Email/Dossier/Govt Corruption Investigations

January 23, 2023 – Indicted FBI official, Charles McGonigal, led a shakedown operation on Albanian oligarchs, hauling in 30 million Euros

(…) McGonigal, while still serving as a senior FBI official, became a fixer for Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama and his ruling Socialist Party. Albania is a staunch U.S. ally and NATO member, but since Rama took over in Tirana a decade ago, that small country has become a hotbed of corruption, plus Europe’s leading narcostate, with deep connections to Latin American drug cartels. Why the Biden administration turns a blind eye to all this remains a troubling question. Buying senior American officials such as McGonigal is part of how Rama keeps pulling it off. The Albanian opposition is up in arms over this scandal, featuring a top U.S. intelligence official serving as the fixer for the ruling Socialists.

Edi Rama (Credit: ART News)

McGonigal made several trips to Albania to help Rama, including in September 2017, when the accused was still a top FBI official. While this trip had an official FBI purpose, its unofficial purpose was helping out Rama by bullying his opponents in Albania. A new report by the Washington Post reveals some of this sordid visit:

“McGonigal, who was still working for the FBI at the time, gave the prime minister Bureau ‘paraphernalia’ and warned him against awarding lucrative drilling licenses to companies that were fronts for Russian interests. While McGonigal appeared to be acting in his role as a counterintelligence officer against Russian influence, prosecutors allege that, in fact, Neza and another Albanian man working with McGonigal, identified by prosecutors as an informal Rama adviser, had their own financial interests in the oil fields.”

The truth is worse than that. It’s bad enough that a top FBI official got involved unpleasantly, for cash, in the internal politics of an American ally. This column can report that what McGonigal did on that fateful trip to Albania was considerably worse than the federal authorities or media have admitted. High-level Albanian sources who witnessed McGonigal’s appalling conduct while he was in that country recount that the FBI senior official worked a shakedown operation on wealthy Albanians for personal profit.

McGonigal told successful Albanians, not all of whom were in the good graces of the Rama government, that they were facing imminent U.S. sanctions, which would destroy their businesses, seize their bank accounts, and end their foreign travel. However, McGonigal could fix this problem for a modest fee of a few million dollars. The message was clear: Pay me or I will destroy your life. The worried Albanians took this threat seriously, given McGonigal’s FBI position, and many of them paid up. Some paid “only” 3 million euros. Others paid much more.

Albania’s top oil magnate, Shefqet Kastrati (l), and Charles McGonigal. (Credit: Gijotina)

Sources tell me that McGonigal shook down Shefqet Kastrati, Albania’s top oil magnate, for 12 million euros, worth nearly $15 million in 2017. Kastrati’s representatives have adamantly denied the allegation to the Washington Examiner. Apparently, McGonigal also attempted to get bribes from Samir Mane, a leading Albanian businessman, in a similar fashion. Balkan sources say that McGonigal’s haul from this shakedown was on the order of 30 million Euros, though that presumably was split with his Albanian partners.

Where did the money go? This was unlikely to have been a cash operation, given its sensitivity, and Balkan intelligence sources tell me that cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, was involved. Those sources say that McGonigal attempted similar shakedown operations in Albania’s neighbors, Macedonia and Montenegro, both of which contain significant ethnic Albanian minorities.

Details are murky and need thorough investigation, but Albanians in a position to know insist that they witnessed this unprecedented activity by Charles McGonigal when he was one of the FBI’s top officials. This is the worst scandal in the FBI’s long history. It demands immediate congressional investigation. What the DOJ has indicted McGonigal for looks like the small tip of an astonishingly corrupt Balkan iceberg.  (Read more: Washington Examiner, 2/13/2023)  (Archive)

January 23, 2023 – Former special agent in charge of NY FBI Counterintelligence Division charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Russia

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing of a five-count Indictment charging CHARLES MCGONIGAL and SERGEY SHESTAKOV with violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) and with conspiring to commit money laundering and money laundering.  SHESTAKOV is also charged with making material misstatements to the FBI.  The defendants were arrested on Saturday evening, and they will be presented this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave in Manhattan federal court.  The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Jennifer H. Rearden.

Charles McGonigal played a key role in the bureau’s controversial “Russiagate” probe — and gave a “defensive briefing” of Hillary Clinton’s lawyers. (Credit: NYP)

(…) According to the allegations contained in the Indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:

In 2014, the President issued Executive Order 13660, which declared a national emergency with respect to the situation in Ukraine.  To address this national emergency, the President blocked all property of individuals determined by the U.S. Treasury to be responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that threatened the security, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine, or who materially assist, sponsor, or provide support to individuals or entities engaging in such activities.  Executive Order 13660 and regulations issued pursuant to it prohibit making or receiving any funds, goods, or services by, to, from, or for the benefit of any person designated by the U.S. Treasury.

On April 6, 2018, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) designated Oleg Deripaska as a Specially Designated National (“SDN”) in connection with its finding that the actions of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy (the “OFAC Sanctions”).  According to the U.S. Treasury, Deripaska was sanctioned for having acted or purported to act on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the Government of the Russian Federation and for operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy.

CHARLES MCGONIGAL is a former Special Agent in Charge (“SAC”) of FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York, who retired in 2018.  While working at the FBI, MCGONIGAL supervised and participated in investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska.  SERGEY SHESTAKOV is a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who later became a U.S. citizen and a Russian interpreter for courts and government offices.

In 2021, MCGONIGAL and SHESTAKOV conspired to provide services to Deripaska, in violation of U.S. sanctions imposed on Deripaska in 2018.  Specifically, following their negotiations with an agent of Deripaska, MCGONIGAL and SHESTAKOV agreed to and did investigate a rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska.  As part of their negotiations with Deripaska’s agent, MCGONIGAL, SHESTAKOV, and the agent attempted to conceal Deripaska’s involvement by, among other means, not directly naming Deripaska in electronic communications, using shell companies as counterparties in the contract that outlined the services to be performed, using a forged signature on that contract, and using the same shell companies to send and receive payments from Deripaska.

MCGONIGAL and SHESTAKOV were aware that their actions violated U.S. sanctions because, among other reasons, while serving as SAC, MCGONIGAL received then-classified information that Deripaska would be added to a list of oligarchs considered for sanctions as part of the process that led to the imposition of sanctions against Deripaska.  In addition, in 2019, MCGONIGAL and SHESTAKOV worked on behalf of Deripaska in an unsuccessful effort to have the sanctions against Deripaska lifted.  In November 2021, when FBI agents questioned SHESTAKOV about the nature of his and MCGONIGAL’s relationship with Deripaska’s agent, SHESTAKOV made false statements in a recorded interview.

CHARLES MCGONIGAL, 54, of New York, New York, and SERGEY SHESTAKOV, 69, of Morris, Connecticut, are charged with one count of conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions, in violation of the IEEPA, one count of violating the IEEPA, one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.  SHESTAKOV is also charged with one count of making false statements, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

The maximum potential sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of the FBI New York Field Office’s Counterintelligence Division and the valuable assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as the New York City Police Department.

The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Hagan Scotten, Rebecca T. Dell, and Derek Wikstrom are in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. (Read more: Justice Department, 1/21/2023)

McGonigal is also included in the Biden Laptop Report:

January 27, 2023 – Twitter Files – Hamilton 68 plays major role in catapulting Russiagate fake news

January 29, 2023 – Kash Patel: “FBI criminal government gangsters Peter Strzok and Charles McGonigal texts unearthed, Russiagate set up exposed”

 

In the below, now declassified text messages between, at the time, FBI agents Peter Strzok and Charles McGonigal, we can see the inception of the Russiagate scam on the American people and President Donald J. Trump beginning to unfold. (FightWithKash.com, 1/29/2023)  (Archive)

February 1, 2023 – Hunter Biden admits infamous laptop belongs to him

Graphic by The Times, UK

A lawyer for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, urged state and federal agencies in a letter on Feb. 1 to probe what he said were attempts by close allies of former President Donald Trump and others to “weaponize” the contents of a laptop that an electronics repair shop owner says was dropped off at his Delaware store in 2019.

The letters from Hunter Biden’s attorneys mark the first time he and his legal team have publicly acknowledged that it was his personal data found on the laptop.

The letters were sent by Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell to the Delaware attorney general, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

They call for an investigation into former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, campaign lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as well as Giuliani’s own lawyer, Robert Costello, and the owner of the Wilmington computer repair shop, John Paul Mac Isaac, who said Hunter Biden dropped a laptop off at his store in April 2019 and failed to return to pick it up.

“We write on behalf of our client, Robert Hunter Biden, to request an investigation into the following individuals for whom there is considerable reason to believe violated various federal laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data,” states the letter (pdf) to the DOJ’s top national security official, Matthew Olsen. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

February 1, 2023 – After 2005 DoD and Ukrainian agreement to secure pathogens, the Bidens contract to build biological weapons laboratories

February 2023 – FBI searches, retrieves materials from Biden document stashes at University of Delaware

The University of Delaware announces the creation of the Biden Institute in February 2017. (Credit: Josh Shannon/Newark Post)

“The FBI twice searched the University of Delaware in recent weeks for classified documents stashed by President Joe Biden and retrieved materials from two separate locations, according to a report Wednesday evening.

Though the material retrieved by the FBI reportedly did not have classified documents, the agency reportedly did take certain materials with them. “Investigators retrieved materials from two university locations on two different days. The material did not appear to have classified markings, according to the source, but they are now being reviewed by the FBI,” CNN reported.

That the FBI searched the University of Delaware is notable. According to a Government Accountability Institute analysis, the University of Delaware received more than $6.7 million from anonymous donors from China. The donors include direct funds from the Chinese government.

The university is the second academic institution where searches have occurred for stashes of Biden’s classified documents. Classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center housed by the University of Pennsylvania, which has also received millions in anonymous donations from China. That trove was found on November 2. (Read more: (Breitbart, 2/15/2023)  (Archive)

February 6, 2023 – Elon Musk identifies the State Dept as the origin behind Twitter content control mechanisms

… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation.  The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept.

The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link).

[Musk Tweet Link – GEC Center Link]

(…) To put it in brutally honest terms, the State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring).  However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in…. The United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.

You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is.  Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.

Regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd data points only reconcile in one direction.  The State Dept started it, but now DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.

Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt controlled enterprise.

If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.

Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating any consequential public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding Mr. Musk selected information about their prior Twitter operations.  DHS is still the ghost in the machine.

TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.

The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.

Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment.  Until then, we keep watching and smiling… (Much more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/07/2023)  (Archive)

February 8, 2023 – Rep. Anna Paulina Luna discusses how government and Twitter officials communicated on private cloud to censor Americans

During the House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna calls out the U.S. government and Twitter’s use of the private cloud server, Jira, to censor American citizens.

Luna: “Do you remember communicating on a private cloud server [with government entities] to remove a posting? Yes or no.

Roth: “I don’t believe I can give you a yes or no answer.”

Luna: “Well I’m gonna tell you right you you did it… It is highly illegal.”

Part 1: Anna Luna discusses the hearing with WarRoom’s Steve Bannon:

Part 2

February 8, 2023 – Marjorie Taylor Green questions former Twitter official Yoel Roth about banning her account before an election and also exposes the problem of child porn on Twitter

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “You permanently banned my personal Twitter account and it was my campaign account, too…You abused the power of a large corporation, big tech, to censor Americans…I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs. Thank God @elonmusk bought Twitter.”

Child pornography on Twitter was also addressed:

 

February 8, 2023 – Rep. Jim Jordan grills Twitter official, Yoel Roth, about shadowbanning and security clearance

Jim Jordan Confronts Ex-Twitter Executive Yoel Roth Over Suppression Of Hunter Biden Story, security clearance

February 8, 2023 – FBI Richmond division creates report warning Virginians that Catholics who prefer Latin mass are white supremacists

(Credit: NBC News)

“The FBI’s Richmond Division would like to protect Virginians from the threat of “white supremacy,” which it believes has found a home within Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass. An intelligence analyst within the Richmond Field Office of the FBI released in a new finished intelligence product dated January 23, 2023, on Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE) and their interests in “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” or RTCs. The document assesses with “high confidence” the FBI can mitigate the threat of Radical-Traditionalist Catholics by recruiting sources within the Catholic Church.

The acronym, new to many in the Domestic Counterterrorism field, comes with a footnote by the writer explaining RTCs are “typically characterized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council.” The writer makes an unsubstantiated leap that a preference for the Catholic Mass in Latin instead of the vernacular and a number of more traditional views on other world religions can amount to an “adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.” This writer draws the important distinction between “traditional Catholics,” who simply prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings, and RTCs, who espouse “more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric.”

A discerning reader may wonder why the writer believes such divisions exist and if there is evidence of the extremist and violent rhetoric within the Catholic church. The analyst’s note doesn’t provide specifics. When the FBI generates an intelligence product, it is important to note the analyzed sources. Typically, strict source vetting removes partisanship and bias, so a product is both consistent with federal law and can add value to the FBI’s overall mission. Of note, this document was reviewed and approved for release by the FBI Richmond Chief Division Counsel, who is the office’s top lawyer.

The attached appendices refer to a number of articles and the out-of-FBI-policy Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) at the end of the document. For example, Appendix D is a direct copy of the SPLC list of “Radical Traditional Catholicism Hate Groups,” including the web address accessed. The SPLC appears to be a source for the intelligence analyst’s beliefs that RTCs exist and that they are anti-Semitic. The SPLC description for this “hate group” states RTCs “may make up the largest single group of serious anti-semites in America.” Often in the intelligence world, this type of statement without any established evidence is often followed by the acronym “NFI” or “No Further Information” to indicate it is an unsubstantiated opinion. Additionally, SPLC states RTCs “embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.” Nothing reported by the SPLC indicates the number of adherents to this alleged ideology nor any instances of violence. This lack of evidence and blatant partisan blindness is one of many reasons the FBI has distanced itself from the SPLC as a source in the past 10 years. The intelligence product includes endnote citations from two other sources: the far-Left online magazine Salon and the equally left-leaning The Atlantic. The Salon articles cited are typical of partisan click-bait writing: “Traditional Catholics and White Nationalist Groypers Forge a new Far-Right Youth Movement” and “White Nationalists Get Religion: On the Far-Right Fringe, Catholics and Racists Forge a movement.” These articles were released a day apart as a series but include substantially the same information. The articles offer only circumstantial suggestions of affiliations between inflammatory figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and Nick Fuentes and a man pictured standing on the steps of a Catholic church in New York after the Dobbs decision. The Salon writer makes the wild leap that using a photo of someone at a church indicates the pictured individual or his beliefs are relevant within a religious institution with 70 million adherents in the United States alone and over 2000 years of tradition and history. (Read more: UncoverDC, 2/8/2023)  (Archive)

February 8, 2023 – James Baker denies colluding with government while at Twitter

Fired Twitter executives James Baker, Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth and Anika Collier Navaroli testified at a hearing on social media bias. (Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)

Jim Baker, the controversial former FBI counsel who served as deputy general counsel for Twitter between 2020 and 2022, testified at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee today alongside former Twitter executives, to answer for the platform’s politically partisan censorship in the runup to the 2020 election.

FULL EVENT: “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias” 2/8/23

Baker, a prominent defender of the USA Patriot Act, has been described as “Mr. FISA” for his defense of the controversial secret courts system.

In his comments before the House Oversight Committee, Baker denied any improper conduct with regards to the platform’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by Breitbart News Emma-jo Morris in the New York Post shortly before the 2020 election.

“I was not aware of, and certainly did not engage in, any conspiracy or other effort to do anything unethical, improper, or unlawful while i was at Twitter, period,” Baker told the assembled lawmakers.

“I did not act unlawfully or otherwise inappropriately in any manner with respect to the Hunter Biden laptop,” said Baker. “I urged caution with respect to the matter and noted that we needed more information to fully assess what was going on.”

What’s more, the former FBI lawyer said that Twitter took no direction from the government or political campaigns in its decision to suppress the story, which had a major impact on the 2020 election.

“I am aware of no unlawful collusion with or direction from any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation,” said Baker.

“At no time was I an agent or operative of the government or any political actor when I worked at Twitter,” said the former FBI counsel.

But documents released via the Twitter Files, the disclosure of which triggered Baker’s departure from the company, show an intense effort by the FBI, aimed at Twitter executives, to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story. (Read more: Brreitbart, 2/08/2023)  (Archive)

February 9, 2023 – Matt Gaetz presses Dem witness on ‘Revolving Door’ between FBI ‘senior officials and lobbying’

“Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz pressed a Democrat witness on his position as a partner at a lobbying firm that reportedly represents Pfizer and Google during a hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday.

The line of questioning was directed at Elliot Williams during a House Judiciary Committee hearing investigating “the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties.”

“Mr Williams, wouldn’t the American people feel like this government wasn’t so weaponized against them if there wasn’t such a revolving door between Department of Justice senior officials and lobbying?” Gaetz asked Williams.

Williams is a principal at the Raben Group, a lobbying firm that represents Pfizer, Microsoft, Google and other companies, according to the hearing.” (Read more: Daily Caller, 2/09/2023)  (Archive)

February 9, 2023 – The State Department bankrolls a group secretly blacklisting conservative media

 

(Credit: Washington Examiner graphic)

This is the second part of a Washington Examiner investigative series about self-styled ‘disinformation’ tracking groups that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech. To read part one, click here.

The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.

The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.

“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”

GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list”  that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.

The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.

GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post. (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 2/09/2023) (Archive)

February 9, 2023 – Nancy Mace grills Twitter official Vijaya Gadde about censoring Covid information; mentions her personal health problems after receiving vaccine

Rep. Nancy Mace Admits to Serious Long-Term Injuries From the Covid “Vaccine”

 

 

February 09, 2023- Prof. Jonathan Turley hits back at Debbie Wasserman-Schultz attempt to discredit him at House hearing

Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Weaponization this week. Turley was there to offer analysis as a legal expert on Twitter and the revelations of the Twitter Files. (Credit: Still-shot from YouTube)

“Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Weaponization this week. Turley was there to offer analysis as a legal expert on Twitter and the revelations of the TwitterFiles.

His testimony was calm and reasoned, as usual, but when Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a chance to question him, all she did was try to discredit him.

Turley recently wrote at The Hill:

Congress is set to expose what may be the largest censorship system in U.S. history

(…) In his opening remarks, which you should watch below, Turley points out the fairly recent public distrust of the FBI, which he says is dangerous.

He also comments on what the Twitter files have exposed, saying “This may be the largest censorship system in the history of our country.”

After all of that eloquent and reasoned commentary, enter Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Mike Miller writes at RedState:

Here’s how Wasserman-Schultz kicked off her line of questions of the legal expert:

“So essentially your answers to questions yesterday were your own opinion and pure conjecture.”

As is his style, Turley politely responded, “No, I wouldn’t say that, I try to base them on what we know from the Twitter Files—” before DSW interrupted with the same nonsensical premise: “But this is only just your opinion, would you say, as a Twitter account user?” Is it possible Debbie’s unaware of the role of legal expert, or any expert witness?

Turley tried again: “No, I’ve come to give legal advice based on facts that are in the public domain and I would really refer to—” but Wasserman Schultz again butted in, telling Turley he was using up her time. So, that’s how that went. Wasserman Schultz was simply in way over her head, and Turley refused to agree with her silly premise, so she continued to interrupt him.

Turley addressed her line of questioning on FOX News:

JONATHAN TURLEY: The congresswoman was asking if I’ve ever worked at Twitter as a condition for my talking about what the Twitter Files say. It’s like saying you have to work at the Pentagon if you want to testify about the implications of the Pentagon Papers. The point of witnesses before committees is often to give legal analysis based on what is known and what could be found in this investigation. The exchange she was referring to was a member who expressly asked me about the Twitter Files and what this suggests about what I’ve called censorship by surrogate. And then she went into this issue of, ‘Well, you’ve never worked at Twitter.

How do you know what goes on at Twitter?,’ which is completely absurd. The whole premise of my testimony was that Twitter has now authenticated and confirmed these facts. These facts are coming from Twitter. These are Twitter files. And the facts indicate that they had weekly meetings with the government. They indicate that the government would send long lists of citizens and others to be targeted, censored, to be in some cases, banned. Those are very serious allegations that raise constitutional questions, which is why I was there to discuss it.

(Read more: Legal Insurrection, 2/11/2023) (Archive)

February 10, 2023 – Judicial Watch: Secret Service releases new docs related to Hunter Biden’s gun purchase

Still shots from a video on Hunter Biden’s laptop. (Credit: Hunter Biden laptop)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it received 487 pages of records from the United States Secret Service (USSS) related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun, reportedly disposed of in a dumpster in Delaware in October 2018. The records show agency officials discussing media reports of its alleged involvement with one finding it “odd” that the Secret Service was involved in the investigation when Joe and Hunter Biden were not receiving Secret Service protection at the time. Another official responds: “Maybe we were asked for a favor?”

The records show the agency alerted the Biden White House and crafted a public statement insisting it had “no involvement in this alleged incident” and refusing to provide any additional clarification to media inquiries.

Judicial Watch is investigating whether and how the Secret Service intervened for Hunter Biden in an incident involving a gun allegedly owned by him. In September 2022, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records or communications about the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of a firearm owned by Hunter Biden found in a Delaware dumpster in October 2018 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:22-cv-02841)).

Judicial Watch reported in December 2022 that the Secret Service repeatedly changed its position about whether it is in possession of records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun.

On October 29, 2020, a person whose name is redacted emails a Secret Service official in the “PID” (Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division) with a link to a Blaze article published earlier that day, reporting that Hallie Biden had taken a handgun owned by Hunter Biden in October 2018 and thrown it into a supermarket trash bin. The official then forwards the article to another official in the PID.

An official whose name is redacted later comments in this chain: “Oh dear…”

After being forwarded the same Blaze article, an unidentified Protective Intelligence Research Specialist responds to his colleagues: “It’s kind of odd that we were involved in the missing gun investigation when neither Hunter or Joe were even receiving USSS [Secret Service] protection at the time? Hmmm.” Another official replies: “Maybe we were asked for a favor?” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 2/10/2023)  (Archive)

February 14, 2023 – Details on those to be identified in the Epstein scandal – The Doe List

(Credit: KnowYourMeme.com)

“We have word from the FBI.

They will provide us with their interview(s) of Jeffery Epstein in the next couple months.

Here’s the FBI’s representation:

“FBI has completed its search for documents responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request and anticipates beginning to produce any non-exempt documents responsive to Plaintiff’s request as early as April 2023. FBI anticipates only one production of documents instead of rolling productions due to the relatively limited number of responsive documents.”

There’s a ton of unanswered questions about Epstein’s involvement with the FBI, and we hope that these records provide some answers. The FBI has fought the disclosure of these records, necessitating the filing of our lawsuit (a lawsuit which was possible through your support – thank you for that).

(…) The Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell “John Does”

There’s more on the Epstein front. A federal judge in New York’s Southern District is currently considering whether to disclose the names of the “John Does” arising out of Virginia Giuffre v. Ghislaine Maxwell. Here’s the list she’s reviewing.

Sadly, reporting from the media has created a lot of false hope about whose names might be unsealed. I have to break the unfortunate news: this isn’t “Epstein’s list.”

Let me lay out the facts of what we do know about these individuals. Here’s the breakdown:

  • There are approximately 165 “John Does”. These are not all perpetrators. The vast majority are witnesses of varying degrees (meaning material or immaterial), employees of Epstein, or affiliates of Epstein or the victims. The term “affiliate” ranges from those in Epstein’s address book to the doctors or acquaintances of the victims.
  • The majority of the John Does – nearly 100 of them – have already been identified, whether through the media or court proceedings.
  • Many of the unidentified John Does are immaterial to the allegations against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The roles of some are unknown. Some are only referenced in passing, such as a deposition question where the deponent denies knowing the individual. For many others the nature of the information relating to them is “not salacious.”
  • There are approximately 67 John Does that remain unidentified. Of that number, around 11 are listed as potential victims.
  • By my count, there are two alleged perpetrators who have yet to be identified: John Doe 058 and John Doe 094. More on them below.
  • There are two other John Does of interest. John Doe 086 is an alleged “Epstein Affiliate”; some material related to them is “salacious.” John Doe 113 is an alleged “Alleged Epstein Affiliate; Alleged Witness”. This individual “is alleged to have engaged in serious wrongdoing.” Counsel for Maxwell maintains John Doe 113 is referenced in a “hearsay statement that the name appears in Epstein’s address book.”

Here are the alleged perpetrators who are yet to be identified:

John Doe 058 (identified as “Alleged Witness Affiliate; Alleged Perpetrator”)

John Doe 058 is referenced in a letter submitted by counsel for Professor Alan Dershowitz. We suspect his identity may be disclosed in these quotes from the e-mails of Sarah Ransome:

John Doe 094 (identified as Alleged Victim Affiliate; Alleged Perpetrator)

John Doe 094 is discussed in the deposition of victim Virginia Giuffre. The excerpts from her deposition (docket entry 235-4) filed with the court are nearly 90 pages.

There’s a significant amount of redactions and a number of alleged perpetrators – both relating to Epstein/Maxwell and not having anything to do with Epstein/Maxwell – within Giuffre’s deposition. This makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact claims against John Doe 094. In fact, it’s entirely possible that John Doe 094 doesn’t have to do with Epstein or Maxwell. However, if we were to focus on the Epstein/Maxwell connection, here are two different allegations – either of which might relate to John Doe 094:

 

Giuffre describing a foreign president she met in New Mexico.
Giuffre’s allegations from France

This isn’t to say that we won’t learn anything about those whose names have already been publicized. We anticipate that there may be new and important information, or information that provides additional context, about some of the alleged “perpetrators” – of which the John Doe log lists approximately 17. This includes Sarah Kellen, who is alleged to have to have taken part in Epstein’s abuse scheme. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 2/14/2023)  (Archive)  (Doe List-Archived)

February 2023 – DHS and HHS whistleblowers expose the U.S. government of enabling child trafficking

Whistleblowers Kyle Seraphin (l) Aaron Stevenson (c) and Tara Rodas (r) (Credit: Kyle Seraphin/Rumble)

Kyle interviews two Federal Whistleblower who helped uncover different angles of the same problem: The US federal government assisting in settling “unaccompanied children” with known members of organized crime for sex and labor trafficking.

Aaron Stevenson (@Called_Out_DHS) is a prior USMC and spent a decade within the Department of Homeland Security. Tara Rodas (@TaraLeeRodas) is a Spanish speaker with over 20 years in federal service who volunteered to help out HHS. They combined and shared their stories with @Project_Veritas in order to expose the intel and the actions of our government that wants to ignore the problem. The details will shake you.

See their Project Veritas Expos:
https://t.co/aYrhMUJK0d
https://t.co/AcjFv9gZSj

February 17, 2023 – Fox vs Dominion discovery docs show their employees, including Eric Coomer, expressed concern about the security of their voting machines

“Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News, and naturally all the coverage shrieks, “OMG FOX KNEW IT WASN’T TRUE BUT LIED!”

Actually, I think we all remember Tucker Carlson grilling Sidney Powell and the fact that the news network scarcely dipped a toe into any investigative work in the area. As their lawyers argued in response to Dominion, Fox’s role was limited to reporting to its viewers the claims and counterclaims surrounding the election.

(…) More galling, however, is the refusal to cover the admissions found by Fox, that Dominion employees themselves were not sure about the security of their own systems.

Page 15 of Fox’s filing reveals fascinating discovery material.

Some of the most critical examples include (with emphasis added):

Discovery in this case has revealed that Dominion’s own employees expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines. Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, confirmed that other parties “have gotten ahold of [Dominion’s] equipment illicitly” in the past.

Beckstrand identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was “hacked” in Michigan.

Beckstrand confirmed that these security failures were “reported about in the news.”

And just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Dominion’s Director of Product Strategy and Security, Eric Coomer, acknowledged in private that “our shit is just riddled with bugs.” Indeed, Coomer had been castigating Dominion’s failures for years. In 2019, Coomer noted that “our products suck.”

A photo from Eric Coomer’s Facebook page is included in his Deposition Exhibits, page 56

He lamented that “[a]lmost all” of Dominion’s technological failings were “due to our complete f— up in installation.” And in another instance, he identified a “*critical* bug leading to INCORRECT results.” He went on to note: “It does not get much worse than that.”

And while many companies might have resolved their errors, Coomer lamented that “we don’t address our weaknesses effectively!”

These were recent (2019) messages, which don’t just provide justification for a news network covering potential exploitation of voting machines, but are enough to warrant a wider investigation of Dominion, State Street Capital, and their products and services. (Read more: Raheem Kassam/Substack, 2/17/2023)  (Archive)

February 20, 2023 – Twitter Files – Matt Taibbi is sniffing around the Senate Intel Cmte connection to manipulation of social media; what else could he discover?

“Matt Taibbi [@mtaibbi] is a smart guy, he’ll get there.  I’m not sure why my gut says to trust him, but it does – and I do. Recently he’s been getting hit by the leftists who are asking why Taibbi is not looking at the Trump administration pressure on social media to control and manipulate public information [Twitter Here].

Taibbi has been hitting back against his detractors by saying, there’s no evidence of Trump doing that; yet there is massive evidence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) contacting Twitter to do exactly that.

This is interesting to me and CTH readers because we outlined in real time what the SSCI and HPSCI were doing in order to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy before and after the 2016 election.

What’s fascinating about this… is that the same people who are attacking Taibbi right now, are the same people who received and promoted the propaganda from the SSCI (Burr and Warner) in addition to the HPSCI (Schiff and Swalwell).

In essence, the ancillary media attack hounds are attacking Taibbi because at the end of the research trail Taibbi is following he will find the same names of the ancillary media who are attacking him.

[SEE SHORT THREAD HERE]

In my opinion, Taibbi is on the right trail in following the SSCI and HPSCI manipulation of the social media platforms, specifically Twitter.  In addition to the SSCI creating the structure that supports the intelligence weaponization by DHS and FBI, Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr and then Senate Intel Vice-Chair Mark Warner are at the epicenter of it.

I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it’s been true since the outset of my own research discoveries of the issue four years ago.  The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative couldn’t exist without the SSCI participating in it.   This is why I have talked and written so much about it.

James Wolfe (Credit: public domain)

Factually, and I say this with no compunction for attribution, if you want to tell the public the story of the larger issue, the absolute best starting point is how SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner told SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to leak the Carter Page FISA application to then Politico journalist Ali Watkins.   It’s an easy story to outline because there is ample evidence to highlight it, including open admissions by the DOJ and FBI (in documented court records) that the leak event on March 17, 2017, took place.

That week in mid-March, 2017, when Mark Warner leaked the Page FISA application followed two days later by James Comey testifying to congress (March 20th), was/is the most openly documented evidence-based story that leads to everything that follows.

On March 17, 2017, Senator Mark Warner leaked the FISA in order to stimulate the media to support the demand for a Trump-Russia special counsel.  On March 20, 2017, holding the exact same motive, FBI Director James Comey first made the public admission that President Donald Trump was under FBI investigation for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.   Senator Warner and Director Comey held the exact same motive.

Everything done by the SSCI before and after that mid-March event, touches everything before and after the special counsel was appointed.  It’s like a fulcrum point that creates massive tentacles into the entire apparatus of the effort by the legislative branch, the executive branch, the intelligence community and the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel to cover it up.

Expose that moment on March 17, 2017, and the entire house of cards built by Weissmann/Mueller and the DC media apparatus collapses.

There is not another single moment during the entire arc of the Trump-Russia madness, that creates the inflection point as well as the March 17, 2017, leak.  EXAMPLE:

(Source)

Keep cheering on Matt Taibbi.  Keep supporting him as he follows this trail.  Yes, you know where it ends, but you are a select rare few who have followed this story.  Taibbi can blow it wide open if he continues.

Additionally, remember and understand that the entirety of the media apparatus was in on this scheme.

Every single outlet promoted the narrative that was collectively pushed by Senator Mark Warner, Director James Comey, the corrupt intelligence apparatus and the Robert Mueller special counsel.  They are all opposed to Taibbi following this trail.

(Conservative Treehouse, 2/20/2023)  (Archive)

February 22, 2023 – Fighting Lawfare: Commission for Lawyer Discipline vs Sidney Powell – Final Summary Judgment

Sidney Powell (Credit: The Epoch Times)

“On March 1, 2022, the Texas Bar filed suit against Sidney Powell in Texas state court, alleging six ethical violations arising from the election fraud suits she filed on behalf of electors following the 2020 presidential election.

Full discovery ensued with multiple depositions, Powell’s production of more than 55,000 pages of documents and a massive privilege log.

Yesterday the Texas Judge applied settled law and held that the Bar had no evidence as a matter of law that Powell violated any rule in her four election fraud cases.(Defending the Republic, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)   (Sidney Powell Final Summary Judgment)

February 22, 2023 – Georgia’s ‘get Trump’ grand jury forewoman accidentally confirms the recommended charges against Trump are bunk

Emily Kohrs

The grand jury’s conclusions flowed from what the DA presented to the Fulton County jurors — a case built on lies about a telephone call.

Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Recommended Multiple Indictments, Forewoman Says,” The New York Times blared with its midday breaking news headline on Tuesday. But it is what followed that revealed the real story: that the grand jury recommended bogus charges based on the Fulton County district attorney’s misrepresentation of evidence.

“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized,” Emily Kohrs, the forewoman of the special purpose grand jury said, noting that prosecutors played the recording for jurors the first day. “I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” Kohrs continued. “You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there.”

Yes. Yes, we do: bunk.

Since Fulton County’s Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis first sought to impanel a “special purpose grand jury” — “special purpose” because it can only make recommendations and cannot indict — to assist in her investigation “into any coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections in this state,” she has misrepresented the substance of Donald Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, telephone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Just as the Times did in its article yesterday, Willis falsely stated that during Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger, the then-president requested that “the Secretary ‘find 11,780 votes’ in the former President’s favor.”

But as I’ve been forced to detail time and again because the corrupt media continue to lie about the conversation, the transcript of the call established that Trump “did not request that Raffensperger ‘find 11,780 votes.’ Period. It never happened.” Rather, during that “telephone conversation between Trump’s legal team and the Secretary of State’s office, Trump’s lawyer explained to Raffensperger that ‘the court is not acting on our petition. They haven’t even assigned a judge.’”

And it was because the Fulton County judge responsible for assigning a judge to hear Trump’s election lawsuit — ironically, the same Judge Chris Brasher who authorized Willis’ special purpose grand jury — held up his legal challenge that Trump’s legal team reached out to Raffensperger, requesting the secretary of state’s office investigate the evidence of widespread violations of election law.

The transcript of Trump’s call with Raffensberger confirms this fact, with lawyers for the then-president ticking “off the numerous categories of illegal votes of which they had concrete evidence — some 25 categories.” Here, the DA appears to have pushed a second falsehood, with Willis reportedly asserting in a subpoena that during that call, Trump’s lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, “parroted claims of voter fraud.’”

Mitchell did no such thing. She was not pushing claims of voter fraud but instead wanted the secretary of state’s office to investigate violations of Georgia election law.

The grand jury, however, only knew the facts Willis decided to share with the group. The jurors, who came from all walks of life — including the 30-year-old unemployed forewoman — also needed to rely on the DA’s office to decipher the meaning of any criminal statutes.

And from Kohrs’ statements to the press, we know that the prosecutor’s office focused the grand jury’s attention on Trump’s telephone conversation with Raffensberger, opening the proceedings by playing a recording of the call. But the transcript of that call has been released and confirms both that Trump never asked Raffensberger to “find” him the votes and that his legal team asked the secretary of state’s office to investigate the evidence of illegal voting.

Yet the DA framed the case as one about fraud, with the grand jury writing in its report that it “heard extensive testimony on the subject of alleged election fraud from poll workers, investigators, technical experts, and State of Georgia employees and officials, as well as from persons still claiming that such fraud took place,” and concluding, “by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.”

So the grand jury’s view “that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it,” is meaningless. And that Kohrs said the special purpose grand jury recommended more charges, and that the list is not a short one, means nothing. Those conclusions flowed from the case Willis presented to the Fulton County jurors — a case built on deceptions about a telephone call.

(The Federalist, 8/14/2023)  (Archive)

February 22, 2023 – Biden “moneyman” to flip and provide House Oversight Cmte with documents proving money laundering and wire fraud

Eric Schwerin (l) and Hunter Biden (Credit: public domain)

“Hunter Biden’s top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin is expected to “soon” provide documents to the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Biden family for nine violations, including money laundering and wire fraud, a spokesperson for the committee told Breitbart News.

Schwerin, who shared bank accounts with President Joe Biden and dubbed the family’s “moneyman,” also maintained guest lists for White House functions and negotiated the settlement with Hunter’s first wife, Kathleen. Emails from Hunter’s laptop show Schwerin was deeply embedded in Hunter’s personal life and the Biden family networks for nearly two decades and is even pictured at campaign events with Joe Biden.

Schwerin was also the president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter Biden and several​ associates that spawned business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania. Many of those deals yielded the Biden family business millions over decades while Joe Biden was an elected official.

Joe Biden and his team have claimed at least seven times the president is not involved in the family’s international business deals, but more than 17 instances show that Joe Biden was involved in the business. In one example, Schwerin visited the White House and other official locations 27 times when Joe Biden was vice president.

A committee spokesperson told Breitbart News it has been in contact with “Schwerin’s attorney and expect him to start producing documents to the Oversight Committee soon.”

Wednesday was the deadline set by the committee for Schwerin, James, and Hunter to comply with demands to disclose a host of both classified and unclassified documents, records, and communications between business associates and family members, including Joe Biden.

While Hunter has refused to comply with the request, the committee told Breitbart News that James has received correspondence from his attorneys. It is unknown if James is complying with the requests.

“Oversight Committee staff will be in communication with them about Chairman Comer’s request,” the spokesperson said.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has stated in February the “next step” to compel the relevant information from Hunter and James is to issue subpoenas to Hunter and James if they do not comply.

The revelations about Schwerin’s willingness to turn over documents to the committee comes as Republicans have been stonewalled by Hunter, the Treasury Department, and former FBI “point man” Timothy Thibault, who allegedly “improperly” “shut down” a probe into Hunter’s laptop that is likely unrelated to the ongoing criminal probe concerning reported tax fraud by the president’s son.

In January, the Treasury denied the Committee’s request to disclose 150 suspicious reports flagged by U.S. banks concerning Biden family business transactions, causing Comer to threaten a subpoena. (Read more: Breitbart, 2/22/2023) (Archive)

February 22, 2023 – Arkansas cops rule suicide in death of Clinton aide linked to Jeffrey Epstein

Mark Middleton (Credit: Middleton Heating & Air)

“The grisly scene where a top Bill Clinton adviser was found hanged from a tree with a gunshot wound to his chest has finally been revealed nine months after he died.

But the sheriff’s report into Mark Middleton’s mysterious death raises more questions than answers as it rules he died by suicide – despite no sign of the weapon that killed him.

Middleton, 59, was found dead last May at the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas, an hour west of Little Rock.

Release of the report was held up after members of his family petitioned a judge. They were worried that pictures from the gory scene would be made public.

The judge eventually ruled that details could be released but photographs could not.

The report, written by Perry County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lawson, says he was called to the ranch by worker Samantha McElroy who had found Middleton’s abandoned black BMW SUV.

(…) ‘I could see that he had a gunshot wound to the chest and that he had a knot tied in an extension cord that was around his neck and it was attached to the limb directly above him.

(…) Middleton was a special advisor to Bill Clinton in the 1990s and signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House on seven of the 17 times the late pedophile visited.

Middleton also flew on Epstein’s jet, nicknamed the ‘Lolita Express’. More recently he had been working for his family’s HVAC business in Little Rock.

The police report was released to DailyMail.com by the Perry County sheriff’s office.

According to the Arkansas Times, Middleton’s family said he was suffering from depression.

Middleton’s life in recent years was a world away from the power he enjoyed in the 1990s.

White House visitor logs previously reported by DailyMail.com showed that he appears as the authorizing signatory on seven of Epstein’s White House visits, most of which were to the West Wing.

In addition to being a special assistant to the President, Middleton was also assistant to the chief of staff, Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty.  (Read more: Daily Mail, 2/22/2023)  (Archive)

February 23, 2023 – Victoria Nuland: The Woman Behind the Wars

February 23, 2023 – Internal FBI memos chronicle years of drunk driving, lost weapons and other misconduct

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers take a knee with demonstrators, as they march on Pennsylvania Av. Thursday, June 4, 2020, in Washington, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. (Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP)

“Scores of FBI employees have been caught over the last five years engaging in unethical and illegal conduct such as driving drunk, stealing property, assaulting a child, mishandling classified documents, and losing their service weapons — but they often escaped being fired, according to internal disciplinary files provided to Just The News.

One agent left a highly lethal M4 carbine unsecured in his government car during a Starbucks run and had the weapon stolen, but even he received only a two-week suspension despite violating the bureau’s protocols for weapons storage, the records show.

“Although there was a lockbox in the trunk for storage of weapons and sensitive items,” the agent chose to store the rifle bag behind the car’s front passenger seat, one report shows. “While Employee was in the Starbucks, the Bucar was burglarized. The rear passenger, rear driver, and tailgate windows were broken, and the rifle bag containing the M4 was stolen.”

Sexual misconduct was also rampant in the reports dating to 2017, including inappropriate affairs with felons in prison, confidential sources and subordinate employees. The sexual transgressions, however, often resulted in firings, unlike the drunk driving and lost weapons offenses.

Typically emailed to all Bureau employees each calendar quarter, the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) reports provided to Just the News by a whistleblower afford an unprecedented look into the breadth of misconduct among the FBI’s workforce of 35,000, including agents, intel analysts, lab scientists and crime scene technicians.

You can read all of the reports here.

The reports emerge at a sensitive time for the FBI as it deals with a sprawling congressional probe into allegations by two dozen whistleblowers of political bias, misconduct and weaponization of law enforcement powers.

The extensive reports were in fact so impactful that the FBI suspended distributing them for seven months in 2021-2022, due to complaints that the “employees harmed by misconduct” might feel shamed. But in the end, the bureau resumed publishing them because of the belief it might sensitize workers in the future to avoid committing crimes or violations of conduct policies,

“OPR suspended sending our quarterly email that details employee misconduct and its consequences,” the April 2022 email noted, explaining: “We wanted to weigh the value of publishing this information with the discomfort employees harmed by misconduct may feel at its having been published.”

The bureau concluded most agents wanted the memo to continue as a reminder of the professional and ethical standards they are sworn to uphold. (Read more: Just the News, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

February 23, 2023 – Judge Amy Berman Jackson orders depositions of Trump, Wray in Strzok/Page lawsuit

“A federal judge has agreed to permit former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to take sworn testimony from former President Donald Trump for two hours as part of their long-running lawsuits related to Strzok’s firing in 2018 after Trump repeatedly and publicly pilloried the pair.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson (Credit: public domain)

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled on Thursday that Strzok and Page — whose text messages disparaging then-candidate Trump cast a pall over the FBI’s investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia — would also be allowed to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray for a similar two-hour period on a limited set of topics.

But there’s a twist: Their ability to ask Trump and Wray about these circumstances might come down to a decision from President Joe Biden. Jackson’s order gave the Justice Department a month to “inform the Court whether the current President will invoke … executive privilege” over any aspects of Trump’s testimony.

Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, also stressed that she had not yet considered all potential objections to the demands for testimony from Trump and Wray. That could include arguments by Trump that he has the unilateral right as a former president to assert executive privilege.

Trump has spent years publicly assailing Strzok and Page for their disparaging private messages about him, claiming they proved that FBI bias fueled the Russia probe, despite independent reviews that failed to substantiate those claims. Strzok was fired amid the controversy, and Page resigned. Strzok is contesting his dismissal, and both are claiming invasion of their privacy over the manner in which the Justice Department released hundreds of their text messages.

In the suits, Strzok and Page contend that Trump and his Justice Department appointees were carrying out a political vendetta.” (Read more: Politico, 2/23/2023) (Archive)

February 23, 2023 – Billionaire Investor and friend of the Clintons, dies from self-inflicted gunshot wound

Thomas H. Lee (Credit: Getty Images)

“Billionaire financier and investor Thomas H. Lee was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Manhattan office on Thursday morning, police sources said.

Cops responded to a 911 call at 767 Fifth Avenue — where Thomas H. Lee Capital, LLC is located on the sixth floor — at around 11:10 a.m., the sources said.

EMTs pronounced the 78-year-old businessman dead at the scene.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the official cause of death. (Read more: New York Post, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

Lee is pictured golfing with then-President Bill Clinton on Martha’s Vineyard in 1999. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

(…) Lee was a good friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and in June 2008, following Hillary’s unsuccessful presidential run, the couple reportedly stayed at his East Hampton home. (Read more: The Daily Mail, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

February 25, 2023 – Biden officials address pro-war rally led by Ukrainian Nazi supporters

(Credit: The Grayzone)

USAID’s Samantha Power joined EU and US officials who rallied at the Lincoln Memorial at a pro-war demonstration organized by a clique of Ukrainian activists that have described themselves as “true Banderites” and “Right Sektor’s Washington DC branch.”

Karen Donfried (Credit: World Economic Forum)

High-ranking Biden foreign policy officials including USAID Administrator, Samantha Power, and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Karen Donfried, observed the first anniversary of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. There, on February 25, 2023, they rallied alongside a band of Beltway-based Ukrainian activists dedicated to honoring and fundraising for ultra-nationalists and war criminals. The demonstrators demanded that the US send F-16 fighter jets to Kiev and “punish Russia” by any means necessary.

Power’s USAID promoted the event with a media advisory that redirected visitors to the rally’s principal organizer, an NGO called US Ukrainian Activists. This was one of two Ukrainian diaspora groups that organized the rally, and both have openly supported far-right elements in Ukraine since the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014.

Nadiya Shaporynska and confessed war criminal and neo-Nazi, Mamuka Mamulashvili in 2017. (Credit: public domain)

US Ukrainian Activists was founded by Nadiya Shaporynska, an avowed supporter of neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist militias like the Azov Battalion, whom she has described “heroic defenders of Ukraine.” Shaporynska’s fundraising efforts for extremists groups that were at one point blacklisted by the US Department of Defense have been prolific and very public.

In a video tweeted by Power the day before the rally, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, is seen giving the USAID Administrator a tour of a local Ukrainian government-funded cultural and business center in DC. Markarova points to a portrait of a woman on a wall and informs Power she is “Nadiya [Shaporynska], a tireless activist here in DC.”

Power and Sahporynska would become officially acquainted the following day, as pro-proxy war demonstrators descended on Washington DC’s National Mall.

The February 25 rally for Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial featured prominent US officials on its speaker roster. Alongside Power was Karen Donfried, the Biden Administration’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Donfried spent close to 20 years working at the American and German government-funded German Marshall Fund think tank, leaving her role as its president to join the White House in 2021. Other notable speakers included Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova; District of Columbia Secretary of State Kimberly Bassett; Mark Ordan, chair of the Board of Directors at the US Chamber of Commerce; and the European Union’s Ambassador to the United States, Stavros Lambrinidis.

Paul Grod (Credit: World Economic Forum)

Also appearing on stage was Paul Grod, president of the Ukrainian World Congress. Grod has made a career out of defending the legacy of Nazi collaborators, and even once petitioned the Canadian government to officially recognize the genocidal Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, as ‘designated resistance fighters.” This designation would have funneled Canadian tax dollars directly into the pension accounts of Nazi collaborators.

In 2010, Grod honored the legacy of the Waffen SS Galicia, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as heroes who fought “for the freedom of their ancestral Ukrainian homeland.” These groups were driving forces behind the genocide in Eastern Europe during World War Two.

Grod’s Ukrainian World Congress hosted the February 25 pro-proxy war rally through its affiliate, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. His group has declared Stepan Bandera, the Nazi collaborator whose forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war, as “the undisputed symbol of Ukraine’s lengthy and tragic struggle for independence.”

(Read more: The Grayzone, 3/04/2023)  (Archive)

February 27, 2023 – A whistleblower claims he gave DOJ damning information on Biden family foreign business deals; is then arrested

“An Israeli think tank executive who served alongside Hunter Biden as an adviser to a Chinese energy conglomerate widely suspected of serving as a front for the Chinese Communist Party now says he provided the FBI with damning information about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.

Author of the book “De-dollarization, ” Gal Luft, of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security says “there’s no reason why two countries that already have vast exposure to the U.S. dollar should maintain their trade in a third party currency” December 2022. (Credit: CNBC)

Gal Luft, the co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, says he provided information about Hunter Biden, his father, and his uncle, Jim Biden, to the Justice Department in March 2019. Luft served as an adviser to CEFC China Energy, a conglomerate that “aligned itself so closely with the Chinese government that it was often hard to distinguish between the two,” according to CNN. The group, which donated at least $350,000 to Luft’s think tank, paid Hunter Biden at least $6 million in 2017 to procure energy investment deals in the United States.

(…) Luft’s threat to “name names” comes after his arrest in Cyprus on Feb. 16 on charges that he illegally sold weapons to Libya and China. Luft asserts that the United States is seeking his extradition as part of a “politically motivated” payback for his exposure of the Bidens.

“DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim & Hunter Biden,” Luft said. An Israeli lawyer for Luft claims his client provided information about Hunter Biden to the FBI in 2019.

While Luft’s claims might otherwise be easily dismissed as a bluff, his connection to CEFC China Energy suggests he may know something about the Bidens. And an American lawyer for Luft has signaled he will provide information to Congress about Luft’s case.

“Dr. Luft is a whistleblower,” Luft attorney Robert Henoch told the Washington Free Beacon. He asserts that prosecutors decided against pursuing Luft’s information “and are instead targeting him with trumped-up and false charges.”

“This unfortunately appears to be part of an attempt to discredit a witness with critical information about an ongoing congressional and DOJ investigation.” (Read more: Washington Free Beacon, 2/27/2023)  (Archive)

February 28, 2023 – A month after her grand jury investigation of Trump ends, Fani Willis burns midnight oil attending an event hosted by Kamala Harris at the VP residence

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reportedly had a five-hour meeting at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris months before former President Donald Trump’s Georgia indictment, according to a record of the schedule.

Mike Howell, a member of the Heritage Foundation and its Oversight Project, announced on Tuesday that the group uncovered a record of Willis, showing her visiting the White House on February 28, 2023, months ahead of Trump’s Georgia indictment.

A screenshot of the apparent schedule shows the meeting with Harris spanning over five hours:

The event Fani Willis most likely attended:

The invitation-only celebration was held at the private residence of Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

In honor of Black History Month and in keeping with the theme of celebrating Black excellence, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff hosted trailblazing Black leaders at their private residence last month.

In collaboration with BET, Harris and Emhoff opened the door to their home on the evening of February 28 to honor a group of emerging, young Black leaders who are making impactful changes in several industries throughout the country. Harris spoke to more than 400 guests at the event about the importance of Black History Month and the responsibility of each generation to carry forward the “baton.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and BET Honor Young Black Trailblazers During Black History Month

 

February 28, 2023 – Twitter Files: The partisans who wove the ‘Censorship Complex’…a vast and tangled web

“While the “Twitter Files” and the Washington Examiner’s coverage of the Global Disinformation Index have revealed an expansive Censorship Complex that seeks to silence Americans for money, politics, ideology, and power, much still needs to be unraveled.

A search of government contracts and grants for the eight fiscal years from 2016 through today for the keywords “misinformation” or “disinformation” reveals 538 federal government grants and 36 contracts were awarded to a wide range of academic institutions and non-governmental organizations.

(…) Of the think tanks identified in Twitter communications, Alliance Securing Democracy (ASD) might be the most notorious thanks to Matt Taibbi’s exposé on ASD’s Hamilton 68 dashboard.

(…) According to its website, ASD is a project of the German Marshall Fund, which “is heavily funded by the American, German, and Swedish governments.” The fund has also received grants from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The ASD likewise receives financing from left-leaning foundations, such as the Craigslist founder’s Craig Newmark Philanthropies.

(…) Another prominent organization the “Twitter Files” revealed as pushing for censorship — including multiple censorship requests flowing through that group to the tech giant — is the Election Integrity Partnership, which is run out of Stanford’s Internet Observatory.

(…) Further research on the other members of the Election Integrity Partnership reveals the Atlantic Council receives donations and federal grants, including from Facebook, Google, and the U.S. Department of State. And as will be shown shortly, the Atlantic Council is also connected to the Global Disinformation Index.

(…) Another member of the Election Integrity Partnership, Graphika, describes itself as a “network analysis company that examines how ideas and influence spread online.” Graphika’s chief innovation officer, Camille Francois “leads the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment.” Francois was previously the principal researcher at Google’s Jigsaw unit.

(…) The “Twitter Files” also made mention of the Center for Internet Security. In 2018, that nonprofit launched the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), which “it claims supports the cybersecurity needs of election offices.” As part of those efforts, the Center for Internet Security crafted a one-page document for election officials, with directions for reporting misinformation or disinformation to the EI-ISAC. The federal U.S. Elections Commission would link to the CIS flyer on its government webpage.

(…) Other emails released as part of the “Twitter Files” reveal Clemson University’s role in the push for censorship at Twitter. And as was the case with Hamilton 68’s dashboard, Twitter’s team had concerns about Clemson’s disinformation research.

(…) Clemson’s research was used by another group joining the “disinformation” trend, Defending Democracy Together (DDT). In 2018, DDT launched the RussiaTweets.com project to supposedly provide “the evidence of Russian interference in American politics.”

(…) While Stanford and Clemson were the two main universities identified in the “Twitter Files,” Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub webpage identifies members of its “Disinformation Working Group,” revealing academia’s involvement in the Censorship Complex spans much further. It includes: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Lab, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Duke University, Bowdoin College, the University of South Carolina, Vanderbilt University, Georgetown University, and Wilfrid Laurier, a Canadian University supported by a Facebook grant.

Jeffrey Lees is Clemson’s coordinator with The Disinformation Working Group, a global, multidisciplinary research virtual space where members meet regularly to present work in progress at the frontier of research on disinformation, broadly defined. (Credit: Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub webpage)

The University of Buffalo, Lehigh University, and Northeastern University are likewise involved in the disinformation project, with a Clemson News release revealing that faculty at those universities, along with researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, launched a project titled “Disinformation Range to Improve User Awareness and Resilience to Online Disinformation.” The government, through a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is supporting those efforts.

(…) The Aspen Institute is also entwined in the Censorship Complex, having hosted in the fall of 2020 “a series of off-the-record briefings to help prepare every major US newsroom and tech platform for potential hack-and-leak operations and a contested post-election environment.” One of the briefings involved a tabletop exercise facilitated by Aspen’s Garrett Graff that posed a hack-and-leak October surprise involving Hunter Biden.

(…) Another nonprofit, the Global Disinformation Index, has already begun pushing an “actionable response to the disinformation crisis,” by pressuring advertisers to dump news outlets based on GDI’s view of their “disinformation risk.” However, as the Washington Examiner revealed in Gabe Kaminsky’s investigative series, the GDI’s December 2022 report, prepared in partnership with the University of Texas-Austin’s Global Disinformation Lab, brands only conservative outlets as the top “riskiest.” Conversely, the “least risky” outlets all lean left, other than The Wall Street Journal, and are also the same outlets that got the most significant news stories of the last decade wrong.

(…) A strong connection also exists between GDI and the U.S. government through an arm of the State Department, the Global Engagement Center, which has also made several appearances in the “Twitter Files.”  (Much more: The Federalist, 2/28/2023)  (Archive)

(Timeline editor’s note: This timeline entry wins the most tags award!)

March 1, 2023 – Infighting within Hunter Biden’s legal team leads to resignation of criminal defense attorney, Joshua Levy

Joshua Levy is an Adjunct Law Professor at Georgetown University Law Center and teaches seminars on “Congressional Investigations.” (Credit: LinkedIn)

“Levy, who was hired to work on opposing congressional investigations that seek to reveal the complexities of the family’s business schemes, is no longer representing the infamous Biden family business member, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Abbe Lowell (r) has represented members of both the Trump and Biden families. (Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Levy has removed himself from the case, reportedly due to infighting within Hunter’s legal team and specifically with Abbe Lowell, who was hired in December to defend Hunter and the Biden family from nine congressional probes, including money laundering and wire fraud. In the past, Lowell has represented high-profile individuals engulfed in political scandals, such as Bill Clinton and Jared Kushner.

Levy was reportedly discontented with Lowell’s legal strategies and feared that his tactics could flop. In February, Lowell was a part of the effort to send Rudy Giuliani, Tony Bobulinski, and 12 others “litigation hold” letters to preserve “Laptop from Hell” records, a move seen by some critics as a public relations tactic to change the troubling narrative for the Biden family.

Mike Davis, founder and president of the pro-Trump Article III Project, told Breitbart News those letters were a “desperate, frivolous, and laughable” effort that would hurt the family’s legal position because the lawsuit will lead to discovery, a legal process by which Hunter would be deposed on camera.

The Times reported on why Hunter initially hired Levy:

President Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, had recommended Mr. Levy for the job. But Mr. Levy had clashed with Kevin Morris, a lawyer and close adviser to Hunter Biden who has lent him money to pay his back taxes and some other bills, according to a person familiar with the strategy. Mr. Morris and Hunter Biden brought on Mr. Lowell late last year, prompting Mr. Levy’s departure.

Lowell’s involvement in Hunter’s defense has not only forced the exit of Levy but has also triggered infighting with attorney Chris Clark, another high-profile attorney who leads Hunter’s criminal defense. Clark’s professional history includes working as a partner at the same Washington, DC, law firm where Rep. Liz Cheney’s husband works. The firm’s biography of Clark says he represents Hunter in the “grand jury investigation regarding tax issues.”

“Chris Clark, the lead criminal defense lawyer representing Mr. Biden in the Justice Department investigation, has kept Mr. Lowell at a distance in dealing with that matter,” the Times reported. With Clark keeping “a distance,” and Lowell and Levy’s departure, Hunter’s very expensive legal team has begun to crack just months into the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family business.” (Read more: Breitbart, 3/01/2023)  (Archive)

March 2, 2023 – FBI agents wanted to close Trump documents probe; DOJ and FBI leaders pushed for Mar-a-Lago raid

(Credit: Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images; Inset – Department of Justice via AP; Breitbart edit)

“Some Federal Bureau of Investigations field agents wanted to shut down the probe into suspected classified documents held by former President Donald Trump as early as June, but Justice Department leaders pushed for and ultimately got a surprise raid on Mar-a-Lago in August, according to a report.

According to the Washington Post, FBI officials and the DOJ clashed fiercely over how to handle recovering suspected classified documents from Trump, with FBI agents arguing for a cooperative approach and the DOJ pushing for the unprecedented raid on a former president’s home.

The aggressive approach was starkly different than the cooperative one the DOJ and FBI have taken towards classified documents held by President Joe Biden at his former office at the Penn Biden Center office in D.C. and his home garage in Delaware.

According to the Post, two senior FBI officials argued a raid on Mar-a-Lago would be “too combative” and proposed to seek Trump’s permission first, but DOJ prosecutors argued that Trump was “knowingly concealing secret documents” at Mar-a-Lago and pushed the FBI to conduct a surprise raid.

Even before the raid on August 8, 2022, FBI agents in the Washington field office as early as May wanted to slow the probe into the suspected classified documents and some wanted to shut down the investigation altogether in early June, after corresponding with Trump’s legal team. (Read more: Breitbart, 3/02/2023)  (Archive)

March 2, 2023 – ‘F*ck Eric’: Hunter plotted to betray key family business partner, Eric Schwerin, who is expected to cooperate in House probe

Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, Joe Biden (Credit: MEGA)

“Hunter Biden plotted in 2019 to betray the family’s top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin amid their crumbling relationship, built upon an off-the-books business arrangement, text messages obtained by Breitbart News from Hunter’s laptop reveal.

Hunter’s damaged relationship with Schwerin is notable because Schwerin is expected to “soon” provide revealing documents about the Biden family business to Republican House investigators, according to the House Oversight Committee. It is unknown what information he may provide in the wake of his deteriorated relationship with Hunter.

Schwerin is a powerful figure in the Biden family business. He shared bank accounts with Hunter and President Joe Biden and was president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter and several​ associates that created business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania. Schwerin also maintained guest lists for White House functions and negotiated the divorce settlement with Hunter’s first wife, Kathleen.

Despite Schwerin’s close relationship with the family, Hunter’s text messages in 2018 begin to show a deep distrust of Schwerin and his involvement in the family’s affairs, in which Hunter apparently owed Schwerin money. Their relationship seemingly became so poor that Hunter announced Schwerin was his “worst enemy…And everyone knows it.” By 2019, their relationship had deteriorated to the point that Hunter hatched a plot to cut Schwerin out of an ongoing off-the-books business arrangement. (Read more: Breitbart, 3/02/2023)  (Archive)

March 3, 2023 – Flynn sues DOJ, FBI for malicious prosecution; wants $50 million

Lt. General Michael Flynn (Credit: public domain)

“Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ), FBI, and others, alleging he was maliciously prosecuted. He is demanding at least $50 million in compensation.

“Defendant maliciously investigated and prosecuted General Flynn by initiating and continuing a baseless counterintelligence investigation and by filing a criminal information lacking probable cause,” says the suit, filed on March 3 with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (pdf).

The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under the Obama administration was investigated by the FBI starting in August 2016 for supposed ties to Russia. In 2017, he was charged with lying to the FBI during an interview earlier that year.

The suit alleges that the FBI, and later prosecutors from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, investigated and prosecuted him for political reasons, considering him a threat.

“General Flynn—who already had a reputation as a hands-on disruptor at DIA, who had publicly excoriated the politicization of the intelligence community, and who had made clear his desire to overhaul the national security structure and the ‘interagency process’—was a direct threat, not only to the self-interest of entrenched intelligence bureaucracies and the federal officials involved, but to exposing their prior and ongoing efforts to derail and discredit President Trump,” the suit says.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 3/03/2023)  (Archive)

March 3, 2023 – Two Russian billionaires connected to the Bidens have dodged sanctions

Vladimir Yevtushenkov attends a court hearing in Moscow in November 2014. (Credit: Radio Free Europe)

“Two Russian billionaires who have managed to dodge US sanctions over Moscow’s year-old invasion of Ukraine went property shopping with Hunter Biden, dined with then-Vice President Hunter Biden, and discussed “favors” they might swap, sources tell The Post.

New details of Joe and Hunter Biden’s association with Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenkov flesh out tantalizing clues from the first son’s abandoned laptop. The sources spoke with The Post this week after the duo was yet again spared a fresh batch of sanctions announced by the Treasury Department Friday.

“I think it’s very fishy,” said one source who had firsthand knowledge of the business relationship between Hunter Biden and Yevtushenkov — who is sanctioned by the UK and Australia but not by the US.

“I think he should be sanctioned,” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told The Post of Yevtushenkov — estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.7 billion. “I don’t understand why he has not been.”

Yevtushenkov, whose Sistema business empire until recently included Russian rocket and radar-maker RTI and drone-maker Kronstadt, admitted last year he met with Hunter Biden for breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan on March 14, 2012 — but denied any further contact.

However, emails and calendar entries from Hunter’s former laptop show that they were set to meet again on Jan. 27, 2013, for dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano before looking at a commercial real estate development the next day near Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia.

(…) A different source, meanwhile, told The Post he vividly recalled Baturina and her husband, ex-Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, looking “like an odd couple” at a now-infamous, intimate dinner with Hunter and his father, the then-vice president.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter reportedly used to dine with business associates such as Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina (r)  and former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov (l).  (Credit: Getty Images)

It’s long been uncertain whether Baturina, estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.4 billion, and Luzhkov actually attended the April 16, 2015 dinner at Cafe Milano — the same Georgetown restaurant where Hunter and Yevtushenkov set a date more than two years prior.

“They could have played themselves on ‘Saturday Night Live,’” said the source, who attended the dinner and was able to identify the couple in part because he met Luzhkov — who died in 2019 — on several other occasions. (Another source previously told The Post that a pair matching Baturina and Luzhkov’s general appearance was there.)

Luzhkov, who was Moscow’s mayor for 18 years until 2010, “looked a lot older” than Baturina — 27 years her husband’s junior — who “went overboard” on her appearance and ended up resembling Jennifer Coolidge’s comedic portrayal of an insecure heiress in HBO’s “The White Lotus,” the source recalled.

“It was an odd dinner because there was [then-Kazakhstani Prime Minister Karim Massimov], Luzhkov and his wife, and it was not a big table and then there was somebody there from some food charity making a pitch for support,” they added. “I mean, it was, was — it was a little odd, the whole thing.”

In an email at the time, Hunter wrote that the meal would be “ostensibly” about his role a chairman of the World Food Program (WFP) USA.

His father, the sitting vice president, arrived at the dinner and stayed for about 40 minutes, the second source told The Post, even sitting down to eat and then posing for a photo with the Kazakhstani group.

The gathering also featured Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which paid Hunter up to $1 million per year beginning in 2014 while his VP dad controlled the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.(Read more: New York Post, 3/03/2023) (Archive)

March 3, 2023 – Tracy Beanz breaks down General Flynn’s lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI

March 6, 2023 – The Intel Community is laying the groundwork for FISA 702 renewal

“Ugh, it makes me sick to see these schemes as they are constructed and yet feel helpless to stop them from organizing.  Remember which media outlets push the PR campaigns of the U.S. Govt.  (1) CNN drives Dept of State; (2) Washington Post drives CIA; and (3) NYT/Politico advance the interests of the domestic intelligence apparatus.

With that in mind, here comes the Intelligence Community laying the groundwork for reauthorization of the FISA-702 surveillance system on American citizens.

They are so damned transparent in their agenda, the stenographers have even dropped “FISA,” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as the term within the construct.  Now they are just calling it “702 reauthorization.”

(VIA POLITICO) – The intelligence community has a critical congressional ally in its bid to reauthorize a sweeping warrantless surveillance program. However, even he thinks its officials aren’t making a convincing enough case.

“One of the things the community’s got to do a better job of is explaining, in practical non-classified terms, how valuable this tool is,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a recent brief interview. “And they’ve not done that as well as they should.”

Warner sits at the heart of what will be a months-long, knockout debate about whether to reauthorize the warrantless surveillance program, known as Section 702, by the end-of-year deadline. The program is designed to gather the electronic communications of foreigners abroad, but has the potential to sweep up those of Americans.

The Virginian, who argues continuing the program in some form is essential but is open to changes, will have his work cut out for him. Influential and newly emboldened House Republicans have made it clear they won’t let Section 702 stay alive without significant changes — if they support reauthorization at all — amid an all-time-low relationship with the Justice Department and the FBI.

And the intelligence community can also count Section 702 critics among House Democrats and senators in both parties, many of whom believe this is their best chance to force more limits on the program. (read more)

As most people are now aware, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) sits at the epicenter of how the surveillance state is weaponized against American citizens.  It is the SSCI who helped create the surveillance network, and it is the SSCI who now seek to defend the unconstitutional system they have created.

Pretenses are being dropped, and you will note how in this reauthorization schedule they are dropping “foreign” communication with American citizens, as a limitation on the authority they have already usurped.  Yes, it is factually true the ‘foreign’ aspect was always a ruse, a false premise, that granted the Dept of Justice, National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), and FBI legal authority to conduct intrusive Title-1 surveillance on any American citizen.

Well beyond the “cell phone metadata,” in the era of your portable transponder having internet and social media connection, just about everyone has metadata connected to a foreign person or entity.  Use the Twitter app on your phone, you are connected to foreign entities.  Use Instagram or Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram, same/same/same/same.

TicTok? Fughetaboudit.  The auspices of only looking at U.S. persons engaged in foreign contacts is totally moot.

The “702 authorities,” which is an innocuous term for a “U.S. Person“, permit DHS, DOJ, FBI and any national security apparatchik to open up your data and check you out. This is the reality of the modern era.  This total surveillance reauthorization is what the SSCI wants to permit.  It must be stopped completely.  It cannot be “reformed.”

4th Amendment – “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” the United States Constitution, or you are not.

Either you are secure from federal search of your “private papers,” as outlined in– 

There is no aspect of this “702” nonsense, where a secret court grants a secret authorization, to engage in secret surveillance, by some secret entity of government – which might be a contractor, just to “see if” you might be doing something suspicious, or against the interests of the federal government.  The premise behind “702” reauthorization is unconstitutional. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 3/6/2023)  (Archive)

March 8, 2023 – FBI agent Nicole Miller lies under oath and conceals evidence in Proud Boys trial

March 9, 2023 – Twitter Files: Matt Taibbi Statement to Congress-The Censorship-Industrial Complex

March 9, 2023 – DOJ attempt to jail man for anti-Hillary memes just got much uglier

Last month, Revolver profiled the Biden Administration’s persecution of former Twitter anon Doug Mackey, who was a famous pro-Trump voice back in 2016 under the moniker of Ricky Vaughn.

For those whose memory is foggy, a quick review: In the late stages of the 2016 race, Mackey posted several memes, designed to resemble Hillary Clinton campaign images, claiming that supporters could vote by simply texting a phone number.

The memes were a Twitter-generation version of the common joke about telling one’s political opponents to turn out for the election next Wednesday. But, in an unprecedented move, the Biden Administration says Mackey violated the Ku Klux Klan Act by systematically acting to strip Americans of their civil rights. The KKK Act was passed to prevent literal assaults and terrorism that prevented black Americans from voting, but now the DOJ’s prosecutors say it applies to satirical online speech — they say Mackey broke the law, even though they can’t produce a single person who failed to vote due to Mackey’s stunt.

(By the way, you can donate to Mackey’s legal defense here or here or here).

All of that is bad enough, but newly-unsealed documents released on Wednesday reveal new, sinister depths to the DOJ’s agenda.

Last fall, we warned about a new tool in the arsenal of weapons used by the regime to justify censorship and rolling back the basic rights of Americans. With this new tool, corrupt journalists like Taylor Lorenz can dox, harass, and lie about anyone they want and enjoy total immunity from criticism. Why? Well, if you dare to criticize a journalist like Lorenz, someone, somewhere, might become outraged and decide to commit an act of violence. With this remarkable censorship tool, the media’s attack dog journalists are magically absolved from any criticism because some nut job, somewhere, maybe, at sometime, might act violently upon this criticism.

The tool goes by the name “stochastic terrorism.”

Basically, “stochastic terrorism” is the idea that, when somebody on the right criticizes somebody, they aren’t really just making a political argument. Instead, they are trying to “stoke hatred” in the expectation that some random third party will be “radicalized” and then commit political violence on their behalf.

…

[T]he concept perfectly flows from being a personal attack to being a legal one. The implicit claim behind every complaint about stochastic terror is that dissident speech isn’t really speech, and therefore it doesn’t really deserve protection, because conservatives, or anyone liberals don’t like, harbor a hidden inner desire to inspire violent attacks. Any complaint about the liberals or, more importantly, the Regime, in any venue, can now be dressed up as “violent” speech deserving no constitutional protection.

Read the Rest: Behold, the Regime Unveils Its New Catchphrase for All Political Dissent: “Stochastic Terrorism”

Back in October, “stochastic terrorism” was just a concept for the media, the blogosphere, and the Twitterati, and it was only a weapon for curbing speech.

But everything moves faster in the digital age. Just five months later, the Biden Department of Justice is using the logic of “stochastic terrorism” to justify stripping core constitutional due process rights from dissident American voices. 

In its latest filings, the DOJ reveals that one of the group chats it is currently using as evidence against Mackey contained a person who is now working with the FBI as a federal informant. According to the government, the “Confidential Witness” (or CW) was a pro-Trump, “alt right” leader who pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy to deprive civil rights charges that Mackey faces, and is now collaborating with the government.

In its filings, the government declines to say what CW’s current role with the government is, except that he is “presently engaged in proactive investigations, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and may engage in additional investigations in the future.” Based on that statement, the government is asking that CW’s identity be kept secret, and that Mackey’s defense team be barred from asking any questions about CW’s current work. (Read more: Revolver News, 3/9/2023)  (Archive)

UPDATE:

March 12, 2023 – FBI’s concealed evidence is deemed classified by Proud Boys trial judge and “claws back” the exculpatory material from their defense team

March 12, 2023 – The Parliamentary Motive Behind the J6 Fedsurrection

Much has been made of the events of January 6, 2021, and with the latest broadcast of CCTV video from inside the Capitol Hill complex, more questions have been raised.

Within the questions: the FBI and government apparatus had advanced knowledge of the scale of the J6 mall assembly yet doing nothing?  Why were the Capitol Hill police never informed of the FBI concerns?  Why didn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi secure the Capitol Hill complex, and why did she deny the request by President Trump to call up the national guard for security support?  Why did the FBI have agent provocateurs in the crowd, seemingly stimulating rage within a peaceful crowd to enter the Capitol building?  There have always been these nagging questions around ‘why’?

Long time CTH reader “Regitiger” has spent a great deal of time reviewing the entire process, looking at the granular timeline and then overlaying the bigger picture of the constitutional and parliamentary process itself.  What follows below is a brilliant analysis of the federal government motive to create a J6 crisis that permitted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to trigger an emergency session and avoid the 2020 election certification challenges.

Those congressional floor challenges, known and anticipated well in advance of the morning of January 6, 2021, would have formed a legal and constitutional basis for ‘standing’ in judicial challenges that would have eventually reached the Supreme Court.  The certification during “emergency session” eliminated the problem for Washington DC.

Regitiger explains below, only edited by me for clarity and context:

I think most, not all, but a large number of people, are totally missing what happened; and why this happened on Jan 6th.  I am going to try my best to outline the events that day, blast past the commonly held assumptions and get right down to the core corruption.

I will present this as a series of questions and answers.

♦ Q1: How do you prevent congress from delaying the certification of state electoral votes?

A: It requires a crisis. A crisis that creates an “emergency” …An “emergency” that invokes special house rules.

FACTS: Remember carefully, focus please. Just moments, literally 3 minutes before two representatives issued a vote for motions to suspend the certification, the House members were “informed” by capitol police and other “agents” that a protest was about to breach the chambers. It was at this time that key people: Pence, Pelosi, Schumer, Mcconnell can be seen being walked out and escorted from the chamber. This effectively halted the Entire Chamber Process.

♦ Q2: Why was it necessary to halt the chamber process?

A: The crisis was created to eliminate the motion challenges to halt the certification and to begin voting to look into voting irregularities and fraud

FACTS: The two motions were completely legal and constitutional under at least two constitutionally recognized procedures… procedures that would REQUIRE the house to pause the certification and then vote to determine whether the motions of suspend could move forward.

♦ Q3: What was so important to refuse this motion and the subsequent votes to suspend the electoral certification?

A: It was important to remove that process entirely and continue the fraud and certify the fraud with no detractors on record. This effectively gives no standing for a SCOTUS ruling appeal!  Understand this.  If those two motions, even just one had successfully been voted EVEN IF THE MOTIONS were DENIED IN VOTE, this gives those who presented them with STANDING FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL LEGAL ARGUMENT BEFORE SCOTUS. 

♦ Q4: Could this have been done some other way other than creating a crisis/protest?

A: Unlikely. In order to prevent those two motions, requires that speaker of the house, minority leaders, and the president of the congress (vice president of the United States: Pence), to NOT BE PRESENT IN THE CHAMBERS.

Once the capitol police and other “law enforcements agents” informed the speaker and these three other individuals, Pelosi UNILATERALLY UNDER EMERGENCY RULES, suspended the business of the congress. This protest was necessary. The crisis was created because there is no other way to suspend the business of certification UNILATERALLY. By creating a crisis invokes emergency procedures. No other circumstances other than war or mass simultaneous explosive diarrhea can create such unilateral speaker delivered suspension of the certification.

♦ Q5: Why did the motions, once that the speaker RECONVENED congress, move forward back again to the floor for votes? Why were members disallowed to even consider putting forward ANY motions to the floor in when the chamber business was reopened?

A: The Speaker initiated the NEW sessions under special emergency rules. These rules abandon and make it clear that the ONLY purpose of the new session was to EXPEDITE the certification and dismiss all prior regular session procedural rules. This is why those two motions to table votes to consider a debate and pause to the certifications of state vote electors never happened later that evening when the house business was reconvened!

♦ Q6: Other than new rules, emergency rules, what other peculiar things occurred when the speaker reconvened?

A: Members were allowed to “vote” in proxy, remotely, not being present.  You can use your imagination about what conditions were placed on ALL members during this time to prevent anyone from “getting out of line”.

Also clearly, it was at THIS NEW SESSION that VP Pence, President of Congress, would also have no ability to even consider pausing the electoral certification, because there were no motions of disagreements on the matter. So, in a technical legal claim, he is correct that he had no constitutional authority to address any issues of fraud or doubts about electoral irregularities. But this completely dismisses the FACT that congress created rules in this crisis/emergency that never allowed them to be floored!

Understand what happened in Jan 6, 2021.  Don’t get hung up on Viking impostors, stolen Pelosi computers, podium heists, and complicit capitol police. Understand the process and what happened and what WAS NOT ALLOWED TO HAPPEN.

This was a coup….it was a very organized and carefully planned coup. VP Pence without a doubt as well as most members of the house were quite aware of how the certification was going to be MANAGED.  It would require new rules to prevent the debate clause from occurring!  New rules that ONLY AN EMERGENCY CRISIS COULD CREATE! So, they created an emergency.

•NOTED: I understand why many people have great interest in debunking the j6 event. I get that. I think it is important to dissect and examine the events of that day but please, step back and understand WHY these things happened. Examine the chain of events in congress.  Why those two motions that would have at least paused the certification THAT WOULD GIVE VP PENCE THE CONSTITUTIONALLY RECOGNIZED POWER TO MOVE TO SUSPEND THE ELECTORAL CERTIFICATION AND THEN EXAMINE THE IRREGULARITIES AND CLAIMS OF FRAUD!

At the very center of this coup stands Mike Pence, the same individual who also spoiled President Trump’s first opportunities in the earlies hours of his Presidency just 4 years prior, when he created and facilitated the removal of Lt General Michael Flynn. I will not spend much time on this thread explaining why Lt Gen Flynn was so important to President Trump and why the IC was so afraid he would have advisory power to the President. That I will leave for another day, another time. But understand this clearly: MIKE PENCE WAS AND IS WORKING FOR THE MOST CORRUPT CRIMINAL TREASONOUS PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT.

•PRO TIP: If you really want to get a true understanding of this matter videos of protesters walking in the capitol is not going to address them. Actual video and timeline records of events and the specific actions taken by the speaker just moments before TWO MAJOR ELECTORAL ALTERING MOTIONS WERE ABOUT TO BE FLOORED.

This crisis was developed just in time with a precise coordination to prevent those two motions to be entered into the chamber record. The two motions do not exist. The emergency powers established in the new session made sure they never could be entered. The emergency powers could never happen without a crisis.

God Bless America!”

[link]

Note from Author: “I started this effort years ago.  To date, no one and I mean no one has replied.  It’s as if everyone that can expose it that has a larger platform is either disinterested or suspiciously withdrawn from the issue.  I made several comments about this over the years right here at CTH, on article threads that are relevant to the topic.

I was watching the certification live that day. I recorded it ALL on every channel. I was doing this because no matter what happened that day, I KNEW IT WOULD BE A PROFOUND AND SIGNIFICANT EVENT TO REMEMBER. I never in my wildest imagination (and I have a pretty vivid imagination, always have), expected to see the unmistakable perfectly timed “coincidences” that occurred.

One member raises a motion (with another in waiting for his turn) those two motions were well known and advertised. These were motions to vote for a pause in the certification to examine electoral vote fraud and irregularities. I can’t speak to the veracity and substance of those motions. They were never allowed to even be floored. it was at that exact moment that the house chambers were suspended and 4 of the key members, Pence, Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell were escorted OUT right after initiating the end of the session.

Effectively, this resulted in that motion never being floored at all.  Then, when reconvened under special emergency rules, inexplicably those two motions (and perhaps more – we will never know – or will we?) were not even attempted to be motioned. That was not just peculiar to me.

It all started to make more sense when I did some study on constitutional law AND THE HISTORY of specific special authorities given to president of the congress, Pence in this case. Not only did he have the authority and power to suspend the certification, but the duty to address the motion in the same sense that it becomes vital to the debate clause. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse/Regitiger, 3/12/2023)  (Archive)

March 14, 2023 – The corporate media admits the U.S. was funding gain-of-function (bioweapon) research at Wuhan Lab, and they were double-billed

March 15, 2023 – Feds’ foreign-corruption double standard: Protecting the Bidens as they bore down on Trumpworld

Chi Ping “Patrick” Ho, was convicted in a 2018 corruption case. At trial, U.S. prosecutors redacted Hunter Biden’s name from court exhibits and did not explore evidence of his lucrative dealings with the powerful Chinese figure. (Credit: public domain)

(…) A federal database shows the Bidens failed to register as foreign agents while engaged in activities on behalf of CEFC, a state-owned entity suspected of being a front for Chinese intelligence. Federal anti-spying laws require anyone acting as a lobbyist for a foreign power to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The DOJ did not prosecute either Biden family member for potential violations of FARA for representing the interests of the Chinese.

This stands in stark contrast to the DOJ’s aggressive pursuit of alleged FARA violations involving no fewer than six Trump campaign officials. In August of 2016, shortly after receiving a tip that a low-level Trump campaign volunteer, George Papadopoulos, had allegedly been told that the Russians might have dirt on Hillary Clinton, the bureau opened FARA investigations into Papadopoulos and three other Trump associates with no clear ties to Papadopoulos: national security adviser Michael Flynn; campaign manager Paul Manafort; and campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI subsequently investigated Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates; and Trump’s Mideast adviser Walid Phares under the same statute.

As RCI has previously reported, the FBI used FARA as the basis for a wide-ranging probe that included tailing them, staking out their homes, digging through their trash, and using confidential sources to secretly record them. Only one of the six was convicted for FARA-related violations, and none was charged with any espionage or conspiracy crimes involving Russia.

Only one of the six was convicted for FARA-related violations, and none was charged with any espionage or conspiracy crimes involving Russia.

“It’s 100% a double standard, and it’s absolutely corrupt to the core,” former assistant FBI director Chris Swecker told RCI. “And meanwhile, [current FBI Director] Chris Wray fiddles.”

Other veterans of the bureau say the Obama and Biden administrations have politicized and weaponized FARA.

“Starting in 2016, the Obama-Biden administration used FARA and the criminal justice system as tools to attack and eliminate the opposition,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello, adding that many of the same officials are “back in charge and making sure those tools won’t be turned on themselves.”

An FBI spokeswoman said the agency had no comment on why it did not apply the foreign lobbying law equally. The Justice Department did not return requests for comment.

Ho and Hunter: A Lucrative Relationship

Court records and other documents show that Hunter Biden met with Ho’s boss Ye Jianming in February 2017 in Miami, where the CEFC chief offered him up to $30 million for “introductions alone,” according to emails. Ye – who had connections to both China’s Communist Party in China and its armed forces, the People’s Liberation Army – sealed the deal with a lucrative gift to Hunter: a 3.16-carat diamond worth an estimated $80,000. (Hunter never returned the large gem.)

Not long after their private dinner, CEFC began wiring millions of dollars from China to pass-through companies set up by Hunter Biden. Over the next 14 months, Hunter and Jimmy Biden (as the latter is known to family and friends) ultimately received almost $6 million from CEFC entities, according to congressional investigators, including $1 million from Ho. At the time, the FBI was tracking Ho’s and CEFC’s “bank and wire transfer records,” according to DOJ records, which indicates agents were aware of the China-based payments to the Bidens.

(Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 3/15/2023)  (Archive)

March 15, 2023 – NewsGuard is a recipient of $750k pentagon contract, denies it is ‘government funded’

NewsGuard, the establishment “news-rating” project that presents itself to the public as an impartial authority on the trustworthiness of news publishers, is telling reporters that it is not “government funded” — despite receiving a $750,000 contract from the Department of Defense to track “misinformation.”

Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, co-CEOs of NewsGuard (Credit: D Dipasupil and Stephen Chernin /Getty)

The claim was made in an email to Matt Taibbi, a Twitter Files reporter who testified at a landmark House Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic of government-backed censorship last week.

In the email, NewsGuard co-founder and CEO Gordon Crovitz said the organization was a “business with many licensees” that pay for access to it and that the Pentagon is just one of those licensees.

Via Twitter:

Matt:

I noticed with interest and surprise how you referred to NewsGuard in your congressional testimony on Thursday. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about NewsGuard and our work.

During the hearing, NewsGuard was inaccurately described as “U.S. government funded.” Unlike other entities mentioned during the hearing, we are not a non-profit funded by government grants. We are a business with many licensees paying to access our proprietary data, including government entities that pay to license our data. These licenses are only for access to our data and are entirely unrelated to our rating of news publishers.

For example, as is public, our work for the Pentagon’s Cyber Command is focused on the identification and analysis of information operations targeting the U.S. and its allies conducted by hostiles governments, including Russia and China. Our analysts alert officials in the U.S. and in other democracies, including Ukraine, about new false narratives targeting America and its allies, and we provide an understanding of how this disinformation spreads online. We are proud of our work countering Russian and Chinese disinformation on behalf of Western democracies.

As Breitbart News previously reported, the $750,000 Pentagon contract was for NewsGuard’s “misinformation fingerprints” project, described by the organization as “a catalogue of known hoaxes, falsehoods and misinformation narratives that are spreading online.”

In 2022, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Pentagon to preserve its documents related to NewsGuard, expressing concern at the organization’s “extreme partisan bias.” (Read more: Breitbart, 3/15/2023)  (Archive)

March 17, 2023 – House Oversight releases bank records that show Hallie Biden, now verified as the “unknown Biden,” is recipient of money from Chinese energy company

 

 

UPDATE:

Vice President Joe Biden consoles Hallie Biden before a viewing for Beau Biden, June 2015. (Credit: Associated Press)

“President Biden’s daughter-in-law Hallie is the mysterious “new” Biden family member who got paid Chinese cash in 2017, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed exclusively to The Post Thursday.

Comer said the payments to first son Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law-turned-former lover were revealed in subpoenaed bank records.

The records show Hallie Biden received $35,000 over two transfers in 2017 from Biden family associate Rob Walker, who got $3 million on March 1, 2017, from State Energy HK Limited, a firm affiliated with CEFC China Energy.

President Biden, who allegedly was the “big guy” mentioned in communications about the same Chinese venture, dined at Hallie Biden’s residence last Friday during his regular weekend trip home to Delaware. It’s unclear if they discussed the looming bombshell, which Comer (R-Ky.) publicly teased Monday night on Fox News’ “Hannity.”

One transfer to Hallie from Robinson Walker LLC was for $25,000 on March 20, 2017, Comer’s staff wrote in a Thursday morning memo to committee members. Another $10,000 was transferred on Feb. 13 — raising “many questions” according to a committee aide because it came shortly before, rather than after, the $3 million haul.” (Read more: New York Post, 3/17/2023)  (Archive)

 

March 17, 2023 – Twitter Files: The great Covid lie machine; Stanford U; the Virality Project; Censorship of “true stories”

UPDATE:

March 20, 2023 – Laura Aboli “Transhumanism: The End Game” Full Speech

World Council for Health to Host Second Better Way Conference in Bath, UK

Laura [Aboli’s] entrepreneurial career started in the year 2000 when she co-founded World-Check, a database of Politically Exposed Persons and heightened risk individuals and organisations, which soon became the de facto standard for identifying and managing financial, regulatory and reputational risk within the world’s financial and legal institutions. Following World-Check’s success, she co-founded Wealth-X in 2010, which went on to become the leading provider of intelligence on ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

Having exited both companies by 2014, she continued her life-long passion for interior design, by establishing a property development and design company which she continues to run. Having been born into an artistic family, Laura has a passion for art, sculpture, music and dance and her critical and inquisitive mind has led her into the realms of metaphysics, spirituality, health and psychology. Her experience and her dedication to helping others have led her to step onto the public arena in order to share what she considers to have been important life lessons in her own journey. 

In May of 2020, prompted by the way events surrounding the global pandemic were affecting people’s livelihoods, civil rights and mental health, Laura founded the United Democratic International Movement for Awareness and Freedom, an organisation dedicated to creating a better world through awareness, inspiration and the relentless pursuit of truth. 

March 20, 2023 – New docs from National Archives directly link Joe Biden to Hunter’s profiteering in Ukraine

March 20, 2023 – Judge rules JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank must face lawsuits alleging they knowingly participated in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation

(Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

(…) Two women, who claim they were sexually assaulted by Epstein, filed lawsuits in November accusing the banks of enabling Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking operation, Reuters reported. The lawsuits allege JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank ignored Epstein’s misconduct because he was an important client and used the banks to send cash payments to his victims, the outlet note.

Epstein was a client of JPMorgan from 2000 – 2013 and Deutsche Bank from 2013 – 2018, Reuters reported. JPMorgan is suing former executive Jes Staley for his alleged relationship with Epstein and blaming him for the bank’s alleged dealings with Epstein.

Manhattan Judge Jed Rakoff also ruled JPMorgan must face a lawsuit from the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) for its relationship with Epstein, Reuters reported. The USVI lawsuit accused the bank of turning a “blind eye” to Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking operation, and it was filed shortly after the Virgin Islands’ fined Epstein’s estate $105 million in December. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/20/2023)  (Archive)

March 22, 2023 – Hunter Biden used FBI mole named ‘One-Eye’ to tip him off to China probes

Hunter Biden had an FBI mole named “One-Eye” who tipped off his Chinese business partners that they were under investigation, according to an Israeli energy expert arrested in Cyprus last month on gunrunning charges.

Professor Guy Luft (Credit: ynetnews)

The House Oversight Committee is investigating the explosive claims by Dr. Gal Luft, a former Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel with deep intelligence ties in Washington and Beijing, who says he was arrested to stop him from revealing what he knows about the Biden family and FBI corruption — details he told the Department of Justice in 2019, which he says it ignored.

Luft, 56, first made the claims on Feb. 18 on Twitter, after being detained at a Cyprus airport as he prepared to board a plane to Israel.

“I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the U.S. The U.S., claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer.

“DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim, and Hunter Biden.

Luft remains in jail awaiting extradition to the US over what he says are trumped-up charges of arms trafficking to China and Libya, and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Through his American lawyer, Robert Henoch, Luft said he tried four years ago to inform the DOJ that Chinese state-controlled energy company CEFC had paid $100,000 a month to President Biden’s son Hunter and $65,000 to Joe’s brother Jim, in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world.

Luft learned about the scheme through his own relationship with Hunter’s Chinese business partners, Patrick Ho and Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC.

From 2015 to 2018, Luft organized international energy conferences in partnership with Ho’s think tank, the nonprofit China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC-USA), a front organization for Ye’s CEFC.

Ye confided to Luft that Hunter had an informant in the FBI “or formerly of the bureau, extremely well placed, who they paid lots of money to [provide] sealed law enforcement information,” says Henoch.

The FBI mole was called “One-Eye.”

“One-Eye” told Ye that the Southern District of New York was investigating him and/or Ho in late 2017, and that “an Asian, an African, and a Jewish guy” were named on a sealed indictment, says Henoch.

Soon after that tipoff, Ye offered Hunter $1 million to be his “private counsel” and flew to China, leaving his wife, daughter, son, mother, and nanny in his $50 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West.

He was detained in Shanghai three months later and disappeared.

Before he left New York, Ye told Ho that the coast was clear for him to come back to the US.

On Nov. 18, 2017, Ho flew into JFK Airport, where he was arrested by FBI agents on bribery and money laundering charges.

“Ho was the patsy … the fall guy,” says Henoch.  (Read more: New York Post, 3/22/2023)  (Archive)

March 27, 2023 – Durham states Clinton, Inc. formed “joint venture” of “co-conspirators” to smear Trump

The Alfa Gang – Left to Right: Andrew Sullivan, Hillary Clinton, John Durham, Michael Sussmann, Mark Elias

Special Counsel John Durham stated in a Monday night filing that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and researchers trying to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign “should be considered as co-conspirators”in an effort to smear Donald Trump with the Russia collusion hoax, Just the News reports.

According to Durham, Clinton and her cronies formed a “joint venture or conspiracy” in order to harm Trump’s chances of being elected.

“Durham has just shown the whole world what major pieces of our Russiagate investigation revealed,” said former House Intelligence Committee GOP investigative counsel, Kash Patel. “Hard evidence, emails and text messages, showing the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Joffe, and the media were all synced in August of 2016 pushing the false Alfa BaClnk server story, while also all working on the Steele Dossier matter. Durham submits all this evidence as ‘joint venture conspiracy’ under the rules of evidence.”

Durham’s filing also highlights an unearthed text message from disgraced Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann in which he lies to the FBI about not working for Clinton when he hand-delivered now-discredited anti-Trump research prior to the election.

The existence of the text message between Sussmann and then-FBI General Counsel James Baker was revealed in a court filing late Monday night by Durham’s team. Prosecutors said they intend to show Sussmann gave a false story to the FBI but then told the truth about working on behalf of the Clinton campaign when he later testified to Congress.

“Jim – it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss,” Sussmann texted Baker on Sept. 18, 2016, according to the new court filing. “Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own – not on behalf of a client or company – want to help the Bureau. Thanks.”

Prosecutors said the text message will become essential evidence at trial to show Sussmann lied to the FBI. –Just the News

According to Durham, “The defendant lied in that meeting, falsely stating to the General Counsel that he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client,” adding “In fact, the defendant had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including (i) a technology executive (“Tech Executive-1”) at a U.S.-based Internet company (“Internet Company-1″), and (ii) the Clinton Campaign.”

Sussmann eventually admitted he lied a year later during testimony in front of the House.

“We had a conversation, as lawyers do with their clients, about client 1 needs and objectives and the best course to take for a client,” Sussman told Patel in a sworn deposition. “And so it may have been a decision that we came to together. I mean, I don’t want to imply that I was sort of directed to do something against my better judgment, or that we were in any sort of conflict.”

Durham says he plans to present evidence that Sussmann worked with the Clinton campaign, ‘Tech Executive 1’ Rodney Joffe, and others in aforementioned “joint venture” to push the Russian collusion hoax, particularly the fabrication that Trump had a secret backchannel to the Kremlin via the Moscow-based Alfa bank. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/28/2023)  (Archive)

March 29, 2023 – Attorney from law firm suing Trump and Giuliani, is arrested for possession of child porn

“A 53-year-old West Palm Beach licensed attorney has been arrested with possession of child pornography. Michael T. Dolce will appear in a West Palm Beach federal court tomorrow for his initial appearance.

Michael Dolce (Credit: BocaNewsNow)

According to the filed criminal complaint affidavit, on March 15, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Dolce’s West Palm Beach apartment. They discovered Dolce actively downloading child pornography using peer-2-peer software. Nearly 2000 images and videos of child pornography were recovered from his devices.

U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida and Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI, Miami Field Office, announced the charges.

FBI Miami, West Palm Beach Resident Agency investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Schiller is prosecuting the case. (Read more: justice.gov, 3/29/2023)  (Archive)

“On the heels of the Senate’s acquittal of Donald Trump, the NAACP, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson and civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll filed a lawsuit against the former president, Rudy Giuliani and two white supremacist groups, citing their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday morning in Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Trump and Giuliani, in collaboration with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, conspired to incite the riot to keep Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. It claims they did so in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era statute designed to protect both formerly enslaved African Americans and lawmakers in Congress from white supremacist violence.

Reps. Hank Johnson and Bonnie Watson Coleman will join the litigation as plaintiffs in the coming days, according to a press release shared with POLITICO.

The lawsuit recounts Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, building a case against him in similar fashion to House impeachment managers. It cites Trump’s remarks during “Save America” rally as evidence that he mobilized and directed insurrectionists to storm the Capitol. After his supporters entered the halls of Congress, the lawsuit alleges, Giuliani called lawmakers individually, asking them to try to “slow down” the Electoral College vote count. (Read more: Politico, 2/16/2021) (Archive)

April 3, 2023 – Pelosi and Clinton discuss Putin’s interference in the 2016 election – A lie launched by Hillary’s campaign

Hillary Clinton is still whining about Vladimir Putin and her 2016 election loss.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton spoke at an event backed by Columbia University.

Pelosi said Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 election to derail Hillary Clinton because she was more feared than Donald Trump.

No serious person believes this. (Gateway Pundit, 4/03/2023)

April 3, 2023 – Matt Colangelo: The link between the Biden DoJ and DA Bragg driving President Trump’s “hush money” indictment

Alvin Bragg (l) and Matt Colangelo (r) (Credit: public domain)

(…) The real culprit behind the “get Trump” radicals in New York is the corrupt, newly hired, former Obama-Biden DOJ attorney named Matt Colangelo.

Attorney Mike Davis unloaded Colangelo’s name along with Steve Bannon on the War Room today.

In their interview, Davis noted that Matt Colangelo is the link between the Biden DOJ and DA Bragg in their corrupt acts in targeting and putting together a BS indictment against President Trump. This guy was in the Obama White House and the Biden DOJ and appears to have been brought in to indict President Trump on whatever he could come up with.

Donald J. Trump Indictment by Jim Hoft

(…) Davis and Bannon dissected the corrupt actor pushing anti-American full woke actions in the corrupt DOJ now working with Bragg, Colangelo. (Read more: Gateway Pundit, 4/03/2023)  (Archive)

Presiding over the historic case is Judge Juan Merchan, a Colombian-born 60-year-old judge who has spent more than 15 years on the bench and has experience in numerous high-profile prosecutions—including those against associates of Trump.

(…) In 2022 Merchan oversaw a criminal trial of two of Trump’s companies—the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corp.— that ended with the real estate company convicted by a jury of tax fraud and fined $1.61 million.

While Trump himself wasn’t charged in the case, one of the Trump organization’s longtime executives, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty, taking full responsibility for the crimes, and telling jurors from the witness stand at the time that, “It was my own personal greed that led to this.”

Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail in exchange for agreeing to testify against the company. Trump has said the case was politically motivated.

Nicholas Gravante, who represented Weisselberg in the plea negotiations, said Merchan was “a real listener, well-prepared, always accessible, and a man who kept his word.”

“He was mindful of the role my colleagues and I played as advocates, treating us with the utmost respect both in open court and behind closed doors,” Gravante added.

Other Cases Related to Trump

Merchan is also presiding over a criminal case involving former Trump administration strategist and White House adviser Steve Bannon. In September, Bannon pleaded not guilty to New York state charges of money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud related to a nonprofit that raised funds for the “We Build the Wall” effort, which would create a privately owned section of the U.S.–Mexico border wall.

Prosecutors have accused Bannon of defrauding donors who contributed more than $15 million to the effort. Bannon, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted, has dismissed the case as “nonsense.” (Read more:  Zero Hedge, 4/04/2023)  (Archive)

April 3, 2023 – Rep. James Comer expresses concern about classified doc Hunter Biden shared with Burisma

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) said Monday he is “concerned” about a government document Hunter Biden sent Burisma officials that could have originated from the troves of classified information that President Joe Biden mishandled.

Speaking with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, Comer raised concerns that the family’s “influence peddling” could be connected to Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified information.

“We don’t the know the true extent of what he [Joe Biden] has done,” Comer said. “All we know is he had classified documents scattered all over the place dating back to the time as U.S. senator.”
“There is one document in particular that I can tell you from my investigation of Biden family influence peddling that we are very concerned about with respect to the document that Hunter Biden sent to officials at Burisma in Ukraine,” Comer said.

“It was a government document. We are concerned that it may have been one of the classified documents,” he added.

President Biden is under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Hur in connection with classified documents found at his Wilmington home and in his office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC. According to a CNN source, the classified documents found at Biden’s “private office” pertain to Iran, the U.K., and Ukraine, where the Biden family conducted business deals. (Read more: Breitbart, 4/03/2023)  (Archive)

April 3, 2023 – Leonardo DiCaprio testifies a CCP-linked Malaysian financier sent $30 million to Obama during 2012 campaign

Leonardo DiCaprio took the stand Monday in the federal trial of a prominent ’90s rap artist accused of funneling money from a Malaysian financier who reportedly sought to donate tens of millions of dollars to President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

The Hollywood star, who has partied with the fugitive money man, Jho Low, said the financier once casually dropped in a conversation that he hoped to make a huge contribution to Obama’s campaign.

Leonardo DiCaprio with Jho Low in 2013. (Credit:
Getty Images)

“It was a significant sum — something to the tune of $20-30 million,” DiCaprio testified. “I said, ‘Wow that’s a lot of money!’”

Prakazrel “Pras” Michel is accused of profiting from an embezzling scheme by Malaysian financier Jho Low who allegedly recruited Michel into funneling the money to Obama’s reelection bid .(Credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Low allegedly recruited Prakazrel “Pras” Michel – the founding member of the iconic 1990s hip-hop group The Fugees – to funnel the money to Obama’s reelection bid as foreigners cannot donate to US campaigns under federal election law.

Michel took tens of millions of dollars to lobby the government on behalf of Low and the Chinese government as a whole, prosecutors alleged.

Much of the money was reportedly stolen. Low is accused of embezzling a whopping $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s state investment fund known as 1MDB.

DiCaprio, 48, was called as a witness due to his years-long relationship with Low, who he believed to be “a huge businessman” with connections in Abu Dhabi and Malaysia, he said. Low helped fund his 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” for which the star won a Golden Globe for best actor.

Low, who also donated to the “Titanic” star’s charity, was known among Hollywood A-listers for throwing lavish parties and inviting people on expensive vacations via his private jet. (Read more: New York Post, 4/03/2023)  (Archive)

April 4, 2023 – Analysis of the Trump Indictment for “hush money” to Stormy Daniels

Trump and his legal team during his arraignment on April 4, 2023. (Credit: public domain)

After nearly 8 years of investigations by federal and state authorities – spanning from Russian collusion to obstruction of justice to campaign finance violations to tax fraud – former president Donald Trump was indicted last week by the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg.

And today we saw the next step in the unprecedented prosecution of a former president and current GOP presidential candidate: Trump turned himself in at the Manhattan DA’s office.

Trump arrived at approximately 1:30 p.m. for arraignment with thousands of supporters and demonstrators watching from the streets and millions watching from home or from work. It was the most important courthouse appearance in recent memory to answer for one of the weakest indictments in New York history.

As has been reported, Trump was formally charged with 34 felonies – more on those below – and pleaded not guilty.

Here is the indictment that was just released this afternoon.

And here is the statement of facts.

Trump faces 34 counts relating to “Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, in violation of Penal Law § 175.10.” These charges relate to bookkeeping records concerning a hush money payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels soon before the 2016 election; a $30,000 payment to a former Trump Tower doorman by AMI (National Enquirer); and an AMI/National Enquirer payment of $150,000 to a woman who said she had a sexual relationship with Trump when he was married.

The indictment specifies that Trump “made and caused false” entries in the business records of enterprises “kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.” Trump is said to have done this with the “intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission” of that crime. (Intent to defraud is construed broadly in New York, and can include acts that seek to avoid responsibility for a violation of law or to conceal offenses; there need not be financial harm.

(…) Look past the vague descriptions of influencing the 2016 election and you find that the indictment and statement of facts have one curious omission: the federal laws or state laws that Trump supposedly violated.

While this may not be technically necessary in New York, DA Braggs owes the public a duty to be forthright and transparent and honest about Trump’s alleged criminal conduct, as the prosecution carries national consequences.

Yet Bragg chose to deny the public that information.

By doing so, Bragg has protected himself and his office from oversight and scrutiny from Trump’s team, from the media, outside lawyers and experts, and from the general public. Instead, we’re given vague allegations of the violation of “election laws” and the mischaracterization of payments “for tax purposes.” That’s not good enough for there to be a complete and thorough analysis of the charges. And Bragg knows it. (Read more: Techno Fog, 4/8/2023)  (Archive)

April 4, 2023 – Kathy Chung testifies Joe Biden stored classified documents in D.C. Chinatown

From the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, 4/04/2023:

“Today we learned that when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items were stored in three different locations around the Washington D.C. area, including an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and eventually the Penn Biden Center. At some point, the boxes containing classified materials were transported by personal vehicle to an office location. The boxes were not in a ‘locked closet’ at the Penn Biden Center and remained accessible to Penn Biden employees as well as potentially others with access to the office space. We need to find out who had access to these documents.”

Kathy Chung (Credit: Marco Polo)

April 5, 2023 – Kim Dotcom: Obama pulls the strings

February 23, 2018 – Rice attorney admits in letter to Grassley and Graham, Obama officials knew the substance of Trump team communications, before and after the election

Obama tag

April 5, 2023 – Judicial Watch sues Homeland Security for records on censorship meetings with Big Tech

Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-00552)).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (a component of DHS) failed to respond to a December 2022 request for:

Records and communications of Jen Easterly, Director, CISA; Christopher Krebs, Former Director, CISA; Matt Masterson, Former CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor; and Brian Scully, CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor, regarding:

  1. CISA facilitated or hosted USG-industry meetings with Meta (@meta.com); Facebook (@facebook.com); Twitter (@twitter.com); Wikimedia Foundation (@wikimedia.org); Pinterest (@pinterest.com); LinkedIn (@linkedin.com); concerning election security;
  2. Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council Meetings;
  3. Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council Joint MDM Working Group Meetings; and
  4. Preparatory meetings with any employees of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Office of the Director of National Intelligence; National Security Agency; U.S. Secret Service; concerning any of the aforementioned USG-industry meetings and/or Coordinating Council Meetings.

On December 2, 2022, journalist Matt Taibbi used the social media platform Twitter to expose the “Twitter Files,” which include multiple mentions of the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency’s censorship activities.

A December 16 tweet thread includes:

37.Reports also came from different agencies. Here, an employee recommends “bouncing” content based on evidence from “DHS etc”

A supplemental tweet thread on December 18 reports:

2. In July of 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan tells Twitter executive Yoel Roth to expect written questions from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), the inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats.

3. The questionnaire authors seem displeased with Twitter for implying, in a July 20th “DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing,” that “you indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform.”

9. He then sent another note internally, saying the premise of the questions was “flawed,” because “we’ve been clear that official state propaganda is definitely a thing on Twitter.” Note the italics for emphasis.

A March 9 tweet thread includes:

3. But Twitter was more like a partner to government. With other tech firms it held a regular “industry meeting” with FBI and DHS, and developed a formal system for receiving thousands of content reports from every corner of government: HHS, Treasury, NSA, even local police

4. Emails from the FBI, DHS and other agencies often came with spreadsheets of hundreds or thousands of account names for review. Often, these would be deleted soon after.

19. The same agencies (FBI, DHS/CISA, GEC) invite the same “experts” (Thomas Rid, Alex Stamos), funded by the same foundations (Newmark, Omidyar, Knight) trailed by the same reporters (Margaret Sullivan, Molly McKew, Brandy Zadrozny) seemingly to every conference, every panel.

Other “Twitter files” released by Elon Musk show that FBI pressure on “Russian disinformation” led to censorship:

San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan “[sent] 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,” the evening before the release of the Post story.

The “Twitter files” show the FBI pushed Twitter to also censor countless Twitter users who tweeted concerns (and jokes) about election integrity just before the 2020 election.

In testimony before the “House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” Taibbi reported extensive collusion between Big Tech and government, at all levels – including the Biden White House, the Democratic National Committee, and federal, state and local law enforcement – all meant to stifle free speech and withhold information from the American people.

In May 2022, the States of Missouri and Louisiana sued President Biden and several federal employees in their official capacities for violation of the First Amendment.

In one of the depositions in the case, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Cyber Branch for San Francisco Division of the FBI, Elvis Chan, testified he and fellow officials had weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election. The lawsuit also produced Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency meeting minutes that discuss its attempts to manage information being posted by social media contributors.

The Twitter Files also mention a report titled The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Election, which was prepared by the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a left-leaning collective of organizations that worked with the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency on its censorship of online information during the 2020 election.

“There is an unholy conspiracy in the Biden administration to censor Americans in collusion with Big Tech,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This new Judicial Watch lawsuit shows the censorship abuse is furthered by unlawful secrecy and cover-ups.

Judicial Watch is heavily involved in countering government and Big Tech censorship. Buried within the Twitter Files are references and descriptions of meetings and communications Judicial Watch has been investigating through FOIA requests and lawsuits. (Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/05/2023)  (Archive)

April 6. 2023 – Judge Juan Merchan is overseeing Trump’s trial and violating New York’s Code of Judicial Conduct

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, left, and former President Donald Trump. (Marc A. Hermann for NYDN; AP)

Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing former President Donald Trump’s case in Manhattan, violated New York’s Code of Judicial Conduct by making three donations to Democrats in 2020, which could be grounds for an ethics investigation, according to several legal experts and former prosecutors.

Under Section 100.5 of the New York Code of Judicial Conduct, sitting judges cannot “directly or indirectly engage in any political activity.” Prohibited political activity includes “(h) soliciting funds for, paying an assessment to, or making a contribution to a political organization or candidate.”

The New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics’s yearly-updated handbook makes this clear, stating:

A sitting judge may not make political contributions at any time, even to a U.S. presidential candidate or to a federal congressional candidate outside of New York State (Opinion 11-146; 22 NYCRR 100.5[A][1][h]).

Furthermore, the American Bar Association’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct states that unless permitted by law, a judge shall not “solicit funds for, pay an assessment to, or make a contribution to a political organization or a candidate for public office.”

However, Merchan — a New York state judge — made three political donations in 2020, according to public Federal Election Commission records.

According to the FEC records, Merchan donated $15.00 to Biden for President — the campaign of Trump’s opponent, on July 26, 2020, via ActBlue.

On July 27, 2020, he donated $10.00 to Progressive Turnout Project, an organization dedicated to turning out Democrat voters, and $10.00 to Stop Republicans, a part of Progressive Turnout Project “dedicated to resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy,” also via ActBlue.

According to Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert and law professor at New York University, such donations are forbidden.

“The contribution to Biden and possibly the one to ‘Stop Republicans’ would be forbidden unless there is some other explanation that would allow them,” Gillers told CNN on Thursday.

Gillers told Breitbart News in an email on Wednesday that violations of the N.Y. Code of Judicial Conduct would be investigated by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and could potentially result in removal. (Read more: Breitbart, 4/06/2023)  (Archive)

April 7, 2023 – More on Kathy Chung appearances in the Biden laptop report

The surname of a petite woman of Korean extraction is found 31 times in our dossier: Chung. She was Ted Kaufman’s aide in the U.S. Senate (Kaufman, by the way, was practically hand-picked by Joey when Joey left the “upper chamber” for the vice presidency). Chung was then installed by Joey’s son, Hunter, to be Joey’s personal aide at the White House. After Joey’s stint as the V.P., she followed the crew to Joey’s “transition” office & then to his smattering of “centers,” “foundations,” & other slush funds. All of these movements by Chung & Joey’s broader entourage—including the two federal crimes that Chung participated in—are explained in our nonprofit’s Report on the Biden Laptop.

Earlier this week, Chung—who you, as a federal taxpayer, still subsidize as Chung is currently the deputy Director of Protocol at the Department of Defense—appeared before the U.S. House Oversight Committee & (to her credit) answered some of their questions about Joey’s document fiasco & (hopefully) other matters. Accordingly, we felt it our duty to provide the public with more granularity on this figure who had/has such close access to the man with the nuke codes. We’ll copy directly from the Report:

—

Page 106 in the dossier: Organized a Biden family luncheon for ChiComs

Page 488: Hand-picked for a White House gig by the “smartest man” Joe knows

Pages 188-190: Facilitated FARA violations with Mexican foreign principals & shared non-public information with Hunter

Page 53: The federal statutes & the federal regulation violated:

Lastly, we felt the need to include some photos of the woman. After all, many outlets (Fox News, the Daily Mail, CNN, the New York Post, Axios, & many others) released stories about Chung, but did not include photos. Here are a few:

Rep. Jamie Comer, chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, was smart to bring her in. What our tour through the Biden Laptop has shown us is that rank is oftentimes untethered to value creation and proximity. In other words, the younger or lower-ranking people (e.g. executive assistants) typically know much more about the operations of an enterprise (in this case, a political mafia) than many people might suspect. Marco Polo recognizes this fact and does not get distracted by mere titles—and we take pride in turning over every rock, no matter how small.

–Garrett Ziegler, Founder

If you want to support Marco Polo (EIN: 61-199994), you can do so here.

(More pics: Garrett Ziegler/Substack, 4/07/2023)  (Archive)

April 9, 2023 – Peter Schweizer: “Does This Compromise President Biden?”

The Chinese government has spoken openly about its desire to upturn and change the global order for its benefit. What we have in the Biden family is a family that has become wealthy by enabling, helping, aiding, and abetting the Chinese in doing exactly that. Pictured: US President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, NY on February 4, 2023. (Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

The notion that a declining power like Russia, which has domestic problems, a shrinking economy, a shrinking demographic base, is somehow a bigger threat than China is laughable. It is indicative of a larger issue, which is that Biden essentially has a soft spot for Beijing. The question, of course, is why?

This is a commercial relationship that not only has made the Bidens money. It has advanced the strategic and military interests of the Chinese government itself.

The first one is a private equity arrangement or deal that Hunter Biden has with the Chinese government itself. This is a deal that began and was finalized in December of 2013. It led to the creation of something called Bohai Harvest RST or BHR Partners…. the Chinese government poured in a billion dollars. They later expanded that to a-billion-and-a-half dollars…. One of the partnering firms that created BHR was Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Hunter Biden was put on the board of directors of BHR Partners…. What is astonishing about this is, first of all, that the Chinese government funded this venture. Again, these are not individual Chinese companies. This is Chinese government money.

In 2017, his lawyers admitted that he [Hunter Biden] also took a personal stake. In addition to the firm that he owned part of, he took a personal stake in these deals. That is deal number one. Then there is deal number two with the Chinese government. This involves a real estate firm called Rosemont Real Estate, of which Hunter Biden was a co‑founder.

Rosemont then becomes Gemini Rosemont Realty. The Chinese government is later to put in more than $100 million in cash. They publicly say that they are going to put billions of dollars of equity into this entity to make it even more successful. Here you have two large deals.

When you look at what that private equity firm does, the first thing they do is they become an anchor investor in a Chinese firm called China General Nuclear (CGN). Why is this interesting? This is a nuclear energy firm that about eight months after Hunter Biden’s BHR becomes an anchor investor, they are charged by the FBI in the United States. That firm was stealing nuclear secrets in the United States.

In particular, CGN is trying to gain technologies related to the small nuclear reactors that are put on submarines, which provide a huge military advantage to the United States.

Another acquisition they make is that Hunter Biden’s BHR firm buys half of a company called Henniges in Michigan — and another Chinese entity buys the other half. That other half is bought by AVIC, which is the Chinese state‑owned aviation military contractor. AVIC builds all the military aircraft for the Chinese military.

What I think is important about the Biden story is not simply the fact that the Biden family made money because of the Chinese military and that Joe Biden speaks very kindly about the Chinese since those deals have gone down, but also that the Biden family involving the son of the vice president directly benefit the Chinese military.

China is a power that has demonstrated over the last decade that they want, by 2025, to supplant the United States as the major economic power in the world. Then by 2030, they want to match the United States militarily.

The Chinese government has also spoken openly about their desire to upturn and change the global order for their benefit. What we have in the Biden family is a family that has become wealthy by enabling, helping, aiding and abetting the Chinese in doing exactly that.

In terms of Hunter Biden doing nothing wrong, it does not seem that there has been anything illegal. I have always contended that the problem in Washington DC is that some of the worst crimes or worst acts of corruption are done by people who engage in legal behavior. In Washington DC, the political class gets to make their own rules. They get to rig the game, as it were, to ensure that the real lucrative stuff that is corrupt — and should be illegal — is the very stuff that they engage in.

Hunter Biden has stepped off the board of directors of BHR. Here is the problem: he still retains his equity stake with this Chinese firm. He still has other deals that he conducted with the Chinese from which he benefited.

The Biden team has lied repeatedly. I can go into greater detail… It has been subterfuge from the beginning. They need to be called out on it….. The American people understand if somebody’s giving you a sweetheart deal, particularly an actor like China… without getting something in return. They are not that stupid.

The problem is the way that rules are written in Washington DC, they are written by the political class themselves. They carve out certain things…. If [Biden] gets a $250 campaign contribution from a GE executive, it is disclosed by the FEC…. If his adult son flying on Air Force Two, clearly close with the vice president, strikes a series of deals with a foreign government that are lucrative and beneficial to him, there is no requirement for disclosure — which, to me, is shocking. One of the things that has to change is that we need greater transparency.

The great gold mine that they have discovered are these foreign entities. With Hunter Biden, you have these deals in China. You also have the deal in Ukraine that everybody’s familiar with…. [Hunter Biden] is given a million dollars a year by a company even though he has no background in Ukraine and no background in energy. Everybody knows what is going on. Unfortunately, it is legal.

There ought to at minimum be a requirement that you disclose any foreign dealings involving the family members of politicians, Republican, Democrat, executive branch, legislative branch. That would be very, very helpful. The way you discuss this and you explain this to people is: It is not a question about what is legal. There are lots of things that are legal in Washington that are highly corrupt. The key thing is, does this compromise Joe Biden?… Has he done favors for that foreign power?

One of the things that the great Roger Robinson has been working on…. He is looking into the fact that in 2013, the Obama administration signed a letter which said that the Chinese companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange did not have to conform to Sarbanes‑Oxley auditing and some of the other requirements that US and other foreign firms do. It is quite a cutout for the Chinese.

The question about blackmail, to be blunt about it, is, are they going to need to blackmail Joe Biden? Joe Biden’s posture towards China is incredibly soft.

[T]here has been a complete lack of curiosity by the media, and even, as we have seen, suppression.

Something may emerge but I am not sure there is something that they want that he is not already prepared to give them. (Read more: Gatestone Institute, 4/09/2023)  (Archive)

April 11, 2023 – Whistleblower: Joe Biden boosted Ukraine gas industry as Hunter took Burisma role

 

(…) Then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukraine on a mission to bolster the country’s energy industry days after his son Hunter joined the board of natural gas company Burisma in 2014 — which a former White House stenographer claims implicates the now-80-year-old in a foreign influence-peddling “kickback scheme.”

Mike McCormick (Credit: Fox News)

Mike McCormick says he was with current national security adviser Jake Sullivan — then a Biden aide — in the press cabin of Air Force Two en route to Kyiv on April 21, 2014, as he outlined how the world’s wealthiest country would help the deeply corrupt post-Soviet state build its gas industry.

Giving a rundown of priorities for the trip, Sullivan — described in a transcript as an anonymous “senior administration official” — said Biden would “discuss with [Ukrainian officials] medium- and long-term strategies to boost conventional gas production, and also to begin to take advantage of the unconventional gas reserves that are in Ukraine.”

Asked for details, the Biden aide said the US was interested in providing “technical assistance to help [Ukraine] be able to boost production in their conventional gas fields, where presently they aren’t getting the maximum of what they could be” while offering “technical assistance relating to a regulatory framework, and also the technology that would be required to extract unconventional gas resources; and Ukraine has meaningful reserves of unconventional gas according to the latest estimates.”

Jake Sullivan (Credit: public domain)

In December of that year, amid broader Obama administration support for Ukraine, Congress approved $50 million to support the country’s energy sector, including the natural gas industry.

McCormick, who worked more than a decade at the White House, told The Post this week he believes the timeline of events, featuring the unmasked longtime Joe Biden aide, demonstrates that the president used his prior position to help his son’s foreign business interests.

“Joe Biden was over there telling them, ‘You can’t be corrupt! You can’t be corrupt!’ while he was corrupt,” McCormick says. “Look, this is Air Force Two. This is Joe Biden’s plane. He’s in control of it. Jake Sullivan was in the front of the plane with Joe Biden in a meeting and then he walks back in the plane to talk to the press.”

Now, McCormick tells The Post that he wants to testify before the federal grand jury in Delaware considering charges against Hunter — saying he has relevant information that the FBI ignored.

“They’ve been looking at Hunter Biden, but this ties Joe Biden and [Sullivan] into promoting a kickback scheme with Ukraine,” he said. “It’s the timeline that does it.” (Read more: New York Post, 4/11/2023)  (Archive)

April 11, 2023 – DCCC, Marc Elias firm accused of ‘apparent civil violations’ of federal election law

Attorney Marc Elias preps on Aug. 3, 2016, before the hearing for his lawsuit against Arizona over voting rights. (Credit: David Jolkovski/Getty Images)

An anti-Biden political action committee (PAC) filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) alleging “apparent civil violations” of election law between the House Democrats’ campaign arm and top liberal lawyer and former Hillary Clinton attorney Marc Elias’ law firm.

Dan Backer (Credit: LinkedIn)

Counsel for the Committee to Defeat the President Dan Backer, who sent the letter to the DOJ, told Fox News Digital for “years, the infamous Marc Elias and the corrupt Democrats in his orbit have violated federal campaign finance laws, and it’s high time to hold them accountable.”

(…) “Americans deserve to know the truth about the Democratic Party’s shady money laundering schemes, especially when campaign funds are supposed to be spent in one way and they get spent in another,” Backer said.

“Based on the Committee’s robust research, and Elias’ own shady past, it seems pretty clear that Elias and other Democrats have engaged in false reporting, and that cannot go unchecked,” he continued.

A letter from the FEC obtained by Fox News Digital acknowledged the receipt of the complaint.

In the letter, Backer wrote to Heberle about “possible criminal violations of both the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and the federal Criminal Code” allegedly committed by the DCCC and Elias Law Group.

“I hope that you will not allow the Biden Administration’s political appointees within the Department of Justice to allow President Biden’s close political allies to gain an unfair advantage in the electoral process by violating federal criminal law with impunity,” Backer wrote.

Backer pointed out the “FECA requires each political committee to report to the FEC the purpose of each of its operating expenditures over $200” and that in “a series of FEC filings over the course of 2021 and 2022, the DCCC reported making a total of $5,177,460.62 in payments between October 19, 2021, and July 15, 2022, to Elias Law Group for ‘RECOUNT LEGAL [SERVICES].’

(…) ”Backer also alleged that Elias, “the name partner of Elias Law Group, has a history of allowing Democratic political committees to misrepresent the nature of his firm’s legal services to shield their activities from public scrutiny,” pointing to his former firm, Perkins Coie’s work on the debunked Steele dossier.

“Elias has also been sanctioned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for lack of candor,” Backer wrote. “Another federal court accused him of attempting to ‘impinge[]’ upon ‘free, open, rational elections.’”

“It is reasonably possible Elias Law Group facilitated the DCCC’s false reporting by providing fraudulent billing statements misrepresenting the purpose of the firm’s charges, to assist in shielding the true nature of their activities from public scrutiny,” Backer alleged.

Backer alleged Elias Law Group and the DCCC “may have violated four federal statutes:” “FECA criminal provisions,” the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act,” statutes regarding “false statements,” and “conspiracy” statutes. (Read more: Fox News, 4/17/2023)  (Archive)

April 12, 2023 – DNC parts ways with Marc Elias, the Clinton lawyer behind the Clinton/DNC/Steele dossier

“The Democratic National Committee is cutting ties with lawyer Marc Elias, who heavily pushed the discredited Steele dossier that sought to link the former president to Russia falsely.

Elias, who has represented the DNC since 2009, has had several disagreements with the committee, according to sources who spoke with PunchBowl News. Elias Law Group, his firm founded in 2021, works on behalf of many Democratic lawmakers and entities, such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, records show.

Elias was general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and commissioned the Trump-Russia dossier. The lawyer hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which, in turn, brought on British ex-spy Christopher Steele in 2016. Steele was offered “up to $1 million” in the run-up to the 2016 election by the FBI to prove the dossier’s allegations against Trump but did not get the money due to lack of evidence, FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified in October 2022.

The following month, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent several written questions to the FBI in the wake of “bogus information” being received from informants, including Steele, the Washington Examiner first reported. Then-prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis for John Durham, who was appointed as special counsel to investigate the FBI’s 2016 Russia election interference inquiry, grilled Elias in May 2022 over his role in pushing the collusion narrative. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 4/12/2023)  (Archive)

April 12, 2023 – Chinese-American bank records show millions in transactions between Hunter Biden, China firms: Sen. Johnson

Cathay General Bancorp is the holding company for Cathay Bank. Cathay Bank has branch locations in nine U.S. states as well as Hong Kong, and overseas representative offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei. (Credit: public domain)

“Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson says the financial institution Cathay Bank has given Senate Republicans records showing millions of dollars going from Chinese companies to President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Republicans and others started raising concerns during President Biden’s successful 2020 White House campaign, if not earlier, that Hunter Biden used the family name and influence while his father was vice president to make millions in overseas business deals, which also could have compromised U.S. national security.

Johnson told The Washington Times the records show the Biden family involved with the now-defunct CEFC China Energy, which had connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

The firm reportedly gave $1 million to Hudson West III, which was a joint venture owned by Hunter Biden and Gongwen Dong, a business associate of CEFC’s founder and chairman, Ye Jianming, according to the bank records.

“In my mind,” said Johnson, “it’s the Chinese government telling Joe Biden, ‘We got the goods on you, buddy. And we’re willing to dish it up.'” (Read more: JusttheNews, 4/12/2023)  (Archive)

April 17, 2023 – House Oversight: Six additional Biden family members may have benefited from the family business schemes

Vice President Joe Biden, flanked by his wife Jill Biden and family members, acknowledges the audience at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, Sept. 6, 2012, on the final day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). (Credit: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued the following statement after he and several lawmakers went to the U.S. Department of the Treasury to view financial records related to the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions:

“Thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family, their companies, and associates’ business schemes were made available to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which confirm the importance of this investigation. The Biden family enterprise is centered on Joe Biden’s political career and connections, and it has generated an exorbitant amount of money for the Biden family. We’ve identified six additional members of Joe Biden’s family who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine.

“The Oversight Committee will continue to pursue additional bank records to follow the Bidens’ tangled web of financial transactions to determine if the Biden family has been targeted by foreign actors and if there is a national security threat. We will soon provide the public with more information about what we’ve uncovered to date. The American people need transparency and accountability, and the Oversight Committee will deliver much needed answers.”  (oversight.house.gov, 4/17/2023)  (Archive)

April 18, 2023 – Hillary’s 2016 campaign CFO and current SEC Chairman, Gary Gensler, claims he wasn’t aware of payment for Steele Dossier

(…) It was also clear at this time that Gensler was running Hillary’s campaign finances.  Gensler also worked with Hillary’s attorney Marc Elias in creating the Hillary Victory Fund, according to Bloomberg in a piece in June 2016:

Gensler’s portfolio stretches into other areas as well. He, along with campaign lawyer Marc Elias and national finance director Dennis Cheng, led the process last year to create the Hillary Victory Fund, which jointly raises money for the campaign, the DNC, and state Democratic parties.

Elias was Hillary’s general counsel at the time Gensler was CFO.

It was during this time when Gensler oversaw the Hillary campaign’s finances that Hillary’s campaign paid millions to law firm Perkins Coie.  This was also the time that the Steele dossier was paid for.

We know that Gensler has hidden meetings he had with  Hillary, Soros, Pelosi and others from his calendar.

Today Gensler was asked whether he facilitated the payment for the Steele dossier for the Hillary campaign.  He claimed after much hesitation that he wasn’t aware of the payment for the Steele campaign.

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 4/18/2023)  (Archive)

April 18, 2023 – American black leftist groups and activists are being charged with felonies for posting memes and other political content against the war in Ukraine

A federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, returned a superseding indictment charging four U.S. citizens and three Russian nationals with working on behalf of the Russian government and in conjunction with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to conduct a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States. Among other conduct, the superseding indictment alleges that the Russian defendants recruited, funded and directed U.S. political groups to act as unregistered illegal agents of the Russian government and sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda; the indicted intelligence officers, in particular, participated in covertly funding and directing candidates for local office within the United States.

Additionally, in a separate case out of the District of Columbia, a criminal complaint was unsealed charging Russian national Natalia Burlinova with conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

“Efforts by the Russian government to secretly influence U.S. elections will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “As today’s announcement demonstrates, the Criminal Division is committed to eradicating foreign malign influence from the U.S. political system and helping ensure the integrity of our elections.”

“Today’s announcement paints a harrowing picture of Russian government actions and the lengths to which the FSB will go to interfere with our elections, sow discord in our nation and ultimately recruit U.S citizens to their efforts,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “All Americans should be deeply concerned by the tactics employed by the FSB and remain vigilant to any attempt to undermine our democracy. The FBI remains committed to confronting this egregious behavior and ultimately disrupting our adversaries and those who act on their behalf.”

United States v. Ionov, et al.

According to the superseding indictment returned in the Middle District of Florida, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, was the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), an organization headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and funded by the Russian government. Ionov allegedly utilized AGMR to carry out Russia’s malign influence campaign. Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by Moscow-based FSB officers, including indicted defendants Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov.

“The prosecution of this criminal conduct is essential to protecting the American public when foreign governments seek to inject themselves into the American political process,” said U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida. “We thank our partners at the FBI for their tireless investigation of these events and their commitment to ensure justice is done.”

Among other illegal activities, the superseding indictment alleges that Ionov, Sukhodolov and Popov conspired to directly and substantially influence democratic elections in the United States by clandestinely funding and directing the political campaign of a particular candidate for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2019. For instance, the superseding indictment alleges that Popov expressly referred to this effort on behalf of the FSB as “our election campaign,” and Ionov referring to the candidate as the “candidate whom we supervise.” Ionov and Popov allegedly intended that this election interference plot would extend beyond the 2019 local election cycle in St. Petersburg, and subsequently discussed that the “USA Presidential election” was the FSB’s “main topic of the year.”

Moreover, from at least November 2014 until July 2022, Ionov allegedly engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States. As a part of the campaign, Ionov allegedly recruited members of political groups within the United States, including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (collectively, the APSP) in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia and a political group in California (referred to in the superseding indictment as U.S. Political Group 3), to participate in the influence campaign and act as agents of Russia in the United States, including the following indicted defendants:

  • Omali Yeshitela, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as the chairman and founder of the APSP;
  • Penny Joanne Hess, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as the leader of a component of the APSP;
  • Jesse Nevel, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as a member of a component of the APSP; and
  • Augustus C. Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Atlanta, who served as a leader of the APSP and a founder of Black Hammer in Georgia.

APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela (Credit: African Peoples Socialist Party)

One focus of Ionov’s alleged influence operation was to create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine. For example, in May 2020, Ionov allegedly sent a request he stated was from “Russia, the Donetsk People’s Republic” – an apparent reference to a Russian-occupied region in eastern Ukraine – to Yeshitela and members of other U.S. political groups to make statements in support of the independence of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian-backed breakaway state in eastern Ukraine. Ionov later allegedly touted to the FSB that Yeshitela’s video-recorded statement of support was the first time that “American nonprofit organizations congratulated citizens” of the occupied region.

Ionov’s use of the APSP to promote Russian propaganda relating to Ukraine allegedly continued after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022, Ionov allegedly emailed Nevel an “URGENT MESSAGE” which contained pro-Russian talking points in support of the invasion. Thereafter, throughout March 2022, the APSP repeatedly hosted Ionov via video conference to discuss the war, during which Ionov falsely stated that anyone who supported Ukraine also supported Naziism and white supremacy, and Yeshitela and another APSP member allegedly made statements of solidarity with the Russian government.

Ionov, Sukhodolov, Popov, Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel and Romain are charged with conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government within the United States without providing prior notification to the Attorney General, as required by law. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel are also charged with acting as agents of Russia within the United States without such prior notification. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. If convicted, a federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Marcet and Risha Asokan for the Middle District of Florida, Trial Attorney Menno Goedman of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, and Trial Attorney Demetrius Sumner of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.

United States v. Burlinova

According to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint unsealed in the District of Columbia, Russian national Natalia Burlinova, a resident of Moscow, conspired with an FSB officer to recruit U.S. citizens from academic and research institutions to travel to Russia to participate in a public diplomacy program called Meeting Russia. The program was operated by PICREADI, a Russian organization led by Burlinova, funded by the Russian government and devoted to promoting Russian national interests.

“The defendant is accused of subverting our foreign agent notification laws to promote Russian national interests here in the United States, concealing from the public that her recruitment efforts were funded by a Russian security service,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “We will continue to expose these serious crimes and hold all who perpetrate them accountable.”

The affidavit alleges that the FSB officer provided funding and other support for Burlinova’s foreign recruitment and her efforts to advance Russian interests in the United States. In return, Burlinova provided the FSB officer with extensive information about U.S. citizens who were recruited to attend her programs, including their résumés, passport information, photographs and analyses of their views toward Russia. Burlinova further identified for the FSB officer particular U.S. citizens who, in Burlinova’s view, had expressed positive attitudes towards Russia and were prepared to continue to collaborate. During a recruitment trip to the United States in fall 2018, Burlinova met with U.S. citizens at various universities and research institutions and provided to photographs of her meetings to the FSB officer. The FSB officer used the information Burlinova provided prepare FSB intelligence reports. Burlinova never notified the Attorney General of these efforts or otherwise disclosed to the public that her recruitment efforts were supported and funded by a Russian security service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Friedman for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Emma D. Ellenrieder of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case. (justice.gov, 4/18/2023)  (Archive)

Glenn Greenwald adds an important perspective to this story in this Twitter thread:

April 20, 2023 – Fake news reckoning…Buzzfeed shuts down their news service

BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith talks with colleagues BuzzFeed headquarters, December 11, 2018 in New York City. (Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti’s memo announcing the mercy killing Thursday morning and the memo was tweeted out by a media reporter* for the far-left New York Times.

In part, the memo read:

Additionally, I made the decision to overinvest[**] in BuzzFeed News[***] because I love their work and mission so much. This made me slow to accept that the big platforms wouldn’t provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism[****] for social media.

…

Just as we reduced our footprint in NYC last year, we will be reducing our real estate in Los Angeles from four buildings to one[.]

…

HuffPost and BuzzFeed Dot Com have signaled that they will open a number of select roles for members of BuzzFeed News

…

As part of today’s changes, both our CRO Edgar Hernandez and COO Christian Bressler have made the decision to exit the company.

Overall, BuzzFeed will cut 15 percent of its 1200-person staff.

(…) In its early days, BuzzFeed News made a cottage industry out of attacking Breitbart News with lies and gossip. You see, they were angry about us telling the truth about them. But the whole thing was biased and dull and doomed from the start. Then, eight or nine years ago, BuzzFeed News fell off the radar entirely until Christian Bressler violated every journalistic protocol ever written to publish the Deep State’s phony Russia dossier on Donald Trump.

Then everyone forgot about BuzzFeed News again. Then Ben Smith left to do business with the Nazis in China, and now it’s finally over. (Read more: Breitbart, 4/20/2023)  (Archive)

April 20, 2023 – Federal Court blocks ex-Trump investigator from testifying before House Judiciary Committee

Mark Pomerantz (l) and Alvin Bragg. (Credit Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: CBS/Shutterstock)

A federal court temporarily stopped former Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz from being required to testify over Manhattan District Attorney Bragg’s investigation into former President Donald Trump.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan subpoenaed Pomerantz after Bragg indicted Trump for allegedly falsifying business records, with the congressman accusing Pomerantz of politicizing the investigation and encouraging Bragg to press charges. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil turned down Bragg’s request to stop the subpoena’s enforcement in his April 11 lawsuit against Jordan, but the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a temporary administrative stay of the subpoena’s Thursday return date so a three-panel judge could consider Bragg’s subsequent appeal.

(…) Pomerantz said in his book “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account” that he resigned from Bragg’s office in February 2022 when he came to believe Trump would not be indicted and told Bragg he was responsible for a “grave failure of justice.” (Read more, The Daily Caller, 4/20/2023) (Archive)

April 21, 2023 – Trump tells Gen Flynn, “it’s only a year and a half, just stay healthy”…why Flynn is still dangerous to establishment neocon and neoliberal globalists

April 21, 2023 – The ‘senior’ official accused of political interference in Hunter Biden case is Merrick Garland

Merrick Garland (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)

Attorney General Merrick Garland is under fire for allegedly obstructing the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of current President Joe Biden, after a whistleblower came forward in sworn testimony to name a “senior” official who is supervising the case.

The whistleblower, represented by a lawyer who sent a bombshell letter to Congress, has claimed that a “high-profile, controversial” case managed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), believed to be the investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged failure to pay taxes, faced “clear conflicts of interest.”

The whistleblower claimed to have information that contradicted the sworn testimony of a “senior” Biden administration official, who has been identified as Merrick Garland. The identification was first made by the New York Post, and later by the Washington Examiner and Daily Mail, all citing anonymous sources.

Thus, the Attorney General would be guilty of committing perjury in statements given to Congress under oath, if the accusations are shown to be accurate.

Garland’s testimony to Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee in April 2022, where he assured that there would be no political interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden, has been called into question.

Garland had also stated that U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, a Trump appointee, was the supervisor of the investigation and had full authority to bring charges. Garland reiterated this promise in March 2023 during testimony to Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. However, it remains unclear which specific testimony the whistleblower was referring to. (Read more: Becker News, 4/21/2023) (Archive)

April 21, 2023 – Blinken was on Facebook and Google’s payroll three weeks before 2020 election

Source: (Fast Company, 10/29/2017)

April 21, 2023 – Ex-CIA official: Biden campaign behind letter framing Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation

A former deputy director of the CIA was prompted by the Biden campaign to frame the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation in a letter signed by dozens of former senior intelligence officials ahead of the 2020 presidential election, according to testimony revealed by Congressional lawmakers.

Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell was among the 51 signatories of an open letter (pdf) that said the New York Post’s October 2020 report dismissing the explosive contents of a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden.

The letter said that the “arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving of the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Subsequent reporting has confirmed that the laptop wasn’t part of a Russian disinformation campaign but had been abandoned at a computer repair shop. Some of the contents found on the laptop included embarrassing photos of Hunter Biden, including one apparently showing him passed out with a crack pipe.

At the time, Biden’s presidential campaign cited the letter in framing the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation. Polling suggests that if voters had been aware of the laptop’s contents, some would have voted differently, with a potentially different outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Morrell said in Congressional testimony cited by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that Morrell had organized the letter at the urging of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who at the time was serving as an adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign.

Jordan, who heads both the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, has demanded that Blinken answer a series of questions about Morrell’s testimony and provide records of related communication. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 4/21/2023)  (Archive)

UPDATE:

(…) The decision to drop the appeal came on Friday night after Bragg’s office said they had come to an agreement with the committee.

“Our successful stay of this subpoena blocked the immediate deposition and afforded us the time necessary to coordinate with the House Judiciary Committee on an agreement that protects the District Attorney’s privileges and interests. We are pleased with this resolution, which ensures any questioning of our former employee will take place in the presence of our General Counsel on a reasonable, agreed upon timeframe,” a spokesperson for his office said.

A spokesman for Rep. Jordan’s office also confirmed that the parties had reached an agreement.

“This evening, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office withdrew its appeal in Bragg v. Jordan. Mr. Pomerantz’s deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance,”  spokesman Russell Dye said.

This week a federal judge rejected Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s request to block a former prosecutor in his office from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee about the criminal case against former President Donald Trump.

“The committee and its chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), had subpoenaed ex-assistant district attorney Mark Pomerantz to give testimony about the DA’s investigation into Trump, 76, that culminated in the former president’s indictment in March. Bragg filed suit against Jordan and the Judiciary Committee, claiming the subpoena was an overreach by the GOP-led House and an attempt to influence a state criminal proceeding,” the New York Post reported. “But Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil found the subpoena was issued with a valid legislative purpose and that it was not the role of the federal judiciary to dictate how Congress operates.”

“Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law,” Judge Vyskocil wrote in an opinion issued after a Manhattan federal court hearing. (Read more: Conservative Brief, 4/21/2023)  (Archive)

April 25, 2023 – Former DNI Ratcliffe: Media ‘knew’ intel community concluded Hunter laptop wasn’t Russian misinformation

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe pointed out that the media knew that the intelligence community had already concluded that the Hunter Biden laptop story wasn’t Russian misinformation when they used “Mike Morell and Antony Blinken’s coordinated letter” on the laptop story as a reason to falsely declare the story Russian misinformation.

Ratcliffe said that not only have the media largely ignored the new developments on the letter, “It’s that the media [were] in on it. [14] hours before Mike Morell and Antony Blinken’s coordinated letter was published in POLITICO, I went on national TV and put out a statement refuting what Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was saying that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign. So, they all knew that the official position of the intelligence community was that this was not Russian disinformation. But they all went with it anyway. Laura, remember, this was just two weeks before the presidential election. They just had to mislead the American people and keep this false narrative alive for two weeks to pull off the election interference that they were clearly engaged in.” (Breitbart, 4/25/2023)  (Archive)

April 26, 2023 – Rapper Pras Michel found guilty of funneling illegal foreign donations to Obama campaign

Pras Michel (Credit: The Globe and Mail)

A Washington, D.C., jury found famous rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel guilty on 10 federal charges, including corruption, conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.

The Grammy award-winning artist from the world-famous 1992 hip-hop group “The Fugees” who was at the center of multimillion-dollar political conspiracies was convicted on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press. The trial included testimony from high-profile political and entertainment figures, including actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Michel received more than $100 million from Malaysian billionaire Jho Low, which he used effort to influence American politics, prosecutors charged. He was also convicted of lobbying on behalf of the Chinese government, according to the BBC.

(…) Low allegedly funneled money to Michel, and is accused of stealing about $4bn from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund during the 1MDB scandal, according to the BBC. He is currently wanted by the U.S. government.

(…) Michel said he met Low in 2006 when he was associated with big Hollywood names and helped finance Hollywood films, including DiCaprio’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.” DiCaprio testified that Low seemed to be a legitimate businessman who was interested in donating to former President Barack Obama’s campaign, according to The Associated Press. (Read more The Daily Caller, 4/27/2023) (Archive)

April 26, 2023 – Trump lawyers provide key insight on background of Mar-a-Lago raid via letter to Gang of Eight

If you are deep in the political research weeds about the weaponization of government, there is a letter from lawyers representing President Trump to the chair of the House Intel Committee that is very interesting [pdf available here].

The letter is written to HPSCI Chair Mike Turner and copied to the other seven members of the gang-of-eight in the Senate and House.  The letter outlines the details of the documents that became the contested issue between the DOJ-National Security Division (‘NSD’, important distinction), specifically a DOJ-NSD official named Jay Bratt, and the attorney for President Trump, Mr. Evan Corcoran.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

The letter is fascinating because it outlines how the process of moving documents from the White House was weaponized by a politically motivated National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”), and the letter also gives fulsome context to the types of “classified materials” that have been insanely over emphasized by media.

[…] “Tim Parlatore and Jim Trusty, two of the undersigned counsel for President Trump, reviewed all 15 boxes at NARA earlier this year and based on that review, it is clear to us what happened. The boxes contain all manner of documents from the White House, are loosely grouped by date, and include newspapers, magazines, notes, letters, and daily schedules. Following its review of the materials, NARA inserted placeholder pages where it had removed documents with classification markings. That allowed Messrs. Parlatore and Trusty to discern what the documents were, as well as what other materials in the boxes were in the proximity of the marked documents when the White House staff packed them. The vast majority of the placeholder inserts refer to briefings for phone calls with foreign leaders that were located near the schedule for those calls.”  (page 3, pdf link)

Additionally, get this part…  despite the standard process that has been in place for the prior four administrations, the NARA refused to participate in the collection of any documents from the White House during the transition phase following the November 2020 election.

The NARA refused to assist in the collection of the Trump records for national archive holding and review, and then the NARA triggered a sequence of events that led to the DOJ using a reference from the NARA, to weaponize a process they refused to engage in.  The NARA refused to do their specialized bureaucratic job, and then the NARA used what they defined as an incomplete job as a reason to refer the outcome to the DOJ.   The details are quite interesting.

The letter details how the DOJ-NSD then weaponized the process, fought with the FBI investigative and supervisory agents who were saying Trump was doing nothing wrong, and then culminating in a documented lie to the Florida magistrate, in order to get a politically motivated search warrant.

The DOJ will not release the documents they used to convince the judge to obtain the warrant.  Additionally, the DOJ will not release a list of the documents, or even describe the documents, they later claimed are classified.   To this date, the Trump defense team is being told President Trump held classified documents, yet the DOJ will not describe to the lawyers who represent President Trump, what those classified documents are.

I strongly urge anyone interested to read the 10-page letter.  It is a key part of the puzzle being explained and outlined.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/27/2023)  (Archive)

April 26, 2023 – HHS whistleblower claims US government Is ‘middleman’ in child trafficking operation

Tara Lee Rodas, the HHS whistleblower, gives her opening statement on the child migrant crisis to the House Judiciary Committee.

April 27, 2023 – House Ways and Means protects IRS whistleblower claiming political interference in Hunter Biden tax probe

House Ways and Means Committee Chair, Jason Smith (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) has permitted an IRS agent to inform Congress about alleged political interference by the Justice Department in the Hunter Biden tax probe.

The Ways and Means Committee has authorized two lawyers for the IRS whistleblower to collect information about what their client witnessed at the IRS regarding Hunter’s tax probe.

Specifically, the IRS agent claims two Biden administration political appointees within the DOJ are working to block charges against Hunter for tax violations despite recommendations. In addition, the IRS agent believes Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to name a special counsel in the probe to provide a degree of separation between the probe and President Joe Biden.

“Last week, a whistleblower came forward with troubling claims about abuses of power,” Chairman Smith told IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel during a congressional hearing Thursday. “We are conducting a review of this matter and will go wherever the facts lead us. I expect full cooperation from the IRS, particularly with regard to ensuring this whistleblower is protected from retaliation.” (Read more: Breitbart, 5/1/2023)  (Archive)

April 27, 2023 – DOJ IG Horowitz testifies there were 3.4 million backdoor FISA searches on American citizens in 2021 with a 30% error rate

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz (Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz could not answer how many people in the federal government can use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on Americans through backdoor searches when Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz asked him at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Thursday.

FISA Section 702 enables intelligence agencies to carry out targeted surveillance of foreigners outside the U.S., but they have improperly used it on Americans. There were 3.4 million backdoor searches in 2021, according to an Office of the Director of National Intelligence 2022 Transparency report.

There was around a 30% error rate in these queries, Horowitz said in his testimony.

“How many people can perform these backdoor queries?” Gaetz asked.

“I’m gonna defer to board members ’cause you have the review ongoing,” Horowitz responded, referring to Sharon Bradford Franklin, Chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 4/27/2023)  (Archive)

April 28, 2023 – After Hunter Biden divested from Chinese firm BHR Partners, his top attorney, Kevin Morris, obtains control of a ten percent stake

Author Kevin Morris, who is also Hunter Biden’s attorney, attends his “White Man’s Problem” book release party on June 3, 2014, in Los Angeles, California. (Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

Kevin Morris, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, controls an entity with a ten percent stake in BHR Partners, a Chinese state-backed investment fund founded just days after Hunter and President Joe Biden visited China in 2013, a source confirmed Friday to Breitbart News.

After pressure increased on Hunter Biden to divest from BHR Partners due to a conflict of interest upon Joe Biden assuming the White House, Hunter Biden’s lawyer told the New York Times in the fall of 2021 that his client “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly in either BHR or Skaneateles.”

Skaneateles LLC, the entity which owns ten percent of BHR Partners, according to Chinese public records from Baidu, was controlled by Hunter as the sole governor until its dissolution in September 2021, a Washington, DC, registration indicated. 

But new documents obtained by Breitbart News, first revealed by nonprofit Marco Polo, show the control of Skaneateles LLC is being held by Kevin Morris, Hunter’s top attorney, who also paid Hunter’s IRS debts.

In a document entitled, “AMENDED AND RESTATED JOINT VENTURE CONTRACT of BHR PARTNERS (SHANGHAI) EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND MANAGEMENT CO., LTD. A FOREIGN-FUNDED ENTERPRISE,” Kevin Morris is listed as the Managing Member of Skaneateles LLC.

The document shows Skaneateles LLC holds a ten percent stake in BHR Partners, equivalent to $3 million.

Breitbart News also obtained a copy of an email with the subject line, “Signing Instructions,” sent by a BHR Partners’ company email address from the name Heng-Yin Zhang to Jimmy Bulger, who is a Biden family longtime business partner. Hunter Biden previously was a BHR Partners board member with Bulger.

Bulger’s firm, Thornton Group LLC, is deeply connected with business in China. Thornton Group LLC is also listed in the agreement, the document shows.

“We have mailed you the documents for signing (Fedex tracking no.: 8137 6269 8141 0448). We would like to share with you the signing instructions of the documents in the order of their placements inside the envelope we send to you,” an email reads to Bulger from Heng-Yin Zhang, an individual with a BHR Partners’ email address. 

Breitbart News confirmed and authenticated the venture contract and the “Signing Instructions” email with a source with knowledge of the transaction. In addition, the source confirmed “Kevin Morris is the ‘managing partner’ of Skaneateles, LLC’ and that ‘Skaneateles has a 10 percent stake in the [BHR] venture.’” (Read more: Breitbart, 4/28/2023)  (Archive)

April 30, 2023 – On Sunday Morning Futures, Sen. Ron Johnson accuses Antony Blinken of lying under oath about contacting Hunter Biden

Blinken told Johnson’s committee he did not email Hunter Biden. Now Johnson has those emails.

Senator Ron Johnson: What is interesting, Marie, and here’s a little news for you. Anthony Blinken finally did come in and sit down for a voluntary transcribed interview in December of 2020 because he wanted to be secretary of state. And now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied bold face to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden. My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in, tell them to preserve their records. You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden. You can’t trust the Biden family. You can’t trust so many of the people that they have surrounded themselves with these made men. I basically agree with that statement…

…What do you do when you have, in effect, co conspirators of the Biden family inside the agencies, inside our intelligence agencies, the Department of Justice, the FBI. And you have the political party, the Democrats, who couldn’t care less, have no interest whatsoever in the corruption that is being uncovered bit by bit as we pull back the layers of the onion here… He must preserve his emails. We must get to the bottom of this. We need to show how corrupt these individuals are.

Sunday Morning Futures, 4/30/2023

April 30, 2023 – Epstein’s private calendar emerges: Among prominent names listed are Biden’s CIA chief and Obama’s WH attorney

In 2014, current CIA director William Burns had three meetings with Jeffrey Epstein when Burns was Obama’s deputy secretary of state, and after Epstein had been convicted of child sex exploitation, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Burns and Epstein first met in Washington prior to Burns visiting Epstein and his Manhattan townhouse, according to a trove of leaked documents that include Epstein’s schedules which were not contained in Epstein’s “black book” of contacts or flight logs.

Burns, who became CIA Director under Biden in 2021, met with Epstein while he was preparing to leave his position in the government, according to agency spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp.

“The director did not know anything about him, other than that he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector,” she said, adding “They had no relationship.”

Mr. Burns, 67 years old, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, had meetings with Epstein in 2014 when Mr. Burns was deputy secretary of state. 

A lunch was planned that August at the office of law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington. Epstein scheduled two evening appointments that September with Mr. Burns at his townhouse, the documents show. After one of the scheduled meetings, Epstein planned for his driver to take Mr. Burns to the airport.

Mr. Burns recalls being introduced in Washington by a mutual friend, and meeting Epstein once briefly in New York, said Ms. Thorp. “The director does not recall any further contact, including receiving a ride to the airport,” she said. -WSJ

One month after meeting with Epstein, in October 2014, Burns stepped down from this role at the State Department to serve as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank. He ran it until he was nominated by Biden to serve as CIA director in early 2021.

Epstein also had dozens of meetings with then-Obama White House attorney Kathryn Ruemmler, who went on to become Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer in 2020. Epstein also planned for her to join him in 2015 on a trip to Paris, and in 2017 to visit his private island in the Caribbean.

Obama White House attorney Kathryn Ruemmler appears on Meet the Press, June 2014. (Ccredit: Meet the Press)

According to a spokesman for Goldman, Ruemmler had a ‘professional relationship’ with Epstein tied to her role at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, and did not travel with him.

“I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein,” she said.

According to the documents, however, they knew each other well enough… following Epstein’s 2006 conviction for sexually abusing girls in Florida as young as 14-years-old.

He asked for avocado sushi rolls to be on hand when meeting with Ms. Ruemmler, according to the documents. He visited apartments she was considering buying. In October 2014, Epstein knew her travel plans and told an assistant to look into her flight. “See if there is a first class seat,” he wrote, “if so upgrade her.”

(…) Other notables in the new report include;

  • Leon Botstein, president of Bard College
  • Noam Chomsky, who was scheduled to fly with Epstein to have dinner at the pedophile’s Manhattan townhouse in 2015
  • Anthropologist Helen Fisher, who says she ‘didn’t have anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein, “But I remembered it because of his spectacular house and because of the six young women.”
  • Joshua Cooper Ramo, then co-chief executive of Henry Kissinger’s corporate consulting firm.
  • Harvard professor Martin Nowak
  • Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 4/30/2023)  (Archive)

May 1, 2023 – Judge says Epstein sent a JPMorgan exec photo of young woman in ‘sexually suggestive pose’

Jes Staley (Credit: public domain)

Then-top JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley allegedly abused “some” of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims — and received a “sexually suggestive” photograph of one young woman from the now-deceased pedophile, a judge indicated in a ruling.

Released on Monday afternoon, Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s 54-page opinion and order explains why he advanced claims alleging that JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank knowingly profited from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme. Rakoff revealed new details about the bank, and its former executives, in explaining his reasoning.

The most prominent among these bankers is Staley, who later moved on to become the CEO of Barclays Bank, before resigning amid scrutiny of his Epstein ties.

JPMorgan has tried to shift the blame to Staley in a separate lawsuit, claiming that their former executive disguised his Epstein ties for personal reasons. Jane Doe, the anonymous woman suing JPMorgan in a proposed class action, claimed in a deposition that Staley sexually abused her.

Rakoff’s ruling suggests that she’s not his only accuser. (Read more: Law and Crime, 5/1/2023)  (Archive)

May 2, 2023 – Lawsuit against key speech silencers threatens to blow open the Censorship-Industrial Complex

The members of the Election Integrity Partnership and Virality Project conspired with government actors to censor speech at Big Tech companies in violation of the First Amendment, a class-action lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges. The case, Hines v. Stamos, promises to blow open the Censorship-Industrial Complex.

Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, and Jill Hines, the co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana, a consumer and human rights advocacy organization, filed suit earlier today in a federal court in Louisiana against the organizations and individuals behind the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and Virality Project, seeking to represent a class of similarly situated plaintiffs. The 88-page complaint alleged four claims against the defendants, all of whom held roles in the EIP and Virality Project’s efforts to censor the plaintiffs’ speech.

According to its website, the Election Integrity Partnership was formed in 2020 “between four of the nation’s leading institutions focused on understanding misinformation and disinformation in the social media landscape: the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.” Then, in early 2021, the same four entities expanded their focus to address supposed Covid-19 “misinformation” on social media, calling the efforts the “Virality Project.”

The class-action lawsuit named as defendants Stanford Internet Observatory as well as the Leland Stanford Junior University and its board of trustees, the latter two of which are allegedly legally responsible for the observatory’s conduct. The complaint also named Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, and Renée DiResta, its research manager. Plaintiffs also sued the Atlantic Council, the group’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and the lab’s senior director, Graham Brookie, who is alleged to have played a “leading role in the censorship activities.”

The Allegations

Over the course of the nearly 90-page complaint, the plaintiffs alleged the defendants caused the censorship of Hines, Hoft, and other similarly situated individuals, based on their viewpoints related to the 2020 election and Covid-19. Significantly, the complaint also detailed the extensive connections between, and involvement with, the government and the individual defendants and private entities.

Those allegations indicate government actors helped coordinate the establishment of the EIP, funded its activities, and fed it complaints of supposed election and Covid disinformation and misinformation that the EIP then forwarded to the social media companies for censorship. The complaint also alleged the defendants viewed the EIP as a way to skirt the First Amendment and do for the government what the Constitution prohibited the government from doing for itself: censor speech.

Based on these allegations, the plaintiffs alleged in count one that the defendants conspired to violate the First Amendment. Count two alleged the defendants, while not government employees, were nonetheless acting “under color of State law,” and as such violated the First Amendment. The class-action complaint added two more state law claims, one based on the defendants’ alleged interference with the plaintiffs’ contractual and business relationships. The final claim alleged the defendants intentionally breached the duty they owed the plaintiffs “not to interfere unlawfully with their freedom, rights, and ability to speak, write, listen, read, and communicate freely on social media with others.” (Read more: The Federalist, 5/02/2023) (Archive)

May 3, 2023 – House and Senate GOP seek document from FBI alleging a pay-to-play bribery scheme involving then VP Joe Biden

House and Senate GOP investigators said Wednesday they have learned the FBI possesses a document alleging a pay-to-play bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and have subpoenaed it in an explosive new twist in their long running corruption probe of the first family.

Senate Budget Committee ranking member and long-time whistleblower advocate Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said they learned of the document, known as FD-1023, from a whistleblower.

 Grassley – Comer letter.pdf

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley said. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight.”

Said Comer: “The information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national. The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States of America to make money for himself. Senator Grassley and I will seek the truth to ensure accountability for the American people.”

 Comer Subpoena cover letter and Wray Subpoena 050322 (1).pdf

Comer said his committee issued a subpoena designed to compel the FBI to produce the memo. (Read more: Just the News, 5/03/2023)  (Archive)

May 3, 2023 – Epstein was an FBI source before his 2007 plea deal

Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest drew national attention, particularly focusing on a deal that allowed him to plead guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida and avoid more serious federal charges. | (Credit: Richard Drew/Associated Press)

Back in 2007, the Department of Justice gave Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart deal that deferred prosecuting Epstein for federal offenses – including the interstate sex trafficking of minors and recruiting minors to engage in commercial sex acts – in exchange for Epstein pleading guilty to Florida state-level solicitation of prostitution and procurement charges.

The deal was shocking in both its timing and scope. It was made before the FBI had interviewed all of Epstein’s victims and before the FBI had seized Epstein’s computers.

It immunized Epstein’s known and unknown co-conspirators who were credibly accused of trafficking and abusing minors, a rare and troubling agreement you will not find in any other federal non-prosecution agreement:

“if Epstein successfully fulfills all of the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova.”

And it implicated both the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida (Alex Acosta) and Main Justice in Washington, D.C., which approved of the plea deal, delayed the grand jury, and stopped victims from being notified of the agreement in violation of federal law.

Adding to the intrigue were the words of Alex Acosta, the then-US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida who gave Epstein his non-prosecution agreement. According to the Daily Beast:

Acosta cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

Then we discovered (in 2018) that Epstein had been informing the FBI way back in 2008 after his plea deal with the DOJ had been signed.  In the FBI’s words: “Epstein has also provided information to the FBI as agreed upon.”

That raised a red flag, and caused us to suspect that Epstein’s relationship with the FBI went back further than 2008. So we demanded all of Epstein interviews from the FBI. The FBI didn’t deny these records existed; instead, it hid behind the FOIA law enforcement exemption.

Good news – we have defeated that exemption, at least partially. In doing so, we have uncovered records concerning Epstein’s history as a source for the FBI. And it dates back before his 2007 plea deal.

Here’s what we can confirm: Epstein’s history of cooperation with the FBI goes as far back as 2002. We have the summary of his FBI interview – the 302 – in which he reported financial fraud from concerning a potential telecommunications investor. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 5/03/2023)  (Archive)

May 4, 2023 – How Corrupt Is Our Current Situation? It’s Worse Than Most Can Fathom…

Everything that preceded the 2020 federal election was a complex system of control by a network of ideologues, federal agencies, allies in the private sector, financial stakeholders and corrupt interests all working toward a common goal.  There’s no need to go through the background of how the election was manipulated and how the government and private sector, specifically social media, worked to influence the 2020 outcome because you have all seen it.

Whether it was local election officials working to control outcomes, federal agencies working to support them (CISA, FBI, DHS), financial interests working to fund them (Zuckerberg et al), or social media platforms controlling the visible content and discussion (Twitter Files, Google, Facebook etc.), the objective was all the same.  It was a massive one-sided operation against the freewill of the American voter.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, those same system operators, govt officials, corporate media, private sector groups and social media platforms then circled the wagons to scatter the evidence of their conduct.  If you questioned anything you were a threat.  That’s the context to the dynamic that unfolded.

Lawfare operatives joined forces with Democrat staffers, and allies in social media platforms all worked in concert to target the voices of anyone who would rise in opposition to the corruption that was stunningly clear in the outcome of the election process.  Corporate media then labeled, isolated, ridiculed and marginalized anyone who dared to point out the obvious.

When AG Merrick Garland says this of January 6, 2021: (…) “the Justice Department has conducted one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history. We have worked to analyze massive amounts of physical and digital data. We have recovered devices, decrypted electronic messages, triangulated phones, and pored through tens of thousands of hours of video. We have also benefited from tens of thousands of tips we received from the public. Following these digital and physical footprints, we were able to identify hundreds of people.” {link} The targeting operation needs context.

Do you remember on April 27th when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz recently said, “more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government.”  The result was “more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans that were illegal and non-compliant,” and over “10,000 federal employees have access to that database.” {OIG Testimony}.

Put the statement from Garland together with the statement from Horowitz, and you get an understanding of what was done.

Hundreds of stakeholders in the Lawfare network joined forces with hundreds of people who became staff researchers for a weaponized Congress.  Hundreds more social media background agents then poured thousands of hours into feeding private information to the DOJ, FBI, J6 Committee and all of their hired staff working on the project.

How do I know?

I was one of their targets.

Before telling the rest of the story, some background is needed.

I am well versed in the ways of the administrative state and the corrupt systems, institutions and silos that make up our weaponized government. I can (a) see them; (b) predict their activity; and (c) know where their traps and operations are located.

Traveling the deep investigative weeds of the administrative state eventually gives you a set of skills.  When people ask how the outlines on this website can seem so far ahead of the sunlight that eventually falls upon the outlined corruption, this is essentially why.  When you take these skills on the road, you learn to be a free-range scout, and after a long while you learn how to track the activity.

When I was outlining how the Fourth Branch of Government works and/or Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and the DHS system operating inside it, I wasn’t shooting from the hip. However, people will always seek to dismiss the uncomfortable truth.

Sometimes you just have to wait for the evidence you know exists to surface, or for a situation to unfold that is driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy. The bizarre CTH predictions turn out to be the truth of the issue because they are based on the factual evidence of the issue.

That level of how the system works came in very handy when I received this subpoena from Chairman Bennie Thompson and the J6 Committee.  Warning, things are about to get very uncomfortable if you don’t accept the scale of corruption that exists.

Pay attention to the red box on the page shown. This is essentially the probable cause that justifies the subpoena itself.  I have redacted a name in the box for reasons you will see that follow.

I was never in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, nor did I work with or communicate with anyone who was involved in any of the activities that are subject to the J6 committee investigative authority.

I’m going to skip a lot of background noise, irrelevant legal stuff, jurisdictional issues, discoveries from discussions with lawyers and the experience gained in association with this ridiculous subpoena.  I am going to focus on the biggest story within it.

Sticking to the information in the Red Box above, notice how the J6 committee has evidence, “public-source information and documents on file”, showing my participation, communication, and contact with people and technology that are material interests to the committee.

Here’s the kicker…. I had no clue what the hell they were talking about.  There’s not a single aspect of their outline that I had any knowledge or connection of.

I had no idea what Zello was. I had no idea who 1% watchdog might be. I had never heard of “Stop the Steal J6” or associated “channel.”  I had never heard of the person redacted, and I had never communicated with any Oath Keeper, any communication system, or platform, or anyone or anything – nothing – that is outlined in that subpoena.

Those points of evidence outlined in the subpoena had no connection to me at all.

The subpoena might as well have been asking me to appear in Michigan because my Red Ferrari was involved in a hit and run accident, during my trip to Detroit.  I don’t own a Ferrari; I have never been to Michigan; I certainly never had an accident; I wasn’t on a trip and have never visited Detroit.  The entire construct of their probable cause for the subpoena was silly. Complete and utter nonsense.

That said, how could there be “public records” and “documentary” evidence of something that never happened?

At first, I thought this was some silly case of mistaken identity and they just sent a subpoena to the wrong person.  However, the investigators were adamant the evidence existed, and the need for testimony was required.

After taking advice from several smart people, and after discovering the costs associated with just the reply to the committee and/or representation therein; suddenly I realized there might be more value for me in this subpoena than the committee.  After all, how can there be public-records and documents that I own a red Ferrari and went to Michigan when I don’t and never did.

After several back and forths I discovered, through their admissions of their own research, and through documents they extracted as an outcome of their tasks to prove the merit of their claims, that someone *inside* Twitter had created a fictitious identity of me associated with the networks and communications as the investigators described them.

Think about what was discovered here.

Someone inside the Twitter platform, an employee of Twitter, had made a decision to target me. As a result: (a) they had been doing this for a long time with a specific goal in mind; and (b) they created an elaborate trail of background activity and identity that was entirely fabricated.

Eventually, my assigned investigative unit admitted this.

Once, the federal investigators realized what took place they wanted to get rid of me -and my snark filled curiosity- with great urgency.

They also had an ‘oh shit’ moment, when they contemplated everything, including what they had revealed to me from the outset of my contact, now several months prior.

What I discovered in this experience was that DHS, and by extension DOJ/FBI and the January 6 investigators, had direct administrative level backdoors into all social media platforms.

Overlay the Twitter files now, and then expand your thinking….

In their quest to prove that I owned a Red Ferrari, traveled to Michigan and had a hit-and-run accident, these investigators outlined to me how the United States Government, through their DHS authority, has employees, agents and contractors with open portals into all social media platforms.

Yes, the federal government is inside the mechanics of the systems (Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Instagram, Google, YouTube, WhatsApp, Zello, etc) and they have administrative access in real time to monitor, review, extract and evaluate everything, soup-to-nuts.

It was only because the investigators and forensic data knuckleheads have these portals, that they were able to locate the source of the fabricated evidence they were originally attributing to me.  This was an investigative process and research discovery being conducted in the data processing systems of Twitter in real time as they questioned me.

Once they realized what had taken place, and as soon as I started asking how they were making these admissions (now carrying an apologetic certainty), suddenly the investigators wanted no further contact or communication with me.  You’re good, whoopsie daisy, our bad, sorry.

Now, take some time to fully digest and absorb what I have just shared.

The U.S. government is worried about TikTok, because U.S. citizen data might be extracted?

Meanwhile, the U.S. government, at a fully unrestricted administrative level, is inside Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Insta, YouTube etc., running amok and extracting anything – including private messages… and they’re somehow worried about protecting us from TikTok data collection.  Think about it.

(Conservative Treehouse, 5/4/2023)  (Archive)

May 5, 2023 – Biden names failed OMB nominee Neera Tanden to replace Susan Rice at White House

Neera Tanden (c), president of the Center for American Progress, with co-founder John Podesta (l), and Hillary Clinton, poses during a gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of the center on October 24, 2013. (Credit: Chip Somodavilla / Getty Images)

President Joe Biden named Neera Tanden, his failed nominee for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to replace Susan Rice as his domestic policy advisor at the White House on Friday.

Tanden, a Hillary Clinton loyalist with a checkered past, was forced to withdraw her nomination to lead OMB — a post that requires Senate confirmation — in 2021 due to her past controversial remarks and volatile behavior.

As Breitbart News noted:

Tanden famously mocked Biden as a “mess” in a leaked email to Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta in 2015, arguing that the former vice president’s bumbling made Clinton look like a better candidate for president.

She also frequently disparaged Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and his supporters during the 2016 Democrat primary.

After serving in President Bill Clinton’s White House, Tanden ran the leftist Center for American Progress, raising money from foreign interests and corporate donors to push left-leaning policy.

Tanden was also disparaged by staff at the Center for American Progress after she revealed the name of an anonymous victim claiming sexual harassment in a staff meeting.

Tanden worked as an associate director for domestic policy at the Clinton White House and was also an advisor to First Lady Hillary Clinton. She also served as a senior advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services under the Obama administration.

In addition, Tanden reportedly assaulted a journalist in 2008 for asking about her vote for the Iraq War. (Read more: Breitbart, 5/5/2023)  (Archive)

May 5, 2023 – The government wants to renew FISA 702, yet drags feet on transparency and needs reform

May 8, 2023 – ChatGPT helps journalist find scrubbed articles on internet re Antony Blinken’s connection to the Aspen Institute who held a “hack and dump” exercise in September 2020 on Biden laptop

(…) Michael Shellenberger posted a “Twitter Files” thread on December 19, 2022 where he uncovered a “hack-and-dump” operation that was conducted as a “tabletop” exercise by the Aspen Institute, two months prior to the 2020 election. Much like the World Health Organization ran Event 201, a think tank that game-planned pandemic scenarios strikingly similar to the circumstances surrounding COVID-19, the Aspen Institute’s “Hack-and-Dump” exercise revolved around the handling of information. Ironically (or not), it revolved around information dumped in relation to Hunter Biden’s leaked emails.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, “Aspen Digital, an arm of the liberal Aspen Institute, in September 2020 convened a working group of social media executives, journalists, and academics to develop a coverage strategy for a hypothetical “hack and dump” of Hunter Biden’s emails.”

Garrett Graf (Credit: Aspen Institute)

Garrett Graff, the Director of Cyber Initiatives at Aspen Digital, published an article for Wired just a week before Miranda Devine’s explosive, and heavily censored, article in New York Post. Graff’s article was a playbook for how the media should respond to an “October Surprise”. The byline of the article, given those in attendance of their “event”, sounds more like marching orders than an informative piece: “The media knows it screwed up in 2016 with John Podesta. Here’s how it should do better in the final weeks of the 2020 race.”

It gets even more interesting. We now know that Antony Blinken has close ties to the Aspen Institute through his membership with the Aspen Strategy Group. The extent, however, is unclear as much of this seems to have been outright scrubbed from the internet. Literally: scrubbed.

About the only relation between Blinken and the Aspen Institute online still is a publication by the Aspen Strategy Group titled “American Purpose” that lists Blinken as “Staff Director, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

AI to the Rescue

Badlands Media co-founder and investigative journalist Jon Herold took to ChatGPT to help with a stymied research initiative. He started by establishing that ChatGPT’s “knowledge cutoff” is “September 2021.” This means, according to ChatGPT that “I am not aware of any changes that have occurred after my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, including changes to websites or the removal of information from the internet.”

Given that baseline, Herold then asked ChatGPT “When were Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken both former members of the Aspen Strategy Group?” ChatGPT responded that Harris has not been a former member, but that Blinken “has been a member of the Aspen Strategy Group since at least 2017.”

When asked for sources, ChatGPT gave a link to Aspen Institute’s website for Aspen Strategy Group, which had no published ties. However, the AI bot also mentioned that “additionally, multiple news sources have reported on Blinken’s participation in the Aspen Strategy Group, including CNN, The New York Times, and Politico.”

This is where it gets downright strange. Herold then asked ChatGPT to provide him with the links. The first three links were for CNN, NYT, and Politico. All three were “404 not found.” Then Herold searched all of the archive sites he could possibly find. Nothing.

When asked to provide more sources, ChatGPT spit out three more articles from Bloomberg, Reuters, and Foreign Policy. All three were “404 not found.” None of them were archived.

Herold told ChatGPT that the links were “404 not found”. ChatGPT quickly apologized and said “Here are some updated links to articles that mention Blinken’s membership in the Aspen Strategy Group:” referencing articles by The Hill, NYT, and CNN again. Again, “404 not found” and no archives.

In total, ChatGPT spit out 13 articles regarding Antony Blinken’s ties to the Aspen Strategy Group and all 13 came back “404 not found” with no archives of any of them. That’s odd considering the WayBack Machine archives all of those websites mentioned above numerous times each and every day (Note: ALL 13 articles searched are linked at the bottom of this article).

Seemingly hitting a brick wall, Herold then asked ChatGPT if it could “provide the full text of this article www.newsweek.com/antony-blinken-bidens-pick-secretary-state-connected-aspen-strategy-group-1550906.”

ChatGPT obliged:

(See link below for photos of ChatGPT response.)

(…) The obfuscation of any information connecting the Aspen Institute and Antony Blinken is concerning, especially when considering the Aspen Institute led a workshop that strategized a Hunter Biden “Hack and Dump” just months before his actual laptop and emails were disclosed. However, what is also concerning is a grant award that took place almost exactly one year after the “Hack and Dump.”

(…) To summarize, Antony Blinken is reported to be the “impetus” behind the 51 former intel officers’ letter that labeled the Hunter Biden laptop as having all the “earmarks” of classic Russian disinformation. We know Michael Morrell drafted this letter to give Joe Biden “talking points” in his debate against Trump. Blinken further had some relationship, although unclear to what extent, with the organization that put together a workshop outlining how to handle a Hunter Biden “Hack and Dump”. Then, when Joe Biden “won”, Blinken was appointed Secretary of State and his State Department awarded the Aspen Institute with a grant 23 times larger than the only other two grants they’d received from the State Dept previously.

And despite a concerted effort to scrub any relationship details from the internet, ChatGPT exposed it all.

(Read more: Badlands Media, 5/8/2023)  (Archive)

A list of all 13 “404” articles sourced by ChatGPT (which retained a full-text of each article due to its Sept 2021 “knowledged cut off”):

Note:  even a search of the articles titles yielded no results on the websites.

Feb 27, 2015
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken discusses foreign policy with Aspen Institute President & CEO Walter Isaacson.

May 9, 2023 – Sen. Ron Johnson: “We have the evidence that Hunter Biden paid tens of thousands of dollars for prostitutes that were sex trafficked through an international sex trafficking ring”

May 10, 2023 – House Oversight reveals the nine Biden family members who received wire transfers from foreign nationals

May 10, 2023 – Rep. Byron Donalds describes the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme and their web of shell companies

(…) The House Oversight Committee spoke at length about the Biden family’s damning ties to an alleged Romania bribery scandal during today’s press conference.

Rep. Byron Donalds describes the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme, the web of shell companies, and the millions that poured in from foreign nations while Joe Biden was Vice President:

Rep. Byron Donalds describes the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme, the web of shell companies, and the millions that poured in from foreign nations while Joe Biden was Vice President:

“The Biden’s associates created at least 16 companies while Joe Biden was Vice President. Now, the list is 20, and as we continue our investigation, that list is growing. To serve what purpose? And the purpose of all these companies being created is to conceal money that the Biden family has been gaining because Joe Biden has been sitting at the upper echelon of our politics for almost five decades…

Here’s an example of what I mean, you have Rosemont Seneca Partners, Rosemont Seneca Advisers, Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, RSP Holdings, RSTP II Alpha, RSTP II Bravo, Rosemont Seneca Thorton, Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and the list goes on. Cycling through this many companies serves no purpose… The only logical conclusion of a financial professional is that you are concealing money from either the IRS, credit agencies, or from other people in general…

It’s interesting that the Department of Justice has been investigating Hunter Biden for quite some time, and we seem to never get anywhere. I wonder what’s going on at the Department of Justice. The bottom line is there is no real business here. None. Many in this room wanted to go down all the various schemes our colleagues from the other side of the aisle accused the former president of.

To be very clear, the former president actually had a business… A very big business and legitimate business that everybody in this room cleary knows and can point to. Joe Biden has no business except for his position in politics, and it is the requirement of this committee to investigate that. We are going to continue to do that, and we are going to let the facts speak for themselves.”

(Read more: Revolver, 5/10/2023)  (Archive)

May 10, 2023 – FBI refuses to turn over unclassified investigative report detailing Joe Biden bribery scheme

Christopher Wray (Credit: Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press)

During all of my research and discoveries about the DOJ and FBI, the one constant from everyone with a specific and granular knowledge of how the silo information operations are conducted is that the FBI is comprehensively and institutionally corrupt at every level.

Let us not pretend with each other. As an outcome of President Obama and Eric Holder’s specific actions, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was weaponized (top to bottom) as an enforcement mechanism to protect the interests of the DC democrats.   Top to bottom the FBI is a fully weaponized federal police agency with the primary mission to target political opposition.  In the modern political era, this is the sole purpose of the FBI – nothing more, nothing less.

Congress has specific knowledge of an investigative document inside the FBI known as an FD-1023.  The FD-1023 details the evidence delivered by confidential human sources to investigators.  The specific FD-1023 is a multi-page document outlining the entire bribery scheme used by Joe Biden and his family.  The person who helped detail the FD-1023 documents has informed Congress of its existence.

Because this unclassified FD-1023 outlines the details of how Joe Biden used his office to accept bribes from foreign officials, the FBI is refusing to release it. Instead, the FBI is telling Congress they have no right to see it [LETTER to Congress Here].

The FBI is claiming that reports from Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) cannot be released, regardless of classification status.  Further, what you will note in the claims of the FBI and DOJ is essentially what we have been talking about on these pages for several years.  Information is intentionally put into institutional silos that keep the information hidden and protected.  The silo use is everywhere in Washington DC.

WASHINGTON DC – House Oversight: […] “It’s clear from the FBI’s response that the unclassified record the Oversight Committee subpoenaed exists, but they are refusing to provide it to the Committee. We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations. The FBI has failed to do both. The FBI’s position is ‘trust, but you aren’t allowed to verify.’ That is unacceptable. We plan to follow up with the FBI and expect compliance with the subpoena,” said Chairman Comer.

“While the FBI has failed to produce the specific document by the subpoena deadline, their offer to provide an accommodation process in response to our legitimate request indicates the document is real. So the question remains, what did the FBI do to investigate very serious allegations from an apparent trusted FBI source implicating then-Vice President Biden? Today’s letter from the FBI raises additional questions, including whether the FBI has an open investigation based on these allegations. The American people pay the FBI’s salaries, and they’re entitled to a fulsome response,” Senator Grassley said.

Based on whistleblower disclosures, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose. (read more)

The only way through this issue is to defund and dismantle the FBI. (Conservative Treehouse, 5/10/2023)  (Archive)

Some House Republicans Call for Holding FBI Director in Contempt of Congress for Failing to Comply With Subpoena

May 10, 2023 – Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know – A citizen’s starter kit to understanding the new global information cartel

Illustration: mrmooremedia.com

Introduction by Matt Taibbi

(…) The “Censorship-Industrial Complex” is just the Military-Industrial Complex reborn for the “hybrid warfare” age.

Much like the war industry, pleased to call itself the “defense” sector, the “anti-disinformation” complex markets itself as merely defensive, designed to fend off the hostile attacks of foreign cyber-adversaries who unlike us have “military limitations.” The CIC, however, is neither wholly about defense, nor even mostly focused on foreign “disinformation.” It’s become instead a relentless, unified messaging system aimed primarily at domestic populations, who are told that political discord at home aids the enemy’s undeclared hybrid assault on democracy.

They suggest we must rethink old conceptions about rights, and give ourselves over to new surveillance techniques like “toxicity monitoring,” replace the musty old free press with editors claiming a “nose for news” with an updated model that uses automated assignment tools like “newsworthy claim extraction,” and submit to frank thought-policing mechanisms like the “redirect method,” which sends ads at online browsers of dangerous content, pushing them toward “constructive alternative messages.”

Binding all this is a commitment to a new homogeneous politics, which the complex of public and private agencies listed below seeks to capture in something like a Unified Field Theory of neoliberal narrative, which can be perpetually tweaked and amplified online via algorithm and machine learning. This is what some of the organizations on this list mean when they talk about coming up with a “shared vocabulary” of information disorder, or “credibility,” or “media literacy.”

Anti-disinformation groups talk endlessly about building “resilience” to disinformation (which in practice means making sure the public hears approved narratives so often that anything else seems frightening or repellent), and audiences are trained to question not only the need for checks and balances, but competition. Competition is increasingly frowned upon not just in the “marketplace of ideas” (an idea itself more and more often described as outdated), but in the traditional capitalist sense. In the Twitter Files we repeatedly find documents like this unsigned “Sphere of Influence” review circulated by the Carnegie Endowment that wonders aloud if tech companies really need to be competing to “get it right”:

In place of competition, the groups we’ve been tracking favor the concept of the “shared endeavor” (one British group has even started a “Shared Endeavour” program), in which key “stakeholders” hash out their disagreements in private, but present a unified front.

Who are the leaders of these messaging campaigns? If you care to ask, the groups below are a good place to start.

“The Top 50 List” is intended as a resource for reporters and researchers beginning their journey toward learning the scale and ambition of the “Censorship-Industrial Complex.” Written like a magazine feature, it tries to answer a few basic questions about funding, organization type, history, and especially, methodology. Many anti-disinformation groups adhere to the same formulaic approach to research, often using the same “hate-mapping,” guilt-by-association-type analysis to identify wrong-thinkers and suppressive persons. There is even a tendency to use what one Twitter Files source described as the same “hairball” graphs.

Where they compete, often, is in the area of gibberish verbiage describing their respective analytical methods. My favorite came from the Public Good Projects, which in a display of predictive skills reminiscent of the “unsinkable Titanic” described itself as the “Buzzfeed of public health.”

Together, these groups are fast achieving what Eisenhower feared: the elimination of “balance” between the democratic need for liberalizing laws and institutions, and the vigilance required for military preparation. Democratic society requires the nourishment of free debate, disagreement, and intellectual tension, but the groups below seek instead that “shared vocabulary” to deploy on the hybrid battlefield. They propose to serve as the guardians of that “vocabulary,” which sounds very like the scenario Ike outlined in 1961, in which “public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific and technological elite.”

Without further ado, an introduction to the main players in this “CIC”:

(Read more: Racket News, 5/10/2023)  (Archive)

May 10, 2023 – House Oversight Cmte: Biden family gets $1 million from Romanian real estate tycoon convicted of bribery; Joe vows to help clean up corruption in Romania

Republicans are digging in on over $10 million received by Biden family members from foreign actors, including previously undisclosed $1 million in Romanian-linked payments, and a ‘web’ of 20 companies created while President Joe Biden was vice president and pushing anti-corruption efforts abroad.

On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Republicans led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., released a ‘Second Records Memorandum’ that expands on information it received from subpoena returns as the committee continues its investigation into the Biden family’s business practices.

The memo specifically outlines the Biden family’s ties to Romanian ‘influence peddling’ and a web of LLCs created while Biden was vice president. It also accuses President Biden for a ‘lack of transparency’ regarding his family’s receipt of funds from China, which he has said are ‘not true.’

It details the efforts by the family to hide, conceal and confuse sources of money – including more China money, according to a committee aide.

‘The White House refuses to correct the president’s statement. The president is now using the federal government to run interference for his family and his own role in these schemes,’ said Comer during a press conference announcing the memo Wednesday.

During Biden’s time as vice president, there were 20 companies affiliated with certain Biden family members created intentionally with a ‘complicated corporate structure’ the memo states.

Hunter Biden and his associates, including Rob Walker, formed ‘at least 15’ of those companies, after Biden took the office of the vice president in 2009.

Several of those entities including Owasco P.C. – which Hunter owned – Hudson West III, LLC, Robinson Walker, LLC, and Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC, accepted funds from foreign companies ranging from $5,000 to $3 million, the committee says.

During Biden’s time as vice president, there were 20 companies affiliated with certain Biden family members created intentionally with a ‘complicated corporate structure’ the memo states.

The Romanian transactions outlined in the bank records released by the committee were from Cypriot – a company controlled by Gabriel Popoviciu, who was at the time under investigation for criminal corruption in Romania and later convicted for bribery-related offenses.

This specifically is ‘evidence of influence peddling and a correlation between Biden family and their business associates’ work, allege the Republicans who point to multiple anti-corruption speeches and meetings with Romanian leaders then-Vice President Biden engaged in between 2014 and 2015.

Biden, pictured in 2014, condemned corruption during a speech in Romania before his family allegedly received a $ 1 million payment from a real estate tycoon convicted of bribery. (Credit: The Associated Press)

The Romanian transactions outlined in the bank records released by the committee were from Cypriot – a company controlled by Gabriel Popoviciu, who was at the time under investigation for criminal corruption in Romania and later convicted for bribery-related offenses.

Between 2015 and 2017, Robinson Walker, LLC received $3 million from Bladon Enterprises Limited – Popoviciu’s Cypriot company – which was then paid out to Biden family members in a total sum of over $1 million.

The first payments were received by the LLC just weeks after then-Vice President Biden hosted Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to the White House and they discussed anti-corruption policies.

Biden family accounts gained $1.038 million from Robinson Walker, LLC in a series of 17 deposits, 16 of which were made while Biden was still in the White House. The payments went to associate James Gilliar, Hunter Biden, Hallie Biden, Owasco LLC and an ‘unknown Biden bank account.’

‘It appears from bank records the Bidens were using Robinson Walker, LLC to conceal that the source of these payments was Popovici,’ the memo says.

According to emails from Hunter’s laptop obtained by DailyMail.com, Popoviciu hired the president’s son in 2016 as part of an influence campaign to persuade anti-corruption prosecutors to cut a deal or drop the case – all while his father was sitting vice president.

(Read more: Daily Mail, 5/10/2023) (Archive)

May 11, 2023 – Judge blocks Trump deposition in Peter Strzok and Lisa Page lawsuits

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (Credit: public domain)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week secured a court order to block former President Donald Trump from a deposition appearance in connection with lawsuits filed by former FBI officials Peter Strzok an

d Lisa Page.

“The deposition of former President Donald Trump is hereby stayed until the deposition of [F.B.I. Director] Christopher Wray and any ensuing motion practice as to the remaining necessity of the former president’s deposition have been completed,” the order reads in part. It was issued by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Thursday, May 11.

(…) Previously, Jackson had ruled that Wray and Trump could be deposed in connection to the lawsuits, according to court documents. U.S. DOJ lawyers had argued that Wray should be deposed first because he was ranked lower than Trump and that any information that he provided in the suit could mean that Trump would not have to testify.

“The Court is somewhat surprised to learn that since then, the parties have done nothing more than wrangle over the order of the two depositions,” Berman Jackson wrote. “The government seems chagrined that the Court did not order that the deposition of the FBI Director be completed first, but it may recall that it was the Court’s view that it was Director Wray, the only current high-ranking public official in the group of proposed deponents, whose ongoing essential duties fell most squarely under the protection of the doctrine in question.”

(…) Strzok has alleged that the FBI had caved to “unrelenting pressure” from Trump when it fired him and that he was unfairly terminated for expressing his political opinions. As part of the lawsuit, Strzok’s lawyers have said they want to question Trump about whether he met with and pressured FBI and DOJ officials to fire him.

But the DOJ says that the former FBI deputy director, David Bowdich, has already said that he made the decision to fire Strzok on his own, and that he did not recall Wray ever telling him about any meeting in which the president pressured him about Strzok.

“These circumstances do not rise to the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ necessary to authorize the deposition of a current or former high-ranking government official, much less a former President,” the DOJ also wrote. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 5/14/2023)  (Archive)

May 11, 2023 – CNN tries to fact check Trump when he says Biden stored classified docs in Chinatown

During Trump’s Town Hall in New Hampshire, CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins interrupts and attempts to fact check him when he asked why Biden can store 9 boxes in Chinatown while taking a lot of money from China.

 

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: The Ohrs played bigger roles in dossier than known

Bruce and Nellie Ohr (Credit: public domain)

While it’s bad enough the debunked dossier the FBI used to spy on the Trump campaign was paid for by the Clinton campaign and authored by a foreign FBI informant and his carousing researcher, the newly released report of Special Counsel John Durham strongly suggests a top Justice Department official and his wife had an early hand in shaping the political rumor sheet.

According to the 306-page report, former Justice

Sergei Millian (Credit: Twitter)

Department prosecutor Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr first plowed the ground for the dossier with a series of research reports she wrote for Fusion GPS, the D.C.-based opposition research firm the Clinton campaign commissioned to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia.

Obtained by Durham, her reports zeroed in on Sergei Millian and his connections to Russia and Trump, falsely portraying him as a key intermediary between the Kremlin and the Republican candidate. They would later provide the foundation for the dossier’s many fictions.

“Fusion GPS records demonstrate that Nellie Ohr first identified Millian,” Durham states in his report. “All told, Ohr prepared at least 12 reports that discussed Sergei Millian.”

(Glenn Simpson (l) and Christopher Steele (Credit: Neil King and public domain)

She wrote her first Millian report in April 2016, the month before Fusion GPS hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to put his imprimatur as a supposed former “spy” and “Russian insider” on the dossier.

“This report was prepared just ten days after Fusion GPS was retained by [Clinton campaign law firm] Perkins Coie to conduct opposition research on Trump,” the Durham Report states, “and prior to Steele being retained by Fusion GPS.”

Durham suggests Nellie Ohr planted the seeds of sourcing for the most explosive allegations leveled by the dossier against Trump, including the oft-cited notion that he and his campaign were engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin. The dossier attributed this, falsely, to Millian. Durham found that the Belarusian-American realtor was never a source for the dossier and was simply invented as one, along with the allegations attributed to him.

Igor Danchenko (Credit: public domain)

In fact, Durham says that Millian initially wasn’t even on the radar of Steele and his dossier “collector” Igor Danchenko, a former Brookings Institution analyst who’s admitted much of the information he provided Steele was alcohol-lubricated gossip. Millian was called to their attention by Nellie Ohr, who the prosecutor said “implicated” Millian through her own reports. Durham suggests Steele and Danchenko merely followed her leads. circular

Meanwhile, the prosecutor added, Bruce Ohr, an anti-Trump Democrat, pushed his wife’s reports that cited Millian — 12 in all — onto the Crossfire Hurricane team at FBI headquarters that was investigating Trump and his campaign for possible espionage. Agents used her reports as a source of corroboration for the Steele reports they received in the summer and fall of 2016, even though it was circular reporting.

“The reports prepared by Ohr and others at Fusion GPS were ultimately provided to Crossfire Hurricane investigators by Ohr’s husband, Bruce Ohr,” according to the Durham Report.

Durham notes that Danchenko was tracking leads on Millian from Nellie Ohr within “approximately one week” of Fusion GPS retaining Steele to compile the dossier. He concludes that this “strongly supports the inference that Fusion GPS directed Steele to pursue Millian.”

In other words, Steele was not the catalyst behind the dossier’s central claims. Rather, it was Clinton’s contractor Fusion GPS — but more specifically, the wife of a senior DOJ official who worked for Fusion. So the FBI wasn’t really investigating “Crown reporting,” as officials referred to Steele’s dossier, implying it was British intelligence. More accurately, it was investigating information from inside its own department that was laundered through Steele and his dossier.

Michael Gaeta in Rome. (Credit: public domain)

On page 97 of their book, “Crime in Progress,” Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch maintained that it was Steele who identified Millian as “one of the key intermediaries between Trump and the Russians.” Durham’s report shatters their claim.

The special counsel also found that Simpson worked with Bruce Ohr to pressure the FBI to investigate the dossier allegations.

On Aug. 22, 2016, Simpson asked Ohr to call him. About an hour later, Ohr emailed the FBI agent handling Steele as an informant to, as he said, “check in.” Ohr and the agent, Michael Gaeta, spoke over the phone on Aug. 24. During their call, Ohr inquired if the FBI was going to do anything with the dossier reports that Steele had passed along to Gaeta in July. In response, Gaeta “told Ohr that a group at FBI headquarters was working on them,” according to the Durham report. This undercuts the official FBI timeline of when HQ first received the dossier. For years, the bureau has insisted it did not receive the reports until a month later — Sept. 19, 2016.

(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)

The Ohrs also appear to have directly influenced the dossier and the FBI’s investigation. Both Bruce and Nellie Ohr, who previously worked for the CIA, met with Steele in Washington at a critical time. Emails reveal that on July 30, 2016 — the day before the FBI formally opened its overarching case against Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane” — the couple sat down with Steele and an unidentified “associate” of his at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C. to compare notes — Nellie and Steele literally passed pieces of papers back and forth — regarding their research into “suspicions that Russian government figures were supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump.” After their breakfast, Bruce Ohr reportedly contacted then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe to relay their concerns.

Fusion GPS also pitched the press the false narrative that Millian was a key intermediary between Trump and Russia. For example, on June 27, 2016, Fritsch sent an email to Franklin Foer, a reporter at Slate magazine, stating “this dude is key” and claiming “he is clearly kgb.”The next month, Simpson reached out to ABC News producer Matthew Mosk about Millian. Mosk emailed Simpson and reported back that he was “making arrangements to interview Millian on camera” and that he and Simpson “should chat.” On July 29, 2016, Millian ultimately was interviewed by Brian Ross, formerly of ABC News, who asked Millian whether he was a Russian spy.

On Sept. 13, 2016, Mosk emailed Simpson and asked, “What’s the most official thing we have showing Millian tied to Trump? That would make it hard for the Trump org to disavow Millian?”

Ross later left ABC after being suspended for erroneous reporting on Russiagate, while Mosk has moved to CBS News.

Rodney Joffe (Credit: New York Post)

Throughout the summer and fall of 2016, Fusion GPS also promoted to the Washington media the false allegation the Trump campaign maintained a secret hotline to Moscow through Russia-based Alfa Bank. In an attempt to tie Millian to the Alfa Bank allegations, Durham found that Fusion GPS sought the assistance of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who in turn contacted D.C. tech executive Rodney Joffe to determine if Millian had any ties to Alfa Bank.

On Aug. 20, 2016, Joffe emailed federal computer contractors at Georgia Tech a document titled “birdsnest-1.pdf’ that contained “known associates” of Trump. Included in the attached document was a description of Millian along with his past mailing addresses; various email addresses; websites; and IP addresses that were associated with him. Joffe, who was recently fired as an FBI informant, described Millian as “the most likely intermediary” between Trump and Russia.

On Sept. 27, 2016, Simpson and Fritsch emailed IP “look-up” information for one of Millian’s websites to then-New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau, whom Fusion was pressuring to write a story about the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations. In the email, Fritsch pointed out that “Alfa” was the website service provider for Millian’s website. However, Durham determined that the relevant IP information did not indicate that “Alfa Bank” was the service provider, but rather Alfa Telecom — a Lebanese-based telecom company, which appears to have no affiliation with Alfa Bank.

Fusion GPS and Steele also provided the substance of the Alfa Bank allegations to Bruce Ohr, the DOJ official, who passed the false tip on to the FBI. The Crossfire Hurricane team used Ohr as a conduit to continue to receive information from Steele about Trump throughout 2017, even after the FBI had to terminate Steele as an informant for leaking information about its investigation to the media. (RealClearInvestigations, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: Sunlight on detail never released by IG Michael Horowitz about FBI Targeting Trump

I’m going to go into the deep weeds on this story, because many people are missing a key facet.  The names behind the Trump targeting operation are included, along with citations for independent checks by House congressional investigators.

Inside the recently released report by John Durham [CITATION], the special counsel outlines how former FBI Director James Comey was intimately involved in the creation of the Carter Page FISA application.  Durham notes that Comey kept asking the DOJ National Security Division and FBI counterintelligence investigators, “Where’s the FISA, we need the FISA.”  However, John Durham never interviewed James Comey or Andrew McCabe.  The former FBI Director and Deputy refused to cooperate or give testimony to John Durham.  So, how did John Durham have details about the demands of Comey?

The answer is found in the footnotes.  Durham reviewed transcripts of interviews given by Andrew McCabe to the Office of the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, who previously investigated FBI conduct in the origin of the Carter Page FISA.  Durham pulled quotes from that transcript. [Footnote #1207, page 199 – Durham Report]

♦QUESTION: If Andrew McCabe gave testimony to the OIG about the motives and impetus of FBI Director James Comey in pushing for the Carter Page FISA application, why did the OIG report never outline those transcribed interviews?  Why was the interview transcript never included in the 2019 OIG report?

(NOTE to Congress.  Now that you know a transcribed interview of Andrew McCabe exists in the OIG office, request the transcription and release it to the public.)

Let me answer those questions without the customary pretending from the DC professional political class.  The short version is that OIG Michael Horowitz was trying to protect the DOJ and FBI. The longer version is a coverup that includes Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr and yes, John Durham.  I will share that story below.

“Where’s the FISA?  We need the FISA?” ~ James Comey

The DOJ-NSD and FBI CoIntel needed to find a safe and legal way to spy on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former FBI employee Carter Page became the fraudulent justification for that intent.

Because “FISA Title I” surveillance authority against a U.S. citizen is so serious (the U.S. government is essentially calling the target a spy), only a few people are authorized to even apply for such surveillance warrants.  One of the four people authorized to make such a Search Warrant request is the Asst. Attorney General as head of the National Security Division of the DOJ.

In September and October of 2016, at the same time the DOJ was putting the finishing touches on the FISA Court application to be used against Carter Page, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin resigned as head of the DOJ-NSD. [CITATION] Did Carlin resign in protest or fear?

Here’s context:

Carter Page was used as a UCE (FBI undercover employee), responsible for the bust of a high-level Russian agent in 2013 – and remained a UCE – throughout the court case of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian citizen who U.S. prosecutors say posed as a banker while participating in a Cold War-style spy ring. [CITATION]

Carter Page was an FBI undercover source for the FBI UP TO May of 2016.   How was it possible that on October 21st, 2016, Carter Page is put under a FISA Title 1 surveillance warrant as an alleged Russian agent?  Conclusion: Carter Page wasn’t a Russian agent. The DOJ National Security Division and the FBI Counterintelligence Division knew he wasn’t.

In order to manufacture the justification for the Carter Page FISA warrant, the DOJ-NSD and the FBI flat-out lied to the FISA Court.  Remember, IG Horowitz said there was no ‘Woods File’ in the Carter Page FISA application. Instead of the required section substantiating and citing all the claims in the application, the FBI used the Chris Steele Dossier.

However, as to the motive of John Carlin resigning before the application was completed and submitted, we look back to the March 2016 DOJ Press Release of the guilty pleading in the Evgeny Buryakov case as announced from the New York office:

…”Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and John P. Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced”…  (link)

DOJ-NSD head John Carlin obviously could not submit a FISA application against Carter Page, accusing him of being an “agent of a foreign government,” when just a few months earlier he used Carter Page as a witness and FBI UCE source in the case against Buryakov.

As James Comey is demanding that Andrew McCabe and his FBI counterintelligence agents get the FISA warrant, likely an ass covering necessity, the person responsible to get the warrant from the court, John Carlin, quits the DOJ.  Considering all the facets outlined above, this cannot be accidental.

Here’s where it gets SERIOUSLY sketchy.

The next in line person, who can fulfill the DOJ/FBI goal of getting the fraudulent application through the FISA court, is Mary McCord.  Put into the position as Acting Asst. Attorney General for the National Security Division, the job of submitting the FISA application now falls upon Mary McCord.

On October 21, 2016, When the FISA application was finally submitted, signed by DAG Sally Yates and FBI Director James Comey, it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

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.

Obviously, with the background and context of the entirely fraudulent Carter Page FISA application, a government surveillance warrant using a Clinton-funded political opposition research file known as the Steele Dossier to support the warrant, both Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson would know they were directly involved in an intentional effort to weaponize the mechanisms of the justice department against a political candidate.

While James Comey and Sally Yates’ signatures were on the FISA application falsely vouching for it, the attestations of legal compliance fall upon DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord and her top legal advisor Michael Atkinson.  McCord and Atkinson are doing, in October of 2016, what former DOJ-NSD head John Carlin refused to do.

WATCH WHAT COMES NEXT: Mary McCord then resigns from her position in the DOJ, and Michael Atkinson is left, as lawyer for the DOJ-NSD, to become Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

♦ The Impeachment Effort – Do you remember how the impeachment effort against President Donald Trump was created?  Do you remember Alexander Vindman, the claims about Ukraine; the statements of hearing from a CIA whistleblower about the content of a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky?

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

Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General?  Michael Atkinson.

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

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

Can you see how Atkinson and McCord are working together, both connected to the fraud behind the false FISA application used in the Trump-Russia narrative in 2016 and 2017, now both working together on a 2019 impeachment effort against President Trump holding an identical motive?  Can you see the stunning conflicts of interest and the coordination?

The weaponized FISA surveillance of the Trump administration doesn’t exist without Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson creating the surveillance mechanism.  The weaponized impeachment origin doesn’t exist without McCord – now in congress working for Nadler/Schiff – and Atkinson changing rules as CIA Inspector General, to create the baseline of a fraudulent whistleblower complaint.   Can you see it? 

But wait…. It gets worse.

♦ Chief Justice John Roberts – As if things could not possibly be more corrupt, now we have the construct of Atkinson and McCord forming the predicate for the impeachment effort.  To wit, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts now becomes the presiding judge over the impeachment trial of President Trump.

Mary McCord is married to a fellow traveler named Sheldon L. Snook.

From 2014 though 2020, not coincidentally the timeline of the Trump targeting and administration in office, Mary McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook, was the special assistant to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s counselor. [CITATION]

As noted by the Washington Post in discussing both McCord and Snook, “The counselor’s office advises the chief justice not only on the management and budget of the Supreme Court but also on his interactions with the executive and legislative branches, along with numerous other public roles in which Roberts serves.” [CITATION]

From 2014 through 2020, Sheldon Snook was responsible for running the office of the lawyer legally advising and counseling John Roberts.

Let me put this another way.  The most important guy in the judicial branch, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, has a lawyer to advise and construct the responsibilities of the SCOTUS chief judge, which includes the construct of the FISA court and appointment of judges therein.

As Chief Justice, John Roberts is in charge of everything to do with the FISA court.  The guy running the office of the lawyer doing the counseling of Roberts, is Mary McCord’s husband.

Mary McCord, knowingly and with specific intent, lied to the FISA court to support the FBI targeting of Trump.  Mary McCord’s husband runs the office which would intercept any communication from the FISA court to the Chief Justice if the FISC had any concerns about the false FBI application.  See the problem?

♦ SUMMARY – Now, we go back to where we came in.

Why did the Office of the Inspector General never publish the interview transcript about Andrew McCabe talking about how desperate FBI Director James Comey was to get a FISA warrant?

Why did John Durham never publish those same interview transcripts, but instead simply referenced the existence of the transcript in a footnote?

Follow these questions to their logical conclusion, and you will discover that all of the participants including Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr, James Baker, Dana Boente, Michael Horowitz and John Durham are trying to protect bureaucrats, who did criminal acts, and preserve institutions from collapse that sunlight would create.

Sunlight…

… The best disinfectant.

(Support CTH HERE)

(Conservative Treehouse, 6/04/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: FBI shut down four criminal investigations into the Clintons

(Credit: Win McNamee/AFP/Getty Images)

Special Counsel John Durham’s highly-anticipated report on the origins of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016 revealed that top leaders at the Bureau shut down four criminal investigations into Hillary and Bill Clinton.

In 2014, the FBI investigated a “well-placed” confidential source’s claims that an unnamed foreign government intended to “contribute to Hillary Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign, as a way to gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency,” the report said.

The field office investigating these claims “almost immediately” sought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant, but it remained “in limbo” for approximately four months, primarily due to Clinton’s then-expected presidential campaign.

 

As stated in Durham’s report:

According to another agent, the application lingered because “everyone was ‘super more careful’” and “scared with the big name [Clinton]” involved. 321 “[T]hey were pretty “tippy-toeing’ around HRC because there was a chance she would be the next President.”

Durham’s report also revealed that three separate FBI field offices in Washington, DC; Little Rock, Arkansas; and New York City, New York, opened investigations into “possibly criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation” less than one year before the November 2016 presidential election.

One of these investigations was spawned by Breitbart News contributor Peter Schweizer’s book, Clinton Cash, which exposed the Clinton Foundation’s global nexus of influence peddling.

As Durham’s report detailed:

Beginning in January 2016, three different FBI field offices, the New York Field Office (“NYFO*), the Washington Field Office (“WFO*), and the Little Rock Field Office (“LRFO**), opened investigations into possible criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation. The IRFO case opening communication referred to an intelligence product and corroborating financial reporting that a particular commercial “industry likely engaged a federal public official in a flow of benefits scheme, namely, large monetary contributions were made to a non-profit, under both direct and indirect control of the federal public official, in exchange for favorable government action and/or influence.” The WFO investigation was opened as a preliminary investigation, because the Case Agent wanted to determine if he could develop additional information to corroborate the allegations in a recently-published book, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer, before seeking to convert the matter to a full investigation. Additionally, the LRFO and NYFO investigations included predication based on source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton.

Speaking with the DailyMail, Schweizer said he received “a call from somebody from the New York FBI office after the book came out.”

“There was a New York Times piece on Uranium One. It was kind of confirming what we had in the book. That’s what I think triggered the interest,” Schweizer said. “With the Clinton Foundation, you have the transfer of large sums of money, you had policy positions that were affected, and you had certifiable evidence.”

“I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t say what was illegal. But there was definitely a there there, with all the speeches, donations, and policy effects, and nobody’s ever really disputed that,” he added.

Ultimately, FBI leadership held a joint meeting with the three field offices, FBI Headquarters, and appropriate United States Attorney’s offices. The first joint meeting occurred on February 1, 2016. However, the Department of Justice Public Integrity Section Chief, Ray Hulser, said the FBI briefing at that meeting was “poorly presented,” and saw “insufficient predication for at least one of the investigations.”

A second joint meeting occurred on February 22, 2016, which former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe chaired.

McCabe “initially directed the field offices to close their cases,” but later agreed to “reconsider the final disposition of the cases,” Durham’s report noted.

Paul Abbate, who was the FBI Washington Field Office’s Assistant Director-in-Charge at the time, described McCabe’s demeanor during the joint meeting as “negative,” “annoyed,” and “angry.”

As the report detailed:

According to Abbate, McCabe stated “they [the Department] say there’s nothing here” and “why are we even doing this?” At the close of the meeting, Campbell directed that for any overt investigative steps to be taken, the Deputy Director’s approval would be required.

Durham’s report also revealed that former FBI Director James Comey demanded, through an intermediary, the New York Field Office “cease and desist” their Clinton Foundation investigation.

Earlier in the week, McCabe claimed the Durham report was “never a legitimate investigation.”

Andrew McCabe — a former FBI official who was fired by Donald Trump in 2018 — said that he stood by the original Russia investigation into Trump even after the Durham report revealed evidence that the probe had no serious basis. ((Credit: Screenshot / CNN)

“We knew from the very beginning exactly what John Durham was going to conclude, and that’s what we saw today. We knew from the very beginning this was never a legitimate investigation,” McCabe said. “This was a political errand to exact some sort of retribution on Donald Trump’s perceived enemies and the FBI.”

Durham’s report highlighted the FBI’s different approaches regarding their investigations into Clinton and former President Donald Trump.

“The use of defensive briefings in 2015 contrasts with the FBI’s failure to provide a defensive briefing to the Trump campaign approximately one year later when Australia shared the information from Papadopoulos,” the report stated. (Read more: Breitbart, 5/18/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – IRS removes investigative team from Hunter Biden probe in move whistleblower calls ‘clearly retaliatory’

Hunter Biden gives journalists a thumbs-up on May 15, 2023, during the college graduation of his daughter Maisy. (Credit: AFP via Getty Images)

The IRS on Monday removed the “entire investigative team” from its long-running tax fraud probe of first son Hunter Biden in alleged retaliation against the whistleblower who recently contacted Congress to allege a cover-up in the case, The Post has learned.

The purge allegedly was done on the orders of the Justice Department, the whistleblower’s attorneys informed congressional leaders in a letter.

“Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice,” Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote.

The whistleblower, who supervised the Hunter Biden probe since early 2020, hasn’t publicly identified the first son as the subject of the case that he says is being brushed under the rug, but congressional sources confirmed it.

“On April 27, 2023, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel appeared before the House Committee on Ways and Means. He testified: ‘I can say without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.’ However, this move is clearly retaliatory and may also constitute obstruction of a congressional inquiry,” the lawyers went on.

“Our client has a right to make disclosures to Congress … He is protected by 5 U.S.C. § 2302 from retaliatory personnel actions — including receiving a ‘significant change in duties, responsibilities, or working conditions’ (which this clearly is) because of his disclosures to Congress.

“Any attempt by any government official to prevent a federal employee from furnishing information to Congress is also a direct violation of longstanding appropriations restriction. Furthermore, 18 U.S.C. § 1505 makes it a crime to obstruct an investigation of Congress,” Lytle and Leavitt wrote.

The whistleblower’s team added: “We respectfully request that you give this matter your prompt attention. Removing the experienced investigators who have worked this case for years and are now the subject-matter experts is exactly the sort of issue our client intended to blow the whistle on to begin with.” (Read more: New York Post, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: Why there was no review of the DNC hack attribution

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: FBI didn’t investigate Clinton Plan to frame Trump, even after CIA briefed Obama and Biden

Hillary Clinton reacts to FBI finding no criminality re her emails, before boarding her campaign plane at Miami airport October 26, 2016. (Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The FBI didn’t open any inquiry into an alleged Hillary Clinton campaign election interference plan even after the CIA director briefed then-president Barack Obama and other senior administration officials, Special Counsel John Durham’s report noted.

The FBI received Russian intelligence analysis in July 2016 alleging that Clinton’s campaign cooked up a scheme to divert attention away from “her use of a private email server,” the Durham report stated.

The alleged scheme, dubbed the “Clinton Plan,” showed that the Clinton campaign “had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump “by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee,” the Durham report reads.

The intelligence community didn’t know the accuracy of the Russian intelligence, but the findings were notable enough for then-CIA Director John Brennan to inform the Obama administration “within days” of learning about it.

Brennan briefed President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey about the Clinton campaign’s plan, the Durham report says.

The findings also prompted the CIA to send “a formal written referral memorandum” to Comey and “the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, Peter Strzok, for their consideration and action.”

In contrast to the speed at which the FBI opened a full investigation into Trump “on raw, uncorroborated information,” the FBI “never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information,” Durham wrote. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report – During infamous August 2016 WH briefing, Obama and Biden allow highest officials to use fabricated evidence to frame Trump as traitor

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report PDF

Durham Report/Justice Department PDF

Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: Durham ignores role of U.S., U.K., and Australian intelligence operatives in setting the stage for Crossfire Hurricane

Failed Prosecutor John Durham’s report on the Hillary Clinton campaign plot to convince the American electorate and U.S. allies that Donald Trump was a stooge of Russia totally ignores the role that intelligence operatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel played in helping set the stage to provide the FBI with the pretext of predication for launching its now discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump Campaign.

Let me take you back to an article I wrote in May 2019. John Durham and his team failed to address any of the issues and leads I raised:

Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS) by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele’s FBI handler (those reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.

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 him 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.

One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit’s Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.

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. For example, you simply have to ask the question, “how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar.” I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will 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.

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.”

The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway.

This was more the opposition research. This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets–Hakluyt:

there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co., founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Henry Williams as “one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world” and as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking … ”

I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopoulos:

It was Downer who told the FBI of Papadopoulos’ comments, which became one of the “driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired,” The Times reported.

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Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt’s advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain–there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway.

This was more than opposition research. This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets–Hakluyt:

there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co., founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Henry Williams as “one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world” and as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking … ”

I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopoulos:

It was Downer who told the FBI of Papadopoulos’ comments, which became one of the “driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired,” The Times reported.

Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt’s advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain–there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

But no steps are being taken to hold the intelligence operatives accountable for their role in helping portray George Papadopoulos, a Trump foreign policy advisor, as someone compromised by the Russians.

Let me give you the timeline for Papadopoulos:

  1. Starting in August of 2015, George Papadopoulos, who lived in London at the time, sent emails to Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s Campaign Manger at the time. Those emails were intercepted by the United Kingdom’s GCHQ, which is the British version of the National Security Agency.
  2. Papadopoulos is working for Energy Stream in October 2015 and helps put on the “London Oil and Gas Forum, a two-day conference at the Rag Army & Navy Club.”
  3. Within a month of that Conference, Papadopoulos is approached by Nagi Khalid Idris who offers George a position at the London Centre of International Law Practice. George defers the offer and starts working for the Ben Carson for President Campaign.
  4. November 2015, alleged diplomat Joseph Mifsud joins the Board of the London Centre of International Law Practice aka LCILP. In my opinion, the LCILP is the kind of organization used by British Intelligence to identify potential assets and to plant stories in the public domain.
  5. January 2016, George Papadopoulos joins the LCILP as Director of the Centre’s International Energy and Natural Resources Division.
  6. Early March 2016 Papadopoulos’s offer to join the Trump Campaign is accepted via email and phone conversations with Michael Glassner, executive director of the Trump Campaign, and Sam Clovis. Remember, Papadopoulos is living in London and all of these communications are intercepted by British Intelligence.
  7. Papadopoulos notifies Nagi that he will be joining the Trump Campaign and Nagi reacts with anger.
  8. The next day Papadopoulos has a productive phone call with Sam Clovis. Calls like these are routinely collected by GCHQ, according to information revealed by Edward Snowden.
  9. The next day Nagi does an about face. Papadopoulos writes, ““Then Nagi comes by my office again. His attitude has suddenly changed. It’s a night-and-day difference. He starts telling me that there is someone I have to meet, a very important person who will be very useful to me during my time with Trump. I remember Nagi telling me, “He’s a man who knows many people.” Then he insists I join him at a conference at Link Campus University in Rome.”
  10. March 12, 2016 — George is introduced to Joseph Mifsud by Nagi at the Link Campus. Papadopoulos and Mifsud meet for dinner that night. During the dinner Mifsud says, “I’m going introduce you to everyone and set up a meeting between Trump and Putin.”
  11. March 14, 2016 — Nagi Idris informs George that Mifsud will introduce him to “Putins niece”. (NOTE — Putin does not have a niece).
  12. March 22, 2016 — Washington Post names Papadopoulos as one of Trump’s foreign policy advisors. He is now on the public radar.
  13. March 24, 2016 — Papadopoulos meets Mifsud and Olga Vinogradova (allegedly Putin’s niece) at the Grange Holborn Hotel. George writes in his book that Mifsud talked up a variety of potential deals and interactions with Russia. When lunch is over, Papadopoulos sends an email to Clovis at the Trump Campaign describing the meeting and mentioning “Putin’s niece.” That conversation as well was captured by GCHQ. The phrase, “Putin’s niece” is a red flag.
  14. March 31, 2016 — Papadopoulos attends the meeting of Trump’s “foreign policy” advisors at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
  15. April 1, 2016 — Papadopoulos flies to Israel where he is slated to speak at an energy conference and meets his “old friend” Eli Groner, the director general for the Office of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
  16. Early April 2016 — Papadopoulos cuts ties with LCILP and contacts Olga Vinogradova and Joseph Mifsud to discuss arranging a possible foreign policy trip to Russia for Trump.
  17. April 18, 2016 — Mifsud introduce Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, who is the program director at the Russian International Affairs Council and claims to have high level contacts at the Russian Foreign Ministry.
  18. April 26, 2016 — Mifsud returns from Valdai Conference, meets with Papadopoulos and tells him, “The Russians have “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, he tells me. “Emails of Clinton,” he says. “They have thousands of emails.”
  19. May 3, 2016 — This is two days after Trump’s controversial foreign policy speech, which Papadopoulos claims he helped draft. Papadopoulos is contacted by Christian Cantor, an Israeli Embassy official in London, because he wants to introduce George to his girlfriend, Erika Thompson. Erika is an Australian “diplomat” and berates Papadopoulos throughout the meeting at a pub for working for the menace, Donald Trump.
  20. May 5, 2016 — Papadopoulos writes, “two military attachés at the US embassy in London, Terrence Dudley and Gregory Baker, reach out to me to set up a meeting.”
  21. May 6, 2016 — Erika Thompson, Australian “diplomat” and “girlfriend” of an Israeli Embassy in London officer, contacts Papadopoulos to arrange a lunch with her boss, Alexander Downer, Australia’s former top diplomat in London.
  22. May 10, 2016 — Papadopoulos and Downer meet for lunch and Downer gives George a verbal beat down. Here is Papadopoulos account of that exchange:

“Downer starts talking: He tells me he’s connected to a British security firm called Hakluyt. He boasts about being a board member and that the firm has a great presence in London and close ties to the Obama administration. “We advise many governments,” he says.
I nod. I’m not sure what to say about this. He shifts gears:
“George, I used to be the UN envoy to Cyprus, and what you are talking about in Cyprus is wrong, and it’s a threat to British interests.”

And the rest is history. Downer used that meeting to claim in a subsequent report made to the FBI two months later that Papadopoulos said, “the Russians have a surprise or some damaging material related to Hillary Clinton.” Papadopoulos denies ever saying this, so it is his word against that of the esteemed, well-connected Australian diplomat. It is important to note that Downer’s claim mirrors what Mifsud told Papadopoulos a month earlier.

If you take time to read the Durham report regarding the Downer information you will see that Durham correctly notes that it lacked the substance to be used as a predicate to open Operation Crossfire Hurricane. That is the positive. The negative is that Durham did not devote any of the report to the circumstantial evidence that Papadopoulos was targeted by British, U.S., Australian and Israeli intelligence operatives and “diplomats” in creating evidence that could be used to suggest that there were some Russian shenanigans underway in the Trump campaign.

Why would the Brits, the Aussies and the Israelis agree to participate in such a scheme? They all feared that Trump would damage their national security interests, particularly in the Middle East. The Wikileaks publication of the purloined DNC emails was an unexpected curveball that was used to produce another “anti-Russian” narrative pinning the blame on Putin for exposing Hillary Clinton’s perfidy rather than holding her accountable for her misuse of classified material. I believe that Georg Papadopoulos was an unwitting pawn in a massive information operation designed to handcuff Donald Trump (figuratively and, if possible, literally) and prevent him from becoming President.

That operation failed, spectacularly so, but it provided a narrative that is still being used effectively to attack Donald Trump and eliminate any possibility of having normal, peaceful relations with Russia. (Gateway Pundit/Larry Johnson, 5/22/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: Techno Fog/Media lies and political bias

They lied.

They deceived the public for years, alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. President Trump and his advisors, the agents of Russia, were guilty of treason. The FBI investigation was above reproach, led by career agents and civil servants, and insulated from politics or influence from FBI leadership.

Their sources, anonymous to the public and known to only them, were from within the US intelligence and law enforcement communities. These were the originators of the falsehoods; the journalists were merely vessels. In return for this cynical tradecraft, the media protected – and continues to protect – high ranking current and former US government officials. Anything to keep the information flowing.

The list of publications and “journalists” (for purposes of this exercise, any of these other terms might apply: stenographers or adulators or parasitic hosts) who put out the now-discredit claims of the Trump-Russia hoax is long and distinguished. They were nearly all guilty; the skeptics were few. The volume of lies, spread in print and on TV and on social media, would take months, if not years, to compile. The Columbia Journalism Review’s “The press versus the president”, a thorough analysis of some of the worst Trump-Russia era reporting (including stories from The New York Times and The Washington Post), was a four-part series that only touched the surface.

Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez of CNN, citing “multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials,” said US investigators “corroborated some of the communications.” Jake Tapper, the face of CNN, was more than happy to use his primetime slot to spread these lies and others involving allegations of “collusion”. Marshall Cohen and Jeremy Herb of CNN made similar claims: “many of the allegations that form the bulk of the [Steele] intelligence memos have held up over time, or have proven to be at least partially true.” Durham would disagree: “not a single substantive allegation pulled from the Steele Reports and used in the initial Page FISA application had been corroborated at the time of the FISA submission -or indeed, to our knowledge, has ever been corroborated by the FBI.”1

CNN’s Jake Tapper, Evan Perez, and Jim Sciutto accept the Merriman Smith Award from ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., April 28, 2018. (Credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Natasha Bertrand was perhaps the most notoriously wrong reporter during the Trump-Russia hysteria. She spread the lies of the US intelligence community through various national platforms (Business Insider, The Atlantic, Politico, etc.): that the Steele Dossier had been corroborated, that the Horowitz probe would be of questionable quality, that it was “much more plausible that Trump did go to Russia and he did have these kinds of sexual escapades with prostitutes.”

By reporting these falsehoods as truth, Bertrand gave legitimacy to an improper and unlawful investigation. She also served the purposes of her sources – to slice through the hamstring of the Trump Administration, to put it on the defensive, to help influence elections. Her reward was professional advancement from near obscurity to her current position as National Security Reporter for CNN. No doubt her anonymous sources, which probably continue to enjoy their quid pro quo with Bertrand, are pleased with their investment.

Numerous reporters from The New York Times were guilty of similar offenses. The day before Trump’s 2017 inauguration, for example, The Times reported this bombshell from current and former senior American officials: “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump.” This was followed by The New York Times’ articles in February and March of 2017 pushing allegations of Trump-Russian Intelligence connections.

Peter Strzok (Credit: public domain)

What we didn’t know at the time was that high ranking FBI officials disagreed with The Times’ reporting. Internal FBI communications from Trump Russia collusion Peter Strzok himself said of The Times’ articles: “no substance and largely wrong.” Durham puts the FBI’s discussions of The Times reporting into context:

based on declassified documents from early 2017, the quid pro quo own records show that reports published by The New York Times in February and March 2017 concerning what four unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials claimed about Trump campaign personnel being in touch with any Russian intelligence officers was untrue. 2

While the reporting itself is part of the story, there’s something else here: the identity of the sources.

(Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary/Substack, 5/21/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Why the Durham Report Matters – Part Two: The FISA Court Silo and SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner

(Part One, understanding how the silos are used to deflect accountability.)  In this Part 2 outline we give specific background examples of how weaponized Trump-Russia fraud worked and calling out names with examples of what they did.

On March 15, 2017, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes held a press conference announcing there was no specific evidence of “wiretaps” at Trump Tower {HERE}.  However, on March 22, 2017, Nunes held another press conference saying information was brought forth to the HPSCI showing the Trump campaign was under Title-1 surveillance by the FBI and former Obama administration {SEE HERE}.  In between those critical six days, something happened that was important.

(Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

With the full backdrop of the Durham report as the baseline, we now know there was zero evidence of any Russian interference effort in the 2016 election.

The Trump-Russia narrative was created by the Clinton campaign, promoted by the FBI and Main justice and advanced in narrative construction by the Obama administration.

On March 17, 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner asked the FISA court for a copy of the FISA application used against Trump campaign official Carter Page.

This is not in doubt and was evidenced in DC USAO court records related to SSCI security director James Wolfe who was initially indicted for leaking that specific copy of the FISA application.  The FISC stamp is also visible on the copy of the FISA that was eventually released.

QUESTION:  Why did Mark Warner request a copy of the FISA application from the FISA COURT and not from DOJ Main Justice?  The answer to that question falls into how insiders played the silo game against the Trump administration.

Warner didn’t request the FISA application from Main Justice because (1) the DOJ insiders were going to fight the release of any toxic information that proved the Trump campaign was under active Title-1 surveillance; they were going to fight release to Devin Nunes. And (2) the legislative branch was part of the Trump-Russia attack construct and the SSCI membership were active participants with the DOJ and FBI (executive branch).

To weaponize the FISA in the effort to get a special counsel appointed, Mark Warner needed to work around the system that was being discussed in the media.  Warner asked the FISA Court for their copy of the application.  On March 17, 2017, a copy of that application was delivered by FBI agent Brian Dugan from the FISC to the SSCI.  It was classified a ‘read and return’ Top Secret product with NO FOReign National access allowed.

Most people are unaware the declassified public version of the FISA application released by the DOJ was this Mark Warner copy.   We know it was this copy again due to the FISC stamp on the document that eventually became declassified and public.

QUESTION:  If the original FISA copy originated from the FISA Court, read and return, how did it end up in Main Justice as part of the eventual July 21, 2018, public release of the Carter Page FISA application?

Put another way, how did the 2017 physical copy go from the FISC to the SSCI and then end up at Main Justice for a 2018 release?

These are the awkward questions that cut through the use of the silo defense mechanisms.

The March 17, FISC copy ended up at Main Justice because the Washington Field Office case file against the leaker, SSCI Security Director James Wolfe, along with all the other evidence therein (which included text messages from Mark Warner), went back through the Mueller special counsel before Wolfe’s eventual indictment.  This is when the Mueller team had to make a decision about releasing it to the public.

Weissmann freaked out when he saw the Dugan file against James Wolfe, and the looming probability that Senator Mark Warner would be caught as the person who told Wolfe to leak the FISA.

The FISA application was leaked. Mueller, Weissmann and Mark Warner knew that back in 2017, but what they didn’t know until the evidence file came in 2018 was that the FBI had proof the FISA was leaked.

Oh snap!

How to dilute that catastrophic issue?

The Weissmann team released the FISA application to the public on July 21, 2018.

Now…. Remember, both Michael Horowitz and John Durham destroyed the DOJ position on the predicate for the FISA application.  In December 2019, IG Horowitz pointed out the missing ‘Woods File’ and 33 material issues with the application (one of which led to the criminal conviction of Kevin Clinesmith).   Three years later, John Durham completely destroys the justification for the Trump-Russia premise behind it.

Notice how no one in the executive branch DOJ, FBI, ODNI, ever criticized Robert Mueller, yet we know to a demonstrable certainty the Mueller special counsel was likely more corrupt than the originating DOJ/FBI corruption the special counsel was protecting.

The origin of ‘Spygate’ was bad, but the totality of the cover-up effort in the Mueller-Weissmann special counsel was exponentially worse.  More actual laws and policies within the justice department were broken by Robert Mueller than any preceding corrupt official.

♦ Amid a series of documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 [SEE HERE] there was a rather alarming letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court in July 2018 that pointed out the DC agenda, the “institutional cover-up.” [Link to Letter]

Before getting to the substance of the letter, it’s important to put the release in context. After the FISA Court reviewed the DOJ inspector general report (Dec 2019), the FISC ordered the DOJ-NSD to declassify and release documents related to the Carter Page FISA application.

In the cover letter for this specific release to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees, the DOJ cited the January 7, 2020, FISA court order:

Keep in mind that prior to this release only the FISA court had seen this letter from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).

As we walk through the alarming content of this letter, I think you’ll identify the motive behind the FISC order to release it.

First, the letter in question was sent by the DOJ-NSD to the FISA Court on July 12, 2018. It is critical to keep the date of the letter in mind as we review the content. This letter to the FISA Court was sent nine days before the DOJ released the FISA application to the public.

Aside from the date, the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it.

The DOJ is telling the FISA court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application.

In essence, in July 2018 the DOJ (now with Mueller in place) is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:

As you can see: Christopher Steele is noted as “Source #1”. Glenn Simpson of Fusion-GPS is noted as “identified U.S. person” or “business associate”, and Perkins Coie is the “U.S-based law firm.”

Now things get very interesting.

On page #8 when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the DOJ notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.

This is an incredibly misleading statement from Main Justice to the FISA court, because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.

Let’s look at how IG Michael Horowitz framed the primary sub-source Igor Danchenko, and specifically notice the FBI contact and questioning took place in January 2017 (we now know that date to be January 12, 2017):

Those interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko, took place in January, March and May of 2017, and clearly the sub-source debunked the content of the dossier itself.  In May of 2017, Weissmann and Mueller were in charge.   This is when the special counsel attempted to pay Danchenko $300k to throw a bag over him.

Those Danchenko interviews were 18-months, 16-months and 14-months ahead of the July 2018 DOJ letter to the FISC. The DOJ-NSD, with the instructions from the Mueller Special Counsel, says the sub-source was “truthful and cooperative” but the DOJ doesn’t tell the court the content of the truthfulness and cooperation. Why?

Keep in mind, this letter to the court was written by AAG John Demers in July 2018. Jeff Sessions was Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein was Deputy AG, Christopher Wray was FBI Director, David Bowditch is Deputy, and Dana Boente is FBI chief-legal-counsel.  Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann were at their apex.

Why would the DOJ-NSD not be forthcoming with the FISA court about the primary sub-source? This level of disingenuous withholding of information speaks to an institutional motive.

As noted by Durham, from the outset the FBI and DOJ knew the Trump-Russia stuff was nonsense.  By July 2018, the DOJ clearly knew the Steele dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the FISA Court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?

It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.

In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.

This letter, justifying the application and claiming the current information, would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 DOJ needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant.  The DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller & Weissmann had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority. That’s the silo motive.

In July 2018, if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed, Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation.  In essence, Main Justice in 2018 was protecting Mueller’s poisoned fruit.

If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there’s a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated… and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.

That motive clarifies why the FISC would order the 2020 DOJ, now headed by Bill Barr, to release the letter they received from Main Justice.

Remember, in December 2019 the FISC received the IG Horowitz report, and they would have immediately noted the disparity between what IG Horowitz outlined about the FBI investigating Steele’s sub-source, as contrast against what the DOJ told them in July 2018.

The DOJ letter is a transparent misrepresentation when compared to the information in the Horowitz report. Hence, the FISC orders the DOJ to release the July ’18 letter so that everyone, including congressional oversight and the public can see the misrepresentation.

The NSD silo inside Main Justice wrote this letter to the FISC silo – never intending for it to become public.

The court was misled.  Everyone can clearly see it. However, no one in the legislative or executive branch touched it because the court was misled by Robert Mueller.

The court was misled by the special counsel.  Reflect on this for a moment.

The content of that DOJ-NSD letter, and the subsequent disparity, points to an institutional cover-up; and as a consequence the FISC also ordered the DOJ to begin an immediate sequestration effort to find all the evidence from the fraudulent FISA application – the proverbial fruit from the poisonous tree.  In hindsight, the FISC was covering their own ass.

Two more big misstatements within the July 2018 letter appear on page #9. The first is the DOJ claiming that only after the application was filed did they become aware of Christopher Steele working for Fusion-GPS and knowing his intent was to create opposition research for the Hillary Clinton campaign. See the top of the page.

According to the DOJ-NSD claim, the number four ranking official in the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, never told them he was acting as a conduit for Christopher Steele to the FBI. While that claim is hard to believe, in essence what the DOJ-NSD is saying in that paragraph is that the FBI hoodwinked the DOJ-NSD by not telling them where the information for the FISA application was coming from. The DOJ, via John Demers, is blaming the FBI.

 

The second statement, equally as incredulous, is at the bottom of page nine where the DOJ claims they had no idea Bruce Ohr was talking to the FBI throughout the entire time any of the FISA applications were being submitted – October 2016 through June 2017.

In essence, the claim there is that Bruce Ohr was working with the FBI and never told anyone in the DOJ throughout 2016 and all the way past June 29th of 2017. That denial seems rather unlikely; however, once again the DOJ-NSD (Weissmann) is putting the FBI in the crosshairs and claiming they, the special counsel, knew nothing about the information pipeline.

Bruce Ohr, whose wife was working for Fusion-GPS and assisting Christopher Steele with information, was interviewed by the FBI over a dozen times as he communicated with Steele and fed his information to the FBI. Yet the DOJ claims they knew nothing about it.

Again, just keep in mind this claim by the DOJ-NSD is being made in July 2018, six months after Bruce Ohr was demoted twice (December 2017 and January 2018). If what the DOJ is saying was true (it wasn’t), well, the FBI was completely off-the-rails and rogue.

The DOJ was claiming in the July 2018 letter the FISA application predication was still valid.  However, if the DOJ-NSD (Mueller team) genuinely didn’t know about the FBI manipulation, they would be informing the court in 2018 the DOJ no longer supported the FISA application due to new information. They did not do that. Instead, in July 2018, they specifically told the court the predicate was valid, yet the DOJ-NSD knew it was not.

The last point about the July 2018 letter is perhaps the most jarring. Again, keep in mind when it was written; Chris Wray is FBI Director, David Bowditch is Deputy and Dana Boente is FBI chief legal counsel.

Their own FBI reports, by three different INSD and IG investigations, had turned up seriously alarming evidence going back to the early 2017 time-frame; the results of which ultimately led to the DC FBI office losing all of their top officials; and knowing the letter itself was full of misleading and false information about FBI knowledge in/around Christopher Steele – this particular sentence is alarming:

“The FBI has reviewed this letter and confirmed its factual accuracy?”

Really?

As we have just shared, the July 2018 letter itself is filled with factual inaccuracies, misstatements and intentional omissions. So who exactly did the “reviewing”?

This declassification release raised more questions than any other; and yet no one, not a single investigative body, asked questions about it.

Why?…

Because the letter itself was prima-facie evidence of lies directly from the special counsel of Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann.

No one in the executive branch, legislative branch or even judicial branch wanted to highlight the corruption of the special counsel.

Here’s the Full Letter. I strongly suggest everyone read the 14-pages slowly. If you know the background, this letter is infuriating…  AND keep in mind, every single staff member in the House and Senate (those investigating the issue) said they never saw it.  Why, because the DOJ was using silos to hide information.

That’s how badly broken the system of justice, and the system of checks-and-balances in Washington DC, really is.  What we are seeing in the blatant targeting, silencing, and outright in-your-face behavior is a downstream result of the system knowing everyone involved is part of the corrupt operation.

We need to break through these created silo walls by questioning the participants together.

(Conservative Treehouse, 5/22/2023)  (Archive) [Support Conservative Treehouse HERE]

May 15, 2023 – Durham Report: Key revelations on former CIA director that implicate Obama

Few other officials in government had such a large hand in establishing and promoting the Russia-Collusion Hoax as did former CIA Director John Brennan.

Brennan admitted during congressional testimony that he “made sure that anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign was shared with the FBI.” And by his own admission, Brennan even used likely illegal incidental collection of U.S. citizens in the process, telling Rachel Maddow, “Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI.”

Now, we know beyond any doubt that Brennan knew the entire Russia-Collusion narrative was a hoax. And, as we shall see, Brennan knew this in July 2016—before the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation was even opened.

But, of course, it never was an investigation. It was a political operation.

May 15, 2023 – Why the Durham Report Matters – Part Three: Durham Did Not Touch the Julian Assange and DNC Hack Claim, More Silos

The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election.  This DNC hack claim is the fulcrum issue structurally underpinning the Russian election interference narrative pushed by the Weissmann and Muller Special Counsel.  However, this essential claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as outlined during a Dana Rohrabacher interview and by Julian Assange’s own on-the-record statements.

Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London immediately after the Weissmann/Muller report was released to Bill Barr.  Despite investigating the background of the Trump-Russia nonsense, John Durham never touched the DNC hacking claim – the core of the Mueller report.  Why? Because Durham knew the U.S. Government threw a bag over Assange to protect the fraudulent Trump-Russia and Russian interference claims.

Again, this reality speaks to the corruption within the John Durham investigation.  Durham was protecting Weissmann, Mueller and the core of their justification for a 2-year investigation.   Durham knows why Assange was arrested.  Durham stayed away from it, intentionally.

The Russians HAD TO have made efforts to interfere in the election, or else the factual basis for the surveillance operation against candidate Donald Trump is naked to the world.

That’s why so much DOJ, FBI and Mueller special counsel energy was exhausted framing the predicate.

“Seventeen intelligence agencies,” the December 29th Joint Analysis Report, the expulsion of the Russian diplomats which was an outcropping of the JAR, the rushed January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, shoving microphones in everyone’s faces and demanding they answer if they believed Russia interfered – all of it, and I do mean every bit of it, is predicated on an absolute DC need to establish that Russia Attempted to Interfere in the 2016 election.

The “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” (full pdf) is pure nonsense.  It outlines nothing more than vague and disingenuous typical hacking activity that is no more substantive than any other hacking report on any other foreign actor. However, it was needed to help frame the Russian interference narrative.

There were no Russian diplomats involved; there was no Russian election interference; there was no Russian hacking of the DNC; it was all a fraud created by the intelligence community (IC), FBI and Main Justice to support Hillary Clinton’s lies and then cover their own targeting tracks.

On September 26, 2021, Yahoo News published an extensive article about the CIA targeting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017 and the extreme conversations that were taking place at the highest levels of the U.S. government about how to control him.

There is a much bigger story transparently obvious when overlapped with CTH research files on the Mueller investigation and the U.S. intelligence community.  Specifically, the motive intentionally not outlined by Yahoo News.

What I am going to share is a deep dive using the resources and timeline from within that Yahoo article and the specific details we have assembled that paints a clear picture about what interests existed for the Deep State, the Intelligence apparatus and the Mueller-Weissmann special counsel.

This fully cited review is not for the faint of heart. This is a journey that could shock many; it could alarm more and will likely force more than a few to reevaluate just what the purpose was for Mike Pompeo within the Donald Trump administration.

As the Yahoo News article begins, they outline how those within the Trump administration viewed Assange as a risk in 2017.

Here it is critical to accept that many people inside the Trump administration were there to control events, not to facilitate a policy agenda from a political outsider.   In the example of Assange, the information he carried was a risk to those who attempted and failed to stop Trump from winning the 2016 election.

Julian Assange was not a threat to Donald Trump, but he was a threat to those who attempted to stop Donald Trump.  In 2017, the DC system was reacting to a presidency they did not control.  As an outcome, the Office of the President was being managed and influenced by some with ulterior motives.

Yahoo, via Michael Isikoff, puts it this way: “Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”

As we overlay the timeline, it is prudent to pause and remember some hindsight details.  According to reports in November of 2019, U.S. Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. One quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state noted:

“One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that, “It is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”“. (Link)

It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there was extensive pre-2016 election evidence of an FBI/CIA counterintelligence operation that also involved U.K. intelligence services. There was an aspect to the FBI/CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to FBI/CIA interests, and effectively the Mueller special counsel, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the FBI/CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok was clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.

By now, people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor generally identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the FBI/CIA to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}  John Durham ignored him.

Criminal cartel. Center: HILLARY CLINTON and BARACK OBAMA, ringleaders. Counterclockwise from top left: JOSEPH MIFSUD, Maltese professor linked to Russian intelligence and UK intelligence; STEFAN HALPER, academic and CIA operative since 1970s; GLENN SIMPSON, founder of Fusion GPS; CHRISTOPHER STEELE, MI6 agent working undercover as private contractor; BRUCE OHR, then-top-level DOJ executive who conspired with Brennan, Simpson, Steele, and his wife Nellie; NELLIE OHR, CIA asset who covertly passed along fictional dirt on Trump from Simpson, Steele, and her husband Bruce to Brennan; MARC ELIAS, Deep-State lawyer for Obama, Clinton, and the DNC, laundering money from them to Simpson; JAMES COMEY, then-Director of FBI; JOHN BRENNAN, then-Director of CIA; LISA PAGE, FBI counsel and secret lover of Peter Strzok; SENATOR HARRY REID, then-Democratic Leader; PETER STRZOK, CIA/FBI liaison, who secretly worked with Carter Page since at least 2013; GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, Brennan tool planted inside the Trump campaign; CARTER PAGE, admitted operative for the FBI and CIA, and a Brennan plant inside the Trump presidential campaign to manufacture phony “connections” to Russia; BILL PRIESTAP, head of FBI Counterintelligence, also with long-time ties to Carter Page (Credit: Chalet Reports)

In a similar fashion, the FBI tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent, under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.  Again, John Durham ignored it.

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets legal and much easier.  If Durham went into this intelligence rabbit hole, there would be a paper trail that leads back to Robert Mueller.  Durham didn’t go there.

John Durham and IG Michael Horowitz both outlined how very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and Main Justice, yet that evidence was withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page and/or it was ignored.  The FBI fabricated information in the FISA and removed evidence that Carter Page was previously working for the CIA.  This is what FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was indicted and convicted for doing.

One week after the FBI and DOJ filed the second renewal for the Carter Page FISA [April 7, 2017], Yahoo News notes how Mike Pompeo delivered his first remarks as CIA Director:

[…] On April 13, 2017, wearing a U.S. flag pin on the left lapel of his dark gray suit, Pompeo strode to the podium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, to deliver to a standing-room-only crowd his first public remarks as Trump’s CIA director.

Rather than use the platform to give an overview of global challenges or to lay out any bureaucratic changes he was planning to make at the agency, Pompeo devoted much of his speech to the threat posed by WikiLeaks. (link)

Why would CIA Director Mike Pompeo be so concerned about Julian Assange and Wikileaks in April 2017?

In April of 2017 Pompeo’s boss, President Donald Trump, was under assault from the intelligence community writ large, and every deep state actor was leaking to the media in a frenzied effort to continue the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.

The Trump-Russia effort was so all consuming that FBI Director James Comey was even keeping a diary of engagement with President Trump in order to support an ongoing investigation built on fraud – yet, Mike Pompeo is worried about Julian Assange.

Again, here it is important to put yourself back into the time of reference.  Remember, it’s clear in the text messages between FBI Agent Strzok and Lisa Page that Peter Strzok had a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA.

♦ Former CIA Director John Brennan admitted Peter Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and it was also Peter Strzok who authored the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane.”  Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Downer.

In short, Peter Strzok was a profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for 2016’s CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.

Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open-Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015, at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons.  One, if not the primary extractors, has now been identified as Rodney Joffe at Neustar.   “The campaign plot was outlined by Durham in a 27-page indictment charging former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false report to the FBI.  The plot was also outlined in the finished Durham report.  Eight individuals who allegedly conspired with Sussmann but does not identify them by name. The sources familiar with the probe confirmed that the leader of the team of contractors was Rodney L. Joffe.” {Go Deep}

It was also Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskaya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working as a double agent for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S as part of his Trump-Russia creation.

Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting, back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan died in a helicopter crash.

Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against Republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s handler, was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where to send her. {Go Deep}

All of this context outlines the extent to which the FBI/CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit.  A large international operation directed by the FBI/CIA and domestic operations seemingly directed by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin]  Durham eviscerated the predicate for all of this in his report, yet stayed away from the part that leads to Robert Mueller in 2017.

Recap: ♦Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA) and Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Azra Turk, pretending to be Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI). ♦Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr. (CIA, Fusion GPS). ♦Butina tasked against Trump and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).

Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer hired by Fusion GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate.

All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence, and all of this intended to give a specific Russia impression. This predicate was what John Durham was reviewing in November of 2019, and then released in his final report – while whitewashing the parts that led to the Mueller silo.

The key point of all that contextual background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ and a multitude of political operatives, put a hell of a lot of work into it.

We know John Durham looked at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This context is important, because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.This is where the motives of Mike Pompeo in mid/late 2017 come into play.

[…] By the summer of 2017, the CIA’s proposals were setting off alarm bells at the National Security Council. “WikiLeaks was a complete obsession of Pompeo’s,” said a former Trump administration national security official. (link)

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:

On Tuesday April 15, 2019, more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….

The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.

Why the delay?

What exactly was the DOJ waiting for from March 2018 to April 2019?

This timeframe is the peak of the Robert Mueller/Andrew Weissmann special counsel investigation.

Here’s where it gets interesting….

The Yahoo article outlines, “There was an inappropriate level of attention to Assange“, by the CIA according to a national security council official.  However, if you consider the larger ramifications of what Julian Assange represented to all of those people inside and outside government interests who created the Trump-Russia collusion/conspiracy, well, there was actually a serious risk.

Remember, in May 2017 Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann effectively took over the DOJ.  The purpose of the Mueller investigation was to cover up the illegal operation that took place in the preceding year.   The people exposed in the Trump-Russia targeting operation included all of those intelligence operatives previously outlined in the CIA, FBI and DOJ operations.  These are the people John Durham did not indict.

The FBI submission to the Eastern District of Virginia Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”

(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)

Dana Rohrabacher later published this account of the events:

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative; and knowing that Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation – which included the use of Robert Mueller; it would make sense for corrupt government officials to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange.

That contact between Rohrabacher and Assange explains why those same government officials would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and cover) for a grand jury by December 2017.

Within three months of the grand jury seating (Nov/Dec 2017), the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018.

The EDVA then sat on the Julian Assange indictment while the Mueller/Weissman probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).

As a person who researched this fiasco, including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for cover’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16, and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17, this timing against Assange is not coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange, because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.  Again, John Durham stayed away from it!

♦ This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election.

This claim is the fulcrum underpinning the Russia election interference narrative.  However, this core and essential claim is directly disputed by Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange’s on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Shawn Henry (Credit: Chip Somodeville/Getty Images)

The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment (Peter Strzok); and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from another Michael Sussmann partner, Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike, yes another DNC contractor and collaborator with the Clinton campaign.

The CIA held a massive conflict of self-interest problem surrounding the Russian hacking claim as it pertained to their own activity in 2016. The FBI and DOJ always held a massive interest in maintaining the Russian hacking claim.  Robert Mueller and Andrew Weismann did everything they could to support that predicate; and all of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also carried a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.

Julian Assange was/is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange claimed he has evidence it was from an inside DNC leak, not from a DNC hack.

The Russian “hacking” claim was ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K Intelligence apparatus.  Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.  And that is exactly what Main Justice and the U.S. intelligence community did.

This is why John Durham never touched it.

All of them know what happened.

All of them know why Julian Assange was taken from the Embassy in London.  A bag had to be thrown over Assange in order to retain the justification for the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel and the larger Russian election interference claims.  None of them do not know this.  They all know.

Put the panel of Barr, Rosenstein, Horowitz, Mueller, Weissmann, Durham and Wray in front of congress.  Ask each one: “Who is Seth Rich?”

Then start asking the right questions about the timeline of Assange being arrested.  Ask them about the DNC hack and Russian provenance according to Crowdstrike.  Ask them key and specific questions about the FBI working with Crowdstrike and about the DOJ and EDVA case against Assange.  Watch them squirm.

They all know what happened.  SO DO WE!

Ask them questions about it in public.  Watch them squirm.

(Conservative Treehouse, 5/23/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 – Why the Durham Report Matters – Part One, Remember the Russian Diplomats Expelled by Obama?

I am going to be outlining some details for those of you who walk the deep weeds of understanding on behalf of our nation.

If you are a “tldr” person, this effort is not for you; feel free to continue sitting on the back bench and complaining about stuff. However, if you are a person who absorbs information so that you can confront our ‘representatives‘, then these articles and points are arrows in your quiver.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board is finally starting to get it.  They wrote an article this weekend recognizing how the Durham report totally eviscerates the foundation of the Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann special counsel investigation [SEE HERE].  The conclusion they reach is accurate:

… “All of this suggests that the Mueller probe was as much a cover-up as an attempt to find evidence of collusion.” (link)

Welcome to the party WSJ, nice of you to join us.  But it’s worse.  Much worse.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Keep in mind that John Durham has laid the Mueller/Weissmann probe naked to their enemies. Unfortunately, Weissmann and Mueller don’t have any enemies in Washington DC amid any party {Go Deep to 2021}. Our representatives are not representing. The true DC enemy is ‘We The People‘ – and I choose to fight them.

How entrenched is the defense mechanism? Well, consider a few things:

♦ First, John Durham clearly shows in his 306-page report with a 48-page classified appendix, that Russia did nothing to interfere in the 2016 election. The entire Russian Interference operation was a Clinton fabrication, later enhanced by a Federal Bureau of Investigation who used the fabrication as a cover-up justification to hide their surveillance of the Trump campaign.

♦ Second, accepting the empirical, factual, and inherently true reality of the first point – consider that President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats to retain the Clinton fabrication and FBI lies. Think about this one carefully, the Obama administration expelled Russian diplomats in order to retain a domestic political ruse! President Obama did this *after* CIA Director John Brennan briefed him about the Clinton fabrication.

There were no Russian diplomats involved; there was no Russian election interference; there was no Russian hacking of the DNC; it was all a fraud created by the intelligence community (IC), FBI and Main Justice to support Hillary Clinton’s lies and then cover their own targeting tracks.

♦ Third, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, with the full support of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, indicted 14 Russian entities under completely bogus pretenses. All of that effort was done to assist the Clinton narrative, cover for Obama and then use the special counsel to cover up the Trump targeting operation. The totally bogus construct explains why the fabricated indictments were sealed in the DOJ National Security Division in perpetuity, thereby keeping the fraudulent construct hidden from public review forever.

♦ Fourth, the only Russian entity who choose to push back against the Mueller/Weissmann fraud was the Russian Concord catering company – literally a ham sandwich operation. The outcome of that Russian confrontation was Weissmann/Mueller telling the DC judge they had to drop the case because any effort to prosecute the nonsense would create a risk to “national security.” Nice escape hatch from righteous sunlight on a case that was founded in nonsense.

Why do I bring these four points up? Because not a single person in Washington DC will mention it, and it’s the reality of the thing. I am committed to fighting this crap, and if the Wall Street editorial page is going to finally join the fight, that’s good. Let’s keep pushing.

The next post is going to showcase another very granular example of the silo system in operation. However, the prior discussion about silos carries forward as the baseline to understand, so here’s that reminder once again.

CURRENT STATUS – Let me uncomplicate the complex, and more importantly, let me propose the outline of a solution.

Michael Horowitz (Credit: public domain)

♦ SILO #1 – Inspector General Michael Horowitz was given instructions by outgoing President Barack Obama to review the internal decision-making inside the FBI, Main Justice and DOJ-NSD as it pertained to the Hillary Clinton classified document scandal.

In early January 2017, IG Horowitz was tasked to review the FBI decisions during the Clinton exoneration and deliver a report on his findings.

First, it is important to remember the DOJ inspector general can only review internal government conduct. The IG does not review or investigate outside involvement and has no authority to compel investigative compliance from outside parties. The Office of Inspector General is an internal review agency.

Second, it is important to remember the DOJ inspector general was not authorized to conduct any oversight of the Dept of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. During the Obama era, when the DOJ-NSD was created by Attorney General Eric Holder, through the entirety of the Obama era, there was no inspector general oversight into any operations conducted by the DOJ-NSD – that included the FISA process. It was not until later in 2017 when the Trump administration granted the OIG authority to conduct oversight into the DOJ National Security Division.

Think of IG Michael Horowitz as an investigative silo. You will see why this matters.

♦ SILO #2 – Robert Mueller (truthfully Andrew Weissmann) was appointed in May of 2017 by Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, as Special Counsel to investigate Trump-Russia and the reports of prior Russian influence in the 2016 election.  Robert Mueller was a figurehead – a person in name only to give credibility to the purpose and intent of the group who assembled under his shingle.  Andrew Weissmann was the actual manager of the investigation, events and details of the Mueller probe.

On the outward face, in the aftermath of FBI Director James Comey being fired, the Mueller investigation was created to look at Russian interference in the 2016 election – against the background that Comey’s firing by President Trump was related to an intent to impede the ongoing Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  However, on the internal dynamic, inside the mechanics of how DC silos are created, the Mueller probe existed to hide the DOJ and FBI weaponization of government that was deployed under the justification of the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Sometime around June of 2017, while conducting his review of the FBI conduct in the Clinton investigation, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered troubling internal communications between FBI agent Peter Strzok and DOJ-NSD assigned lawyer to the FBI, Lisa Page.  Silo #1 now intersects Silo #2.

Lisa Page was the DOJ lawyer advising FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  Peter Strzok was the lead FBI counterintelligence agent working on the Clinton email investigation.  Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe were the core of the Clinton investigation and intrinsically linked to the Clinton exoneration as announced by FBI Director James Comey.

IG Horowitz knew of the Clinton investigation and was investigating the details therein.  Horowitz did not initially know about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation which, by June of 2017, had subsequently morphed into the Special Counsel Mueller investigation.

Horowitz’s 2017 task only pertained to the Clinton classified documents and decision-making. However, it was the exact same FBI and DOJ people who investigated then exonerated Hillary Clinton, who then opened an investigation of Trump, who then transferred into an expanded Robert Mueller probe.

Horowitz (Silo 1) was bound by requirements of his office to inform Robert Mueller that individuals inside his investigation (Silo 2) were under investigation.

This presented a problem for Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann who were conducting a coverup and targeting operation.

Essentially, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were a threat, as they were bringing an IG review into the security of the Mueller silo.  Almost immediately, Strzok and Page were removed by Mueller/Weissmann to purge the problematic window they represented.

Mueller and Weismann then continued their operation, absorbing any Main Justice information that had anything to do with Trump-Russia.  Simultaneous to their unilateral empowerment, Weissmann and Mueller continued to fabricate a false premise of Russian interference in the 2016 election.  This ‘Russia narrative’ was supported as the justification for their continued operation throughout 2017, 2018 and into 2019.

It is important to remember that Mueller/Weissmann had full control over everything that had anything to do with the Russian interference narrative or the Trump-Russia narrative.  Any ancillary investigation from any government office that touched on these issues was subsequently absorbed by Weissmann and team.

As an example, this Weissmann/Mueller absorption and control included the FBI case against SSCI Security Director James Wolfe, the man who leaked the Title-1 surveillance warrant (FISA application) deployed by the Crossfire Hurricane team against Carter Page.  The Wolfe investigation (April ’17 through January ’18) was conducted by FBI Washington Field Office agent Brian Dugan. James Wolfe was indicted by USAO Jessie Liu for leaking the FISA application to journalist Ali Watkins.  However, the evidence file was reviewed by the special counsel, and after threats by the defense team to subpoena Senate Intelligence Committee members, the specific charge of leaking the FISA was dropped from the criminal case.

Because Weissmann/Mueller controlled everything that touched the Trump-Russia issues, in June of 2018 when the Carter Page FISA application was made public, it came from the Weissmann/Mueller team release.  This was one of the lesser discussed revelations from the Rod Rosenstein June 2020 testimony about the Mueller probe.

♦ SILO #3 – After taking office in February of 2019, Attorney General Bill Barr received the Mueller report in March, and a debate with Mueller/Weissmann about the content and report release began.  In May 2019, AG Barr appointed Special Counsel John Durham to review the FBI operations that initiated the Trump-Russia probe.

It is important to note that John Durham was appointed *after* Bill Barr received the Mueller report from Andrew Weissmann. It is also important to note that despite the originating mandate of Weissmann/Mueller being predicated on their obligation to look into the accusations of Trump-Russia, the Clinton campaign organization of the Trump-Russia narrative does not appear in the Mueller report.

There is nothing about Clinton’s work with the Perkins Coie law firm and lawyer Michael Sussmann to work as a cut-out for the Clinton campaign contacts with Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, Glenn Simpson, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr or any other substantively manufactured system that was used to create the illusion of the Trump-Russia connections.  The absence of that information inside the Mueller report begged the obvious question:

How could Mueller investigate Trump-Russia for two years and never find the origin of Trump-Russia?

After realizing the Mueller report contained none of this information, in May of 2019 Bill Barr appointed John Durham and Silo #3 was created.

Each of the silos, purposefully created by those who operate within the DC systems of political power, were created to have specific usefulness and function.  This is how the system operates.

We hear things like “ongoing investigation” as sunlight blocks, or “potential interfering with an investigation” as another technique.  Each time a silo is created, the purpose of the silo is to control information and isolate the larger system from scrutiny.

When Robert Mueller (silo 2) appeared before a congressional committee in June 2019 to answer questions about his report, he was asked about the origination of Trump-Russia.  Mueller’s jaw-dropping response was, “That was not in my purview.”

Wait, how can your existence be predicated on investigating Trump-Russia, and yet the origin of Trump-Russia is not in your “purview”?  See the problem.

Unfortunately, and not accidentally, Robert Mueller was able to avoid scrutiny of never having investigated the origin of Trump-Russia because there was another silo, John Durham (silo 3), to take the heat off him.  Each silo is sequentially created to deflect and distract from questioning that surrounds the originating corruption. Attorney General Bill Barr created Silo #3 (Durham), for exactly this reason.  Bill Barr was the Bondo, John Durham the spray paint.

John Durham finishes up Silo-3 operations, delivers a report, and now we have a Silo #4 in operation via the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith.

As you can see, each silo creates an internal defense system which also allows media to deflect, ignore and distract.  However, in the Trump-Russia story you will note there is a flow to how the silos are sequenced.  The silos are designed to absorb information, deflect sunlight and keep accountability away.  The silos are constructs, preservation systems, for the DC administrative state.

Ultimately, each silo is created to stop seeing the larger picture – the unlawful targeting of a presidential candidate, and then a subsequent coup against that candidate after the election.   The evidence of the weaponized government is in the full story that resides, compartmented, inside purposefully constructed containment silos; each intended to block sunlight upon specific components of the evidence.

♦ SOLUTION – There is a way to bring the sunlight and destroy the silo system.  The method is to use the inertia of the construct against itself.

Obviously, I hope you can understand why it would be imprudent to go too deep into this right now.  However, suffice to say – here are the broad strokes.

In front of you sits a panel of SEVEN people:

Barr, Rosenstein, Horowitz, Mueller, Weissmann, Durham and Wray.

You do not deconstruct the silos by questioning them separately. Each silo will avoid sunlight by deflecting inquiry to the mechanism of the other.

Instead, you rain sunlight down upon the silos by questioning each of the participants individually while located together.

All prior guidelines remain valid.

You use very granular and specific questions that pertain to the flow-through details that each silo was created to hide.

The usefulness of the silo process is dependent on its ability to stand alone.

When you put direct questions to the assembly of silos, there is nowhere to deflect.

Two days. Eight hours each day. Five rounds of questions. No one reading statements – only questions.

Very, very specific questions.

The goal is sunlight. Rip the Band-Aid off, call the baby ugly, and start the process to fix this crap by exposing it. Restore the First and Fourth Amendments and heal the injury. What we need is a full, uncensored, brutally honest expose’ of how bad things have become and how that system can be dismantled.  The existing constitution is the protection; just remove the stuff that is violating it.

(Conservative Treehouse, 5/22/2023)  (Archive)

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May 15, 2023 – Durham Report is released; Techno Fog quick analysis

Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation – an inquiry into government corruption, lies to secret courts, the weaponization of the US intelligence apparatus, the FBI’s attempt to take down a sitting president – has concluded.

The Durham Report has been released.

Here are some of the main findings:

  • “The FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia.”
  • Crossfire Hurricane “was opened as a full investigation without [the FBI] ever having spoken to the persons who provided that information.” Days after it was opened, Peter Strzok was telling a London FBI employee that “there’s nothing to this.”
  • Internal FBI communications discussing the Crossfire Hurricane during its early stages: it’s “thin” and “it sucks”.
  • British Intelligence pushed back on Mueller requests for assistance: “[a British Intelligence person] basically said there was no [expletive] way in hell they were going to do it.”
  • Durham documents TWO investigations into Hillary Clinton – one involving the Clinton Foundation and one involving illegal foreign contributions to Clinton’s Campaign.
  • In one Clinton Campaign investigation, an FBI confidential human source (CHS) had offered an illegal foreign contribution to the campaign through an intermediary. The Clinton Campaign was “okay with it” and “were fully aware”. The CHS offered the FBI a copy of the credit card charge; the FBI never got receipts. In fact, the FBI handling agent told the CHS “to stay away from all events relating to Clinton’s campaign.”

  • In February 2016, FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe directed the Clinton Foundation investigation to be shut down. He walked that back after receiving push-back, but McCabe made sure that his approval was required for any further investigative steps.
  • The New York Field Office was called on behalf of FBI Director Comey and informed to “cease and desist” from the Clinton Foundation investigation.
  • The FBI and DOJ restricted both of those Clinton investigations, making sure that “essentially no investigative activities occurred for months leading up to the election.” In comparison, the FBI opened a full investigation into the Trump Campaign based on unvetted “intelligence”.
  • The CIA had direct knowledge of the Clinton plan (“Clinton Plan”) to vilify Trump by linking him to Putin and Russia. On August 3, 2016, CIA Director John Brennon met with President Obama, VP Biden, and other senior Administration officials, including but not limited to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey. At that meeting, Brennan informed them of the Clinton Plan:

  • In September 2016, the CIA sent the FBI this information on the Clinton Plan to link Trump and Russia:

  • Somehow, the FBI did nothing to vet or investigate the Clinton Plan – even though they were using parts of the Clinton Plan (the Steele Reports) – to investigate the Trump Campaign. Durham writes: “No FBI personnel who were interviewed by the Office recalled Crossfire Hurricane personnel taking any action to vet the Clinton Plan intelligence.”
  • In fact, it was as if the CIA’s Clinton Plan memo was somehow buried within the FBI. Most members of Crossfire Hurricane “had never seen the intelligence before”. And, as we have previously discussed, it was never disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in contravention to that court’s local rules.
  • FBI Director James Comey was deeply interested in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and micromanaged it, demanding the Carter Page FISA warrant, telling Assistant Director Andrew McCabe: “Where is the FISA, where is the FISA?”

  • Dina Corsi (Credit: FBI)

    The FBI knew, relatively early, that its Carter Page FISA warrants were dubious. That FBI knowledge only intensified by 2018, as FBI analysts discussed how “Steele’s subsources could have been compromised by the Russians.” They were going to prepare their findings in a memorandum. FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, Dina Corsi, met with the review team and directed them not to document any recommendations, context, or analysis in the memorandum they were preparing.” An FBI attorney was at that meeting. “He confirmed that the team was told not to write any more memoranda or analytical pieces and to provide their findings orally.” Corsi’s demands, according to one FBI Attorney, were “the most inappropriate operational or professional statement he had ever heard at the FBI.”

  • Igor Danchenko, the Steele primary subsource charged with (and acquitted of) lying to the FBI, was paid $220K by the FBI as a confidential human source. This was paid after the FBI knew Danchenko lied to them. As the Durham Investigation proceeded, Durham learned “the FBI proposed making continued future payments to Danchenko, totaling more than $300,000, while [Durham] was actively investigating this matter.” The FBI, in effect, was seeking to influence a key witness who would later face criminal charges.
  • The FBI’s reasons for paying Danchenko were certainly curious. Interviews with Durham’s office revealed: “the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director for National Security, made clear that they were not even able to accurately describe the value or contributions of Danchenko that would justify keeping him open, much less making hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to him.”

We’ll follow this up with a much deeper analysis hopefully by tomorrow. Part of that story is the problem with the Durham investigation: the fact that its scope didn’t include the attribution of the DNC hack. (The Reactionary/Substack, 5/15/2023)  (Archive)

May 26, 2023 – In a healthy ‘democracy’ John Brennan would already be in prison

Barack Obama meets with John Brennan, Deputy National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, in the Oval Office, on January 4, 2010. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)

The just-released Durham report confirmed that the FBI not only failed to corroborate the Steele dossier, Hillary Clinton’s oppo-doc against Donald Trump, but it regularly ignored existing, sometimes dispositive, evidence to keep the investigation alive. Some officials were credulous. Others were devious. But no one “stole” our democracy — other than perhaps intelligence officials and the journalists who helped feed the collective hysteria over Russia.

John Brennan, Hamas-loving authoritarian and partisan propagandist, almost surely knew it was a con from the start. Yet he spent four years on television sounding like a deranged subreddit commenter. Even after privately admitting he knew there was no collusion, Brennan kept lying and using his credentials to mislead the public.

From Durham’s report:

CIA Director John Brennan and Deputy Director David Cohen were interviewed by the Office and were asked about their knowledge of any actual evidence of members of the Trump campaign conspiring or colluding with Russian officials. When Brennan was provided with an overview of the origins of the Attorney General’s Review after Special Counsel Mueller finding a lack of evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian authorities, Brennan offered that “they found no conspiracy.”

As Durham points out, even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report, and after Brennan admitted no one found a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, the former head of the CIA went on with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, another all-star election “denier,” and claimed that he “suspected there was more” to collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin than Mueller had let on.

Did I mention this was the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency?

Brennan must have been relying on that same gut instinct that led him to sign a letter asserting that the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scoop, a journalistic effort with more corroboration than virtually anything connected to Trump’s alleged “collusion,” had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

(…) The House Judiciary Committee recently uncovered a Oct. 19, 2020, email from CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who was working with the Biden campaign to concoct “a talking point” to “push back on Trump” during the final presidential debates, asking Brennan to sign on to the “disinformation” letter. “Ok, Michael, add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on,” was Brennan’s reply.

That’s all it takes for the former CIA director, a man who was given immense unchecked power — a man who oversaw secret kill lists and was the driving force behind drone strikes on civilians (including an American citizen) — to sign a letter he knew would obstruct the workings of “democracy” and the free press.

This is a man who still has access to classified documents. You might remember all the hand-wringing over broken norms when Trump allegedly barred intelligence agencies from sharing classified information with Brennan. The New York Times even gave him a column to argue that Trump’s claims of “no collusion” were “why the president revoked my security clearance,” which, again, he almost certainly knew was a lie. (Read more: The Federalist, 5/15/2023)  (Archive)

May 16, 2023 – Adam Schiff still insists Trump conspired with Russia after Durham Report further discredits FBI probe

Adam Schiff (Credit: public domain)

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), the past chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence who now hopes to be California’s next Democratic senator, remains unswayed by the newly released Durham Report in his conviction that members of former President Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Russian intelligence operatives to steal the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton.

When asked by The Epoch Times about the Durham Report’s conclusion of no collusion between Trump and Russia and whether the lawmaker stood by his claims to the contrary, Schiff replied, “If you read Mr. Durham’s report, what he said is that there wasn’t evidence of collusion before they began the investigation. That’s obviously a very important distinction.”

The California Democrat then pointed to what he described as “secret meetings” between Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian intelligence agent. Schiff accused Manafort of “providing that agent with internal polling data with their strategy for key battleground states, while that unit of Russian intelligence was engaged in trying to help Donald Trump win.”

Schiff said that for “most Americans that looks like plain collusion.”

But the Durham Report described the FBI’s top expert on Russian intelligence as finding no such evidence.

“The FBI Intelligence Analyst who had perhaps the most in-depth knowledge of particularly sensitive Russian intelligence information in FBI holdings during the relevant time period disclosed that she never saw anything regarding any Trump election campaign conspiracy with the Russians, nor did she see anything in FBI holdings regarding Carter Page, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, or Paul Manafort engaging in any type of conspiracy with the Russians regarding the election,” the report said.

(…) Schiff further claimed that Donald Trump Jr. was closely connected with Russian intelligence.

“But you also had the Russians reaching out through an intermediary to Donald Trump’s son, offering dirt on the Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government’s effort to help elect Donald Trump. And rather than refuse it, Don Jr. said that [if] it’s what was represented, they would love it,” Schiff told The Epoch Times.

(…) Finally, Schiff said former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was involved in the campaign’s collusion.

“Let me just add that the President’s National Security Adviser, Mike Flynn, [was meeting] secretly with the Russian ambassador; they were having conversations secretly with the Russian ambassador to undermine bipartisan sanctions on Russia for its interference in the election. And then lying about it. Most Americans again, [would say] this is collusion,” Schiff said.

The conversations between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak regarding U.S. sanctions, however, took place weeks after Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 presidential election and as part of Flynn’s preparation for taking over his White House duties following the inauguration of the new Chief Executive. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 16, 2023 – Senator Hawley calls for Clinton prosecutions after Durham Report is released

During Monday’s interview on Jesse Waters’ show, Senator Hawley passionately expressed his belief that there must be consequences for the actions revealed in the Durham Report, urging for prosecutions of the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself.

Hawley emphasized the alarming connection between Clinton’s public statements on collusion and her campaign’s alleged involvement in feeding misinformation to the FBI.

“People need to be prosecuted for this. The Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself, is it any coincidence that she is tweeting about collusion at exactly the same time her campaign operatives are feeding this BS to the FBI? I don’t think so,” stated Hawley firmly during the interview. (Read more: Trending Politics, 5/16/2023) (Archive)

May 17, 2023 – Marco Polo/Biden Laptop: “Hunter’s firm paid over $25k for Joe’s second iPhone, circumventing White House security protocols”; phone records subpoenaed


(Archive)

(Archive)

 

Schweizer: Oversight Committee Has Subpoenaed Phone Records for Joe Biden Phone Paid by Hunter Biden

May 21, 2023 – Jeffrey Epstein appeared to threaten Bill Gates over affair with Russian Bridge player

Mila Antonova discussed playing bridge with Bill Gates in a video that was posted online in 2010. (Credit: video screenshot)

Jeffrey Epstein discovered that Bill Gates had an affair with a Russian bridge player and later appeared to use his knowledge to threaten one of the world’s richest men, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Microsoft co-founder met the woman around 2010, when she was in her 20s. Epstein met her in 2013 and later paid for her to attend software coding school. In 2017, Epstein emailed Gates and asked to be reimbursed for the cost of the course, according to the people familiar with the matter.

The email came after the convicted sex offender had struggled and failed to convince Gates to participate in a multibillion-dollar charitable fund that Epstein tried to establish with JPMorgan Chase. The implication behind the message, according to people who have viewed it, was that Epstein could reveal the affair if Gates didn’t keep up an association between the two men.

“Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes. Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,” said a spokeswoman for Gates. (Read more: The Wall Street Journal, 5/21/2023)

May 18, 2023 – FBI whistleblowers testify to House Government Weaponization Committee, their security clearances were revoked and they can no longer work

FBI agents Garrett O’Boyle (l), Steve Friend (c), and Marcus Allen (r) were suspended for questioning the agency’s handling of the January 6 case and stating their beliefs that the FBI has been weaponized against conservatives. (Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP)

House Republicans joined FBI whistleblowers in alleging “retaliation” for exposing political “rot” within the bureau, while the FBI revoked some of their security clearances and Democrats accused them of being a “national security threat.”

The controversy spilled out as the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), released a report on what they called the “politically weaponized” FBI and held a whistleblower hearing on Thursday. Meantime, the FBI pushed out a letter criticizing some of the witnesses testifying to counter their allegations.

“The FBI’s mission is to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people,” an FBI spokesperson told the Washington Examiner late Thursday. “The FBI has not and will not retaliate against individuals who make protected whistleblower disclosures.”

Jordan called the whistleblowers “brave” for speaking out and said they suffered backlash from the FBI as a result.

“They came forward, and I want to thank them for doing it. But because they did, man oh man, have they faced retaliation,” Jordan said.

The new House Republican report blasted improper “retaliation” by the FBI against the whistleblowers who testified on Thursday: FBI special agent Stephen Friend, FBI special agent Garret O’Boyle, and FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen.

“Whistleblower testimony makes clear that the FBI rid itself of employees who dared to speak out against FBI leadership or to raise good faith concerns about FBI operations,” the report states. “The FBI has taken personnel actions against whistleblowers who raised concerns within the Bureau and, later, to Congress. In several instances — Friend, O’Boyle, and Allen — the FBI weaponized the security clearance adjudication process to silence employees who fight against the politicized ‘rot’ within the FBI leadership.”

The GOP report added that “because a security clearance is necessary to work at the FBI, revoking or suspending an agent’s security clearance effectively indefinitely suspends the agent and leaves the agent to languish in an unpaid purgatory.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 5/19/2023)  (Archive)

May 18, 2023 – Peter Strzok attacks Peter Schweizer for his work on Biden corruption

Peter Strzok (l) (Credit: Saul Loeb/Getty Images) and Peter Schweizer (Credit: public domain)

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok, a key figure in the “Russia collusion” hoax, attacked Breitbart News contributor Peter Schweizer on Thursday for his work on alleged corruption by Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

Stzrok linked to a New York Times article published Thursday about Republicans’ interest in investigating another FBI agent, Timothy R. Thibault. The Times noted that the FBI had once approached Schweizer for documents and information relating to his own investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings:

Before the [2020] election, two agents contacted Peter Schweizer, who is the president of the Government Accountability Institute, which has received millions of dollars from prominent conservative donors. Mr. Schweizer also writes for Breitbart, a right-wing news outlet, and had ties to Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House strategist for Mr. Trump.

In an interview, Mr. Schweizer confirmed that the two sought information about Hunter Biden, the president’s son, whose foreign business dealings have been the subject of intense Republican scrutiny for years.

Mr. Schweizer had recently published a book, “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite,” delving into the financial dealings of the Biden family. The agents, Mr. Schweizer said, wanted to know if he could share documents related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business ties that he might have gathered for his work. Mr. Schweizer said he passed on corporate records and other files.

Schweizer told the Times that the FBI did not contact him for more help after Hunter Biden’s laptop emerged in 2020, even though he reached out to the agency to inform it that he had a copy of the contents of the laptop.

Schweizer noted that the Times had verified his reporting, including that which was published in Clinton Cash, an exposé that apparently prompted the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign to commission the false dossier on Trump and Russia — which was fed to the FBI and formed the basis for its subsequent “collusion” inquiry. (Breitbart News, 5/19/2023) (Archive)

May 19, 2023 – FISA Court releases report stating, FBI continues to abuse surveillance tool after Trump-era abuses

(…) The FISA Court’s report detailed the nearly 300,000 abuses logged between 2020 and early 2021.

For instance: After the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, an FBI employee ran a whopping 23,132 separate queries of Americans “to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence related to the query term used,” Contreras found. Justice Department officials “concluded there was no specific factual basis to think the searches would turn up foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime” and the court opinion found that “no raw Section 702 information was accessed as a result of these queries.”

In June 2020, the FBI searched for digital data and communications of 133 people arrested “in connection with civil unrests and protests between approximately May 30, and June 18, 2020,” when protests and riots erupted across the country over George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

That search was done, officials said, to see if there was counter-terrorism information about those individuals. When questioned about the searches later, FBI officials said it was reasonable for agents to think the searches would return foreign intelligence. The court opinion describing that effort has significant redactions, making it unclear why the FBI developed its theory.

Incredibly, the Court also found a long pattern between 2016 and 2020 in which the FBI conducted FISA searches targeting “individuals listed in police homicide reports, including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses, and suspects,” according to the court opinion. The Justice Department found these searches violated the rules “because there was no reasonable basis to expect they would return foreign intelligence or evidence of crime.”

In its defense, the FBI argued “that querying FISA information using identifiers of the victims — simply because they were homicide victims — was reasonably likely to retrieve evidence of crime.”

Even more egregiously, an FBI analyst “conducted a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign” because the campaign was supposedly “a target of foreign influence,” the opinion said.

Justice Department officials found that “only eight identifiers used in the query”—such as a name, phone number or an email address—”had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities” that complied with the FISA standards.

Officials said lawmakers who were briefed months ago about the problems have been pushing authorities to make them public. The delay in doing so was due to discussions of redactions of a separate part of the opinion, which described a novel application of surveillance techniques, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters.

Senior law enforcement officials said Friday that the problems in the report do not represent FBI’s current practices. The problems were discovered largely due to Justice Department audits, they said, and have been remedied.

“We’re not trying to hide from this stuff, but this type of non-compliance is unacceptable,” a senior FBI official said. “There was confusion historically about what the query standard was,” said another senior law enforcement official.

The FBI has rolled out a host of changes to how agents and analysts use the Section 702 database. While a previous version of the system automatically included it in a list of areas that agents could search for information, agents and analysts must now specifically seek and choose to search 702 information. FBI users of the database are also required to write, in their own words, why they think their search will return foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime, and an attorney must approve any “batch” searches involving large numbers of people.

In recent months, authorities have touted that the number of 702 searches conducted that involve U.S. residents or companies has dropped dramatically — more than 90 percent last year. Officials said Friday that the dropoff was largely the result of the Justice Department audit having found significant compliance failures by the FBI.

The problems identified by the court and the Justice Department are separate from criticism lodged against the FBI in 2019 by the Justice Department’s inspector general, and again this week by special counsel John Durham, over the FBI’s use of a different kind of foreign intelligence surveillance court order, which specifically targeted a former Trump adviser in 2016 and 2017 based on faulty and incomplete FBI applications.

In 2021, a follow-up report by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz found “widespread” failures by the FBI to follow one of the key rules of FISA surveillance, indicating that the problems went far beyond the FBI’s investigation of former Trump adviser Carter Page.

Additionally, the court opinion included information regarding what officials called a “highly sensitive” surveillance technique, and a court debate about the novel use of that technique. Details about the technique are redacted, making it difficult to determine the purpose and scope of the controversial surveillance.

In a statement to American Greatness, Jordan said: “Chris Wray told us we can sleep well at night because of the FBI’s so-called Fisa reforms. But it just keeps getting worse.” (Read more: American Greatness, 5/19/2023)  (Archive)

The FBI’s Illegal Surveillance Is Not New, but the Magnitude of the Problem Has Never Been Fully Disclosed—Until Now – Video

May 21, 2023 – Hillary Clinton shares unknown story about Putin and his parents, even the CIA didn’t know

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday said Russian President Vladimir Putin told her a story about his parents that, at the time, had been unknown, even to the CIA.

Speaking at a wide-ranging interview at the FT Weekend Festival, Clinton said Putin shared with her how his father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, rescued his mother, Maria Ivanovna Putina, from a pile of bodies during a war and nursed her back to health prior to his birth.

“He said, ‘You know, my father was on the frontlines during the siege [of Leningrad]. And he would have to be there for three days. There was no food. There were rats everywhere. He was trudging back to the apartment where he lived with my mother and as he’s walking down the street, there’s a huge pile of bodies. As my father was walking by the pile of bodies, he looks down and he sees my mother’s foot. He ran over and he was pulling what he thought to be the body of his wife,'” Clinton shared in the interview.

“So his father took the woman’s body and she wasn’t dead. He took her back to the apartment and nursed her back to health. And then after the war, Putin was born,” she continued.

Clinton later said she shared Putin’s story with her team and found out that no one, not even the CIA and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul, knew about the incident between the Russian leader’s parents.

“After it was over, I got my team and told my team. We had people from the CIA with us. We had the whole entourage. I told them the story and no one has ever heard it before,” she said.

(…) That being said, the tale Clinton included in her memoir is different from the story Putin told in his 2000 autobiography, “First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President.” In it, Putin said his mother was laid to rest near a pile of bodies after she fainted due to starvation. She later “woke up in time.” He also noted that his father was at war the whole time and had no chance to look for his mother. In another anecdote, Putin said it was his mother who later found his father in a hospital. (Read more: IB Times, 5/22/2023)  (Archive)

May 22, 2023 – Missouri vs. Biden files motion for a temporary injunction against government censorship

Recently the Plaintiffs filed their motion to support the temporary injunction – a hearing we have been waiting on for nearly a year because of the government’s delays and obfuscations. It was 1,200 FACTS about government-coordinated censorship.

The government responded with a 1200-page monstrosity arguing they did it all – but because of foreign actors and the “safety” of the American people – lest they be exposed to harmful “misinformation.” Then they asked the judge to give them another week and postpone this hearing – again, arguing they wouldn’t have time to digest the Plaintiff’s response to their last filing.

The judge told them he wouldn’t be postponing this hearing again. A few days ago, the Plaintiffs filed their response – and it is an encyclopedia of their expedited and limited discovery so far. I want to explain why this case is NOT like any other we have seen.

This isn’t what we are used to — a weak judge capitulating to the government. In fact, the judge hasn’t capitulated ONCE. Neither has the appellate court, and neither has a DC court.

What is the remedy sought? Well, if the temporary injunction is granted (I am nearly certain it will be), the remedy is to bar the government from working with social media companies to flag and censor posts. They will also be barred from working through NGOs to do the same. (Here’s looking at you, EIP and Stanford internet observatory, and Atlantic Council) – no FBI task force inside Facebook or Twitter, no emails back and forth about “vaccine misinfo” and how to stop it. The government has to Cease.

What follows will be a detailed breakdown of the latest filing,  an answer to the government’s excuses for why:

A. What they did isn’t really censorship (mainly that they didn’t *force* the social media companies to take action)

B. Why what they did is “OK.” The guise of national security and “safety” and protecting Americans from “Mis, dis, and Malinformation.”

They begin with a hypothetical. They do this because the government tried to make all this behavior “Ok” by claiming that the Trump administration did the same thing.

That is an exercise in futility- the plaintiffs don’t care WHAT administration did it, only that it happened, and besides- the Trump White House directed NONE of this activity.

As an added zing, they used book burning as their hypothetical- appeals directly to the left angry that we don’t want pornographic books in kids’ libraries.

In the very first sentence of the brief, the government filed to argue why there should NOT be a temporary injunction halting their communication and threats to social media companies- they hide behind the “Foreign” assaults on critical election infrastructure.

However, evidence obtained in this case demonstrates that the Federal government overwhelmingly targets DOMESTIC speech by American citizens.

Depositions and evidence obtained in the case prove that actors responsible for censorship admit that most of what they consider “misinformation” was DOMESTIC in nature, including from the EIP (Keep the EIP front of mind). (Read more: DC Undercover, 5/24/2023) (Archive)

May 22, 2023 – Hunter Biden investigation: Grassley shut out from IRS whistleblower investigation

Chuck Grassley (Credit: Getty Images)

A top Senate Republican with a long history of advocating whistleblowers is being shut out from the Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower investigation by a Democratic Senate chairman despite the whistleblower wanting the GOP senator on the case.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a member of the Senate Finance Committee and a co-chairman of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus, is being denied access to the investigation by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the Washington Examiner has learned.

Lawyers for the IRS whistleblower sent letters to Congress on April 19 and May 15 providing details about their client’s protected disclosures alleging wrongdoing related to the federal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son. The attorneys have gone out of their way in both letters to include Grassley despite the Iowa Republican not being a current chairman or ranking member for a committee with specific jurisdiction regarding the tax code, but he is a leader of a Senate caucus dedicated to protecting whistleblowers.

The IRS whistleblower’s legal team told the Washington Examiner on Monday, “Naturally, we addressed letters to Sen. Grassley because he is co-chair with Sen. Wyden of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus as well as a senior member and past chair of both the Finance and Judiciary committees. Also important, though, is that he is more trusted than any other public official by whistleblowers to give them air cover regardless of the political implications and keep fighting to protect them when others cut and run. What whistleblower wouldn’t want Chuck Grassley in on their case?”

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code requires the chairman of congressional tax committees to grant access to sensitive tax return information, and Wyden has refused to provide that access to Grassley or his team.

Grassley spokesman Taylor Foy told the Washington Examiner the IRS whistleblower’s lawyers had “specifically included” Grassley “in their communications with Congress, so there’s no legitimate reason to exclude Grassley’s staff from participating in this investigation.”

The Grassley spokesman said that “Grassley and his investigations unit are subject matter experts on both whistleblower protections and the Biden family business controversies” and that “they also happen to be very familiar with the specific statutes protecting sensitive tax information.”

Grassley and Wyden are co-founders of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus, and the whistleblower’s attorneys are warning about “clearly retaliatory” action against their client.

The whistleblower’s attorneys said Wyden and Grassley have historically had a good relationship and should be able to cooperate — “unless partisanship is getting in the way.”

“Although our client is an IRS supervisor, his protected disclosures implicate the Justice Department, so the Judiciary Committees and others in Congress will need to have access to some version of the disclosures in order to give the Justice Department’s conduct in this case the public scrutiny that it deserves,” the legal team said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Our client’s interests and the country’s interests would be best served if Congress would resist the urge to be distracted by jurisdictional turf wars or playing partisan defense and offense.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 5/26/2023)  (Archive)

May 22, 2023 – Second Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower emerges after dismissal despite five years on case

(Credit: John Hinman, Director, IRS Whistleblower Office)

A second IRS whistleblower in the criminal investigation of first son Hunter Biden emerged Monday in documents sent to Congress following the purge of the entire investigatory team looking into President Biden’s son for tax fraud and related crimes.

The new whistleblower is a special agent in the IRS’s international tax and financial crimes group and worked on the Hunter Biden case since it was opened in 2018 — until he was ousted without explanation last week.

The agent joins his supervisor, who plans to testify behind closed doors before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, in publicly registering concerns about how the Justice Department has handled the investigation.

Both IRS whistleblowers expressed concerns internally for years about the case being swept under the rug but got nowhere, and they lay out extensive claims of retaliation in new disclosures to Congress.

Hunter, 53, allegedly failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars he received from foreign associates who in some instances interacted with then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Hunter wrote in communications retrieved from his abandoned laptop that he had to share “half” of his income with his father.

The IRS supervisor, who oversaw the probe since January 2020, and his 12 subordinates were removed from the case — allegedly on Justice Department orders — after he contacted Congress on April 19 to allege “preferential treatment” and false testimony to Congress by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

(Read more: New York Post, 5/22/2023)  (Archive)

May 23, 2023 – Court filings reveal USVI Del. Stacey Plaskett misled the public about her deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein

U. S. Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett (Credit: public domain)

Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett, a representative of the U.S. Virgin Islands in Congress, has distanced herself from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, claiming she was completely “unaware” of his donations. However, recent court filings shed light on a much closer relationship between Plaskett and Epstein than previously known.

The unsealed documents outline a decade-long association involving direct solicitations for money, personal meetings, and employment at a law firm deeply connected to Epstein’s shadowy network.

Plaskett not only repeatedly sought financial contributions from Epstein and had multiple face-to-face encounters with him, but she also worked directly for a St. Thomas-based law firm that played a role in cultivating influence for Epstein’s clandestine activities.

In a deposition last month, Plaskett disclosed that she was introduced to Epstein by Erika Kellerhals, an attorney who lobbied on his behalf and represented his business and philanthropic ventures. Kellerhals’s significance goes beyond a casual connection. Before Plaskett’s congressional tenure, she worked at Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC, the boutique tax firm in the Virgin Islands from 2013 to 2014, a period in which Epstein was a major client.

Plaskett’s involvement with Epstein may extend further back, as she previously served as counsel on the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority (EDA), which granted Epstein $300 million in allegedly improperly obtained tax exemptions over the course of two decades.

Asked during her deposition if she worked for Epstein or any Epstein-linked businesses while serving at the Kellerhals law firm, which specializes in EDA assistance, Plasket responded, “I don’t recall.”

The two years during which she worked for Epstein’s lawyer are notably missing from Plaskett’s LinkedIn account, with a two-year gap between 2012 and when she entered Congress in 2015.

Emails and testimony, however, closely link Plaskett’s rapid political rise with Epstein’s deep pockets. (Read more: Lee Fang, 6/27/2023)  (Archive)

May 24, 2023 – Missouri vs Biden/govt censorship: Jen Psaki challenged court order to be deposed using a govt friendly court; loses decision; coughs up discovery docs originally requested

“Inside With Jen Psaki” at the NBC News bureau in Washington, D.C.((Credit: William B. Plowman / MSNBC)

Missouri v. Biden was filed on May 5, 2022. Since it was initially filed, it has taken quite a trip through the court system. The complaint has been amended 3 times, with the most recent Amendment being to transform the case into a class suit – due to the overwhelming evidence of broad harm to the constitutional rights of all Americans. You can view the docket by using this link. Part I:

The complaint alleged that the US Government was not only threatening and coercing social media companies to censor Americans on social media, but they were also working WITH social media companies to accomplish that goal.

It alleged that topics surrounding COVID-19, the origins of COVID, the Great Barrington Declaration, election integrity concerns, the COVID shot, the Hunter Biden laptop story (and more) were under scrutiny by the White House and other government agencies – and that the government had very publicly threatened to take action against social media companies should they not act to censor viewpoints on those topics that were disfavored by the government.

The Plaintiffs in the case (the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with several other private plaintiffs) moved for expedited discovery to be able to obtain a limited set of evidence as well as depositions of certain officials. They argued that this evidence would allow them to make the case for a temporary injunction to stop the government from infringing on the first amendment rights of Plaintiffs and their citizens.

Mueller special counsel team members Jeannie Rhee (l) with  Andrew Weissmann (r) and Rush Atkinson(c).  (Credit: Tom Brenner/The New York Times).

Unlike what many have come to expect, the judge GRANTED the motion for expedited discovery and depositions. A struggle ensued between the Government and the Plaintiffs, with the government fighting against the judge in this case (Judge Terry Doughty) to stop discovery and certain plaintiffs from being deposed. They took those complaints to the 5th Circuit of Appeals and a court in Virginia – a court that *usually* is friendly to the government.

At the appellate court level, the government argued that NO ONE should have to leave their government jobs to sit for lengthy depositions in this case, but certainly not the HEAD of CISA, for example.

The appellate court wouldn’t play ball with the government and remanded the case back to Louisiana with some guidance on how the judge should proceed. If memory serves me right, this happened three times.

One particularly interesting exchange came with the deposition of former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. She made threats to social media companies from the podium. They sought to depose her about those threats. She left the office. The government said they had no responsive documents to explain her comments. So Missouri and Louisiana said, “Then we have to depose Jen Psaki.”

The court agreed and ruled that now private citizen Psaki needed to testify. The government and Psaki- represented by Rhee – went to a court in Virginia to try to get THAT judge to stop the deposition.

The judge, in that case, laid into both the government and Psaki. It was so stunning I literally read the transcript of the hearing as its own video.

This went back to Louisiana after the Virginia judge said, “You won’t like how I rule on this, and your argument is terrible, so I’m sending it back to the judge who SHOULD be making this decision. The judge in Louisiana again decided Psaki should be deposed IF the government didn’t have any responsive docs from the press office. Somehow, those docs must’ve appeared.

All along the way, the government has lost- over and over again. They were also caught hiding discovery materials – the judge rapped them and ordered them to produce or else – which they did. (Read more: UncoverDC, 5/24/2023)  (Archive)

May 24, 2023 – FBI official admits she hasn’t read Durham Report

May 19, 2023 – Greenwald shatters Bellingcat’s “fact-checking” facade and exposes dark funding strings

(Credit: Glenn Greenwald)

Bellingcat presents itself as an independent “fact-checking” organization. But there’s a lot more to this group than meets the eye. Some believe that Bellingcat is just another left-wing activist group masquerading as a “fact-checker.” Bellingcat’s reporting and political narratives reinforce those beliefs. Recently, Bellingcat came under intense scrutiny when they shared a manipulated image of a Hispanic shooter, casting him as a right-wing extremist and a so-called “white nationalist.” This incident wasn’t just a slip-up but a glimpse into their broader strategy of manipulation and propaganda.

Elon Musk actually called out Bellingcat recently over that ridiculously fake-looking propaganda picture.

Elon isn’t the only one calling out Bellingcat. In a thought-provoking exposé, Glenn Greenwald — an award-winning independent journalist known for his critical views on media — examined the financial ties Bellingcat shares with various entities. Greenwald’s research shows a web of funding from organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S.-based non-profit that supposedly spreads “democracy” in foreign countries. While NED claims its mission is to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through non-governmental efforts, some critics argue that its involvement with Bellingcat raises questions about both groups objectivity and goals. Clearly, the government has a vested interest in what Belligcat has to say.

Critics of Bellingcat also believe that this funding relationship has severe implications for journalistic integrity, which is Glenn’s area of expertise. He examines what’s really going on with Bellingcat in this informative and compelling exposé that explores their possible funding ties to the US government.

Watch the show here:

(Read more: Revolver News, 5/25/2023)  (Archive)

May 30, 2023 – James Comey: “I think he [Trump] poses a near existential threat to the rule of law”

(…) The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative was a lie.  The Democrats and media knew it was a lie.  We now know that the Hillary Clinton Campaign was behind the entire narrative.  Democrats used this in their attempted coup of the sitting president.  They jailed and bankrupted innocent men in their coup attempt.

It was all a lie and Hillary hatched the lie and then later promoted the lie.

James Comey knew this all along and yet pushed an intelligence investigation against candidate and president-elect Trump and President Trump knowing the entire investigation was based on lies concocted by the Hillary Campaign.

(…) On Tuesday morning disgraced FBI Director James Comey joined MSNBC and had the gall to accuse President Trump of being a threat to America. This man is devoid of a conscience.

James Comey: “I think he poses a near existential threat to the rule of law. He will do everything he can in a new term to try to tear down the institutions that he sees as threats and dismantle them and the people who occupy them.” (The Gateway Pundit, 5/30/2023)  (Archive)

 

May 31, 2023 – Judicial Watch: Major revelations in Trump Russia scandal, Clinton Corruption—Hillary did It, Obama knew

(Credit: Judicial Watch)

(…) This month, significant new evidence comes to correct the historical record—and prove Tom right. The new evidence comes from the report of Special Counsel John Durham.

Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham in April 2019 to get to the bottom of the Russia mess. Barr told Congress he wanted a review of “the genesis and conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016.”

Durham’s prosecution record is a bust—two failed court cases and one low-level plea deal—but his 300-page, highly detailed final report is sensational.

Durham’s central mandate was to investigate the opening and conduct of the Crossfire Hurricane probe into possible Trump collusion with elements of the Russian government, particularly whether “any person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaign.”

“Our findings,” the Durham Report notes, “…are sobering.”

Finding: at the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, there was no evidence of collusion.

 “Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” the Durham Report noted. [Italics added].

 Durham goes into stunning detail. He notes that Crossfire Hurricane “was opened as a full investigation without [the FBI] ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information…without (i) any significant review of its own intelligence databases, (ii) collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, (iii) interviews of witnesses essential to understand the information it had received, (iv) using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence. Had it done so…the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, and the State Department aware of such evidence.”

Finding: Obama and Biden knew about Clinton plans to link Trump to Russia.

Durham reports that  top Obama administration officials—including the president, Vice President Biden, the FBI director, the Attorney General and others—were briefed by CIA Director John Brennan on reports of a plan by the Clinton campaign to “vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

Elements of the Clinton Plan were disclosed in 2020 when the Director of National Intelligence reported it in a declassified letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Durham adds significant new context—and hints there is more hidden behind the walls of government secrecy. In a classified appendix to the report, Durham notes, there are “specific indications and additional facts that heightened the potential relevance of [the Clinton Plan intelligence] to the Office’s inquiry.”

In an interview with the special counsel, Durham notes, Hillary Clinton dodged questions about “her alleged plan to stir up a scandal between Trump and the Russians. Clinton stated it was ‘really sad,’ but ‘I get it, you have to go down every rabbit hole.’”

Finding: the Steele Dossier was a slanderous Clinton campaign creation devoid of real evidence and used by the FBI to target Carter Page.

 Durham devotes more than 150 pages of his report to the Steele Dossier and its devastating ramifications.

“Perkins Coie, a law firm acting as counsel to the Clinton campaign…retained Fusion GPS…to conduct opposition research on Trump and his associates.” Fusion GPS hired Steele. From July through December 2016, Durham wrote, “Steele and Fusion GPS prepared a series of reports containing derogatory information about purported ties between Trump and Russia. According to the reports, important connections between Trump and Russia ran through campaign manager Paul Manafort and foreign policy advisor Carter Page.”

Durham details at length how the Steele reports “played an important role in [FBI] applications to the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] targeting Page, a U.S. person. The FBI relied substantially on the [Steele] reports to assert probable cause that Page was knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Russia.”

The problem with the FBI’s assertion? Durham notes: “the FBI was not able to corroborate a single substantive allegation contained in the Steele reports, despite protracted efforts to do so.” [Italics added.]

Finding: Clinton good—Trump bad—the FBI repeatedly gave all things Clinton a pass while hitting Trump hard.

 In the course of his investigation, Durham learned of three attempts by foreign governments to funnel money to the Clintons or otherwise buy influence. Durham is measured, but it’s easy to read between the lines on the double standard. “The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign,” Durham noted.

In the eighteen months leading up to the 2016 election, “the FBI was required to deal with a number of proposed [Clinton] investigations that had the potential of affecting the election. In each of those instances, the FBI moved with considerable caution.”

In one instance, the FBI ended the case after its confidential source was found to be funneling money to the Clintons. In a second case, the FBI placed so many restrictions on how matters were to be handled that “essentially no investigative activities occurred for months leading up to the election.” In the third case, the FBI elected to give “defensive briefings” to Clinton and others. No such briefings, Durham notes, were offered at any time to the Trump campaign.

Finding: Investigations into the Clinton Foundation were killed by top Justice Department and FBI officials.

 Durham notes that beginning in January 2016, three different FBI field offices—Little Rock, New York, and Washington—“opened investigations into possible criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation.” Foreign governments were suspected of making, or planning to make, “contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment” from Hillary Clinton.

Top Washington officials opposed the probes, Durham reports. One Justice Department section chief interviewed by Durham recalled the department’s reaction to a Clinton Foundation briefing as “hostile.”

At a February 2016 meeting about possibly closing the Clinton Foundation cases, a participant told Durham that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was “negative” and “annoyed” and “angry,” wanting to close the probes. “Why are we even doing this?” McCabe is reported to have said. Judicial Watch has reported extensively on McCabe and his Democratic Party ties.

FBI field officials prevailed on McCabe at that meeting to keep the investigations open, but six months later the inquiries were dead in the water, Durham reports. The Washington and Little Rock field office probes were folded into the New York investigation. But the New York investigation went nowhere because Justice Department branches in New York declined to issue subpoenas.

Last week, the New York Times added new twists to the Clinton Foundation story, noting that after prosecutors in New York declined to issue subpoenas, the case moved back to Little Rock. Prosecutors in Little Rock closed the case in January 2021 but not without protest from line FBI agents in Arkansas. The “top agent in Little Rock,” the Times reported, “wanted it known that career prosecutors, not FBI officials, were behind the decision” to close the case.

The Times reported that the FBI received an official “declination memo” closing the case in August 2021—effectively making the decision to stop investigating the Clinton Foundation a move by the Biden Administration.

That’s a move worth a closer look. So is the FBI claim, according to the Times, that all of the evidence developed during the investigation “has been returned or otherwise destroyed.”

After all the revelations about misconduct at the highest levels of government in the Trump Russia saga, it’s impossible to take FBI assertions at face value—as John Durham has proved, and as Tom Fitton presciently recognized so long ago. (Read more: Judicial Watch, 5/31/2023)  (Archive)

May 31, 2023 – Comer & Grassley to Wray: Provide the unclassified documents or face contempt; Wray counters

Chuck Grassley (Credit: Getty Images)

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today issued the following statements after their discussion with FBI Director Christopher Wray about producing to Congress the unclassified, FBI-generated record alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.

Christopher Wray (Credit: public domain)

“Today, FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national. However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.

While Director Wray – after a month of refusing to even acknowledge that the form existed – has offered to allow us to see the documents in person at FBI

James Comer (Credit: public domain)

headquarters, we have been clear that anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena. If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings,” said Chairman Comer.

“While the FBI has apparently leaked classified information to the news media in recent weeks, jeopardizing its own human sources, it continues to treat Congress like second class citizens by refusing to provide a specific unclassified record. Director Wray confirmed what my whistleblowers have told me pursuant to legally protected disclosures: the FBI-generated document is real, but the bureau has yet to provide it to Congress in defiance of a legitimate congressional subpoena. This failure comes with consequences,” Senator Grassley said. (House Oversight Committee, 5/31/2023) (Archive)

Read More:

Grassley, Comer Demand FBI Record Alleging Criminal Scheme Involving Then-VP Biden

Comer and Grassley on FBI Failing to Comply with Subpoena Deadline

Comer: FBI’s Delay in Producing Unclassified Record is Unacceptable

Comer & Grassley Blast FBI for Refusing to Provide Subpoenaed Record Alleging Then-VP Biden Engaged in a Bribery Scheme

Comer Statement on FBI’s Refusal to Comply with Congressional Subpoena

 

Update June 2 2023:

BREAKING: FBI Chief Chris Wray Caves to Comer – Agrees to Hand Over Damning Document Detailing China’s $5 Million Bribe to Joe Biden!

May 30, 2023 – After John Durham bombshell, judge breathes new life into Clinton Foundation whistleblower case

Moynihan and Doyle testify to the House Oversight Government Operations Subcommittee on oversight of foundations and restrictions to their political activities, with a focus on the New York-based Clinton Foundation. (Credit: CSpan)

Just a few weeks after Special Counsel John Durham revealed significant failures to investigate allegations against Hillary Clinton’s family charity, a U.S. Tax Court judge has once again breathed new life into a years-long whistleblower case alleging IRS improprieties involving the controversial Clinton Foundation.

U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson has already once before denied an IRS request to dismiss the whistleblower case, first brought in 2017. And three years ago, he ordered the tax agency to reveal whether it criminally investigated the foundation, citing a mysterious “gap” in its records.

The IRS filed a new motion to dismiss, and all parties filed arguments over the last year. But on Monday, Gustafson postponed ruling on those motions, instead asking for new arguments in light of three recent precedent-setting court rulings, once again frustrating IRS efforts to make the case go away.

The three recent rulings in other tax cases “may affect the parties’ positions as to the pending motions,” Gustafson wrote. “We will order further filings so that the parties may address those recent opinions.”

 ClintonFoundationMay302023Ruling.pdf

The judge gave whistleblowers John Moynihan, a former federal agent, and Larry Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert, until June 30 to update their arguments and the IRS until July 28 to respond. That means the case will almost certainly stretch on for many more months.

The judge also noted the IRS hasn’t responded to a request to update the court record with new evidence.

Monday’s ruling adds new intrigue in a case that first surfaced nearly five years ago when Doyle and Moynihan, two respected forensic financial investigators, revealed the existence of their 2017 IRS whistleblower complaint against the foundation during a congressional hearing.

(…) Judge Gustafson’s new request gives Moynihan and Doyle a fresh opening to incorporate Durham’s bombshell allegations in their court filings due next month.

The judge also called attention to a specific recent ruling in a Tax Court case titled Berenblatt vs. IRS Commission that he said might be relevant.

In that ruling last week, the court decided that IRS whistleblowers may be entitled to discovery they ordinarily would not be granted if they could show the agency had engaged in earlier bad faith conduct to keep information out of the case.

“Whistleblowers may be granted limited discovery if they make a significant showing that there is material in the IRS’s possession indicative of bad faith on the IRS’s part in connection with the case or of an incomplete administrative record compiled by the IRS,” the court ruled.

 USTaxCourtBarenblatt2023Ruling.pdf

(Read more: Just the News, 5/30/2023)  (Archive)

June 1, 2023 – How the FBI lost, found, and rewarded the alleged Russian spy pivotal to surveilling Trump

Igor Danchenko: suspected Russian spy was secretly groomed by Brian Auten of the FBI, and paid $220,000 to target Trump. (Credit: public domain)

Paul Sperry/RealClearInvestigations

Twelve years ago, FBI agents in Baltimore sought to wiretap former Brookings Institution analyst Igor Danchenko on suspicions he was spying for Russia. But the counterintelligence analyst they were assigned to work with ‒ Brian Auten ‒ told them he could not find their target and assumed the Russian national had fled back to Moscow.

But Danchenko had not left the U.S., court documents show. He was living in the Washington area. In fact, he had been arrested in Maryland in 2013 by federal Park Police for being drunk and disorderly, something the FBI analyst could have easily discovered by searching federal law enforcement databases. Clueless, the FBI closed its espionage case on Danchenko.

Auten would quickly rise to become the FBI’s top Russian analyst. In 2016 and 2017, he failed to properly vet the Steele dossier, a collection of salacious allegations created for Hillary Clinton’s campaign which sought to tie Donald Trump to the Kremlin, before clearing it as the central piece of evidence used by the FBI to obtain warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Brian Auten, FBI supervisor: The Steele dossier’s bogus “Report 94,” alleging secret Page-Russia meetings, helped make the case for spying on him. (Credit: Twitter)

Working out of headquarters as a supervisor, Auten knew Danchenko helped Christopher Steele compile the dossier while living in the area. But instead of contacting the Baltimore agents, Auten secretly groomed him as an informant, arranging payments of $220,000 to target Donald Trump and his former aide Page. 

One result: Danchenko, the suspected Russian spy, falsely accused Page, a former U.S. Navy office who had previously helped the FBI, of being a Russian spy in the dossier.

Auten also never informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the FBI’s longstanding concerns about Danchenko.

Like the Baltimore agents, investigators at FBI headquarters relied on Auten to build their counterintelligence cases on Page and three other Trump advisers. Auten provided the reports and memos they used to establish probable cause in each case. Auten also supported investigators working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

Auten’s conduct was first singled out for rebuke by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who in 2019 issued a report detailing how Auten cut corners in the dossier verification process. Horowitz referred Auten to the FBI for discipline, which does not appear to have been administered.

His earlier and deeper connections to Danchenko have only been more recently revealed in the report issued by Special Counsel John Durham. His findings suggest that if Auten had done his job over a decade ago, chances are the now-discredited dossier never would have been created and used by the FBI to eavesdrop on Page and help launch the Russiagate probe. It’s likely that Danchenko, the main source of the dossier’s allegations, would have been deported years earlier and flagged in the system, according to the recently released Durham Report.

The embattled analyst was recommended for suspension from the bureau last year, and his case has been under disciplinary review for several months. Contacted by RealClearInvestigations, an FBI spokeswoman declined to say if Auten has been suspended. “In keeping with our usual practice,” she said, “we have no comment on personnel matters.”

According to the Durham Report, Danchenko came onto the radar of agents working out of the Baltimore field office in 2010 after two former Brookings colleagues entering the government told the FBI that he had solicited classified information.

The agents subsequently opened an espionage case after discovering Danchenko had previous contacts with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers.

“In particular, the FBI learned that in September 2006, Danchenko informed one Russian intelligence officer that he had an interest in entering the Russian diplomatic service,” the report stated. “Four days later, the intelligence officer contacted Danchenko and informed him that they could meet that day to work ‘on the documents and then think about future plans.’”

The next month, Danchenko contacted the intelligence officer “so the documents can be placed in [the following day’s] diplomatic mail pouch,” according to the report.

In addition, Danchenko had been identified as an associate of two other espionage suspects, Durham learned from a review of his case file.

In July 2010, the FBI initiated a request to obtain a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on Danchenko. Auten helped research Danchenko and provided information for wiretap applications. However, the investigation was soon closed after the FBI incorrectly concluded Danchenko had left the country in September 2010. Danchenko and his wife continued to reside openly in the Washington area.

Rod Rosenstein: The U.S. attorney who once prosecuted Danchenko, later the top Justice Department official during the Trump-Russia affair. (Credit: The Associated Press)

But the probe wasn’t completely dead. In 2012, Auten exchanged emails with one of the Baltimore agents in which they speculated whether Danchenko had actually left the country. Then in 2013, the U.S. Park Police arrested Danchenko in Greenbelt, Md., on drunk-and-disorderly charges, court records first obtained by RCI show.

Danchenko’s case was visible in the federal law enforcement database and prosecuted by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who years later, as acting attorney general, would sign one of the 2017 applications to renew a wiretap targeting Page and authorize an expansion of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation.

The Russian-born Danchenko, who was living in the U.S. on a work visa, was released from jail on the condition he undergo drug testing and “participate in a program of substance abuse therapy and counseling,” as well as “mental health counseling,” the records show. His lawyer asked the court to postpone his trial and let him travel to Moscow “as a condition of his employment.” The Russian trips were granted without objection from Rosenstein. Danchenko ended up several months later entering into a plea agreement and paying fines.

Despite the flurry of legal records generated on Danchenko in the federal system, it is not clear why the FBI failed to take note of his presence in the country. What the record does show is that the bureau did not reopen the espionage case against him.

Danchenko reappeared on Auten’s radar in late 2016 as he and the FBI were using the Steele dossier he helped create on Trump to seek warrants to spy on Page.

Auten identified his old espionage target in December 2016 as the “primary subsource” of the document. Instead of wiretapping Danchenko, the FBI recruited him as an informant and paid him $220,000 to help the bureau continue wiretapping the former Trump aide. FBI headquarters proposed paying Danchenko an additional $300,000 even as Durham was actively investigating him as the “linchpin to the uncorroborated allegations contained in the Steele Reports.” After asking officials at FBI headquarters about the bureau’s relationship with Danchenko, Durham determined that they were unable to justify keeping him open as a confidential source, “much less making hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to him.”

David Laufman: At the DOJ, he was involved in an immunity offer to Danchenko. (Credit: wiggin.com)

After examining FBI documents, Durham discovered that Auten interviewed Danchenko over three days in January 2017 as part of a plan to recruit him as a paid informant, despite the unresolved counterespionage investigation. Working with then-DOJ official David Laufman, the FBI offered immunity from prosecution to the longtime spy suspect and invited his lawyer to sit with him during the interviews.

“If this recruitment was successful, the FBI planned to mine Danchenko for information that was corroborative of the damaging allegations about President-elect Trump in the Steele Reports,” Durham said in his report.

Auten confessed to Durham that Danchenko “was not able to provide any corroborative evidence related to any substantive allegation contained in the Steele Reports ‒ and critically ‒ was unable to corroborate any of the FBI’s assertions contained in the Carter Page FISA applications,” according to the Durham report (emphasis in the original).

Danchenko was kept on the FBI payroll for more than three years.

In internal FBI documents, Danchenko’s handling agent Kevin Helson incorrectly stated that there was no “derogatory” information associated with Danchenko and that he had not been a prior subject of an FBI investigation.

“This was clearly not true as there had previously been the unresolved Baltimore FBI counterespionage investigation of Danchenko that was only closed because it was believed he had left the country and returned to Russia,” Durham pointed out.

Agent Helson later learned that the informant he was assigned to handle had been investigated as a suspected spy. However, Auten advised Helson that the espionage case against Danchenko was “interesting, but was not a significant” matter, according to the Durham report.

“Notably,” the report added, “Auten did not inform Helson that he had previously assisted in the Baltimore investigation.”

 A Suspected Kremlin Agent ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’

The Baltimore agents were shocked to learn from Durham’s office that Danchenko had been signed up as a confidential FBI source. One of them interviewed by Durham’s investigators believed Danchenko was a Kremlin agent “hiding in plain sight” in the U.S., while frequently traveling overseas to be debriefed by Russian intelligence. The other Baltimore agent said the counterintelligence case on Danchenko remained unresolved and, in her opinion, “certainly a lot more investigation” should have been conducted on Danchenko.

“It is extremely concerning that the FBI failed to deal with the prior unresolved counterespionage case on Danchenko,” Durham concluded in his report.

“Given Danchenko’s known contacts with Russian intelligence officers and his documented prior pitch [to colleagues at Democratic think tank Brookings] for classified information, the Crossfire Hurricane team’s failure to properly consider and address the espionage case prior to opening Danchenko as a CHS [confidential human source] is difficult to explain, particularly given their awareness that Danchenko was the linchpin to the uncorroborated allegations contained in the Steele Reports,” the special prosecutor added. Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the FBI’s Russia investigation.

In an RCI interview, Danchenko’s lawyer denied his client ever spied for the Russian government. He said Danchenko feared Russian President Vladimir Putin and was concerned for his personal safety. However, Durham examined immigration records which revealed that Danchenko lived in the U.S. but traveled frequently to Russia, casting doubts about his security concerns.

Yet in sworn affidavits to obtain the FISA warrants targeting Page, FBI agents led judges on the secret surveillance court to believe Danchenko was “Russian-based” – and therefore presumably more credible as a source of the allegations that Page was a Russian agent. By 2017, Auten knew the “Russian-based” claim was untrue. Even so, he let case agents slip it into two FISA renewal requests targeting Page. And so the “Russian-based” fraud lived on through 2017.

Auten assured the court that Danchenko was “truthful and cooperative,” never telling the judges about unresolved questions that made him a suspected Russian agent.

And Auten’s imprimatur carried great weight. In Durham’s telling, Auten was known internally as one of the “Triumvirate of Control” in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, along with senior counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and intelligence section chief Jonathan Moffa. Some case agents working under them believed the surveillance of Page was a “dry hole,” but the “triumvirate” insisted they continue secretly intercepting his emails, text messages, and other communications, according to Durham.

AP

Oct. 19, 2016: As the candidates debated, the FBI was busy with the Clinton-funded dossier behind the scenes. (Credit: Assiciated Press)

On Sept. 19, 2016, the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team formally received a dossier report alleging that Page had held secret meetings with sanctioned Kremlin officials in Moscow earlier that summer in which they allegedly discussed lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia. That same day, an anxious Auten urged department lawyers to consider including the dossier report as part of the initial FISA application targeting Page.

Charles Dolan: Dossier source tied to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. (Credit: public domain)

In an email to attorneys, Auten forwarded an excerpt from the dossier report and asked, “Does this put us at least *that* much closer to a full FISA on [Page]?”

The attorneys thought it was a “close call” when they first discussed a FISA targeting Page in early August, but the dossier report in September “pushed it over” the line in terms of establishing probable cause.

Except that the dossier allegation about secret Kremlin meetings was bunk. Auten knew there were serious doubts about it ‒ yet withheld those concerns from FISA judges.

On Oct. 17, 2016, Auten received an email alerting him to a conversation an informant covertly recorded with Page that day in which Page “outright denied” meeting with the Russian officials ‒ or even knowing them.

“Nevertheless,” Durham noted, “Page’s exculpatory statements were not included in the initial FISA application signed just four days later.”

Before the application was submitted, Auten also was aware that the dossier was being funded and promoted by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

On Sept. 2, 2016, CIA personnel briefed Auten at FBI headquarters about credible foreign intelligence they received about the Clinton campaign’s machinations. Yet Auten took no steps to analyze the intelligence and how it might impact the Trump campaign investigation and surveillance requests. Nor did he inform the FISA court about it. Asked why he failed to disclose the “Clinton plan” intelligence, Auten told Durham’s office that it was “just one data point.”

As the FBI made requests to renew its spy warrants throughout 2017, Auten continued to gloss over major holes in the dossier. He even pressured agents and analysts to back off looking into a questionable source of key allegations, according to the Durham report. It turns out that source, Charles Dolan, was also tied to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

Agent Helson told Durham that Auten told him to “hold off” on interviewing Dolan, who was never interviewed.

Auten also told a female FBI analyst working for Mueller “to cease all research and analysis related to Dolan,” according to the Durham report. She wrote a memo in September 2017 documenting Dolan’s ties to the dossier, but said that “Auten had made edits to her memorandum, some of which removed information regarding Dolan.” She said she was frustrated by the censorship and wondered if there was “a political motive” behind it. The analyst told Durham she prepared a contemporaneous timeline in case she was ever questioned about her role in the Mueller investigation.

Perhaps most concerning was Auten’s reluctance to corroborate even the existence of a ghost-like source Danchenko claimed had provided him a stream of bombshell allegations that were essential to the FBI’s case for probable cause against Page. The alleged source, Belarus-born businessman and Trump booster named Sergei Millian, actually had no connection of any kind to Danchenko. There is no evidence the two men ever met or spoke. Yet Danchenko attributed to Millian the dossier’s core allegation: that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation.” This claim, which Durham found to be completely conjured up by Danchenko, formed the backbone of all four of the FBI’s applications to the FISA court to spy on Trump.

Auten knew there were serious problems with the attribution. While debriefing Danchenko in January 2017, Danchenko was dodgy about his supposed conversations with Millian. Still, Auten made no effort to validate Millian as a source. He never examined either Danchenko’s or Millian’s phone records, for starters.

Durham did pull the call records, however, and easily determined that Danchenko never actually spoke with Millian. He also learned from Danchenko’s email records that he fabricated his conversations with Millian, which means he also made up the dossier allegation that Carter Page masterminded the Democratic National Committee email leak, a claim the FBI also vouchsafed to the FISA court to attain the Page wiretaps.

“Nevertheless, the information allegedly provided by Millian remained in the Page FISA applications,” Durham stated in his report.

Auten told Durham that he did, however, check with the FBI’s partners at the CIA to see if they had anything on file to corroborate Danchenko’s  reporting in the dossier.

“They received no corroborating information back,” Durham said.

Durham interviewed a career counterintelligence analyst at Langley who said the dossier was transparent fiction. “Indeed, after the dossier was leaked and became public,” Durham relayed in his report, “that [CIA] expert’s reaction was to ask the FBI, ‘You didn’t use that, right?’”

For several years, Auten moonlighted teaching law enforcement, intelligence, and surveillance courses at Patrick Henry College in North Virginia. He was removed from the Patrick Henry website soon after RealClearInvestigations published a July 2020 story first identifying him as the anonymous “Supervisory Intelligence Analyst” singled out in 2019 by DOJ Inspector General Horowitz for cutting corners verifying the dossier.

Auten also is no longer listed as a member of the college’s Strategic Intelligence Board of Advisors. Patrick Henry’s communications director did not reply to requests for an explanation for Auten’s removal from the website. But a faculty spokesman confirmed over the phone that he is no longer teaching there.

He is, however, apparently, still employed by the FBI. Auten’s most recent activities that have come to light? Possibly using false information to undermine allegations of criminal activity on the part of Hunter Biden. According to a July 25, 2022, letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Auten’s “scheme” entailed using deceptive and derogatory information to derail the FBI’s investigation.

“First, it’s been alleged that the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity,” Grassley wrote. “It is further alleged that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by an FBI Headquarters (“FBI HQ”) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” (RealClearInvestigations, 6/01/2023)  (Archive)

Correction, Thursday, June 1, 2023, 10:28 AM Eastern

Because of an editing error, an earlier version mischaracterized Brian Auten’s recollection of an interaction with the CIA. He told Special Counsel John Durham that he did check with the agency in an effort to corroborate Igor Danchenko’s reporting in the Steele dossier. It is not the case that he said he never checked.

June 2. 2023 – Max Blumenthal confronts Rachel Maddow about her years of Russiagate lies

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss Max Blumenthal’s attempt to question MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about her years of Russiagate lies.

 

June 5, 2023 – New York Times admits Nazi symbology at heart of Ukraine army

Ukrainian soldiers are displaying Nazi iconography on their uniforms, the New York Times has finally accepted, even admitting that “diplomats, Western journalists, and advocacy groups” avoid making mention of it, therefore allowing it to spread.

Army photos “highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II,” the Times reports, echoing the kind of reporting produced by The National Pulse over a year ago. 

As an example, the “Black Sun” symbol, which appeared in the castle of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, is regularly appearing on the uniforms of Ukrainian soldiers.

Even Jewish groups and anti-hate organizations that have traditionally called out hateful symbols have stayed largely silent. Privately, some leaders have worried about being seen as embracing Russian propaganda talking points.
– New York Times, June 2023

Both corporate and social media have gone to extreme lengths to cover for Nazi and Neo-Nazi activity at the heart of Ukraine’s war effort. In 2022, Facebook created a special exemption for the nation’s Azov battalion, known for using Nazi overtones. The Washington Post finally admitted to the role of Azov and its relationship with Nazism last year. PBS in fact tried to cover-up for some of the Nazi imagery by blurring the background of a Ukrainian politician. (The National Pulse, 6/5/2023)  (Archive)

June 7, 2023 – Bill Barr confirms Jamie Raskin lied about Biden family corruption investigation

(Credit: Amazon)

‘The FBI is attempting a coverup, and Democrats are doing their bidding by lying to the American people,’ Rep. James Comer told The Federalist.

It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down,” William Barr told The Federalist on Tuesday in response to Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin’s claim that the former attorney general and his “handpicked prosecutor” had ended an investigation into a confidential human source’s allegation that Joe Biden had agreed to a $5 million bribe. “On the contrary,” Barr stressed, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”

Former Attorney General Barr went on the record with The Federalist following statements Raskin made to the press Monday afternoon. Soon after attending a closed-door meeting with House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and the FBI — at which lawmakers reviewed the FD-1023 form summarizing a CHS’s detailed allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions — Raskin spoke to the media.

Jamie Raskin (Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

“What I learned,” Raskin claimed, “was that Attorney General Barr named Scott Brady, who was the U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania, to head up a group of prosecutors who would look into all the allegations related to Ukraine.”

“After Rudy Giuliani surfaced these allegations,” Raskin continued, Brady’s team looked into the FD-1023 and “in August determined that there was no grounds to escalate from an initial assessment to a preliminary investigation,” and so “they called an end to the investigation.”

The Maryland Democrat then reiterated his claim that this was “under Attorney General William Barr and his handpicked prosecutor Mr. Brady, who was a Trump appointee.” “They were the ones who decided” there were no further grounds for investigation, Raskin’s claimed, adding: “If there is a complaint, it is with Attorney General William Barr, the Trump Justice Department, and the team that the Trump administration appointed to look into it.”

Raskin would then double down on his claim that it was Barr and Brady who closed down the investigation, issuing a press release saying that in August 2020, Barr and his “hand-picked U.S. Attorney” signed off on closing an assessment into the FD-1023 form that memorialized the CHS’s claims.

But that’s just not true, according to the former attorney general. Instead, the confidential human source’s claims detailed in the FD-1023 were sent to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation, according to Barr.

That, however, was just one of Raskin’s deceptions: The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee also falsely suggested the CHS’s allegations were related to the investigation of information Rudy Giuliani had unearthed of the Biden family corruption in Ukraine.

Not so, according to an individual familiar with the investigation who told The Federalist that the CHS and the FD-1023 summary of his statement were both “unrelated to Rudy Giuliani” and “not derived” from any information Giuliani provided. This corroborates the House Oversight Committee’s representation that the June 30, 2020, FD-1023 “stands on its own” and was not part of the documents Giuliani provided the FBI in January 2020.

In fact, according to the House Oversight Committee, the FD-1023 in question “contains information from the FBI’s confidential human source dating back to another FD-1023 generated in 2017,” which completely removes Giuliani from the mix.

Raskin’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

These new revelations prove significant for two reasons. First, there’s the underlying scandal of the FBI’s alleged failure to investigate the FD-1023 and FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten’s opening of an assessment in August 2020 to discredit that information, which “caused investigative activity to cease.”

Knowing that the FD-1023 originated in Brady’s Western District of Pennsylvania proves explosive because Grassley’s whistleblower alleged that in September 2020, FBI headquarters placed the information contained in Auten’s assessment in a restricted-access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s info could access. How then could the FBI agents in Delaware further investigate the allegations?

And those allegations, further detailed by Comer on Tuesday, are shocking. “A trusted confidential human source obtained information from a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Biden,” Comer told The Federalist. So the CHS didn’t just pass on information from some random third party: He spoke directly with the individual who claimed to have bribed Biden.

FBI headquarters branding that information as “disinformation” without undertaking an appropriate investigation is outrageous — especially since the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office was directed to further investigate the FD-1023.

The second scandal is equally as large because it reaches the top of the FBI: Director Christopher Wray.

Wray may well have been in the dark about FBI headquarters falsely labeling the FD-1023 as misinformation and secreting it away from other agents. But framing the intel from the “highly credible” longtime FBI CHS as coming from Giuliani reeks of a cover-up. And suggesting that Barr and Brady closed down an investigation into the FD-1023 when it was instead sent to Delaware for further investigation is a cover-up. (Read more: The Federalist, 6/07/2023) (Archive)

June 7, 2023 – Twitter Files: FBI helps Ukraine censor Twitter users and obtain their info, including journalists

(Credit: The Epoch Times)

Authored by Aaron Maté via Substack,

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for “inauthenticity” but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other “American and Canadian journalists.”

The FBI’s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files, a cache of leaked communications from the social media giant.

The FBI’s censorship request was relayed in a March 27th, 2022 email from FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the Assistant Legal Attaché at the US Embassy in Kyiv, to two Twitter executives. Four FBI colleagues were copied on the exchange.

“Thank you very much for your time to discuss the assistance to Ukraine,” Kobzanets wrote. “I am including a list of accounts I received over a couple of weeks from the Security Service of Ukraine. These accounts are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation. For your review and consideration.”

 

The document, drafted by Ukraine’s SBU, contained 163 accounts, including mine. (The list is numbered to 175, but some accounts have two corresponding numerical lines).

The listed Twitter profiles, the SBU alleged, have been “used to disseminate disinformation and fake news to inaccurately reflect events in Ukraine, justify war crimes of the Russian authorities on the territory of the Ukrainian state in violation of international law.”

In order “to stop Russian aggression on the information front,” the SBU continued, “we kindly ask you to take urgent measures to block these Twitter accounts and provide us with user data specified during registration.”

The SBU expressed its “gratitude for the existing level of interaction.”

If granted, the users on the list would not only have been banned from Twitter but had their phone number, date of birth, and email address disclosed to both the FBI and SBU.

In response, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then-Head of Trust and Safety, informed Special Agent Kobzanets and his FBI colleagues that Twitter would “review the reported accounts under our Rules.” But he warned that the list included “a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate).” Therefore, Roth said, Twitter’s review would “focus first and foremost on identifying any potential inauthenticity.”

(Read more: Aaron Maté/Substack, 6/7/2023)  (Archive)

June 7, 2023 – Instagram connects a vast pedophile network using the same key words seen in Podesta’s Pizzagate emails

(Credit: Revolver News)

In a surprising and unexpected development, the Wall Street Journal has given credibility to “Pizzagate.” For those who may not be familiar with it, “Pizzagate” is a theory that claims elites use coded “pizza references” to openly discuss their hidden pedophile sex ring. According to this theory, terms like “pizza” and “cheese” are allegedly used as code words for illicit activities involving children.

Like many theories that paint the left in a negative light, the Pizzagate theory was swiftly labeled a “right-wing conspiracy” and disregarded by the usual suspects, and anyone who dared to mention Pizzagate was quickly shot down and called a Q-kook.

But now, thanks to this shocking article in the WSJ, everything could be turned upside down. Apparently, Instagram, owned by Meta, has become a sanctuary for a large network of pedophiles who use hashtags related to “cheese pizza,” among others, to communicate and pursue their sinister and depraved intentions against innocent children.

The term “cheese pizza” is used by these perverts because it shares the same initials as “child pornography.”

These are sick and demonic people.

Wall Street Journal:

The pedophilic accounts on Instagram mix brazenness with superficial efforts to veil their activity, researchers found. Certain emojis function as a kind of code, such as an image of a map—shorthand for “minor-attracted person”—or one of “cheese pizza,” which shares its initials with “child pornography,” according to Levine of UMass. Many declare themselves “lovers of the little things in life.”

The bombshell WSJ piece has rocked social media; as if so-called leaders like Mark Zuckerberg didn’t realize this was going on right under his nose? Perhaps he was too busy trying to punish Trump supporters for posting anti-vaccine memes to notice an expansive pedo-ring operating on his site.

Washington Examiner:

Instagram has taken down 27 child pornography networks and intends to remove more, Meta said. It has also blocked thousands of hashtags used to sexualize children and restricted the platform from recommending search terms associated with sexual abuse.

Twitter is also a standard tool for promoting child pornography, Stanford said, but the platform is more aggressive in removing those accounts than Instagram. The response has reportedly improved from Twitter. The platform struggled to keep up with child pornography accounts, according to a February New York Times report testing the website’s content moderation efforts. (Read more: Revolver News, 6/07/2023) (Archive)

June 7, 2023 – Testimony reveals senior FBI official expressed concerns about Trump Mar-a-Lago raid

Steven D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. (Credit: public domain)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) just sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland revealing new information related to the raid of former President Donald Trump’s residence and the Department of Justice’s reported indictment of President Donald Trump. This information was obtained from the Committee’s transcribed interview of Steven D’Antuono, the former Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Mr. D’Antuono described several abnormalities in the raid.

According to Mr. D’Antuono, the abnormalities include:

The Miami Field Office did not conduct the search. Mr. D’Antuono testified that FBI headquarters made the decision to assign the execution of the search warrant to the Washington Field Office (WFO) despite the location of the search occurring in the territory of the FBI’s Miami Field Office. Mr. D’Antuono stated that he had “absolutely no idea” why this decision was made and questioned why the Miami Field Office was not taking the lead on this matter. Mr. D’Antuono stated that the FBI “learned a lot of stuff from [the] Crossfire Hurricane” investigation—notably “that the [FBI] Headquarters does not work the investigation, it is supposed to be the field offices working the investigations.” Mr. D’Antuono indicated that his “concern is that [the] DOJ was not following the same principles . . . .” In fact, as recently as May 2023, in response to the report of Special Counsel Durham, the FBI asserted that “investigations should be run out of the Field” and not from Washington, D.C.

The Department did not assign a U.S. Attorney’s Office to the matter. According to Mr. D’Antuono, it was unusual to not have a U.S. Attorney assigned to an investigative matter, especially a matter of this magnitude. He explained that he “didn’t understand why there wasn’t a US Attorney assigned” and “raised this concern a lot with” Department officials because this was out of the ordinary. Mr. D’Antuono indicated that he “never got a good answer” and was told that the National Security Division would be handling this matter—with Jay Bratt, who leads the Department’s counterintelligence division, as “the lead prosecutor on the case.” Mr. Bratt is the same Department lawyer who allegedly improperly pressured a lawyer representing an employee of President Trump.10 Mr. D’Antuono again noted his concern regarding lessons learned from Crossfire Hurricane, that the Justice Department was not following the principle that “Headquarters does not work the investigation . . . .”

George Toscas serves as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General/the National Security Division. (Credit: justice.gov)

The FBI did not first seek consent to effectuate the search. Mr. D’Antuono recounted a meeting between FBI and Department officials during which the Department assertively pushed for the FBI to promptly execute the search warrant.12 Based upon his over-20-year tenure at the FBI, Mr. D’Antuono testified that he believed that the FBI,  prior to resorting to a search warrant, should have sought consent to search the premises. He testified that this outcome would have been “the best thing for all parties” involved— “[f]or the FBI, for former President Trump, and for the country . . . .” Mr. D’Antuono indicated a belief that either you or Director Christopher Wray made the decision to seek a search warrant, despite opposition from the line agents working this case in the WFO. Following that meeting, Mr. D’Antuono described how Justice Department counterintelligence official George Toscas—who also reportedly worked on the “Crossfire Hurricane and Clinton email investigations”—told him that FBI agents were ready to execute the warrant.16 Mr. D’Antuono pushed back on the Department for trying to unilaterally allocate FBI resources.

The FBI refused to wait for President Trump’s attorney to be present before executing the search. Mr. D’Antuono testified that the FBI sought to exclude President Trump’s attorney from the search, a move with which Mr. D’Antuono disagreed. Mr. D’Antuono believed that the FBI should have worked with the attorney to get consent to search the residence prior to seeking a warrant for the search. Mr. D’Antuono believes that “there was a good likelihood that [they] could have gotten consent . . . .”

Read the full letter to Attorney General Garland here. (House Judiciary Committee, 6/09/2023)  (Judiciary Transcript)  (Archive)

June 7, 2023 – House Judiciary Committee interviews FBI’s Steven D’Antuono and Christopher Wray about J6 pipe bombs

More insights from FBI whistleblower, Kyle Seraphin

June 8, 2023 – Key player in Biden documents removal was also involved in Bill Clinton-era Chinagate scandal

The custodian of Joe Biden’s vice presidential records, a key witness in his classified documents probe, was caught up in another documents scandal while working at the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration, court records reveal.

Longtime Biden aide and gatekeeper Kathy S. Chung, who has been interviewed by federal prosecutors and congressional investigators in the Biden case, was part of a team sanctioned for withholding and even destroying key documents in the federal case that sought sensitive records from a central figure in the so-called Chinagate fundraising investigation of the late 1990s, RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively.

Hunter Biden: Questions about the period in 2017-2018 when the Chinese were wiring almost $6 million to Hunter and his uncle Jimmy. (Credit: The Associated Press)

A special prosecutor is now investigating whether Biden unlawfully handled top secret materials in early 2017, when he tasked Chung with removing boxes containing classified documents from the White House and storing them at various private offices in D.C., including the Chinatown neighborhood. Some of the highly sensitive papers also ended up at his home in Wilmington, Del.

Noting that Chung came into Biden’s orbit through working with the president’s son, Hunter, during the 1990s, congressional investigators want to know if the Biden family dealings in China have anything to do with the stockpiling of classified documents. They note that the mishandling of White House papers took place during the 14-month period in 2017-2018 when the Chinese were wiring almost $6 million in payments to Hunter and his uncle Jimmy Biden without providing any known legitimate services. They have expressed concern that the payments, which were flagged by the U.S. Treasury Department, were part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering operation.

Chung is central to the Justice Department’s investigation of Biden’s breach of classified documents.

James Biden, with wife Sara: Were payments to him part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering operation? (Credit: The Associated Press)

On Jan. 4, federal agents interviewed Chung while working with an investigative team led by U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who was tasked to conduct a preliminary probe of the security breach. Alarmed by what his investigators reported back to him about Chung’s role in the possible illegal removal and retention of state secrets, Lausch urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel. The following day Garland complied, naming veteran federal prosecutor Robert K. Hur to take over the criminal case as special counsel. Hur’s office reportedly has obtained more than 100 pages of documents from Chung, including emails and text messages.

While Donald Trump and Mike Pence are also under investigation for removing classified documents from the White House and storing them at their private residences, GOP congressional investigators say comparisons to Trump and Pence miss the point. In interviews with RCI, they insisted that Biden’s document scandal is potentially more serious than just mishandling state secrets. They suspect it could mushroom into a counterespionage case involving China and national security, though the White House dismisses such speculation as “baseless.”

Robert Hur, special counsel: His office reportedly obtained more than 100 pages of documents from Kathy Chung. (Credit: The Associated Press)

Chung’s lawyer Bill Taylor did not return a request for comment. But in an earlier statement, he scolded Republicans for “suggesting someone is a traitor without any evidence.”

Chung’s dual role – as an aide to Joe Biden when he was vice president and a friend of Hunter Biden, who emails show received sensitive information from Chung from his father’s office – further highlights the murky ethics that exist between the Biden family’s public service and business interests.

Hunter Biden and Chung have a long history dating back to their days working together at the Commerce Department during Bill Clinton’s presidency. It was there that Chung – a longtime Democrat working in the federal bureaucracy – became a witness in a case involving convicted Chinagate fundraiser Jian-Nan “John” Huang, who was a top Commerce official.

John Huang: In 1999, pleaded guilty to a felony violation of campaign finance laws for arranging illegal foreign donations. (Credit: The Associated Press)

In 1993, President Clinton named Huang, a China-born banker friend from Little Rock, deputy assistant secretary of international economic affairs at Commerce, where he was responsible for Asian trade matters. Within a month, Huang was given a top secret security clearance and received twice-weekly intelligence briefings by CIA analysts. At the same time, it was later revealed, he was meeting regularly with Chinese diplomats and other officials tied to Beijing.

Watchdog group Judicial Watch sought documents concerning Huang’s access to trade secrets and his trips to China. Chung was one of the administrators responsible for producing such documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

But the department was sanctioned for withholding and even destroying key documents in the federal case ‒ Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Commerce, et al ‒ in which Huang was listed as the lead defendant. After U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Commerce’s search “grossly inadequate” and “unlawful,” Chung and her superiors were ordered to conduct another search. Still, Chung came up short in producing Huang-related documents from the computer of her boss, Melissa Moss, in the Office of Business Liaison, according to her sworn declaration in the case, a copy of which was obtained by RCI. A Clinton appointee like Hunter Biden, Moss worked with Huang on controversial Asian and other foreign trade junkets for Democrat donors. She came to Commerce from the Democratic National Committee, where she had served as finance director.

Joe Biden with the Librarian of Congress and Kathy Chung on January 3, 2017 (Credit: Marco Polo)

“In performing this search, I was assisted by an employee of the Computer Help Desk who informed me that some documents could not be opened,” Chung told the court in the 1999 affidavit, which was never uploaded to PACER, the electronic federal court records system. (After several requests to the court, Leayrohn King, a records clerk for the U.S. District Court for D.C., provided RCI a copy of Chung’s declaration and commented that it was odd that it was missing from PACER. The court has since made it available in the online docket system.)

Chung, who now works as a top aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, was not directly accused of wrongdoing. But lawyers for Judicial Watch complained her department was covering up for Huang, whom they suspected was trading government secrets and access to China.

While Chung remained at the Commerce Department, Huang left to work for the Clinton reelection effort. He raised almost $3 million for the DNC and Clinton in 1996, half of which was later found illegal or improper and returned because the donations came from foreign sources, many of them tied to Beijing.

The Justice Department, through a specially appointed task force, investigated Huang as a possible “agent of influence” for China. In 1999, Huang pleaded guilty to a felony violation of campaign finance laws for arranging illegal foreign donations. Even though the felony charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, he was sentenced to one year of probation and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of several co-conspirators.

After Hunter Biden left the Commerce Department in 2001, where he served as executive director of e-commerce policy, he joined a K Street law firm founded by William Oldaker, a major political donor of his father. Records obtained by RCI show lawyers for Oldaker, Biden & Belair LLP represented another boss of Chung at the Commerce Department in the ongoing FOIA case, which wasn’t settled until 2004.

A decade later, Hunter recommended his father hire Chung as his personal assistant in the Office of Vice President, according to emails found on his abandoned laptop. Starting in July 2012, Chung was responsible for overseeing then-Vice President Biden’s office affairs, including handling his briefing books and scheduling his travel abroad. She handled the details for Hunter Biden’s controversial 2013 trip to Beijing with the vice president, during which Hunter met with Chinese investment partners and arranged for his father to shake one of their hands. Emails show Chung also invited Hunter to attend a 2015 lunch with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the State Department.

In January 2017, as Biden moved out of the White House, Chung helped pack 13 boxes with files from his office cabinets and store them at a transition office nearby, according to a partial transcript of Chung’s recent deposition taken behind closed doors at the Capitol. Around July 2017, Chung reloaded the boxes in her car and moved them to a private office that she leased in the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington, before they ended up early the next year at the China-funded Penn Biden Center in D.C., according to the transcript.

The boxes turned out to contain dozens of highly classified documents, including ones so secret they could only be viewed in a Sensitive Compartment Information Facility, or SCIF. Yet they were found last year in an unlocked storage room at the center that required no key to access. (The White House initially claimed, falsely, they were stored in a “locked closet.”) Prosecutors are investigating the chain of custody of those loosely stored intelligence papers to determine whether any were copied or passed through foreign hands.

Chung, who held a Top Secret security clearance and had experience handling and identifying classified documents, told congressional investigators she was unaware the boxes contained classified material – even though some of the file folders in the boxes were emblazoned with cover sheets stating they contained secret government documents. She insisted she never noticed any classified papers or saw any classified markings, even though she unpacked the boxes when she relocated them to the center and then re-packed them last summer at the request of Biden’s lawyers.

At least 20 highly classified papers marked at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level were found at the center, which the FBI searched earlier this year. The materials reportedly covered Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom, among other foreign countries.

Chung helped Biden research his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” It’s not known if Biden or Chung referenced any of the materials from the boxes for his book, which was published in November 2017 and revealed insider accounts of Biden’s various roles in U.S. foreign policy, including Ukraine. Biden listed Chung first among people he acknowledged for their contributions: “Thank you for all of this, and more, to Kathy Chung.”

A House GOP depiction of the alleged China-to-Bidens money trail. Ye, left, gifted Hunter an $80,000 diamond.
(Credit: House Committee on Oversight and Reform)

Overlapping Scandals?

Hunter first made contact with Chinese executives with CEFC China Energy, a suspected front for Chinese intelligence, in 2015. Emails found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop show a CEFC adviser arranged a private Washington dinner in December 2015 with Hunter and then-CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming, who reportedly has ties to the Chinese military.

In an email Chung sent to Hunter Biden that same year, she included a list of personal cell phone numbers for high-profile Washington officials, including then-White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and several Cabinet secretaries, as well as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and a number of powerful senators and members of Congress.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer speculated that Hunter may have been trying to “prove his worth to these people that were paying these enormous sums of money to him,” in part by “showing them he had cell numbers for powerful individuals.”

Chung continued her dealings with Hunter Biden after she left the White House. On Feb. 2, 2017, shortly after Chung packed up Biden’s White House files, Hunter emailed Chung to ask her to “come work with me … so that I can make everyone money.” The next year, messages found on Hunter’s laptop show Chung sent Biden family members a link to an encrypted messaging app called Signal and urged them to install it on their electronic devices.

Later in February 2017, Hunter received an $80,000 diamond from Ye, who left the rare gem with a thank-you note at Hunter’s hotel room after they met in Miami. In an interview with The New Yorker magazine, Hunter admitted taking the expensive stone, though he says he doubts it was meant as a bribe.

Comer said he is investigating whether the Bidens’ Chinese partners “had access to the classified documents found.” He noted that Hunter Biden, in 2017, planned to share office space in D.C. with another one of his Chinese partners, Gongwen “Kevin” Dong, who was the CEFC money man who signed off on the wire payments to the Bidens.

“This level of access and opportunity raises questions about who had access to the classified documents,” Comer said.

In November 2017, another Biden partner from China ‒ CEFC’s Patrick Ho ‒ was arrested by FBI agents on charges of bribery and money laundering. According to federal documents obtained by RCI, the FBI raided CEFC’s D.C.-area offices shortly after Ho’s arrest and searched them for evidence. The FBI had been “electronically monitoring” Ho as a suspected Chinese spy under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wiretap warrant, the documents further reveal.

Within months of learning his Chinese partner had been arrested, property records show Hunter terminated the lease on his own D.C. office and closed the facility, where he’d made keys for both Dong and his father, Joe Biden, according to emails found on his abandoned laptop. That same month – February 2018 – the former vice president opened a D.C. office for the China-funded Penn Biden Center, where Hunter maintained access.

It’s not known if any White House records were stored at Hunter’s Georgetown office or transferred from there to the Penn Biden Center about four miles away. The center is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, which has received several million dollars from anonymous Chinese sources since opening the center. But Hunter’s arrangement with his Chinese benefactors clearly raised counterintelligence alarms at the FBI, which began monitoring their communications. For whatever reason, the Bidens were never prosecuted as unregistered foreign agents and their own offices were never raided. Biden’s unauthorized removal and storage of classified intelligence went unnoticed – until after the 2022 congressional elections.

Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, left, accuses Comer, right, of falsehoods based on a “bigoted conspiracy theory.” (Credit: The Associated Press)

Chung, who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign, was grilled on Capitol Hill about her access to and handling of classified information in April. She gave sworn testimony to the House Oversight Committee for roughly four hours behind closed doors.

Comer suggested earlier this year in a Fox News interview that his investigators were looking into possible ties between Chung and the Chinese Communist Party. Fox host Maria Bartiromo asked if Chung was “reporting back to the CCP about any of the former vice president’s documents,” and Comer replied, “We’re looking into that.”

Added Comer, “We’re looking into at least three different people that Hunter Biden was directly involved with that have very close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”

 

(Read more: Real ClearInvestigations, 6/8/2023)  (Archive)

June 8, 2023 – Trump is indicted for having the Mar-a-Lago documents – An Analysis by Techno Fog

The indictment of Donald Trump has been released. You can view it here.

Waltine Nauta (Credit: public domain)

Trump has been charged with 37 counts relating to the retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, the withholding or concealment of documents and records, a scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations. (There is a 38th count in the indictment relating to his aide, Waltine Nauta.)

Here’s our quick assessment: it’s weaker than we thought.

Factual allegations

There’s a basic assumption – one that very well might be incorrect – underlying Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment. It’s that Trump “was not authorized to possess or retain” documents he “caused” to be taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. These boxes were stored at various locations in Mar-a-Lago, including the club’s ballrooms, business center, and storage room. In June of 2021 there were more than 80 boxes of documents stored there that related to Trump’s time in office.

The Special Counsel alleges that these documents included classified documents originated by, or implicating the equities of, numerous intelligence and governmental agencies, including the CIA, Department of Defense, and the National Security Agency.  The Special Counsel further alleges that Trump made disclosures of classified information in private meetings at Mar-a-Lago. One example cited in the indictment was a recorded discussion (allegedly with Mark Meadows and his book writer) relating to a presentation made by Gen. Mark Milley’s plan of attack against Iran.  (Read more: Techno Fog. 6/07/2023)  (Archive)

Trump responds on Truth Social while curiously standing before a historical picture related to the legislation of the Monroe Doctrine in the early 1900s. (Truth Social posts do not open up in Word Press. Also, I found that all YouTube videos of this speech stop playing about halfway through. More censorship by the Deep State.)

(Credit: Truth Social)

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110511303632102309

Rumble link:

The Trump campaign responds:

The Political Weaponization of the Department of Justice is a Disgrace

“President Donald J. Trump has long been the biggest threat and the top political target for Joe Biden and the corrupt Democrat Party. As President Trump’s dominance grows, the nastier the Deep State attacks become. 

Today’s act of open legal ‘warfare’ by the highly politicized and partisan Department of Injustice, has taken things to a new level, and set a dangerous precedent. By politically weaponizing the DOJ, the Biden administration and their henchmen in the Swamp are now conducting an all-out prosecution of the leader of the current administration’s political opposition. 

This is un-American and wrong. 

President Trump violated no laws and is being held to a different legal standard than other former Presidents and Vice Presidents. We are confident that no matter how crooked the Executive branch has become, the American justice system is resilient and will throw this case out in its entirety. If not, our cherished Constitution is in serious trouble. 

“President Trump will fight this unconstitutional abuse of power until he is ultimately vindicated. He will never stop fighting for the American people, and he will continue to work to restore the greatness of the United States of America.”

Hillary Clinton, the bloated gloater of Twitter, refers to the Trump indictment while also trying to sell hats:

A comment left in her gloating Twitter thread:

June 9, 2023 – Judicial Watch: The “Clinton Sock Drawer” case vs. the Trump Mar-a-Lago raid and indictment case

More from this Twitter thread:

In 2010, Judicial Watch submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Clinton Library and Presidential Museum, seeking access to the Clinton audiotapes from his time as President. The Obama National Archives (NARA) responded that the audiotapes are personal records and therefore not subject to the Presidential Records Act or FOIA. Judicial Watch subsequently sued and requested that the Court to declare the audiotapes to be Presidential records and, because they are not currently in the government’s possession, to compel NARA to assume custody and control over them.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against Judicial Watch. In doing so, she explained:

“Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion, see 44 U.S.C. § 2203(b), so [NARA] could not make . . . a classification decision” different from that of President.

“Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records.”

“The PRA contains no provision obligating or even permitting the Archivist to assume control over records that the President ‘categorized’ and ‘filed separately’ as personal records. At the conclusion of the President’s term, the Archivist only ‘assumes responsibility for the Presidential records.’”

“Plaintiff contends that its factual allegations about the nature and substance of the audiotapes clearly establishes them to be Presidential records, regardless of how they were treated by President Clinton. The Court is not so sure. But even if the Court were inclined to agree with plaintiff’s reassessment of President Clinton’s decision, it would not alter the conclusion that the injury cannot be redressed: the PRA does not confer any mandatory or even discretionary authority on the Archivist to classify records. Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the President. While the plaintiff casts this lawsuit as a challenge to a decision made by the National Archives, the PRA makes it clear that this is not a decision the Archivist can make, and in this particular case, it is not a decision the Archivist did make because President Clinton’s term ended in 2000, and the tapes were not provided to the Archives at that time.”

Background:

While in office, President Clinton enlisted historian Taylor Branch to assist him in creating an oral history of his eight years in office by recording 79 audiotapes that preserved not only President Clinton’s thoughts and commentary on contemporaneous events and issues he was facing as president, but, in some instances, recorded actual events such as presidential telephone conversations. For example, the audiotapes contained the following content:

(More)

June 10, 2023 – Trump indictment reveals lawfare word games – The difference between “classified documents” and “classified markings”

(…) The indictment accuses President Trump of withholding documents containing “classified markings,” a very specifically deployed obtuse wording intended to create the implication of something nefarious where nothing nefarious exists.  It is entirely possible for a person, any person, especially a person who follows the news, to possess documents containing “classified markings.”

There is a big difference between a classified document and a document containing classified markings.  As an example, anyone who has looked at the Carter Page FISA application made public in July 2018, has reviewed a document containing “classified markings.”  When a document is declassified, they do not remove the markings.

You might think this is a one-off use of the “documents with classification markings” lingo, but it’s not.  This language is the underpinning of the entire DOJ/FBI framework that predicated the raid on Mar-a-Lago.   Specifically, neither NARA nor the DOJ-NSD requested President Trump or his team to return Classified Documents.  The DOJ demanded the return of any documents that contained “classified markings.” [SEE BELOW]

Because the verbiage is so intentionally obtuse (ie. Lawfare), a fulsome production in compliance with this DOJ demand would include any newspaper or magazine articles that had a picture of the Carter Page FISA application, or any printed online article that might contain the same or similar elements.  There is a big difference between asking for a classified document return, and asking for a return of documents that contain “classified markings.” [Example from CTH, below]

As a result, it is entirely possible, I would say almost certain, that President Trump -and his legal team- returned every document that contained classified information but may have omitted documents that retained “classified markings”.  There’s the spirit of compliance, and the letter of absolute compliance when contrasted against a very granular interpretation of the request.

It is obvious from the demand, the DOJ/FBI was casting a wide net on the compliance side, knowing that amid hundreds of thousands of presidential documents and records, there would be obscure documents with classified markings that had nothing to do with national security.  Thus, the “classified markings” establishes a Lawfare compliance tactic.

It will be interesting to see how this nonsense progresses.  It becomes easier to call it nonsense, when you simply accept the approach being used.  If the DOJ-NSD, FBI, Special Counsel or NARA were genuinely interested in ‘national security issues’, they would not be playing obtuse word games in order to structure court filings simply for media narrative engineering and propaganda purposes.

Again, all of these insufferable pretending elements simply create more avenues for smart legal minds to highlight to the court.  The judges can see through this nonsense, and their action or lack thereof becomes part of showcasing their own agenda.  Fortunately, Judge Cannon has a very solid background on the Mar-a-Lago documents case.  She wouldn’t need to have this stuff pointed out to her; she has already experienced it. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 6/10/2023)  (Archive)

June 11, 2023 – If the documents do not belong to President Trump, then why did the government dump them in the WH parking lot and tell him to deal with them?

CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman and CBS News investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge join “Face the Nation” to discuss what’s in the indictment — and what it means for Trump. [Transcript Here]

Before getting to the video, it’s valuable to see Rikki Klieman representing the interpretation of the media outlook toward the indictment handed down by Special Counsel Jack Smith.  It is also valuable to see CBS’s Catherine Herridge represent the defenders of the institutions, from the outside vulgarian personage of Trump.

Klieman buys the Lawfare narrative completely, including the framework of classified documents as opposed to documents containing classified markings.  She sells the Lawfare outline as gospel and makes all assertions from that position.  Herridge looks at how the bureaucracy responds to Trump, including how the institutions hold power of determination higher than a President of the United States.

Bill Barr said emphatically earlier today, “The documents do not belong to Trump,” continuing with “The documents belong to the government who created them, not the man for whom they were created.”  So sayeth the defender of the omnipotent Dept of Justice.  This is where a sharp intellectual knife to cut through the chaff and countermeasures is needed, and notice no one brings up the visible and practical deconstruction point.

If the documents did not belong to President Donald J. Trump, then why did the government dump them in the parking lot of the White House and tell him to deal with them?

 

If the documents belonged to the government, and not to the man for whom they were created, then why did that same government give them to him and force him to take them to a location of his choosing?   Can you see the obtuse argument fall apart when simple pragmatic questions are raised?

The institutions are presented, by the sellers of the Lawfare narrative, as higher than the authority of the President of the United States.  This is how ridiculous our government has become.

Institutions are not omnipotent entities; they are buildings and networks full of people who facilitate processes that are an outcome of policy.  Those buildings and offices are not the government. The elected politicians who we send to Washington DC are not subservient to the processes, norms and morays they determine within the bureaucracy that the politicians are in charge of.

The argument(s) against Donald Trump are akin to a business saying that all work product created during the tenure of employment belongs to the enterprise of the business and not to the employee.  If you want to hold that line of thought, fine.  However, you then need to reconcile that the business enterprise intentionally gave all the work product to the employee, dumped it in their lap, told them to take it and leave, and then comes back at a later date and says – we now need to review the stuff we forced you to take because some of it might not actually belong to you.

Does this happen anywhere else?  Of course not.

The fact that the National Archives and Record Administration refused to take custody of the documents upon the end of the White House tenure, combined with the fact the NARA dumped those documents in the parking lot of the White House for Trump to deal with, is a direct statement the bureaucracy was telling President Trump these are your records.  His records – not their records on loan to him.

The Presidential Records Act is the overriding legislative guidance for the flow of work product post-term in office.  These are essentially document arguments.  The fact that NARA together with the Biden administration would weaponize the disposition of documents, they intentionally forced Trump to take ownership of, speaks to an intent within the bureaucracy that is transparently obvious.

Bill Barr’s entire mindset is based on a belief the institutions are of a higher power than the individuals we elect to control them.  In essence, the President of the United States is subservient to the bureaucracy.  This is nonsense.  This is also why former AG Bill Barr was more concerned about preserving the institutions than stopping the weaponizing activity that flows from them.

President Trump could store his “presidential records” anywhere he wants to; they are his records.

Now, watch Klieman obscure the difference between classified documents and documents containing classified markings.  Despite her pontifications to the contrary, the indictment is not based around any classified documents.  The classification of the documents is technically and factually moot to the ridiculous point the special counsel is making.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 6/11/2023) (Archive)

June 12, 2023 – Georgia’s Halderman Report is released and reveals Dominion voting machines are hackable

J. Alex Halderman (Credit: CSpan)

On Wednesday, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia unsealed the 96-page Halderman Report – the Security Analysis of Georgia’s ImageCast X Ballot Marking Devices.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been hiding this report from the public for two years.

University of Michigan Professor of Computer Science and Engineering J. Halderman and Security Researcher and Assistant Professor at Auburn University Drew Sringall collaborated on the report where they discovered many exploitable vulnerabilities in the Dominion Voting Systems’ ImageCast X system.

Far-left Judge Amy Totenberg sealed and covered up the results of the investigation of Dominion voting machines in Georgia and sat on the report until this week.

The report confirms that votes can be altered in the Dominion voting machines.  In fact, the report reveals that the Dominion software is vulnerable and can be hacked.

On Thursday VoterGA founder Garland Favorito joined Steve Bannon on The War Room to discuss the findings from the explosive report.

Trump-hating Secretary of State Raffensperger hid this information from the public until now.  Why is that?

Here is a copy of the Halderman Report released this week.

Halderman Report on Georgi… by Jim Hoft

Professor Halderman wrote about his findings in a blog post on Wednesday.

Back in September 2020, the Court granted the Curling Plaintiffs access to one of Georgia’s touchscreen ballot marking devices (BMDs) so that they could assess its security. Drew and I extensively tested the machine, and we discovered vulnerabilities in nearly every part of the system that is exposed to potential attackers. The most critical problem we found is an arbitrary-code-execution vulnerability that can be exploited to spread malware from a county’s central election management system (EMS) to every BMD in the jurisdiction. This makes it possible to attack the BMDs at scale, over a wide area, without needing physical access to any of them.

Our report explains how attackers could exploit the flaws we found to change votes or potentially even affect election outcomes in Georgia, including how they could defeat the technical and procedural protections the state has in place. While we are not aware of any evidence that the vulnerabilities have been exploited to change votes in past elections, without more precautions and mitigations, there is a serious risk that they will be exploited in the future.

On Thursday Professor Halderman tweeted out that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will not install Dominion’s security patches before the 2024 election.

This was taken from a recent Raffensperger statement.

Raffensperger, a vocal Never-Trumper, has been aware of the investigators’ findings for two years!

That means he ran the vulnerable machines during his reelection in 2022!

What is up with Brad Raffensperger? (The Gateway Pundit, 6/15/2023)  (Archive)

Also via Gateway Pundit, 6/15/2023:

(…) Garland Favorito brought the receipts with him on The War Room.

Garland Favorito: Finally,  just yesterday I believe this report was released and it has some amazing findings that basically say what we have been saying all along.  What Mike (Lindell) has been saying, what you and I have been saying, and so many people, that the system is very insecure. It can be hacked.

So what Dr. Halderman did is he looked at only the ballot marking device part of the system.  This (investigation and report) is limited to that. It doesn’t actually even include the scanners which have another incredibly vulnerable. Which we have already found have been compromised in the 2020 election in Fulton County. So that’s the background, Steve, of all of what’s been going on.

Steve Bannon:  I just want to make sure. I want you go through the slides. Holleman’s totally independent, right? He’s some guy that’s an expert in the field. He’s a subject matter expert. He has no axe to grind on this, correct?

Garland Favorito: Absolutely. And if anything, he leans far more on the Democrat side than the Republican. But as you said, he’s an independent professor. Certainly has no axe to grind, particularly for Donald Trump or any Republicans…

…It was a titanic fight. People from all over different organizations have requested that this report be released for the security of their own voting systems. The Secretary of State of Louisiana requested that it be released. OAN requested that it would be released for part of their lawsuit. I think Fox News as well, because Dominion is suing them. It’s critical information, but it’s critical to the security of elections in the country because you could do Dr. Halderman could have done the same thing to a different vendor as well.

Slide two if Cameron has that already. But basically this is about what we call the Dominion ICX, which is the ballot marking device. And — Dr. Holleman says that…  the ICX suffers from critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited to subvert all of its security mechanisms. He goes on to say that he demonstrates that these vulnerabilities provide multiple routes by which attackers can install malicious software on Georgia ballot marking devices. And he continues on, he says, “I explain how such malware can alter voters’ votes while subverting all of the procedural protections practiced by the state. That’s about as damning as you can get.

You go on to number slide three, and he says that attackers can alter the QR codes on the printed ballots to modify voter selections. The QR code, Steve, as you know, contains the votes. The votes are accumulated out of the QR code. The system does not accumulate what the voter actually can see on text. And he also found that the attackers can forge or manipulate the smart cards that the ballot marking device uses to authenticate technicians, poll works, and voters you can manipulate. He goes on to show how they are forged. He actually forged the cards and did all sorts of things as part of his analysis.

So flipping on to the next slide, he says that the software update that Georgia installed in October 2020 left Georgia’s ballot marking devices in a state where anyone can install malware with only brief physical access to the machines. And he goes on to say, I showed that this problem can potentially be exploited in the polling place even by nontechnical voters. Go on to the next slide. And he goes on to say, I demonstrate that attackers can execute arbitrary code with root supervisory privileges, which means that. You have control of everything on the machine.

And he says by altering the election definition file that county workers copy to every BMD before each election, this has been the key point of our concerns, is that this election definition file comes from the state, and the state propagates this to every county, which propagates it to every voting machine. And Professor Holland again says that attackers could exploit this to spread malware to all ballot marking devices across the county or the entire state. And we believe that has actually been done because in 2017, we found that the Secretary of State’s Election Management Server, the state server, was exposed to the Internet for virtually anyone in the world to place malware on it. So head on to the next slide. The ICX contains numerous unnecessary Android applications.

And he talks about a terminal emulator that has a supervisory command interface that overrides all of the access controls. So he goes on to say that an attacker can alter the ballot marking devices audit logs simply by opening them in the on screen text editor application. So you could literally audit you could audit the audit logs just like you would create or change a Word document. That’s how easy that would be.

Going on to the next slide. He says that I developed a series of proof of concept attacks, which he goes over in his 96-page report. And he says that – vulnerabilities in the ballot marking device could be used to change the personal votes of individual Georgia voters, it is very likely that there are other equally critical flaws that are yet to be discovered…

…He said that attackers only have to find one of the flaws. They don’t have to find them all. He found I don’t know how many, probably a dozen or more.

Next slide. He goes on to say that the ICX BMDs that’s the Dominion ICX ballot marking devices are not sufficiently secured against technical compromise to withstand vote-altering attacks by bad actors who are likely to attack future elections in Georgia… Despite the addition of a paper trail, the malware can still change individual votes and most election outcomes without detection. And then we’ve got just one or two more slides.

The next slide: Using vulnerable ICX BMDs for all in-person voters, as Georgia does, greatly magnifies the security risk compared to jurisdictions that just use handmark paper ballots but provide the ballot marking devices to the voters upon request. So in other words, if you have a voter with an impairment, they need ballot marking device. But when you give this ballot marking device to every single voter, it increases the security risk by an incredible order of magnitude. And Dr. Haldeman goes on to say that the critical vulnerabilities in the ICX indicate that it was developed without sufficient attention to security during design, software engineering and testing. Certainly, I think that is true because why would a vendor come out with a QR-coded voting system after we had 15 years of complaints against the unverifiable voting of the old paperless DREs these systems? And it’s not just Dominion, it’s E&S as well. They have one. They are ill-conceived from the point that they were originally designed.

Video via Midnight Rider

 

June 13, 2023 – Senator Grassley reveals redacted part of FBI 1023 report on Confidential Human Source alleging there are audio tapes of his conversations with Joe Biden

Things are certainly getting interesting on the Biden bribery story. Apparently, in the unclassified interview with the Confidential Human Source, the FBI redacted the source alleging he has audio recordings of himself speaking to Joe Biden.

Senator Chuck Grassley revealed this little bit of information today from the security of the Senate floor.

(Transcript) – Last week, I came to the Senate Floor to give a speech about the Biden Justice Department and FBI playing games with the American people by hiding the FBI-generated 1023 document from Congress.

Director Wray was going to be held in contempt for refusing to produce the 1023 that I told Chairman Comer about. Then, instead of contempt, the FBI committed to showing the 1023 and related documents to Congress.

So, the FBI showed but didn’t provide possession of that 1023 to the House Oversight Committee last week.

As the public knows that 1023 involves an alleged bribery scheme between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden and a foreign national. The same allegations that Chairman Comer and I made public on May 3 of this year.

And on the same day that the FBI provided a redacted version of the 1023 to the House Oversight Committee, the Justice Department announced that former President Trump had been indicted and charged with 37 crimes relating to his alleged mishandling of classified records.

Attorney General Garland signed off on prosecuting Trump for conduct similar to what Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton engaged in. Two standards of justice in this country will turn our constitutional Republic upside down. Thanks to the political infection within the Biden Justice Department and FBI, we’re well along the road for that to happen.

This senator will do all that he can to fight that political infection. And you fight it by bringing transparency to what the government does. The public’s business ought to be public. Transparency brings accountability.

With respect to the 1023 shown to that House Committee, from what I’ve been told by folks who’ve reviewed it, it’s filled with redactions. So, Director Wray placed redactions on a document that was already unclassified.

More than that, the FBI made Congress review a redacted unclassified document in a classified facility. That goes to show you the disrespect the FBI has for Congress. On a previous time on the Senate Floor, I asked my fellow senators what’s so unusual about an unclassified document being given to the public, when on May 18 of this year, there was leaked to the New York Times a classified document and even the name of a confidential human source. So, we’re kind of in a strange situation here. A classified document can be leaked to the New York Times, but an unclassified document can’t be made public to 300 million Americans.

Accordingly, Congress still lacks a full and complete picture with respect to what that document really says. That’s why it’s important that the document be made public without unnecessary redactions for the American people to see.

Let me assist for purposes of transparency.

The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings.

According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses fifteen audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden. These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden.

So, as I’ve repeatedly asked since going public with the existence of the 1023, what, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?

The Justice Department and FBI must show their work. They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s clear that the Justice Department and FBI will use every resource to investigate candidate Trump, President Trump and former President Trump.

Based on the facts known to Congress and the public, it’s clear that the Justice Department and FBI will use every resource to investigate candidate Trump, President Trump and former President Trump. Based on the facts known to Congress and the public, it’s clear that the Justice Department and FBI haven’t nearly had the same laser focus on the Biden family.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former President Trump. Well, what’s U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to a high-stakes bribery scheme?

Getting a full and complete 1023 is critical for the American people to know and understand the true nature of the document and to hold the Justice Department and FBI accountable.

It’s also important for asserting constitutional congressional oversight powers against an out-of-control Executive Branch drunk with political infection. Remember, Congress has received 1023’s in the past and they’ve been made public. So asking for this 1023 to be turned over to the American people to read is not unusual.

Congress owes it to the American people and the brave and heroic whistleblowers to continue to fight for transparency in this matter and make this document public without unnecessary redactions.

I want everyone to remember, that I have read the unredacted version. (Transcript Link)

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 6/13/2023)  (Archive)

June 13, 2023 – A few theories on the identity of the Confidential Human Source/Whistleblower, regarding Biden corruption

June 13, 2023 – Marco Polo’s, Garrett Ziegler, reveals identity of second IRS whistleblower on Biden family corruption

Garrett Ziegler founder of Marco Polo joins Steve Bannon’s War Room and reveals that they received a subpoena from an insider at J.P. Morgan in May of 2019. The subpoena lists a gentleman named Joseph Ziegler who is now coming forward as the 2nd IRS whistleblower exposing the Biden family’s crimes. The first IRS whistleblower is Gary Shapley who recently interviewed with CBS.

(Warroom, 6/13/2023)  (Archive)

June 14, 2023 – Hillary Clinton: Republicans defending Trump on classified docs “beyond anything that I ever thought possible in this country”

June 20, 2023 – Actor Jim Caviezel implicates US agencies in child sex trafficking and worse

Actor Jim Caviezel joined Steve Bannon on The War Room on Tuesday evening.

(…) Caviezel worked with several former federal agents and 30 Navy SEALS while filming in Colombia.

During the interview, Jim Caviezel implicated several US agencies in child sex trafficking and worse.

Steve Bannon: Do you believe that that’s part of the senior government apparatus just does not want to touch this? They profit off it. They don’t mind if it happens. I mean, why would DHS when when they’re in charge and like you said, there’s five drug agents to every one human trafficking agent… It’s my opinion I don’t know what Jim’s opinion is, but it’s definitely my opinion that this is something they don’t want to solve…

Jim Caviezel: …You might have 14 people in the room and they all want you, but two have big enough voices where they can shut down those twelve. And so right now, I don’t think it was smart for Bud Light to somebody woke up in the morning and said, “Hey, let’s put this transgender on our beer can.” Okay? And then Target is looking going, “Wow, look at all the billions they’re losing. We got to do this, too.” Obviously, something’s going on, right?… The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. What monastery are they from?…

Let’s go back to Ms. Rodas. She comes out and says, 85,000 children are missing. That’s damn near a Rose Bowl stadium. And I think it’s a lot more than that. After I talked to Tim and many of them, they were saying, Jim, these are small numbers. Okay, fine. But that’s not newsworthy the next day. Like, you don’t want to pick that up? And then I started noticing that’s a tell. But it’s a huge tell. It’s over and over. Every time something trafficking comes out, next day, nothing. Nobody wants to talk about this story. Nothing. But I went through this on The Passion of the Christ. Yes. I was told every day that this…

This is the most important film. This is why movies were supposed to be made. This is why I wanted to become an actor. I wanted to do things to bring the light on evil. And this is a perfect good versus evil film…

But while we were doing this, I had a really great team around me (in Colombia) But all of a sudden, they disappeared. They saved 200 children in the middle of this whole thing,

Steve Bannon: Tim’s team was working the film down there. Those guys go out and they save they saved 200 children while we were down there. This is the power of this movie… Okay, go to angel.com/WarRoom to get your tickets. You got to take your friends on 4 July… Look, you’ve got all these other issues – about harvesting and all this apparatus. You say the alphabet agencies are here are involved somehow. You’re meeting with people. You want hearings, you want investigations, you want whistleblowers, you want everybody to start coming…

Jim Caviezel: I want media to do what Laura Logan’s doing. That woman is a hero. She puts herself right into hell and she goes out and she doesn’t just say, hey, they told you to just read these today…

Steve Bannon: Would you say? Now, if we could organize, get all the media and by the way, Lara Logan is going to be the show later in the week. If we get all these if we… and you would take them down and you would show them…

Jim Caviezel: I would love for them to meet a lot of these agents. And that can be provided for them, but they have to go into hell to see it, and then going into the Dark Web to get…

Steve Bannon: Can we help to arrange that?

Jim Caviezel: I think that would be amazing. I think there’s Jason Jones would be a great guy to go to. And then all the connect oh, that would be awesome.

Jim Caviezel: “All of our children are in trouble, it’s got to stop, we have the power to do it”

(Gateway Pundit, 6/20, 2023) (Archive)

Other Interviews regarding Caviezel’ s movie, “Sound of Freedom”:

Jim Caviezel Goes In Depth On Human Trafficking And New Movie “Sound Of Freedom”

 

Spread Awareness Of Child Trafficking With The Film ‘Sound of Freedom’ At Angel.com/WarRoom

U.S. Is #1 World Consumer Of Child Trafficking While Mexico Is #1 Supplier | Eduardo Breaks Down How U.S.-Mexico Are Hurting Each Other

 

June 21, 2023 – Durham Hearing: Jim Jordan’s opening statement

June 21, 2023 – Durham Hearing: Why numerous Russiagate co-conspirators weren’t interviewed in his investigation

June 21, 2023 – Durham Hearing: The FBI kept intel on the Clinton plan to ‘link Trump with Russia’ from agents working the case

June 21, 2023 – Durham Hearing: Hillary Clinton fabricated it; Obama and Biden knew it; The FBI orchestrated it; and the mainstream media sold it

June 21, 2023 – Durham Hearing: Gaetz questions Durham for not going after Andy McCabe; investigating the Mueller team; why they smashed phones; and who honey-potted Papadopoulos

June 22-July 20, 2023: IRS whistleblowers and FBI testimony confirm FBI knew Hunter Biden Laptop was authentic before meeting with Twitter, Facebook

On June 22, 2023, the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government reveals testimony from IRS whistleblowers who confirm the FBI knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was authentic.

The FBI confirmed the authenticity in 2019.

On July 17, 2023, the House Judiciary Committee conducted an interview with Laura Dehmlow, the section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF).

Dehmlow confirmed the FBI knew the Biden laptop was real on October 14, 2020, the same day the New York Post broke the laptop story, and the same day the FBI was meeting with social media platforms to censor American citizens who were sharing the laptop story.

The committee followed up with a letter to FBI Director, Christopher Wray on July 20, 2023, asking why the FBI failed to alert the social media platforms that the laptop was real.

June 22, 2023 – IRS whistleblower says search warrants, charges for Hunter Biden blocked, Joe met Chinese client

Hunter Biden (l) and supervisory IRS agent Gary Shapley (r) (Credit: The New York Post)

A supervisory IRS agent divulged to Congress widespread interference in the probe of Hunter Biden, including the blockage of two search warrants and more extensive criminal charges, while also confirming the government had evidence that Joe Biden met with his son’s Chinese business partners, according to testimony released Thursday,

Just the News obtained the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley shortly after the House Ways and Means Committee voted to pierce Hunter Biden’s tax privacy and make the agent’s allegations of preferential treatment and political interference public.

He confirmed career prosecutors originally intended to charge Hunter Biden with numerous tax violations dating to 2014, but in the end appointees of Joe Biden nixed the plan for a more sweeping indictment. In the end, the charges were narrowed to two counts in 2017 and 2018 that most likely spared the presidential son prison time.

“I am blowing the whistle because the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice Tax, and Department of Justice provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest in an important and high-profile investigation of the President’s son, Hunter Biden,” he told lawmakers.

You can read the full testimony here.

 Whistleblower 1 Transcript_Redacted.pdf

Shapley divulged in his testimony that federal prosecutors twice blocked search warrants seeking evidence from Hunter Biden, including one for a storage locker with corporate documents and another for Joe Biden’s Delaware residence where Hunter Biden was living, even though agents had met the standards for probable cause. (Read more: JustTheNews, 6/22/2023)  (Archive)

June 22, 2023 – Transcript of IRS whistleblower interview reveals texts of Hunter Biden shaking down Chinese benefactor with threats like “you will regret not following my direction”

Photos Place Hunter Biden At Father’s House The Day He Invoked Dad’s Name to Threaten Chinese Business Partner

June 22, 2023 – Hunter Biden got kicked out of a private sex club for “grabbing women’s asses”

Hunter Biden was kicked out of the SNCTM sex club (above) for “grabbing women’s asses” and acting “like a spoiled child,” founder Damon Lawner (front) told The Post. Lawner said the IRS investigated Biden’s $10,000 payment.
(Credit: Matthew McDermott/NY Post)

Hunter Biden got kicked out of a private sex club for “grabbing women’s asses” and acting “like a spoiled child,” the founder exclusively told The Post.

The president’s troubled son is “a really bad guy — not a good person. He’s just not,” said Damon Lawner, who founded the notorious SNCTM club, where membership ran as high as $75,000 a year. And Hunter’s $10,000 payment led to Lawner receiving an IRS subpoena.

Lawner claimed that the payment was made through a mystery woman in 2018 and that he was later informed of a probe by the IRS criminal division who “asked me about book-keeping and records.”

Lawner said he decided to disclose Biden’s sex club membership after Biden was given a virtual slap on the wrist on Tuesday in an income tax and a gun case after a five-year federal investigation.

The whopping fee, Lawner said, was made through an LLC that hid Hunter’s name and paid by a mystery woman who accompanied the president’s son — “high as a kite and zonked out” — to the club.

Sometime in 2018, Lawner said, the woman applied for membership in the upscale sex club, which reportedly was attended by celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Bill Maher. The woman told Lawner, who approved all memberships, that she would be accompanied by a handsome man.

When Lawner requested more information, she would only state that his “name was Hunter and that he was a member of a prominent political family.”

On their first and only visit, Hunter acted so rude to upscale female members — “grabbing women’s asses” and other behavior that went against the club’s rules — that Lawner asked him to leave and banned him from future events.

One of the club rules at SNCTM was “always ask before you touch,” Lawner said. “When I told Hunter he had to leave, that people were complaining about his behavior, he was belligerent and acted like a spoiled child. But he did leave.”

Hunter’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

At the time of Biden’s visit, Lawner said he still wasn’t certain who he was or which prominent family belonged to.

It was only when The Post broke the story last year of Hunter’s laptop — which contains, among other things, pornographic photos of the first son and women, as well as pictures of him doing drugs and even proof of payments to prostitutes — that Lawner saw Hunter’s photo for the first time and realized he was the stoned guy who had been banned from the club.

Lawner said that, on Nov. 1, 2021, he received a subpoena by mail from the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service. He claimed the entities OWASCO, PC and OWASCO, LLC were listed in the subpoena as part of the investigation; according to press reports, they allegedly belong to Hunter. (Read more: New York Post, 6/22/2023)  (Archive)

June 23, 2023 – After AG Garland denies main justice interference, IRS whistleblower reveals names of witnesses to show Garland lying

Things are getting spicy in/around Main Justice in DC.  On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy AG Lisa Monaco denied any involvement interfering with the decisions made by USAO David Weiss regarding the investigation of the Hunter and ¹Joe Biden bribery and tax fraud scheme. However, in response, the IRS whistleblower is now naming additional witnesses to Weiss’s statements.

Through his attorneys, whistleblower Gary Shapley is now naming additional witnesses to the statements of USAO Weiss:

“In an October 7, 2022, meeting at the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Attorney David Weiss told six witnesses he did not have authority to charge in other districts and had thus requested special counsel status. Those six witnesses include Baltimore FBI Special Agent in Charge Tom Sobocinski and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryeshia Holley, IRS Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gary Shapley and Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, who also independently and contemporaneously corroborated Mr. Shapley’s account in an email, now public as Exhibit 10, following p. 148 of his testimony transcript.

Mr. Shapley would have no insight into why Mr. Weiss would make these statements at the October 7, 2022 meeting if they were false.  That Mr. Weiss made these statements is easily corroborated, and it is up to him and the Justice Department to reconcile the evidence of his October 7, 2022 statements with contrary statements by Mr. Weiss and the Attorney General to Congress.”  (source)

Someone is lying, and the whistleblower appears to have all his information well documented and cited.  Mr. Weiss, Mr. Garland and Mrs. Monaco have some explaining to do.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 6/25/2023)  (Archive)

June 23, 2023 – John Kirby walks out of press briefing after question about Hunter Biden message to China that undermines all prior White House denials

White House Coordinator for National Security Council Strategic Communications, John Kirby, walks out of the press briefing room after being asked about Hunter Biden’s WhatsApp messages with China implicating President Biden

THE MESSAGE: “I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made was not fulfilled. Tell the director I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And Zhi, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows, and my ability to forever hold a grudge, that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

John Kirby uncomfortably said he would not comment on the text message and refused to answer any questions. WATCH: (Conservative Treehouse, 6/24/2023)  (Archive)

June 23, 2023 – Joe Biden: “…and I sold a lot of state secrets and a lot of very important things we shared”

June 25, 2023 – Peter Schweizer reports Joe Biden was using a secret cell phone while VP

Peter Schweizer, head of the “Government Accountability Institute,” told Maria Bartiromo on FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he tipped off the House Oversight Committee to look into records for a private global cell phone he alleges Hunter Biden’s business gave to Joe Biden during his time as vice president:

PETER SCHWEIZER: It’s interesting, what is the line of communications between Hunter Biden and his business partners and Joe Biden when he’s vice president of the United States? It’s not the government phone, it’s not Joe Biden’s personal phone. We know from the laptop that Hunter Biden’s business paid for a private phone line that Joe Biden used while he was vice president. It was from AT&T, it was $300 a month, it was a global phone where you could access somebody anywhere around the world.

We shared that phone number and that account information with people in the House Oversight Committee. My hope is that they if they haven’t already, they will subpoena those records because I think it will give an indication on how tight the communication was.

And that may be the phone, for example, that the Ukrainian, the Burisma executive might have used in this allegation that the he talked to Joe Biden in recorded conversations.

I would just say one other thing, Maria, as it relates to that sort of shakedown phone call with Henry Zhao that we alluded to, Henry Zhao in 2015 had already sent $5 million to the Bidens. He was the head of a Harvest Investment firm. And what’s interesting is in the correspondence there, Hunter Biden again talks to Zhao in the context of “this is a deal that’s important to my family” involving his father.

Let’s also keep in mind, we fixate on the criminal element of this, we also have to focus on the espionage element of this. Henry Zhao paid $5 million to Hunter Biden from an account that was part of a company that he co-owned with the family of the Minister of State Security of China, who’s in charge of the entire spy apparatus. And you see that in every deal that Hunter Biden did in China. These individuals that are sending him money have ties to Chinese intelligence. (Read more: RealClearPolitics, 6/25/2023)  (Archive)

Update: Ring, ring! You’ll never guess who picked up when @jsolomonreports called Hunter Biden’s secret cell phone.

June 26, 2023 -O’Keefe Media Group files lawsuit alleging Chinese ties to ActBlue scheme

June 25, 2023 – Adam Kinzinger refers to ‘Patriot Front’ group as ‘federal officers’

I reported earlier on the viral video of the Patriot Front-like characters getting unmasked in Portland, Oregon, after they showed up and tried to crash a political rally. Rallygoers, including members of the Proud Boys, weren’t having it. They didn’t want to get smeared with whatever the Patriot Front-like characters might say or do. The rallygoers called the group “racists,” told them to get the heck out (in more colorful language), and then proceeded to de-mask a few of them. That caused the Patriot Front-like guys who were exposed to panic and cover their faces. The video now has almost 15 million views.

There was a lot of speculation that the Patriot Front group and others like it are astroturfed: either made up of “feds” or of leftists trying to make people on the right look bad. But either way, whether they are astroturfed or real white nationalists, they have nothing in common with conservatives, and conservatives completely reject them and mock them at every opportunity. I also noted reasons why the folks in these videos might not have been “real” Patriot Front guys—the outfits are different, for instance—and one of the local people claimed it was an area Rose City group.

But one of the funniest reactions to the video came from Adam Kinzinger, the former Illinois representative who now is a “senior political commentator” for CNN.

Does Kinzinger know what he just said? He just called these guys federal officers. Does Adam know something the rest of us don’t? Did he just say something he shouldn’t have said? Is the former Jan. 6 Committee member saying federal officers embed themselves in groups? Can we say “whoopsies” in a big way? (Read more: Red State, 5/25/2023) (Archive)

June 26, 2023 – House Weaponization Committee: Biden admin ‘colluded’ with Big Tech, ‘facilitated the censorship of Americans’

The House Weaponization Subcommittee says the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has “facilitated the censorship of Americans directly” and through third-party intermediaries during the Biden administration.

Fox News Digital first obtained a new committee report [Part 3] Monday, stemming from the panel’s ongoing investigation into government-induced censorship on social media. The report focuses on CISA’s alleged work ahead of the 2020 election and the 2022 midterm elections.

The committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, obtained non-public documents that lawmakers say reveals CISA “expanded its mission to surveil Americans’s speech on social media, colluded with Big Tech and government-funded third parties to censor by proxy, and tried to hide its plainly unconstitutional activities from the public.”

The report states that CISA engaged in “surveillance,” by expanding its mission from cybersecurity to monitor foreign “disinformation” to eventually monitor “all ‘disinformation,’ including Americans’ speech.”

It also says CISA “exploited its connections with Big Tech and government-funded non-profits to censor, by proxy, in order to circumvent the First Amendment’s prohibition against government-induced censorship.” Specifically—the report says CISA-funded entities created reporting portals which “funneled ‘misinformation’ reports from the government directly to social media platforms.”

The report also alleges CISA engaged in “cover-ups” by trying to “cover their tracks ad cover up CISA’s censorship of domestic speech and surveillance of American citizens’ social media activity.

“This included scrubbing CISA’s website of references to domestic ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” the report states.

CISA, which was founded in 2018, was intended to be an agency focused on protecting critical infrastructure and guarding against cybersecurity threats.

“In the years since its creation, however, CISA metastasized into the nerve center of the federal government’s domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media,” the report states.

The subcommittee found that by 2020, CISA “routinely reported social media posts that allegedly spread ‘disinformation’ to social media platforms.”

By 2021, CISA had a formal “mis, dis, and malformation” (MDM) team. And by 2022 and 2023, the subcommittee alleged that CISA “attempted to camouflage its activities, duplicitously claiming it serves a purely ‘informational’ role.”

“Although CISA’s efforts to police speech are highly troubling overall, one particularly problematic aspect is CISA’s focus on ‘malformation,’” the report states. “According to CISA’s own definition, ‘malformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm or manipulate.”

The report points out that malformation is “factual information that is objectionable not because it is false or untruthful, but because it is provided without adequate ‘context’—context as determined by the government.”

Vijaya Gadde (Credit: Wikipedia)

CISA’s adivsory MDM Subcommittee has since disbanded, according to the report, but “brought together government, Big Tech, and academic misinformation ‘experts.’” Those experts included a former chief legal officer of Twitter—Vijaya Gadde; a former assistant general counsel and legal advisor for the CIA; and a professor for the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.

The report states that in January 2021, after President Biden took office, CISA “transitioned” to “promote more flexibility to focus on general MDM.”

“In doing so, CISA admitted that its focus was no longer exclusively on ‘countering foreign influence,’ but was also targeting MDM originating from domestic sources,” the report states.

According to the report, individuals on the MDM advisory team sought to “disguise the true nature” of its work.

One email obtained by the committee, written by a member of the MDM advisory team in May 2022, stated: “It’s only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work.”

That individual suggested finding time to speak with CISA communications and legislative officials to discuss “how we socialize what we’re doing.”

“It would be good to be proactive in telling our story rather than reacting to how someone else decides to portray it, right?” The email states. “I know neither of us has time for this, but I am telling myself that it might save us time in the long run!”

Days later, the MDM advisory team discussed its “commitment to transparency but expressed concern” for its efforts and “cautioned the group on how to communicate their ongoing work.”

Meanwhile, the report states that after the committee began issuing subpoenas to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta in February 2023, CISA “scrubbed its website of references to domestic MDM.” The website had previously described the threats posed by both foreign and domestic MDM.

Now, it only references “Foreign Influence Operations and Disinformation.”

The report goes on to state that CISA was working with federal partners to “mature” a whole-of-government approach to curbing alleged misinformation and disinformation. The report also states CISA considered creating an anti-misinformation “rapid response team” capable of physically deploying across the U.S.

The subcommittee also found that CISA moved its “censorship operation” to a CISA-funded non-profit, after the agency and the Biden administration were sued in federal court.

The report also states CISA wanted to use that CISA-funded nonprofit— The Center for Internet Security (CIS)—as a “mouthpiece” to “avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”

The report states that CISA funds CIS—including spending $27 million in FY 2024 for CIS’ Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center.

“CISA still has not adequately complied with a subpoena for relevant documents, and much more factfinding is necessary,” the report states. “In order to better inform the Committee’s legislative efforts, the Committee and Select Subcommittee will continue to investigate CISA’s and other Executive Branch agencies’ entanglement with social media platforms.”

Brandon Wales (Credit: public domain)

But CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales, in a statement to Fox News Digital, said the agency “does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship; any such claims are patently false.”

“Every day, the men and women of CISA execute the agency’s mission of reducing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure in a way that protects Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy,” Wales said. “In response to concerns from election officials of all parties regarding foreign influence operations and disinformation that may impact the security of election infrastructure, CISA mitigates the risk of disinformation by sharing information on election literacy and election security with the public and by amplifying the trusted voices of election officials across the nation.”

CISA also said that CIS “never funded CIS to perform any disinformation-related work,” and instead, said EI-ISAC “reported potential disinformation to social media platforms in relation to the 2022 election cycle,” but stressed that CISA was “not involved.”

Jordan and Republicans’ investigation comes after Republicans have sounded the alarm for years on Big Tech censorship and bias against conservatives.

Jordan’s committee has vowed to continue investigating the matter. (Fox News, 8/26/2023)  (Archive)

June 27, 2023 – Prosecutor who signs Hunter Biden plea deal worked for Hunter Biden business partner, Louis Freeh

By now everyone is aware how the corruption in Washington DC is fraught with internecine relationships; however, this one takes the proverbial cake.  The prosecutor who organized and signed the plea deal for Hunter Biden worked for Hunter Biden’s business partner.

Senator Ron Johnson is calling attention to Title 28, Section 45.2 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which says: ‘no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation if he has a personal or political relationship with […] any person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation.’

As if this entire episode wasn’t sketchy enough, Assistant United States Attorney Derek Hines (top left) was one of the prosecutors to sign off on Hunter Biden’s charges and plea deal. Hines previously worked under ex-FBI director Louis Freeh (bottom left), who was a business partner of Hunter Biden.  Hines worked for Freeh Group International Solutions which was specifically involved in the foreign company influence issue at the heart of the Hunter Biden case, and Freeh is a close friend of the entire Biden family.

This is nuts.

(Via Daily Mail) – A prosecutor who signed off on the documents charging Hunter Biden with tax and gun crimes previously worked with one of the First Son’s business partners, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Delaware US Attorney David Weiss officially filed charges against the president’s son last Tuesday after a near five-year probe into his alleged tax crimes and foreign financial dealings.

Weiss’s deputy, Assistant United States Attorney Derek Hines, signed off on the charging documents alongside his boss and two other assistant US attorneys – indicating he has a central role in Hunter’s criminal prosecution.

Freeh worked with Hunter on a $3million job consulting for a Romanian criminal, a deal that is allegedly now part of his federal criminal investigation and is being investigated by Congress.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson told DailyMail.com the link between the prosecutor and Hunter’s business associate ‘calls into question the integrity of their entire investigation’ – after GOP lawmakers slammed the relatively minor charges filed by the Delaware prosecutor this week as a mere ‘slap on the wrist’.

DailyMail.com has previously revealed that Freeh and his firm worked closely with Hunter Biden trying to get the US State Department to help limit the prosecution of Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel Popoviciu, who was on the brink of a bribery conviction in 2015. (read more)

The same DOJ who cut this Hunter Biden deal, are going after Donald Trump in part simply because of letters exchanged with Kim Jong-Un.

This entire corrupt DC system is beyond repair. (Conservative Treehouse, 7/03/2023)  (Archive)

June 29, 2023 – Tony Bobulinsk was open to testifying to Delaware grand jury; Delaware U.S. Atty David Weiss never asked for his testimony

David Weiss (l) and Tony Bobulinski (Credit: public domain)

A former business partner of Hunter and James Biden, who worked directly with them on a 2017 China energy deal, was never asked to testify to a Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter Biden, two sources familiar with the discussions tell CBS News.

Tony Bobulinski, the former business partner, was open to testifying, and his attorney reached out to the office of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Weiss did not return their calls, the sources said. Weiss’ decision not to bring Bobulinski is the latest indication that prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden may have avoided investigating allegations about his father, President Joe Biden.

In October 2020, Bobulinski was invited by the Trump campaign to attend a presidential debate after he released business records about his dealings with Hunter and James Biden. At a press conference before the debate, he claimed to have met with Joe Biden in May 2017, as part of discussions over a potential business deal with a Chinese energy firm, CEFC.

“I’ve heard Joe Biden say that he’s never discussed business with Hunter. That is false. I have firsthand knowledge about this because I directly dealt with the Biden family, including Joe Biden,” Bobulinski said at the press conference. Contacted this week by CBS News, Bobulinski said he stands behind those statements.

Bobulinski’s claims have garnered new interest among GOP congressional investigators after IRS whistleblowers gave closed-door testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee. In those transcripts, released last week, the whistleblower alleges the president’s son received preferential treatment that allegedly stymied federal investigators. The whistleblower, Gary Shapley, testified that investigative leads that might have led to Joe Biden were not pursued in the late summer and fall of 2020. At the time, Donald Trump was president and the attorney general was Bill Barr. (Read more: CBS News, 6/29/2023)  (Archive)

August 3, 2017 – Hunter Biden to CEFC official: “The Biden’s are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this partnership”

(Credit: House Oversight Committee)

July 2, 2023 – Hunter Biden laptop photos show him committing two crimes on camera

Hunter Biden documented his conduct behind the wheel in images found on his laptop computer.

The U.K. Daily Mail released pictures Hunter Biden took while he was en route to a session with some Las Vegas prostitutes on Aug. 1, 2018.

At the time the picture was taken, Hunter Biden was driving 172 mph.

(Credit: Biden Laptop)

Another photo dated June 12, 2018, which was also found on the laptop, showed the driver holding a charred crack pipe while driving 35 mph in Arlington, Virginia.

(Credit: Biden Laptop)

(Read more: The Western Journal, 7/02/2023)  (Archive) 

July 3, 2023 – Taibbi, Brand, & Shellenberger expose the censors as malign disinformation superspreaders

“How long can we allow convenience, safety, and security to enable centralized authoritarian systems to shut down communication and free speech?

“What is the nature of this new centralizing authoritarian system?”

“What is the misanthropy that lies at the heart of a discourse that believes our speech needs to be controlled?”

“Where is the moral authority that is entitled to make those decisions on our behalf?”

That is what Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger have been brave enough to dare to ask and even braver, to answer, in the following videos of the pair joining Russell Brand in London for a live discussion of The Censorship-Industrial-Complex (joined by Tim Robbins and Stella Assange).

Shellenberger began by laying out the many governments enacting previously unthinkable laws encroaching on your free speech rights (and more) driven by ‘The Elites’ desire “to censor the authentic voice of the people.”

As he ended his initial thoughts, emotions began to well up as Shellenberger explained:

“The most painful thing – and there’s a lot of painful things that one goes through – is losing almost all of your friends as a consequence of using your speech.”

Something many on the right can empathize with.

But there is hope, as he noted: “The only positive thing to come out of this is to make new friends. It is not the most obvious thing you expect to lose all of your friends in your late 40s, but the ones you keep are so dear.”

Shellenberger turned to his ‘new’ friend Matt Taibbi, they embraced, and the legendary investigative reporter began… by noting that he had written 1000s of words for his opening statement but would instead cherry pick the most notable (since his friend Michael had done such a good job) – you can read Taibbii’s full note here.

Several points stood out from Taibbi’s summary including the day – during their Twitter Files discovery – that:

it became “clear that the idea behind the sweeping system of digital surveillance combined with thousands or even millions of subtle rewards and punishments built into the online experience, is to condition people to censor themselves…

…What Michael and I were looking at was something new, an Internet-age approach to political control that uses brute digital force to alter reality itself.”

In fact, he went on to warn ominously:

“…after enough time online, users will lose both the knowledge and the vocabulary they would need to even have politically dangerous thoughts.

What Michael calls the Censorship-Industrial Complex is really just the institutionalization of orthodoxy, a vast, organized effort to narrow our intellectual horizons.”

Citing a company called Graphika, Taibbi explains the causation:

“This continual process of seeding doubt and uncertainty in authoritative voices leads to a society that finds it too challenging to identify what’s true or false.”

The point he makes is if there is no ‘middle’ – you are either defined as ‘approved’ or ‘unapproved, or as Orwell put it ‘good’ or ‘ungood’ – individuals will naturally self-sort and self-homogenize, “and this is happening all across society.”

What happens to a society that doesn’t square its mental books when it comes to facts, truth, errors, propaganda and so on?

There are only a few options.

Some people will do what some of us in this room have done: grow frustrated and angry, mostly in private.

Others have tried to protest by frantically cataloging the past.

Most however do what’s easiest for mental survival. They learn to forget.

This means living in the present only. Whatever we’re freaking out about today, let’s all do it together. Then when things change tomorrow, let’s not pause to think about the change, let’s just freak out about that new thing. The facts are dead! Long live the new facts!

We’re building a global mass culture that sees everything in black and white, fears difference, and abhors memory.

Sadly, Brand notes that the framing of ‘free speech’ as only being an enabler of hate speech continues to dominate the narratives, and both Shellenberger and Taibbi reflected on the disappointing realization that despite all the ‘truths’ exposed by The Twitter Files, it has done little to shift the mainstream (in fact, it has done the opposite with the MSM directly targeting the reporters, and downplaying/normalizing the censorship (self-defined or imposed) we all live with every day. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 7/07/2023)  (Archive)

 

July 4, 2023 – Federal Judge rules Biden can’t coordinate with social media to suppress free speech

Judge Terry Doughty (Credit: public domain)

A federal judge issued an injunction Tuesday ruling that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment when it worked with social media companies to censor opposing views.

Calling the censorship “Orwellian,” Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, stated that Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content,” the Washington Post reported.

Doughty barred members of the Biden administration — including officials with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — from communicating with social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech,” The New York Times reported.

While this preliminary injunction does not allow officials to communicate with social media agencies for the purpose of censoring opposing viewpoints, government agencies are still allowed to notify platforms regarding crime, foreign propaganda or threats to national security, the outlet noted. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/04/2023)  (Archive) (Louisiana Ruling, 7/04/2023)

Update:

Judge’s Injunction On Biden Censorship Operation Is More Far-Reaching Than Initially Reported

Conservatives celebrated Tuesday after a federal judge issued an injunction against government agencies collaborating with tech companies to censor online speech, but the order is even more far-reaching than first reported.

Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty granted the broad injunction barring President Joe Biden’s administration from collusion with pro-censorship nonprofit organizations, in addition to social media companies, in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden. The injunction found that government officials likely violated the First Amendment by suppressing protected speech and the order states that government actors are barred from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with” research groups and projects that advocate for censorship.

Specifically, the order calls out the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project and the Stanford Internet Observatory and it prevents the government from engaging with them and other groups and projects “for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/06/2023)  (Archive)

Updated update:

July 10, 2023 – Judge Doughty Denies Biden Administration’s Attempt to Halt Preliminary Injunction in Historic First Amendment Case

Judge Terry Doughty denied the Biden Administration’s attempt to halt preliminary injunction pending the outcome of appeal in the historic First Amendment case that was reported on Independence Day.

The plaintiffs in the case consist of the State of Missouri, the State of Louisiana, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty (“Kheriaty”), Dr. Martin Kulldorff (“Kulldorff”), Jim Hoft (“Hoft”), Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya (“Bhattacharya”), and Jill Hines (“Hines”).  (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 7/10/2023)  (Archive)

July 5, 2023 – ‘Missing’ Biden corruption case witness Dr. Gal Luft details allegations against the Biden family (video)

The “missing witness” from the Biden corruption investigation, Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, has laid out his bribery allegations against the president’s family in an extraordinary video filmed in an undisclosed location while he’s on the run.

In the 14-minute recording, obtained exclusively by The Post, the fugitive former Israeli army officer claims he was arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from individuals with alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence and that they had an FBI mole who shared classified information with their benefactors from the China-controlled energy company CEFC.

The self-proclaimed fall guy says he provided the incriminating evidence to six officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice in a secret meeting in Brussels in March 2019 — but alleges that it was covered up.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life on the run …”

“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda … I did it out of deep concern that if the Bidens were to come to power, the country would be facing the same traumatic Russia collusion scandal — only this time with China. Sadly, because of the DOJ’s cover-up, this is exactly what happened …” (Read more: The New York Post, 7/05/2023)  (Archive)

July 5, 2023 – Biden admin appeals injunction preventing it from coordinating with social media to suppress speech

Joe Biden (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Biden administration appealed a preliminary injunction Wednesday issued to prevent federal officials from communicating with social media platforms to censor content containing protected speech.

Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty issued the injunction Tuesday after finding plaintiffs in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, had produced “evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.” The Biden administration appealed the injunction to the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday.

The injunction prevented federal officials, including those in the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, from communicating with social media platforms for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/05/2023)  (Archive)

July 7, 2023 – GOP Sen. Schmitt: Our lawsuit shows Biden used legal threats to get censorship and judge agrees

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) discussed the lawsuit against social media censorship efforts by the Biden administration that he filed as Missouri’s Attorney General at the time and noted that the ruling in the case agreed with Missouri’s assertion that the Biden administration used the threat of regulation to coerce censorship from tech platforms.

Schmitt said,

“In that lawsuit, when we filed against the Biden administration, we were alleging and now have shown that they engaged in a vast censorship enterprise, and much broader than anybody ever had any idea [of]. And if it wasn’t for our lawsuit, it wasn’t for Elon Musk buying Twitter and the Twitter Files, all of this stuff would still be hidden, Larry, people would be dubbed conspiracy theorists for questioning, but what they did was and what’s been shown and what the judge agreed is this is perhaps the most chilling example of censorship in our country’s history…the government coerced these social media giants to take posts down, to de-platform people, they threatened regulatory action, they threatened investigations, they threatened legal action to get them to do their bidding.”

Schmitt added,

“Jen Psaki was standing at the podium saying that they were demanding accountability and were flagging posts for our partners, very kind of Orwellian stuff. … They were very out in the open about this, Larry.”

In the opinion, Judge Terry Doughty noted that in May of 2021, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated, “[M]ajor platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation, and misinformation, especially related to COVID-19, vaccinations, and elections.” And Biden “also supports better privacy protections and a robust anti-trust program. So his view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation; disinformation; damaging, sometimes life-threatening information is not going out to the American public.” The opinion also notes that, two months later, Psaki said that “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” And that shortly after Psaki’s July comments, accounts that the administration had sought to suppress were taken down. (Read more: Breitbart, 7/07/2023)  (Archive)

July 8, 2023 – DOJ prosecutor/DNC donor blacked out all references to Trump cooperating with DOJ re Mar-a-Lago documents

July 10, 2023 – House Judiciary Report: FBI colluded with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Americans on social media

“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the state’s national security,
and the links recorded between Ukrainian security forces and Russian special services
raise very serious questions about their respective leaders.”
– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, July 17, 2022.

     The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the bedrock of our
political system and guarantees every American the right to speak his or her mind freely and
without interference from the government. It is predicated on the understanding that no
government official has a monopoly on the truth and that every American is capable of
evaluating competing claims and deciding what to believe.

     On February 15, 2023, as part of its investigation into the federal government’s role in
censoring lawful speech on social media platforms, the Committee on the Judiciary issued a
subpoena to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet, the parent
company of Google and YouTube. Documents obtained in response to those subpoenas revealed
that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), on behalf of a compromised Ukrainian
intelligence entity, requested—and, in some cases, directed—the world’s largest social media
platforms to censor Americans engaging in constitutionally protected speech online.

The Committee’s investigation has revealed that the FBI, the federal law enforcement
agency responsible for disrupting foreign malign influence, facilitated censorship requests to
American social media companies on behalf of a Ukrainian intelligence agency infiltrated by
Russian-aligned actors. In so doing, the FBI violated the First Amendment rights of Americans
and potentially undermined our national security. In light of well-documented instances of the FBI’s civil liberties abuses, this new information raises grave concerns about the FBI’scredibility as the nation’s premier law enforcement organization.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) sought to identify and impair suspected Russian influence operations on social media. The SBU enlisted the FBI in support of this effort, transmitting to the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly “spread Russian disinformation.”

The FBI, in turn, routinely relayed these lists to the relevant social media platforms, which distributed the information internally to their employees in charge of content moderation and enforcement. The graphic above illustrates the FBI’s intermediary role in the SBU’s censorship operation; the graphic below illustrates the remarkable frequency with which requests were sent by the FBI and SBU to American social media platforms.

(Read more: House Judiciary Committee Report, 7/10/2023)  (Archive)

July 12, 2023 – An assortment of Republican questions for FBI director about rampant misconduct while indignant Democrats defend the Bureau

Rep. Troy Nehls catches Wray in lies on child pornography cases and asks about Ray Epps

Rep. Tiffany asks Chris Wray about Joe Biden’s criminal bribery schemes and foreign bribes

Rep. Johnson asks Wray about the FBI colluding with big tech to censor Americans

 

Rep Harriett Hageman also questions Wray about the FBI colluding with big tech:

Matt Gaetz reads Hunter Biden shakedown WhatsApp message, then asks Wray if he’s ‘protecting the Bidens’ – Also addresses warrantless spying on Americans

 

Rep. Jordan asks Wray about FBI targeting Catholics

Rep. Massie questions Wray about Jan. 6 pipe bombs and missing phone data

Rep Biggs asks Wray if there were any undercover FBI agents in or around the U.S. Capitol on January 6

Rep Kiley asks Wray about FBI targeting parents protesting school boards

Rep Kiley asks Wray if he will apologize for targeting parents

Former Obama CIA Director John Brennan, says GOP misrepresented ‘truth’ in Wray hearing

Entire hearing via YouTube::

‘What About Hillary Clinton… And Joe Biden… And Hunter Biden?’: Wesley Hunt Grills FBI’s Wray

July 13, 2023 – Former Kiev diplomat, Andrii Telizhenko: Biden’s corruption led to Ukraine’s destruction

Former Ukrainian government official and diplomat Andrii Telizhenko joins Aaron Maté to discuss how, in his view, powerful US figures including Joe Biden have used Ukraine for personal corruption and the geopolitical aim of bleeding Russia — all to the detriment of Ukrainians.

Telizhenko worked for the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in Kyiv before moving to Ukraine’s US Embassy in 2015. He went on to work for Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat-run lobbying firm that represented Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that appointed Biden’s son Hunter to a lucrative board seat.

Telizhenko, who cooperated with Rudy Giuliani’s effort to dig up information about the Bidens’ alleged corruption in Ukraine, has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for “having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign influence in a United States election.”

Guest: Andrii Telizhenko. A political consultant who was previously a Ukrainian government official and diplomat. (The Grayzone, 7/16/2023)  (Archive)

July 13, 2023 – Jordan letter to Wray demands documents related to FBI spying on two Nunes staffers in 2017 who were investigating the FBI’s Russia collusion hoax

 

July 14, 2023 – Fixing FISA: House Judiciary holds hearing on the expansion of warrantless surveillance of Americans

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance will hold a hearing on Friday, July 14, 2023, at 9:15 a.m. ET. The hearing, “Fixing FISA, Part II,”  examines the concerning expansion of warrantless surveillance of Americans, the FBI’s continued abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and its failure to implement meaningful reforms.

WITNESSES:
Jonathan Turley, J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law, George Washington University Law School – testimony
Phil Kiko, Principal, Williams & Jensen; former Chief of Staff and General Counsel, House Judiciary Committee; former Chief Administrative Officer, House of Representatives – testimony
Gene Schaerr, General Counsel, Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability – testimony
Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director, Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law – testimony

 

July 13, 2023 – Hunter Biden worked to secure US visa for Ukrainian oligarch involved in suspected bribery scheme

Mykola Zlochevsky (Credit: Energy Security For the Future)

Hunter Biden and his business associates attempted to get Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky a U.S. visa shortly after the president’s son became a board member of the Ukrainian energy firm, according to emails reviewed by the Daily Caller.

The emails in Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive show a coordinated attempt to obtain a visa for Zlochevsky while he was being investigated by Ukrainian authorities for corruption.

Biden and some of his associates were potentially “engaging in registrable lobbying activity,” and one email indicates that Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations could have been occurring outside of the exchanges, a FARA expert who reviewed the emails told the Caller.

From 2014-16, Hunter Biden worked with former Burisma board member Devon Archer, Rosemont Seneca adviser Eric Schwerin, former Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP Partner Heather King and other business associates to assist Mykola Zlochevsky with his visa reapplication process after the State Department revoked his visa in 2014.

Zlochevsky is the “foreign national” involved in an alleged bribery scheme with President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confirmed to the Daily Caller.

Greene, alongside other House Oversight Committee members, viewed a redacted version of an FBI FD-1023 form, where an informant allegedly detailed how Zlochevsky spoke to him about making a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, Greene said. FBI Director Christopher Wray redacted the foreign national’s name, according to Greene, but “within the same sentence, it says ‘him/ Burisma.’”

“If you’re anyone who is familiar with the whole Burisma story and the information on the laptop, it’s easy to make the connection of who it is. It’s like a no-brainer … No one has refuted that it’s not him,” she added. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/13/2023)  (Archive)

July 19, 2023 – Joe Rogan discusses the intent behind Epstein’s painting of Bill Clinton in blue dress: “I got you bitch” (video)

A photo captured from the hallway outside of the room Clinton’s blue dress photo was hanging in Epstein’s home. (Credit: public domain)

Joe Rogan shared his wild theory on late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and former President Bill Clinton’s relationship during an episode of his podcast shared Tuesday.

Rogan was deep in conversation with comedian Duncan Trussel when he asked, “why do you think Epstein had that giant painting of Bill Clinton in a dress in his foyer?” The painting in question apparently featured the former President posing in a blue dress and red heels while pointing toward the viewer quite provocatively.

“Epstein’s taste in art was not great,” Trussel responded, making a joke but missing the point Rogan was trying to make. “That painting is like, ‘I got you b*tch,” Rogan explained. “That’s what that is. You got a president who was on [Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet] flight logs 26 times with Epstein, and you got that guy in a f*cking dress in your house.”
(Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/20/2023) (Archive)

This photo was also found in Epstein’s NY home after his death:

July 19, 2023 – IRS whistleblower, Joseph Ziegler, gives opening statement to House Oversight Committee re Hunter Biden investigation

Special Agent & whistleblower Joseph Ziegler delivers his opening statement regarding the Hunter Biden Investigation before the House Oversight Committee. Watch the full hearing HERE.

 

July 20, 2023 – House Democrats attempt to censor Democratic presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy Jr., in committee hearing on government censorship

House Democrats tried and failed to censor Robert Kennedy Jr., a Democratic Party candidate for president, at a hearing on censorship.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) moved to shift the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Thursday to executive session “because Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments as recently as last week.”

The congresswoman cited a House rule against testimony that may tend to “defame, degrade, or incriminate” any person, which would allow the committee an aside to determine whether to allow the testimony at issue during the open hearing. In making her case, Wasserman Schultz cited, “among many other things,” comments Kennedy recently made about COVID-19, which the candidate says has been misconstrued.

“COVID-19, there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy claimed, according to The New York Post. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”  (Read more: Daily Wire, 7/20/2023)  (Archive)

July 20, 2023 – The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government holds hearing on government censorship

The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government holds a hearing on Thursday, July 20, 2023. The hearing examines the federal government’s role in censoring Americans, the Missouri v. Biden case, and Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech.

July 20, 2023 – Grassley releases FBI FD-1023 document outlining statement by witness of Biden bribery and corruption

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley released the FBI witness statement known as the FD-1023 [Document pdf Here] that lies at the heart of the Biden bribery and corruption scandal.

BACKGROUND: Initially, the FBI refused to hand over the unclassified FD-1023 stating there is an ongoing investigation using the confidential human source who made allegations outlined in the document. Remember, the allegations and the statement record were created in July of 2020, over three years ago. The FBI refused to say the 6-page unclassified document existed. After House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told FBI Director Chris Wray, he had already seen the unclassified document via a whistleblower, then Wray admitted the FBI indeed had it. On June 1st, the FBI refused to release the document, stating it was captive as part of an “ongoing investigation.” Today, Chuck Grassley released it.

Grassley – “For the better part of a year, I’ve been pushing the Justice Department and FBI to provide details on its handling of very significant allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme. While the FBI sought to obfuscate and redact, the American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers. What did the Justice Department and FBI do with the detailed information in the document? And why have they tried to conceal it from Congress and the American people for so long? The Justice Department and FBI have failed to come clean, but Chairman Comer and I intend to find out,” Grassley said.

“The FBI’s Biden Bribery Record tracks closely with the evidence uncovered by the Oversight Committee’s Biden family influence-peddling investigation. In the FBI’s record, the Burisma executive claims that he didn’t pay the ‘big guy’ directly but that he used several bank accounts to conceal the money. That sounds an awful lot like how the Bidens conduct business: using multiple bank accounts to hide the source and total amount of the money,” House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer said. 

“At our hearing with IRS whistleblowers, they testified that they had never seen or heard of this record during the Biden criminal investigation, despite having potentially corroborating evidence. Given the misconduct and politicization at the Department of Justice, the American people must be able to read this record for themselves. I thank Senator Grassley for providing much needed transparency to the American people. We must hold the Department of Justice accountable for seeking to bury this record to protect the Bidens.”

Grassley first disclosed the FBI’s possession of significant and voluminous evidence of potential criminality involving the Biden family last year. He has since worked to unearth the FBI record, eventually partnering with Comer on a subpoena to compel its public disclosure. After delays, the FBI provided a highly redacted version of the document to select members of the House of Representatives, but it remained shielded from the public and omitted key details, including references to recordings. Following the FBI’s failure to fully comply with the congressional subpoena, Grassley received the legally protected disclosure with limited redactions to protect a trusted FBI source, handling agents, department whistleblowers and identifiers related to other ongoing investigations. (more)

(Conservative Treehouse, 7/20/2023)  (Archive)

July 21, 2023 – Former ABC News reporter who “debunked” Pizzagate pleads guilty to possessing child porn

James Gordon Meek (Credit: The Associated Press)

Former ABC News reporter, James Gordon Meek, who bragged about ‘debunking’ evidence of an elite pedophile ring dubbed ‘Pizzagate’ was arrested and pled guilty to child pornography charges.

Meek pled guilty to the transportation and possession of child sexual abuse material after the FBI conducted a raid on the journalist’s Arlington home in April 2022, finding a Dropbox account of ‘sickening child rape’ materials of minors stored on Meek’s account.

Court papers indicate the investigation began when Dropbox reached out to the FBI to discuss videos showing the sexual abuse of children. The Department of Justice reported some of the images and videos depicting “prepubescent minors and minors under the age of 12, including an infant being raped.” (Read more: Valuetainment, 7/28/2023)  (Archive)

July 21, 2023 – The ODNI releases FISC report that recommends all FISA search logs be erased after 10 years from query

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence [ODNI] has released a 117-page April 2023 order/opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] about the compliance audit conducted by internal review as the U.S. intelligence agencies seek reauthorization.   Everything FISC happens in secret, and the report is heavily redacted; however, some interesting information can be obtained if you read the report carefully.

Here’s an example.  The FISC is now agreeing with the NSA and FBI that all search logs and audit trails should be erased after 10 years from query.  That means every audit trail from the period up to August 2013 is about to be erased.  That means almost all of the Obama era search queries will disappear before the next administration takes office.

They are not erasing our data; they are erasing the logs of their search inquiries into our data.  FU!

Readers here know my position.  I do not believe the FISA court is needed; nor do I believe the NSA, FBI, NCTC or CIA should have any search access to the metadata [full-scope electronic records] of American Citizens without a court order.

The DOJ and FBI should go to the ordinary federal courts for search warrants.  The CIA and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) both have foreign service missions, so they do not need access to American citizen metadata (702 acquired).  Why would the CIA and NCTC need to snoop into the private data of American citizens when their legislative authority forbids them from conducting domestic surveillance?    Additionally, the NSA should not contain a lifetime repository for all electronic records of American citizens.  That’s my opinion.

(Conservative Treehouse, 7/21/2023)  (Archive)

July 21, 2023 – FISC Report: FBI searched U.S. Senator’s name in foreign-spying database

CIA Director David Petraeus, whose agency reads Americans’ email and listens to their phone calls, loses his career because the FBI read his emails. (Credit: Ted Rall)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation wrongfully searched a foreign-intelligence database for information about a U.S. senator and two state officials last year, a federal surveillance court said, a disclosure that could fuel a bipartisan effort in Congress to overhaul the spying program.

In June 2022, an FBI analyst conducted four overly broad searches of the U.S. senator’s last name in a database of calls, texts, emails and other electronic information collected by the National Security Agency, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said. The analyst also searched the data using the last name of a state senator. The names of the senators haven’t been made public.

The analyst had information that an unnamed foreign intelligence service had been targeting the two legislators, but the analyst failed to meet standards required to conduct the search, the court said.

Additionally, an unidentified state judge’s social security number was wrongfully used in an October 2022 search of the foreign-intelligence trove after the judge complained to the FBI about alleged civil-rights violations perpetrated by a municipal chief of police, the court said.

Also Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies revealed that counterterrorism officials use the database to help them vet immigrants being processed to travel to the U.S.

The court opinion, written in April but partially declassified only Friday, overall applauded the FBI for what it described as dramatic improvements in adhering to rules for conducting searches of Americans’ data.

The National Security Agency collects the data under a law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which allows the secretive eavesdropping agency to siphon digital data from U.S. technology providers. The data can then be searched without a warrant by various spy agencies, including the FBI, which has a robust counterintelligence mission. (Read more: The Wall Street Journal, 7/32/2023 – Archive copy)