper discounts at Tiffany’s.

WASHINGTON DC – Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is getting a high-profile perch as he joins the Senate during his latest clash with President Trump.

Romney was named on Thursday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, giving him an opening to wade into several looming foreign policy battles between Congress and the White House.  (link)

Now do you see how McConnell works?

Oh yeah, about those recess appointments…. Once you see the strings on the Marionettes you can never go back to a time when you did not see them. (Conservative Treehouse, 11/23/2019)

The following day, Giuliani tweets:

(Republished with permission.)

Kevin Clinesmith (Credit: Facebook)

“A former FBI attorney reportedly referred for criminal prosecution by Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz—for allegedly altering an email connected to the surveillance warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page—was assigned in early 2017 as “the primary FBI attorney assigned” to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian election interference.

The lawyer, who has been identified as Kevin Clinesmith in media reports, had been incorrectly portrayed by many members of the media as a “low-level” or junior member of the FBI’s legal team.

Text messages obtained by Horowitz, covered in a June 2018 report, showed that Clinesmith had a strong bias against Trump, texting “Viva le resistance” following Trump’s election as well as: “my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff.”

Clinesmith worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation. He would also later become a member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and was one of the FBI officials—along with FBI Agent Peter Strzok—who was removed by Mueller after IG Horowitz discovered FBI text messages expressing political bias against Trump.

The New York Times reported on Nov. 22, that Clinesmith was removed from the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation in February 2018 and resigned from the FBI “about two months ago.”

Clinesmith has reportedly been referred for criminal prosecution by Horowitz for altering “an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap”—also known as the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) renewal—on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the New York Times reported.

(…) According to the NYT article, the “paperwork associated with the renewal applications contained information that should have been left out, and vice versa.” Clinesmith reportedly altered an email that “was a factor during the wiretap renewal process.”

Clinesmith allegedly “took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email’s author, when it was instead his own understanding.”

This altered email was then included in a package that was prepared for another FBI official to read in “preparation for signing an affidavit,” that was to be submitted to the FISA Court “attesting to the facts and analysis” in the application. ” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 11/24/2019)  (Archive)

 I honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s service to his country. He’s a hero. I also respect his decision to testify at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.

“But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate in America, one that can’t be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.

So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress, he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar

Here are his exact words:

“I think all the key elements were false,” Vindman testified.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. “Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?”

“All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false…. Were there more items in there, frankly, congressman? I don’t recall. I haven’t looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right.”

Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.

And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.

Fact 1: Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy. Here is the announcement. Hunter Biden’s hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister here. Hunter Biden’s firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments here.”

(Read the complete list of facts: JohnSolomonReports, 11/22/2019)  (Archive)

A curiously interesting development in the DOJ case against Michael Flynn.  Judge Emmet Sullivan is weighing the merits of the Flynn defense Motion to Compel (MTC), which requests a significant amount of information on DOJ/FBI conduct in the lead-up to Flynn’s prosecution. A decision and court briefing was anticipated soon.

However, today the DOJ files a joint motion with the defense asking Judge Sullivan to suspend scheduled briefing dates and sentencing deadlines until after the DOJ inspector general report is published on December 9th.   The implication is that some of the “Brady” material at issue; or tangential issues that touch upon the material; may be outlined in the upcoming IG report.

The joint motion asks for a delay to the briefing schedules, and a delay in the subsequent sentencing therein.  The full motion is here.

(Conservative Treehouse, 11/26/2019)

“As a member of Team Mueller, Van Grack was involved in improperly obtaining Trump Transition Team emails/comms from GSA – including privileged materials.

He hid the extent of the intrusion from Trump Transition Team lawyers.

Van Grack confirmed that the Special Counsel’s Office had “failed to use an ‘ethical wall’ or ‘taint team’ and instead simply reviewed the privileged communications contained in the [Transition Team] materials.”

Van Grack “failed to correct the record or disclose that” they were in possession of and had accessed “a significant volume of privileged materials.

The failure was intentional; they wanted the privileged communications.

Deceptive edits of Trump lawyer John Dowd’s voicemail, produced to Van Grack, made its way to the Mueller Report.

They omitted the section where Dowd asked Flynn’s lawyers not to disclose “confidential information.”

HT @lastrefuge2

We reached out to John Dowd about the Van Grack/Mueller deception.

He called it “unfair and despicable”

Van Grack used a corrupt reading of FARA laws (since rejected by 2 courts) to target Mike Flynn Jr.

Not to prosecute Flynn Jr., but to force General Flynn to plea.

Flynn Jr. became an official target on 10/20/17. Flynn signed the plea deal on 11/30/17.

HT @lastrefuge2

Flynn Intel Group (FARA) case – overseen by Van Grack.

DOJ tells Judge that “Flynn was not a member of the alleged conspiracy”

DOJ then tries to label Flynn a co-conspirator. This was rejected by the Judge.

corrected HT: @TheLastRefuge2

Van Grack’s FARA case (prosecuted by EDVA) against Flynn Intel Group member Rafiekian was a disaster from the start.

It was Soon before trial and the DOJ couldn’t figure out how to instruct the jury on the FARA violation.

As the Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group) case unraveled, they designated Flynn Jr. as a witness to intimidate Flynn.

This was pure tactics – Flynn Jr. was never called as a witness.

Despite DOJ assertion that Flynn Intel Group member Rafiekian was acting as a foreign agent for Turkey…

Van Grack/EDVA never investigated whether the agreement was funded by the Turkish government.

The threat against Flynn – labeling him as a co-conspirator – came after he refused to agree to the false narrative set forth by Van Grack.

The Judge in the Rafiekian case disagreed: “Flynn has not disavowed what is in the statement of facts.”

The false charges claimed by Van Grack – that “Flynn had agreed to plead to a knowing and intentional false FARA filing” – was actually deleted from a draft of the Flynn Agreement.

This is important because Van Grack was telling Judge Sullivan in December 2018 that Flynn could be charged as a foreign agent under 18 USC 951.

Van Grack’s Section 951 theory was rejected by the Judge in the Rafiekian case.

“Such a reading is unwarranted . . . based on the plain language of Section 951.”

Judge Sullivan may have concerns about Van Grack’s Section 951 interpretation and VG’s claim Flynn could have been prosecuted.

If “there was no factual predicate for that FARA violation, then it should not have been mentioned at all as a potential ‘benefit’”

As to Van Grack’s conduct in the Flynn case…

They confused the FBI Agents’ notes (Strzok/Pientka)

As to the FARA charges, Van Grack would have known this likely created a non-consentable conflict of interest between Flynn and his prior counsel.

Conflicts disregarded; they needed the plea.

(Techno Fog, 11/29/2019)  (Archive)

“Republican Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe hinted Saturday at the reason he believes House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff won’t release Michael Atkinson’s transcript.

Ratcliffe suggested in a tweet that Atkinson, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, might have revealed information about a possible connection between the whistleblower and members of Schiff’s staff.

“It’s because I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified ‘secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions,” he tweeted.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/01/2019)

“Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter on October 9th to Michael Atkinson, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, after his dishonest testimony before the Senate Select Committee on September 26th.

Michael Atkinson withheld information on the partisan CIA “whistleblower” when he testified before the senators.

Tom Cotton sent a letter to Atkinson wanting answers.

From Senator Tom Cotton’s office:

Michael Atkinson (Credit: public domain)

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today sent a letter to Michael Atkinson, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, after his evasive testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a closed hearing on September 26. Inspector General Atkinson repeatedly refused to answer questions about the political bias of the “whistleblower”, despite being in a closed session and despite this information being unclassified. The Inspector General wouldn’t reveal this information to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but later revealed it to the House Intelligence Committee.

The letter outlines five outstanding questions Senator Cotton has for Inspector General Atkinson and asks him to reply no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 11. The full text of the letter is below and can be found by clicking here.

Dear Inspector General Atkinson,

Your disappointing testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on September 26 was evasive to the point of being insolent and obstructive. Despite repeated questions, you refused to explain what you meant in your written report by “indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.” This information is, of course, unclassified and we were meeting in a closed setting. Yet you moralized about how you were duty bound not to share even a hint of this political bias with us.

But now I see media reports that you revealed to the House Intelligence Committee not only that the complainant is a registered Democrat, but also that he has a professional relationship with a Democratic presidential campaign. I’m dissatisfied, to put it mildly, with your refusal to answer my questions, while more fully briefing the three-ring circus that the House Intelligence Committee has become.

So, I will ask again and give you one more chance to answer: what are these “indicia of arguable political bias”? More specifically:

1. Does the complainant have (or did he once have) a professional relationship with a Democratic presidential candidate or campaign?
2. If so, which candidate or campaign and what is the nature of that relationship?
3. What other “indicia of arguable political bias” of the complainant did you find?
4. Did you or anyone subject to your control or influence share with CNN that the “arguable political bias” was merely that the complainant is a registered Democrat?
5. Why did you refuse to answer my questions at the September 26 hearing?

(…) According to Paul Sperry, Atkinson refuses to comply with the Senator’s request.

And Adam Schiff refuses to release Atkinson’s closed-door testimony from the basement star chamber.

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 12/03/2019)

Andy Khawaja (l) and George Nader (Credit: Getty Images/The Associated Press)

“Earlier today, an indictment was unsealed against the CEO of an online payment processing company, and seven others, charging them with conspiring to make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions, and related offenses, during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and thereafter.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant Director in Charge Timothy R. Slater of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, 48, of Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7, 2019, along with George Nader, Roy Boulos, Rudy Dekermenjian, Mohammad “Moe” Diab, Rani El-Saadi, Stevan Hill and Thayne Whipple. The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions and related offenses. Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple are charged with conspiring with Khawaja and each other to make conduit campaign contributions and conceal excessive contributions, and related offenses.

According to the indictment, from March 2016 through January 2017, Khawaja conspired with Nader to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions, directed to political committees associated with a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. By design, these contributions appeared to be in the names of Khawaja, his wife, and his company. In reality, they allegedly were funded by Nader. Khawaja and Nader allegedly made these contributions in an effort to gain influence with high-level political figures, including the candidate. As Khawaja and Nader arranged these payments, Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence.

The indictment also alleges that, from March 2016 through 2018, Khawaja conspired with Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple to conceal Khawaja’s excessive contributions, which totaled more than $1.8 million, to various political committees. Among other things, these contributions allegedly allowed Khawaja to host a private fundraiser for a presidential candidate in 2016 and a private fundraising dinner for an elected official in 2018.

The indictment further alleges that, from June 2019 through July 2019, Khawaja obstructed a grand jury investigation of this matter in the District of Columbia. Knowing that a witness had been called to testify before the grand jury, Khawaja allegedly provided that witness with false information about Nader and his connection to Khawaja’s company. Boulos, Diab, Hill, and Whipple also are charged with obstructing the grand jury’s investigation by lying to the FBI.

Currently, Nader is in federal custody on other charges.” (Department of Justice, 12/03/2019)  (Archive)

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Imran Awan (Credit: public domain)

“The Department of Justice said this month that it could not release records on Democrat technology aide Imran Awan due to “technical difficulties,” but later admitted in court documents that it could not release records on him because there is a secret ongoing case related to the matter.

“Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Nov. 7, 2018, for 7,000 pages of Capitol Police records related to the cybersecurity investigation, and Aug. 2, the DOJ agreed to begin producing records by Nov. 5,” Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter Luke Rosiak reported. “That deadline came and went with no records being produced; on a Nov. 13 phone call, the DOJ said ‘technical difficulties’ had resulted in a delay, Judicial Watch stated in a court filing.”

In a newly released court filing, the Department of Justice wrote:

Pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan, who is presiding over a related sealed criminal matter the Government is prohibited from disclosing certain information pursuant to formal and informal information request in this matter. The Government advised Judge Chutkan of the instant FOIA matter and sought clarification from Judge Chutkan concerning the Government’s permissible response in light of her Order in the sealed matter. Defendant received the clarification December 5, 2019, the date of this filing, that permitted Defendant to say the following: The Government is prohibited from disclosing any information pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan. …

…The “difficulties” in providing responsive material was due to the unexpected and unique set of facts described above that was out of the control of the Defendant. Defendant’s only motivation was to maintain the integrity of the sealed matter as much as possible, until the issuing Court provided guidance.”

(The Daily Wire, 12/13/2019)  (Archive)

Rudy Giuliani (Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

“Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani alleged on Dec. 6 that $5.3 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine was misused, with much of the money going to non-governmental organizations favored by the U.S. embassy.

The embassy, which at the time was led by Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, directed Ukrainian officials not to pursue an investigation of the matter, Giuliani, who is a personal attorney for President Donald Trump, wrote on Twitter.

“Much of the $5.3B in US Aid Ukraine reported as misused was given to the embassy’s favored NGO’s. At the time Yovanovitch, witness for the Witchunt, was the Amb. That embassy directed the police not to investigate,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani did not offer any evidence for his claim. The day before, he wrote that the misuse was discovered by the “Accounts Chamber” in Ukraine, an apparent reference to Ukraine’s Accounting Chamber. The Accounting Chamber is an audit body for Ukraine’s parliament and acts as a watchdog over the state budget.

(Twitter)

(Twitter)

Giuliani leveled the allegation on the heels of a trip to Europe during which he met and interviewed several former Ukrainian officials, including Yuriy Lutsenko, Viktor Shokin, and Andrii Telizhenko. Shokin, Lutsenko, and Telizhenko have previously alleged misconduct by Obama-administration officials, including Yovanovitch and former Vice President Joe Biden.

One America News (OAN) filmed Giuliani’s interviews with the officials. The channel is scheduled to air the exclusive interview in a two-part series on Dec. 7 and 8. OAN claims the program will “debunk” the Democrat narrative at the center of the impeachment proceedings against Trump.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/06/2019)  (Archive)

An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity, including nonprofit organizations of which the employee is an officer or member, and persons with whom the employee has or seeks employment or business relations. The specific prohibitions set forth in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section apply this general standard but are not intended to be exclusive or to limit the application of this section.

(a)Inducement or coercion of benefits. An employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that is intended to coerce or induce another person, including a subordinate, to provide any benefit, financial or otherwise, to himself or to friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.

(b)Appearance of governmental sanction. Except as otherwise provided in this part, an employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that could reasonably be construed to imply that his agency or the Government sanctions or endorses his personal activities or those of another. When teaching, speaking, or writing in a personal capacity, he may refer to his official title or position only as permitted by § 2635.807(b). He may sign a letter of recommendation using his official title only in response to a request for an employment recommendation or character reference based upon personal knowledge of the ability or character of an individual with whom he has dealt in the course of Federal employment or whom he is recommending for Federal employment.

(c)Endorsements. An employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office to endorse any product, service or enterprise except:

(1) In furtherance of statutory authority to promote products, services or enterprises; or

(2) As a result of documentation of compliance with agency requirements or standards or as the result of recognition for achievement given under an agency program of recognition for accomplishment in support of the agency‘s mission.

(d)Performance of official duties affecting a private interest. To ensure that the performance of his official duties does not give rise to an appearance of use of public office for private gain or of giving preferential treatment, an employee whose duties would affect the financial interests of a friend, relative or person with whom he is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity shall comply with any applicable requirements of § 2635.502.

(e)Use of terms of address and ranks. Nothing in this section prohibits an employee who is ordinarily addressed using a general term of address, such as “The Honorable”, or a rank, such as a military or ambassadorial rank, from using that term of address or rank in connection with a personal activity.

(Cornell Law)

Carter Page

“Carter William Page is a Naval Academy Trident Scholar and certain non-descript ‘US Person’ at the center of all things Crossfire Hurricane. From his FISA surveillance warrant which predated the Election to Trump’s “wiretap” claims, to James Wolfe indictment, to Nunes Memo, to unprecedented public release of FISA, to impending OIG Report, to Kevin Klinesmith impending indictment, and so much more to come, Carter Page is central to all.

This report highlights Carter Page’s life-long ties to the United States Intelligence Community as they concern his status as a target of FISA surveillance in 2016-2017. If Inspector Horowitz was moved to seek answers regarding allegations of Joseph Mifsud’s ties to Western Intelligence, then similar allegations regarding the Target of the FISA warrant itself surely deserve double such attention and scrutiny.

Unfortunately, Carter Page claims zero interest from the OIG or other relevant DOJ contacts to hear his side of the story. Carter has recently taken to the airways to again forcefully allege “a quarter-century of service” to the USG while threatening a court injunction if not given at least a review process afforded to other government-related actors that are being named and scrutinized in the same document.

It is in this vein that this Trident Scholar Report is presented. The report highlights a quarter-century of factual data concerning Carter Page and is partitioned into three parts which will examine:

• 1) 1989-1999: Background & Grooming as a US Naval Intelligence Officer
• 2) 2008-2020: ‘Innocent Citizen’ at Center of Multiple CI Investigations
• 3) 2016-2020: Contemporary & Continuing Displays of Intelligence Tradecraft & Assistance to USG

Taken alone, any single Part of the tripartite report would suffice as a package of exculpatory information serious enough to remit the existing FISA apps as “deficient for lack of exculpatory disclosure”. Taken together as a whole, the three Parts illustrate a FISA target that looks and behaves more like an active US Intelligence Agent than a SVR recruit.

It is against this backdrop that any self-referential audit of the FISA process, subject to zero outside scrutiny, is to be read and critiqued. ” (Read more: Monsieur America, 12/8/2019)  (Archive)

In a fantastic display of true investigative journalism, One America News journalist Chanel Rion tracked down Ukrainian witnesses as part of an exclusive OAN investigative series. The evidence being discovered dismantles the baseless Adam Schiff impeachment hoax and highlights many corrupt motives for U.S. politicians.

Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress.

What is outlined in this interview is a  problem for all DC politicians across both parties.  The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko were not done independently.

Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting Joe Biden and his family.  This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch.

Imagine what would happen if all of the background information was to reach the general public?  Thus the motive for Lindsey Graham currently working to bury it.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

You might remember George Kent and Bill Taylor testified together.

It was evident months ago that U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, was one of the current participants in the coup effort against President Trump.  It was Taylor who engaged in carefully planned text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up a narrative helpful to Adam Schiff’s political coup effort.

Bill Taylor was formerly U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (’06-’09) and later helped the Obama administration to design the laundry operation providing taxpayer financing to Ukraine in exchange for back-channel payments to U.S. politicians and their families.

In November Rudy Giuliani released a letter he sent to Senator Lindsey Graham outlining how Bill Taylor blocked VISA’s for Ukrainian ‘whistle-blowers’ who are willing to testify to the corrupt financial scheme.

Unfortunately, as we are now witnessing, Senator Lindsey Graham, along with dozens of U.S. Senators currently serving, may very well have been recipients for money through the aforementioned laundry process.  The VISA’s are unlikely to get approval for congressional testimony, or Senate impeachment trial witness testimony.

U.S. senators write foreign aid policy, rules and regulations thereby creating the financing mechanisms to transmit U.S. funds.  Those same senators then received a portion of the laundered funds back through their various “institutes” and business connections to the foreign government offices; in this example Ukraine. [ex. Burisma to Biden]

The U.S. State Dept. serves as a distribution network for the authorization of the money laundering by granting conflict waivers, approvals for financing (think Clinton Global Initiative), and permission slips for the payment of foreign money.   The officials within the State Dept. take a cut of the overall payments through a system of “indulgence fees”, junkets, gifts and expense payments to those with political oversight.

If anyone gets too close to revealing the process, writ large, they become a target of the entire apparatus.  President Trump was considered an existential threat to this entire process.  Hence our current political status with the ongoing coup.

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain meeting with corrupt Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko in December 2016.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because, well, in reality, all of the U.S. Senators (both parties) are participating in the process for receiving taxpayer money and contributions from foreign governments.

A “Codel” is a congressional delegation that takes trips to work out the payment terms/conditions of any changes in graft financing.  This is why Senators spend $20 million on a campaign to earn a job paying $350k/year.  The “institutes” is where the real foreign money comes in; billions paid by governments like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Ukraine, etc. etc.  There are trillions at stake.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/08/2019)

Matt Gaetz displays Goldman’s tweet during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing on December 9, 2019.

“Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) confronted Daniel Goldman, the Democrat counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, during Monday’s impeachment hearing over a tweet he posted last year attacking President Donald Trump over his so-called “pee tape.”

The tweet (screen-capped below) was a response to President Trump’s criticism of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s impeachment inquiry. Trump had tweeted: “Why aren’t Mueller and the 17 Angry Democrats looking at the meetings concerning the Fake Dossier and all of the lying that went on in the FBI and DOJ? This is the most one sided Witch Hunt in the history of our country. Fortunately, the facts are all coming out, and fast!”

In response, Goldman tweeted: “What lying? Nothing in the dossier has proved to be false (including your pee tape). But we can agree that we all look forward to the facts coming out. Everything that has come out so far has shown you to be an out and out liar (eg Cohen tape, purpose of June 9 meeting, etc).” (Read more: Breitbart, 12/09/2019)  (Archive)  (Video)

“Shortly after the release of the special counsel report last year, I posited that Robert Mueller’s failure to investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election by feeding dossier author Christopher Steele disinformation established that Mueller was either incompetent or a political hack. Now, with the release of the inspector general’s report on FISA abuse, we know the answer: He was both.

(…) As the IG report noted, “on May 17, 2017, the Crossfire Hurricane cases were transferred to the Office of the Special Counsel,” and the FBI agents and analysts then began working with the special counsel. A little more than a month later, the FBI asked the Department of Justice to seek a fourth extension of the Page surveillance order. That fourth renewal obtained under Mueller’s leadership included the 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions the IG identified.

(Timeline editor’s note: It is our understanding there are not 17 individual significant inaccuracies that were found in each FISA application. Instead, it is a grand total of  significant inaccuracies in all of the Page FISA applications, combined.)

(…) Most significantly, in June 2017, the FBI’s office of general counsel falsely represented that Page had not been a source for another federal agency, when, in reality, Page had been approved as an “operational contact” and the FBI’s attorney had been told so in an email. Yet the final surveillance renewal application failed to inform the FISA court that, while Page had connections with individuals connected to Russian intelligence, he had provided information about those contacts to another agency as an approved source.

(…) Not only did Mueller’s team continue to push the same inaccuracies and omissions to the FISA court in the June 2017 renewal, the FISA court was not informed of the many mistakes and omissions for another year—even though the special counsel’s investigation should have uncovered many of the errors contained in the applications early on in the probe.

(…) Mueller’s team also knew, by July 2017 at the latest, that Joseph Mifsud—the Maltese professor who supposedly tipped then-Trump aide George Papadopoulos to the Russians having dirt on Hillary Clinton—had denied telling Papadopoulos that the Russians could assist the Trump campaign by leaking negative information on Clinton. Prior to the special counsel’s appointment, the FBI had interviewed Papadopoulos and Mifsud, but it would be the special counsel’s office that indicted Papadopoulos in late July 2017, charging him with lying to the FBI.

(…) It also wasn’t mere incompetence on display: The special counsel’s office also engaged in much of the same misconduct the IG identified. For instance, emblematic of Mueller’s complicity in misconduct Horowitz identified is the fact that the special counsel continued to use Bruce Ohr as a conduit to feed “intel” to the FBI from Steele after Steele was terminated as a confidential human source.

(…) That the special counsel’s team engaged with Ohr without notifying to Ohr’s superiors shouldn’t surprise, though, as that was the M.O. of Mueller’s pit bull, lawyer Andrew Weissmann. The IG report exposed this reality, in detail. Specifically, the IG report explained that shortly after Trump was elected president:

…between November 16, 2016 and December 15, 2016, Ohr participated in several meetings that were attended, at various times, by some or all of the following individuals: Swartz, Ahmad, Andrew Weissmann (then Section Chief of CRM’s Fraud Section), Strzok, and Lisa Page. The meetings involving Ohr, Swartz, Ahmad, and Weissmann focused on their shared concern that the [Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section] MLARS was not moving quickly enough on the Manafort criminal investigation and whether there were steps they could take to move the investigation forward. The meetings with Strzok and Page focused primarily on whether the FBI could assess the case’s relevance, if any, to the FBI ‘s Russian interference investigation. MLARS was not represented at any of these meetings or told about them, and none of attendees had supervisory responsibility over the MLARS investigation….

On January 31, 2017, one day after Yates was removed as DAG, Ahmad, by then an Acting CRM Deputy Assistant Attorney General, after consulting with Swartz and Weissmann, sent an email to Lisa Page, copying Weissmann, Swartz, and Ohr, requesting a meeting the next day to discuss ‘a few Criminal Division related developments.’ The next day, February 1, Swartz, Ohr, Ahmad, and Weissmann met with Strzok, Lisa Page, and an FBI Acting Section Chief. None of the attendees at the meeting could explain to us what the ‘Criminal Division related developments’ were, and we did not find any.

Meeting notes reflect, among other things, that the group discussed the Manafort criminal investigation and efforts that the Department could undertake to investigate attempts by Russia to influence the 2016 elections. MLARS was not represented at, or told about, the meeting.

(Read more: The Federalist, 1/06/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: Fox News)

(…) Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report ratifies the major claims of the infamous “Nunes memo.”

As noted, Horowitz establishes that the Steele report was crucial to the FISA process, even using the same language Nunes used (“essential”). He also confirms the Nunes assertion that the FBI double-dipped in citing both Steele and a September 23, 2016, Yahoo! news story using Steele as an unnamed source. Horowitz listed the idea that Steele did not directly provide information to the press as one of seven significant “inaccuracies or omissions” in the first FISA application.

Horowitz also verifies the claim that Steele was “closed for cause” for talking to the media, i.e. officially cut off as a confidential human source to the FBI. He shows that Steele continued to talk to Justice Official Bruce Ohr before and after Steele’s formal relationship with the FBI ended. His report confirms that the Steele information had not been corroborated when the FISA application was submitted, another key Nunes point.

There was gnashing of teeth when Nunes first released his memo in January 2018. The press universally crapped on his letter, with a Washington Post piece calling it a “joke” and a “sham.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Nunes for the release of a “bogus” document, while New York Senator Chuck Schumer said the memo was intended to “sow conspiracy theories and attack the integrity of federal law enforcement.” Many called for his removal as Committee chair.

The Horowitz report says all of that caterwauling was off-base. It also undercuts many of the assertions made in a ballyhooed response letter by Nunes counterpart Adam Schiff, who described the FBI’s “reasonable basis” for deeming Steele credible. The report is especially hostile to Schiff’s claim that the FBI “provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele’s reporting.” (Read more: Rolling Stone, 12/10/2019)  (Archive)

Photo of John McCain with “Source D-Source E” of Steele Dossier — Sergei Millian. (Credit: Paul Sperry/Facebook)

“One of the more shocking facts from the FISA report is that there was only one person who supplied information to Christopher Steele and he said that the information he provided was all garbage.

“The primary sub-source stated that his information came from word of mouth and hearsay and a conversation he had with friends over beers.

Steele’s sub-source was Sergei Millian. Millian’s comments were used for three years to spy on candidate and President Trump and to put the country through corrupt investigations as a result. It all was garbage, Comey, Obama, Mueller, the whole lot knew it was.

Now we see that the subject of the entire Trump sham, Millian, was under investigation at the time he was used as the main source to spy on Trump.

He was “the subject of an open FBI counterintelligence investigation”. This was never shared with the courts.

The Daily Caller reports:

Steele’s claim rested in part on his belief that Deripaska had “no contact with any of his sources” for the dossier. But Deripaska did have contact with a businessman who Steele told the FBI was an unwitting source for most of the dossier’s most eye-popping claims.

Oleg Deripaska (r), CNBC anchor Julia Chatterley (c), and Sergei Millian,  June, 2017. (Credit: CNBC)

Deripaska and the unwitting source, Sergie [sic] Millian, were photographed speaking to each other on June 17, 2016 at an economic forum in St. Petersburg. Steele wrote the first memo of his dossier three days later.

Steele claimed that Millian, who is referred to as Person 1 in the IG report, unwittingly provided information to his main information collector, who is identified as Primary Sub-Source. Millian has long denied being a source for the dossier.

Steele’s primary source disavowed some of Steele’s reporting during an interview with FBI agents in January 2017. The IG report said that the source said that he shared “rumor and speculation” about Donald Trump and members of the campaign with Steele, who reported them as fact in the dossier.

The Crossfire Hurricane team failed to disclose the source’s derogatory comments about Steele in applications to renew surveillance against Page.

Priestap, the former counterintelligence official who oversaw Crossfire Hurricane, told the IG he saw “no indication whatsoever” as of May 2017 that Russia had funneled disinformation through Steele.

Steele’s sub-source was Sergie [sic] Millian.  Millian’s comments were used for three years to spy on candidate and President Trump and to put the country through corrupt investigations as a result.

(FISA Report – pg. 164)

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 12/16/2019)  (Archive)

David Kramer invokes the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying on Steele dossier in December 2018. (Credit: public domain)

“The controversial report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz into the FBI’s investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign revealed many concerning details. One was that Christopher Steele’s dossier was used in the case to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to secure a wiretap on former Donald Trump campaign official Carter Page after the DOJ found no probable cause to do so. The report also revealed that late Senator John McCain provided former FBI Director James Comey with reports from Steele after the FBI terminated the former British intelligence officer as a source, Breitbart reports.

McCain reportedly gave Comey five new Steele reports that were not previously in possession of the FBI, although it’s not clear if McCain knew at the time that Steele was no longer an FBI source. Regardless, the new reports were allegedly obtained by McCain from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Fusion GPS was notably hired for anti-Trump opposition research by the president’s opponents in the primary.

“Several weeks later, on December 9, 2016, Senator John McCain provided Corney with a collection of 16 Steele election reports, 5 of which Steele had not given the FBI,” the IG report reads. “McCain had obtained these reports from a staff member at the McCain Institute. The McCain Institute staff member had met with Steele and later acquired the reports from Simpson.”

According to Breitbart, the unnamed McCain staffer is David J. Kramer, who reportedly gave the Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, which published the document in full on January 10, 2017.

(Read more: The Inquisitr, 12/26/2019) (Archive)

That’s Rachel Martin. NPR didn’t even fire her for that. https://t.co/ZDbatVQVM2

— Collective Stock (@collectivestock) May 10, 2023

RELATED:

June 2016 – State Department official, George Kent, intervenes when the Obama admin tries to partner with Burisma Holdings

(Credit: The Black Vault)

“A month before the 2016 presidential election, the FBI met Christopher Steele in Rome and apparently unlawfully shared with the foreign opposition researcher some of the bureau’s most closely held secrets, according to unpublicized disclosures in the recent Justice Department Inspector General report on abuses of federal surveillance powers.

What’s more, Steele, the former British spy who compiled the “dossier” of conspiracy theories for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was promised $15,000 to attend the briefing by FBI agents eager to maintain his cooperation in their Trump-Russia collusion investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane.

That investigation was so closely guarded that only a handful of top officials and agents at the FBI were allowed to know about it.

The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz details how a team of FBI agents in early October 2016 shared with Steele extensive classified materials, just weeks before the bureau cut off ties with him for leaking his own research to the media. The secrets included foreign intelligence information still considered so sensitive that the IG’s report refers to it even now only as coming from a “Friendly Foreign Government.” In fact, this is a reference to Australia. That country’s ambassador to Britain sent the United States a tip about loose talk by junior Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. The FBI has described that as the predicate for its Trump-Russia investigation.

The IG report also discloses that FBI agents knew Steele worked for Glenn Simpson, whose opposition research firm Fusion GPS was paying Steele to dig up dirt on Trump for the Clinton campaign, and that Steele informed the FBI that the “candidate” – Clinton herself – knew about Steele’s work. Steele did not keep to himself the classified material he had learned from the FBI. Shortly after the Rome meeting, Steele briefed Simpson on what the FBI had disclosed to him.

The Crossfire Hurricane Scheme Team (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

The FBI’s disclosures to Steele — described on pages 114-115 and in footnote 513, and supported on pages 386-390 and footnotes 252 and 513, deep in Horowitz’s report – were violations of laws governing the handling of classified material, according to the Inspector General and experts in national security law who spoke with RealClearInvestigations.

(…) In a meeting that lasted nearly three hours, according to the IG report, “Case Agent 2” gave Steele a “general overview” of Crossfire Hurricane as well as more granular details of the cases being developed against Page, Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Flynn. All of that information – especially a “Friendly Foreign Government’s” communication with Washington – is classified, the IG report states. This alarmed Gaeta, who deemed it “peculiar” to give Steele an overview of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, let alone “providing names of persons related to the investigation.” The Supervisory Intel Analyst was also alarmed, according to the IG report, and “notified his supervisor about his concern” once back in Washington.

It didn’t take long for those secrets to get passed on to Simpson. “Crime in Progress,” Simpson’s recent book about the Trump-Russia affair, co-authored with Fusion co-founder Peter Fritsch, relates that “Steele briefed him on what had happened at the meeting” in Rome, including the FBI’s disclosure that it was investigating Papadopoulos.

In footnote 513, the IG report states investigators “examined whether the FBI disclosed classified information to Steele.” The Inspector General “determined that Case Agent 2 did so when he discussed information with Steele that the FBI received from the FFG, and that he did not have prior authorization to make the disclosure.”

This is no small matter. “Sharing classified information with anyone not authorized to receive it is a crime,” says Sean Bigley, an attorney specializing in national security law. “But sharing classified information with a non-U.S. citizen not authorized to receive it is also the very definition of harm to national security.” (Read much more: RealClearInvestigations, 2/14/2020)  (Archive)

“Rep. Ratcliffe said House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff is burying evidence of the whistleblower’s crimes in the House SCIF.

Impeachment ringleader Adam Schiff still won’t release the transcript of Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson’s October 4 closed-door testimony even though he has released 15 other witness transcripts.

A couple of weeks ago, Ratcliffe revealed he “asked IG Atkinson about his “investigation” into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified “secret” so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions.”

Ratcliffe suggested Monday that the “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella committed perjury by making false statements in his written forms filed with the ICIG and that Adam Schiff is hiding evidence of Ciaramella’s crimes to protect him from a criminal investigation.

Ratcliffe said it’s time to release the transcript of ICIG Michael Atkinson’s testimony.

“The way to do that would be to release the Inspector General’s testimony or even just pages 53 to 73,” Ratcliffe said noting there is nothing in those pages that would release the identity of the whistleblower nor jeopardizes national security. (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 12/09/2019) (Archive)

John Brennan (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

“The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).

The ICA, a report conducted by intelligence officials in 2016 on Russian election interference, was used to brief President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017. According to the IG report, there was significant discussion by top intelligence officials as to whether the unverified Steele dossier should be included in the main body of the ICA report, summarized in an appendix, or even included at all.

Ultimately, the ICA included a short summary and assessment of the dossier, which was incorporated in an appendix. “In the appendix, the intelligence agencies explained that there was ‘only limited corroboration of the source’s reporting’ and that Steele’s election reports were not used ‘to reach analytic conclusions of the CIA/FBI/NSA assessment,’” the IG report states.

A few months later, on May 23, 2017, when testifying before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Brennan categorically denied that the CIA relied on the Steele dossier for the ICA report. Here is the full exchange with former Rep. Trey Gowdy: (Video is cued to begin at the appropriate time)

(Read more: The Federalist, 12/11/2019)  (Archive)

(Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The Washington Times first reported in September 2018 that Mr. Comey wanted the Christopher Steele dossier, financed by the Clinton campaign and by the Democratic Party, included in the official assessment. The Times headline: “James Comey was chief anti-Trump dossier proponent within U.S. intelligence community. Source: Then-FBI Director James B. Comey directly advocated inclusion.”

The Horowitz report confirms the reporting in footnote No. 507, with details.

“FBI leadership, including Comey and McCabe, advocated for the Steele election reporting to be included in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian election interference,” the inspector general’s report states.

Mr. Comey telephoned Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper on Dec. 17, 2017, and lobbied for the dossier’s inclusion.

The DNI and CIA Director John O. Brennan objected and decided to include a short summary of the dossier in the appendix.

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe on Dec. 28 sent an email to the DNI objecting to the summary.

An FBI intelligence section chief told the inspector general that the CIA viewed the Steele dossier as “internet rumor.”

The inspector general report said: “The FBI’s view did not prevail and the final ICA report included a short summary of the Steele election reporting in an appendix.”

⦁ The FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application to federal judges begins with this heading: “Verified Application.”

Some commentators have taken this to mean the agents were telling judges that the bureau had corroborated the affidavit’s stated evidence from Mr. Steele, a former British intelligence officer.

Not true, says the Horowitz report.

The FBI verification process is known as the Woods Procedures, named after the agent who devised FISA fact-checking in the early 2000s.

Mr. Horowitz determined that the Woods process required agents to verify that the material came from a particular source and that the application quotes that source accurately.

Here is the inspector general’s finding: “Corroboration of source information is not required by the FBI’s Woods Procedures. Although Woods Procedures require that every fact in a FISA application be ‘verified,’ when a particular fact is attributed to a source, an agent must only verify that the fact came from the source and the application accurately states what the source said. The Woods Procedures do not require that the FBI have a second source for the same information.”

The Horowitz report also notes: “We found that the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele’s reports when it relied upon them in the FISA applications.” (Read more: The Washington Times, 3/17/2020)

This is the only known photo of Joseph Pientka found in the Washingtonian and dated in 2007. (Credit: Vincent Ricard)

“Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s long-awaited report this week on FBI and Justice Department surveillance abuses does not provide the name of an unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA) who made a series of apparent oversights in the bureau’s so-called “Crossfire Hurricane” probe into the Trump campaign.

However, a review of Horowitz’s findings leaves little doubt that the unnamed SSA is Joe Pientka — someone who could soon play a prominent role in the ongoing prosecution of Michael Flynn, as the former Trump national security adviser fights to overturn his guilty plea on a single charge of making false statements.

Specifically, Horowitz’s report states that “SSA 1” was one of the FBI agents to interview Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, in a seemingly casual conversation that would later form the basis for his criminal prosecution.

It was previously reported that the interviewing agents were Peter Strzok, who was later fired by the FBI for misconduct and anti-Trump bias, and Pientka, whom Strzok previously identified as his notetaker for the Flynn interview. Flynn’s attorney has also mentioned Pientka’s role during past court proceedings. Of the two agents, only Strzok is openly named in the Horowitz report, which strongly indicates that the other is Pientka.

“SSA 1,” Horowitz’s report states, may have helped mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) about material facts concerning former Trump adviser Carter Page and British ex-spy Christopher Steele, whose unverified dossier played a central role in the FBI’s warrant to surveil Page.

Page has not been charged with any wrongdoing, even though the FBI flatly called him a foreign “agent” in its surveillance warrant application. And former Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation, which concluded earlier this year, found no evidence that the Trump campaign had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russians to influence the 2016 election, despite multiple outreach efforts by Russian actors. (Read more: Fox News, 12/14/2019)  (Archive)

(Credit: Rebecca Zisser/Axios)

(…) “Mueller’s team also knew, by July 2017 at the latest, that Joseph Mifsud—the Maltese professor who supposedly tipped then-Trump aide George Papadopoulos to the Russians having dirt on Hillary Clinton—had denied telling Papadopoulos that the Russians could assist the Trump campaign by leaking negative information on Clinton. Prior to the special counsel’s appointment, the FBI had interviewed Papadopoulos and Mifsud, but it would be the special counsel’s office that indicted Papadopoulos in late July 2017, charging him with lying to the FBI.

By that time, then, the special counsel’s team must have reviewed the notes from the Papadopoulos and Mifsud interviews. Yet Mueller did nothing at that point to ensure the FISA court learned of Mifsud’s denials. The IG found the omission of “Joseph Mifsud’s denials to the FBI that he supplied Papadopoulos with the information Papadopoulos shared with the FFG (suggesting that the campaign received an offer or suggestion of assistance from Russia)” was a significant omission.

In short, the special counsel’s team proved itself equally incompetent in investigating and screening the “intel” used to obtain the Page surveillance orders, and in failing to accurately and fully inform the FISA court (FISC) of the evidence gathered by the FBI. As the IG noted:

“…that so many basic and fundamental errors were made on four FISA applications by three separate, hand-picked teams, on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within the FBI and that FBI officials expected would eventually be subjected to close scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command’s management and supervision of the FISA process.”

That also means Mueller and his chain of command.” (Read more: The Federalist, 1/06/2020) (Archive)

Margot Cleveland

“While the IG’s 478-page report includes many damning details, the following passage indicates that the FISA court abdicated its responsibility of providing “an external check on executive branch decisions to conduct surveillance” in order “’to protect the fourth amendment rights of U.S. persons.”

This paragraph describes how the government described their sources to the FISA court:

The final application submitted to the FISC contained a description of the source network that included the fact that Steele relied upon a Primary Sub-source who used a network of sub-sources, and that neither Steele nor the Primary Sub-source had direct access to the information being reported. The drafts, read copy, and final application also contained a separate footnote on each sub-source with a brief description of his/her position or access to the information he/she was reporting. The Supervisory Intel Analyst assisted the case agent in providing information on the sub-sources and reviewed the footnotes for accuracy. According to the [Office of Intelligence] Attorney, the application contained more information about the sources than is typically provided to the court in FISA applications. According to [the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Stuart] Evans, the idea was to present the source network to the court so that the court would have as much information as possible.

From this paragraph we know that the FISA court was expressly told that neither Christopher Steele nor his primary sub-source were the actual sources of the information included in the FISA applications. Instead, the FISA applications made clear that Steele and his primary sub-source were repeating information other individuals told them. And it appears from this passage that the only additional information provided to the court concerned a sub-source’s “position” or “access to the information” on which he was reporting.

Further, there appears to be no assertion in the FISA applications that the sub-sources were reliable. (Even if the FISA applications professed the reliability of sub-sources, “courts hold that conclusory statements that informants are ‘believed to be reliable sources,’ ‘standing alone without any supporting factual information, merit absolutely no weight and that information obtained from a reliable source must be treated as information obtained from an informant of unknown reliability.’”) Instead, the FISA applications focused on Steele’s supposed reliability.

But as a legal matter, that is not enough: Even though the probable cause threshold is low, “an untested, unidentified informant’s second-hand report” does not “clear the bar.” (Read more: The Federalist, 1/10/2020)  (Archive)

Contained within Monday’s FISA report by the DOJ Inspector General is the revelation that Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the Steele dossier, “was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media.” (P. 369 and elsewhere)

And when did Steele talk with the media (which got him fired as an FBI source)? September of 2016, roughly six weeks before the election.

One of the more damaging articles to result from these meetings was authored by Yahoo News journalist Michael Isikoff, who said in an interview that he was invited by Fusion GPS to meet a “secret source” at a Washington restaurant.

That secret source was none other than Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 Russia expert who fed the Isikoff information for a September 23, 2016 article – which would have had far greater reach and impact coming from such a widely-read media outlet vs. $100,000 in Russian-bought Facebook ads.

Isikoff’s article claimed that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page “has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials – including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president.”

This allegation was found by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to be false. Moreover, the FBI knew about it in December 2016, when DOJ #4 Bruce Ohr told the agency as much.

(FISA Report, pg. 206)

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/10/2019)  (Archive)

(Page viii/DOJ OIG FISA Report, 12/09/2019)

“There was a major discrepancy in the Inspector General report on FISA abuse, that appears to have been overlooked and casts a considerable cloud upon the DOJ Office of Inspector General and Michael Horowitz.

In chapter ten of the report, on page #312 you will find the following information.  The claim is that no-one in the FBI initiated any use of “Confidential Human Sources” into the campaign prior to opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  Read Carefully:

(Page #312 – pdf link)

However, in the very next chapter (#11, page #400), in the original IG report as released on December 9th, 2019, you will find the following statement:

The two statements are completely contradictory.

Carter Page and George Papadopoulos started working for the Trump campaign in early March 2016.  The Crossfire Hurricane investigation began on July 28th, 2016.

If the FBI tasked CHS’s before and after they were affiliated with the Trump campaign, that was certainly before the opening of Crossfire Hurricane.   That statement was also included in the original Executive Summary (page xvi) as below:

The IG report was modified after publication to change this paragraph to:

“We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team tasked several CHSs and UCEs during the 2016 presidential campaign, which resulted in multiple interactions with Carter Page and Papadopoulos, both during and after the time they were affiliated with the Trump campaign”…

However, that still presents an issue with this statement:

“In our review, we did not find any evidence that the FBI used CHSs or UCEs to interact with members of the Trump campaign prior to the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  All of the members of the Crossfire Hurricane team told the OIG that no investigative steps of any type were taken prior to receipt of the predicating information for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation on July 28, 2016, and we found no evidence to the contrary.

If no investigative steps “of any type” were taken prior to July 28th, 2016, then how does George Papadopoulos run afoul of meeting(s) being monitored in March 2016 with the “overseas professor” Joseph Mifsud (DOJ Statement of Offense – Papadopoulos):

Indeed the original IG report text would indicate that George Papadopoulos was subject to Confidential Human Sources (CHS’s) and/or Undercover Employees (UCE’s) during the earliest part of his activity with the Trump campaign (literally within a week), and would refute the claim “we did not find any evidence that the FBI used CHSs or UCEs to interact with members of the Trump campaign prior to the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” (July 31st, 2016).

That revelation and conflict is likely why the IG had to modify the text of the report after publishing it.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/15/2020)  (Archive)

(…) “For instance, according to the IG report, Baker said “he obtained more information regarding Ohr’s interactions with Steele during a Crossfire Hurricane leadership meeting with Comey and McCabe in spring 2017.” Baker further stated that “he learned that Ohr was providing to the FBI information that Ohr had received from Steele,” and, in Baker’s view, “this [was] not good.”

But Comey told the IG “he had no knowledge of Ohr’s communications with members of the Crossfire Hurricane investigative team and only discovered Ohr’s association with Steele and the Crossfire Hurricane investigation when the media reported on it.” Comey’s claims, though, conflicted with both Baker’s statements, and “notes taken by Strzok during a November 23, 2016 Crossfire Hurricane update meeting” that Comey attended.

Those notes referenced “a discussion at the meeting concerning ‘strategy for engagement [with Handling Agent 1] and Ohr’ regarding Steele’s reporting.” Strzok also told the IG that “he believed he informed FBI leadership that Ohr approached the FBI concerning his relationship with Steele and that Ohr relayed Steele’s information regarding Russia to the team.”

However, as the IG report explained, “because Strzok’s notes of the meeting were classified at the time we interviewed Comey, and Comey chose not to have his security clearances reinstated for his OIG interview, we were unable to show him the notes and ask about the reference in them to Steele and Ohr.” (Read more: The Federalist, 1/06/2020)  (Archive)

James B. Comey and Loretta E. Lynch during a news conference in 2016. (Credit: Mandel Ngan/Agence France Presse/Getty Images)

(…) “The IG report also stressed Comey’s lack of a security clearance in discussing inconsistencies between his and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s statements to the IG. The report noted that “Lynch told the OIG that after one of her weekly security meetings at FBI Headquarters in the spring of 2016, Comey and McCabe pulled her aside and provided information about Carter Page, which Lynch believed they learned from another member of the Intelligence Community.”

Lynch further stated that Comey and McCabe informed her that “Russian intelligence reportedly planned to use Page for information and to develop other contacts in the United States, and that they were interested in his affiliation with the campaign.” According to the IG report, Lynch’s “understanding was that this information from Comey and McCabe was ‘preliminary’ in that they did not state that any decisions or actions needed to be taken that day.”

Lynch added that “they discussed the possibility of providing a defensive briefing to the Trump campaign, but she believed it was ‘preliminary’ and ‘something that might happen down the road,’” but that “she did not recall receiving any further updates on this issue following this conversation.”

The IG report noted that “Lynch’s recollection of what Comey and McCabe told her is consistent with information referenced in connection with the 2015 [Southern District of New York] indictment and subsequent conviction of a Russian intelligence officer referenced earlier in this chapter.” However, “Comey told the OIG that he did not recall having such a conversation with Lynch and that he did not think it was possible for such a conversation to have occurred in the spring of 2016 because the FBI did not receive the [Friendly Foreign Government] information concerning Papadopoulos until late July.” (Read more: The Federalist, 1/06/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: Aaron Klein/Breitbart)

“An email proves disgraced ex-FBI Director James Comey personally approved an FBI effort to have the wild and unsubstantiated “golden showers” claim about President Trump included in the material to be considered for publication in the U.S. Intelligence Community’s official report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Comey email, which has not received media attention until now, was revealed inside the Justice Department’s recently released 476-page Inspector General report on the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation.

The IG report further discloses a separate email in which Andrew McCabe, who served under Comey as the FBI’s deputy director, specifically wanted dossier author Christopher Steele’s unverified “pee” charges against Trump to be included in the body of the January 6, 2017, U.S. Intelligence Community report, known as the ICA, assessing alleged Russian interference efforts.

McCabe opposed a CIA compromise to only reference Steele’s controversial dossier in an appendix of the ICA report, with McCabe arguing for it to be included in the body of the report where it would clearly get more attention.

(…) In an email to Strzok, McCabe and others, Comey described a phone call he had with then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, writing that he told Clapper to include the Steele reports.

“Looks okay to me,” Comey wrote, approving of the FBI submission that encompassed Steele’s dossier charges.

Comey’s email continued:

FYI: During a secure call last night on this general topic, I informed the DNI that we would be contributing the [Steele] reporting (although I didn’t use that name) to the IC [Intelligence Community] effort. I stressed that we were proceeding cautiously to understand and attempt to verify the reporting as best we can, but we thought it important to bring it forward to the IC effort.

Comey went on to document that he vouched for Steele’s so-called sources while admitting that he didn’t tell Clapper about FBI efforts to verify the claims. The FBI at the time could not verify the charges.

Comey wrote:

I told him the source of the material, which included salacious material about the President-Elect, was a former [REDACTED] who appears to be a credible person with a source and sub-source network in position to report on such things, but we could not vouch for the material. (I said nothing further about the source or our efforts to verify).”

(Read more: Breitbart, 1/12/2020)  (Archive)

“CTH was always curious why one specific member of the Trump campaign and transition team was abruptly departed (Nov 15, 2016) immediately after the visit by NSA Director Mike Rogers was scheduled, and two-days prior to their meeting.  It’s a weedy question, likely only considered by those who were watching closely at the time…

However, perhaps Inspector General Michael Horowitz has provided some background on the move. [Page 336, 337, fn #474]

Based on the arc of the post-election timeline described in the segment of the report that touches upon “non-tasked” Confidential Human Sources (CHSs), beginning page 336; and based on other information in/around the specific CHS described; there’s a very strong likelihood we can identify this one.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (l) and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (r), on October 8, 2012. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

From Politico, November 15, 2016:

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers has resigned from Donald Trump’s presidential transition team.

“It was a privilege to prepare and advise the policy, personnel and agency action teams on all aspects of the national security portfolio during the initial pre-election planning phase,” Rogers said in a statement Tuesday. “Our work will provide a strong foundation for the new transition team leadership as they move into the post-election phase, which naturally is incorporating the campaign team in New York who drove President-elect Trump to an incredible victory last Tuesday.” (Politico, 11/15/2016)

As more Americans are now aware of how deep the intelligence community operates in/around DC politicians, it is worth remembering exactly how this happens.

The modern intelligence apparatus has a history of leveraging/turning compromised politicians into assets for an agenda most Americans are only now starting to grasp. Former HPSCI Chairman Mike Rogers was in place during the 2012 joint CIA/State Department Benghazi operation controlled by Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta, code name: Operation Zero Footprint.

Congressman Rogers was part of the group who covered for Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta in the outcome of Benghazi. Rogers motives on both fronts (cover Benghazi and surveillance of Trump) are part of the old fashioned motive, money.  Mike Rogers’ wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers, was the president and CEO of Aegis LLC a “security” defense contractor – and her connections delivered a $10 billion contract with the State Dept.

In the height of the scrutiny over Benghazi HPSCI Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger authored a quick, and widely rebuked, intelligence committee report that provided the first line of defense for Clinton, Obama and Panetta.  The media seized on the Rogers/Ruppersberger report to set the narrative.

Immediately following their efforts, Mike Rogers and Dennis Ruppersberger resigned from congress.  Mike and his wife Kristi riding off into the sunset with multi-millions of wealth from the secured Aegis contract. [Oh yeah, and Kristi retired too]

This is how the deep state operates and the Rogers example is a typical highlight for how enmeshed interests of the intelligence community, politicians and the individual can resurface when needed.  With the background explained, you can easily see how the Deep State 2016 presidential election interests would merge with the interests of Mike and Kristi Rogers influence/affluence.