Newly produced notes of Andrew McCabe show that at 5:15 p.m. on May 10, 2017, McCabe briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  They were trying very hard to pin something on General Flynn.  Exhibit B. “Flynn –

• Open: nothing
• Closed: everything
• Blackmail: theoretically possible, not the strongest theory.

McCabe Notes – page 9

From left, Andrew McCabe, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Mark Warner, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo greet each other before the start of the Senate (Select) Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, May 11, 2017. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

“On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein allegedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe. Rosenstein immediately issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was “pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president.” Note that just five days earlier, on May 11, McCabe had publicly testified before Congress that there was no obstruction, stating, “There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.”

Sen. Rubio: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCabe, can you without going into the specifics of any individual investigation, I think the American people want to know, has the dismissal of Mr. Comey in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation, or any ongoing projects at the Federal Bureau of Investigations?”

Mr. McCabe: “As you know, Senator, the work of the men and women of the FBI continues despite any changes in circumstance, any decisions. So there has been no effort to impede our investigation today. Quite simply put sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people, and upholding the Constitution.”

On the one hand, McCabe testified there was no obstruction from Trump, yet, just five days later, McCabe was attempting to convince Rosenstein to go along with his efforts to open an obstruction investigation into the president. Events suggest that McCabe’s efforts were met with alarm from Rosenstein, who responded by appointing Mueller as special counsel. Rosenstein may have also informed Trump of McCabe’s intentions.

At the same time that McCabe was attempting to open an obstruction investigation, Strzok and Page were texting about the lack of evidence of collusion. In a text that Strzok sent to Page, Strzok noted:

“You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there, no question. I hesitate, in part, because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”

Page was asked about this text during her July 2018 testimony by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas). She initially answered, “So I think this represents that even as far as May of 2017, we still couldn’t answer the question.” After a brief consultation with her legal counsel, Page continued: “I think it’s a reflection of us still not knowing. I guess that’s as good as I can answer.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/18/2019)

(DOJ OIG Report/Comey Memos, pages 35-36,  8/28/2019) (New York Times, 5/11/2017)

Yadong Liu (Credit: public domain)

Newly released messages from the House Ways and Means Committee appear to show Hunter Biden proposing a meeting in New York City between the boss of a Chinese energy company and Joe Biden, the former vice president at the time, along with Joe’s brother, Jim Biden.

“Can you meet this evening early,” Hunter Biden asked Yadong Liu, CEO of CEFC Global Strategic Holdings in a poorly punctuated text message the evening of Dec. 12, 2017.

“My father will be in New York also and he wants me to attend the Sandy Hook memorial service with him and I would like him to meet you along with my uncle and then you and I can talk let me know if that works.”

“I’m sorry for the late notice I got off the red eye in Baltimore from LA and take a little nap before I got his message,” Hunter added.

Yadong told Hunter “No problem” and asked to let him “know when and where to meet.”

Hunter Biden told the CEFC CEO he would like his father, Joe Biden, the former vice president at the time, to meet the executive in New York City. (House Ways and Means Committee)

Less than two weeks after the proposed meeting among the four individuals, Hunter Biden messaged Yadong, asking Yadong to call him, saying he was “anxiously waiting” for his report from a meeting in China.

“I am still in China. Apologies for not getting back to you sooner but I knew [sic] you have been talking to Kevin…,” Yadong said, appearing to reference a CEFC China Energy executive named Gongwen Dong.

“I didn’t get to see the chairman on this trip but president chen asked me to convey to you that while we attach great importance to working with you, under the current circumstances it is almost impossible to move forward on any of the projects with you. There are a few key dates in the next weeks and we are focused on those legal challenges and cannot afford to do anything that have any potential of being misunderstood or misconstrued.”

“He sincerely hopes that you can understand our situation and looks forward to removing those legal uncertainties and working with you again,” Yadong continued. “I am coming back next week and can meet to explain face to face if necessary. Thank you.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Jim Biden and Hunter Biden’s attorney to confirm whether the meeting in New York City took place but did not receive a response. (Read more: Fox News, 5/22/2024)  (Archive)

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Wednesday to release 100 pages of new evidence that shows Hunter Biden lied under oath to Congress during his Feb. 28 deposition.

The evidence, provided by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who probed the first son’s finances, reveals Hunter “indisputably” lied at least three times during his sworn testimony, the panel’s majority said after voting in a closed-door executive session for its release.

Hunter, 54, claimed he was “high or drunk” when he sent a threatening text message to the wrong Chinese business associate — but phone records of the WhatsApp message show the associate, Raymond Zhao, responded and “knew exactly” what the president’s son was talking about when he asked to speak with the chairman of CEFC China Energy, Ye Jianming.

“Sure. I need some time to reach him,” Zhao, a translator for CEFC, wrote back in messages over the next day. “CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family.”

The first son also kept exchanging messages with Zhao after making the threat that he was “sitting” with his father, Joe Biden, and said they would both “hold a grudge” if the CEFC translator reneged on a “commitment.” (Read more: New York Post, 5/23/2024)  (Archive)

(Credit: New York Post)

“Hunter Biden pursued lucrative deals involving China’s largest private energy company — including one that he said would be “interesting for me and my family,” emails obtained by The Post show.

One email sent to Biden on May 13, 2017, with the subject line “Expectations,” included details of “remuneration packages” for six people involved in an unspecified business venture.

Biden was identified as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,” an apparent reference to the former Shanghai-based conglomerate CEFC China Energy Co.

His pay was pegged at “850” and the email also noted that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.”

CEFC China Energy Co., Ltd. (Credit: Imaginechina/The Associated Press)

In addition, the email outlined a “provisional agreement” under which 80 percent of the “equity,” or shares in the new company, would be split equally among four people whose initials correspond to the sender and three recipients, with “H” apparently referring to Biden.

The deal also listed “10 Jim” and “10 held by H for the big guy?”

Neither Jim nor the “big guy” was identified further.

The email’s author, James Gilliar of the international consulting firm J2cR, also noted, “I am happy to raise any detail with Zang if there is [sic] shortfalls ?”

“Zang” is an apparent reference to Zang Jian Jun, the former executive director of CEFC China.

The email is contained in a trove of data that the owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware said was recovered from a MacBook Pro laptop that was dropped off in April 2019 and never retrieved.

The computer was seized by the FBI, and a copy of its contents made by the shop owner shared with The Post this week by former Mayor Rudy ­Giuliani.” (Read more: New York Post, 10/15/2020)  (Archive)

“Fired FBI chief James Comey was already plotting to share memos summarizing his conversations with President Trump with a pal who later leaked the info to the media before his supposed middle-of-the night epiphany about the president’s claim that he had “tapes” of their conversations.

The discrepancies in his timeline, as outlined in the Justice Department’s top watchdog’s scathing, 83-page report on his behavior, create more uncertainty about Comey’s version of events following his May 9, 2017, ouster.

The former top G-man told investigators for Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and a key Senate committee during an earlier hearing, that Trump’s Friday, May 12, 2017, tweet about supposed Oval Office “tapes” caused him to snap awake “in the middle of the night” the following Monday, May 15, and conclude that he needed to share the records.

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” the president had tweeted.

(Credit: Donald Trump/Twitter)

But Horowitz’s report — which concluded that Comey had violated department policies — said that on the afternoon of Sunday, May 14, 2017 — the day before he said the midnight lightning bolt struck — Comey had already sent four of the memos to Patrick Fitzgerald, one of his lawyers, “with instructions to share the email and PDF attachment with [lawyer David] Kelley and professor [Daniel] Richman.” The discrepancy was first reported by Fox News.

Richman, a longtime Comey pal and professor at Columbia Law School, leaked the memos days later to the New York Times, which published a story about Comey’s allegation that the president asked him to go easy on former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey had also testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June 2017 that the late-night awakening had happened on the Monday after Trump’s tweet, according to the IG’s report.

James Comey, right, with his attorney, David Kelley, leaves Capitol Hill, December 2018, after a second closed-door interview with two Republican-led committees investigating what they say was bias at the Justice Department before the 2016 presidential election. (Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/The Associated Press)

“The president tweeted on Friday [May 12], after I got fired, that I better hope there’s not tapes. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape,” Comey said in response to questions from Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

“And my judgment was, I needed to get that out into the public square. And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself, for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a friend of mine to do it,” he said, referring to Richman.

Comey hoped that the special counsel would prevent the president or his team from destroying any such tapes, which he believed would verify his version of his conversation with Trump.

Fitzgerald forwarded Comey’s documents to Kelley at 7:35 a.m. May 17, and to Richman at 10:13 a.m. May 17.

But Comey himself sent a digital photograph of one of his memos to Richman on Tuesday, May 16 — the day after the supposed epiphany — and told him to share the contents with the Times. (Read more: The New York Post, 8/30/2019)

Bruce Ohr (l) and Christopher Steele (Credit: Fox News)

“An Aug. 28, 2018, testimony before Congress by Ohr, which was reviewed for this article, sheds new light on McCabe’s involvement in the investigation. His testimony also illustrates how Steele and Simpson passed their information targeting Trump to the FBI, using Ohr as an unofficial back-channel.

(…) In May 2017, the FBI suddenly decided to reach out to Steele through Ohr. The re-engagement attempt came six months after Steele had been formally terminated by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016.

The matter, which was discussed at several points during Ohr’s testimony, was highlighted during a review of some text messages between Ohr and Steele:

Q: “The next page, 2 months forward, 5-15, three-quarters of the way down. ‘Having now consulted my wife and business partner about the question we discussed on Saturday, I am pleased to say yes, we should go ahead with it.  Best, Chris.’”

Q: “Go ahead with what?”

Ohr: “The FBI had asked me a few days before, when I reported to them my latest conversation with Chris Steele, they had had would he—next time you talk with him, could you ask him if he would be willing to meet again.”

Q: “So this is the re-engagement?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

The texts that are being referenced were sent on May 15, 2017, and refer to a request that Ohr received from the FBI to ask Steele to re-engage with the FBI in the days after Comey had been fired on May 9.

Q: “So you have asked him will he re-engage with the FBI?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Q: “And he says: ‘Talked with my wife; I’m in.’ You say: ‘Thanks. We’ll let them know and we will follow up.’”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Q: “‘Thanks again. I chatted with my colleagues and can give you an update when you have a minute.’ What was the update about? Was it about that subject?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Q: “So that all happens on May 15?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Several days prior, on May 12, 2017, Ohr and Steele exchanged a series of text messages published by John Solomon of The Hill, that appear to detail Ohr reaching out to Steele following the FBI’s request for re-engagement:

Ohr: “Thanks again for your time on Wednesday. Do you have time for a short follow up call sometime this weekend?”

Steele: “Yes, of course. Perhaps sometime tomorrow. When might suit?”

Ohr: “Would 3 pm your time work? I’m pretty open so just let me know. Thanks!”

Steele: “Fine, or possibly even at 2 pm our time if that works for you? Best”

Ohr: “2 pm your time is good. It will be quick. Thanks!”

The next text message is a response from Steele on May 15, 2017:

Steele: “B, having now consulted my wife and business partner about the question we discussed on Saturday I’m pleased to say yes, we should go ahead with it. Best C”

Ohr: “Thanks! I will let them know and we will follow up.”

Comey was fired by Trump on May 9, 2017. This appears to have been the precipitating event that led the FBI to suddenly attempt to re-establish contact with Steele through Ohr. This was the only time the FBI used Ohr to reach out to Steele.

Notably, McCabe was now the acting FBI director.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to Acting FBI Director McCabe that he secretly record Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe. Rosenstein immediately issued a statement denying the accusations.

An unidentified participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting that Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, “What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?”

The comments by Rosenstein allegedly occurred at a meeting where McCabe was “pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president.” Note that just five days earlier, McCabe had publicly testified that there was no obstruction, stating “there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.”

(…) Text messages to Ohr from Steele provide some hints and highlight an abrupt pullback by the FBI. In June 2017, Steele sent Ohr the following text:

“We are frustrated with how long this re-engagement with the Bureau and Mueller is taking. There are some new perishable operational opportunities we do not want to miss out on.”

Steele sent another text to Ohr on Nov. 18, 2017:

“I am presuming you’ve heard nothing back from your SC colleagues on the issue you kindly put to them for me. We have heard nothing from them either. To say this is disappointing would be an understatement.”

Ohr testified that “at some point during 2017, Chris Steele did speak with somebody from the FBI, but I don’t know who.”

(Read more: Epoch Times, 1/14/2019)

(…) According to this email from a redacted person to “Rush” at “LRA” (?), it was a redacted person from Perkins Coie who turned over a copy of Seth Rich’s DNC laptop to the FBI in San Francisco in May 2017.

What was that again?

Perkins Coie, legal counsel of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign, has its fingerprints all over the old Russia Hoax, beginning with hiring Fusion GPS to concoct the fake Steele dossier and hiring Crowdstrike to fake-investigate the DNC email leak. Now the firm of Marc Elias (Kamala Harris’s campaign counsel) and Michael Sussman and Robert Bauer ( wife Anita Dunn) is a link in the chain of custody of the Seth Rich laptop.

I’m sure there is a completely reassuring explanation for all of this. After all, Seth Rich’s murder was a “robbery gone bad,” Julian Assange is a terrorist, and Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president. (Read more: Diane West, July 9, 2021)  (Archive)

Page 137/FBIVault

Schiff is connected to both BlackRock and Franklin Templeton Investments, two companies that were named in the $7.4B Burisma/US-Ukraine corruption claim that was announced…https://t.co/enhuAplCUE    https://t.co/WuEZfwdTGt pic.twitter.com/rzjVyDibGd

— M3thods (@M2Madness) November 21, 2019

Clerk Disclosures – PDF

Interfax, 11/20/2019

Rod Rosenstein (Credit: NBC News)

“The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit.

Mr. Rosenstein made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Mr. Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director plunged the White House into turmoil. Over the ensuing days, the president divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide.

Mr. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president’s dismissal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Mr. Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used.

Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments.

None of Mr. Rosenstein’s proposals apparently came to fruition. It is not clear how determined he was about seeing them through, though he did tell Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

(…) “Mr. Rosenstein disputed this account.

“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” he said in a statement. “I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically.” (New York Times, 9/21/2018)

“A 2019 Judicial Watch FOIA Lawsuit resulted in the release of a May 16, 2017, memo written by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. [Link Here]  At the time of the FOIA release most people focused on Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein’s willingness to wear a wire to record the President; however, the memo content actually revealed much more.

There are three aspects to the McCabe memo that warrant attention: (1) Rosenstein’s willingness to wear a wire. (2) Evidence that Rosenstein took Mueller to the White House on May 16, 2017, as a set-up to interview Mueller’s pending target; and (3) the CURRENT redactions to the memo indicate CURRENT efforts by the CURRENT AG Bill Barr to protect the corrupt intent of Rod Rosenstein. While all three points are alarming; given recent events, the last aspect is most concerning.

In order to show the significance of this FOIA release, CTH is going to present the McCabe memo in two different ways. First, by highlighting the raw memo release; and then secondly, to highlight the important context by inserting the memo into the timeline.

First, here’s the McCabe memo:

(Link to Judicial Watch FOIA pdf)

The first two substantive issues within the McCabe memo can only be accurately absorbed against the background of those two context links.

Now we can insert the McCabe memo information into the timeline. This will help better understand what was happening in/around the dates in question.

Start by noting the May 16, 2017, date of the meeting at 12:30 pm is immediately before Rod Rosenstein took Robert Mueller for an interview with President Trump in the oval office. The oval office “interview” is where Mueller reportedly left his “cell phone” at the White House.

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

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

♦Wednesday May 10th – From congressional testimony we know DAG Rod Rosenstein called Robert Mueller to discuss the special counsel appointment on Wednesday May 10th, 2017, at 7:45am.

(See Biggs questions to Mueller at 2:26 of video)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back in Main Justice at 12:30pm Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Jim Crowell and Tashina Guahar all appear to be part of this meeting. I should note that alternate documentary evidence, gathered over the past two years, supports the content of this McCabe memo. Including the text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:

Sidebar: pay attention to the redactions; they appear to be placed by existing DOJ officials in an effort to protect Rod Rosenstein for his duplicity in: (A) running the Mueller sting operation at the white house on the same day; and (B) the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, which was pre-determined before the Oval Office meeting.

While McCabe was writing this afternoon memo, Rod Rosenstein was taking Robert Mueller to the White House for a meeting in the oval office with President Trump and VP Mike Pence. While they were meeting in the oval office, and while McCabe was writing his contemporaneous memo, the following story was published by the New York Times (based on Comey memo leaks to Richman):

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

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

It is interesting that Tashina Gauhar was taking notes presumably involved in the 12:30pm May 16, 2017 meeting between, Jim Crowell, Rod Rosenstein, and Andrew McCabe. But McCabe makes no mention of Lisa Page being present.

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

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

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

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

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

We Exit The Timeline:

♦Back to the memo. Notice the participants: Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, Tashina Gauhar and Jim Crowell:

Now remind ourselves about who was involved in convincing Jeff Sessions to recuse himself:

The same two people (lawyers) Tasina Guahar and Jim Crowell, were involved in recusal advice for Jeff Sessions and the “wear-a-wire” conversation a few months later.

♦Back to the redactions. Notice how in the McCabe memo FOIA release, the DOJ is redacting the aspects of the appointment of a special counsel.

The redaction justification: b(5) “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.” Or put another way: stuff we just don’t want to share: “personal privacy” etc.

Again, when combined with the testimony by Mueller in response to the questioning by Rep. Andy Biggs, the redacted information looks like current DOJ officials hiding the timing of the decision-making to appoint Mueller, thereby protecting Rod Rosenstein.

More motive for this scenario shows up during a statement by Matt Whitaker who appeared on Tucker Carlson television show. Whitaker outlined why Rosenstein could never admit to having said he would wear a wire at the time the story broke.

When the “wear-a-wire” story first surfaced was when DAG Rosenstein was trying to convince President Trump not to declassify any information until after the Mueller special counsel was concluded. Rosenstein’s justification for his instructions surrounded President Trump possibly obstructing justice during Mueller’s investigation.

Reminder when Rod Rosenstein convinced President Trump not to declassify the documents that were being requested by Congress (Sept. 2018):

While McCabe is a known liar, there is enough ancillary supportive information, circumstantial and direct evidence, to make the content of the McCabe memo essentially accurate.

Also, Rod Rosenstein expanded the scope of Mueller’s investigation twice, the second time in October 2017 targeting Michael Flynn Jr. Also, Rosenstein participated in the indictment of fictitious Russia trolls and a Russian catering company. Yes, all indications are that Rod Rosenstein was a willing participant in the overall McCabe/Mueller effort.  We have not been allowed to see those scope memos.

Ultimately all of the DOJ delay and hidden information under AG Bill Barr appears to have an identical motive: help protect Rod Rosenstein.

That effort continues with the lack of released information and the ongoing, internal, DOJ and FBI redactions…

….The problem for Attorney General Bill Barr is not investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of…. (link)

(Conservative Treehouse, 2/15/2020)  (Archive)

With a larger portion of the U.S. electorate now beginning to realize there never was a Trump Russia-Collusion-Conspiracy case to begin with; and with people now realizing almost all of Mueller investigative time was spent gathering evidence for an ‘obstruction case’; and with new revelations from Andrew McCabe, John Dowd and Mueller officials overlayed on the previous Strzok/Page texts; we can now clearly reconcile a previous issue:

The May 16, 2017, Mueller meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

There has been a great deal of flawed interpretation of the May 16th meeting between President Trump, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller.  Some people even mistakenly used that meeting as a cornerstone for a claim that Mueller and Rosenstein were working to the benefit of President Trump.  However, if you overlay the new information, there is considerable evidence that interview was for the purpose of Mueller determining if he could achieve an ‘obstruction’ goal.  Here’s how…

FBI Director James Comey was fired on Tuesday May 9th, 2017.

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

These McCabe statements line up with with text message conversations between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok – (same dates 5/9 and 5/10):

(text link)

It now appears that important redaction is “POTUS” or “TRUMP”.  [Yes, this is evidence that some unknown DOJ officials redacted information from these texts that would have pointed directly to the intents of the DOJ and FBI. (WARNING: Don’t get hung on it.)

The next day, Thursday May 11th, 2017, Andrew McCabe testifies to congress. With the Comey firing fresh in the headlines, Senator Marco Rubio asked McCabe: “has the dismissal of Mr. Comey in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped, or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation, or any ongoing projects at the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

McCabe responded: “So there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. Quite simply put, sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.”

However, again referencing his own admissions, on Friday May 12th McCabe met with DAG Rod Rosenstein to discuss the issues, referencing the criminal ‘obstruction’ case McCabe had opened just two days before.  According to McCabe:

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

Recap: Tuesday-Comey Fired; Wednesday-McCabe starts criminal ‘obstruction’ case; Thursday-McCabe testifies to congress “no effort to impede”; Friday-McCabe and Rosenstein discuss Special Counsel.

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

Now, overlaying what we know now that we did not know in 2018, to include the John Dowd interview and McCabe admissions, a very clear picture emerges.

On Tuesday May 16th, Rod Rosenstein takes Robert Mueller to the White House to talk with the target of the ‘obstruction’ criminal investigation, under the ruse of bringing Mueller in for a meeting about becoming FBI Director.  This meeting was quite literally advanced reconnaissance.

The next day, Wednesday May 17th, 2017, Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe go to brief the congressional “Gang-of-Eight”: Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, ¹Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Richard Burr and Mark Warner.

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

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

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

According to President Trump’s Attorney John Dowd, the White House was stunned by the decision. [Link] Coincidentally, AG Jeff Sessions was in the oval office for unrelated business when White House counsel Don McGahn came in and informed the group.  Jeff Sessions immediately offered his resignation, and Sessions’ chief-of-staff Jody Hunt went back to the Main Justice office to ask Rosenstein what the hell was going on.

Now, with hindsight and full understanding of exactly what the purposes and intents were for Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to bring Robert Mueller to the White House, revisit this video from June 2017:

(The Conservative Treehouse, 4/04/2019)

(Republished with permission)

Andrew McCabe (l) and James Comey (Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu/Matt McClain, Getty Images)

“Newly declassified FBI memos provide startling new details that undercut the frenzied 2017 effort to investigate Donald Trump for obstruction, revealing the FBI knew Director James Comey’s firing had been conceived by Justice Department leadership long before the president pulled the trigger during a key moment in the Russia probe.

The memos written in May 2017 by Acting Director Andrew McCabe and a lieutenant also provide contemporaneous proof for some of the more jaw-dropping lore of the now-discredited Russia collusion scandal.

 McCabeNotesRecusalMay202017.pdf

(…) But the memos’ most explosive revelations chronicle the decision by McCabe in his early days on the job to open a formal investigation of Trump on the grounds that Comey’s firing may have been an act of obstruction of justice designed to thwart the Russia probe.

The notes show McCabe informed Rosenstein during a May 16, 2017 meeting — one of their first after Comey was fired and McCabe became acting director — that he had opened the obstruction probe.

Excerpt:

McCabe Notes, 5/16/2017

File  McCabeNotesMay162017.pdf

One of McCabe’s lieutenants who also attended the meeting, then-bureau attorney Lisa Page, took her own notes, observing that Rosenstein’s expressed outrage over Comey’s firing seemed odd since Rosenstein had revealed to FBI officials he and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been contemplating it since January 2017.

“This was a strange comment,” Page wrote, “because it was my understanding that the DAG had previously indicated that he and AG Sessions had been discussing firing Director Comey since January, but given the nature of the conversation there was no room for follow-up.”

File  PageNotesMay162017.pdf

McCabe’s own notes from the May 16, 2017 meeting don’t mention that Rosenstein had been discussing firing Comey since January. But five days later in a new meeting, McCabe quoted Rosenstein as confirming the termination had been in the works for months and was not really driven by the Russia probe.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 1/27/2021)  (Archive)

(Credit: CNN composite)

“Andrew McCabe, the disgraced former acting FBI director, reveals in his new book that Robert Mueller temporarily left his cell phone behind after a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office and that the phone “later had to be retrieved.”

(…) In his anti-Trump book, titled, “The Threat: How the F.B.I. Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” McCabe, citing Rosenstein, relates the story of Mueller leaving his phone behind after the interview with Trump.

McCabe wrote:

In this same meeting Rod talked about interviews with candidates for director. Then he flipped back to talking about possible candidates for the special counsel job. It was hard to track whether he was talking about candidates for one job or for the other. One minute, he said Mueller had been asked to interview for the position of FBI director; Mueller had gone in for an interview with Trump, and left his phone there, and then the phone had to be retrieved.

McCabe did not offer any further details on the matter of Mueller’s phone.

Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a Trump confidante, previously stated that Mueller and Trump “had a private conversation” during their meeting. “He had a private conversation with the President on his views about all sorts of matters potentially about the investigation,” Ruddy said. “And the next day he’s now maybe using some of that information in his investigation.” (Read more: Breitbart, 2/25/2019)

Robert Mueller is sworn in on July 24, 2019 before testifying to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. (Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

“Mueller testified under oath he did NOT interview with Trump for the job of FBI Director on May 16, 2017

Yet new FOIA’d emails show, DAG Rosenstein sending an email the very next day, May 17, saying that “Mueller” has now “withdrew from consideration for FBI Director”

Mueller’s testimony to the House. Mueller is clear that he was never “applying” for the job of FBI Director, he was never under consideration, and his “interview” on May 16, 2017 was just to give his “input” on “what it would take to do the job”
(Mueller Transcript)

(Mueller Testimony)

Rosenstein email, just released in FOIA. Mueller “withdrew from consideration for FBI Director”, sent the day after the “interview” with Trump, May 17, 2017.

(Note: Rosenstein appointed Mueller Special Counsel later that same day)

(Source)

Mueller can’t “withdraw” from “consideration” for the job of FBI Director unless he was previously under consideration for the role, which he testified he wasn’t. Rosenstein was in the “interview” on May 16, so his email makes no sense if Mueller was never under consideration.

So who is wrong? Mueller, or Rosenstein (Mueller’s boss)? Because they can’t both be right, and one of them was under oath. (Undercover Huber @JohnWHuber, 8/27/2020)  (Archive)

Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and James Comey (Credit: public domain)

(…) “It’s a reflection of us still not knowing,” Page told Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) when questioned about texts she and Strzok exchanged in May 2017 as Robert Mueller was being named special counsel to take over the Russia investigation.

With that statement, Page acknowledged a momentous fact: After nine months of using some of the most awesome surveillance powers afforded to U.S. intelligence, the FBI still had not made a case connecting Trump or his campaign to Russia’s election meddling.

Page opined further, acknowledging “it still existed in the scope of possibility that there would be literally nothing” to connect Trump and Russia, no matter what Mueller or the FBI did.

“As far as May of 2017, we still couldn’t answer the question,” she said at another point.

(…) Shortly after he was fired, [June 2017], ex-FBI Director James Comey told the Senate there was not yet evidence to justify investigating Trump for colluding with Russia. “When I left, we did not have an investigation focused on President Trump,” Comey testified.

And Strzok, the counterintelligence boss and leader of the Russia probe, texted Page in May 2017 that he was reluctant to join Mueller’s probe and leave his senior FBI post because he feared “there’s no big there, there.”

(…) So, by the words of Comey, Strzok and Page, we now know that the Trump Justice Department — through Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — unleashed the Mueller special counsel probe before the FBI could validate a connection between Trump and Russia.

Which raises the question: If there was no concrete evidence of collusion, why did we need a special counsel?” (Read more: The Hill, 9/16/2018)

Aaron Zebley (Credit: Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press)

“May 17th, 2017 Mueller is appointed. The Strzok/Page text messages reveal discussions of team being assembled. Strzok notes “emailing with Aaron.”  Well that’s Aaron Zebley former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s Chief of Staff who was selected for Special Counsel position. He’s also a partner at WilmerHale, and Strzok mentions to Page that she might find herself working at WilmerHale if she plays her cards right.

The fact that Agent Strzok was emailing with “Aaron” Zebley prior to the official appointment of the special counsel team should likely raise a few eyebrows. Of course within this time-frame of the messaging released, the redactions increase.

Toward the end of the release a more thorough picture emerges of who was selecting Robert Mueller’s team and why. Andrew McCabe was key player along with James Baker. Reading how this was done blows the entire Mueller “White Hat Theory” to smithereens. However, the conversation does highlight an aspect we have previously discussed. Robert Mueller did not select the “small group” to work with him; but rather the DOJ/FBI “small group” appears to have selected him.

Specifically Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are discussing who is best ideological ally to help their Mueller Special Counsel team “get Trump” (discussions on pages 46, 47, 48, 49 in year 2017 section).

Predictably right when those juicy tidbits about the Mueller agenda are surfacing, the text message release abruptly stops on May 23rd, 2017.”  (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/27/2018) (Strzok/Page text messages)

Scott Schools (Credit: public domain)

(…) The Justice Department is refusing to reveal details of the process that led up to former FBI Director Robert Mueller being granted an ethics waiver to serve as special counsel investigating the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

In response to a POLITICO Freedom of Information Act request, the agency released a one-sentence memo Friday confirming that Mueller was granted a conflict-of-interest waiver in order to assume the politically-sensitive post.
…
However, the document signed by Justice’s top career official, Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools, provides no detail at all of the grounds for the waiver. In fact, it’s so vague that it doesn’t even convey why anyone would think Mueller needed such a release.

“Pursuant to 5 CFR 2635.502(d), I hereby authorize Robert Mueller’s participation in the investigation into Russia’s role in the presidential campaign of 2016 and all matters arising from the investigation,” Schools wrote in the “authorization” signed on May 18, one day after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein formally appointed Mueller to the position.

Cornell Law – Link

The agency’s Justice Management Division said it located a two-page “recommendation memorandum” in response to POLITICO’s request, but was declining to release that on grounds it would interfere with the deliberative process inside the department.” (Read more: Politico, 12/12/2017)  (Archive)

“Judicial Watch today released new emails from the Department of Justice (DOJ) showing that former FBI Director James Comey was advised by FBI officials in May 2017 to consult with Special Counsel Robert Mueller prior to testifying before any congressional committees regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and his firing as FBI director.

According to numerous news reports, Comey met directly with Mueller previous to his June 8, 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sources said that Comey’s opening statement and subsequent testimony were coordinated with Mueller.

At the hearing, Comey revealed that he had intentionally leaked material from a memo allegedly documenting a meeting with President Trump in order to help assure the appointment of a special counsel.

I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself, for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

The DOJ and FBI have stated that Comey’s leaks were unauthorized and compared the disclosures to Wikileaks.

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch are the first to reveal that high-ranking FBI officials helped Comey coordinate his testimony with Mueller.

• On May 17, 2017, Comey received notices to appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee.
• An email chain dated May 18 and 19, 2017, with the subject line “Future testimony” shows then-FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki, then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Assistant Director Gregory Brower, Comey and others discussing Comey’s upcoming testimony:
• In this chain, on May 18 at 6:30 pm, Comey wrote to Rybicki to confirm that he had accepted the invitation to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) but declined the invitations from the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee.
• Comey also writes: “Last, would you please tell OGC [Office of the General Counsel] that I would like to be able to review any documents authored by me or on which I am copied that will be produced to SSCI in connection with my testimony and would like the opportunity for that review before I testify?”

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 5/10/2018)

Lisa Page and Robert Mueller (Credit: public domain)

(…) “Page testified that she joined the team of special counsel Robert Mueller around May 18, 2017—and that FBI agent Peter Strzok was considered for inclusion shortly thereafter. Page’s role was to “bridge the gap and transition between what we as a team knew and the evidence that we had gathered to date on the collusion investigation and sort of imparting that knowledge to the new special counsel team,” she said.

Page, who acknowledged her personal relationship with Strzok at several points during the interview, noted that initially, Strzok wasn’t “brought over as the senior executive to run the investigation. Another individual was, and that was not successful. It was not a good match with Mr. Mueller. He did not really have the sufficient counterintelligence background to be effective.” That individual would later be identified as John Brown.

Page agreed to work for a 45-day trial period, but at the end of that time, she left to spend more time with her children, by her own account. Page left of her own volition and before Inspector General Michael Horowitz notified Mueller (and then-Acting FBI Director McCabe) of the texts between Page and Strzok. (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)

Newly released text messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and his colleague Lisa Page reveal that Strzok was reluctant to join special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference because he feared the team wouldn’t find anything noteworthy.

“You and I both know the odds are nothing,” Strzok said in a text to Page on May 19, 2017. “If I thought it was likely, I’d be there, no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”

The fresh batch of texts was released on Tuesday by Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, after the Department of Justice delivered about 384 pages containing around 9,000 texts to Congress on Friday.

Despite his misgivings about the case, Strzok did seem to appreciate the gravity of the investigation, which encompasses President Donald Trump and his associates as well.” (Read more: Business Insider, 1/23/2018)

“U need to stress to H[unter], does he want to be the reason or factor that blows up his dad’s campaign,” James Gilliar told Tony Bobulinski about the specter of Hunter’s foreign business dealings torpedoing Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign plans. pic.twitter.com/akezdtsbOQ

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 22, 2020

(Credit: marcopolousa.org)

“The Christopher Steele dossier was called “Crown Material” by FBI agents within the small group during their 2016 political surveillance operation. The “Crown” description reflects the unofficial British intelligence aspect to the dossier as provided by Steele.

In May 2019 former House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy stated there are emails from former FBI Director James Comey that outline instructions from CIA Director John Brennan to include the “Crown Material” within the highly political Intelligence Community Assessment. Specifically outlined by Gowdy, the wording of the Comey email is reported to say:

…”Brennan is insisting the Crown Material be included in the intel assessment.”

However, on May 23rd, 2017, in testimony -under oath- to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) John Brennan stated [@01:54:28]:

GOWDY: Director Brennan, do you know who commissioned the Steele dossier?

BRENNAN: I don’t.

GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau [FBI] ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filing, applications?

BRENNAN: I have no awareness.

GOWDY: Did the CIA rely on it?

BRENNAN: No.

GOWDY: Why not?

BRENNAN: Because we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done. Uh … it was not. (Video is cued  @01:54:28)

As Victor Davis Hanson wrote at the time:

(…) James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey are now all accusing one another of being culpable for inserting the unverified dossier, the font of the effort to destroy Trump, into a presidential intelligence assessment—as if suddenly and mysteriously the prior seeding of the Steele dossier is now seen as a bad thing. And how did the dossier transmogrify from being passed around the Obama Administration as a supposedly top-secret and devastating condemnation of candidate and then president-elect Trump to a rank embarrassment of ridiculous stories and fibs?

Given the narratives of the last three years, and the protestations that the dossier was accurate or at least was not proven to be unproven, why are these former officials arguing at all? Did not implanting the dossier into the presidential briefing give it the necessary imprimatur that allowed the serial leaks to the press at least to be passed on to the public and thereby apprise the people of the existential danger that they faced? (read more)

Fox News Maria Bartiromo has more knowledge of the details within the 2016 political surveillance scandal than any other MSM host. Bartiromo has followed the events very closely and now she is the go-to person for those who are trying to bring the truth behind the scandal to light.

On the morning of May 20th, 2019, on her Fox Business Network show Ms. Bartiromo outlined the current issues between Comey and Brennan. WATCH:

It certainly looks like former CIA Director John Brennan has exposed himself to perjury. However, beyond that and even more disturbing, what does this say about the political intents of a weaponized intelligence apparatus?

CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.

The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.

The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey. While the majority of the content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique “insurance policy” interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017.  NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/22/2019)   (Archive)

Andrew McCabe (Credit: Bill Clark/Getty Images)

“The former acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, wrote a confidential memo last spring recounting a conversation that offered significant behind-the-scenes details on the firing of Mr. McCabe’s predecessor, James B. Comey, according to several people familiar with the discussion.

Mr. Comey’s firing is a central focus of the special counsel’s investigation into whether President Trump tried to obstruct the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. McCabe has turned over his memo to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

In the document, whose contents have not been previously reported, Mr. McCabe described a conversation at the Justice Department with the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, in the chaotic days last May after Mr. Comey’s abrupt firing. Mr. Rosenstein played a key role in the dismissal, writing a memo that rebuked Mr. Comey over his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton.

But in the meeting at the Justice Department, Mr. Rosenstein added a new detail: He said the president had originally asked him to reference Russia in his memo, the people familiar with the conversation said. Mr. Rosenstein did not elaborate on what Mr. Trump had wanted him to say.

To Mr. McCabe, that seemed like possible evidence that Mr. Comey’s firing was actually related to the F.B.I.’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and that Mr. Rosenstein helped provide a cover story by writing about the Clinton investigation.

One person who was briefed on Mr. Rosenstein’s conversation with the president said Mr. Trump had simply wanted Mr. Rosenstein to mention that he was not personally under investigation in the Russia inquiry. Mr. Rosenstein said it was unnecessary and did not include such a reference. Mr. Trump ultimately said it himself when announcing the firing.” (Read more: New York Times, 5/30/2018)

A bit of humorous news just came in regarding the ongoing lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee. According to a court filing, a “highly irregular” incident occurred on Thursday afternoon.

Just before 5p on Thursday, Elizabeth Lee Beck’s office received a mysterious phone call. A caller with a voice that “sounded robotic and genderless – along the lines of the voice changers used when television show interviews are kept anonymous” asked a secretary for details in the DNC fraud lawsuit. Beck’s office is the law firm bringing the suit against the DNC for their fraudulent practices during the 2016 primaries. The secretary provided the caller with publicly available information about the case, and the caller ended the call with “okey dokey.”

The caller obviously went to great lengths to conceal their identity when probing for information about the case. However, a small detail was missed: caller ID. The call came in from 305-936-5724. With a little internet sleuthing (like a simple Google search), it was revealed that the number comes from Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ Aventura, FL office.

 (Read more: Trofire, 6/02/2017)

Dmitry Firtash (Credit: Wikipedia)

“The ink was still drying on special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment papers when his chief deputy, the famously aggressive and occasionally controversial prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, made a bold but secret overture in early June 2017.

Weissmann quietly reached out to the American lawyers for Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash with a tempting offer: Give us some dirt on Donald Trump in the Russia case, and Team Mueller might make his 2014 U.S. criminal charges go away.

(…) At first blush, one might ask, “What’s the big deal?” It’s not unusual for federal prosecutors to steal a page from Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make a Deal” script during plea negotiations.

But Weissmann’s overture was wrapped with complexity and intrigue far beyond the normal federal case, my sources indicate.

At the time, pressure was building inside the DOJ and the FBI to find smoking-gun evidence against Trump in the Russia case because the Steele dossier — upon which the early surveillance warrants were based — was turning out to be an uncorroborated mess. (“There’s no big there there,” lead FBI agent Pete Strzok texted a few days before Weissmann’s overture.)

Likewise, key evidence that the DOJ used to indict Firtash on corruption charges in 2014 was falling apart. Two central witnesses were in the process of recanting testimony, and a document the FBI portrayed as bribery evidence inside Firtash’s company was exposed as a hypothetical slide from an American consultant’s PowerPoint presentation, according to court records I reviewed.

In other words, the DOJ faced potential embarrassment in two high-profile cases when Weissmann made an unsolicited approach on June 4, 2017, that surprised even Firtash’s U.S. legal team. (Read more: The Hill, 7/22/2019)

Weissmann Calendar sample (Credit: Judicial Watch)

“Judicial Watch announced today the U.S. Department of Justice released 73 pages of records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) containing text messages and calendar entries of Mueller special counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann showing he led the hiring effort for the investigation that targeted President Trump.

Weissmann was formerly the Obama-era chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section.

Weissmann’s calendar entries provided to Judicial Watch start in May 2017, even though the lawsuit sued for records going back to 2015. The few text messages produced by the DOJ did not specify the year sent or received.

Weissman’s calendar shows that he began interviewing people for investigator jobs on the Mueller operation almost immediately after it was announced that he had joined the team in early June.

On June 5, 2017, he interviewed former Chief of the Public Corruption Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York Andrew Goldstein. Goldstein was a Time magazine reporter. Goldstein contributed a combined $3,300 to Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His wife, Julie Rawe, was a reporter and editor for Time for 13 years, until 2013. He became a lead prosecutor for Mueller.

The next day, on June 6, 2017 Weissmann had a meeting with “FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] counsel.”

Weissmann interviewed another prosecutor, Kyle Freeny, from the DOJ Money Laundering Section for the team on June 7, 2017. She contributed a total of $500 to Obama’s presidential campaigns and $250 to Hillary Clinton’s. She was later detailed to the Mueller investigation.

He interviewed a trial attorney who worked with him in the Criminal Fraud Section, Rush Atkinson, on June 9, 2017. Records show that Atkinson donated $200 to Clinton’s campaign in 2016. He is a registered Democrat and contributed $200 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Atkinson also became part of the Mueller team.

Weissmann interviewed DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Greg Andres for the team on June 13, 2017. Andres donated $2,700 to the campaign for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in 2018 and $1,000 to the campaign for David Hoffman (D) in 2009. Andres is a registered Democrat. His wife, Ronnie Abrams, a U.S. district judge in Manhattan, was nominated to the bench in 2011 by Obama. He joined the Mueller team in August 2017.

The same day’s calendar entry shows a reference to MLARS [Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section] at DOJ and to Cyprus MLAT [Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty].

The calendar references an appointment on June 15, 2017, to “NY knock-and-talks.” The same day, Weissmann has a note for “Ethics Training Session.”

On June 16, 2017, he makes a reference to “Rule 4.2”, concerning the propriety of lawyers talking to witnesses represented by counsel.

On June 27, 2017, Weissmann conducts more hiring interviews.

On June 28, 2017, he notes discussion of a Grand Jury taking place.

On Independence Day, July 4, 2017, Weissmann holds a “Team Leader Meeting” and a “Daily Ops Meeting” in the Special Counsel’s conference room. (Judicial Watch, May 14, 2019)  (Archive)

Andrew Weissmann (Credit: public domain)

“According to 73 pages of records obtained by Judicial Watch, Mueller special counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann led the hiring effort for the team that investigated the Trump campaign.

Notably, Weissman attended Hillary Clinton’s election night party in 2016, and wrote a positive email to former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates when she refused to defend the Trump administration’s travel ban. And as you will see below, he was on a mission to recruit a politically biased fleet of lawyers for the Mueller probe.

“These documents show Andrew Weissmann, an anti-Trump activist, had a hand in hiring key members of Mueller’s team – who also happened to be political opponents of President Trump,” said Judicial Watch President, Tom Fitton. “These documents show that Mueller outsourced his hiring decisions to Andrew Weissmann. No wonder it took well over a year to get this basic information and, yet, the Deep State DOJ is still stonewalling on other Weissmann documents!”

Weissman’s calendar shows that he began interviewing people for investigator jobs on the Mueller operation almost immediately after it was announced that he had joined the team in early June.

On June 5, 2017, he interviewed former Chief of the Public Corruption Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York Andrew Goldstein. Goldstein was a Time magazine reporter. Goldstein contributed a combined $3,300 to Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His wife, Julie Rawe, was a reporter and editor for Time for 13 years, until 2013. He became a lead prosecutor for Mueller.

The next day, on June 6, 2017 Weissmann had a meeting with “FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] counsel.”

Weissmann interviewed another prosecutor, Kyle Freeny, from the DOJ Money Laundering Section for the team on June 7, 2017. She contributed a total of $500 to Obama’s presidential campaigns and $250 to Hillary Clinton’s. She was later detailed to the Mueller investigation.

He interviewed a trial attorney who worked with him in the Criminal Fraud Section, Rush Atkinson, on June 9, 2017. Records show that Atkinson donated $200 to Clinton’s campaign in 2016. He is a registered Democrat and contributed $200 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Atkinson also became part of the Mueller team.

Weissmann interviewed DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Greg Andres for the team on June 13, 2017. Andres donated $2,700 to the campaign for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in 2018 and $1,000 to the campaign for David Hoffman (D) in 2009. Andres is a registered Democrat. His wife, Ronnie Abrams, a U.S. district judge in Manhattan, was nominated to the bench in 2011 by Obama. He joined the Mueller team in August 2017. –Judicial Watch

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 5/14/2019)

President Trump mentions the Strzok/Page affair in a tweet. (Credit: Twitter)

(…) “It was Priestap that sat down with Strzok and Page and told them he’d heard rumors about their ongoing affair. Priestap noted during his June 5 interview that he had this discussion “about a year ago,” placing the meeting in mid-2017. Priestap was informed of the possibility of the affair by one of Strzok’s two co-managers in the Clinton email investigation—either Moffa or FBI lawyer Sally Moyer:

Mr. Priestap: “I spoke to Deputy Director McCabe about it. I also spoke to both Pete and Lisa about it. I felt I owed it to them. Lisa did not report to me, but I felt that they ought to be aware of what was being said. I didn’t ask them if it was true, but they needed to know that that impression was out there.

“And I don’t remember my exact words. But what I was trying to communicate is this better not interfere with things, if you know what I mean. Like, to me, the mission is everything. And so, we all have our personal lives, what have you. I’m not the morality police.”

According to Priestap, an affair was not technically against FBI policy—although he admitted that under certain circumstances it could become a blackmail concern, “if that was going on that potentially makes them vulnerable.” Priestap did not ask either Strzok or Page if the allegations were true. He simply placed them on notice that he was aware of the rumors.

Priestap said that he did not report the affair to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility but did feel that McCabe needed “to be aware that there’s talk this might be going on.” It is not clear if McCabe ever discussed the issue with either Strzok or Page.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/29/2019)

A recent FOIA release from Judicial Watch (full pdf below) reveals that two of Mueller’s initial FBI agents, based on dates and redactions – likely Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, visited James Comey on June 7th, 2017, to retrieve a collection of his memos.

(However, a word of caution, one of the memos was titled “last night at 6:30pm” and is being widely misinterpreted to have been written the night before (June 6th, 2017) when that is not accurate.  It is likely that memo relates to the January dinner in the White House with President Trump that held the same sentence.)

If we ignore the misinterpreted “last night” memo aspect (dinner with potus in January ’17), here’s what we can learn from this FOIA release:

♦First, the memos were picked up while FBI agent’s Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka were lead FBI agents that transferred into the Mueller team.  Therefore it’s likely they were the two who traveled to Comey’s house for this effort.

♦Second, the memos were picked up June 7th, 2017, the day before James Comey appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, June 8th, 2017 [See Link].

It was during this June 8th SSCI committee testimony where Comey first revealed the scope of his memo keeping.  Keep in mind, all prior research shows SSCI Chairman Richard Burr and SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner were part of the corrupt effort against President Trump.  Their committee was where leaker James Wolfe (sleeping with journalist Ali Watkins) was operational.  The SSCI was part of the aggregate coup effort.

WARNER: I think that’s a very important statement you just made. Then, unlike your dealings with presidents of either parties in your past experience, in every subsequent meeting or conversation with this president, you created a written record. Did you feel that you needed to create this written record of these memos, because they might need to be relied on at some future date?

COMEY: Sure. I created records after conversations that I think I did it after each of our nine conversations. If I didn’t, I did it for nearly all of them especially the ones that were substantive. I knew there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the Independence of our investigative function. That’s what made this so difficult is it was a combination of circumstances, subject matter and the particular person.

WARNER: I think that is very significant. I think others will probably question that. Now, the chairman and I have requested those memos. It is our hope that the FBI will get this committee access to those memos so again, we can read that contemporaneous rendition so that we’ve got your side of the story. – Transcript Link

(Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Understanding the timeline; and overlaying the ideological intents and purposes; it would make sense that Robert Mueller and the ‘small group’ would want to exploit the memo content (hell, they likely knew all about it as soon as written), and simultaneously keep those memos buried and under their ‘small group’ control.

By taking custody of the memos, the Mueller investigative team would be able to block any outside inquiry.  That’s the motive for the FBI visit to James Comey on June 7th, 2017.  Comey could then talk about the memos the next day while knowing the ‘small group’ would use the “ongoing investigation” to keep them hidden from review.

Senators Mark Warner, Richard Burr and the media would be able to frame discussion of the memos to undermine President Trump, while knowing the memos would be kept out of public review.  With hindsight go back and review the SSCI testimony; this approach appears to have been pre-planned.

Now lets overlay the Archey Declarations” against the FOIA release.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 7/31/2019)

Coleen Rowley (Credit: public domain)

“Shortly after former FBI Director Robert Mueller was announced as the special counsel for the Russia investigation, the screeching hordes of America’s “always wrong about everything” punditry class cheered in near unison, lauding the man as some sort of second coming. This sort of thing should always be seen as a red flag, and thanks to an excellent article written by retired FBI special agent Coleen Rowley, everyone can now know exactly why.

But first, who is Coleen Rowley?

Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled “Questions for the FBI Nominee” was published on the day of James Comey’s confirmation hearing.

It’s important to be aware of that background as you read the following excerpts from the excellent post published at CounterPunch titled, Comey and Mueller: Russiagate’s Mythical Heroes:

“Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.

Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.” (Read more: Liberty Blitzkrieg, 6/09/2017)

Joe Biden paid nearly $2.75million CASH for Rehoboth Beach house within weeks of Hunter sending ‘threatening’ text to Chinese business partner demanding to close $10million deal.

(…) DailyMail.com has discovered that then-private-citizen Biden, who had spent virtually all his adult life in public service, bought the home for slightly under $2.75million – in cash.

And making the transaction even stranger it was within weeks of a highly questionable text that Hunter had sent to Runlong ‘Raymond’ Zhao, an associate at Chinese oil giant CEFC asking to seal a deal worth $10 million a year.

DailyMail.com can reveal that Joe Biden bought his six-bedroom Rehoboth Beach house in June 2017 for $2,744,001 cash. (Credit: Leigh Green/Daily Mail)

‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,’ Hunter wrote Zhao on WhatsApp on July 30, 2017.

He then appears to threaten Zhao – who he calls Z.

‘Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand,’ he writes at 9.45 am.

‘And now means tonight,’ he adds, apparently referring to time in Beijing, which is 12 hours ahead.

‘And Z 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.

He signs off emphasizing: ‘Ok my friend – I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. I sure hope whatever it is you are doing is very, very, very important.’

There is no proof that Joe Biden actually was sitting with his son, but metadata from photos obtained by DailyMail.com from Hunter’s infamous abandoned laptop show he was at his father’s main house, his Wilmington mansion, the day the text was sent.

James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee and one of the key figures leading calls for Biden’s impeachment, said the all-cash house purchase is suspicious.

‘The fact that Joe Biden purchased a luxurious beach house around the same time his family was receiving millions from a CCP-linked company raises many questions that need to be answered,’ Comer told DailyMail.com.

‘The House Oversight Committee will continue to follow the money trail to determine the extent of President Biden’s involvement in his family’s influence-peddling schemes and its impact on our national security,’ Comer added. (Read more: The Daily Mail, 10/21/2023)  (Archive)

“The State Department confirmed that it is continuing to review the mishandling of classified information that passed through Secretary Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized email server as she and seven former aides retain access to sensitive information.  In a recent letter from the State Department to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, the Department outlined its procedures for safeguarding and addressing potential mishandling of classified material and answered questions raised by Grassley in March.

In the letter, the State Department confirmed that it initiated a review of the mishandling of classified information in the unauthorized server matter following the conclusion of the FBI investigation. That review is ongoing and could result in loss of security clearances for violators of the department’s protocols guarding sensitive material.

A snippet of the State Department letter sent to Senator Grassley on May 23, 2017.

The State Department also indicated that Clinton may still access materials that were originated, reviewed, signed or received by her during her tenure at the department, which includes classified information. The State Department had previously informed the Judiciary Committee that seven of Clinton’s former aides were designated as “research assistants,” which allows them to take their State Department-issued clearance with them after their official service at the department concludes, and to retain access to specified information originated by Clinton during her tenure as secretary.

Often, during the course of reviews into mishandling of classified information, security clearances of individuals responsible for a potential breach are suspended. (Senate Judiciary Committee, 6/09/2017)

Lindsey Graham (Credit: Face the Nation/CBS)

“Sen. Lindsey Graham tells ‘Face The Nation‘ host John Dickerson that in his classified testimony, former FBI director James Comey never said that alleged documents proving collusion between the Clinton campaign and Barack Obama’s Justice Department was fake, and that Russia might still have copies.

The story has been floating around Washington that James Comey made the decision to go public with the FBI’s information about the Clinton email scandal because he was aware that the Russians might have a document implicating Attorney General Loretta Lynch in inappropriate communications with the Clinton campaign. It has since been argued by the Clinton campaign that this document is a forgery (meaning that Comey acted on a piece of Russian propaganda), but Sen. Graham makes the case in this interview that there is no evidence the document is a fake. He invites Comey to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain:

LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, I want to know, is it true what Comey said? Did you create an atmosphere there that people believed that you could not fairly render judgment on the president’s interactions with Comey? I want to hear from Loretta Lynch, did you say, “Please call it a matter, not an investigation?”

And I want Comey to come to our committee, because I know on two separate occasions, he has told members of the House and the Senate that the main reason he jumped into the election last year and took over the job of attorney general is because he believed there were emails between the Democratic National Committee and the Department of Justice that compromised the Department of Justice, and he thought the Russians were going to release these emails. That’s why he jumped in and took over Loretta Lynch’s job. I want to know, is that true?

JOHN DICKERSON: Well, now, though, that email, there’s been some reporting that that was a fake email, or doctored–

LINDSEY GRAHAM: When he told the House and Senate as late–as early as a month ago, he never mentioned it was fake. I don’t know if it’s fake or not. But the F.B.I. called me about this, John, and said that they wanted to brief me because I’ve got some of this wrong.

I saw the Washington Post story. I doubt if it’s fake. Maybe it is. But I don’t want to be briefed by myself. I want Democrats and Republicans on the judiciary to be briefed together. Our committee has been together and we’re going to stay together.”

(Read more: RealClearPolitics, 6/11/2017)

In May 2017, The Washington Post refers to the email  and writes:

“The document, obtained by the FBI, was a piece of purported analysis by Russian intelligence, the people said. It referred to an email supposedly written by the then-chair of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and sent to Leonard Benardo, an official with the Open Society Foundations, an organization founded by billionaire George Soros and dedicated to promoting democracy.

The Russian document did not contain a copy of the email, but it described some of the contents of the purported message.

In the supposed email, Wasserman Schultz claimed Lynch had been in private communication with a senior Clinton campaign staffer named Amanda Renteria during the campaign. The document indicated Lynch had told Renteria that she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far, according to people familiar with it.”

(Read more: The Washington Post, 5/24/2017)

“Recently release FOIA documents into the special counsel team of Robert Mueller reveal the remarkable trail of a 2017 entrapment scheme conducted by Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to target George Papadopoulos.

(Hat Tip to Undercover Huber and Rosie Memos who have been reviewing documents.)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by the special counsel; this is not prior to the 2016 election. The detail surrounds a series of events previously discussed {Go Deep} where George Papadopoulos was approached by a known CIA operative named Charles Tawil.

In 2017 George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona were approached in Greece by a known CIA/FBI operative, Charles Tawil.  Mr. Tawil enlisted George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and invited him to Israel.

On June 8th, 2017, in Israel under very suspicious circumstances, where Papadopoulos felt very unnerved, Mr. Tawil hands him $10,000 in cash for future consultancy based on a $10k/month retainer.

On June 9th, 2017, according to his book, Papadopoulos and Tawil fly back to Cyprus.

In interviews Papadopoulos said he was uncomfortable with the way the encounters had taken place.  He became suspect of Tawil’s motives; something didn’t feel right.  Instead of keeping the cash, Papadopoulos gave the money to an attorney in Greece before traveling back to the U.S. on July 27th, 2017.

Upon arrival at Dulles airport on July 27th, 2017, Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting.  Papadopoulos was stopped and his bags were searched; however, he did not have the cash because he smartly left it in Greece with his lawyer.  Papadopoulos was detained overnight by FBI agents, and questioned.

(…) Stanley said Papadopoulos arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Munich that touched down at about 7 p.m. on July 27, and the FBI intercepted him as soon as he got off the plane.

“He was arrested [detained] before he got to Customs and he was then held at the airport before being brought to a law enforcement office,” Stanley recalled. (link)

According to Politico:

When he was arrested [detained] at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from Munich, prosecutors had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint. The complaint would be filed the following morning and approved by Howell in Washington.

And when prosecutors filed the complaint the next day they got a spoken order from Howell to seal it, but followed up with a written request that they could take to the magistrate in Alexandria, where they showed up almost an hour later than she expected.

All of it suggests something of a scramble, rather than a carefully prepared plan to take Papadopoulos into custody. (more)

Here’s where the recent revelations come in.  According to Andrew Weissmann’s schedule on June 13th, 2017, he was in conversations surrounding the basis of a Cyprus Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT):

(Page #5 of FOIA pdf)

So overlaying the timeline:

• 6/8/17 US intelligence asset Charles Tawil gives George $10K cash in Israel
• 6/9/17 George Papadopoulos flies to Cyprus w $10K
• 6/13/17 Andrew Weissmann starts series of “Cyprus MLAT” meetings with FBI
• 6/13/17 Andrew Weissmann phone call w/ FBI Money Laundering and Asset Recovery “MLARS” section of FBI.

It would appear Weissmann was well aware of the Cyprus “Tawil operation” and engaged in communication regarding Cyprus.  Additionally, he was discussing “Money Laundering and Asset Recovery” w/ FBI.  [MLARS Link]

Taken in combination with hindsight of the search for the cash, and lack of a pre-existing warrant at the airport, this is clear evidence of a coordinated operation to entrap Papadopoulos.

Remember, the preferred approach toward targeting Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos surrounded FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) lobbying violations.  Papadopoulos has stated the special counsel threatened him with charges of acting as a unregistered agent for Israel.  There’s a clear picture here.

#1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel).  #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws.  Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges.

(A “laundering” charge applies if the money is illegally obtained.  The FARA violation would be the *illegal* aspect making the treasury charges heavier. Note: the use of the airport baggage-check avoids the need for a search warrant.)

Andrew Weissmann was conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation; (2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering…. All it needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S.

However, because Papadopoulos suspected something, and left the money in Greece with his lawyers, upon arrival at the airport the operation collapsed in reverse.  No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy agreement (which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil who would have become a confidential informant and witness).

That operational collapse is why the FBI agents were “scrambling” at the airport and why they had no pre-existing criminal complaint.  The entrapment’s success was contingent upon the cash.

Lastly, to repeat, this entire scenario was constructed by the DOJ/FBI team operation in 2017.  The members of the Special Counsel were running the entrapment operation; the FBI agents were participating in the operation.  This is not *investigating* criminal conduct; this is manufacturing criminal conduct.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was in charge of the Mueller Special Counsel.

The only way DAG Rosenstein and Robert Mueller didn’t know about the operation is if they both claim that Andrew Weissmann was completely rogue and in control over the FBI agents.

Oh, wait, what does the Mueller report say about the FBI agents and their chain-of-legal guidance and command? (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/11/2019)

Bill meets Loretta on the Phoenix airport tarmac, June 27, 2016.(Credit: ABC News)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham, and Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse sought information about alleged political interference by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The bipartisan inquiry comes as the Judiciary Committee is examining the circumstances surrounding the removal of James Comey as FBI Director.

In April 2017, The New York Times reported that the FBI came into possession of a batch of hacked documents, one of which was said to be authored by a “Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far.” Chairman Grassley then requested a copy of the document from the Justice Department, which has failed to respond. A month later, The Washington Post reported similar facts and provided further details about individuals involved in these communications. The Post reported that the email in question, sent by then-chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations, indicated that Lynch had privately assured Clinton campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the FBI’s investigation wouldn’t “go too far.”

Comey was reportedly concerned that the communication would raise doubts about the investigation’s independence and began discussing plans to announce the end of the Clinton email investigation rather than simply referring it to the Department for a prosecutorial decision. Comey’s extraordinary action to announce the end of the investigation was a break from Justice Department protocol and was later cited as justification for his removal from the FBI.

In their letters to Benardo, Open Society Foundations’ General Counsel Gail Scovell, Renteria, and former Attorney General Lynch, the Senators seek details about the reported communication, copies of any related documents and whether the FBI contacted them to investigate the alleged communication.

The reports come amidst numerous allegations of political inference in controversial and high-profile investigations spanning the current and previous administrations. The Senate Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the FBI and Justice Department and is obliged to oversee any potential misconduct or inappropriate political influence at these agencies.

The full text of the letters can be found at the following links:

Letter to Mr. Leonard Benardo
Letter to Ms. Gail Scovell
Letter to Ms. Renteria
Letter to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch

(Senate Judiciary Press, 6/23/2017)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“Nine months into a relentless effort to spy on Carter Page with the most awesome surveillance tools the U.S. possesses, the FBI had no proof the former Trump adviser had colluded with Russia to hijack the 2016 election.

In fact, the bureau hid from the FISA court the fact that it knew Page was actually a U.S. asset who had helped the CIA and that in a secret recording with an informant he had denied all the core allegations against him with significant proof.

But it wanted to keep spying on its target for another three months. So what did the FBI cough up to the FISA judge to keep up its surveillance and its now-debunked claim that Page might be a Russian agent of influence?

The FBI actually argued that Page’s lawful exercise of his First Amendment rights — he was giving media interviews and considering writing a book — might be proof he was carrying out a Russian plot, according to a newly declassified version of the final FISA warrant reviewed by Just the News.

“The FBI also notes that Page continues to be active in meeting with media outlets to promote his theories of how U.S. foreign policy should be adjusted with regard to Russia and also to refute claims of his involvement with Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election,” the once top-secret FISA application read on page 57.

“The FBI believes that Page may have been instructed by Russian officials to aggressively deny, especially in the media, any Russian involvement with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The FBI believes this approach is important because, from the Russian government’s point of view, it continues to keep the controversy of the election in front of the American and world medium, which has the effect of undermining the integrity of the US electoral process and weakening the effectiveness of the current US administration.

It added: “The FBI believes Page also may be seeking media attention in order to maintain momentum for potential book contracts.”

It offered no proof for such a dramatic allegation. No source. No document. No intercept. Nothing. Just the affirmation “The FBI believes …”

(Read more: Just the News, 2/05/2021)  (Archive)  (FISA application, 6/29/2017)

“During congressional testimony on July 5, 2017, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirms that the story originally reported by the New York Times that “17 intelligence agencies” confirmed Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election has been false all along.

“A tranche of FBI 302s (summaries of agent interviews) were declassified this week via a Freedom of Information Act request. Among them was a 302 from a July 12, 2017 interview with State Department translator Anatoli Samochornov, who attended the now infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting.

Fox News Contributor and investigator Dan Bongino explains the significance of this 302 in episode 1198 of his daily podcast. This single document proves that Special Counsel Robert Mueller knew in July 2017 nothing nefarious had happened during the meeting. Yet, he ignored the evidence and continued on with his bogus investigation – to protect his own. This was a pivotal month for the Mueller team as you’ll soon see.

In early July 2017, word was circulating through the intelligence community that the FBI would be interviewing the participants of a June 2016 meeting held in Trump Towers. Those who attended the meeting included Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (client of Fusion GPS founder, Glenn Simpson), Samochornov (wife worked for State Department), lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet military officer, and Rob Goldstone, an acquaintance of Trump Jr. who helped set up the meeting. Bongino explains that this meeting was a set-up intended to foster the Russian collusion story.

(…) Four days later, the FBI interviewed Anatoli Samochornov. The 302 states:

US government Russian language interpreter Anatoli Samochornov (center right/wearing glasses) at 2015 UN meeting held between President Obama and President Putin. (Credit: Japan Times)

There was no discussion of the 2016 U.S. presidential election or collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign…There was no smoking gun. Samochornov did not believe there had been any mention of Hillary Clinton…Veselnitskaya did not offer any materials during the meeting and no papers were exchanged.

Samochornov was not particularly fond of Donald Trump Jr., but stated that Donald Trump Jr.’s account of the meeting with Veselnitskaya, as portrayed in recent media reports, was accurate. Samochornov concurred with Donald Trump Jr.’s accounts of the meeting. He added, “they” were telling the truth. Samochornov told the interviewing agents that he would have contacted the FBI if he thought the meeting was nefarious.

Bongino asks the obvious question and then answers it. Why didn’t they mention Hillary during the meeting? Wasn’t that the reason for the meeting? He says:

Because they didn’t have anything on Hillary. They weren’t there to give them fake information on Hillary. And if they gave the Trump team fake information that was later discovered to be fake, they would have figured out this was a scam.

The only purpose for them was to just show up. That’s it. The only thing they needed for the media story was the meeting…The meeting was the evidence. The optics. Soundbites and snapshots.

All they needed was the picture of them going in there or the soundbite, ‘Hey, Kremlin linked lawyer met with Trump, Jr.’ That’s all they needed.

So what does Mueller do? He suppresses the evidence and keeps the investigation going for two more years.

Then he does something else. (Hat tip to Techno Fog.)

The Mueller team obtains a search warrant for the “communications, records, documents, and other files involving all of the attendees of the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, as well as Aras and Amin Agalorov.” (Aras and Amin Agalorov are alleged to have helped set up this meeting.)

What else happens in July 2017?

The Inspector General gives Mueller the (FBI agent) Peter Strzok/(FBI Lawyer) Lisa Page text messages and now Mueller realizes that the real investigators have nothing either.” (Read much more: Redstate, 3/07/2020)  (Archive)

Carter Page appears for a radio interview in January 2020. (Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

“In addition to filing inaccurate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, hiding evidence of innocence from the courts and falsifying a government document, the bureau collected inappropriate cell phone photos during two secret premises searches in summer 2017 while spying on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The revelations surfaced belatedly this week when the government declassified once-redacted footnotes from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigative report on the bungled Russia case.

Footnote 379 revealed that in 2019, nearly two years after the inappropriate pictures were gathered, the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD) self-reported two violations notifying the FISA court that FBI personnel conducting two premises searches violated rules designed to protect Americans from unnecessary privacy invasions.

The rules are known as Standard Minimization Procedures (SMPs) and require FBI agents not to collect, gather or store privacy information about an American target that isn’t germane to the investigation, according to current and former FBI officials familiar with the procedures.

The footnote lays out in detail the concerns disclosed to the court, saying the improper actions occurred after the fourth and final FISA warrant against Page was issued in summer 2019 and FBI employees conducted two secret premises searches.

Footnote 379:

(…) The FBI eventually reported that it had taken “remedial action” to resolve the procedural violations. Officials said that could have included removing the inappropriate photos from its servers and possibly destroying them.” (Read more: Just the News, 4/16/2020)  (Archive)

mishandling classified info. The “investigators” knew the rules for retention/preservation docs. CONSIDER: Statutes 18 USC 2071, 641, 1361 + 1663 “Protection of Government Property/Public Records + Documents” READ https://t.co/vacfiQrSzp

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) September 11, 2020

(DOJ Docs, 9/10/2020)

(Credit: John Helmer)

“Never in the field of American conflict with Russia has so much wool pulled over the eyes been owed to so few sheep.  That was during the losing presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Now, in the investigations of President Donald Trump and his family, it’s a case of so many sheep producing so little wool.

The case of the $13 million paid to the Clinton family by the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, in exchange for personal favours and escalation of the war against Russia, was reported in detail throughout 2014. Click to read the opener,  and more.

Early this month there has been fresh investigation of Pinchuk’s money links with the Clintons, owing to the start of Ukrainian government inquiries into the theft of billions of dollars of International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans to Ukraine – money then transferred to  Ukrainian commercial banks including Pinchuk’s Credit Dnepr bank,  and then loaned to offshore entities controlled by Pinchuk but apparently not repaid.  Theft of the IMF money was first reported here in connection with Igor Kolomoisky’s operation of Privat Bank.

Credit Dnepr’s [Pinchuk] takings were reported here. Also on the receiving end was the IMF’s Kiev representative, Jerome Vacher. For the reporting of his relationship with Pinchuk, read this. Vacher was recently replaced in Kiev. He and the IMF management decline to explain why.

Last week, in an investigation of Pinchuk, Credit Dnepr, and the Clintons, a group known as CyberBerkut published what it says were emails hacked from the files of Pinchuk operative, Thomas Weihe. He is currently listed as head of the Pinchuk Foundation board and chief executive.  Read the emails here.

Foundation business — left: Weihe with Pinchuk; right: Pinchuk with Chelsea Clinton. (Credit: John Helmer)

The BBC’s Ukrainian service reports that CyberBerkut is a “staunchly anti-Western group which takes its name from the riot police used against protesters during the unrest in Kiev that led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych. The group’s declared goal is thwarting Ukraine’s military plans and thus stopping the “genocide” that it accuses Kiev of unleashing at America’s behest. Its motto is ‘We won’t forgive or forget’, and its rhetoric closely resembles that of Russian state media.”

The Wikipedia entry for CyberBerkut calls it “a modern organized group of pro-Russian hacktivists”, with a long list of cyber operations starting in March 2014. For details, read.  On July 13, Wikileaks tweeted the CyberBerkut report but qualified its conclusions, calling them “alleged”.

Russian press pick-up has yet to reach the mainstream Moscow media,  or the English-language outlets run by Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press head.  If it did, they might correct factual errors in the CyberBerkut report, such as the linking of Pinchuk to the Ukrainian Delta Bank. Before its collapse in March 2015, Delta was owned by Nikolai Lagun.  Graham Stack’s investigation of Lagun’s looting of Delta Bank reveals plenty of crime, but no trace of Pinchuk.

The first Russian publication of the CyberBerkut report is on the Novorussian website, Colonel Cassad;   this is no more than a re-publication of the original text.

This is how CyberBerkut charts the relationship between the Pinchuk outlays and Clinton receipts:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The evidence of the movement of IMF money through Credit Dnepr into the offshores, and from Pinchuk pockets into Clinton pockets,  has yet to be corroborated. What is revealed for the first time are emails between Clinton and Pinchuk operatives during the second half of 2014. These confirm the investigations, reported here three years ago, of what Pinchuk was doing to promote his steel-pipe trade with the US and his anti-Russian agenda, with the Clintons and the Obama Administration. At the same time, Pinchuk was using the demonstration of support he was procuring from them in order to boost his political power in Kiev and financial favour from the National Bank of Ukraine.

Read the emails, commencing in July of 2014:

Douglas Schoen, Pinchuk’s lobbyist in the US, does not respond to queries. Nor does Weihe, the Pinchuk Foundation apparatchik. They have made no statement challenging the authenticity of these emails. Nor have the Clinton Foundation officials who sent or received the emails, and who have been working to manage Clinton’s relationship with Pinchuk and satisfy his requests.

The three Clinton operatives, who remain at work at the foundation, are Amitabh Desai (pictured below, left), Robert Harrison (centre), and Craig Minassian (right).

Desai, according to the Clinton website, “has been with the Clinton Foundation for more than 10 years. As foreign policy adviser, Ami guides international strategy and relationships and plays a central role in shaping and executing President Clinton’s vision. This includes managing relationships with heads of state, business leaders, philanthropists, and NGOs around the globe” Before taking his job at the foundation, Desai worked for Clinton when she was a US senator, and before that, for Senator Edward Kennedy.

Last week’s report isn’t the first disclosure that in Desai’s emails he was selling access to Clinton for foreign money. More of them can be found here. Among the excerpts already published by US investigators, mainly from Freedom of Information Act pursuit of State Department files, there is no reference to Pinchuk or Ukraine. The US archive on reports of fraud at the Clinton Foundation is very large and can be combed through here. Fraud involving Pinchuk isn’t reported in this database.

(…) On November 3, the week before the election, AP broke the news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been pursuing an investigation of Clinton’s government favours for foundation donations, but that the Justice Department stopped it. “Though agents believed they had grounds to move forward with an investigation, Justice Department lawyers were more skeptical. The lawyers did not direct the FBI to stop looking into the matter during the meeting, but public-corruption prosecutors in Washington expressed disinterest in a Clinton Foundation-related investigation based on the information presented.”

In all the email evidence which US media investigations pursued to expose Clinton’s foreign favour trading, there was no focus on the Pinchuk emails and the flow of Pinchuk money. Conflict of interest was the Clinton offence the US investigators were after. But in the Pinchuk case, there was another potential offence, and that was reported on February 17, 2014. Pinchuk had looted his Moscow-based Rossiya Insurance Company of up to $200 million, according to investigations by Russian insurance regulators and prosecutors, before the company’s licence was cancelled in October 2013.

The subsequent question was: did that money find its way through Pinchuk’s foundation into Clinton’s foundation, to be traded for political and personal favours?

The release of the CyberBerkut emails last week provides fresh evidence of this trading, but CyperBerkut doesn’t mention the Rossiya Insurance Company crime. As well-known as the crime was in 2013 and 2014, no US media investigator, nor any Russian government investigation has reported pursuing the Rossiya money-trail through Pinchuk’s accounts into Clinton’s. So the big question for the FBI and the Department of Justice —  what check did the Clinton Foundation carry out of the legality of the money it took from Pinchuk? – has never been asked. Or if the US Government did ask the question, the Clinton answer has been concealed.

Note: Thomas Weihe comments:  “First, it is obviously a lie that I don’t respond to queries. Every more or less professional and honest journalist gets an answer from me quickly, and I reply honestly. Second, the whole story is completely wrong. It is so wrong that individual corrections cannot improve it. Everything is invented. There is no truth to anything you say. The so-called evidence proves absolutely none of the claims you make. You should be ashamed of publishing such crap.” (Read more: John Helmer, 7/17/2017)

(Timeline editor’s note: We are excited to have received permission to republish some of Mr Helmer’s well-sourced work on Ukraine, the Clintons and Victor Pinchuk. Please be sure to read his entire article at the link provided. According to Mr. Helmer’s bio, he is the “longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties.”)

“An official who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation wrote in a recently released email that he or she was in possession of an iPhone belonging to Lisa Page three days after the former FBI lawyer’s last day on the job and at a time when the device was thought to have been lost.

The special counsel’s office (SCO) and the Justice Department previously claimed to have no documents to show who handled Page’s iPhone after she turned it in on July 14, 2017, or who improperly wiped it two weeks later, before it could be checked for records, in violation of SCO policy.

But documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sept. 11 tell a different story, with three officials certifying that Page turned over her phone and one claiming to have been in possession of it.

“I have her phone and laptop,” an administrative officer with the initials LFW wrote in a July 17, 2017, email to Christopher Greer, an assistant director at the DOJ Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO).

Beth McGarry, the executive officer at the special counsel’s office, told Greer in an email sent earlier in the day that Page “returned her mobile phone and laptop.”

On the same day, a property custodian officer, whose name is redacted in the documents, signed a form on which Page certified that she turned in her phone and the officer certified that “all government property has been returned or otherwise properly accounted for.”

The July 17 timing of the two statements and the signature is significant. The DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) previously concluded that there were no records of who had the phone after July 14.

(…) On Jan. 26, 2018, Greer reached out to LFW to ask where Page’s SCO iPhone was because the OIG wanted to speak to the official about the device.

“Yes. I know it is missing. We discovered that first,” LFW wrote back.

The DOJ tracked down the phone eight months later, in early September 2018, and handed it over to the OIG. The records officer later contacted the inspector general to find out if the phone was wiped.

“Yes that’s correct, the device had been reset to factory settings,” the OIG official wrote back.

Three months later, in December 2018, the OIG released the report on its hunt to recover additional text messages Page and Strzok sent on six phones they used, four of which were assigned by the FBI. The effort resulted in the discovery of hundreds of text messages, but none came from the special counsel’s office phones, both of which were wiped before investigators recovered them.

The following January, DOJ officials reached out to Verizon with a request for billing statements to check how many messages Page and Strzok sent on their special counsel’s office phones. Verizon responded by saying no text messages were sent, with a caveat that data did leave the device. Verizon’s report didn’t cover the most common way to send a message on an iPhone—the iMessage app—which uses an internet connection rather than the carrier’s text service.

“Both numbers did have data usage so it could mean that if any messages were sent, it could have been through some type of app but we would not know for sure from our end,” a message from Verizon stated.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/15/2020)  (Archive)

Rod Rosenstein (Credit: The Associated Press)

“One of the most frequent questions about Deputy Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein circles around his decision to reauthorize the FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant used against Carter Page and by extension the Trump campaign. In this outline we take the timeline and overlay new information that helps to understand what was going on:

It appears Special Counsel Robert Mueller began his investigation of Russian interference and the possibility of Trump campaign collusion, right where the FBI counterintelligence operation left-off.  This is additionally supported by reviewing the original investigative instructions as outlined by Rod Rosenstein the day Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel.

The key phrase here is: “to serve as Special Counsel to oversee the previously-confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election”…  Here, Rosenstein is clearly instructing Robert Mueller to pick-up the former Counterintelligence Investigation previously headed by FBI Asst. Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, and his #2 FBI Agent Peter Strzok.”

(…) “It was ten months before the Special Counsel was assigned when Page and Strzok were messaging each-other about the “insurance policy” discussed in Andrew McCabe’s office. The Page/Strzok messages were on August 18th, 2016.

That “insurance policy” is widely believed to have been short-hand to describe an effort to conduct surveillance on candidate Trump, which could later ensure a strategic plan to disrupt and possibly eliminate Trump if elected, via the Russia collusion narrative.

That plan needed legal FBI authority to conduct surveillance – which could be used to weaponize intelligence. That plan culminated in the Carter Page Title-1 FISA warrant as the deployment mechanism, on October 21st, 2016.

Apparently, without knowledge of the underlying sketchy context inside the application (Steele Dossier) of the FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant, on July 18th, 2017, Asst. AG Rod Rosenstein renews the FISA warrant as the 3rd continuance of an investigative tool. This time to be used by Robert Mueller.  And with this intensely broad and intrusive surveillance authority Mueller’s investigative unit now has the legal authority to capture the records of everyone within two-hops of Carter Page.  That includes the entire Trump campaign and likely almost all of the Trump administration.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/04/2018)

(Timeline editor’s note: All documents posted in this timeline entry can be found in Sidney Powell’s 10/24/19 court filing here.)

Peter Strzok (Credit: public domain)

On 07/19/17 Strzok was interviewed by a Senior Assistant Special Counsel & an FBI Supervisory Special Agent

This was Strzok’s “exit” interview after he’d been forced to leave the Special Counsel due to discovery of his biased text messages

It’s a felony to lie in this interview:

Strzok was asked about his role in the investigation of @GenFlynn, and said that he, “Strzok conducted the interview” and [redacted] “was primarily responsible for taking notes and writing the FD-302”

Redacted name refers to (Joe) Pientka, his partner on the Flynn case:

So if Pientka was NOT actually “primarily” responsible for “writing the FD-302” or “taking notes”, then Strzok lied.

Newly available evidence strongly suggests Strzok did lie: it was *Strzok* himself who wrote the 302, & largely from his own notes, NOT Pientka’s

Here’s why 👇
DOJ only recently provided new evidence to @SidneyPowell1  (@GenFlynn attorney), under a protective order. This order was lifted this month, allowing it to be filed publicly.

1. Handwritten interview notes said to be Strzok’s and Pientka’s

2. 302 Drafts*

3. New Strzok texts

*The earliest 302 DOJ has provided is from 02/10/17. The Flynn interview was on 01/24/17 (17 days earlier). So it is highly likely there are earlier drafts, but on Oct 29 DOJ (Brandon Van Grack; a former Senior Assistant Special Counsel) denied DOJ is “hiding” an “original 302”

I analyzed both Strzok and Pientka’s notes, line by line and side by side with the 02/10/17 FD-302

This included matching the notes to the subject topics discussed in the 302 and looking for words and phrases used only in Strzok’s notes, only in Pientka’s notes, in both, or neither:

SUMMARY (1 of 2)

—The 302 systematically & overwhelmingly (30+ examples) contains words and phrases ONLY noted by Strzok & NOT by Pientka

—Crucially this includes two where Pientka explicitly comments that he “couldn’t remember” Flynn saying this and “[I] dont…have in my notes”

SUMMARY (2 of 2)

Attached is a summary by topic (e.g “RT dinner”)

—Red text is phrases/words in the 302 that are lifted from Strzok’s notes, in bold are verbatim

—🚨Purple text is the 2 crucial examples that Pientka explicitly says he didn’t have noted/couldn’t remember:

To put it mildly, this evidence is inconsistent with Pientka “primarily” writing the 302, as Strzok claimed

Even if Pientka had access to Strzok’s notes, its incredibly unlikely he would systematically rely on Strzok’s notes 30+ times, repeatedly using Strzok’s linguistic style 

And even if you could stretch to believing that, Pientka certainly wouldn’t include in a draft 302 (a legal record that can be the basis for a felony charge) words & phrases *he couldn’t remember*, that only appeared in Strzok’s notes AND add “I don’t remember this” to the 302

Also, the new Strzok texts show Strzok communicating with Lisa Page on the same day of the 302 draft (02/10/17), adding “edits” from Lisa Page, “finalizing it”, working on it over the weekend & *then* “sending to Joe”. All inconsistent with Pientka being “primarily responsible”

SUMMARY

—Strzok told the Special Counsel/FBI that Pientka wrote the 302 interview record of Flynn

—Strzok’s text messages and the Strzok/Pientka handwritten notes show that’s likely false, and Strzok himself wrote the 302 

—Strzok likely committed the same felony @GenFlynn was charged with (18 USC §1001)

—The Special Counsel and FBI had access to the same exculpatory evidence in this thread BEFORE @GenFlynn pled guilty to the felony his own interviewer committed

/ENDS 

(Read more: UndercoverHuber @JohnWHuber, 10/31/2019)

(Read more: Senate Judiciary Committee, 7/20/2017)  (Archive)

• Released messages document how Mueller’s spokesman took dozens of meetings with reporters over three months in 2017.
• Reporters from nearly every major media outlet have been jockeying for influence and favoritism within the special counsel’s office.
• One awkward exchange illustrates a reporter from CNN trashing an article written by White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Peter Carr (Credit: public domain)

“Hundreds of pages of emails and text messages released from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) special counsel’s office through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show an ongoing relationship between Robert Mueller’s team and the press, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The documents, released in September, span months of communication and include messages from reporters ranging from a variety of outlets, including TheDCNF, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed.

While the vast majority of correspondences between Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr and a variety of journalists ends with a “no comment,” the messages expose Mueller’s team was willing to meet with a number of reporters in private meetings and over the phone.

Coordinating such meetings cuts against the narrative that the special counsel has been hesitant to give information to the press, instead opting to give information only through public announcements and statements.

Adam Goldman (Credit: public domain)

The New York Times ran a story in August poking fun at the secrecy of the special counsel, with one reporter writing that Carr’s “‘no comment’ replies have become a running dark joke among the Washington press corps.”

But on July 21st, 2017, Adam Goldman from TheNYT sent an email to Carr about arranging a “touch base” meeting, according to documents provided by the DOJ.

That meeting was later rescheduled, but it is just one in a pattern of meetings and private calls from reporters jockeying for opportunities to solicit information from an investigation that has been labeled as “leak proof” from the press.

Ironically, Vox was one of those exact outlets that proclaimed Mueller’s team as immune to leaks — despite one of its reporters communicating extensively with Carr via text.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/20/2018)

In a memo to President Trump, a group of former U.S. intelligence officers, including NSA specialists, cite new forensic studies to challenge the claim of the key Jan. 6 “assessment” that Russia “hacked” Democratic emails last year. 

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Was the “Russian Hack” an Inside Job?

Executive Summary

Then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present.(Credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer. After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device.

Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack. Of equal importance, the forensics show that the copying was performed on the East coast of the U.S. Thus far, mainstream media have ignored the findings of these independent studies [see here and here].

Independent analyst Skip Folden, who retired after 25 years as the IBM Program Manager for Information Technology, US, who examined the recent forensic findings, is a co-author of this Memorandum. He has drafted a more detailed technical report titled “Cyber-Forensic Investigation of ‘Russian Hack’ and Missing Intelligence Community Disclaimers,” and sent it to the offices of the Special Counsel and the Attorney General. VIPS member William Binney, a former Technical Director at the National Security Agency, and other senior NSA “alumni” in VIPS attest to the professionalism of the independent forensic findings.

The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original “Guccifer 2.0” material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the “hand-picked analysts” from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the “Intelligence Community Assessment” dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics.” (Read more: Consortium News, 7/24/2017)

Paul Manafort’s apartment building. (Credit: Getty Images)

“FBI agents raided the home in Alexandria, Va., of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, arriving in the pre-dawn hours late last month and seizing documents and other materials related to the special counsel investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The raid, which occurred without warning on July 26, signaled an aggressive new approach by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team in dealing with a key figure in the Russia inquiry. Manafort has been under increasing pressure as the Mueller team looked into his personal finances and his professional career as a highly paid foreign political consultant.

Using a search warrant, agents appeared the day Manafort was scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and a day after he met voluntarily with Senate Intelligence Committee staff members.

The search warrant requested documents related to tax, banking and other matters. People familiar with the search said agents departed the Manafort residence with a trove of material, including binders prepared ahead of Manafort’s congressional testimony.

Investigators in the Russia inquiry have previously sought documents with subpoenas, which are less intrusive and confrontational than a search warrant. With a warrant, agents can inspect a physical location and seize any useful information. To get a judge to sign off on a search warrant, prosecutors must show that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed.” (Read more: Washington Post, August 9, 2017)

(Timeline editor’s note: While preparing this timeline entry, I discovered the links provided by Jeff Carlson to Rep. Goodlatte’s press release and letter, are no longer working links on the House Judiciary Committee website. I called Rep. Nadler’s office to ask why those documents are no longer available and they could not (or would not) give me an answer. With a little further searching, I was able to find the original letter in the Wayback Machine.) 

(A screenshot of my attempt to access Rep. Goodlatte’s press release and letter on the House Judiciary Committee website.)

“The House Judiciary Committee issued a press release on July 27, 2017, stating that a formal request for the appointment of a second Special Counsel has been made to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The actual letter may be viewed here.

The Judiciary Committee members were specific in their request. They are asking for investigation into the following:

The members call for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate grave concerns such as former Attorney General Lynch’s directive to former FBI Director Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the investigation into former Secretary Clinton; the FBI and Justice Department’s investigative decisions related to the Clinton email investigation, including the immunity deals given to potential co-conspirators; selected leaks of classified information that unmasked U.S. persons incidentally collected upon by the intelligence community; and the FBI’s reliance on “Fusion GPS” in its investigation of the Trump campaign, among many others issues.

Fourteen specific topics of investigation are noted – many of which were asked previously but remain unanswered:

1. Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation;
2. The shadow cast over our system of justice concerning Secretary Clinton and her involvement in mishandling classified information;
3. FBI and DOJ’s investigative decisions related to former Secretary Clinton’s email investigation, including the propriety and consequence of immunity deals given to potential Clinton co-conspirators Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, John Bentel and possibly others;
4. The apparent failure of DOJ to empanel a grand jury to investigate allegations of mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton and her associates;
5. The Department of State and its employees’ involvement in determining which communications of Secretary Clinton’s and her associates to turn over for public scrutiny;
6. WikiLeaks disclosures concerning the Clinton Foundation and its potentially unlawful international dealings;
7. Connections between the Clinton campaign, or the Clinton Foundation, and foreign entities, including those from Russia and Ukraine;
8. Mr. Comey’s knowledge of the purchase of Uranium One by the company Rosatom, whether the approval of the sale was connected to any donations made to the Clinton Foundation, and what role Secretary Clinton played in the approval of that sale that had national security ramifications;
9. Disclosures arising from unlawful access to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) computer systems, including inappropriate collusion between the DNC and the Clinton campaign to undermine Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign;
10. Post-election accusations by the President that he was wiretapped by the previous Administration, and whether Mr. Comey and Ms. Lynch had any knowledge of efforts made by any federal agency to unlawfully monitor communications of then-candidate Trump or his associates;
11. Selected leaks of classified information related to the unmasking of U.S. person identities incidentally collected upon by the intelligence community, including an assessment of whether anyone in the Obama Administration, including Mr. Comey, Ms. Lynch, Ms. Susan Rice, Ms. Samantha Power, or others, had any knowledge about the “unmasking” of individuals on then candidate-Trump’s campaign team, transition team, or both;
12. Admitted leaks by Mr. Comey to Columbia University law professor, Daniel Richman, regarding conversations between Mr. Comey and President Trump, how the leaked information was purposefully released to lead to the appointment of a special counsel, and whether any classified information was included in the now infamous “Comey memos”;
13. Mr. Comey’s and the FBI’s apparent reliance on “Fusion GPS” in its investigation of the Trump campaign, including the company’s creation of a “dossier” of information about Mr. Trump, that dossier’s commission and dissemination in the months before and after the 2016 election, whether the FBI paid anyone connected to the dossier, and the intelligence sources of Fusion GPS or any person or company working for Fusion GPS and its affiliates; and
14. Any and all potential leaks originated by Mr. Comey and provide to author Michael Schmidt dating back to 1993.

I have written previously about almost every one of these issues – including Comey’s Testimony, Comey’s handling of the Clinton Investigation, the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, Unmasking, Obama’s Surveillance and the Russian Investigation.

They are all questions and topics that merit actual investigation.

The Committee’s questions fall into broader subgroups:

Hillary Clinton Investigation

Clinton Foundation

Surveillance

Unmasking of U.S. Citizens

FBI/Comey Collusion

Illegal Leaks

The final question pertains to Michael Schmidt, a New York Times reporter who has broken a number of stories on Trump-Russia as well as apparent leaks from Comey. You may find a complete listing of Schmidt’s articles here. Someone was whispering directly into his ear.

I’m not sure what will come from this letter – perhaps nothing – but the House Judiciary Committee’s timing is excellent. Attorney General Sessions has been under pressure for his recusal on the Russian Investigation along with his lack of prosecutorial zeal. If this request had come out a month ago, I would have noted it but not thought much else. At this particular juncture of events, I find myself marginally more hopeful that something – anything – might result from the Committee’s formal request.” (Read more: themarketswork.com, 7/29/2017)

Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova (Credit: Fox Business)

“Washington power couple Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing appeared on Sebastian Gorka’s Salem Radio talk show “America First” Thursday, to talk about what they called a blatant FBI  sting operation against former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos.

During the show, Toensing, an attorney who partners with her husband at the Washington DC law firm diGenova & Toensing, accused the FBI of trying to frame Papadopoulos with a suitcase full of cash in the summer of 2017.

According to Toensing, Papa-D was vacationing with his then-fiance, Simona Mangiante, in Greece when he was approached by someone who was supposedly impressed with his credentials, and said he wanted to do business with him. The individual [David Ha’ivri], allegedly talked the then-29-year-old into traveling to Israel to make a deal, and invited him to his hotel room.

“And there on the bed, is $10,000 in cash in a suitcase,” she continued. Papadopoulos took the money and gave it to his lawyer, who has it still.

Toensing said when Papadopoulos returned to the United States, he was greeted by FBI agents at Dulles Airport and they started searching through everything that he had “the second he landed.”

She added, “in fact, they already had his baggage from the plane. He couldn’t believe they had his baggage.”

“It was a set up!” exclaimed Gorka.

“It was a complete set up,” agreed Toensing.

DiGenova explained that the Feds already knew that he hadn’t declared that he had $10,000 and were expecting to find the undeclared cash so they could arrest him and “put the thumbscrews on and make him squeal,” as Gorka put it.

Worst of all, according to Toensing, “one of the FBI agents said to him, ‘this is what happens when you work for Donald Trump.’” (Read more: American Greatness, 5/09/2019)

“It was revealed on Saturday that Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team in August after the Department of Justice’s inspector general discovered that he exchanged anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages with his mistress, an FBI lawyer named Lisa Page who also worked on the Mueller team.

Strzok was sent to the FBI’s human resources department. The circumstances of the demotion remained a mystery for several months, with Mueller’s office refusing to provide background information on the personnel move.

The revelation of Strzok’s biased texts is significant because of his central role in both the Russia investigation and the Clinton email probe. As the FBI’s No. 2 counter-terrorism official, Strzok helped start both of the investigations. He also conducted interviews with former national security adviser Michael Flynn in the Russia investigation and with Clinton and several of her top aides in the email inquiry.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/05/2017)

“Paul Manafort’s legal team has forced disclosure of a troubling secret memo issued by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that expanded the scope of the Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation beyond allegations of Russian election interference.  Manafort’s lawyers have moved to have his initial and the subsequent superseding indictments for business dealings years ago dismissed because, among other reasons, Mueller had no legal authority beyond probing Russian election interference in the 2016 election when he was appointed by Rosenstein on May 17, 2017.

In response to Manafort’s motion for dismissal, this previously secret memo was revealed (with heavy redactions) expanding Mueller’s scope of investigation.

The first and obvious question is, why on Earth was this kept secret?  It smacks of secret police, not an open and fair investigation.

But there is another, truly serious problem that William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection explains in his excellent lengthy article on the memo:
(Read more: American Thinker, 4/02/2018)

“On Pages #11 and #12 of the Weissmann/Mueller report, the special counsel team outlines the purpose and intent of the probe as delivered by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  Within these pages Mueller outlines the August 2nd Scope Memo that has previously been hidden and remains redacted through today.

Read the highlighted portion carefully to understand the scope of the instructions.  Note the careful wording “the Special Counsel had been authorized since his appointment to investigate allegations”… This means from Day #1 of the special counsel, the scope of the probe was always to investigate the claims within the Ohr/Steele Dossier:

The August 2nd Scope Memo additionally authorized the investigation of “certain other matters” specifically relating to Manafort (financial crimes), and Papadopolous and Flynn (FARA violations).

These paragraphs tell us a great deal about what originated the purpose of the FBI investigation and the continued purpose of the special counsel.  Remember, the special counsel was a continuance of the FBI counterintelligence operation which officially began on July 31st, 2016.  [The unofficial beginning was much earlier]

Understanding now that Mueller is saying from Day One he was investigating the Steele Dossier; here’s where we all need to question the assumptions.

From the beginning most people have thought the Fusion-GPS objective was to dig up dirt on Trump for political exploitation.  However, with all the recent information outlined there’s actually a more significant role for Fusion.

The overall intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government was already conducting political surveillance on their political opposition.  The systems of the intelligence apparatus such as FISA-702(16)(17) databases searches were being exploited months (if not years) beforehand.  When NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers discovered the use of the database he shut down contractor access on April 18th, 2016.

When Fusion GPS was hired by the DNC and Clinton team, also in April of 2016, it now appears the purpose was to provide cover for government surveillance already taking place.  Perhaps part of that motive was fear of what NSA Mike Rogers might do.

The Obama administration (U.S. government intelligence apparatus) needed an external source of information that could cover their domestic surveillance and spy operations. That’s why Fusion GPS was hired, and why emphasis was put on using European and Australian intelligence contacts to create the plausible process to continue surveillance that was always taking place.

This corrupt weaponizing of the U.S. intelligence apparatus is MUCH BIGGER than anyone currently absorbs. The Steele Dossier was an eventual part of the cover-story.

When Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were discussing the “insurance policy” in August 2016, they were not discussing insurance from the perspective of their success, ie. Clinton elected; they were discussing insurance from the position of if they failed.

If Clinton was elected, great; everything continues as normal. However, if Clinton was not elected the weaponization of government needed a cover story, a plausible legitimate reason for why political surveillance/spying was taking place.  This is the insurance policy need…. This is why they needed the Steele Dossier.

Regardless of anything happening to stop them, the intelligence community was conducting surveillance of their political opposition.  To validate that surveillance the intelligence community needed a plausible FBI counterintelligence operation.  That’s where John Brennan (CIA) comes in.

Brennan manufactured the plausible excuse for an FBI operation to begin through the use of “unofficial channels” via Joseph Mifsud, Stefan Halper and eventually Alexander Downer via an Australian intelligence asset Erika Thompson; who was working in London with U.S. intelligence assets Terrence Dudley and Greg Baker, ie. the “Papadopoulos operation”.

While the overseas operation was working to create plausible explanation and start Crossfire Hurricane, back in the U.S. Fusion-GPS was contracted to supplement the appearances for a domestic parallel track.  Fusion ran operations for the Russian appearances inside the U.S., ex. Trump Tower meeting.

For their effort, Fusion was using previously extracted FISA-702(16)(17) results to create more supportive evidence and plausible material.  That Fusion effort led to the Steele Dossier.

However, in a similar way the Brennan operation needed the Australian Diplomat Alexander Downer to cross from “unofficial” into “official” channels, the Steele Dossier needs a way to cross from ‘unofficial opposition research‘ into official investigative status.

Enter the Steele Dossier.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/20/2020)  (Archive)

Dana Rohrabacher (l) (Shuji Kajiyama/AFP/Getty Images) and Julian Assange (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

“Republican Congressman Rep. Rohrabacher released a statement earlier this month which indicated he had drawn congress’s attention to a Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) report. The VIPS memorandum, which was addressed to President Trump, stated that the DNC  most likely had not been hacked, by Russia or anyone else. The report, signed by respected intelligence leaders such as former NSA technical director William Binney, veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou among others, cited analysis of the Guccifer 2.0 metadata which had been conducted by an anonymous source known as The Forensicator.

The VIPS report also cites Disobedient Media‘s article on The Forensicator’s analysis. Disobedient Media was the first media outlet to report on The Forensicator‘s groundbreaking findings. Their analysis suggested that the data published by Guccifer 2.0 as the NGP-VAN files had been locally copied on the east coast of the U.S., most likely with direct access to a computer that had access to the DNC information.

The metadata of these particular files is significant to the Russian hacking narrative because Guccifer 2.0 had claimed responsibility for the DNC ‘hack,’ while claiming to have been based in Romania. Guccifer 2.0 is still being cited by legacy media as the ‘hacker’ of the DNC. This would be utterly invalidated if the Forensicator’s findings are proven to be correct.

The statement published by Rohrabacher earlier in August related that VIPS’ findings, which were sparked by The Forensicator’s analysis, destroys the credibility of the charges that Russia hacked the DNC system. Rohrabacher’s statement also expressed that the VIPS findings invalidated claims that Russia impacted the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. Rohrabacher chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats.

His statement reads in part: “These bogus charges have done great damage to our ability to work with Russia and have distracted the American people from the real threat of radical Islamic terrorism. This phony campaign has been used to disrupt the right of our new president to accomplish his goals and set the policies approved by the American voters.”Rohrabacher has distributed the report to his colleagues.

Rohrabacher made headlines recently after a three-hour meeting with Julian Assange, after which the congressman claimed that Assange had confirmed the Russian hacking narrative is false. Rohrabacher also claimed that Assange had indicated he might reveal this proof to the public. However, Julian Assange quickly clarified via Twitter that he does not make statements through third parties and that only official statements made by him directly or through his lawyers should be considered authoritative.

The LA Times and other media reports following the meeting related that Assange could potentially be pardoned as a result of these latest events. Rohrabacher has said that he will speak with President Trump before going public with any information that might be revealed. It comes as no surprise to this author that soon after Rohrabacher’s meeting with Assange, The Washington Post reported calls had been made for an investigation into  Rohrabacher’s relationship with Russia.

This latest news may prove to be of huge significance not only in potentially dismissing a scandal that saw a dramatic increase in tension between two nuclear states but also in refocusing public attention towards the serious corruption in the DNC that emerged in the substance of the DNC emails. The DNC’s reaction to their publication may also come under increasing scrutiny if ‘Russian hacking’ claims are dismissed.” (Read more: Disobedient Media, 8/18/2017)

Five days later, on August 5, 2017, Biden and Chinese formed Hudson West III, funded entirely by Chinese. Ultimately Hunter and Uncle Jim embezzled all the cash. See https://t.co/W3Uu0JulQa pic.twitter.com/y7pry43dal

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) June 22, 2023

In response to a congressional FOIA request, the Department of Justice FOIA library releases records concerning Fusion GPS, Chris Steele and Nellie Ohr from January 13, 2016 – July 3, 2018. 

Interim – Part 1 (March 15, 2018 – June 28, 2018)

​​Interim – Part 2​ (January 5, 2018 – March 8, 2018)

Interim – Part 3​ (March 6, 2017 – January 4, 2018)

Twitter user Brennan’sOrangeJumpSuit @15poundstogo, a great deep diver of document dumps, finds an email with the sender’s name redacted and it is addressed to several DOJ members. He then posted the email to Twitter with the following question:

Little did Brennan’sOrangeJumpSuit know, the redacted name in the email belonged to Carter Page. A few hours later, Carter Page tweets the unredacted version of the email.

Here is a clearer look at Carter Page’s email:

Maureen Dowd’s NYT editorial is titled, “Bobby Sticks It To Trump, 8/05/2017.“

(Credit: Fox News)

(…) “Last week, news broke about a Clinton Foundation whistleblower who was the target of a very well publicized FBI raid. The public cover story about that raid went like this:

Whistleblower Dennis Nathan Cain suddenly was outed publicly and it became known he had thousands of incriminating documents related to the Clinton Foundation, so he was almost instantly raided by the DOJ/FBI looking to seize the documents.

Well, that was the cover story.  The actual story is that Cain had already given the documents to the FBI and the IRS over a year ago, as Solomon notes here in his latest article:

“The answer to the second question may reside in 6,000 pages of evidence attached to a whistleblower submission filed secretly more than a year ago with the IRS and FBI.

That evidence was assembled by a private firm called MDA Analytics LLC, run by accomplished ex-federal criminal investigators, who alleged the Clinton Foundation engaged in illegal activities and may be liable for millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties.

In addition to the IRS, the firm’s partners have had contact with prosecutors in the main Justice Department in Washington and FBI agents in Little Rock, Ark. And last week, a federal prosecutor suddenly asked for documents from their private investigation.

The 48-page submission, dated Aug. 11, 2017, supports its claims with 95 exhibits, including internal legal reviews that the foundation conducted on itself in 2008 and 2011.”

(…) Last week’s revelation that Huber and his U.S. Attorney team could be investigating the Clinton Foundation for a year, and that nothing about that leaked, is mindblowing enough. The new information is truly stunning.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/07/2018)

(…) “Meadows, the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is also the chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations. The panel is set to hold an investigative hearing next week on the status of the Foundation case.

U.S. Attorney John Huber was tasked to investigate the foundation last year by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The Clinton Foundation consistently has maintained that it is a charity, and never traded on Hillary Clinton’s position as America’s top diplomat, which she held from 2009-2013. The organization has a four-star rating from the watchdog site Charity Navigator and has touted its mission “to create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service.” (Read more: Fox News, 12/07/2018)

“When a House subcommittee chairman bangs his gavel next week to convene an unprecedented investigative hearing into the Clinton Foundation, two questions will linger as preeminent: Is the Clinton family charity really the international do-gooder that earned a perfect four-star rating from Charity Navigator, or does it suffer from corruption and illegalities as conservatives allege? And if it is the latter, how much evidence of wrongdoing does the government possess?

The answer to the first question is that the foundation and its projects reported collecting about $2.5 billion to help global crises, from AIDS to earthquakes, even as its own auditors, lawyers and employees privately warned of problems over the years.

The answer to the second question may reside in 6,000 pages of evidence attached to a whistleblower submission filed secretly more than a year ago with the IRS and FBI.

That evidence was assembled by a private firm called MDA Analytics LLC, run by accomplished ex-federal criminal investigators, who alleged the Clinton Foundation engaged in illegal activities and may be liable for millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties.

In addition to the IRS, the firm’s partners have had contact with prosecutors in the main Justice Department in Washington and FBI agents in Little Rock, Ark. And last week, a federal prosecutor suddenly asked for documents from their private investigation.

The 48-page submission, dated Aug. 11, 2017, supports its claims with 95 exhibits, including internal legal reviews that the foundation conducted on itself in 2008 and 2011.

Those reviews flagged serious concerns about legal compliance, improper commingling of personal and charity business and “quid pro quo” promises made to donors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of State.

(Credit: Clinton Foundation website)

The submission also cites an interview its investigators conducted with Andrew Kessel that quotes the foundation’s longtime chief financial officer as saying he was unable to stop former President Clinton from “commingling” personal business and charitable activities inside the foundation and that he “knows where all the bodies are buried.”

“There is probable cause that the Clinton Foundation has run afoul of IRS rules regarding tax-exempt charitable organizations and has acted inconsistently with its stated purpose,” MDA Analytics alleged in its submission. “The Foundation should be investigated for all of the above-mentioned improprieties. The tax rules, codes, statutes and the rule of law should and must be applied in this case.”

(…) A prosecutor working for Huber called MDA Analytics last week, seeking copies of their evidence, according to sources. The firm told the prosecutor that the FBI has possessed the evidence in its Little Rock office since early 2018, the sources said.

Some evidence that MDA investigators cited is public source, such as internal foundation reviews hacked in 2016 and given to WikiLeaks. Other materials were provided to the investigators by foreign governments that have done business with the charity, or by foundation insiders.

One of the nonpublic documents is an interview memo the MDA Analytics investigators penned after meeting with Kessel in late November 2016 at the Princeton Club in New York City.

Chelsea and Bill Clinton watch during the second 2016 presidential debate on Oct. 9, 2016. (Credit: Jim Bourg/The Associated Press)

Kessel told those investigators that “one of the biggest problems was Mr. Clinton’s commingling and use of business and donated funds and his personal expenses,” according to the whistleblower submission.

“There is no controlling Bill Clinton. He does whatever he wants and runs up incredible expenses with foundation funds,” states a separate interview memo attached to the submission.

“Bill Clinton mixes and matches his personal business with that of the foundation. Many people within the foundation have tried to caution him about this but he does not listen, and there really is no talking to him,” the memo added.

The memo also claims Kessel confirmed to the private investigators that private lawyers reviewed the foundation’s practices — once in 2008 and the other in 2011 — and each found widespread problems with governance, accounting and conflicts of interest.

“I have addressed it before and, let me tell you, I know where all the bodies are buried in this place,” the memo alleges Kessel said.” (Read more: The Hill, 12/06/2018)

“As we discovered earlier this year, Mueller’s lead FBI agent for the corrupt Russia collusion-conspiracy investigation, was David W. Archey.  Archey was selected by Robert Mueller when FBI Agent Peter Strzok was removed.  The Mueller probe took over the counterintelligence investigation May 17, 2017, a few months later Special Agent Peter Strzok was removed (July) and David W. Archey was brought in:

As David Archey arrives in August 2017, Mueller is getting the new scope memo from Rod Rosenstein.  The August scope memo authorizes the Mueller team to investigate the Steele Dossier.  There’s little doubt the entire FBI group would have known the Trump-Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative was false.  So David Archey’s status as lead agent has to be considered *corrupt/sketchy*; FBI activity was likely focused on the obstruction angle.

Interestingly at the conclusion of the Mueller investigation, Archey was promoted by Christopher Wray to head of the Richmond, Virginia FBI field office on March 4, 2019.  This FBI field office overlaps with another FBI/DOJ filing from the EDVA.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse,  11/03/2019)

The first of Steele’s 16 “pre-election reports” is submitted to Fusion GPS on June 20, 2016, and alleges that Russia has been cultivating Trump for five years and has compromising material from the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow.

Glenn Simpson testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22, 2017, and describes Steele’s first pre-election report to be useless and not believable.

Even though a number of Americans still believe the “Golden Showers” video exists, in Glenn Simpson’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22, 2017, he claims the report is useless and not believable. Yet it remains a part of the overall dossier. (Transcript of Glenn Simpson Testimony, 8/22/2017) 

Andrew C. McCarthy (Credit: National Review)

By: Andrew MCCarthy

(…) “In his [Obama’s] April 10 comments, Obama made the obvious explicit: He did not want the certain Democratic nominee, the candidate he was backing to succeed him, to be indicted. Conveniently, his remarks (inevitably echoed by Comey) did not mention that an intent to endanger national security was not an element of the criminal offenses Clinton was suspected of committing – in classic Obama fashion, he was urging her innocence of a strawman crime while dodging any discussion of the crimes she had actually committed.

As we also now know – but as Obama knew at the time – the president himself had communicated with Clinton over her non-secure, private communications system, using an alias. The Obama administration refused to disclose these several e-mail exchanges because they undoubtedly involve classified conversations between the president and his secretary of state. It would not have been possible to prosecute Mrs. Clinton for mishandling classified information without its being clear that President Obama had engaged in the same conduct. The administration was never, ever going to allow that to happen.

What else was going on in May 2016, while Comey was drafting his findings (even though several of the things he would purportedly “base” them on hadn’t actually happened yet)? Well, as I explained in real time (in a column entitled “Clinton E-mails: Is the Fix In?”), the Obama Justice Department was leaking to the Washington Post that Clinton probably would not be charged – and that her top aide, Cheryl Mills, was considered a cooperating witness rather than a co-conspirator.

Why? Well, I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but it turns out the Obama Justice Department had fully adopted the theory of the case announced by President Obama in April. The Post explained that, according to its sources inside the investigation, there was “scant evidence tying Clinton to criminal wrongdoing” because there was “scant evidence that Clinton had malicious intent in [the] handling of e-mails” (emphasis added). Like Obama, the Post and its sources neglected to mention that Mrs. Clinton’s felonies did not require proof of “malicious intent” or any purpose to harm the United States – just that she willfully transmitted classified information, was grossly negligent in handling it, and withheld or destroyed government records.

As I recounted in the same May 2016 column, the Obama Justice Department was simultaneously barring the FBI from asking Mills questions that went to the heart of the e-mails investigation – questions about the process by which Clinton and her underlings decided which of her 60,000 e-mails to surrender to the State Department, and which would be withheld (it ended up being about 33,000) as purportedly “private” (a goodly percentage were not).

This was the start of a series of Justice Department shenanigans we would come to learn about: Cutting off key areas of inquiry; cutting inexplicable immunity deals; declining to use the grand jury to compel evidence; agreeing to limit searches of computers (in order to miss key time-frames when obstruction occurred); agreeing to destroy physical evidence (laptop computers); failing to charge and squeeze witnesses who made patently false statements; allowing subjects of the investigation to act as lawyers for other subjects of the investigation (in order to promote the charade that some evidence was off-limits due to the attorney-client privilege); and so on. There is a way – a notoriously aggressive way – that the Justice Department and FBI go about their business when they are trying to make a case. Here, they were trying to unmake a case.” (Read more: National Review, 9/02/2017)

Donna Brazile talks to the media on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, July 18, 2016. (Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

“Before I called Bernie Sanders, I lit a candle in my living room and put on some gospel music. I wanted to center myself for what I knew would be an emotional phone call.

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.

So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.

Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was. How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks.

By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.”  (Read more: Politico, 11/02/2017)

Joe Biden and Susan Rice attend a meeting in the Oval Office with Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on April 14, 2015. (Credit: Peter Theiler/Getty Images)

“Susan Rice, the vice presidential contender with a high-profile history of questionable public statements, has another dubious claim in her past that until now has escaped scrutiny. Rice swore under oath that as President Obama’s national security adviser she was never told about the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation. But former FBI Director James Comey testified that Rice was present when he informed Obama all about Crossfire Hurricane just weeks after the investigation was launched.

James Comey: His account of telling the White House about Crossfire Hurricane differs markedly from Susan Rice’s recollection. She testified: “We were not informed by Director Comey or the attorney general that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit.”
(Credit:/Charles Krupa/AP)

The contradiction could lead to charges that Rice lied to Congress about a topic still of intense interest to investigators: How actively involved in the effort to spy on the Trump campaign was the inner circle of the Obama White House, including the president himself? More immediately, the question of whether Rice told the truth on Capitol Hill might damage her bid to join Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket.

Rice earned a reputation for shading the truth after the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She was famously dispatched to five different Sunday morning news shows to repeat false talking points: that the mob that killed four Americans – including Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens – was merely reacting to an obscure YouTube video mocking Islam.

Questions about her forthrightness were redoubled when Senate investigators found that, in the waning minutes of the Obama administration, Rice wrote a curious “memo to the file.” She sent an email to herself on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, and in it claimed that Obama had insisted that everything to do with Russia, whether law enforcement or counterintelligence, be done “by the book.”

President Obama and Rice: Both were present at a meeting where, the FBI’s Comey said, the Trump-Russia probe was discussed at its outset. She denied knowing about it. (Credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Asked about that memo later, Rice insisted she knew nothing about the FBI’s counterintelligence probe regarding Trump and Russia, let alone anything that could be characterized as spying on the incoming administration. She had her lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, write a letter to Sens. Charles Grassley, Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham, and Sheldon Whitehouse. “While serving as National Security Advisor, Ambassador Rice was not briefed on the existence of any FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia,” Ruemmler wrote, “and she later learned of the fact of this investigation from Director Comey’s subsequent public testimony” – testimony that didn’t occur until March 20, 2017.

On Wednesday, September 8, 2017, Rice repeated that she knew nothing of the FBI’s investigation while in the White House. This time she made the claim under oath.

Rice was at the Capitol, sitting in a secure room used by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The official reason for the interview was to ask what the Obama administration had done to thwart Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Behind those questions was a different query: Had Barack Obama’s team used the power of the presidency to spy on and smear the Trump campaign?

Adam Schiff: “… Would Director Comey brief you on the progress of his investigation?” he asked Rice. “No,” replied Rice under oath. (Credit: Scott Applewhite)

The Republican staffer running the interview emphasized to Rice the importance of telling the truth: “You are reminded that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information to members of Congress or staff.” She was asked to raise her right hand and take an oath: “Madam Ambassador, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“I do,” Rice said.

The Democrats at the interview weren’t looking to trip Rice up. But it was questions from two California Democrats in the room that Rice may regret. Rep. Adam Schiff cited the former head of the FBI: “Director Comey testified that, in July of last year [2016], he began a counterintelligence investigation into people associated with the Trump campaign and what contacts they may have had with Russia.

“That investigative responsibility,” Schiff asked Rice, “wasn’t part of your portfolio, I take it?”

“No, not at all.”

“And would Director Comey brief you on the progress of his investigation?”

“No,” said Rice. And then she elaborated. “I think it’s important for everybody to understand: We were not informed by Director Comey or the attorney general that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit,” she said. “[I]n the Obama White House, we maintained scrupulously the firewall between people in the While House and contacts with Justice about potential or actual criminal matters. The only communication that was sanctioned in that vein was between the White House counsel and the Justice Department or the FBl.”

Eric Swalwell: “ls it fair to say that, as the national security adviser, you were not read in on active, ongoing investigations that the Department of Justice or the FBI were conducting?” Rice’s reply under penalty of perjury: “Absolutely, that’s the case.” (Credit: Alex Brandon/AP)

If that weren’t definitive enough, Rice added, “And Director Comey did not volunteer to us, not only then but through the duration of the administration, that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit. I knew he was looking at this issue, that he was concerned about it. But he never specifically shared with me or others, to my knowledge, that such an investigation was ongoing. And I learned about it formally in the public domain after I left office.”

A little later in the closed-door Capitol Hill interview, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell came back to the question that Rice had already answered so definitively: “Speaking of investigations, you talked about Director Comey and the FBl,” Swalwell said to Rice. “ls it fair to say that, as the national security adviser, you were not read in on active, ongoing investigations that the Department of Justice or the FBI were conducting?”

If Rice were concerned that she might have misspoken earlier, she was presented with the opportunity to correct her testimony. She didn’t take it.

“Absolutely, that’s the case,” Rice replied. “Those were law enforcement matters. They were not things that I was privy to unless the Justice Department chose to share them with me. The Justice Department’s normal contact in the White House, at least in the Obama administration, for anything to do with law enforcement, criminal stuff, was the White House counsel.”

Rice’s testimony took place two years before the inspector general for the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, released his report on the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation. In that report is an admission from James Comey that contradicts Rice’s sworn statements. According to testimony obtained from Comey by Horowitz, the Obama team knew about the FBI’s investigation from nearly the start, and in detail.

A footnote from the IG report undercuts Rice’s claim of no knowledge of Crossfire Hurricane. (Credit: DOJ OIG FISA Report)

(Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 7/30/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: CBS News)

“Hillary Clinton has a message for Bernie Bros, Democratic Socialists and other constituencies of the “Dirtbag Left.”

(…) Demonstrating that she clearly hasn’t moved on from the embarrassment she suffered at the hands of Bernie Sanders, who nearly defeated her in the 2016 Democratic Primary after riding a wave of support for his socialist agenda (something that polls suggest is becoming increasingly popular with young Americans), Clinton lashed out during a recent interview at “progressives” who won’t stop attacking Democrats from the left.

She cited the abuse received by Kamala Harris – a potential 2020 contender (and potential Clinton rival) – as an example of why the left needs to come together and unify around whoever their party’s pick might be.

“Some of my favorite Democrats – people like Kamala Harris who’s out there speaking up and speaking out and is being attacked by the left – enough! If you don’t want to support Democrats, then go somewhere else.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/14/2018)  (CBS News, 9/10/2017)

Marc Elias (Credit: Getty Images)

“Yesterday, we discussed the potentially precarious ethical position of Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias, who allegedly denied media reports that the Clinton campaign had any connection to the controversial Russian Dossier.  After the Washington Post ran an extensive story on how the Clinton Campaign and Democratic National Committee hired controversial research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Donald Trump in Russia in the “Russian Dossier” matter.  Reporters at the New York Times have accused Elias of lying in past categorical denials of any connection to Clinton or the DNC.  The reports indicate that not only did the Clinton team fund the opposition research but that Elias may have been the person handling much of the arrangements.  Now Elias’ position has worsened after a report out of Congress that he was present in an interview when campaign chairman John Podesta denied any campaign role in the funding or acquisition of the dossier.

Podesta was asked in his September interview whether the Clinton campaign had a contractual agreement with Fusion GPS, and he said he was not aware of one, according to one of the sources. Sitting next to Podesta during the interview: his attorney Marc Elias, who worked for the law firm that hired Fusion GPS to continue research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, multiple sources said. Elias was only there in his capacity as Podesta’s attorney and not as a witness.”

If this and the earlier report is true, Elias assisted in the denial of any connection between the Clinton campaign and the dossier to two New York Times reporters but sat silently as Podesta gave false information to congressional investigators.

In the meantime, both high-ranking campaign officials and DNC officials have denied any knowledge or approval of the contract with Fusion GPS.” (Jonathan Turley, 10/27/2017)  (Archive)

Susan Rice tells Congressional investigators that she ‘unmasked’ Trump officials during the transition because they met with a prince from the United Arab Emirates, who hasn’t informed the US government of his travels. (Credit: Win McNamee/2012 Getty Images)

“Former national security adviser Susan Rice privately told House investigators that she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York late last year, multiple sources told CNN.

The New York meeting preceded a separate effort by the UAE to facilitate a back-channel communication between Russia and the incoming Trump White House.

The crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, arrived in New York last December in the transition period before Trump was sworn into office for a meeting with several top Trump officials, including Michael Flynn, the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his top strategist Steve Bannon, sources said.

(…) It’s unclear precisely which Trump officials Rice discussed at the House meeting. But multiple sources have confirmed to CNN that Zayed met at the time with Flynn, Kushner and Bannon. The three-hour discussion focused on a range of issues, including Iran, Yemen and the Mideast peace process, according to two sources who insisted that opening up a back-channel with Russia was not a topic of discussion.

Still, the fact that the New York meeting occurred prior to the Seychelles session and that the UAE did not notify the Obama administration about why the crown prince was coming to the United States has raised questions in the eyes of investigators on Capitol Hill.” (Read more: CNN, 9/19/2017)

Interesting..

Hunter Biden requested keys for new ‘office mates’ Joe Biden, and Gongwen Dong, ’emissary’ for CEFC Chair Ye Jianming –

And here’s a Perkins Coie connection:https://t.co/YoZp2xDA49 pic.twitter.com/erEy040gYt

— BenjaminT /Boycott 2022 Genocide Olympics (@BenjaminT0001) April 16, 2021

(…) In the email, Hunter Biden also requests keys for Gongwen Dong, whom he describes as an “emissary” for Chairman Ye Jianming — the chairman of CEFC Chinese Energy Co.

He continued:

“I would like the office sign to reflect the following,”The Biden Foundation” and “Hudson West (CEFC US).””

“The lease will remain under my company’s name Rosemont Seneca,” he continued, providing details about Dong and Ye, whom he referred to as “my partner,” as well as their contact information.

(Credit: Fox News)

(…) In another email, obtained by Fox News, the manager responds, saying that “[w]e are very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues.” The manager then asks to confirm that Hunter Biden wants four more keys and a “[c]hange of names on the doors and in the north entrance.”

(Credit: Fox News)

A source familiar with the Biden Foundation told Fox News that they used office space, at the time, in a WeWork space near the White House, and in an office within law firm Perkins Coie, saying there was no relation to the office space at Rosemont Seneca within the House of Sweden.

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied being involved with his son’s business dealings.

(Read more: Fox News, 12/12/2020)  (Archive)

“Hunter Biden sent an email to the manager of his Washington, D.C. office building in September 2017 asking her to make keys for his “office mates” Joe Biden and Gongwen Dong, who he said was the “emissary” for the chairman of the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC.

(…) “[P]lease have keys made available for new office mates,” Hunter Biden wrote in the email before listing Joe Biden, his stepmother Jill Biden, his uncle Jim Biden and Gongwen Dong, who he identified as the “emissary” for the chairman of the now-bankrupt Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC.

Hunter Biden also requested that a sign be made for his office stating “The Biden Foundation” and “Hudson West (CEFC US).”

Hunter Biden’s dealings with CEFC in 2017 were at the center of allegations from his ex-business partner, Tony Bobulinksi, who said in October that Joe Biden was “plainly familiar” with his family’s business dealings in China. Bobulinski was one of the recipients of the much-publicized May 2017 email purportedly referencing Joe Biden as the “big guy” who would hold 10% in a joint-venture deal with Hunter Biden and CEFC.

Hunter Biden’s request to Cecilia Browning to create office keys for his “office mates” Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden and Gongwen Dong. (screenshot)

(…) Cecilia Browning, the general manager of the office building, the House of Sweden, responded to Hunter Biden’s request, saying she was “very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/11/2020)  (Archive)

“The former top lawyer at the FBI has been under federal investigation for leaking to the media, a letter from House Republicans revealed Tuesday.

The letter from GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows cited the transcript of a congressional interview with former General Counsel James Baker and his lawyer last fall, where the probe conducted by seasoned U.S. Attorney John Durham was confirmed.

(Snippet from Jordan and Meadows letter)

“You may or may not know, [Baker has] been the subject of a leak investigation … a criminal leak investigation that’s still active at the Justice Department,” lawyer Daniel Levin told lawmakers, as he pushed back on questions about his client’s conversations with reporters.

Jordan and Meadows’ letter was sent to Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, and requested additional information about the probe later this month.

“As we continue our oversight and investigative work, we felt it prudent to write to you seeking an update. Without being apprised of the contours of your leak investigation and Baker’s role, we run the risk of inadvertently interfering with your prosecutorial plans,” they wrote.

A source familiar with the U.S. Attorney investigation told Fox News they believe the investigation of Baker remains open, adding they understand it began during the Obama administration and not in the course of the Russia investigation.

The transcript of the closed-door interview and the letter do not include details explaining why the investigation is being led out of the Connecticut office. The status of the investigation is not publicly known.

But the disclosure marks the latest confirmation of a leak investigation involving FBI figures who have since left the bureau. (Read more: Fox News, 1/15/2019)

Michael C. Polt (Credit: McCain Institute)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it received 210 pages of records from the State Department which show that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings. During her November 2019 testimony in the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, Yovanovitch told lawmakers that she knew little about Burisma.

(…) On October 4, 2017, Michael Polt, a former ambassador to Estonia and Serbia and who until October 2020 was Senior Director at the McCain Institute, emailed Yovanovitch regarding the McCain Institute’s plan to conduct leadership development training for Ukrainian prosecutors that would be funded by Burisma. The idea was suggested to Polt by Sally Painter, Burisma’s lobbyist at Blue Star Strategies, and a Burisma executive. In the email, Polt notes that he was introduced to Painter by U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker. Volker was also a Trump impeachment witness.

(…) During her November 15, 2019, testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the impeachment proceedings, Yovanovitch said she didn’t have much knowledge about Burisma, and noted that she only learned of its connection to the Biden family through “press reports” she read while preparing for her Senate confirmation hearing.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 12/10/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: Judicial Watch)

George Papadopoulos (Credit: public domain)

“Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on Oct. 5 to one count of lying to FBI agents about the nature of his interactions with “foreign nationals” who he thought had close connections to senior Russian government officials. The plea was unsealed Monday.

According to court documents, Papadopoulos misstated the timing of his interactions with an overseas professor [Joseph Mifsud] who apparently had connections to the Russian government. While Papadopoulos acknowledged that the professor had told him that the the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — thousands of emails — he claimed that he had learned this before he joined the Trump campaign.

However, investigators found that Papadopoulos joined the campaign in early March 2016, and he met with the professor in mid-March 2016. Papadopoulos also claimed in his FBI interview that the professor was “a nothing,” and just a guy talking up his connections. But in fact, the 30-year-old senior foreign adviser was trying to make contact with the Kremlin through the professor’s connections.

Among those connections was a female Russian national who was described in Papadopoulos’ emails as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s niece (he later learned she was not related to Putin). Papadopoulos, according to the court documents, worked with the Russian national and the professor to set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. He also told advisers to the campaign that he could help arrange a meeting between Mr. Trump and Putin.

Papadopoulos told the FBI that he had done some “shuttle diplomacy” for the president, but he did not inform investigators about his interactions with the professor and the Russian national regarding his efforts to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

He also lied about the extent of his conversations with the Russian national, stating that the their communications were limited to emails that said “just, ‘Hi, how are you?'” and “‘That’s it,'” he told the FBI.” (Read more: CBS News, 10/30/2017)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) presides over a mark-up hearing to determine whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, on May 8, 2019. (Crredit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

(…) Brookings produced a 108-page report, “Presidential Obstruction of Justice: The Case of Donald J. Trump,” authored by Barry Berke, Noah Bookbinder, and Norman Eisen, on Oct. 10, 2017. They followed up with a 177-page second edition on Aug. 22, 2018, which also came with a lengthy appendix.

Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings, served as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform under former President Barack Obama and is the founder of CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics) in Washington. Eisen, according to his Brookings profile page, advised Obama “on lobbying regulation, campaign finance law, and open government issues,” according to his CREW bio. He also served as the ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014.

The second author, Noah Bookbinder, currently serves as CREW’s executive director. Prior to that, “he served from 2013 to 2015 as director of the office of legislative and public affairs at the United States Sentencing Commission,” according to his bio. Bookbinder also served as chief counsel for criminal justice for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and “advised Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on a wide variety of criminal justice issues.”

The third author, Barry Berke, is a trial and white collar criminal defense lawyer who recently defended two Deutsche Bank investment professionals “in a criminal case that the government described as its largest tax shelter prosecution.” Earlier in his career, Berke was “a trial lawyer with the federal defender’s office for the Southern District of New York.”

Barry Berke (l), Noah Bookbinder (c), and Norman Eisen (r) (Credit: public domain)

The first Brookings report looked at all the statutes that applied to obstruction, but the second focused more tightly on Section 1512. In many respects, the Brookings second edition provides parallels to the Mueller report, with its lengthy section on “What are the relevant facts?” and a very detailed timeline contained in a 204-page appendix.

The Brookings report appears to be partisan and excludes relevant details at various points. For example, the report notes that Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, were hired by “political opponents of President Trump.” The report fails to mention that Fusion GPS had been hired by Perkins Coie on behalf of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

The report’s partisan nature was more or less acknowledged in the preface of the second edition:

“In what is perhaps a reflection of the strength of the evidence that can now be marshaled against the president, his defenders have shifted the fight in large measure away from the merits of the obstruction case to a series of questionable defenses based upon the possible consequences of even a meritorious case. In many ways, the question has become less about whether there is a case that Donald J. Trump obstructed justice, and more about whether and in what form the rule of law will be followed.”

The second edition also contains a section dedicated solely to exploring the use of Section 1512—and as the authors note, they did so specifically because 1512 could be applied toward “obstruction” of potential and possible future proceedings:

“Because a ‘proceeding’ need not be ‘pending or about to be instituted’ for Section 1512 purposes, President Trump’s conduct could have been intended to influence a ‘proceeding’ under the statute if a grand jury investigation was foreseeable even if the obstructive behavior took place before a grand jury investigation actually commenced.”

On page 148, the Brookings report discusses the issue of referring the Mueller report directly to Congress:

“Even though there is no prescribed mechanism for Mueller to refer a case to a congressional committee, there are two options for effectuating a referral that are grounded in precedent. Mueller could ask a grand jury to seek permission from the district court in which it is convened to transmit a Report to the House Judiciary Committee. Alternatively, Mueller could file a report with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and recommend that he refer the matter to Congress.”

Although the Brookings report strives to make its case regarding congressional referral, at each turn, it is forced to acknowledge that any referral option would be subject to the authority and oversight of then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who specifically had the ability under special counsel regulations to block any action he deemed “inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices.”

There are several hurdles to actually making a charge of obstruction against the president.

To start with, the president was told on three separate occasions by then-FBI Director Comey that he wasn’t personally under investigation by the FBI. Therefore, Trump couldn’t have obstructed an investigation of himself, since he didn’t know there was an investigation to begin with.

Regarding claims that Trump obstructed an investigation into individuals other than himself, there would need to be a rationalization against presidential pardon authority. In other words, if Trump maintains full pardon authority for federal crimes, how can anything he does become obstruction in cases relating to others?

Report Authors Retained by House Judiciary Committee

On Feb. 12, 2019, Nadler announced that two of the Brookings report authors, Berke and Eisen, had been retained on a consulting basis as special oversight counsels to the Democrat majority staff. The two men were appointed as consultants to the House Judiciary Committee on Feb 12, well in advance of the April 18 release of the Mueller report. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 6/30/2019)  (Archive)

Trey Gowdy walks on Capitol Hill, July 25, 2017. (Credit: Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press)

“House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy said Tuesday that President Obama’s former United Nations ambassador has testified that not all of the “unmasking” requests made in her name were directed by her.

Samantha Power testified in Gowdy’s committee last week, and Fox News reported weeks before her appearance that she was thought to have made as many as 260 requests to “unmask” Americans caught up in the surveillance of non-U.S. citizens.

But Tuesday evening, Gowdy told Fox News that Power told his committee that she was not the official requesting that unmasking in every case.

“I think if she were on your show, she would say those requests to unmask may have been attributed to her, but they greatly exceed by an exponential factor the requests she actually made,” Gowdy said.

“So, that’s her testimony, and she was pretty emphatic in it,” he added. “The intelligence community has assigned this number of requests to her. Her perspective, her testimony is, they may be under my name, but I did not make those requests.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 10/17/2017)

Mueller and team exit the Capitol in June, 2017. (Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

“The special counsel’s office fed “speculation and innuendo” about possible collusion with Russia by withholding key details from emails cited in a court filing in the case of former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, a top Republican senator alleged in a newly released letter.

“The public deserves to have the full context for the information the Special Counsel chooses to release. The glaring lack of it feeds speculation and innuendo that distorts the facts,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote to special counsel Robert Mueller on Oct. 16, 2017.

Grassley, who then chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, was responding to a “statement of offense” released in the case against Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign adviser who entered a plea deal in the special counsel’s probe on Oct. 5, 2017.

Prosecutors quoted from several emails in a way that suggested top Trump campaign officials were eager to meet with Russians. But Grassley asserted that the full emails showed that campaign officials rebuffed the idea of meeting with Russians. The Iowa Republican took Mueller’s team to task for failing to correct news reports that cited the Papadopoulos court filings as evidence of possible collusion with Russia.

“It should be the goal of anyone interested in an accurate portrayal of the facts for the American people to correct the erroneous reporting,” he wrote in the letter, which was published Thursday by Fox News.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 4/05/2019)

“The original authorization for the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller was May 17th, 2017.  However, the released Weissmann report shows there were two additional scope memos authorizing specific targeting of the Mueller probe.  The second scope memo was August 2nd, 2017, OUTLINED HERE, and is an important part of the puzzle that helps explain the corrupt original purpose of the special counsel.

The third scope memo was issued by Rod Rosenstein to Robert Mueller on October 20th, 2017.  The transparent intent of the third scope memo was to provide Weissmann and Mueller with ammunition and authority to investigate specific targets, for specific purposes.  One of those targets was General Michael Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn Jr.

As you review the highlighted portion below, found on pages 12 and 13 of the Weissmann report, read slowly and fully absorb the intent; the corruption is blood-boiling:

This third scope memo allowed Weissmann and Mueller to target tangentially related persons and entities bringing in Michael Cohen, Richard Gates, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn Jr.  Additionally and strategically (you’ll see why), this memo established the authority to pursue “jointly undertaken activity“.

The investigation of General Flynn never stopped throughout 2016 and led to the second investigative issue of his phone call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak in December 2016.

Within the case against Michael Flynn…. Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack filed a cover letter attempting to explain the reason for the Flynn interview on January 24th, 2017, and the official filing of the interview notes (FD-302) on February 15th, 2017, and then again on May 31st, 2017.

To explain the FBI delay, Van Grack claimed the FD-302 report “inadvertently” had a header saying “DRAFT DOCUMENT/DELIBERATIVE MATERIAL” (screengrab)

What the special counsel appeared to be obfuscating to the court was there was factually a process of deliberation within the investigative unit, headed by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, surrounding the specific wording of the 302 report on the Flynn interview.  Likely how best to word the FBI notes for maximum damage.

In late 2018 Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack was attempting to hide the length of the small group deliberations within the FBI. It seems he did not want the court to know Andrew McCabe was involved in shaping how the Flynn-302 was written.

We know there was a deliberative process in place, seemingly all about how to best position the narrative, because we can see the deliberations in text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok: See below (note the dates).

Peter Strzok edited the interview notes, several times.   Then he handed them off to Lisa Page to edit… and she did…. significantly:

The text message conversation above is February 10th and Feb 14th, 2017.

The Michael Flynn FD-302 was officially entered into the record on February 15th, 2017, per the report:

Obviously the interview took place on January 24th, 2017. The FD-302 was drafted on January 24th, and then later edited, shaped, and ultimately approved by McCabe, on February 14th, then entered into the official record on February 15th.

The FBI notes were a deliberative document from the outset. Thanks to the Strzok/Page text messages we know the cover letter from the Special Counsel is misleading.  The Feb 15th, 2017 date was the day after McCabe approved it.

May 17th, 2017, Robert Mueller was assigned as Special Counsel. Then, the FD-302 report was re-entered on May 31st, 2017, removing the header; paving the way for Mueller’s team to use the content therein.

Back to Page 12 of the October 20th Scope Memo:

The first redaction listed under “personal privacy” is unknown; however, The second related redaction is a specific person, Michael Flynn Jr.

In combination with the October timing, the addition of Flynn Jr to the target list relates to the ongoing 2016/2017 investigation of his father, General Michael Flynn, for (1) possible conspiracy with Russia; (2) unregistered lobbying (Russia then Turkey); (3) materially false statements/omissions on 2017 FARA documents; and (4) lying to the FBI.

This October 20th, 2017, request from Weissmann and Mueller aligns with the time-frame were special counsel team lawyers Brandon L. Van Grack and Zainab N. Ahmad were prosecuting Michael Flynn and attempting to force him into a guilty plea. 

Getting Rosenstein to authorize adding Mike Flynn Jr. to the target list (scope memo) meant the special counsel could threaten General Flynn with the indictment of his son as a co-conspirator tied to the Turkish lobbying issue (which they did) if he doesn’t agree to a plea. Remember: “jointly undertaken activity“.

The October 20th, 2017, expanded scope memo authorized Mueller to start demanding records, phones, electronic devices, and other evidence from Mike Flynn Jr and provided the leverage Weissmann wanted.  After all, Mike Flynn Jr. had a four-month-old baby. 

The amount of twisted pressure from this corrupt team of prosecutors is sickening.  A month later, General Flynn was signing a plea agreement:

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/1/2020)  (Archive)

UPDATED: The released Weissmann/Mueller report showed after the origination authorization in May 2017 there were two additional scope memos authorizing specific targeting of the Mueller probe. The second scope memo was August 2nd, 2017, OUTLINED HERE, and is an important part of the puzzle that helps explain the corrupt original purpose of the special counsel. [Now Confirmed Here]  Generally, the second scope memo (Aug ’17) authorized Robert Mueller to investigate the claims within the Steele Dossier.

The second scope memo came a month after the third renewal of the Carter Page FISA warrant.  We now know that FISA warrant was renewed using falsified documents by FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.  That means special counsel team requested the second expanded scope memo from Rosenstein in August after the DOJ was aware Kevin Clinesmith held political bias, and he along with four members of the original Crossfire Hurricane team were removed. (K Clinesmith, P Strzok, L Page, S Moyer and unknown).

The third scope memo was issued by Rod Rosenstein to Robert Mueller on October 20th, 2017. The transparent intent of the third expanded scope memo was to provide Weissmann and Mueller with ammunition and authority to investigate specific targets, for specific purposes.

“The third scope memo was issued by Rod Rosenstein to Robert Mueller on October 20th, 2017.  The transparent intent of the third scope memo was to provide Weissmann and Mueller with ammunition and authority to investigate specific targets, for specific purposes.  One of those targets was General Michael Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn Jr.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 11/28/2019)

“As you review the highlighted portion below, found on pages 12 and 13 of the Weissmann report, read slowly and fully absorb the intent; the corruption is blood-boiling:

This third scope memo allowed Weissmann and Mueller to target tangentially related persons and entities bringing in Michael Cohen, Richard Gates, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn Jr.  Additionally and strategically (you’ll see why), this memo established the authority to pursue “jointly undertaken activity“.

With Paul Manafort outlined as an investigative target in the original authorization and the second scope memo, the third scope memo authorizes expansion to his business partner Richard Gates and their joint businesses.   This memo also permits the investigation of Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen and all of his interests; and in ultimate weasel sunlight, Rosenstein authorizes an investigation of his boss, AG Jeff Sessions.

Before getting to more targets, notice the underlined passage about starting with a lot of investigative material because the special counsel was picking up a Russian interference  investigation that had been ongoing for “nearly 10 months.”

I would also note that our CTH research indicates all of the illegally extracted FISA-702(16)(17) database search results would be part of this pre-existing investigative file available immediately to Weissmann and Mueller.  However, in order to use the search-query evidence, Weissmann and Mueller would need to backfill some alternate justification; or find another way to “rediscover” the preexisting results….. I digress

The four identified targets within the original  investigation, “Operation Crossfire Hurricane”, were George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page. (See HPSCI report):

General Flynn was under investigation from the outset in mid-2016. The fraudulent FBI counterintelligence operation, established by CIA Director John Brennan, had Flynn as one of the early targets when Brennan handed the originating electronic communication“EC” to FBI Director James Comey.

The investigation of General Flynn never stopped throughout 2016 and led to the second investigative issue of his phone call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak in December 2016:

Back to the Page #12 October 20th Scope Memo:

The first redaction listed under “personal privacy” is unconfirmed; however, the second related redaction is a specific person, Michael Flynn Jr.

In combination with the October timing, the addition of Flynn Jr to the target list relates to the ongoing 2016/2017 investigation of his father, General Michael Flynn, for: (1) possible conspiracy with a foreign government; (2) unregistered lobbying; (3) materially false statements and omissions on 2017 FARA documents; and (4) lying to the FBI.

This October 20th, 2017, request from Weissmann and Mueller aligns with the time-frame were special counsel team lawyers Brandon L. Van Grack and Zainab N. Ahmad were prosecuting Michael Flynn and attempting to force him into a guilty plea. 

Getting Rosenstein to authorize adding Mike Flynn Jr. to the target list (scope memo) meant the special counsel could threaten General Flynn with the indictment of his son as a co-conspirator tied to the Turkish lobbying issue (which they did) if he doesn’t agree to a plea. Remember: “jointly undertaken activity“.

The October 20th, 2017, expanded scope memo authorized Mueller to start demanding records, phones, electronic devices and other evidence from Mike Flynn Jr, and provided the leverage Weissmann wanted.  After all, Mike Flynn Jr. had a four-month-old baby. 

The amount of twisted pressure from this corrupt team of prosecutors is sickening.  A month later, General Flynn was signing a plea agreement:

The IG Report on James Comey Memos Outlined the Fraud of Mueller Probe Origination.

All of this information backstops the 19-page filing from last week (full pdf below), where Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell walked through the history of the DOJ, FBI and intelligence apparatus weaponization against Mr. Flynn and lays out the background behind everything known to have happened in 2016, 2017 through today.

From the corrupt DOJ lawyers who were working with Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele, including Mr. Weissmann, Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Zainab Ahmad; to the 2015/2016 FISA database search abuses; to the CIA and FBI operation against Flynn including Nellie Ohr; to the schemes behind the use of DOJ official Bruce Ohr; to the corrupt construct of the special counsels office selections; to the specifics within the malicious conspiracy outlined by hiding FBI interview notes of Mike Flynn,… all of it…. is bolstered by the IG Horowitz report on how the FBI “small group” was manipulating the media, and hiding Comey memos.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/02/2019)

“Newly filed court documents confirm that Fusion GPS, the company mostly responsible for the controversial “Trump dossier” on presidential candidate Donald Trump, made payments to three journalists between June 2016 until February 2017.

The revelation could be a breakthrough for House Republicans, who are exploring whether Fusion GPS used the dossier, which was later criticized for having inaccurate information on Trump, to feed anti-Trump stories to the press during and after the presidential campaign. The three journalists who were paid by Fusion GPS are known to have reported on “Russia issues relevant to [the committee’s] investigation,” the House Intelligence Committee said in a court filing.

But the recipients’ names, the amounts, and purposes of those payments were either redacted from the documents that Fusion GPS filed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or were not disclosed.”

(…) “Fusion GPS didn’t deny that some payments went to reporters, but argues that these payments were made to help the company with research.

“Fusion GPS is a research firm set up by former investigative journalists,” Fusion GPS’s lawyer, Josh Levy, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As such, it sometimes works with contractors that have specialized skills seeking public information. Contractors are not permitted to publish any articles based on that work, and Fusion GPS does not pay journalists to write stories.”

(…) “But House Republicans still have their doubts. One of the documents filed by lawyers for the House Intelligence Committee said each of the three reporters who received payments had written about the Russia probe, which could indicate that reporters were using Fusion GPS’s work to write their stories.

“Additionally, the Committee seeks transactions related to three individual journalists, [names redacted], each of whom have reported on and/or been quoted in articles regarding topics related to the Committee’s investigation, some of which were published as recently as October 2017,” the committee wrote.

Additionally, a filing by lawyers for the House Intelligence Committee asserts that Fusion GPS “brokered meetings for dossier author Christopher Steele with at least five major media outlets in September 2016, including Yahoo news.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 11/21/2017) (Nunes Document, 10/20/2017)

Brandon Van Grack used a corrupt reading of FARA laws (since rejected by 2 courts) to target Mike Flynn Jr.

Not to prosecute Flynn Jr., but to force General Flynn to plea.

Flynn Jr. became an official target on 10/20/17. Flynn signed the plea deal on 11/30/17.

HT @lastrefuge2

(Read more: @Techno_Fog, 11/29/2019)  (Archive)

(Credit: public domain)

“CIA director Mike Pompeo met late last month with a former U.S. intelligence official who has become an advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential campaign was an inside job, rather than a hack by Russian intelligence.

Pompeo met on October 24 with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community’s official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year’s theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was “leaked,” not hacked, “by a person with physical access” to the DNC’s computer system.

In an interview with The Intercept, Binney said Pompeo told him that President Donald Trump had urged the CIA director to meet with Binney to discuss his assessment that the DNC data theft was an inside job. During their hour-long meeting at CIA headquarters, Pompeo said Trump told him that if Pompeo “want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk to me,” Binney said.

A senior intelligence source confirmed that Pompeo met with Binney to discuss his analysis, and that the CIA director held the meeting at Trump’s urging. The Intercept’s account of the meeting is based on interviews with Binney, the senior intelligence source, a colleague who accompanied Binney to CIA headquarters, and others who Binney told about the meeting. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment. “As a general matter, we do not comment on the Director’s schedule,” said Dean Boyd, director of the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs.

Binney said that Pompeo asked whether he would be willing to meet with NSA and FBI officials to further discuss his analysis of the DNC data theft. Binney agreed and said Pompeo said he would contact him when he had arranged the meetings.” (Read more: The Intercept, 11/07/2017)

Former technical director of the National Security Agency (NSA) William Binney (Credit: Thomas Peter/Reuters)

“CIA Director Mike Pompeo met late last month with a former U.S. intelligence official who has become an advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential campaign was an inside job, rather than a hack by Russian intelligence.

Pompeo met on October 24 with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community’s official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year’s theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was “leaked,” not hacked, “by a person with physical access” to the DNC’s computer system.

In an interview with The Intercept, Binney said Pompeo told him that President Donald Trump had urged the CIA director to meet with Binney to discuss his assessment that the DNC data theft was an inside job. During their hour-long meeting at CIA headquarters, Pompeo said Trump told him that if Pompeo “want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk to me,” Binney said.

A senior intelligence source confirmed that Pompeo met with Binney to discuss his analysis, and that the CIA director held the meeting at Trump’s urging. The Intercept’s account of the meeting is based on interviews with Binney, the senior intelligence source, a colleague who accompanied Binney to CIA headquarters, and others who Binney told about the meeting. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment. “As a general matter, we do not comment on the Director’s schedule,” said Dean Boyd, director of the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs.” (The Intercept, 11/07/2017)

“Tucker Carlson gave an explosive monologue last night after a former executive of the Podesta Group contacted the Fox host with “direct personal knowledge” of a report that former FBI director Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel is investigating the Washington Lobbying firm founded by John and Tony Podesta.

The former executive who has been “extensively” interviewed by Mueller’s team, said the FBI probe is now focusing on people in Washington who have worked as de-facto operatives on behalf of Russian government and business. To that end, Carlson’s source made several shocking claims about Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group peddling Russian influence throughout Washington D.C. – focusing primarily on access to the Obama administration, and heavily involved with the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal.”

(…)  Details: 

• Lobbyist and temporary Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is at the center of the Russia probe – however the scope of the investigation has broadened to include his activities prior to the 2016 election.
• Manafort worked with the Podesta Group since at least 2011 on behalf of Russian interests, and was at the Podesta Group offices “all the time, at least once a month,” peddling Russian influence through a shell group called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU).
• Manafort brought a “parade” of Russian oligarchs to congress for meetings with members and their staffs, however, the Russia’s “central effort” was the Obama Administration.
• In 2013, John Podesta recommended that Tony hire David Adams, Hillary Clinton’s chief adviser at the State Department, giving them a “direct liaison” between the group’s Russian clients and Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
• In late 2013 or early 2014, Tony Podesta and a representative for the Clinton Foundation met to discuss how to help Uranium One – the Russian owned company that controls 20 percent of American Uranium Production – and whose board members gave over $100 million to the Clinton Foundation.
• “Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton Foundation.”
• Believing she would win the 2016 election, Russia considered the Podesta Group’s connection to Hillary highly valuable.
• Podesta Group is a nebulous organization with no board oversight and all financial decisions made by Tony Podesta. Carlson’s source said payments and kickbacks could be hard for investigators to trace, describing it as a “highly secret treasure trove.” One employee’s only official job was to manage Tony Podesta’s art collection, which could be used to conceal financial transactions.

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 10/25/2017)

Andrew C. McCarthy

By: Andrew McCarthy

(…) “we have learned finally, courtesy of the Washington Post, that Fusion GPS, the research firm that produced the notorious “Trump Dossier,” was funded by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Of course, the Clinton campaign and the DNC always want layers of deniability and obfuscation – and let’s note that it has served them well – so they hire lawyers to do the icky stuff rather than doing it directly. Then, when the you-know-what hits the fan, outfits like Fusion GPS try to claim that they can’t share critical information with investigators because of (among other things) attorney-client confidentiality concerns.

Here, the Clinton campaign and the DNC retained the law firm of Perkins Coie; in turn, one of its partners, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion GPS. We don’t know how much Fusion GPS was paid, but the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid $9.1 million to Perkins Coie during the 2016 campaign (i.e., between mid-2015 and late 2016).

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.

A friend draws my attention to an intriguing coincidence.

Interesting: Despite the patent importance of the physical server system to the FBI and Intelligence-Community investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Bureau never examined the DNC servers. Evidently, the DNC declined to cooperate to that degree, and the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue a subpoena to demand that the servers be turned over (just like the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue subpoenas to demand the surrender of critical physical evidence in the Clinton e-mails investigation).

Instead, the conclusion that Russia is responsible for the invasion of the DNC servers rests on the forensic analysis conducted by CrowdStrike. Rather than do its own investigation, the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s lawyers.” (Read more: National Review, 10/25/2017)

Andrew C. McCarthy (Credit: National Review)

By: Andrew C. McCarthy

(…) “Papadopoulos is a climber who was clearly trying to push his way into Trump World. We recall that much of the Republican foreign-policy clerisy shunned Trump during the campaign. Thus did comparatively obscure people like Carter Page get seats at the table. George Papadopoulos was another of these: a 30-year-old who graduated from DePaul in 2009, later got an M.A. from the London School of Economics, and did sporadic work for the Hudson Institute between 2011 and 2014.

While living in London in early March 2016, he spoke with an unidentified Trump-campaign official and learned he would be designated a foreign-policy adviser to the campaign. These arrangements are very loose. Papadopoulos was a fringe figure, not plugged into Trump’s inner circle.

In London, Papadopoulos met an unidentified Russian academic (referred to as “the Professor”), who claimed to have significant ties to Putin-regime officials and who took an interest in Papadopoulos only because he boasted of having Trump-campaign connections. There appears to be no small amount of puffery on all sides: Papadopoulos suggesting to the Russians that he could make a Trump meeting with Putin happen, and suggesting to the campaign that he could make a Putin meeting with Trump happen; the Professor putting Papadopoulos in touch with a woman who Papadopoulos was led to believe was Putin’s niece (she apparently is not); and lots and lots of talk about potential high- and low-level meetings between Trump-campaign and Putin-regime officials that never actually came to pass.

In the most important meeting, in London on April 26, 2016, the Professor told Papadopoulos that he (the Prof) had just learned that top Russian-government officials had obtained “dirt” on then-putative Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The dirt is said to include “thousands of emails” — “emails of Clinton.” The suggestion, of course, was that the Russians were keen to give this information to the Trump campaign.

This may raise the hopes of the “collusion with Russia” enthusiasts. But there are two problems here.

First, Papadopoulos was given enough misinformation that we can’t be confident (at least from what Mueller has revealed here) that the Professor was telling Papadopoulos the truth. Remember, by April 2016, it had been known for over a year that Hillary Clinton had used a private email system for public business and had tried to delete and destroy tens of thousands of emails. The Russians could well have been making up a story around that public reporting in order further to cultivate the relationship with Papadopoulos (whom they appear to have seen as potentially useful). Note that the Professor suggested the Russians had Clinton’s own emails. But the emails we know were hacked were not Clinton’s — they were the DNC’s and John Podesta’s (Hillary is on almost none of them). So, Papadopoulos’s Russian interlocutors could well have been weaving a tale based on what had been reported, rather than on what was actually hacked and ultimately released by WikiLeaks.

Second, and more significant: If the proof, at best, implies that the Russians acquired thousands of Clinton emails and then had to inform a tangential Trump campaign figure of this fact so he could pass it along to the campaign, that would mean Trump and his campaign had nothing to do with the acquisition of the emails.”  (Read more: National Review, 10/31/2017)

“Hillary Clinton on Wednesday defended her campaign lawyer’s decision to pay for research that showed up in a salacious dossier about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

In an interview on “The Daily Show,” Clinton also dismissed any parallels between her campaign’s use of opposition research and Russian election interference that may have benefited Trump.

“I think most serious people understand that,” Clinton said in a clip of an interview with host Trevor Noah that was to air later Wednesday night. “It was research that started (with) a Republican donor during the primary, and when Trump got the nomination for the Republican Party, the people doing it came to my campaign lawyer.”

Clinton defended the approach that her campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, took to the work of Fusion GPS, a research firm that compiled a dossier about Trump before recruiting former British spy Christopher Steele to conduct more research.”  (Politico, 11/01/2017)

Katy Tur, Twitter

From the Italian newspaper, la Repubblica, and translated via Google Chrome:

The article is titled: The Russian-Trump contact prof: “It is true, I acted as a mediator but I am Clinton and left”

Joseph Mifsud (Credit: The Associated Press)

(…) “Joseph Mifsud is the Maltese lecturer – who according to the Russiagate inquiry – would have approached George Papadopoulos, Trump’s advisor during the electoral campaign, opening the doors of the Kremlin for a meeting between Trump himself and Putin; and offering him the “dirt”, the infamous information, collected by the Russians in the account of Hillary. “Nonsense. Friendship is friendship, but what Papadopoulos said is not true,” says Mifsud. “All I’ve done is foster relationships between unofficial sources, and between official and non-official sources, to resolve a crisis. It is done all over the world. I have put think-tanks in contact with think-tanks”, expert groups with other experts, he says.

Every ten words he mentions an international body to which he belongs, an institution he runs, a congress that they asked him to chair. He collaborates openly with Russian and American, Iranian and Saudi experts and institutions. “I am a member of the European council on foreign relations”, and was among the executives of the London center for international law practice.

“But do you know which is the only foundation of which I am a member? The Clinton Foundation, think a little. Between us, my thoughts are on the left. But I had expected Trump to win as I had foreseen Brexit, and in the I keep my work equidistant. I don’t understand this fury, these stupid accusations: we all want peace. When governments don’t talk, we citizens must keep talking. ”

Well. But the emails stolen from Hillary Clinton? The “dirt” offered to Papadopoulos? “I don’t know anything about it. I absolutely exclude having talked about secrets about Hillary. I swear on my daughter. I don’t know anyone from the Russian government apparatus: I knew only Russian Ivan Timofeev, director of a Moscow think-tank (the Russian International affairs) council) “. Which has its seat in the Russian Foreign Ministry, yes, but this, says the professor, “means nothing”.

Mifsud claims that he and Papadopoulos saw each other three or four times. “He came here to Italy, to Rome, with seven other international relations experts from the London Center of International Law Practice. We were at dinner, and I don’t remember if it was on that occasion that he told me he would enter Trump’s electoral campaign. to converse, by e-mail and on subsequent occasions when we met. But let me be clear: it was not the Russians who asked me for a meeting with Papadopoulos, he asked me for contacts in various areas, I proposed him the Gulf, an afterthought for the cracks that now I am in front of everyone: many diplomats from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Oman are my students, then I offer them Latin America, a topic of great interest to Trump who spoke of a wall with Mexico. And I offered him Russia and the European Council. Their choice was Russia. They were interested in sanctions, NATO, Ukraine and the stabilization of the relationship with Russia, a subject on which even the Russians were very sensitive.

The professor says that he understood what the Russians thought of the imminent future while he was in Moscow, during a meeting: “I don’t speak Russian, but the translator helped me and during a break, at the bar where the real themes are usually faced, he realized that they were very skeptical about the possibility of a change, with both Hillary and Trump, and I also talked to the Russian foreign minister, Lavrov, when the EU changed presidency: the new group of commissioners would reopen a window of opportunity that was close with Barroso. I suggested to the Foundations to keep talking, and the way was always Timofeev. He is a friend, he writes books, he is relatively young, I have also invited him to Italy. I have no qualms about speaking well of him. secret agent, eh! Never took a penny from the Russians: my conscience is clean “.

Great. But then he presented to Timofeev “Putin’s niece”, which Putin’s nephew was not. “She is a simple student, very beautiful. As with many other students, I introduced her to the London Center where Papadopoulos was, and I learned that he showed her a very different interest from the academic one. He suggested that she go with him on America. Putin had nothing to do with it, a beautiful and good invention. ” A bit like Mubarak’s niece? Mifsud laughs: “What nonsense, yes. I put my hand on the fire that this girl has nothing to do with the Kremlin or the services. Anyway, I’ve already talked to the FBI, when the State Department invited me to a congress on Capitol Hill ” (Read more: la Repubblica, 11/01/2017)  (Archive)

Anatoli Samochornov (right) interprets at a New York Public Library event with journalists Masha Gessen and Svetlana Alexievich in 2016. (Credit: Sarah Stacke/New York Public Library)

“Anatoli Samochornov, a Russian translator who was present at the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with campaign officials, testified that he was previously an interpreter for Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Barack Obama.”

(…) “Now it has emerged that, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Samochornov described his work personally interpreting on one occasion for Clinton, “two or three times” for Kerry and for “Mr. Obama’s summits at the United Nations.”

Samochornov gave his testimony last November and it was recently made public. The 121 pages of transcript were reviewed by Breitbart News and have become newly relevant following renewed news media scrutiny of the Trump Tower confab.

At the hearing, Samochornov stated that he had been “doing project management for a subcontractor of the U.S. Department of State.”

(…) “Regarding his work as a subcontractor for the U.S. government, Samochrnov stated that he “served as an interpreter for Secretary Clinton on one occasion.”

He continued: “I have two or three times interpreted for Secretary Kerry when he had meetings with his counterpart, Mr. Lavrov, and the group rounds about Syria. I have also interpreted Mr. Obama’s summits at the United Nations, and I believe Vice President Joe Biden also spoke there.”

(…) “Samochornov is not the only individual at the Trump Tower meeting with a personal tie to Clinton.

Email transcripts and other information disclosed in testimony released by the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal a significant relationship between Russian-born Washington lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, who was present at the Trump Tower meeting, and an associate of Clinton. Akhmetshin also claims a personal relationship with Clinton and describes meeting with a Clinton associate the same day as the Trump Tower meeting.

In his Senate testimony, Akhmetshin says that he “knows” Hillary Clinton and has a personal relationship with her that dates back to the late-1990s. Besides describing a direct connection to Clinton, Akhmetshin also testified that he “knew some people who worked on” Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Akhmetshin further revealed that the same day as the Trump Tower meeting he met with a Clinton associate after the confab and possibly also just before.” (Read more: Breitbart News, 8/23/2018)

Rinat Akhmetshin (Credit: Getty Images)

“The Russian-American lobbyist who attended the infamous Trump Tower meeting had contacts with members of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle and knew Clinton herself, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017.

“I knew [Clinton]; I knew some people who worked on her campaign,” the lobbyist, Rinat Akhmetshin, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in closed-door testimony on Nov. 14.

Akhmetshin, a former Soviet military intelligence officer, also said his attorney, Edward Lieberman, knows Clinton well. Lieberman’s late wife, Evelyn Lieberman, was a close confidante of Clinton’s. At one point, Akhmetshin said he was not a fan of President Donald Trump’s family.

The revelation of Akhmetshin’s Clinton links are significant because he has been portrayed as a possible conspirator in a collusion scheme between Trump’s campaign and Russian government.

Akhmetshin attended the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.

(…) “Akhmetshin and other meeting participants all testified to the Judiciary panel the meeting was a dud and no information about Clinton changed hands. Instead, Veselnitskaya lobbied heavily against the Magnitsky Act, a law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Veselnitskaya carried into the meeting a memo that accused Bill Browder, a London-based banker who is the leading force behind the Magnitsky Act, of links to improper donations to Democrats.

In a bizarre twist, it turned out Veselnitskaya’s memo was put together by Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS — the firm that commissioned the Steele dossier. Simpson happened to be working with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin to investigate Browder as part of an effort to undermine the Magnitsky Act. ” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/18/2018)

K. T. McFarland (Credit: Fox News)

“Longtime Republican politico K.T. McFarland said in a radio interview Wednesday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team pressured her for “20, 30, 40 hours of hell” to either cop a plea or implicate other Trump associates in crimes, even though she didn’t think she or they did anything wrong.

McFarland, who served a four-month stint under Trump’s short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn, was ensnared in Mueller’s dragnet after leaving the administration in May 2017.

She described the “trauma” she experienced at the hands of Mueller’s interrogators in November of 2017, during an interview on WMAL radio in Washington DC.

McFarland said that she was at a disadvantage when she was being questioned because she no longer had access to her White House files.

(…) “When the Mueller people came knocking at my door, they started quizzing me on stuff that I didn’t have access to and didn’t remember 100 percent accurately, and it allowed them to say, ‘well you must be lying then,’” McFarland told WMAL hosts Vince Coglianese and Mary Walter.

Walter asked McFarland why she wasn’t in the same position as Flynn, who ended up pleading guilty to a crime he didn’t commit (after Mueller threatened to bring criminal charges against his son). She replied: “because I didn’t break.”

“They gave me the distinct impression after … 20, 30, 40 hours of hell that they wanted me to either plead guilty to a crime I didn’t feel I committed or to talk about other people having done things that I didn’t think they had done,” she explained.” (Read more: American Greatness, 2/19/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: The Associated Press)

“After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017 for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Matt Whitaker, who was Sessions’ chief of staff at the time, emailed the letter to Huber that day, writing, “As we discussed.” He also sent Huber a copy of a letter the Justice Department’s Congressional affairs chief sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 13 of that year.

The existence of a letter documenting Sessions’ directive that the DOJ revisit probes of Trump’s top political foe is a surprise because a department lawyer said in court last year that senior officials insisted it didn’t exist. The liberal nonprofit American Oversight obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they filed on Nov. 22, 2017––the same day Whitaker emailed Sessions’ letter to Huber.

The request asked for documentation of the directions Sessions gave Huber about the review of the Clinton investigations. After DOJ failed to produce any written directions, American Oversight sued.

And on Nov. 16, 2018, Senior Counsel in the Office of Information Policy Vanessa Brinkmann, who handles FOIA Requests, said a lawyer in Sessions’ office told her no such letter existed. That lawyer spoke with Huber and Whitaker, she said in a declaration filed in federal court, and then told her that “when the Attorney General directed Mr. Huber to evaluate these matters, no written guidance or directives were issued to Mr. Huber in connection with this directive, either by the Attorney General, or by other senior leadership office staff.”

That wasn’t correct. On Wednesday of last week, a DOJ lawyer told American Oversight that they had found the document that kicked off Huber’s work.

The letter, which American Oversight provided to The Daily Beast, is consistent with what the DOJ’s chief of legislative affairs has told Congress: that Huber is scrutinizing the sale of a Canadian uranium mining company with interests in the United States to Rosatom, a Russian state-owned company. Republicans have long alleged that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined to oppose the deal because of contributions to the Clinton Foundation.” (Read more: The Daily Beast, 3/09/2019)

Clinton’s brother, Anthony Rodham, (r) travels with GreenTech president and CEO Charles Wang on a high-speed train in China. (Credit: Watchdog.org)

“Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s brother Anthony Rodham are facing a $17 million fraud lawsuit from Chinese investors in Greentech Automotive, an electric car company that appears to be struggling to survive.

A group of 32 Chinese citizens filed the suit last week in Fairfax County, Virginia court, claiming that they were swindled out of about $560,000 apiece as a result of misrepresentations made by McAuliffe and Rodham—two of the most prominent and politically connected proponents of the venture aimed at manufacturing electric cars in the U.S.

The suit is yet another headache for McAuliffe as he mulls a potential presidential bid in 2020, buoyed in part by Democrats’ strong showing in the state in the election earlier this month. McAuliffe confirmed last year that his business dealings with foreign nationals were under investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors. It’s unclear whether that probe involved Greentech or whether the inquiry is still ongoing.

The Chinese investors plowed their money into Greentech with the promise of winning permanent residency in the U.S. under a program that awards green cards to foreign-funded ventures that generate U.S. jobs. However, the suit contends that the investors now face the threat of deportation from the U.S. because the Department of Homeland Security has determined that Greentech did not generate the number of jobs required to sustain the number of visas issued through the so-called EB-5 program.

“Plaintiffs now face the prospect of having to uproot their families once again, with the expense and stress of deportation to China looming before them,” the suit says, accusing McAuliffe, Rodham, Greentech founder Charles Xiaolin Wang and others of running a “scam.”

McAuliffe and Rodham did several tours through China to seek investments in the electric car startup, the suit says. As brother-in-law of President Bill Clinton and as brother of the then-secretary of state—Rodham appeared to serve as a means of attracting Chinese interest in the project. The suit contends that Rodham’s involvement conveyed that the electric-car firm was politically-connected and likely to prosper.

“Defendants milked these connections in marketing materials,” the suit says. “Defendants exploited those relationships to assure investors of both the success of the company and their ability to obtain U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) approval of the visa applications.” (Read more: Politico, 11/28/2017)  (Archive)

(Flynn Plea Agreement/Scribd)

Bruce Ohr (c) on Capitol Hill for testimony Aug. 28, 2018. (Credit: Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

(…) “Ohr testified that he maintained contact with Steele beyond the date of the final 302—but this was either not documented in FBI 302s or the 302s weren’t provided to congressional investigators:

Q: “On page 2 of the letter it lists 12 separate dates and 302s where the FBI interviewed you indicating the first interview took place on November 22, 2016, and the last one on May 15, 2017. Is this list of interviews and dates generally consistent with your recollection?”

Ohr: “Yes. The caveat I would say is, I continued to have some conversations with Christopher Steele after May 15, 2017. I’ve reported all of those to the FBI, but I do not see any 302s relating to those conversations.”

Ohr later testified that he maintained contact with Steele—and relayed the content of that contact to the FBI into November 2017. Ohr also testified that he wasn’t aware the FBI was documenting his meetings in 302s:

Q: “Do you know anything different about those interviews or about those 302s as to why they wouldn’t have been produced in response to a request by Members of Congress?”

Ohr: “I don’t know if they did 302s later on. A lot of these conversations seemed less substantive, but I don’t know. I didn’t know about the original 302s either.”

Q: “Did you continue to meet with the FBI to discuss your conversations with Mr. Steele all the way up through late November of 2017?”

Ohr: “Correct.”

On at least two occasions in 2017, Ohr was provided with a new FBI handler. Most of his meetings took place at FBI headquarters but Ohr also had later meetings at the Washington Field Office.

Q: “And who at the Washington field office conducted an interview?”

Ohr: “I cannot remember the names.”

Q: “But it wasn’t Pientka?”

Ohr: “Right.”

Q: “So it was somebody, another agent, or agents, at the FBI’s Washington field office?”

Ohr: “My recollection is at least on two occasions, I was handed onto a new agent.”

(Read more: The Epoch Times, 3/08/2019)

General Michael Flynn (Credit: Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNN)

“The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump’s transition, according to CNN.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak in the month before Trump took office, the first current or former Trump White House official brought down by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling.

Court records indicate that his communications with Kislyak were directed by a Trump transition official, with multiple news outlets reporting that official was Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

“They are saying here at the White House that Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kisylak were quote ‘authorized’ by the Obama administration,” CNN correspondent Jim Acosta said.

“We should point out, that is something that we have not heard before in terms of a defense from this White House,” he said.

“A senior WH official told CNN that the Obama admin “authorized” Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak. But former DNI Clapper just told CNN that’s “absurd.”

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 1, 2017

(Read more: The Hill, 12/01/2017)

LTG Michael Flynn (Credit: public domain)

“Former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to a process crime of lying to FBI investigators about the content of a December 29th phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. The conversation occurred the same day that then-president Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election.

This is the same misleading information that led to the White House firing Michael Flynn.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged Flynn with falsely telling FBI agents that he did not ask the ambassador “to refrain from escalating the situation” in response to the sanctions.

According to the plea, while being questioned by FBI agents on January 24, 2017, Flynn also lied when he claimed he could not recall a subsequent conversation with Kislyak, in which the ambassador told Flynn that the Putin regime had “chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of [Flynn’s] request.”

Furthermore, a week before the sanctions were imposed, Flynn had also spoken to Kislyak, asking the ambassador to delay or defeat a vote on a pending United Nations resolution. The criminal information charges that Flynn lied to the FBI by denying both that he’d made this request and that he’d spoken afterward with Kislyak about Russia’s response to it.

There was nothing wrong with the incoming national-security adviser’s having meetings with foreign counterparts or discussing such matters as the sanctions in those meetings. However, lying to the FBI is the process crime that has led to Flynn’s admissions. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/1/2017)

John Podesta (l) and Christopher Steele (Credit: public domain)

“In recently unsealed testimony to Congress, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta acknowledged that both he and Hillary Clinton were aware that her campaign had purchase opposition research and was looking for dirt on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election.

(…) In a second appearance before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017, Podesta testified that Clinton likely didn’t know the names of the firm, Fusion GPS, and former British spy Christopher Steele who had conducted the research. But he said she and he were both cognizant of an opposition research effort to connect Trump to business dealings in Russia.

(…) Podesta’s explanation is consistent to testimony that Steele, a former MI-6 operative, gave in March before a British court in which he said Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson told him that Clinton and the leadership of her campaign were aware of his research.

“You also understood that Hillary Clinton herself was aware of what you were doing?” a lawyer asked Steele.

“I think Glenn had mentioned it, but I wasn’t clear,” Steele answered.

Then Steele was confronted with what lawyers said were notes he took at a meeting with the FBI in 2016 in which he purported to tell agents that Clinton was aware of his research. The lawyers read from those notes during the court proceedings.

The notes, according to the transcript, read:

“We explained that Glenn Simpson/GPS Fusion was our commissioner but the ultimate client were the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign and that we understood the candidate herself was aware of the reporting at least, if not us.”

(Read more: Just the News, 5/11/2020)  (Archive)

Judge Rudolph Contreras (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/National Law Journal)

“The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday.

According to a court filing, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras, who presided over a Dec. 1 hearing where Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russia, will no longer handle the case.

Court spokeswoman Lisa Klem did not say why Contreras was recused, and added that the case was randomly reassigned.

Reuters could not immediately learn the reason for the recusal, or reach Contreras.

An attorney for Flynn declined to comment.

Now, Flynn’s sentencing will be overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. Sullivan was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton. (Read more: Reuters, 12/07/2017)

(Timeline editor’s note: It isn’t clear from this report whether Judge Contreras recused himself, or whether he was recused by another person.)

“Last night news broke that U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras “has been recused” from the case overseeing the prosecution of General Mike Flynn. Details are vague. According to Reuters, both the judge and the Flynn legal team have yet to comment.

(…) Obviously, the customary reason for recusal is when there is a conflict of interest between the case as assigned and the judge overseeing it.  However, as you can clearly see, in this case it’s rather odd that if a conflict existed the judge would have even begun to oversee the case at the prior hearing.  Why wait until six days after the first hearing?

As to the reasoning for the recusal, and stressed against the backdrop of the new information surrounding the investigative practices of the DOJ and FBI, this recusal is potentially both a game-changer and a massive dose of sunlight.

(…) Judge Contreras was in the position of approving FISA warrants at the time when FBI Deputy Head of Counterintelligence, FBI Agent Peter Strzok was assembling the underlying information for the FISA warrant used against candidate Trump.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

There is a very real possibility that Judge Contreras signed off on the FISA warrant in October 2016 that initiated the counterintelligence wiretapping and surveillance of the Trump campaign. That wiretapping and surveillance ultimately led to the questioning of Michael Flynn; the consequence of which brings Flynn to Contreras courtroom.

However, before getting to those ramifications it is important to step back for a moment and review the former March 20th, 2017, congressional testimony of FBI Director James Comey.

We have drawn attention to this testimony frequently, because it is one of the few times when congress has pinned Comey down and made him commit to specifics.  In fact, for an otherwise innocuous congressional hearing, this specific segment has been viewed over 400,000 times. When we understand the importance of the content – we accept that perhaps even James Comey’s own lawyers have watched it repeatedly.

The first three minutes of this video are what is important.  As you watch this testimony remember to overlay what you know now against the James Comey statements from nine months ago.

I would particularly draw your attention to the timeline as Comey describes (counterintelligence investigation beginning in July 2016); and also to pay attention to the person Comey assigns responsibility for keeping congress out of the loop on oversight.  Comey points to the DOJ’s National Security Division Head who is in charge of the counterintelligence operations, Bill Priestap.  However, Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s name:

…”it’s usually the decision of the head of our
counterintelligence division.”

Everything happens in the first three minutes:

It’s obvious James Comey was not anticipating that line of questioning.  His discomfort and obfuscation pours out within his words and body language.  However, from that testimony we gain insight which we can add to the latest information.

We know the DNC and Clinton Campaign commissioned opposition research in April of 2016 through Fusion GPS, who sub-contracted Christopher Steele.   Between April and July of 2016 the retired MI6 agent put together opposition research on Donald Trump centered around a claimed network of dubious and sketchy Russian contacts.

The first draft of that dossier was reported to be passed out in June/July 2016.

Notice the FBI counterintelligence operation began in July 2016.  That directly and specifically lines up with the recent discoveries surrounding Deputy Head of Counterintelligence, FBI Agent Peter Strzok and the new information about Agent Strzok having direct contact with Christopher Steele, the author for the “Russian Dossier”.

Additionally, the July 2016 time-frame lines up with candidate Donald Trump winning the GOP nomination, and also the first application for a wiretapping and surveillance warrant to the FISA court which was unusually denied by a FISA judge.

Very few FISA requests are ever denied. Actually, only like 1 out of 100 are denied. So for a FISA request to be denied, there had to be a really compelling reason to require more than the traditional amount of FBI/DOJ due diligence within the request.

If you consider that monitoring associates within a presidential campaign would certainly be one of those types of requests which would lend a judge GREAT pause, well, perhaps the denial gains perspective.  Certainly any FISA judge would easily understand the potential ramifications of the U.S. government conducting surveillance on a presidential campaign.

However, in October 2016 the second FISA request was granted.

What else happened in October of 2016?

According to media reports in October of 2016 the full and completed Russian Dossier was being heavily shopped by Fusion GPS with payments toward journalists.  Additionally, in October 2016, according to yesterday’s headlines: DOJ Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce G Ohr was outed and demoted because he too had conversations with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS etc.

So in the month where a FISA Judge granted the warrant for wiretapping and surveillance, the FBI (via Agent Strzok), and DOJ (via Deputy AG Bruce Ohr), were both in contact with Russian Dossier author Christopher Steele.

October 2016 is EXACTLY when The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out months ago: “No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.” (link)

Are you seeing how the dots connect?

June/July 2016 a FISA request is denied. This is simultaneous to FBI agent Strzok initial contact with Christopher Steele and the preliminary draft of the dossier.

October 2016 a FISA request approved. This is simultaneous to agent Strzok and Assoc. Deputy AG Bruce G Ohr in contact with Christopher Steele and the full dossier.

It would be EXPLOSIVE if it turned out the FISA warrant was gained by deception, misleading/manipulated information, or fraud; and that warrant that led to the wiretapping and surveillance of General Flynn was authorized by FISA Court Judge Contreras – who would now be judge in Flynn’s case.

Is this the recusal reason?

Additionally, was that “Dossier” part of the collective intelligence gathering that led to the ridiculous (January 2017) “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report“?  The report that attempted to give justification for the December 29th Russian sanctions, and made famous by the media falsely claiming 17 agencies agreed on the content.

Back to the timeline we go, and remember NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers was the one Intelligence Community official without *confidence* in the “Joint Analysis Report”.

(Read much more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/08/2017)

Judge Emmet Sullivan (l) and Robert Mueller (Credit: public domain)

On December 12th, 2017, Judge Sullivan ordered Robert Mueller to turn over to the Flynn defense team, anything that could be considered exculpatory:

(…)  if the government has identified any information which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes is not material, the government shall submit the material to the Court for in camera review. (Order of Judge Sullivan in US v. Flynn, 12/12/2017)

David Kramer, a longtime associate of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), revealed in an unsealed deposition that he had contact with at least 14 members of the media regarding the Steele dossier—a collection of 17 memos containing unverified allegations against Donald Trump.

Additionally, Kramer gave a full copy of the unverified dossier to then-Senior Director for Russian Affairs at the National Security Council Celeste Wallander, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan’s chief of staff, Jonathan Burks. Kramer also provided a briefing in early December 2016 on the dossier to both Wallander and Victoria Nuland, then the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian Affairs.

Kramer also provided ongoing updates to Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, former MI6 spy and dossier author Christopher Steele, and other members of the media regarding McCain’s meeting with FBI Director James Comey.

Steele had been hired by Simpson on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to produce the so-called Steele dossier on Trump.

David Kramer (Credit: McCain Institute)

Kramer, in his deposition, confirmed that he was BuzzFeed News’ source for the dossier. BuzzFeed published the dossier online in January 2017, resulting in a defamation lawsuit by Aleksej Gubarev, whose company XBT/Webzilla was mentioned in the dossier. The Epoch Times covered the court case in a previous article.

McCain famously denied ever providing a copy of the dossier to BuzzFeed, telling the Daily Caller on Oct. 18, 2017: “I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging this up now.”

Kramer, who is an affiliated senior fellow at the McCain Institute, revealed in his deposition that he had been in contact with 14 journalists and producers about the dossier. These contacts included:

• ABC News: Brian Ross, Matt Mosk
• BuzzFeed: Ken Bensinger
• CNN: Carl Bernstein
• The Guardian: Julian Borger
• McClatchy: Peter Stone, Greg Gordon
• Mother Jones: David Corn
• NPR: Bob Little, Rachel Martin
• The Washington Post: Tom Hamburger, Rosalind Helderman, Fred Hiatt
• The Wall Street Journal: Alan Cullison

Kramer, who doesn’t appear to have spoken with The New York Times, noted that both Simpson and Steele were speaking to the Times directly because “they felt it required investigation by a serious news outlet, and they seemed to have chosen The Times at that point.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 3/15/2019)

William Dennis Campbell (Credit: Tenam, USA)

(…) In his first on-camera interview, William Douglas Campbell told The Hill he was interviewed for about five hours in December by FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., who were investigating whether donations to the Clinton’s charitable empire were used to influence U.S. nuclear policy during the Obama years.

(…) “Campbell worked as an FBI undercover informant from 2008 through 2014 inside Russia’s nuclear industry, helping to uncover a bribery, kickback, money laundering and extortion scheme that sent several Russian and U.S. executives to prison.

He was summoned for a closed-door congressional interview last month by Republicans, who believe the criminal wrongdoing Campbell uncovered should have stopped the Obama administration from approving the sale of the Uranium One mining firm and billions of dollars in U.S. nuclear fuel contracts to Russia. House Democrats issued a blistering memo attacking Campbell’s credibility, saying he couldn’t identify specific crimes committed by the Clintons and suffered from memory lapses that required him to rely on written notes.

Campbell dismissed the Democrats’ attacks as partisan.

(…) Campbell also disputed allegations by anonymous Justice officials and Democrats that while undercover he may have engaged in illegal payments with the Russians without approval. He said Moscow asked him to pay $25,000 in 2010 to hire a consultant to train him on nuclear issues and that his FBI handlers “sanctioned and were aware that I was transferring those monies.” When the Russians didn’t provide the consulting and asked for more money, the agents recognized it was a kickback scheme and authorized him to keep making payments so they could make a criminal case, he said.

He dismissed suggestions he lacked credibility, noting the FBI recently asked him for fresh information and paid him a $51,000 reward in 2016.

“I was embraced and told what a good job I had done,” he said. (Read more: The Hill, 3/22/2018)

Patrick Ho (Credit: public domain)

“Federal investigators obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against one of Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates, suggesting that the executive was suspected of acting as a covert agent of a foreign government.

Prosecutors revealed the existence of at least one FISA warrant against Chi Ping Patrick Ho, known as Patrick Ho, in a Feb. 8, 2018 court filing obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ho was charged on Dec. 18, 2017 with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering related to CEFC China Energy contracts in Uganda and Chad. Ho had been an executive at the multi-billion dollar Chinese energy company prior to his arrest.

Hunter Biden was part of a business consortium that sought a partnership with CEFC in May 2017. A Senate report released last month said that an affiliate of CEFC wired $5 million to Biden’s law firm from August 2017 through August 2018.

In addition to his partnership with CEFC, Hunter Biden also represented Ho during his legal battle.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Hunter Biden signed a formal consulting deal with Ye Jianming, boss of the Chinese energy company CEFC. (Credit: NYP)

According to a report from The New Yorker last year, CEFC’s chairman, Ye Jianming, raised concerns with Biden in summer 2017 about a possible investigation into Ho.

Biden agreed to represent Ho and to find out the extent of the investigation, according to The New Yorker report.

The New York Times reported in December 2018 that Ho’s first call following his arrest the year before was to James Biden, the brother of the former vice president.

The Senate report also said that a shell company affiliated with CEFC called Hudson West III wired $1 million to Biden’s law firm, Owasco, on March 22, 2018.

The payment was designated for “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping Representation,” the report says.”

The Republican senators who released the report asserted that Biden’s relationship with CEFC posed counterintelligence concerns, in part due to Ye’s links to the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party.

The court filings in Ho’s case suggest that federal investigators had counterintelligence concerns about Ho.

Investigators obtained a FISA warrant allowing them to conduct electronic and physical surveillance of Ho’s property, court documents show.

“The United States intends to offer into evidence, or otherwise use or disclose in any proceedings in the above-captioned matter, information obtained or derived from electronic surveillance and physical search conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” prosecutors said in the Feb. 8, 2018 court filing.

Ho’s lawyers tried to block evidence obtained through the FISA process from being used at Ho’s trial, according to one filing submitted in his case.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, where the case was tried, responded in a court filing of their own defending the use of evidence from the FISA in Ho’s case. They did not disclose the basis for obtaining the FISA warrant or say when it was granted.

The court filing also says that the evidence derived from the FISAs was classified.

Ho was convicted in March 2019 and sentenced to three years in prison.

On Tuesday, the National Pulse website published an audio recording purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop in which he referred to Ho as a “spy chief.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/27/2020)  (Archive)

Natalie Winters/National Pulse, 10/27/2020

Hunter Biden Audio Confesses Partnership With China ‘Spy Chief’… Joe Biden Named as Criminal Case Witness

An audio recording exclusively obtained by the National Pulse reveals Hunter Biden discussing business involvement with a “spy chief of China” and how his business partner Devon Archer named him and his father as witnesses in a Southern District of New York Criminal case.

Hunter Biden – in an audio file labeled “Most Genius Shit Ever” – appears to be referencing Patrick Ho, who was a former Secretary for Home Affairs in Hong Kong, as a “spy chief of China” while lamenting how his business partner Ye Jianming of CEFC China Energy had disappeared.

Ho was also involved in the CEFC venture, as originally reported by the New York Post and suppressed by the media and Big Tech firms.

The audio breaks the mainstream media’s narrative that the hard drive is somehow “fake” or does not implicate Hunter or Joe Biden in criminal investigations and/or business deals with the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy (Credit: Department of State)

(…) “While the public has heard the story of many of the interviewees before, one of the transcripts may be the most complete account yet from a key figure in what has come to be known as “Russiagate.” Specifically, his role in allowing the now infamous Steele dossier to become the cornerstone in the FBI obtaining a FISA spy warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, and by extension—under the NSA’s so-called two-hop rule—other members of the Trump campaign. That figure is FBI agent Michael Gaeta.

Gaeta was, and possibly still is, the assistant legal attaché at the United States Embassy in Rome. Until 2014, he headed the FBI Eurasian Organized Crime unit.

It was Gaeta who, reportedly on July 5, 2016, traveled to London to meet with former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier. The trip was reportedly authorized by Victoria Nuland, then-assistant state secretary for Eurasian affairs.

(…) Mifsud was regularly rubbing shoulders with heavyweights of U.S. and European intelligence and security. He taught at the Link Campus University in Rome, which, among others, taught courses on intelligence and was frequented by U.S. and European defense, law enforcement, and intelligence officials—both current and former.

As a veteran professional of his stature, Gaeta must have been familiar with Link, which is headed by former Italian interior minister Vincenzo Scotti. Gaeta’s colleague from the embassy in Rome, FBI Special Agent Preston Ackerman, even gave a presentation at Link in September 2016, according to UK political analyst Chris Blackburn, who backed up the claim with a screen shot of a Sept. 9, 2016, Facebook post about the presentation, which appears to show Ackerman as the author of the presentation.

A Sep. 9, 2016, Facebook post by Link Campus University shared by its affiliated Facebook page Scientific Intelligence. The bottom photo appears to show the author of the presentation as Preston Ackerman of the Office of the Legal Attaché in Rome. (Screenshot courtesy of Chris Blackburn)

(…) A number of questions remain about Gaeta’s involvement with the dossier and the Russia investigation: What exactly did he do with the initial information from Steele in June 2016? How often was he in contact with Steele? Did he know Mifsud? The House Intelligence Committee interviewed Gaeta on Dec. 20, 2017. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/05/2018)

(Andrew McCabe Transcript 12/21/2017)

“…Throughout the months of November and December Wikileaks and Anonymous Scandinavia were throwing out teaser videos regarding a big Christmas present coming. The videos featured the 12 days of Christmas, and with each video there was a new disclosure of the corruption being exposed within the U.S. government. On December 21, 2017 Julian retweeted Wikileaks tweet regarding a CryptoKitties donation to Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton. The names of the offspring to these CryptoKitties is equally intriguing, which align with the video teasers.

This is where it gets interesting and begins to connect everything together. Notice the regulations Wikileaks put into the CryptoKitty being “gifted” to Donald J. Trump, which states:

These unique CryptoKitties are valued at several thousand dollars, meaning that President Trump will have to declare Wikileaks’ gift under 5 U.S.C. § 7432 and regulation GSA FMR B-41. Trump’s Tender Tabby will become federal property to be enjoyed by future presidents via custodians at the US National Archives.

As we can see above, the current minimal value of $390 was established in the Federal Management Regulation Bulletin B-41 for a Foreign gift and decoration minimal value. Wikileaks stated that the CryptoKitties are valued at several thousand dollars, and would therefore be considered a Foreign gift that President Trump would be required to declare, and will therefore become Federal property. But why would it go into NARA and be enjoyed by the public? Because Cryptocurrency can carry data with it, and by claiming it would go into NARA, they just validated that it in fact is data.

So what does this mean exactly? Based on all of the above, this most likely means that Wikileaks transferred (gifted) very sensitive material to President Trump. What is curious is that they stated they were gifting Hillary Clinton a CryptoKitty as well, which would be quite humorous if it was an exact duplicate, being as she is already privy to the information and much of it is likely incriminating evidence against her and her corrupt cronies. It is also quite genius of Julian Assange and the Wikileaks team.

One would suspect much of this incriminating evidence will be exposed long before this material reaches NARA, after President Trump is no longer in office. But if it shouldn’t, the information will eventually be made available for the public to see.” (CoreysDigs, 12/25/2017)

Trump signs an executive order on December 21, 2017, based on the 2016 Global Human Rights Accountability Act. (Credit: public domain)

“The Trump Administration quietly issued an Executive Order (EO) last Thursday which allows for the freezing of US-housed assets belonging to foreign individuals or entities deemed “serious human rights abusers,” along with government officials and executives of foreign corporations (current or former) found to have engaged in corruption – which includes the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, and corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources. 

Furthermore, anyone in the United States who aids or participates in said corruption or human rights abuses by foreign parties is subject to frozen assets – along with any U.S. corporation who employs foreigners deemed to have engaged in corruption on behalf of the company.

(…) Last Week’s Executive Order could have serious implications for D.C. lobbyists who provide “goods and services” (e.g. lobbying services) to despots, corrupt foreign politicians or foreign organizations engaging in the crimes described in the EO. “Virtually every lobbyist in DC has got to be in a cold sweat over the scope of this EO,” said an attorney consulted in the matter who wishes to remain anonymous.

Now consider that if reports from The Hill are accurate – an FBI mole deep within the Russian uranium industry uncovered evidence that “Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow (the Uranium One approval)” – a deal which would eventually grant the Kremlin control over 20 percent of America’s uranium supply right around the time Bill Clinton also collected $500,000 for a Moscow speech, as detailed by author Peter Schweitzer’s book Clinton Cash and the New York Times in 2015.

“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.” –The Hill

Hypothetically, if the Uranium One deal is deemed corrupt by the Trump administration, and “Russian nuclear officials” indeed routed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and Tony Podesta lobbied on behalf of the deal for the Clinton Foundation – it stands to reason that this Executive Order could freeze the US-housed assets of quite a few individuals. Of note, assets can be frozen with no prior warning, as trump has declared a national emergency due to the “scope and gravity” of the threat posed by said individuals.

To simplify this complicated legal document a bit, keep in mind:

Section 1. (a)(iii) defines U.S. Citizens who have assisted foreigners in any of the crimes described above:

Note: The above section (iii)(A)(3) means any foreign person engaging in “serious human rights abuses” or listed forms of corruption on behalf of a U.S. entity. Also of note – Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back a series of Obama-era curbs on civil-asset forfeiture over the summer, strengthening the federal government’s ability to seize cash and property from Americans without criminal charges. That said, this Executive Order only freezes assets, it does not allow the government to take custody of them. ” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/28/2017)

Screenshot from CNN’s YouTube video: “Did Hillary Clinton help approve uranium deal?” (Credit: CNN/YouTube)

“On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News.

The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department’s effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said.

At issue is a 2010 transaction in which the Obama Administration allowed the sale of U.S. uranium mining facilities to Russia’s state atomic energy company. Hillary Clinton was secretary of state at the time, and the State Department was one of nine agencies that agreed to approve the deal after finding no threat to U.S. national security.

(…) “In a letter to Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd said Justice Department lawyers would make recommendations to Sessions about whether an investigation should be opened or expanded, or whether a special counsel should be appointed to probe a number of issues of concern to Republicans.

In recent weeks, FBI agents who investigated the case have been asked by Justice Department prosecutors to describe the results of their probe. The agents also have been asked if there was any improper effort to squash a prosecution, the law enforcement sources say.

The senior Justice Department official said the questions were part of an effort by the Sessions team to get up to speed on the controversial case, in the face of allegations from Congressional Republicans that it was mishandled.” (Read more: ABC News, 12/21/2017)

Flynn weighs in on General Flynn’s firing with Margaret Brennan on December 21, 2017. (Credit: CBS News)

“Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan Thursday that he knew former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had lied to him about his contacts with the Russians when Flynn was fired in February. Brennan spoke with Pence during the vice president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan.

Flynn, who’s now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election interference, pled guilty last month to lying to the FBI. He told investigators he’d never discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with a Russian ambassador when those sanctions were imposed by the Obama administration shortly after the 2016 election.

Before Flynn’s claim was publicly revealed as a lie, however, it was repeated by Pence during a January 15 interview with Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson. Pence said he’d spoken with Flynn about his Christmas Day interaction with a Russian envoy. “He had sent a text to the Russian ambassador to express not only Christmas wishes but sympathy for the loss of life in the airplane crash that took place,” Pence said. “It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.” (Read more: CBS News, 12/21/2017)  (Archive)

“The Trump Administration quietly issued an Executive Order (EO) last Thursday which allows for the freezing of US-housed assets belonging to foreign individuals or entities deemed “serious human rights abusers,” along with government officials and executives of foreign corporations (current or former) found to have engaged in corruption – which includes the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, and corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources. 

Furthermore, anyone in the United States who aids or participates in said corruption or human rights abuses by foreign parties is subject to frozen assets – along with any U.S. corporation who employs foreigners deemed to have engaged in corruption on behalf of the company.

In fact, anyone in the world who has “materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material or technological support for, or goods or services” to foreigners targeted by the Executive Order is subject to frozen assets.

The EO, based on the 2016 Global Human Rights Accountability Act, immediately added 13 foreign individuals to a list of “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) – several of whom have ties to the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation, or Clinton associates (details below). Moreover, the Treasury Department sanctioned an additional 39 people, for a total of 52 under the new order – including the son of Russia’s prosecutor general.

(…) In regard to the 13 listed individuals targeted by this order – several of whom have ties to the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation or Clinton associates – we find the following:

…

Goulnara Islamovna Karimova, 45, daughter of former Uzbekistan leader Islam Karimov, headed a powerful organized crime syndicate that leveraged state actors to expropriate businesses, monopolize markets, solicit bribes, and administer extortion rackets.

In early 2016, Amsterdam-based telecom giant VimpelCom (now VEON) admitted to a conspiracy in which they paid millions in bribes to Karimova for entry into the Uzbek telecom market. In a series of related cases, the U.S. Justice Department has sought the forfeiture of $850 million in bribe money from various bank accounts across Europe. In July, Uzbek officials arrested Karimova for fraud, money laundering, bribery, and embezzlement and a variety of other claims.

In 2009, a WikiLeaks cable notes that Karimova set her sights on Bill Clinton to gain access to then-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

(WikiLeaks, 7/31/2009)

Three years later, Karimova co-sponsored a 2012 Clinton Foundation fundraiser in Monaco. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was asked to weigh in on Bill Clinton’s contacts with Karimova. Pictured below with Bill Clinton at an AIDS charity event in Cannes, France.

Goulnara Karimova and Bill Clinton (Credit: public domain)

—

Dan Gertler (Credit: public domain)

Dan Gertler is an Israeli billionaire mining magnate revealed by the Paradise Papers to be chief negotiator between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and his primary business partner – mining company Glencore, founded by Marc Rich – who was pardoned for corruption by Bill Clinton on his last day in office after his wife gave $450,000 to the Clinton Library foundation.

Glencore immediately cut ties with Gertler following Trump’s Executive Order.

In 2001 Gertler gave $20m in cash to DRC President Joseph Kabila to use to buy weapons and fund his war against rebels to consolidate his grip on power. In exchange, Gertler’s company IDI was granted a monopoly on the DRC diamond trade, worth hundreds of millions a year. In 2013, Gertler sold the DRC rights to mine oil for $150 million, a 300x increase on an asset he   purchased from President Kabila 7 years prior for just $500,000.

In 2012, Kabila offered Bill Clinton $650k for a speech in the DRC – for which Clinton sought State Department approval -only to have his speaking agency recommend against the appearance which would require photos with the dictator.

Gertler’s family foundation is also linked to John McCain – sharing a seat on the board of directors of “Operation Smile” with Cindy McCain for a period of time.

—

Yahya and Zeinab Jammeh with Barack and Michelle Obama in 2014. (Credit: public domain)

Yahya Jammeh is the former President of Gambia who came to power in 1994 and stepped down in 2017. He has a long history of serious human rights abuses and corruption – creating a terror and assassination squad called the Junglers that answered directly to him.

Jammeh was installed as President during a 1994 CIA-led coup in Gambia authorized by the Clinton administration, and in 2014, the Obama administration effectively sidelined an attempted coup. Indeed, Jammeh appears to have been a friend to both the Clinton and the Obama Administrations.

—

Angel Rondon Rijo; Dominican Republic – Sanctioned for funneling a $92 million bribe from Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht to Dominican Republic officials as kickbacks. Odebrecht Donated $50-$100k to the Clinton Foundation.

—

Benjamin Bol Mel; Sudan – Financial Advisor to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and president of ABMC construction company accused of corruption. Hillary Clinton pushed for a waiver from the Obama Admin on the prohibition of military aid due to the use of child soldiers in South Sudan.

—

Artem Yuryevich Chayka; Russia – Son of Russia’s Prosecutor General, Yuri Chayka (Chaika) – used father’s connections to win state owned contracts. Curiously, Russian Attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Yuri Chayka before her involvement in the infamous Trump Tower meeting arranged by Fusion GPS associate Rob Goldstone – a meeting many believe was one of several schemes used by the Obama administration to justify wiretapping the Trump campaign. Of note – Donald Trump Jr. reportedly shut down the Trump tower meeting when Natalia Veselnitskaya began discussing lifting sanctions under the Magnitsky act – the very legislation Trump’s Executive Order is now leveraging against Artem Chayka.

—

Mukhtar Hamid Shah; Pakistan – surgeon specializing in kidney transplants, believed to be involved in kidnapping, wrongful confinement, and the removal of and tracking in human organs from Pakistani laborers.

—

The rest of the 13 individuals have engaged in a variety of corruption and human rights abuses ranging from a Serbian arms dealer believed to be linked to a $95 million deal with Yemen, to government officials who ordered journalists murdered, to several instances of serious human rights violations. (h/t @HNIJohnMiller) (Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/28/2017) (Archive)

Amid news the Mueller probe could extend through 2018, Guardian reporter Luke Harding and TRNN’s Aaron Mate discuss Russiagate and Harding’s new book “Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.”

TRANSCRIPT

AARON MATÉ: It’s The Real News. I’m Aaron Maté. 2017 is almost over, but Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is not. In fact, the Washington Post reports that Mueller’s probe could last another year through much of 2018 at a minimum. The prospect is sure to annoy President Trump who has been hampered by the Russia story throughout his first year in office. Well according to a best-selling new book, Trump has ample reason to worry. The book is called ‘Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.’ I’m joined up with the book’s author, Luke Harding, a veteran journalist for The Guardian and the paper’s former Moscow correspondent.
Luke, welcome. Let’s start with the book’s title. Do you think there actually was collusion?
LUKE HARDING: I think we’re already across the line in terms of collusion. I think actually you have to go back a long way to see when it began to Donald Trump’s first trip to Soviet Moscow in 1987 paid for by the Soviet Union where he was discussing hotel deals. I think we can say — and I’m sure this is something that Robert Mueller is looking at — that there’s kind of long-term relationship. That doesn’t mean that Donald Trump is an agent or a KGB colonel, merely that there’s been a kind of transactional deal going back a very long way indeed.
AARON MATÉ: That’s also an assertion of the infamous Steele dossier, that there’s a transactional relationship between Trump and the Kremlin and that Putin has been cultivating Trump for several years now. But explain why you think that is and why you think there’s evidence of a transactional relationship.
LUKE HARDING: Well I think you just kind of have to look at what happened. We had Donald Trump’s trip back in the kind of late Cold War period, and I talked to a number of sources for this book, some in Moscow, some in London, some in Washington, some defectors. I met with Chris Steele, the author of the dossier, as well. I think what you have to understand is the fact that the sort of Soviet state and its Russian successor is raking on kind of cultivating people, particularly Americans.
Bringing Trump over for this kind of trip was pretty unusual. It was what’s known in the intelligence trade as kind of classic cultivational curation. We know from leaked KGB memos the kind of person they were looking for during this period was someone who was vain, narcissistic, interested in money, perhaps unfaithful in their marriage. Basically Donald Trump kind of ticks every single box. When I was researching this, I tracked down the daughters of the Soviet ambassador at the time who went up to Trump Tower, flattered Trump, and said, “You’ve built the most wonderful building in America.” So it goes on.
I think it’s gone through phases. Moscow’s been interested in Trump, not interested in him, and then most recently according to the Steele dossier, became more interested in him from about 2012, 2013 onwards at a time when Donald Trump was the sort of foremost exponent of birtherism. Obama was in office. Of course we have the famous trip by Trump to Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe beauty pageant.
AARON MATÉ: Okay. But where then is the proof of a transactional relationship?
LUKE HARDING: Well I mean there are secret meetings as the book says that we now know about, some of which we have discovered about in the last few months. We have Donald Trump, Jr meeting with a Russian lawyer now famous, Natalia Veselnitskaya, having been promised information from the Russian government as part of its campaign to support Mr. Trump and to hurt Hillary Clinton. We have four indictments by Robert Mueller-
AARON MATÉ: Luke, Luke, let me stop you there. Luke, let me stop you there. If we already have a transactional relationship between Trump and Russia going back to the late ’80s as you say, then why would they have needed a music publicist to set up this meeting? I mean presumably that level of relationship would have entailed some high-level contacts that wouldn’t have needed an intermediary like this kooky music publicist, Rob Goldstone.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah. I think what you have to understand about Russian espionage is it’s not Vladimir Putin sitting in a cave flicking a red switch and things happening across the continental United States. It doesn’t work like that. It’s opportunistic. It’s very often pretty low-budget. The kind of hacking operation to hack the Democratic Party was done by two separate groups of kind of Kremlin hackers probably not earning kind of huge sums of money. So some of it is kind of improvisational.
The most important thing is that you have people with access, which in this case is Donald Trump and his entourage. The oligarch involved is someone called Aras Agalarov who hosted Trump in 2013. You’re right. The music publicist is a bit of a curious guy, called Goldstone, but nonetheless it works. He actually managed to bring the Moscow lawyer to Trump Tower and set up this meeting which, by the way, the Trump team said nothing about until it finally leaked out early this summer, a year almost after it happened.
AARON MATÉ: Right. But their explanation is that the meeting had nothing to do with the emails that were later released by Wikileaks, that they were about that the lawyer was promising compromising information about Hillary Clinton’s dealings with Russia, and in return she wanted some assistance lifting sanctions which had nothing to do with the whole Wikileaks aspect.
LUKE HARDING: Well I think Donald Trump, Jr didn’t know that when he took the meeting. It’s about intentionality. Meanwhile, we have George Papadopoulos, foreign policy aide to Donald Trump, who in the spring of last year is running around my town where I am, London, meeting a mysterious professor who features in Mueller’s indictment with contacts to Moscow who tells Papadopoulos-
AARON MATÉ: Well hold on a second, Luke. Hold on a second, Luke. Hold on a second. He tells Papadopoulos that he has contacts to Moscow. We actually have no clue what those contacts are. His name is Joseph Mifsud, right? He’s a professor in the UK right now, and Papadopoulos claims that Mifsud told him that he has high-level Russian government contacts. So far, there’s been no even proof of that.
LUKE HARDING: Well it’s in the indictment. I mean either you kind of live in the empirical world or you don’t, but I mean-
AARON MATÉ: In the empirical world in the indictment, Mifsud claims that he has … Or Papadopoulos says that Mifsud claims he had Russian government ties, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.
LUKE HARDING: Well no, but a lot of very good journalists both in the U.S. and elsewhere have obviously tried to get in touch with Mr. Mifsud to kind of try and talk to him. We haven’t had kind of much luck, but I think you have to kind of understand the context which is that what happened in the U.S. last year isn’t divorced from other kind of Russian influence operations particularly where I sit in Europe.
This is not a new move; it’s kind of an old move. There’s been quite a lot of Russian intelligence activity over the years including most spectacularly the murder in 2006 of a Russian dissident called Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive cup of tea. I read a book about this case which came out in the U.S. earlier this year with a huge public inquiry. There’s a sort of volume of evidence — forensic, scientific, intelligence — to support this. I think that this is-
AARON MATÉ: Whoa. Wait. Sorry. I’m sorry. Support what?
LUKE HARDING: To support the fact that essentially the level of espionage from Russia at the moment is comparable to Cold War levels, and I think in some ways it’s going beyond. What happen [inaudible 00:08:14] influence operation [inaudible 00:08:17] how effective it was whether it pushed Donald Trump over the line but he was going to win anyway and so on. I think that Russia played role in last year’s election is a matter of fact. I mean it’s certainly what U.S. intelligence agencies believe. Practically everybody recognizes it apart from Donald Trump who equivocates on the subject.
AARON MATÉ: I have to tell you just because U.S. intelligence agencies say something … And by the way, it’s not even all the intelligence agencies; it’s a handpicked group assembled under the outgoing president, Barack Obama, by James Clapper. They say something, but speaking of empirical evidence, they presented no empirical evidence and they still haven’t. I don’t understand why we’re supposed to take that on faith.
LUKE HARDING: Well I mean you don’t take anything on faith. I mean obviously you seek to verify and to be evidential and to kind of follow leads wherever they go, but when writing my book, I talked a lot of people, one of whom was Steele, but I talked to other sources as well. I think people who are sort of skeptical about the whole kind of Russia thesis and it sounds to me like you are one of those people-
AARON MATÉ: I am. Yes, I am.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah. Right. Don’t kind of quite appreciate the nature of Vladimir Putin’s state. I mean I lived there for four years. I was there for between 2007 and 2011. I was eventually kind of kicked out for writing stories about kleptocracy, about Putin’s fortune, about human rights, about journalists. I’m not sure if you know, but some of my friends in Moscow who are journalists have been murdered. This is not a nice or benign regime. It’s-
AARON MATÉ: [crosstalk 00:10:04] I’m certainly not arguing that Vladimir Putin is a nice person or that he has great policies, but to me though, that doesn’t automatically mean that he waged a massive influence campaign that got Donald Trump elected. Part of the reason why I’m skeptical of that is that, again, there still is actual … There’s zero evidence so far. There’s a lot of supposition and innuendo.
LUKE HARDING: Well I’m a journalist. I’m a storyteller. I’m not head of the CIA or the NSA, but what I can tell you is that there have been similar operations in France most recently when President Macron was elected.
AARON MATÉ: Well actually, Luke, that’s not true. That’s actually … That’s straight up not true. The French … After that election, the French cyber intelligence agency came out and said it could have been virtually anybody.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah, if you’d let me finish, there have been attacks on the German parliament.
AARON MATÉ: Okay. [crosstalk 00:13:13] but wait, Luke. Do you concede that the France hack that you just claimed didn’t happen?
LUKE HARDING: That it didn’t happen? Sorry?
AARON MATÉ: Do you concede that the France, that the Russian hacking of the French election that you just claimed actually is not true?
LUKE HARDING: Well I mean that it’s not true? I meant the French report was inconclusive, but you have to look at this kind of contextually. We’ve seen other attacks on European states as well from Russia, that they have very kind of advanced cyber capabilities.
AARON MATÉ: Where else?
LUKE HARDING: Sorry?
AARON MATÉ: Well else?
LUKE HARDING: Well Estonia. Have you heard of Estonia? It’s a state in the Baltics which was crippled by a massive cyberattack in 2008 which certainly all kind of Western European and former Eastern European states think was carried out by Moscow. I mean I was in Moscow at the time where relations between the two countries were extremely bad. This is a kind of ongoing thing. Now you might say, quite legitimately, “Well the U.S. does the same thing. The UK does the same thing,” and I think to a certain extent that is certainly right. I think what was different last year was the attempt to kind of dump this stuff up out into kind of U.S. public space and to try and influence public opinion there. That’s unusual. Of course that’s a matter of congressional inquiry and something Mueller is looking at too.
AARON MATÉ: Right. But again, my problem here is that the examples that are frequently presented to substantiate claims of this massive Russian hacking operation around the world prove out to be false. So France as I mentioned. You also mentioned Germany. There was a lot of worry about Russian hacking of the German elections, but it turned out — and there’s plenty of articles since then that have acknowledged this — that there was no Russian hacking of Germany.
LUKE HARDING: I’m afraid there was hacking of the Bundestag, the German parliament, in 2015. I spent four years as a correspondent in Berlin. I do understand your skepticism, but I think maybe you might just go to Moscow for a couple of weeks, talk to human rights people. There’s a fantastic organization there called Memorial. Meet Alexei Navalny who’s the main kind of opposition candidate there who’s an anti-corruption campaigner whose brother has been jailed for his activities and who’s been disqualified by the Kremlin from standing in the election. Just talk to people, ask them about Kremlin hacking, ask them about whether they think … I mean talk to Russians on this.
AARON MATÉ: The Russians … The Russians I’ve spoken to … And again, I obviously can’t speak to everybody. The ones I’ve spoken to think all this is ridiculous. Again, no one’s … I’m not arguing that the Russian government is not a repressive right-wing state. It is, but that doesn’t mean that it’s managed to elect a president. Let me ask you-
LUKE HARDING: What was — Sorry. What do you think Russian spy agencies do? You think they sit around having cups of tea or-
AARON MATÉ: I think they do … Luke, come on. I think Russian spy agencies do what all spy agencies do: they carry out the government’s interests abroad. Again, I don’t see how you get from that to they pulled off a massive conspiracy to elect a president based on the fact that back when Donald Trump was hosting The Apprentice they had the foresight to see a future U.S. president who they were going to get elected.
LUKE HARDING: No, I mean that’s a kind of caricatural sort of précis of what’s happening.
AARON MATÉ: But it’s true. According to the Steele dossier, the cultivated Trump when he was hosting the Apprentice.
LUKE HARDING: Well I mean that they cultivated Trump, I’ve got no doubts about. By the way, talk to … I mean I’ve talked to a lot of people about Steele. I mean he was a kind of British intelligence guy for 22 years. He spent three years in Soviet Moscow between 1990 and 1993 where he saw the kind of collapse of this kind of empire first hand and the end of communism. He is … You may not like it, but he’s actually regarded in London and Washington as being pretty credible. Before the Trump dossier, he produced a series of other reports including on the war in Ukraine in 2014 using the same sources that he used for his sort of Trump memos which actually were true and were read by the State Department, even read by John Kerry when he was U.S. Secretary of State. There is a kind of context to all this.
AARON MATÉ: Luke, Luke, why should we care if people who we haven’t met, anonymous officials, say that this ex-British spy who was hired by Donald Trump’s political opponents, first Republicans then the Clinton campaign, say that he’s credible? What matters is the evidence, and whether there’s evidence of, for example, Steele’s claim that Donald Trump hired prostitutes and that Putin has a tape of that. I mean you I’m sure admit that these are pretty wild claims, and instead of just believing them based on the fact that some people say he’s credible, we should have evidence.
LUKE HARDING: Did you read my book by the way?
AARON MATÉ: Well listen, I did what I usually do when I do a book-
LUKE HARDING: So you didn’t even read [crosstalk 00:18:23]-
AARON MATÉ: I skimmed through it, and actually I have some parts that I want to quote for you. Go ahead. Listen, yes. I did not read the full book. No, I did not, but I skimmed through it as I do when I do book interviews because it’s hard to find time to read full books. Go ahead.
LUKE HARDING: I understand that. I mean … Sorry. The lights just out here. I think if you’d read my book which unfortunately you didn’t before you decided to do the interview, you would have seen that there’s a whole history of the FSB and its kind of KGB predecessor doing these kind of entrapment operations going back to the Cold War, enticing American diplomats, British diplomats, and so on with kind of honeypots. The KGB even had a kind of term for the kind of attractive young women they would send to kind of seduce and try and compromise officials. They called them “swallows,” which is a rather kind of pleasant and poetic title. Really anyone who knows Russia or has bothered to read books on the Cold War sort of realizes this is precisely what they do.
Now did they do it with Donald Trump? We don’t know. Steele thinks they did. Donald Trump will know the answer to that question for sure, and so will Vladimir Putin. I think one of the kind of themes through the last few months which I think probably you would agree on is that Donald Trump is incredibly nice about Mr. Putin when he’s very rude about a whole host of other leaders including, for example, Theresa May, the Prime Minister in my town, in England or the Germans or Angela Merkel. We see this repeatedly.
AARON MATÉ: I agree, Luke. He has affinity for right-wing leaders. He speaks highly of Putin. He speaks highly of … I’ve never heard him insult Netanyahu. I’ve never heard him speak critically of Netanyahu, but that doesn’t mean that I think that Netanyahu controls [Trump]. Even though, by the way, there’s more proof of collusion, right now at least, with Netanyahu than Putin because we know now from the indictment of Flynn that Netanyahu got Trump and his team to try to undermine Obama at the UN when Obama was going to let pass a UN vote critical of Israel.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah. I mean I understand that, but I think it goes beyond the sort of Trump-Putin relationship. It goes beyond a kind of affinity with kind of ultra-nationalist dictators. You can call it that, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think Putin genuinely does have [inaudible 00:20:47] of Donald Trump.
AARON MATÉ: And my point is that just because Trump hasn’t criticized Putin doesn’t mean that he is Putin’s puppet. By that logic, he also would be Netanyahu’s puppet too. Let me … In terms of the book … Go ahead. Please.
LUKE HARDING: But I’m not saying that he’s Putin’s puppet, that’s your word, that’s not my word. But go on.
AARON MATÉ: Okay. Well listen. In terms of the book, I will … I do want to quote you one part that I did read that I found interesting which is where you are talking about the potential connections between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, and the Russian government. You spoke to a Manafort associate. Hopefully I have his name … Hopefully I can pronounce his name properly. Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik wrote you by email in response to your questions about his relationship with Manafort, and you recount that Kilimnik responded by telling you that the collusion issue was gibberish and then he signed his email off by saying “Off to collect my paycheck at KGB.” Then he has an emoji smiley face with two parentheses. Okay.
You write “The thing which gave me pause was Kilimnik’s use of smiley faces. True, Russians are big emoticon fans, but I’ve seen something similar before. In 2013, the Russian diplomat in charge of political influence operations in London was named Sergey Nalobin. Nalobin had close links with Russian intelligence. He was a son of a KGB general. His brother worked for the FSB. Nalobin looked like a career foreign intelligence officer.” You go on to write “On a Twitter feed, Nalobin described himself thus: a brutal agent of the Putin dictatorship, smiley face.” So are you inferring there that because two Russians used a smiley face that that’s proof that Manafort’s associate was a tool of the Russian government?
LUKE HARDING: No. I mean really what you’re doing is now rather a sort of silly exercise. You haven’t read the book, but you’re taking one small bit and jumping on that.
AARON MATÉ: Because you’re using emoticons as proof of a Russian tie so I’m asking you about it.
LUKE HARDING: If you let me-
AARON MATÉ: Okay. Please. Yeah.
LUKE HARDING: Your kind of question and maybe you could read the rest of the book when you finish the interview, but I mean Kilimnik is the guy that Paul Manafort last summer emailed about trying to set up a kind of private briefing — this is where Manafort is still Trump’s campaign manager — for a very famous oligarch called Oleg Deripaska. Now Deripaska more or less sort of sits at the right hand of Putin. He certainly has very close relations with him.
I think it’s perfectly kind of legitimate to ask what kind of role Kilimnik was playing. I emailed him. We’re in kind of correspondence. He’s still in contact, by the way, with Paul Manafort. He was emailing him a couple weeks ago. Manafort, I met. I mean there’s a chapter about what he was doing in Ukraine, about his work for Victor Yanukovych, about how Yanukovych became a kind of kleptocrat. He’s now been indicted with money laundering, with conspiracy against the U.S. by Robert Mueller. So I think it’s perfectly legitimate to look at him.
AARON MATÉ: Luke, I’m not saying it’s not legitimate. I’m taking issue with you writing “The thing which gave me pause was Kilimnik’s use of smiley faces,” as if the use of smiley faces is somehow evident of a nefarious Russian government tie. By the way, let me ask you about Manafort. What was Manafort doing in Ukraine? Because as I think you even acknowledge in the book, again, because I did read through it … You even acknowledge in the book that Manafort was not even trying to steer Yanukovych towards a pro-Kremlin policy. I mean that’s widely reported that he actually was trying to orient Yanukovych towards the West.
LUKE HARDING: Well I mean it’s more complicated than that. I mean certainly some of the things he did were kind of pro-Western, but at the same time what Manafort really did was to take someone who was essentially a kind of post-Soviet crook and gangster and refashioned him into the image of a kind of modern Western-style politician. It was quite successful. When I met Manafort in 2008, he told me that Yanukovych believed in the rule of law, that he’d changed, that he was not a creature of Moscow anymore, and so on.
This strategy worked quite effectively. In 2010, Yanukovych became president. Then when he did that, the first thing he did was to jail the main opposition leader, someone called Yulia Tymoshenko. Basically kind of suborn parliament, get rid of independent courts, and loot the state to the tune of billions of dollars. What I actually write in my book is that everything that Manafort told me during this 2008 period was essentially a lie. It was kind of untrue.
Now we now know from Mueller that Manafort made about $75 million allegedly from his activities in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and in Moscow. Of course his next client after Yanukovych who skipped after Russia with his billions was Donald Trump. One question that I’ve never been able to get a satisfactory answer for is how did Manafort end up running Donald Trump’s campaign. You have to look at the constellation of people around Donald Trump, and very many of them, not all of them but very many of them, had a kind of Russian connection whether it’s Wilbur Ross, the secretary of state, or Michael Flynn, or Carter Page, or George Papadopoulos who’s been done for lying to the FBI, or Wilbur Ross, the Commerce secretary. I mean you can be benign and say it’s a curious coincidence, but I think it’s more than that.
AARON MATÉ: Well I think Manafort is a longtime Republican operative, and I don’t think the answer necessarily is that, because he had ties to a Ukrainian president who he was trying to orient towards an anti-Russian policy essentially which, by the way, does not, I think, add weight to the argument that Manafort was in Putin’s pocket if he’s trying to get Yanukovych to steer towards the West, but I think we can move on from that point.
Let’s wrap, Luke. Can we agree then that there is no proof of collusion? There even is no proof of hacking. If I have it right from you, the main reason to question, to think that there is a tie between Trump and Russia is a.) the financial connections between people in his circle and Russians possibly, and also the fact that Russia has a history as we’ve heard you outline of cultivating foreigners.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah. I mean I don’t agree. I mean this is your view of there’s no collusion and there’s no proof of hacking. I mean this is what you assert.
AARON MATÉ: I said there’s no proof of it, yes.
LUKE HARDING: Firstly, I don’t accept that. I don’t think that’s the case. But what I was trying to say at the beginning was just to explain that actually what happened last year happens in a kind of wider context of Soviet and Russian espionage. We haven’t really talked very much about Vladimir Putin, about the kind of person he is. I mean he’s a former KGB agent who spent most of his career in an organization that regards the United States as an adversary, not just any old adversary, but what you say in Russian is called the glavnyy protivnik, the main adversary. He thinks about America in kind of zero-sum terms. He thinks that’s what good for Russia is bad for America and vice versa.
There’s no doubt that he disliked Obama, that he loathed Hillary Clinton, and that he was very, very keen for Donald Trump to win. I mean you just have to look at Russia … I mean, I speak Russian. Look at Russian state media in the run-up who were portraying Hillary as a kind of deranged mad woman warmonger and Trump as a kind of peaceful nice guy with whom Russia could do business. There were kind of clear preferences, but also there’s this history of espionage which is still, whether you like it or not, whether you accept it or not, very much ongoing and I think we’ll see again both in 2018 and in 2020.
AARON MATÉ: Okay. I guess I’ll just say I think we’re conflating the fact that Putin is not a nice person, that yes he does not like Hillary Clinton, he loathes the U.S. for many reasons including the expansion of NATO — I think we’re conflating that with evidence and a conclusion that that meant that he cultivated Trump and intervened in the election. I think those two things are different.
LUKE HARDING: That’s your view. It would be great if you could go to Moscow, go to Kiev, go to the post-Soviet world, talk to people from the Russian opposition, talk to human rights activists, talk to journalists whose colleagues have been murdered, and perhaps understand a little bit better the kind of state that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is. I think you’d be doing yourself a service and you’d be doing your listeners a service.
AARON MATÉ: I don’t think I’ve countered anything you’ve said about the state of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The issue under discussion today has been whether there was collusion, the topic of your book.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah, I know, but you’re clearly a collusion rejectionist. I’m not kind of sure what evidence short of Trump and Putin in the sauna together would convince you. Clearly nothing would convince you.
AARON MATÉ: But again … No. But again, well look. This gets back to the issue. The question is whether there is any evidence so far, and I don’t see it. It looks like Luke has logged off. Is that true? Well we’ve lost Luke Harding. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but regardless we’re going to wrap the interview here. The book is called Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. I’m Aaron Mate. Thanks for joining us on The Real News.

(TheRealNews, 12/23/2017)  (Archive)

An ecstatic Hillary Clinton celebrates at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention where she accepted the nomination on Thursday, July 28, 2016. (Credit: Ben Lowy/ Time)

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of my client, Alabama engineer Shaun McCutcheon, in his challenge to the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) outdated “aggregate limits,” which effectively limited how many candidates any one donor could support.

Anti-speech liberals railed against McCutcheon’s win, arguing it would create supersized “Joint Fundraising Committees” (JFCs). In court, they claimed these JFCs would allow a single donor to cut a multimillion-dollar check, and the JFC would then route funds through dozens of participating state parties, who would then funnel it back to the final recipient.

Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer claimed the Supreme Court’s McCutcheon v. FEC ruling would lead to “the system of legalized bribery recreated that existed prior to Watergate.” The Supreme Court, in ruling for us, flatly stated such a scheme would still be illegal.

The Democrats’ response? Hold my beer.

The Committee to Defend the President has filed an FEC complaint against Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic state parties and Democratic mega-donors.

As Fox News reported, we documented the Democratic establishment “us[ing] state chapters as straw men to circumvent campaign donation limits and launder(ing) the money back to her campaign.” The 101-page complaint focused on the Hillary Victory Fund (HVF) — the $500 million joint fundraising committee between the Clinton campaign, DNC, and dozens of state parties — which did exactly what the Supreme Court declared would still be illegal.

HVF solicited six-figure donations from major donors, including Calvin Klein and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, and routed them through state parties en route to the Clinton campaign. Roughly $84 million may have been laundered in what might be the single largest campaign finance scandal in U.S. history.

Here’s what we know. Campaign finance law is incredibly complex and infamous for its lack of clarity. As I’ve explained before, its complexity is a feature, not a bug. Major political players with the resources to hire the very few attorneys who practice campaign finance law benefit from the complexity that keeps others out. Perhaps HVF’s architects thought so too, and assumed that if no one understands what’s happening, no one would complain.

Here’s what you can do, legally. Per election, an individual donor can contribute $2,700 to any candidate, $10,000 to any state party committee, and (during the 2016 cycle) $33,400 to a national party’s main account. These groups can all get together and take a single check from a donor for the sum of those contribution limits — it’s legal because the donor cannot exceed the base limit for any one recipient. And state parties can make unlimited transfers to their national party.

Here’s what you can’t do, which the Clinton machine appeared to do anyway. As the Supreme Court made clear in McCutcheon v. FEC, the JFC may not solicit or accept contributions to circumvent base limits, through “earmarks” and “straw men” that are ultimately excessive — there are five separate prohibitions here.

On top of that, six-figure donations either never actually passed through state party accounts or were never actually under state party control, which adds false FEC reporting by HVF, state parties, and the DNC to the laundry list.

Finally, as Donna Brazile and others admitted, the DNC placed the funds under the Clinton campaign’s direct control, a massive breach of campaign finance law that ties the conspiracy together.

Democratic donors, knowing the funds would end up with Clinton’s campaign, wrote six-figure checks to influence the election — 100 times larger than allowed.

HVF bundled these megagifts and, on a single day, reported transferring money to all participating state parties, some of which would then show up on FEC reports filed by the DNC as transferring the exact same dollar amount on the exact same day to the DNC. Yet not all the state parties reported either receiving or transferring those sums.

Did any of these transfers actually happen? Or were they just paper entries to mask direct transfers to the DNC?

For perspective, conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was prosecuted and convicted in 2012 for giving a handful of associates money they then contributed to a candidate of his preference — in other words, straw  man contributions. He was sentenced to eight months in a community confinement center and five years of probation. How much money was involved? Only $20,000. HVF weighs in at $84 million — more than 4,000 times larger!

So who should be worried? Everyone involved — from the donors themselves to Democratic fundraisers to party officials who filed false reports and, ultimately, to Clinton campaign and HVF officials looking at significant legal jeopardy.

Don’t take my word for it. Our complaint is built entirely on the FEC reports filed by Democrats, memos authored by Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook, and public statements from Donna Brazile and others.

The only question that matters: Was the law broken? If the answer is yes, then the corrupt Clinton machine should be held accountable. (Investors Business Daily, 12/27/2017)  (Archive)

Shaltai Boltai aka Humpty Dumpty

(…) I explored Shaltai Boltai’s confession to the FBI that they were the DNC hackers. Shaltai Boltai (aka Humpty Dumpty) tried to confess to the FBI after they were caught by the Russian government for treason. They hoped to get extradited to the USA. Remember that fact for the moment.

Shaltai Boltai’s Yevgeny Nikulin was interviewed by the FBI. According to Disobedient Media’s Adam Carter, Nikulin has stated in a letter passed to his lawyer Martin Sadilek, that after his arrest on October 5, 2016, he was visited by the FBI several times, the first of which was on 14-15 November, 2016.

During those visits, Nikulin alleges that the FBI had asked him to confess to hacking John Podesta’s emails. To quote the Newsweek article that reported it: the FBI visited him at least a couple of times, offering to drop the charges and grant him U.S. citizenship as well as cash and an apartment in the U.S. if the Russian national confessed to participating in the 2016 hacks of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta’s emails in July.”

On Friday, July 13th, According to the New York Times story, Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers. They are accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But according to the Times, “the indictment made no reference to previous DNC hacks by a different Russian Intel Agency. That agency was accused of spying, these 12 Russians indicted are accused of trying to influence the election.”

The Times, Washington Post, and every other news outlet knows Robert Mueller finally got his man. Even the CyberSec, InfoSec, and other Sec communities are supporting the indictments. In their eyes, Robert Mueller won one for the team.

Over the last few days, I’ve been involved in Twitter chats with respected CyberSec/InfoSec people that ridiculed my ID of Fancy Bear because it didn’t jibe with Robert Mueller. That’s not something I’d always call a bad thing but when they changed their tune without realizing it, it made me wonder if they understood the information the way it was being presented.

Marcy Wheeler @emptywheel linked an article at The Intercept “What Mueller’s Indictment Reveals About Russian and US Spycraft.” She made the point that she had seen this evidence and it was compelling.

What new information was this cyber expert smitten with? According to Mueller’s indictment of the 12 Russian Nationals, he has the email address that identified DNC hackers that made up the group of indicted Ruskie phishermen.

According to the Intercept article “For example, the spear-phishing emails that John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair, and others received included links to the URL shortening service Bitly. The Bitly account that created these links was registered using the email address “dirbinsaabol at mail.com .” The attackers used that same email address to create an account on a provider where they leased a server, which they paid for using an “online cryptocurrency service” (based on the wording of some instructions quoted in the indictment, I think the service in question may be BitPay).”

If you know anything about that specific email dirbinsaabol at mail.com and the cryptocurrency service you know exactly how Mueller got that particular email address. The group of hackers the email address belongs to are notorious dirtbags and didn’t pay King Servers for server rentals they used for their exploits.

The Russian company King Servers was understandably put-off and called the FBI to teach the little criminals a thing or two about crime on Russian soil. Mueller didn’t get this information through his CyberSec community ninja kung fu. The moral is if you choose to do bad things, make sure to pay your bills.

So whose email was it? The email accounts belong to Shaltai Boltai who provided all the false information for the February indictment about the St. Petersburg Troll Farm. If you read the article linked to Mueller’s evidence, Shaltai Boltai explicitly states their purpose was to hurt Russia. They made the documents, emails, and other evidence to create the Internet Research Company. Some of what’s left on their blog entries are notable and undeniable.

For evidence of the Troll factory existence, they built a trail with faked corporate emails from Russians that don’t speak Russian well and are supposed to be lawyers.

All of this information is vital for properly identifying the hackers and influencers based on Mueller’s indictment. The owners of that email address are Shaltai Boltai and except for one member are all in jail for treason against Russia. Shaltai Boltai was working against Russia and giving information to the US and Ukraine. That would be the best reason Mueller can’t extradite them. The FBI’s history of trying to work deals with them would be another good reason for leaving them in Russian jails.” (Read more: OpEdNews, 7/21/2018)  (Archive)

(Credit: Revolver News graphic)

(…) Meanwhile, our elected officials are dipping into our tax dollars to clean up all their messes. Don’t forget revelations from a few years ago that Congress has its own secret slush fund of hush money—all courtesy of you, the hapless taxpayer. Funny how that works, it’s like one rule for them, and another for everyone else.

Indeed, Office of Congressional Compliance (OOC) which was set up to ensure compliance with the ludicrously named 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, controls a whole treasure chest of disputes involving congressional officials—not just congressional officials, in fact. You’ll be pleased to know that the Capitol Police, the Congressional Budget Office, and many other legislative groups get to wet their beaks in this slush fund as well. Recent reports have indicated that over 17 million dollars has been used from this fund to take care of various “hush” projects on behalf of members of congress and other agencies.

However, one thing is true, there is a lot of confusion and misinformation surrounding that “sexy slush fund.” So, let’s debunk some common misconceptions about this secret hush money to shed light on just how corrupt our government truly is. First off, the $17 million figure was not solely paid out to sexual abuse victims, that we know of. We’re told that it represents the total settlements from 1997 to 2017, covering a slew of issues from sexual misconduct to various forms of discrimination lawsuits. The problem is, we don’t know how much of that $17 million was used for sexual misconduct, because supposedly, nobody kept track, and for some unknown reason, can’t go back in time and figure it out.

CNN:

According to a report from the Office of Compliance, more than $17 million has been paid out in settlements over a period of 20 years – 1997 to 2017.

How many settlements have there been?
According to the OOC data released Thursday, there have been 268 settlements. On Wednesday, Rep. Jackie Speier, the California Democrat who unveiled a bill to reform the OOC, announced at a news conference Wednesday that there had been 260 settlements. The previous tally did not include settlements paid in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Where did the settlement money come from?
Taxpayers. Once a settlement is reached, the money is not paid out of an individual lawmaker’s office but rather comes out of a special fund set up to handle this within the US Treasury – meaning taxpayers are footing the bill. The fund was set up by the Congressional Accountability Act, the 1995 law that created the Office of Compliance.

How many of the settlements were sexual harassment-related?
It’s not clear. Speier told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the 260 settlements represent those related to all kinds of complaints, including sexual harassment as well as racial, religious or disability-related discrimination complaints. The OOC has not made public the breakdown of the settlements, and Speier says she’s pursuing other avenues to find out the total.

In its latest disclosure, the OOC said that statistics on payments are “not further broken down into specific claims because settlements may involve cases that allege violations of more than one of the 13 statutes incorporated by the (Congressional Accountability Act).”

Who knows about the settlements and payments?
After a settlement is reached, a payment must be approved by the chairman and ranking member of the House administration committee, an aide to Chairman Gregg Harper, a Mississippi Republican, told CNN.

The aide also said that “since becoming chair of the committee, Chairman Harper has not received any settlement requests.” Harper became chairman of the panel at the beginning of this year.

It’s not clear how many other lawmakers – if any – in addition to the House administration committee’s top two members are privy to details about the settlements and payments.

The most infamous sexual abuse case we do know about involves a now-deceased former highfalutin Democrat lawmaker from Michigan named John Conyer. This article is from 2017 and basically blew the lid off the secret “sexy slush fund.”

BuzzFeed:

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”

Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sex acts, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.

Conyers confirmed he made the settlement in a statement Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was published, but said that he “vehemently denied” the claims of sexual harassment at the time and continues to do so.

And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.

“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution.

Last week the Washington Post reported that Congress’s Office of Compliance paid out $17 million for 264 settlements with federal employees over 20 years for various violations, including sexual harassment. The Conyers documents, however, give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures.

Mr. Conyers wasn’t paraded into court for using our tax dollars to quiet down a victim, was he? We’d love to do a little digging and see if any other lawmakers or federal employees got the same treatment as President Trump, but guess what? We don’t know the names of the federally employed folks who dipped into this congressional “hush money” honey pot.

What we’re witnessing in the United States is a prime example of peak corruption in action. Federal employees can get away with sexual assault left and right, and when they’re caught, the slush fund jumps into action to hush it up, no questions asked. And instead of these scumbags facing the music, it’s President Trump who’s under the microscope and being dragged through a sham political trial.

We should be used to this shameless “two-tier” injustice system by now. (Read more: Revolver News, 4/16/2024)  (Archive)

Hillary Clinton (Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

“The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which works to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives, disbursed millions of its funds to Hillary Clinton’s “resistance” group since late December 2017, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The DCCC made the millions in payments to Onward Together, a nonprofit founded by Clinton following her loss to President Donald Trump, for its email lists. The payments from the DCCC to Onward Together began in December 2017. Since that time, the committee reported 25 transactions to Clinton’s group totaling slightly more than $3 million, the filings show. The most recent payments from the DCCC to the committee were made in February.

In addition to the DCCC, the Democratic National Committee pushed $1.65 million to Clinton’s group throughout 2018. The payments from the DNC, which were marked primarily as list acquisitions with one payment going towards direct mail, stopped in late October of last year.

Clinton launched Onward Together to allow her to be a “part of the resistance” against Trump and Republicans following the 2016 elections. The group was incorporated in April 2017 by Marc Elias, a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of the Perkins Coie law firm, who is involved with a number of Democratic politicians and party efforts. Elias acted as Clinton’s top lawyer during her failed 2016 run and is now aiding Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D., Calif.) presidential campaign.

Onward Together was established to push money to other resistance groups and to assist them with strategic leadership, guidance, and exposure. The group is registered as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, or a “social welfare” organization, and does not disclose its donors.” (Read more: The Washington Free Beacon, 5/22/2019)

James Comey (Credit: Gary Cameron/Reuters)

“Ex-FBI Director James Comey’s original statement closing out the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email server was edited by subordinates to remove five separate references to terms like “grossly negligent” and to delete mention of evidence supporting felony and misdemeanor violations, according to copies of the full document.

Comey also originally concluded that it was “reasonably likely” that Clinton’s nonsecure private server was accessed or hacked by hostile actors, though there was no evidence to prove it. But that passage was also changed to the much weaker “possible,” the memos show.

The full draft and edits were released on the website of Senate Homeland and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), providing the most complete public accounting to date of Comey’s draft and the subsequent edits.” (Read more: The Hill, 01/04/2018)

The front cover of New York’s Daily News on October 29, 2016, just days before the election. (Credit: New York Daily News)

“Judicial Watch revealed today that there are at least 18 classified emails in the 798 documents recently produced by the State Department from the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illicit email system. The emails were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, who is the estranged husband of former Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Abedin was Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. Weiner is a disgraced former congressman and New York mayoral candidate who pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor. Abedin kept a non-State.gov email account on Hillary Clinton’s notorious email server that she used repeatedly for government business.

There are five new classified emails among 147 new Abedin work-related documents released by the State Department on Friday, December 29, 2017.

Thirteen emails containing classified information were also found on the Weiner laptop computer that had already been released to the public. This classified material includes discussions about Saudi Arabia, The Hague, Egypt, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the identity of a CIA official, Malawi, the war in Syria, Lebanon, Hamas, and the PLO.

On two occasions, classified material was sent by Abedin on her clintonemail.com account to Weiner’s laptop (sent to “Anthony Campaign”) on November 25, 2010. The email discusses an upcoming call with Prince Saud of “expected WikiLeaks leaks.” Abedin sent classified information the following day to Weiner’s laptop concerning a call that “Jeff” (presumably then- US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman) had with United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.

The Weiner laptop also contains classified material from Abedin’s Blackberry. A July 9, 2011, email contained classified information regarding a then-upcoming call between Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. On November 25, 2011, classified information was sent regarding Feltman’s notes on the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs impression of the Hamas- Palestine Liberation Organization talks. On May 4, 2012, additional classified material from the BlackBerry backup was sent.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 1/04/2018)

(Credit: New York Post)

“The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill.

FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., where the foundation was started, have taken the lead in the investigation and have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, and law enforcement officials said additional activities are expected in the coming weeks.

The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their charitable efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing government outcomes.

The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or political use and whether the foundation complied with applicable tax laws, the officials said.

One witness recently interviewed by the FBI described the session to The Hill as “extremely professional and unquestionably thorough” and focused on questions about whether donors to Clinton charitable efforts received any favorable treatment from the Obama administration on a policy decision previously highlighted in media reports.

The witness discussed his interview solely on the grounds of anonymity. He said the agents were from Little Rock and their questions focused on government decisions and discussions of donations to Clinton entities during the time Hillary Clinton led President Obama’s State Department.

The FBI office in Little Rock referred a reporter Thursday to Washington headquarters, where officials declined any official comment.

Clinton’s chief spokesman, Nick Merrill, on Friday morning excoriated the FBI for re-opening the case, calling the probe “disgraceful” and suggesting it was nothing more than a political distraction from President Trump‘s Russia controversies.

“Let’s call this what it is: a sham,” Merrill said. “This is a philanthropy that does life-changing work, which Republicans have tried to turn into a political football. It began with a now long-debunked project spearheaded by Steve Bannon during the presidential campaign. It continues with Jeff Sessions doing Trump’s bidding by heeding his calls to meddle with a department that is supposed to function independently.” (Read more: The Hill, 1/04/2018)

How vast was the Great COVID Cover-up? Well, my investigation has recently discovered government officials from 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19.

Peter Daszak and Anthony Fauci (Credit: New York Post)

These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.

Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

This project, the DEFUSE project, proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.

For years, I have been fighting to obtain records from dozens of federal agencies relating to the origins of COVID-19 and the DEFUSE project. Under duress, the administration finally released documents that show that the DEFUSE project was pitched to at least 15 agencies in January 2018.

What does this mean?

It means that at least 15 federal agencies knew from the beginning of the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were seeking federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically very similar if not identical to COVID-19.

Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research. Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus.

Ralph Baric surrounded by lab equipment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Credit: Jeremy M. Lange/TIME)

Peter Daszak concealed this proposal. University of North Carolina scientist Ralph Baric, a named collaborator on the DEFUSE project, failed to reveal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had already proposed to create a virus similar to COVID-19.

And now we know that 15 agencies heard the proposal and when each agency discovered that COVID-19 was strangely similar to DEFUSE’s proposed virus creation, not one agency head stepped forward to warn the public that the virus might be man-made and therefore already adapted to transmit freely among humans.

THE ARROGANCE OF ANTHONY FAUCI

Not surprising to some of us, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was not only briefed on Wuhan’s desire to create this virus, NIAID was actually listed as a participant in the initial DEFUSE pitch. Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab was named as a partner alongside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the proposal.

These documents also reveal that a scientist whose lab has received millions of dollars from EcoHealth was also part of the original plan to create these chimeric coronaviruses. This researcher, Ian Lipkin, also later became one of the authors of “Proximal Origins,” a journal paper commissioned by Fauci and National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins to throw shade on anyone arguing that the virus might have come from the lab. Yet, Ian Lipkin never revealed to the public the DEFUSE proposal.

Did NIAID warn us? Did Anthony Fauci warn us? No! All lips remained sealed. (Read more: Fox News, 4/10/2024)  (Archive)

November 2023

“An Australian investigative journalist who is a retired police detective said Tuesday he has been asked to provide the FBI with details about multiple allegations of mishandling millions of dollars contributed to the Clinton Foundation by the Aussie government.

“I have been asked to provide the FBI with further and better particulars about allegations regarding improper donations to the CF funded by Australian taxpayers,” Michael Smith told LifeZette.

At the center of Smith’s complaints are former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and multiple Australian government officials, including senior diplomat Alexander Downer, that government’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom.

(Credit: Michael Smith)

(…) The materials Smith is giving the FBI focus on a 2006 memorandum of understanding between the Australian government and the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI). Smith claims the foundation received a “$25M financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception” as a result of actions by Bill Clinton and Downer, who was then Australia’s minister of foreign affairs.

Also included in the Smith materials are evidence he believes shows “corrupt October 2006 backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability of a $15 million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian government after an agreement was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or associates.”

(…) A third complaint concerns what Smith describes as “the $10 million financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception between April 1, 2008, and Sept. 25, 2008, at Washington, D.C., New York, New York, and Canberra Australia involving an MOU between the Australian government, the “Clinton Climate Initiative,” and the purported “Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute Inc.” (Read more: Lifezette, 1/16/2018)  (Archive)

(James Rybicki Transcript, 1/18/2018)

Nunes Memo

“A much-hyped memo that shows alleged government surveillance abuse during the 2016 campaign has been released to the public and cites testimony from a high-ranking government official who says the FBI and DOJ would not have sought surveillance warrants to spy on a member of the Trump team without the infamous, Democrat-funded anti-Trump dossier.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released the memo Friday. The White House responded by saying the memo “raises serious concerns about the integrity of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI to use the government’s most intrusive surveillance tools against American citizens.”

Fusion GPS, was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie. It included salacious and unverified allegations about Trump’s connections to Russia.

The memo, which has been at the center of an intense power struggle between congressional Republicans and the FBI, specifically cites the DOJ and FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, saying the dossier “formed an essential part” of the application to spy on him.

(…) The memo states that in December 2017, then FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe testified that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” from the FISA court “without the Steele dossier information.” (Read more: Fox News, 2/02/2018)  (Archive)

TRANSCRIPT:

HAASS: Before I call—I just want to put one other issue on the floor before I get another question or two, which is Ukraine. This administration, unlike the administration you worked in, decided to provide limited defense articles to Ukraine. Do you think that was a wise decision? And more broadly, do you see any scope for any sort of a deal on eastern Ukraine?

BIDEN: The answer is yes, I think it was a wise decision. But then again, I was pushing that for two years before we left, so. And the reason is I think the more you up the ante, the cost to Russia for their aggression—I mean, as you all know, and you know this better than anybody, you know, the one big lie going on about Ukraine back in—and the rest of Russia is that no Russian soldiers are engaged. They’re not dying. No body bags are coming home, et cetera. Because there’s overwhelming opposition on the part of the body politic in Russia for engagement in Ukraine in a military sense.

Do I think they’re—I think the Donbas has potential to be able to be solved, but it takes two things. One of those things is missing now. And that is I’m desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kiev in terms of corruption. They made—I mean, I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12^th, 13^th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.

So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.

Well, there’s still—so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionally and with people. But one of the three institutions, there’s now some backsliding.

HAASS: The courts.

BIDEN: They’re—and the—yes. And they had made that commitment that they wouldn’t do that.

(Council of Foreign Relations, 1/23/2018)

In Sidney Powell’s supplemental motion to withdraw General Flynn’s plea on January 29, 2020, the following email was included as an attachment and is from NYT journalist Mark Mazzetti who writes then Flynn attorney, Robert Kelner, suggesting Joseph Pientka was pressured by Andrew McCabe to change his original Flynn 302 report and it is in IG Horowitz’s FISA report. In response, Kelner forwards the email to Mueller prosecutors, Brandon Van Grack and Zainab Ahmad, calling it “disturbing” and asks to discuss it further the next day.

(Pg. 205 – Sidney Powell, 1/29/2020 )

Andrew McCabe is escorted by U.S. Capitol police. (Credit: Getty Images)

“FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was forced to resign Monday, just as the House Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on the public release of a classified memo this afternoon revealing extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse under the Obama administration, sources told this reporter.

McCabe apparently lashed out to his colleagues when he was told he would be asked to resign, according to sources. FBI Director Christopher Wray viewed the four-page memo on Sunday, sources familiar with the discussions said.

McCabe, who is facing three federal inquiries for conflicts-of-interest during his time at the FBI, is one of the numerous names mentioned in the classified memo detailing FISA abuse, according to sources who reviewed the memo.

The federal inquiries into allegations against McCabe, who was expected to resign in March, are based on documents and interviews conducted by this reporter over the past year and range from sexual discrimination to improper political activity.

McCabe, a central figure in the ongoing Russia investigation against Trump, is also part of the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s ongoing review into the FBI’s handling of former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to send classified information.

Current and former FBI officials said McCabe’s resignation is the beginning of more resignations to come.

“There are people lining up in the bureau to go after McCabe,” said a former FBI official, with knowledge. “There will be a clean up at the Bureau of his cronies.” (Read more: Sara A. Carter, 1/29/2018)

“A Silicon Valley charity gave $500,000 to a nonprofit group founded by a former Senate staffer who is working with Fusion GPS and Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), which has received significant funding from tech industry billionaires, gave the donation in 2018 to Advance Democracy Inc., a Virginia-based 501(c)(3) group, according to a database the recipient group runs.

A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found that Advance Democracy shares the same address as The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP), another nonprofit group started by a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer for California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Jones.

Mystery surrounds both of Jones’s operations. The identities of both groups’ donors have largely been kept secret, as Jones has avoided revealing his backers.

The secrecy would appear at odds with Advance Democracy’s website description that it is an “independent, non-partisan organization that promotes accountability, transparency, and good governance in the United States and around the world.

(…) Jones, who worked for Feinstein on the Senate Intelligence Committee through 2015, allegedly told one associate that his operation worked as a “shadow media organization” with the U.S. government, TheDCNF previously reported. He also took credit for planting anti-Trump stories in the press.

Jones formed Advance Democracy on Jan. 29, 2018 — four days after then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley identified Jones in letters seeking information related to Steele’s dossier regarding Trump’s alleged relationship with Russia.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/13/2019)  (Archive)

Hours before a scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to follow President Trump’s nationally televised State of the Union address on Tuesday night, porn star Stormy Daniels issued a signed statement addressed “To Whom It May Concern” that denied an alleged affair with Donald Trump.

“The fact of the matter is that each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017 and now again in 2018,” the signed statement reads. “I am not denying this affair because I was paid ‘hush money’ as has been reported in overseas-owned tabloids. I am denying it because it never happened.”

The alleged affair came to prominence in early January when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen negotiated a secret $130,000 payment to secure Daniels’ silence shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

The White House dismissed the story as “old, recycled reports.” Cohen also released a statement signed by “Stormy Daniels” denying there had been an affair and calling reports of a payment “completely false.”

The celebrity magazine In Touch subsequently published a transcript of an interview it said Daniels gave in 2011. The reporter, Jordi Lippe-McGraw, who spoke with Daniels according to In Touch, confirmed to the Washington Post that the transcript was an accurate reflection of their May 2011 phone interview.

Tuesday’s statement came as Daniels has been cashing in on her new-found notoriety, with sold-out shows at strip clubs, an appearance at the AVN awards show in Las Vegas known as the “Oscars of Porn,” as well as on national media including Inside Edition in addition to Jimmy Kimmel Live! Daniels is also scheduled to appear Thursday on The View.

(…) The authenticity of the signed statement was confirmed Tuesday by Daniels’s representative Gina Rodriguez.

The statement ends abruptly. “I will have no further comment on this matter,” it reads and then concludes with a promotional message: “Please feel free to check me out on Instagram at @thestormydaniels.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1/30/2018) (Archive)

“Against a newly discovered likelihood the Robert Mueller investigation began under false pretenses; and against the backdrop that FBI surveillance and wiretaps were obtained through materially (intentionally) false representations to the FISA court; and against the backdrop the original Flynn plea judge (Contrereas) was also the approving FISA judge; and that judge ‘was summarily recused’ from the case; and against increasing evidence that Mike Flynn was set up by a terminal animus, and politically-motivated investigative rogue unit, operating within the FBI; and against surfacing IG Horowitz evidence that FBI investigators manipulated (lied on) their FD-302 interrogation documents; and understanding those falsified 302’s were used in the Mueller/Flynn charging document…

…Special Counsel Robert Mueller now asks for postponement of sentencing:

(PDF Link)

Both parties did not ‘request‘ a postponement; both parties ‘agreed‘ to a postponement. The motive for the request (Mueller) is entirely divergent from, yet complimentary to, the motive to agree to the request (Flynn).

It is not coincidental that Brandon L Van Grack is the signatory to the delay request by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s request to the new Judge, Emmet G Sullivan.

If, as has been reported, Inspector General Michael Horowitz now has evidence the FBI manipulated their FD-302 (interrogation and questioning) documents, as also admitted by FBI agent Peter Strzok in related matters regarding Clinton…

…and those manipulated or falsified FBI 302’s (containing FBI investigative notes of Michael Flynn’s questioning during the January 2017 interview), were used in the actual Flynn charging documents.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/31/2018)

Rod Rosenstein (Credit: CNN)

“Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to “subpoena” emails, phone records and other documents from lawmakers and staff on a Republican-led House committee during a tense meeting earlier this year, according to emails reviewed by Fox News documenting the encounter and reflecting what aides described as a “personal attack.”

The emails memorialized a January 2018 closed-door meeting involving senior FBI and Justice Department officials as well as members of the House Intelligence Committee. The account claimed Rosenstein threatened to turn the tables on the committee’s inquiries regarding the Russia probe.

“The DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] criticized the Committee for sending our requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee’s request to have DOJ/FBI do the same when responding,” the committee’s then-senior counsel for counterterrorism Kash Patel wrote to the House Office of General Counsel. “Going so far as to say that if the Committee likes being litigators, then ‘we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records and your emails,’ referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and Congress overall.”

A second House committee staffer at the meeting backed up Patel’s account, writing: “Let me just add that watching the Deputy Attorney General launch a sustained personal attack against a congressional staffer in retaliation for vigorous oversight was astonishing and disheartening. … Also, having the nation’s #1 (for these matters) law enforcement officer threaten to ‘subpoena your calls and emails’ was downright chilling.”

The committee staffer noted that Rosenstein’s comment could be interpreted as meaning the department would “vigorously defend a contempt action” — which might be expected. But the staffer continued, “I also read it as a not-so-veiled threat to unleash the full prosecutorial power of the state against us.”

(…) “A DOJ official told Fox News that Rosenstein “never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation.” The official said the department and bureau officials in the room “are all quite clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false,” adding that Rosenstein was responding to a threat of contempt. ” (Read more: Fox News, 6/12/2018)

Devin Nunes and Nancy Pelosi (Credit: public domain)

“Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called for the removal of Rep. Devin Nunes over a controversial classified memo accusing the FBI and Justice Department of surveillance abuses.

Members of the panel have been publicly arguing over whether the document, drafted by the House intelligence committee chairman was altered between being approved by GOP panel members and when it was sent to the White House for further review.

“Chairman Nunes‘ deliberately dishonest actions make him unfit to serve as Chairman, and he must be immediately removed from this position,” Rep. Pelosi wrote in a letter to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan. “As Speaker, put an end to this charade and hold Chairman Nunes and all Congressional Republicans accountable to the oath they have taken to support and defend the Constitution and protect the American people.” (The Washington Times, 2/01/2018)  (Archive)

Devin Nunes (Credit: Brendan Smialowski/Agence France Presse/Getty Images)

“The long-awaited House Intelligence Committee report made public today identifies current and former top officials of the FBI and the Department of Justice as guilty of the felony of misrepresenting evidence required to obtain a court warrant before surveilling American citizens. The target was candidate Donald Trump’s adviser Carter Page.

The main points of what is widely known as the “Nunes Memo,” after the House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), have been nicely summarized by blogger Publius Tacitus, who noted that the following very senior officials are now liable for contempt-of-court charges; namely, the current and former members of the FBI and the Department of Justice who signed off on fraudulent applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: James Comey, Andy McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Ro[d] Rosenstein. The following is Publius Tacitus’s summary of the main points:

• The dubious but celebrated Steele Dossier played a critical role in obtaining approval from the FISA court to carry out surveillance of Carter Page according to former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe.
• Christopher Steele was getting paid by the DNC and the FBI for the same information.
• No one at the FBI or the DOJ disclosed to the court that the Steele dossier was paid for by an opposition political campaign.
• The first FISA warrant was obtained on October 21, 2016 based on a story written by Michael Isikoff for Yahoo News based on information he received directly from Christopher Steele — the FBI did not disclose in the FISA application that Steele was the original source of the information.
• Christopher Steele was a long-standing FBI “source” but was terminated as a source after telling Mother Jones reporter David Corn that he had a relationship with the FBI.
• The FBI signers of the FISA applications/renewals were James Comey (three times) and Andrew McCabe.
• The DOJ signers of the FISA applications/renewals were Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein.

Even after Steele was terminated by the FBI, he remained in contact with Deputy Attorney General Bruce Our, whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, a contractor that was deeply involved with the Steele dossier.

From what Michael Isikoff reported in September 2016 it appears that the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence (as well as the FBI) are implicated in spreading the disinformation about Trump and Russia. Isikoff wrote:

“U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.

But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.”

Who were the “intelligence officials” briefing the select members of the House and Senate? That will be one of the next shoes to drop. We are likely to learn in the coming days that John Brennan and Jim Clapper were also trying to help the FBI build a fallacious case against Trump, adds Tacitus.” (Read more: Consortium News, 2/2/2018)

Josh Campbell appears on CNN to discuss his recent resignation from the FBI. (Credit: CNN screen grab)

“Josh Campbell penned a New York Times Op-Ed on Friday, claiming he was leaving the FBI because of “relentless attacks on the bureau,” but on Monday he proved his column was disingenuous by quickly signing with CNN.

CNN named Campbell the network’s new law enforcement analyst, according to TVNewser and he will reportedly start immediately. However, industry insiders are quick to point out that deals with on-air analysts don’t simply appear out of thin air, especially over a weekend, so CNN and Campbell were presumably in cahoots before he tried to pin his departure from the FBI on attacks that “undermine not just America’s premier law enforcement agency but also the nation’s security.”

Campbell, who was special assistant to former FBI Director James Comey, penned his essay amid increased scrutiny on the FBI from Republicans following the release of Rep. Devin Nunes’, R-Calif., memo.

“I am reluctantly turning in my badge and leaving an organization I love,” Campbell wrote in the Op-Ed. “A small number of my current and retired colleagues have said that we should simply keep our heads down until the storm passes. I say this with the greatest respect: They are wrong.”

It’s safe to assume that most of his “current and retired colleagues” don’t have cushy gigs as a CNN commentator waiting for them. He now joins a significant number of outspoken Trump critics employed by CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker.

CNN did not respond to a request for comment.” (Read more: Fox News, 2/05/18)

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents.

(A snippet of Grassley’s letter)

Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based. “Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said. (Conservative Treehouse, 2/02/2018)

Michael Isikoff (Credit: MSNBC)

Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff said Friday that he was surprised to find out that an article he wrote about Carter Page prior to the election was used to obtain a spy warrant against the former Trump campaign adviser.

The revelation, which was made in a memo released by the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, “stuns me,” Isikoff said in an episode of his podcast, “Skullduggery.”

The four-page memo alleges that the DOJ and FBI submitted inaccurate and incomplete information in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page. The spy warrant was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.

One “essential” part of the application was the uncorroborated Steele dossier, according to the memo. And an article that Isikoff wrote for Yahoo! News on Sept. 23, 2016 that was based directly on the dossier was “cited extensively” in the application.

Isikoff was shocked, he said, because his very article was based on information that came from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier. He said it was “a bit beyond me” that the FBI would use his article in the FISA application. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/03/2018)

The House Intelligence Committee releases the “Nunes Memo” on February 2, 2018, identifying current and former top officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice who misrepresented evidence required to obtain a court warrant before surveilling American citizens. Two days later, Fran Townsend, Victoria Nuland, and Mike Morell appear on Face the Nation with guest host Margaret Brennan to discuss how the release of the memo and how it could impact national security.

(Transcript: Face The Nation, 2/04/2018)

Russian comedians Vladmir Kyzetsov and Alexei Stolyarov known as Vovan & Lexus, prank phone call U.S. Democratic Representative Adam Schiff.

William D.Campbell worked as an informant for federal authorities investigating Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official in charge of US operations for Tenex, a unit of Rosatom. (Credit: TenamUSA)

“An FBI informant connected to the Uranium One controversy told three congressional committees in a written statement that Moscow routed millions of dollars to America with the expectation it would be used to benefit Bill Clinton‘s charitable efforts while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quarterbacked a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations.

The informant, [William] Douglas Campbell, said in the statement obtained by The Hill that he was told by Russian nuclear executives that Moscow had hired the American lobbying firm APCO Worldwide specifically because it was in position to influence the Obama administration, and more specifically Hillary Clinton.

Democrats have cast doubt on Campbell’s credibility, setting the stage for a battle with Republicans over his testimony.

Campbell added in the testimony that Russian nuclear officials “told me at various times that they expected APCO to apply a portion of the $3 million annual lobbying fee it was receiving from the Russians to provide in-kind support for the Clintons’ Global Initiative.”

“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.”

APCO officials told The Hill that its support for the Clinton Global Initiative and its work with Russia were not connected in any way, and in fact involved different divisions of the firm. They added their lobbying for Russia did not involve Uranium One but rather focused on regulatory issues aimed at helping Russia better compete for nuclear fuel contracts inside the United States. (Read more: The Hill, 2/07/18)

Senator Ron Johnson (Credit: Getty Images)

“U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a majority staff report Wednesday titled “The Clinton Email Scandal And The FBI’s Investigation Of It,” along with text messages between two agents that shed light on the investigation. The report details the congressional investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s involvement with their investigation of Secretary Clinton’s private server.

The report outlines how information available to the committee at this time raises serious questions about how the FBI applied the rule of law in its investigation. The majority staff report found that:

• The FBI did not use a grand jury to compel testimony and obtain the vast majority of evidence, choosing instead to offer immunity deals and allow fact witnesses to join key interviews.

• There were substantial edits to former FBI Director James Comey’s public statement that served to downplay the severity of Secretary Clinton’s actions, and that the first draft of the memo was distributed for editing two months before key witnesses were interviewed.

• Director Comey stated that he had not consulted with the Justice Department or White House, when text messages among FBI agents involved in the investigation suggest otherwise. Two key investigators discuss an “insurance policy” against the “risk” of a Trump presidency, and “OUR task.”

• Messages discuss “unfinished business,” “an investigation leading to impeachment,” and “my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.” The messages strongly underscore the need to obtain still-missing text messages and other information regarding the FBI’s actions and investigations into the Clinton email scandal and Russian involvement in the November 2016 election.

• Senior FBI officials—likely including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe— knew about newly discovered emails on a laptop belonging to former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner for almost a month before Director Comey notified Congress.

The full report can be found here.

The FBI text messages can be found here.

The letters Chairman Johnson has sent to various agencies and source documents can be found here.

(Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2/07/2018)

“As part of their continued efforts to conduct oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) discovered a partially unclassified email sent by President Obama’s former National Security Advisor (NSA) Susan Rice to herself on January 20, 2017 – President Trump’s inauguration day.

(…) Grassley and Graham have asked Ambassador Rice to answer a set of questions by February 22, 2018 so the committee may further assess the situation. The full text of their letter is below.

Dear Ambassador Rice:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the FBI and the broader Department of Justice.  Part of that duty involves ensuring that law enforcement efforts are conducted without improper political influence.  Accordingly, the Committee has been investigating the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele during the time his work was funded by Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee, as well as the FBI’s reliance on his unverified third-hand allegations in the Bureau’s representations to courts.

As part of that effort, the Committee sent a request to the National Archives for records of meetings between President Obama and then-FBI Director Comey regarding the FBI’s investigation of allegations of collusion between associates of Mr. Trump and the Russian government.  In response, the Committee received classified and unclassified versions of an email you sent to yourself on January 20, 2017 – President Trump’s inauguration day.  If the timestamp is correct, you sent this email to yourself at 12:15pm, presumably a very short time before you departed the White House for the last time.

In this email to yourself, you purport to document a meeting that had taken place more than two weeks before, on January 5, 2017.  You wrote:

On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office.  Vice President Biden and I were also present.

That meeting reportedly included a discussion of the Steele dossier and the FBI’s investigation of its claims.[1]  Your email continued:

President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book”.  The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.  He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.

From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.

The next part of your email remains classified.  After that, you wrote:

The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team.  Comey said he would.

It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation.  In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed “by the book,” substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed “by the book.”

In order for the Committee to further assess the situation, please respond to the following by February 22, 2018:

Did you send the email attached to this letter to yourself?  Do you have any reason to dispute the timestamp of the email?

When did you first become aware of the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia?

When did you become aware of any surveillance activities, including FISA applications, undertaken by the FBI in conducting that investigation?  At the time you wrote this email to yourself, were you aware of either the October 2016 FISA application for surveillance of Carter Page or the January 2017 renewal?

Did anyone instruct, request, suggest, or imply that you should send yourself the aforementioned Inauguration Day email memorializing President Obama’s meeting with Mr. Comey about the Trump/Russia investigation?  If so, who and why?

Is the account of the January 5, 2017 meeting presented in your email accurate?  Did you omit any other portions of the conversation?

Other than that email, did you document the January 5, 2017 meeting in any way, such as contemporaneous notes or a formal memo?  To the best of your knowledge, did anyone else at that meeting take notes or otherwise memorialize the meeting?

During the meeting, did Mr. Comey or Ms. Yates mention potential press coverage of the Steele dossier?  If so, what did they say?

During the meeting, did Mr. Comey describe the status of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele, or the basis for that status?

When and how did you first become aware of the allegations made by Christopher Steele?

When and how did you first become aware that the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded Mr. Steele’s efforts?

You wrote that President Obama stressed that he was “not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.”  Did President Obama ask about, initiate, or instruct anything from any other perspective relating to the FBI’s investigation?

Did President Obama have any other meetings with Mr. Comey, Ms. Yates, or other government officials about the FBI’s investigation of allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russia?  If so, when did these occur, who participated, and what was discussed?

(Read more: Senate Judiciary Committee, 2/12/2018)  (Archive)