“We’ll start with some important questions posed by Special Counsel DeFilippis on Joffe’s background.
Tom Grasso (Credit: public domain)
Q. And so Mr. Joffe worked on a number of investigations involving foreign cyber threats; is that right?
Grasso: I would say all a matter of cyber threats, yes.
Q. Okay. So does that include nation state threats? Would he be, you know, working with the Bureau on nation state threats?
Grasso: I believe so, yes.
Q. And so that includes some of the big cyber threat countries, like Russia?
Grasso: Yes. At the time Russia was one of our top threats in the FBI for cyber crime.
…
Q: And so Mr. Joffe would work on Russian-related cyber matters?
Grasso: I believe so. He — I don’t think he was specifically tasked with doing that, but I’m sure the work that he did touched on matters having to do with Russia due to the prevalence of cyber crime activity that comes out of Russia.
There’s our confirmation that Joffe worked on “Russian-related cyber matters.” This line of questioning suggests (but doesn’t outright prove) that Joffe may have had some type of involvement in the biggest cyber security matter of 2016: the “Russian” hack of the DNC.
Of course, these questions could have been the Special Counsel trying to discredit Joffe’s claim (see below) that he wanted to remain anonymous because he was relaying risky information.
Anyway, assuming Joffe was involved in the Trump/Russia investigation, then we are presented with some important questions. Did Joffe inform the FBI’s understanding of the DNC/DCCC hacks? If so, what did Joffe contribute?
Then there’s Joffe’s close relationship with Sussmann and his support for the Clinton Campaign. Askwhether the Alfa Bank hoax was the first time Joffe colluded with Michael Sussmann. After all, it was Sussmann who “scrubbed” the CrowdStrike report that attributed the DNC hack to Russia. As Aaron Mate explained in this crucial article:
According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, CrowdStrike delivered a draft report to the FBI on Aug. 31, 2016 that an unidentified FBI official described as “heavily redacted.” James Trainor, then-assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, told the committee that he was “frustrated” with the CrowdStrike report and “doubted its completeness” because “outside counsel” – i.e. Sussmann – “had reviewed it.” According to Trainor, the DNC’s cooperation was “moderate” overall and “slow and laborious in many respects.” Trainor singled out the fact that Perkins Coie – and specifically, Sussmann – “scrubbed” the CrowdStrike information before it was delivered to the FBI, resulting in a “stripped-down version” that was “not optimal.” (Emphasis ours.)
The DOJ and FBI essentially allowed Sussmann “to decide what it could and could not see in CrowdStrike’s reports on Russian hacking.” Did Joffe have a role in that?
Consider something else. What if Crowdstrike was a patsy, there to unknowingly reach false conclusions of a “Russian hack” based on information provided to them, in part, by Rodney Joffe?
Back to Agent Grasso’s testimony. Here he explains Joffe’s demands that Grasso not disclose his identity:
Q. In the case of the Alfa-Bank-related information that you just described, Mr. Joffe specifically asked you not to disclose his identity to other people in the Bureau; is that right?
A. That is correct, yes.
Q. He didn’t want you to tell even the people at the FBI you were talking to that this was coming from Rodney Joffe, right?
A. Yes, that is correct. He wanted his identity protected, yes.
Grasso paraphrased (on redirect) Joffe’s reasoning to stay anonymous: “This is very sensitive information. People’s safety could be at risk.”
And here is Grasso testifying to the significance of Joffe’s motivations in reaching out:
Grasso explained that these omissions were material because the motivation of a source’s political agenda is relevant to the type of cases they “can open.” (Read more: Techno Fog, 5/25/2022)(Archive)
The Michael Sussman defense team RESTS after their final character witnesses are called to the stand. Judge Cooper reads the jury instructions in preparation for closing arguments on the final day of trial.
Timecodes: 00:00:00 – Intro 00:00:50 – Mindmap Overview 00:08:28 – Afternoon Session Transcript (Sussmann Trial Day 8) 00:12:24 – Defense Witness Brandon Charnov (Direct Examination) 00:29:19 – Defense Witness Brandon Charnov (Cross-Examination) 00:41:06 – Defense Character Witness Jimma Elliott-Stevens (Direct Examination) 00:46:26 – Defense Character Witness Jimma Elliott-Stevens (Cross-Examination) 00:48:35 – Defense Character Witness Marty Stansell-Gamm (Direct Examination) 00:53:12 – Defense Character Witness Marty Stansell-Gamm (Cross-Examination) 00:53:42 – Conclusion for Sussmann Trial Day 8 Afternoon Session 00:56:04 – Morning Session Transcript (Sussmann Trial Day 9) 00:57:06 – Judge Cooper Asked Sussmann Whether To Testify or Not 00:59:43 – Discussion of Preliminary Issues 01:04:52 – Judge Cooper Reads Jury Instructions 01:30:07 – Recap & Conclusion 01:32:05 – Superchats & Locals Community #Sussmann#Durham#Trump
“Bill Barr, former U.S. attorney general and author of the new book, “One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General,” says that the Russian collusion allegations leveled against former President Donald Trump by Democrats were a “seditious” attempt to undermine his presidency and a “grave injustice.”
Barr made those comments on an upcoming episode of BlazeTV host Glenn Beck’s podcast, where he explained why he joined the Trump administration and eventually appointed special prosecutor John Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe.
“I thought we were heading into a constitutional crisis. I think whatever you think of Trump, the fact is that the whole Russiagate thing was a grave injustice. It appears to be a dirty political trick that was used first to hobble him and then potentially to drive him from office,” Barr told Beck.
“I believe it is seditious,” he added, clarifying that whether that could be proved in court as a crime is another issue.
“It was a gross injustice, and it hurt the United States in many ways, including what we’re seeing in Ukraine these days. It distorted our foreign policy, and so forth,” Barr said.
(…)Former Attorney General Barr, who served under President Donald Trump, believes Durham has made progress in his investigation and that more damning information may come out soon.
Barr said that Durham has “dug very deep” into the origins of the FBI’s investigation into disproven claims that then-candidate Trump was colluding with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election and has uncovered “good information.”
“I think the question all along … has been that this was a campaign-dirty-trick to get the government to investigate allegations — scurrilous allegations — about Donald Trump and then leak that right before the election,” Barr said.
“And so that raises two questions: Was the Clinton campaign developing this false information and feeding it in for that purpose? And what was the FBI’s role on this?”
“It tells me that he [has] dug very deep and he has developed some good information and he thinks he can make a criminal case here,” Barr said. (Read more: The Blaze, 5/26/2022)(Archive)
(…) on May 31, Grassley sent the first of four letters to FBI Director Wray and AG Garland.
Grassley leveled a very serious allegation, noting that “while serving in a highly sensitive role that includes threshold decision-making over which Federal public corruption matters are opened for investigation,” the Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the Washington Field Office, Timothy Thibault, violated federal regulations and Department guidelines designed to prevent political bias from infecting FBI matters. Grassley told Wray and Garland that actions by Thibault undermine “both the FBI and DOJ because, at minimum, it creates the perception of unequal application of the law.”
“Prior to the FBI’s raid Monday on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, a string of whistleblower reports alleged that senior officials at the FBI exhibited a pattern of bias in their handling of politically sensitive investigations and also reclassified cases without justification to substantiate the White House’s public narratives on crime and extremism.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault discusses the sentencing of Julian Velasquez who distributed fentanyl resulting in a woman’s death. (Credit: FBI Washington Field Office/Twitter)
Beginning in late May, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley called attention to then-Washington Field Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault over political bias concerns. Thibault expressed support for several “highly partisan” opinion articles on LinkedIn and made a series of politically charged social media posts, according to Grassley, who referred Thibault to the Office of Special Counsel to address the federal agent’s potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from partisan political activity.
Concerns surrounding Thibault escalated in July, as whistleblowers came forward claiming Thibault’s partisan persuasion directly impacted his work at the bureau. While seeking approval from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, Thibault withheld from them that his predicating evidence was based in “substantial part” on information from a “left-aligned organization,” according to Grassley’s office.
In a separate instance, whistleblowers claim Thibault worked to falsely discredit evidence against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and prevent the bureau from investigating him.
Richard Pilger leaves the DOJ’s election crimes branch in November 2020 after Barr authorizes a fraud investigation. He stayed with the DOJ in a non-supervisory post. (Credit: public domain)
“Whistleblowers have told my office that the FBI maintains many sources that have provided extensive information on Hunter Biden,” Grassley said in August. “That information allegedly involves potential criminal activity such as money laundering. According to allegations, the underlying information was verified and verifiable. However, instead of green-lighting investigative activity, the FBI shut it down.”
Grassley also pointed to Robert [Richard] Pilger of the Election Crimes Branch, who he alleges was of vital aid to Thibault in his efforts to open the investigation into Trump. Former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, the Iowa Republican noted, testified that “Pilger’s conduct frustrated the department’s ability to properly operate the Election Crimes Branch.”
Thibault, Grassley confirmed, was reassigned to an unspecified posting prior to the bureau securing a warrant to raid Trump’s estate. Sources briefed on the raid confirmed to Just the News that the agents came from the Washington Field Office, in which Thibault was serving until just days prior.
In late July, whistleblower reports emerged that bureau supervisors were pressuring agents to reclassify cases under the label of “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) without substantive justification in order to support White House narratives.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 8/11/2022)(Archive)
“There is very little that surprises me, but this is completely stunning. An FBI whistleblower came forth to inform Rep Jim Jordan and Rep Matt Gaetz that the FBI maintains a workspace inside the law firm of Perkins Coie. {Direct Rumble Link}
In response to a letter sent by Rep. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, Perkins Coie, the legal arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton, admitted they have been operating an FBI workspace in their Washington D.C. office since 2012. Pay attention to that date, it matters. WATCH:
This is a huge development. Essentially, what is being admitted in this claim is that a portal existed into FBI databases within the law firm that represents democrats. This means access to FBI database searches exists inside the office of the DNC and Clinton legal group. Think about the ramifications here.
CTH[Conservative Treehouse] has long claimed there was some kind of direct portal link between the Clinton campaign team and the FBI databases. There were too many trails of extracted non-minimized research evidence in the hands of the Clinton team that CTH could not trace to a transferring FBI official. If Perkins Coie operated a portal in their office that allowed them to conduct search queries of American citizens, then everything would make sense. That access portal is exactly what is being claimed and admitted in this report.
The start date of 2012 is important for several reasons, not the least of which is FISA presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer criticizing the scale and scope of unlawful FBI database access going back to exactly 2012. Keep in mind a FISA-702 search, is simply an unlawful FBI warrantless electronic search of an American (“702” represents the American citizen) into the central database -maintained by the NSA- that contains all electronic data and communication.
I have been in the deep hole of the FISA-702 database search query violations for so long I don’t even need a flashlight.
The report from Matt Gaetz about Perkins Coie access to FBI databases, is in direct alignment with Rosemary Collyer’s prior report on FBI abuses of the database, 702 violations. Notice the dates and scope Judge Collyer references [Source Link].
Non-compliant queries since 2012.
85% of the FBI and contractor searches are unlawful.
Many of those searches involved the use of the “same identifiers over different data ranges.” Put in plain terms, the same people were continually being tracked, searched and surveilled by querying the FBI database over time.
The non-compliant searches go back to 2012. The same date mentioned for the FBI portal to begin operating inside the Perkins Coie office.
This specific footnote is a key. Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”, this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.
Note: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, which is important.
♦Summary: The FISA court identified and quantified tens of thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system. The database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities.
The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation. When the DOJ use of the IRS for political information on their opposition became problematic, the Obama administration needed another tool. It was in 2012 when they switched to using the FBI databases for targeted search queries.
This information from Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz has the potential to be extremely explosive.
It will be interesting to see how the domestic intelligence community media (NYT, Politico, WaPo – in that order) respond to this Matt Gaetz report.
I wrote about these suspicions in-depth throughout 2017, 2018 and eventually summarized in 2019:
Documents released during Michael Sussmann’s federal trial show the FBI solicited advice from Hillary Clinton’s lawyer on a press release describing the intelligence agency’s awareness of the Democratic National Committee hack in 2016.
James Trainor (Credit: public domain)
The original press release sent over to Sussmann by Jim Trainor, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, noted that the FBI was aware of “a possible cyber intrusion involving the DCCC,” or the Democratic National Campaign Committee, via “recent media reporting.”
“Michael – our press office is once again getting a ton of calls on the DCCC matter. A draft response is provided below. Wanted to get your thoughts on this prior to sending out,” Trainor wrote.
In his reply, Sussmann asked the FBI to change the first line of the press release to reflect the DNC’s messaging on the hack. He explained that he preferred a more definitive statement that made clear “the FBI is aware of the cyber intrusion involving the DCCC that has been reported in the media.”
Trainor accepted the suggestions with minor protest and agreed to send out Sussmann’s manipulated version of the press release soon.
“Mike – I am fine with the below suggestions. We try to really limit what we see and not acknowledging too much but the below edits are fine and we will send out,” Trainor wrote. (Read more: The Federalist, 5/31/2022)(Archive)
“The acquittal is no surprise. This is a DC jury, after all. In the Roger Stone case, for example, we documented how a juror lied to get on the panel. (That judge didn’t care.) Making matters worse, the Sussmann judge wrongly allowed a woman to remain on the jury, despite the fact that her daughter and Sussmann’s are on the same high school crew team. One can’t help but think that juror had her own daughter’s interests in mind – the cohesion of the crew team – when she reached a decision.
D.C. Wards – Jury Pool
After the verdict was announced, the jury’s forewoman held court before the media and expressed her displeasure that the Special Counsel prosecute a false statement case:
“There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
On the facts, there was more than sufficient evidence to prove Sussmann’s guilt. Sussmann lied to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in order to get a meeting to pass the Alfa Bank hoax materials to the FBI. Sussmann lied again during the meeting – stating he was not there on behalf of a client – in order to get the FBI to open an investigation into the Trump Organization’s purported ties with Alfa Bank. Later, during testimony to Congress, Sussmann admitted he met with Baker on behalf of a client. Billing records proved he had been working on the Alfa Bank project on behalf of the Clinton Campaign.
(…) That’s not to say the public hasn’t benefited from the trial. The information disclosed during the trial was important to understand the broader Clinton/Fusion GPS/Perkins Coie effort to poison the public, the press, and the FBI with their Trump/Russia lies. This included:
Data from the Executive Office of the President of the United States, including data from the Transition period, was exploited by Sussmann and Rodney Joffe and then passed to the CIA.
Rodney Joffe was a longtime Confidential Human Source (CHS) – and generally a resource – for the FBI. Joffe worked with the FBI on cyber threats from countries like Russia. From former FBI Agent Grasso: “I’m sure the work that [Joffe] did touched on matters having to do with Russia.”
Joffe went to great lengths to make sure the Alfa Bank information he provided to the FBI did not go through his official FBI handler.
The decision to open the investigation came from FBI Leadership. According to one FBI Agent, “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”
Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias provided updates on the Fusion GPS “research” to the Clinton Campaign.
After reviewing the evidence, the FBI leaned “towards this being a false server not attributed to the trump organization.”
An unbelievable confirmation of the shoddy FBI investigation into the Russian “hacking” of our election. As of October 13, 2016,the FBI did not have the Crowdstrike images relating to the purported DNC/DCCC hack. Message from FBI agent via their internal messaging system: “really, I just want images of what crowdstrike has.”
Q: Mr. Mook, before the break you had testified that there was a conversation in which you told Ms. Clinton about the proposed plan to provide the Alfa-Bank allegations to the media; is that correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And what was her response?
A: All I remember is that she agreed with the decision.
Then there are the trial exhibits, which The Epoch Times has posted here. As Aaron Maté observed, Sussmann edited an FBI press release on the DNC hacking because the FBI’s proposed statement “undermines” the DNC hacking narrative:
Sussmann trial exhibits have been released. (https://t.co/UeyF71U1to ) Includes some Crowdstrike-FBI-DNC exchanges on the alleged DNC hack.
“Two months before his Florida home was raided by the FBI, former President Donald Trump secretly received a grand jury subpoena for classified documents belonging to the National Archives, and voluntarily cooperated by turning over responsive evidence, surrendering security surveillance footage and allowing federal agents and a senior Justice Department lawyer to tour his private storage locker, according to a half dozen people familiar with the incident.
Assistant Attorney General for DOJ National Security Division Matthew Olsen, seen from a video monitor before a Senate Judiciary Committee virtual hearing on domestic terrorism, Jan. 11, 2022. (Credit: VOA)
While the cooperation was mostly arranged by his lawyers, Trump personally surprised the DOJ National Security Division prosecutor and three FBI agents who came to his Mar-a-Lago compound on June 3, greeting them as they came to pick up a small number of documents compliant with the subpoena, the sources told Just the News, speaking only on condition of anonymity because the visit was covered by grand jury secrecy.
The subpoena requested any remaining documents Trump possessed with any classification markings, even if they involved photos of foreign leaders, correspondence or mementos from his presidency.
Secret Service agents were also present and facilitated the visit, officials said.
Trump signaled his full cooperation, telling the agents and prosecutor, “Look, whatever you need let us know,” according to two eyewitnesses. The federal team was surprised by the president’s invitation and asked for an immediate favor: to see the 6-foot-by-10-foot storage locker where his clothes, shoes, documents and mementos from his presidency were stored at the compound.
Given Trump’s instruction, the president’s lawyers complied and allowed the search by the FBI before the entourage left cordially. Five days later, DOJ officials sent a letter to Trump’s lawyers asking them to secure the storage locker with more than the lock they had seen. The Secret Service installed a more robust security lock to comply.
Around the same time, the Trump Organization, which owns Mar-a-Lago, received a request for surveillance video footage covering the locker and volunteered the footage to federal authorities, sources disclosed.
The disclosure Wednesday to Just the News raised immediate new questions in legal and congressional circles about the necessity for the subsequent raid, including whether the judge who approved the warrant knew of the earlier cooperation.” (Read more: Just The News, 8/11/2022)(Archive)
“Multiple former FBI officials are coming forward with information suggesting the bureau is “purging” employees with conservative viewpoints, according to House Judiciary Committee Republicans.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the ranking member of the panel, sent a letter to Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday outlining new allegations that relate to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“In one such example, the FBI targeted and suspended the security clearance of a retired war servicemember who had disclosed personal views that the FBI was not being entirely forthcoming about the events of January 6. The FBI questioned the whistleblower’s allegiance to the United States despite the fact that the whistleblower honorably served in the United States military for several years — including deployments in Kuwait and Iraq — valiantly earning multiple military commendation medals,” a press release for the letter states.
“In addition, another whistleblower, who has since left the FBI, has informed us that faced retaliation for criticizing the FBI in an anonymous survey circulated by the [REDACTED] to employees following January 6. The FBI allegedly escalated an adverse personnel action against this employee after [REDACTED] commented on the survey, which sought feedback about the [REDACTED] actions ‘during the recent crisis/command post’ event. The employee, too, was never disciplined or reprimanded until after [REDACTED] criticized the FBI,” the letter reads.
The names of the former officials do not appear, as the letter features several redactions, but Jordan stressed multiple “whistleblowers have called it a ‘purge’ of FBI employees holding conservative views.” He reminded Wray that “whistleblower disclosures to Congress are protected by law and that we will not tolerate any effort to retaliate against whistleblowers for their disclosures.”
Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz were sent a copy.
Jordan also said a prior letter, sent May 6, details allegations of the FBI suspending the security clearances of bureau employees for their participation in protected First Amendment activity, and he claimed the FBI failed to respond or provide a requested briefing. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 6/07/2022)(Archive)
The Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened on behalf of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to respond to congressional inquiries related to its probe into the Biden family business, emails unearthed from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit show.
The collaboration raises questions about if Weiss’ responses to congressional investigators were under the direction of the DOJ and if Weiss and the DOJ colluded to mislead Congress.
Did the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs respond to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson’s May 9, 2022, letter seeking information concerning the Hunter Biden investigation? Weiss posed that question to one of his lead assistant U.S. attorneys, Shannon Hanson.
“Not to my knowledge,” Hanson replied, followed soon after with a second email noting that Joe Gaeta, the then-deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legislative Affairs, was working on a response. And although Grassley and Johnson had addressed their May 9, 2022, inquiry solely to Weiss, DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs would intercede on his behalf, responding in a letter dated June 9, 2022, that the DOJ would not respond to the questions posed.
The following month, Grassley and Johnson dispatched another letter requesting information related to the Hunter Biden investigation, addressing this letter to Weiss, as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Again, the Office of Legal Counsel intervened, telling Weiss’s office in an email reviewed by The Federalist that it would “take the lead on drafting a response” to Grassley and Johnson’s letter.
CNN’s “The Lead” interviews CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. (Credit: video clipping/Breitbart)
“It is standard procedure for congressional inquiries to be routed through the agency’s legislative affairs shop,” Kash Patel, a former federal public defender and House Intelligence Committee aide, told Breitbart News.
“What is not standard,” Patel continued, is for the DOJ to create “conspiratorial schemes concocted to subvert valid constitutional oversight and stonewall documentation production.”
“It also shows how Republicans allow themselves to be dominated by DOJ’s criminal conduct by flailing about with another strongly worded letter,” Patel added. “Impeach them for breaking the law, or stop complaining when you get punched in the face.”
Weiss told House investigators on June 7 that he had “ultimate authority” in whether to charge Hunter Biden with potential wrongdoing.
However, FOIA emails show that while Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed Weiss was the sole authority to bring charges against Hunter Biden, Garland was also controlling the flow of responses back to House investigators. (Read more: Breitbart, 8/28/2023)(Archive)
General John Allen commanded forces in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013. (Credit: Michael Reynolds/EPA)
“General John R. Allen has stepped down as president of the Brookings Institution after he was accused of lying and obstructing an FBI probe connected to an illegal lobbying campaign for Qatar.
The retired four-star Marine, who became Brookings president in 2017, said in his resignation letter that he leaves the research institute with a “heavy heart,” according to Responsible Statecraft.
“I know it is best for all concerned in this moment,” he said in his resignation letter that was obtained and posted by the online magazine of the Quincy Institute, which advocates for diplomacy and military restraint.
Previously, a Treasury spokesperson said the department provides SARs “in a manner that enables robust oversight.” @CBS_News asked Treasury to respond to republican allegations it is continuing to “thwart congressional oversight.”
Clipping from Congressman James Comer’s letter to Janet Yellen.
“Kentucky congressman James Comer (R) joined “Fox & Friends First” Thursday to address his efforts to obtain suspicious foreign business transactions on Hunter Biden and slams the White House and Democrats for refusing to release the information.
JAMES COMER: To put this into perspective, a suspicious activity report was put into place when George Bush was president after September 11th to try to catch money laundering into terrorist cells in the United States. A suspicious activity report is a very serious banking violation. Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s brother, Jim, have had over 150 suspicious activity reports when Bush was president and through Obama, Clinton, Bush, any member of Congress could request from Treasury a list of suspicious activity reports in their congressional districts and in their states. When Joe Biden became president and this is before it became public knowledge that Hunter had these suspicious activity reports, he, in the dark of night, changed it to where Congress could no longer access that from Treasury. Now, we have formally requested the suspicious activity report on Hunter Biden and the White House will not allow us to have it unless the Democrats sign on to the request.
“A top FBI official repeatedly violated bureau policy by hobnobbing with journalists while overseeing the controversial investigation into Donald Trump’s suspected ties to Russia — and then retired before he could be interviewed by ethics probers, a newly released Justice Department report revealed.
Michael Steinbach “had numerous unauthorized contacts with the media” that began when he was the bureau’s assistant counterterrorism director and continued after he was named executive assistant director of its National Security Bureau in February 2016, according to the heavily redacted DOJ Inspector General report obtained by The Post through a freedom of information act request.
The “hundreds of contacts” included “soliciting” an unidentified reporter for a $300 ticket to the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Association gala after earlier getting invited by a different reporter to the 2015 Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner.
“Lots of [redacted] reporters here. May have to branch out!” Steinbach wrote to the unidentified reporter in a text message on the night of the 2015 dinner.
“Absolutely not!!! But curious to know who you’ve met so far?” the reporter responded, adding: “well they will never be as good as me! and don’t you get the big head! ;)”
“But they are promising the WH Correspondents dinner,” Steinbach responded.
The following year, Steinbach attended the White House Correspondents’ dinner and a reception party as a guest of a reporter — and boasted about it in a text to an unidentified CNN reporter.
“I put you on the map and now you’re cheating on me with [redacted],” the CNN reporter wrote in a text message to Steinbach.
“I kept waiting for my invite from you,” Steinbach responded.
After the $300-a-ticket event, Steinbach sent an email to a reporter with the subject “Great Night” that included a photo of an unidentified person standing with the journalist in front of the White House Correspondents’ Association banner.
“Thanks for hanging out with us last night [redacted] and I had a great time. And also thank you for giving us a lift. That was nice. I know it has been [sic] very busy year but when it slows down and as the weather gets nicer, we would love to grab [sic] or drinks with you and [redacted] either in the city somewhere or at our house,” the email read, in part.
In addition to the dinners, Steinbach had numerous lunches with journalists in Washington from 2014 to 2017, including at restaurants Asia Nine, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse, Elephant & Castle and Oyamel Cocina Mexicana.
“The OIG notes that it was unable to determine who paid for the drinks or meals during these social engagements,” the report states.
(…) The report notes the watchdog concluded that Steinbach violated federal regulations and FBI protocol and its findings would be delivered to the FBI.
“It seems like every few weeks we’re reminded of why Twitter, Facebook, Democrats and the media worked so hard to keep the Hunter Biden laptop out of the news before the 2020 election.
The latest example is an audio file that’s rather revealing.
Hunter Biden recorded himself boasting that his father will adopt political positions at his command, footage obtained from a copy of his abandoned laptop shows.
“He’ll talk about anything that I want him to, that he believes in,” Biden said in reference to his father, Joe Biden, in the Dec. 3, 2018, recording. “If I say it’s important to me, then he will work a way in which to make it a part of his platform. My dad respects me more than he respects anyone in the world, and I know that to be certain, so it’s not going to be about whether it affects his politics.”
“All those fears you think that I have of people not liking me or that I don’t love myself … I don’t fear that. You know why I don’t fear that? Because the man I most admire in the world, that god to me, thinks I’m a god,” Hunter Biden added in the 77-minute recording, which was taped about five months before Joe Biden launched his successful 2020 presidential campaign in late April 2019. “And my brother did, too. And the three of us, it was literally — I had the support to know I can do anything.”
The president’s son even mused about his cocaine addiction:
The conversation was taped at a house in Plum Island, Massachusetts, amid the throes of Hunter Biden’s addiction to crack cocaine.
“Have you ever thought about this: Maybe this is the greatest thing that f***ing ever happened to me,” Hunter Biden mused to Horan about his addiction to the Schedule II narcotic. “Maybe this is literally the continuation and the continuum of what is going to be the thing that makes me the person that my father believes I am.”
LISTEN: Hunter Biden says his father, Joe, will “talk about anything that I want him to”
“If I say it’s important to me, then he will work a way in which to make it a part of his platform” pic.twitter.com/2ZyKVCnvYq
Source video: President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, June 17, 2022. He comments about the ongoing RICO lawsuit filed against Hillary Clinton and others.
“Twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton on Friday said Trump supporters are a “clear and present danger to American democracy.” Clinton responded to a judge who lashed out at Trump supporters during Thursday’s January 6 show trial.
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” former circuit judge (George H. W. Bush appointee) Michael Luttig said to the J-6 panel. WATCH:
Conservative Judge Michael Luttig:
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.” pic.twitter.com/xSs6JMxvIR
Hillary Clinton agreed with the former federal judge. Hillary Clinton went from calling Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables” to a “clear and present danger” in a matter of just a few years. “Louder, for those in the back: Donald Trump, his allies, and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.” Hillary Clinton said in a tweet on Friday.
Louder, for those in the back:
Donald Trump, his allies, and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. https://t.co/Q8mmCQM45C
(…) Judge Luttig never notes that the president specifically said to the crowd to go and “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
In fact, not only did that part of the president’s speech not make Judge Luttig’s statement, it was, as Ohio’s Republican Congressman Jim Jordan has noted, also edited out of the committee’s video of that event. Imagine that. (The American Spectator, 6/16/2022)
Clipping of a New York Times article published May 29, 2016.
(…) In an interview with the Financial Times (paywall), Clinton was asked if she has considered another possible run for president in 2024, to which she shut down saying, “out of the question,” adding “first of all, I expect Biden to run. He certainly intends to run. It would be very disruptive to challenge that.”
(…) Clinton continued to say she believes President Trump will run again, claiming only if he thought it would benefit him financially.
Describing herself as the “most investigated innocent person in America,” Clinton portrayed herself as a victim, calling out Republicans for painting her as a “murderer or a child trafficker.”
Clinton called the thought of a Republican president “frightening,” adding “we are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window.” (Read more: Town Hall, 6/18/2022)(Archive)
Trump and Clinton during a 2016 election debate. (Credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters)
(…) On June 21, 2022, Trump filed an amended RICO suit against Clinton and a large number of other DNC-related individuals who were involved in the RussiaGate hoax.
The new suit, at 193 pages in length, was significantly more robust and detailed than Trump’s original March 24RICO suit and included additional defendants. On the very same day, Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official who’s worked diligently to get Trump’s declassified documents released, announced on a podcast that he was officially a representative for Trump at the National Archives. Patel said it was his intention to “identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified.” Patel stated that he “would start putting that information out next week.”
[A sample of the many appearances Patel has made about the declassified documents.]
The following day, June 22, Magistrate Bruce Reinhart suddenly recused himself from Trump’s suit against Clinton & Company. Just 44 days later, after his unexpected recusal from Trump’s RICO case against Clinton, Reinhart personally signed the search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 8/19/2022)(Archive)
Twitter has been on a recruitment drive of late, hiring a host of former feds and spies. Studying a number of employment and recruitment websites, MintPress has ascertained that the social media giant has, in recent years, recruited dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety, and content.
Chief amongst these is the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The FBI is generally known as a domestic security and intelligence force. However, it has recently expanded its remit into cyberspace. “The FBI’s investigative authority is the broadest of all federal law enforcement agencies,” the “About” section of its website informs readers. “The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence [and] cyber crime,” it adds.
For example, in 2019, Dawn Burton (the former director of Washington operations for Lockheed Martin) was poached from her job as senior innovation advisor to the director at the FBI to become senior director of strategy and operations for legal, public policy, trust and safety at Twitter. The following year, Karen Walsh went straight from 21 years at the bureau to become director of corporate resilience at the silicon valley giant. Twitter’s deputy general counsel and vice president of legal, Jim Baker, also spent four years at the FBI between 2014 and 2018, where his resumé notes he rose to the role of senior strategic advisor.
Mark Jaroszewski (Credit: FBI Event Flyer, May 2018)
Meanwhile, Mark Jaroszewski ended his 21-year posting as a supervisory special agent in the Bay Area to take up a position at Twitter, rising to become director of corporate security and risk. And Douglas Turner spent 14 years as a senior special agent and SWAT Team leader before being recruited to serve in Twitter’s corporate and executive security services. Previously, Turner had also spent seven years as a secret service special agent with the Department of Homeland Security.
When asked to comment by MintPress, former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley said that she was “not surprised at all” to see FBI agents now working for the very tech companies the agency polices, stating that there now exists a “revolving door” between the FBI and the areas they are trying to regulate. This created a serious conflict of interests in her mind, as many agents have one eye on post-retirement jobs. “The truth is that at the FBI 50% of all the normal conversations that people had were about how you were going to make money after retirement,” she said.
Many former FBI officials hold influential roles within Twitter. For instance, in 2020, Matthew W. left a 15-year career as an intelligence program manager at the FBI to take up the post of senior director of product trust at Twitter. Patrick G., a 23-year FBI supervisory special agent, is now head of corporate security. And Twitter’s director of insider risk and security investigations, Bruce A., was headhunted from his role as a supervisory special agent at the bureau. His resumé notes that at the FBI he held “[v]arious intelligence and law enforcement roles in the US, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East” and was a “human intelligence and counterintelligence regional specialist.” (On employment sites such as LinkedIn, many users choose not to reveal their full names.)
Meanwhile, between 2007 and 2021Jeff Carlton built up a distinguished career in the United States Marine Corps, rising to become a senior intelligence analyst. Between 2014 and 2017, his LinkedIn profile notes, he worked for both the CIA and FBI, authored dozens of official reports, some of which were read by President Barack Obama. Carlton describes his role as a “problem-solver” and claims to have worked in many “dynamic, high-pressure environments” such as Iraq and Korea. In May 2021, he left official service to become a senior program manager at Twitter, responsible for dealing with the company’s “highest-profile trust and safety escalations.”
Head of Twitter’s Strategic Response Team, Jeff Carlton, who worked for CIA & FBI, deleted his LinkedIn quickly in response to #TwitterFiles. Before deleting, he changed his name to an alias to make him harder to find.
Other former FBI staff are employed by Twitter, such as Cherrelle Y. as a policy domain specialist and Laura D. as a senior analyst in global risk intelligence.
Many of those listed above were active in the FBI’s public outreach programs, a practice sold as a community trust-building initiative. According to Rowley, however, these also function as “ways for officials to meet the important people that would give them jobs after retirement.” “It basically inserts a huge conflict of interest,” she told MintPress. “It warps and perverts the criminal investigative work that agents do when they are still working as agents because they anticipate getting lucrative jobs after retiring or leaving the FBI.”
Rowley – who in 2002 was named, along with two other whistleblowers, as Time magazine’s Person of the Year – was skeptical that there was anything seriously nefarious about the hiring of so many FBI agents, suggesting that Twitter could be using them as sources of information and intelligence. She stated:
Retired agents often maintained good relationships and networks with current agents. So they can call up their old buddy and find out stuff… There were certainly instances of retired agents for example trying to find out if there was an investigation of so and so. And if you are working for a company, that company is going to like that influence.”
Rowley also suggested that hiring people from various three-letter agencies gave them a credibility boost. “These [tech] companies are using the mythical aura of the FBI. They can point to somebody and say ‘oh, you can trust us; our CEO or CFO is FBI,’” she explained.
Twitter certainly has endorsed the FBI as a credible actor, allowing the organization to play a part in regulating the global dissemination of information on its platform. In September 2020, it put out a statement thanking the federal agency. “We wish to express our gratitude to the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force for their close collaboration and continued support of our work to protect the public conversation at this critical time,” the statement read.
One month later, the company announced that the FBI was feeding it intelligence and that it was complying with their requests for deletion of accounts. “Based on intel provided by the FBI, last night we removed approximately 130 accounts that appeared to originate in Iran. They were attempting to disrupt the public conversation during the first 2020 U.S. Presidential Debate,” Twitter’s safety team wrote.
Yet the evidence they supplied of this supposed threat to American democracy was notably weak. All four of the messages from this Iranian operation that Twitter itself shared showed that none of them garnered any likes or retweets whatsoever, meaning that essentially nobody saw them. This was, in other words, a completely routine cleanup operation of insignificant troll accounts. Yet the announcement allowed Twitter to present the FBI as on the side of democracy and place the idea into the public psyche that the election was under threat from foreign actors.
Iran has been a favorite Twitter target in the past. In 2009, at the behest of the US government, it postponed routine maintenance of the site, which would have required taking it offline. This was because an anti-government protest movement in Tehran was using the app to communicate and the US did not want the demonstrations’ regime-change potential to be stymied.
A CARNIVAL OF SPOOKS
The FBI is far from the only state security agency filling Twitter’s ranks. Shortly after leaving a 10-year career as a CIA analyst, Michael Scott Robinson was hired to become a senior policy manager for site integrity, trust and safety.
The California-based app has also recruited heavily from the Atlantic Council, a NATO cutout organization that serves as the military alliance’s think tank. The council is sponsored by NATO, led by senior NATO generals and regularly plays out regime-change scenarios in enemy states, such as China.
The Atlantic Council has been associated with many of the most egregious fake news plants of the last few years. It published a series of lurid reports alleging that virtually every political group in Europe challenging the status quo – from the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and UKIP in Great Britain to PODEMOS and Vox in Spain and Syriza and Golden Dawn in Greece – were all secretly “the Kremlin’s Trojan Horses.” Atlantic Council employee Michael Weiss was also very likely the creator of the shadowy organization PropOrNot, a group that anonymously published a list of fake-news websites that regularly peddled Kremlin disinformation. Included in this list was virtually every anti-war alternative media outlet one could think of – from MintPress to Truthout, TruthDig and The Black Agenda Report. Also included were pro-Trump websites like The Drudge Report, and liberatarian ventures like Antiwar.com and The Ron Paul Institute.
PropOrNot’s list was immediately heralded in the corporate press, and was the basis for a wholescale algorithm shift at Google and other big tech platforms, a shift that saw traffic to alternative media sites crash overnight, never to recover. Thus, the allegation of a huge (Russian) state-sponsored attempt to influence the media was itself an intelligence op by the U.S. national security state.
In 2020, Kanishk Karan left his job as a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research (DFR) Lab to join Twitter as information integrity and safety specialist – essentially helping to control what Twitter sees as legitimate information and nefarious disinformation. Another DFR Lab graduate turned Twitter employee is Daniel Weimert, who is now a senior public policy associate for Russia – a key target of the Atlantic Council. Meanwhile, Sarah Oh is simultaneously an Atlantic Council DFR Lab non-resident senior fellow and a Twitter advisor, her social media bio noting she works on “high risk trust and safety issues.”
In 2019, Twitter also hired Greg Andersen straight from NATO to work on cybercrime policy. There is sparse information on what Andersen did at NATO, but, alarmingly, his own LinkedIn profile stated simply that he worked on “psychological operations” for the military alliance. After MintPresshighlighted this fact in an article in April, he removed all mention of “psychological operations” from his profile, claiming now to have merely worked as a NATO “researcher.” Andersen left Twitter in the summer of last year to work as a product policy manager for the popular video platform TikTok.
Twitter also directly employs active army officers. In 2019, Gordon Macmillan, the head of editorial for the entire Europe, Middle East and Africa region was revealed to be an officer in the British Army’s notorious 77th Brigade – a unit dedicated to online warfare and psychological operations. This bombshell news was steadfastly ignored across the media.
POSITIONS OF POWER AND CONTROL
With nearly 400 million global users, there is no doubt that Twitter has grown to become a platform large and influential enough to necessitate extensive security measures, as actors of all stripes attempt to use the service to influence public opinion and political actions. There is also no doubt that there is a limited pool of people qualified in these sorts of fields.
Few are even acknowledging that there is anything wrong with moving from big government to big tech, as if the US national security state and the fourth estate are allies, rather than adversaries.
But recruiting largely from the US national security state fundamentally undermines claims Twitter makes about its neutrality. The US government is the source of some of the largest and most extensive influence operations in the world. As far back as 2011, The Guardian reported on the existence of a massive, worldwide US military online influence campaign in which it had designed software that allowed its personnel to “secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.” The program boasts that the background of these personas is so convincing that psychological operations soldiers can be sure to work “without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.” Yet Twitter appears to be recruiting from the source of the problem.
These former national security state officials are not being employed in politically neutral departments such as sales or customer service, but in security, trust and content, meaning that some hold considerable sway over what messages and information are promoted, and what is suppressed, demoted or deleted.
It could be said that poachers-turned-gamekeepers often play a crucial role in safety and protection, as they know how bad actors think and operate. But there exists little evidence that any of these national security state operatives have changed their stances. Twitter is not hiring whistleblowers or dissidents. It appears, then, that some of these people are essentially doing the same job they were doing before, but now in the private sector. And few are even acknowledging that there is anything wrong with moving from big government to big tech, as if the US national security state and the fourth estate are allies, rather than adversaries.
That Twitter is already working so closely with the FBI and other agencies makes it easy for them to recruit from the federal pool. As Rowley said, “over a period of time these people will be totally in sync with the mindset of Twitter and other social media platforms. So from the company’s standpoint, they are not hiring somebody new. They already know this person. They know where they stand on things.”
IS THERE A PROBLEM?
Some might ask “What is the problem with Twitter actively recruiting from the FBI, CIA and other three-letter agencies?” They, after all, are experts in studying online disinformation and propaganda. One is optical. If a Russian-owned social media app’s trust, security and content moderation was run by former KGB or FSB agents and still insisted it was a politically neutral platform, the entire world would laugh.
The huge influx of security state personnel into Twitter’s decision-making ranks means that the company will start to view every problem in the same manner as the US government does – and act accordingly.
But apart from this, the huge influx of security state personnel into Twitter’s decision-making ranks means that the company will start to view every problem in the same manner as the US government does – and act accordingly. “In terms of their outlooks on the world and on the question of misinformation and internet security, you couldn’t get a better field of professionals who are almost inherently going to be more in tune with the government’s perspective,” Rowley said.
Thus, when policing the platform for disinformation and influence campaigns, the former FBI and CIA agents and Atlantic Council fellows only ever seem to find them emanating from enemy states and never from the US government itself. This is because their backgrounds and outlooks condition them to consider Washington to be a unique force for good.
This one-sided view of disinformation can be seen by studying the reports Twitter has published on state-linked information operations. The entire list of countries it has identified as engaging in these campaigns are as follows: Russia (in 7 reports), Iran (in 5 reports), China (4 reports), Saudi Arabia (4 reports), Venezuela (3 reports), Egypt (2 reports), Cuba, Serbia, Bangladesh, the UAE, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Honduras, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Armenia, Spain, Tanzania, Mexico and Uganda.
One cannot help noticing that this list correlates quite closely to a hit list of US government adversaries. All countries carry out disinfo campaigns to a certain extent. But these “former” spooks and feds are unlikely to point the finger at their former colleagues or sister organizations or investigate their operations.
THE COLD (CYBER)WAR
Twitter has mirrored US hostility towards states like Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, attempting to suppress the reach and influence of their state media by adding warning messages to the tweets of journalists and accounts affiliated with those governments. “State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution,” it noted.
In a rather bizarre addendum, it explained that it would not be doing the same to state-affiliated media or personalities from other countries, least of all the US “State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the U.K. or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy,” it wrote. It did not explain how it decided that Cuban, Russian, Chinese or Iranian journalists did not have editorial independence, but British and American ones did – this was taken for granted. The effect of the action has been a throttling of ideas and narratives from enemy states and an amplification of those coming from Western state media.
As the US ramps up tensions with Beijing, so too has Twitter aggressively shut down pro-China voices on its platform. In 2020, it banned 170,000 accounts it said were “spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China,” such as praising its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic or expressing opposition to the Hong Kong protests, both of which are majority views in China. Importantly, the Silicon Valley company did not claim that these accounts were controlled by the government; merely sharing these opinions was grounds enough for deletion.
The group behind Twitter’s decision to ban those Chinese accounts was the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a deeply controversial think tank funded by the Pentagon, the State Department and a host of weapons manufacturers. ASPI has constantly peddled conspiracy theories about China and called for ramping up tensions with the Asian nation.
Perhaps most notable, however, was Twitter’s announcement last year that it was deleting dozens of accounts for the new violation of “undermining faith in the NATO alliance.” The statement was widely ridiculed online by users. But few noted that the decision was based upon a partnership with the a counter-disinformation think tank filled with former spooks and state officials and headed by an individual who is on the advisory board of NATO’s Collective Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. That Twitter is working so closely with organizations that are clearly intelligence industry catspaws should concern all users.
NOT JUST TWITTER
While some might be alarmed that Twitter is cultivating such an intimate relationship with the FBI and other groups belonging to the secret state, it is perhaps unfair to single it out, as many social media platforms are doing the same. Facebook, for example, has entered into a formal partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, whereby the latter holds significant influence over 2.9 billion users’ news feeds, helping to decide what content to promote and what content to suppress. The NATO cutout organization now serves as Facebook’s “eyes and ears,” according to a Facebook press release. Anti-war and anti-establishment voices across the world have reported massive drops in traffic on the platform.
One of media’s primary functions is to serve as a fourth estate; a force that works to hold the government and its agencies to account. Yet instead of doing that, increasingly it is collaborating with them.
The social media giant also hired former NATO Press Secretary Ben Nimmo to be its head of intelligence. Nimmo subsequently used his power to attempt to swing the election in Nicaragua away from the leftist Sandinista Party and towards the far-right, pro-US candidate, deleting hundreds of left-wing voices in the week of the election, claiming they were engaging in “inauthentic behavior.” When these individuals (including some well-known personalities) poured onto Twitter, recording video messages proving they were not bots, Twitter deleted those accounts too, in what one commentator called a Silicon Valley “double tap strike.”
An April MintPressstudy revealed how TikTok, too, has been filling its organization with alumni of the Atlantic Council, NATO, the CIA and the State Department. As with Twitter, these new TikTok employees largely work in highly politically sensitive fields such as trust, safety, security and content moderation, meaning these state operatives hold influence over the direction of the company and what content is promoted and what is demoted.
Likewise, in 2017, content aggregation site Reddit plucked Jessica Ashooh from the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force to become its new director of policy, despite the fact that she had few relevant qualifications or experience in the field.
In corporate media too, we have seen a widespread infiltration of former security officials into the upper echelons of news organizations. So normalized is the penetration of the national security state into the media that is supposed to be holding it to account, that few reacted in 2015 when Dawn Scalici left her job as national intelligence manager for the Western hemisphere at the Director of National Intelligence to become the global business director of international news conglomerate Thomson Reuters. Scalici, a 33-year CIA veteran who had worked her way up to become a director in the organization, was open about what her role was. In a blog post on the Reuters website, she wrote that she was there to “meet the disparate needs of the US Government” – a statement that is at odds with even the most basic journalistic concepts of impartiality and holding the powerful to account.
Meanwhile, cable news outlets routinely employ a wide range of “former” agents and mandarins as trusted personalities and experts. These include former CIA Directors John Brennan (NBC, MSNBC) and Michael Hayden (CNN), ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (CNN), and former Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend (CBS). And news for so many Americans comes delivered through ex-CIA interns like Anderson Cooper (CNN), CIA-applicants like Tucker Carlson (Fox), or by Mika Brzezinski (MSNBC), the daughter of a powerful national security advisor. The FBI has its own former agents on TV as well, with talking heads such as James Gagliano (Fox), Asha Rangappa (CNN) and Frank Figliuzzi (NBC, MSNBC) becoming household names. In short, then, the national security state once used to infiltrate the media. Today, however, the national security state is the media.
Social media holds enormous influence in today’s society. While this article is not alleging that anyone mentioned is a bad actor or does not genuinely care about the spread of disinformation, it is highlighting a glaring conflict of interest. Through its agencies, the US government regularly plants fake news and false information. Therefore, social media hiring individuals straight from the FBI, CIA, NATO and other groups to work on regulating disinformation is a fundamentally flawed practice. One of media’s primary functions is to serve as a fourth estate; a force that works to hold the government and its agencies to account. Yet instead of doing that, increasingly it is collaborating with them. Such are these increasing interlocking connections that it is becoming increasingly difficult to see where big government ends and big media begins.
From @Kash: “This means Durham filed a bunch of classified documents, that [are] being declassified, and will unveil at trial. Gangster move, what I used to do to put down terrorists”…
Date: 06/23/22
US v Danchanko
Document 54
Notes: Protective Order Granted in US v Danchenko
First off, hats off to the legend @UndeadFoia for gaining access to unredacted copies of the invoices paid by Georgia Tech. We hope you move over to Truth Social soon, but thanks for holding down on that other platform. He did some incredible work to obtain this source documentation via a FOIA request.
Second, @ProfMJCleveland had an absolutely hilarious observation and reaction to the newly released documents…
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is demanding answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) repeated failure to prosecute employees after they are caught making materially false statements during internal investigations. In at least a dozen cases, Grassley lays out instances where the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) made criminal referrals against DOJ employees, but DOJ never took legal action – despite the same charges being frequently prosecuted when they are made against the American public.
One of the cases occurred recently when DOJ refused to prosecute two Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents in the Larry Nassar case, after it was discovered that these agents made several false statements.
“The supervisory agent was fired by the FBI for ‘violating the FBI’s policies by making false statements and failing to properly document complaints by the accusers.’ Yet, despite a criminal referral from the OIG, the DOJ refused to prosecute the two agents for the same crime that they routinely prosecute hundreds of American people for each year,” Grassley wrote.
Matthew Graves was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 28, 2021, and sworn in on November 5, 2021, as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. (Credit: public domain)
Grassley then dives into 12 cases where DOJ has not held its own employees to the same standard that they would apply to all other Americans. In one case, the OIG substantiated allegations that an employee received $350,000 in excess worker’s compensation payments because they did not accurately report their outside earnings. In another, the OIG substantiated allegations that the employee made false statements during a mortgage fraud investigation. In all cases, the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) declined to prosecute.
“Laws are meant to deter criminal activity, but when DOJ does not enforce those laws but rather shields their employees from consequences, it has the opposite effect. It creates a sense of entitlement and signals that DOJ employees are beyond reproach. DOJ employees should be held to a higher standard for making materially false statements to the OIG, not a lower one. DOJ must hold itself to the highest possible standard or else it risks losing the credibility and trust of the American people,” Grassley continued.
Grassley concludes by demanding answers to several questions, including a full list of how many DOJ employees have been prosecuted for making false statements in the last five years and how many criminal referrals have been made by the OIG in that time frame. He also asks DOJ for a more detailed explanation behind their decision not to prosecute the FBI agents involved in the Nassar investigation.
“Hillary’s attorney Marc Elias was handed another defeat from the Supreme Court. The court agreed with the Congressional district lines drawn by Louisiana Republicans for the upcoming election.
(…) Recently, Elias was reportedly receiving “rebukes from judges, prosecutors, and even fellow Democrats”. Elias’s aggressive stance on elections was praised by Democrats but when he was tied to actions with the Russia collusion scandal he was shunned.
(Credit: Gateway Pundit)
(Credit: Gateway Pundit)
(…) The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to restore Republican-drawn lines in Louisiana ahead of the midterms as Democrats pushed to create a second black-majority district. The court issued an order that restored a congressional voting map that a federal judge said, disenfranchised black voters. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have denied the application for stay.
“Judge Nathan has sentenced Ghislaine Maxwell to 20 years in prison. “A sentence of 240 months is sufficient and no graver than necessary.”
The sentence is less than the 30-50 years prosecutors asked for, but more than the 6 year sentence the defense thought was appropriate.
While preparing to deliver the sentence, Nathan said that “Ms Maxwell directly and repeatedly and over the course of many years participated in a horrific scheme” to traffic and abuse girls, and that “Ms Maxwell worked with Epstein to select young victims who were vulnerable.
As such, a “substantial sentence” is warranted, which – if not released early, means Maxwell will be 80 years old when she gets out.
And somehow not a single Epstein client was named…
Judge Alison J Nathan said on Tuesday that Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal activity was “extensive,” and that she’s enhancing her sentence due to the fact that she was at least 10 years older than her victims, and exercised “undue influence” on them.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 6/28/2022)(Archive)
“Nuland” gets 16 hits. Including this interesting 7/27/16 email from “William Nuland” (who?) about the DNC hack. And another interesting Oct 2016 email exchange with Strobe Talbott. https://t.co/hLy1bFt5L1pic.twitter.com/kdsFEasoRE
(Note: FoiaFan did searches for several people and linked to results on Twitter. Also, William Nuland is Victoria Nuland’s half-brother. @Larry_Beech comments, “William Peterson Nuland. Victoria’s 20 year younger half brother, who worked for secureworks, prior VeriSign, possibly involved with Facebook too.”)
(1/19) Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers
Doyle, Moynihan v IRS (United States Tax Court)
After a 3+ month hiatus from this platform, I welcome relaunching this account given that our case has been partially unsealed and can now be publicly tracked: https://t.co/Io1HwdH2xY
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(3/19) the IRS request for Summary Judgment (dismissal). MAJOR!!
April 22, 2021: Judge orders case remanded to IRS “for investigation and development of the record to
determine whether IRS/CI (Criminal Investigation) proceeded with an investigation.” Recall that our WB Submission
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(5/19) We made our initial public appearance when we testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on December 13, 2018: https://t.co/1S3JtcNpJf
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(7/19) to US Tax Court in March 2019; appeal accepted by USTC Aug 28, 2019; case ongoing; many and especially legal sleuths in the audience can learn much from simply reviewing the Docket Record alone.
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(9/19) 4. Private Foundations including/especially the Gates Foundation are subject to tax on their CF donations under IRS Code for Donors’ Responsibilities.
Documented Evidence includes: All CF Financials (tax returns, audits, annual reports, income statements); Contracts with
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(11/19) inc the CFO; Email exchanges between CF execs and foreign government officials; reviews of US State Department emails; Reviews of State Dept/USAID ‘In Country Plans; Reviews of Geneva-based NGOs Global Fund, UNITAID . . and MORE!!
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(13/19) He formerly worked for Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). He testified to Congress on the financing of Global Terrorism after the 9/11 tragedy: https://t.co/XETidB4zMh
I worked on Wall Street for nearly 25 years and have done extensive work over the last 15 years in re
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(15/19) and wrote a book, In Bed with Wall Street, for which I humbly inform you I was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
In short, we have decades of experience in pursuing and making cases of this sort. We have other claims of similar nature. We are registered Independents.
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(17/19) who share messages similar to this recently received communication: “Every damn day there’s a new report of corruption, lack of accountability and so on. Nothing f’king ever comes of it. Soooo many people have given up the fight. They drew a box. And in that box is family
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(19/19) Additional Info/Requests:
-Primary Reason: TRACK OUR CASE at the USTC link.
-FBH in our header? “Financial Bounty Hunters” along with CF Whistleblowers;
Pls Follow Us; Share this thread;
I prefer NOT getting into our leaving Twitter this past March. THANK YOU!!
LD
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
Nate Cain bravely blew the whistle on Hillary Clinton and her foundation while working as a contractor for the FBI. He’s still working in the field of cybersecurity and offers new insights into Benghazi, Hillary Clinton’s illegal gun-running in Africa and the Middle East; personal knowledge and evidence of the 2020 election fraud, and Bill Barr participating in a cover-up; many, many other topics we have been chronicling.
We include tags reflecting some of the people and topics that are discussed.
“Richard Grenell was closely linked to the globalist Humpty Dumpty Institute during his time working at the Bush Administration’s US Mission to the United Nations. A non-profit tied to a laundry list of uni-party establishment members, the Humpty Dumpty Institute has been led by Mark Epstein, the brother of notorious child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The organization has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Taihe Institute, a think tank that is directly led by high-ranking CCP officials.
(…) Before he was a purported member of the America First movement, Richard Grenell spent years working for the administration of President George W. Bush, serving at a high level in the US Mission to the United Nations from 2001 to 2008. During that time, Grenell worked in a number of globalist “policy making” roles related to the UN’s notorious “peacekeeping” operations as well as the Global War on Terror.
According to photographs and logs detailing the Humpty Dumpty Institute’s (HDI) relationship with the US Mission to the UN, Grenell was deeply tied to the globalist, Epstein-led non-profit during his time in the Bush Administration and appeared as a speaker at HDI’s “Staff Delegation to the United Nations” at least twice, in 2005.
Mark Epstein (Credit: Shaun Mader/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
In June of that year, Grenell joined a group of “senior US diplomats, high-level UN officials, and spokesmen from a number of UN agencies and departments,” to address HDI’s 15th Staff Delegation to the United Nations. According to an HDI webpage memorializing the event, “the intent of this program was to give congressional spokesmen an opportunity to view first-hand the inner workings of the UN while providing them with a network of capable counterparts throughout the UN system.” According to the webpage profiling HDI’s delegation, Grenell addressed the group as part of a “breakfast briefing,” offering a “description of his own background and specific duties.” Grenell, the HDI’s summary goes on to explain, urged attendees to work through him while dealing with both the US Mission to the UN and the UN as a whole.
Grenell “emphasized his intermediary role between the US Congress, the US Mission, and the United Nations, and urged future dialogue through his office,” HDI’s webpage reads.
Attendees at the 15th Delegation included the staff members of several uni-party Congressmen and Senators, including Rebecca Kutler, who at the time was Press Secretary to far-left California Rep. Adam Schiff. HDI leadership was also present at the event. Also present were members of Senator John Cornyn and Rep. James Clyburn’s respective staffs.
Among Grenell’s fellow speakers was American UN Ambassador Anne Patterson. Patterson went on to serve in a number of capacities in the Bush and Obama Administrations, including as Obama’s Ambassador to Egypt, where she was closely tied to the terror-connected Muslim Brotherhood, which itself is designated as a terror group by a number of Muslim nations and others.
A few months later, in October of 2005, Grenell joined HDI and several big names within globalism once more for yet another Staff Delegation, this time marking the event’s 16th incarnation. As part of the delegation, congressional offices had the “unprecedented opportunity to meet with senior decision-makers at the US Mission and at the United Nations to discuss issues critical to the US-UN relationship behind closed doors.”
HDI’s 16th Staff Delegation to the United Nations included then-Senator Barack Obama staffer Samantha Power. Power, who went on to serve in the Obama Administration at the UN and in other roles, is a key figure in globalist foreign policy-making circles. During Obama’s presidency, she was at the forefront of calling for America to employ the type of disastrous “humanitarian intervention” used in Libya and other troubled nations. Currently, Power sits as Joe Biden’s Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.
Photographs posted by HDI online of the delegation events show Grenell playing a key role and sitting alongside senior HDI members. In one photo attributed by HDI to their 15th Delegation, Grenell himself can be seen in attendance.
Richard Grenell, seen at the left of the photo, sitting back from the table, alongside HDI President Ralph Cwerman. (Credit: Humpty Dumpty Institute)
In another, a portion of what appears to be his place tag is visible, displaying “Ric Gre,” and what appears to be a portion of the word “spokesman” in the photograph.
Seated next to Grenell and his place at the table are big pharma executive Debra DeShong and Humpty Dumpty Institute President Ralph Cwerman. Also pictured is Muslim Brotherhood-tied Ambassador Anne Patterson. (Credit: Humpty Dumpty Institute)
(…) According to public records, it appears HDI has not made its filings available since fiscal year 2018, when Mark Epstein was still listed as a Director and financier. Epstein’s name was recently been removed from the website’s board of directors, however, through an internet archive, National File has discovered that Epstein was listed on the site as recently as December 20, 2020. It is unclear if Epstein is still involved in HDI.
Interestingly, it appears that Meadows was the only Republican member of Congress to have served on the board during this period. In 2018, Meadows was the sole Republican listed alongside 28 Democrat Representatives, including Reps. Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Al Green, Bennie Thompson, Jim Himes, Frederica Wilson, Hank Johnson, and others.
Timeline note: According to the Humpty Dumpty Institute website, its current mission is the following:
HDI engages critical stakeholders through its programs with the U.S. Congress and the United Nations, including organizing visits of Congressional delegations overseas and to the U.N., and through its engagement with business and cultural leaders around the world .
HDI collaborates with partner organizations to engage young people on global issues e.g. HDI’s annual United Nations Boot Camp bringing students from around the world to the United Nations.
HDI supports cultural diplomacy. HDI has worked with U.S. embassies and international cultural organizations worldwide to engage people through music, arts, and sports e.g. its training program for young filmmakers from crisis countries in partnership with the UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television.
HDI conceives, develops and facilitates humanitarian programs with partners, e.g. supporting the removal of landmines and unexploded bombs in Sri Lanka, distribution of footwear to vulnerable communities in Vietnam, support for mobile medical vehicles in Lesotho.
HDI’s 50th U.S. Congressional program To the United Nations (December 2015) HDI Chairman Al Khalafalla (far left) with Members of Congress (left to right) Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Marc Pocan (D-WI), Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
“Special counsel John Durham requested a federal court to issue 30 subpoenas for testimony in the trial against Igor Danchenko, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source for his discredited dossier.
The FBI secretly recorded their interviews with Danchenko.
Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI, which Durham says he made about the information he provided to Steele for the dossier. His trial is scheduled for October. The DOJ’s watchdog said FBI interviews with Danchenko “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting” and concluded Danchenko “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier. He has pleaded not guilty.
Durham’s brief court filing on Wednesday requested the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to issue “thirty subpoenas” for an “appearance before said Court at Alexandria, Virginia,” starting on Oct. 11 “to testify on behalf of the United States.” The potential witnesses are not named, but a copy of the blank subpoena reads that “YOU ARE COMMANDED to appear.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 7/14/2022)(Archive)
“A former CIA software engineer who leaked the so-called “Vault 7” tools was convicted Wednesday of causing the largest theft of classified information in the history of the agency.
Joshua Schulte, who has been sitting behind bars without bail since 2018 and chose to defend himself at trial, told the jury that the CIA and FBI made him a scapegoat for the 2017WikiLeaks release of up to 34 terabytes of information.
Joshua Schulte (Credit: Zero Hedge)
Separately, Schulte awaits trial on possession of child pornography and transport charges, which he has pleaded not guilty to, according to Military.com.
As part of his defense, Schulte claimed he was singled out because “hundreds of people had access to (the information),” adding “Hundreds of people could have stolen it.”
“The government’s case is riddled with reasonable doubt,” he said. “There’s simply no motive here.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Denton countered that there was plenty of proof that Schulte pilfered a sensitive backup computer file.
“He’s the one who broke into that system,” Denton said. “He’s the one who took that backup, the backup he sent to WikiLeaks.”
The prosecutor also encouraged jurors to consider evidence of an attempted cover-up, including a list of chores Schulte drew up that had an entry reading, “Delete suspicious emails.”
“This is someone who’s hiding the things that he’s done wrong,” Denton said.
Once the jury got the case, Furman complimented Schulte on his closing argument. -Military.com
The judge complimented Schulte on his defense, saying “that was impressively done.”
In March of 2020, the trial of former CIA computer engineer Joshua Schulte ended in a hung jury on eight counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information, according to the New York Times.
As we noted two years ago, according to a 2017 report created by the CIA’s WikiLeaks Task Force and released in June 2020, there were major security lapses at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), which made cyber weapons – including tools to crack into smartphones, hijack smart TVs, or make it look like a foreign adversary hacked someone.
“In a press to meet the growing and critical mission needs, CCI had prioritized building cyber weapons at the expense of securing their own systems,” reads the report. “Day-to-day security practices had become woefully lax.”
“CCI focused on building cyber weapons and neglected to also prepare mitigation packages if those tools were exposed. These shortcomings were emblematic of a culture that evolved over years that too often prioritized creativity and collaboration at the expense of security,” the report continues.
The leak marked the largest data breach in the CIA’s history and included information on hacking tools used by the agency to break into smartphones and other internet-connected devices.
The task force noted that due to failures to address vulnerabilities in IT systems, if WikiLeaks had not published the stolen information, the CIA “might still be unaware of the loss — as would be true for the vast majority of data on Agency mission systems.”
In a letter to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday, Wyden criticized the intelligence community for its “widespread cybersecurity problems.” –The Hill
The Vault 7 release – a series of 24 documents which began to publish on March 7, 2017 – reveals that the CIA has a giant arsenal of tools to use against adversaries, including the ability to “spoof” its malware to appear as though it was created by a foreign intelligence agency, as well as the ability to take control of Samsung Smart TV’s and surveil a target using a “Fake Off” mode in which they appear to be powered down while eavesdropping. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 7/13/2022)(Archive)
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are coming out with their own docuseries on Apple TV+ based on their book The Book of Gutsy Women that will feature talks with ‘trailblazing women’ like Kim Kardashian and Megan Thee Stallion.
The eight-part docuseries series will debut September 9 on Apple’s streaming platform.
Hillary posted an image in a red convertible with her daughter in the driver’s seat as they two looked back for an image previewing the upcoming series.
‘We’ve got a premiere date! ‘Gutsy,’ our new eight-episode documentary series, will premiere on @appletvplus on September 9,’ Clinton posted on Instagram Thursday morning.
(…) The Clinton sphere is getting a good bit of Hollywood treatment recently, with Hillary’s longtime aide Huma Abedin getting a television adaptation of her memoir.
Episodes will include talks with reality TV star Kim Kardashian (pictured left on July 13 in New York City) and rapper Megan Thee Stallion (pictured right performing in London on July 8)
(…) In a motion put forth by Juan Gonzalez, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, it was requested that “the United States shall be substituted as the party defendant.” In other words, the DOJ wanted to “substitute itself as the defendant for James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Kevin Clinesmith.”
The motion claimed that Trump’s RICO claims were “based upon conduct within the scope of these former FBI employees’ employment with the government,” and stated that “the United States is the sole and exclusive defendant for those claims.” The motion also requested that if the substitution was accepted, “the Court should dismiss the United States for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”
The motion noted that since Trump had not exhausted his administrative remedies, the Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction and should therefore dismiss the case after substituting the United States as the defendant. The DOJ was maneuvering to place itself into Trump’s RICO suit—and then have Trump’s suit dismissed. This tactic was actually successful—at least in part.
Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks (Credit: public domain)
On July 22, trial judge Donald Middlebrooks granted the motion to substitute, replacing Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, and Clinesmith with the United States as defendant.
Middlebrooks cited the Westfall Act, which “accords federal employees absolute immunity from common-law tort claims arising out of acts they undertake in the course of their official duties.” Middlebrook deferred ruling on dismissal and noted that Trump was entitled to “litigate the question of whether the employees were acting within the scope of their employment when the challenged conduct occurred.”
The DOJ had successfully inserted itself into Trump’s RICO suit, bringing with it all the legal weight and firepower held by the U.S. government. It’s worth noting that the information previously declassified by Trump is directly relevant to his suit. And the DOJ, which has stalled its release, is now in the official legal position of fighting against its release in court. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 8/19/2022)(Archive)
On Aug. 4, Trump filed in opposition to Judge Middlebrook’s ruling to substitute the United States—in other words, the DOJ—for Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, and Clinesmith. Trump also filed in opposition to Clinton’s earlier motion to dismiss the entirety of the RICO complaint against her and her fellow defendants, which included the DNC, and familiar names such as lawyers Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former journalist Glenn Simpson, former DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and his wife, Nellie Ohr. (Epoch Times)
(…) Grassley sent a second letter to Wray and Garland on July 18. Grassley told both men that allegations by a number of “highly credible whistleblowers” have prompted “fundamental questions about whether the Justice Department and FBI are properly fulfilling their combined law enforcement mission with impartiality and without fraud, abuse, and gross mismanagement.”
“Several FBI whistleblowers say that the agency’s probe into Hunter Biden was internally sabotaged during the 2020 election in order to derail the investigation after agents wrongfully deemed verified evidence as “disinformation” to ignore.
According to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), agents investigating Hunter “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” adding that his office received “a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers” regarding the investigation.
Grassley added that “verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation,” according to the Washington Examiner.
Brian Auten (Credit: Twitter)
Timothy Thibault (Credit: public domain)
FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened in August 2020 the assessment that was later used by the agency, according to the disclosures. One of the whistleblowers claimed the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington field office, Timothy Thibault, shut down a line of inquiry into Hunter Biden in October 2020 despite some of the details being known to be true at the time.
A whistleblower also said Thibault “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting,” according to Grassley, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.” The senator said Thibault “ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required” and that FBI officials “subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future,” according to the disclosures.
The whistleblowers say investigators from FBI headquarters were “in communication with FBI agents responsible for the Hunter Biden information targeted by Mr. Auten’s assessment,” and that their findings on whether the claims were in fact disinformation were placed “in a restricted access sub-file” in September 2020, according to Grassley, who added that the disclosures “appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.”
Grassley summarized the new allegations in a Monday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Document requests on pages 3 and 4, Grassley Letter, 7/25/2022
The Examiner notes that FBI agent Auten was involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, including interviewing Christopher Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko.
According to Grassley, the “volume and consistency” of the allegations regarding the handling of the Hunter Biden probe “substantiate their credibility.”
The assessment by Auten in August 2020 was opened the same month Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) received a briefing from the FBI “that purportedly related to our Biden investigation and a briefing for which the contents were later leaked in order to paint the investigation in a false light,” Grassley said. The senator said Senate Democrats asked for a briefing in July 2020 “from the very same FBI HQ team that discredited the derogatory Hunter Biden information.”
The FBI inquiry into Hunter Biden reportedly began as a tax investigation, then expanded into a scrutiny of potential money-laundering and foreign lobbying; the DOJ has declined to hand over investigative details. -Washington Examiner
Thibault, the FBI agent who allegedly quashed the Hunter probe, may have violated the Hatch act in 2020 after making posts on social media that were critical of then-president Donald Trump and former AG William Barr.
“This scandal is no longer just about the Biden family; it’s about every member of the law enforcement and intelligence communities who put our country at risk by failing to do their jobs.
FBI whistleblowers claim that agents opened a sham investigation into Hunter Biden to brand reliable and verifiable derogatory evidence as “disinformation,” according to an explosive news release issued yesterday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
If true, beyond exposing the FBI’s role in running cover for the Biden family, the whistleblowers’ claims prove significant for a second reason: By failing to thoroughly vet the evidence in its possession related to Hunter Biden — which included the hard drive for the MacBook Hunter had abandoned at a repair shop — the intelligence community ignored a momentous national security threat, namely that the Russians potentially possessed a second Hunter Biden laptop.”
( ) …on July 25, Grassley issued a press release containing letters to Wray and Garland, stating that information Grassley had received “involves concerns about the FBI’s receipt and use of derogatory information relating to Hunter Biden, and the FBI’s false portrayal of acquired evidence as disinformation,” referring to the son of President Joe Biden. Grassley said that “if these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are—and have been—institutionally corrupted to their very core.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 8/19/2022)(Archive)
Executive Assistant Director of FBI Counterterrorism Division Jill Sanborn testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs/Rules and Administration hearing in March 2021. (Credit: Shawn Thew/Getty Images)
“New whistleblower information reveals that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) despite lacking the criteria to meet such a classification. Whistleblower disclosures have also detailed the agency’s effort to exaggerate DVE data to satisfy the Bureau’s leadership.
One whistleblower explained that because agents are not finding enough DVE cases, they are encouraged and incentivized to change designations even though there is minimal, circumstantial evidence to support the reclassification.
Another whistleblower—with experience in high-profile domestic terrorism investigations—stated that a field office Counterterrorism Assistant Special Agent in Charge and the FBI’s Director of the Counterterrorism Division [Jill Sanborn] have forced agents to recategorize cases as DVE to hit performance metrics manufactured by the Bureau itself.
According to whistleblowers, the FBI uses these metrics to dispense awards and determine promotions. Every whistleblower has called it an environment of “pressure” within the FBI.” (Read more: Breaking911, 7/27/2022)(Archive)
Jill Sanborn was promoted to Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch in May 2021, and didn’t have answers for the Senate on January 11, 2022 about the January 6th protest.
Sen. Ted Cruz: “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th? Yes or no?”
Judge Amos Louis Mazzanti III and Seth Rich (Credit: Dallas Morning News/public domain)
(…) Attorney Ty Clevenger is still trying to get at the government’s [unredacted] records regarding Seth Rich and it is still almost impossible. Clevenger’s efforts have helped uncover records to date but because of the FBI’s dishonesty to date with the FOIA requests on Rich, Clevenger wanted to observe the FBI’s review in this case.
This ruling from the Seth Rich FOIA case is disappointing. Judge Mazzant denied Clevenger’s request for in camera review of the documents withheld by the FBI, but he has not yet ruled on the motions for summary judgment, so he could yet order the FBI to search in other places such as email systems. He also took some swipes at the FBI:
It is alarming that in two cases involving substantially similar FOIA requests, the Government can locate zero relevant documents in one, but over 20,000 potentially relevant pages in the other. Moreover, when Congress created FOIA, “it did not intend for production to take years.” Huddleston, 2021 WL 327510, at *3 (citing Hayden v. DOJ, 413 F. Supp 1285, 1289 (D.D.C. 1976)). Yet, here, the Government has spent over two years processing and reviewing records in an attempt to respond to Huddleston’s requests. And despite that amount of time, the Government maintains that the process is “still ongoing.” Even so, while the Court certainly finds the Government’s handling of Clevenger’s and Huddleston’s FOIA requests concerning,
Huddleston’s arguments are insufficient to suggest bad faith for the purpose of determining whether in camera review of all relevant documents is necessary.
A senior Justice Department official recently flagged by a U.S. senator in an FBI whistleblower probe into alleged politicization of prosecutions played a key role in the Lois Lerner IRS scandal a decade ago in which conservative Tea Party groups were improperly targeted for scrutiny, government emails and congressional evidence shows.
Richard Pilger (Credit: public domain)
Richard Pilger, the current chief of the DOJ Elections Crime Branch of the department’s Public Integrity Section, engaged in discussions in 2010 and 2013 with Lerner and other IRS officials about ways to pursue criminal prosecutions of conservative nonprofits, the records show.
The discussion led the FBI, with Pilger’s direct help, to obtain and review 1.1 million pages of documents from conservative groups and even ponder charging the groups with making false statements on their IRS applications as nonprofits because they had engaged in political speech activities, according to congressional investigators.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired then by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), concluded in 2014 that Pilger’s discussions were part of a larger effort by the Obama administration to criminalize political speech by conservative groups that opposed the administration’s agenda.
“These documents suggest that the Department actively considered prosecuting non-profit groups for their political activities,” the final report concluded. “The Department went so far as to meet with the IRS about the investigation and to gather a 1.1 million-page database of information as potential evidentiary material. Even more astounding, the Department considered prosecuting non-profit groups for actions that are legal for 501(c)(4) groups under federal tax law — that is, for engaging in political speech.”
The committee made public emails showing that in spring 2013 Pilger and Lerner discussed an idea Pilger had heard raised by a Democrat in Congress of bringing false statement cases against the conservative groups for the ways they filled out their IRS applications as 501c3 and 501c4 nonprofits.
“I got a call today from Richard Pilger, Director Election Crimes Branch at DOJ,” Lerner wrote IRS colleagues in a May 8, 2013 email obtained by congressional investigators and Just the News. “I know him from contacts from my days there. He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folks could talk to about Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who ‘lied’ on their 1024s — saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures.
“DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage, this may do to IRS programs.”
The emails were first brought to light by a lawsuit a decade ago by Judicial Watch.
A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a call Thursday seeking comment on behalf of Pilger.
But in an interview with congressional investigators in 2014, Pilger revealed he actually began discussing strategies with Lerner for pursuing the conservative nonprofits for prosecution back in the fall of 2010, a few months after the Supreme Court opened up political spending through its landmark Citizens United ruling, the final report stated.
Pilger sent an email in October 2010 asking for a “good IRS contact re criminal tax enforcement against tax-exempt organizations,” the emails show.
Nancy Marks, an IRS criminal investigator, wrote an email back identifying a contact Pilger’s team could use, but she also cautioned that there was no evidence of criminality known to the agency.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 7/31/2022) (Archive)
FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to comment during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday when Ted Cruz asked about reports that the special agent accused of orchestrating the entrapment of a group accused of trying to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during the 2020 election has been promoted since then and now runs the FBI’s Washington D.C. field office, including the January 6 case.
Wray admits to Ted Cruz that the FBI special agent in charge of the Detroit field office during the Whitmer kidnapping debacle is now in charge of the DC field office during the J6 investigation. pic.twitter.com/DUsXbBX0Vt
“I can tell you that that case, as I understand it, is now pending a retrial,” Wray said about the group of mentally-ill Michigan men accused of planning to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during the first year of Covid, right before the 2020 election.
Cruz said: “So the guy in charge got a promotion and is now in charge of the January 6 investigation? … That is astonishing.”
“That doesn’t sound right to me,” the FBI director said, before clarifying that it was right.
SEN. TED CRUZ: [The Whitmer kidnapping case] ended up a debacle, where the four people who went to trial — two were acquitted, two received mistrials. None of them were convicted on even a single charge, and the basis of the defense was entrapment. That the paid [informants] for the FBI suggested and had incited the conduct.
How many FBI agents were disciplined or reprimanded after that disastrous case and the misconduct that led to every defendant being acquitted or having a mistrial on every charge?
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI: I can’t comment on any personnel matter. I can tell you that that case, as I understand it, is now pending a retrial.
CRUZ: The special agent in charge of that case has now been sent to the Washington D.C. office, and now leads the investigation regarding January 6. Is that correct?
And by the way, I will point out that the lead investigator… are you aware he was apparently fired for allegedly beating his wife after coming home from a swingers’ party, and he had made multiple derogatory political posts about President Trump, showing political bias. Are you aware of that?
WRAY: I am aware of, I think, the incident you are describing. An action that was taken about it… To clarify on the first part of your question, Mr. D’Antuono was the special agent in charge of the [Detroit field office] and is now the assistant director in charge of the Washington field office. I thought you were asking about the agent who was responsible–
CRUZ: So the guy in charge got a promotion and is now in charge of the January 6 investigation?
WRAY: The guy in charge of the whole Detroit field office is now in charge of the whole Washington field office.
FBI Washington Field Office ADIC, Steven D’Antuono: “Even if you’ve left D.C., agents from our local field offices will be knocking on your door if we find out that you were part of the criminal activity at the Capitol.” pic.twitter.com/1O7xCrv9UW
SWEDISH TELECOM GIANT LM ERICSSON & ITS U.S. DIVISION ERICSSON INC. SUED BY 862 AMERICANS FOR ALLEGED PROTECTION MONEY PAYMENTS TO AQ, AQ-IN-IRAQ & ISLAMIC STATE
Plaintiffs are 862 Americans, comprised of 286 GOLD STAR FAMILIES, including numerous former hostages and families… pic.twitter.com/awRKzjZ4Qq
SWEDISH TELECOM GIANT LM ERICSSON & ITS U.S. DIVISION ERICSSON INC. SUED BY 862 AMERICANS FOR ALLEGED PROTECTION MONEY PAYMENTS TO AQ, AQ-IN-IRAQ & ISLAMIC STATE
Plaintiffs are 862 Americans, comprised of 286 GOLD STAR FAMILIES, including numerous former hostages and families of hostages, and dozens of severely injured service members.
Each Plaintiff was injured, or is the loved one of someone who was killed or injured, during attacks committed by Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, or a proxy acting at their direction, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria from 2005 through 2021.
Plaintiffs say Ericsson KNOWINGLY supported a terrorist campaign that attacked, killed, and wounded thousands of Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria, including Plaintiffs, by aiding the terrorists through Ericsson’s regular protection money payments to terrorists, Ericsson’s intentional obstruction of United States counterterrorism policy, and Ericsson’s deliberate facilitation of the terrorists’ use of Afghanistan’s cellular networks as a weapon.
“Plaintiffs say while Americans were risking their lives between 2005 and 2021 to help rebuild places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, LM Ericsson, Ericsson AB, Ericsson Inc., Ekholm, and Ibrahim facilitated illicit Iraq-related and Afghanistan related transactions that they knew terrorists such as ISIS and al-Qaeda used to finance attacks against Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria,” said Ryan Sparacino, the Founding Partner of Sparacino PLLC. “As alleged, even though the terrorists openly proclaimed their desire for protection money and other assistance to help prosecute their campaign to kill Americans in the Middle East and the U.S. government publicly opposed illicit transactions that flowed protection money to terrorists, Ericsson defied the United States – and its obligations under the Anti-Terrorism Act – in pursuit of profit.”
Mr. Sparacino continued: “Plaintiffs allege that when Islamic State overran Mosul in 2014, responsible businesses suspended operations to avoid funding ISIS, but Ericsson calculated that pulling back was ‘premature.’ Instead, the Complaint details that Ericsson’s cold calculation was that paying terrorists protection money to ensure safe passage through Iraq would be better for its business. As we will show in court, Ericsson continued its long-standing practice as a corporate criminal on a global crime spree where ‘money talks’ regardless of what the law demanded.”
Indeed, Plaintiffs say that Ericsson explicitly chose illegal options over legal alternatives while knowing that their money was flowing to terrorists. For example, when Ericsson was presented with a ‘Speedway’ (unlawful) and a ‘legal way’ (lawful), Plaintiffs allege Ericsson chose the low road.
“Plaintiffs allege it was Ericsson that made that choice, but it was Plaintiffs who suffered the consequences,” Sparacino said.
The filing of today’s Anti-Terrorism Act Complaint against Ericsson followed an extensive investigation (which continues today) that started after Ericsson’s Iraq-related disclosures in February 2022, including extensive time spent investigating the terrorist campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria and how al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, and Islamic State funded themselves through illicit corporate deals with companies like Ericsson.
Sparacino PLLC is the same firm that currently represents more than 1,200 American clients who recently secured a comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Act victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a separate Anti-Terrorism Act matter (that is also about how corruption in Iraq financed terrorism) against Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GE Healthcare, AstraZeneca, and Roche, captioned Atchley et al. v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd., et al., Case 1:17-cv-02136 (D.D.C.). Sparacino serves as lead investigative counsel in both the Schmitz and Atchley cases, following a similar investigative approach in each.
Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart (Credit: public domain)
“The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort donated to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — months after he left the local US Attorney’s office to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.
Sources tell The Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an “unannounced raid on my home.”
Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.”
Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release.
According to the Herald, which cited court documents, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida US Attorney’s Office effective on New Year’s Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein’s cohorts the following day.
Epstein, who was found dead in August 2019 of an apparent suicide in the Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had hired a stable of high-powered lawyers for his defense in the late 2000s, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
Ten months after starting work for Epstein’s co-conspirators, according to Federal Election Commission records, Reinhart gave $1,000 directly to the Obama campaign and another $1,000 to its fundraising arm, the Obama Victory Fund. Though the records show the judge made mostly small-dollar donations to his law firm’s political action committee in subsequent years, Reinhart also donated $500 to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign in November 2015.
Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit by two of Epstein’s victims that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018. (Read more: New York Post, 8/09/22)(Archive)
President Joe Biden’s administration was involved in the raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence through a “special access request,” according to documents obtained from the National Archives by America First Legal.
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Mar-a-Lago on the grounds of retrieving alleged classified documents. According to the establishment media, Biden administration officials were “stunned” to hear of the unprecedented action. The Archives also claimed that it had “not been involved in the DOJ investigation.”
But documents show the FBI obtained access to the records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the DOJ, contradicting what the Archives told Congress, America First Legal revealed Monday:
Notably, despite the Archives’ claim that it had “not been involved in the DOJ investigation,” the documents show that the Archives’ official responsible for administering all access requests for Presidential records, John Laster, was involved in preparing the 15 boxes for FBI review as late as August 23, 2022:
On October 25, 2022, Acting Archivist Wall wrote to then-Ranking Members James Comer and Jim Jordan, claiming “NARA received the 15 boxes from President Trump on January 18, 2022, and then discovered that they contained classified national security information. Shortly after the discovery, NARA consulted with its Office of Inspector General (OIG), which operates independently of NARA. As DOJ has disclosed publicly in court filings, NARA’s OIG subsequently referred the matter to DOJ on February 9, 2022.”
If the OIG acted independently in making a referral to the FBI, then Mr. Laster would not have involved himself in the FBI’s review of the 15 boxes in his capacity as the Director of the White House Liaison Division “responsible for all access requests for Presidential records.” Similarly, the FBI affidavit before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida that provided the probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant against Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, stated, “[on February 9, 2022] the Special Agent in Charge of NARA’s Office of the Inspector General sent the NARA Referral via email to DOJ.” However, the evidence is that the Biden White House and the Department of Justice coordinated to obtain the Trump records, and perhaps create a pretext for a law enforcement raid, by way of a “special access request.”
“The special access statute authorizes special access requests to an incumbent president only when the records in question are needed for ‘the conduct of current business’ of the White House,” America First Legal explained. “Providing documents to the DOJ for purposes of a criminal investigation is not the ‘current business’ of the White House.”
Reed D. Rubinstein, senior counselor and director of oversight and investigations, released a statement ripping the White House’s reported role in the FBI raid of Trump’s home.
“The evidence further suggests that Biden officials in the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Justice unlawfully abused their power and then lied about it to the American people,” he said. “This government, it seems, acknowledges no limits on its power to harass, intimidate, and silence its political opponents.” (Read more: Breitbart, 4/10/2023)(Archive)
“The FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and broke into a safe in his palatial home, the former president said Monday.
Trump said in a message on his social media forum Truth Social that his home had been “raided, and occupied” and was “currently under siege.”
FBI agents were reportedly searching for classified documents that Trump allegedly brought with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency ended — which, if true, could be a violation of federal law.
The National Archives and Records Administration said it had found classified material in 15 boxes at the residence earlier this year and alerted the FBI. The agents executed a search warrant Monday to look for additional presidential records Trump may have relocated to his Florida estate.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The search warrant for the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Monday suggests he is being investigated under the Espionage Act of 1917 — the same law that Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating in 2016.
Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted Thursday that he personally approved the warrant application, which seeks broad discretion to search Trump’s home based on three statutes: 18 U.S.C. section 793, on the mishandling of defense information; 18 U.S.C. section 1519, relating to the destruction of federal documents; and 18 U.S.C. section 2071, which punishes hiding, moving, or destroying federal documents. Section 793 is from the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the First World War.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating the latter when she used an unsecured private email server in her own home to handle her communications, including emails with classified information, during her time in office.
The relevant part of section 793 punishes “gross negligence” in the handling of defense information, and failure to report the loss or destruction of that information. Clinton was accused of both; her staff even physically destroyed her mobile phones.
Then-FBI Director James Comey, who intervened in the case after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was caught meeting with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an airport in Arizona, said that while Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information, she did not intend to violate the statute. The statute does not, however, include any requirement of intent, leading conservative critics to argue that Comey had been looking to exonerate her. (Read more: Breitbart, 8/12/2022)(Archive)
Twitter has suspended journalist Paul Sperry after he made several tweets about this week’s FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, where they spent up to 9 hours rifling through the former president’s private office, Melania Trump’s wardrobe, and eventually took 12 boxes of material. According to the Wall Street Journal, the records included a letter from former President Barack Obama, and correspondence between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The boxes contained some documents subject to a federal law requiring official records to be turned over when a president leaves office as well as some material archives officials described only as “classified national security information,” prompting them to refer the matter to the Justice Department for investigation. -WSJ
Sperry, meanwhile, tweeted several hot-takes on the raid, which appear to have gotten him suspended.
In Part One we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}. In Part Three we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}. Here in Part 4, we begin to assemble the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.
It is important to remember, the presidential records act –the presented pretext for the document conflict– is not a criminal statute. An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.
The DOJ-NSD warrant, and the subsequent raid on Mar-a-Lago can only be related to records the U.S. government deems “classified” and material vital to national security interests. Hence, DOJ National Security Division involvement.
In prior outlines we have exhaustively covered the details of President Trump’s desire to publicly release information about DOJ and FBI conduct in their targeting of him during the fabricated Trump-Russia claims. However, to understand the nature of the documents he may hold, we first review the declassification memo provided by President Trump to the DOJ upon his departure from office.
In broad terms there are two sets of documents that intermingle and are directly related. First, documents that highlight the activity of Hillary Clinton’s team in creating the false Trump-Russia conspiracy theory (2015/2016). Second, documents that highlight the activity of government officials targeting Donald Trump within the same timeframe (Crossfire Hurricane), that continued into 2017, 2018 and 2019 (Robert Mueller).
Think of the two sets of documents as evidence against two teams working in synergy. Team one (Clinton) was outside government. Team two (DOJ/FBI) was inside government. The documents pertain to both groups but are also divided. That helps to explain the wording of the memo above.
The documentary evidence against the outside group (Clinton et al) would also involve government documented evidence as the DOJ/FBI inside group interacted with them. Notes from interviews, materials provided, FBI 302 summaries of interviews, etc.
We can extract a lot of information on the first sets of evidence from the lawsuit filed by President Trump in March of this year, mostly against the outside actors. [LINK HERE]
The lawsuit was filed against specific persons and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation. Within the subjects of the lawsuit we find names and groups including:
Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.
In addition to being named in the lawsuit, many of those names were interviewed by the FBI as part of the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation, and/or part of the ongoing investigation of the Trump-Russia fabrication. Each of those interviews would carry an FD-302 report summarizing the content of the interview, the questions and answers given.
The totality of those 302 documents is a lot of evidence likely consisting of hundreds of pages.
For the government officials on the inside, in addition to 302’s (ex Bruce Ohr) there would be documents of communication between them.
Think about the full unredacted text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok as an example. The DOJ publicly released over 600 pages of those text messages, and that wasn’t all of them. The text messages were also redacted, under claims of privacy and national security. We can assume any version of these text messages declassified by President Trump would not be redacted. Hence, you go back to the January 20th memo and see the notes about “privacy.”
We also know there are many pages of communication between DOJ lawyer Lisa Page and her boss in the FBI Andrew McCabe. Almost none of them were ever made public; but they exist. This internal communication is likely the type of material contained in both the “binder,” left for the DOJ to release, and the boxes at Mar-a-Lago to be used as evidence against the named defendants in the lawsuit.
Bruce Ohr has 302’s and emails relating to his involvement as a conduit between Fusion GPS and the FBI. Some of those were released in redacted form, and some of them were never released. Additionally, Nellie Ohr, Bruce’s wife, who worked at Fusion GPS invoked spousal privilege when called to testify before the House committee investigating the issues. However, it is almost certain the FBI interviewed her so there are likely 302’s on Nellie Ohr.
Chris Steele, Igor Danchenko and Rodney Joffe were also interviewed by the FBI. Those 302’s were never released. Presumably John Durham has stakeholder equity in that part of the Trump-Russia hoax, but the documentary evidence prior to January 20, 2021, that exists outside the special counsel could also be records at Mar-a-Lago.
Then we get to the big stuff…. The records and evidence in unredacted and declassified state, that would drive the DOJ-NSD to claim vital national security interests.
The NSA compliance officer notified NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers of unauthorized use of the NSA database by FBI contractors searching U.S. citizens during the 2015/2016 presidential primary. That 2016 notification is a classified record.
The response from Mike Rogers, and the subsequent documentary evidence of what names were being searched is again a classified record. The audit logs showing who was doing the searches (which contractors, which agencies and from what offices), as noted by Director Rogers, was preserved. That is another big-time classified record.
In addition, we would have Admiral Rogers writing a mandatory oversight notification to the FISA court detailing what happened. That’s a big and comprehensive classified record, likely contained in the documents in Mar-a-Lago… and then the goldmine, the fully unredacted 99-page FISA court opinion detailing the substance of the NSA compromise by FBI officials and contractors, including the names, frequency and dates of the illegal surveillance. That is a major classified document the Deepest Deep State would want to keep hidden.
These are the types of documents within what former ODNI John Ratcliffe called “thousands of pages that were declassified by President Trump,” and given to both John Durham and Main Justice with an expectation of public release when the Durham special counsel probe concluded.
In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him. However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.
These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveals the background of how the DC surveillance state exists. THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.
The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward “simple records”, held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago. Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption as it now exists amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.
Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state. The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct.
President Donald Trump declassified the material then took evidence to Mar-a-Lago. The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas. From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat.
Given the nature of their opposition, and the underlying motives for their conduct, there is almost nothing they will not do to protect themselves. However, if you peel away all the layers of lies, manipulations and corruption, what you find at the heart of their conduct is fear.
What do they fear most?…
…..THIS!
People forget, and that’s ok, but prior to the 2015 MAGA movement driven by President Donald J Trump, political rallies filled with tens-of-thousands of people were extremely rare; almost nonexistent. However, in the era of Donald J Trump the scale of the people paying attention has grown exponentially. Every speech, every event, every rally is now filled with thousands and thousands of people.
The frequency of it has made us numb to realizing just how extraordinary this is. But the people in Washington DC are well aware, and that makes President Trump even more dangerous. Combine that level of support with what they attempted in order to destroy him, and, well, now you start to put context on their effort.
The existence of Trump is a threat, but the existence of a Trump that could expose their corruption…. well, that makes him a level of threat that leads to a raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago. (Conservative Treehouse, 8/11/2022)(Archive)
(Conservative Treehouse has generously given us permission to chronicle and republish any relevant information to our timelines.)
“Yesterday, Attorney General Merrik Garland announced the DOJ had filed a motion (available here) to unseal “the search warrant and property receipt” relating to the search of former President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate.
Below is the search warrant and accompanying attachments, first put out by Jack Posobiec and Human Events. Huge hat tip to them.
The PDF of the unsealed search warrant and attachments is available here via Courtlistener. I’ve also posted all the pages below.
“Developing: Sources say the FBI agents and officials who were involved in the raid on former President Trump’s homework in the same Counterintelligence Division of the FBI that investigated Trump in the Russiagate hoax and are actively under criminal investigation by Special Counsel John Durham for potentially abusing their power investigating Trump in the Russian fraud and therefore have a potential conflict of interest and should have been RECUSED from participating in this supposed “espionage” investigation at Mar-a-Lago” Sperry said in a social media post on Saturday.
“… I can sum up the Trump documents very succinctly–the documents show that there was a coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI, and DOD starting in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election. Part of this effort involved using NSA-produced intelligence. Oliver Stone’s movie, Snowden, has a scene that accurately describes what NSA was collecting and how it could be used:
When the conspiracy started in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton by the leadership of the CIA, the FBI and DOD, Donald Trump was not the only target. Few believed at the time that Trump had a snowball’s chance in the raging inferno of Hell to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. There were active searches for compromising intel on all of the leading Republican candidates, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and on Bernie Sanders.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure his taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts, and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as “liaison reporting.” This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don’t have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
Let me give you one example of how intelligence intercepts were used to target specific individuals. Ask yourself, “how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar?” Papadopoulos was living in London and communicating with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager at the time. Those communications were intercepted by the UK’s GCHQ and passed, through liaison channels, to the NSA. That information was used in turn by the CIA and the FBI, working with British Intelligence, to ensnare Papadopoulos. He was offered a job, for example, at a firm tied to British Intelligence and subsequently introduced to Joseph Mifsud.
I am confident that some of the documents Trump has show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was “masked.” But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names “unmasked.” You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report.
Here is another example, we also know that Felix Sater–a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann)–initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don’t take my word for it, that’s what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov’s purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater’s communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies–GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the “bait” to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta’s email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
“That’s good, sooner it’s clarified the better, and the stronger the better,” Budowski replies, later adding: “Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.”
By late December, the intelligence/law enforcement operation targeted Donald Trump as it became clear that he was likely to win the Republican nomination.
I believe Donald Trump is holding trump cards that irrefutably show that the CIA, the FBI and DOD were communicating in Top Secret channels about these activities and that the coordination also included foreign intelligence personnel in at least the UK and Australia.
I hope this helps you understand the desperation of the U.S. national security agencies to keep this stuff hidden. The revelations, if they come, will be devastating. (Larry Johnson/Gateway Pundit, 8/15/2022)(Archive)
“Tea Party Patriots Action has filed a federal complaint against the judge who authorized the FBI raid on President Donald J. Trump’s home.
“Judge [Bruce] Reinhart should be disciplined and removed as a federal magistrate because of his failure to meet the standards of ethical conduct and character necessary for the public to have confidence in the nonpartisan role of a judge in a matter of this extreme public interest,” asserted Jennifer Martin, CEO of Tea Party Patriots Action, in the Aug. 16 filing.
🚨 NEW: We just filed a federal complaint against Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the Obama-appointed magistrate who approved the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
One justification Martin provides for Reinhart’s removal is a statement the judge made on his personal Facebook page following the 2016 presidential election.
Noting that Reinhart recently recused himself from a separate case involving Trump due to a “conflict of interest,” Martin also pointed out that the judge has been accused of unethical conduct in the past.
“Judge Reinhart has a history of ethical issues,” she said, “the most noteworthy being his resignation from the US Attorney’s office in Miami on January 1, 2008, and the very next day representing as counsel for employees of the late Jeffrey Epstein, who was under investigation by that same prosecutor’s office at the time of Reinhart’s employment and departure.”
Adding that Reinhart should have recused himself when first approached by the FBI, Martin continued: “The entire episode of the unprecedented search of the former President’s home, authorized by a political appointee of President Trump’s successor, and approved by a federal magistrate who has been outspoken in his opposition to and loathing of President Trump threatens the principle of ‘equal justice under law’ and the confidence of the American people in an unbiased judiciary.” (Read more: RSBNetwork, 8/24/2022)(Archive)
“Judge ruled in 2012 that a president’s discretion to declare records “personal” is far-reaching and mostly unchallengeable.
When it comes to the National Archives, history has a funny way of repeating itself. And legal experts say a decade-old case over audio tapes that Bill Clinton once kept in his sock drawer may have significant impact over the FBI search of Melania Trump’s closet and Donald Trump’s personal office.
The case in question is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration and it involved an effort by the conservative watchdog to compel the Archives to forcibly seize hours of audio recordings that Clinton made during his presidency with historian Taylor Branch.
For pop culture, the case is most memorable for the revelation that the 42nd president for a time stored the audio tapes in his sock drawer at the White House. The tapes became the focal point of a 2009 book that Branch wrote.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Credit: Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
“In an Aug. 17 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Grassley demands an accounting for alleged political bias influencing high-level investigations, particularly out of the FBI’s Washington, D.C., office.
“Starting on May 31, 2022, I’ve written three letters to you regarding political bias that has infected the FBI’s Washington Field Office,” Grassley, R-Iowa, writes. “Two of those letters provided specific and credible allegations based on numerous whistleblowers that have approached my office with information that one can only conclude is indicative of a deeply rooted political infection that has spread to investigative activity into former President Trump and Hunter Biden.”
(…) Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
Brian Auten: Discredited over Carter Page spy warrants but still handling sensitive cases. (Credit: Twitter)
In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019 when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
In congressional testimony this month, Wray confirmed that “a number of” former Crossfire Hurricane team members are still employed at the bureau while undergoing disciplinary review. In the meantime, Wray has walled off the former Russiagate investigators only from participating in FISA wiretap applications, according to the sources.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked Wray for copies of recent case files and reports generated by Auten and whether he is included among the team the FBI has assembled to determine which of the seized Trump records fall within the scope of its counterespionage investigation and which fall outside of it.
Some former FBI officials worry that Auten, a top bureau expert on Russia and nuclear warfare, will have a hand in analyzing the boxes of documents agents seized from Trump’s home on Aug. 8 to help determine if any of the alleged Top Secret material he kept there might have been compromised, potentially putting national security at risk.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
An examination of the bureau agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid reveals other connections between them and FBI officials who played key roles in advancing the Russiagate hoax.
Jay Bratt: who happens to be a Democratic National Committee donor, has been coordinating the Mar-a-Lago investigation with Alan Kohler, who heads the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
Kohler replaced Bill Priestap in that post after Priestap stepped down from the bureau amid criticism of his role in the Russiagate probe. Kohler had worked at FBI headquarters under Priestap, specializing in countering Russian intelligence threats.
Before that, he worked in London as the FBI’s liaison with British intelligence and law enforcement. The sources say Kohler was close to Stefan Halper, an academic and longtime FBI contractor whom the bureau ran as an informant in a failed effort to suborn Trump campaign officials. He also worked closely with Stephen Somma, a lead case agent in the Crossfire Hurricane probe whom Horowitz said was “primarily responsible” for some of the worst misconduct in the FISA warrant abuse scandal. Somma is a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, where he has been reassigned to the China desk.
Alan Kohler: Said to be close to Russiagate informant Stefan Halper. American Security Today
In 2019, Kohler was promoted to special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s Washington field Office, where he worked alongside then-assistant agent-in-charge Timothy Thibault, who was reassigned by Wray just days prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, after whistleblowers raised questions about political bias. They asserted that Thibault, who has taken aim at Trump and Republicans on social media, worked with Auten to falsely discredit evidence of alleged money laundering and other activities against Hunter Biden and prevent agents from investigating them.
The Washington field office’s counterintelligence division is now run by Anthony Riedlinger, who previously worked at FBI headquarters as a section chief under Priestap. Some of the agents involved in the raid on Trump’s home came from that Washington field office, according to the sources and FBI case documents.
Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at Justice, traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early June and personally inspected the storage facility while interacting with both Trump and one of his lawyers. Trump allowed the three FBI agents Bratt brought with him to open boxes in the storage room and look through them. They left with some documents. After leaving, Bratt made a request to Trump’s lawyer for increased security at the facility and asked to see surveillance footage from the security cameras. The lawyer complied with the requests. Months went by before the Justice Department took the politically explosive step of sending FBI agents unannounced to Trump’s home, seizing documents, photos, and other items not just from the storage facility but from multiple rooms on the property, including the former president’s office.
Chris Swecker (Credit: (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Former assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the search warrant that agents obtained is quite wide-ranging. He pointed out that it authorized the seizure of any information in any form related to “national defense information,” which he said “does not necessarily include classified material.”
“This is a huge, broad search warrant and a huge, broad investigation leveled against the former president,” Swecker said.
What’s more, he said the physical search of the former president’s residence was far more sweeping than first reported and included unsupervised snooping in several dozen bedrooms, as well as numerous storage rooms and closets, including those of the former first lady. FBI agents took numerous boxes and containers of documents and other material, including several binders of photos and even three passports held by the former president.
Although Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the DOJ seeks to “narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” details of the warrant reveal agents had the authority to seize entire boxes of records – including those potentially covered by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege – if just a single document inside the container were marked with a classified marking.
Agents were allowed to also seize any containers or boxes “found together with” ones containing classified papers, according to ATTACHMENT B (“Property to be seized”) of the warrant. In addition, the FBI agents were given the authority to confiscate “any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021,” which covers Trump’s full term in office. That meant they were able to take any item related to the Trump administration.
All told, dozens of boxes and containers were removed from Trump’s residence, very few of which actually contained classified information, the sources said.
Rachel Maddow reports Donald Trump has issued a directive to the intelligence community to cooperate with William Barr in investigating the Trump-Russia investigation and reports that David Laufman calls the directive “a grotesque abuse of the intelligence community.” (Credit: MSNBC)
According to Federal Election Commission records, Bratt has given exclusively to Democrats, including at least $800 to the Democratic National Committee. The sources said he is close to David Laufman, whom he replaced as the top counterintelligence official at Justice. An Obama donor, Laufman helped oversee the Russiagate probe, as well as the Clinton email case, which also involved classified information.
A Senate investigator told RCI that Laufman was the “mastermind” behind the strategy to dust off and “weaponize” the rarely enforced statutory relic – the Foreign Agents Registration Act – against Trump campaign officials, a novel legal move that the investigator noted is similar to the department’s current attempts to enforce the Presidential Records Act against Trump – which is a civil, not a criminal, the statute – by invoking the Espionage Act of 1917.
Laufman signed off on the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored email, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance.
Suddenly resurfacing as a media surrogate for the Justice Department defending the Mar-a-Lago raid, Laufman has been a key source for stories by the Washington Post, CNN, and other outlets.
On CNN, for instance, he claimed the documents seized from Trump’s storage were “particularly stunning and particularly egregious,” and their discovery “completely validates the government’s investigation” into the former president – though he quickly added, “Whether this investigation transforms into an outright criminal prosecution remains to be seen.”
Swecker said that there is strong reason to fear that the FBI’s counterintelligence division might politicize this case.
“For sure, the FBI has dug themselves into a huge hole because of how they handled the Clinton (email) case and then Crossfire Hurricane and Hunter Biden,” Swecker said. “Myself and many of my colleagues think they are treading on very thin ice here.”
“Former President Donald Trump filed a motion requesting an independent review of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago during an FBI raid on his home earlier this month.
“Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” Trump’s motion said. “Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.”
Trump’s Motion for Judicial Oversight And Additional Relief requests the court appoint a Special Master, prohibit the FBI from further review of the seized documents until the Special Master is appointed, order the government to release a more detailed property receipt, and return any item seized that was not within the search warrant’s scope.
The property receipt released shortly after the Mar-a-Lago raid only mentions nondescript items, including “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents,” “Leatherbound box of documents,” and “Various classified/TS/SCI documents.”
Trump’s motion comes just days after he announced he would file a Fourth Amendment motion “concerning the illegal Break-In” of Mar-a-Lago.
“My rights, together with the rights of all Americans, have been violated at a level rarely seen before in our Country,” Trump said on Friday.
In a statement after Trump’s attorneys filed the motion, Trump noted the FBI wanted Mar-a-Lago staff to turn off the estate’s security cameras during the raid. Trump also noted the FBI took his passports and broke into his personal safe with a “safe cracker.”
Trump also laid to rest claims that the FBI seized any classified documents.
“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home,” Trump said. “ALL documents have been previously declassified.”
“We are further demanding that the DOJ be forced to turn over a REAL, without ‘plants,’ inventory of my property that was taken and disclose where that property is now located,” Trump continued. “We are demanding that all items wrongfully taken from my home be IMMEDIATELY returned.”
“This Mar-a-Lago Break-In, Search, and Seizure was illegal and unconstitutional, and we are taking all actions necessary to get the documents back, which we would have given to them without the necessity of the despicable raid of my home, so that I can give them to the National Archives until they are required for the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum.”
“I will never stop fighting for the American people, our Country, and the Rule of Law,” Trump concluded. “Make America Great Again!”
The case was assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The case is Trump v. United States Government, No. 22-cv-81294-AMC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Breitbart, 8/22/2022) (Archive)
Judge Bruce Reinhart in a filing on Monday morning announced that formally he rejects “the Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”
“The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases,” Reinhart wrote. “I do not need to reach the question of whether, in some other case, these concerns could justify denying public access; they very well might.”
“Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing,” he added.
This is a stinging rebuke for a Biden administration that was relying on the Florida judge, who is himself an Obama donor, to provide the Department of Justice with political cover for the FBI’s “unprecedented” raid on the former president. If a law enforcement action is “unprecedented,” there is a higher probability that it was unlawful from a judicial point-of-view.
It remains to be seen how much of the search warrant affidavit will be redacted, as the judge previously gave the Department of Justice until Thursday to submit its advised redactions for the document out of argued national security concerns.
“Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that by the deadline, the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal,” the motion stated.” (Read more: BeckerNews, 8/22/2022)(Archive)(Reinhart Orders On Motion to Unseal)
The New York Post protested decisions by Facebook and Twitter to suppress coverage of the Biden laptop, after the social media platforms concluded the data was unverified and of questionable origin. The New York Post, 10/15/2020
“FBI whistleblowers allege that the Bureau’s leaders ordered agents not to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop, according to a letter Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson sent to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking that he investigate the matter.
Prior to the 2020 presidential election, some of the content of a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, became public and appeared to show damaging information on the then-presidential candidate. Media outlets derided the laptop as misinformation or Russian disinformation at the time.
“After the FBI obtained the Hunter Biden laptop from the Wilmington, Del. computer shop, these whistleblowers stated that local FBI leadership told employees, ‘you will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop’ and that the FBI is ‘not going to change the outcome of the election again,”‘ the letter, which the Daily Mail obtained, reads.
“I hope you understand that the longer your office stands on the sidelines and delays investigating the FBI’s actions, the harder it will be for you to uncover the truth and hold individuals accountable for wrongdoing,” Johnson continued.
Then-FBI Director James Comey announced in 2016 that the Bureau was reopening its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prior to the presidential election, a move many critics said affected the race’s outcome.
“While I understand your hesitation to investigate a matter that may be related to an ongoing investigation, it is clear to me based on numerous credible whistleblower disclosures that the FBI cannot be trusted with the handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Johnson further wrote.
FBI Special Agents Association logo (Credit: Twitter)
“According to FBI whistleblowers, Chris Wray personally removed concerns by rank-and-file members that the agency had become too politicized in deciding which cases to open.
FBI agents made this complaint to Senate Judiciary Committee members.
On August 25, 2022, investigative reporter Paul Sperry writes:
BREAKING: FBI Director Christopher Wray allegedly removed concerns raised by rank-and-file agents from this year’s final report by the FBI’s Special Agents Advisory Committee (SAAC) about FBI leadership becoming “too politicized” in deciding which cases to open and which investigations to pursue, FBI whistleblowers have told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The SAAC Executive Council, representing more than 10,000 agents from the bureau’s field offices, holds its meetings with the director at FBI headquarters twice a year.
“The FBI is now acting as both the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party.
The FBI interfered in the 2016, 2018, 2020 elections–and now the 2022 election–against Trump/GOP & for Democrats.
For 6 years, the FBI has been falsifying evidence or suppressing exculpatory evidence to frame Trump targets; destroying evidence that would incriminate the bureau; lying to both the IG and Congress; spying based on fraudulent warrants; opening investigations based on false pretenses; criminally leaking classified intercepts to the media; spreading false propaganda; and conducting corrupt searches and seizures. Yet no one is in jail for any of it. Not even dirty FBI lawyer Clinesmith, who confessed to forging a wiretap document.
Biden family whistleblower announced last week that it was top FBI official Tim Thibault who buried the information he gave the bureau on the Biden family’s criminal acts.” (The Gateway Pundit, 9/07/2022)(Archive)
“During a discussion with Joe Rogan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the removal of content, specifically citing the example of the pre-2020 election Hunter Biden laptop story. In his response Zuckerberg says the background context is important because the FBI came to Facebook and told them Russian disinformation was about to drop, just before the New York Post article was published.
This discussion comes on the heels of an FBI whistleblower approaching the Senate Judiciary Committee with evidence the Washington DC field office was specifically working to cover up any discoveries around the Hunter Biden laptop (per Chuck Grassley). Add the Zuckerberg statement to the whistleblower claim and the resounding implication is the FBI taking advanced proactive measures to stop information they deem adverse to the interests of democrats. The issue surfaces at 05:00 of the video below. WATCH (prompted): (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022)(Archive)
Tucker Carlson and Harmeet Dhillon Discuss Facebook Suppression of Hunter Biden Laptop Story
During a segment on his broadcast this evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Center for American Liberty founder and lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon about how Facebook censored and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 election. {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH: (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022)(Archive)
Jimmy Dore also does an excellent job covering this story:
“Kash Patel released a statement Friday on Truth Social where he blasted the corrupt Deep State for not keeping his name redacted in the affidavit used to raid President Trump’s home.
Kash also shared some other insightful information.
Patel wrote on Truth Social that he was basically viciously attacked by the Deep State by them not redacting his name from the warrant used to raid the President’s home. Then Patel shared this:
…This cartel of corruption inside our government is so devoid of concern about national security, they could not be bothered to see the judge in person. Instead, they literally called in the raid on the home of a former President via the FBI’s best friend, Zuckerberg’s WhatsApp.
This isn’t the first time that we heard that the warrant to raid the President’s home with gun-toting FBI agents was attested to over a WhatsApp call.
The cover sheet was “[a]ttested to” by an FBI special agent “by Phone (WhatsApp),” the form reveals. Indeed, the form is titled as an “application for a warrant by telephone or other reliable electronic means.”
The criminal cover sheet document indicates, in the usual perfunctory fashion, that no other relevant matters are proceeding before other magistrate judges in other sections of the same federal district where the Mar-a-Lago-related proceeding is ongoing. Warrant applications routinely include such attestations to flag the judiciary if prosecutors are seeking search warrants from multiple magistrates.
What we didn’t know is that the FBI uses WhatsApp as their “best friend”. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. What does Patel know about WhatsApp’s use by the FBI?
It appears the FBI uses WhatsApp to hold conversations that they can hide. Are there any other reasons for using WhatsApp?
“A Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild banking family has been outed as a fraud after she allegedly infiltrated former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, according to reports.
Inna Yashchyshyn, 33, lied to ritzy resort members that she was the heiress to the reputed family’s mass fortune, Anna de Rothschild, according to a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
She appeared at numerous Mar-a-Lago functions mingling with the likes of Trump, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and others while she held the position as president of United Hearts of Mercy, founded by Florida-based Russian oligarch and former business partner Valery Tarasenko in Canada in 2015, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
[A year before the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, the woman whose real name is Inna Yashchyshyn, a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine, made several trips into the estate posing as a member of the famous family while making inroads with some of the former president’s key supporters. (Credit: OCCRP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)]
Yashchyshyn and her group dine after a golf fundraiser. She went under the fake name Anna de Rothschild. (Credit:OCCRP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
After hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the foundation, processor Stripe Inc., suspected fraud and halted the funds for the campaign which was supposed to help families devastated by the COVI-19 pandemic.
Yashchyshyn, 33, is now the subject of several federal investigations after it was revealed she is not in fact a member of the Rothschild family. She’s additionally under investigation by Canadian authorities for alleged financial crimes.
In actuality, Yashchyshyn is the Russian-speaking daughter of an Illinois truck driver. It’s unclear when she came to the US.
She allegedly made several trips to the ex-president’s Florida estate with her fake identity to make connections with some of the nation’s biggest leaders, according to the paper.
Federal records obtained by the Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project showed Yashchyshyn had two fake passports from the US and Canada with the name “Anna de Rothschild.” A Florida driver’s license in her name listed a $13 million Miami Beach Mansion where she never lived.
Yashchyshyn formerly worked in a suburban Miami business connecting pregnant Russian women to Americans looking to adopt a child, the Post-Gazette reported.
However, her web of lies unfolded amid a legal dispute she had with her former associate, Tarasenko.
According to Tarasenko, a 44-year-old businessman raised in Moscow, she made multiple trips to Mar-a-Lago in an effort to make contacts and create new streams of business.
Photos from 2021 show the brunette hanging out with Trump, Graham and others, according to the reports.
Yashchyshyn (left) is under investigation by US and Canadian officials. (Credit: OCCRP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
“It wasn’t just dropping the family name. She talked about vineyards and family estates and growing up in Monaco,” John LeFevre, a former investment banker and author, told OCCRP.
She used “her fake identity as Anna de Rothschild to gain access to and build relationships with U.S. politician[s], including but not limited to Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and [former Missouri Gov.] Eric Greitens,” Tarasenko said, according to an affidavit obtained by the Post-Gazette.
She said under oath that she has never used another name and has not broken any laws. She told the Post-Gazette that she had never heard of Anna de Rothschild.” (Read more: New York Post, 8/26/2022)(Archive)
(Timeline editor’s note: Please check our tag on Ukraine for more information about their meddling in the 2016/2020 presidential elections, and their involvement in Impeachment I, Russiagate, Spygate, and possibly the 2024 presidential election.)
“The redacted affidavit released Friday by the Justice Department related to the recent FBI raid on former President Trump’s Florida estate shows the agency in part made their case to return Aug. 8 by saying agents in May had already collected 184 sensitive documents from Mar-a-Lago.
This is a developing story…
“The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location,” the affidavit said.
“There is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES,” the affidavit continued, following redactions. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”
Documents retrieved earlier this year from Mar-A-Lago included “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” according to the affidavit. “Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in the order, “I find that the government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the affidavit,” and added that the redacted portions were needed for protecting witnesses, agents, and parties who were not charged, in addition to the strategy and scope of the probe.
The department blacked out the names of witnesses and agents to protect them and the agency’s investigation, but the document, which allowed for the warrant in the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid at Mar-a-Lago, is expected to provide at least some new details.
As expected, the judge allowed the Government to heavily redact the affidavit before it went public. In yesterday’s order, the judge found that parts of the affidavit must remain sealed because:
disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e).
This aligns with the DOJ representations that (1) information in the affidavit “could be used to identify many, if not all” of the witnesses; (2) the affidavit would provide a “roadmap for anyone intent on obstructive the investigation.”
“Former Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault was reportedly escorted out of the Bureau’s headquarters on Friday, amid whistleblower allegations that he showed political bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations.
The Washington Timesreported eyewitness accounts that “Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.'”
Whistleblowers alleged that Thibault concealed the partisan nature of evidence from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to secure their approval to open an investigation into former President Donald Trump. That investigation culminated in the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.
The public release of the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant revealed the warrant application relied heavily on information from news articles, including a CBS Miami piece titled “Moving Trucks Spotted At Mar-a-Lago” and a Breitbart News article in which former Trump adviser Kash Patel discussed the classified status of documents the bureau previously removed from the estate on behalf of the National Archives.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley confirmed to Just the News prior to the raid that Thibault had been removed from his post and reassigned to an unspecified position.” (JusttheNews, 8/29/2022)(Archive)
“A top FBI agent at the Washington field office reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings.
Timothy Thibault, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, was allegedly forced out after he was accused of political bias in his handling of probes involving President Biden’s son, sources told the Washington Times on Monday.
Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell to complain about President Trump’s abuse of power after removing Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)
“The U.S. intelligence community will assess the potential risk to national security of disclosure of materials recovered during the Aug. 8 search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The letter dated Friday from National Intelligence Director (DNI) Avril Haines to House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff and Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney also said the Justice Department and DNI “are working together to facilitate a classification review” of materials including those recovered during the search.
Schiff and Maloney said in a joint statement they were pleased the government was “assessing the damage caused by the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.” Politico reported the letter earlier.
US House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff speaks to the press with US Democratic Representative from New York Carolyn Maloney, August 15, 2022. (Credit: Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images)
The Justice Department on Friday disclosed that it was investigating Trump for removing White House records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources – among America’s most closely held secrets.
Haines said DNI “will also lead an Intelligence Community (IC) assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents” including those seized.
A spokesman for Trump, Taylor Budowich, accused Schiff of being reckless with U.S. intelligence and asserted Democrats had “weaponized the intel community against President Trump with selective and dishonest leaks.” (Read more: Yahoo News, 8/27/2022) (Archive)
Tucker Carlson covers my @TheGrayzoneNews report exposing the Pentagon’s invitation of multiple Ukrainian Nazis to Disney World, where comedian Jon Stewart honored a former fascist militant for his “personal example.”
Defense Department-sponsored “Warrior Games” featured liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarding a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion at Disney World. The Pentagon refused to tell The Grayzone whether US taxpayers funded the foreign competitors’ travel.
This August, during the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida this August 19-28, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”
Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun.
Ihor Halushka’s Sonnenrad Black Sun tattoo is visible on his left elbow. (Credit: The Grayzone)
“Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows. This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for. For the past five years, Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.
Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required ‘Wood’s file’. McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump’s National Security Advisor.
Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort. Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.
It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.
It was Mary McCord who then took up the lead congressional position within the impeachment construct created by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, and it was Mary McCord who then joined the January 6 Committee in the committee fight to obtain President Trump’s white house records.
Mary McCord surfaces today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to outline what her team has currently constructed, including the specific targeting approaches her DOJ-NSD and Lawfare crew have put together.
As noted by McCord, the ‘obstruction of justice’ angle is a repeat of the threat used by the Deep State to keep the criminal conduct of the DOJ-NSD from being exposed. WATCH:
When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’). That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important. It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.
When the Carter Page title-1 search warrant application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin. Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016).
John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.
♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.
A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents. The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.
♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.
♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission. Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint. It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules. Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General? Michael Atkinson.
Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment. As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.
♦ During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’) which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith. Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.
When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.
♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith. In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome. Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.
As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.
Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus? Mary McCord.
♦ SUMMARY: Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier. Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn. Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee. Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.
You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD. Then, as if on cue to keep the entire corrupt system protected, this happened:
November 4, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)
Mary McCord is the epitome of a person using a position to abuse the power within it.
Former Obama White House Counsel Lisa Monaco is now the Deputy Attorney General. John Carlin is back inside the DOJ-NSD as the Biden administration continued the Obama administration targeting of President Trump. Mary McCord returns back inside the House J-6 investigative committee put together to purposefully target Donald J Trump…
Now does the timing of Mary McCord surfacing publicly, immediately after the underlying search warrant used in the raid against Donald Trump, make sense?
McCord is the architect, the actual person putting lawfare strategy into lawfare ink and action, for the Trump targeting operations.” (Conservative Treehouse, 8/28/2022)(Archive)
(Credit: Lee Smith/Twitter, Mar-a-Lago/Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)
“Columnist Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History, said colleagues and peers of his — whose judgment he trusts — speculate that the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, was a search for documents related to its “Russiagate” surveillance operation of the 45th president.
“I think the best way to understand this is in the context of a six-year-long operation targeting Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s aides, and Donald Trump’s supporters,” Smith said on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak. “I have different colleagues and people whose insight and whose wisdom I trust very much, and they believe that what the FBI was looking for were documents related to … what the FBI called the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, but what most of the rest of us know as the Russiagate operation meant to target candidate Trump, then President-elect Trump, and then President Donald J. Trump.”
Smith said the people whose speculation he was relaying “have much more insight” and “much more knowledge” about the FBI’s operations than he.
(…) “We need to remember these [are] intelligence agencies that Hillary Clinton was using to spy on the Trump campaign and to smear the Trump campaign,” he remarked. “This was in the Obama administration. There is no way that any of this happened without the White House knowing about it.”
Smith said it was “good news” that whistleblowers within the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) provided information to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) office about political and partisan internal efforts to suppress information about Hunter Biden.
The existence of whistleblowers within the FBI and DOJ, Smith surmised, could lead to some restraint among the bureaucracies’ worst “anti-Trump” operatives due to fear of exposure.
He remarked, “Thanks to the whistleblowers — and to thanks to Charles Grassley’s letters — now we have anti-Trump operatives at the DOJ and the FBI worried about who they can trust. Under our circumstances at present, that’s very important, and it’s very good news, because we want them looking at each other. We want them fearful of each other. We want them suspicious.” (Read more: Breitbart, 8/28/2022)(Archive)
“A national security lawyer tapped by President Joe Biden to lead his Intelligence Advisory Board was one of 50 former intelligence officials to claim in an open letter that the October 2020 publication of Hunter Biden’s emails appeared to be part of a “Russian information operation.”
Jeremy Bash served in several roles during the Obama administration, including CIA Chief of Staff, Defense Department Chief of Staff, and House Intelligence Committee Chief Counsel. He currently serves as Managing Director of Beacon Global Strategies and as an advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Bash also contributed to CNN and MSNBC during the Trump administration.
After the New York Post published emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop, Bash signed onto a letter claiming that the release “hasall the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
“If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this,” the officials, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director Michael Hayden wrote in the letter.
The letter writers acknowledged that they “d[id] not have evidence of Russian involvement,” and the Daily Caller News Foundation later verified the authenticity of the hard drive. Nevertheless, Twitter suspended the New York Post after it shared the story, citing its rules surrounding hacked material. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan on Aug. 25 that the social media giant marked the story as “potential misinformation” after the FBI warned the company that Russia would seek to influence the election.
Bash doubled down on the claims in the letter during an Oct. 19, 2020, appearance on MSNBC.
“This looks like Russian intelligence, this walks like Russian intelligence, this talks like Russian intelligence,” Bash told host Nicolle Wallace. “This effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic Russian playbook disinformation campaign. And let’s recount exactly what happened in July 2019, when President Trump talked to Zelensky, he said, ‘talk to Rudy Giuliani. He’s my guy on trying to dig up false dirt on Joe Biden.”
And then Rudy Giuliani suddenly comes forward with these mysteriously created emails, probably hacked through a Russian intelligence operation. We have to acknowledge the fact that the president of the U.S. is supporting, is condoning, is welcoming, a Russian intelligence operation in 2020,” Bash continued. “This is collusion in plain sight.”
“The Biden Department of Justice lobbed a pre-election grenade at the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump in a midnight filing on Tuesday by attaching a photo of alleged ‘top secret’ documents the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago.
The now-infamous photo is undoubtedly circulating throughout Americans’ email inboxes this morning, flooding social media channels, and is being heralded on the morning television shows. It would not be surprising if Attorney General Merrick Garland already has the photo framed and mounted and hung proudly in his office.
The ‘top secret’ documents photo, labeled ‘Attachment F’ (you can guess what the ‘F’ stands for) is indisputably provocative. The TS/SCI documents are splayed dramatically across the ornate blue carpet with white cover sheets neatly laid on top of them.
The obvious first question many people are asking about this photo is: Why are ‘top secret’ documents that are arguably so sensitive to national security that a court-appointed, independent “special master” should not be privy to them, being spread out for a publicity style photo? The attachment is not sealed, although the Department of Justice has asked for numerous redactions for the search warrant affidavit that purportedly justified the unprecedented raid on the former president.
So, why this photo? Why now? This is precisely the question that legal analyst Jonathan Turley is asking about Attachment F.
“Notably, this filing includes this picture which is being widely distributed,” Turley notes on Twitter.
“It can, however, leave an obviously misleading impression that secret documents were strewn over the floor when this appears to be the work of the FBI agents. The picture is Attachment F and the textual reference on page 13 simply says ‘Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status’. It is curious that the DOJ would release this particular picture. The point is to state a fact that hardly needs an optical confirmation: the possession of documents with classified cover sheets.”
Thus arises the second question: If this is indeed a staged photo, then why the need for the box on the right-hand side? If you take a closer look, it shows a Time magazine cover that one might interpret as a veiled threat.
Let’s take a look at the actual Time magazine cover, which is from March 4, 2019.
It’s none other than Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential challengers spying on him while he is in the Oval Office. The cover story headline is “Knock, Knock…”
The Time magazine cover that is not-so-subtly displayed in the FBI’s staged photo is yet another sign that the bureau is unable to do its job in a professional and apolitical fashion. This compounds the problem of the apparent political timing of the FBI raid on August 8, which came over eighteen months into the Biden presidency, and despite the documents allegedly being an ‘urgent’ matter of national security.
The Time cover provoked a politicized response from whom we can only assume is the target audience. Business Insider didn’t miss the message.
“A photo released by the Department of Justice showing the documents found during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid has also unveiled a curious discovery — a framed image of an unflattering TIME magazine cover featuring former President Donald Trump,” BI reports.
“The cover, which appeared to be placed in a gold frame, was from a March 4, 2019 edition of the publication,” the report noted. “It showed 15 of Trump’s Democratic challengers at the time — including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — peering into the Oval Office at a nervous-looking Trump who is seated in his chair.”
It may also be the case that the FBI was merely using the photo to leak information to the press.
“The TIME magazine cover, along with Trump’s other personal items commingled with the classified, demonstrates that he was personally handling them,” CNN commentator Asha Rangappa remarked. “Thanks for highlighting key evidence of his guilt!”
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman also noted the Time magazine cover.
A Bloomberg reporter went further and provided a passage that he thought was relevant.
“Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status,” the filing reads, referring to the photo “of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office.'”
It is unclear why the DOJ felt it was necessary to attach a staged photograph that is not sealed showing “top secret” documents so sensitive that a “special master” should arguably not be privy to them.(Read more: Becker News, 8/31/2022)(Archive)
(Credit: Clipping from Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/31/2022)
“Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Wednesday on FNC’s “Jesse Watters Primetime” that he did not think the Department of Justice found what it was looking for during the raid of former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, FL home.
“The judge would appoint the special master, and it would be an extension of the court,” Ratcliffe explained. “I do think that it’s the right thing to do. The DOJ’s position is number one. We don’t need a special master. We’ve already — we’ve already sorted everything and looked at everything. Take our word for it that it was done. As you pointed out, they had attorney-client privilege in there, so the taint team that was looking at this didn’t do their job.”
“And, you know, all of this, listen, you presided over a lot of cases,” he continued. “I was a former federal prosecutor, United States attorney. Let me tell you what this is about. Good prosecutors with good cases play it straight. They don’t need to play games. They don’t need to shop for judges, they don’t need to leak intelligence that may or may not exist. And in this case, this tells you that the government didn’t find what they were looking for. There weren’t nuclear secrets in Melania Trump’s underwear drawer, and they’re trying to justify what they’ve done. They’re not playing it straight before the American people. I think that that’s going to play out.” (Breitbart, 9/1/2022)(Archive)
“A federal judge has dismissed Carter Page’s lawsuit against the FBI and former Director James Comey alleging they improperly surveilled him under a FISA warrant.
The bureau surveilled Page under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in a process during which they concealed exculpatory evidence against him, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found in his 2019 report, per the Washington Examiner.
Judge Dabney Friedrich Stephen (Credit: Stephen J. Boitano/The Associated Press)
“Page alleges that the individual defendants violated §§ 1809(a) and 1810 both by unlawfully engaging in electronic surveillance and using or disclosing the fruits of that surveillance. … Each defendant claims that Page fails to sufficiently allege that he or she violated the statute,” Friedrich wrote. “The Court finds that the claims are not time-barred but that Page does not state a claim against any of the individual defendants.”
“Some of the defendants, such as Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, allegedly approved, encouraged, and facilitated Page’s investigation and the warrant applications,” the judge continued, adding “Absent from the complaint is any claim that these four defendants participated in drafting or substantively reviewing the faulty applications themselves, let alone that they performed the FISA surveillance and acquired Page’s communications.”
“If proven, these allegations clearly demonstrate wrongdoing… but Page does not allege that any of the individual defendants, including the unknown John Doe defendants and those most responsible for the applications’ critical errors, took part in obtaining the surveillance information, either by setting up the devices or gathering or listening to Page’s communications,” the judge wrote.
“Thus, the Court cannot plausibly infer from this complaint that any of the individual defendants, known or unknown, ‘engaged in electronic surveillance,’ in violation of §§ 1809(a) and 1810.,” Friedrich wrote.” (JusttheNews, 9/1/2022)(Archive)
State contractor donated $400,000 to Gov. Katie Hobbs and AZ Democrats, and got millions more in state money
DCS over the course of the past year approved what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day, meaning potentially millions of dollars more going to the company at taxpayers’ expense.
No other standard group home provider — there are dozens — was approved for any rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure.
After initial rejection, Sunshine’s rate increase comes after political donation. Sunshine Residential Homes in December 2022 sought a 20% rate increase, to $179 per day. DCS denied it on Feb. 6, 2023, according to records provided by the department.
Three days later, Sunshine donated $100,000 to a dark-money fund Hobbs’ campaign created…
Only recently did the company begin contributing to political campaigns in Arizona.
Two six-figure donations from Sunshine to the Arizona Democratic Party were reported when Hobbs was running for governor, totaling $200,000 in September and October 2022.
[Sunshine’s CEO] and his wife personally donated nearly the maximum amount, $5,000 each, to Hobbs’ campaign.
That’s not all the company would kick in. Another $200,000 was donated after Hobbs’ election, with half of that going directly to Hobbs’ inauguration fund through her dark money group.
[Sunshine’s Director of Programs] worked for DCS for a decade before joining Sunshine in 2022, according to his resume. Saifi donated $5,000 to Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign the same day his boss did, state records show.
——-
*The above are excerpts from an Arizona Republic article by Stacey Barchenger. Emphasis added.
Arizona’s child welfare agency has for years sought to move vulnerable kids out of group homes and into family-like settings.
To reduce the use of group homes, and combined with budget constraints, the Arizona Department of Child Safety has denied pay increases to home operators and cut loose 16 providers during the contract renewal process.
Yet even as the state cuts back, one group home provider with close ties to Gov. Katie Hobbs has benefited beyond all others.
DCS over the course of the past year approved what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day, meaning potentially millions of dollars more going to the company at taxpayers’ expense.
No other standard group home provider — there are dozens — was approved for a rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure. None is paid as much per day per child as Sunshine, according to DCS and state contract records reviewed by The Arizona Republic.
The private company has made the case for more money, citing financial hardships amid the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation.
Meanwhile, it also has undertaken a new six-figure spending campaign benefiting Hobbs and Democratic politics in Arizona.
The company’s CEO, Simon Kottoor, was on Hobbs’ inaugural committee, and the governor praised the organization on the campaign trail. As DCS was redoing its contracts with group homes, Hobbs and her husband attended a private event at what appears to be the Paradise Valley mansion of Sunshine’s CEO.
The small gathering was to recognize the organization’s work, according to two news organizations that documented the event last month.
“A federal judge said she would make public a more detailed list of the items the FBI took during its search last month of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, opening the prospect of a much fuller picture of what documents might be among the classified material seized.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision came during a hearing Thursday over whether to appoint an outside party to review the materials now in the Justice Department’s hands to determine whether issues of executive and lawyer-client privilege put some of it out of bounds to investigators.
After hearing arguments from both sides, she said she would issue a written order in due course on Mr. Trump’s request for that third-party review.
Attorneys for Mr. Trump argued that the federal government’s handling of the investigation had damaged public confidence in the probe’s integrity and transparency. They said the appointment of a special master to review documents would help put issues raised by the case in proper context.
“We need respectfully to lower the temperature on both sides,” said Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general with ties to the GOP who was added this week to the former president’s legal team.
Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s lead attorney on the case, said Mr. Trump wasn’t entitled to the appointment of a special master because the classified and presidential records seized didn’t belong to him, but rather to the U.S.
“He is no longer the president,” said Mr. Bratt, chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section. “And because he is no longer the president, he had no right to take those documents.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 9/1/2022)(Archive)
Trump’s ‘stash of nuclear secrets’ is this summer’s Kremlin collusion conspiracy. But the latest chapter of Russiagate may end with a bang.
“The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago feels like peak Russiagate. There’s the synchronized press hysteria, moving from one absurd end-of-America “bombshell” to the next, accompanied by dark intonations regarding secrets about to be revealed and blustering accusations of high treason. Donald Trump was said to be hoarding “nuclear documents,” which he planned to peddle for billions to the Saudis. Who’s buying the map of Fort Knox? Does Trump have access to Colonel Sanders’ secret fried chicken recipe, too?
It’s no laughing matter to the American press, or for the partisan operatives and national security bureaucrats who feed them their cues. For them, the Mar-a-Lago raid is Russiagate II: The Palm Beach Papers.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ proposed damage assessment of the documents is a remake of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment which claimed, without evidence, that Vladimir Putin wanted to put Trump in the Oval Office. The extensive redactions on the affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to raid Trump’s home are akin to the excessive redactions on the application that the FBI showed a secret court in 2016 to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What was true for the original Russiagate holds here, too: The redactions are designed to hide not state secrets, but government corruption.
The Mar-a-Lago raid feels like Russiagate because, well, it is Russiagate: a conspiracy theory weaponized by the country’s courtier class to serve the interests of a delirious and deracinated oligarchy, spawning daily prophesies of doom fed by an endless supply of national security “leaks” asserting that the former commander-in-chief really was and is a secret Russian agent. And proof of the president’s treachery, chant the priestly keepers of the “collusion” mysteries, will soon be revealed to the public. It is their blanket justification for every past crime and every new banana republic-style abuse of power, accompanied by a drumbeat of ever more outlandish and violent threats.
Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell to complain about President Trump’s abuse of power after removing Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)
It is in this context that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago should be understood: Government records and reports from political and media operatives and bureaucrats who previously starred in Russiagate I give evidence that the FBI raided Trump’s home to seize documents exposing the crimes that the FBI and Justice Department have been committing since 2016. The fact that Russiagate shows no signs of ending anytime soon is bad news for the republic, betrayed from within by a performative elite whose ability to project power outside its gilded bubble requires a steady supply of paranoia, fear, and hysteria.
The story of the Mar-a-Lago raid begins at the end of Trump’s presidency when he declassified documents related to Russiagate. Those records contain evidence of how the FBI spied on Trump’s campaign, presidential transition team, and administration. The documents reportedly include transcripts of FBI intercepts of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to collect the electronic communications of Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, and reports regarding Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the two main confidential human sources used by the FBI to spy on Trump’s circle.
Kash Patel (Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Kash Patel, who served in a variety of Pentagon roles and as a principal deputy in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, has said that 60% of the documents related to Russiagate are already in public view. As lead investigator for the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of the FBI’s illegal investigation of the Trump campaign, Patel helped get vital Russiagate records declassified. When Trump named Patel to the ODNI post, he and acting Director Richard Grenell put more Russiagate documents before the U.S. public in 2020. Patel has told the press that what Trump declassified on Jan. 19, 2021, constitutes the remainder of the Russiagate records—which is what the FBI was apparently after.
So, are the Russiagate documents secret? With hours left in Trump’s presidency, the DOJ raised “privacy concerns” about Trump’s declassification, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows agreed to submit the documents for a final review. “I am returning the bulk of the binder of declassified documents to the Department of Justice,” Meadows wrote in a memo, “with the instruction that the Department must expeditiously conduct a Privacy Act review under the standards that the Department of Justice would normally apply, redact material appropriately, and release the remaining material with redactions applied.”
President Barack Obama meets with, from left: Kathryn Ruemmler, Lisa Monaco, and Susan E. Rice (Credit: Pete White House Flickr photo)
The problem, however, is that Biden’s DOJ, which was tasked with conducting that review, is staffed with key operatives who targeted Trump starting in 2016, like Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. As Barack Obama’s Homeland Security adviser, Monaco met in the White House with Haines, then deputy national security adviser (and former deputy CIA director), and National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who is now director of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, to push the Trump-Russia narrative. As far as Monaco and her confederates were concerned, once Meadows turned over the declassified documents, the national security establishment was in the clear: The documents would never be seen again.” (Read more: Tablet Mag, 9/2/2022)(Archive)
“The FBI seized over 50 empty folders marked “CLASSIFIED” during last month’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
According to a more detailed property receipt of the seized documents, the FBI discovered 43 empty folders with classified banners in Trump’s office and several others in the former president’s storage room.
It is uncertain whether the photo the DOJ recently released that showed classified folders scattered across the floor included any of the empty folders the FBI seized. (Read more: Breitbart, 9/2/2022)(Archive)
“Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski reportedly fears the recently departed former FBI agent Timothy Thibault buried the information he conveyed to the FBI about his Chinese business dealings with the Biden family.
Bobulinski, who personally met with President Joe Biden in 2017 for an hour to discuss “the Bidens’ family business plans with the Chinese,” is worried Thibault helped “bury information about his dealings with the Biden family that he gave the FBI,” the Washington Free Beaconreported Friday. Thibault was reportedly “running point” on the FBI’s inquiry into Hunter Biden and “allegedly shut down part of the investigation.
(…) Over the course of Joe Biden’s political career, he has repeatedly denied being involved in the family business. “I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses. Period.” Yet Joe Biden called Hunter in 2018 to speak about the family’s CEFC deal. “I think you’re clear,” Joe Biden said about the deal. “And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you,” the message concluded.” (Read more: Breitbart, 9/2/2022) (Archive)
“Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr said Friday on FNC’s “America Reports” that it is “unprecedented” that former President Donald Trump had classified material at his Florida estate and he “jerked around” the Department of Justice for a year while they tried to recover the documents.
Sandra Smith asked, “Do you think this type of this raid was avoidable? Do you think a second subpoena, for example, could have been issued?”
Barr said, “I personally think for them to have taken things to the current point, they probably have pretty good evidence, but that’s speculation. And until we see that, it’s hard to say.”
He added, “Now, let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was, you know, loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this was unprecedented, but it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put him in a country club. And how long is the government going to try to get that back? You know, they jawboned for a year. They were deceived on the voluntary actions taken. They then went and got a subpoena. They were deceived on that. They feel and the record, the facts are starting to show that they were being jerked around. And so how long, you know, how long do they wait?” (Breitbart, 9/2/2022)(Archive)
“The claim by former President Donald Trump that he declassified the documents with classified markings found at Mar-a-Lago was challenged Sept. 2 as “highly improbable” by former Attorney General William Barr.
“I can’t think of a legitimate reason why they could be taken out of the government, away from the government, if they’re classified,” who was attorney general during the Trump and George H.W. Bush administrations, said during an appearance on Fox News.
“I frankly am skeptical of this claim that ‘I declassified everything,’ because, frankly, I think it’s highly improbable and second, if in fact, he stood over scores of boxes not really knowing what was in them, and said ‘I hereby declassify everything in here,’ that would be such an abuse, and show such recklessness that it’s almost worse than taking the documents.”
Trump publicly ordered in October 2020 the “total declassification” of “any and all documents” related to the U.S. investigation into alleged Russia-Trump collusion, as well as all documents related to the use of a private email server by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump Responds
(…) Barr was known as a staunch Trump defender after becoming attorney general in 2019 but towards the end of the administration, he publicly diverged from Trump on a number of issues, including alleged election fraud.
In a statement on his Truth Social network after Barr’s comments, Trump said that the former attorney general is a Republican in name only, or a RINO, “who was so afraid of being Impeached that he became a captive to the Radical Left Democrats.”
“Barr never fought the way he should have for Election Integrity, and so much else. He started off OK as A.G., but faded fast—Didn’t have courage or stamina. People like that will never Make America Great Again!” Trump added.
Trump also said that Barr acted too slowly on the report from former special counsel Robert Mueller, which found no coordination or cooperation between Trump or his campaign and Russia, and knocked Barr for not releasing the laptop computer once owned by Hunter Biden before the 2020 election.
“The Laptop information should have been released BEFORE the Rigged Election, not after it, for the VOTERS TO SEE,” Trump said.
Barr has defended not making public the existence of a federal investigation into Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, before the election, saying that it would have affected the outcome.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/3/2022)(Archive)
“We’ve been pushing Attorney General Merrick Garland for far greater transparency over the Mar-a-Lago raid, but he and FBI chief Christopher Wray owe the nation clear explanations over the Hunter Biden investigation, too.
Particularly in the wake of Timothy Thibault’s resignation from the bureau amid charges he suppressed evidence in the case and even shut down the FBI’s “laptop” investigation on spurious “Russian misinformation” grounds. He also faced an ongoing Office of Special Counsel probe of his partisan, anti-Trump social-media posts.
Top Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Charles Grassley in late July wrote Wray and Garland (following up on a May letter) citing charges by multiple FBI “highly credible whistleblowers” about the burying of “verified and verifiable” dirt on Hunter by falsely dismissing valid intelligence as “disinformation.”
The whistleblowers claim Thibault (then assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office) shut down an entire avenue of the Hunter investigation in October 2020. (Seemingly, that avenue centered on info from the infamous laptop, which the FBI first acquired in December 2019.)
Now Miranda Devine reports that Thibault that Octoberalso apparently buried the extensive testimony of whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s former business partner, about the Biden family’s corrupt influence-peddling.
After Bobulinksi’s initial five-hour FBI interview, he was told Thibault would be his FBI contact, yet the bureau never contacted him again. Nor was he brought before the Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter.
Incidentally, the drive to write off the laptop as “Russian disinformation” apparently began long before The Post’s first October 2020 scoops. FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten had opened an “assessment” that August; per Grassley, its result in October was that: “Verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.”
Jean Pierre insisted that the President was not briefed on the raid.
AP’s @ZekeJMiller: “The FBI…served a search warrant on the [Trump’]s residence…Was [he] or anyone at the WH aware of that…or has [he] been briefed in the aftermath of that…being executed?”
KJP: “No. The President was not briefed…No one at the WH was given a heads up.” pic.twitter.com/jbk4jwRQhX
District Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon (Credit: public domain)
Earlier today, Judge Aileen Cannon granted President Trump’s request for a Special Master review of the material confiscated by the Biden DOJ during their raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago.
Judge Cannon also ‘temporarily enjoins’ or forbids the Biden regime from ‘reviewing and using the seized materials’ pending the completion of the review.
Judge Cannon takes the government to task in her order:
Andrew Weissman, the former Justice official who ran the Mueller special counsel and is now a contributor on the fake news channels, suffered a meltdown following the decision.
Sal Greco, a politically persecuted and fired NYPD officer, responded to Weissman’s temper tantrum.
After violating the civil rights of mob victims, the Enron defendants ( who’s convictions were overturned because of his misconduct ) and Paul Manafort; Andrew Weissmann ranting about “ the rule of law “ is a joke.
Andrew Weismann is in a lavender rage because an honest and courageous judge has delayed the politicized DOJ effort to destroy @realDonaldTrump while holding him to a different standard then Barrack Obama.
For the second time in his legal career, Andrew Weismann comes across a judge that actually respects the rule of law. The last time was the when his Enron convictions were overturned for his prosecutorial misconduct.
Pages from an FBI property list of items seized from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and made public by the Department of Justice. FBI agents who searched the home found empty folders marked with classified banners. The inventory reveals in general terms the contents of the 33 boxes taken during the Aug. 8 search. (Credit: Jon Elswick/AP)
“A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residenceand private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or anear-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation.
Documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. Some special-access programs can have as few as a couple dozen government personnel authorized to know of an operation’s existence. Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.
But such documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, with uncertain security, more than 18 months after Trump left the White House.
After months of trying, according to government court filings, the FBI has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago this year: 184 in a set of 15 boxes sent to the National Archives and Records Administration in January, 38 more handed over by a Trump lawyer to investigators in June, and more than 100 additional documents unearthed in acourt-approved search on Aug. 8.
It was in this last batch of government secrets, the people familiar with the matter said, that the information about a foreign government’s nuclear-defense readiness was found. These people did not identify the foreign government in question, say where at Mar-a-Lago the document was found or offer additional details about one of the Justice Department’s most sensitive national security investigations.
Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, decried leaks about the case, which he said “continue with no respect for the process nor any regard for the real truth. This does not serve well the interests of justice.”
“Moreover, the damage to public confidence in the integrity of the system simply cannot be underestimated. The responsible course of action here would be for someone — anyone — in the Government to exercise leadership and control. The Court has provided a sensible path forward which does not include the selective leak of unverifiable and misleading information. There is no reason to deviate from that path if the goal is, as it should be, to find a rational solution to document storage issues which have needlessly spiraled out of control.”
“All of a sudden, the White House gets alerted to these billboards that show me sitting down with I thought my legs together, but the way it’s shot, it’s sort of suggestive,” Clinton added.
Some of those photos were used to sell lingerie. Clinton said the incident and the constant photography led her to switch to pantsuits, which have become a staple of the ex-first lady’s fashion.
The former secretary of State and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, sat down with O’Donnell to promote the pair’s forthcoming Apple TV+ docuseries, “Gutsy.”
“I didn’t know that story,” Chelsea Clinton said. “I didn’t know that story. It’s by far and away the greatest revelation I had.”
Hillary Clinton said the incident in Brazil was the first of many uncomfortable experiences she had with press photographers as she increasingly became a public figure.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/5/2022) (Archive)
(Timeline editor’s note: Sorry, we couldn’t bring ourselves to search for the crotch shot photos that appeared on Brazilian billboards.)
“I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails. . .”: Hillary Clinton’s disbelief this week was shared by many critics left dumbfounded by her claim her private server contained “zero” classified documents. The expression of utter incredulity was classic Clinton — she’s selling hats reading “But her emails” for $30 a pop.
But Hillary’s denial of what was found on her server exposes something far more serious than signature hypocrisy. It reflects establishment figures’ sense of license that they can literally rewrite history with little fear of contradiction by the media.
While calling for limits on free speech over “disinformation,” Hillary has no qualms about falsely denying what published government reports detail.
“As Trump’s problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again. There’s even a ‘Clinton Standard.’ The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified,” her but-my-emails tweet continued. “Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails. Trump’s own State Department, under two different Secretaries, found I had no classified emails.”
Virtually everything about that claim is breathtakingly untrue.
Let’s quickly deal with the light lifting before getting back to the “Clinton Standard.”
“Zero emails” were “classified.”
A Department of Justice inspector general report revealed “81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails” were “classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels at the time.” Clinton is echoing her allies’ recent spin that there were only three documents with classification markings among 33,000 emails. It is utter nonsense.
The Clinton email scandal is a scandal because these were emails. There is no classification automatically stamped on text being typed out and sent within minutes. While attachments can have classification markings, the whole point of using secure servers is that emails are created in the moment with inevitable slips in referencing classified material.
Nevertheless, the emails had classified information, including top-secret information tied to “Special Access Programs.” Yet some allies emphasize the inspector general also noted that in some cases there was “conscious effort to avoid sending classified information, by writing around the most sensitive material.” It failed. The emails still contained classified information.
That’s why she was reckless to use her own server: Such mistakes on private servers are more vulnerable to capture by foreign intelligence services. Indeed, according to the FBI, “hostile actors gained access” to some of the information through the emails of Clinton’s associates and aides. (Read more: New York Post, 9/7/2022)(Archive)
Trump vs Clinton (Credit: Wall Street Journal graphics)
“Recently a Florida judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by President Trump against Hillary Clinton. [65-page ruling HERE] The media have enjoyed ridiculing Trump by using the words of the judge who dismissed the case. As noted by the Washington Times, “Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a Clinton appointee, said Mr. Trump’s filing was too lengthy, detailing events that “are implausible because they lack any specific allegations which might provide factual support for the conclusions reached.”
(…) In March 2022 President Trump filed a civil lawsuit against: Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe. [108-Page Lawsuit Here]
When I was about one-third of the way through reading the lawsuit, I initially stopped and said to myself this is going to take a lot of documentary evidence to back up the claims in the assertions. Dozens of attachments would be needed and hundreds of citations to the dozens of attachments would be mandatory. Except, they were not there.
After reading further, while completely understanding the background material that was being described in the filing, I realized this wasn’t a lawsuit per se’. The 108-pages I was holding in my hands were more akin to a legal transfer mechanism from President Trump to lawyers who needed it. The filing was contingent upon a series of documents that would be needed to support the claims within it.
Whoever wrote the lawsuit had obviously reviewed the evidence to support the filing. However, the attachments and citations were missing. That was weird. That’s when I realized the purpose of the lawsuit. In hindsight, things became clear when the DOJ-NSD raided the home of Donald Trump, and suddenly the motive to confiscate the documents that would be the missing lawsuit attachments and citations surfaced.
With the manipulative, and I say intentional, “ongoing investigation” angle of the John Durham probe essentially blocking public release of declassified documents showing the efforts of all the lawsuit participants (Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax), President Trump needed a legal way to secure and more importantly share the evidence.
Think of it like the people around Trump wanting to show lawyers the evidence in the documents. However, because of the construct of the lawfare being deployed against Trump, any lawyer would need a *reason* to review the evidence. The Trump -v- Clinton et al lawsuit becomes that ‘reason.’
The “documents” (classified or not) are reviewed by lawyers in preparation for the lawsuit. This is their legal justification for reviewing the documents. In essence, the lawsuit is a transfer mechanism permitting the Trump legal team to review the evidence on behalf of their client, former President Donald Trump.
Once the formation of the lawsuit is established, the retainer and acceptance of the lawyers to represent their client cemented, the legal counsel, discussion and information within legal duties/obligations of those who represent the plaintiff (Trump) becomes an information silo. In addition to previous executive privilege established by President Trump himself; outside government there is now another silo to defend against the motives of the Lawfare crew (DOJ), the attorney-client privilege.
The lawsuit itself is the transfer mechanism permitting sharing of the documents and providing legal cover for the reviewers (lawyers). The details within the 108-page filing constitute the claims of the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which were established by the evidentiary documents later seized by the DOJ and FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/11/2022)(Archive)
(…) Regardless, the feds were not happy with the result, and filed a Motion for a Partial Stay Pending Appeal with Judge Cannon. Procedurally, they have to ask the District Court for a stay before seeking a stay in the appeals court. That certainly will happen if Judge Cannon turns them down.
Specifically, the government seeks a stay to the extent the Order (1) enjoins the further review and use for criminal investigative purposes of records bearing classification markings that were recovered pursuant to a court-authorized search warrant and (2) requires the government to disclose those classified records to a special master for review. The government respectfully requests that the Court rule on this motion promptly. If the Court does not grant a stay by Thursday, September 15, the government intends to seek relief from the Eleventh Circuit….
[The motion] is limited to the Order’s directives with respect to the seized classified records1 because those aspects of the Order will cause the most immediate and serious harms to the government and the public. The classified records—a discrete set of just over 100 documents—have already been segregated from the other seized records and are being maintained separately….
Here are the grounds for the stay, the feds argued:
First, the government is likely to succeed in its appeal of the Order as it applies to classified records…. Plaintiff does not and could not assert that he owns or has any possessory interest in classified records; that he has any right to have those government records returned to him; or that he can advance any plausible claims of attorney-client privilege as to such records that would bar the government from reviewing or using them. And although this Court suggested that Plaintiff might be able to assert executive privilege as to some of the seized records, Supreme Court precedent makes clear that any possible assertion of privilege that Plaintiff might attempt to make over the classified records would be overcome by the government’s “demonstrated, specific need” for that evidence. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 713 (1974) (“United States v. Nixon”). Among other things, the classified records are the very subject of the government’s ongoing investigation.
Second, the government and the public would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay…. The Court thus stated that its Order was not intended to “impede the classification review and/or intelligence assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (‘ODNI’).” D.E. 64 at 1-2. But the review and assessment on their own are not sufficient to address and fully mitigate any national security risks presented. The Intelligence Community’s review and assessment cannot be readily segregated from the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) and Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (“FBI”) activities in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation, and uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Court’s order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work….
Third, the partial stay sought here would impose no cognizable harm on Plaintiff. It would not disturb the special master’s review of any other records, including any personal materials or records potentially subject to attorney-client privilege….
“Huge revelations pertaining to the content of the documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago. Trump made some comments to Newsmax and today Devin Nunes is saying he thinks that the docs are about Russiagate.
In a report today from Newsmax, Trump claims he kept them under Executive Privilege, to PROTECT THEM FROM BEING DESTROYED BY THE DEEP STATE.
(Credit: Newsmax/Clandestine)
“I think they thought it was something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,”
Initially, I found this peculiar, because Trump himself confirmed some of the docs were pertaining to the Iran Deal last week when he retruthed this post from Paul Sperry.
(Credit: @paulsperry/Gettr)
But based on Trump’s most recent comments to Newsmax, the docs are about essentially EVERYTHING! Trump said that the documents in question “expose a Deep State plot” against him. Which is the reason he Declassified them, and took the docs for protection. There are reportedly “11 sets of documents” the FBI were interested in.
So what are the docs about? All of the docs about Deep State’s crimes that Trump was concerned they might destroy. That could cover a wide variety of subjects. Thus far, we know some of the docs to pertain to the Iran Deal and Russiagate/Crossfire Hurricane, but what other crimes is Trump aware of that he might want to prevent the Deep State from destroying? Uranium One? Libya? Haiti? Benghazi? 9/11? JFK Assassination?
Whatever else is in those docs, Trump is insinuating the FBI is looking to retrieve them to prevent him from showing it to the American People.
“They were afraid that things were in there — part of their scam material.”
(…) While the Left think they are closing in, Trump just confirmed the boomerang is in effect. The docs don’t implicate him, they implicate the enemy in all of their most heinous crimes, and Trump wants them public.” (Read more: Clandestine/Substack, 9/8/2022)(Archive)
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced sex trafficking and conspiracy charges against Jeffrey Epstein, July, 2019. (Credit: Jefferson Siegel/NYT)
“Your humble author, as promised, is involved in litigation to extract records from the federal government. It’s easy to talk about current events. The more difficult part is suing federal agencies for documentation of their wrongdoing.
(…) One development we can divulge is our effort to obtain the FBI’s records on Jeffrey Epstein. We made a simple request: hand over all FBI interviews with Epstein. We know those records are out there, as we were the first to report that Epstein had been a source for the FBI. (It was later confirmed that Epstein cooperated on a Bear Stearns investigation.)
Wait. Was pedophile Jeffrey Epstein an informant for Mueller’s FBI?
From the 5/24/18 FBI Vault release: “Epstein has also provided information to the FBI as agreed upon.”
But we’re not convinced that was the only time Epstein spoke with the FBI. There were other hints and rumors that he worked with the US government to recover stolen funds. Thus the FOIA request.
How did the FBI respond? Not by denying the existence of any records.
Instead, the FBI is hiding behind FOIA’s law enforcement exemption, stating that the production of the Epstein records would interfere with ongoing law enforcement investigations:
“The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”
For a few months, I have been speculating there were deeper ties to the CIA or NSA for Rodney Joffe. There were a number of indications of that, which I have covered.
Today, the government produced records responsive to my FOIA. We sued the Department of Defense for records, and now we have them.
My FOIA was:
One of the first emails that stood out was sent from Rodney Joffe to Keromytis, noting:
This is confirmation that Joffe worked for the NSA in some capacity.
It’s important not to make leaps of speculation, but there are many possible implications to this. We know the NSA is a corner piece to much of the DNC hack story. Was Joffe involved? We don’t know.
As I have repeatedly reported, there has been a source who alleges Joffe played a key role in the attribution for the DNC hack. Whether that was was for the NSA or FBI (where he also has a lot of contact) or to DARPA/DHS/others, is unclear.
“House Intelligence Committee testimony identified Gary Gensler as having final approval for funding discredited dossier.
Gary Gensler, President Joe Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commissioner, had final approval authority for the Hillary Clinton campaign’s payments for the discredited Steele dossier, according to congressional testimony that is adding to concerns about conflicts of interest as the SEC investigates Donald Trump’s social media firm’s merger request.
Questions surfaced last month about the SEC’s probe of Trump’s Truth Social when RealClearInvestigations journalist Paul Sperry reported that Gensler, as SEC chairman, previously served as the Hillary Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer.
Melissa Hodgman-Strzok (Credit: The Daily Mail)
In addition, Sperry reported that SEC Associate Director of Enforcement Melissa Hodgman was married to Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who led the much-criticized Russia collusion probe and was fired in 2018 for anti-Trump texts on his official bureau phone.
The SEC declined to comment when Just the News inquired about Sperry’s report, the role if any, that Gensler and Hodgman are playing in the Truth Social investigation or whether the two SEC executives offered to recuse themselves from the inquiry.
In addition to the connections to Trump, Truth Social is run by former House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, who played a key role in exposing Strzok’s conduct during the Russia probe, the Clinton campaign’s connections to the Steele dossier, the inaccuracies of the dossier and the FBI’s reliance on the former British spy Christopher Steele to obtain FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign and adviser Carter Page.
In the end, Nunes’ probe exposed that the FBI ultimately determined that most of the allegations Steele placed in the dossier and shared with the agents were disproven, uncorroborated or meaningless Internet rumor and that the FBI misled the court about the reliability of the information.” (Read more JusttheNews, 9/12/2022)(Archive)
THREAD: Trump’s brief in opposition to the Motion for Stay helps frame what I see as THE key question. (Assuming there was no obstruction, which given DOJ’s leaks I think is far assumption.) 1/
3/ Presidential Records are specifically defined as follows and excludes BOTH “personal records” AND “official records of an agency.” pic.twitter.com/MOmAbxgUIH
5/ So, here’s the interesting part from today’s filing: Trump’s team argues all of the records at issue are EITHER Presidential records or personal records. But why isn’t it possible that instead they are “federal records?” Well, they can’t be logically because they would be pic.twitter.com/twqlWA2uQO
7/ The question I’ve said was key from day one was were these “copies”–they must have been unless they were Presidential or personal records. So, while at first I thought “umm, no, they could be federal records,” is wrong: The question is are they Presidential or personal.
The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)
That developed into the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.
Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump.
Danchenko being a CHS also served another purpose: it protected the Bureau and the Mueller Special Counsel from revealing their “sources and methods.” How do you hide misconduct? Bury the witness.
The Motion in Limine
When the Steele Reports were released, the media picked up on the most salacious rumors, one that was utterly unbelievable: that Russian intelligence had a video of Trump involved with prostitutes at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Also known as the “pee tape.”
The allegation came from Danchenko, who attributed it to his sources – one from the Ritz-Carlton, and another being Sergei Millian. Durham will refute it, as it expects to call at trial “Bernd Kuhlen,” the then-general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, who will deny speaking with or ever meeting Danchenko “in June 2016, or at any time.”
What is Durham’s theory on Danchenko’s motive for lying about the Ritz-Carlton allegations? Because it reflects “a deliberate effort to conceal from the FBI Charles Dolan’s role as a source for the Steele Reports and to deceive the FBI regarding Millian’s role (or lack thereof).”
In support of the theory that Danchenko engaged in an “over-arching ‘plan’ to deceive the FBI” about his work for Orbis (the company that collected the information contained in the Steele Reports), Durham also plans to introduce:
Evidence that Danchenko “on multiple occasions communicated and emailed with, among others, Charles Dolan regarding his work for Steele and Orbis.”
“Evidence that proves Dolan was aware of [Danchenko’s] reporting was part of a ‘related project against Trump’ and that this work was being done on behalf of Steele and Orbis.”
Igor Danchenko appears on the Russia-language channel RTVi (U.S.-Israel) in July 2016. (Credit: Twitter/@LikesLurks)
“Today, Special Counsel John Durham moved to unseal this motion in limine in the false statements case against Igor Danchenko.
This motion provides new information on the details of Danchenko’s lies to the FBI, further information on how Special Counsel Mueller ignored Danchenko’s false statements, expected testimony from Clinton-connected executive Charles Dolan, and one crazy development.
But we’ll start with the most damning development: Danchenko was on the FBI payroll as a confidential human source (CHS) from March 2017 through October 2020.
The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)
Those problems continued with the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.
Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 9/13/2022)(Archive)
(…) Then there are Danchenko’s false statements about Charles Dolan, an influential Democrat executive with ties to the Clintons. Interestingly, it was Dolan who was given a tour of the Ritz-Carlton Presidential Suite, which was the supposed location of “Trump’s alleged lurid sexual activities.”
the Government anticipates that Mr. Dolan will testify that (1) it was he and Mr. Kupka who attended a lunch with the Ritz-Carlton general manager and other hotel staff during the June 2016 Moscow trip and that [Danchenko] was not present, and (2) neither Donald Trump nor his purported sexual practices were ever discussed at that lunch. Further, the Government also anticipates that Mr. Dolan will testify that Ritz-Carlton hotel staff did, in fact, provide the aforementioned tour of the presidential suite as part of the June 2016 trip and that, again, Donald Trump and his purported sexual practices were not discussed during that tour.
What is Durham’s theory on Danchenko’s motive for lying about the Ritz-Carlton allegations? Because it reflects “a deliberate effort to conceal from the FBI Charles Dolan’s role as a source for the Steele Reports and to deceive the FBI regarding Millian’s role (or lack thereof).”
In support of the theory that Danchenko engaged in an “over-arching ‘plan’ to deceive the FBI” about his work for Orbis (the company that collected the information contained in the Steele Reports), Durham also plans to introduce:
Evidence that Danchenko “on multiple occasions communicated and emailed with, among others, Charles Dolan regarding his work for Steele and Orbis.”
“Evidence that proves Dolan was aware of [Danchenko’s] reporting was part of a ‘related project against Trump’ and that this work was being done on behalf of Steele and Orbis.”
(L–R) Former FBI agent Peter Strzok; former FBI Director James Comey; and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. (Credit: Getty ;Images/Illustration by Epoch Times)
(…) Perhaps the most stunning disclosure is that Danchenko was given confidential human source (CHS) status by the FBI in March 2017. Notably, this was after Danchenko had disowned the Steele dossier in a January 2017 FBI interview, having admitted that it was based on gossip and rumors. Given the admission, there was no legitimate reason to extend the protections of CHS status to Danchenko, who no longer had any bona fide value to the FBI’s investigation into alleged Trump–Russia collusion.
In fact, the FBI’s investigation ought to have ended as soon as Danchenko disclosed the true provenance of Steele’s reporting.
The FBI’s goal in giving Danchenko the highly coveted CHS status appears to have been to take Danchenko off the grid. As a CHS, Danchenko enjoyed special protections and privileges. Crucially, the FBI was able to use his status to conceal Danchenko and his disclosures from congressional inquiries, such as the investigation by then-Rep. Devin Nunes led by Kash Patel. Other inquiries, such as Freedom of Information Act requests, could similarly be stonewalled by reference to the “sources and methods” justification for concealing the identity, and even the existence, of a CHS.
The FBI had huge incentives to hide Danchenko. Although Danchenko told the FBI several lies in what Durham now describes was an attempt to reconcile what Danchenko had told Steele, the overarching message from Danchenko was that the dossier was untrue. This effectively ended any legitimate inquiry into Trump–Russia collusion. Danchenko’s disavowal also meant that the FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page—which were issued based on the Steele dossier—were effectively invalidated.
The FBI had a legal duty to inform the FISA court about Danchenko but failed to do so. In fact, they successfully applied for two further FISA warrants against Page on the basis of the Steele dossier which they knew to be false.
Russian analyst Igor Danchenko is pursued by journalists as he departs the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse after being arraigned on November 10, 2021 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The timing of Danchenko’s elevation to CHS status coincided with two major developments. First, on March 20, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey told Congress that the Trump campaign was under investigation for alleged ties to Russia. At the time, Comey knew that Danchenko had shredded the investigation’s predicate, yet he chose to forge on regardless. Second, also in March 2017, Nunes found out from a whistleblower in the intelligence community that the Trump transition team had been spied on. Nunes complained that Congress hadn’t been given that information.
As head of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes immediately ratcheted up his own investigation into the Trump–Russia matter. That investigation would lead to the Nunes memo in February 2018. However, the Nunes memo made no mention of Danchenko or of the fact that he had disavowed the dossier. After the FBI put Danchenko on their CHS payroll, he was completely off the grid and any information about him was withheld from Congress under the “sources and methods” justification.
The FBI’s apparent scheme to bury Danchenko seems to have worked as planned. Neither Nunes nor anyone else knew about Danchenko or his disavowal of the Steele dossier until December 2019, when Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued his report on the FBI’s FISA abuses. Horowitz didn’t disclose Danchenko’s name and provided very little information other than that Steele had a primary sub-source whose story differed from the one told by Steele himself.
It wasn’t until July 2020 that a group of online sleuths, including myself, were able to extrapolate Danchenko’s name from various data points in Horowitz’s report, as well as from heavily redacted interview notes published by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
With the identification of Danchenko, any remaining credibility of the Steele dossier collapsed. Contrary to the FBI’s claims, Danchenko wasn’t a Russian-based source with access to Kremlin insiders. Instead, he was a Beltway insider who had spent a number of years working at the Democratic-leaning Brookings Institution, where anti-Trump impeachment witness Fiona Hill was his mentor.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/14/2022)(Archive)
September 23, 2022 – Nunes: Why the FBI Paid Danchenko
A special master has been appointed to act as a firewall between the Justice Department and materials seized during an Aug. 8 raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
In a pair of Thursday orders from federal district Judge Aileen Cannon, the DOJ’s motion to access a subset of classified records stored on the Trump property was denied, and a recently retired judge that both the DOJ and Trump’s team agreed on – recently retired Judge Raymond Dearie – will serve as special master.
Raymond has until Nov. 30, 2022 to complete his review.
Cannon struck down the DOJ’s request for a partial stay of an earlier motion on accessing the seized materials, after lawyers for the government argued that they should be able to review over 100 classified documents taken during the raid – as they are not covered by any claims of personal property or executive privilege.
That said, Cannon sided with a DOJ request for Trump to pay the full cost associated with a special master.
“If the court were willing to accept the government’s representations that select portions of the seized materials are—without exception—government property not subject to any privileges, and did not think a special master would serve a meaningful purpose, the court would have denied plaintiff’s special master request,” wrote Cannon. “The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.” (Zero Hedge, 9/16/2022) (Archive)
PRIMARY SUBJECTS: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Twitter, Biden White House, Obama White House, James Baker, Alexander Macgillivray, Vijaya Gadde
In conjunction with a client who remains confidential, EDIFY developed the nexus schematics featured in this brief that are well-evidenced and identify and connect a slate of important individuals, entities and nations respective to a wide swath of past and ongoing scandals, corruption, crime, treason and bioterrorism.
This brief serves to expand and back-fill the details of the featured graphics while providing meaning with some granularity. At the same time, it informs important ongoing matters and litigation.
The findings develop along six vectors to demonstrate how the entanglements, relationships and overlaps translate to an effective network. The network is positioned to impact important matters like COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story as just two examples and whereby Twitter’s censorship of both makes Twitter the central node.
The six vectors are: 1-Twitter, its censorship policies and the application and enforcement thereof, 2-Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati [WSGR] an international law firm with over 1,000 attorneys representing many of the world’s largest corporations, as a hub with spokes running to critically-positioned individuals that is suggestive of WSGR as an interface for political control and influence across a wide array of Big Tech and geopolitical domains, 3- Alexander Macgillivray as a WSGR product who serves in the critical position of Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer for the Biden Administration and who served the Obama White House similarly, 4-Vijaya Gadde as a WSGR product who was installed by Macgillivray at Twitter when Macgillivray served as Twitter’s General Counsel and where Gadde went on to suspend President Donald Trump, 5-Former FBI General Counsel James Baker as a common thread through Twitter to President Trump and the FBI/DOJ FISA abuse against Trump and 6-Alison Fauci, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s daughter,as a Twitter engineer and Twitter’s overlap to and potential communication and intelligence conduit for the COVID-19 enterprise fraud construct via Anthony Fauci and his NIH interface.
In the featured nexus schematics, the six vectors above are examined with explanations and SUMMARY FINDINGS to follow:
COVER PAGE
MAJOR PLAYERS
SUMMARY INTRODUCTION: WSGR, MACGILLIVRAY
SUMMARY INTRODUCTION: BAKER
PRIMARY SUBJECT: WSGR
PRIMARY SUBJECT: MACGILLIVRAY
PRIMARY SUBJECT: BAKER
VECTOR 1: TWITTER: Twitter is the central node and the keystone to understanding. Twitter’s inherent value to the elites, political class and federal apparatus writ large is found in its ability to engage in perception management, which is a technical term more commonly referred to as “psyops” or “psychological warfare”. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Twitter engages in perception management in its capacity to establish and manipulate reality by means of actively determining and shaping the content on its platform. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Twitter consumers can receive filtered content or are prevented from receiving, seeing or having the ability to publish content altogether. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The de facto censorship occurs primarily along the lines of determining and enforcing community standards, guidelines and rules for user engagement. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The evidence is clear that the decisions here appear to fall along clearly identifiable political lines resembling two-tier justice. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Content determination, algorithmic manipulation and politically motivated censorship of off-reservation messaging and political opposition are all evidenced examples of how Twitter engages in perception management or appears to do so. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Two evidenced domains of Twitter’s engagement in perception management include censoring content relative to COVID-19 [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] and the Hunter Biden Laptop story. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
Problematic for the critics of Twitter as a politically aligned entity is the patterned evidence of primary subject and other individuals being directly and indirectly tied to other relevant and important individuals and entities in overlapping domains. The complexity is high and so the schematic illustrations are hugely beneficial for understanding.
These nexuses occur such that clear and identifiable alignment to strict political agendas is found on one side of the political spectrum, where censorship is rampant, but not on the other side, where content is essentially unimpeded.
Summarily, evidence and analysis positions Twitter as a gatekeeper of public information.
Evidence of Twitter’s gatekeeper designation is found threaded through Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as an interface for directly impacting the geopolitical landscape and rising to the level of affecting significant change. [22]
The primary subject from WSGR is Alexander Macgillivray. [22] [23]
VECTOR 2: WILSON SONSINI GOODRICH & ROSATI: WSGR is a an international law firm with over 1,000 attorneys representing many of the world’s largest corporations. WSGR is a primary thread through the network being evidenced that strings directly through to the primary node, Twitter. In that light, WSGR represents Twitter in all corporate disclosures. [24] [25] [26]
In regard to Macgillivray, WSGR also previously employed Vijaya Gadde, who was subsequently installed at Twitter by Macgillivray during his tenure there as General Counsel. [27] Gadde was central to Twitter’s censoring, suspension and banishment of President Donald Trump from the platform. [28]
WSGR’s representation directly overlays COVID-19 in a very critical capacity. WSGR represents Arbutus Biopharma Corp., a Canadian company that is one of two patent holders for U.S. Patent Nos. 8,058,069 and 9,364,435, which are the two patents for the lipid nanoparticle envelope necessary to manufacture the COVID-19 mRNA “vaccines”. [29] [30] [31]
An underlying position holds that the initial phases of the COVID-19 enterprise fraud construct included the unsustainable phase of comorbidity data harvesting where other morbidities [flu/pneumo, heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia] were fraudulently curated and then propagated as COVID-19/SARS-COV-2.
The subsequent “pandemic” phase is one of the vaccinated and boosted. This phase is entirely dependent upon acquiring the patent rights to the mechanism required to deliver the mRNA payload in the injection. The mRNA injections leverage the reverse transcription process causing the recipients’ DNA to become altered to the extent that it causes the body to begin producing the known and problematic S1 spike protein on its own. Evidence indicates that infection and mortality data for COVID-19 currently represents a “pandemic” of the “vaccinated” and boosted. [32] [33] [34] [35]
If vaccine manufactures didn’t acquire rights to WSGR-represented Arbutus’ patents, there could be no “pandemic”, for there would be no delivery mechanism for the required mRNA payload. [36]
With evidence linking COVID-19 directly to China and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, WSGR may further overlay China by its representation of SolarWinds. [37] SolarWinds was directly hacked in a sprawling data breach that caused U.S. lawmakers to designate a national emergency in 2020. China is suspected of the attack and if true, accounts for the overlay. [38] [39] [40] [41]
Relative to the sale of American user Twitter data to Japan’s Tourism Board through NTT Data, a Japanese company; and as it enmeshes Silver Lake Capital, WSGR represents Twitter in its partnership with Silver Lake. [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48]
Silver Lake connects to Ari Emanuel and positions Emanuel as a possible intermediary and conduit from the Biden/Obama cartel to the Japan Tourism Board through another possible and connected conduit/intermediary Rahm Emanuel, the current Ambassador to Japan. [49] [50] [51]
Silver Lake is linked to artificial intelligence and facial recognition companies in Sensetime and Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd. including Silver Lake CEO Egon Durban, who is on Twitter’s Board of Directors. Durban is also on the board at WWE, where Ari Emanuel is CEO. Silver Lake has a 20% stake in Sensetime and Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd.
Those companies are CCP functionaries and it is suspected that the Twitter data is being leveraged by them to develop profiles that could be used for China to target American citizens. [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57]
VECTOR 3: MACGILLIVRAY: Alexander Macgillivray is the primary subject linking multiple individuals, entities and events including but not limited to WSGR, Twitter, the censorship of President Trump, President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Google. [23]
WSGR employed attorney Alexander Macgillivray who links Twitter and WSGR to the Obama and Biden Administrations in critical roles, respectively: 1-Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP] and 2-Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP]. [58] [59] [60] [61] [62]
Prior to serving the Obama and Biden White Houses, Macgillivray served as General Counsel to Twitter and Deputy General Counsel to Google. [63] Between the two administrative terms and according to his own blog, Macgillivray installed the CTO at the DNC and worked on election data. [70]
The sequenced thread of Macgillivray from WSGR to Obama to Twitter to Google to Biden is critical to understanding and presents as a launch point for fulsome comprehension of the full network.
Macgillivray currently serves the Biden White House OSTP as the Principal Deputy U.S. CTO. [59]
Established as a primary gatekeeper of public information, Twitter would likely require an interface with the federal government and presidential administration[s] to align Twitter with on-reservation messaging as the evidence suggests. For Twitter, this necessitates content determination, algorithmic manipulation and politically motivated censorship of off-reservation messaging, which have been widely reported. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Evidence suggests that Macgillivray is a good candidate for that interface through the OSTP in a familiar pattern of Obama retreads serving Biden in the same or similar capacities. It will be further evidenced relative to Nicole Wong below. [64]
As noted, during his tenure as General Counsel for Twitter, Macgillivray installed Vijaya Gadde, who was unprepared and unqualified in her position according to Macillivray’s words. Gadde was central to Twitter’s censorship, suspension and banishment of President Trump from its platform. [65]
When Macgillivray exited Twitter, he only did so on official terms: ““I’ll continue to support the company and its great people by staying on as an advisor for the legal, trust & safety, corporate development and public policy teams,” said Macgillivray. “I continue to care deeply about Twitter, the folks who work at Twitter and our tremendous users, so I’ll remain close to all three.”” [66]
From a ground floor perspective and in her multiple and similar capacities, Chinese-American Nicole Wong appears to have set the course for Macgillivray’s trajectory. [67] Wong’s trajectory cycled her through Twitter, Google and the Obama and Biden administrations. [68] Wong served the Biden transition team as overlaid by the CTSO/CTO vectors. Wong joined Biden’s transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. [69]
Specifically, it is held that Wong likely returned to facilitate Macgillivray’s transition into the Principal Deputy U.S. CTO position for the Biden White House.
The argument that Wong was the “first version” of Macgillivray respective to his roles and functions identified in this report, is further evidenced by Wong’s similar background, to which she returned, respective to the CTSO/CTO vectors as overlaid by the national security domain and the current Biden Administration. It presented as the veteran ushering in the less experienced player, so to speak.
Wong’s professional entanglements also include but aren’t limited to: Perkins Coie LLP [becoming partner], Georgetown University, Berkley School of Law and the Stonebridge Albright Group. [68]
Macgillivray maintains a personal blog with many of his thoughts and opinions that are topical to matters here. [70]
VECTOR 4: GADDE: Vijaya Gadde is a primary subject, who is secondary to Macgillivray and who was installed as Twitter’s General Counsel by Macgillivray when the latter departed the company. [27] Vadde is generally regarded as unqualified and unprepared for her position respective to the scope of its duties and this made Gadde susceptible to manipulation by those surrounding her. [66] This is according to Macgillivray. [65] It occurs along the lines of Gadde appearing to be reliant on information and input from said others to fully execute her duties.
Consider, “Though Gadde doesn’t have the same bonafides as Macgillivray when it comes to first amendment stuff, she is apparently regarded well in the company and at her former firm.
In addition, from what we’ve heard, Twitter will be doing some shuffling of the legal structure as well. Its director of public policy Colin Crowell will no longer report to the General Counsel, but will report directly to CEO Dick Costolo on matters affecting Twitter and Washington.” [65]
In his Twitter departure, Macgillivray stated directly that he would continue to advise Gadde’s department lending to Macgillivray appearing as a prime interface for such manipulation of Gadde to occur. [66]
Gadde was formerly employed by WSGR like Macgillivray. [71]
Gadde was the primary subject who in the capacity of General Counsel for Twitter was central to the censorship, suspension and banishment of President Trump from Twitter’s platform altogether while likely under the influence of others, such as possibly Macgillivray. [72] [73] [74] [75]
VECTOR 5: BAKER: Former FBI General Counsel James Baker is a primary subject that threads top to bottom in varying capacities and overlaps. [76] [77] [78] Of particular interest to the matters here are his affiliation with the orchestrated and widely reported broader attacks on President Trump and Baker’s array of expertise relative to his affiliation with Twitter as Deputy General Counsel and Vice President Legal. [79]
Baker’s Twitter capacity is of particular interest relative to the broader attacks against President Trump, his supporters and specifically as it relates to First Amendment rights and the censorship of conservative content favorable to Trump and unfavorable to Democrats and Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Such instances are widely reported.
Baker’s acumen in law is compounded by his ties to the FBI, DOJ and Judiciary relative to Twitter and it is problematic here. Baker is uniquely positioned to be plausibly informative about potential DOJ investigations into Twitter for violations. Baker is uniquely positioned in alignment with a long list of individuals and entities that overlap in critical areas. It’s all reinforced by Baker’s spectrum of expertise: FISA, national security, intelligence policy, intelligence matters, counter intelligence matters, law enforcement, prosecution, investigation and more. [80] [81]
The initial DOJ/FBI investigation into President Trump diverged into numerous other contrived, orchestrated, planned, manufactured and executed events like rampant FISA abuse, two fraudulently predicated impeachments, the Mueller Special Counsel, the Capitol “insurrection” entrapment operation, a fraudulent pandemic and stolen 2020 election. These, too, have been widely reported.
Baker was appointed by then FBI Director James Comey, who is known as a long time Clinton confidant and fixer. Comey is intricately linked to the 2016 election and then candidate Hillary Clinton by means of the FBI’s decision not to pursue charges against Clinton for her private and unsecured email server.
The origins of the targeting of and abuses against Trump derived from Clinton’s false allegations that Trump and Russia were conspiring due to Trump’s association with Alfa Bank. [81] The ties further extend to the FISA warrant against Carter Page and so on as is well documented and reported by many. [82] [83]
Baker’s exposure overlaps cause him to be a primary thread. Beyond what is already outlined above, Baker is attached to Special Counsel John Durham by means of his involvement and testimony in the Michael Sussmann trial and the broader matters pertaining to it. [84] Also, Baker is the target of a federal investigation for leaking. [85]
Baker’s FBI and intelligence/counterintelligence experience should have made him an expert in China and yet China appeared to operate undeterred under the bureau’s nose and continues to do so.
Moreover, Baker’s position and qualifications should have positioned him to be privy to the actions of ex officio members of the HPSCI and SSCI respective to China, which would further extend to COVID-19. This would include subjects such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and then Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell.
Baker’s prominent threading through to the Obama Administration, FBI and DOJ respective to his ties to Twitter, make him a candidate central to both Twitter [ongoing litigation] and the intelligence and FISA abuses against Trump.
It’s important to recall that the DOJ/FBI investigation of Candidate/President Trump initially began as an FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION with a lower predicating evidentiary standard than a criminal investigation. This allowed the FBI/DOJ to circumvent Trump’s full 4th Amendment protections. The Mueller/Weissmann Special Counsel team therefore appeared to inherit the Trump counterintelligence investigation and then convert into a criminal investigation.
VECTOR 6: FAUCI: The involvement of Dr. Anthony Fauci respective to COVID-19 is assumed moving forward and as resting on substantial existing evidence. Moreover, this document includes limited evidence respective to funding and as outlined.
In part, it is evidenced by the flow of federal dollars from the NIH/NIAID to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The intermediary for the transaction, which pertained to the funding of the bioengineering of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance. [86] [87]
The entire Fauci onion peels back in layers suitable for a volume of books and is to substantial and complex for this space. It is also already fully documented by this investigator in an underlying catalog of analysis and work. The assumptions made on Fauci here allow us to remain focused. Lastly, they are made along the lines of COVID-19 being entirely a construct of enterprise fraud and where Anthony Fauci is a primary subject and realistic candidate as a primary criminal defendant.
Anthony Fauci’s daughter, Alison Fauci, is of particular interest to these matters respective to her hiring as an engineer at Twitter. [88] This is suggestive of Alison Fauci potentially serving as a conduit between Twitter, its leadership and censorship practices, and the federal medical apparatus framed by HHS, NIH, NIAID, CDC, et al.
According to recent whistleblower testimony from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, whom Twitter hired in November 2020 to enhance cybersecurity and privacy at the company, testified that Twitter engineers have essentially unfettered and virtually anonymous access permitted by weakness in oversight and security allowing them to access personal and private data from user accounts. [89] It does this to the extent that it could permit the extraction and sale of that data without notice to Twitter as permitted by the oversight and security weaknesses.
Zatko also testified that the FBI had previously warned Twitter that it had one or more foreign intelligence operatives on its payroll. Evidence indicates penetration of Twitter by India and China. [89]
Alison Fauci is a Twitter software engineer who by title, would possess the technical capabilities and access to function as outlined in the testimony.
Beyond Alison Fauci’s functionality as a conduit or intermediary for Dr. Anthony Fauci and his principals at the NIH/NIAID and up, Alison Fauci is by title technically positioned to potentially extract private Twitter user data on designated people including political opposition. Any such extracted data could be fed back upstream to the Obama, Biden cartel et al.
It’s also further evidence of a distinct pattern of nepotism threading through all of these matters where spouses and children play critical roles determined by their placement into the broader construct.
Alison Fauci was positioned to be a possible conduit of information in an intermediary fashion relative to the Anthony Fauci cohort and its preferences for Twitter’s censorship policies for reliable COVID content damaging to the COVID construct of enterprise fraud and that official narrative.
SUMMARY FINDINGS:
The six vectors provide a plausible and evidenced network as diagrammed schematically and expanded upon in this report. The evidence examined and analysis of it inform the SUMMARY FINDINGS ranging from evidenced fact to positions of a high level of confidence:
Twitter is a recognizable and identifiable as a gatekeeper of public information
Twitter operates in alignment with a strict political agenda
Twitter’s agenda alignment appears along the lines of progressive liberal and Democrat thought and policy
Twitter’s collective actions technically rise to the level of engagement in perception management
Twitter engagement in perception management includes content determination, algorithmic manipulation and apparent active censorship against off-reservation messaging [conservative content favorable to Trump]
WSGR represents Twitter in all of its corporate disclosures making WSGR integral to all things
WSGR partner Larry Sonsini is regarded as the “Godfather of Silicon Valley” [90]
WSGR employed Alexander Macgillivray, another Harvard Law product, who went on to become an apparent architect for censorship practices while serving that capacity in the Obama and Biden White Houses
WSGR has critical ties to factually inconvenient individuals and entities such as Arbutus, Moderna and the mRNA vaccines vis-a-vis Arbutus’ patent holdings on the lipid nanoparticle envelope
WSGR is involved in ongoing litigation respective to the previous point
WSGR is indirectly positioned to intersect two presidential administrations in a capacity to target a third: Obama and Biden; targeting Trump
WSGR presents as an international firm capable of directly impacting the U.S. geopolitical landscape and media content on social media platforms
Macgillivray is the primary subject threading WSGR to the Obama and Biden Administrations and Twitter according to evidence
Macgillivray’s affiliations with/as WSGR, Twitter, Harvard Law, OSTP, U.S. CTO, Google and Vijaya Gadde are problematic
Macgillivray’s highly partisan and biased positions manifesting as anti-Trump are detailed by his own admission in his own blog
Macgillivray installed another WSGR asset in Vijaya Gadde to succeed him as General Counsel
Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. at three years of age
Vijaya Gadde was unqualified and was subject to influence by others including Macgillivray in his unofficial capacity, so as to rely upon them to fully execute her duties as Twitter’s General Counsel
As such, Vijaya Gadde was central to the censorship, suspension and banishment altogether from Twitter’s platform
Gadde was central to Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story
Through NTT Data, Twitter sold American user data to Japan’s Tourism Board
Long-time Barack Obama confidant Rahm Emanuel is the Ambassador to Japan
Emanuel’s brother Ari Emanuel is another Obama confidant who attaches to Silver Lake Capital
Silver Lake Capital ties to Twitter and links Twitter, Obama and both Emanuel brothers through Ari Emanuel
Silver Lake Capital ties to Chinese company Sensetime, which specializes in artificial intelligence
Egon Durban, on WWE’s board where Ari Emanuel is CEO, presents a likely bridge to full circle respective to China’s acquisition of American Twitter user data
Durban bridge consists of his 20% stake in Sensetime and Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd and his membership on Twitter’s Board of Directors
WSGR represents Twitter in its partnership with Silver Lake
Sensetime is affiliated with the Chinese Military Industrial Complex and the nation of China/CCP
SenseTime owns Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co., Ltd., which specializes in Facial Recognition Techology
Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co., Ltd. appears on the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Consolidated Sanctions List” and through ownership ties to the Chinese Military Industrial Complex and the nation of China/CCP
Twitter’s American user data sale to Japan/NTT is believed to have been funneled to China, the CCP and the Chinese Military Industrial Complex through the evidenced conduit network [as diagrammed]
Twitter also appears to have actively leveraged parts or all of the same network to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story
The HB laptop suppression derived from the same CTSO that employed Macgillivray under Obama and employs Macgillivray now under Biden
Evidence indicates that political leadership, the intelligence community and the FBI/DOJ engaged in suppressing the HB laptop story
Megan Smith served in CTSO alongside Macgillivray in the same general capacity
CTSO overlaps Deputy U.S. CTO Nicole Wong
Wong was the legal director at Twitter and vice president and Deputy General Counsel at Google
Wong served Biden’s transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Wong’s trajectory cycled through Twitter, Google and the Obama and Biden administrations to include Wong’s service as on the Biden transition team as overlaid by the CTSO/CTO vectors
Wong presents as the ground floor first version of the trajectory Macgillivray took indicating Wong seems to have pioneered that course for Macgillivray
Wong appears to return to the CTSO/CTO domain via her Biden transition role to facilitate the smooth and effective transition of Macgillivray into his new role as Principal Deputy General of the U.S. CTO
Wong is a fourth-generation Chinese-American born in the U.S.
Wong’s grandfather was Vice President of one of the nations first Chinese community banks threading through to the banking industry and by default the CCP and Chinese Banking
Megan Smith served in CTSO alongside Macgillivray in the same general capacity [91] [92]
Smith’s ex-spouse is journalist Kara Swisher who writes for outlets including the New York Times [the mouthpiece for the FBI/DOJ with Washington Post serving the same for the intelligence community] [93]
Swisher publicly defended Twitter’s censorship of Trump respective to the Capitol event [94]
Swisher’s insistence that Twitter doesn’t censor envelops Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story
Swisher publicly admitted her bias against Trump and a “broader responsibility” to take action on it in a Vox interview
Swisher’s public admission came during an interview that included Wong [95]
WSGR and Macgillivray thread through Gadde and Smith right to Wong and Swisher as Smith’s ex-spouse
Macgillivray becomes a primary interface between Obama and Biden respective to CTSO’s scope
Central to Obama is James Baker as a career FBI employee who ascended to General Counsel
Baker’s expertise in FISA, national security, intelligence policy and intelligence matters, counterintelligence respective to the initial DOJ/FBI investigation of President Trump opening as a counterintelligence investigation later laundered into a criminal one by the Mueller/Weissmann special counsel is critical to the broader attacks on Trump, which manifested on Twitter
Baker aggravates Twitter’s culpability in these matters with his service to Twitter as Deputy General Counsel and Vice President of Legal
The aggravation is, in part, evidenced by the genesis of the Trump/Russia collusion fabrication deriving from Hillary Clinton, as approved by Obama according to John Brennan’s own notes in July 2016
The FBI/DOJ leveraged Clinton’s fraudulently stated and Obama-approved allegations to predicate an investigation into President Trump that included FISA abuse, which threads through to the U.S. Supreme Court
Baker was appointed as FBI General Counsel by long-time Clinton confidant and fixer FBI Director James Comey
Comey ties directly to the 2016 election in his decision for the FBI not to prosecute Clinton for her private email server, which China presumably accessed for top secret U.S. intelligence and SAPs
Baker is the subject of a federal criminal leak investigation
Baker was compelled to testify in the John Durham Special Counsel trial of Michael Sussmann
Baker stands to factor into the Durham trial for Russian Igor Daschenko
The network evidenced in this report indicates that an Obama-based network extending into the Biden White House has technically been engaged in perception management by leveraging Twitter as an asset
The network and its asset Twitter appeared to function as a gateway to public information leveraged to target Trump and conservatives in stifling their free speech and censoring their content while advancing the same for the other side of the political spectrum
“The district court has entered an unprecedented order enjoining the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in a criminal investigation with direct implications for national security,” the Justice Department wrote in its motion Friday.
Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed former FISA Judge Raymond Dearie to oversee the review of the documents taken by the DOJ-FBI during the Mar-a-Lago raid.
The Trump legal team and AG Merrick Garland and the corrupt DOJ came to an agreement earlier in the week on a potential candidate to serve as the special master in the Mar-a-Lago case.
#MaraLago Declassified records indicate Judge Dearie, potential Special Master, approved final FISA June 2017 for @carterwpage. NOTE: This FISA is among most problematic because it did not share intel about Page’s work for USG + failed to disclose key concerns Steele reporting. pic.twitter.com/Zm6JD56Xi2
“The “Good Information Foundation” – a project led by a top Obama aide – appears to have been caught offering social media influencers money to post false claims about President Donald Trump and January 6th on the Chinese Communist-owned platform TikTok. The attempted election disinformation campaign including outright falsehoods about the Trump campaign “paying millions” for the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
A video posted to the CCP-linked TikTok by legal influencer Preston Moore reveals the foundation’s efforts to spread disinformation about the events that transpired on January 6th, in addition to the planning and aftermath.
The group behind the nefarious, CCP-linked effort is run by former Time magazine editor, Obama White House staffer, and current MSNBC contributor Rick Stengel, who is on the record praising U.S. propaganda efforts.
#Breaking “Good Info Foundation” appears to be offering money to Viral Tiktok Lawyer to spread anti-Trump propaganda. @stengel FMR Obama SOS for Public Affairs 13-16 appears to be involved with the “Good Info Foundation” unclear if either are involved in the propaganda campaign pic.twitter.com/beeqiB0RuZ
A representative from the Good Information Foundation reached out to Moore, who has over 80,000 followers, seeking a paid collaboration on a TikTok video about January 6th. In exchange for $400, Moore would provide a 15 to 60 second video, where he’d be required to use certain terminology when referring to Trump and the events of January 6th.
(…) The Good Information Foundation is a project led by Rick Stengel, the chief executive of the National Constitution Center from 2004 to 2006 and President Obama’s Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2014 to 2016.
“Stengel is an on-air analyst at MSNBC, a strategic advisor at Snap Inc., and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. His 2019 book, Information Wars: How we Lost the Battle Against Disinformation and What to Do About It, recounts his time in the State Department countering Russian disinformation and ISIS propaganda,” explains his bio on the foundation’s website. (Read more: The National Pulse, 9/18/2022)(Archive)
“Former President Bill Clinton said Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” that Republicans used scare tactics to win elections.
Zakaria asked, “When you look at the midterms, do you think because of abortion and the passage of a few very important bills, could Biden break the historical pattern of the, you know, midterms going badly?”
Clinton said, “Absolutely. We could hold both these houses, but we have to say the right things. And we have to note the Republicans always close well. Why? Because they find some new way to scare the living daylights out of swing voters about something.”
He continued, “That’s what they did in 2021 — where they made Critical Race Theory sound worse than smallpox. And it wasn’t being taught in any public schools in America. But they didn’t care. They just scare people.”
Clinton added, “You still have to get those people. It’s just that there’s so many fewer because as the parties have gone more ideological and clear and somehow psychically intolerant, they pull more and more people toward the extremes. But there’s still some people hanging on there who are really trying to think and trying to understand what’s going on.”
“In this lengthy interview with John Ratcliffe and Maria Bartiromo, the former Director of National Intelligence, the man who has likely seen every document that may have eventually ended up in Mar-a-Lago, is challenging the nature of the classified status of those documents. Ratcliffe does not believe the Mar-a-Lago documents are true national security documents, but rather documents that outline fraudulent ‘sources and methods used by the DOJ/FBI in their Trump targeting operation.
Keep in mind that as the DNI during 2020, Ratcliffe saw the documents that eventually became the material President Trump declassified and left with the DOJ to release after the Durham investigation was complete. If Ratcliffe’s suspicions are correct, and there is a more valid reason to support his suspicions than oppose them, then the entire construct of the DOJ-NSD operation to retrieve those documents from Mar-a-Lago is factually one big cover-up operation.
Ratcliffe suspects the documents are essentially the DOJ and FBI work products, including interviews with ‘sources’ like Igor Danchenko, from their fabricated case against President Trump. If accurate, the objective of the DOJ/FBI would be to avoid sunlight on their political targeting operation. This viewpoint makes sense when you consider the DOJ/FBI position that no one should ever be allowed to look at those documents, including the appointed Special Master in the case, Judge Raymond Dearie. WATCH:
(…) The whistleblower says the FBI is creating a false narrative by reclassifying Jan. 6 cases as separate instances of “domestic terrorism.”
Via the House Judiciary GOP:
The FBI whistleblower described how a “manipulative” practice by the FBI overstates the “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) threat nationwide by categorizing Jan 6-related cases as originating in field offices around the country rather than “stemming from a single, black swan incident” in Washington, D.C.
#BREAKING: New whistleblower information reveals that the FBI is moving agents off of child sexual abuse investigations to instead pursue political investigations.
The whistleblower recounted being told that “child sexual abuse investigations were no longer an FBI priority.” pic.twitter.com/EBXrnVWhO6
(…) On Wednesday Miranda Devine revealed the name of the latest FBI whistleblower – Steve Friend – who exposed the FBI’s disgusting lies on tracking domestic right-wing terrorism.
Steve Friend is a SWAT Team member who has been with the FBI for 12 years. He is married and has two small children. According to Miranda Devine,
“He just could not live with his conscience after he was dragged off these very important child porn, child exploitation, and human trafficking investigations he was working on, and put on the very bogus January 6 cases he has been working on… He could see from the ground how the FBI Washington DC Field Office was manipulating these cases to try and expand and pretend the problem was bigger than it was. And he also didn’t want to participate in SWAT raids on people who were being accused of misdemeanors at worst… Steve Friend stood up and said, ‘I will not do this.’”
Tucker’s report about Steve Friend begins at 20:15:
Steve Friend was suspended, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office after complaining about the violations.
(…) In his whistleblower complaint to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, obtained by The Post, Friend lays out multiple violations of FBI policy involving J6 investigations in which he was involved.
He says he was removed from active investigations into child sexual exploitation and human trafficking to work on J6 cases sent from DC. He was told “domestic terrorism was a higher priority” than child pornography. As a result, he believes his child exploitation investigations were harmed.
He also has reported his concerns about a politicized FBI to Republican members of Congress, among 20 whistleblowers from the bureau who have come forward with similar complaints.
Among Friend’s allegations:
Friend served as a SWAT team member. (Credit: Anna Friend)
The Washington, DC, field office is “manipulating” FBI case management protocol and farming out J6 cases to field offices across the country to create the false impression that right-wing domestic violence is a widespread national problem that goes far beyond the “black swan” event of Jan. 6, 2021.
As a result, he was listed as lead agent in cases he had not investigated and which his supervisor had not signed off on, in violation of FBI policy.
FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called “guardians,” after the FBI software that collates them.
The FBI has post-facto designated a grassy area outside the Capitol as a restricted zone, when it was not restricted on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to widen the net of prosecutions.
The FBI intends to prosecute everyone even peripherally associated with J6 and another wave of J6 subjects are about to be referred to the FBI’s Daytona Beach resident agency “for investigation and arrest.”
The Jacksonville area was “inundated” with “guardian” notifications and FBI agents were dispatched to conduct surveillance and knock on people’s doors, including people who had not been in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, or who had been to the Trump rally that day but did not go inside the Capitol.
Friend says he was punished after complaining to his bosses about being dragged into J6 investigations that were “violating citizens’ Sixth Amendment rights due to overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.”
His top-secret security clearance was suspended last week because he “entered FBI space [his office] and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems [an employee handbook and guidelines for employee disciplinary procedures] to an unauthorized removable flash drive.” (Read more: New York Post, 9/22/2022)(Archive)
Trump appointed Judge Britt Grant votes to lift the hold on Mar-a-Lago documents.
Trump appointed Judge Andrew Brasher votes to lift the hold on Mar-a-Lago documents.
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit amounts to an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they evaluate whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
The court also pointedly noted that Trump had presented no evidence that he had declassified the sensitive records, as he has repeatedly maintained, and rejected the possibility that Trump could have an “individual interest in or need for” the roughly 100 documents marked as classified.
The government had argued that its investigation had been impeded by an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that temporarily barred investigators from continuing to use the documents in its probe. Cannon, a Trump appointee, had said the hold would remain in place pending a separate review by an independent arbiter she had appointed at the Trump team’s request.
The appeals panel agreed with the Justice Department’s concerns.
(…) Trump’s lawyers had argued that an independent review of the records was essential given the unprecedented nature of the investigation. The lawyers have also said the department had not yet proven that the seized documents were classified, though they have notably stopped short of asserting — as Trump repeatedly has — that the records were previously declassified.
The Trump team this week resisted providing Dearie with any information to support the idea that the records might have been declassified, signaling the issue could be part of their defense in the event of an indictment.
But the appeals court appeared to scoff at that argument.
“Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified,” they wrote. “In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.” (Read more: WABI5)(Archive)
(…) Memos obtained by Just the News from the Hudson West III LLC partnership that presidential son Hunter Biden operated with a prominent Chinese business executive named Gongwen Dong show the Biden family pursued at least 21 major deals in 2017 and 2018 for Chinese interests seeking U.S. energy assets, including liquified natural gas export terminals, LNG trade deals, drilling exploration firms, pipelines and other key energy assets.
Many of the deals targeted assets in the oil-rich Gulf Coast, including Louisiana, and aimed to help an energy-hungry China gain access to U.S. oil and gas, according to a summary memo of the 21 deals. Just the News found the memo on a Hunter Biden laptop turned over to the FBI in 2019 and corroborated its authenticity with a Biden business associate directly familiar with the deals and memos.
“Discussed both oil and LNG trading/exporting opportunities,” one memo sent to Hunter Biden read. “Our team was more interested in pursuing the LNG spread trading opportunities, due to the timing of upcoming winter peak usage season and the spiking natural gas price in China.”
That LNG deal and others like it never went forward, but Hunter Biden’s team chose to pivot in 2018 to other oil and gas deals, ranging from pipelines to drilling assets, the memo shows.
“Explore U.S. natural gas industry midstream investment opportunities (including natural gas pipeline projects with international and U.S.-based financial institutions),” the memo recommended as one of the 2018 opportunities.
Another goal, the memo stated: “Explore potential investment opportunities in the petrochemical and energy production space.”
The Hudson West III opportunities memo stated it was seeking to acquire interests in some drilling and exploration companies, like Noble Energy’s parent firm, that had fallen on hard times when oil and gas prices plummeted during the Trump administration. “Explore potential investment opportunity in distressed international energy company affiliates (for example, the Noble Group and affiliates),” the memo read.
The Hunter Biden-connected firm also dabbled with the notion of getting better prices by targeting minority-owned energy firms that got preferential treatment in some markets. The “model involves the support and nurturing of minority business and commodity brokers” and the benefit would be to “gain further discount and better service terms from its oil major partners,” the strategy memo stated.
(…) But there’s more… Representative Comer says he has two new whistleblowers that [who] worked with Hunter and [they] are ready to expose it all when the Republicans take control of Congress.
Rep. James Comer: I have two whistleblowers. And I am confident they are going to come through in a Republican majority when I conduct the hearings and I have the gavel for oversight. To tell us in detail what their objectives were. And these people were associated with Hunter Biden. And the ultimate goal and the Bidens knew it was for China to start taking ownership in all the different parts in the natural gas industry in the United States… They actually take control of the drillers.
“An FBIwhistleblower recently came forward to warn about the politicization at the FBI, saying that the bureau is spying on law-abiding Americans and that many of its domestic counterterrorism cases are tantamount to “entrapment.”
Kyle Seraphin, who has spent six years in the FBI, was suspended without pay and can’t seek another job without quitting or asking for permission.
“The number of guys who say, ‘I don’t agree with what’s going on here, but I’ve got three years to retire,’ it’s heartbreaking,” he told podcast host Dan Bongino in a Sept. 22 interview.
In one instance, Seraphin said he was forced to blow the whistle last year when Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers that the Department of Justice wasn’t targeting parents. He first provided a member of Congress with an email that was circulated within the FBI that stated Garland ordered the usage of the PATRIOT Act against protesting parents with a tag, “EDUOFFICIALS.”
At the time, in May, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R-La.) asserted that the investigations involved parents who were “upset about mask mandates and state elected officials who publicly voiced opposition to vaccine mandates,” while accusing Garland of making false statements to Congress.
But of that investigation, Seraphin suggested the FBI is targeting individuals for political purposes.
“That’s when you become part of political hatchet jobs, and I didn’t sign up for that, and nobody I know signed up for that either,” he told Bongino. “That’s not what people want to get involved in.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/25/2022)(Archive)
“The special master handling the Mar-a-Lago raid has given former President Donald Trump a short deadline to provide details that would bolster his claims about documents the FBI seized, a day after the Justice Department scored an appeals court win.
Judge Raymond Dearie, who was appointed special master by Judge Aileen Cannon, gave Trump’s team until Sept. 30 to submit a declaration on a number of key issues, including what appeared to be a reference to suggestions by Trump allies that some of the evidence the FBI said it had seized was somehow planted. Dearie asked Trump’s lawyers on Thursday to provide an affidavit on “a list of any specific items set forth in the Detailed Property Inventory that [Trump] asserts were not seized from the Premises on August 8, 2022.”
Dearie also told Trump’s team to list any specific items that the former president believes were described incorrectly in the FBI’s inventory list or that he believes were located somewhere different in Mar-a-Lago than where the bureau says the item was collected. The special master also asked Trump to provide a detailed list of any items that he believes were seized by the FBI but weren’t listed in the property inventory.
“This submission shall be [Trump’s] final opportunity to raise any factual dispute as to the completeness and accuracy of the Detailed Property Inventory,” the special master said.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 9/22/2022)(Archive)
Appearing on CBS Face the Nation today, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan proudly boasted of the $15 billion in weapons the U.S. has shipped into Ukraine while restating the official position of the Biden administration that the U.S. will never permit Russia to hold the eastern part of our proxy state.
Ukraine is to the United States as North Korea is to China. WATCH:
“Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky called new revelations about Hunter Biden a “national security nightmare” during a Monday evening Fox News appearance.
“Have you ever wanted to see a spy movie? You don’t even have to go to the theaters. Go to Washington, D.C., where Chinese spies just bait and hook gullible people in power. Sometimes all it takes is a honey trap. We saw it with Eric Swalwell who got caught sleeping with Fang Fang, the spy who stole his heart,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said in introducing Comer, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee. “Swalwell wasn’t the only person to have a Fang Fang in D.C. Turns out Hunter Biden may have dabbled with a Chinese spy, too. Her name is JiaQi Bao.”
Watters described reports from a whistleblower that Hunter Biden sought to sell natural gas to China in 2017, with Bao reportedly telling him where the Chinese wanted to purchase the gas from.
“Nothing sounds good here. And we have confirmed a lot of what it looks like in the email with one whistleblower who is a former Hunter Biden associate,” Comer told Watters. “And Hunter was trying to negotiate a deal to sell the Chinese natural gas, but what we also learned from the whistleblower was that their ultimate goal, this Chinese company, was to buy an interest in the drillers so they could start getting their foot in the door to start taking over the infrastructure of the American energy industry. So, this is a national security concern.”
“Not only do we have proof that Hunter Biden was directly involved from it, the emails and text messages also show that Hunter was asking for office space and he needed extra keys for both Joe and Jill Biden,” Comer continued. “So this links the president to Hunter Biden’s shady business deal with China. This is just a national security nightmare and it kind of puts into perspective maybe why Joe Biden has made some terrible decisions that have been at the best interest of China at the expense of the American consumer.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/26/2022)(Archive)
Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson (Credit: public domain)
“Republican senators are demanding answers on why the Russian national who served as the sub-source for the debunked anti-Trump dossier was hired by the FBI as a confidential human source and paid with U.S. taxpayer dollars throughout the bureau’s original investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital and sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland, are seeking all FBI and Justice Department records related to government payments to Igor Danchenko, along with the counterintelligence concerns he posed and the bureau’s decision to rely on him as a source.
(…) Despite the FBI paying Danchenko to serve as a confidential human source during the Trump administration—and during Special Counsel, Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election—Danchenko was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011.
That FBI investigation into Danchenko focused on his contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers and reported attempts to facilitate payments for classified information.
“The FBI, even in light of the extensive derogatory information attached to Danchenko, proceeded to pay him as a confidential human source three months later from March 2017 to October 2020 as part of Crossfire Hurricane,” Grassley and Johnson wrote to Garland. “Therefore, while we were investigating the Justice Department’s and FBI’s misconduct with respect to Crossfire Hurricane, you maintained him on the government’s payroll.”
They added: “This extraordinary fact pattern requires additional information from the Justice Department and FBI relating to why Danchenko was placed on the payroll and paid by the taxpayer to assist in the federal government’s flawed investigation into President Trump.”
Grassley and Johnson demanded all records related to government payments made to Danchenko, the counterintelligence investigation into him, and his later hiring by the FBI by Oct. 22.” (Read more: Fox News, 9/26/2022)(Archive)
It turns out Adam Kinzinger and Malcolm Nance have been promoting a guy for months who wasn’t actually a soldier and was just taking photos in front of destroyed tanks in Ukraine all along pic.twitter.com/e4UvZfSOvw
United States of America, v. Igor Danchenko
Notes: The government has filed an omnibus Motion in Limine seeking to admit three cases of uncharged conduct by Defendant Igor Y. Danchenko.
The government has filed an omnibus Motion in Limine [Doc. No. 78] (the “Motion”), seeking to admit (1) three instances of uncharged conduct by Defendant Igor Y. Danchenko: (a) evidence relating to Danchenko’s allegedly false statements regarding his sourcing of the Ritz- Carlton allegations; (b) evidence pertaining to Danchenko’s allegedly false statement about disclosing his work for Christopher Steele (“Steele”) and Orbis Business Solutions (“Orbis”); and (c) an email from Danchenko to a former employer, Cenk Sidar, supposedly encouraging Sidar to fabricate sources; (2) three emails from Sergei Millian (“Millian”) to Dmitry Zlodorev (“Zlodorev”) regarding Danchenko; (3) statements from Steele to the FBI about Danchenko’s sourcing from Millian;1 and (4) the existence of, as well as the facts and circumstances pertaining to, the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigation into Danchenko. The government also seeks to prevent Danchenko from introducing any evidence or argument regarding political bias or vindictive prosecution. The Court held a hearing on the Motion on September 29, 2022, following which it took the Motion under advisement.
At the hearing held on September 29, 2022, the government withdrew its motion to admit statements from Christopher Steele to FBI personnel from the Robert Mueller Special Counsel team on September 18 and 19, 2017. Accordingly, the Motion as to the Steele statements is DENIED as moot without prejudice.
Upon consideration of the Motion, the memoranda in support thereof and in opposition thereto, the arguments of counsel at the hearing, and for the reasons stated below, the government’s Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. (FightWithKash, 10/5/2022)(Archive)
Judge Anthony J. Trenga (Credit: American Law Institute)
“The judge presiding over the case against Igor Danchenko, a source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier on former President Donald Trump, ruled he won’t dismiss the indictment but expressed skepticism about some of the false statements charges brought by special counsel John Durham.
“The motion is denied,” the judge ruled during the Alexandria court hearing. However, the judge said he would revisit his ruling after Durham’s team had presented its full case during the October trial. Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee who has sat on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, added that “I think it’s an extremely close call, particularly with count one” related to longtime Hillary Clinton ally Chuck Dolan.”
The judge said he “has to conclude at this point” that he couldn’t say definitively that Danchenko’s statement related to Dolan was literally true, concluding that “there are sufficient arguments of context” to allow the trial to move forward.
Trenga also said that, regarding the Millian-related charges, he “can’t conclude that there is an undisputed fact that is not actionable” through criminal charges.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 9/29/2022)(Archive)
Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday ruled in favor of Trump and rejected Special Master Raymond Dearie’s request to have Trump’s legal team “verify that the government’s inventory log of seized items is accurate.” ABC News reported.
Special Master Raymond Dearie last Thursday asked President Trump’s lawyers to prove the FBI planted evidence during its raid of Mar-a-Lago in August.
Judge Dearie gave Trump’s legal team a September 30 deadline to submit a declaration.
President Trump’s legal team Wednesday night in a filing said Biden’s corrupt Justice Department actually seized 200,000 pages of documents from Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ told the Court that they seized 11,000 documents.
Trump’s lawyers allege the 11,000 documents actually tally up to 200,000 *pages* which is why so many vendors have “declined the potential engagement.”
“The problem is compounded by the fact that when Plaintiff’s counsel referred to either 11,000 pages or even 11,000 documents during the status conference (we are still awaiting the transcript), the Government chose not to interject with an accurate number. In conversations between Plaintiff’s counsel and the Government regarding a data vendor, the Government mentioned that the 11,000 documents contain closer to 200,000 pages,” the lawyers said.
Today, a federal judge ordered the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop.”
(…) This fight dates back to 2017 and includes two FOIA lawsuit. In the first lawsuit, the FBI produced no responsive documents. The parties knew the FBI had something, and so this sparked a second lawsuit – where the FBI somehow found 20,000 pages of potentially responsive documents. The court explains:
Judge Amos L. Mazzant (Credit: public domain)
Of those 20,000 pages, the government found 1,596 pages of responsive documents, of which the government withheld 1,469 pages under various FOIA exemptions (privacy, law enforcement exemption, etc.).
The FBI also withheld the contents of Seth Rich’s personal laptop, which it possesses, in its entirety, alleging the privacy of Rich’s family in “preventing the public release of this information” outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
The court rejected that argument, stating “the FBI has not satisfied its burden of showing more than a de minimis privacy interest that would justify withholding information from Seth Rich’s laptop.”
“In my 23 years in the FBI, I have not seen a more impactful series of missteps that has called into question the entire organization and more thoroughly damaged the FBI’s reputation.”
Kash Patel sat with Jan Jekielek from The Epoch Times for an explosive interview this past week at Kash’s Corner.
During their conversation, Kash warned viewers about what is coming out next from the FBI whistleblowers.
Kash Patel: “I think it’s going to be an explosive topic. I don’t think you’ve seen any real damaging information yet. And that’s scary, right? Because this is very damaging. Because when you put it in perspective you’re going to see so much more damaging information. One of the other whistleblowers that came forward was on Dan Bongino’s Show. And he literally said wait til you see the acts of sexual complicity that the 7th floor of the FBI was engaging (in) during this entire time… And I was the guy that exposed the Lisa Page, Peter Strzok thing. I know how that organization at that level of political operatives work. So, there’s a lot more coming.”
“During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” former Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski stated that if Facebook, Twitter, or anyone else had reached out to him to verify the authenticity of emails sent to him in The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, he would have produced the email, with the metadata, within minutes, but no one did.
Bobulinski said, “I went to the second debate in Nashville between President Trump and Joe Biden. That night, I flew to D.C., and the next morning, there was a big debate. Do I voluntarily walk into the FBI or do I go sit down with Sen. Johnson (R-WI) and Sen. Grassley (R-IA)? My lawyers decided it was better that I voluntarily go in to sit and provide these facts. And so, on the morning of October 23, the morning after the debate, I spent five-plus hours sitting in a room with, at one point, I think as [many] as six federal agents, walking through all the facts of my knowledge of the Biden family, how I got involved in this, the trips around the world, CEFC, Chairman Ye, and stuff like that. At the end of that meeting, and remember, I voluntarily went there, so they were happy to take any information I provided to them. I wish I had pictures of the faces of the two main agents that were interviewing me. Because I would say something and you could just see the shock in their face and they would say, let’s take a minute, they’d get up and walk out of the room, and the agents would sort of convene and then come back and restart the interview. Because these facts are just for the sake of our country, for national security, at that point, he was candidate Joe Biden, now he’s the sitting President of the United States, the most powerful person in the free world, and daunting.”
He continued, “So, at the end of that five-plus hour interview, the head of station told my lawyers, listen, an individual named Tim Thibault is going to run point on all of this. We’re definitely going to have Tony come back in for a follow-up interview. It could be as early as next week. Some of the people that were in the room weren’t well-versed on all these facts, we may want to have people come in from Baltimore or Delaware. And I was ready to sit down with anybody that needed me to or travel wherever I wanted to. And so the head of station gave my lawyers Tim Thibault’s cell phone number. Tim was not there that day. … But my lawyers had an hour, hour-and-a-half call with him that Friday night, October 23. And subsequent calls through the weekend and the following week, when I was then coming on your show to provide the facts to the American people. And they were supposed to be working [on] a follow-up interview. And Tim Thibault, in his last discussion with my legal counsel [said], listen, we know Tony’s cooperating. We appreciate all the information he’s provided. We will follow up with you. We’re definitely going to have him come in for a follow-up interview or spend some more time on this. And I haven’t heard from them since.”
Huma Abedin joins “The View” on October 6, 2022. (Credit: Screenshot/ABC/The View)
“Former campaign vice chair for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Huma Abedin, told “The View” hosts on Thursday that Clinton faced “impossible standards” as a woman in politics.
Co-host Ana Navarro said “politics have become a personality contest” and asked Abedin about Vice President Kamala Harris being “judged” by the same “phantom ideal woman” as Clinton.
“I know the challenge and you know this well that Hillary had to face just as a woman in politics,” Abedin said. “All these impossible standards, you know, she needs to be taller, shorter, talk this way. This is annoying, you know, she looks angry when she speaks. It was almost like you couldn’t win no matter what you said.”
(Timeline editor’s note: Our timeline suggests the “impossible standards” that Hillary “faced” and had a hard time living up to, are the basic moral standards most people try to live by every day.)
(…) Expect Charles Dolan to testify to his conversations with Danchenko and others relating to the dossier allegations at the trial. He’s already testified before a grand jury. For background, Dolan is described in the Danchenko indictment as having “maintained historical and ongoing involvement in Democratic politics.” His history includes serving as chairman of a national Democratic political organization, being a state chairman of Bill Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, and an advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Based on his ties with the Clintons, one would think that the Clinton Campaign would have known about Dolan’s contacts with Danchenko. However, the Danchenko indictment states “individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign did not direct, and were not aware of, [Dolan’s] meetings with Danchenko and other Russian nationals.”
That statement concerns Dolan’s lack of interactions with the Clinton Campaign. It still leaves unanswered the question of whether Danchenko had any contacts with the Clinton campaign, and whether the Clinton campaign was aware of Danchenko’s activities.
Two theories on that. It’s possible that the Clinton campaign received updates on the opposition research but otherwise isolated itself from these matters, preferring its lawyers at Perkins Coie and its contractors at Fusion GPS (and their sources) get their hands dirty. That would be consistent with what we saw in the Michael Sussmann trial, a real-time demonstration of how the Clinton machine uses the attorney-client and work-product privileges to manipulate the press, spread false accusations, and hide a number of sins.
It is also possible that the Clinton campaign had more knowledge about Danchenko than has been made publicly available. I bring that up because back in December, we discussed a curious filing by Durham, which confirmed that the Clinton campaign and “multiple former employees of that campaign” were subject to “matters before the Special Counsel.” In that filing, Durham discussed the potential conflict of interest of Danchenko’s lawyers, whose firm also represented the Clinton campaign and those former campaign employees.
Specifically, Durham raised these areas of inquiry that may become issues at the Danchenko trial:
The Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the dossiers sourced by Danchenko;
The Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Danchenko’s collection methods and sub-sources;
Meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and Christopher Steele regarding or involving Danchenko;
Danchenko’s knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in the activities surrounding the Steele Dossier; and
The extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.
All of those points are important, but that last one is particularly compelling and is worth repeating: “The extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.”
That implies the Clinton Campaign’s awareness of Danchenko and contacts with Danchenko. (After all, if the answer was “no,” then there would be no conflict.) Thus the potential conflict described by Durham:
“the Clinton Campaign and [Danchenko] each might have an incentive to shift blame and/or responsibility to the other party for any allegedly false information that was contained within the Company Reports and/or provided to the FBI.”
All this reminds us of a question we have previously asked. If the Clinton Campaign was being informed of the work by Fusion GPS, what of the likelihood that the Clinton Campaign was informing the work of Fusion GPS?
And here’s a follow-up question: from whom did Danchenko get the name Sergei Millian?
Furthermore, one has to ask whether those Clinton Campaign/Danchenko contacts, if they existed, stopped after the election – or whether they continued through Danchenko’s 2017 interviews with the FBI.
Will these issues be raised, and will we get answers on the Clinton Campaign’s ties to Danchenko (or Danchenko’s “sources”)? As outside observers, we can’t – and won’t – make guarantees. There’s danger in false promises just like there’s danger in false hope. Durham, however, has suggested the possibility of former representatives of the Clinton Campaign testifying at trial, stating:
“in the event that one or more former representatives of the Clinton Campaign are called to testify” at trial, Danchenko and the witness “would be represented by the same law firm, resulting in a potential conflict.”
“The FBI team that was in communication with Facebook before the social media company censored the original Hunter Biden laptop story has been identified, according to a new court filing.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, identified the team as the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), according to an updated complaint entered late on Oct. 6.
Meta named the team after receiving a subpoena in a case alleging the federal government pressured Big Tech firms to censor users.
Laura Dehmlow (Credit: public domain)
Elvis Chan (Credit: public domain)
“Pursuant to the third-party subpoena, Meta has identified the FBI’s FITF, as supervised by Laura Dehmlow, and Elvis Chan as involved in the communications between the FBI and Meta that led to Facebook’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story,” the updated complaint states.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, said inAugust that Facebook reduced the reach of posts about Hunter Biden’s laptop in response to advice from the FBI.
(…) Laura Dehmlow is a supervisor of FITF. She has been named as a defendant in the case along with Elvis Chan, a special agent who manages the cyber branch at the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office.
According to new documents produced by the government as part of discovery in the case, Dehmlow briefed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Cybersecurity Advisory Committee on March 1, 2022. Minutes of the meeting show Dehmlow telling members that the FITF actually started in 2016 and has since grown to 80 workers.
CISA Director Jen Easterly (Credit: Wikipedia)
Asked about goals for approaching mal-, mis-, and disinformation, Dehmlow said that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable; we need to early educate the populace; and that today, critical thinking seems to be a problem currently,” according to the minutes.
Chan, meanwhile, bragged on a recent podcast that the San Francisco office “was very involved in helping to protect the US elections in 2020” by working with private companies and election officials. He also indicated he works closely with CISA Director Jen Easterly, who has been revealed to have taken part in pressuring Big Tech companies to crack down on alleged misinformation.
“We talked with all of these entities I mentioned regularly, at least on a monthly basis. And right before the election, probably on a weekly basis. If they were seeing anything unusual, if we were seeing anything unusual, sharing intelligence with technology companies, with social media companies, so that they could protect their own platforms. That’s where the FBI and the US government can actually help companies,” Chan said. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/07/2022)(Archive)
“We have the transcripts from day 1 of the Igor Danchenko trial. Pretrial matters and jury selection took up all of yesterday morning; openings and the prosecution’s case-in-chief, led by Special Counsel Durham, started in the afternoon.
Let’s dig in and start with the opening statements.
Special Counsel Prosecutor Michael Keilty opened with explanations of Danchenko’s lies to the FBI and discussed some FBI misconduct:
(…) Auten was also present for the FBI’s interview of Steele in October 2016, just weeks before the first FISA application was submitted.’
Q: When you and Mr. Varacalli, and Mr. Gaeta, and Mr. Guessford met with Christopher Steele in early October of 2016, did Christopher Steele provide any corroborative information for the information that was contained in his reports, in the dossier reports?
A: Not for the allegations, no.
( ) …Durham asked about the FBI offer to pay Steele to corroborate his information – what we might call the “million dollar” question. Here is Auten’s testimony on that matter:
As to Steele’s sources, Auten admitted Steele didn’t provide the FBI with the names of any sources back in October 2016.
Q: So you talked to Mr. Steele about sourcing. Do you recall whether or not Mr. Steele, in early October of 2016 provided you or your colleagues with the names of any of the sources?
A: Sources, no.
(…) Durham also asked Auten about Sergei Millian, whose name had been discussed in the October 2016 Steele interview. Auten stated that Millian had previously been a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office.
Q: And what was that relationship?
A: Mr. Millian, at one time, had been a source.
Q: When you say “source,” that’s the same thing as confidential human source, correct?
A: That is correct.
Q: In common parlance, might be known as an informant?
A: In common parlance, yes.
Q: And do you remember for how long Mr. Millian had been a confidential human source for the FBI?
A: I don’t recall that.
Q: Do you recall or do you know in German what the nature of the assistance was that Millian provided?
A: I know where he had provided the assistance. I don’t know exactly what type of assistance it had been.
Q: Okay. So you know that he has helped as a CHS?
A: Correct.
Q: For a period of time?
A: Correct.
Q: And you said you knew where he was providing that information?
A: Correct.
Q: And where was that?
A: I believe it was the Atlanta — the Atlanta field office.
Q: Okay. Do you know, again, personal knowledge, do you know whether or not at some point in time Millian’s status as a CHS ended, he was closed?
A: Yes.
Q: And why was it closed, if you know?
A: I believe it was closed because he moved out of the area of responsibility for the Atlanta field office.
Q: Now, with respect to Mr. Millian, you heard about Millian from Steele, you knew he had a relationship with the bureau, correct?
A: Correct.
As an aside, let’s briefly discuss the importance of Millian’s prior relationship with the FBI. Most significantly, it put the FBI on notice that Millian would be willing to corroborate any Steele/Danchenko allegations. The FBI never took advantage of that prior relationship. Again, here we have the FBI failing to follow-up on leads because it knew such steps would blow-up its investigation.
Back to the transcript. Auten said the FBI opened an investigation on Millian after the October 2016 interview of Christopher Steele. He admitted the FBI found no evidence Millian had “assisted in the interference” of the 2016 presidential election.
Q: Would you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury whether or not — again, to your personal knowledge – whether or not the bureau opened some file on Mr. Millian?
A: Yes.
Q: And was that a matter investigated by the Bureau?
A: Yes.
Q: And to your personal knowledge, was it at some point closed?
A: Yes.
Q: Were any charges brought against Millian?
A: No.
Q: Was there any wrongdoing in terms of him assisting in the interference in some way with the 2016 presidential election?
A: No.
However, the Millian allegations – which arose from Danchenko’s claims to Steele – were still included in original FISA application and all subsequent renewals:
“Yesterday the government asked for more time to respond to U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant’s September 29, 2022order directing the FBI to produce all records related to Seth Rich’s laptop. Somewhat relatedly, the FBI is withholding three reports produced by CrowdStrike in August of 2016 regarding the purported hack of the Democratic National Committee.
The order itself is pretty straightforward, at least with respect to Seth’s personal laptop, because it directs the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop and responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA requests within 14 days of this Order.” On the other hand, the order does not discuss Seth’s work laptop, which is also in the possession of the FBI.
I’m waiting for the FBI to explain what it thinks needs to be clarified, then I may be filing my own motion for clarification. Meanwhile, the FBI has cited only one narrow basis for withholding the records related to Seth’s laptop, namely his privacy. I’m not sure why it takes four weeks and an appellate lawyer to figure out why the judge did or didn’t get that issue right.
In any event, I’m reminded of something that I learned almost thirty years ago when I was a newspaper reporter: people with nothing to hide don’t try to hide nothing. (Read more: Lawflog, 10/13/2022)(Archive)
( ) …During the IG’s investigation, Auten had given “a number of positive statements regarding Mr. Danchenko.” He had also made positive statements to Congress about Danchenko – testimony Auten still stands by (if only because he’s dug himself into a hole):
“I believe the primary sub-source was being truthful about who his sub-sources were. I don’t think he was fabricating sub-sources.”
However, after Durham was appointed, Auten became – and apparently remains – a subject of the investigation:
Danchenko’s defense was effective when asking about Auten’s impression of Danchenko at the time of the interview. Auten thought Danchenko was “trying to help.” And Auten admitted that he and Stephen Somma didn’t necessarily want to conduct a thorough interview of Danchenko at the time, thus explaining why they didn’t demand documents or ask about every allegation in the Steele Dossier. They also laid the groundwork for the defense that Dolan wasn’t necessarily a “source” for Danchenko, in that Dolan relied on some open source articles when relaying information on the Trump campaign.
The defense also spent a good deal of time discussing Millian’s various phone numbers and the possibility that he (or the person Danchenko “thought” was Millian) used an App like Skype, WhatsApp, Wickr, or Telegram to contact Danchenko. The flaw? Danchenko’s e-mails to Millian requesting to speak over the phone or meet – after the alleged call.
Redirect by Durham
Durham again focused on Auten and the Crossfire Hurricane Team’s efforts to corroborate Danchenko’s statements. Auten’s testimony was an admission of how little they did, ignoring both travel records and phone records.
There were further details on Auten being a “subject” of an “inquiry.” The investigation into Auten – who is a subject, not a target – has to do with the Danchenko matter and also Crossfire Hurricane and the Carter Page FISAs:
Charles Dolan Jr. is the first witness on the stand. Kielty will be examining for the government.
Dolan goes through his background. Involved in the 1980 presidential campaign for President Jimmy Carter.
Dolan also worked as a political consultant for Congressional campaigns and the Democratic Governors Association. He has joined a government relations firm and served as a liaison between lobbying operations and public affairs communications operations.
He reportedly worked for DC-based PR unit Powell Tate as well as Ketchum Inc. in early 2000s for 4-5 years. Beyond Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, Dolan says that he has worked as a paid advisor or a volunteer for every DNC campaign since Carter’s besides Obama campaign.
While working for Ketchum, Dolan worked closely with Russia because Ketchum represented the Russian federation. His role at Ketchum was to attract foreign investment. Dolan had regular conference calls with Dmitry Peskov, who is the press secretary for Russian President Putin.
Dolan had meetings with Russian ambassadors and people at embassy as well as various ministers. As far as Dolan’s personal interactions with Peskov, the 2 men met 1-2x per year. When Kielty asks what Dolan talked about w Peskov, Dolan stutters & says: “Things we were working on.”
While working with Ketchum, Dolan traveled to Russia 1-2 times per year, and through this work with the Russian Federation he was also involved in the G20 summit. Dolan also worked with Walt Disney in Russia helping to get their cable TV network and broadcast underway.
Around 2015 Dolan was employed at KGlobal, a PR firm in D.C. Danchenko met Dolan through Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institute who, per the Brookings Institute website: “[is] a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings.
She recently served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.
From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council.” Fiona Hill had previously been appointed by Trump as deputy assistant to the president and senior director…for European and Russian affairs on his National Security Council staff. Hill left the White House on July 15, 2019.
Back to how Dolan and Danchenko met.
Olga Galkina (Credit: The Daily Mail)
Danchenko was trying to help his former schoolmate Olga Galkina find a PR firm. During March or April of 2016, she met with Dolan in the company of Danchenko. Dolan says he met with Galkina to discuss KGlobal doing business with the company she worked for.
Dolan also mentioned Gregg Hartley, a Republican lobbyist. Dolan said that his communications with Danchenko occurred over email and phone, plus having breakfast and lunch together at times.
Dolan said that he would communicate with Danchenko to check on Olga Galkina. Dolan understood that Danchenko was working as a political risk operative in London, where Orbis is based.
Dolan learned of Christopher Steele and Christopher Borrows of Orbis through Danchenko, who said in an email that Dolan would meet Steele and Borrows at some point if he was in London or if Steele and Borrows came to Washington, D.C.
Government Exhibit 702 is an email from Danchenko to Dolan dated April 29, 2016. Danchenko thanks Dolan for lunch and says he forwarded Dolan’s letter to Steele and Borrows.
He makes the point that he’ll introduce the 3 men if they ever are in London or D.C., respectively.
Danchenko says he didn’t get his new passport this month so he would be available for breakfast on May 20 or 13; he also said he’d be in Russia the first half of June. Mentions the Hotel Peter across the street from the Central Bank…
Dolan says he never met Christopher Steele in person and didn’t work with Orbis Business Intelligence which is Steele’s company.
Keilty* brings up Government Exhibit 703, an email dated April 29, 2016, from Danchenko to Dolan with an attachment and subject line is: Business Intelligence.
The email roughly read: “FYI, sample byproduct of my due diligence practice. Confidential: We don’t post these projects online.” The attachment is an Orbis document prepared by Danchenko; Dolan says he didn’t know what the document was about.
Note mentioned in the middle of this information: In May of 2016, Dolan finalized a trip to Cyprus to meet with Olga Galkina and make a presentation to her boss. Dolan’s PR firm, KGlobal, signed a contract with Galkina’s company.
Dolan says he kept communicating with Danchenko, and was approached by the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) to set up a conference in Moscow. Dolan felt that Danchenko would be useful.
YPO, according to Dolan, is an organization that sets up networking events to connect CEOs of various companies. Dolan mentions his relations with Steven Kupka, a D.C. attorney who was involved in YPO. Kupka wanted to organize a visit to Moscow.
The YPO conference scheduled for October 2016 was to be called “Inside the Kremlin.” Dolan was to be involved due to his extensive experience in Russia. The conference purpose was to introduce business people to Russian government officials.
Dolan approached Danchenko because he’s fluent in Russian and knows English well. At one point, they scouted hotels and venues in Moscow for the attendees to gather.
Dolan recalls meeting with Danchenko in Moscow in June 2016 and having lunch together. He reiterates their communications involved emails, phone calls, lunch, and breakfast, and would both attend the YPO conference. In fact, Danchenko was a speaker there.
In July 2016, when Dolan went to Cyprus for 3-5 days to meet w Danchenko’s friend Galkina for purported business with her company, Dolan confirms to Keilty he did “superficially” discuss upcoming US Presidential election with Galkina. Dolan specifically says they spoke about HRC.
After his visit in Cyprus, Dolan returned to the U.S., continuing to be in contact with Danchenko and planning the YPO conference.
Government Exhibit 712A is an email dated August 19, 2016 at 1:08 PM from Danchenko to Dolan. Danchenko says:
“Hi Chuck,
“Here are the bios of two of four. Who were the others?” This is referring to the people speaking at the YPO conference.
Danchenko then writes: “Could you please ask someone to comment on Paul Manafort’s resignation and anything on the Trump campaign? Off the record of course! Any thought, rumor, allegation. I am working on a related project against Trump.
I asked Gregg three months ago but he didn’t say much although shared a couple insights.
Thanks a lot!
Best,
Igor”
Gregg Hartley (Credit: public domain)
The “Gregg” that Danchenko is referring to is the aforementioned Gregg Hartley, Republican D.C. lobbyist.
Next, Keilty shares Dolan’s response. It roughly says: “Let me dig around on Manafort. Pretty sure the new team wanted him gone asap and used the recent NYT story to drive a stake in his heart.”
There an add’l reply after from Dolan to Danchenko that includes:
“Hi Igor,
I had a drink w a GOP friend of mine who knows [some things]. . . Corey Lewandowski who hates Manafort and still speaks to Trump & regularly played a role. He is said to be doing a happy dance for it.”
There was also a following paragraph that said “a number of people wanted Manafort out.”
At the end of the email, Dolan attached a Politico article about Paul Manafort.
On the stand, Dolan testifies under oath to Keilty that he actually never met this “GOP friend,” but got his story from cable news.
Dolan says he felt like embellishing the story because he knew Danchenko was working in political risk and inferred that Danchenko had helped him before so he was trying to return the favor.
Government Exhibit 713B is Danchenko’s response email to Dolan regarding the Manafort information.
Dated August 20, 2016, Danchenko wrote: “Our goals clearly coincide.” He adds that any additional insights from Dolan would be greatly appreciated.
Dolan’s ultimate response to Danchenko asking for more information was, “Thanks, I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.” Dolan testifies that he did not provide more insights on Manafort.
Dolan says that he probably would’ve been involved in the Clinton campaign but at that time was not.
Despite Danchenko writing to Dolan that he was working on an important project, Dolan did not know if Danchenko was working for anyone in particular.
Dolan makes it a point to note that this email exchange was one of 50 emails he had received from various people and didn’t put too much thought into it.
Dolan met with the Special Counsel on numerous occasions. He claims that he knew about the Steele dossier because his client at the time of its publishing, Galkina’s company, was named in the report.
Government Exhibit 112, a page from the dossier, dated August 22, 2016, Paragraph 3 reads: “Speaking separately, also in late July 2016, an American political figure associated with Trump and his campaign outlined the reason behind Manafort’s recent demise. . .”
The paragraph cites nearly verbatim what Charles Dolan wrote in his email to Danchenko about Paul Manafort. Coincidentally, Dolan’s email with the Manafort information was sent to Danchenko on August 20, 2016. So two days later, the information ended up in the Steele dossier.
There’s more discussion of Dolan describing his relationship with Danchenko. Dolan mentions a time that he saw Danchenko was at a park near his house with his daughter, so he went to go meet with him. Note: Dolan casually mentions picking up over the counter drugs for Danchenko.
Keilty brings up Government Exhibit 1202, the January 10, 2017, Buzzfeed article all about Trump’s “alleged” ties to Russia with the Steele dossier attached to it.
Conversation under seal.
Morning after Buzzfeed article published, on Jan 11, 2017, Dolan testifies he received many calls from # of people. Keilty asked if Dolan spoke with Danchenko that day. Dolan, stuttering on the stand, says he called Danchenko because he, “Was curious where the article came from.”
Keilty asked if Galkina was involved in the Steele dossier, to which Dolan responds that he isn’t sure but, “heard she was.”
In the January 11, 2017 phone call between Dolan and Danchenko, Dolan says that Danchenko told him that he would find out where the Steele dossier came from, but never got back to Dolan.
No further questions.
Fiona Hill (Credit: public domain)
Sears begins cross-examining Dolan. Sears asks, “Besides Fiona Hill, how did you meet Danchenko?” Dolan says maybe through the Brookings Institute.
Regarding Dolan’s relationship with Olga Galkina, Dolan says he spoke to Galkina without Danchenko for most of their relationship, which began in D.C. in March 2016.
Sears probes that the YPO October 2016 conference was not always held in Russia? Dolan confirms that the conference was regularly held in various capitals around the world; just so happened to occur in Moscow at that time.
Dolan says that he and Danchenko were together at the October 2016 conference in Moscow and that Danchenko was a speaker there.
During cross examination, Dolan claims that the first time he ever saw the Steele dossier was in the January 10, 2017Buzzfeed article, and that he was unaware Danchenko was working on the project.
Regarding Dolan’s October 31, 2021 meeting with the Special Counsel, Dolan says he doesn’t recall if he told the Special Counsel at the time that he didn’t think anything in the Steele dossier was from him.
Defense Exhibit 250 is shown. In August of 2021, Dolan still didn’t see anything in the Steele dossier that was from him.
On September 7, 2021, Dolan brought emails he had to the Special Counsel interview. Sears asks if they pressured Dolan to say that information in the dossier came from him? Dolan agreed that the information in the dossier was “very similar.”
Dolan doesn’t recall that he was being told by the Special Counsel that he was the subject of this investigation. Sears suggests that Dolan was upset upon finding out; Dolan still seems confused and says he’s not familiar with these terms, but hesitantly says, “Yes.”
Dolan says that the government reminded him that he needed to tell the truth. Dolan agreed that he had zero insider knowledge about Paul Manafort; he simply read articles and consumed news.
Dolan says that he had “no phone calls” about specific issues [related to the Steele dossier) or anything about the Trump campaign’s alleged connections to Russia.
Sears asks: “Wasn’t it your understanding Danchenko was writing a book?”
Dolan doesn’t agree and clarified that his understanding was that Danchenko was a political risk analyst and simply responded, and per Sears’ rhetoric, “threw [Danchenko] a bone” with the Manafort story.
Dolan reiterates that the specific email exchange with Danchenko was “1 of 50 that he had” with various individuals that day.
Sears asks Dolan if he’s aware that the government issued subpoenas for most of Dolan’s communications. Dolan testifies under oath that he never communicated with Danchenko about anything that was in the Steele dossier.
[END OF CROSS-EXAMINATION]
Keilty begins his redirect of Dolan and brings up the August 20, 2016 email where Dolan talked about “having a drink with his GOP friend” who Dolan alleged had dirt that could be useful for Danchenko, followed by the Manafort story.
Keilty makes it a point to tell Dolan that he said nothing about cable news in that email, only the GOP friend. This email was a response to Danchenko’s August 19, 2016 email asking Dolan for any “truth, rumor, etc.” about Manafort.
Keilty: “You think Danchenko was after you for open source research?”
The government retracts question just as the defense objects.
A few short reiterations of previously stated queries.
No further questions.
Kevin Helson, Danchenko’s handling agent, is called to the stand.
Helson has worked for the FBI for 20 years. He has a bachelors degree in chemistry and microbiology. He worked at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation until 2002 before signing on to the FBI.
“Russia” is Helson’s assigned area within the FBI. Helson says his job is to identify individuals who are in U.S. under false pretenses or are acting against U.S.
In 2016, Helson worked in Washington, D.C. field office. He was asked to join Crossfire Hurricane, Helson declined.
Durham asks if Helson was aware in mid-September 2016, there was a Yahoo News article that the FBI was investigating Carter Page, or anything about Christopher Steele. Helson says that he was later aware but not part of the project.
At the end of January 2017, Helson was approached by people from Crossfire Hurricane (Steve Somma* and supervisory intelligence analyst Crossfire Hurricane). For context, Helson confirms to Durham that Auten worked out of headquarters but that Helson worked in the D.C. field office.
Helson’s supervisor gave him a task to meet with Igor Danchenko and eventually bring him on as a confidential human source (CHS). Auten and others related to Crossfire Hurricane were reportedly concerned about follow-up questions from the Steele dossier…
…that merged with Helson’s own projects out of the D.C. office, since Helson’s assigned focus area is matters of intelligence related to Russia.
In late Feb or early March 2017, Kevin Helson, Steve Somma, and Jason Ruehle (Danchenko’s co-handling agent to Helson) had initial meeting with Danchenko to set stage for future meetings & discuss questions regarding the Steele dossier. Helson says this lasted less than an hour.
Durham asks Helson if he had any trouble understanding Danchenko, to which Helson says that Danchenko spoke fluent English and that he had no difficulty communicating with him.
Helson says he didn’t know much about the Steele dossier, and if he wanted to know anything, other people involved in the project had to provide him with the information. Helson makes it a point to note that Crossfire Hurricane later became known as the Mueller investigation.
In conversing with Durham during the examination, Helson discusses his own methods of assessing whether a subject is lying or not based on the idea that, “It’s harder to keep a lie straight during multiple times of telling the same story.”
Sergei Millian (Credit: Twitter)
Durham asks how Helson first became familiar with the names Sergei Milian and Chuck Dolan. Helson somehow found out about them and needed to look it up.
Helson says during his working relationship with Danchenko, his goal was to obtain any new information that could corroborate the Steele dossier. Helson says Danchenko didn’t provide corroborating information.
Durham asks Helson if he’s aware how much of the Steele dossier was attributed to Danchenko. Off the top of his head, Helson says 80%.
Special Counsel John Durham pulls Government Exhibit 1502, which is the LinkedIn message from Igor Danchenko to Anastasia Gnezditskaia where he says he was responsible for 80% of the raw intelligence & 50% of the analysis. Helson says he had no reason to doubt that this is true.
Durham: “Do you recall if Danchenko was to be a paid CHS or not?”
Helson: “[That was dependent upon] what information he gave.” Helson said he probably would become paid over time.
Helson recalls that Danchenko was not paid during their initial meeting in the Alexandria, Virginia, field office, and that when Danchenko was paid for the first time it was less than $3,000.
Helson expected, given that he was eventually paid, that Danchenko would be giving full disclosure, truthful, and as forthright as possible.
Durham shows Government Exhibit 118 paragraph #1. Which reads: “Your client agrees to supply complete and truthful info and testimony to all persons in this matter, as well as other proceedings, etc. …
and that the client must not withhold any info or attempt to protect any person or entity through false info or false implication.”
Helson discusses with Durham his process of collecting information during meetings with Danchenko—by getting record of what was being said and for nuanced things, needed a recording. Helson tells Durham that Danchenko was unaware he was being recorded.
Government Exhibit 151 is a recording; G.E. 151T is the transcript. There was some information in the recording related to the Steele dossier, Helson says, but not all of it.
Government Exhibit 118-11 is a stipulation for the aforementioned recording and translation, wherein both parties agreed that both were a true and accurate copy of a meeting between Danchenko, Helson, and Ruehle. This is one recording among numerous.
Trenga instructs the jury that if there’s any discrepancy while looking at the transcript and the recording to go by the recording.
Durham asks if Danchenko had a copy of the dossier in front of him in each instance that the Steele dossier was discussed. Helson says yes.
Per the FBI recording of the meeting recorded in G.E. 151 and G.E. 151T, Durham asks Helson if it’s relevant that Danchenko said he himself would “record things when speaking with people in case he ever needed them.” Helson concurs this is relevant and [odd].
Durham asks Helson if or when Sergei Milian came up. Helson says that Milian came up at one of his first meetings with Danchenko. Durham asks if Helson is familiar with Report 2016/95; Helson says he looked at this during trial prep.
Helson adds that in March of 2017, Brian Auten raised an issue about Milian, saying there were discrepancies in the information about him.
Government Exhibit 152 and 152T are a recording and transcript.
Durham: “Was there any record that could corroborate that Danchenko received [the] anonymous phone call?”
Helson: “That would have requiring looking at phone records.” Helson says that they had asked Danchenko to provide any phone communication records, which he says would include apps, but Danchenko produced nothing.
Durham: “Was it then your job to get the records?”
Helson said that he wasn’t allowed to legally obtain the phone records of Danchenko since Danchenko was voluntarily providing the FBI information. Helson said to obtain the records legally, they would have needed a predicated investigation and they didn’t have that.
Back to Government Exhibit 152 and 152T; in the recording, Danchenko mentions that he uses WhatsApp.
In this recording, it’s also the first time that Helson says he inquired about Milian’s part of the dossier.
Durham asks if Helson ever recorded Danchenko in conversations outdoors. Helson says it’s difficult to record outdoors because of picking up outside noise but also because the FBI seeks to limit outdoor communications [with brevity].
Durham asks Helson about the electronic Dropbox where Danchenko was supposed to provide documents to the FBI. Helson says that Danchenko provided a “wide depth” of information, and that himself and Ruehle were in “receive mode” during their meetings with Danchenko.
Helson says they allowed the intelligence team to analyze the information.
Durham asks if Danchenko provided corroborating info for the Steele dossier. Helson says no.
Helson says that the information he received depended upon what was received from the Crossfire Hurricane team and later the Mueller investigation. Helson says that eventually the Steele dossier talk “faded off” as a topic they discussed.
Durham asks Helson if Danchenko ever provided supporting documents about the alleged anonymous call from Milian or communications.
Durham pulls Government Exhibit 164 and 164T. In this recording, Helson asks Danchenko about his relationship with Milian. Helson: “There was an email and I think there was a call with a guy up in New York who you thought was Milian?”
Danchenko responds that he doesn’t have Milian’s number; doesn’t remember. Danchenko says, “He never showed up in NY.”
Danchenko provides the email to Helson: “sergio@russianamericanchamber.com”
Durham asks Helson if he ever found out how Danchenko obtained these email addresses. Helson says: “No.”
Back to the recording. Danchenko provides Helson with a phone number that he says is one of Milian’s with a Georgia area code.
It’s very evident in this recording that Danchenko was avoiding having a conversation.
Durham: “It would’ve been helpful to know how Danchenko got Milian’s email addresses and for the dossier, right?”
Helson agrees.
Prior to dealing with Danchenko, Helson says he was unaware of Milian’s prior history with FBI.
Durham shows G.E. 204; it’s an email from Danchenko to MilianGroup July 21, 2016. The subject is “Question about Trump + China”.
Helson says Danchenko never provided him this email.
Durham: “Seeing this email would’ve been important to the investigation, yes?” Since Milian is an alleged sub source of the Steele dossier.
Helson agrees with Durham.
Durham then shows Government Exhibit 205 and 205T; the translation is there because this email was originally written in Russian. It’s from Sergei Milian to Dmitri Zlodorev. Dated July 26, 2016. Milian is asking Zlodorev “Who is Igor?” After receiving an email from him.
Helson does not know if Crossfire Hurricane team ever had a record of whether Milian was in fact even in the U.S. during July 2016. This is relevant because of the allegations that Danchenko said he was supposed to meet with Milian toward the end of July and he “never showed up.”
Government Exhibit 206 and 206T is Zlodorev’s response to Sergei.
Government Exhibit 207 and 207T is an email from Danchenko to MilianGroup dated August 18, 2016.
It opens with:
“Hello Sergey,
I wrote to you several weeks ago. We are contacts on LinkedIn.”
Later in the email Danchenko wrote: “If there’s any opportunity let’s meet.” Zero reference to phone app or anything that Milian never showed up to a meeting.
Helson says that any communications between Danchenko and Sergei would’ve been relevant.
Durham asks if Helson had these communications, would it have changed the investigation? Helson says yes.
On July 21, 2016, Danchenko wrote an email asking Milian about a construction company from Switzerland. To Helson’s knowledge, Danchenko was not in business with this construction company.
Durham asks Helson if he has knowledge of the communications between Danchenko and Milian between July 21, 2016 and August 18, 2016.
Helson says he expected he would’ve been provided those but he was not.
Helson believed documents Danchenko provided that he would say how he was communicating (either thru regular phone calls or thru phone apps).
Durham brings up Government Exhibit 610 & 610T. It’s a Facebook exchange that was originally in Russian between Galkina and Danchenko.
Galkina: “Call me in exactly 15 minutes. It’s regarding Chuck and me.”
Danchenko: “I will try. If I can get thru directly. Possibly Viber or WhatsApp.”
Gov Exhibit 611 is a Facebook message from Igor asking recipient if they have Signal after he referred to something as a “Delicate topic.” According to Helson, Signal is an “encrypted app in which parties can communicate back and forth. The conversations erase when you’re done.”
Government Exhibit 102. On October 24, 2017, there was an in-person meeting with Danchenko in Alexandria, Virginia. Helson raised questions about Danchenko’s communications with the alleged anonymous caller that Danchenko believed was Milian.
His reasoning for believing that the caller was Milian was because he listened to a YouTube video of Sergei Milian speech and in his opinion it sounded just like him. Danchenko said he has no in-person meeting with Milian.
The FBI confronted this because it didn’t line up with what Steele said. Danchenko refuted Steele’s take but never corrected him. Danchenko told FBI he never met with Milian in person. However, Danchenko claimed he spoke on the phone a few times with who he believed was Milian.
Durham: “How confident are you (Helson) that on October 24, 2017, Danchenko said he spoke to Milian on the phone a couple times?
Helson: “Very confident.”
G.E. 103 confirms on November 2, 2017, Helson and Danchenko had an in-person meeting and they discussed Milian again.
Durham: “Why did you have to go back to the Milian piece?”
Helson: “Brian Auten said there were inconsistencies between what Danchenko said regarding his contact with Milian versus what Steele said.”
Durham: “Going off of what Danchenko told Steele, right?”
Helson: “Steele thought Danchenko and Milian met in-person but Danchenko never corrected him.”
Durham: “Based on your interactions with Danchenko, was there ever any indication that there was other information besides what came from Steele? Did Charles Dolan ever come up?”
Helson: “Yes. I didn’t know of Dolan until I found out through Crossfire Hurricane.” Helson said that Danchenko never brought up Charles Dolan to him.
Durham probes: “Isn’t it the goal to corroborate what’s in the Steele dossier?”
Helson: “Yes, to identify the source.”
Durham: “Would it have been helpful to have a U.S. citizen whose info was in the dossier?”
Helson: “Yes. Much easier.”
Government Exhibit 171T. June 15, 2017. The third recorded conversation between Helson, Danchenko, and Ruehle.
Eventually after Helson was Danchenko’s handler, he learned of the emails between Danchenko and Dolan.
Durham shows email G.E. 712A August 19, 2016 from Danchenko to Dolan asking him about info on Paul Manafort and how Danchenko said he was working on a project on Trump. As well as Dolan’s reply to Danchenko G.E. 712B with the “Drink w GOP friend of mine & Paul Manafort” info.
Prior to June 15, 2017, Helson said he had not seen these emails; he said no one on Crossfire Hurricane gave this to him.
Durham: “With respect to his email, wouldn’t it have been good to know this during June of 2017 and prior?”
Helson: “Yes.”
Durham pulls up G.E. 714, the dossier report 216/105. Paragraph 3 is the paragraph that is nearly identical (with superfluous language to polish it up) language that was in Dolan’s email to Danchenko about Paul Manafort.
While looking at this, Durham is asking Helson questions about how he gathered information to corroborate the dossier. Helson, with the request of Mueller’s investigative team, obtained questions to ask Danchenko by Brian Auten and Amy Anderson.
G.E. 171 & 171T is recording & transcript from June 15, 2017 between Helson & Danchenko.
Helson: “For whatever reason, they’re either missing you? Or they’re not finding . . . We’re trying to figure out. . You said something to Steele. . . Do you know Chuck Dolan?”
(Long pause)
Danchenko: “Yes. I’ve known [of] Chuck for 12 years… a couple years [close].” Danchenko says Dolan was always in Russia,
Helson: “You never talked to him about anything shown in the dossier, right?”
Danchenko: “No.”
Helson asks when was last time Danchenko saw Dolan. He replies September of last year in Moscow, but then pulls an exact time.
Helson: “I wasn’t expecting an exact time!” He then asks if Dolan is close to the Kremlin.
Danchenko suggests Dolan is close to Putin professionally.
Durham asks Helson what Danchenko’s demeanor was during this interaction and Helson responds: “A bit of hesitation and a noticeable pause.”
Durham: “Did Danchenko ever mention immediately after the Steele dossier was published in Buzzfeed on January 10, 2017, that Dolan reached out to Danchenko on January 11, 2017?”
Helson: “No.”
Durham: “You would’ve wanted to know that, right?”
Helson: “Yes.”
Durham and Helson briefly talk about the FBI interview with Olga Galkina in D.C.
Helson’s intent was to obtain any knowledge he could find to corroborate the dossier.
Durham asks about how Danchenko referenced his communications in forms (apps, etc.) how he would send screenshots of conversations to Helson.
Helson: “Yes.”
Durham brings up how on New Year’s Day in 2017, Danchenko met with Dolan in a park. “What was your impression of this?”
Helson found it to be interesting. Helson was under the impression that Danchenko introduced Galkina to Dolan.
When Helson asked Danchenko if Dolan would know Steele, he replied: “I think he would.” However, Danchenko did not mention business interactions with either to Helson.
Durham: “Would you learn of Dolan’s connections to Dmitry Peskov?” (Putin’s press secretary)
Helson: “Yes.”
Government Exhibit is a May 17, 2017 2-page report with 3 screenshots of a conversation between Galkina and Danchenko. On bullet point 4, there’s a note that “Galkina claims she can’t travel til September but [Danchenko] made a good pitch.”
G.E. 120 mostly redacted doc. There’s a part discussing Danchenko speaking on social media and another portion. “At this point the development . . . Trump collusion and the gov’t . . . ”
“All of Danchenko’s info was obtained through conversations with colleagues and friends.”
Durham: “Do you recall that Danchenko discussed Dolan’s relationship to Peskov?”
Durham and Helson are talking about “Russian disinformation” in relation to Peskov’s role as Putin’s press secretary.
It’s noted that even as a paid informant, Danchenko did not get Helson any information on Dolan [to corroborate the dossier].
Government Exhibit 605 is a picture of Danchenko and Dolan together in Russia from June 14, 2016. This had been posted to Facebook.
The day the photo was posted to Danchenko’s profile, Galkina tried to arrange a [vicinity?] for Danchenko.
In March 2017, Helson said he first asked Danchenko about Dolan. Danchenko said Dolan was, “A nice guy, a friend.”
Then on September 22, 2017, Danchenko’s story changed and he told Helson that Dolan “has dubious connections in Russia.”
Helson attributed this to the fact that he was simply asking Danchenko about people around him who could be a security risk.
Durham makes a point to conclude that a well-coordinated conspiracy, Report 95 was used on a FISA application, unvetted, against an American citizen.
No further questions.
During cross-examination, Sears probes that, “Wasn’t Danchenko SHOCKED at how Steele presented what he said in the dossier?” Helson agreed. The two men agree that Danchenko never vouched for the information.
Defense Exhibit 100 discusses what the motivations were for Danchenko to become a confidential human source. Helson said: “Patriotism.” Both Helson and Danchenko had concerns for his safety.
Sears states that Helson and Danchenko had a working relationship from March 2017 to October 2020.
Sears asks Helson about the “one time” that Danchenko allegedly acted erratic.
He supposedly walked into an in-person meeting and demanded more money, jumping up and down and very upset.
Sears says that Danchenko later apologized for this and it was revealed that his wife and lawyer had been telling him he should be asking for more money due to his having children and being at risk. Helson confirms this.
Sears reminds Helson he testified to OIG that Danchenko was “gold” as human source following “single erratic behavior incident” because Helson would have known going forward if there was a time that Danchenko was lying. According to Helson, Danchenko never acted like that again.
Helson also said that the Crossfire Hurricane team never raised an issue about information Danchenko had provided Helson. However, Helson says that there were times Danchenko couldn’t recall where something or someone came from source-wise in the dossier.
Sears is pushing that Danchenko, as far as Helson was aware, had never known about or seen the Steele dossier until it was published in Buzzfeed on January 10, 2017.
During this interaction, Helson says he legally wouldn’t have been able to obtain all of Danchenko’s communications unless he had voluntarily provided them himself. Danchenko would later tell Crossfire Hurricane that he deleted nearly all of his communications.
Helson reportedly TOLD Danchenko to scrub his phone. He says following the January 2017 FBI interview, Danchenko was instructed on multiple occasions to scrub his phone because he’d be, “A target to Russians.”
Sears asks Helson about Danchenko’s relationship with Dolan. The two men agree that Danchenko said he approximately knew Dolan for 10 years based on Russia connections.
Danchenko knew that Dolan worked for Ketchum, who did PR for the Kremlin. According to Helson, Danchenko reportedly said Dolan was “naive to Russia.”
In reference to Danchenko saying in October 2017 that Dolan had dubious connections to Russia, Sears and Helson agree that Danchenko then provided the FBI with the names of the “dubious Russia contacts.”
It’s noted that Steele did not contain Danchenko’s identity as the primary source of the dossier, but that Danchenko concealed his own identity.
During Helson’s testimony to the OIG, Sears reminds him that he said Danchenko never struck him as “someone who would lie.”
Danchenko never told Helson that he lied to Steele about his meeting Milian; Danchenko simply never corrected Steele.
About 10 months after Danchenko met with FBI, he told them that he was going to meet with Steele. The FBI was having Danchenko fish information from Steele.
Sears asks Helson if he was trying to drive a wedge between Danchenko and Steele; he replies, “Yes.”
According to Sears & Helson, Danchenko had concerns about giving more info to Steele because he supposedly embellished info Danchenko originally gave to him for the dossier.
Items that Danchenko said were rumors, Steele wrote as fact. Sears is animatedly suggesting that according to Danchenko, Steele was obsessed with “proving the dossier to be true” and that Danchenko eventually “expressed concern about Dolan and Galkina’s relationship.”
Sears: “Danchenko is charged with lying, saying he never spoke to Dolan about anything in the Steele report.”
Helson: “Correct.”
Defense Exhibit 102 is debrief notes from the June 15, 2017 recorded meeting between Helson and Danchenko. Helson’s wrote in a note that Danchenko had known Dolan for “2 years more closer.”
Helson had asked how long it had been since Danchenko had spoken to Dolan. He mentioned the Moscow trip in 2016 and then the January 1, 2017 meeting in the park.
Defense Exhibit 103. Helson does not know if Danchenko ever saw Report 105, which was all about Dolan.
Auten also did not ask Danchenko about it. No one apparently ever focused Helson’s attention on
Paragraph 3 of the dossier report that was all about Paul Manafort; nearly verbatim to what Dolan had written in his reply email to Danchenko.
Government Exhibit 120 is very redacted but begins w/: “At this point in the development source understands the priority is to obtain any and all info that would indicate collusion between Trump’s campaign, administration, & the Russian government or any of its representatives.”
It continues: “Speaking on social media. He keeps asking when I am visiting. On good terms. Asking him about Romeo and Juliet setting.”
In reference to the anonymous phone call with Milian, Danchenko told Auten he emailed Milian after the alleged scheduled meeting that Milian never showed up for, but he did not tell Helson or show him that email.
The issue is again raised that there was contradictory information about Danchenko’s meeting with Milian due to what Steele said, which is why Helson had an October 24, 2017 meeting with Danchenko and then another on November 2, 2017.
Sears: “Did you believe Danchenko knew what Steele told the FBI about his communications with Milian?”
Helson: “I don’t recall.”
Testifying to OIG on Oct 21, 2019, Helson states Danchenko said Steele was completely wrong about his relationship w/ Milian & that Danchenko was not happy w/ Steele about what he put in dossier. Sears insists that Danchenko lying about this could compromise relationship w/ FBI.
Referring to how Danchenko’s August 2016 email to Milian read that the two men never met, Sears argues that if Danchenko had written in the email that they had talked a few weeks back (alluding to the purported anonymous 10-15 call…
…that Danchenko believed to be Milian), Milian may have never called him again if he was trying to remain anonymous.
Sears brings up the Amtrak records of Danchenko going to New York and that Milian was supposedly flying into JFK airport on July 27, 2016.
Helson was unaware of late July FB message from Danchenko to his wife about the giraffes at the Bronx zoo that said “Another meeting later.”
Sears also raises Milian reached out to @GeorgePapa19 around same time that Danchenko believed he received an anonymous call from Milian.
In two of Helson’s Field Office Annual Source Reports, he wrote that any inconsistencies in Danchenko’s report were minor. Steele’s motivations came into question. Helson testified to the OIG that Danchenko’s had “real information” that was helpful to the FBI.
Defense Exhobit 109 stated that Danchenko reported critical reporting that added in a top FBI investigation. It also said that some of Danchenko’s reporting has been added to 25 IRs. An IR is an intelligence report.
Defense Exhibit 110 is a payment amount of $10,000 for the confidential human source, Danchenko, for reporting he provided during January of 2018. He was involved in 5 separate investigations, and his information…
…led to recognizing cyber actors [affecting] the 2016 election, according to the FBI. Danchenko reportedly assisted in uncovering “ongoing-maligned influence.”
Notes that former AG Bill Barr was launching an investigation into how the FBI handled Carter Page. Helson was concerned that the publishing of the redacted January 2017 interview would damage Danchenko.
Helson wrote a memo in July of 2020 that he disagreed with the move to release this. “Internet detectives” figured out who had been interviewed.
On October 21, 2020, Helson drafted an electronic communication to give a lump sum payment of $346,000 to Danchenko, since he would now have safety issues and had provided information for at least 25 FBI investigations.
The lump sum payment request was denied. Danchenko’s total lifetime payments would have been around $565,000 if he had actually received the $346,000.
Sears argued that the FBI didn’t have as much information until Danchenko, which Helson agrees with.
Helson says that they never thought Danchenko was partisan because said some of the things Danchenko brought to FBI were items that would negatively affect Trump. In other words, they’re inferring Danchenko tried to prevent those things from occurring.
No further questions.
In redirect, Durham calls out Helson, because he said there was no derogatory info on Danchenko in reports, but this wasn’t true. Durham raises that there is an open espionage case on Danchenko at that time.
References 65/8, a counterintelligence report. Durham asks if Helson bothered to obtain access to the report and see what it was about. Helson says that he spoke with Laura Pino about it and she said it was hearsay.
Durham: “Did you read the underlying documents? Is it not true that Human Validation recommended that Helson read the file.”
Again, Helson claiming he didn’t have access. Despite his knowledge that there was a witness, Helson said someone countered the witness.
Durham: “Danchenko’s Visa had expired. Did you know whether or not he stayed in the country anyway?” Durham raises the need to determine whether or not there was fraud committed with his immigration status in the states.
Durham: “Did Crossfire Hurricane, Mueller, or ANYONE do what was recommended?”
Conversation under seal.
Helson said he only checked Danchenko’s travel records going forward at that point, not backward.
Durham: “Did you check his financials to find unsolicited reporting that would have [indicated] the FBI might NOT be the primary audience for his reporting?”
Helson: “No.”
Durham: “Did you look into anything regarding his Visa or immigration status?!”
Helson: “No.”
Durham: “Did you polygraph? He could’ve been tasted by a foreign government entity to get intelligence?”
Helson: “No.”
Durham is pissed.
Sears cuts in and tries to say it that Helson disagreed with people trying to invalidate Danchenko as a human source.
“Did you know this woman from Human Validation Unit was an army counterintelligence officer in Europe.”
Helson says this doesn’t make her an expert on Russian intelligence officers in U.S.
Durham probes that Helson maybe opposed this being a 65A case instead of 105.
Durham: “Do you recall any of you or any of your colleagues attempting to corroborate the report? Did you do ANYTHING when the FBI mistakenly thought Danchenko left the country.”
(…) The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)
Those problems continued with the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.
Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump.
Danchenko being a CHS also served another purpose: it protected the Bureau and the Mueller Special Counsel from revealing their “sources and methods.” How do you hide misconduct? Bury the witness. (Techno Fog, 9/13/2022)(Archive)
On Friday, October 14th, we learned the FBI directed Igor Danchenko to scrub his phones and erase all incriminating evidence:
We’ve known since last week that the FBI made Danchenko a confidential human source so as to hide him from Nunes’ and other inquiries into the Russiagate scam. Now we find out that an added benefit was that Danchenko could legally dispose of evidence of the Russiagate scam. Ufb. pic.twitter.com/fHQoLp2Pfv
Judge Anthony J. Trenga (Credit: American Law Institute)
“The judge in Special Counsel John Durham’s trial on Igor Danchenko on Friday dismissed one of the five federal counts the Russian intelligence expert was facing for allegedly lying to the FBI, after the defense team made the request, arguing prosecutors has failed to provide sufficient evidence.
The count – one of five – was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga in a federal court in northern Virginia.
The count alleged Danchenko lied to FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson when he said he had not “talked” to longtime Democratic operative and PR executive Charles Dolan about information that went into the so-called Steele dossier to which Danchenko provided 80% of its information.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 10/14/2022)(Archive)
Russian analyst Igor Danchenko walks to the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse on Oct. 11, 2022, in Alexandria, VA (Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham finished presenting evidence in the Igor Danchenko trial.
The most damning part of the day, if not the trial? Testimony that FBI supervisors within the Mueller Special Counsel refused requests to interview a source for the Steele Dossier: longtime Democrat activist Charles Dolan.
But first we start with the redirect examination of a witness from Thursday afternoon – FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson – who handled Danchenko when he was a confidential human source. (Our prior article discussed Helson’s investigative failures at length.)
Durham questioned Helson about efforts to determine the Danchenko-Dolan connection in the summer of 2017. By that time, the Mueller Special Counsel had been ongoing since May 2017 and had, on its own, taken part in the last Carter Page FISA renewal. And if you recall from our last articles, Danchenko had been an FBI CHS since March 2017. Once Mueller was appointed, Helson was the go-between, asking Danchenko questions posed by the then-Special Counsel’s team.
By June 2017, the Mueller Special Counsel had developed information that Democrat Charles Dolan may have been a source of the Steele Dossier. They passed questions about Dolan to Agent Helson:
Q Who did those [Dolan] questions come from?
A It came from the Mueller investigative team, particularly Ms. [Amy] Anderson.
Durham also cleaned-up Helson’s sloppiness. The previous day, Helson testified that Danchenko didn’t know the Steele Dossier was going to the FBI. Helson admitted he didn’t have any evidence to support his own conclusion.
Q You were asked a question yesterday that you adopted — you were asked a question about, well, the defendant didn’t know that Steele’s reports were going to the FBI, and you said yes. Do you have any independent knowledge of that?
A No.
Q That’s just what the defendant told you, right?
A Yeah.
Q So when you told the jury that he, Mr. Danchenko, didn’t know that they were going to the FBI, you don’t know that to be the case?
A I had no other knowledge that suggested that, no.
Q Right. There’s no independent evidence of any sort, correct?
A Yes, correct.
Helson was also asked about Danchenko’s lack of complete honesty with respect to his interactions with Charles Dolan and his travels to Moscow. As you’ll see, Helson’s answers also implicate his own failure to fully investigate his source.
Q Did Mr. Danchenko tell you about his having been in Moscow in June of 2016?
A No, he did not tell me that.
Q Did he tell you anything about his having met with or seen Mr. Dolan in Moscow in June of 2016?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall, sir, whether or not you ever learned the dates on which Mr. Danchenko was in Moscow in June of 2016?
A I learned of it later.
Q And do you remember: When you learned at a later point in time he had been in Moscow in June of 2016, did you talk to him about that?
A No.
Danchenko’s June 2016 Moscow trip, where he met with Dolan, has significant timing because Danchenko flew from Moscow to London to give “a report”. Who was in London? Christopher Steele.
Durham also inquired about Helson’s October 24, 2017 interview of Danchenko. Helson described the purposes of that meeting:
“This meeting was — in part, it was a direction from the Mueller investigative team bringing up the discrepancies in the Sergei Millian matter, and they wanted me to go back specifically to ask the questions and get his response.”
Just so we’re clear – by October 24, 2017, the Mueller Team knew there were issues with Danchenko’s allegations about Sergei Millian. At a minimum, they were aware of the discrepancies in Danchenko’s claims about Millian. And how did Danchenko respond? By changing his story.
The importance is two-fold. First, it confirms to the Mueller Special Counsel that there are even more problems with Danchenko’s story. Second, it catches Danchenko in a lie that would, 4+ years later, be part of his own indictment. (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 10/15/2022)(Archive)
“Hertzog was with the FBI from 2008 through 2019 as an intelligence analyst with a primary focus on Russian counterintelligence. She described her role as an analyst who “looks at information and tries to identify trends, patterns, and investigative next steps.” She was assigned to the Directorate of Intelligence at FBI Headquarters.
Hertzog was assigned to Special Counsel Mueller’s Office in July 2017. She described her role and chain of command with the Mueller Team:
Q And what, generally, was your role with the Special Counsel Mueller’s team?
A I was primarily initially to focus on looking into reports that the FBI had received on Russian matters.
Q All right. Did those reports have a particular name?
A We referred to them typically as the Steele dossier.
Q Now, as a member of Special Counsel Mueller’s team, was there a chain of command?
A Yes.
Q Can you describe the chain of command that you worked with?
A I reported directly to SIA Brian Auten. Above him was Special Counsel Mueller. There were horizontal chains of reporting as well. So there was an attorney, a supervisory special agent, and then head of FBI personnel.
Q Okay. So you had occasion to work with special agents as well, correct?
A Correct.
Q And who were some of the special agents that you worked with Special Counsel Mueller?
A I worked with Supervisory Special Agent Amy Anderson and Supervisory Special Agent Joe Nelson.
Hertzog became familiar with the Steele Dossier, and with the parties involved in the Steele Dossier, once she joined the Mueller Team:
Q And how did you become familiar with Mr. Steele?
A When I reported [July 2017] to the Special Counsel’s Office, SCO, I had received background information on the investigation up until that point.
It was her job to “look into the Steele Dossier.” She described this as “trying to identify the sourcing for the claims in the dossier and, specifically, the national security threat with regards to the Russian influence piece.” Hertzog explains:
Q And a lot of names appeared in those dossier reports?
A Correct.
Q Did you learn that there were a number of different sources that the defendant relied on?
A Yes.
Q Did you have a particular focus on any of those sources?
A There were a number of sub-sources that were identified for investigative next steps.
Q Okay. And did you have a particular individual that you focused on?
A Yes. There was an individual named Olga Galkina who was — when I was assigned to SCO, was my primary focus initially.
Compare Hertzog’s testimony to the words of Robert Mueller:
How do we not conclude that Mueller lied to Congress?
Unless his own team kept him in the dark about their own investigation of the Steele Dossier?
The title of this post references “obstruction” by the Mueller Special Counsel. Just to clarify, we’re not saying that there will be charges of obstruction of justice from anyone on the Mueller Team. (We’re not going to predict what comes next.) By obstruction we mean obstructing the truth, or obstructing the efforts to determine the truth. We plan to dive deeper into this Mueller issue in the near future.
Back to Hertzog. She took investigative steps to look into the Steele Dossier. She investigated Olga Galkina. She also looked into Charles Dolan:
Q And what’s your understanding of who Mr. Dolan is?
A Mr. Dolan, to my understanding, having reviewed FBI databases, had connectivity to both Mr. Danchenko and Ms. Galkina.
Q So your testimony is that you learned about Mr. Dolan through the various FBI databases?
A I believe information was provided to me as background when I on boarded with SCO, and I became aware of more information as I researched.
In fact, Hertzog connected Dolan to Olga Galkina, and also to those who had worked in the Russian government (such as Putin ally and confidant Dmitry Peskov). She checked Dolan’s travel records, finding he had traveled to Cyprus (where Galkina was located) and also to Russia. She found Dolan’s link to Galkina, a “sub-source for the Steele Dossier” of particular importance.” (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 10/15/2022)(Archive)
“An elite Washington, D.C., think tank has employed individuals who’ve worked for front groups controlled by Chinese spy agencies, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has employed over a dozen individuals who’ve worked in a range of capacities at China-based nonprofits set up or co-opted by Chinese intelligence agencies, including the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the intel arm of the People’s Liberation Army.
These individuals have served as experts in various policy areas, including international relations, American politics and nuclear policy while working at both the think tank’s D.C. headquarters and at its Tsinghua University center in Beijing. Moreover, not only did Carnegie employ the majority of these experts while current CIA Director William Burns was president of the think tank, but, according to the nonprofit’s current records, Carnegie still employs individuals working for Chinese intelligence front groups.
Carnegie, the CIA and Director Burns did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF.
The DCNF was able to identify Carnegie staff who’ve worked for Chinese spy fronts by cross-referencing publicly available employment information with a new book on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intel and influence operations written by Alex Joske, a former analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
The book, called “Spies and Lies,” details Chinese intelligence agents’ efforts to infiltrate and influence Western institutions. Joske reveals a front set up by China’s version of the CIA began courting Carnegie in the early 2000s — a relationship the DCNF discovered has persisted to this day. (Read more: Daily Caller, 11/11/2022)(Archive)
FISA Court rubber stamps FBI warrant applications to spy on Americans. (Credit: River City Reader)
(…) The FBI’s use of the uncorroborated Steele dossier was not the FBI’s worst offense, however. Worse still was the Crossfire Hurricane team’s last-minute amendment to the FISA application that misleadingly framed Steele’s source network as one established during his time as an MI6 agent, when, in fact, neither Danchenko nor any of Steele’s other dossier sources had been sources during his time with British intelligence.
While Steele would later confirm for the inspector general that his source network did not involve sources from his time with MI6, but “was developed entirely in the period after he retired from government service,” from Auten’s detailed trial testimony, we now know that the Crossfire Hurricane team either knew Steele’s source network was not connected to British intelligence or knew that it could not, in good faith, make that representation to the FISA court.
For two days, Durham elicited testimony from Auten of the FBI’s attempts to ascertain Steele’s source network, including during a trip to Europe in early October, but Steele refused to identify his sources. Auten’s testimony in this regard proves significant when considered together with details previously revealed in the Office of Inspector General’s report on FISA abuse.
In discussing the process the FBI undertook to obtain the first FISA warrant on Page, the OIG explained that the day before the FISA court granted the surveillance order, the government submitted a “read copy” of the FISA application to the FISA court’s legal adviser for a preliminary assessment of any issues. The FISA court’s legal adviser asked the attorney working with the FBI on the application “how it was that Steele had a network of subsources?”
The government lawyer “provided additional information to him regarding Steele’s past employment history,” the OIG report explained; that response implied Steele’s source network came from his time with MI6. Significantly, the FISA court’s legal adviser then indicated the additional detail of Steele’s prior work with British intelligence should be included in the official FISA application to the court.
“That the legal advisor not only raised the question about Steele’s access to a network of sources, but then insisted that the FISA application be updated to include information concerning Steele’s prior government position, shows the FISA court placed great significance on Steele’s previous British intelligence work for purposes of assessing the reliability of his source network.” And with that misleading information added, the next day, Oct. 21, 2016, the FISA court issued the first of four orders authorizing the surveillance of Page’s phone and email accounts.
Given the importance the legal adviser placed on understanding Steele’s source network, it seems unlikely the FISA court would have authorized the surveillance of Page had the FBI either acknowledged that Steele’s source network came from his private work with Orbis or conceded that Steele had refused to reveal his sources. It was this final deception, then, and not merely the FBI’s reliance on the uncorroborated Steele dossier, that led to the illegal surveillance of Page. And, here, those involved in adding the last-minute, credibility-boosting footnote reference to Steele’s MI6 work knew full well that misrepresentation would score the bureau a surveillance warrant, making it an even worse transgression.” (Read more: The Federalist, 10/14/2022) (Archive)
There are, at the very least, 459 documented violations of state and federal laws and regulations on the infamous device.
For the past thirteen months, MarcoPolo—a nonprofit research group comprised of six men from across the U.S. dedicated to exposing corruption and blackmail—has been writing a comprehensive Report on the Biden Laptop and the crimes thereon. Our motives and budget were transparent; thousands of Americans financed its production. We neither sought nor received any institutional/corporate backing. We were delayed for various reasons, but finished the dossier for 35k underbudget.
At long last, the Report is complete. It has been sent to members of the U.S. House & U.S. Senate, U.S. attorneys for the jurisdictions in which the Bidens and their associates committed crimes, state and local law enforcement, and—for good measure—every contact on the Biden Laptop, which includes all of Hunter’s classmates at Archmere Academy and a portion of the current White House staff.
It is simple but dense: 630 pages. 2,020 footnotes. Broken up neatly into seven sections with the biggest focus being Business-Related Crimes. We believe that it is the deepest digital colonoscopy ever performed on a sitting U.S. first family.
Let’s talk about Hillary Clinton, Lafarge, ISIS, the law firm Paul | Weiss and Corporations paying “fines” for “Conspiring to Provide Material Support to Foreign Terrorist Organizations” ⚖️💥🎻
From 1985-1992, HRC made $31,000 per year as a board member of Lafarge Corporation 🧵 pic.twitter.com/sAGodpNN5A
In 2001, Loretta Lynch signed off as Commissioner of the Telcordia Technologies, Inc. > NeuStar, Inc. transfer 22 days before 9/11.https://t.co/zofZuPZRvO
“We need to make sure that those who get the benefit of such an arrangement comply with their responsibility.” said John Carlin, a senior member of the deputy attorney general’s office. “If not, you should expect to see serious repercussions.”https://t.co/eKuD1Bv1Na
Paul, Weiss was advising Neustar in its $3.1 billion sale to TransUnion… Coincidentally, announced just THREE DAYS before the Sussman Indictment is unsealed.https://t.co/Pwo5IJ1Jpypic.twitter.com/HU2rVOqyRp
Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia <=> Hogan Lovells <=> Neustar <=> Rodney Joffe <=> Perkins Coie <=> John Podesta <=> Michael Sussman <=> Hillary for America <=> Steptoe & Johnson | Hogan Lovells | Kirkland & Ellis ALL DONATED to HFA.
Howard Topaz was the tax lawyer who filed income tax returns for the Clintons’ 2004 + 2007-14 joint tax returns – which were prepared by Hogan & Hartson/Hogan Lovells.
Hogan & Hartson employed Gold Star Father Khizr Khan, there he worked on the EB5 travel visa program. pic.twitter.com/cyRhV4kJIZ
SWEDISH TELECOM GIANT LM ERICSSON & ITS U.S. DIVISION ERICSSON INC. SUED BY 862 AMERICANS FOR ALLEGED PROTECTION MONEY PAYMENTS TO AQ, AQ-IN-IRAQ & ISLAMIC STATE
That Alex Jones is a nationally detested villain for getting a story incorrect (despite apologizing and retracting countless times, something I’ve yet to see CNN, MSNB anchors do for Rittenhouse) and yet most people couldn’t have cared less about Epstein – a man who trafficked thousands of children, purportedly helped to found the Clinton Foundation, and was suicided in the most painfully obvious manner possible – says a lot about banal and shallow values of our culture and how easily our attention can be diverted to meaningless noise.
It’s like…
On the one hand, you have something that’s kind of bad. Grieving parents get weird voicemails and messages calling them liars (and in one case the n-word despite being white)… OK sure, that’s bad. Did Alex tell them to do that? No. Did Alex apologize and rescind his theory? Yes. OK great, let’s stop talking about this!
Then on the other hand you have a pedophile with his own island and more powerful connections than you can count – many of those connections holding legal positions of authority over your life including PRESIDENTS. The trafficking alone is infinitely worse than a couple of parents being harassed, not to mention the implications of a compromised government that’s complicit in the trafficking (who are willing to murder to cover their tracks). Can we discuss this rather than demonize the guy who’s been screaming about it since 2008?!?!?
Anyways… God bless Whitney Webb for sticking to true journalism. The entire interview is worth a watch:
“The FBI is asking a U.S. court to reverse its order that it produce information from Seth Rich’s laptop computer.
If the court does not, the bureau wants 66 years to produce the information.
(…) In the new filing, government lawyers said the FBI never extracted the data, which it revealed as originating with a law enforcement agency. They said the information is on a compact disc containing images of the laptop.
“The FBI did not open an investigation into the murder of Seth Rich, nor did it provide investigative or technical assistance to any investigation into the murder of Seth Rich. As a result, the FBI has never extracted the data from the compact disc and never processed the information contained on the disc,” they said.
To produce the information, the FBI would have to convert information on the disc into pages and then review the pages to redact information per FOIA, according to the government.
If Mazzant upholds his order, the FBI wants a lengthy period of time to perform the work—66 years, or 500 pages a month.
“If the court overrules the FBI’s motion, the FBI wants to produce records at a rate of 500 pages per month. At that rate, it will take almost 67 years just to produce the documents, never mind the images and other files,” Ty Clevenger, a lawyer representing Huddleston, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“After dealing with the FBI for five years, I now assume that the FBI is lying to me unless and until it proves otherwise. The FBI is desperately trying to hide records about Seth Rich, and that begs the question of why.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/28/2022)(Archive)
The National Archives in Washington D.C. (Credit: National Archives.gov)
“Biden’s lawyers discovered the materials in November and self-reported them, and some were classified at the top secret level, officials said.
The issue of handling of classified documents boomeranged Monday on President Joe Biden, just months after the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Florida home, as officials confirmed a small number of classified documents were found in a private office once used by the current president at his think tank.
A senior government official directly familiar with the discovery told Just the News that the National Archives asked the Justice Department to open an investigation in November after a small number of classified documents — some marked top secret — were found in a locked closet in the Penn Biden Center in Washington, where Biden worked after he left the Obama administration.
The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked a U.S. attorney in Illinois — a holdover from the Trump administration — to oversee the investigation with NARA and the FBI. The documents appear to be from the Obama administration.
The White House released a statement Monday evening confirming the discovery and the investigation, saying Biden’s lawyers self-disclosed the existence of the documents when the office previously used by the president was being vacated for another party.
“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings,” White House special counsel Richard Sauber said in a statement after the discovery was reported by CBS and CNN. “The documents were discovered when the President’s personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.” (Read more: Just the News, 1/9/2023)(Archive)
Joe Biden speaks at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. (Credit: New York Post)
“Classified documents from Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President were found in early November at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, CBS News reports, citing two sources with knowledge of an inquiry launched by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The investigation into the roughly 10 documents will be conducted by the US Attorney in Chicago (shocking!), according to the sources.
The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, the day before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement to CBS News. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the classified documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets. -CBS News
Remember when the DOJ raided former President Trump and made a huge deal about classified documents having been commingled with not-classified documents? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
According to Sauber, the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives on the same day the material was discovered, after which the Archives took possession the next morning.
“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” said Sauber. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
In charge of the investigation is John Lausch, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who will seek to determine how the classified material ended up at the Penn Biden Center (which received $54.6 million in Chinese donations after the Biden Center was announced in 2016). (Zero Hedge, 1/10/2023)(Archive)
(…) Joe Biden STOLE highly classified documents from a SCIF while he was a US Senator and Vice President. He had no right to store any classified material at his home or the Penn Biden Center.
Not only did Biden steal SCIF-designated documents and improperly scatter them everywhere, evidence shows he likely used them to provide classified briefings on Ukraine to his son/bagman Hunter Biden.
It also appears Biden is hiding documents from NARA.
According to investigative reporter Paul Sperry, records reveal Joe Biden had his personal lawyer send a FedEx driver to the Penn Biden Center to pick up his boxes of classified White House documents on November 2, 2022 – just ONE DAY BEFORE the National Archives (NARA) arrived to the center to seize the documents.
Did Joe Biden withhold classified documents from the National Archives?
BREAKING: Records reveal Biden had his personal lawyer send a FedEx driver to the Penn Biden Center to pick up boxes of WH docs on Nov 2, 2022–the day before (Nov 3) the National Archives arrived @ the Center to retrieve classified WH docs “discovered” there. Docs w/h from NARA?
Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), is expected to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if Republicans take the House. (Credit: yahoo!news)
“House Judiciary Republicans on Friday released a 1,000-plus page report on FBI whistleblower disclosures on “the politicization of the FBI And Justice Department.”
The members called the report “the first comprehensive accounting of the FBI’s problems to date, which undermine the FBI’s fundamental law-enforcement mission.”
They also say in an announcement about the report that the 1,050 document “primarily concerns FBI abuses, due to the experiences and roles of whistleblowers, but also examines the actions of the Justice Department where appropriate for context and explanation.”
(…) “The thousand-page report builds on various whistleblower disclosures describing the FBI’s Washington hierarchy as ‘rotted at its core’ with a “systemic culture of unaccountability,” the report also reads.
The House Judiciary Republicans list as some of the “key takeaways” in the report as:
FBI leadership abusing its law-enforcement authority for political reasons.
The FBI artificially inflating and manipulating domestic violent extremism statistics for political purposes.
The FBI downplaying and reducing the spread of the serious allegations of wrongdoing leveled against Hunter Biden.
The Justice Department and FBI using counterterrorism resources to target parents resisting a far-left educational curriculum.
“The FBI took possession of the Biden Laptop—via grand jury subpoena—on December 9, 2019. The two agents from the Wilmington Resident Agency of the Baltimore Field Office who delivered that subpoena to the laptop repair shop owner (Mac Isaac) were Josh Wilson and Mike Dzielak.
Wilson and Dzielak have since attempted to scrub their online footprint, but Wilson is still featured in several articles. Locating a picture of Dzielak, however, proved somewhat difficult—and now we know why. In his soon-to-be-released book, Mac Isaac recounts how Dzielak told Mac Isaac the following—in a serious tone—after delivering the grand jury subpoena: “It is our experience that nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things.” Well, Mac Isaac did “talk about these things” after Dzielak and Wilson (& the FBI HQ) slow-walked the investigation into the Bidens.”
Alexander Vindman testifies before a House Intelligence Committee hearing as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump on November 19, 2019. (Credit: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)
“A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by star impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Ret.) against Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and two Trump White House staffers for supposed “witness intimidation” during Trump’s impeachment hearings.
Vindman filed his suit in February, just over a year after he had enjoyed fifteen minutes of infamy before Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the House Intelligence Committee, as Democrats sought to impeach and remove Trump for allegedly pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate allegations of corruption against Joe Biden, his leading rival in the 2020 election.
(…) Vindman alerted a contact in the intelligence committee — whom he refused to name under oath — about a July 2019 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, triggering the investigation into Trump. Schiff would not allow Vindman to be questioned about the so-called “whistleblower” who first approached the House Intelligence Committee with his second-hand concerns about the call. Vindman did admit, however, that the Ukrainians felt no “pressure” to investigate Biden.
(…) U.S. District Court James Boasberg of the District of Columbia, a Barack Obama appointee, issued a 29-page ruling, The Hillreported, concluding that even if “Defendants leveled harsh, meanspirited, and at times misleading attacks” against Vindman, “political hackery alone does not violate [the law at issue].” White House staffers Dan Scavino and Julia Hahn, a former reporter for Breitbart News, were also named as defendants in the lawsuit.” (Read more: Breitbart, 11/8/2022)(Archive)
Patrick Moore (l, bottom) and his law office in Boston, Massachusetts. Moore was appointed as the First Assistant Attorney General by the newly elected Massachusetts Attorney General, Andrea Campbell, in December 2022. (Credit: MSN)
Nine boxes of documents were taken from President Biden’s attorney Patrick Moore’s Boston office, but have yet to be reviewed, the National Archives disclosed in a response letter to Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, this week first obtained by Fox News Digital.
The Archives had not previously publicly disclosed the number of boxes taken from Boston. It had been reported that Moore had shipped boxes of documents from the Penn Biden Center to his Boston office before discovering the initial trove of classified documents at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
In response to questions by Johnson and Grassley in a Feb. 24 letter asking how and when the archives learned that records were transported to Boston, Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall responded the agency learned about it on Nov. 3, 2022.
“When NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] contacted President Biden’s personal counsel on November 3, 2022, to arrange to pick up boxes from the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., they informed NARA that Mr. Moore had moved other boxes from the Penn Biden Center to Mr. Moore’s law firm in Boston,” the letter states.
In addition, the archives notified the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General on Nov. 4 that the documents had been moved. The documents were then picked up on Nov. 9 and were secured in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
“NARA staff retrieved nine boxes from Mr. Moore’s Boston office,” Wall continued, which had not been previously known.
Despite having possession of the documents since November, the Archives has not yet reviewed the boxes’ content to determine whether additional classified materials are inside.
“NARA has not reviewed the contents of the boxes found at Mr. Moore’s Boston office,” Wall states in the letter dated Tuesday. (Read more: Fox News, 3/08/2023)(Archive)
FoiaFan@15poundstogo highlights a few of the released documents:
Wow. From the latest Crooked Hillary FBI foia drop. "Bad guy within" "Put ___ up to it" "determined not to prosecute" "all handled quietly" pic.twitter.com/qgf9i31Uwn
Funny how the FBI quickly announced before Election Day '16 that the Weiner Laptop offered nothing new on the Hillary investigation. But they DIDN'T INTERVIEW the laptop's OWNER until 2 MONTHS AFTER the election. Isn't that special?!? AND, they made the agents sign NDAs!!! pic.twitter.com/Dc8gLdTJTu
“In the shift of the left against free speech principles, there is no figure more actively or openly pushing for censorship than Hillary Clinton. Now, reports indicate that Clinton has unleashed her allies in the corporate world to coerce Musk to restore censorship policies or face bankruptcy. The effort of the Clinton-linked “Accountable Tech” reveals the level of panic in Democratic circles that free speech could be restored on one social media platform. The group was open about how losing control over Twitter could result in a loss of control over social media generally. For Clinton, it is an “all-hands on deck” call for censorship. She previously called upon foreign governments to crackdown on the free speech of Americans on Twitter.
We have been discussing how Clinton and others have called on foreign countries to pass censorship laws to prevent Elon Musk from restoring free speech protections on Twitter. It seems that, after years of using censorship-by-surrogates in social media companies, Democratic leaders seem to have rediscovered good old-fashioned state censorship.
Accountable Tech led an effort to send a letter to top Twitter advertisers to force Musk to accept “non-negotiable” requirements for censorship.
General Motors was one of the first to pull its advertising funds to stop free speech restoration on the site.
Of course, the company had no problem with supporting Twitter when it was running one of the largest censorship systems in history — or supporting TikTok (which is Chinese-owned and has been denounced for state control and access to data). Twitter has been denounced for years for its bias against conservative and dissenting voices, including presumably many GM customers on the right. None of that was a concern for GM but the pledge to restore free speech to Twitter warrants a suspension.
The letter is open about the potential cascading effect if free speech is restored on one platform: “While the company is hardly a poster child for healthy social media, it has taken welcome steps in recent years to mitigate systemic risks, ratcheting up pressure on the likes of Facebook and YouTube to follow suit.”
The letter insists that free speech will only invite “disinformation, hate, and harassment” and that “[u]nder the guise of ‘free speech,’ [Musk’s] vision will silence and endanger marginalized communities, and tear at the fraying fabric of democracy.”
Among other things, the letter demands “algorithmic accountability,” a notable inclusion in light of Democratic politicians demanding enlightened algorithms to protect citizens from their own bad choices or thoughts.
This is a copy of the letter posted in Turley’s article. The original letter was posted on Scribd and has since been removed.)
General Motors was one of the first to pull its advertising funds to stop free speech restoration on the site.
Of course, the company had no problem with supporting Twitter when it was running one of the largest censorship systems in history — or supporting TikTok (which is Chinese owned and has been denounced for state control and access to data). Twitter has been denounced for years for its bias against conservative and dissenting voices, including presumably many GM customers on the right. None of that was a concern for GM but the pledge to restore free speech to Twitter warrants a suspension.
The letter is open about the potential cascading effect if free speech is restored on one platform: “While the company is hardly a poster-child for healthy social media, it has taken welcome steps in recent years to mitigate systemic risks, ratcheting up pressure on the likes of Facebook and YouTube to follow suit.”
The letter insists that free speech will only invite “disinformation, hate, and harassment” and that “[u]nder the guise of ‘free speech,’ [Musk’s] vision will silence and endanger marginalized communities, and tear at the fraying fabric of democracy.”
Among other things, the letter demands “algorithmic accountability,” a notable inclusion in light of Democratic politicians demanding enlightened algorithms to protect citizens from their own bad choices or thoughts.
In addition to Accountable Tech, twenty-five other groups signed the letter to demand the restoration of censorship policies, including Media Matters and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Accountable Tech has partnered in the past with Hillary Clinton’s Onward Together nonprofit group.
I have no objection to boycotts, which are an important form of free speech. However, this boycott action is directed at restoring censorship and preventing others from being able to post or to read opposing viewpoints.
If consistent with their past records, these companies will likely cave to these demands. While the public has clearly shown that they want more (not less) free speech, these executives are likely to yield to the pressure of Clinton and other powerful figures to coerce Musk into limiting the speech of others on his platform.
These campaigns only add support to Musk’s push for alternative revenue sources, including verification fees. As I previously wrote, we can show that there is a market for free speech by supporting Twitter in trying to reduce the dependence on corporate sponsors. If Musk remains faithful to free speech, many customers are likely to join his platform and support his effort to reduce censorship on social media. (Read more: Jonathan Turley, 11/17/2022) (Archive)
“Attorney General Merrick Garland will appoint a special counsel to determine whether former President Donald Trump should face charges stemming from Justice Department probes, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
Updates as they come through:
Jack Smith (Credit: public domain)
AG Garland named former federal prosecutor Jack Smith as Special Counsel. Smith most recently worked at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. From 2010 to 2015, Smith served as Chief of the Public Integrity Section of the US Department of Justice, where he oversaw complex public corruption cases across the US. Further information on Smith can be found here.
The scope of Smith’s appointment includes January 6 and the ongoing classified/national security documents investigation. As to January 6, Smith is tasked to “conduct the ongoing investigation into
What of Jack Smith’s past? Here’s some background on his connections to Lois Lerner and his involvement in the IRS targeting scandal back in the early 2010s:
In their letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Committee said, “The Justice Department convened a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner in October 2010 to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits. This meeting was arranged at the direction of Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith.”
As to January 6, Smith is tasked to “conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.”
With respect to the Mar-a-Lago raid, Smith “is further authorized to conduct that investigation . . . and any matters that arise or may arise directly from that investigation.”
If you’re concerned about new Special Counsel Jack Smith, here’s reason for further warning – an endorsement from corrupt Special Counsel Mueller member Andrew Weissmann:
Jack Smith, the new Special Counsel, is a very aggressive prosecutor who represents the best of the Department, who will bring cases if warranted be fact sand the law.
For the Biden DOJ, this step is no surprise. They would have planned for it to take place once Trump announced his candidacy. And sure enough, here we are. While the special counsel is quasi-independent, allegedly, it will still be subject to the control of Attorney General Garland. (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 11/18/2022)(Archive)
“A Big Tech lawsuit has uncovered one of the most disturbing revelations yet about social media companies’ collusion with law enforcement agencies to police speech on the Internet. A former FBI agent, Elvis Chan, revealed during the court hearings that the bureau held weekly meetings with major social media companies prior to the 2020 and 2022 elections.
On Wednesday, the court transcript of former FBI agent Elvis Chan’s testimony was released and corroborated earlier reports.
“Mr. Chan, or Agent Chan, who do you recall on the social media platform side participating in these — in these working group meetings that you have been testifying about from 2020 and 2022?”
“The companies that I remember attending the meetings are Facebook; Microsoft; Google; Twitter; Yahoo!, which have been known as Verizon Media at the time; Wikimedia Foundation and Reddit,” Agent Chan said.
Chan was then asked why the FBI was participating in these meetings.
“And why are you included in particular?”
“The reason that I attend these meetings is because the way the FBI works is FBI field offices are responsible for maintaining day-t0-day relationships with the companies that are headquartered in their area of responsibility, which I may occasionally abbreviate AOR,” Chan responded. “And all of the companies that have been listed, with the exception of Microsoft, are all headquartered in San Francisco’s territory.”
Chan also testified that he was in regular contact with Facebook’s Steven Siegel and Twitter’s Yoel Roth, as reported by Lee Fang.
FBI agent Elvis Chan, at the San Francisco field office for the agency, testified that he was in regular contact with Facebook’s Steven Siegel and Twitter’s Yoel Roth. pic.twitter.com/oIoeRQ5STR
Yoel Roth, formerly Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, was recently terminated by Elon Musk, as was Twitter’s General Counsel Jim Baker, who was formerly the FBI’s General Counsel.
Chan also related the U.S. government is in regular correspondence with major social media platforms regarding elections; namely, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (or CISA).
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, one of the attorneys general that filed the lawsuit, earlier disclosed an overview of FBI agent Elvis Chan’s testimony on ‘weekly meetings’ about censoring Internet posts ahead of the 2020 election.
“In our deposition of FBI agent Elvis Chan on Tuesday, we found that the FBI plays a big role in working with social media companies to censor speech – from weekly meetings with social media companies ahead of the 2020 election to asks for account takedowns,” Schmitt wrote in a Twitter thread.
“Chan, the FBI’s FITF, and senior CISA officials had meetings with social media companies in the lead-up to the 2020 election, in which Chan personally told the social media companies that there could potentially be a Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation shortly before the election,” he continued. “Those meetings were initially quarterly, then monthly, then weekly heading into the 2020 election.”
“Chan stated that the FBI regularly sent social media companies lists of URLs and social media accounts that should be taken down because they were disinformation from ‘malign foreign influence operations’,” Schmitt went on. “The FBI then inquired whether the platforms have taken down the content. On many occasions, the platforms took down the accounts flagged by the FBI.”
Chan testified because of the agent’s extensive knowledge of the FBI’s interaction with social media companies, the judge in the case stated.
“Chan had authority over cybersecurity issues for the FBI in the San Francisco, California region which includes the headquarters of major social-media platforms and played a critical role for the FBI in coordinating with social-media platforms related to censorship,” Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in his court order.
“Even if Chan played no role in the Hunter Biden laptop communication issue, he may have knowledge of who did, and his deposition is nonetheless warranted,” the judge aded. “If Chan played no role in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, then such information will be made clear in his deposition.” (Read more: Becker News, 12/07/2022)(Archive)
(…) “Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly,” Taibbi wrote. “By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.'”
Taibbi shared a screenshot of that October 2020 exchange featuring links to tweets Biden’s team allegedly wanted taken down. Many of them were to tweets featuring pornographic images of Hunter Biden found in his laptop, according to Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Andrew Kerr.
8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.” pic.twitter.com/mnv0YZI4af
Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However… This system wasn’t balanced,” Taibbi wrote. “It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.”
“The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives,” the journalist teased.
He then quickly pivoted to the “Twitter Files” regarding the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Taibbi tweeted “there’s no evidence – that I’ve seen” that the federal government had a role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story but that “the decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.”
Taibbi then shared a screenshot of an exchange between Gadde, Twitter’s former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth and Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy, who wrote “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe.”
“Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” Twitter’s former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman similarly asked at the time, according to a separate screenshot shared by Taibbi.
Twitter’s former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker replied, “I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked” but added “it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”
https://t.co/j4EeXEAw6F can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”: pic.twitter.com/w1wBMlG33U
28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6
Taibbi then revealed that Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna reached out to Gadde about the “backlash re speech,” noting that Khanna “was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern.”
Gadde responded to the California lawmaker by “diving into the weeds” of Twitter’s policy, but Khanna warned Gadde “this seems [to be] a violation of the 1st Amendment principles.”
“I say this as a total Biden partisan and convinced that he didn’t do anything wrong. But the story now has become more about censorship than relatively innocuous emails and it’s becoming a bigger deal than it would have been,” Khanna wrote. (Read more: Fox News, 12/2/2022)(Archive)
Former FBI general counsel James A. Baker leaves Sussmann trial on May 19, 2022. (Credit:Ron Sachs/CNP for NY Post)
“As thousands of Twitter documents are released on the company’s infamous censorship program, much has been confirmed about the use of back channels by Biden and Democratic officials to silence critics on the social media platform. However, one familiar name immediately popped out in the first batch of documents released through journalist Matt Taibbi: James Baker. For many, James Baker is fast becoming the Kevin Bacon of the Russian collusion scandals.
Baker has been featured repeatedly in the Russian investigations launched by the Justice Department, including the hoax involving the Russian Alfa Bank. When Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann wanted to plant the bizarre false claim of a secret communications channel between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, Baker was his go-to, speed-dial contact. (Baker would later testify at Sussmann’s trial). Baker’s name also appeared prominently in controversies related to the other Russian-related FBI allegations against Trump. He was effectively forced out due to his role and reportedly found himself under criminal investigation. He became a defender of the Russian investigations despite findings of biased and even criminal conduct. He was also a frequent target of Donald Trump on social media, including Twitter. Baker responded with public criticism of Trump for his “false narratives.”
After leaving the FBI, Twitter seemed eager to hire Baker as deputy general counsel. Ironically, Baker soon became involved in another alleged back channel with a presidential campaign. This time it was Twitter that maintained the non-public channels with the Biden campaign (and later the White House). Baker soon weighed in with the same signature bias that characterized the Russian investigations.
Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post ran an explosive story about a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden that contained emails and records detailing a multimillion dollar influence peddling operation by the Biden family. Not only was Joe Biden’s son Hunter and brother James involved in deals with an array of dubious foreign figures, but Joe Biden was referenced as the possible recipient of funds from these deals.
The Bidens had long been accused of influence peddling, nepotism, and other forms of corruption. Moreover, the campaign was not denying that the laptop was Hunter Biden’s and key emails could be confirmed from the other parties involved. However, at the request of the “Biden team” and Democratic operatives, Twitter moved to block the story. It even suspended those who tried to share the allegations with others, including the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who was suspended for linking to the scandal.
(…) Baker quickly jumped in to support the censorship and said that “it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.” (Read more: Jonathan Turley, 12/4/2022)(Archive)
Attorneys representing the Missouri and Louisiana AGs in their case against the government have uncovered that the State Department was funding fact checkers possibly in the US.
(…) The Gateway Pundit readers know that The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft is a co-Plaintiff, along with several doctors and a Louisiana news outlet, in Missouri and Louisiana lawsuit against the Biden Administration. The AGs of Missouri and Louisiana are suing the Biden Administration (Missouri, et al, v. Biden, et al), the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the DOJ, Jen Psaki, Anthony Fauci, Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, and other federal agents and agencies for colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans all across the nation.
Daniel Kimmage (Credit: video screenshot)
(…) The Attorneys General recently deposed Daniel Kimmage, the Acting Coordinator for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State.
The Gateway Pundit tonight can confirm that we’ve uncovered something shocking and potentially corrupt or even criminal that was revealed during his deposition.
…the Acting Coordinator for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State. In this role, Mr. Kimmage leads [led] efforts to coordinate and synchronize U.S. government communications efforts designed to counter terrorist recruitment and state-sponsored propaganda and disinformation.
Based on Kimmage’s testimony we’ve uncovered information that the State Department was funding online fact-checkers. Kimmage doesn’t state whether it was foreign or domestic fact-checkers that the State Department was funding.
In the deposition in the Missouri and Louisiana case against the government, Kimmage shared the following:
(Page 183 / Lines 1-4 & 17-25)
1 Q. Has the GEC ever supported
2 fact-checking organizations inside the United
3 States?
4 A. I don’t believe so.
17 Q. What fact-checkers do you work
18 with?
19 A. I believe the Pointer(sp) Institute is
20 the only one I recall. I don’t recall the —
21 the specific organizations.
22 Q. Where is that? Where is that
23 located?
24 A. I don’t recall.
25 Q. Is that a foreign or domestic
(Page 184 / Lines 1-4 & 12-23 )
1 fact-checking organization?
2 A. I don’t — I don’t recall. I don’t
3 recall anything beyond the name.
12 Q. Do you have any understanding of
13 how GEC works with fact-checking organizations,
14 in general?
15 A. I believe it would be identifying
16 an organization that works in a location where a
17 foreign propaganda disinformation actor, like
18 Russia or China, would be active and supporting
19 them in some fashion.
20 Q. What kind of fashion?
21 A. Support could range from a grant or
22 a financial support to information sharing or
23 training in tools and techniques.
Kimmage must have tried to hide who that entity was that he was talking about.
The Gateway Pundit found that Poynter Institute operates Politifact one of the most notorious fact-checkers in the business. The Poynter Institute also brags about teaching classes on ethics. This and all the while the Institute according to Kimmage was being given grants by the US State Department.
The Poynter Institute does mention that it is supported by government agencies:
We rely on support from several funding sources who value the essential role of the free press in our society, including corporate partners, philanthropic foundations, government agencies and individual donors.
“Twitter’s former Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, had weekly meetings with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) at least as far back as 2020, when former President Donald Trump was still in office, internal communications between Twitter staff obtained by journalist Matt Taibbi Friday reveal.
Yoel Roth (Credit: screenshot/CNN)
Yoel participated in one such weekly meeting shortly after the company’s moderation team was thrown into a crisis following its decision to suppress an October 2020New York Post story concerning a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, according to Taibbi. Roth appeared to explicitly ask the government officials in the meeting to “share anything useful” concerning the laptop story, but they apparently declined to do so.
“We blocked the NYP story, then we unblocked it (but said the opposite), then we said we unblocked it… and now we’re in a messy situation where our policy is in shambles, comms is angry, reporters think we’re idiots, and we’re refactoring an exceedingly complex policy 18 days out from the election. In short [fuck my life],” Roth apparently wrote in an internal message, Taibbi reported. “Weekly sync with FBI/DHS/DNI re: election security. The meeting happened about 15 minutes after the aforementioned Hacked Materials implosion; the government declined to share anything useful when asked.”
20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI): pic.twitter.com/s5IiUjQqIY
Roth’s weekly meetings with government officials may have involved separate meetings, with not all agencies present, Taibbi reported. “I have to miss the FBI and DHS meetings today, unfortunately,” Roth wrote to a Twitter staffer, indicating that the two agencies may not have been scheduled to meet with him at once.
The FBI also reported tweets to Twitter, one of which former Republican Councilor John Basham of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, posted, which alleged that “Between 2% & 25% Of Ballots By Mail Are Being REJECTED For Errors!” according to Taibbi. After deliberation, the team applied a “Learn how voting is safe and secure” label to Bashman’s tweet at Roth’s discretion, with one employee noting internally “it’s totally normal to have a 2% error rate,” Taibbi reported.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/09/2022)(Archive)
2. Twitter once had a mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.
4. Or consider the popular right-wing talk show host, Dan Bongino (@dbongino), who at one point was slapped with a “Search Blacklist.” pic.twitter.com/AdOK8xLu9v
6. Twitter denied that it does such things. In 2018, Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said: “We do not shadow ban.” They added: “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”
8. “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” one senior Twitter employee told us.
Seth Rich is pictured on a poster created by police officials to urge people with information about his murder to come forward. (Credit: Metropolitan Police Department)
“The FBI not only has possession of a laptop computer owned by Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich—who was murdered in 2016 by unknown assailants—but a report detailing forensic imaging of what’s being described as Rich’s work computer, the bureau revealed in a new filing.
The FBI’s records office located the report while searching for the work computer, Michael Seidel, chief of the office, said in a sworn declaration filed with a federal court in Texas on Dec. 9.
He described the document as “a three (3) page forensic report detailing the actions performed by an outside entity to image the work laptop.”
The report was among four documents that never had been disclosed by the FBI in relation to Rich’s case.
Journalist Sy Hersh said a source told him around 2017 about an FBI report on Rich. According to the source, Rich’s computer showed the DNC staffer had relayed DNC documents to WikiLeaks, a pro-transparency group. Hersh spoke about the source’s claims during a phone call with Ed Butowsky, an investor who later retracted claims about Rich’s brother Aaron being a WikiLeaks source, and discussed the call during a deposition.
(…) The new records were found after the records office contacted an unnamed FBI special agent during its search for Rich’s work computer, according to Seidel.
The other records include a letter from a third party that accompanied the work computer and two FBI chain of custody forms.
None of the records were indexed to Rich inside of the bureau’s central records system, and neither the forensic report nor the custody forms mention Rich’s name, according to the FBI. They also weren’t included in an electronic file created for Rich’s case.
The agent claimed that disclosure of the records would harm an FBI investigation into the allegations that Russians had hacked into U.S. systems.
The FBI now wants the court to agree to keep the new records shielded from Brian Huddleston, a Texas resident who filed a lawsuit against the bureau for ignoring a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records on Rich.” (Read more: The Epoch Times)(Archive)
3. We’ll show you what hasn’t been revealed: the erosion of standards within the company in months before J6, decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies.
5. Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech. pic.twitter.com/tQ01n58XFc
7. Twitter executives removed Trump in part over what one executive called the “context surrounding”: actions by Trump and supporters “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.” In the end, they looked at a broad picture. But that approach can cut both ways. pic.twitter.com/Trgvq5jmhS
10. As the election approached, senior executives – perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed – increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of “vios” as pretexts to do what they’d likely have done anyway.
12. These initial reports are based on searches for docs linked to prominent executives, whose names are already public. They include Roth, former trust and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and recently plank-walked Deputy General Counsel (and former top FBI lawyer) Jim Baker.
14. On October 8th, 2020, executives opened a channel called “us2020_xfn_enforcement.” Through J6, this would be home for discussions about election-related removals, especially ones that involved “high-profile” accounts (often called “VITs” or “Very Important Tweeters”). pic.twitter.com/xH29h4cYt9
16. The latter group were a high-speed Supreme Court of moderation, issuing content rulings on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses, gut calls, even Google searches, even in cases involving the President. pic.twitter.com/5ihsPCVo62
18. Policy Director Nick Pickles is asked if they should say Twitter detects “misinfo” through “ML, human review, and **partnerships with outside experts?*” The employee asks, “I know that’s been a slippery process… not sure if you want our public explanation to hang on that.” pic.twitter.com/JEICGRTyz7
20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI): pic.twitter.com/s5IiUjQqIY
23. Some of Roth’s later Slacks indicate his weekly confabs with federal law enforcement involved separate meetings. Here, he ghosts the FBI and DHS, respectively, to go first to an “Aspen Institute thing,” then take a call with Apple. pic.twitter.com/i771hD8aCD
26. The group then decides to apply a “Learn how voting is safe and secure” label because one commenter says, “it’s totally normal to have a 2% error rate.” Roth then gives the final go-ahead to the process initiated by the FBI: pic.twitter.com/lyZm4gmT19
“The latest installment of the “Twitter Flies” notes the extent to which public pressure as well as private machinations contributed to Twitter’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump in January 2021.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama posted an irate tweet on Jan. 7, 2021, one day after the Capitol incursion.
“Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior — and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in place policies to prevent their technologies from being used by the nation’s leaders to fuel insurrection,” she wrote in part of her statement.
“And if we have any hope of improving this nation, now is the time for swift and serious consequences for the failure of leadership that led to yesterday’s shame,” she added.
The message was noted by journalist Michael Shellenberger in the fourth “Twitter Files” release.
“But after the events of Jan 6, the internal and external pressure on Twitter CEO @jack grows. Former First Lady @michelleobama, tech journalist @karaswisher, @ADL, high-tech VC @ChrisSacca, and many others, publicly call on Twitter to permanently ban Trump,” he wrote.
But after the events of Jan 6, the internal and external pressure on Twitter CEO @jack grows.
The series of tweets suggests Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was a bystander to what would follow.
“Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4-8, 2021,” Shellenberger tweeted, saying former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth and former Head of Legal, Policy, & Trust Vijaya Gadde were the lead executives handling the question of whether to ban Trump after the events of Jan. 6.
The series of tweets suggests Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was a bystander to what would follow.
“Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4-8, 2021,” Shellenberger tweeted, saying former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth and former Head of Legal, Policy, & Trust Vijaya Gadde were the lead executives handling the question of whether to ban Trump after the events of Jan. 6. (Read more: The Western Journal, 12/11/2022)(Archive)
The National Archives in Washington D.C. (Credit: National Archives.gov)
“The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is quietly preparing to release hundreds of pages of internal Obama White House records that could contain information about Hunter Biden’s relationship with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, Insider has learned — and the Biden Administration, which could put a stop to it by invoking executive privilege, is refusing to say whether it will allow the release to go forward.
The records, which include almost 300 full or partial emails that mention Burisma, date back to 2014 when Joe Biden was serving as vice president in the Obama Administration. According to a letter that the archives sent to the Biden White House and the Obama Foundation in November, NARA is proposing to release the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for emails that contain the word “Burisma.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left), meets with Ihor Kolomoisky (right), in Kiev, Ukraine, Sept. 10, 2019. The two are known to have long-time business ties. (Credit: Reuters)
The letter doesn’t describe the emails but says that “several” of them are press inquiries after the 2014 announcement that Hunter Biden had joined the company’s board, earning as much as $83,333 a month despite having no experience in the energy sector. The letter also says NARA will withhold 22 emails, without specifying why. The Freedom of Information Act offers exemptions for draft documents and comments that are “part of the deliberative or policy-making process.” Documents that could violate someone’s privacy or expose trade secrets are also potentially exempt.
(…) But first, the Biden White House must make a politically fraught decision about whether to invoke executive privilege to keep the emails secret. Under the Presidential Records Act, Biden and Obama’s respective legal teams have 60 days to assert claims of privilege before the Burisma emails will be released. If they choose to do so, the emails will remain sealed until January 2029, unless a court orders otherwise.
Mark Zaid, a national-security lawyer who has represented many federal whistleblowers, said the case for executive privilege was weak on legal grounds for those documents that are already in third-party hands, and invocation for any document carried political risks as well. “Any selective invocation of privilege,” he said “would no doubt only serve to highlight the sensitivities.”
The Biden White House repeatedly declined to answer questions about whether it intended to fight release.
We have newly unsealed documents – including the depositions of Ghislaine Maxwell and one of her victims – revealing new details on the extent of the abuse and victimization that took place by Jeffrey Epstein. Those filings come from Giuffre v. Maxwell, a civil case filed against Maxwell in 2015 in the New York Southern District.
Some of the broader allegations have already been made public. Sarah Ransome, who accused Epstein and Maxwell of abuse that took place during her early 20s, settled a civil lawsuit against them in 2018. Ransome has publicly described some of the abuse. And there have been reports on what transpired at Little St. James, often referred to as Epstein Island.
Unsealed photographs of Ghislaine Maxwell at Epstein Island. (Credit: public domain)
Let’s get to the new details, starting with the testimony of Ransome, available here. She actually lived one of Epstein’s apartments in 2006 with a few other girls. During that time, she worked for what she described as an “agency” which arranged paid dinners with wealthy clients: “I was paid to spend dinner with a gentleman.” Whatever happened after dinner with the client was done on her “own accord” and “after that time period had finished.”
Ransome was introduced to Epstein by a female associate of his (her name is still redacted), who described Epstein as a wealthy “philanthropist” who “really cares about people” and “really wants to help them.” She was open to meeting Epstein because she was struggling financially. Soon after meeting Epstein, Ransome was invited to travel on Epstein’s plane to Epstein Island. She was told it “was going to be a girls’ week” and they would have “so much fun”:
Q. How did the flight meeting become arranged, if you know?
A. So it was pretty a last-minute thing. phoned me up and said that Jeffrey Epstein would very much like to have me go to his island. It was going to be so much fun, it was going to be a girls’ week, there were lots of other girls going, we were going to have so much fun, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
What happened on the flight – her first flight with Epstein – must have been shocking to Ransome. She described what happened after they took off:
“The rest of the passengers in the — I think it’s towards the front of the plane where all the seats are — we all — all the guests were — fell asleep. I pretended to be asleep.
Jeffrey then went – Jeffrey went to his — was in his bed on the plane, having open sex with for everyone to see, on display.”
Ransome would eventually give massages to Epstein at the Island. She had been told that Epstein “loves women, loves getting massages” and that this “was a nice way to make extra cash.” At first, the massages were relatively normal. Then they escalated to the type of “massage” Epstein is now notorious for – much of which was done without Ransome’s consent.
She described her experiences at Epstein’s Island as being constantly surrounded by “beautiful young people” and that there “were always girls” there to visit “Jeffrey and Ghislaine.” Ransome also gave a description of the Island as having multiple buildings – a main house and then various buildings around the Island for Epstein and his guests:
“like little shelter things where him and his guests used to have sex with the girls, like beds set up for instant sexual entertainment.”
There was a “constant influx of girls” at this Island. It was a type of brothel. According to Ransome:
“It’s like, I’m sure if you go into a hooker’s brothel and see how they run their business, I mean, it’s just general conversation about who’s going to have sex with who and, you know — what do you talk about when all do you is have sex every day on rotation? I mean, what is there to talk about?”
She testified that all those girls “appeared to be teenagers.” They “looked young.” One girl in particular “looked well under 18.” This girl told Ransome that “they abused her on the island.” Another girl ran out of Epstein’s room crying and saying she was “forced to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein.” (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 12/14/2022)(Archive)
(…) The recently disclosed Twitter Files — a cache of internal communications from the social media giant — offer new evidence of one of the Russiagate disinformation campaign’s core functions: protecting the rule of domestic elites, particularly in the Democratic Party.
In two consecutive presidential elections, the Russian boogeyman has been invoked to stigmatize and silence reporting on the Democratic candidate. It began in 2016 when journalists who reported on the stolen DNC emails’ revelations about Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speeches or the DNC’s bias against Bernie Sanders were blamed for Trump’s victory and deemed to be unwitting Kremlin dupes promoting “disinformation” – in reality, factual material that embarrassed the pre-ordained winner.
Four years later, that same playbook was deployed for Clinton’s successor at the top of Democratic ticket, Joe Biden. In the weeks before the November 2020 election, Twitter and Facebook censored the New York Post’s reporting about the contents Hunter Biden’s laptop on the grounds that the computer material could be “Russian disinformation.” The Post’s stories detailed how Hunter Biden traded on his family name to secure lucrative business abroad, and raised questions about Joe Biden’s denials of any involvement.
The US media responded to the suppression of the laptop story with indifference or even approval. In one notable case, Glenn Greenwald resigned from the outlet that he co-founded, The Intercept, after its editors attempted to censor his coverage of the laptop controversy. Even stories that had long been public — such as the unqualified Hunter receiving an $80,000-per-month Burisma board seat just months after his father’s administration helped overthrow Ukraine’s government – were effectively off-limits.
There was never a shred of evidence that Russia was behind the laptop story, but that was of no consequence. Dutiful media editors, reporters, and pundits took their cues from a group of more than 50 former intelligence officials, who issued a statement declaring that the Hunter Biden laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
These intelligence veterans’ claim was in fact a classic Russiagate disinformation operation, as the Twitter files newly underscore.
“To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says as authorities are investigating if recently published emails are tied to a Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden. https://t.co/shyMNnJ7Yrpic.twitter.com/GFSeIWXeY4
The files, obtained by journalist Matt Taibbi, confirm that Twitter executives suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story based on the suspicion that Russia was behind it, despite their awareness that they had no evidence for that belief.
Asked to explain the rationale, Twitter’s then-Global Head of Trust and SafetyYoel Roth told colleagues that the “policy basis is hacked materials,” even though, he added, “the facts remain unclear.” Roth justified the fact-free censorship by invoking what he called “the SEVERE risks here and lessons of 2016.” By “lessons of 2016”, Roth was referring to the similarly evidence-free claims that Russia was behind the release of stolen DNC emails. By “SEVERE risks,” one plausible interpretation is that Roth is referring to the risk that dissemination of factual material could again, as in 2016, hurt the Democratic candidate, not to mention the career prospects of those who allow that to happen.
Joining Roth in agreement was Jim Baker, Twitter’s deputy general counsel, who advised that “it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.” (emphasis added) Baker’s mere presence at Twitter, and willingness to “assume” a falsehood that could justify censorship, reveals another lesson of 2016: from media outlets to social media giants, US intelligence officials have been granted unprecedented influence over the flow of public information – including stories in which they have blatant conflicts of interest. (Read more: Aaron Maté/Substack, 12/16/2022)(Archive)
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi has released the sixth installment after review of more Twitter File data [SEE HERE]. Keep in mind, the research group containing Mr. Taibbi are only seeing the consequences side of the content removal process. What specifically happened in/around the portal of information flowing into Twitter HQ is a different division. Taibbi et al are only seeing the consequences from the requests that entered the Twitter system.
The first section of Taibbi’s analysis is the most interesting. Having tracked the issue for several years, I would modify some of the descriptive language Taibbi presents yet agree with the overall context of his presentation.
Taibbi begins by noting, “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.” I would safely take that a step further, yes there is a subsidiary relationship; however, as years of government involvement continued by 2016 Twitter became the subsidiary of DHS, not vice-versa. This dynamic within the relationship explains some of the more curious elements that Taibbi struggles to fully understand.
Notice the timing of escalation by DHS/FBI: “The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”
As we have noted from the lead into and out of the 2016 election, the surveillance state took action specifically to protect itself from President Trump. This activity included the NSA, FISA court, FBI, DOJ-NSD, CIA, ODNI while specifically and purposefully enmeshing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).
Protecting Washington DC from the risk President Trump represented was a whole of government approach. The executive and legislative branches worked together and weaponized national security claims to involve the judicial branches in the effort. In the aftermath of the 2016 election outcome, now we see social media being pulled further into the approach.
The next three paragraphs are key in this Taibbi outline:
8. Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content.
Highlight: “security contractors,” now where have we heard that before? Yes, the same FBI contractor access to raw/bulk NSA metadata that was discovered being extracted in the height of the 2016 GOP nomination contest. In the aftermath of the election, and in coordination with the Twitter context, now those same security contractors are part of the surveillance system generating actionable items.
9. It’s no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts.
Here’s where Taibbi comes dangerously close to realizing the inflection point created by President Obama and AG Eric Holder. Prior to the arrival of the Obama administration the bulk data was a process of collection by the NSA (while looking outward for threats and limited in review by 4th amendment protections) and then delivery to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for transfer to DHS and FBI in order to take action on anything flagged.
When the flagged data was transferred into and out of the ODNI, the constitutional and lawful processes around the 4th amendment needed to be applied. That’s where the FISA court comes into play and applications for surveillance, that pass through the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), based on the intelligence data from the ODNI office, are put together.
The NSA was/is monitoring the raw data with a radar turned outward toward foreign entities. When something is flagged, that data is then transferred to the ODNI and exits toward the Dept of Homeland Security. The fourth amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure of private papers is supposed to apply when the data leaves ODNI. Before the FBI can use anything, the DOJ-NSD has to get a warrant, either from a federal judge or the FISA Court depending on the issue.
This process was what Barack Obama and Eric Holder worked around as they created a quasi-constitutional surveillance system. That’s where Taibbi’s next paragraph comes into play. Remember, even though President Trump was in office, the system operators in the institutions were from the Obama-Holder era:
10. The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.
Security contractors were reviewing the public information pages, then transmitting results to DHS and FBI…. who would then use their portal connection into Twitter to make “pre-flagged” requests. What type of requests? Example:
This example is only on the subject of the 2020 election; however, you can see what bullet point #3 requests, “any location information associated with the accounts that Twitter would voluntarily provide.”
Don’t get too hung up on the example, because it only references a priority of looking at the 2020 election. Instead ask yourself the bigger question, what other priorities would be in the mind of political ideologues within DHS and FBI? What other DHS tasks, DHS assignments and FBI operations would take place that would benefit from the networking between the government and social media?
In 2011 the DOJ was using IRS filings to conduct investigations of Americans. That was what the entire IRS Tea Party scandal was really about. It wasn’t the IRS wrongdoing that led to the class action settlement, it was the DOJ origination of a request for information from the IRS about the 501-c (3)(4) groups, specifically their “schedule B’ forms, that triggered the problem starting.
After the IRS issue surfaced publicly in 2012 the DOJ immediately dropped their use of the data that was contained on 21 CD-ROMS delivered by the IRS.
Aided by advances in technology, the Obama administration switched to surveillance via direct review of available metadata. Social media platforms were enlisted as DHS partners under the auspices of ‘national security’, and suddenly there was a full-fledged surveillance state underway.
The exploitation of the FISA process and the exploitation of the social media partnership is all connected to the same surveillance effort.
Taibbi posits a question in paragraph 12, “An unanswered question: do agencies like FBI and DHS do in-house flagging work themselves, or farm it out? “You have to prove to me that inside the fucking government you can do any kind of massive data or AI search,” says one former intelligence officer.” A question he previously answered when he talked about federal contractors.
The government doesn’t need to violate the constitution directly with unlawful searches and seizures. The government can outsource that part to national security contractors.
What the government needs to do is collect all the data, then pay or contract someone else to search it based on the needs of the DHS, FBI, DOJ-NSD etc etc.
That domestic surveillance system is what President Obama and Eric Holder created. That system is defended under the shield of ‘national security‘ as noted in the judicial ruling in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (Trump Mar-a-Lago case):
The remainder of the Matt Taibbi outline showcases how various organizations could also reach out to Twitter and request content removal. Taibbi concludes, “what most people think of as the “deep state” is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless.
Indeed, those lines were erased Matt. Indeed, they were.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act. What Obama and Holder did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons of government only targeted one side of the political continuum.
This point is where many people understandably get confused.
Elevator Speech:
(1) The Patriot Act turned the intel surveillance radar from foreign searches for terrorists to domestic searches for terrorists.
(2) Obama/Biden then redefined what is a “terrorist” to include their political opposition.
(3) The DHS, ODNI, DOJ-NSD and FISC became the four pillars of this new surveillance system. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.
This is the scale of corrupt political compromise on both sides of the DC dynamic that we are up against. Preserving this system is also what removing Donald Trump is all about. The targeting of President Trump in order to preserve the system, the system that was weaponized during the Obama administration, is what the actions of the DOJ and FBI are all about.
What would powerful people in DC do to stop the American people from finding this out?
“Michael Shellenberger has just published the latest batch of what has come to be known as the Twitter Files. It’s a follow-up to Matt Taibbi’s recent Twitter Files release concerning FBI’s pressure campaign against Twitter to remove content the agency found objectionable.
Today’s release provides more details on the relationship between Twitter and the FBI, the suppression and removal of the Hunter Biden story from Twitter the FBI’s desire for Twitter to confirm a “foreign interference” narrative that didn’t exist, and how the FBI sought user location information for tweets that weren’t remotely criminal.
For a refresher, here are the highlights from one of the most recent releases from Taibbi, who has done excellent work on this continuing story:
The FBI requested take action on what it determined to be misinformation, which included jokes from small Twitter accounts about voting dates.
FBI e-mails to Twitter asking for assessment of terms of service violations and “location information” about accounts that allegedly “spread misinformation about the upcoming election.” Some of those accounts were permanently suspended.
How the 2016 “Russian election interference” hoax influenced the FBI’s 2020 operations into reviewing American social media posts.
Today’s thread by Shellenberger expands on what we have learned.
1. TWITTER FILES: PART 7Biden laptop,
The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop
How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020
The FBI continued its requests of location and VPN IP data from Twitter users, done without a warrant and without a subpoena: “would Twitter be open to sharing which service provider(s) those VPN IP addresses resolved to?” To its credit, Twitter pushed back on this request.
In one case, the FBI requested user data for an account that was critical of BLM and the Democrats. Twitter responded by confirming “the account in question is domestic in origin.”
The US intelligence community was pushing Twitter to “share more information” and change its user privacy settings.
(…) Then we have one of the more remarkable pieces of information to be released from the Twitter: confirmation that Twitter was paid nearly $3.5 million for assisting the FBI with its processing requests.
22. Then, in July 2020, the FBI’s Elvis Chan arranges for temporary Top Secret security clearances for Twitter executives so that the FBI can share information about threats to the upcoming elections. pic.twitter.com/YXCR2Guxz5
24. Recently, Yoel Roth told @karaswisher that he had been primed to think about the Russian hacking group APT28 before news of the Hunter Biden laptop came out.
When it did, Roth said, “It set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack-and-leap campaign alarm bells.” pic.twitter.com/RKoR4NtH1s
26. Who is Jim Baker? He’s former general counsel of the FBI (2014-18) & one of the most powerful men in the U.S. intel community.
Baker has moved in and out of government for 30 years, serving stints at CNN, Bridgewater (a $140 billion asset management firm) and Brookings pic.twitter.com/FggRI2zITX
28. Baker wasn’t the only senior FBI exec. involved in the Trump investigation to go to Twitter.
Dawn Burton, the former dep. chief of staff to FBI head James Comey, who initiated the investigation of Trump, joined Twitter in 2019 as director of strategy.
31. The organizer was Vivian Schiller, the fmr CEO of NPR, fmr head of news at Twitter; fmr Gen. mgr of NY Times; fmr Chief Digital Officer of NBC News
Journalist Michael Shellenberger reveals “How the FBI and intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020.”
In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data. https://t.co/g66XzH9ISr
The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him
8. The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. pic.twitter.com/TC2AnLNJAw
10. On Dec 2, @mtaibbi described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article.
Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms https://t.co/1ZF3oottKR
12. And yet, during all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak” operation.
14. Were the FBI warnings of a Russian hack-and-leak operation relating to Hunter Biden based on *any* new intel?
No, they weren’t
“Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016,” admitted FBI agent Elvis Chan in Nov. pic.twitter.com/tFPMqbydbA
18. It’s not the first time that Twitter’s Roth has pushed back against the FBI. In January 2020, Roth resisted FBI efforts to get Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process. pic.twitter.com/NAssnLMpds
20. Time and again, FBI asks Twitter for evidence of foreign influence & Twitter responds that they aren’t finding anything worth reporting.
“[W]e haven’t yet identified activity that we’d typically refer to you (or even flag as interesting in the foreign influence context).” pic.twitter.com/ghGNz4ZzXB
GOP Rep. James Comer, expected to be the House Oversight Chairman next year, told FBN’s Maria Bartiromo that the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” contains some things he plans to investigate:
(Timeline editor’s note: This is a rough interpretation of Comer’s discussion with Bartiromo.)
MARIA BARTIROMO: Elon Musk has exposed corruption in Washington, part seven of “The Twitter Files” reveals how the intelligence community pressured news and social media outlets to discredit evidence of influence-peddling from Hunter Biden on the Biden laptop, despite the FBI knowing truth for nearly a year before the New York Post story dropped.
Independent writer Michael Shellenberger reporting that throughout 2020, the FBI was repeatedly warning Twitter that stories about Hunter’s laptop was a “Russian hack and leak operation.” They knew otherwise because they had the laptop since October 2019. FBI agent Elvis Chan also emailed Twitter’s head of security a trove of documents just one day before the Post story came out.
The chairman-elect of the Huse Oversight Committee… Kentucky Congressman James Comer is here… What does this latest tranche of Twitter exposé mean to you?
REP. JAMES COMER: Well it means a lot. More evidence of wrongdoing. In the beginning I thought that there were probably two or three rogue employees who were orchestrating this cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop, but now we know that the FBI had a division of at least 80 agents. We also know that the FBI paid Twitter over three million dollars for their time, all the time they took over the past couple years, in telling them who to suppress, who to ban. You know just things that government has no role in.
The FBI was never granted the authority to create any type of disinformation task force that police the social media sites. This we know with Twitter. We’ve heard similar stories from Zuckerberg. Who knows what went on at YouTube and Google. This is an agency that is out of control, and the most frustrating thing for me right now, Maria, is the fact in this omnibus bill, there is increased funding for the FBI, plus a $1.75 billion dollars headquarters facility for the FBI. We need to halt everything with the FBI. All funding until they come forward, and explain to Congress exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and who gave them the authority to do it.
BARTIROMO: That is extraordinary that there is all of that money earmarked for the FBI, despite all this with wrongdoing and evidence of collusion. I don’t know why your colleagues in the Senate are going along with this omnibus bill weakening you right before you take the gavel.
COMER: Um-hmm, it does. The one thing that we have the ability to do is stop the spending. Stop the spending. We need an FBI we really do. But this FBI is out of control. It is doing things, that Congress never granted the authority to do. In no way, shape or form should the government be in the business of censoring free speech, whether liberal or conservative speech that is just something the government should not do.
But to dedicate a task force of at least 80 employees to do nothing but communicate with social media sites, telling them what soties to suppress, who to ban, is just wrong. It is a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars and a violation of the Constitution.
And to think that as we speak, the Senate is sitting here giving them more money for the next 12 months, tying our hands and our ability to get the FBI in front of the committee. One way we could get the FBI in front of the committee really quickly is say we’re not giving you a penny, until you all come down here and explain to us, what this task force was, why you told Twitter to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story when you knew darn well it was true.
The Senate is counter to everything we’re trying to do in the House from an oversight standpoint right now, especially with respect to the FBI.
BARTIROMO: That is horrible who or senators agreeing to this, Mitch McConnell? Who else?
COMER: We’ve got Richard Shelby, Rob Portman, and ironically, Maria, a lot of senators are going out of office, they are not even going to be in Congress in 10 days. This is something that should be punted until first of the year, we’ve got questions.
Look at the southern border, we are not holding anyone accountable from a budgetary standpoint for the crisis at the border, we’re not holding anyone accountable at the debacle in the NIH and the CDC, all the bad decisions they made, and all the money they waisted during Covid. And here we are with the FBI, an agency that is clearly out of control. No one, no one in Congress, even the liberals, would say the FBI has any business censoring free speech.
BARTIROMO: This is one more piece of evidence that the Senate Republicans are working against the American people. There is no other way to look at it. They continue to go with Democrat colleagues and vote for this spending, and then they complain that inflation is at 40-year highs.
…
The idea that the FBI was paying Twitter, okay? I know the FBI and DOJ pays human sources, to do their work, they paid spies during Russia collusion story, that whole made-up story that Trump colluded with Russia, they paid old spies is to entrap Trump officials. What did they do with Twitter? Why is the FBI paying Twitter? That is outrageous.
COMER: According to the latest Twitter dump, the FBI was spending so much time with Twitter executives, every two weeks having meetings that lasted for hours, telling them what stories to suppress, what looked like disinformation, who to ban from Twitter, — I mean things that the FBI has no business doing. They reimbursed them for their time, over $3 million dollars over a two-year period. And that is just Twitter, we don’t know how much they paid Facebook, Google, YouTube, the other social media platforms.
80 employees, that’s roughly $12 million dollars in salary and benefits dedicated to policing social media sites, are you kidding me? At a time when crime is out of control, human trafficking is out of control, we have a crisis of fentanyl, we have a crisis of shoplifting, and the crime rate in these cities is higher than it has been in my adult lifetime, ans the FBI’s focused on policing social media sites? This is a gross misuse of the taxpayer dollars. (RealClearPolitics, 12/20/2022)(Archive)
“The FBI relied more extensively on Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in their Russiagate investigation than has been revealed, inserting key parts from it into their applications for warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign.
Agents did this without telling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the precise wording was plucked directly from a political rumor sheet paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign or providing judges with any independent corroboration of the explosive allegations.
But the notion that mere “snippets” of the reporting by paid Clinton subcontractor Christopher Steele showed up in FISA applications, as CNN has described it, no longer holds up to scrutiny.
A close examination of all four of the FISA warrants reveals that the FBI lifted dozens of key phrases from the dossier – as well as practically some entire sentences – and pasted them verbatim into their sworn affidavits. It did so repeatedly without citing its sources or using typical hedging language such as “allegedly” or “purportedly” to indicate that the claims were unverified.
As a result, the FBI lent its voice of authority to many of the unsourced – and now debunked – accusations in the dossier.
For example, it avowed under oath in all four warrant applications that “the FBI has learned” that onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had secretly met with sanctioned Kremlin officials in Moscow. But those allegations came from Steele’s D.C.-based collector Igor Danchenko, who admitted to the FBI in a January 2017 interview his input was just “hearsay” gathered from “conversation with friends over beer.”
It is not clear whether the bureau decided to pay Steele in connection with the dossier so that it could represent the material as originating from one of its own confidential sources. At one point it reportedly offered him $1 million if he could verify key claims (he could not).
Meanwhile, the FBI repeatedly portrayed improbable third-hand rumors as sound “intelligence,” despite taking them directly from paid political opposition research operatives. Suggesting independent verification, the bureau repeatedly assured the FISA court it “assesses” the truth of damning claims.
In some cases, the FBI mixed partial information from one dossier report with partial information from another report to draw broader conclusions. It then used these as a foundation to claim evidence of a grand election “conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and Russia, with Page acting as an “intermediary.” Such a conspiracy was what counterintelligence agents needed to convince the FISA court that their main target Page was a Kremlin agent who posed a national security threat, and that deploying the government’s most intrusive investigative method – electronic surveillance – was necessary to investigate him.
In short, the FBI fabricated conclusions from fabrications and turned them into sworn representations before the powerful Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Veteran FBI investigators who have worked counterintelligence cases and sworn out wiretap warrants say the agents who ran the Russiagate investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, violated the fundamental principle requiring them to independently verify evidence they present to the court.
Cl “Their actions – lying and misrepresentations on warrants and affidavits – are antithetical to every instruction at FBI training at Quantico and in the field,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “Any FBI Academy trainee and agent in the field is aware that search warrants, affidavits and any accompanying documents and information contained therein requiring federal judicial approval is to be vetted and verified to create a pristine document. Their accuracy is vital.”
The FBI declined comment.
The bureau’s reliance on the dossier – a series of 17 reports compiled by Steele for Fusion GPS, the Washington-based opposition research firm employed the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee – has been brought into sharp relief by the work of Special Counsel John Durham.
His team investigated for possible criminal misconduct the Russiagate probe that hobbled the Trump presidency. It zeroed in on the FBI’s handling of the dossier both before and after the agency began using it to gain FISA court approval to wiretap Page in 2016 and 2017. Investigators questioned several FBI witnesses about their interactions with Steele and Danchenko, some of whom Durham said were not forthcoming about their involvement and obtained related documents. Danchenko, who provided an estimated 80% of the dossier’s content, was indicted last year for lying about the sources of his information, though he was acquitted in October by a D.C.-area jury.
Like CNN, the New York Times has tried to minimize the agency’s reliance on the dossier. In a recent article on Durham’s inquiry, the Times maintained that the FBI only used “some” claims from the dossier in applying for court permission to wiretap Page.
In fact, the FBI used several claims – and those claims happened to constitute the most critical “evidence” in the wiretap applications. Even former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe has admitted that if not for the Steele dossier, no surveillance warrant would have been sought for Page.
All told, the FBI used four dossier reports – Report 80, Report 94, Report 95 and Report 102 – in all four of its FISA wiretap warrants targeting Page in 2016 and 2017. And three of the reports were based on a fictitious source.(Read more: RealClearWire, 12/20/2022)(Archive)
“Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Since November, after the discovery of documents with classified markings in his former office, Biden aides have been searching for any additional classified materials that might be in other locations he used, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the ongoing inquiry.
Joe Biden (Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty)
The White House did not reply to a request for comment. The Justice Department had no comment.
The initial discovery of classified documents in an office used by Biden after his vice presidency was first reported on Monday by CBS News.
The classification level, number and precise location of the additional documents was not immediately clear. It also was not immediately clear when the additional documents were discovered and if the search for any other classified materials Biden may have from the Obama administration is complete.
Biden aides have been sifting through documents stored at locations beyond his former Washington office to determine if there are any other classified documents that need to be turned over to the National Archives and reviewed by the Justice Department, the person familiar with the matter said.” (Read more: NBC News, 1/11/2023)(Archive)
“The initial statement issued by White House attorney Richard Sauber on Monday to address the CBS News report on classified documents being discovered at the Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022, failed to disclose that additional classified documents were found at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home on December 20 by Biden’s personal attorneys. It was not until Thursday morning that Sauber announced that a second set of classified documents were found in Biden’s garage and was confirmed by Biden in a contentious colloquy with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.”
Peter Doocy: “Classified materials, next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”
Elvis Chan (l) and Yoel Roth (Credit: SMG/Twitter)
“Controversial FBI agent Elvis Chan has denied he warned Twitter‘s then-security chief about a supposed Russian operation to hack and leak false information on Hunter Biden.
Yoel Roth had claimed in a sworn declaration to the Federal Election Committee in December 2020 that he felt compelled to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story and label it as coming from ‘hacked materials’ based on information FBI agents had given him at weekly meetings.
But Chan, a supervisory special agent for the Bureau, insisted in a deposition in November that none of the agents specifically mentioned the Hunter Biden story as one of the possible ‘hack-and-leak’ operations.
He testified as part of a lawsuit against the Biden administration, accusing the now president of organizing meetings in San Francisco for as many as seven DC-based FBI agents in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
Those FBI agents would then meet with Big Tech officials to remove ‘disfavored speakers, viewpoints and content on social media platforms… under the guise of combating misinformation,’ the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri claim.
In his declaration, Roth claimed: ‘I was told… that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter.
‘I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden,’ he added, as Twitter tried to defend itself against a complaint by the Tea Party Patriots Foundation that its censorship was an ‘in-kind’ campaign contribution to then-candidate Joe Biden.
Under questioning by Solicitor General John Sauer late last month, Chan said he ‘would interpret’ what Roth said in his sworn testimony ‘differently.’
He insisted he had never discussed Hunter Biden’s laptop as being subject to a ‘hack-and-leak operation’ at weekly meetings with content moderation officials at Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, Reddit and even LinkedIn.
‘In my estimation, we never discussed Hunter Biden specifically with Twitter,’ he said. ‘And so the way I read that is that there are hack-and-leak operations, and then at the time, I believe he flagged one of the potential current events that were happening ahead of the elections.’
Chan then explained that because he does not actually remember discussing the Hunter Biden laptop, ‘we didn’t discuss it.
‘So this would have been something that he would have just thought of as hot-button issue on his own.’
Chan also revealed in his testimony that the FBI now plans to hold more meetings with Big Tech officials ahead of the 2024 presidential election — and this time will include representatives from Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation.
‘They were added because they are a cloud infrastructure company,’ he said of adding Apple to the discussions.
‘And we believe the tactical information, specifically indicators that we shared with them related to foreign-state-sponsored actors, might pop-up on any screening they do on iCloud.’
Chan also spoke of his close relations with the so-called ‘FBI lovers’ who had tried to discredit then-President Trump with claims that his administration had close ties to the Kremlin.
He admitted he knew Peter Strzok, a former deputy assistant director of counterintelligence for the Bureau, as well as Lisa Page, an FBI attorney.” (Read more: The Daily Mail, 12/21/2022)(Archive)
“House Republicans gathered a trove of text and email messages showing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was directly involved in the creation and editing of the Capitol security plan that failed during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and that security officials later declared they had been “denied again and again” the resources needed to protect one of the nation’s most important homes of democracy.
The internal communications were made public Wednesday in a report compiled by Republican Reps. Rodney Davis, Jim Banks, Troy Nehls, Jim Jordan and Kelly Armstrong that encompasses the results of months of investigation they did of evidence that had been ignored by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee. The lawmakers were authorized by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to do their own probe.
Pelosi’s chief of staff Terri McCullough and another aide assigned to Pelosi’s staff, Jamie Fleet (pictured), had regular contact with police and the sergeant at arms over the security planning for Jan. 6 starting in early December 2020. (Credit: public domain)
The report concludes the Capitol was left vulnerable on Jan. 6 as a result of failures by the Democratic leadership in the House and law enforcement leaders in the Capitol Police who allowed concerns about the “optics” of having armed officers and National Guardsmen visible to the public to override the need for enhanced security.
“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021. The Democrat-led investigation in the House of Representatives, however, has disregarded those institutional failings that exposed the Capitol to violence that day,” it concluded.
“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021. The Democrat-led investigation in the House of Representatives, however, has disregarded those institutional failings that exposed the Capitol to violence that day,” it concluded.
It also corroborated prior reporting by Just the News that Capitol Police began receiving specific warnings in mid-December that there could be significant violence planned against the Capitol and lawmakers by protesters planning to attend the certification of the 2020 election results.
“Prior to that day, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) had obtained sufficient information from an array of channels to anticipate and prepare for the violence that occurred,” the report noted.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, along with Rep. Peter King and Rep. Ron DeSantis, speaks on Capitol Hill, October 24, 2017. (Credit: Susan Walsh/AP)
“My post yesterday regarding the DoJ/FBI investigation of two of Devin Nunes’ top lawyers sparked a response from a former FBI agent—as sometimes happens here. You’ll recall that the investigation in question was a full criminal investigation that featured the use of grand jury subpoenas to obtain personal information regarding the two staffers (including Kash Patel) who were involved in Nunes’ investigation of Russia Hoax abuses—especially the fraudulent FISA applications that were submitted against Carter Page. Because of various procedural irregularities it’s apparent—failure to notify Nunes—there seems little doubt that the purpose of the investigations was to obtain personal information that could be used to pressure Nunes into backing off from his investigation. In fact, DAG Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray had threatened to launch exactly such investigations in a meeting with Nunes and Kash Patel—unless Nunes backed off.
Needless to say, investigations launched for such a purpose are totally lacking in predication—they lack a legitimate government legal purpose, since conducting legislative oversight investigations is not a violation of federal law (!). I harp on this matter of predication because, to me—and I think objectively, the abuse of the investigative/prosecutorial process for political purposes is perhaps the ultimate and most serious form of corruption. It undermines the justice system and the very concept of rule of law rather than rule of men—the basis of our constitutional order. As I noted at that time, it is clear that such considerations play no part at all in the decisions of men like Rosenstein and Wray—and far too many more. These are real and serious violations of the law, which go unpunished.
Here is the email (slightly edited to preserve anonymity) that I received last night. Readers will readily imagine that the sentiments expressed are widely held among former and active FBI personnel. Bear in mind that, while these abuses are receiving widespread publicity, most FBI agents are not involved and are ashamed to be associated with the activities that are being exposed.
Having been required to read and comprehend the Domestic Investigative Operations Guide (“DIOG”) when it came out and being a Bureau legal advisor which required that I speak DIOG fluently, I think we are collectively making a mistake to think that anyone at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Bureau cares one whit about predication. No DOJ or Bureau employee has ever punished for violating the DIOG or federal criminal statutes. As a result, when the DOJ and Bureau can claim the mantle of “national security” and effectively and easily thwart any attempts at Congressional oversight, what does it matter if the investigation of Nunes and his staffers was properly predicated? I am asking rhetorically. I understand that the DOJ and Bureau violated the DIOG/law/Constitutional requirements and should be held accountable. But when no one can hold the DOJ or Bureau to account for such violations, why even bother with the charade of seeking predication? I read the Electronic Communication (“EC”; after it was publicly released) that opened the investigation into general Flynn. It was a complete joke. All it alleged was that Flynn met with some Russians and did some overseas travel. There was nothing within the four corners of that document that would have been the proper basis of any predication of the investigation (as a side note, had any agent brought such a piece of garbage to me to review as a legal advisor, I would have laughed them out of my office and then had a serious discussion with said agent’s supervisor about that agent’s fitness for duty, but I digress). Yet the investigation proceeded, Flynn was indicted, arrested and prosecuted with no proper predication. What is/was to stop the DOJ and Bureau from just opening an investigation on Nunes or anyone else for that matter and ignoring the need to abide by “the rules”? I respectfully submit, not a damn thing.
Every crime victim I ever interviewed all shared the same sentiment: “I didn’t think it (crime) could happen to me.” The point is that it appears that many of the machinations by the DOJ and Bureau are completely lawless with no basis in legally comprehensible evidence of criminal violations. I think the sooner we all collectively realize “That it can happen here/to us” the better we will be able to address this issue. Please don’t take this as a criticism of you and your work, it’s just an observation made by a retired agent.
All of which brings me to a serious question: What concrete things can we do to: A) Address the current issues facing our Republic (DOJ/Bureau overreach, profligate spending, creeping government sponsored surveillance state, potential nuclear war, and…?) and B)How do we fix our society at a very basic level to create wise citizens who can keep our Republic in good order? I am pretty much done reading the latest “outrage” in the conservative press. I understand that things are a mess. My overarching question to complainers/commentators/politicians is: “What are you going to do about it?” I have steadily volunteered to assist the Republican party over the last two years to little or no avail. I am redirecting my efforts and concentrating on assisting local legislators address local issues where I may have some small amount of control.
Anyway, deep thoughts on a rainy, cold afternoon. I am going to throw another log on the fire. Thanks for listening to my rant. I fervently wish that you and yours have a peaceful, prosperous and boring New Year!
My response:
I’m totally on board with you. I would simply add–and I’m not making excuses for the Bureau–that too few people understand how much of this is driven by DoJ. Especially given that so many of the HQ legal people are joined at the hip with DoJ, either mentally from prior education or because they have prior work experience there. I refuse to believe that DoJ wasn’t in on the Twitter (and other) censorship. The Bureau gets the headlines, the talk of a new Church Commission, but DoJ is arguably the biggest threat to the nation.
And the response to my response:
As to the DoJ, there is absolutely no way any of this “stuff” happened without their full knowledge and support.
7/ But CISA had a First Amendment problem. The US government cannot sandblast millions of voters off the Internet because of their speech about elections.
11/ Alex Stamos, a former Facebook exec, is the founder of the EIP censorship network and Krebs’ business partner.
Stamos is a member of the CFR, a member of the Aspen Institute, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, and he loves censoring his political opponents. pic.twitter.com/Ww45NogbNS
13/ Kate Starbird is the head of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public director and CISA’s “disinformation” advisor subcommittee.
15/ In October 2018, Starbird told her Facebook followers to vote Democrat to hold Trump responsible for “corruption and collusion” and his “racist, anti-LGBT agenda.”
Starbird claimed Trump’s “nationalism” didn’t stand for “patriotism” but instead stood for “white supremacy.” pic.twitter.com/aFjdtaQbAG
17/ Graham Brookie is the figure who led the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and a previous Obama White House National Security Council member.
The Atlantic Council is a NATO think-tank with seven living CIA directors as members. pic.twitter.com/w2lqNQOQLO
19/ In Oct. 2020, Brookie would call the #BidenLaptop “laundered unverified misinfo.”
When DNI John Ratcliffe stated that the laptop was legitimate, Brookie publicly condemned Ratcliffe’s “credibility” and accused him of “politicizing intel.” pic.twitter.com/lpvKEtkkEw
25/ In effect, the left was allowed to discuss the vulnerabilities of voting machines after the 2016 election, and the right was banned from social media platforms for discussing those very same vulnerabilities after the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/mupJcI3Qhe
27/ The political establishment and the left used the covid-19 crisis to push for nationwide mail-in voting, which increased the number of ballots cast by mail from 28.8 million in 2016 to 66.4 million in 2020, a massive 131% increase. pic.twitter.com/yVCHS5VhfT
31/ Regardless of your opinion on voting machines or mail-in voting, it’s clear that this public-private censorship network conspired with big tech & big government to censor one side of the discussion.
Journalist Whitney Webb sits down with Redacted’s Clayton Morris for a dense conversation about her bombshell new book on Jeffrey Epstein’s deep connections to the world’s biggest power players.
https://t.co/BcFhHCvjAE February, 2020, as COVID broke out, the Global Engagement Center – a fledgling analytic/intelligence arms of the State Department – went to the media with a report called, “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” pic.twitter.com/KjUeE8vejt
5.State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. ZeroHedge, claiming the episode “led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.” ZH had done reports speculating that the virus had lab origin. pic.twitter.com/JlIobPzAFE
7.“YOU HAVEN’T MADE A RUSSIA ATTRIBUTION IN SOME TIME” When Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub complained Twitter hadn’t “made a Russia attribution” in some time, Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth said it was “revelatory of their motives.” pic.twitter.com/zByT5aCaBo
9.Twitter was also trying to reduce the number of agencies with access to Roth. “If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them a direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,” said policy director Carlos Monje. pic.twitter.com/ytvK532j4M
11.The GEC report appeared based on DHS data circulated earlier that week, and included accounts that followed “two or more” Chinese diplomatic accounts. They reportedly ended up with a list “nearly 250,000” names long, and included Canadian officials and a CNN account: pic.twitter.com/GYi4YuPdyu
13.The GEC was soon agreeing to loop in Twitter before going public, but they were using a technique that had boxed in Twitter before. “The delta between when they share material and when they go to the press continues to be problematic,” wrote one comms official. pic.twitter.com/ONn9BfYybi
15.“IT MAKES SENSE TO PUSH BACK ON GEC PARTICIPATION IN THIS FORUM” When the FBI informed Twitter the GEC wanted to be included in the regular “industry call” between companies like Twitter and Facebook and the DHS and FBI, Twitter leaders balked at first. pic.twitter.com/S4aUMXW2ed
17.A deeper reason was a perception that unlike the DHS and FBI, which were “apolitical,” as Roth put it, the GEC was “political,” which in Twitter-ese appeared to be partisan code.
“I think they thought the FBI was less Trumpy,” is how one former DOD official put it. pic.twitter.com/y33deYO50B
19.When senior lawyer Stacia Cardille tried to argue against the GEC’s inclusion to the FBI, the words resonated “with Elvis, not Laura,” i.e. with agent Elvis Chan, not Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) unit chief Laura Dehmlow: pic.twitter.com/zOfVr8VlRx
21.Roth reached out to Chan with concerns about letting the “press-happy” GEC in, expressing hope they could keep the “circle of trust small.” pic.twitter.com/17qLQFldVj
23.”BELLY BUTTON” “We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies,” Chan explained, but the DHS agency CISA “will know what’s going on in each state.” He went on to ask if industry could “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the USG.” pic.twitter.com/CHiCsZJBAh
25.Twitter was taking requests from every conceivable government body, beginning with the Senate Intel Committee (SSCI), which seemed to need reassurance Twitter was taking FBI direction. Execs rushed to tell “Team SSCI” they zapped five accounts on an FBI tip: pic.twitter.com/hWnkOX292C
27.They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry: pic.twitter.com/SXI1ekqi13
29.Twitter honored almost everyone else’s requests, even those from GEC – including a decision to ban accounts like @RebelProtests and @BricsMedia because GEC identified them as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government,” respectively: pic.twitter.com/OQjQuKTzTO
31.Remember the 2017 “internal guidance” in which Twitter decided to remove any user “identified by the U.S. intelligence community” as a state-sponsored entity committing cyber operations? By 2020 such identifications came in bulk. pic.twitter.com/OrSC1uwgm8
35.They were even warned about publicity surrounding a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin, who alleged “corruption by the U.S. government” – specifically by Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/EWdl5L2IpG
37.“I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR WORK LOAD”: Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour: If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: “Was action taken?” “Any movement?” pic.twitter.com/KAu2YesocC
https://t.co/08M51rg2BM all led to the situation described by @ShellenbergerMD two weeks ago, in which Twitter was paid $3,415,323, essentially for being an overwhelmed subcontractor.
Twitter wasn’t just paid. For the amount of work they did for government, they were underpaid.
27.They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry: pic.twitter.com/SXI1ekqi13
29.Twitter honored almost everyone else’s requests, even those from GEC – including a decision to ban accounts like @RebelProtests and @BricsMedia because GEC identified them as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government,” respectively: pic.twitter.com/OQjQuKTzTO
BREAKING: Dem Rep. Adam Schiff wanted journalist Paul Sperry’s account suspended over reporting on Trump whistleblower, TwitterFiles revealshttps://t.co/Er4oopJGLr
“Matt Taibbi has a new substack out on the Twitter Files. This one concentrates on how Twitter found itself under political pressure from the Deep State to, in essence, lend support to the Russia Hoax. This, as usual, was an evidence free operation. Twitter looked but couldn’t find evidence of Russian “meddling”. Twitter execs said so to one another, but buckled to Deep State pressure. Overall, what we’re seeing from the Twitter File revelations is that the anti-Trump campaign was the biggest gaslighting of the public population ever witnessed since lower tech operations by the likes Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. It was all done with the appearance of an open society, but nothing could have been further from the truth. And it happened under a Republican administration. This will all be red meat for Sundance, as you’ll see the central role of Mark Warner and the Senate Intel Committee. Nevertheless, you can be sure that political masters higher up the food chain were directing all of this.
What I’ve done here is simply pasted in the text of Taibbi’s tweets—sans documentation, which you can find at the link.
1.THREAD: The Twitter Files
How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In
2.In August 2017, when Facebook decided to suspend 300 accounts with “suspected Russian origin,” Twitter wasn’t worried. Its leaders were sure they didn’t have a Russia problem.
3.“We did not see a big correlation.”
“No larger patterns.”
“FB may take action on hundreds of accounts, and we may take action on ~25.”
4.“KEEP THE FOCUS ON FB”: Twitter was so sure they had no Russia problem, execs agreed the best PR strategy was to say nothing on record, and quietly hurl reporters at Facebook:
5.“Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB,” wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowell:
6.In September, 2017, after a cursory review, Twitter informed the Senate it suspended 22 possible Russian accounts, and 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts, amid a larger set of roughly 2700 suspects manually examined.
Note the “possible”. That suggests that Twitter believed it best to offer up some meager results, whether there was real evidence or not.
7.Receiving these meager results, a furious Senator Mark Warner of Virginia – ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee – held an immediate press conference to denounce Twitter’s report as “frankly inadequate on every level.”
8.“#Irony,” mused Crowell the day after Warner’s presser, after receiving an e-circular from Warner’s re-election campaign, asking for “$5 or whatever you can spare.”
“LOL,” replied General Counsel Sean Edgett.
9.“KEEP PRODUCING MATERIAL” After meeting with congressional leaders, Crowell wrote: “Warner has political incentive to keep this issue at top of the news, maintain pressure on us and rest of industry to keep producing material for them.”
So, Twitter execs weren’t stupid. They knew exactly what this was about—politics. Evidence free political gaslighting, but of the entire country.
10.“TAKING THEIR CUES FROM HILLARY CLINTON” Crowell added Dems were taking cues from Hillary Clinton, who that week said: “It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.”
11. In growing anxiety over its PR problems, Twitter formed a “Russia Task Force” to proactively self-investigate.
So joining the gaslighting party had nothing to do with evidence—it was to handle a “PR problem”, which was really a problem with the political masters who regulated, or might regulate, their platform.
12.The “Russia Task Force” started mainly with data shared from counterparts at Facebook, centered around accounts supposedly tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). But the search for Russian perfidy was a dud:
Despite their best gaslighting intentions, there just wasn’t anything that could be plausibly called evidence.
13. OCT 13 2017: “No evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity (different timing, spend, targeting, <$10k in ad spend).”
14.OCT 18 2017: “First round of RU investigation… 15 high risk accounts, 3 of which have connections with Russia, although 2 are RT.”
What to do? Cast the net more widely! But—still no fish in the net.
15.OCT 20 2017: “Built new version of the model that is lower precision but higher recall which allows to catch more items. We aren’t seeing substantially more suspicious accounts. We expect to find ~20 with a small amount of spend.”
16.OCT 23 2017: “Finished with investigation… 2500 full manual account reviews, we think this is exhaustive… 32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia, only 2 of those have significant spend one of which is Russia Today…remaining <$10k in spend.”
Basically, a total bust. But that was good enough to generate MSM headlines to gaslight the populace and spread Russia hysteria.
17.Twitter’s search finding “only 2” significant accounts, “one of which is Russia Today,” was based on the same data that later inspired panic headlines like “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone”:
18.The failure of the “Russia task force” to produce “material” worsened the company’s PR crisis.
That sure has a Stalinesque show trial ring to it, doesn’t it? If you can’t prove guilt, you may be the guilty party! You may be a “wrecker”, a saboteur, … a, a, AGENT OF PUTIN!
19.In the weeks after Warner’s presser, a torrent of stories sourced to the Intel Committee poured into the news, an example being Politico’s October 13, “Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes.”
20.“Were Twitter a contractor for the FSB… they could not have built a more effective disinformation platform,” Johns Hopkins Professor (and Intel Committee “expert”) Thomas Rid told Politico.
21.As congress threatened costly legislation, and Twitter [again] was subject to more bad press fueled by the committees, the company changed its tune about the smallness of its Russia problem.
Fake confession time.
22.“Hi guys.. Just passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that may affect our political advertising,” wrote Crowell.
23. In Washington weeks after the first briefing, Twitter leaders were told by Senate staff that “Sen Warner feels like tech industry was in denial for months.” Added an Intel staffer: “Big interest in Politico article about deleted accounts.”
24.Twitter “pledged to work with them on their desire to legislate”:
25.“Knowing that our ads policy and product changes are an effort to anticipate congressional oversight, I wanted to share some relevant highlights of the legislation Senators Warner, Klobuchar and McCain will be introducing,” wrote Policy Director Carlos Monje soon after.
It’s bipartisan.
26.“THE COMMITTEES APPEAR TO HAVE LEAKED” Even as Twitter prepared to change its ads policy and remove RT and Sputnik to placate Washington, congress turned the heat up more, apparently leaking the larger, base list of 2700 accounts.
27.Reporters from all over started to call Twitter about Russia links. Buzzfeed, working with the University of Sheffield, claimed to find a “new network” on Twitter that had “close connections to… Russian-linked bot accounts.”
28.“IT WILL ONLY EMBOLDEN THEM.” Twitter internally did not want to endorse the Buzzfeed/Sheffield findings:
29. “SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE IS ASKING… POSSIBLE TO WHIP SOMETHING TOGETHER?” Still, when the Buzzfeed piece came out, the Senate asked for “a write up of what happened.” Twitter was soon apologizing for the same accounts they’d initially told the Senate were not a problem.
30.“REPORTERS NOW KNOW THIS IS A MODEL THAT WORKS”
This cycle – threatened legislation, wedded to scare headlines pushed by congressional/intel sources, followed by Twitter caving to moderation asks – would later be formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement.
The desired result has been achieved—Twitter is transformed into the PR gaslighting arm of the Intel Committee, censoring information that might lead the public to become suspicious of what its masters were up to.
31.Twitter soon settled on its future posture.
In public, it removed content “at our sole discretion.”
Privately, they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
32.Twitter let the “USIC” into its moderation process. It would not leave.
Wrote Crowell, in an email to the company’s leaders:
BREAKING: US Attorney Lausch urged AG Garland to appoint a special counsel THE DAY AFTER his investigators (on Jan. 4) interviewed Biden aide Kathy Sang-ok Chung re her role in packing/storing classified WH docs. Chung previously worked with Hunter who suggested VP Biden hire her
🚨BREAKING🚨 It appears there may now be evidence that Hunter Biden was once PERSONALLY a part of the movement of his father’s official “papers”, according to emails concerning early discussions about The Biden Institute. https://t.co/X68IHSypVvpic.twitter.com/M7A5UG5Yod
(…) On Friday, January 6, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry released communications between Joe Biden’s Director of Digital Strategy, Joe Flaherty, pressuring Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson of FOX News.
Joe Flaherty demands to know what “reduction” of the information looks like on Facebook. The White House is very upset that the FOX News host is questioning the dangerous experimental vaccine.
More on Rob Flaherty, White House Director of Digital Strategy:
(…) This guy is middle management incarnate. Flaherty’s cartoonishly disrespectful language as he barks orders at various tech employees — who without fail respond with a “Thanks Rob” — has made me laugh aloud several times. I wanted to learn more about this perfect caricature of modern-day fascism. A bit about his background…
Rob Flaherty (Credit: Ithaca College News)
Flaherty got into politics as an undergraduate at Ithaca College. His social media aptitude quickly accelerated his career, landing him a position on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign just two years after graduating.
“Hillary Clinton went right in. That’s what she does. She’s tough as shit. It’s that toughness that, even in my worst moments in the last few months, has been genuinely inspiring to me. When she’s up against the wall, she grinds it out.”
I’m sure Mark Middleton can attest to that inspiring toughness.
Shortly thereafter, Flaherty became the “Digital Director” for Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 presidential campaign, engineering totally-not-authoritarian fundraising schemes like this one:
Flaherty’s accolades do not end there. The social media savant was even behind the famous “We did it Joe!” promotional video, which announced Biden’s presidential victory for those who’d missed it. From Ithaca College News:
“One key moment in the campaign for Flaherty was the announcement of Biden’s running mate, then Senator Kamala Harris… had an extensive rollout plan, including a text message announcement, a video of Harris receiving the call from Biden.”
Former FDA Commissioner and present Pfizer board member, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. (Credit: Twitter)
On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers – saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines.
The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine mandates.
It came not from an “anti-vaxxer” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but from Dr. Brett Giroir, a physician who had briefly followed Gottlieb as the head of the Food & Drug Administration. Further, the tweet actually encouraged people who did not have natural immunity to “Get vaccinated!”
No matter.
Todd OBoyle, Sr. Manager, Twitter Public Policy (Credit: LinkedIn)
By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots. Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year.
Gottlieb stepped in, emailing Todd O’Boyle, a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House.
1/ My first #TwitterFiles report: how @scottgottliebmd – a top Pfizer board member – used the same Twitter lobbyist as the White House to suppress debate on Covid vaccines, INCLUDING FROM A FELLOW HEAD OF @US_FDA!
3/ Twitter put a misleading tag on the tweet, preventing it from being shared. Gottlieb then went after a tweet about Covid’s low risk to kids from @justin_hart. Pfizer would soon win the okay for its mRNA shots for children, so keeping parents scared was crucial…
4/ In October 2022, @scottgottliebmd claimed on Twitter and CNBC that he was not trying to suppress debate on mRNA jabs. These files prove that Gottlieb – board member at a company that has made $70 billion on the shots – did just that.
During the Penn Biden opening ceremony in Feb 2018, Biden told Andrea Mitchell that he told UPenn’s president the idea of the center was “even more intriguing after the outcome of the [2016] election when you said I could bring along with me some serious, serious people.” pic.twitter.com/JQHjA2j9o2
3.Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence:
“We are feeding congressional trolls.”
“Not any…significant activity connected to Russia.”
“Putting the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots.” pic.twitter.com/r8O21QacME
5.On January 18th, 2018, Republican Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee detailing abuses by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against Trump-connected figures, including the crucial role played by the infamous “Steele Dossier”: pic.twitter.com/uhl7TXYsBC
7.Nonetheless, national media in January and early February of 2018 denounced the Nunes report in oddly identical language, calling it a “joke”: pic.twitter.com/IkTXRGrfaH
11.Feinstein, Schiff, Blumenthal, and media members all pointed to the same source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard created by former FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts, under the auspices of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). pic.twitter.com/sifFJhBTn6
13.Inside Twitter, executives panned Watts, Hamilton 68, and the Alliance for Securing Democracy. Two key complaints: Hamilton 68 seemed to be everyone’s only source, and no one was checking with Twitter.
17.Roth couldn’t find any Russian connection to #ReleaseTheMemo – at all. “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with #releasethememo and… none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.” pic.twitter.com/wJJ3rmI3Ks
19.A staffer for “DiFi” – Feinstein – agreed it would be “helpful to know” how Hamilton 68 goes by “the process by which they decide an account is Russian.”
21.Added another: “It might be worth nudging Blumenthal’s staffer that it could be in his boss’ best interest not to go out there because it could come back to make him look silly.” pic.twitter.com/tP6VZF0PPC
25.They expressed this explicitly to Blumenthal’s camp, saying “Twitter spent a lot of resources” on this request and the reward from Blumenthal shouldn’t be round after round of requests.”
27.Ultimately senior executives talked about “feeding congressional trolls” and compared their situation to the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” pic.twitter.com/xk6reot1lf
29.The metaphor for the endless Russia requests was so perfect, one exec wrote, “I’m legit embarrassed I didn’t think of that first.” pic.twitter.com/MbI6XrnS18
31.Outside counsel from DC-connected firms like Debevoise and Plimpton advised Twitter to use language like, “With respect to particular hashtags, we take seriously any activity that may represent an abuse of our platform.” pic.twitter.com/DW5nO9Syh5
“A former top aide to President Biden — who reportedly was questioned by federal investigators as part of the probe into the president’s handling of classified documents — exchanged emails with Hunter Biden on numerous occasions, according to a Fox News Digital review.
Kathy Chung, Biden’s executive assistant when he was vice president and the Pentagon’s current deputy director of protocol, is among several former aides to the president to be interviewed by law enforcement, NBC News reported Thursday. Chung and the others questioned reportedly helped move materials and belongings from Biden’s office at the end of the Obama administration in early 2017.
Throughout much of her five-year tenure working for Biden during the Obama administration, Chung regularly communicated with Biden’s son Hunter Biden, transmitting information about his father’s schedule and passing messages directly from the then-vice president, according to emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and verified by Fox News Digital.
Kathy Chung invited Biden family members to attend State Department luncheon honoring Chinese President Xi in September 2015 (Credit: Fox News Digital)
Chung’s relationship with Hunter Biden also appears to date back before she worked for his father. The emails showed that Hunter Biden recommended Chung for the executive assistant role when the previous holder of the job, Michele Smith, departed the White House in the spring of 2012.
At the time, Chung worked in former Sen. Mark Udall’s, D-Colo., office as his scheduling director. She previously worked for Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, who was appointed to replace Biden in the Senate in 2009 and is a longtime confidante of Biden dating back decades.
In response to her message, Hunter Biden responded later that day saying that the job would make her the primary gatekeeper of Biden and would be “involved in everything that goes on outside of policy.”
Amy Gutmann (Credit: Wikipedia)
(…) And on multiple occasions, the pair coordinated schedules for meetings with former University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann. Shortly after taking office, the president selected Gutmann to be the U.S. ambassador to Germany.
“VP will be meeting with President Guttman on Friday, Jan. 8, 11:00 am, at the Lake house in DE,” Chung wrote in an email to Hunter Biden, other family members and several White House officials in January 2016. “VP hopes that you will be able to join him for this meeting. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!!”
After Chung invited Hunter Biden to another meeting with Gutmann in April 2016, he suggested in a follow-up message to his business partner that he may need to reschedule a previously-scheduled meeting with the prime minister of the Ivory Coast. He added that “the Guttman mtg is a must attend for me per Dad.” (Read more: Fox News, 1/12/2023)(Archive)
Vox.com used the above graphic captured from a Fox News report to use in a published piece titled “The Bonkers Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory, Explained” on May 24, 2017. Now we know it’s no longer a conspiracy theory. (Credit: Fox News)
1/6 New Seth Rich documents, fresh off the grill! FBI filed a new motion about CrowdStrike records. I’ve only given it a cursory review, but we have at least one bombshell (in 5/7). #FridayNightDocumentDumphttps://t.co/zN6CzphV9K
5/7 Oh wow, this one is huge. That “forensic report” on Seth’s laptop? It was indeed produced by CrowdStrike. Major ramifications…https://t.co/CtOnLCMISc
7/7 Lo and behold, we have an EIGHTH sworn declaration from Mr. Seidel. I must have become a full-time job for him. That makes me happy.https://t.co/Zkc3B7qqAx
3.The real issue was Donald Trump retweeted the Biden pic. To its credit Twitter refused to remove it, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying it had obvious “humorous intent” and “any reasonable observer” – apparently, not a Schiff staffer – could see it was doctored. pic.twitter.com/QJtS6s506Z
5.Twitter also refused requests for bans of content about Schiff and his staff, e.g. “complete suppress[ion of] any and all search results about Mr. Misko and other Committee staffers.” Twitter said this would not be “conceivable.” pic.twitter.com/2HQrmp4fnY
7.Twitter policy at the time didn’t ban QAnon, but “deamplified” such accounts. About the batch of tweets that included those above, Twitter execs wrote: “We can internally confirm that a number of the accounts flagged are already included in this deamplification.” pic.twitter.com/IWss2BoUKx
9.“WE APPRECIATE GREATLY”
“We are curious whether any deamplification measures implemented by Twitter’s enforcement team – which we appreciate greatly – could… impede the ability of law enforcement to search Twitter for potential threats about Misko and other HPSCI staff.” pic.twitter.com/h7TRauK6j5
1. CISA considers your thoughts “Cognitive Infrastructure”
One of the most stunning things we’ve learned from this lawsuit is that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency now considers your thoughts and what you post online, a part of the United States Government’s “critical infrastructure,” thereby giving them the authority to regulate them. I don’t think anyone asked everyday Americans if they’d want the government regulating what goes on inside their brains, but alas, here we are.
2. Rob Flaherty coerced Facebook to ban and censor the vaccine injured, despite acknowledging their posts were true and didn’t break the Terms of Service
Rob Flaherty (Credit: public domain)
Rob Flaherty is the White House Director of Digital Strategy and a senior advisor to President Joe Biden. The government initially attempted to hide his involvement in censorship, but other discovery exposed his name, and the judge granted written interrogatory and discovery to the Plaintiffs in this case. As we will see in the examples below, Flaherty often acts as a ”boss” or manager to social media executives, cursing at them and treating them with disdain when they don’t follow his directives to censor the speech of Americans.
In an email response to Flaherty, Facebook beamed about removing post visibility and censoring the vaccine injured, stating:
3. Flaherty wanted Facebook to take more action in censoring the encrypted chat program “WhatsApp”
Rob Flaherty spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Facebook to more stringently censor WhatsApp, despite Facebook telling him they had no way to read the messages its users were sending one another. Facebook added multiple layers of censorship to the app, deboosting posts that were forwarded often and pinning what it called “authoritative” messages about COVID and vaccines to the application.
4. Flaherty wanted to know what Facebook was doing to censor vaccine claims that were “dubious” but not false
Rob Flaherty consistently demanded information about what Facebook was doing to censor content that was not false but that they considered “dubious.” He demanded internal data from the organization to confirm their efforts to censor Americans were working.
This is the most heart wrenching so far. As vaccine injury begins to rear its ugly head, people flock to Facebook to share their experiences. FB tells the government that they are taking action on that content even though it is true and doesn’t violate TOS. This is evil. RT this pic.twitter.com/nU9944aUw4
5. Joe Biden was inadvertently swept up in the censorship algorithm the White House forced Instagram to implement
In what can only be considered a stroke of serendipity, Joe Biden’s account on Instagram was inadvertently demoted and shadowbanned due to the frequency with which is was posting content about COVID-19 vaccines. Instagram, at the behest of an abusive Rob Flaherty, created an algorithm to demote accounts that were sharing an inordinate amount of vaccine-related content. Flaherty realized that the POTUS account wasn’t picking up followers and emailed execs at the company to let them know. They responded, stating that they couldn’t get into details, but the account had been fixed. After a profanity-laced email sent back from Flaherty, the execs were forced to admit that the very censorship algorithm they created to censor everyday Americans swept up the President as well. Needless to say, the White House didn’t much like being censored.
6. The office of First Lady Jill Biden was also involved in censoring Americans on Twitter
The First Lady also got into censorship action, begging Twitter to remove an edited video of Jill Biden that was clearly a parody. Twitter fought back against the demand but ultimately removed the content after Flaherty became involved and was copied on communications. We wouldn’t have known that censorship extended to the sitting First Lady without the expedited discovery order covering Rob Flaherty.
(…) McCabe said it’s time for the DOJ to play hardball and obstruct Republicans in Congress.
“Chairman Jim Jordan announced this House Judiciary Committee investigation into the DOJ actions related to the President’s handling of the classified documents today,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said on Friday. “How much does that impact the DOJ ongoing investigation?”
McCabe said the DOJ should refuse to cooperate with the House GOP’s investigation and hide documents under the guise of an ‘ongoing investigation.’
“I certainly would advise them — if they were willing to listen to my advice — I would advise them to take a very hard line against that,” McCabe said. “There is a clear precedent here of not sharing information from an ongoing criminal investigation with Congress. And I think the DOJ is in a very strong position to resist on those grounds.”
“Who knows what comes of that resistance?” McCabe continued. “Maybe DOJ leadership starts getting subpoenaed.
“A former top intelligence official who signed on to a letter attacking The Post’sbombshell2020 reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation has now admitted he knew a “significant portion” of the recovered files “had to be real” – but doesn’t regret dismissing the exposé.
Douglas Wise, a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, was one of 51 erstwhile intelligence brass who issued the public letter on Oct. 19, 2020 — five days after The Post began a series of reports on the now-first son’s shady overseas business dealings.
“All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible,” said Wise — who didn’t respond when The Postreached out for an explanation in March of last year, but found his tongue when he spoke to The Australian.
The access road to President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Del., is seen from the media van Friday, Jan. 13, 2023. (Credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP)
“The Justice Department reportedly considered accompanying President Joe Biden’s lawyers as they searched his residences but declined to do so.
Officials believed joining in the search would complicate the investigation’s later stages. They also cited trust in the Biden team as a reason to avoid tagging along, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The Justice Department’s treatment of Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents differs greatly from their treatment of allegedly mishandled classified documents by former President Donald Trump.
Trump’s team had been in contact with the National Archives, but talks between them deteriorated and lead to the FBI raiding the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. They found classified documents in the search. Officials believed Trump’s team had not been honest when they claimed they had turned over all documents that were property of the federal government.
Biden’s lawyer originally disclosed the finding of classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president at the Penn Biden Center to the National Archives in November 2022. There were several follow-up communications about additional classified documents found at his Wilmington, Delaware, residence.
In both Trump’s and Biden’s cases, Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed special counsels to investigate the alleged mishandling of the classified documents. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 1/17/2023)(Archive)
…the Washington Free Beacon reports that photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop place him at the Wilmington House in July, 2017. Of note, the classified documents were reportedly brought to the house in January of that year.
The photos ‘are the most concrete evidence to date’ that Hunter – who was actively negotiating a deal with a CCP-linked Chinese energy company – had access to areas of his father’s home where classified documents were stored.
A Washington Free Beacon review of the laptop found four 2017 photographs of Hunter Biden, clad in a white collared shirt and a camouflage baseball cap, behind the wheel of his father’s 1967 Corvette Stingray. GPS metadata embedded in the photos indicate they were taken within a minute of each other at 6:49 p.m. on July 30 of that year, just outside the president’s Wilmington, Del., residence. The photos show Hunter Biden posing in the vehicle beside two young girls. One appears to be his then-12-year-old niece, Natalie Biden. The other could not be identified.
Former Secret Service agent and certified cyber forensics expert, Konstantinos Gus Dimitrelos, analyzed the photos and confirmed their authenticity.
“If requested, I will testify the photographs are genuine and were taken on July 30, 2017,” he told the Free Beacon.
And as the Beacon further reports – corroborating Breitbart‘s reporting, “At the time the photos were taken, Hunter Biden was negotiating a lucrative business deal with the now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, which was closely tied to the Chinese government. Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski claimed to have met with Joe Biden in person in early May 2017—less than three months before Hunter Biden was pictured taking the wheel of his father’s prized vehicle—to discuss the Biden family’s Chinese business dealings.”
In total, CEFC paid Hunter Biden $6 million in legal and consulting fees in 2017 and 2018.
And of course, the same media which suggested the Trumps were Russian operatives based on a hoax – are virtually silent at actual risks to national security posed by the Biden family. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 1/19/2023)(Archive)
“Six more classified documents were found at the Wilmington, Delaware home of Joe Biden on Friday during a nearly thirteen-hour search of the home by the Department of Justice according to a statement released Saturday evening by Biden’s private attorney Bob Bauer. This is the fifth batch of classified documents found in Biden’s possession and the fourth to be found at the Wilmington home in searches stretching from December 20 to Friday. The first batch was found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. on November 2nd. (Update at end.)
Bauer also said, “The DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” and that some of the items taken by investigators were from Biden’s time as a senator as well as vice president.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents on January 12. Hur has not yet taken over the case from U.S. Attorney for Chicago John Lausch; the search was conducted by FBI agents under Lausch.
A separate statement from the White House Counsel’s Office notes “Neither the President nor the First Lady were present during the search. The President’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the Special Counsel…” pic.twitter.com/O3UxV4iY8W
On or about January 21st of this year, Sergei Millian teased a “secret sealed SpyGate case” via a series of now deleted tweets. Shout out to The Washington Pundit Telegram channel for posting this screenshot of it.
Twitter user @mgEyesOpen searched PACER and found it. Sure enough, it exists and is sealed.
I searched the case myself, 21-SC-3164 (ZMF), and it was difficult to find. That is probably on me for being a bit inexperienced and/or lacking some knowledge in how best to use PACER’s query system. I kept at it and did eventually locate the sealed case just as @mgEyesOpen did. However, in my searches for the case that Millian had teased everyone with, I kept getting a return for a different case, with a slightly different name:
‘IN RE APPLICATION OF USA FOR 2703(d) ORDER FOR SIX EMAIL ACCOUNTS SERVICED BY GOOGLE LLC FOR INVESTIGATION OF VIOLATION OF 18 U.S.C….’
…was intriguing to me, so I bookmarked it.
About once or twice a week since, I have checked that bookmark and searched around again. Always coming up empty-handed… until now.
Paydirt.
Paydirt.
The New York Times filed to have records unsealed (notice that the violations that are being investigated here are redacted) in the very case that I kept happening upon when searching for the case that Millian teased. If that makes sense…
Here, just for clarity’s sake:
21-SC-3164 (ZMF) = Super secret Spygate case that Millian teased (Filed ?)
20-SC-3361 (ZMF) = Six Email Accounts Disclosure Case (Filed January 5th, 2021)
1:21-MC-00091 (ZMF) = NYT Case asking for unsealing in the Six Email Accounts Case (Filed June 8th, 2021)
As I began to read the first filing in the Time’s suit, I was struck by a familiar name from page 3.
I’m sure many readers will recall that Special Counsel Durham added Small to his team back on August 1st of 2022. However, it is possible Durham may have been tasking Small to do work for the Special Counsel’s Office before then. And the court battle over this case played out just a couple months before Small was added.
Which begs the question:
Is this Six Google Email Accounts case connected to the Durham SCO?
Back to the filing…
Two orders. One for information, another to gag the NYT’s attorney.
Four New York Times journalists?
What 2017 news report?
(checks the footnote)
Eric Lichtblau… his name came up in the Sussman case. Sussmann’s defense team wanted to call him up to testify, but wished for the scope of that testimony to be limited. In the end, they decided against it.
What April 2017 news report?
I wonder who the other journalists are?
Oh my.
DOJ was seeking information from the email accounts of these four journalists plus two others because of this article!
They are talking about the Renteria Memo!
This is about the highly classified Renteria Memo and who leaked information about it to the New York Times!
I wonder… are Karoun Demirjian and Devlin Barrett the other two journalists whose email accounts DoJ was interested in?
Gone Spearfishing.
At this point in the dig I decided to search around to see if anyone else had reported on this case. Something this significant has surely made waves somewhere.
It had.
This article is worth reading in full, but to summarize it…
In the last weeks of the Trump Administration the Justice Department seized the phone records of those New York Times journalists who are named in the filing and are the authors of that famous Comey piece — Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt. They also seized the records of journalists at the Washington Post and CNN. I’m guessing the other two journos must work at those organizations. The order for this seizure was issued by Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, hence the (ZMF) on the case titles.
DOJ also asked for and Judge Faruqui approved an unprecedented gag order on several executives at the Times to prevent them from alerting those journalists of the seizures. They specifically cited a concern that if the journalists knew of the order they may delete records.
There were some constraints on the records seizure. It was for “non-content information,” meaning only the order “covered… to whom the emails were sent and when they were sent and received.”
In early June of 2021, DoJ asked Judge Faruqui to quash the orders and he did, thus allowing the execs at the New York Times to inform the journalists of the seizure and the newspaper to then inform the public.
DoJ also informed the journalists “that it had obtained several months of their 2017 phone records and had unsuccessfully sought non-content information about their emails.” Google fought the production of the “non-content information” and delayed it over and over. Google’s efforts paid off.
The case I had accidentally found while searching for the “super secret SpyGate case” was 20-SC-3361 (ZMF) , the Six Email Accounts Disclosure Case (Filed January 5th, 2021).
The case I found that is connected to it, 1:21-MC-00091 (ZMF), is the NYT Case asking for further unsealing in the Six Email Accounts Case. They wanted the Justice Department to unseal the Application for the seizure of records and everything else.
Does this perhaps indicate that someone involved in the Renteria Memo leak sold that classified information?
Drawing the Line From Here to Durham.
I’ve already mentioned that Adam Small was on at least some filings in the case, but there is another connection I want to draw. It’s the “why it matters” now connection.
First though, just in case you don’t recall or did not click the links to read the Times’ Comey article or the WaPo article in this substack, I need to remind you, or perhaps inform you, of what the Renteria Memo is.
During the 2016 primaries, a document was given to the FBI that purported to be “Russian intelligence.” It revealed that there was an “understanding” between the Clinton Campaign and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
This document described an email in which AG Lynch “had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the [investigation into Hillary’s use of a private email server] would not push too deeply into the matter.”
The document is controversial and ultimately the FBI concluded it was unreliable.
However, that document was a major factor in FBI Director Comey deciding to himself announce in July of 2016 the closure of the investigation into Hillary’s Email Server, because, partially based on that document, he did not feel comfortable giving the investigation over to AG Lynch. Comey did not coordinate with the Justice Department when he did this. It was an extraordinary move and a very unpopular one with media, the administration, Democrats and Republicans.
To this day, media and Democrats are FURIOUS with Comey for doing this because in announcing the closure, he retained control of the investigation and then later reopened it 11 days before Election Day 2016. These two acts have media and Dems, likely Clinton as well, convinced that Comey cost Clinton the election.
The email described in the document (a copy of the email is not actually in the document) is between Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was at time the chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Leonard Benardo, an official at the George Soros owned Open Society Foundations. Wasserman Schultz informs Bernado that AG Lynch had privately communicated with Clinton Campaign staffer Amanda Renteria and told her that “she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far”.”
Remember of all of this information, even the very existence of the document, was highly classified AND STILL IS. The Renteria Memo has never been released and the Comey article triggered a criminal referral from “an agency in the intelligence community.”
During testimony on Capitol Hill in December 2018, Comey said in regards to the Renteria memo,
“So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate…”
“[I’ve] tried to be very careful in public comments about this. There was material that had not been verified that I believed if it became public, would be used to cast doubt on whether the Attorney General had acted appropriately with respect to the investigation… I don’t think I’m allowed to go beyond that in characterizing that material.”
So, why does it matter right now, in February of 2023?
This hit and spin piece on Barr and the Durham SCO, this smear piece, has one significant, never before revealed, very ‘dasting piece of information in it.
DOJ was investigating the Renteria Memo’s leak and now Durham is investigating the email described in it!
And notice what the Times doesn’t include:
That from June 2021 through December 2021, they were in court fighting the Justice Department over the seizure of the email records of four of their own reporters, THE SAME ONES WHO WROTE THE COMEY ARTICLE! THE ARTICLE THAT INFORMED THE WORLD OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE RENTERIA MEMO!
In the Sussmann case, Durham broke the Clinton Campaign’s attorney client privilege over a number of emails. This exchange from the transcript provided one of the most memorable, and for [them], foreboding exchanges.
“Not for this trial…”
Another possibility worth considering:
Might the issue Comey described with the memo, that the “material was genuine” but it’s accuracy was in question be due the fact that it may have come from a fake Debbie Wasserman Schultz email account like the one Imran Awan created and used?
It’s a darn good question and a strong possibility.
“Wasserman Schultz frantically fought to stop police from looking at the laptop’s hard drive. For more than two months, police had been telling her they suspected him of cybersecurity breaches, including what she called “data transfer violations,” but she maintained that she thought the police were picking on him and wanted to protect his “due process” — even though she knew how serious cyber breaches can be because she was head of the DNC when its emails were released last year.”
The Durham Special Counsel’s Office ran at least two, possibly three, grand juries in 2022 while also putting on two trials.
We now know that one of those grand juries received documents from the Open Society Foundation and an appearance by Leonard Benardo.
I think we can be confident that Durham asked him about the Wasserman Shultz email.
And I think we can be confident that the Justice Department, in seeking the email records of the journalists who revealed the existence and some details of the classified Renteria Memo, are investigating that leak and did not give up on that effort because it was a dead end. Remember, they did seize the records. And look at this section from a filing that is STILL heavily redacted.
There’s a future shock to [their] systems under those black bars.
While taken separately, these seemingly-disparate nuggets of information appear as Small as the man this dig started on, by tying the various threads together, a tapestry begins to appear.
Or a web.
One that could tie the Media Industrial Complex together, and bind them in their own lies. Their complicity.
“The Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center, a Biden adviser named Michael Carpenter, now finds himself embroiled in a national controversy that threatens to take down a president. But it isn’t his first time.
Carpenter is implicated in the high-profile scandal since classified documents from Biden’s vice presidency were stored at the Penn Biden Center on his watch. The scandal has led to the quick appointment of a Special Counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
(…) Dr. Carpenter, readers might remember, was flanked to Biden’s right at the Council on Foreign Relations panel in 2018 where Biden infamously announced that he threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine if it did not fire the prosecutor charged with investigating the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
Burisma, of course, just so happened to be employing his son Hunter Biden on its Board of Directors for the hefty stipend of over $80,000 a month. Of course, we are to dismiss the obvious ‘quid pro quo’ implicated in the former vice president’s demands.
Such a ‘quid pro quo’ is a normal part of diplomacy (“sticks and carrots”), but it would become a scare word during the Trump impeachment hoax. If you recall, a “whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella had relayed second-hand information that Trump was attaching aid to Ukraine to assurances from then-president Volodymyr Zelensky that Biden’s demand for the prosecutor be fired get properly investigated.
That was it. The Democrats, desperate to wound and potentially rid the U.S. government of their nemesis Donald Trump, nonetheless launched theatrical impeachment hearings over the matter.
The unnamed star at the center of the impeachment theater was the “whistleblower,” believed by investigators to be pictured with Dr. Michael Carpenter below.
Carpenter, interestingly, is a Biden adviser with expertise on Russia and Ukraine, as well as on weapons trafficking, according to his bio at the Atlantic Council.
It is unknown what is in the classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center and at Joe Biden’s Wilmington Delaware home. However, CNN has reported that the classified documents involved Ukraine.
“Among the classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom,” a source told CNN.
“A total of 10 documents with classification markings were found last year in Biden’s private academic office and they were dated between 2013 and 2016,” the report added.
Joe Biden in 2016 had pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma’s leadership for corruption.
A series of documents from the Obama-Biden administration showed that representatives for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with the State Department in February 2016 to discuss the corruption allegations.
Burisma’s representatives invoked the former vice president’s youngest son, Hunter, in order to try to get a meeting with the State Department. The FOIA documents obtained in a lawsuit by John Solomon did not indicate if the meeting ever took place.
On one of the last days of his term as vice president, Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv. FOIA documents hosted at the U.S. State Department show one possible explanation why.
Viktor Nebozhenko, a political scientist, was cited in an email from then Foreign Service Institute director Karen Robblee to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch speculating on the timing of Biden’s visit and what it could possibly mean.
“Donald Trump said that he will carry out an audit of investments in security and democracy in Ukraine,” Nebozhenko said. “For 8 years the US Administration has turned a blind eye to our corruption and gave a lot of money through the IMF and various funds. And all this has disappeared somewhere. Trump, as the new director of the company under the name of the United States, wants to know where that money went.” (Read more: Trending Politics News, 1/21/2023)(Archive)
“With the discovery of yet more classified documents at President Biden’s Wilmington home on Friday, the disclosure of which was withheld from the public until after the NFL playoff coverage began on Saturday evening, the Biden team is trying to put its best spin on things: The president, you’re to believe, is being fully cooperative.
The truth of the matter is that, like most criminal suspects as to whom there is already strong evidence of felony offenses, Biden consented to a search knowing that, if he did not, newly appointed special counsel Robert Hur would apply for a judicial warrant from a federal judge. Biden would then have been subject to the same political damage that has dogged former president Donald Trump since the Mar-a-Lago search in August: a judicial finding of probable cause to believe he has committed multiple offenses for which the penal code prescribes prison terms of up to ten years (for each offense).
National Archive IG, Dr. Brett M. Baker (Credit: NARA)
(…) The president did not consent to an FBI search of his home because he is unconcerned. He consented to it because he knew law enforcement had more than sufficient evidence to compel a search of his home. From his standpoint, with his 2024 reelection hopes now teetering, it was better to pose as a cooperative volunteer than be forced to open his door to federal agents brandishing a judicial warrant.
On this point, the scandal is: Why did the Justice Department wait so long? And why, in the interim, did both DOJ and the Biden White House allow Biden private lawyers who did not have security clearances conduct what turn out to have been incompetent searches that both (a) exposed them to secret intelligence they were not authorized to possess, and (b) failed to locate the secret intelligence they said they were looking for? (And recall that Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre assured us nearly ten days ago that Biden’s lawyers had completed the search for classified documents—only to have still more documents be discovered hours later.)
Remember the timeline here. The first batch of classified documents was found illegally stored in Biden’s office on November 2—i.e., over two-and-a-half months before the FBI finally conducted Friday’s search. Contrary to Biden’s claim of self-reporting, he did not report that discovery—evidence of a serious crime—to law enforcement. Rather, his private lawyers reported it to the Biden White House, which then notified not the Justice Department but the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It appears Biden was hoping NARA would just return the documents to the files and no one would be any the wiser.
The discovery, however, came to the attention of NARA’s inspector general—the watchdog official who reports agency wrongdoing to Congress. It was the IG’s office that, on November 4, notified the Biden Justice Department.(Read more: National Review, 1/22/2023)(Archive)
Ex-FBI counterintelligence official, Charles F. McGonigal (left), was charged with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (right). (Credit: Law and Crime)
“Charles F. McGonigal, 54, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field office, has been arrested on charges relating to his receipt of $225,000 in cash from an individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service, while McGonigal was serving as Special Agent in Charge of FBI counterintelligence efforts in the New York Office. McGonigal retired from the FBI in September of 2018.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew M. Graves, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office Donald Alway, and Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office David Sundberg.
According to the nine-count indictment, unsealed today, from August 2017, and continuing through and beyond his retirement from the FBI in September 2018, McGonigal concealed from the FBI the nature of his relationship with a former foreign security officer and businessperson who had ongoing business interests in foreign countries and before foreign governments. Specifically, McGonigal requested and received at least $225,000 in cash from the individual and traveled abroad with the individual and met with foreign nationals. The individual later served as an FBI source in a criminal investigation involving foreign political lobbying over which McGonigal had official supervisory responsibility. McGonigal is accused of engaging in other conduct in his official capacity as an FBI Special Agent in Charge that he believed would benefit the businessperson financially.
McGonigal’s initial appearance in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has not yet been scheduled.
“Covering up your contacts with foreign nationals and hiding your personal financial relationships is a gateway to corruption,” said U.S. Attorney Graves. “The FBI should be commended for handling the delicate and difficult task of investigating a former executive. This investigation demonstrates their commitment to act as an impartial enforcer of the law. The FBI and the Department will guard the best interests of the United States and hold to account those who make false statements and try to deceive the Bureau.”
“Mr. McGonigal betrayed his solemn oath to the United States in exchange for personal gain and at the expense of our national security,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Alway. “A senior FBI executive at the time, McGonigal is alleged to have committed the very violations he swore to investigate while he purported to lead a workforce of FBI employees who spend their careers protecting secrets and holding foreign adversaries accountable. Agents in my office, with the support of agents in Washington, D.C. and New York, vigorously pursued a former colleague without bias.”
“As an FBI agent, Charles McGonigal took an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Sundberg. “In betrayal of that oath, McGonigal is alleged to have received money from a businessman with foreign business interests, to have concealed these payments, and to have lied about related foreign contacts and travel. Integrity is one of the FBI’s core values and we hold our own to the highest standards.”
The charge of falsification of records and documents carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The charge of making false statements carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count. The charges also carry potential financial penalties. The maximum statutory sentence for federal offenses is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. The sentencing will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. (Read more: Justice.gov, 1/23/2023)(Archive)
(…) In twin indictments last month, McGonigal was charged with taking secret cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer, holding secret meetings with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and attempting to remove top Kremlin oligarch Oleg Deripaska from a US sanctions list.
The Albanians cited by prosecutors tie this scandal to Hunter Biden and the Chinese energy company CEFC that paid him and uncle Jim Biden millions of dollars in a deal which Joe Biden was slated to join after his vice presidency ended.
According to prosecutors, McGonigal received $225,000 in cash in the fall of 2017 while he was the FBI’s counterintelligence chief in New York, from an Albanian former intelligence official, identified in the Albanian and European media as Agron Neza.
Mayor of Tropoja, Rexh Byberi (r), and former intel official, Agron Neza (l), recognize Charles McGonigal (c) with an award on September 23, 2021. (Credit: public domain)
In turn, Neza introduced McGonigal to another well-connected Albanian, Dorian Ducka, who was an adviser to Rama and also worked for CEFC.
Edi Rama (l), Dorian Ducka (c), and Charles McGonigal (r) (Credit: VOX News Albania)
A photograph published last month in Albanian media sourced from China Daily in May 2017 shows Ducka standing with CEFC chairman Ye Jianming, who famously gave Hunter a 3.16-carat diamond estimated to be worth $80,000 in February 2017.
(…) Why were the Albanians paying McGonigal?
According to Belind Kellici, the Opposition Democratic Party candidate for May’s mayoral election in Tirana, Albania, McGonigal opened FBI investigations into political opponents of Albanian Socialist Party PM Rama, probes used to declare them personae non gratae, unable to do business or open a bank account in the US. (Read more, New York Post, 2/15/2023)(Archive)
“Special counsel John Durham requested a federal court to issue 30 subpoenas for testimony in the trial against Igor Danchenko, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source for his discredited dossier.
“The FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and broke into a safe in his palatial home, the former president said Monday.
In Part One we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}. In Part Three we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}. Here in Part 4, we begin to assemble the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.
“Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows. This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for. For the past five years, Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.
“Last we checked in on the Mar-a-Lago Raid legal proceeding, Judge Aileen M. Cannon issued a Labor Day order announcing she will appoint a Special Master, and prohibiting the feds from using the seized documents until further notice (except that the feds could continue their national security risk assessment), Judge Appoints Special Master, Temporarily Bars FBI/DOJ Review Or Use Of Records Seized in Mar-a-Lago Raid.
“An elite Washington, D.C., think tank has employed individuals who’ve worked for front groups controlled by Chinese spy agencies, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.
“Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.
