George Soros contributed $1 million to TDIP. Fund for a Better Future (FBF) donated $2,065,000 in 2017.
“Armed Services panel secretly fought court battle this summer to quash subpoena seeking records of contacts with ex-FBI official Daniel Jones and liberal-funded The Democracy Integrity Project nonprofit.
The efforts to disseminate a now-discredited theory that the Trump campaign had secret computer communications with the Kremlin extended beyond the FBI, CIA, and State Department to the U.S. Senate.
Under the late Sen. John McCain, the Armed Services Committee engaged a former FBI official and his progressive-funded nonprofit to produce a report on the matter, according to court records obtained by Just the News.
The Senate committee, now under Democrats’ control, successfully waged a secret federal court battle this summer to quash a subpoena that would have forced one of its staffers, Thomas Kirk McConnell, to turn over documents and testify about his dealings with former FBI analyst Dan Jones and his nonprofit, The Democracy Integrity Project, the records show.
A spokesman for George Soros confirms the progressive megadonor was one of the financial backers of The Democracy Integrity Project. Tax records show the group raised more than $7 million in donations in 2017 and hired Fusion GPS — the same firm that produced the debunked Steele dossier for Hillary Clinton’s campaign — to pursue allegations of foreign interference in elections.
The episode, recounted in hundreds of pages of federal and D.C. Superior court records, provides extraordinary insight into how current and former government officials in multiple branches of government were able to sustain a Russia collusion theory on artificial life support for years after the FBI first dispelled it.
The legal skirmish with the Senate also provides new context to allegations filed last week by Special Counsel John Durham, who indicted a former DOJ lawyer named Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI during his efforts to peddle the same debunked story about the Trump campaign, a computer server at the Alfa Bank in Moscow and the Kremlin. Sussmann was being paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign when he pitched the allegations to the bureau, court records show. He has pleaded not guilty.” (Read much more: JustTheNews, 9/24/2021)(Archive)
Bennie Thompson defends the RNA in a 1971 press conference. (Credit: Mississippi Department of Archives and History)
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the congressional commission investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, has been a vocal critic of an event he deems an insurrection and offered his sympathy to the police officers injured that day. He’s even gone as far as to sue former President Donald Trump for responsibility for the melee.
But as a young African-American alderman in a small Mississippi community in 1971, Thompson placed himself on the opposite side, openly sympathizing with a secessionist group known as the Republic of New Africa and participating in a news conference blaming law enforcement for instigating clashes with the group that led to the killings of a police officer and the wounding of an FBI agent. Thompson’s official biography makes no reference to the separatist RNA.
Thompson’s affection for the RNA and its members — which FBI counterintelligence memos from the 1970s warned were threatening “guerrilla warfare” against the United States — was still intact as recently as 2013, when he openly campaigned on behalf of the group’s former vice president to be mayor of Mississippi’s largest city.
The congressman’s advocacy on behalf of RNA — captured in documents, newspaper clippings and video footage retrieved from state, FBI and local law enforcement agency archives — is a pointed reminder that some of the far-left figures of a half century ago are now the Democratic Party’s establishment leaders, their pasts now a fleeting footnote in the frenzied vitriol of modern-day Washington.
For instance, Thompson’s Democratic colleague in Congress and the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, famously cofounded the extremist Black Panthers chapter in Illinois in 1968 before he entered politics. Both the RNA and the Black Panthers were avowed supporters of insurrection, and at one point in 1967, armed Black Panthers stormed the state capitol in California.
Thompson, an affable, silver-haired politician known today simply as “Bennie,” is one of Mississippi’s longest serving congressmen and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He dropped his NAACP-sponsored suit against Trump when he was appointed to lead the Jan. 6 commission.
The congressman had a much lower national profile back in 1971, when newspapers referred to him simply as Alderman B.G. Thompson from the community of Bolton, Miss., where he became acquainted with the RNA. He was never charged with any wrongdoing in connection with the group but on multiple occasions publicly sided with RNA members, even as law enforcement documented how the group had engaged in violence and was training for possible warfare.
Just the News was alerted to Thompson’s embrace of the RNA by former federal law enforcement officials and Mississippi state officials who remembered his advocacy for the group and criticism of police. Just the News obtained video footage, newspaper clippings and law enforcement documents from historical archives and the FBI that validate their story. (Read more: JustTheNews, 10/01/2021)(Archive)
E-mail records from Joffe, the research group, and Sussmann/Perkins Coie.
Perkins Coie billing records.
Perkins Coie records (notes, etc.) relating to calls and meetings re: Alfa Bank.
Grand jury testimony.
And that’s just on the Alfa Bank issue. (Durham apparently remains focused on the broader FISA issues as well as other matters.) The filing also notes that Durham is “working expeditiously to declassify large volumes of materials to provide to the defense.” This includes:
But there’s still more. Durham states after the production of these records, “the government expects to produce additional materials in subsequent productions, which will include additional interview memoranda, emails, and other records.”
Why this matters.
We anticipate that Durham is gearing-up to charge the group that created and pushed the Trump/Alfa Bank hoax. This is based on the volume of information Durham possesses on this issue, which reflects substantial expenditures of time and energy and resources to put all this together. In other words, you don’t call the grand jury on this issue – and pursue this matter this far – if the Alfa Bank researchers acted properly. (Read more: Techno_Fog/Substack, 10/20/2021)(Archive)
Christopher Steele, the author of the Russian collusion dossier, gave an extraordinary interview to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this week where he stood by claims long debunked by past investigations. What was most striking about the interview was Steele effectively claiming that Michael Cohen, one of Trump’s most fierce critics, is still covering for Trump in denying a critical conspiratorial meeting with Russian intelligence.
The dossier alleged Cohen had “secret meeting/s with Kremlin officials in August 2016” in Prague. Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee in 2019 that he had never been to Prague. The Special Counsel and the Justice Department were unable to confirm Steele’s claim despite exhaustive investigation. Indeed, American intelligence believed that Russian intelligence used Steele to pass along disinformation, including the use of a long suspected Russian agent as one of his critical sources.
On April 13, 2018, Chris Matthews breathlessly introduces Peter Stone who then breaks down his latest that Robert Mueller has evidence of Michael Cohen traveling to Prague in 2016. In the end, Michael Horowitz, Robert Mueller, and Michael Cohen debunk the lie, yet mainstream media and guilty parties continue to repeat it as truth. (Credit: MSNBC)
In the interview, Stephanopoulos noted that “one big claim the dossier, the FBI, according to the Inspector General’s report … is not true, is the claim that Michael Cohen had a meeting with Russians in Prague.” He then asked “do you accept that finding that it didn’t happen?” Steele responded that he rejects the findings of Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.
Now stop for a second and think about that. Cohen was given a deal by prosecutors and worked tirelessly to incriminate Trump in any way that he could. He even shilled for contributions based on that promise. This included an admission that he lied when he was still Trump’s lawyer. As part of his deal, Cohen could have easily confirmed the Prague allegation and said that he did meet with Russians. It would have been devastating to Trump. Instead, he continued to deny that it ever happened. He later wrote a book that called Trump every name in the book and said that he lied for him. However, he continued to maintain his long-standing denial that he has ever been to Prague or ever met with the Russians as alleged by Steele.” (Read more: Jonathan Turley, 10/20/2021)(Archive)
“The indictment of Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI sheds new light on the pivotal role of Democratic operatives in the Russiagate affair. The emerging picture shows Sussmann and his Perkins Coie colleague Marc Elias, the chief counsel for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, proceeding on parallel, coordinated tracks to solicit and spread disinformation tying Donald Trump to the Kremlin.
Earlier: The special counsel’s indictment last month of a lawyer for Hillary Clinton — implicating the present national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, right — doesn’t tell the entire story of the Clinton campaign’s orchestration of Russiagate. (Credit: Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)
In a detailed charging document last month, Special Counsel John Durham accused Sussmann of concealing his work for the Clinton campaign while trying to sell the FBI on the false claim of a secret Trump backchannel to Russia’s Alfa Bank. But Sussmann’s alleged false statement to the FBI in September 2016 wasn’t all. Just months before, he helped generate an even more consequential Russia allegation that he also brought to the FBI. In April of that year, Sussmann hired CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that publicly triggered the Russiagate saga by lodging the still unproven claim that Russia was behind the hack of Democratic National Committee emails released by WikiLeaks.
At the time, CrowdStrike was not the only Clinton campaign contractor focusing on Russia. Just days before Sussmann hired CrowdStrike in April, his partner Elias retained the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump and the Kremlin.
These two Clinton campaign contractors, working directly for two Clinton campaign attorneys, would go on to play highly consequential roles in the ensuing multi-year Russia investigation.
Working secretly for the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS planted Trump-Russia conspiracy theories in the FBI and US media via its subcontractor, former British spy Christopher Steele. The FBI used the Fusion GPS’s now-debunked “Steele dossier” for investigative leads and multiple surveillance applications putatively targeting Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.
CrowdStrike, reporting to Sussmann, also proved critical to the FBI’s work. Rather than examine the DNC servers for itself, the FBI relied on CrowdStrike’s forensics as mediated by Sussmann.
The FBI’s odd relationship with the two Democratic Party contractors gave Sussmann and Elias unprecedented influence over a high-stakes national security scandal that upended U.S. politics and ensnared their political opponents. By hiring CrowdStrike and Fusion GPS, the Perkins Coie lawyers helped define the Trump-Russia narrative and impact the flow of information to the highest reaches of U.S. intelligence agencies.
The established Trump-Russia timeline and the public record, including overlooked sworn testimony, congressional and Justice Department reports, as well as news accounts from the principal recipients of government leaks in the affair, the Washington Post and the New York Times, help to fill in the picture.
‘We Need to Tell the American Public’
In late April 2016, after being informed by Graham Wilson, a Perkins Coie colleague, that the DNC server had been breached, Michael Sussmann immediately turned to CrowdStrike. As Sussmann recalled in December 2017 testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the cyber firm was hired based on his “recommendation.”
Although it is widely believed that CrowdStrike worked for the DNC, the firm in fact was retained by Sussmann and his Clinton campaign law firm. As CrowdStrike CEO Shawn Henry told the House committee, his contract was not with the DNC, but instead “with Michael Sussmann from Perkins Coie.”
Dec. 2017: CrowdStrike CEO Henry testifies he worked for the now-indicted Clinton lawyer Sussmann. (Credit: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence)
And it was Sussmann who controlled what the FBI was allowed to see. After bringing CrowdStrike on board, Sussmann pushed aggressively to publicize the firm’s conclusion that Russian government hackers had attacked the DNC server, according to a December 2016 account in the New York Times.
“Within a day, CrowdStrike confirmed that the intrusion had originated in Russia,” the Times reported, citing Sussmann’s recollection. Sussmann and DNC executives had their first formal meeting with senior FBI officials in June 2016, where they encouraged the bureau to publicly endorse CrowdStrike’s findings:
Among the early requests at that meeting, according to participants: that the federal government make a quick “attribution” formally blaming actors with ties to Russian government for the attack to make clear that it was not routine hacking but foreign espionage.
“You have a presidential election underway here and you know that the Russians have hacked into the D.N.C.,” Mr. Sussmann said, recalling the message to the F.B.I. “We need to tell the American public that. And soon.”
But the FBI was not ready to point the finger at Russia. As the Senate Intelligence Committee later reported, “CrowdStrike still had not provided the FBI with forensic images nor an unredacted copy of their [CrowdStrike’s] report.”
Instead of waiting for the FBI, the DNC went public with the Russian hacking allegation on its own. On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post broke the news that CrowdStrike was accusing Russian hackers of infiltrating the DNC’s computer network and stealing data. Sussmann and Henry were quoted as sources. According to the Times’ account, the DNC approached the Post “on Mr. Sussmann’s advice.”
‘We Just Don’t Have the Evidence’
The Washington Post’sJune 2016 story, generated by Sussmann, was the opening public salvo in the Russiagate saga.
But it was not until nearly four years later that the public learned that CrowdStrike was not as confident about the Russian hacking allegation that it had publicly lodged. In December 2017testimony that was declassified only in May 2020, Henry admitted that his firm was akin to a bank examiner who believes the vault has been robbed – but has no proof of how. CrowdStrike, Henry disclosed, “did not have concrete evidence” that alleged Russian hackers removed any data from the DNC servers.
Read in retrospect, public statements from U.S. intelligence officials indicate that they knew of this crucial gap early on, and used qualified language to gloss it over.
Dec. 2016: An FBI-DHS report hedges by claiming Russian hackers “likely” exfiltrated DNC data. (Credit: FBI/Department of Homeland Security)
A joint FBI-DHS report in December 2016 – the first time the US government attempted to present evidence that Russia hacked the DNC – describes the alleged Russian hacking effort as “likely leading to the exfiltration of information” from Democratic Party networks. (Emphasis added.)
April 2019: Still hedging, the Mueller Report says Russian intel “appears” to have exfiltrated DNC data. (Credit: Mueller Report, Page 40)
The report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller of April 2019, which found no Trump-Russia collusion, likewise stated that Russian intelligence “appears to have compressed and exfiltrated over 70 gigabytes of data” and “appear to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments” from Democratic Party servers. (Emphasis added.)
These qualifiers – “likely” and “appear” – signaled that U.S. intelligence officials lacked concrete evidence for their Russian hacking claims, a major evidentiary hole confirmed by Henry’s buried testimony.
CrowdStrike’s admission that it lacked evidence of exfiltration was not its first such embarrassment. Just months after it accused Russia of hacking the DNC in June 2016, CrowdStrike was forced to retract a similar accusation that Russia had hacked the Ukrainian military. The firm’s debunked Ukrainian allegation was based on it claiming to have identified the same malware in Ukraine that it had found inside the DNC server.
Conflicting Accounts on DNC Server Access
The FBI relied on CrowdStrike’s forensics of the DNC servers, but both sides have given conflicting accounts as to why. The FBI claims that the DNC denied it direct access to its computer network, while the DNC claims that the FBI never sought such access. Once again, Sussmann was in the middle of this, and his sworn testimony is at odds with other accounts.
In their December 2017testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, both Sussmann and CrowdStrike’s Henry claimed that the FBI did not try to conduct its own independent investigation of the DNC servers.
“I recall offering, or asking or offering to the FBI to come on premises, and they were not interested in coming on premises at the time,” Sussmann said. Instead, he recalled, “we told them they could have access to everything that CrowdStrike was developing in the course of its investigation.” Asked directly if the FBI sought access to the DNC servers, Sussmann replied: “No, they did not.” He then added: “Excuse me, not to my knowledge.”
Shawn Henry, CrowdStrike CEO: His firm’s reports on the DNC server breach have never been publicly released. (Credit: Crowdstrike)
Henry also told the committee that he was “not aware” of the FBI ever asking for access to the server or being denied it.
In 2017 congressional testimony, however, then-FBI Director James Comey recalled that the FBI made “multiple requests at different levels,” to access the DNC servers, but was denied. Asked why FBI access was rejected, Comey replied: “I don’t know for sure.” According to Comey, the FBI would have preferred direct access to the server, but “ultimately it was agreed to… [CrowdStrike] would share with us what they saw.”
And while Sussmann testified that Perkins Coie offered the FBI “access to everything that CrowdStrike was developing,” FBI officials and federal prosecutors tell a different story.
According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, CrowdStrike delivered a draft report to the FBI on Aug. 31, 2016 that an unidentified FBI official described as “heavily redacted.” James Trainor, then-assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, told the committee that he was “frustrated” with the CrowdStrike report and “doubted its completeness” because “outside counsel” – i.e. Sussmann – “had reviewed it.” According to Trainor, the DNC’s cooperation was “moderate” overall and “slow and laborious in many respects.” Trainor singled out the fact that Perkins Coie – and specifically, Sussmann – “scrubbed” the CrowdStrike information before it was delivered to the FBI, resulting in a “stripped-down version” that was “not optimal.”
In court filings during the prosecution of Trump associate Roger Stone, the Justice Department revealed that Sussmann, as the DNC’s attorney, submitted three CrowdStrike reports to the FBI in draft, redacted form. According to prosecutor Jessie Liu, the government “does not possess” CrowdStrike’s unredacted reports. It instead relied on Sussmann’s assurances “that the redacted material concerned steps taken to remediate the attack and to harden the DNC and DCCC systems against future attack,” and that “no redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors.”
Jessie Liu, federal prosecutor: Told court the government “does not possess” CrowdStrike’s unredacted reports. (Credit: Department of Justice/Wikimedia)
In short, the FBI failed to conduct its own examination of the DNC server, and instead relied on CrowdStrike’s forensics. It also allowed Sussmann – now indicted for lying as part of an effort to spread the Russiagate conspiracy theory – to decide what it could and could not see in CrowdStrike’s reports on Russian hacking. The government also took Sussmann’s word that the redacted information did not concern “the attribution of the attack to Russian actors.”
CrowdStrike’s reports on the DNC server breach have never been publicly released. RealClearInvestigations has sought to obtain them under the Freedom of Information Act, but that request remains pending.
One source, who was able to review some of the redacted CrowdStrike reports and requested anonymity because this person is not authorized to publicly discuss them, said that they were unconvincing. “My impression was that CrowdStrike was trying very, very hard to make a case that this was Russia,” the source told RCI. “Their case, to me, was weak.”
Although Special Counsel Durham has recently subpoenaed Perkins Coie for documents, there are no indications that CrowdStrike’s work for the firm is a focus of his inquiry. A CrowdStrike spokesperson told RealClearInvestigations that the company has not heard from Durham’s office.
In response to questions about CrowdStrike, an attorney for Sussmann told RealClearInvestigations: “Mr. Sussmann is not answering questions at this time.”
Henry Struggles, Perkins Coie Intervenes
In addition to revealing a major evidentiary gap regarding alleged Russian hacking, Henry’s December 2017testimony revealed that Sussmann’s law firm exerted significant influence over the flow of information in CrowdStrike’s handling of it.
Joining Henry at the deposition was Sussmann’s Perkins Coie partner, Graham Wilson, who represented the DNC, and David Lashway, who represented CrowdStrike.
Henry’s acknowledgment that CrowdStrike did not have “concrete evidence” of exfiltration came only after he was interrupted and prodded by his attorneys to correct an initial answer. After claiming that he knew when Russian hackers exfiltrated data from the DNC, Henry offered a sharp correction: “Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We do not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated.”
In another exchange, Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah pressed Henry to explain why the FBI relied on CrowdStrike. “I don’t understand why the FBI wouldn’t lead or at least have some role in investigating the evidence,” Stewart said. “…Could they [the FBI] conduct their own investigation in a thorough fashion without access to the actual hardware?”
Henry struggled to respond to Stewart’s queries, before finally answering: “You’re asking me to speculate. I don’t know the answer.”
At this point, Stewart noted that Henry had been actively consulting with his Perkins Coie attorney. “By the way, you need to pay him [Henry’s attorney] well, because he’s obviously serving you well today as you guys have your conversations back and forth together,” Stewart quipped.
Shortly after that exchange, the attorney present for CrowdStrike, Lashway, stressed that Henry’s testimony was subject to Perkins Coie’s discretion. Henry was discussing “work that was performed at the behest of counsel, Perkins Coie, Mr. Sussmann’s law firm,” Lashway said. Accordingly, he added, “we would turn to Perkins Coie, as counsel to the DNC, to ensure that Mr. Henry can actually answer some of these questions.”
An ‘Extraordinary Coincidence’
The CrowdStrike-Perkins Coie contract, signed in early May 2016, ensured that Sussmann and his firm would oversee the cyber firm’s work product, and subject it to the secrecy of attorney-client privilege.
May 2016: The Sussmann-CrowdStrike contract exploits the secrecy of attorney-client privilege. (Credit: CrowdStrike-Perkins Coie contract)
The Perkins Coie-CrowdStrike contract is similar to the arrangement between the firm and another contractor pivotal to the Trump-Russia investigation, Fusion GPS. In their 2019 book, Fusion GPS founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch wrote that Sussmann’s colleague Elias “wanted it that way for legal reasons: If Fusion’s communications were with a lawyer, they could be considered privileged and kept confidential.”
After being hired in the same month of April, the two firms also lodged their respective Russia-related allegations within days of each other two months later in June. Just six days after CrowdStrike went public with the allegation that Russia had hacked the DNC on June 14, Christopher Steele produced the first report in what came to be known as the Steele dossier.
Glenn Simpson, Fusion GPS: an “extraordinary coincidence.” (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)
Over the ensuing months, the two firms and their Democratic clients actively spread their claims to the FBI and media. Steele and Fusion GPS, backed by their Perkins Coie client Elias, shared the fabricated dossier claims with eager FBI agents and credulous journalists, all while hiding that the Clinton campaign and DNC were footing the bill. “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year,” the New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman commented when Elias’ secret payments to Fusion GPS were revealed in October 2017.
After going public with its Russian hacking allegation in June, CrowdStrike had contact with the FBI “over a hundred times in the course of many months,” CEO Henry recalled. This included sharing with the FBI its redacted reports, and providing it with “a couple of actual digital images” of DNC hard drives, out of a total number of “in excess of 10, I think,” Henry testified. When Wikileaks released stolen DNC emails on the eve of the Democratic convention in July, senior Clinton campaign officials doggedly promoted CrowdStrike’s claim that Russia had hacked them.
In congressional testimony, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson said that it was an “extraordinary coincidence” that the Russian hacking allegation (by fellow Clinton/Perkins Coie contractor CrowdStrike) overlapped with his firm’s Trump-Russia collusion hunt (while working for Clinton/Perkins Coie).
Coincidence is one possibility. Another is that the roles of Sussman and Elias behind CrowdStrike and Fusion GPS’s highly consequential claims about Russia and the 2016 election could be pillars of the same deception.
Whatever additional scrutiny they may face, it will no longer be as partners at Perkins Coie. Elias, who was also the Democrats’ leading election law attorney opposing Trump challenges to the 2020 vote, resigned in August to launch a new firm, taking 13 colleagues with him. Upon his indictment by Durham three weeks later, Sussmann stepped down as well to focus, he said, on his legal defense. (Aaron Maté/RealClearInvestigations, 10/19/2021)(Archive)
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A former British spy who wrote a dossier on Donald Trump said he once spent hours with then, home secretary Theresa May, briefing her on the Russia threat.
Christopher Steele also revealed he had been asked by a UK official to review sensitive government documents on Russia just days before his dossier, which alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow in the 2016 US election, became public.
It meant he was left feeling “surprised and disappointed”, he said, when Mrs May, as prime minister, then appeared to play down his links to the government.
“It was quite galling to have announcements made… to the effect that this was nothing, we were nothing to do with the government, we hadn’t worked with or for the government for years and so on,” the former senior MI6 officer said in an exclusive Sky News interview.
He was referring to remarks by Mrs May in January 2017 after the dosser ignited a political firestorm in the United States, drawing furious denials from then, president-elect Trump.
“It is absolutely clear that the individual who produced this dossier has not worked for the UK government for years,” she said at the time.” (Read more: Sky News, 10/22/2021)(Archive)
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe campaigns in Arlington, Virginia on October 26, 2021. (Credit: Reuters)
“As a long-standing associate of the Clintons, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has long ties with the Democratic establishment. That history was placed into sharp relief this week when he made a hefty down payment on the services of former Clinton counsel Marc Elias. Elias is a critical figure in the ongoing Durham investigation and has been accused of lying to the media to hide the role of the Clinton campaign in funding the Steele dossier. His former law partner Michael Sussmann at Perkins Coie was recently indicted by Durham. Elias has also led efforts to challenge Democratic losses, even as he denounces Republicans for such election challenges. Elias has been sanctioned in past litigation.
Like Sussmann, Elias has left Perkins Coie. He ironically created a law firm specializing in campaign ethics. McAuliffe may be preparing to challenge any win by Republican Glenn Youngkin. He has given $53,680 to the Elias Law Group. McAuliffe does not appear disturbed by Elias’ highly controversial career or his possible exposure in the Durham investigation.
I previously described news accounts linking the firm and Elias to the dossier scandal:
It was not just reporters who asked the Clinton campaign about its role in the Steele dossier. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was questioned by Congress and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.
The Washington Postalso reported that “Elias drew from funds that both the Clinton campaign and the DNC were paying Perkins Coie.”
Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested Igor “Iggy” Danchenko, a Russian national who was the primary researcher for the so-called Steele Dossier – a compendium of opposition research funded by the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and used to smear Donald Trump as a Russian operative. It was also used as justification for an FBI wiretap application targeting former Trump adviser Carter Page.
According to the New York Times, the arrest of Danchenko is part of John Durham’s special counsel investigation into wrongdoing connected to the Obama administration’s Russia investigation.
Christopher Steele primary subsource Igor Danchenko indictment:
He “fabricated” the allegation that he was given info by @SergeiMillian via phone.
Some claims from the Steele dossier made their way into an F.B.I. wiretap application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser in October 2016. Other portions of it — particularly a salacious claim about a purported sex tape — caused a political and media firestorm when Buzzfeed published the materials in January 2017, shortly before Mr. Trump was sworn in.
But most of the important claims in the dossier — which was written by Mr. Danchenko’s employer, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent — have not been proven, and some have been refuted. F.B.I. agents interviewed Mr. Danchenko in 2017 when they were seeking to run down the claims in the dossier. –NYT
(…) Count One of Durham’s indictment relates to denials from Danchenko to FBI agents that he had spoken with “PR-Executive-1,” now identified as Charles Dolan, about any material contained in Steele’s dossier. As Durham’s indictment lays out, Dolan, described as a “long-time participant in Democrat party politics,” was actually Danchenko’s source for many of the allegations within Steele’s dossier. Dolan’s role in the creation of the dossier was not known publicly until yesterday.
Dolan’s identity as PR Executive-1 has been confirmed through a brief statement from his lawyer, who also noted that Dolan was a “witness” in Durham’s ongoing case.
Danchenko, who had worked at the left-leaning think tank Brookings Institute from 2005 to 2010, was introduced to Dolan in February 2016 by another Brookings employee, Fiona Hill, who had previously introduced Danchenko to Steele in late 2010. Following this introduction Danchenko began working for Steele in 2011. Hill would later become known to the public in 2019 during her testimony at the impeachment hearings of then-President Trump.
Durham notes in the indictment that Dolan’s role was “highly relevant and material” to the FBI’s review of Steele’s allegations because Dolan “maintained pre-existing and ongoing relationships with numerous persons” named in Steele’s dossier.
Additionally, as Durham’s indictment notes, “allegations sourced to [Dolan] by Danchenko formed the basis of a [dossier] report that, in turn, underpinned” the FISA applications made by the FBI on Trump campaign adviser Page.
Durham repeatedly notes that if Danchenko had not lied to the FBI regarding Dolan’s role, the FBI might have taken further investigative steps, including interviewing Dolan. While this assertion may be accurate, it also appears that the FBI failed repeatedly to investigate specific details or events that could have been easily verified or disproven.
Dolan and the Clintons have a lengthy history that dates back to the 1990s. In 2008, Dolan served as an adviser to then-Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign and he “actively campaigned” on behalf of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 11/04/2021)
(…) The remaining four charges laid out in Durham’s indictment of Danchenko relate to Sergei Millian, an American national of Belarus descent. Many of the details behind these charges were already known to those who had been investigating the Russia-Collusion stories.
Durham’s indictment alleges that Danchenko lied to the FBI on four separate occasions, each time claiming that he’d had a phone conversation in the summer of 2016 with someone he believed to have been Millian. For his part, Millian has always stated that he never met Danchenko, in person or by phone. Millian’s assertions are emphatically proven in Durham’s indictment of Danchenko where it is repeatedly stated that “Danchenko never spoke to Chamber President-1 [Millian].”
Millian differed from all of Steele’s other purported sources in that he had no actual contact with anyone within Steele’s orbit—including Danchenko. Steele has demonstrated a preference for his targets to be physically present with his operatives. And indeed, Steele told the FBI that he believed Danchenko had met with Millian on “two or three separate occasions.”
The allegations attributed to Millian are crucial to the Steele dossier. Steele used Millian as the supposed source for his allegations of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was foundational to the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Steele further attributed Millian as the source for allegations regarding secret communications between Russian Alfa Bank and Trump. Also ascribed to Millian were the Wikileaks email dump and the salacious “pee tape” story. All from a person whom neither Steele nor Danchenko had ever met with or spoken to.
Danchenko admitted to the FBI that his first outreach to Millian was on July 22, 2016, via email, which is cited in Durham’s indictment. But by this point, Steele, apparently believing that Danchenko had actually met Millian, had already published two reports in his dossier that attributed specific allegations to Millian. As Danchenko admitted to the FBI in a November 2017 follow-up interview, Steele erroneously believed that there had been in-person meetings between Danchenko and Millian, a belief which Danchenko did not correct.
It is unlikely that Steele would have placed so much emphasis on Millian as a major source without a plausible scenario for how these stories were obtained. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 11/05/2021)
“…former Rep. Doug Collins, the former ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures.
During their discussion, they revealed that then CIA Director John Brennan gave then President Barack Obama a private briefing on Hillary Clinton’s efforts to paint Donald Trump as a Russian operative.
Doug Collins: I’m going to say, not only the FBI, Comey and Strzok and McCabe ought to be very worried about Durham’s investigation. I’m going to say Brennan and Clapper, remember they were the ones that actually briefed Obama about the entire plot from Hillary Clinton to try and paint Donald Trump with Russia. There’s got to be some accountability.
Maria Bartiromo: Yeah, we got a picture of John Brennan in the Oval Office with President Obama, explaining, and we know now the notes because John Ratcliffe exposed those notes showing that Brennan told Obama that Hillary Clinton was cooking up this idea to tie Donald Trump. So they all knew, they all were aware of what was going on.”
The Federal Aviation Administration accidentally provided Insider with its internal flight records for Jeffrey Epstein’s private jets, revealing more than 704 previously unknown flights https://t.co/J0qbYaTuiF
Jeffrey Epstein’s access to the Clinton White House laid bare: Visitor logs reveal pedophile visited the former president at least 17 TIMES – including a dozen in 1994 and twice in one day on three separate occasions
Visitor logs obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com reveal pedophile Jeffrey Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during Bill Clinton’s first term between 1993 and 1995
The documents, released as part of a FOIA request, show Epstein was admitted as a guest on 14 separate days and on three occasions made two visits in a single day
The vast majority of Epstein’s visits were to the West Wing, suggesting he was meeting the president
The late financier was invited by some of Clinton’s most senior advisers and aides, including Robert Rubin who later served as Clinton’s Treasury Secretary
While Epstein’s crimes did not become public knowledge until his 2006 arrest, the visits would have occurred around the time his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell was allegedly procuring underage girls for him
According to logs, Epstein was first admitted as a guest in February 25, 1993 – just a month after Clinton’s inauguration – after being invited by Robert Rubin, at the time Assistant to the President for Economic Policy
He next visited on September 29, 1993 for a reception organized by the White House Historical Association after he donated $10,000, which he was photographed attending with Ghislaine Maxwell
Glenn Simpson (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)
Back in May, we reported on the fight brewing in a DC federal court, where Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson were trying to keep secret their internal correspondence and records relating to their role in pushing the Alfa Bank/Trump hoax. New court filings indicate Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson improperly failed to disclose some of their most damning e-mails.
Overview
For background, the fight arises out of a lawsuit – Fridman, et al. (Alfa Bank) v. Bean LLC a/k/a Fusion GPS, and Glenn Simpson, where the owners of Alfa Bank have sued Fusion GPS and Simpson for falsely accusing “the Plaintiffs—and Alfa (“Alfa”), a consortium in which the Plaintiffs are investors—of criminal conduct and alleged cooperation with the ‘Kremlin’ to influence the 2016 presidential election.”
The case was filed in October 2017. Litigation has been ongoing for over four years – with Alfa Bank still fighting to obtain written discovery from Fusion GPS that is material to its case. Our previous report had to do with that very discovery dispute. Back in May, Alfa Bank “filed a motion to compel, asking the Court to require Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson to produce nearly 500 critically important documents improperly withheld as privileged.” (More background here.)
These documents included e-mail correspondence within Fusion GPS regarding the “Alfa Playbook” and showed the early development of the Fusion GPS/Simpson work on Trump/Russia. One would assume this entails the early or emerging thought process of the “intelligence” group as they sought to falsely accuse the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia.
(…) The Latest Developments
Today, the attorneys for Alfa Bank filed this, their “Supplement to Plaintiffs’ Second Motion to Compel Defendants to Produce Documents Improperly Withheld as Privileged.” The motion was filed to inform the court that Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson (and/or their attorneys) “possess numerous documents responsive to Plaintiffs’ RFPs [requests for production] that [Fusion/Simpson] neither produced nor included in their privilege log.”
(Brief interlude: generally, the parties request and exchange documents in a federal civil case like this. A party can avoid producing documents where they claim a privilege – they just need to typically submit a “privilege log” to the other side. This doesn’t mean the privilege will ultimately prevail.)
What does the latest filing by Alfa Bank reveal?
Fusion GPS/Glenn Simpson (or their attorneys) failed to submit in the privilege log certain communications ultimately uncovered by Special Counsel John Durham. I’ll let the Alfa Bank motion explain:
FAILED presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shared the victory speech she thought she would deliver on November 8, 2016.
(…) Hillary will share the full speech during her MasterClass on Thursday. She shared parts on The TodayShow:
“Today with your children on your shoulders, your neighbors at your side, friends old and new standing as one, you renewed our democracy,” she says. “And because of the honor you have given me, you have changed its face forever. I’ve met women who were born before women had the right to vote. They’ve been waiting a hundred years for tonight.
“I’ve met little boys and girls who didn’t understand why a woman has never been president before. Now they know, and the world knows, that in America, every boy and every girl can grow up to be whatever they dream — even president of the United States.
“This is a victory for all Americans. Men and women. Boys and girls. Because as our country has proven once again, when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.”
She also addresses the deep partisan divide in the country.
“If you dig deep enough through all the mud of politics, eventually you hit something hard and true,” she says. “A foundation of fundamental values that unite us as Americans. You proved that today.
“In a country divided by race and religion, class and culture, and often paralyzing partisanship, a broad coalition of Americans embraced a shared vision of a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America.
“An America where women are respected and immigrants are welcomed. Where veterans are honored, parents are supported, and workers are paid fairly. An America where we believe in science, where we look beyond people’s disabilities and see their possibilities, where marriage is a right and discrimination is wrong. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, or who you love.
(…)”In parts of the speech shared with TODAY, Clinton shares the remarks she had prepared if she had won the contentious election against Trump.
“My fellow Americans, today you sent a message to the whole world,” she says. “Our values endure. Our democracy stands strong. And our motto remains: e pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
“We will not be defined only by our differences. We will not be an us versus them country. The American dream is big enough for everyone. Through a long, hard campaign, we were challenged to choose between two very different visions for America. How we grow together, how we live together, and how we face a world full of peril and promise together.
“Fundamentally, this election challenged us to decide what it means to be an American in the 21st century. And for reaching for a unity, decency, and what President Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature.’ We met that challenge.”
Clinton then talks about the significance of what becoming the first female president in U.S. history would have meant. (Read more: Today, 12/08/2021)(Archive)
David Corn and Michael Isikoff in a 2018 interview for their book “Russian Roulette.” (Credit: BUILD Series/YouTube)
(…) In the wake of the Durham revelations, the Washington Post has retracted or corrected sections of no fewer than 14 stories about Millian and the dossier. The Wall Street Journal, which first made the connection based on a single anonymous source in a January 2017 story by Pulitzer-winning reporter Mark Maremont, now concedes that the indictment raises “serious questions” about its reporting. ABC News, which aired a January 2017 story by former correspondent Brian Ross and producer Matthew Mosk identifying Millian as a key dossier source, said it is “reviewing” its reporting “in light of new developments.”
Igor Danchenko: His fabrications left egg on a lot of journalists’ faces. (Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)
Corn, the Washington bureau chief for the leftist political magazine Mother Jones, and Isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, were among the first journalists to press the Steele dossier in the media, starting in the fall of 2016. Answering critics on Twitter last month, Isikoff claimed he had disavowed the dossier years ago: “I already did, some time ago (before [Justice Department IG Michael] Horowitz and Durham),” referring to remarks he made to USA Today in 2018.
In that interview, Isikoff indicated blandly that some of the information he was fed was wrong, stating that some of the dossier’s “more sensational allegations are likely false.” He summed up the dossier as a “mixed record.” Now he knows for certain what he reported was incorrect and yet he has issued no corrections or mea culpas.
Isikoff once tweeted a link to his book “Russian Roulette” to President Trump, arguing “here is what is true, Mr. President.” Currently atop his Twitter page, Isikoff still has a pinned 2018 tweet thanking MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for helping propel the book to No. 1 on Amazon.
The e-book was updated for the first Trump impeachment but remains uncorrected in light of the Danchenko indictment. (Credit:Twelve Books)
In an attempt to face up to his own part in pushing the dossier fables, Corn last month penned a lengthy piece in Mother Jones arguing that just because the dossier turned out to be fiction doesn’t mean the Russiagate narrative is a hoax. He insisted Trump is still “guilty” of betraying America by cozying up to Russia.
Corn avoided mentioning Millian a single time in his 4,000-word essay and even cited “Russian Roulette” in his defense. In his telling, the fact that he and Isikoff showed some skepticism by reporting that the Justice Department watchdog revealed Steele may have exaggerated his most sensational allegations, makes up for repeating those stories in their book. Corn also continues to feature “Russian Roulette” as the backdrop to his Twitter page.
Corn admits he “chased after some of the allegations” but “couldn’t nail anything down.” Even so, he called on the FBI to investigate Millian in a Jan. 19, 2017, Mother Jonesstory. Months earlier, Corn gave a copy of the dossier to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, whom he knows socially. (The magazine has appended an editor’s note to that article, stating: “Earlier Mother Jones reporting noted that Sergei Millian was reportedly a source for the Steele dossier … Content making reference to Millian has been appropriately updated.”)
In an RCI interview, Millian said that in addition to correcting the record, both men owe him an apology.
“Isikoff and Corn played a role in spreading evil rumors and gossip about innocent American citizens,” Millian said, noting he’s retained a libel attorney. “Now they are simply ducking reasonable questions about their role, as if they were not a part of harming people.”
Business Insider graphic (Credit: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty; Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call; Marie Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call; Skye Gould/Insider)
(…) At a time when millions of Americans are struggling financially, members of Congress have traded extraordinarily well during the pandemic. This juxtaposition has led directly to the public sentiment that the trading activity of Congress must be curbed. The problem lies in the fact that members of Congress typically possess information that the public does not. The pandemic highlighted this issue, as Congress was briefed on the risks of COVID-19 before the public and before the March 2020 market crash.
Lawmakers were likely aware of the FDA’s approval of the COVID-19 vaccine before the news broke to the public. Approximately 93 senators and representatives held stock in Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer stock once the pandemic broke out in March 2020. Several spouses of these lawmakers held stock in Moderna in 2020 as well and traded thousands of dollars worth of company stock throughout the pandemic. Moderna and Pfizer stocks typically tended to fluctuate throughout the pandemic, but when talk of vaccine approval began, these stocks rose exponentially. In January 2020, Moderna stock sold for roughly $20 a share; in September 2021, the stock hit $455.
In March of 2020, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into the trading activity of Senators Richard Burr, and Kelly Loeffler, among others. While those investigations are now closed, and no charges were initiated against any lawmaker, the issues raised are troubling, to say the least. For example, Senator Burr and his wife traded between $628,000 and $1.7 million worth of stock in thirty-three transactions while at the same time stating to the public that the government had the coronavirus pandemic under control. At a minimum, signaling to the public that all is well while trading on the information in his possession raises ethical issues.
Ending Trading for Congress
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (whose stock trading, along with her husband, has come under scrutiny), initially opposed (I know, shocking) a stock trading ban, citing that the market is a “free market economy” and lawmakers “should be able to participate,” in trading on the market. She has since reversed her position on the issue — it appears that public sentiment is putting pressure on the hypocrisy of Congress to act on a long overdue issue.
While the Ethics Reform Act continues to collect dust, only time will tell if we see a long overdue change to the status quo, which has allowed members of Congress to enrich themselves while simultaneously undermining the trust of the American people. (Read more: Warren Law, 8/23/2024)(Archive)
This video can be viewed on X but is private on YouTube:
CLAY: We’re joined now by Miranda Devine, who has got a fantastic book out. She writes at the New York Post. The book is called Laptop from Hell, and, Miranda, thanks for taking the time to join us here. I believe in the years ahead the collusion to cover up the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop is going to be seen as one of the greatest failures in the history of independent American media. Do you agree based on all the things that you’ve seen inside of this laptop and that was covered up? How massive was this story, and maybe more wildly, how massive was most of the media’s cover-up for this story?
DEVINE: You’re absolutely right. And thank you very much for having me on, both of you, Clay and Buck. Look, I think we understood that three weeks before the election when we published the first of the emails from the laptop that were so damning of Joe Biden, we knew it was a bombshell. And we expected that the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN and all this sort of media organizations that were in the tank for Joe Biden that just would do anything to get rid of Donald Trump.
We knew that they would ignore it, but what was so shocking was the power of social media, of the Big Tech oligopolies, Facebook and Twitter. And within a couple of hours of our story going online at 5 a.m. October 14, Facebook had come out and said that they were blocking it pending a fact check, which still — more than a year later — has never happened. And then Twitter followed suit and locked the New York Post’s account the next two weeks until a few days before the election and people couldn’t even share the story in true and correct message.
Kayleigh McEnany was the then president’s press secretary. She was canceled or suspended from Twitter for trying to share the story. It was really sort of lost at the time, but when you look back now, it was such a display of power and such an intervention into the election by these faceless, unaccountable, global corporatists that it’s really frightening. And, you know, shortly after that, of course, they de-platformed the sitting president of the United States.
And that prompted even Emmanuel Macron from France to say, “Whoa, this is rather frightening for all of us.” The whole world should realize that these companies have become more powerful than the leaders of countries, and they are still the same. I mean, nothing’s changed since then. And we know from polls taken after the election that almost half of Biden voters knew nothing about the scandal that was on the laptop.
The evidence of the influence peddling that was going on with Joe Biden, the evidence that Joe Biden had met with Hunter Biden’s business partners from overseas was compromised, in China and Russia and elsewhere. If they had known that, about one-tenth of Biden voters would have changed their vote. And so in an election that was won by 45,000 votes across a handful of battleground states, the censorship of our story could have made a difference.
BUCK: Absolutely. Miranda Devine, everybody. Laptop from Hell is her book. Miranda, it’s Buck. I want you to… I was at TheHill.com when a lot of stories were being broken about the relationship with Hunter Biden and Ukraine, and this has been around for a while. We didn’t have the laptop. We didn’t have the Laptop from Hell. What should people know?
Because the suppression story which Clay started out with is enormous and may very well have — likely did, I believe — change the trajectory of the election, and it was dishonest and a disgrace what the Big Tech and media did together. What do people need to know about the corruption aspect of it? We always say if this were Donald Trump Jr., they might actually cover this more than the January 6 insurrection at CNN. What did Hunter Biden actually do, and where is the real corruption that we know of from this laptop?
DEVINE: Look, the importance of the laptop is really not Hunter Biden, who is this sort of tragic figure: Drug addicted for most of the nine years the laptop covered, crackhead. The story is actually about Joe Biden and what the laptop tells you about his involvement in not just Hunter’s about his younger brother Jim’s scheme around the world to monetize his power, Joe Biden’s power, and what Joe Biden did in return for that money and how he financially benefited.
So we know that for the last two years of his vice presidency, Hunter Biden and his partners and Jim Biden were doing work overseas around the world using Joe Biden’s name to open doors. And we know that that was being done with Joe Biden’s OK, imprimatur, full involvement. The money, however, was going to come after Joe Biden left office. And this was why Tony Bobulinski was brought in to become CEO of their latest joint venture with China and sort of regularize and make everything, you know, squeaky clean.
Because by that stage, Joe Biden was a private citizen, future president. And, you know, it wasn’t just that the Bidens were doing business or had a joint venture with someone in China. They were in partnership with a company called CEXE, which is the capitalist arm of President Xi’s belt-and-road initiative. And this is the imperialist push by China into corrupting, buying up, paying off, putting into servitude poorer countries around the world — and the Bidens were involved.
They were using Joe Biden’s name to help the Chinese Communist Party push into the rest of the world at great expense to the United States, to America’s national interests, to America’s national security. And the other element, I think, is there is some evidence to show that Joe Biden financially benefited. We know Hunter Biden had been complaining about having to give half his salary to his dad.
We know about an email saying 10% of equity in this private venture was going to be held by Hunter Biden for “The Big Guy,” which Tony Bobulinski says is Joe Biden, and other documents on the laptop show was Joe Biden. But there’s also evidence of commingling of finances between Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, shared bank accounts, shared debit cards. Also, there’s a little bit of evidence — just a tip of the iceberg, I imagine, but it is there — showing that Hunter Biden was paying regular household bills for Joe Biden. (Read more: The Clay Travis & Bud Sexton Show, 12/14/2021)(Archive)
George Nader and Hillary Clinton (Credit: Zero Hedge)
“Convicted pedophile, UAE adviser and central witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, George Nader, has pleaded guilty to his role in helping the UAE funnel millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions into US campaigns during the 2016 presidential election, according to The Intercept, citing federal court documents filed last month.
In a December sentencing memo, federal prosecutors disclosed that Nader had agreed months early to plead guilty to a single count of felony conspiracy to defraud the US government by pumping millions in donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign – concealing the foreign origin of the funds.
Nader conspired to hide the funds “out of a desire to lobby on behalf and advance the interests of his client, the government of the United Arab Emirates,” according to the prosecutors’ sentencing memo. Nader received the money for the illegal donations from the UAE government, the memo said. The filing marks the first time that the U.S. government has explicitly accused the UAE, a close ally, of illegally seeking to buy access to candidates during a presidential election.
Nader’s guilty plea opens a new window into the efforts of the United Arab Emirates and its de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and shape subsequent U.S. policy in the Gulf. The government’s memo notes that Nader and Los Angeles businessperson Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja also sought to cultivate “key figures” in the Trump campaign and that Khawaja donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. It is unclear where that money came from. – The Intercept
Nader is accused of taking instructions from UAE Crown Prince MBZ, and gave regular updates on his efforts to get close to Clinton.
In total, Nader transferred nearly $5 million from his UAE business to Khawaja – CEO of a Los Angeles-based payment processing company. According to prosecutors, the funds were disguised as a routine business contract between the two men. Of the total transferred, more than $3.5 million came from the UAE government and was given to pro-Clinton Democratic political committees. Prosecutors have yet to publicly identify what happened to the remaining $1.4 million Nader transferred to Khawaja.
In 2016, Khawaja co-hosted an Augustfundraiser for Clinton which included a laundry list of high-profile guests, including Univision owner Haim Saban, movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and basketball legend Magic Johnson, according to the report. According to the indictment, Khawaja conspired with six other individuals to conceal his excessive contributions. Others who were indicted were also linked to donations to Clinton and other Democrats.
The indictment quotes an alleged encrypted message that Nader sent an official from Foreign Country A via WhatsApp after Khawaja contributed $275,000 and invited Nader to attend and April 16, 2016, event for presidential Candidate 1.
Wonderful meeting with the Big Lady . . . Cant wait to tell you about it, Nader allegedly wrote, in an apparent reference to Clinton.
The indictment noted that political committees that received funding unwittingly submitted false disclosure reports and were presumably victims of the plot. Still, Hillary Clinton apparently attended numerous events, including small gatherings, with Nader, who on July 19, 2016, messaged the foreign official a photograph of him with Candidate 1s spouse an apparent reference to Bill Clinton at Khawajas home. –Washington Post
A former senior FBI lawyer who falsified a surveillance document in the Trump-Russia investigation has been restored as a member in “good standing” by the District of Columbia Bar Association even though he has yet to finish serving out his probation as a convicted felon, according to disciplinary records obtained by RealClearInvestigations.
Kevin Clinesmith (Credit: Facebook)
The move is the latest in a series of exceptions the bar has made for Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty in August 2020 to doctoring an email used to justify a surveillance warrant targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months probation last January. But the D.C. Bar did not seek his disbarment, as is customary after lawyers are convicted of serious crimes involving the administration of justice. In this case, it did not even initiate disciplinary proceedings against him until February of this year — five months after he pleaded guilty and four days after RealClearInvestigations first reported he had not been disciplined. After the negative publicity, the bar temporarily suspended Clinesmith pending a review and hearing. Then in September, the court that oversees the bar and imposes sanctions agreed with its recommendation to let Clinesmith off suspension with time served; the bar, in turn, restored his status to “active member” in “good standing.”
Before quietly making that decision, however, records indicate the bar did not check with his probation officer to see if he had violated the terms of his sentence or if he had completed the community service requirement of volunteering 400 hours.
To fulfill the terms of his probation, Clinesmith volunteered at Street Sense Media in Washington but stopped working at the nonprofit group last summer, which has not been previously reported. “I can confirm he was a volunteer here,” Street Sense editorial director Eric Falquero told RCI, without elaborating about how many hours he worked. Clinesmith had helped edit and research articles for the weekly newspaper, which coaches the homeless on how to “sleep on the streets” and calls for a “universal living wage” and prison reform.
From the records, it also appears bar officials did not consult with the FBI’s Inspection Division, which has been debriefing Clinesmith to determine if he was involved in any other surveillance abuses tied to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, in addition to the one used against Page. Clinesmith’s cooperation was one of the conditions of the plea deal he struck with Special Counsel John Durham. If he fails to fully cooperate, including turning over any relevant materials or records in his possession, he could be subject to perjury or obstruction charges.
Clinesmith — who was assigned to some of the FBI’s most sensitive and high-profile investigations — may still be in Durham’s sights regarding other areas of his wide-ranging probe.
The scope of his mandate as special counsel is broader than commonly understood: In addition to examining the legal justification for the FBI’s “Russiagate” probe, it also includes examining the bureau’s handling of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server, which she set up in her basement to send and receive classified information, and her destruction of more than 30,000 subpoenaed emails she generated while running the State Department. As assistant FBI general counsel in the bureau’s national security branch, Clinesmith played an instrumental role in that investigation, which was widely criticized by FBI and Justice Department veterans, along with ethics watchdogs, as fraught with suspicious irregularities.
Clinesmith also worked on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the 2016 Trump campaign as the key attorney linking his office to the FBI. He was the only headquarters lawyer assigned to Mueller. Durham’s investigators are said to be looking into the Mueller team’s actions as well.
The D.C. Bar’s treatment of Clinesmith, a registered Democrat who sent anti-Trump rants to FBI colleagues after the Republican was elected, has raised questions from the start. Normally the bar automatically suspends the license of members who plead guilty to a felony. But in Clinesmith’s case, it delayed suspending him on even an interim basis for several months and only acted after RCI revealed the break Clinesmith was given, records confirm.
It then allowed him to negotiate his fate, which is rarely done in any misconduct investigation, let alone one involving a serious crime, according to a review of past cases. It also overlooked violations of its own rules: Clinesmith apparently broke the bar’s rule requiring reporting his guilty plea “promptly” to the court — within 10 days of entering it — and failed to do so for five months, reveal transcripts of a July disciplinary hearing obtained by RCI.
“I did not see evidence that you informed the court,” Rebecca Smith, the chairwoman of the D.C. Bar panel conducting the hearing, admonished Clinesmith.
“[T]hat was frankly just an error,” Clinesmith’s lawyer stepped in to explain.
Smith also scolded the bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel for the “delay” in reporting the offense, since it negotiated the deal with Clinesmith, pointing out: “Disciplinary counsel did not report the plea to the court and initiate a disciplinary proceeding.” Bill Ross, the assistant disciplinary counsel who represented the office at the hearing, argued Clinesmith shouldn’t be held responsible and blamed the oversight on the COVID pandemic.
Hamilton “Phil” Fox: Disciplinary counsel who handled Clinesmith is a major donor to Democrats. (Credit: Facebook/D.C. Bar)
The Democrat-controlled panel, known as the Board on Professional Responsibility, nonetheless gave Clinesmith a pass, rubberstamping the light sentence he negotiated with the bar’s chief prosecutor, Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton “Phil” Fox, while admitting it was “unusual.” Federal Election Commission records show Fox, a former Watergate prosecutor, is a major donor to Democrats, including former President Obama. All three members of the board also are Democratic donors, FEC data reveal.
While the D.C. Bar delayed taking any action against Clinesmith, the Michigan Bar, where he is also licensed, automatically suspended him the day he pleaded guilty. And on Sept. 30, records show, the Michigan Bar’s attorney discipline board suspended Clinesmith for two years, from the date of his guilty plea through Aug. 19, 2022, and fined him $1,037.
“[T]he panel found that respondent engaged in conduct that was prejudicial to the proper administration of justice [and] exposed the legal profession or the courts to obloquy, contempt, censure or reproach,” the board ruled against Clinesmith, adding that his misconduct “was contrary to justice, ethics, honesty or good morals; violated the standards or rules of professional conduct adopted by the Supreme Court; and violated a criminal law of the United States.”
Normally, bars arrange what’s called “reciprocal discipline” for unethical attorneys licensed in their jurisdictions. But this was not done in the case of Clinesmith. The D.C. Bar decided to go much easier on the former FBI attorney, further raising suspicions the anti-Trump felon was given favorable treatment.
In making the bar’s case not to strip Clinesmith of his license or effectively punish him going forward, Fox disregarded key findings by Durham about Clinesmith’s intent to deceive the FISA court as a government attorney who held a position of trust.
Clinesmith confessed to creating a false document by changing the wording in a June 2017 CIA email to state Page was “not a source” for the CIA when in fact the agency had told Clinesmith and the FBI on multiple occasions Page had been providing information about Russia to it for years — a revelation that, if disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, would have undercut the FBI’s case for electronically monitoring Page as a supposed Russian agent and something that Durham noted Clinesmith understood all too well.
Bar records show Fox simply took Clinesmith’s word that he believed the change in wording was accurate and that in making it, he mistakenly took a “shortcut” to save time and had no intent to deceive the court or the case agents preparing the application for the warrant.
Durham demonstrated that Clinesmith certainly did intend to mislead the FISA court. “By his own words, it appears that the defendant falsified the email in order to conceal [Page’s] former status as a source and to avoid making an embarrassing disclosure to the FISC,” the special prosecutor asserted in his 20-page memo to the sentencing judge, in which he urged a prison term of up to six months for Clinesmith. “Such a disclosure would have drawn a strong and hostile response from the FISC for not disclosing it sooner [in earlier warrant applications].”
As proof of Clinesmith’s intent to deceive, Durham cited an internal message Clinesmith sent the FBI agent preparing the application, who relied on Clinesmith to tell him what the CIA said about Page. “At least we don’t have to have a terrible footnote” explaining that Page was a source for the CIA in the application, Clinesmith wrote.
The FBI lawyer also removed the initial email he sent to the CIA inquiring about Page’s status as a source before forwarding the CIA email to another FBI agent, blinding him to the context of the exchange about Page.
Durham also noted that Clinesmith repeatedly changed his story after the Justice Department’s watchdog first confronted him with the altered email during an internal 2019 investigation. What’s more, he falsely claimed his CIA contact told him in phone calls that Page was not a source, conversations the contact swore never happened.
Fox also maintained that Clinesmith had no personal motive in forging the document. But Durham cited virulently anti-Trump political messages Clinesmith sent to other FBI employees after Trump won in 2016 – including a battle cry to “fight” Trump and his policies – and argued that his clear political bias may have led to his criminal misconduct.
“It is plausible that his strong political views and/or personal dislike of [Trump] made him more willing to engage in the fraudulent and unethical conduct to which he has pled guilty,” Durham told U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg.
Boasberg, a Democrat appointed by President Obama, spared Clinesmith jail time and let him serve out his probation from home. Fox and the D.C. Bar sided with Boasberg, who accepted Clinesmith’s claim he did not intentionally deceive the FISA court, which Boasberg happens to preside over, and even offered an excuse for his criminal conduct.
“My view of the evidence is that Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said about Mr. Page was true,” Boasberg said. “By altering the email, he was saving himself some work and taking an inappropriate shortcut.”
Fox echoed the judge’s reasoning in essentially letting Clinesmith off the hook. (The deal they struck, which the U.S. District Court of Appeals that oversees the bar approved in September, called for a one-year suspension, but the suspension began retroactively in August 2020, which made it meaningless.) Boasberg opined that Clinesmith had “already suffered” punishment by losing his FBI job and $150,000 salary.
But, Boasberg assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that Clinesmith also faced possible disbarment. “And who knows where his earnings go now,” the judge sympathized. “He may be disbarred or suspended from the practice of law.”
Anticipating such a punishment, Boasberg waived a recommended fine of up to $10,000, arguing that Clinesmith couldn’t afford it. He also waived the regular drug testing usually required during probation, while returning Clinesmith’s passport. And he gave his blessing to Clinesmith’s request to serve out his probation as a volunteer journalist, before wishing him well: “Mr. Clinesmith, best of luck to you.”
Fox did not respond to requests for comment. But he argued in a petition to the board that his deal with Clinesmith was “not unduly lenient,” because it was comparable to sanctions imposed in similar cases. However, none of the cases he cited involved the FBI, Justice Department or FISA court. One case involved a lawyer who made false statements to obtain construction permits, while another made false statements to help a client become a naturalized citizen – a far cry from falsifying evidence to spy on an American citizen.
Durham noted that in providing the legal support for a warrant application to the secret FISA court, Clinesmith had “a heightened duty of candor,” since FISA targets do not have legal representation before the court.
He argued Clinesmith’s offense was “a very serious crime with significant repercussions” and suggested it made him unfit to practice law.
“An attorney – particularly an attorney in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel – is the last person that FBI agents or this court should expect to create a false document,” Durham said.
The warrant Clinesmith helped obtain has since been deemed invalid and the surveillance of Page illegal. Never charged with a crime, Page is now suing the FBI and Justice Department for $75 million for violating his constitutional rights against improper searches and seizures.
Explaining the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary process in a 2019 interview with Washington Lawyer magazine, Fox said that “the lawyer has the burden of proving they are fit to practice again. Have they accepted responsibility for their conduct?” His office’s website said a core function is to “deter attorneys from engaging in misconduct.”
In the same interview, Fox maintained that he tries to insulate his investigative decisions from political bias. “I try to make sure our office is not used as a political tool,” he said. “We don’t want to be a political tool for the Democrats or Republicans.”
Bar records from the Clinesmith case show Fox suggested the now-discredited Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation was “a legitimate and highly important investigation.”
One longstanding member of the D.C. Bar with direct knowledge of Clinesmith’s case before the bar suspects its predominantly Democratic board went soft on him due to partisan politics. “The District of Columbia is a very liberal bar,” he said. “Basically, they went light on him because he’s also a Democrat who hated Trump.”
Meanwhile, the D.C. Bar has not initiated disciplinary proceedings against Michael Sussmann, another Washington attorney charged by Durham. Records show Sussmann remains an “active member” of the bar in “good standing,” which also has not been previously reported. The former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer, who recently resigned from Washington-based Perkins Coie LLP, is accused of lying to federal investigators about his client while passing off a report falsely linking Trump to the Kremlin.
While Sussmann has pleaded not guilty and has yet to face trial, criminal grand jury indictments usually prompt disciplinary proceedings and interim suspensions.
Paul Kamenar of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government ethics watchdog, has called for the disbarment of both Clinesmith and Sussmann. He noted that the D.C. Court of Appeals must automatically disbar an attorney who commits a crime of moral turpitude, which includes crimes involving the “administration of justice.”
“Clinesmith pled guilty to a felony. The only appropriate sanction for committing a serious felony that also interfered with the proper administration of justice and constituted misrepresentation, fraud and moral turpitude, is disbarment,” he said. “Anything less would minimize the seriousness of the misconduct” and fail to deter other offenders.
Disciplinary Counsel Fox appears to go tougher on Republican bar members. For example, he recently opened a formal investigation of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who records show Fox put under “temporary disciplinary suspension” pending the outcome of the ethics probe, which is separate from the one being conducted by the New York bar. In July, the New York Bar also suspended the former GOP mayor on an interim basis.
This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution. (These terms do not apply to outside articles linked on the site.)
“The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that, writes Craig Murray.
“The Assembly next took up the report on ‘Elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,’ containing two draft resolutions.
“By a recorded vote of 130 in favour to2 against (Ukraine, United States), with 49 abstentions, the Assembly then adopted draft resolution I, ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’.
By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials, holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, and declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition, collaborated with the Nazi movement and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity ‘participants in national liberation movements’.”
Members of the special Ukrainian neo-Nazi police regiment Azov in 2014. (Credit: My News24, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
(…) In Ukraine, support for the Ukrainian nationalist divisions who fought alongside the Nazis has become, over the last eight years, the founding ideology of the modern post-2013 Ukrainian state (which is very different from the diverse Ukrainian state which briefly existed 1991-2013). The full resolution on Nazism and racism passed by the General Assembly is lengthy, but these provisions in particular were voted against by the United States and by Ukraine:
“Emphasizes the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur that ‘any commemorative celebration of the Nazi regime, its allies and related organizations, whether official or unofficial, should be prohibited by States’, also emphasizes that such manifestations do injustice to the memory of the countless victims of the Second World War and negatively influence children and young people, and stresses in this regard that it is important that States take measures, in accordance with international human rights law, to counteract any celebration of the Nazi SS organization and all its integral parts, including the Waffen SS;
Expresses concern about recurring attempts to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in remembrance of those who fought against Nazism during the Second World War, as well as to unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such persons, and in this regard urges States to fully comply with their relevant obligations, inter alia, under article 34 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949;
Condemns without reservation any denial or attempt to deny the Holocaust;
Welcomes the call of the Special Rapporteur for the active preservation of those Holocaust sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration and forced labour camps and prisons, as well as his encouragement of States to take measures, including legislative, law enforcement and educational measures, to put an end to all forms of Holocaust denial.”
As reported in The Times of Israel, hundreds took part in a demonstration in Kiev in May and others throughout Ukraine, in honor of a specific division of the SS. That is but one march and one division — the glorification of its Nazi past is a mainstream part of Ukrainian political culture.
Protesters in Kiev with neo-Nazi symbols – SS-Volunteer Division “Galicia” and Patriot of Ukraine flags, 2014. (Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
In 2018 a bipartisan letter by 50 U.S. representatives condemned multiple events commemorating Nazi allies held in Ukraine with official Ukrainian government backing.
There are no two ways about it. The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that. (Read more: Consortium News, 12/23/2021)(Archive)
“The latest filings by Special Counsel John Durham reveal that lawyers for the Hillary Clinton Campaign now represent Christopher Steele primary subsource Igor Danchenko. In doing so, Durham reveals something else: that the Hillary Clinton Campaign and multiple former employees of the Hillary Clinton Campaign are under investigation.
(…) The Latest Developments
Now let’s review what’s going on in Danchenko’s criminal case. He was originally represented by Chris Schafbuch and Mark Schamel. On December 6, 2021, Stuart Sears appeared on behalf of Danchenko. Schafbuch and Schamel dropped out of the case.
According to Durham’s latest filing, Stuart Sears is a partner at the law firm Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears. Notably, the firm is currently representing the 2016 “Hillary for America” presidential campaign (the “Clinton Campaign”), as well as multiple former employees of that campaign, in matters before the Special Counsel.”
Did you catch that? I’ll emphasize:
The Hillary Clinton Campaign and its employees are subject to “matters before the Special Counsel.”
Durham notices the potential conflict of interest, informing the court that Danchenko’s trial might raise the following issues:
the Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the Fusion GPS reports sourced by Danchenko,
the Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Dancehnko’s collection methods and sub-sources,
meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and/or Steele regarding or involving Danchenko
Danchenko knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in and activities surrounding the Fusion GPS reports, and
the extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.
Durham even raises the potential that members of the Clinton Campaign may be called to testify at Danchenko’s trial.
“What you have, at least optically, is the Clinton campaign nested into the [Igor] Danchenko camp and his representation. So all the information John Durham turns over in discovery, they could conceivably give over to Hillary Clinton.”
According to a recent court filing by John Durham’s team, two Clinton campaign lawyers are representing Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko, the Russian analyst who was indicted by a grand jury in November on five false statement charges.
In this episode, Kash breaks down the potential conflicts of interest this creates.
Below is a rush transcript of this Kash’s Corner episode from Dec 24, 2021. This transcript may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Kash Patel: Hey, everybody, and welcome to our holiday special of Kash’s Corner. Thanks for tuning in this entire year, and we hope you enjoy our Christmas special.
Jan Jekielek: Yeah. So, to start here, I think we do need to say merry Christmas to everybody. Happy new year to your families, to your loved ones, to everybody. This is a very difficult year or has been a very difficult year for everybody, and I really hope that everyone gets a chance to celebrate a little bit. Find those things that perhaps they don’t look at too often, especially if things are looking a little grim and celebrate those.
Mr. Patel: And perhaps watch our episode on Christmas Eve and take it in with your family to brighten your day.
Mr. Jekielek: Absolutely. Well, and so it’s very interesting. It seems like Special Counsel Durham has a Christmas present for, I guess, many folks.
Mr. Patel: It is for me. I’ll take it.
Mr. Jekielek: Yeah. Well, so it’s really interesting. Friday afternoon, low news cycle as is typical of him. No fanfare there. He issues a filing, and in the filing, we learn a number of things, which we’ll talk about here, but one of the things we learn is simply that Igor Danchenko, one of the indicted people that he indicted, is actually being represented by the same lawyers that represent the Hillary Clinton Camp 2016 Campaign. I mean, fascinating, right?
Mr. Patel: It’s a shocking development, and I would say if it was the only one in the last five years saga of everything that was Russiagate, but as obviously we’ve shown to be the largest organized criminal enterprise. It’s no longer shocking unfortunately. It’s just more tragic application of law, and fact, and bias in the Department of Justice and the FBI, and it just continues.
I thank God that John Durham is on the case to help us keep our law enforcement members in check and also, equally as important, prosecute cases under the law and apply the facts wherever they lead, irrespective of who is possibly involved, i.e. a former senator, a former presidential candidate, a former secretary of state, and so many others.
So I’m glad that he is taking his action in a measured fashion, and he’s not taken to the media as we’ve talked about previously. He just doesn’t do that. I don’t even think he has a spokesperson, and if he does, all they say is, “No comment,” but he does talk where he’s legally and permissively allowed to talk, which is his filings in federal court.
We’ve talked about the indictments in the past of Sussmann and Danchenko, and I urge our viewers to… If you haven’t seen it, go check out those episodes. We did some fantastic deep dives into those indictments, but he did give us another pleading on Friday night.
Mr. Jekielek: Well, and so going back to the Sussmann indictment very briefly, we did learn the identity of Dolan, right?
Mr. Patel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mr. Jekielek: Somebody who seems like he was the main source for Danchenko, right? What’s very interesting about this is that nobody knew about him, and at the same time, this person was also deeply connected with the 2016 Clinton Campaign and others.
Mr. Patel: Yeah. No. You’re absolutely right. Look, and I, as the guy who ran the Russiagate investigation on House Intel, had never heard of Charles Dolan. That’s a little shocking for someone who was supposed to have been given all of the FBI, all of the DOJ, all of the intelligence community information regarding how the FISA was obtained, how the Steele dossier was procured, and everything. That just goes to show you that the FBI and DOJ failed to comply with congressional, valid congressional subpoenas we issued for documents because had they produced everything, they would’ve produced the documents that John Durham found, but at least thankfully he’s on the case.
Why it’s highlighting is because it seems that the Russiagate investigation and the criminal enterprise that John Durham is unfolding starts, and begins, and ends with Hillary Clinton and her campaign. That becomes more and more true as we reveal more and more information.
Charles Dolan is another example. A former Clinton operative, a former Clinton Campaign advisor, a former ally of hers in the State Department is now been shown to be an individual who… We don’t know if it was at the behest of the Clinton Campaign, but it stretches credulity to say otherwise was feeding information on behalf of the Clinton Campaign to Christopher Steele for their false dossier that was falsely presented by the FBI, and I believe knowingly so to get a FISA warrant on then candidate Trump.
So, yet, another member of the Clinton Campaign or Clinton World was shown to be involved in this corrupt… I don’t know what even there’s a new word for it or not, but this, I want to say, criminal enterprise and that was Sussmann indictment. Then, we move on to Danchenko and our latest pleading from John Durham this past Friday night.
Mr. Jekielek: What struck me as I was looking at this, and I want to thank our friend Techno Fog for actually drawing attention to this because I didn’t know it had come down, was how did this actually happen because Danchenko did drop his previous counsel, retain this new counsel. Did this counsel approach him? Did he approach them? The other question is like, is there a possibility that this could facilitate an information flow that… an unexpected information flow?
Mr. Patel: You’re right. I mean, we’ll get into the last bit of it later. Basically, what you have at least optically is the Clinton Campaign nested into Danchenko camp and his representation. So all the information John Durham turns over in discovery, they could conceivably give over to Hillary Clinton. We’ll circle back to that in more detail and why it is a problem.
You raised a point that’s very interesting. Danchenko was represented by someone else, and then at some point in time, these folks came along and said, “We’re going to represent you.” Now, what’s the nature of that? Are they doing it pro bono? Is someone else paying that fee? Because as someone who’s been subpoenaed by Congress, I can tell you from my personal experience, it’s expensive to hire lawyers to do that kind of work.
Igor Danchenko is criminally indicted in federal court. It’s even more expensive to do that kind of work. Maybe he’s a wealthy individual and can retain whatever counsel he wants, but the reason I became a public defender, and then later a prosecutor was because of one of the most important rights in our constitution is the right to counsel. It’s not just any counsel, it’s the right to counsel of your choosing if you can so afford, and if you can’t, then the public defenders come in. At least you’re provided great representation that way.
Igor Danchenko has now chosen his counsel, but there are some rules in the constitution and as interpreted by the Supreme Court that talk about conflicts of interest. We’ll get into all that, and that’s what this latest pleading is all about.
Igor Danchenko has this new set of lawyers or a relatively new set of lawyers who have come in, and they have for years, as best as I can tell, represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign, who was at the heart of and instigated the entire Russiagate conspiracy. So it’s problematic for many, many, many reasons, and there are a number of legal hurdles that the court must adjudicate properly in order to satisfy both the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the constitution and the Canon of Ethics, which we’ll get into too, which govern how lawyers are to behave before a federal judge.
Mr. Jekielek: You hear about conflict of interest a lot on television, right, right, and so forth.
Mr. Patel: Yeah.
Mr. Jekielek: But from what I understand, right, we’re not just looking at actual demonstrated conflicts of interest. These are conflicts of interest that may exist that…
Mr. Patel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mr. Jekielek: Right?
Mr. Patel: Look, and it applies to judges too. The same rules, the ethics apply for conflicts apply to judges as they do to lawyers that are appearing before the judge. For instance, many of these federal judges come from private law firms, deep private law firm backgrounds who represented some big Fortune 500 companies, some high-wealth individuals.
If they later became a judge, that judge has to recuse himself for matters forever relating to that company that his private law firm represented in the past or that he or she himself represented in the past even in peace not because there is an actual conflict of interest, but just because there could be. I’ve appeared before federal judges who have recused themself on situations like that.
Actually, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, but when we first subpoenaed the bank records of Fusion GPS, when we were running the Russiagate investigation in the fall of 2017, I believe, we had to go to federal court to get those records. The first judge in that cycle after a month or two recused herself from the proceedings, and that’s because there was a conflict of interest. Now, she doesn’t have to disclose to us what that conflict was.
We’re only left to guess that it might have to do with… and she came from a big law firm in her past, and it might have to do with a client or an institution they represent. So it happens. It happens in major cases. It happens in cases you don’t hear about. It happens to judges, but in this instance, it’s not about the judge. It’s about the lawyer, lawyers.
Mr. Jekielek: So what are these potential conflicts of interest here? I mean, it would be bizarre if information were able to flow in this direction as we just mentioned.
Mr. Patel: Yeah. There’s many, and the rules are governed by not just the law and the constitutions we talked about, but the Canon of Ethics, and they require that any prosecution and defense attorney have a free set of conflict events or be conflict-free with certain stipulations. What they’re saying is… In this instance, John Durham’s pleading is saying… because there’s a Supreme Court case that governs this.
The prosecution has a duty to affirmatively inform the court of a possible conflict of interest, and that’s what John Durham has done in this case. He, John Durham, is saying through his pleading that we think the individuals that now represent Igor Danchenko, who also represent the Hillary Clinton Campaign could have numerous conflicts of interest, not just the information flow.
So he laid out some of them, and it’s not up to the prosecution to investigate those on their own. They can request assistance, and I think appropriately did so to the judge because the judge has wider latitude to talk to defense counsel and even go what we call ex parte if need be, and that’s just to bring in defense counsel alone. So it’s not to divulge the defense of the defendant, which is to remain private. That’s never have to be divulged to the prosecution. So the judge has a little more leeway in how he investigates the potential conflict of interest.
But John Durham has now put these terms on notice that he should take those matters and those inquiries, and see where they lead. Namely, the number one thing that comes to my mind in terms of whether there’s a potential conflict of interest is witnesses, right?
These guys who represent Danchenko, who represent the Hillary Clinton Campaign. How many people in the Hillary Clinton Campaign universe do they represent? Did they represent five years ago, four years ago, three years ago? Is Igor Danchenko going to call one of those people as a witness in his trial? That’s a potential conflict of interest.
I don’t know Igor Danchenko’s defense. Only he and his attorneys do. Are those lawyers going to be shaded by their past representation of some of these said witnesses in their current representation of Danchenko? Are they going to be biased because they previously had a relationship with one of the witnesses that could be called? It’s not necessary that that witness has to be called. Is the government going to call one of those witnesses?
Let’s put the defense aside wholly. Is John Durham saying, “I might call witnesses A, B, and C,” and you represented A and B, and now you represent the defendant? It’s a potential conflict of interest, which basically… What the judge has to safeguard against is a reversible error, and a conflict of interest and a potential conflict of interest is almost… Once it’s established, it’s an automatic reversal.
So if he was convicted and this matter wasn’t adjudicated properly, the appeals court would look at it and say, “Why didn’t anyone look at this conflict of interest?” Which is why it’s so critical at this juncture for him to adjudicate. We can get it, about how you deal with an actual conflict of interest, but the witness thing is just one example for me of the possible conflicts. You brought up information sharing, and we can get into that too.
Mr. Jekielek: Well, okay. So let’s do it.
Mr. Patel: So it sounds pretty nefarious, right? But let’s be real with our audience. The entire Russiagate investigation, the Steele dossier, Hillary Clinton Campaign’s involvement in it, paying Perkins Coie $10 million, hiring Christopher Steele, paying him six figures, getting false information all the while informing the Clinton Campaign of what they were doing through their attorneys as we now know through the Michael Sussmann indictment who represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign.
That’s another possible conflict. Michael Sussman is indicted by the special counsel. He represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Did these lawyers that are representing Danchenko have anything to do with Michael Sussmann in the past? I don’t know the answer to that, but that’s another potential conflict of interest.
But what’s of greater note is that this information has cascaded down from the Hillary Clinton Campaign for four, five years now. Have these lawyers just nested themselves into a defendant that’s been charged so they can funnel information back to the Hillary campaign?
Now, that sounds pretty nefarious, but after everything we’ve proven and shown, I wouldn’t put it past them, and that’s why this judge has to adjudicate this matter now and appropriately. Can you imagine a scenario where lawyers for defendants where they’re not in his best interest, which is what is required by the constitution, but were being paid by someone to do that representation? Then, all the discovery, all the evidence that John Durham has to turn over so that the defendant’s rights are under the constitution are upheld, they take some of that information and leak it to the press. They go around and give it back to Hillary Clinton or her campaign, and that campaign uses it and puts it in the media.
It’s no surprise, and we’ll get into this as soon as well that Hillary Clinton is all of a sudden back in the news. So it’s raising a lot of questions. I don’t think there is anything… I don’t ever think there’s anything like a coincidence in these types of cases, and I think this judge… We should follow this. This judge has to deal with this matter. He doesn’t have to divulge how he deals with it or the details he deals with it, but he has to make a decision, and there has to be what we call a waiver by the defendant, and that’s a process.
Mr. Jekielek: So interesting, and so are there any other… these conflicts of interest that Durham outlined? I think there were others.
Mr. Patel: Well, the other one that’s actually… maybe it’s more prescient than the one we’ve talked about. I mean, this is crazy. It’s like all in one case. The other one is that John Durham quietly in his pleading basically told the world we’ve known the whole time. We’ve been saying, you and I, on this show.
The Hillary Clinton Campaign is being investigated by John Durham. So he’s telling the judge, “Not only am I not done with my special counsel investigation I’ve indicted clients with. I’ve indicted Sussmann. I’ve indicted Danchenko. I’ve told the world about Charles Dolan, Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, Mark Elias, who used to represent the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the corrupt activities of the FBI, but I’m now also telling you, judge, I’m looking into the Hillary Clinton Campaign’s conduct and involvement in the production of the Steele dossier.”
That’s a massive conflict of interest. Even if John Durham doesn’t indict anyone in the Hillary Clinton Campaign, what John Durham is saying is, “Judge, I’m looking at it. I’ve been looking at it. I don’t know what I’m going to find. Are one of the people I’m looking at the Hillary Clinton Campaign connected to this law firm?” I’ll take it one step further. Is he looking at one of the lawyers who represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign?
People might say that’s a super far stretch, but we now know that Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton, has already been indicted for his conduct during the Russiagate hoax. So I don’t put it past him. I don’t know these lawyers. I don’t know that they’ve done that, but John Durham would be the only one that knows the answer to that question, and what he’s saying is those roads may lead to them or clients they represented. So you have the money angle, the information angle, the investigative angle, and we haven’t even gotten to the defendant’s constitutional rights, which I think trump all of those.
Mr. Jekielek: So, well, I think we do need to get to those. I mean, you’re laying it out perfectly here. Right? Now, why is that the most important thing here? That’s very…
Mr. Patel: I mean, maybe I’m biased because of my time as a public defender, but what you’re supposed to do as a defense attorney is execute due process and stand up when your client has been charged with whatever they’ve been charged with. He’s afforded that right. Not at 50% or 70%, but 100%, and not just one day, but from beginning to end. He has to have that right. Otherwise, it could be a reversible error in the appellate courts because they’ll say counsel was ineffective as we call it.
If there’s a finding of ineffectiveness or a conflict because of ineffectiveness, it’s a reversal, and then he gets to go all over again, but I also believe that that’s the whole point of our justice system. That’s why it’s different from 90% plus of the world’s judicial systems. We have a system in place where everyone gets the counsel they’re choosing, and if they can’t afford one, there’s a public defender service to afford them that sort of representation that the constitution demands.
The defendant in this case, and the Supreme Court, again, adjudicated this, he has to be made aware of all these conflicts not just by his own attorneys, but by the prosecution and possible inquiry by the judge to further develop some of the lines that, in this case, John Durham has laid out for the court.
Only after the defendant has been made aware, all of those potential conflicts, the witnesses, the money, the bias, where the investigation is going. Then, the judge in open court has to ask the defendant if he wants to, even knowing all that information, stick with his lawyers. So he has to make what’s called the Knowing Intelligent and Intentional Waiver of a conflict of interest.
All three of those have to be met. So he can only do that if he’s been informed of the conflicts and the potential conflicts in their entirety, and then he has to go into open court and say, “Judge, I’ve reviewed all of that information,” and because the constitution speaks directly to this that is he is allowed his counsel of choosing, and I agree with this. If he knows about all of it and still wants to go with them, that should be his right. But what John Durham is saying is, “I don’t know if he knows about all of that.”
Plus, what John Durham is saying is, “I don’t know all of the information because I’m still investigating the Clinton Campaign. You, the judge, can talk to the lawyers outside of the prosecution’s presence. You can talk to the lawyers and the defendant outside of the prosecution’s presence. You, the judge, can call in witnesses and say, ‘I’ve been notified of a possible conflict of interest from your firm, or this organization, or this individual I hear might be indicted. I want to know the details so I can advise the defendant in this case of those details. So he can make that knowing and intentional waiver.’” (Full interview: Kash’s Corner, 12/24/2021)(Archive)
1. Conservatives Are in The Same Category As Islamic Terrorists
(…) McCabe likened conservatives to members of the Islamic Caliphate: “I can tell you from my perspective of spending a lot of time focused on the radicalization of international terrorists and Islamic extremist and extremists of all stripes… is that this group shares many of the same characteristics of those groups that we’ve seen radicalized along entirely different ideological lines,” he said.
2. Parents at School Board Meetings Pose A ‘Threat To National Security’
“Political violence [is] not just confined to the Capitol,” McCabe asserted. “It’s going on in school boards around the country. It’s going on in local elections. It’s happening, you know, even to health-care workers.” According to this politically protected former FBI no. 2, the “political violence” occurring recently at school board meetings and during local elections is a “very diverse and challenging threat picture.”
3. McCabe Wants More Surveillance of ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives
“I’m fairly confident,” McCabe said, “[that] the FBI [and other agencies] have reallocated resources and repositioned some of their counterterrorism focus to increase their focus on right-wing extremism and domestic violent extremists. And I think that’s obviously a good idea.”
But McCabe wants more. McCabe asserted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI need to stop merely focusing on the “fringes of the right-wing movement,” in order to “catch this threat” of the “right.”
“Are you going to catch this threat if your focus is only on the traditional, right-wing extremist, those groups that we know about, the quote-unquote, fringes of the right-wing movement?” asked McCabe. “And I think the answer to that is no.”
“It’s entirely possible that when the intelligence community and the law enforcement community looks out across this mainstream,” McCabe continued, “they didn’t assume [on January 6] that that group of people — business owners, white people from the suburbs, educated, employed — presented a threat of violence, and now we know very clearly that they do.
4. McCabe Believes No One Is Above The Law (Except Himself)
Ironically, one of McCabe’s last remarks was a proclamation of equality under the law. “Whether you are a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter, right, left, or otherwise, we should all be able to agree on the principle that no one is above the law,” stated McCabe.” (Read more: The Federalist, 1/10/2022)(Archive)
Pelosi Jr. gave a ringing endorsement of Asa Saint Clair’s IGObit digital token, calling it a game changer. ‘IGObit is the absolute best offering I have ever seen,’ he wrote on his website. (Credit: Paul Pelosi Jr.)
A shocking paper trail shows Nancy Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi Jr.’s connections to a host of fraudsters, rule-breakers and convicted criminals.
A DailyMail.com investigation can reveal that Paul, 52, was involved in five companies probed by federal agencies before, during or after his time there.
He joined the board of a biofuel company after it defrauded investors, according to an SEC ruling, and whose CEO was convicted after bribing Georgia officials.
Paul was president of an environmental investment firm that turned out to be a front for two convicted fraudsters, documents reveal.
He served as vice president of a company previously embroiled in an investigation of scam calls that targeted senior citizens.
A medical company Pelosi Jr. worked for was accused of testing drugs on people without FDA authorization, DailyMail.com can reveal.
A source close to a firm Nancy’s son worked for told DailyMail.com that Pelosi Jr. received $2.8 million of shares allegedly issued as part of a massive $164 million fraud in July 2016.
(…) The 52-year-old joined the board of a biofuel company after it defrauded investors according to an SEC ruling, and whose CEO was convicted after bribing Georgia officials.
Pelosi Jr. was president of an environmental investment firm that turned out to be a front for two convicted fraudsters.
He joined a lithium mining company and received millions of shares, allegedly issued as part of a massive $164 million fraud.
He was vice president of a company previously embroiled in an investigation of scam calls that targeted senior citizens.
He has close business ties with a man accused by the Department of Justice of running a fake UN charity that stole investors’ money.
A medical company Pelosi Jr. worked for tested drugs on people without FDA authorization, according to an FDA investigation.
Pelosi Jr. has never been accused or charged with crimes relating to these cases.
“American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them.
The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events.
Russians on the Brain
Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.”
The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop.
Robert Mueller and his “dream team” consumed $40 million of Americans’ money and 22 months of our time—to find the nothingburger that most of the country already knew was nothing. Yet the subtext of the 2018 Democratic takeover of the House was the media narrative that Trump, as Hillary Clinton put it, was an “illegitimate” president, due to Russian collusion.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed on national television that Trump was a “Russian asset.” Former CIA head John Brennan assured the nation that the president was “treasonous,” due to his supposed “lies to the American people.”
All sorts of politicians, retired military, and news anchors echoed the charges. The lies and myths of has-been British spy Christopher Steele made him a leftist hero. They were repeated ad nauseam as truth.
FBI grandees like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and others destroyed their careers in their obsessions over Trump. In the process of destroying themselves, they also nearly wrecked the reputation of the FBI. The Pentagon has the lowest popular support in modern memory. The CIA is more feared by millions of Americans than by our enemies.
Steele could not produce any evidence to back up his scurrilous charges. The inspector general of the Department of Justice found little evidence to substantiate any of the charges. James Comey and Robert Mueller under oath both pleaded either memory problems or denied any knowledge about the FBI’s use of Steele and the role his fake dossier played.
Most of the televised accusers, when under oath before Congress, admitted they had no evidence for their flamboyant charges. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who claimed the dossier was authentic and that Trump was compromised, has repeatedly been revealed as a liar. In various televised House hearings, he kept getting caught either fabricating, misrepresenting, or warping evidence before his own committee.
No matter. Hillary Clinton and the Left kept pounding “collusion.” The more it was proven false, the more they shouted the lie.
Finally, special counsel John Durham’s investigations, some authentic media investigative reporting, and the preponderance of evidence showed not only that Trump did not collude with the Russians, but that the entire charge was a sick sort of projection on the part of Hillary Clinton and her vassals.
Steele concocted the election-cycle fantasy using a former Clintonite totem in Moscow. Another source was the now indicted Igor Danchenko ( a “primary sub-source”), who was working at the leftist Brookings Institution while feeding Steele.
A cynic might look at this sad chapter and conclude that Hillary Clinton sought to destroy her opponent by paying Christopher Steele to manufacture fantasies fabricated from left-wing and former Clinton associates. Then she used the media, the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department to seed the farce while hiding her own role behind three firewalls including the DNC, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS.
The ultimate irony?
Hillary Clinton did collude with those claiming to have Russian connections to warp an election, and she projected her likely illegal activity onto the target of her attacks. No conspiracist could trump such reality. Will Merrick Garland look at her role in this episode as he conducts his insurrectionist investigations concerning efforts to undermine an election? (Read more: American Greatness, 1/16/2022)(Archive)
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has known about the Durham probe of Michael Sussmann for how long? And specifically, the criminal case against Sussmann revolved around the central witness, the point of contact with former FBI General Counsel, Jim Baker. Yet the OIG said nothing to John Durham about their possession of Baker’s phones until this month?
Think about what that tells us?
TechnoFog has more details about the latest court filing SEE HERE. He also notes the issue of the Durham team only recently being notified by the OIG in January:
…”There is also a curious paragraph discussing the fact that Durham, in January 2022 – learned from the DOJ Inspector General that they possessed “two FBI cellphones of the former FBI General Counsel to whom the defendant made his alleged false statement, along with forensic reports analyzing those cellphones.” Durham’s team is going through those cell phones now to analyze their contents.
And there will be more, with Durham stating, “the Government expects to receive additional information and documents in the coming weeks that may be relevant to the charged conduct.” (read more)
Techno has a great perspective and is always a great source for interpretation of the legal filings. However, I would draw attention to the obvious question about the internal policing unit of the DOJ, the Office of Inspector General, not notifying the special counsel of the evidence in their possession.
James Baker
It’s likely, from the information inside the current and previous filings, that sometime in the interviews with James Baker (a friend of the Lawfare alliance consisting of Ben Wittes, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe), the former FBI general counsel noted he turned over his phones to the OIG, most likely as an outcome of the previous OIG investigation into the political weaponization of the FBI in the OIG FISA application investigation around Carter Page.
Baker telling Durham he gave his phones to the OIG, likely led to Durham asking DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz about them. The OIG then recently admitting they had them…. as evidence… and so, here they are.
However, on its face, the OIG not informing the Durham probe about them previously confirms what we previously outlined about how the information silos are used to contain and control information adverse to the interests of the DC system, writ large. Compartmentalization is how the corrupt enterprises of the Fourth Branch of Government, in this instance the DOJ, can bury information. It’s a feature, not a flaw.
.@LeeSmithDC says he keeps hearing people comparing the scandal to Watergate when it doesn’t compare to Watergate at all. We are talking about some of the most secure communications in government been Surveiled by political operatives. pic.twitter.com/f22h5V92vV
(…) According to Durham, Joffe and his associates manipulated that data to make it seem like Trump, and those in Trump’s world, had suspicious interactions with internet protocol (IP) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider. They then combined those allegations with the Alfa Bank hoax materials (the subject of Sussmann’s Fall 2016 meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker).
This damaging information, purporting to demonstrate at least circumstantial evidence of Trump/Russia collusion, was presented on February 9, 2017 to what Durham describes as U.S. Government “Agency-2.”
That agency was the CIA. We know for sure that Sussmann met with the CIA General Counsel. We learned in January 2022 that, if Sussmann is to be believed, there were two other CIA employees at that meeting.
In other words, a Clinton supporting contractor (Joffe) obtained sensitive information (perhaps unlawfully) about the Office of the President of the United States (Trump), manipulated the information, passed it to a DNC/Clinton lawyer (Sussmann), who then delivered it to the CIA.
All on American soil.
This is important because the CIA is generally prohibited from conducting domestic operations. The FBI explains:
“The CIA collects information only regarding foreign countries and their citizens. Unlike the FBI, it is prohibited from collecting information regarding ‘U.S. Persons,’ a term that includes U.S. citizens, resident aliens, legal immigrants, and U.S. corporations, regardless of where they are located.”
In the CIA’s own words:
“The FBI is responsible for coordination of clandestine collection of foreign intelligence through human sources or human-enabled means and counterintelligence activities inside the United States.”
Yet when it came to Trump, here was the CIA doing what it is prohibited: “collecting information regarding U.S. persons” inside the United States.2 (See also the CIA’s bulk surveillance program.)
A top CIA official answered the call of a DNC lawyer who alleged that these suspicious internet “lookups” proved “that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” Accusations that were baseless, according to Durham.
In other words, the secret police was more than willing to accept politically damaging information against the President. I’m curious what they did with it. It seems naive to think the information stayed at the CIA. I bet it was passed onto the FBI or DOJ, who may have used it to further the Trump/Russia investigation.” (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 2/15/2022)(Archive)
Screenshot from Jesse Watters Primetime/Fox News show, 1/27/2022
Jesse Watters exposes the family corruption of the Clintons, Pelosis, Schumers and more in the opening monologue of ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’ (Yahoo News, 1/27/2022)(Archive)
“As indictments and new court filings indicate that Special Counsel John Durham is investigating Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for feeding false reports to the FBI to incriminate Donald Trump and his advisers as Kremlin agents, Clinton’s role in the burgeoning scandal remains elusive. What did she know and when did she know it?
Top officials involved in her campaign have repeatedly claimed, some under oath, that they and the candidate were unaware of the foundation of their disinformation campaign: the 35-page collection of now debunked claims of Trump/Russia collusion known as the Steele dossier. Even though her campaign helped pay for the dossier, they claim she only read it after BuzzFeed News published it in 2017.
But court documents, behind-the-scenes video footage and recently surfaced evidence reveal that Clinton and her top campaign advisers were much more involved in the more than $1 million operation to dredge up dirt on Trump and Russia than they have let on. The evidence suggests that the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory sprang from a multi-pronged effort within the Clinton campaign, which manufactured many of the false claims, then fed them to friendly media and law enforcement officials. Clinton herself was at the center of these efforts, using her personal Twitter account and presidential debates to echo the false claims of Steele and others that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians.
A largely overlooked moment in the campaign film “Hillary,” when the candidate told running mate Tim Kaine of “scratching hard” to expose Donald Trump’s “weird connections” to Russia. (Credit: Hillary)
Although Clinton has not been pressed by major media on her role in Russiagate, a short scene in the 2020 documentary “Hillary” suggests she was aware of the effort. It shows Clinton speaking to her running mate, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, and his wife, Anne, in hushed tones about Trump and Russia in a back room before a campaign event in early October 2016. Clinton expressed concerns over Trump’s “weird connections” to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. She informed Kaine that she and her aides were “scratching hard” to expose them, a project Kaine seemed to be hearing about for the first time.
“I don’t say this lightly,” Clinton whispered, pausing to look over her shoulder, “[but Trump’s] agenda is other people’s agenda.”
“We’re scratching hard, trying to figure it out,” she continued. “He is the vehicle, the vessel for all these other people.”
The two then discussed “all these weird connections” between the Trump campaign and Russia. Kaine brought up former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, and Clinton expressed suspicion about Trump’s then-national security adviser, ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, “who is a paid tool for Russian television.”
Added Clinton: “This is what scares me … the way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus, or is trying to—.” At that point, a media handler interrupted them over some staging issues, and they stopped discussing Trump and Russia.
Both Manafort and Flynn had been cited in dossier reports submitted to the Clinton campaign before the two Democratic nominees had their October 2016 conversation. The dossier falsely accused Manafort, Flynn and other Trump advisers of participating in a Kremlin conspiracy to steal the election for Trump.
Christopher Steele suggested to the FBI in July 2016 that Hillary Clinton had been briefed on his reports. (Credit: The Associated Press)
Dossier author Christopher Steele himself has suggested Clinton was briefed on his reports. On July 5, 2016 — the same day the FBI publicly exonerated Clinton in her email scandal — Steele handed off the first installments of the dossier to an FBI agent overseas who had handled him previously as an informant. In their London meeting, Steele noted that Clinton was aware of his reporting, according to contemporaneous notes Steele took of their conversation.
“The notes reflect that Steele told [his FBI handler Michael Gaeta] that Steele was aware that ‘Democratic Party associates’ were paying for [his] research; the ‘ultimate client’ was the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign; and ‘the candidate’ was aware of Steele’s reporting,” Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz wrote in his 2019 report examining the FBI’s use of the dossier to justify spying on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Later that same month, during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the CIA picked up Russian chatter about a Clinton foreign policy adviser who was trying to develop allegations to “vilify” Trump. The intercepts said Clinton herself had approved a “plan” to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by tying him to Putin. According to handwritten notes, then-CIA chief John Brennan warned President Obama that Moscow had intercepted information about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump.”
At the convention, Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan drove a golf cart from one TV-network news tent in the parking lot to another, pitching producers, anchors, correspondents and even some NBC network executives a story that Trump and his advisers were in bed with Putin and possibly conspiring with Russian intelligence to steal the election. He also visited CNN and MSNBC, as well as Fox News, to spin the Clinton campaign’s unfounded theories. Sullivan even sat down with CNN honcho Jeff Zucker to outline the opposition research they had gathered on Trump and Russia.
Jake Sullivan: Promoted collusion — but denied under oath knowing details of the dossier project. (Credit: The Associated Press)
Sullivan’s title was misleading. He was far more than a foreign policy adviser to Clinton. His portfolio included campaign strategy.
“Hillary told Sullivan she wanted him to take over [her campaign],” journalists Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen reported in their 2017 bestseller, “Shattered: Inside Hillary’s Doomed Campaign.” “You’re going to be my traffic cop and my rabbi, she told Sullivan, adding that he would be her de facto chief strategist.”
Sullivan was included in “every aspect of her campaign strategy,” they wrote, because “no one on the official campaign staff understood Hillary’s thought process as well as Sullivan.”
Now serving in the White House as President Biden’s national security adviser, Sullivan has denied under oath knowing details about the dossier project.
Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook (with Director of Communications Jennifer Palmieri, rear) went in front of cameras to echo essentially what Steele had reported back to the campaign. (Credit: The Associated Press)
Sullivan spread the anti-Trump rumors behind the scenes while Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook went in front of the cameras to echo essentially what Steele, a former British intelligence officer, had reported back to the campaign.
“Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying the Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump,” Mook told CNN’s Jake Tapper at the convention. He made the same allegations on ABC News’ “This Week,” anchored by George Stephanopoulos, who served as White House communication director during Bill Clinton’s presidency..
Hillary Clinton campaign Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri has acknowledged that they were all bent on casting a “cloud” of suspicion over Trump and seeding doubt about his loyalties by suggesting “the possibility of collusion between Trump’s allies and Russian intelligence.”
“We were on a mission to get the press to focus on the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton,” Palmieri stated in a 2017Washington Postcolumn. “We wanted to raise the alarm.”
It’s not known if their media blitz was coordinated with Glenn Simpson, the Clinton campaign’s opposition-research contractor who hired Steele for $168,000. But Simpson also attended the convention in Philadelphia, and at the same time Clinton’s top people were making the TV media rounds, Simpson and his Fusion GPS co-founder, Peter Fritsch, were meeting with the New York Times and other major print media outlets to pitch Russia “collusion” stories, focusing primarily on Manafort. Bad publicity from the planted stories would later pressure Trump to dump Manafort as his campaign manager.
That same week, Simpson worked with ABC News correspondent Brian Ross on a since-debunked story framing Trump supporter Sergei Millian as a Russian spy. Simpson also told Ross that Trump was involved in shady business deals in Moscow. Simpson set up Ross’ interview with Millian through ABC producer Matthew Mosk, an old Simpson friend.
Then in September 2016, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which is co-hosted by Stephanopoulos, aired parts of the Millian report. Later that day, Hillary Clinton tweeted out a campaign video incorporating heavily edited quotes from Millian and suggesting they were more evidence Trump was “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” Above the video she posted on Sept. 22, Clinton personally tweeted: “The man who could be your next president may be deeply indebted to another country. Do you trust him to run ours?”
In effect, Clinton broadcast to her millions of followers a story her campaign had helped manufacture through a paid contractor.
Igor Danchenko: Clinton amplified his dossier falsehood about Sergei Millian as a key source. (Credit: The Associated Press)
Durham’s ongoing investigation has found that core parts of the dossier were fabricated and falsely attributed to Millian as their source, including the foundational claim of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Russia and Trump. Durham reported that Steele’s main collector of information – onetime Brookings Institution analyst Igor Danchenko – never even spoke with Millian, as he had claimed, but simply made up the source of the most explosive information in the dossier.
Sergei Millian: Danchenko never even spoke with him, Durham charges. (Credit: sergeimillian.com)
Durham recently indicted Danchenko for lying to the FBI about Millian.
The day after Clinton’s false tweet about Millian and Trump, her campaign released a statement by senior national spokesman Glen Caplin touting a “new bombshell report” by Yahoo News that revealed the FBI was investigating “Trump’s foreign policy adviser” for suspected links to the Kremlin.
“It’s chilling to learn that U.S. intelligence officials are conducting a probe into suspected meetings between Trump’s foreign policy adviser Carter Page and members of Putin’s inner circle while in Moscow,” according to the statement, which attached the Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo article in full and noted the report came on the heels of ABC’s story about Millian.
“Just one day after we learned about Trump’s hundreds of millions of dollars in undisclosed Russian business interests,” Caplin’s statement continued, “this report suggests Page met with a sanctioned top Russian official to discuss the possibility of ending U.S. sanctions against Russia under a Trump presidency – an action that could directly enrich both Trump and Page while undermining American interests.”
“We’ve never seen anything like this in American politics,” the Clinton campaign statement added with alarm. “Every day seems to cast new doubts on what’s truly driving Donald Trump’s decision-making.”
But the Yahoo story about Page’s nefarious Kremlin meetings was apocryphal. Its main source was Steele, whose identity was hidden in the story. Yahoo reporter Michael Isikoff had interviewed Steele in a room at a Washington inn booked by Simpson. The FBI nonetheless cited the article to support its applications to a secret federal court for authority to spy on Page, claiming it corroborated the dossier’s allegations, even though they were one and the same.
Here again, Clinton’s team hyped as a “bombshell” Trump-Russia revelation a media report that it helped craft from opposition research it commissioned and from FBI interest it generated. All of this was hidden from voters.
The Clinton campaign planted the allegation of a “secret hotline” to Putin through a Russia-based bank. (Credit: alfabank.com)
It was also in September that then-Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann planted at FBI headquarters the manufactured allegation that Trump had set up a “secret hotline” to Putin through Russia-based Alfa Bank. Steele had filed a campaign report about the bank’s ties to Putin around the same time.
Michael Sussmann: This Clinton lawyer connected Trump with Alfa Bank, and the candidate echoed the charge with a tweet that went viral. perkinscoie.com
Durham last year indicted Sussmann for lying to the FBI, detailing how the lawyer and Simpson had collaborated with a team of anti-Trump, pro-Clinton computer researchers to draft a technical report for the FBI and media allegedly connecting Trump to Alfa Bank through email servers. Simpson, in turn, worked with Slate reporter Franklin Foer to craft a story propagating the allegation, even reviewing his piece in advance of publication.
Foer’s story broke on Oct. 31, 2016. That same day, Sullivan hyped the story on Twitter, claiming in a written campaign statement that Trump and the Russians were operating a “secret hotline” through Alfa Bank and speculating “federal authorities” would be investigating “this direct connection between Trump and Russia.” He portrayed the discovery as the work of independent experts — “computer scientists” — without disclosing their connections to the campaign.
“This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan proclaimed.
‘October Surprise’ That Wasn’t
Clinton teed up that statement in an Oct. 31tweet of her own, which quickly went viral. She warned voters: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”
October 31, 2016/Twitter
Also that day, Clinton tweeted, “It’s time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia,” while attaching a meme that read: “Donald Trump has a secret server. It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank called Alfa Bank.”
At the same time that Simpson was working Slate, he leaked to a friend at the New York Times that the FBI had evidence of the Trump-Alfa link, providing the Times and other friendly media outlets a serious news hook to publish the unfounded rumors on the eve of the November election.
The Alfa smear was meant as an “October surprise” that would rock the Trump campaign and take media focus off the probe of Clinton’s emails, which then-FBI Director James Comey had been pressured by a New York agent to revive in the final week of the campaign. Clinton’s team had even “prepared a video promoting the Trump-Alfa Bank server connection and was poised to make an all-out push through social media,” according to Isikoff and David Corn in their book, “Russian Roulette.” But “that plan was canned,” they wrote because the Oct. 31Times story noted that the FBI had not been able to corroborate the claims of a cyber-link. The skepticism cooled the media firestorm the campaign had hoped for.
“We had been waiting for the Alfa Bank story to come out,” Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta told Isikoff and Corn. “Then — boom! — it gets smacked down.”
In congressional testimony, Podesta has largely claimed ignorance about the campaign’s opposition-research efforts.
Marc Elias: A focus of Durham, he briefed Clinton campaign leaders about the Alfa smear, emails show. (Credit: The Associated Press)
In Durham’s indictment of Sussmann for lying to the FBI about his work for the Clinton campaign while feeding them the Alfa Bank story, prosecutors revealed that Sussmann’s partner Marc Elias kept Clinton campaign bigwigs in the loop about the project to manufacture a Trump-Russian bank conspiracy, which the FBI months later completely debunked. Emails obtained by Durham’s investigators show the lawyer had briefed top Clinton campaign officials Sullivan, Palmieri and Mook about the Alfa smear in September 2016. Elias, the campaign’s general counsel, engaged with “individuals acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign to share information about the Russian bank data,” the indictment stated.
Sullivan, who now serves as President Biden’s national security adviser, maintained in December 2017 congressional testimony he didn’t even know that the politically prominent Elias worked for Perkins Coie, a well-known Democratic law firm representing the Clinton campaign. Major media stories from 2016, however, routinely identified Elias as “general counsel for the Clinton campaign” and a “partner at Perkins Coie.”
“To be honest with you, Marc wears a tremendous number of hats, so I wasn’t sure who he was representing,” Sullivan testified. “I sort of thought he was, you know, just talking to us as, you know, a fellow traveler in this – in this campaign effort.”
Veteran FBI investigators doubt Sullivan or his boss were in the dark about the campaign-funded work of Elias, Sussmann, Simpson or Steele and other campaign operations designed to make Trump look compromised by a foreign adversary.
“Durham is telling us that this Alfa Bank hoax – and probably related matters – were Clinton campaign ops at the very highest level,” former FBI counterintelligence agent and lawyer Mark Wauck noted. “How credible is it to suppose that Hillary herself wasn’t in the know?”
Durham’s investigators have been questioning Elias under subpoena. A new court filing in the Sussmann case reveals that Elias has given testimony before a criminal grand jury impaneled by Durham in Washington, D.C.
Grand jury testimony is sealed and it’s not known what Elias told prosecutors. But In 2017, he testified in a closed-door session of Congress that Mook was his campaign contact for opposition-research projects, including the dossier. “I consulted with Robby Mook, who was campaign manager,” he said, noting that Mook handled budget matters and signed off on opposition-research expenses billed by Perkins Coie, which totaled more than $1.2 million.
While Mook has not been questioned under oath on the Hill, he told CNN: “I didn’t know that we were paying the contractor that created that document.”
“What I’ve known [about the dossier] is what I’ve read in the press,” he claimed. Mook said he doesn’t recall seeing the dossier memos during the campaign. “I just can’t attribute to what piece of information, you know, came to us at one time or where it came from, frankly. You know, as campaign manager, there’s a lot going on.”
Mook added that he wasn’t sure who was gathering the information for the dossier: “I don’t know the answer to that. … I wish we paid more attention to it on the campaign.”
Elias Met Simpson Often
In his testimony, Elias said he met with Simpson and other Fusion GPS researchers at least 20 times and Steele at least once during the campaign. He said he would receive written reports from them and direct them to find certain information. He, in turn, would travel each week to Clinton campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y., to report what he had learned about Trump and Russia.
Glenn Simpson: Clinton lawyer Elias said he met with him and other Fusion GPS researchers at least 20 times. (Credit: The Associated Press)
However, Elias insisted he left his interlocutors in the dark about the sources of that information, for which the campaign was paying him in excess of $1 million. He also insisted he didn’t tell his campaign contacts about his meetings with Steele or Simpson, despite billing the campaign for such consultations, and never shared the dossier reports or other materials they generated with those Clinton officials. Elias even maintained that he hired Fusion GPS on his own without consulting with Mook or the campaign. “I was the gatekeeper,” he said, between the research contractors and the campaign.
According to “Russian Roulette,” however, Elias shared the findings of Steele’s memos with at least Mook. “Elias would at times brief Mook on their contents,” Isikoff and Corn wrote.
Podesta has testified that he, too, had no idea Steele and Fusion GPS were on the campaign’s payroll and didn’t read the dossier until BuzzFeed posted it online after the election.
Under oath, Podesta denied speaking with Clinton about the dossier even after the election: “I don’t know that I’ve ever discussed the dossier with Mrs. Clinton.” He also swore Clinton never talked to him about opposition research, in general, or who the campaign might hire to conduct it.
The campaign’s in-house opposition research team, led by chief researcher Christina Reynolds, was under the direction of Palmieri, the head of communications who is close to Clinton.
Brian Fallon, ex-campaign spokesman: “She may have known [about the dossier and its financing before the election], but the degree of exactly what she knew is beyond my knowledge.” (Credit: CBS)
Former Bill Clinton political strategist Doug Schoen said it stretches credulity to suggest that top officials in the Clinton camp, including the candidate herself, weren’t fully aware of the research their campaign attorney was billing them for.
“With more than 380 payments from the Clinton campaign and the DNC being made to Perkins Coie, it is seemingly impossible that the candidate herself would not have direct knowledge of the purpose of those payments or any earmarks being made, especially those for Fusion GPS,” Schoen said.
Quoting unnamed Clinton surrogates, both the New York Times and CNN have reported that the candidate was unaware of the dossier prior to BuzzFeed publishing it two months after the 2016 election. Former Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN in a separate interview she may not have been totally out of the loop, however. “She may have known [about the dossier and its financing before the election],” he said, “but the degree of exactly what she knew is beyond my knowledge.”
A senior congressional investigator who insisted on anonymity said the denials are hard to believe and described them as an effort to insulate Clinton from a major undertaking of her campaign that has proved scandalous, if not criminal. “The biggest lie is Hillary didn’t know about any of this oppo stuff even though she tweeted about it!” he said.
Walled off from her campaign’s oppo research? She seemed to cite dossier falsehoods in the debates. (Credit: The Associated Press)
Clinton also appeared to cite dossier disinformation in the presidential debates, casting further doubt on claims she was walled off from such opposition research. In the final debate, for example, Clinton accused Trump of being Putin’s “puppet” and accepting his “help” in sabotaging her campaign, drawing conclusions similar to ones made in the dossier. She claimed Trump did what the dossier falsely claimed he did — conspiring with the Russian government to hack her campaign and steal emails — though she allegedly never read Steele’s reports.
“You encouraged espionage against our people,” Clinton said on Oct. 19, 2016.
Durham Inching Closer
With each new indictment and court filing, Clinton inches closer to the center of the special prosecutor’s investigation, now in its third year.
Durham indicated in a recently filed court document that he is actively investigating the Clinton campaign and seeks to question its top officials. His office declined to say whether it intended to question Clinton herself.
John Durham: His indictments make clear that the Clinton campaign’s influence on the contents of the dossier was much deeper than previously known. (Credit: The Associated Press)
Durham’s recent indictments of Sussmann and subcontractor Danchenko implicate key campaign figures and make clear that the Clinton campaign’s influence on the contents of the dossier was much deeper than previously known.
For instance, Durham found that a longtime Clinton insider and campaign adviser — Charles Dolan — was a key source for the dossier and most likely originated the false “pee tape” rumor involving Trump and Moscow prostitutes. It seems likely that he acted as an intermediary between the campaign and Steele’s primary sub-source, Danchenko, with whom he communicated. In 2016, Dolan “actively campaigned and participated in calls and events as a volunteer on behalf of Hillary Clinton,” according to the Danchenko indictment.
In other words, the Clinton campaign not only funded the Russia dirt on Trump but provided some of the actual sourcing for it. Campaign operatives, in turn, laundered the dirt through the FBI and into the mainstream media to damage Trump.
In a related filing in the Danchenko case, Durham noted that his “areas of inquiry” include investigating “the extent to which the Clinton campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited or controlled the defendant’s [Danchenko’s] activities” surrounding the dossier. He also indicated prosecutors want to find out whether the campaign knew Danchenko and Steele were funneling false information to the FBI, and intend to summon “multiple former employees of the campaign” as trial or grand jury witnesses.
In the Sussmann case, Durham’s agents have already questioned one “former employee of the Clinton campaign” and subpoenaed Clinton campaign records, according to a new document filed by Durham earlier this week.
Sources familiar with his probe say Durham ultimately is investigating the Clinton campaign for, among other things, alleged conspiracy to defraud the FBI, the Justice Department and the Pentagon’s research arm, which provided funding and sensitive Internet logs to Clinton operatives who helped fabricate the Alfa Bank hoax.
Danchenko and the Clinton campaign, including Podesta and other officials, happen to share the same D.C. law firm – Schertler & Onorato – which gives the appearance that the Clinton campaign and the main source of the dossier have entered into a joint defense. Durham warned the court that the arrangement poses a conflict of interest.
Podesta’s attorney, Bob Trout, did not respond to requests for comment. Trout also represents other ex-campaign officials who recently retained him in matters before Durham.
Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, who practices at the Washington-based firm Williams & Connolly, did not reply to requests for comment.
J.D. Gordon, who held a position roughly equivalent to Sullivan’s on the 2016 Trump campaign, said in an interview that he hopes Durham adds Sullivan and other Clinton aides to his criminal investigation, “if he hasn’t already.”
He suspects Sullivan was “the Russiagate hoax mastermind” and hopes that he and other members of Clinton’s 2016 team — as well as the candidate herself — are subpoenaed for testimony and document production just as he and other Trump advisers were targeted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, based almost entirely on rumors started by the Clinton machine. He called the Clinton-funded smears “depraved” and “nationally destabilizing.”
“In addition to outright surveillance via the fraudulent FISA warrant against Carter Page, many of us were hit with federal and congressional subpoenas, subjected to grueling Senate and House investigations, special counsel interrogations and resulting harsh media spotlight,” he said. “I appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee, House Intelligence Committee and produced requested documents to the House Judiciary Committee. Three times I was summoned before the special counsel, the first of which in August 2017 was apparently leaked to the Washington Post.”
Gordon is not alone in his desire to see Clinton held to account. Among those Americans aware of the Durham probe, fully 60% think the special counsel should question Clinton about her role in the dossier and other campaign foul play, according to a recent national poll by TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics. Broken down by political affiliation, 80% of Republicans, 44% of Democrats and 74% of independent voters agree that Clinton should be interviewed by investigators.
What happened more than five years ago may have renewed relevance: Some Democratic strategists speculate that Clinton is eyeing another run at the White House. As Vice President Kamala Harris’ popularity wanes and her shot at becoming the first female president slips, they say Clinton may see an opening.
“I will never be out of the game of politics,” Clinton told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in October.
This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution.
[Timeline editor’s note – A member of our team noted an even earlier date tying Podesta to Russia, Russia, Russia:
On 12/21/15, Podesta emails with Brent Budowsky, contributor to “The Hill” and “The Huffington Post”, Budowsky suggests to John in a manner which seems to show it is part of an ongoing conversation between the two that the “best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin.”
Mind you, the Wikileaks drops and “Russia Russia Russia” were still some seven months away.
Going back even earlier we have the “Pied Piper” email of 4/7/15 from Podesta to the DNC outlining the campaign’s plans for how to deal with any GOP candidate in general, and specific “weak points” to attack in specific potential candidates.
Their intent from the beginning was to make any candidate seem soooo far to the right that they would be a) easy to smear, and that b) Hillary would appear closer the the “middle” and thus more palatable to more voters. The Pied Piper would lead the “rats” astray for them. Of course with the help of smears.
Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump were their top three most likely, but Podesta expressed the intent would be the same for any candidate nominated.
They intended from the beginning to color any candidate as weak with minorities. We know now that would have meant them calling ANY candidate a racist.
These are two of the most important drops for providing the background to all that was to come.
I’m sure they had a “dirt file” on every candidate with which to attempt to smear them. But they got Trump and went with the Russia angle, just as we see suggested almost a year before by Budowsky to Podesta.
Joe Biden and Viktor Shokin (Credit: public domain)
(…) During former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial two years ago, House Democrats alleged that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired in March 2016 because State officials were widely displeased with his anti-corruption efforts and not because Shokin’s office was investigating the Ukrainian gas firm that had given then-Vice President Biden’s son Hunter a lucrative job.
But the memos obtained by Just the News and the Southeastern Legal Foundation under a Freedom of Information Act request show senior State Department officials — including then-Secretary of State John Kerry — were sending the opposite message to Shokin the summer before his firing.
“We have been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government,” then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland personally wrote Shokin in an official letter dated June 9, 2015 that was delivered to the prosecutor two days later by then-U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt.
Nuland, now President Biden’s undersecretary of state, wrote that “Secretary Kerry asked me to reply on his behalf” to let Shokin know he enjoyed the full support of the United States as he set out to fight endemic corruption in the former Soviet republic.
“The ongoing reform of your office, law enforcement, and the judiciary will enable you to investigate and prosecute corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair, and transparent manner,” Nuland added. “The United States fully supports your government’s efforts to fight corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair and transparent manner.” File
The letter stands out, according to Republican congressional investigators and Trump’s former impeachment defense lawyers, because it was sent just six months before Joe Biden began his pressure campaign to oust Shokin in December 2015 and appears to conflict with testimony given to Congress.
They also told Just the News they have no record the memo was produced to Trump’s impeachment defense team or to a Senate investigation that concluded the Bidens’ business dealings in Ukraine created a conflict of interest that undercut U.S. anti-corruption efforts. (Read more: Just the News, 2/01/2022)(Archive)
(…) A document uncovered in a court case in D.C. with Fusion GPS shows that the company was working on nearly every piece of information eventually used by the Mueller gang to take down President Trump. (Link to court documents.)
The below documents were provided to the courts in the above case where the defendants were suing Fusion GPS for libel.
This second document provides similar data along with the dollar values of their projects totaling more than $1 million.
We learned from the inventory of Fusion GPS projects that they were involved with Crowdstrike who was first reported as the experts claiming Russia had stolen the DNC’s emails back in 2016. This lie was kept in place by the Mueller gang for years as the excuse to look into the Trump – Russia collusion.
Fusion GPS was involved in the Alfa Bank story that turned out to be a lie, the Carter Page story that was a lie since Page was working for the CIA, the Paul Manafort story, and the Papadopoulos story. All of these stories and individuals were used by the DOJ and the Mueller gang as a means to harass and attempt to have President Trump removed from office. Every one.
“Hillary Clinton is ramping up her public appearances ahead of the 2022 midterm elections as President Joe Biden’s popularity continues to plummet, even among Democratic voters.
Next week, for example, the twice-failed presidential candidate is expected to speak at the New York State Democratic Party Convention. Clinton, who used to command public speaking fees of more than $200,000 per hour, will address party leaders at the Sheraton Hotel in Times Square, according to CNBC.
Next month, Hillary will celebrate International Women’s Day by hosting a live virtual event with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and “other special guests to be announced.” She also recently touted some new merchandise available for purchase on the website of her political action committee, Onward Together.
For just $30, Hillary fans can pre-order a cool “dad hat” with the words “But Her Emails” printed on it, a reference to the catchphrase that was briefly popular among left-wing social media users circa 2016. (Read more: Washington Free Beacon, 2/11/2022)(Archive)
(…) When I wrote about the Durham motion to investigate potential conflicts of interest between Michael Sussmann and his attorney, the law firm of Latham & Watkins, I focused on the core point, which was that Hillary’s campaign, acting through the Perkins Coie law firm, spied on Trump. Bongino, though, had a few more subtle points to make. You can watch his video here, of course, but here are the two main takeaways:
First, I missed something very important in Durham’s motion. Here’s what Durham wrote at paragraph 5: “The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (DNS) Internet traffic pertaining to …”
What Bongino caught is that Durham wrote “among the Internet data … was domain name system … Internet traffic.” That strongly implies that DNS information, which simply means sites accessed, isn’t the only information involved. It’s possible that Durham can show that there are other internet data that the Hillary camp exploited, things such as emails or shared documents.
Kathryn Ruemmler hugs Obama following a Supreme Court victory. (Credit: public domain)
Second, Bongino thinks the real bombshell in this is that Durham is warning Sussmann that Latham & Watkins is a very dangerous law firm to have representing him. The reason is that one of the top Latham & Watkins attorneys is a gal named Kathryn Ruemmler or, as Bongino calls her, “The Fixer.” He points out that Ruemmler has her finger in every single corrupt pie baked during the Obama administration.
Before moving to Latham & Watkins, Ruemmler was Obama’s White House counsel and ran interference for him. But before that, she worked on the Enron case with Andrew Weissmann, the man who really ran the Mueller “investigation.”
After leaving the White House, Ruemmler represented George Nader, a convicted pedophile who set up meetings between Trump people and representatives of the United Arab Emirates. He eventually pleaded guilty to having helped the UAE put millions of dollars illegally into Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign. Ruemmler also represented Susan Rice. Rice was the one who sent a memo to self on her last day in the White House assuring posterity that, when the Obama administration was spying on people, it was doing everything “by the book.”
Bongino believes that both Obama and, probably, Biden knew about the spying. Ruemmler’s job, as always, will be to keep Obama clean. As a power partner at Latham & Watkins, she can be expected to force the “Sacrifice of Sussmann,” if need be. (Read more: American Thinker, 2/16/2022)(Archive)
“A Ukrainian former diplomat who exposed corrupt Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden networks, and who warned Americans about a Russian agent of influence, is now on what appears to be an assassination list.
After working for years with the Obama White House and a Clinton-aligned lobbying firm working for the Burisma gas company, Andrii Telizhenko became a source for Senate Republicans in 2019-2020. He helped expose some of Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings in Ukraine and their dangers to American national security policy.
Telizhenko had been one of many witnesses who provided evidence to joint Senate committee investigation of Hunter Biden, the Burisma gas company, and corruption impacting US government policy.
Telizhenko’s revelations prompted Senate Democrats to accuse him of being a Russian disinformation agent, and ultimately for partisan bureaucrats to trick the Trump Administration into sanctioning him as a Russian asset in the last days before Biden took office. Two of Telizhenko’s accusers, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) pushed the Russian disinformation in the discredited Steele Dossier.
Telizhenko, left, enters a meeting with then-Senator Bob Corker, center; and at right, President Obama’s ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, just weeks after the ouster of Yanukovych. (Credit: public domain)
Now that wrongful partisan action was used to put Telizhenko on what many Ukrainians consider a kill list.
The list appears on a website that Ukrainian ultranationalists use to dox and track people they consider pro-Russian. Ukrainians understand it to be a kill list in the event of armed conflict with Russia.
(…) Telizhenko fell afoul of Democrat partisans in the US Treasury and State Department bureaucracies after he began exposing Hillary Clinton’s corrupt networks relating to Ukraine, and to Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian gas company.
He said he learned of the networks between 2013 and 2019 while serving as a Ukrainian diplomat, working with the Obama White House and the office of then-vice president Joe Biden, and State Department; and working for a Clinton-affiliated lobbying group called Blue Star Strategies. The lobby shop had a contract with Burisma while he was a contractor there.
Telizhenko was one of many witnesses who helped a joint investigation by the Senate Homeland Security Committee and Finance Committee, chaired at the time by Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Democrat defense of then-candidate Joe Biden caused the Republicans under Johnson and Grassley to issue their own staff report, which discussed Telizhenko’s testimony and email and WhatsApp messages he produced as evidence.
Democrats were fine with Telizhenko until he exposed Hunter Biden. Then they called him a Russian agent.
“The Obama administration and the Democrat lobby shop Blue Star Strategies had consistent and extensive contact with Andrii Telizhenko over a period of years,” the Johnson-Grassley report said.
Telizhenko told me that his involvement with the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s team began in 2013, during the Revolution to overthrow the pro-Putin regime of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. He said he was coordinator of international relations for the Maidan movement and worked with the US Embassy in Kyiv between 2010-2014 to remove Yanukovych and his government.
“Yet despite these well-documented contacts with Democratic officials, Democrats have attempted to impugn this investigation for having received some Blue Star-related records from him. … Democrats have claimed that Telizhenko is involved in a Russian disinformation campaign,” according to the senators’ staff report.
“In doing so, they conveniently have ignored their own long history of meeting with Telizhenko and his year-long for a Democrat lobby shop. If Democrats are concerned that Telizhenko presents any risk of advancing disinformation, it is notable that the Ranking Members [Democrat Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)] have not expressed any curiosity about his work with the Obama administration or Blue Star Strategies.” (Read more: Center for Security Policy, 2/14/2022)(Archive)
“Ericsson’s corrupt conduct involved high-level executives and spanned 17 years and at least five countries, all in a misguided effort to increase profits,”
This next part is rich…
Ericsson “agreed to the imposition of an independent compliance monitor.”
Investigation or Coverup?
The $1B in total charges include a criminal penalty of more than $520 million, plus $540 million to be paid to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a related matter.
– SDNY
– SEC
– IRS
– Law Enforcement authorities in Sweden…
The SEC to Ericsson on September 29th, 2010…
“As you know, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria are countries that are identified by the U.S. Department of State as state sponsors of terrorism, and are subject to U.S. economic sanctions and export controls.”
In 2009-10, Ericsson was in hot water w Hillary Clinton’s State Department for trading with an enemy state in Iran.
“We are not going to broaden sanctions on Iran to include Technologies like Telecom.
We’re going to rely and expect companies like Ericsson to police themselves.”
NOV 28, 2010
The US diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate part of a series known as PlusD.DEC 1, 2010
Amazon kicks WikiLeaks off of their servers.DEC 2, 2010
INTERPOL Office in Gothenburg, Sweden issues fresh arrest warrant for @wikileaks founder Julian Assange
DEC 3, 2010
US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workersThe Clinton Foundation’s outpost in Stockholm, Sweden received nearly 270 million Swedish crowns, or $30 million, since it was established in 2011, while Clinton was still secretary of state.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/0…
Joe Biden: “Julian Assange is a high tech terrorist”
Julian Assange is a hero and he needs our support now more than ever…
Oct 21, 2011
Barack Obama announces total withdrawal of US troops from IraqOn this occasion there would be no redrawing of lines in the sand… Obama had to “keep his promises”.President says ‘America’s war in Iraq will be over’
ISIS faded into obscurity for several years after the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq in 2007.
It began to reemerge in 2011. Over the next few years, it took advantage of growing instability in Iraq & Syria to carry out attacks & bolster its ranks.
With Ericsson’s help of course!
April 23, 2012
Executive Order — Blocking the Property and Suspending Entry into the United States of Certain Persons with Respect to Grave Human Rights Abuses by the Governments of Iran and Syria via Information TechnologyEricsson avoids sanctions…
The Government knew what Ericsson was up to and they chose to ignore it or defer action.
AND THE FCC DID NOT INCLUDE NATIONAL SECURITY REQUIREMENTS in the initial bid process?!
“Evidence emerged several months ago that Telcordia had improperly used a small number of foreign nationals, including one Chinese citizen, to do computer coding for early work on the system after Telcordia was given preliminary approval for the job.”
Also working on Neustar’s behalf is Hogan Lovells, Inc.
See my notes on that star studded cast of misfits…
The Clinton Email investigation started in the EDNY where Telcordia is… Then was moved to the SDNY.
So how corrupt is the SDNY?
SDNY – Weiner evidence collection
SDNY – Clinton Foundation Investigation
SDNY – Epstein evidence collection
SDNY – Ghislaine Maxwell Case
SDNY – Trump Tax Returns
SDNY – SEC v Ripple LabsObama made the appointment of Allison Nathan upon the recommendation of sen. Chuck Schumer
IJIC Leak from February icij.org/investigations…From a few days ago…”Iran seeks tech in Sweden for nuclear weapons”
So Ericsson supports Terrorism and controls our Numbers Portability Contract…
Pretty alarming…
Find out how we plan to use this information to hold people in positions of power accountable through PLVS VLTRA Action Reports through the links below:
There’s a lot more connections to Joffe and Sussman that I’ll be revealing in the coming days…
We have a lot of work to do, please consider joining us through plvsvltra.org.
Elias, best known for his funding of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited anti-Trump dossier while he served as Clinton’s 2016 campaign general counsel, appears to be representing the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation through his recently formed Elias Law Group. BLM’s national organization repeatedly lists the Elias firm as one of its addresses and states in its short-year 2020 Form 990 that its books were now in the care of the Elias Law Group.
Additionally, Minyon Moore, a longtime top ally of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, is now listed as part of BLM’s board of directors in the charity’s filings.
It’s not clear when BLM’s relationships with Elias Law Group and Moore began.
Black Lives Matter filed a charitable organization registration statement earlier this month with the New Mexico attorney general’s office, listing addresses for BLM in Arizona and Oakland, California, but says BLM’s “other address” is “c/o [courtesy of] Elias Law Group” in Washington, D.C.
BLM also filed an annual registration renewal fee report with the California attorney general this month, with the filing saying multiple times that one of its addresses was “c/o Elias Law Group.” The filing also states BLM’s “books are in the care of … the organization” that is “located at … c/o Elias Law Group.”
“The latest filing’s addition of partisan lawyer Marc Elias confirms the group is more political than charitable,” Scott Walter, the president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative nonprofit group, told the Washington Examiner. “But it also suggests that finally some left-wing heavyweights have begun to deal with the embarrassing mess made by a major activist group the institutional Left has failed to, pardon the term, police.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 2/16/2022)(Archive)
Rosie Memos shares a clue:
Why would BLM need Marc Elias to represent them? He’s a Democrat party elections lawyer🧐 Oh that’s right BLM was a cover to fund DNC.
cc: @TheLastRefuge2https://t.co/O1eaAZhkTb
Long before FBI computer contractor and Clinton operative Rodney L. Joffe allegedly trolled Internet traffic for dirt on President Trump, he mined direct-marketing contact lists for the names and addresses of unwitting Americans to target in a promotional scam involving a grandfather clock.
Rodney Joffe: Back in the 1980s, this anti-Trump computer contractor had a mail-order racket that enticed millions — and landed him in trouble. (Credit: LinkedIn)
Not just any clock, mind you, but a “world famous Bentley IX” model, according to postcards his companies mailed out to millions of people in the late 1980s claiming they’d won the clock in a contest they never entered. There was just one hitch: the lucky winners had to send $69.19 in shipping fees to redeem their supposedly five-foot mahogany prize.
Tens of thousands of folks forked over the fees, only to discover the grandfather clock that arrived was nothing as advertised. It was really just a table-top version made of particle board and plastic and worth less than $10. Some assembly was required.
The scheme generated thousands of complaints, sparking federal and state investigations. Joffe and his then-California partner, Linda M. Carella, were eyed by federal postal authorities and several state attorneys general for allegedly operating a multi-state mail-order scheme. Joffe settled several state lawsuits by agreeing to refund hundreds of thousands of dollars mainly to elderly victims, according to several published reports at the time.
Joffe and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment. But in a phone interview, Carella told RealClearInvestigations that Joffe ran the operation. “I was just the secretary, the receptionist,” Carella, 76, said from her home in Florida, where she is now retired. She did say she picked up the returned postcards and checks from mailboxes.
Carella said she quit after the investigation: “I said I don’t want anything more to do with this … I have not seen Rodney since then.” But Joffe pressed on with his direct-mail marketing business before packing up for Arizona a few years later. Federal and state tax lien records reveal Joffe — who also sent out mailers for skin care and other beauty products — owed more than $110,000 in back taxes on his property in Los Angeles in 1995.
A 1988 consumer article in the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press citing Joffe’s role in the alleged grandfather clock scam.
Joffe’s checkered past now has national security ramifications after the South African-born computer expert was outed as a key player in Special Counsel John Durham’s ongoing Russiagate probe. To date he has not been charged with a crime. But in a September indictment of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, and a court filing last week, Durham has suggested that Joffe (identified as “Tech Executive-1”) was at the center of an effort to monitor President Trump’s communications and then share the information with Clinton associates.
Former prosecutor and assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the credibility issues that cropped up from Joffe’s early career raise questions about how he managed to pass an FBI personal background check and obtain the government’s highest security clearances, although he noted that such background checks were often ridiculed in the bureau as “a joke.” In addition, the federal mail-order probe involving Joffe’s companies might not have raised serious red flags since the case was opened decades earlier and was settled without any charges or judgments against Joffe.
The FBI declined comment.
Another part of the answer as to why Joffe’s past remained buried may involve how successfully he appears to have reinvented himself during the 1990s.
He relocated then to Phoenix from Los Angeles and changed the name of his mass-marketing firm American Computer Group to “Whitehat Data Services.” Instead of targeting consumers, he developed a reputation as a cyber-security expert and, ironically, a champion of consumers battling abusive direct-marketers and spammers.
Perhaps it was a sign of his redemption. But Joffe soon joined the board of PlasmaNet Inc., a marketing network that until recently operated FreeLotto.com, an online sweepstakes game. PlasmaNet has had to pay millions of dollars in fines for deceptive advertising. Echoing the grandfather clock scam, PlasmaNet led consumers to believe they won free prizes when in fact they had to pay $14.99 a month to claim them. RCI has learned that FreeLotto.com was a customer of UltraDNS, an Internet resolution company founded by Joffe. Business incorporation records show Joffe remains a PlasmaNet director.
A decade later, Joffe moved to Washington, where he eventually landed lucrative security-related contracts with the FBI and Pentagon requiring top secret clearance.
In 2006, Joffe joined Neustar Inc., a Beltway computer contractor that, among other things, secures and maintains Internet servers for federal agencies, including the White House. This high-level position gave the alleged former grandfather clock wheedler access to a proprietary archive of Internet traffic records – both public and nonpublic – known as “DNS logs.” These logs reveal the back-and-forth pinging that computers and cellphones generate when they communicate with Internet servers, including ones transmitting emails.
It also put him in the same orbit with political VIPs. Joffe started advising not only FBI brass but White House officials, including President Obama, on cybersecurity matters. By 2016, his access to proprietary internet logs became of interest to operatives for the Hillary Clinton campaign, who appear to have offered him a plum job in a Clinton presidency for help on an opposition-research project against Donald Trump. (Shortly after Clinton’s loss to Trump in November 2016, Joffe said in an email: “I was tentatively offered the top [cybersecurity] job by the Democrats when it looked like they’d win. I definitely would not take the job under Trump.”)
One of those operatives was ex-Clinton attorney Sussmann, indicted by Durham last fall in connection with allegations of lying about his work on the project for the campaign.
In the indictment and recent court filings that widen the case, Durham accused Joffe of exploiting Neustar’s nonpublic data to monitor Trump’s Internet activities even after the 2016 election – through early 2017. He shared the sensitive information with Sussmann, who in turn gave it to the CIA. The prosecutor said Joffe mined data from Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building and even the Executive Office of the President “for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.”
According to court papers, Joffe cherry-picked data to create a “narrative” that Trump was secretly communicating with the Kremlin as part of the Clinton campaign’s effort to make the GOP nominee look like he was compromised by Russia, a foreign adversary. Before the election, Joffe led a team of computer researchers vying for a major Pentagon contract to link Trump to Russian Alfa Bank through private DNS logs. He handed off their findings to Sussmann who fed the data to the FBI to drive an investigation and bad press against Trump.
“The data was highly manipulated,” said Robert Graham of Atlanta-based Errata Security, an independent cyber forensics expert who examined the logs and debunked the link at the time. He suspects Joffe and his biased crew set out to invent a connection between Trump and Russia.
“A link between Trump and Alfa Bank wasn’t something they accidentally found, it was one of the many thousands of links they looked for,” he added. “The purpose was to smear Trump.”
Though Graham as a Clinton supporter shares Joffe’s disdain for Trump, he said the suspicious server data were easily explained as innocent spam traffic. Graham noted that Trump didn’t even have control over the domain in question: trump-email.com. It was created by a hotel marketing firm that inserted Trump’s name in the domain.
“Hints of a Trump-Alfa connection have always been the dishonesty of those who collected the data,” Graham said.
Manos Antonakakis: Joffe’s lead researcher said in an email that “the only thing that drives us is that we just don’t like [Trump].” (Credit: gatech.edu)
Even though Joffe encouraged Sussmann to present the server data to the FBI as possible evidence of foreign espionage, he privately confessed to his reseachers in an August 2016 email obtained by Durham that the host for the trump-email.com domain “is a legitimate valid [marketing] company” – Boca Raton, Fla.-based Cendyn. “We can ignore it,” Joffe said, “together with others that seem to be part of the marketing world.” He urged his team to keep searching for data that would “give the base of a very useful narrative.”
In previous statements, lawyers for Joffe and the researchers he recruited have said they had no political ax to grind but were monitoring Trump to track a credible national security threat related to Russia. But Joffe’s lead researcher – Manos Antonakakis of the Georgia Institute of Technology – revealed in one email obtained by Durham that “the only thing that drives us is that we just don’t like [Trump].” Other emails, released this week by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Antonakakis believed even the most salacious – and debunked – rumors in the Clinton-commissioned Steele dossier.
Recent court filings indicate Durham and his prosecutors aren’t buying their “concerned patriot” defense. Some see a crime in exploiting high-security government contracts for political purposes.
“In my opinion, Joffe is someone who should be indicted and probably will be,” former FBI official Swecker said in an RCI interview.
“As I see it,” Swecker explained, “Joffe, who worked for Neustar at the time, had a contract with either the Executive Office of the President or the [presidential] transition team, and he used information gleaned from his contractual relationship to provide that private information to the Clinton campaign. Depending on the actual facts on the ground, it could constitute mail or wire fraud, and if it were an actual government contract, perhaps fraud against the government – that is, the Executive Office of the President.”
Added Swecker: “There could be other criminal statutes [invoked] as well” — including conspiracy — “but to me, the key issue is his contractual relationship. He also engaged researchers at Georgia Tech who were working on a government contract and being paid by the U.S. government.”
In a public statement, a spokesman for Joffe argued that the then-Neustar executive had authority to mine the White House data: “Under the terms of the contract, the data could be accessed to identify and analyze any security breaches or threats,” including concerns about Russian interference in the election.
Joffe Internet Firms in Durham’s Sights
While not charged with a crime, Joffe, despite being subpoenaed, does not appear to be actively cooperating with Durham’s investigation. He does not show up on a discovery document recently filed by Durham listing people interviewed by investigators or the grand jury. Asked if Joffe has received a target letter, his attorney Steven Tyrrell did not answer. On Twitter, Joffe has removed all his tweets dating back to 2014.
Sources told RCI that Durham’s office is looking closely at Washington-based Neustar – which Joffe left in September following Sussmann’s indictment – and two Internet firms Joffe operated while still working there: Packet Forensics and Vostrom Ventures, both of which are controlled by Vostrom Holdings Inc. and also have offices in the greater Washington area.
Durham’s investigators have interviewed several current and former employees at all three companies, and obtained thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents from them, recent court filings reveal. In September 2016, Sussmann billed Neustar for “communications regarding confidential project,” a reference to Joffe’s mission to find a “secret hotline” between Trump and the Kremlin via Alfa Bank’s servers. That Sussmann billed Neustar for this work suggests a level of involvement by the company that has not been explained.
A month earlier, Joffe had tasked employees at his two small Internet startups to search for any Internet data (including private DNS holdings) reflecting potential connections or communications between Trump or his associates and Russia. Joffe emailed them a five-page dossier – the “Trump Associates List” – to guide their queries. As RCI first reported, the list included highly personal information on Trump campaign advisers Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Steve Bannon appears to have been added to the list later as another target, the emails released by Judicial Watch reveal.
Packet Forensics reportedly landed a recent Pentagon contract to manage a large chunk of Internet domains owned by the military. The bid was awarded the day Joe Biden was inaugurated president. The massive cyberspace will allow Joffe’s firm to set up dedicated digital infrastructure, including servers and software, to comb through private Internet traffic for the purported purpose of monitoring suspicious activity.
Joffe’s company also sells wiretapping equipment that allows federal authorities to spy on private web-browsing through fake Internet security certificates, instead of real ones that websites employ to verify secure connections. Once installed, Packet’s device lets agents see an individual’s online transactions without obtaining a warrant.
Over the past decade, Packet Forensics has landed almost $40 million in federal contracts, according to publicly disclosed contract information. Joffe’s firm counts the FBI and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, among its customers. The contracts generally involve cybersecurity. Joffe monitors the computers of government officials for threats, including as it turns out, even investigators in the office of Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz, recent court filings reveal.
State incorporation records show that Joffe has created more than two dozen startups across 20 states, some of which have no employees, revenue or even offices.
‘Friends in High Places’
Joffe’s second-act success in government seems rooted in a simple fact: “He has friends in high places,” proferred a career Justice Department official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed out that Joffe personally advised President Obama on cybersecurity and other issues, and was also close to former FBI Director James Comey.
Secret Service entrance logs reveal Joffe visited the White House several times during the Obama administration. And in 2013, Comey gave Joffe an award recognizing his work helping agents investigate a cybersecurity case. Sources told RCI that Joffe has also worked as an FBI informant on various cybersecurity cases opened by the bureau over roughly the past 15 years.
Sussmann’s attorneys have pointed to that acclaim to explain why Sussmann trusted the findings from Joffe he shared with the FBI. “Far from being a stranger to the FBI, [Joffe] was someone with whom the FBI had a long-standing professional relationship of trust and who was one of the world’s leading experts regarding the kinds of information that Mr. Sussmann provided to the FBI,” Sussmann’s lead defense lawyer Sean Berkowitz of Latham & Watkins said in a court filing last year.
A recent court paper filed by Durham in the Sussmann case suggests he may be looking into Joffe’s relationship with the FBI. The document, which discloses information to Sussmann’s lawyers as part of the discovery process, reveals that a criminal grand jury in D.C. has obtained “approximately 226 emails from within the FBI’s holding involving a company founded by [Joffe].” Durham does not identify the company, but sources told RCI it is Packet Forensics. The 226 emails were generated in 2016 alone. All told, the FBI has a total of approximately 17,000 emails that reference Joffe’s company – and those are just from a search of the bureau’s unclassified files.
Durham said that his investigators are “also conducting other searches and communicating with other government agencies regarding [Joffe’s] companies.”
The 67-year-old Joffe is commonly described as an award-winning and highly respected computer expert. But colleagues say he is more of an operator.
Graham said he’s “a quite average” computer programmer and network analyst. “He’s more of an executive than an operations guy.”
In a 2015 promotional video by Neustar, Joffe disclosed that his real gift is recruiting other experts, making phone calls to people in high places, and providing the resources needed for projects.
“I’m not the smart guy in the room. I’m really the dumb guy that carries the bags – but fortunately in those bags, I have a lot of money,” Joffe said with a grin. “So my role has really been carrying the bags of money to help whenever I can when folks in the [cyber-security] community want things. I’m really happy to be able to do that kind of thing.”
“So those are the things I really do,” he added. “I’m not really good at actually understanding spam and finding that. I’m not any of those things. I couldn’t have an intelligent conversation about the techniques and methods used.” (RealClearInvestigations, 2/17/2022)(Archive)
(This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution.)
Facebook banned the Ukrainian far-right group, Azov Battalion, over ‘Hate Speech’ in 2019, (Photo credit: Radio Free Europe)
“Facebook will temporarily allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, The Intercept has learned.
The policy shift, made this week, is pegged to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and preceding military escalations. The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members. Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle: Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich; its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements; and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].” With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault?
Neo-Nazi leader Arsen Avakov was Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs from 2014-2021 and that included control of their National Guard. (Photo: Radio Free Europe)
According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”
The materials stipulate that Azov still can’t use Facebook platforms for recruiting purposes or for publishing its own statements and that the regiment’s uniforms and banners will remain as banned hate symbol imagery, even while Azov soldiers may fight wearing and displaying them. In a tacit acknowledgment of the group’s ideology, the memo provides two examples of posts that would not be allowed under the new policy: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.” (Read more: The Intercept, 2/24/2022)(Archive)
(Timeline editor’s note: According to recent statements by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, extreme right, white supremacist militias are considered the number one threat to America’s national security. So it’s odd they are now to be accepted and cheered for their continuous attacks on the Russia friendly citizens in Ukraine since 2014.)
We have to make sure that within our own country, we are calling out people giving aid and comfort to Putin and siding with autocrats against the global cause of democracy. pic.twitter.com/6R11vmtkKP
“Margot Cleveland has obtained an email that appears to confirm that SC John Durham is actively investigating at least some aspects of the DNC ‘hack’ that was a central part of the “Russia meddled” hoax. Margot’s account is here:
The email in question is from one of the Georgia Tech researchers who helped Raymond Joffe and Michael Sussmann cook up the Alfa Bank hoax—Manos Antonakakis. Antonakakis’ email appears to be an attempt at covering his behind with administrators at Georgia Tech, as he is being called before Durham’s grand jury. Of note is the fact that the emails and the grand jury subpoena that Antonakakis received date back to July 2021. That means that the question that Antonakakis was asked before the grand jury, and which implies that Durham is investigating the DNC ‘hack’, derives from [an] investigation that Durham’s team conducted before that date. In other words, Durham has been on this aspect of the case for quite some time.
Chaouki Abdallah became Executive Vice President for Research at the Georgia Institute of Technology in September 2018. (Credit: public domain)
It seems that DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is an R&D agency—was involved in investigating the DNC hack. DARPA asked Antonakakis to lend his expertise. This is the question that one of Durham’s prosecutor’s posed to Antonakakis:
“Do you believe that DARPA should be instructing you to investigate the origins of a hacker (Guccifer_2.0) that hacked a political entity (DNC)?”
Margot examines Antonakakis’ semi-hysterical response in some detail at the link (above). Make of it what you will. The important points are twofold—first, that Durham is clearly interested in the DNC ‘hack’ and has been for quite a while, and second, that DARPA—an R&D agency—was involved and was using an expert who would become deeply involved in the Russia Hoax. As for the first point, it’s perfectly logical that Durham should be examining this part of the Russia Hoax, since it was a key part of the Russia – Trump collusion and meddling narrative that the overall Russia Hoax conspiracy was pushing on the American public.
Annie Jacobson writes in her book of the original logo created for the Total Information Project and calls it “The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA.” – The Atlantic
Unfortunately, we can’t be sure what the status of Durham’s investigation into this matter is. Here is Margot’s summary:
Why was the assistant special counsel investigating the investigation of the DNC hacking?
Something caused the special counsel’s office to discover that DARPA had tasked Antonakakis with investigating the DNC hack. And something caused the special counsel’s office to question the Georgia Tech researcher about that project.
The public storyline until now had been that CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm Sussmann hired in April 2016, had concluded Russians had hacked the DNC server, and that the FBI, which never examined the server, concurred in that conclusion. Intelligence agencies and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller likewise concluded that Russian agents were behind the DNC hack, but with little public details provided.
It now appears that DARPA had some role in that assessment, or rather Antonakakis did on behalf of DARPA, which leads to a whole host of other questions, including whether DARPA had access to the DNC server and data and, if so, from whom did the DOD’s research arm get that access? Was it Sussmann?
Most intriguingly, why is Special Counsel Durham concerned with the DARPA connection and the DNC hack or hacker in the first place?
(…) They are the supposed nonpartisan group of top spies looking out for the best interest of the nation.
But the 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election.
The officials, including CNN pundit and professional fabricator James Clapper — a man who was nearly charged for perjury for lying to Congress — signed a letter saying that the laptop “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
What proof did they have? By their own admission, none. “We do not know if the emails . . . are genuine or not,” the letter said. They’re just “suspicious.” Why? Because they hurt Biden’s campaign, that’s evidence enough.
Keep in mind this was written Oct. 19, 2020, five days after The Post published its first story. Neither Joe Biden nor Hunter Biden had denied the story, they simply deflected questions.
William Barr (Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)
Former Attorney General William Barr argued the effort by dozens of former intelligence officials to cast doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop revelations by baselessly suggesting Russia involvement “probably affected the outcome” of the 2020 presidential race.
The 51 former spy officials who signed a letter suggesting Russia was involved with the laptop saga are now largely silent about why they weighed in on the story weeks before the election. Despite offering no proof, President Joe Biden’s2020 campaign, along with many in the media, dismissed the October 2020 laptop story as being part of a Russian disinformation operation, with Biden citing the letter in a debate with then-President Donald Trump, which Barr critiqued.
Conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt asked Barr on Tuesday about four “interventions” in presidential elections and which was most “material” to the outcome. Hewitt’s examples were Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh issuing an indictment against former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Willard Weinberger just four days before the election between then-President George H.W. Bush and future President Bill Clinton in 1992, debate moderator Candy Crowley inserting herself on President Barack Obama’s side during a debate with then-candidate Mitt Romney, Russian influence efforts in the 2016 race between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Facebook and Twitter censoring stories about the laptop just before the 2020 election.
“Well, the ones that stick with me are Walsh and the laptop — the intelligence officials suggesting that it was Russian disinformation in order to essentially keep a cork in it until after the election,” Barr replied. “I do think that that, given how close the election was, you know, I think that that probably affected the outcome, or at least there is a very distinct probability of that. The same, I think, with Walsh.”
Joe Biden called the laptop story “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan” and cited the letter. He was referring to a Politicoreport about the letter in an article titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The title was misleading because the letter never directly called the laptop Russian “disinformation.” The laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the officials claimed, but they admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” But the letter also referred to “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”
A recent report from the New York Times said emails from the laptop were authentic, which multiple other outlets had previously concluded. The Justice Department is reportedly investigating Hunter Biden for foreign lobbying violations related to his overseas business dealings, in addition to scrutinizing his taxes.
Barr had expounded on all of this on Monday, criticizing the president’s falsehoods and the decision by former intelligence officials to influence the race.
“I was very disturbed during the debate when candidate Biden lied to the American people about the laptop,” Barr said on America Reports on Fox News. “He was squarely confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian disinformation and pointed to the letter written by intelligence people that was baseless, which he knew was a lie. And I was shocked by that.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 3/22/2022)(Archive)
Hillary Clinton makes a stop at DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s campaign office on August 9, 2016. (Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“The Federal Election Commission has fined the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for lying about the funding of the infamous, and discredited, Russian “dossier” used in a smear attempt against Donald Trump weeks before he shocked the world with his 2016 presidential victory.
The election agency said that Clinton and the DNC violated strict rules on describing expenditures of payments funneled to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS through their law firm.
A combined $1,024,407.97 was paid by the treasurers of the DNC and Clinton campaign to law firm Perkins Coie for Fusion GPS’s information, and the party and campaign hid the reason, claiming it was for legal services, not opposition research.
Instead, the DNC’s $849,407.97 and the Clinton campaign’s $175,000 covered Fusion GPS’s opposition research on the dossier, a basis for the so-called “Russia hoax” that dogged Trump’s first term.
The memo said that the Clinton campaign and DNC argued that they were correct in describing their payment as for “legal advice and services” because it was Perkins Coie that hired Fusion GPS. But the agency said the law is clear and was violated.
It added that neither the campaign nor the party conceded to lying but won’t contest the finding. “Solely for the purpose of settling this matter expeditiously and to avoid further legal costs, respondent[s] does not concede, but will not further contest the commission’s finding of probable cause to proceed” with the probe, said the FEC.
The FEC, in a memo to the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, which filed its complaint over three years ago, said it fined Clinton’s treasurer $8,000 and the DNC’s treasurer $105,000.
The memo, shared with Secrets, is to be made public in a month.
Dan Backer, who brought the complaint on behalf of the foundation, which focuses on free speech and the First Amendment, told Secrets, “This may well be the first time that Hillary Clinton — one of the most evidently corrupt politicians in American history — has actually been held legally accountable, and I’m proud to have forced the FEC to do their job for once. The Coolidge Reagan Foundation proved that with pluck and grit, Americans who stand with integrity can stand up to the Clinton machine and other corrupt political elites.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 3/30/2022)(Archive)
Hillary Clinton attends the “Suffs” Broadway opening night performance at the Music Box Theatre on Thursday, April 18, 2024, in New York. (Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
A progressive group founded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cut a large check recently to a climate change activist hub financing organizations behind disruptive anti-oil protests, bringing the total cash transfers to at least $500,000, records show.
Onward Together, which Clinton launched after losing the 2016 election, says it’s “committed to lifting up emerging organizations and leaders who are fighting for our shared progressive values and defending our democracy.” That pledge apparently includes funding Climate Emergency Fund, a charity backing groups leading demonstrations to bring awareness to climate change by vandalizing fine art, blocking major roads, gluing themselves to sports cars, and engaging in other extremist forms of protest.
Between April 2022 and March 2023, the nonprofit advocacy arm of Onward Together granted $200,000 to Climate Emergency Fund, according to Onward Together’s tax forms filed in 2024.
CEF, which during the preceding fiscal year received $300,000 from the Clinton-tied group, is based in Beverly Hills and props up activists at groups like Just Stop Oil that, in 2022, splattered tomato soup on a Vincent Van Gogh painting at London’s National Gallery estimated to be worth $84 million. In March 2024, activists for Declare Emergency, which along with Just Stop Oil is part of a coalition primarily funded by CEF called A22 Network, were charged with vandalizing the display of the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives.
Moreover, CEF funds the Washington, D.C.-based Climate Defiance, the activists of which have also been arrested for unorthodox protests. This upcoming Tuesday, Climate Defiance will host an event in the district for its one-year “birthday” alongside progressive Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), according to an event invitation.
“Anyone who cares about public safety and preventing vandalism should be deeply concerned that money connected to Hillary Clinton is propping up these radicalized eco activists,” said Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of the Power the Future energy advocacy group. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 5/03/2024)(Archive)
The luxury yacht ‘Tango’, owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. (Credit: ADN America)
“Spanish law enforcement today executed a Spanish court order freezing the Motor Yacht (M/Y) Tango (the Tango), a 255-foot luxury yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Spanish authorities acted pursuant to a request from the U.S. Department of Justice for assistance following the issuance of a seizure warrant, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which alleged that the Tango was subject to forfeiture based on violation of U.S. bank fraud, money laundering, and sanction statutes.
According to documents filed in this case, the U.S. investigation alleges that Vekselberg bought the Tango in 2011 and has owned it continuously since that time. It further alleges that Vekselberg used shell companies to obfuscate his interest in the Tango to avoid bank oversight into U.S. dollar transactions related thereto. Additionally, after Vekselberg was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department on April 6, 2018, the warrant alleges that Vekselberg and those working on his behalf continued to make U.S. dollar payments through U.S. banks for the support and maintenance of the Tango and its owners, including a payment for a December 2020 stay at a luxury water villa resort in the Maldives and mooring fees for the yacht. Vekselberg had an interest in these payments and therefore a license was required from the Treasury Department, which was not obtained.
“Today marks our taskforce’s first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last.” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war.”
“Today’s action makes clear that corrupt Russian oligarchs cannot evade sanctions to live a life of luxury as innocent Ukrainians are suffering,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “Today the Department of Justice delivers on our commitment to hold accountable those whose criminal activity strengthens the Russian government as it continues to wage its unjust war in Ukraine. That commitment is one we are not finished honoring.” (The Department of Justice, 4/4/2022) (Archive)
Dan Bongino reminds us of the history between Vekselberg and the Clintons.
Bongino mentions this article by Diane West:
Hillary’s Hypersonic Missile Gap
“Starting in May 2010, The Washington Examinerreported, drawing on emails obtained by Citizens United, “Clinton Foundation staff pushed Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve a meeting between Bill Clinton and a powerful Russian oligarch as her agency lined up investors for a project under his purview.”
His name was Viktor Vekselberg of Renova (a Clinton Foundation donor) and the project under his purview was the Skolkovo Innovation Center, which is being built near Moscow. The following month, Bill Clinton would receive $500,000 for a speech in Moscow from Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin, a Clinton Foundation donor, a Skolkovo executive, and which talked up Uranium One, whose sale the Clinton State Department would approve, and whose executives together contributed $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
This shocking set of emails that the Examinerreported on shows the nexus of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department, Bill Clinton, Russian oligarch Vekselberg, and Skolkovo, “Russia’s Silicon Valley,” the Putin project to transfer Western technology to Russia that was championed and driven by Mrs. Clinton — and, what do you know, 17 out of 28 tech companies that hitched up with Skolkovo also contributed to the Clinton Foundation? What a coincidence. Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s support for Russian WTO membership made the whole global flow so much easier.
No wonder Herd Media, the Uniparty Congress and FBI Director James Comey never noticed a thing. Oh, except that Putin “hated” Hillary Clinton, “wanted to do her harm,” as Comey told Congress this week. Grrr. Maybe hypersonic technology wasn’t enough. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
Let’s pick up with an Army report on Skolkovo written in 2012 (released in 2013) to assess “the implications … for U.S. policymakers.”
Although military activities are not an official cluster of activity, the Skolkovo Foundation has, in fact, been involved in defense-related activities since December 2011, when it approved the first weapons-related project—the development of a hypersonic cruise missile engine. The project is a response to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, part of the Prompt Global Strike program.
Fast forward to November 2016, shortly after Donald Trump was elected president when the US Air Force released a report on — no way — the Russian and Chinese hypersonic missile threat to the United States.
The United States is vulnerable to future attack by hypersonic missiles from China and Russia and is falling behind in the technology race to develop both defensive and offensive high-speed maneuvering arms, according to a new Air Force study.
“The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are already flight-testing high-speed maneuvering weapons (HSMWs) that may endanger both forward deployed U.S. forces and even the continental United States itself,” an executive summary of the report says.
“These weapons appear to operate in regimes of speed and altitude, with maneuverability that could frustrate existing missile defense constructs and weapon capabilities.”
In a functioning democratic republic, the executive branch decisions and procedures and corruption that led to this defense cataclysm would actually alarm security officials, lawmakers, and even arouse media curiosity, if nothing else. But Skolkovo, the money, the corruption, the treachery, the danger, inspire no reaction at all.
Not even this plain, shocking language, from the Army, circa 2012:
Skolkovo is an ambitious enterprise, aiming to promote technology transfer generally, by inbound direct investment, and occasionally, through selected acquisitions. As such, Skolkovo is arguably an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage—with the additional distinction that it can achieve such a transfer on a much larger scale and more efficiently.
Hillary Clinton, her State Department, the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton did much to make Skolkovo possible — did much to activate what was, according to the Army report, “arguably” a massive “clandestine industrial espionage” operation. Not that any of this is in the past. This plain-sight-“research”-cum-collusion with the Russian government goes on, and goes on unchecked — and despite the Obama administration’s supposedly hard-as-nails, cold-as-ice, tough-on-Russia finish.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/21/2017)(Archive)
Stefan Halper (l), Svetlana Lokhova (c) and Lt. General Michael Flynn (Credit: public domain)
“A federal appeals court has breathed new life into a lawsuit brought by a London-based academic against one of the FBI’s confidential informants during the Russia collusion probe, litigation that is likely to focus new attention on the quality of evidence that led the bureau to investigate former President Donald Trump and his cohorts during the 2016 election.
Judge Leoni Brinkema (Credit: public domain)
There has been a flurry of new legal activity this month in Svetlana Lokhova’s lawsuit in federal court in Virginia against former FBI confidential human source Stefan Halper since the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema abused her authority in dismissing the lawsuit a year ago.
“We conclude that the court could not have properly concluded that Lokhova’s complaint … had absolutely no chance of success,” the appeals court ruled in April in a unanimous 3-0 decision that reversed Brinkema’s dismissal of the case and her order of a penalty against Lokhova for filing an allegedly frivolous lawsuit.
“We conclude that the district court abused its discretion in finding Lokhova’s complaint frivolous and concluding on that basis that its filing violated Rule 11,” the appeals court ruled. “The judgment of the district court — as reflected in its orders of May 5, 2021, and July 9, 2021 — is therefore reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.”
The decision revives a years-long dispute between Lokhova, a Russian-born, London-based academic, and Halper, a Cambridge academic who served as one of the two primary confidential human sources, along with former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, in the FBI’s now-discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation of alleged collusion between Trump and the Kremlin.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 6/28/2022) (Archive)
(Timeline editor’s note: We are thrilled to learn Ms. Lokhova’s defamation lawsuit will move forward and share in her new hope for justice. Her story has always stuck in our craw, knowing how crudely a handful of men plotted against her, and until now, seemed to have gotten away with their crimes. We admire Ms. Lokhova’s grit and determination to defend her honor and restore her damaged reputation by these unsavory men.)
“Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump’s estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president’s claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.
The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.
By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.
The machinations are summarized in several memos and emails exchanged between the various agencies in spring 2022, months before the FBI took the added unprecedented step of raiding Trump’s Florida compound with a court-issued search warrant.
Debra Steidel Wall assumes the office of acting Archivist of the United States on May 1, 2022. (Credit: Wikipedia)
The most complete summary was contained in a lengthy letter dated May 10 that acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump’s lawyers summarizing the White House’s involvement.
“On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes,” Wall wrote Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran.
That letter revealed Biden empowered the National Archives and Records Administration to waive any claims to executive privilege that Trump might assert to block DOJ from gaining access to the documents.
“The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, [Christopher H. Schroeder] regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported ‘protective assertion of executive privilege,'” Wall wrote. “… I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege.”
The memos provide the most definitive evidence to date of the current White House’s effort to facilitate a criminal probe of the man Joe Biden beat in the 2020 election and may face again as a challenger in 2024. That involvement included eliminating one of the legal defenses Trump might use to fight the FBI over access to his documents.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 8/22/2022)(Archive)
Hillary Clinton uses her power and connections to gaslight the American public with Russiagate only to then lose the 2016 presidential election. (Credit: clipping from video of Clinton concession speech, Nov 2016)
“Five associates of Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign are invoking their Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to cooperate with Special Counsel John H. Durham, according to a filing in federal court revealed later Friday in Washington, DC.
The revelation emerged in a motion filed by Durham to oppose the efforts of defendant Michael Sussmann and the Clinton campaign to withhold some documents from evidence by asserting attorney-client privilege.
(…) In the filing, Durham noted that while one witness, identified as “Researcher-2,” was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony, “at least five other witnesses who conducted work relating to the Russian Bank-1 allegations invoked (or indicated their intent to invoke) their right against self-incrimination.”
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley noted in a commentary on the filing:
Durham is now moving to give immunity to a key witness while revealing that the claims made by the Clinton campaign were viewed by the CIA as “not technically plausible” and “user created.” He also revealed that at least five of the former Clinton campaign contractors/researchers have invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to cooperate in fear that they might incriminate themselves in criminal conduct.
Turley also noted that Durham’s filing “also detailed how the false Russian collusion claims related to Alfa Bank involved Clinton General Counsel Marc Elias and Christopher Steele.” (Read more: Breitbart, 4/18/2022)(Archive)
“The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer charged with concealing his work for the Clinton campaign from the FBI doesn’t want special counsel John Durham to be able to use Hillary Clinton’s tweet touting the Trump-Russia collusion claims he was pushing as evidence at trial.
(…) Durham told the federal court last week he wanted an October 2016 tweet from the Clinton campaign promoting the Alfa-Bank claims to be admitted as evidence at the May trial.
The special counsel argued the tweet is not inadmissible hearsay “because it is not being offered for its truth” — emphasizing that the prosecutors actually believe its claims were false. Durham said he instead wanted to present the tweet to “show the existence of the defendant’s attorney-client relationship with the Clinton Campaign, which is directly relevant to the false statement charge.”
On Halloween 2016, Clinton tweeted, “Donald Trump has a secret server … It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank.”
The FBI, CIA, special counsel Robert Mueller, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, and Durham’s team have all cast doubt on or shot down the Alfa-Bank claims.
Sussmann’s lawyers argued the Clinton tweet sharing Sullivan’s statement and touting the story, which originally appeared in Slate, should be considered “inadmissible” for two “fundamental” reasons.
The defense attorneys said, “First, contrary to the Special Counsel’s misleading statement of the law, the Tweet is hearsay and it is plainly being offered for the truth: so that the Special Counsel can argue that the Campaign’s plan all along was to make a public statement about ‘federal authorities’ looking into the ‘direct connection between Trump and Russia.’ Second, the Tweet — which Mr. Sussmann did not author, issue, authorize, or even know about — is irrelevant, prejudicial, and would only confuse and distract the jury from the single false statement charge it must decide.”
Sussman’s lawyers wrote, “The Tweet, which was posted on October 31, 2016, does not reveal anything about Mr. Sussmann’s state of mind over a month earlier when he purportedly made the alleged false statement.”
“There is no evidence that Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with Mr. Baker had anything to do with the Clinton Campaign’s broader media strategy.”
But Durham wrote, “In the months prior to the publication of these articles, the defendant had communicated with the media and provided them with the Russian Bank-1 data and allegations” and had kept Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias “apprised of his efforts” while Elias “communicated with the Clinton Campaign’s leadership about potential media coverage of these issues.
The special counsel says the evidence at trial would show that beginning in late July and early August 2016, Sussmann, Joffe, and “agents of the Clinton campaign” were “assembling and disseminating the Russian Bank-1 allegations and other derogatory information about Trump and his associates to the media and the U.S. government.” The special counsel said evidence will “establish that these efforts amounted to a joint venture.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 4/19/2022)(Archive)
“CTH begins every outline of the ongoing Durham investigation with the following disclaimer: How is John Durham going to reveal everything that is possible about the deep state Trump targeting operation, and simultaneously handle the involvement of Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, and the Special Counsel team who were specifically appointed to cover it up?
Thanks to a more detailed filing by John Durham last night {pdf here, h/t Techno}, we can now see the guardrails, rules, and general direction the prosecution is taking.
In essence, the underlying Trump-Russia conspiracy theory material from the Clinton campaign, via Rodney Joffe to Michael Sussmann, was fabricated – likely for a dual purpose:
(A) to cover up and make excuses for the stunningly embarrassing, potentially unlawful and politically terrible April 2016 DNC email leaks, which showed the DNC Club internally working to secure the nomination for Hillary Clinton, while trying to destroy her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders.
and
(B) to create the political Russia narrative against Trump, to be deployed later in the general election.
Within the general direction Durham is following, the FBI was duped by a purposeful and manipulative intent from the Clinton campaign. Meanwhile, the CIA [Agency-2] did not buy into the technological evidence saying it was not “technically plausible” and was “user-created and not machine/tool generated.”
For a complete breakdown of the legal filings and what they mean on a detailed level –
The prosecutorial approach by John Durham positions all of the corruption outside the institutions of government, thereby protecting them.
The bad guys, the corrupt lawbreakers, are the people directly connected to the Clinton Campaign and all of the political and legal agents in/around the Clinton political machine.
As the prosecutorial narrative is unfolding, the institutions of government were victims of the horrible, terrible activity by the Clinton outsiders.
Pay no attention to the aligned politics and weaponization of the White House, DOJ, DOJ-NSD, FBI main, FBI-CoIntel, CIA, Senate Intelligence Committee, or memberships therein. The entire apparatus of the most robust, capable, excellent, and diligent intelligence apparatus in the history of all mankind, along with all the oversight mechanisms that exist to support that apparatus, was duped by Hillary Clinton’s team.
That’s John Durham’s investigative thesis, and the court filings show he’s sticking to it.”
On Feb. 9, 2017, Sussman met with CIA officers—where he also made false statements, according to the new filings.
A memorandum introduced by the special counsel’s team and penned by a CIA official said that Sussman provided documents and thumb drives that he claimed contained data related to potential Russian activities linked with Trump.
Sussman “advised that he was not representing a particular client,” according to the notes. Instead, he said he was conveying information from “contacts” who he believed “were acting in good faith and out of a sense of loyalty to the USG,” or U.S. government.
That contradicts how Sussman told a former CIA employee, who was said to have helped set up the February meeting, that he “represents a client who does not want to be known,” according to notes of the meeting taken by the former employee.
It also contradicts testimony Sussman delivered to the House Intelligence Committee. Under oath, Sussman said (pdf) he received the information “from a client of mine.”
Sussman said he learned of the information by the summer of 2016 but only came forward months later because President Barack Obama ordered an intelligence review of possible Russian interference in elections.
“This information seemed to fall roughly within that, and so I thought that might be—or my client thought that that might be something that was relevant for those that were gathering information regarding foreign-based actors,” Sussman said. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 4/16/2022)(Archive)
“The battle over documents and e-mails in the Michael Sussmann case just got hotter.
Back in August 2017, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining how his firm was retained to gather “lots of facts about Donald Trump.” He admitted that Fusion GPS met with reporters leading up to the 2016 election to spread opposition research against then-candidate Trump.
The context of Perkins Coie’s retention of Fusion GPS was further explained in a book co-authored by Simpson and Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch. They documented an April 20, 2016 meeting with Mark Elias (Perkins Coie partner and counsel for the DNC/Clinton Campaign), where Elias requested their services for opposition research:
Now the stories have changed.
Fusion GPS is no longer an opposition research firm, and they weren’t hired to dig-up dirt against Trump. Instead, they would have you believe, after the phony dossier and the Alfa Bank hoax, that Fusion GPS was retained to provide legal advice to the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Remarkable.
Background
On April 6, Durham filed this motion to compel in the Michael Sussmann case, requesting the court require the production of “emails and attachments between and among” Perkins Coie, Rodney Joffe, and Fusion GPS. These emails and documents, according to Durham, “appear or involve or relate to” Fusion GPS’s provision of research and media services to Hillary for America, the DNC, and Perkins Coie. (Some documents had been produced pursuant to grand jury subpoenas dating back to the 2021.)
“Hillary Clinton asked a federal court Wednesday to throw out a lawsuit from former President Donald Trump that accuses her and the Democratic National Committee of conspiring against him to smear his 2016 campaign.
Clinton’s attorneys said Trump’s $24 million lawsuit that claims an “unthinkable plot” to “cripple” his bid for the presidency and paint his campaign as colluding with Russia had no legal basis, according to a motion filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
“Whatever the utility of Plaintiff’s Complaint as a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances, it has no merit as a lawsuit and should be dismissed with prejudice,” the 22-page court filing said.
In a 108-page complaint filed last month, Trump claimed Clinton and others orchestrated a plan to manufacture the Russia scandal to ruin his candidacy in 2016 when he was running as a Republican candidate against Clinton.
Clinton, the former Secretary of State and first lady, worked with others as the then-Democratic nominee for president to allegedly falsify evidence to spark federal investigations in a ploy he called “so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison,” Trump’s suit says.” (Read more: New York Post, 4/20/2022)(Archive)
“Over the last 24 hours, former President Barack Obama and twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton have come out against free speech – calling for big tech to go further to censor views they disagree with.
On Thursday, Obama told an audience at Stanford University that tech companies are “turbo-charging some of humanity’s worst impulses,” adding “One of the biggest reasons for the weakening of democracy is the profound change that’s taken place in how we communicate and consume information.”
He then said that people are ‘dying because of disinformation.’
Obama goes on psychotic rant, claims people are dying because of “misinformation”. pic.twitter.com/uHBeKpT7rI
Obama’s ‘misinformation’ shtick was largely a repeat of a speech he gave two weeks ago in Chicago, when he claimed “You have to fight to provide people [with] the information they need to be free and self-governing.” In other words, government-approved narratives.
As The Federalist noted, however, Obama “Spied on the Donald Trump campaign with a secret court warrant backed by the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Christopher Steele dossier which, in an ironic twist, was the product of Russian disinformation. Democrats used this disinformation to repeatedly smear President Trump and undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.”
Hillary Clinton joined the fray on Thursday, tweeting “For too long, tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability,” and called on “our transatlantic allies to push the Digital Services Act,” aimed at regulating online platforms.
Of course, Hillary Clinton funded the Russian disinfo dossier that Obama’s administration used against Trump, and the former British spy that was paid to fabricate it pushed it to major news outlets which peddled the misinformation as long as they could squeeze blood from that stone.
FISA Court rubber stamps FBI warrant applications to spy on Americans. (Credit: River City Reader)
The FBI repeatedly misused a surveillance tool in searching for foreign intelligence to use in cases pertaining to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and 2020 racial justice protests, according to an April 2022 court order publicly released Friday.
The order, which was released by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, is significantly redacted but reveals thousands of violations of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the federal government to collect communications between certain targeted foreign individuals outside the U.S.
The court has legal oversight of the U.S. government’s espionage activities.
FBI officials said the violations came before corrective measures the agency took starting in summer 2021 and continuing into last year.
(…) The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the report Friday to promote transparency, but members of Congress originally received the order last year.
The FBI’s program maintains a database of intelligence that U.S. agencies can search, but the FBI must have a foreign intelligence purpose or be looking for evidence of a crime to conduct a search.
The order shows the FBI turned to the database to look into someone it believed was present at the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, an inquiry that did not have any “analytical, investigative or evidentiary” purpose.
An analyst conducted 13 searches of people who were suspected of participating in the riot to see whether they had any foreign ties, but the Justice Department later determined that it did not meet the standard required for a search. (Read more: The Hill, 5/19/2023)(Archive)
This problem existed eight years ago and any ‘corrective measure’ the court took to safeguard our First and Fourth Amendment rights, hasn’t worked.
(…) The FISA court found that the government had been engaging in a long pattern of significant abuses that were revealed to the court by then-National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers.
“On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court,” the FISC ruling read.
The court noted the government’s failure to previously notify the court of these issues, referring to the government’s actions as exhibiting an institutional “lack of candor” while emphasizing that “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”
Peter Fritsch (l) and Glenn Simpson, founders of Fusion GPS, join Meet The Press on November 24, 2019, for an exclusive interview to discuss their work on the Steele Dossier. (Credit: Meet the Press/YouTube)
“The FBI decision to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser hinged on an unsubstantiated rumor from a Clinton campaign-paid dossier that the Washington Post’s Moscow sources had quickly shot down as “bullshit” and “impossible,” according to emails disclosed last week to a D.C. court hearing the criminal case of a Clinton lawyer accused of lying to the FBI.
Though the FBI presumably had access to better sources than the newspaper, agents did little to verify the rumor that Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page had secretly met with sanctioned Kremlin officials in Moscow. Instead, the bureau pounced on the dossier report the day it received it, immediately plugging the rumor into an application under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to wiretap Page as a suspected Russian agent.
The allegation, peddled to both the press and FBI in the summer of 2016 by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to dig up dirt on Trump during the presidential race, proved to be the linchpin in winning approval for the 2016 warrant, which was renewed three times in 2017 – even though the FBI learned there were serious holes in the story and had failed to independently corroborate it.
The revelations of early media skepticism about the Trump-Russia narrative before journalists embraced it are included in a 62-page batch of emails between Fusion and prominent Beltway reporters released by Special Counsel John Durham, who is scouring the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign for evidence of abuse and criminal wrongdoing.
The documents suggest that some journalists, as keen as they were to report dirt on Trump, were nevertheless more cautious than FBI investigators about embracing hearsay information served up by Clinton agents. (The FBI declined comment.) The new material also offers a look at the lengths to which those working on Clinton’s behalf went in order to seed the government with unverified rumors about Trump and Russia that amounted to a disinformation campaign. Among those targeted were powerful Democratic members of Congress, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who proved to be a willing collaborator.
Trump as ‘Manchurian Candidate’
The story of high-level Kremlin meetings didn’t ring true with some in the press, who checked with sources in Moscow and pushed back on Fusion GPS. But journalists’ interest in the story remained high during the campaign.
In an interview, Page said he was flooded with calls during the summer of 2016 from Washington journalists, including veteran reporters from the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He said Fusion had misled them into believing they were working on the story of their lifetimes – that a real-life “Manchurian candidate,” or Russian sleeper agent, was running for president.
“Each news outlet kept calling me,” he said. “One by one.”
Page said he strenuously denied the accusations.
“It was B.S.,” he said. “I tried to warn them.”
“As eager as journalists may have been to make Trump appear to be a Kremlin operative, some were skeptical about what Fusion was telling them about Page. Among those were now former Wall Street Journal foreign affairs correspondent Jay Solomon, who used “Manchurian candidate” in a July 2016 email exchange with Fusion, expressing his doubt.
“Everyone wants shit on this,” insisted Fusion co-founder Peter Fritsch, a former Journal reporter himself, in an attempt to coax his old colleague Solomon into covering the story.
Fritsch then outlined the rumors Fusion had just received from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer his firm had hired to help tie Trump to Russia as part of its contract with the Clinton campaign. Those rumors, contained in a series of memos known as the Steele dossier, were shared with the FBI, including “Intelligence Report 94” dated July 19, 2016. It claimed that during a July 2016 trip to Moscow, Page attended a “secret meeting” with Putin crony Igor Sechin to discuss lifting Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. The dossier also alleged that Page met with Kremlin official Igor Divyekin to share compromising information about Clinton with the Trump campaign.
An ‘Easy Scoop,’ Said GPS
“The easy scoop waiting for confirmation: that dude carter page met with igor sechin when he went to moscow earlier this month,” Fritsch stated in a July 26, 2016, email pitching the story to Solomon. “sechin discussed energy deals and possible lifting of sanctions on himself et al. he also met with a senior kremlin official called divyekin, who told page they have good kompromat on hillary and offered to help. he also warned page they have good kompromat on the donald.” (“Kompromat” is compromising information typically used in blackmail.)
Rep. Adam Schiff: A Fusion GPS-recommended source for a skeptical journalist. (Credit: Scott Applewhite)
Added Fritsch, referring in part to the mass leak of Democratic emails by WikiLeaks before the 2016 Democratic National Convention in late July: “needless to say, a senior trump advisor meeting with a former kgb official close to putin, who is on a treasury sanctions list, days before the republican convention and a big russian-backed wikileak would be huge news.”
Indeed it would be – if it were true. “Thanks for this,” Solomon said. “Will run down.”
But later that day, Solomon reported back that “Page is neither confirming nor denying,” so Fritsch suggested he “call adam schiff or difi,” referring to the then-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is not clear what information Fritsch expected the two Democrats to provide. (Schiff would later read the same raw dossier rumors about Page into the congressional record during a public hearing about Trump’s alleged Russian ties.)
Tom Hamburger (Credit: Twitter/@thamburger)
Three days later, Fusion’s attempts to plant their rumor in influential media outlets hit more resistance. Another Journal alumnus, Tom Hamburger, said he was “getting kick back” while trying to confirm the rumor for the Washington Post, where he worked on the paper’s national desk.
“That Page met with Sechin or Ivanov. ‘Its [sic] bullshit. Impossible,’ said one of our Moscow sources,” Hamburger reported back to Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson, who also previously worked for the Journal. (The rumor included Sergei Ivanov, a top Putin aide.) The Post’s Moscow bureau chief at the time was David Filipov. Hamburger added that another reporter he knew “doesn’t like this story” and was passing on it.
“No worries, I don’t expect lots of people to believe it,” Simpson replied. “It is, indeed, hard to believe.”
As Fusion was pushing the rumors to reporters that July, its subcontractor Steele was pushing them to FBI agents, who received copies of his dossier earlier in the month. Steele also briefed a top Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, on the Carter Page rumors on July 30 during a breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C., and asked Ohr to relay them to FBI brass. The next day, the FBI officially opened its Crossfire Hurricane investigation targeting Trump advisers – though the bureau says this decision was based on a tip it had received from an Australian diplomat.
For his part, Hamburger still pursued the story, asking for documents on Page later that month; and Fusion recycled the false rumor in an internal report, separate from the Steele dossier, which it emailed to Hamburger and another Post reporter in September.
President Obama’s appearance at the New Economic School in Moscow, 2009, brought none of the suspicions that Carter Page created years later. (Credit: Euractiv/YouTube)
The report, which Fritsch claimed that “one of our [research] associates wrote,” went beyond even the dossier. It asserted that Page’s July 8 speech at the New Economic School in Moscow (where President Obama had also once spoken) was “concocted to give Page a public explanation for his trip to Moscow, which sources say included secret meetings with top Kremlin officials, where the American presidential campaign and U.S. sanctions against Russia were both discussed.”
Fritsch did not say who the Fusion “sources” were. But around the same time, he and Simpson brought Steele to Washington to brief journalists from the Post, the New York Times, CNN, and Yahoo News on Page in a private room at the Tabard Inn, a hotel-bar long a favorite of Washington scribes.
Glen Caplin (Credit: Twitter)
Fusion had finally found a media outlet to take the bait it had been chumming out to reporters for months. After meeting with Steele for about an hour, Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff ran with the rumors in a September 23 online article, which the FBI then used to corroborate the dossier in its initial October 2016 FISA application, even though the supposed corroboration was redundant: Steele and his dossier were Isikoff’s source for the story. (Isikoff, who did not respond to requests for comment, would later write in a 2018 book he co-authored, “Russian Roulette,” that the rumors about Page were just “pillow talk.”)
The Clinton campaign jumped on what it called Isikoff’s “bombshell report” and heavily promoted it on social media. Clinton campaign official Glen Caplin issued a statement republishing the Yahoo piece in full and proclaiming: “It’s chilling to learn that U.S. intelligence officials are conducting a probe into suspected meetings between Trump’s foreign policy adviser Carter Page and members of Putin’s inner circle while in Moscow … [T]his report suggests Page met with a sanctioned top Russian official to discuss the possibility of ending U.S. sanctions against Russia under a Trump presidency – an action that could directly enrich both Trump and Page while undermining American interests.”
Added Caplin: “This is serious business and voters deserve the facts before election day.”
But the media never reported the real facts behind the story – that it was all based on Clinton campaign opposition research – which allowed the rumors to survive without any real scrutiny for years.
Sergei Millian: He wasn’t the source of the Trump sex-tape story, and the Washington Post had to retract. (Credit: Twitter)
The Washington Post eventually stopped paying attention to the red flags surrounding the dossier. The newspaper seized on other rumors Fusion fed reporters from the Clinton-paid document.
Hamburger, for one, later bit on a tip that the source for the most explosive allegations in the dossier was a Trump supporter with Kremlin ties. He reported in 2017 that Sergei Millian was behind the claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had compromising sex tapes of Trump and that he and Trump were engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy” to steal the 2016 election.
However, the Post had to retract his stories after Special Counsel John Durham last year disclosed that Millian was fabricated as a source. The prosecutor indicted Steele’s “primary subsource,” Igor Danchenko, for lying to the FBI when he told agents that Millian was a source for the dossier. Millian had nothing to do with the dossier, as RCIreported. Danchenko, who awaits trial, apparently made it all up.
Hamburger did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
‘Pushed It Over’ the Line
Carter Page, who is suing the former corporate parent of Yahoo News for defamation, suggested anti-Trump bias blinded the media to glaring problems with the dossier. But even more alarming, he said, is how FBI leaders, whose text messages reveal that they shared the media’s hatred for Trump, were even more reckless in gunning for him. Page said it’s outrageous that, at least initially, the press seemed to have “higher ethical standards” than FBI headquarters.
On Sept. 19, 2016, the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team formally received Steele’s dossier Report 94 alleging Page’s secret Kremlin meetings, according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who detailed the FBI’s handling of the rumors in a 2019report. That same day, the team began discussions with department lawyers “to consider Steele’s reporting as part of a FISA application targeting Carter Page.”
Brian Auten, FBI supervisor: The Steele dossier’s bogus “Report 94,” alleging secret Page-Russia meetings, helped make the case for spying on him. (Credit: Twitter)
In an email to attorneys, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten forwarded an excerpt from Steele’s report and asked, “Does this put us at least *that* much closer to a full FISA on [Carter Page]?” The FBI agent handling the case said the rumors from Steele “supplied missing information in terms of what Page may have been doing during his July 2016 visit to Moscow.”
The attorneys thought it was a “close call” when they first discussed a FISA targeting Page in early August, Horowitz relayed in his report, but the Steele reporting in September “pushed it over” the line in terms of establishing probable cause.
In the run-up to the FBI securing approval for the FISA request in late October 2016, the bureau tasked an undercover informant, Stefan Halper, to question Page about the alleged meetings with Kremlin officials. Halper struck out. In a conversation Halper recorded surreptitiously, Page not only denied huddling with Sechin and Divyekin but said he had never even heard of Divyekin. The FBI decided not to include these inconvenient facts in its FISA warrant application, an omission the Justice Department’s inspector general found striking.
“The application did not contain these denials even though the application relied upon the allegations in Report 94 that Page had secret meetings with both Sechin and Divyekin,” the Horowitz report noted.
It wasn’t the only exculpatory evidence the FBI left out of its FISA applications. It also omitted information it possessed showing that Page, who had once worked in Moscow as a Merrill Lynch investment banker, had earlier assisted the FBI in catching a Russian spy, as RealClearInvestigations first reported. The former Navy lieutenant also previously helped the CIA monitor Russia, something an FBI attorney deliberately hid from the FISA court. (The lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was recently convicted of charges related to his doctoring of a government email documenting Page’s role as a CIA source.)
In early 2017, as the FBI was preparing to reapply for wiretaps on Page, Steele’s primary subsource Danchenko told Auten and other FBI officials that he had made it clear to Steele that he had only heard a rumor that such clandestine meetings might take place but not that they actually occurred as Steele wrote in his dossier. The FBI nonetheless omitted from subsequent FISA renewal applications the revelation of Danchenko backing away from the critical piece of information supporting probable cause and admitting it was merely hearsay.
In the end, “The FBI was unable to determine whether a meeting between Sechin and Page took place,” Horowitz wrote in his report.
Page said it’s “chilling” that the nation’s most powerful police force could act so cavalierly, disregarding basic investigative procedures like verifying tips and rumors before obtaining wiretaps on a U.S. citizen.
Worse, he said, is how the FBI misled the secret FISA court. In a 2020 review of the applications, the powerful court determined that at least two of the surveillance warrants were invalid and therefore illegal. Page is now suing both the FBI and Justice Department for $75 million for violating his constitutional rights. (RealClearInvestigations, 5/4/2022)(Archive)
This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution. (These terms do not apply to outside articles linked on the site.)
Evelyn Farkas was forced to admit under oath before Congress that despite what she claimed on MSNBC, she never had evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. (Credit: MSNBC)
“The McCain Institute at Arizona State University (ASU) and ASU President Michael M. Crow are proud to announce Dr. Evelyn Farkas has been named the McCain Institute’s new executive director. Dr. Farkas will begin her new position at the Washington, D.C.-based McCain Institute on May 2, 2022.
“I am humbled and grateful to ASU and to the McCain Institute Board of Trustees for this opportunity. American leadership and a commitment to furthering human rights and democracy in the spirit of Senator John McCain is needed now more than ever, and I am excited to get to work alongside the McCain Institute’s talented and determined staff,” said Dr. Evelyn Farkas. “This is a critical time in our country’s history that calls on us to be unequivocal about the differences between democracy and autocracy. I look forward to helping advance character-driven leadership around the world.”
Dr. Farkas brings decades of American foreign policymaking to the McCain Institute. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, and executive director of the congressional Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, among many other senior national security positions in the U.S. government.
“We’re proud to welcome Evelyn Farkas to the McCain Institute and to Arizona State University,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “Her area of expertise could not be more appropriate for this moment in time and the possibilities for this new chapter of the McCain Institute at ASU are truly exciting.” (Read more: The McCain Institute, 4/26/2022)(Archive)
( ) …there was a pre-trial hearing in the Michael Sussmann case relating to various evidentiary issues. For the uninitiated, Sussmann a former Perkins Coie partner, and former attorney for the DNC/Clinton Campaign (and Rodney Joffe), has been charged by Special Counsel John Durham with providing false statements to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in the fall of 2016. Here is more background on his indictment.
We have the full transcript of yesterday’s hearing. Here are some of the most notable disclosures:
More info on the investigation into Rodney Joffe.
(…) Rodney Joffe’s exposure and 18 U.S.C. 1031. The Special Counsel was understandably hesitant to get too deep into what they have on Rodney Joffe. However, when Sussmann’s attorneys brought up the fact that Joffe couldn’t be charged due to the 5-year statute of limitations, the Special Counsel responded that “certain statutes of limitations are longer than five years.”
The court asked for an example, and the Special Counsel referenced 18 U.S.C. 1031, “which involves defrauding the government in connection with procurement and contract matters.” This has to do with the Georgia Tech/DARPA contract. In the Special Counsel’s own words:
Laura Seago from Fusion GPS will (likely) testify at trial. We previously reported that Seago was identified as the “tech maven” the government expected to call at trial. At this hearing was the first time we saw Seago’s name explicitly mentioned as the Fusion GPS witness.
Christopher Steele will not be a witness. Sussmann’s lawyer informed the court that the Special Counsel stated on April 26 that Steele is “out of the country and isn’t likely to be a witness.”
In fact, Steele is not cooperating with the Special Counsel.
Finally, this statement from the Special Counsel relating to how “the VIPs, meaning Perkins Coie and the [Clinton] campaign” wanted the “Internet data” to be pulled for purposes of digging up information to damage Trump.
EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and Elon Musk (Credit: Zero Hedge)
“We have been discussing how Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton called on foreign companies to pass censorship laws to prevent Elon Musk from restoring free speech protections on Twitter. The EU has responded aggressively to warn Musk not to allow greater free speech or face crippling fines and even potential criminal enforcement. After years of using censorship by surrogates in social media companies, Democratic leaders seem to have rediscovered good old-fashioned state censorship.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) declared Musk’s pledge to restore free speech values on social media as threatening Democracy itself. She has promised that “there are going to be rules” to block such changes. She is not alone. Former President Obama has declared “regulation has to be part of the answer” to disinformation.
For her part, Hillary Clinton is looking to Europe to fill the vacuum and called upon her European counterparts to pass a massive censorship law to “bolster global democracy before it’s too late.”
(…) EU censors have assured Democratic leaders that they will not allow free speech to break out on Twitter regardless of the wishes of its owner and customers.
One of the most anti-free speech figures in the West, EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has been raising the alarm that Twitter users might be able to read uncensored material or hear unauthorized views.
Breton himself threatened that Twitter must “fly by [the European Union’s] rules” in censoring views deemed misleading or harmful by EU bureaucrats. Breton has been moving publicly to warn Musk not to try to reintroduce protections that go beyond the tolerance of the EU for free speech. Musk is planning to meet with the EU censors and has conceded that he may not be able resist such mandatory censorship rules.
April 2022 – (…) As is often the case, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stripped away any niceties or nuance. Clinton called for the European Union to pass the Digital Services Act (DSA), a measure widely denounced by free speech advocates as a massive censorship measure. Clinton warned that governments need to act now because “for too long, tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability. The EU is poised to do something about it.”
Clinton’s call for censoring disinformation was breathtakingly hypocritical. President Obama was briefed by his CIA Director John Brennan on “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” The intelligence suggested it was “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”
Given that history, it would be easy to dismiss Clinton’s calls as almost comically self-serving. However, the 27-nation EU just did what she demanded. It gave preliminary approval to the act, which would subject companies to censorship standards at the risk of punitive financial or even criminal measures.
If implemented, it might not matter if Musk seeks to restore free speech values at Twitter. Figures like Clinton are now going to the EU to effectively force companies to continue to censor users.
Faced with liability across Europe, the companies could be forced to base their policies on the lowest common denominator for free speech.
Countries like Germany and France have spent decades criminalizing speech and imposing speech controls on their populations. That is why the premise of the DSA is so menacing.
European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager was ecstatic in declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”
“Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court has ordered the FBI to disclose additional details about FBI and other officials “cc-ed” on the memo used to justify launching the “Crossfire Hurricane” spy operation against President Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign. Judge Carl J. Nichols has given the FBI until June 16, 2022 to respond. The order comes in a September 2019 FOIA lawsuit Judicial Watch filed after the FBI failed to respond to a request for the memo, known as an “Electronic Communication” or “EC.” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02743)).
In May 2020, Judicial Watch obtained a redacted version of the previously secret memo, authored by former FBI agent Peter Strzok. The Biden Justice Department argued that there is no significant public interest in disclosing the names of officials “cc-ed” on the memo.
Judicial Watch filed a motion countering that claim and arguing that the public had a significant interest in knowing who at the FBI had knowledge of the memo and presumably approved the investigation.
The court held a hearing on the dispute in September 2021, and on May 2, 2022 issued a minute order requiring the FBI to file Kevin Brock, a supplemental memorandum of up to 5 pages, supported by affidavit or declaration, explaining the positions and seniority held by any persons whose names are redacted from the “CC:” section of the document.
“The Biden administration is still covering up who was involved in the Obama administration’s unprecedented and illicit spying on Donald J. Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This court decision is another step forward in accountability for the worst government corruption scandal in American history.”
In support of its position, Judicial Watch provided the Court with two declarations by Kevin Brock, former assistant director of the Directorate of Intelligence and former FBI principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Brock testified that it is not standard procedure to have an EC drafted, approved, and sent to and from a single agent and that doing so violates FBI oversight protocols:
In the EC document here, the “From” line indicates the EC – and authorization to begin an investigation as required under FBI policy – is from a part of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. The contact listed is Peter Strzok. The EC was drafted by Peter Strzok. The EC was approved by Peter Strzok. On the face of the document produced, it appears the EC that initiated a criminal FARA investigation of unidentified members of the Trump presidential campaign was created by Peter Strzok, approved by Peter Strzok, and sent from Peter Strzok to Peter Strzok. This is not usual procedure.
FBI policy prohibits an agent from initiating and approving his or her own case. Such action violates FBI oversight protocols put in place to protect the American people from an FBI agent acting unilaterally.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 5/06/2022)(Archive)
Hillary attends the Met Gala on May 2, 2022, unmasked, while a staffer who is masked, adjusts her dress. (Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
(…) The Clinton Campaign (including Robby Mook and John Podesta), Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Rodney Joffe, and the DNC are fighting to keep these e-mails and records secret, reasoning Fusion’s “role was to provide consulting services in support of the legal advice attorneys at Perkins Coie were providing to” the Clinton Campaign.
That argument – that Fusion GPS was helping with “legal advice” – is hopefully the last conspiracy theory they’ll provide to the public, after Fusion GPS has already poisoned America through the FBI, DOJ, and the press, with baseless allegations of secret back-channels between Trump Organization and Russian marketing servers, piss tapes, and broader allegations of Trump/Russia collusion.
Today, Special Counsel Durham addressed those arguments by providing to the court the FEC findings where the agency found “probable cause to believe” the DNC and Hillary for America violated the law by hiding the real purpose of payments meant for Fusion GPS as “legal and compliance consulting.”
In support, he provided the First (link) and Second (link) General Counsel Reports, which recommend that the Federal Election Commission find the DNC and Hillary for America violated election laws (52 USC 30104(b)(5)(A)) “by misreporting the payee of the funds paid to Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie LLP.”
While much of the information in these now-public reports has been known for years (Glenn Simpson’s testimony to Congress, for example), they provide additional context – and newly uncovered details – on how the FEC dismantled the bogus Hillary for America/DNC Billing. Some examples:
Fusion GPS invoices reflected the work was not “legal advice” or related to legal concerns.
The FEC report matched Fusion GPS invoices to the amounts paid to its “sub vendors” (including Nellie Ohr). It concluded: “there is no evidence that Fusion provided services other than this opposition research.”
NEW: Fed Court ORDERS Biden FBI to disclose more info about who was involved in spy op against Trump! “This court decision is another step forward in accountability for the worst government corruption scandal in American history.” https://t.co/0ClLdqncB8pic.twitter.com/JtFrb4mecG
“Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court had ordered the FBI to disclose additional details about FBI and other officials “cc-ed” on the memo used to justify launching the “Crossfire Hurricane” spy operation against President Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign. Judge Carl J. Nichols has given the FBI until June 16, 2022, to respond. The order comes in a September 2019 FOIA lawsuit Judicial Watch filed after the FBI failed to respond to a request for the memo, known as an “Electronic Communication” or “EC.” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02743)).
In May 2020, Judicial Watch obtained a redacted version of the previously secret memo, authored by former FBI agent Peter Strzok. The Biden Justice Department argued that there is no significant public interest in disclosing the names of officials “cc-ed” on the memo.
Judicial Watch filed a motion countering that claim and arguing that the public had a significant interest in knowing who at the FBI had knowledge of the memo and presumably approved the investigation.
The court held a hearing on the dispute in September 2021, and on May 2, 2022, issued a minute order requiring the FBI to file a supplemental memorandum of up to 5 pages, supported by an affidavit or declaration, explaining the positions and seniority held by any persons whose names are redacted from the “CC:” section of the document.
“The Biden administration is still covering up who was involved in the Obama administration’s unprecedented and illicit spying on Donald J. Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This court decision is another step forward in accountability for the worst government corruption scandal in American history.” ((Read more: Judicial Watch, 5/17/2022)(Archive)
Brennan, ex-Obama homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and ex-national intelligence director James Clapper, interviewed by Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC, right, at a 2018 Aspen Institute event. {Credit: Aspen Institute)
“The DOJ’s Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco was caught using a pseudonymous email while in office during the Obama years. This comes as no surprise since Monaco was part of Obama’s secret team that met in the White House basement in 2016 to discuss how to set up Donald Trump in their Trump-Russia collusion sham.
The Gateway Pundit reported on the secret Obama meetings in June of 2018. These meetings were attended by various Obama lackeys per Yahoo.
For the usual interagency sessions, principals and deputies could bring staffers. Not this time. “There were no plus ones,” an attendee recalled. When the subject of a principals’ or deputys’ meeting was a national security matter, the gathering was often held in the Situation Room of the White House. The in‑house video feed of the Sit Room — without audio — would be available to national security officials at the White House and elsewhere, and these officials could at least see that a meeting was in progress and who was attending. For the meetings related to the Russian hack, Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, ordered the video feed turned off. She did not want others in the national security establishment to know what was underway, fearing leaks from within the bureaucracy.
Rice would chair the principals’ meetings — which brought together Brennan; Comey; Kerry; Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; Defense Secretary Ash Carter; Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson; Treasury Secretary Jack Lew; Attorney General Loretta Lynch; and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — with only a few other White House officials present, including White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco, and Colin Kahl, Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. (Kahl had to insist to Rice that he be allowed to attend so that Biden could be fully briefed.)
John Kerry and Tony Blinken from the State Department were also present but not the country’s National Security Director at that time, General Mike Rogers, who could not be trusted to push the Trump Russia lie.
Earlier this week Lisa Monaco told an audience at the University of Chicago that top Republicans including President Trump may be indicted in the sham investigations.
And like always, they know they can count on the fake news media to push their lies.
Via Julie Kelly:
Obama loyalist who got 48 GOP senators to vote for her confirmation again hints she’ll indict Republicans possibly including Trump https://t.co/92eg3yKcwS
DOJ is threatening nonviolent J6ers with life in prison for “seditious conspiracy,” a crime for which no American has ever been convicted and is so rare federal sentencing guidelines don’t even cover it. Meanwhile DOJ lies to grand jury and is withholding evidence 16 months later https://t.co/xKs5JPKudl
Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s lawyers asked to use explicit text in his trial that showed he was anti-Donald Trump. (Credit: Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press)
“Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann wants to make sure the jurors at his upcoming trial in heavily Democratic Washington, DC, know he was working against former President Donald Trump — even before they hear any evidence in the case.
In court papers filed ahead of jury selection set for Monday, Sussmann’s lawyers asked federal Judge Christopher Cooper to include an explicit reference to Trump in his preliminary instructions for the trial.
Sussmann’s lawyers also asked Cooper to refer to special counsel John Durham’s prosecutors as “the special counsel” instead of “the government,” which is the preference of Durham, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in October 2020.
In 2016, DC voters favored Clinton over Trump, 90.9% to 4.1%, and Democrats in the nation’s capital now outnumber Republicans, 76.5% to 5.4%, according to an April 30 tally posted online by the DC Board of Elections.
Tom Fitton of the conservative group Judicial Watch said Sussmann’s requests amounted to an attempt to tilt the playing field against Durham.
“The goal of the defense suggests this is a political operation,” he said Tuesday.
(…) In court papers filed late Monday, defense lawyers asked Cooper to summarize Sussmann’s indictment instead of reading it verbatim to the jury before opening statements.
They also requested that the judge note that Sussmann is accused of “conveying particular allegations concerning Donald Trump” when he describes the alleged crime at issue. (Read more: New York Post, 5/10/2022)(Archive)
Glenn Simpson (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
“We’ve documented the ongoing battle to obtain Fusion GPS e-mails and documents in the Michael Sussmann case. At issue in the Sussmann case are 38 e-mails and attachments between and among Fusion GPS, Rodney Joffe, and Perkins Coie. These 38 e-mails and attachments are among approximately 1,500 documents that Fusion GPS withheld from production to the grand jury based on “privilege.”
What Fusion GPS has to produce.
Today, the court in the Sussmann case made an important ruling and rejected, in large measure, Fusion’s assertion of attorney-client or work-product privilege:
Fusion GPS will have to produce these documents to Special Counsel Durham by May 16, 2022. What do these e-mails and documents contain? The court’s order provides guidance, stating they relate to:
Internal Fusion GPS e-mails discussing the Alfa Bank data and e-mails circulating draft versions of the Alfa Bank white papers that were “ultimately provided to the press and the FBI.”
Here are some examples of what these e-mails might include. These are privilege logs in Fusion GPS’s other litigation relating to the Alfa Bank hoax.
The other emails.
This leaves 16 e-mails and documents remaining. For now, Durham will not get them. These are divided into two categories:
Eight of the e-mails involve internal communications among Fusion GPS employees. The court was “unable to tell from the emails or the surrounding circumstances whether they were prepared for a purpose other than assisting Perkins Coie in providing legal advice to the Clinton Campaign in anticipation of litigaiton.” Coming from the court, that’s a long way of saying that the sworn declarations of Fusion/Clinton lawyers (Levy and Elias) were sufficient to meet the “privilege” burden. This doesn’t mean that Durham can’t overcome this hurdle – just that it hasn’t been overcome yet.
The other eight e-mails and attachments include those among Fusion GPS’s Laura Seago, Sussmann, and Rodney Joffe. The court observed that the e-mails are consistent with Joffe’s assertion of privilege.
With respect to the Joffe e-mails, we note that he is still a subject – perhaps a target – of the Special Counsel’s investigation. Here’s a portion of the transcript from an evidentiary hearing in the Sussmann case that discusses their ongoing investigation into Joffe:
Because the investigation into Joffe is ongoing, it makes sense that the Special Counsel is hesitant to disclose to the court information that could overcome this purported “privilege.” Keep in mind the crime-fraud exception, where communications are not considered privileged where they “are made in furtherance of a crime, fraud, or other misconduct” (citation omitted). In other words, the Special Counsel may still be able to get Joffe’s e-mails – assuming Joffe is charged under 18 USC 1031. He can also get them through the grand jury process, as we saw with Mueller’s investigation of Paul Manafort.” (Read more: Techno Fog, 5/12/2022)(Archive)
Rodney Joffe, John Durham and Michael Sussmann (Credit: public domain)
“The technology executive who was one of Michael Sussmann’s clients when Sussmann took sketchy claims to the U.S. government was terminated as a confidential informant by the FBI in 2021, prosecutors revealed during Sussmann’s trial on May 17.
Rodney Joffe, the executive, exploited his access to non-public data at multiple technology companies to conduct opposition research into then-presidential candidate Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 election, according to court filings. The firm Joffe worked for, Neustar Security Services, had a Domain Name System (DNS) contract with the office of the presidency in 2016.
Joffe was a confidential informant for the FBI but was terminated “for cause” in 2021, prosecutors said.
Brittain Shaw, one of the prosecutors on Special Counsel John Durham’s team, revealed the information during the questioning of FBI agent David Martin.
The termination was because of how Joffe was involved with the scheme to compile information on the alleged connection between Trump’s business and a Russian bank, Andrew DeFilippis, another prosecutor, said later.
Sean Berkowitz, an attorney for Sussmann, raised concerns during closed session, or without jurors in the room, with remarks about Joffe’s status, asserting they were “prejudicial,” Reuters reported.
U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, the Obama appointee overseeing the trial, agreed.
Cooper, speaking while jurors weren’t in the room, ordered prosecutors not to discuss the topic again. He said how Joffe handled the information was not part of the trial, and noted the termination did not come for years after the events that are being explored during the trial. In 2016, Joffe was a respected expert, the judge said, echoing the defense. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 5/17/2022) (Archive)
“It started with disclosure by Special Counsel DeFilippis informing the Court that government witness Dr. Manos Antonakakis (identified as Researcher-1 in the Sussmann indictment) “has decided to invoke his Fifth Amendment right.” He would not be called to the stand. More background on Manos here.
From there it was time for opening statements.
Special Counsel Brittain Shaw made clear that this case is “about privilege: the privilege of a well-connected D.C. lawyer with access to the highest levels of the FBI; the privilege of a lawyer who thought that he could lie to the FBI without consequences.” Using that privilege, Sussmann:
“went straight to the FBI general counsel’s office, the FBI’s top lawyer. He then sat across from that lawyer and lied to him. He told a lie that was designed to achieve a political end, a lie that was designed to inject the FBI into a presidential election.”
Circumventing the political leanings of the jury, the Special Counsel explained that “we are here because the FBI is our institution that should not be used as a political tool for anyone.” She elaborated that Joffe, on behalf of his clients – the Hillary Clinton Campaign and Rodney Joffe – planned to manipulate the FBI, and trigger negative news stories, “to create an October surprise on the eve of the presidential election.” As to the evidence:
You’re going to see emails and phone records that show that beginning in the summer of 2016 the defendant worked with Fusion GPS to develop the Trump/Alfa story and plant it in the press.
She also gave us this preview:
The attorney for Sussmann, in their opening, argued there was no lie. Instead, Sussmann “went to the FBI to help the FBI” – so they wouldn’t be “caught flat-footed” by a New York Times story discussing the purported Alfa Bank/Trump connections. Of course, they admitted as a result of the Sussmann/Baker meeting, the FBI decided it wanted “to investigate.” To condense Sussmann’s defense: no lie and no reason to lie.
More about:
FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Martin
Agent Martin was the first government witness to testify. He explained the technicalities of the DNS data which was alleged to have shown a secret back channel between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization.
FBI Special Agent Scott Hellman
Hellman was involved in investigating the Alfa Bank allegations. He testified that the evidence (data and white papers explaining the data) provided to then-FBI general counsel James Baker from Sussmann was passed off to none other than the infamous Peter Strzok. (Read more: Techno Fog, 5/17/2022)(Archive)
Transcript review – Day 2 – Sussmann trial
Timecodes: 00:00:00 – Intro 00:01:25 – Durham & Sussmann Clip 00:02:00 – PM Transcript from yesterday 00:06:40 – Mindmap Update 00:12:03 – Court Transcript (Sussmann Trial Day 2) 00:13:01 – Preliminary Discussions 00:26:33 – Judge Intro 00:30:02 – Government Prosecutor’s Opening Argument 00:57:22 – Defense Team’s Opening Argument 01:25:33 – Witnesses on Mindmap 01:26:40 – Witness 1: David Martin (FBI Special Agent) 01:43:57 – Witness 2: Scott Hellman (FBI Special Agent) 02:11:08 – Quick Recap & Conclusion #Durham#Sussmann#HillaryClinton
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)
“Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton approved a plan during the 2016 campaign to feed false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion to the media, her campaign manager said Friday.
Testifying to a federal court in the trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, Robby Mook noted that Clinton signed off on a scheme to send journalists data about possible links between Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. The effort was successful, as a news outlet just days before the election published a story that alleged covert connections between Trump and the bank. The allegation has since been debunked, with the FBI finding there was not a nefarious link between Trump and Alfa Bank.
Mook’s testimony is the first confirmation that Clinton was involved in the decision to give the Trump-Alfa Bank story to journalists. Mook said that campaign leaders “weren’t totally confident in” the allegations and wanted to share them with reporters to investigate further. Mook said he discussed the strategy with Clinton, who okayed the plan.
Slate on Oct. 31, 2016, published a report that said a team of anonymous computer researchers had discovered that Trump’s real estate company, the Trump Organization, had a secret communications channel with Alfa Bank. Unmentioned in the story was that the computer researchers were collaborating with Sussmann and other political operatives working for the Clinton campaign.
Mook was asked at the trial to read a statement Clinton released that touted the Slate story. Clinton wrote that “computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” She linked to a statement from Jake Sullivan, her foreign policy adviser, that said the story “could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.” (Read more: Washington Free Beacon, 5/20/2022)(Archive)
UPDATE May 21, 2022
Techno Fog includes a transcript of Mook’s testimony. Dates are put in bold by the timeline editor.
The Robby Mook testimony.
Robert Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, also testified before the jury Friday. In his testimony, he stated that Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan to spread the lie that Trump was colluding with Russia via secret servers to the media. He also admitted to being briefed on the conspiracy.
Q: Okay. In connection with the general focus on Mr. Trump and Russia, did there come a time when you learned of potential links between the Trump organization, Mr. Trump’s business, and a Russian bank called Alfa-bank?
A: I did. Yes, I was briefed on that.
Q: Approximately when were you first briefed on that, if you remember?
A: I honestly can’t recall.
Q: Who participated in the briefing, if you remember?
A: Myself, Marc Elias, Jen Palmieri, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta. There might have been others, but those are the ones I definitely recall being there.
Mook also admitted that the Clinton campaign was focused on Trump’s relationship with Russia beforeSummer of 2016.
Q: In the Summer of 2016, was Mr. Trump’s relationship with Russia something that the campaign focused on?
A: Yes. I mean, it was frankly something we were focused on before that time. But absolutely.
Mook however did deny that the Clinton campaign directed Sussman to go to the FBI, despite admitting that Clinton approved the Trump-Russia allegations to be shared with the media.
Q: Were you aware that Mr. Sussman went to the FBI in September of 2016 to give them a heads-up about a New York Times story about Trump and Alfa-Bank?
A: No.
Q: Do you have any recollection of anyone talking to you about going to the FBI on behalf of the campaign on the Trump/Alfa-Bank issue?
A: No.
Q: Did you direct Mr. Sussman to go to the FBI on behalf of the campaign?
A: Absolutely not.
Q: Did you authorize Mr. Sussman to go to the FBI on behalf of the campaign?
A: No.
Q: Did anyone else from the campaign, to your knowledge, direct or authorize Mr. Sussman to go to the FBI on behalf of the campaign?
A: To my knowledge, no.
Mook also said the decision to push the debunked Russia conspiracy to the media was made by him, Sussman, John Podesta, and Palmeri, and that Hillary Clinton agreed with the decision.
Q: And once you learned about it [the Trump-Russia allegations], you started discussing with the campaign whether the campaign should affirmatively push it in the media, right?
A: Correct.
Q: And you had that discussion with Mr. Sullivan?
A: Correct.
Q: With Mr. Podesta?
A: Just to be clear. This is what – I recall those people, correct.
Q: Okay. You had a discussion with Mr. Sullivan?
A: Yes, I recall, yes.
Q: Whether to push it in the media right?
A: Correct.
Q: With Ms. Palmieri?
A: Correct.
Q: With Mr. Podesta?
A: Correct.
Q: But in any event, the decision to provide this to the media was authorized by the campaign, correct?
A: We authorized a staff member of the campaign to provide it to the media.
Regarding Hillary Clinton, Mook said:
Q: Mr. Mook, before the break you had testified that there was a conversation in which you told Ms. Clinton about the proposed plan to provide the Alfa-Bank allegations to the media; is that correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And what was her response?
A: All I remember is that she agreed with the decision.
Some final thoughts: while this trial is about Sussmann’s false statements to the FBI, it’s also more than that.
This is Special Counsel John Durham telling the public the story of the Clinton opposition research machine, and how the campaign, through their lawyers and contractors (Fusion GPS), developed and spread lies to the media to influence the election. It’s the story of Clinton Campaign lawyers to using the FBI to further that strategy of deception. (Read more: Techno Fog, 5/21/2022)(Archive)
Day 5 of the Durham Prosecution against Hillary Clinton’s former campaign lawyer, Michael Sussmann continues with two witnesses: former FBI General Counsel James Baker and Hillary Clinton Campaign Manager Robbie Mook.
(…) on May 31, Grassley sent the first of four letters to FBI Director Wray and AG Garland.
Grassley leveled a very serious allegation, noting that “while serving in a highly sensitive role that includes threshold decision-making over which Federal public corruption matters are opened for investigation,” the Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the Washington Field Office, Timothy Thibault, violated federal regulations and Department guidelines designed to prevent political bias from infecting FBI matters. Grassley told Wray and Garland that actions by Thibault undermine “both the FBI and DOJ because, at minimum, it creates the perception of unequal application of the law.”
“Prior to the FBI’s raid Monday on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, a string of whistleblower reports alleged that senior officials at the FBI exhibited a pattern of bias in their handling of politically sensitive investigations and also reclassified cases without justification to substantiate the White House’s public narratives on crime and extremism.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault discusses the sentencing of Julian Velasquez who distributed fentanyl resulting in a woman’s death. (Credit: FBI Washington Field Office/Twitter)
Beginning in late May, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley called attention to then-Washington Field Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault over political bias concerns. Thibault expressed support for several “highly partisan” opinion articles on LinkedIn and made a series of politically charged social media posts, according to Grassley, who referred Thibault to the Office of Special Counsel to address the federal agent’s potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from partisan political activity.
Concerns surrounding Thibault escalated in July, as whistleblowers came forward claiming Thibault’s partisan persuasion directly impacted his work at the bureau. While seeking approval from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, Thibault withheld from them that his predicating evidence was based in “substantial part” on information from a “left-aligned organization,” according to Grassley’s office.
In a separate instance, whistleblowers claim Thibault worked to falsely discredit evidence against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and prevent the bureau from investigating him.
Richard Pilger leaves the DOJ’s election crimes branch in November 2020 after Barr authorizes a fraud investigation. He stayed with the DOJ in a non-supervisory post. (Credit: public domain)
“Whistleblowers have told my office that the FBI maintains many sources that have provided extensive information on Hunter Biden,” Grassley said in August. “That information allegedly involves potential criminal activity such as money laundering. According to allegations, the underlying information was verified and verifiable. However, instead of green-lighting investigative activity, the FBI shut it down.”
Grassley also pointed to Robert [Richard] Pilger of the Election Crimes Branch, who he alleges was of vital aid to Thibault in his efforts to open the investigation into Trump. Former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, the Iowa Republican noted, testified that “Pilger’s conduct frustrated the department’s ability to properly operate the Election Crimes Branch.”
Thibault, Grassley confirmed, was reassigned to an unspecified posting prior to the bureau securing a warrant to raid Trump’s estate. Sources briefed on the raid confirmed to Just the News that the agents came from the Washington Field Office, in which Thibault was serving until just days prior.
In late July, whistleblower reports emerged that bureau supervisors were pressuring agents to reclassify cases under the label of “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) without substantive justification in order to support White House narratives.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 8/11/2022)(Archive)
“There is very little that surprises me, but this is completely stunning. An FBI whistleblower came forth to inform Rep Jim Jordan and Rep Matt Gaetz that the FBI maintains a workspace inside the law firm of Perkins Coie. {Direct Rumble Link}
In response to a letter sent by Rep. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, Perkins Coie, the legal arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton, admitted they have been operating an FBI workspace in their Washington D.C. office since 2012. Pay attention to that date, it matters. WATCH:
This is a huge development. Essentially, what is being admitted in this claim is that a portal existed into FBI databases within the law firm that represents democrats. This means access to FBI database searches exists inside the office of the DNC and Clinton legal group. Think about the ramifications here.
CTH[Conservative Treehouse] has long claimed there was some kind of direct portal link between the Clinton campaign team and the FBI databases. There were too many trails of extracted non-minimized research evidence in the hands of the Clinton team that CTH could not trace to a transferring FBI official. If Perkins Coie operated a portal in their office that allowed them to conduct search queries of American citizens, then everything would make sense. That access portal is exactly what is being claimed and admitted in this report.
The start date of 2012 is important for several reasons, not the least of which is FISA presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer criticizing the scale and scope of unlawful FBI database access going back to exactly 2012. Keep in mind a FISA-702 search, is simply an unlawful FBI warrantless electronic search of an American (“702” represents the American citizen) into the central database -maintained by the NSA- that contains all electronic data and communication.
I have been in the deep hole of the FISA-702 database search query violations for so long I don’t even need a flashlight.
The report from Matt Gaetz about Perkins Coie access to FBI databases, is in direct alignment with Rosemary Collyer’s prior report on FBI abuses of the database, 702 violations. Notice the dates and scope Judge Collyer references [Source Link].
Non-compliant queries since 2012.
85% of the FBI and contractor searches are unlawful.
Many of those searches involved the use of the “same identifiers over different data ranges.” Put in plain terms, the same people were continually being tracked, searched and surveilled by querying the FBI database over time.
The non-compliant searches go back to 2012. The same date mentioned for the FBI portal to begin operating inside the Perkins Coie office.
This specific footnote is a key. Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”, this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.
Note: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, which is important.
♦Summary: The FISA court identified and quantified tens of thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system. The database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities.
The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation. When the DOJ use of the IRS for political information on their opposition became problematic, the Obama administration needed another tool. It was in 2012 when they switched to using the FBI databases for targeted search queries.
This information from Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz has the potential to be extremely explosive.
It will be interesting to see how the domestic intelligence community media (NYT, Politico, WaPo – in that order) respond to this Matt Gaetz report.
I wrote about these suspicions in-depth throughout 2017, 2018 and eventually summarized in 2019:
Documents released during Michael Sussmann’s federal trial show the FBI solicited advice from Hillary Clinton’s lawyer on a press release describing the intelligence agency’s awareness of the Democratic National Committee hack in 2016.
James Trainor (Credit: public domain)
The original press release sent over to Sussmann by Jim Trainor, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, noted that the FBI was aware of “a possible cyber intrusion involving the DCCC,” or the Democratic National Campaign Committee, via “recent media reporting.”
“Michael – our press office is once again getting a ton of calls on the DCCC matter. A draft response is provided below. Wanted to get your thoughts on this prior to sending out,” Trainor wrote.
In his reply, Sussmann asked the FBI to change the first line of the press release to reflect the DNC’s messaging on the hack. He explained that he preferred a more definitive statement that made clear “the FBI is aware of the cyber intrusion involving the DCCC that has been reported in the media.”
Trainor accepted the suggestions with minor protest and agreed to send out Sussmann’s manipulated version of the press release soon.
“Mike – I am fine with the below suggestions. We try to really limit what we see and not acknowledging too much but the below edits are fine and we will send out,” Trainor wrote. (Read more: The Federalist, 5/31/2022)(Archive)
“The acquittal is no surprise. This is a DC jury, after all. In the Roger Stone case, for example, we documented how a juror lied to get on the panel. (That judge didn’t care.) Making matters worse, the Sussmann judge wrongly allowed a woman to remain on the jury, despite the fact that her daughter and Sussmann’s are on the same high school crew team. One can’t help but think that juror had her own daughter’s interests in mind – the cohesion of the crew team – when she reached a decision.
D.C. Wards – Jury Pool
After the verdict was announced, the jury’s forewoman held court before the media and expressed her displeasure that the Special Counsel prosecute a false statement case:
“There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
On the facts, there was more than sufficient evidence to prove Sussmann’s guilt. Sussmann lied to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in order to get a meeting to pass the Alfa Bank hoax materials to the FBI. Sussmann lied again during the meeting – stating he was not there on behalf of a client – in order to get the FBI to open an investigation into the Trump Organization’s purported ties with Alfa Bank. Later, during testimony to Congress, Sussmann admitted he met with Baker on behalf of a client. Billing records proved he had been working on the Alfa Bank project on behalf of the Clinton Campaign.
(…) That’s not to say the public hasn’t benefited from the trial. The information disclosed during the trial was important to understand the broader Clinton/Fusion GPS/Perkins Coie effort to poison the public, the press, and the FBI with their Trump/Russia lies. This included:
Data from the Executive Office of the President of the United States, including data from the Transition period, was exploited by Sussmann and Rodney Joffe and then passed to the CIA.
Rodney Joffe was a longtime Confidential Human Source (CHS) – and generally a resource – for the FBI. Joffe worked with the FBI on cyber threats from countries like Russia. From former FBI Agent Grasso: “I’m sure the work that [Joffe] did touched on matters having to do with Russia.”
Joffe went to great lengths to make sure the Alfa Bank information he provided to the FBI did not go through his official FBI handler.
The decision to open the investigation came from FBI Leadership. According to one FBI Agent, “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”
Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias provided updates on the Fusion GPS “research” to the Clinton Campaign.
After reviewing the evidence, the FBI leaned “towards this being a false server not attributed to the trump organization.”
An unbelievable confirmation of the shoddy FBI investigation into the Russian “hacking” of our election. As of October 13, 2016,the FBI did not have the Crowdstrike images relating to the purported DNC/DCCC hack. Message from FBI agent via their internal messaging system: “really, I just want images of what crowdstrike has.”
Q: Mr. Mook, before the break you had testified that there was a conversation in which you told Ms. Clinton about the proposed plan to provide the Alfa-Bank allegations to the media; is that correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And what was her response?
A: All I remember is that she agreed with the decision.
Then there are the trial exhibits, which The Epoch Times has posted here. As Aaron Maté observed, Sussmann edited an FBI press release on the DNC hacking because the FBI’s proposed statement “undermines” the DNC hacking narrative:
Sussmann trial exhibits have been released. (https://t.co/UeyF71U1to ) Includes some Crowdstrike-FBI-DNC exchanges on the alleged DNC hack.
“Multiple former FBI officials are coming forward with information suggesting the bureau is “purging” employees with conservative viewpoints, according to House Judiciary Committee Republicans.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the ranking member of the panel, sent a letter to Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday outlining new allegations that relate to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“In one such example, the FBI targeted and suspended the security clearance of a retired war servicemember who had disclosed personal views that the FBI was not being entirely forthcoming about the events of January 6. The FBI questioned the whistleblower’s allegiance to the United States despite the fact that the whistleblower honorably served in the United States military for several years — including deployments in Kuwait and Iraq — valiantly earning multiple military commendation medals,” a press release for the letter states.
“In addition, another whistleblower, who has since left the FBI, has informed us that faced retaliation for criticizing the FBI in an anonymous survey circulated by the [REDACTED] to employees following January 6. The FBI allegedly escalated an adverse personnel action against this employee after [REDACTED] commented on the survey, which sought feedback about the [REDACTED] actions ‘during the recent crisis/command post’ event. The employee, too, was never disciplined or reprimanded until after [REDACTED] criticized the FBI,” the letter reads.
The names of the former officials do not appear, as the letter features several redactions, but Jordan stressed multiple “whistleblowers have called it a ‘purge’ of FBI employees holding conservative views.” He reminded Wray that “whistleblower disclosures to Congress are protected by law and that we will not tolerate any effort to retaliate against whistleblowers for their disclosures.”
Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz were sent a copy.
Jordan also said a prior letter, sent May 6, details allegations of the FBI suspending the security clearances of bureau employees for their participation in protected First Amendment activity, and he claimed the FBI failed to respond or provide a requested briefing. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 6/07/2022)(Archive)
“How do you say “kompromat” in Arabic? Asking for Hillary Clinton.
John R. Allen, the Brookings Institute director under FBI investigation for secretly lobbying on behalf of the Qatari government, was a prominent backer of Hillary’s failed presidential campaign. The retired four-star general delivered a “rousing endorsement” of Clinton during his widely celebrated address at the Democratic National Convention in 2016.
Allen received a hero’s welcome on the final night of the convention when Clinton formally accepted the party’s nomination. After being introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) as the “general who knows more about ISIS than anyone,” Allen marched on stage to the sound of a military drum cadence as if he was Gen. George S. Patton celebrating the Allied victory in Europe.
“My fellow Americans, I tell you without any hesitation or reservation that Hillary Clinton will be exactly the kind of commander in chief America needs today,” Allen said as a boisterous contingent of convention-goers chanted “No more war!” Following his speech, Allen told NPR he considered it his “duty” to support Hillary—a line reminiscent of failed candidate John Kerry’s infamous proclamation at the 2004 Democratic convention.
Brookings placed Allen on administrative leave Wednesday amid revelations that investigators have obtained “substantial evidence” that Allen knowingly violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by failing to disclose his work for the government of Qatar, a notorious sponsor of terrorism and anti-Semitic propaganda. The influential think tank has been criticized for its close ties to the controversial regime, which has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Brookings over the years and in 2014pledged nearly $15 million to build a satellite campus in Doha. Allen was named president of Brookings in October 2017.
Qatar’s longstanding efforts to buy influence in the United States have, quite unsurprisingly, included substantial donations to the Clinton Foundation. In 201[2], for example, the foundation accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar in honor of former president Bill Clinton’s 65th birthday. Hillary was serving as secretary of state at the time, but failed to disclose the massive donation to the State Department despite her pledge to keep the agency apprised of the foundation’s foreign donors.
Investigators say Allen was secretly lobbying on behalf of Qatar alongside Imaad Zuberi, a Pakistani-American businessman who donated $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. In February 2021, Zuberi was sentenced to 12 years in prison for falsifying records related to his foreign lobbying. They were joined by Richard Olson, who served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates under former president Barack Obama and recently pleaded guilty to illegally lobbying on behalf of Qatar.
Imaad Zuberi in various photos with several American leaders.
Hillary Clinton and her allies continue to insist that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was infiltrated by foreign agents. They have also repeatedly peddled the false notion that Clinton was the legitimate winner of the 2016 election because Russian operatives with ties to Trump hacked voting machines to manipulate the outcome.” (Read more: The Washington Free Beacon, 6/09/2022)(Archive)
“A top FBI official repeatedly violated bureau policy by hobnobbing with journalists while overseeing the controversial investigation into Donald Trump’s suspected ties to Russia — and then retired before he could be interviewed by ethics probers, a newly released Justice Department report revealed.
Michael Steinbach “had numerous unauthorized contacts with the media” that began when he was the bureau’s assistant counterterrorism director and continued after he was named executive assistant director of its National Security Bureau in February 2016, according to the heavily redacted DOJ Inspector General report obtained by The Post through a freedom of information act request.
The “hundreds of contacts” included “soliciting” an unidentified reporter for a $300 ticket to the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Association gala after earlier getting invited by a different reporter to the 2015 Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner.
“Lots of [redacted] reporters here. May have to branch out!” Steinbach wrote to the unidentified reporter in a text message on the night of the 2015 dinner.
“Absolutely not!!! But curious to know who you’ve met so far?” the reporter responded, adding: “well they will never be as good as me! and don’t you get the big head! ;)”
“But they are promising the WH Correspondents dinner,” Steinbach responded.
The following year, Steinbach attended the White House Correspondents’ dinner and a reception party as a guest of a reporter — and boasted about it in a text to an unidentified CNN reporter.
“I put you on the map and now you’re cheating on me with [redacted],” the CNN reporter wrote in a text message to Steinbach.
“I kept waiting for my invite from you,” Steinbach responded.
After the $300-a-ticket event, Steinbach sent an email to a reporter with the subject “Great Night” that included a photo of an unidentified person standing with the journalist in front of the White House Correspondents’ Association banner.
“Thanks for hanging out with us last night [redacted] and I had a great time. And also thank you for giving us a lift. That was nice. I know it has been [sic] very busy year but when it slows down and as the weather gets nicer, we would love to grab [sic] or drinks with you and [redacted] either in the city somewhere or at our house,” the email read, in part.
In addition to the dinners, Steinbach had numerous lunches with journalists in Washington from 2014 to 2017, including at restaurants Asia Nine, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse, Elephant & Castle and Oyamel Cocina Mexicana.
“The OIG notes that it was unable to determine who paid for the drinks or meals during these social engagements,” the report states.
(…) The report notes the watchdog concluded that Steinbach violated federal regulations and FBI protocol and its findings would be delivered to the FBI.
Source video: President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, June 17, 2022. He comments about the ongoing RICO lawsuit filed against Hillary Clinton and others.
“Twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton on Friday said Trump supporters are a “clear and present danger to American democracy.” Clinton responded to a judge who lashed out at Trump supporters during Thursday’s January 6 show trial.
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” former circuit judge (George H. W. Bush appointee) Michael Luttig said to the J-6 panel. WATCH:
Conservative Judge Michael Luttig:
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.” pic.twitter.com/xSs6JMxvIR
Hillary Clinton agreed with the former federal judge. Hillary Clinton went from calling Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables” to a “clear and present danger” in a matter of just a few years. “Louder, for those in the back: Donald Trump, his allies, and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.” Hillary Clinton said in a tweet on Friday.
Louder, for those in the back:
Donald Trump, his allies, and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. https://t.co/Q8mmCQM45C
(…) Judge Luttig never notes that the president specifically said to the crowd to go and “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
In fact, not only did that part of the president’s speech not make Judge Luttig’s statement, it was, as Ohio’s Republican Congressman Jim Jordan has noted, also edited out of the committee’s video of that event. Imagine that. (The American Spectator, 6/16/2022)
Clipping of a New York Times article published May 29, 2016.
(…) In an interview with the Financial Times (paywall), Clinton was asked if she has considered another possible run for president in 2024, to which she shut down saying, “out of the question,” adding “first of all, I expect Biden to run. He certainly intends to run. It would be very disruptive to challenge that.”
(…) Clinton continued to say she believes President Trump will run again, claiming only if he thought it would benefit him financially.
Describing herself as the “most investigated innocent person in America,” Clinton portrayed herself as a victim, calling out Republicans for painting her as a “murderer or a child trafficker.”
Clinton called the thought of a Republican president “frightening,” adding “we are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window.” (Read more: Town Hall, 6/18/2022)(Archive)
“An Arkansas judge issued a preliminary injunction sealing the police report and crime scene photographs taken during the investigation into the suspicious suicide of Bill Clinton’s former presidential advisor linked to perv Jeffrey Epstein, Radar has exclusively learned.
Little Rock businessman Mark Middleton, who introduced the late perv to the former president, was found May 7 hanging from a tree with a shotgun blast through his chest and a cheap Dollar Tree-type extension cord around his neck in what investigators have determined to be a suicide.
While some suspect Middleton joins a long list of Clinton associates who have met an untimely death, Perry County Circuit Judge Alice Gray determined the money-man’s family would suffer “embarrassment and harassment” and “irreparable injury” if the shocking police records and grisly photos were released to the media.
“The Court finds the public’s interest in disclosure of the Media Content does not outweigh the Middletons’ protected privacy interest in the Media Content at this time,” the judge’s June 20th order read.” (Read more: Radar Online, 6/22/2022)(Archive)
(…) According to the digital media company MEAWW, the Perry County, Arkansas, Sheriff’s Office reported Middleton was discovered hanging from a tree with an extension cord around his neck and a shotgun wound to the chest. The family’s lawsuit, available here, states he “died by suicide.”
Middleton served as a special assistant to former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s until his February 1995 departure from the Clinton administration.
A year after he left the White House, a White House investigation found that Middleton abused his access to the president to impress business clients, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1996.
Middleton is believed to be one of those who helped strengthen the friendship between Clinton and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to the U.S. Sun.
As a Clinton adviser, Middleton helped admit Epstein into the White House on at least seven of the 17 occasions Epstein visited during Clinton’s tenure and had flown in Epstein’s private jet, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” the U.K. Daily Mail reported.
Trump and Clinton during a 2016 election debate. (Credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters)
(…) On June 21, 2022, Trump filed an amended RICO suit against Clinton and a large number of other DNC-related individuals who were involved in the RussiaGate hoax.
The new suit, at 193 pages in length, was significantly more robust and detailed than Trump’s original March 24RICO suit and included additional defendants. On the very same day, Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official who’s worked diligently to get Trump’s declassified documents released, announced on a podcast that he was officially a representative for Trump at the National Archives. Patel said it was his intention to “identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified.” Patel stated that he “would start putting that information out next week.”
[A sample of the many appearances Patel has made about the declassified documents.]
The following day, June 22, Magistrate Bruce Reinhart suddenly recused himself from Trump’s suit against Clinton & Company. Just 44 days later, after his unexpected recusal from Trump’s RICO case against Clinton, Reinhart personally signed the search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 8/19/2022)(Archive)
From @Kash: “This means Durham filed a bunch of classified documents, that [are] being declassified, and will unveil at trial. Gangster move, what I used to do to put down terrorists”…
Date: 06/23/22
US v Danchanko
Document 54
Notes: Protective Order Granted in US v Danchenko
“Hillary’s attorney Marc Elias was handed another defeat from the Supreme Court. The court agreed with the Congressional district lines drawn by Louisiana Republicans for the upcoming election.
(…) Recently, Elias was reportedly receiving “rebukes from judges, prosecutors, and even fellow Democrats”. Elias’s aggressive stance on elections was praised by Democrats but when he was tied to actions with the Russia collusion scandal he was shunned.
(Credit: Gateway Pundit)
(Credit: Gateway Pundit)
(…) The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to restore Republican-drawn lines in Louisiana ahead of the midterms as Democrats pushed to create a second black-majority district. The court issued an order that restored a congressional voting map that a federal judge said, disenfranchised black voters. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have denied the application for stay.
“Judge Nathan has sentenced Ghislaine Maxwell to 20 years in prison. “A sentence of 240 months is sufficient and no graver than necessary.”
The sentence is less than the 30-50 years prosecutors asked for, but more than the 6 year sentence the defense thought was appropriate.
While preparing to deliver the sentence, Nathan said that “Ms Maxwell directly and repeatedly and over the course of many years participated in a horrific scheme” to traffic and abuse girls, and that “Ms Maxwell worked with Epstein to select young victims who were vulnerable.
As such, a “substantial sentence” is warranted, which – if not released early, means Maxwell will be 80 years old when she gets out.
And somehow not a single Epstein client was named…
Judge Alison J Nathan said on Tuesday that Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal activity was “extensive,” and that she’s enhancing her sentence due to the fact that she was at least 10 years older than her victims, and exercised “undue influence” on them.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 6/28/2022)(Archive)
(1/19) Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers
Doyle, Moynihan v IRS (United States Tax Court)
After a 3+ month hiatus from this platform, I welcome relaunching this account given that our case has been partially unsealed and can now be publicly tracked: https://t.co/Io1HwdH2xY
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(3/19) the IRS request for Summary Judgment (dismissal). MAJOR!!
April 22, 2021: Judge orders case remanded to IRS “for investigation and development of the record to
determine whether IRS/CI (Criminal Investigation) proceeded with an investigation.” Recall that our WB Submission
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(5/19) We made our initial public appearance when we testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on December 13, 2018: https://t.co/1S3JtcNpJf
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(7/19) to US Tax Court in March 2019; appeal accepted by USTC Aug 28, 2019; case ongoing; many and especially legal sleuths in the audience can learn much from simply reviewing the Docket Record alone.
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(9/19) 4. Private Foundations including/especially the Gates Foundation are subject to tax on their CF donations under IRS Code for Donors’ Responsibilities.
Documented Evidence includes: All CF Financials (tax returns, audits, annual reports, income statements); Contracts with
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(11/19) inc the CFO; Email exchanges between CF execs and foreign government officials; reviews of US State Department emails; Reviews of State Dept/USAID ‘In Country Plans; Reviews of Geneva-based NGOs Global Fund, UNITAID . . and MORE!!
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(13/19) He formerly worked for Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). He testified to Congress on the financing of Global Terrorism after the 9/11 tragedy: https://t.co/XETidB4zMh
I worked on Wall Street for nearly 25 years and have done extensive work over the last 15 years in re
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(15/19) and wrote a book, In Bed with Wall Street, for which I humbly inform you I was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
In short, we have decades of experience in pursuing and making cases of this sort. We have other claims of similar nature. We are registered Independents.
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(17/19) who share messages similar to this recently received communication: “Every damn day there’s a new report of corruption, lack of accountability and so on. Nothing f’king ever comes of it. Soooo many people have given up the fight. They drew a box. And in that box is family
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
(19/19) Additional Info/Requests:
-Primary Reason: TRACK OUR CASE at the USTC link.
-FBH in our header? “Financial Bounty Hunters” along with CF Whistleblowers;
Pls Follow Us; Share this thread;
I prefer NOT getting into our leaving Twitter this past March. THANK YOU!!
LD
— Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers (@CFWBers) July 3, 2022
Nate Cain bravely blew the whistle on Hillary Clinton and her foundation while working as a contractor for the FBI. He’s still working in the field of cybersecurity and offers new insights into Benghazi, Hillary Clinton’s illegal gun-running in Africa and the Middle East; personal knowledge and evidence of the 2020 election fraud, and Bill Barr participating in a cover-up; many, many other topics we have been chronicling.
We include tags reflecting some of the people and topics that are discussed.
The promise was a health care revolution. The reality was a bloody lie. When Clinton darling, Elizabeth Holmes, claimed she’d invented a device with a pinprick of blood that could diagnose hundreds of medical conditions, she became the darling of Silicon Valley. Holmes, along with her business partner and ex-lover Sunny Balwani, then set about duping investors to bankroll their multi-billion dollar company, Theranos. But the couple didn’t count on the courage of two of their own staff who knew the blood machine didn’t work and knew they had to tell the world. Now Holmes and Balwani have been found guilty of fraud and could face decades in jail.
“Special counsel John Durham requested a federal court to issue 30 subpoenas for testimony in the trial against Igor Danchenko, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source for his discredited dossier.
The FBI secretly recorded their interviews with Danchenko.
Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI, which Durham says he made about the information he provided to Steele for the dossier. His trial is scheduled for October. The DOJ’s watchdog said FBI interviews with Danchenko “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting” and concluded Danchenko “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier. He has pleaded not guilty.
Durham’s brief court filing on Wednesday requested the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to issue “thirty subpoenas” for an “appearance before said Court at Alexandria, Virginia,” starting on Oct. 11 “to testify on behalf of the United States.” The potential witnesses are not named, but a copy of the blank subpoena reads that “YOU ARE COMMANDED to appear.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 7/14/2022)(Archive)
“A former CIA software engineer who leaked the so-called “Vault 7” tools was convicted Wednesday of causing the largest theft of classified information in the history of the agency.
Joshua Schulte, who has been sitting behind bars without bail since 2018 and chose to defend himself at trial, told the jury that the CIA and FBI made him a scapegoat for the 2017WikiLeaks release of up to 34 terabytes of information.
Joshua Schulte (Credit: Zero Hedge)
Separately, Schulte awaits trial on possession of child pornography and transport charges, which he has pleaded not guilty to, according to Military.com.
As part of his defense, Schulte claimed he was singled out because “hundreds of people had access to (the information),” adding “Hundreds of people could have stolen it.”
“The government’s case is riddled with reasonable doubt,” he said. “There’s simply no motive here.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Denton countered that there was plenty of proof that Schulte pilfered a sensitive backup computer file.
“He’s the one who broke into that system,” Denton said. “He’s the one who took that backup, the backup he sent to WikiLeaks.”
The prosecutor also encouraged jurors to consider evidence of an attempted cover-up, including a list of chores Schulte drew up that had an entry reading, “Delete suspicious emails.”
“This is someone who’s hiding the things that he’s done wrong,” Denton said.
Once the jury got the case, Furman complimented Schulte on his closing argument. -Military.com
The judge complimented Schulte on his defense, saying “that was impressively done.”
In March of 2020, the trial of former CIA computer engineer Joshua Schulte ended in a hung jury on eight counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information, according to the New York Times.
As we noted two years ago, according to a 2017 report created by the CIA’s WikiLeaks Task Force and released in June 2020, there were major security lapses at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), which made cyber weapons – including tools to crack into smartphones, hijack smart TVs, or make it look like a foreign adversary hacked someone.
“In a press to meet the growing and critical mission needs, CCI had prioritized building cyber weapons at the expense of securing their own systems,” reads the report. “Day-to-day security practices had become woefully lax.”
“CCI focused on building cyber weapons and neglected to also prepare mitigation packages if those tools were exposed. These shortcomings were emblematic of a culture that evolved over years that too often prioritized creativity and collaboration at the expense of security,” the report continues.
The leak marked the largest data breach in the CIA’s history and included information on hacking tools used by the agency to break into smartphones and other internet-connected devices.
The task force noted that due to failures to address vulnerabilities in IT systems, if WikiLeaks had not published the stolen information, the CIA “might still be unaware of the loss — as would be true for the vast majority of data on Agency mission systems.”
In a letter to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday, Wyden criticized the intelligence community for its “widespread cybersecurity problems.” –The Hill
The Vault 7 release – a series of 24 documents which began to publish on March 7, 2017 – reveals that the CIA has a giant arsenal of tools to use against adversaries, including the ability to “spoof” its malware to appear as though it was created by a foreign intelligence agency, as well as the ability to take control of Samsung Smart TV’s and surveil a target using a “Fake Off” mode in which they appear to be powered down while eavesdropping. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 7/13/2022)(Archive)
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are coming out with their own docuseries on Apple TV+ based on their book The Book of Gutsy Women that will feature talks with ‘trailblazing women’ like Kim Kardashian and Megan Thee Stallion.
The eight-part docuseries series will debut September 9 on Apple’s streaming platform.
Hillary posted an image in a red convertible with her daughter in the driver’s seat as they two looked back for an image previewing the upcoming series.
‘We’ve got a premiere date! ‘Gutsy,’ our new eight-episode documentary series, will premiere on @appletvplus on September 9,’ Clinton posted on Instagram Thursday morning.
(…) The Clinton sphere is getting a good bit of Hollywood treatment recently, with Hillary’s longtime aide Huma Abedin getting a television adaptation of her memoir.
Episodes will include talks with reality TV star Kim Kardashian (pictured left on July 13 in New York City) and rapper Megan Thee Stallion (pictured right performing in London on July 8)
“Several FBI whistleblowers say that the agency’s probe into Hunter Biden was internally sabotaged during the 2020 election in order to derail the investigation after agents wrongfully deemed verified evidence as “disinformation” to ignore.
According to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), agents investigating Hunter “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” adding that his office received “a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers” regarding the investigation.
Grassley added that “verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation,” according to the Washington Examiner.
Brian Auten (Credit: Twitter)
Timothy Thibault (Credit: public domain)
FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened in August 2020 the assessment that was later used by the agency, according to the disclosures. One of the whistleblowers claimed the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington field office, Timothy Thibault, shut down a line of inquiry into Hunter Biden in October 2020 despite some of the details being known to be true at the time.
A whistleblower also said Thibault “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting,” according to Grassley, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.” The senator said Thibault “ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required” and that FBI officials “subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future,” according to the disclosures.
The whistleblowers say investigators from FBI headquarters were “in communication with FBI agents responsible for the Hunter Biden information targeted by Mr. Auten’s assessment,” and that their findings on whether the claims were in fact disinformation were placed “in a restricted access sub-file” in September 2020, according to Grassley, who added that the disclosures “appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.”
Grassley summarized the new allegations in a Monday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Document requests on pages 3 and 4, Grassley Letter, 7/25/2022
The Examiner notes that FBI agent Auten was involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, including interviewing Christopher Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko.
According to Grassley, the “volume and consistency” of the allegations regarding the handling of the Hunter Biden probe “substantiate their credibility.”
The assessment by Auten in August 2020 was opened the same month Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) received a briefing from the FBI “that purportedly related to our Biden investigation and a briefing for which the contents were later leaked in order to paint the investigation in a false light,” Grassley said. The senator said Senate Democrats asked for a briefing in July 2020 “from the very same FBI HQ team that discredited the derogatory Hunter Biden information.”
The FBI inquiry into Hunter Biden reportedly began as a tax investigation, then expanded into a scrutiny of potential money-laundering and foreign lobbying; the DOJ has declined to hand over investigative details. -Washington Examiner
Thibault, the FBI agent who allegedly quashed the Hunter probe, may have violated the Hatch act in 2020 after making posts on social media that were critical of then-president Donald Trump and former AG William Barr.
“This scandal is no longer just about the Biden family; it’s about every member of the law enforcement and intelligence communities who put our country at risk by failing to do their jobs.
FBI whistleblowers claim that agents opened a sham investigation into Hunter Biden to brand reliable and verifiable derogatory evidence as “disinformation,” according to an explosive news release issued yesterday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
If true, beyond exposing the FBI’s role in running cover for the Biden family, the whistleblowers’ claims prove significant for a second reason: By failing to thoroughly vet the evidence in its possession related to Hunter Biden — which included the hard drive for the MacBook Hunter had abandoned at a repair shop — the intelligence community ignored a momentous national security threat, namely that the Russians potentially possessed a second Hunter Biden laptop.”
Executive Assistant Director of FBI Counterterrorism Division Jill Sanborn testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs/Rules and Administration hearing in March 2021. (Credit: Shawn Thew/Getty Images)
“New whistleblower information reveals that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) despite lacking the criteria to meet such a classification. Whistleblower disclosures have also detailed the agency’s effort to exaggerate DVE data to satisfy the Bureau’s leadership.
One whistleblower explained that because agents are not finding enough DVE cases, they are encouraged and incentivized to change designations even though there is minimal, circumstantial evidence to support the reclassification.
Another whistleblower—with experience in high-profile domestic terrorism investigations—stated that a field office Counterterrorism Assistant Special Agent in Charge and the FBI’s Director of the Counterterrorism Division [Jill Sanborn] have forced agents to recategorize cases as DVE to hit performance metrics manufactured by the Bureau itself.
According to whistleblowers, the FBI uses these metrics to dispense awards and determine promotions. Every whistleblower has called it an environment of “pressure” within the FBI.” (Read more: Breaking911, 7/27/2022)(Archive)
Jill Sanborn was promoted to Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch in May 2021, and didn’t have answers for the Senate on January 11, 2022 about the January 6th protest.
Sen. Ted Cruz: “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th? Yes or no?”
Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart (Credit: public domain)
“The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort donated to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — months after he left the local US Attorney’s office to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.
Sources tell The Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an “unannounced raid on my home.”
Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.”
Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release.
According to the Herald, which cited court documents, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida US Attorney’s Office effective on New Year’s Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein’s cohorts the following day.
Epstein, who was found dead in August 2019 of an apparent suicide in the Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had hired a stable of high-powered lawyers for his defense in the late 2000s, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
Ten months after starting work for Epstein’s co-conspirators, according to Federal Election Commission records, Reinhart gave $1,000 directly to the Obama campaign and another $1,000 to its fundraising arm, the Obama Victory Fund. Though the records show the judge made mostly small-dollar donations to his law firm’s political action committee in subsequent years, Reinhart also donated $500 to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign in November 2015.
Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit by two of Epstein’s victims that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018. (Read more: New York Post, 8/09/22)(Archive)
“The search warrant for the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Monday suggests he is being investigated under the Espionage Act of 1917 — the same law that Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating in 2016.
Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted Thursday that he personally approved the warrant application, which seeks broad discretion to search Trump’s home based on three statutes: 18 U.S.C. section 793, on the mishandling of defense information; 18 U.S.C. section 1519, relating to the destruction of federal documents; and 18 U.S.C. section 2071, which punishes hiding, moving, or destroying federal documents. Section 793 is from the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the First World War.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating the latter when she used an unsecured private email server in her own home to handle her communications, including emails with classified information, during her time in office.
The relevant part of section 793 punishes “gross negligence” in the handling of defense information, and failure to report the loss or destruction of that information. Clinton was accused of both; her staff even physically destroyed her mobile phones.
Then-FBI Director James Comey, who intervened in the case after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was caught meeting with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an airport in Arizona, said that while Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information, she did not intend to violate the statute. The statute does not, however, include any requirement of intent, leading conservative critics to argue that Comey had been looking to exonerate her. (Read more: Breitbart, 8/12/2022)(Archive)
In Part One we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}. In Part Three we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}. Here in Part 4, we begin to assemble the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.
It is important to remember, the presidential records act –the presented pretext for the document conflict– is not a criminal statute. An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.
The DOJ-NSD warrant, and the subsequent raid on Mar-a-Lago can only be related to records the U.S. government deems “classified” and material vital to national security interests. Hence, DOJ National Security Division involvement.
In prior outlines we have exhaustively covered the details of President Trump’s desire to publicly release information about DOJ and FBI conduct in their targeting of him during the fabricated Trump-Russia claims. However, to understand the nature of the documents he may hold, we first review the declassification memo provided by President Trump to the DOJ upon his departure from office.
In broad terms there are two sets of documents that intermingle and are directly related. First, documents that highlight the activity of Hillary Clinton’s team in creating the false Trump-Russia conspiracy theory (2015/2016). Second, documents that highlight the activity of government officials targeting Donald Trump within the same timeframe (Crossfire Hurricane), that continued into 2017, 2018 and 2019 (Robert Mueller).
Think of the two sets of documents as evidence against two teams working in synergy. Team one (Clinton) was outside government. Team two (DOJ/FBI) was inside government. The documents pertain to both groups but are also divided. That helps to explain the wording of the memo above.
The documentary evidence against the outside group (Clinton et al) would also involve government documented evidence as the DOJ/FBI inside group interacted with them. Notes from interviews, materials provided, FBI 302 summaries of interviews, etc.
We can extract a lot of information on the first sets of evidence from the lawsuit filed by President Trump in March of this year, mostly against the outside actors. [LINK HERE]
The lawsuit was filed against specific persons and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation. Within the subjects of the lawsuit we find names and groups including:
Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.
In addition to being named in the lawsuit, many of those names were interviewed by the FBI as part of the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation, and/or part of the ongoing investigation of the Trump-Russia fabrication. Each of those interviews would carry an FD-302 report summarizing the content of the interview, the questions and answers given.
The totality of those 302 documents is a lot of evidence likely consisting of hundreds of pages.
For the government officials on the inside, in addition to 302’s (ex Bruce Ohr) there would be documents of communication between them.
Think about the full unredacted text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok as an example. The DOJ publicly released over 600 pages of those text messages, and that wasn’t all of them. The text messages were also redacted, under claims of privacy and national security. We can assume any version of these text messages declassified by President Trump would not be redacted. Hence, you go back to the January 20th memo and see the notes about “privacy.”
We also know there are many pages of communication between DOJ lawyer Lisa Page and her boss in the FBI Andrew McCabe. Almost none of them were ever made public; but they exist. This internal communication is likely the type of material contained in both the “binder,” left for the DOJ to release, and the boxes at Mar-a-Lago to be used as evidence against the named defendants in the lawsuit.
Bruce Ohr has 302’s and emails relating to his involvement as a conduit between Fusion GPS and the FBI. Some of those were released in redacted form, and some of them were never released. Additionally, Nellie Ohr, Bruce’s wife, who worked at Fusion GPS invoked spousal privilege when called to testify before the House committee investigating the issues. However, it is almost certain the FBI interviewed her so there are likely 302’s on Nellie Ohr.
Chris Steele, Igor Danchenko and Rodney Joffe were also interviewed by the FBI. Those 302’s were never released. Presumably John Durham has stakeholder equity in that part of the Trump-Russia hoax, but the documentary evidence prior to January 20, 2021, that exists outside the special counsel could also be records at Mar-a-Lago.
Then we get to the big stuff…. The records and evidence in unredacted and declassified state, that would drive the DOJ-NSD to claim vital national security interests.
The NSA compliance officer notified NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers of unauthorized use of the NSA database by FBI contractors searching U.S. citizens during the 2015/2016 presidential primary. That 2016 notification is a classified record.
The response from Mike Rogers, and the subsequent documentary evidence of what names were being searched is again a classified record. The audit logs showing who was doing the searches (which contractors, which agencies and from what offices), as noted by Director Rogers, was preserved. That is another big-time classified record.
In addition, we would have Admiral Rogers writing a mandatory oversight notification to the FISA court detailing what happened. That’s a big and comprehensive classified record, likely contained in the documents in Mar-a-Lago… and then the goldmine, the fully unredacted 99-page FISA court opinion detailing the substance of the NSA compromise by FBI officials and contractors, including the names, frequency and dates of the illegal surveillance. That is a major classified document the Deepest Deep State would want to keep hidden.
These are the types of documents within what former ODNI John Ratcliffe called “thousands of pages that were declassified by President Trump,” and given to both John Durham and Main Justice with an expectation of public release when the Durham special counsel probe concluded.
In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him. However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.
These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveals the background of how the DC surveillance state exists. THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.
The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward “simple records”, held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago. Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption as it now exists amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.
Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state. The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct.
President Donald Trump declassified the material then took evidence to Mar-a-Lago. The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas. From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat.
Given the nature of their opposition, and the underlying motives for their conduct, there is almost nothing they will not do to protect themselves. However, if you peel away all the layers of lies, manipulations and corruption, what you find at the heart of their conduct is fear.
What do they fear most?…
…..THIS!
People forget, and that’s ok, but prior to the 2015 MAGA movement driven by President Donald J Trump, political rallies filled with tens-of-thousands of people were extremely rare; almost nonexistent. However, in the era of Donald J Trump the scale of the people paying attention has grown exponentially. Every speech, every event, every rally is now filled with thousands and thousands of people.
The frequency of it has made us numb to realizing just how extraordinary this is. But the people in Washington DC are well aware, and that makes President Trump even more dangerous. Combine that level of support with what they attempted in order to destroy him, and, well, now you start to put context on their effort.
The existence of Trump is a threat, but the existence of a Trump that could expose their corruption…. well, that makes him a level of threat that leads to a raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago. (Conservative Treehouse, 8/11/2022)(Archive)
(Conservative Treehouse has generously given us permission to chronicle and republish any relevant information to our timelines.)
“Developing: Sources say the FBI agents and officials who were involved in the raid on former President Trump’s homework in the same Counterintelligence Division of the FBI that investigated Trump in the Russiagate hoax and are actively under criminal investigation by Special Counsel John Durham for potentially abusing their power investigating Trump in the Russian fraud and therefore have a potential conflict of interest and should have been RECUSED from participating in this supposed “espionage” investigation at Mar-a-Lago” Sperry said in a social media post on Saturday.
“… I can sum up the Trump documents very succinctly–the documents show that there was a coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI, and DOD starting in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election. Part of this effort involved using NSA-produced intelligence. Oliver Stone’s movie, Snowden, has a scene that accurately describes what NSA was collecting and how it could be used:
When the conspiracy started in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton by the leadership of the CIA, the FBI and DOD, Donald Trump was not the only target. Few believed at the time that Trump had a snowball’s chance in the raging inferno of Hell to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. There were active searches for compromising intel on all of the leading Republican candidates, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and on Bernie Sanders.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure his taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts, and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as “liaison reporting.” This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don’t have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
Let me give you one example of how intelligence intercepts were used to target specific individuals. Ask yourself, “how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar?” Papadopoulos was living in London and communicating with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager at the time. Those communications were intercepted by the UK’s GCHQ and passed, through liaison channels, to the NSA. That information was used in turn by the CIA and the FBI, working with British Intelligence, to ensnare Papadopoulos. He was offered a job, for example, at a firm tied to British Intelligence and subsequently introduced to Joseph Mifsud.
I am confident that some of the documents Trump has show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was “masked.” But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names “unmasked.” You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report.
Here is another example, we also know that Felix Sater–a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann)–initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don’t take my word for it, that’s what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov’s purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater’s communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies–GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the “bait” to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta’s email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
“That’s good, sooner it’s clarified the better, and the stronger the better,” Budowski replies, later adding: “Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.”
By late December, the intelligence/law enforcement operation targeted Donald Trump as it became clear that he was likely to win the Republican nomination.
I believe Donald Trump is holding trump cards that irrefutably show that the CIA, the FBI and DOD were communicating in Top Secret channels about these activities and that the coordination also included foreign intelligence personnel in at least the UK and Australia.
I hope this helps you understand the desperation of the U.S. national security agencies to keep this stuff hidden. The revelations, if they come, will be devastating. (Larry Johnson/Gateway Pundit, 8/15/2022)(Archive)
“Judge ruled in 2012 that a president’s discretion to declare records “personal” is far-reaching and mostly unchallengeable.
When it comes to the National Archives, history has a funny way of repeating itself. And legal experts say a decade-old case over audio tapes that Bill Clinton once kept in his sock drawer may have significant impact over the FBI search of Melania Trump’s closet and Donald Trump’s personal office.
The case in question is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration and it involved an effort by the conservative watchdog to compel the Archives to forcibly seize hours of audio recordings that Clinton made during his presidency with historian Taylor Branch.
For pop culture, the case is most memorable for the revelation that the 42nd president for a time stored the audio tapes in his sock drawer at the White House. The tapes became the focal point of a 2009 book that Branch wrote.
Judge Bruce Reinhart in a filing on Monday morning announced that formally he rejects “the Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”
“The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases,” Reinhart wrote. “I do not need to reach the question of whether, in some other case, these concerns could justify denying public access; they very well might.”
“Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing,” he added.
This is a stinging rebuke for a Biden administration that was relying on the Florida judge, who is himself an Obama donor, to provide the Department of Justice with political cover for the FBI’s “unprecedented” raid on the former president. If a law enforcement action is “unprecedented,” there is a higher probability that it was unlawful from a judicial point-of-view.
It remains to be seen how much of the search warrant affidavit will be redacted, as the judge previously gave the Department of Justice until Thursday to submit its advised redactions for the document out of argued national security concerns.
“Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that by the deadline, the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal,” the motion stated.” (Read more: BeckerNews, 8/22/2022)(Archive)(Reinhart Orders On Motion to Unseal)
The New York Post protested decisions by Facebook and Twitter to suppress coverage of the Biden laptop, after the social media platforms concluded the data was unverified and of questionable origin. The New York Post, 10/15/2020
“FBI whistleblowers allege that the Bureau’s leaders ordered agents not to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop, according to a letter Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson sent to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking that he investigate the matter.
Prior to the 2020 presidential election, some of the content of a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, became public and appeared to show damaging information on the then-presidential candidate. Media outlets derided the laptop as misinformation or Russian disinformation at the time.
“After the FBI obtained the Hunter Biden laptop from the Wilmington, Del. computer shop, these whistleblowers stated that local FBI leadership told employees, ‘you will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop’ and that the FBI is ‘not going to change the outcome of the election again,”‘ the letter, which the Daily Mail obtained, reads.
“I hope you understand that the longer your office stands on the sidelines and delays investigating the FBI’s actions, the harder it will be for you to uncover the truth and hold individuals accountable for wrongdoing,” Johnson continued.
Then-FBI Director James Comey announced in 2016 that the Bureau was reopening its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prior to the presidential election, a move many critics said affected the race’s outcome.
“While I understand your hesitation to investigate a matter that may be related to an ongoing investigation, it is clear to me based on numerous credible whistleblower disclosures that the FBI cannot be trusted with the handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Johnson further wrote.
FBI Special Agents Association logo (Credit: Twitter)
“According to FBI whistleblowers, Chris Wray personally removed concerns by rank-and-file members that the agency had become too politicized in deciding which cases to open.
FBI agents made this complaint to Senate Judiciary Committee members.
On August 25, 2022, investigative reporter Paul Sperry writes:
BREAKING: FBI Director Christopher Wray allegedly removed concerns raised by rank-and-file agents from this year’s final report by the FBI’s Special Agents Advisory Committee (SAAC) about FBI leadership becoming “too politicized” in deciding which cases to open and which investigations to pursue, FBI whistleblowers have told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The SAAC Executive Council, representing more than 10,000 agents from the bureau’s field offices, holds its meetings with the director at FBI headquarters twice a year.
“The FBI is now acting as both the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party.
The FBI interfered in the 2016, 2018, 2020 elections–and now the 2022 election–against Trump/GOP & for Democrats.
For 6 years, the FBI has been falsifying evidence or suppressing exculpatory evidence to frame Trump targets; destroying evidence that would incriminate the bureau; lying to both the IG and Congress; spying based on fraudulent warrants; opening investigations based on false pretenses; criminally leaking classified intercepts to the media; spreading false propaganda; and conducting corrupt searches and seizures. Yet no one is in jail for any of it. Not even dirty FBI lawyer Clinesmith, who confessed to forging a wiretap document.
Biden family whistleblower announced last week that it was top FBI official Tim Thibault who buried the information he gave the bureau on the Biden family’s criminal acts.” (The Gateway Pundit, 9/07/2022)(Archive)
“During a discussion with Joe Rogan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the removal of content, specifically citing the example of the pre-2020 election Hunter Biden laptop story. In his response Zuckerberg says the background context is important because the FBI came to Facebook and told them Russian disinformation was about to drop, just before the New York Post article was published.
This discussion comes on the heels of an FBI whistleblower approaching the Senate Judiciary Committee with evidence the Washington DC field office was specifically working to cover up any discoveries around the Hunter Biden laptop (per Chuck Grassley). Add the Zuckerberg statement to the whistleblower claim and the resounding implication is the FBI taking advanced proactive measures to stop information they deem adverse to the interests of democrats. The issue surfaces at 05:00 of the video below. WATCH (prompted): (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022)(Archive)
Tucker Carlson and Harmeet Dhillon Discuss Facebook Suppression of Hunter Biden Laptop Story
During a segment on his broadcast this evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Center for American Liberty founder and lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon about how Facebook censored and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 election. {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH: (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022)(Archive)
Jimmy Dore also does an excellent job covering this story:
“Kash Patel released a statement Friday on Truth Social where he blasted the corrupt Deep State for not keeping his name redacted in the affidavit used to raid President Trump’s home.
Kash also shared some other insightful information.
Patel wrote on Truth Social that he was basically viciously attacked by the Deep State by them not redacting his name from the warrant used to raid the President’s home. Then Patel shared this:
…This cartel of corruption inside our government is so devoid of concern about national security, they could not be bothered to see the judge in person. Instead, they literally called in the raid on the home of a former President via the FBI’s best friend, Zuckerberg’s WhatsApp.
This isn’t the first time that we heard that the warrant to raid the President’s home with gun-toting FBI agents was attested to over a WhatsApp call.
The cover sheet was “[a]ttested to” by an FBI special agent “by Phone (WhatsApp),” the form reveals. Indeed, the form is titled as an “application for a warrant by telephone or other reliable electronic means.”
The criminal cover sheet document indicates, in the usual perfunctory fashion, that no other relevant matters are proceeding before other magistrate judges in other sections of the same federal district where the Mar-a-Lago-related proceeding is ongoing. Warrant applications routinely include such attestations to flag the judiciary if prosecutors are seeking search warrants from multiple magistrates.
What we didn’t know is that the FBI uses WhatsApp as their “best friend”. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. What does Patel know about WhatsApp’s use by the FBI?
It appears the FBI uses WhatsApp to hold conversations that they can hide. Are there any other reasons for using WhatsApp?
“The redacted affidavit released Friday by the Justice Department related to the recent FBI raid on former President Trump’s Florida estate shows the agency in part made their case to return Aug. 8 by saying agents in May had already collected 184 sensitive documents from Mar-a-Lago.
This is a developing story…
“The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location,” the affidavit said.
“There is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES,” the affidavit continued, following redactions. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”
Documents retrieved earlier this year from Mar-A-Lago included “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” according to the affidavit. “Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in the order, “I find that the government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the affidavit,” and added that the redacted portions were needed for protecting witnesses, agents, and parties who were not charged, in addition to the strategy and scope of the probe.
The department blacked out the names of witnesses and agents to protect them and the agency’s investigation, but the document, which allowed for the warrant in the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid at Mar-a-Lago, is expected to provide at least some new details.
As expected, the judge allowed the Government to heavily redact the affidavit before it went public. In yesterday’s order, the judge found that parts of the affidavit must remain sealed because:
disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e).
This aligns with the DOJ representations that (1) information in the affidavit “could be used to identify many, if not all” of the witnesses; (2) the affidavit would provide a “roadmap for anyone intent on obstructive the investigation.”
“A top FBI agent at the Washington field office reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings.
Timothy Thibault, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, was allegedly forced out after he was accused of political bias in his handling of probes involving President Biden’s son, sources told the Washington Times on Monday.
Tucker Carlson covers my @TheGrayzoneNews report exposing the Pentagon’s invitation of multiple Ukrainian Nazis to Disney World, where comedian Jon Stewart honored a former fascist militant for his “personal example.”
Defense Department-sponsored “Warrior Games” featured liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarding a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion at Disney World. The Pentagon refused to tell The Grayzone whether US taxpayers funded the foreign competitors’ travel.
This August, during the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida this August 19-28, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”
Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun.
Ihor Halushka’s Sonnenrad Black Sun tattoo is visible on his left elbow. (Credit: The Grayzone)
“Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows. This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for. For the past five years, Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.
Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required ‘Wood’s file’. McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump’s National Security Advisor.
Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort. Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.
It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.
It was Mary McCord who then took up the lead congressional position within the impeachment construct created by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, and it was Mary McCord who then joined the January 6 Committee in the committee fight to obtain President Trump’s white house records.
Mary McCord surfaces today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to outline what her team has currently constructed, including the specific targeting approaches her DOJ-NSD and Lawfare crew have put together.
As noted by McCord, the ‘obstruction of justice’ angle is a repeat of the threat used by the Deep State to keep the criminal conduct of the DOJ-NSD from being exposed. WATCH:
When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’). That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important. It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.
When the Carter Page title-1 search warrant application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin. Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016).
John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.
♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.
A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents. The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.
♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.
♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission. Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint. It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules. Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General? Michael Atkinson.
Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment. As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.
♦ During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’) which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith. Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.
When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.
♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith. In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome. Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.
As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.
Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus? Mary McCord.
♦ SUMMARY: Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier. Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn. Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee. Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.
You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD. Then, as if on cue to keep the entire corrupt system protected, this happened:
November 4, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)
Mary McCord is the epitome of a person using a position to abuse the power within it.
Former Obama White House Counsel Lisa Monaco is now the Deputy Attorney General. John Carlin is back inside the DOJ-NSD as the Biden administration continued the Obama administration targeting of President Trump. Mary McCord returns back inside the House J-6 investigative committee put together to purposefully target Donald J Trump…
Now does the timing of Mary McCord surfacing publicly, immediately after the underlying search warrant used in the raid against Donald Trump, make sense?
McCord is the architect, the actual person putting lawfare strategy into lawfare ink and action, for the Trump targeting operations.” (Conservative Treehouse, 8/28/2022)(Archive)
“The Biden Department of Justice lobbed a pre-election grenade at the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump in a midnight filing on Tuesday by attaching a photo of alleged ‘top secret’ documents the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago.
The now-infamous photo is undoubtedly circulating throughout Americans’ email inboxes this morning, flooding social media channels, and is being heralded on the morning television shows. It would not be surprising if Attorney General Merrick Garland already has the photo framed and mounted and hung proudly in his office.
The ‘top secret’ documents photo, labeled ‘Attachment F’ (you can guess what the ‘F’ stands for) is indisputably provocative. The TS/SCI documents are splayed dramatically across the ornate blue carpet with white cover sheets neatly laid on top of them.
The obvious first question many people are asking about this photo is: Why are ‘top secret’ documents that are arguably so sensitive to national security that a court-appointed, independent “special master” should not be privy to them, being spread out for a publicity style photo? The attachment is not sealed, although the Department of Justice has asked for numerous redactions for the search warrant affidavit that purportedly justified the unprecedented raid on the former president.
So, why this photo? Why now? This is precisely the question that legal analyst Jonathan Turley is asking about Attachment F.
“Notably, this filing includes this picture which is being widely distributed,” Turley notes on Twitter.
“It can, however, leave an obviously misleading impression that secret documents were strewn over the floor when this appears to be the work of the FBI agents. The picture is Attachment F and the textual reference on page 13 simply says ‘Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status’. It is curious that the DOJ would release this particular picture. The point is to state a fact that hardly needs an optical confirmation: the possession of documents with classified cover sheets.”
Thus arises the second question: If this is indeed a staged photo, then why the need for the box on the right-hand side? If you take a closer look, it shows a Time magazine cover that one might interpret as a veiled threat.
Let’s take a look at the actual Time magazine cover, which is from March 4, 2019.
It’s none other than Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential challengers spying on him while he is in the Oval Office. The cover story headline is “Knock, Knock…”
The Time magazine cover that is not-so-subtly displayed in the FBI’s staged photo is yet another sign that the bureau is unable to do its job in a professional and apolitical fashion. This compounds the problem of the apparent political timing of the FBI raid on August 8, which came over eighteen months into the Biden presidency, and despite the documents allegedly being an ‘urgent’ matter of national security.
The Time cover provoked a politicized response from whom we can only assume is the target audience. Business Insider didn’t miss the message.
“A photo released by the Department of Justice showing the documents found during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid has also unveiled a curious discovery — a framed image of an unflattering TIME magazine cover featuring former President Donald Trump,” BI reports.
“The cover, which appeared to be placed in a gold frame, was from a March 4, 2019 edition of the publication,” the report noted. “It showed 15 of Trump’s Democratic challengers at the time — including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — peering into the Oval Office at a nervous-looking Trump who is seated in his chair.”
It may also be the case that the FBI was merely using the photo to leak information to the press.
“The TIME magazine cover, along with Trump’s other personal items commingled with the classified, demonstrates that he was personally handling them,” CNN commentator Asha Rangappa remarked. “Thanks for highlighting key evidence of his guilt!”
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman also noted the Time magazine cover.
A Bloomberg reporter went further and provided a passage that he thought was relevant.
“Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status,” the filing reads, referring to the photo “of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office.'”
It is unclear why the DOJ felt it was necessary to attach a staged photograph that is not sealed showing “top secret” documents so sensitive that a “special master” should arguably not be privy to them.(Read more: Becker News, 8/31/2022)(Archive)
“A federal judge has dismissed Carter Page’s lawsuit against the FBI and former Director James Comey alleging they improperly surveilled him under a FISA warrant.
The bureau surveilled Page under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in a process during which they concealed exculpatory evidence against him, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found in his 2019 report, per the Washington Examiner.
Judge Dabney Friedrich Stephen (Credit: Stephen J. Boitano/The Associated Press)
“Page alleges that the individual defendants violated §§ 1809(a) and 1810 both by unlawfully engaging in electronic surveillance and using or disclosing the fruits of that surveillance. … Each defendant claims that Page fails to sufficiently allege that he or she violated the statute,” Friedrich wrote. “The Court finds that the claims are not time-barred but that Page does not state a claim against any of the individual defendants.”
“Some of the defendants, such as Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, allegedly approved, encouraged, and facilitated Page’s investigation and the warrant applications,” the judge continued, adding “Absent from the complaint is any claim that these four defendants participated in drafting or substantively reviewing the faulty applications themselves, let alone that they performed the FISA surveillance and acquired Page’s communications.”
“If proven, these allegations clearly demonstrate wrongdoing… but Page does not allege that any of the individual defendants, including the unknown John Doe defendants and those most responsible for the applications’ critical errors, took part in obtaining the surveillance information, either by setting up the devices or gathering or listening to Page’s communications,” the judge wrote.
“Thus, the Court cannot plausibly infer from this complaint that any of the individual defendants, known or unknown, ‘engaged in electronic surveillance,’ in violation of §§ 1809(a) and 1810.,” Friedrich wrote.” (JusttheNews, 9/1/2022)(Archive)
State contractor donated $400,000 to Gov. Katie Hobbs and AZ Democrats, and got millions more in state money
DCS over the course of the past year approved what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day, meaning potentially millions of dollars more going to the company at taxpayers’ expense.
No other standard group home provider — there are dozens — was approved for any rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure.
After initial rejection, Sunshine’s rate increase comes after political donation. Sunshine Residential Homes in December 2022 sought a 20% rate increase, to $179 per day. DCS denied it on Feb. 6, 2023, according to records provided by the department.
Three days later, Sunshine donated $100,000 to a dark-money fund Hobbs’ campaign created…
Only recently did the company begin contributing to political campaigns in Arizona.
Two six-figure donations from Sunshine to the Arizona Democratic Party were reported when Hobbs was running for governor, totaling $200,000 in September and October 2022.
[Sunshine’s CEO] and his wife personally donated nearly the maximum amount, $5,000 each, to Hobbs’ campaign.
That’s not all the company would kick in. Another $200,000 was donated after Hobbs’ election, with half of that going directly to Hobbs’ inauguration fund through her dark money group.
[Sunshine’s Director of Programs] worked for DCS for a decade before joining Sunshine in 2022, according to his resume. Saifi donated $5,000 to Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign the same day his boss did, state records show.
——-
*The above are excerpts from an Arizona Republic article by Stacey Barchenger. Emphasis added.
Arizona’s child welfare agency has for years sought to move vulnerable kids out of group homes and into family-like settings.
To reduce the use of group homes, and combined with budget constraints, the Arizona Department of Child Safety has denied pay increases to home operators and cut loose 16 providers during the contract renewal process.
Yet even as the state cuts back, one group home provider with close ties to Gov. Katie Hobbs has benefited beyond all others.
DCS over the course of the past year approved what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day, meaning potentially millions of dollars more going to the company at taxpayers’ expense.
No other standard group home provider — there are dozens — was approved for a rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure. None is paid as much per day per child as Sunshine, according to DCS and state contract records reviewed by The Arizona Republic.
The private company has made the case for more money, citing financial hardships amid the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation.
Meanwhile, it also has undertaken a new six-figure spending campaign benefiting Hobbs and Democratic politics in Arizona.
The company’s CEO, Simon Kottoor, was on Hobbs’ inaugural committee, and the governor praised the organization on the campaign trail. As DCS was redoing its contracts with group homes, Hobbs and her husband attended a private event at what appears to be the Paradise Valley mansion of Sunshine’s CEO.
The small gathering was to recognize the organization’s work, according to two news organizations that documented the event last month.
“A federal judge said she would make public a more detailed list of the items the FBI took during its search last month of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, opening the prospect of a much fuller picture of what documents might be among the classified material seized.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision came during a hearing Thursday over whether to appoint an outside party to review the materials now in the Justice Department’s hands to determine whether issues of executive and lawyer-client privilege put some of it out of bounds to investigators.
After hearing arguments from both sides, she said she would issue a written order in due course on Mr. Trump’s request for that third-party review.
Attorneys for Mr. Trump argued that the federal government’s handling of the investigation had damaged public confidence in the probe’s integrity and transparency. They said the appointment of a special master to review documents would help put issues raised by the case in proper context.
“We need respectfully to lower the temperature on both sides,” said Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general with ties to the GOP who was added this week to the former president’s legal team.
Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s lead attorney on the case, said Mr. Trump wasn’t entitled to the appointment of a special master because the classified and presidential records seized didn’t belong to him, but rather to the U.S.
“He is no longer the president,” said Mr. Bratt, chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section. “And because he is no longer the president, he had no right to take those documents.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 9/1/2022)(Archive)
Trump’s ‘stash of nuclear secrets’ is this summer’s Kremlin collusion conspiracy. But the latest chapter of Russiagate may end with a bang.
“The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago feels like peak Russiagate. There’s the synchronized press hysteria, moving from one absurd end-of-America “bombshell” to the next, accompanied by dark intonations regarding secrets about to be revealed and blustering accusations of high treason. Donald Trump was said to be hoarding “nuclear documents,” which he planned to peddle for billions to the Saudis. Who’s buying the map of Fort Knox? Does Trump have access to Colonel Sanders’ secret fried chicken recipe, too?
It’s no laughing matter to the American press, or for the partisan operatives and national security bureaucrats who feed them their cues. For them, the Mar-a-Lago raid is Russiagate II: The Palm Beach Papers.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ proposed damage assessment of the documents is a remake of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment which claimed, without evidence, that Vladimir Putin wanted to put Trump in the Oval Office. The extensive redactions on the affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to raid Trump’s home are akin to the excessive redactions on the application that the FBI showed a secret court in 2016 to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What was true for the original Russiagate holds here, too: The redactions are designed to hide not state secrets, but government corruption.
The Mar-a-Lago raid feels like Russiagate because, well, it is Russiagate: a conspiracy theory weaponized by the country’s courtier class to serve the interests of a delirious and deracinated oligarchy, spawning daily prophesies of doom fed by an endless supply of national security “leaks” asserting that the former commander-in-chief really was and is a secret Russian agent. And proof of the president’s treachery, chant the priestly keepers of the “collusion” mysteries, will soon be revealed to the public. It is their blanket justification for every past crime and every new banana republic-style abuse of power, accompanied by a drumbeat of ever more outlandish and violent threats.
Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell to complain about President Trump’s abuse of power after removing Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)
It is in this context that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago should be understood: Government records and reports from political and media operatives and bureaucrats who previously starred in Russiagate I give evidence that the FBI raided Trump’s home to seize documents exposing the crimes that the FBI and Justice Department have been committing since 2016. The fact that Russiagate shows no signs of ending anytime soon is bad news for the republic, betrayed from within by a performative elite whose ability to project power outside its gilded bubble requires a steady supply of paranoia, fear, and hysteria.
The story of the Mar-a-Lago raid begins at the end of Trump’s presidency when he declassified documents related to Russiagate. Those records contain evidence of how the FBI spied on Trump’s campaign, presidential transition team, and administration. The documents reportedly include transcripts of FBI intercepts of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to collect the electronic communications of Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, and reports regarding Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the two main confidential human sources used by the FBI to spy on Trump’s circle.
Kash Patel (Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Kash Patel, who served in a variety of Pentagon roles and as a principal deputy in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, has said that 60% of the documents related to Russiagate are already in public view. As lead investigator for the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of the FBI’s illegal investigation of the Trump campaign, Patel helped get vital Russiagate records declassified. When Trump named Patel to the ODNI post, he and acting Director Richard Grenell put more Russiagate documents before the U.S. public in 2020. Patel has told the press that what Trump declassified on Jan. 19, 2021, constitutes the remainder of the Russiagate records—which is what the FBI was apparently after.
So, are the Russiagate documents secret? With hours left in Trump’s presidency, the DOJ raised “privacy concerns” about Trump’s declassification, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows agreed to submit the documents for a final review. “I am returning the bulk of the binder of declassified documents to the Department of Justice,” Meadows wrote in a memo, “with the instruction that the Department must expeditiously conduct a Privacy Act review under the standards that the Department of Justice would normally apply, redact material appropriately, and release the remaining material with redactions applied.”
President Barack Obama meets with, from left: Kathryn Ruemmler, Lisa Monaco, and Susan E. Rice (Credit: Pete White House Flickr photo)
The problem, however, is that Biden’s DOJ, which was tasked with conducting that review, is staffed with key operatives who targeted Trump starting in 2016, like Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. As Barack Obama’s Homeland Security adviser, Monaco met in the White House with Haines, then deputy national security adviser (and former deputy CIA director), and National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who is now director of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, to push the Trump-Russia narrative. As far as Monaco and her confederates were concerned, once Meadows turned over the declassified documents, the national security establishment was in the clear: The documents would never be seen again.” (Read more: Tablet Mag, 9/2/2022)(Archive)
“We’ve been pushing Attorney General Merrick Garland for far greater transparency over the Mar-a-Lago raid, but he and FBI chief Christopher Wray owe the nation clear explanations over the Hunter Biden investigation, too.
Particularly in the wake of Timothy Thibault’s resignation from the bureau amid charges he suppressed evidence in the case and even shut down the FBI’s “laptop” investigation on spurious “Russian misinformation” grounds. He also faced an ongoing Office of Special Counsel probe of his partisan, anti-Trump social-media posts.
Top Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Charles Grassley in late July wrote Wray and Garland (following up on a May letter) citing charges by multiple FBI “highly credible whistleblowers” about the burying of “verified and verifiable” dirt on Hunter by falsely dismissing valid intelligence as “disinformation.”
The whistleblowers claim Thibault (then assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office) shut down an entire avenue of the Hunter investigation in October 2020. (Seemingly, that avenue centered on info from the infamous laptop, which the FBI first acquired in December 2019.)
Now Miranda Devine reports that Thibault that Octoberalso apparently buried the extensive testimony of whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s former business partner, about the Biden family’s corrupt influence-peddling.
After Bobulinksi’s initial five-hour FBI interview, he was told Thibault would be his FBI contact, yet the bureau never contacted him again. Nor was he brought before the Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter.
Incidentally, the drive to write off the laptop as “Russian disinformation” apparently began long before The Post’s first October 2020 scoops. FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten had opened an “assessment” that August; per Grassley, its result in October was that: “Verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.”
Jean Pierre insisted that the President was not briefed on the raid.
AP’s @ZekeJMiller: “The FBI…served a search warrant on the [Trump’]s residence…Was [he] or anyone at the WH aware of that…or has [he] been briefed in the aftermath of that…being executed?”
KJP: “No. The President was not briefed…No one at the WH was given a heads up.” pic.twitter.com/jbk4jwRQhX
District Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon (Credit: public domain)
Earlier today, Judge Aileen Cannon granted President Trump’s request for a Special Master review of the material confiscated by the Biden DOJ during their raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago.
Judge Cannon also ‘temporarily enjoins’ or forbids the Biden regime from ‘reviewing and using the seized materials’ pending the completion of the review.
Judge Cannon takes the government to task in her order:
Andrew Weissman, the former Justice official who ran the Mueller special counsel and is now a contributor on the fake news channels, suffered a meltdown following the decision.
Sal Greco, a politically persecuted and fired NYPD officer, responded to Weissman’s temper tantrum.
After violating the civil rights of mob victims, the Enron defendants ( who’s convictions were overturned because of his misconduct ) and Paul Manafort; Andrew Weissmann ranting about “ the rule of law “ is a joke.
Andrew Weismann is in a lavender rage because an honest and courageous judge has delayed the politicized DOJ effort to destroy @realDonaldTrump while holding him to a different standard then Barrack Obama.
For the second time in his legal career, Andrew Weismann comes across a judge that actually respects the rule of law. The last time was the when his Enron convictions were overturned for his prosecutorial misconduct.
“I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails. . .”: Hillary Clinton’s disbelief this week was shared by many critics left dumbfounded by her claim her private server contained “zero” classified documents. The expression of utter incredulity was classic Clinton — she’s selling hats reading “But her emails” for $30 a pop.
But Hillary’s denial of what was found on her server exposes something far more serious than signature hypocrisy. It reflects establishment figures’ sense of license that they can literally rewrite history with little fear of contradiction by the media.
While calling for limits on free speech over “disinformation,” Hillary has no qualms about falsely denying what published government reports detail.
“As Trump’s problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again. There’s even a ‘Clinton Standard.’ The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified,” her but-my-emails tweet continued. “Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails. Trump’s own State Department, under two different Secretaries, found I had no classified emails.”
Virtually everything about that claim is breathtakingly untrue.
Let’s quickly deal with the light lifting before getting back to the “Clinton Standard.”
“Zero emails” were “classified.”
A Department of Justice inspector general report revealed “81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails” were “classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels at the time.” Clinton is echoing her allies’ recent spin that there were only three documents with classification markings among 33,000 emails. It is utter nonsense.
The Clinton email scandal is a scandal because these were emails. There is no classification automatically stamped on text being typed out and sent within minutes. While attachments can have classification markings, the whole point of using secure servers is that emails are created in the moment with inevitable slips in referencing classified material.
Nevertheless, the emails had classified information, including top-secret information tied to “Special Access Programs.” Yet some allies emphasize the inspector general also noted that in some cases there was “conscious effort to avoid sending classified information, by writing around the most sensitive material.” It failed. The emails still contained classified information.
That’s why she was reckless to use her own server: Such mistakes on private servers are more vulnerable to capture by foreign intelligence services. Indeed, according to the FBI, “hostile actors gained access” to some of the information through the emails of Clinton’s associates and aides. (Read more: New York Post, 9/7/2022)(Archive)
Trump vs Clinton (Credit: Wall Street Journal graphics)
“Recently a Florida judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by President Trump against Hillary Clinton. [65-page ruling HERE] The media have enjoyed ridiculing Trump by using the words of the judge who dismissed the case. As noted by the Washington Times, “Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a Clinton appointee, said Mr. Trump’s filing was too lengthy, detailing events that “are implausible because they lack any specific allegations which might provide factual support for the conclusions reached.”
(…) In March 2022 President Trump filed a civil lawsuit against: Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe. [108-Page Lawsuit Here]
When I was about one-third of the way through reading the lawsuit, I initially stopped and said to myself this is going to take a lot of documentary evidence to back up the claims in the assertions. Dozens of attachments would be needed and hundreds of citations to the dozens of attachments would be mandatory. Except, they were not there.
After reading further, while completely understanding the background material that was being described in the filing, I realized this wasn’t a lawsuit per se’. The 108-pages I was holding in my hands were more akin to a legal transfer mechanism from President Trump to lawyers who needed it. The filing was contingent upon a series of documents that would be needed to support the claims within it.
Whoever wrote the lawsuit had obviously reviewed the evidence to support the filing. However, the attachments and citations were missing. That was weird. That’s when I realized the purpose of the lawsuit. In hindsight, things became clear when the DOJ-NSD raided the home of Donald Trump, and suddenly the motive to confiscate the documents that would be the missing lawsuit attachments and citations surfaced.
With the manipulative, and I say intentional, “ongoing investigation” angle of the John Durham probe essentially blocking public release of declassified documents showing the efforts of all the lawsuit participants (Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax), President Trump needed a legal way to secure and more importantly share the evidence.
Think of it like the people around Trump wanting to show lawyers the evidence in the documents. However, because of the construct of the lawfare being deployed against Trump, any lawyer would need a *reason* to review the evidence. The Trump -v- Clinton et al lawsuit becomes that ‘reason.’
The “documents” (classified or not) are reviewed by lawyers in preparation for the lawsuit. This is their legal justification for reviewing the documents. In essence, the lawsuit is a transfer mechanism permitting the Trump legal team to review the evidence on behalf of their client, former President Donald Trump.
Once the formation of the lawsuit is established, the retainer and acceptance of the lawyers to represent their client cemented, the legal counsel, discussion and information within legal duties/obligations of those who represent the plaintiff (Trump) becomes an information silo. In addition to previous executive privilege established by President Trump himself; outside government there is now another silo to defend against the motives of the Lawfare crew (DOJ), the attorney-client privilege.
The lawsuit itself is the transfer mechanism permitting sharing of the documents and providing legal cover for the reviewers (lawyers). The details within the 108-page filing constitute the claims of the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which were established by the evidentiary documents later seized by the DOJ and FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/11/2022)(Archive)
“Huge revelations pertaining to the content of the documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago. Trump made some comments to Newsmax and today Devin Nunes is saying he thinks that the docs are about Russiagate.
In a report today from Newsmax, Trump claims he kept them under Executive Privilege, to PROTECT THEM FROM BEING DESTROYED BY THE DEEP STATE.
(Credit: Newsmax/Clandestine)
“I think they thought it was something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,”
Initially, I found this peculiar, because Trump himself confirmed some of the docs were pertaining to the Iran Deal last week when he retruthed this post from Paul Sperry.
(Credit: @paulsperry/Gettr)
But based on Trump’s most recent comments to Newsmax, the docs are about essentially EVERYTHING! Trump said that the documents in question “expose a Deep State plot” against him. Which is the reason he Declassified them, and took the docs for protection. There are reportedly “11 sets of documents” the FBI were interested in.
So what are the docs about? All of the docs about Deep State’s crimes that Trump was concerned they might destroy. That could cover a wide variety of subjects. Thus far, we know some of the docs to pertain to the Iran Deal and Russiagate/Crossfire Hurricane, but what other crimes is Trump aware of that he might want to prevent the Deep State from destroying? Uranium One? Libya? Haiti? Benghazi? 9/11? JFK Assassination?
Whatever else is in those docs, Trump is insinuating the FBI is looking to retrieve them to prevent him from showing it to the American People.
“They were afraid that things were in there — part of their scam material.”
(…) While the Left think they are closing in, Trump just confirmed the boomerang is in effect. The docs don’t implicate him, they implicate the enemy in all of their most heinous crimes, and Trump wants them public.” (Read more: Clandestine/Substack, 9/8/2022)(Archive)
The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)
That developed into the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.
Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump.
Danchenko being a CHS also served another purpose: it protected the Bureau and the Mueller Special Counsel from revealing their “sources and methods.” How do you hide misconduct? Bury the witness.
The Motion in Limine
When the Steele Reports were released, the media picked up on the most salacious rumors, one that was utterly unbelievable: that Russian intelligence had a video of Trump involved with prostitutes at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Also known as the “pee tape.”
The allegation came from Danchenko, who attributed it to his sources – one from the Ritz-Carlton, and another being Sergei Millian. Durham will refute it, as it expects to call at trial “Bernd Kuhlen,” the then-general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, who will deny speaking with or ever meeting Danchenko “in June 2016, or at any time.”
What is Durham’s theory on Danchenko’s motive for lying about the Ritz-Carlton allegations? Because it reflects “a deliberate effort to conceal from the FBI Charles Dolan’s role as a source for the Steele Reports and to deceive the FBI regarding Millian’s role (or lack thereof).”
In support of the theory that Danchenko engaged in an “over-arching ‘plan’ to deceive the FBI” about his work for Orbis (the company that collected the information contained in the Steele Reports), Durham also plans to introduce:
Evidence that Danchenko “on multiple occasions communicated and emailed with, among others, Charles Dolan regarding his work for Steele and Orbis.”
“Evidence that proves Dolan was aware of [Danchenko’s] reporting was part of a ‘related project against Trump’ and that this work was being done on behalf of Steele and Orbis.”
Igor Danchenko appears on the Russia-language channel RTVi (U.S.-Israel) in July 2016. (Credit: Twitter/@LikesLurks)
“Today, Special Counsel John Durham moved to unseal this motion in limine in the false statements case against Igor Danchenko.
This motion provides new information on the details of Danchenko’s lies to the FBI, further information on how Special Counsel Mueller ignored Danchenko’s false statements, expected testimony from Clinton-connected executive Charles Dolan, and one crazy development.
But we’ll start with the most damning development: Danchenko was on the FBI payroll as a confidential human source (CHS) from March 2017 through October 2020.
The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)
Those problems continued with the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.
Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 9/13/2022)(Archive)
A special master has been appointed to act as a firewall between the Justice Department and materials seized during an Aug. 8 raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
In a pair of Thursday orders from federal district Judge Aileen Cannon, the DOJ’s motion to access a subset of classified records stored on the Trump property was denied, and a recently retired judge that both the DOJ and Trump’s team agreed on – recently retired Judge Raymond Dearie – will serve as special master.
Raymond has until Nov. 30, 2022 to complete his review.
Cannon struck down the DOJ’s request for a partial stay of an earlier motion on accessing the seized materials, after lawyers for the government argued that they should be able to review over 100 classified documents taken during the raid – as they are not covered by any claims of personal property or executive privilege.
That said, Cannon sided with a DOJ request for Trump to pay the full cost associated with a special master.
“If the court were willing to accept the government’s representations that select portions of the seized materials are—without exception—government property not subject to any privileges, and did not think a special master would serve a meaningful purpose, the court would have denied plaintiff’s special master request,” wrote Cannon. “The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.” (Zero Hedge, 9/16/2022) (Archive)
PRIMARY SUBJECTS: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Twitter, Biden White House, Obama White House, James Baker, Alexander Macgillivray, Vijaya Gadde
In conjunction with a client who remains confidential, EDIFY developed the nexus schematics featured in this brief that are well-evidenced and identify and connect a slate of important individuals, entities and nations respective to a wide swath of past and ongoing scandals, corruption, crime, treason and bioterrorism.
This brief serves to expand and back-fill the details of the featured graphics while providing meaning with some granularity. At the same time, it informs important ongoing matters and litigation.
The findings develop along six vectors to demonstrate how the entanglements, relationships and overlaps translate to an effective network. The network is positioned to impact important matters like COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story as just two examples and whereby Twitter’s censorship of both makes Twitter the central node.
The six vectors are: 1-Twitter, its censorship policies and the application and enforcement thereof, 2-Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati [WSGR] an international law firm with over 1,000 attorneys representing many of the world’s largest corporations, as a hub with spokes running to critically-positioned individuals that is suggestive of WSGR as an interface for political control and influence across a wide array of Big Tech and geopolitical domains, 3- Alexander Macgillivray as a WSGR product who serves in the critical position of Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer for the Biden Administration and who served the Obama White House similarly, 4-Vijaya Gadde as a WSGR product who was installed by Macgillivray at Twitter when Macgillivray served as Twitter’s General Counsel and where Gadde went on to suspend President Donald Trump, 5-Former FBI General Counsel James Baker as a common thread through Twitter to President Trump and the FBI/DOJ FISA abuse against Trump and 6-Alison Fauci, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s daughter,as a Twitter engineer and Twitter’s overlap to and potential communication and intelligence conduit for the COVID-19 enterprise fraud construct via Anthony Fauci and his NIH interface.
In the featured nexus schematics, the six vectors above are examined with explanations and SUMMARY FINDINGS to follow:
COVER PAGE
MAJOR PLAYERS
SUMMARY INTRODUCTION: WSGR, MACGILLIVRAY
SUMMARY INTRODUCTION: BAKER
PRIMARY SUBJECT: WSGR
PRIMARY SUBJECT: MACGILLIVRAY
PRIMARY SUBJECT: BAKER
VECTOR 1: TWITTER: Twitter is the central node and the keystone to understanding. Twitter’s inherent value to the elites, political class and federal apparatus writ large is found in its ability to engage in perception management, which is a technical term more commonly referred to as “psyops” or “psychological warfare”. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Twitter engages in perception management in its capacity to establish and manipulate reality by means of actively determining and shaping the content on its platform. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Twitter consumers can receive filtered content or are prevented from receiving, seeing or having the ability to publish content altogether. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The de facto censorship occurs primarily along the lines of determining and enforcing community standards, guidelines and rules for user engagement. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The evidence is clear that the decisions here appear to fall along clearly identifiable political lines resembling two-tier justice. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Content determination, algorithmic manipulation and politically motivated censorship of off-reservation messaging and political opposition are all evidenced examples of how Twitter engages in perception management or appears to do so. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Two evidenced domains of Twitter’s engagement in perception management include censoring content relative to COVID-19 [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] and the Hunter Biden Laptop story. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
Problematic for the critics of Twitter as a politically aligned entity is the patterned evidence of primary subject and other individuals being directly and indirectly tied to other relevant and important individuals and entities in overlapping domains. The complexity is high and so the schematic illustrations are hugely beneficial for understanding.
These nexuses occur such that clear and identifiable alignment to strict political agendas is found on one side of the political spectrum, where censorship is rampant, but not on the other side, where content is essentially unimpeded.
Summarily, evidence and analysis positions Twitter as a gatekeeper of public information.
Evidence of Twitter’s gatekeeper designation is found threaded through Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as an interface for directly impacting the geopolitical landscape and rising to the level of affecting significant change. [22]
The primary subject from WSGR is Alexander Macgillivray. [22] [23]
VECTOR 2: WILSON SONSINI GOODRICH & ROSATI: WSGR is a an international law firm with over 1,000 attorneys representing many of the world’s largest corporations. WSGR is a primary thread through the network being evidenced that strings directly through to the primary node, Twitter. In that light, WSGR represents Twitter in all corporate disclosures. [24] [25] [26]
In regard to Macgillivray, WSGR also previously employed Vijaya Gadde, who was subsequently installed at Twitter by Macgillivray during his tenure there as General Counsel. [27] Gadde was central to Twitter’s censoring, suspension and banishment of President Donald Trump from the platform. [28]
WSGR’s representation directly overlays COVID-19 in a very critical capacity. WSGR represents Arbutus Biopharma Corp., a Canadian company that is one of two patent holders for U.S. Patent Nos. 8,058,069 and 9,364,435, which are the two patents for the lipid nanoparticle envelope necessary to manufacture the COVID-19 mRNA “vaccines”. [29] [30] [31]
An underlying position holds that the initial phases of the COVID-19 enterprise fraud construct included the unsustainable phase of comorbidity data harvesting where other morbidities [flu/pneumo, heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia] were fraudulently curated and then propagated as COVID-19/SARS-COV-2.
The subsequent “pandemic” phase is one of the vaccinated and boosted. This phase is entirely dependent upon acquiring the patent rights to the mechanism required to deliver the mRNA payload in the injection. The mRNA injections leverage the reverse transcription process causing the recipients’ DNA to become altered to the extent that it causes the body to begin producing the known and problematic S1 spike protein on its own. Evidence indicates that infection and mortality data for COVID-19 currently represents a “pandemic” of the “vaccinated” and boosted. [32] [33] [34] [35]
If vaccine manufactures didn’t acquire rights to WSGR-represented Arbutus’ patents, there could be no “pandemic”, for there would be no delivery mechanism for the required mRNA payload. [36]
With evidence linking COVID-19 directly to China and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, WSGR may further overlay China by its representation of SolarWinds. [37] SolarWinds was directly hacked in a sprawling data breach that caused U.S. lawmakers to designate a national emergency in 2020. China is suspected of the attack and if true, accounts for the overlay. [38] [39] [40] [41]
Relative to the sale of American user Twitter data to Japan’s Tourism Board through NTT Data, a Japanese company; and as it enmeshes Silver Lake Capital, WSGR represents Twitter in its partnership with Silver Lake. [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48]
Silver Lake connects to Ari Emanuel and positions Emanuel as a possible intermediary and conduit from the Biden/Obama cartel to the Japan Tourism Board through another possible and connected conduit/intermediary Rahm Emanuel, the current Ambassador to Japan. [49] [50] [51]
Silver Lake is linked to artificial intelligence and facial recognition companies in Sensetime and Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd. including Silver Lake CEO Egon Durban, who is on Twitter’s Board of Directors. Durban is also on the board at WWE, where Ari Emanuel is CEO. Silver Lake has a 20% stake in Sensetime and Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd.
Those companies are CCP functionaries and it is suspected that the Twitter data is being leveraged by them to develop profiles that could be used for China to target American citizens. [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57]
VECTOR 3: MACGILLIVRAY: Alexander Macgillivray is the primary subject linking multiple individuals, entities and events including but not limited to WSGR, Twitter, the censorship of President Trump, President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Google. [23]
WSGR employed attorney Alexander Macgillivray who links Twitter and WSGR to the Obama and Biden Administrations in critical roles, respectively: 1-Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP] and 2-Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP]. [58] [59] [60] [61] [62]
Prior to serving the Obama and Biden White Houses, Macgillivray served as General Counsel to Twitter and Deputy General Counsel to Google. [63] Between the two administrative terms and according to his own blog, Macgillivray installed the CTO at the DNC and worked on election data. [70]
The sequenced thread of Macgillivray from WSGR to Obama to Twitter to Google to Biden is critical to understanding and presents as a launch point for fulsome comprehension of the full network.
Macgillivray currently serves the Biden White House OSTP as the Principal Deputy U.S. CTO. [59]
Established as a primary gatekeeper of public information, Twitter would likely require an interface with the federal government and presidential administration[s] to align Twitter with on-reservation messaging as the evidence suggests. For Twitter, this necessitates content determination, algorithmic manipulation and politically motivated censorship of off-reservation messaging, which have been widely reported. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Evidence suggests that Macgillivray is a good candidate for that interface through the OSTP in a familiar pattern of Obama retreads serving Biden in the same or similar capacities. It will be further evidenced relative to Nicole Wong below. [64]
As noted, during his tenure as General Counsel for Twitter, Macgillivray installed Vijaya Gadde, who was unprepared and unqualified in her position according to Macillivray’s words. Gadde was central to Twitter’s censorship, suspension and banishment of President Trump from its platform. [65]
When Macgillivray exited Twitter, he only did so on official terms: ““I’ll continue to support the company and its great people by staying on as an advisor for the legal, trust & safety, corporate development and public policy teams,” said Macgillivray. “I continue to care deeply about Twitter, the folks who work at Twitter and our tremendous users, so I’ll remain close to all three.”” [66]
From a ground floor perspective and in her multiple and similar capacities, Chinese-American Nicole Wong appears to have set the course for Macgillivray’s trajectory. [67] Wong’s trajectory cycled her through Twitter, Google and the Obama and Biden administrations. [68] Wong served the Biden transition team as overlaid by the CTSO/CTO vectors. Wong joined Biden’s transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. [69]
Specifically, it is held that Wong likely returned to facilitate Macgillivray’s transition into the Principal Deputy U.S. CTO position for the Biden White House.
The argument that Wong was the “first version” of Macgillivray respective to his roles and functions identified in this report, is further evidenced by Wong’s similar background, to which she returned, respective to the CTSO/CTO vectors as overlaid by the national security domain and the current Biden Administration. It presented as the veteran ushering in the less experienced player, so to speak.
Wong’s professional entanglements also include but aren’t limited to: Perkins Coie LLP [becoming partner], Georgetown University, Berkley School of Law and the Stonebridge Albright Group. [68]
Macgillivray maintains a personal blog with many of his thoughts and opinions that are topical to matters here. [70]
VECTOR 4: GADDE: Vijaya Gadde is a primary subject, who is secondary to Macgillivray and who was installed as Twitter’s General Counsel by Macgillivray when the latter departed the company. [27] Vadde is generally regarded as unqualified and unprepared for her position respective to the scope of its duties and this made Gadde susceptible to manipulation by those surrounding her. [66] This is according to Macgillivray. [65] It occurs along the lines of Gadde appearing to be reliant on information and input from said others to fully execute her duties.
Consider, “Though Gadde doesn’t have the same bonafides as Macgillivray when it comes to first amendment stuff, she is apparently regarded well in the company and at her former firm.
In addition, from what we’ve heard, Twitter will be doing some shuffling of the legal structure as well. Its director of public policy Colin Crowell will no longer report to the General Counsel, but will report directly to CEO Dick Costolo on matters affecting Twitter and Washington.” [65]
In his Twitter departure, Macgillivray stated directly that he would continue to advise Gadde’s department lending to Macgillivray appearing as a prime interface for such manipulation of Gadde to occur. [66]
Gadde was formerly employed by WSGR like Macgillivray. [71]
Gadde was the primary subject who in the capacity of General Counsel for Twitter was central to the censorship, suspension and banishment of President Trump from Twitter’s platform altogether while likely under the influence of others, such as possibly Macgillivray. [72] [73] [74] [75]
VECTOR 5: BAKER: Former FBI General Counsel James Baker is a primary subject that threads top to bottom in varying capacities and overlaps. [76] [77] [78] Of particular interest to the matters here are his affiliation with the orchestrated and widely reported broader attacks on President Trump and Baker’s array of expertise relative to his affiliation with Twitter as Deputy General Counsel and Vice President Legal. [79]
Baker’s Twitter capacity is of particular interest relative to the broader attacks against President Trump, his supporters and specifically as it relates to First Amendment rights and the censorship of conservative content favorable to Trump and unfavorable to Democrats and Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Such instances are widely reported.
Baker’s acumen in law is compounded by his ties to the FBI, DOJ and Judiciary relative to Twitter and it is problematic here. Baker is uniquely positioned to be plausibly informative about potential DOJ investigations into Twitter for violations. Baker is uniquely positioned in alignment with a long list of individuals and entities that overlap in critical areas. It’s all reinforced by Baker’s spectrum of expertise: FISA, national security, intelligence policy, intelligence matters, counter intelligence matters, law enforcement, prosecution, investigation and more. [80] [81]
The initial DOJ/FBI investigation into President Trump diverged into numerous other contrived, orchestrated, planned, manufactured and executed events like rampant FISA abuse, two fraudulently predicated impeachments, the Mueller Special Counsel, the Capitol “insurrection” entrapment operation, a fraudulent pandemic and stolen 2020 election. These, too, have been widely reported.
Baker was appointed by then FBI Director James Comey, who is known as a long time Clinton confidant and fixer. Comey is intricately linked to the 2016 election and then candidate Hillary Clinton by means of the FBI’s decision not to pursue charges against Clinton for her private and unsecured email server.
The origins of the targeting of and abuses against Trump derived from Clinton’s false allegations that Trump and Russia were conspiring due to Trump’s association with Alfa Bank. [81] The ties further extend to the FISA warrant against Carter Page and so on as is well documented and reported by many. [82] [83]
Baker’s exposure overlaps cause him to be a primary thread. Beyond what is already outlined above, Baker is attached to Special Counsel John Durham by means of his involvement and testimony in the Michael Sussmann trial and the broader matters pertaining to it. [84] Also, Baker is the target of a federal investigation for leaking. [85]
Baker’s FBI and intelligence/counterintelligence experience should have made him an expert in China and yet China appeared to operate undeterred under the bureau’s nose and continues to do so.
Moreover, Baker’s position and qualifications should have positioned him to be privy to the actions of ex officio members of the HPSCI and SSCI respective to China, which would further extend to COVID-19. This would include subjects such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and then Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell.
Baker’s prominent threading through to the Obama Administration, FBI and DOJ respective to his ties to Twitter, make him a candidate central to both Twitter [ongoing litigation] and the intelligence and FISA abuses against Trump.
It’s important to recall that the DOJ/FBI investigation of Candidate/President Trump initially began as an FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION with a lower predicating evidentiary standard than a criminal investigation. This allowed the FBI/DOJ to circumvent Trump’s full 4th Amendment protections. The Mueller/Weissmann Special Counsel team therefore appeared to inherit the Trump counterintelligence investigation and then convert into a criminal investigation.
VECTOR 6: FAUCI: The involvement of Dr. Anthony Fauci respective to COVID-19 is assumed moving forward and as resting on substantial existing evidence. Moreover, this document includes limited evidence respective to funding and as outlined.
In part, it is evidenced by the flow of federal dollars from the NIH/NIAID to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The intermediary for the transaction, which pertained to the funding of the bioengineering of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance. [86] [87]
The entire Fauci onion peels back in layers suitable for a volume of books and is to substantial and complex for this space. It is also already fully documented by this investigator in an underlying catalog of analysis and work. The assumptions made on Fauci here allow us to remain focused. Lastly, they are made along the lines of COVID-19 being entirely a construct of enterprise fraud and where Anthony Fauci is a primary subject and realistic candidate as a primary criminal defendant.
Anthony Fauci’s daughter, Alison Fauci, is of particular interest to these matters respective to her hiring as an engineer at Twitter. [88] This is suggestive of Alison Fauci potentially serving as a conduit between Twitter, its leadership and censorship practices, and the federal medical apparatus framed by HHS, NIH, NIAID, CDC, et al.
According to recent whistleblower testimony from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, whom Twitter hired in November 2020 to enhance cybersecurity and privacy at the company, testified that Twitter engineers have essentially unfettered and virtually anonymous access permitted by weakness in oversight and security allowing them to access personal and private data from user accounts. [89] It does this to the extent that it could permit the extraction and sale of that data without notice to Twitter as permitted by the oversight and security weaknesses.
Zatko also testified that the FBI had previously warned Twitter that it had one or more foreign intelligence operatives on its payroll. Evidence indicates penetration of Twitter by India and China. [89]
Alison Fauci is a Twitter software engineer who by title, would possess the technical capabilities and access to function as outlined in the testimony.
Beyond Alison Fauci’s functionality as a conduit or intermediary for Dr. Anthony Fauci and his principals at the NIH/NIAID and up, Alison Fauci is by title technically positioned to potentially extract private Twitter user data on designated people including political opposition. Any such extracted data could be fed back upstream to the Obama, Biden cartel et al.
It’s also further evidence of a distinct pattern of nepotism threading through all of these matters where spouses and children play critical roles determined by their placement into the broader construct.
Alison Fauci was positioned to be a possible conduit of information in an intermediary fashion relative to the Anthony Fauci cohort and its preferences for Twitter’s censorship policies for reliable COVID content damaging to the COVID construct of enterprise fraud and that official narrative.
SUMMARY FINDINGS:
The six vectors provide a plausible and evidenced network as diagrammed schematically and expanded upon in this report. The evidence examined and analysis of it inform the SUMMARY FINDINGS ranging from evidenced fact to positions of a high level of confidence:
Twitter is a recognizable and identifiable as a gatekeeper of public information
Twitter operates in alignment with a strict political agenda
Twitter’s agenda alignment appears along the lines of progressive liberal and Democrat thought and policy
Twitter’s collective actions technically rise to the level of engagement in perception management
Twitter engagement in perception management includes content determination, algorithmic manipulation and apparent active censorship against off-reservation messaging [conservative content favorable to Trump]
WSGR represents Twitter in all of its corporate disclosures making WSGR integral to all things
WSGR partner Larry Sonsini is regarded as the “Godfather of Silicon Valley” [90]
WSGR employed Alexander Macgillivray, another Harvard Law product, who went on to become an apparent architect for censorship practices while serving that capacity in the Obama and Biden White Houses
WSGR has critical ties to factually inconvenient individuals and entities such as Arbutus, Moderna and the mRNA vaccines vis-a-vis Arbutus’ patent holdings on the lipid nanoparticle envelope
WSGR is involved in ongoing litigation respective to the previous point
WSGR is indirectly positioned to intersect two presidential administrations in a capacity to target a third: Obama and Biden; targeting Trump
WSGR presents as an international firm capable of directly impacting the U.S. geopolitical landscape and media content on social media platforms
Macgillivray is the primary subject threading WSGR to the Obama and Biden Administrations and Twitter according to evidence
Macgillivray’s affiliations with/as WSGR, Twitter, Harvard Law, OSTP, U.S. CTO, Google and Vijaya Gadde are problematic
Macgillivray’s highly partisan and biased positions manifesting as anti-Trump are detailed by his own admission in his own blog
Macgillivray installed another WSGR asset in Vijaya Gadde to succeed him as General Counsel
Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. at three years of age
Vijaya Gadde was unqualified and was subject to influence by others including Macgillivray in his unofficial capacity, so as to rely upon them to fully execute her duties as Twitter’s General Counsel
As such, Vijaya Gadde was central to the censorship, suspension and banishment altogether from Twitter’s platform
Gadde was central to Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story
Through NTT Data, Twitter sold American user data to Japan’s Tourism Board
Long-time Barack Obama confidant Rahm Emanuel is the Ambassador to Japan
Emanuel’s brother Ari Emanuel is another Obama confidant who attaches to Silver Lake Capital
Silver Lake Capital ties to Twitter and links Twitter, Obama and both Emanuel brothers through Ari Emanuel
Silver Lake Capital ties to Chinese company Sensetime, which specializes in artificial intelligence
Egon Durban, on WWE’s board where Ari Emanuel is CEO, presents a likely bridge to full circle respective to China’s acquisition of American Twitter user data
Durban bridge consists of his 20% stake in Sensetime and Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co. Ltd and his membership on Twitter’s Board of Directors
WSGR represents Twitter in its partnership with Silver Lake
Sensetime is affiliated with the Chinese Military Industrial Complex and the nation of China/CCP
SenseTime owns Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co., Ltd., which specializes in Facial Recognition Techology
Shenzhen Sensetime Technology Co., Ltd. appears on the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Consolidated Sanctions List” and through ownership ties to the Chinese Military Industrial Complex and the nation of China/CCP
Twitter’s American user data sale to Japan/NTT is believed to have been funneled to China, the CCP and the Chinese Military Industrial Complex through the evidenced conduit network [as diagrammed]
Twitter also appears to have actively leveraged parts or all of the same network to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story
The HB laptop suppression derived from the same CTSO that employed Macgillivray under Obama and employs Macgillivray now under Biden
Evidence indicates that political leadership, the intelligence community and the FBI/DOJ engaged in suppressing the HB laptop story
Megan Smith served in CTSO alongside Macgillivray in the same general capacity
CTSO overlaps Deputy U.S. CTO Nicole Wong
Wong was the legal director at Twitter and vice president and Deputy General Counsel at Google
Wong served Biden’s transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Wong’s trajectory cycled through Twitter, Google and the Obama and Biden administrations to include Wong’s service as on the Biden transition team as overlaid by the CTSO/CTO vectors
Wong presents as the ground floor first version of the trajectory Macgillivray took indicating Wong seems to have pioneered that course for Macgillivray
Wong appears to return to the CTSO/CTO domain via her Biden transition role to facilitate the smooth and effective transition of Macgillivray into his new role as Principal Deputy General of the U.S. CTO
Wong is a fourth-generation Chinese-American born in the U.S.
Wong’s grandfather was Vice President of one of the nations first Chinese community banks threading through to the banking industry and by default the CCP and Chinese Banking
Megan Smith served in CTSO alongside Macgillivray in the same general capacity [91] [92]
Smith’s ex-spouse is journalist Kara Swisher who writes for outlets including the New York Times [the mouthpiece for the FBI/DOJ with Washington Post serving the same for the intelligence community] [93]
Swisher publicly defended Twitter’s censorship of Trump respective to the Capitol event [94]
Swisher’s insistence that Twitter doesn’t censor envelops Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story
Swisher publicly admitted her bias against Trump and a “broader responsibility” to take action on it in a Vox interview
Swisher’s public admission came during an interview that included Wong [95]
WSGR and Macgillivray thread through Gadde and Smith right to Wong and Swisher as Smith’s ex-spouse
Macgillivray becomes a primary interface between Obama and Biden respective to CTSO’s scope
Central to Obama is James Baker as a career FBI employee who ascended to General Counsel
Baker’s expertise in FISA, national security, intelligence policy and intelligence matters, counterintelligence respective to the initial DOJ/FBI investigation of President Trump opening as a counterintelligence investigation later laundered into a criminal one by the Mueller/Weissmann special counsel is critical to the broader attacks on Trump, which manifested on Twitter
Baker aggravates Twitter’s culpability in these matters with his service to Twitter as Deputy General Counsel and Vice President of Legal
The aggravation is, in part, evidenced by the genesis of the Trump/Russia collusion fabrication deriving from Hillary Clinton, as approved by Obama according to John Brennan’s own notes in July 2016
The FBI/DOJ leveraged Clinton’s fraudulently stated and Obama-approved allegations to predicate an investigation into President Trump that included FISA abuse, which threads through to the U.S. Supreme Court
Baker was appointed as FBI General Counsel by long-time Clinton confidant and fixer FBI Director James Comey
Comey ties directly to the 2016 election in his decision for the FBI not to prosecute Clinton for her private email server, which China presumably accessed for top secret U.S. intelligence and SAPs
Baker is the subject of a federal criminal leak investigation
Baker was compelled to testify in the John Durham Special Counsel trial of Michael Sussmann
Baker stands to factor into the Durham trial for Russian Igor Daschenko
The network evidenced in this report indicates that an Obama-based network extending into the Biden White House has technically been engaged in perception management by leveraging Twitter as an asset
The network and its asset Twitter appeared to function as a gateway to public information leveraged to target Trump and conservatives in stifling their free speech and censoring their content while advancing the same for the other side of the political spectrum
“The district court has entered an unprecedented order enjoining the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in a criminal investigation with direct implications for national security,” the Justice Department wrote in its motion Friday.
Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed former FISA Judge Raymond Dearie to oversee the review of the documents taken by the DOJ-FBI during the Mar-a-Lago raid.
The Trump legal team and AG Merrick Garland and the corrupt DOJ came to an agreement earlier in the week on a potential candidate to serve as the special master in the Mar-a-Lago case.
#MaraLago Declassified records indicate Judge Dearie, potential Special Master, approved final FISA June 2017 for @carterwpage. NOTE: This FISA is among most problematic because it did not share intel about Page’s work for USG + failed to disclose key concerns Steele reporting. pic.twitter.com/Zm6JD56Xi2
“Unilever CEO Alan Jope declared his company would “not back down” on Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) issues during a Tuesday forum at the Clinton Global Initiative.
“In 1939, George Orwell wrote that we have sunk to such depths that stating the obvious is the first responsibility of every person and he was talking about a book on power written by Bertrand Russell,” Jope told former President Bill Clinton, according to the video posted to Twitter by Will Hild of Consumers First. “But it applies to today, because stating the obvious, that we have an emergency, we have a climate emergency, is becoming an unpopular thing to do.”
.@BlackRock CEO Larry Fink calls to “change the charters” of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, along with bringing together “all governments” to facilitate his global ESG transition: pic.twitter.com/MR4Hn9Q5p5
“This anti-sustainability backlash, this anti-woke backlash is incredibly dangerous for the world,” Jope continued. “And the first thing Unilever will do is we will not back down on this agenda despite these populist accusations.”
Jope’s remarks came as part of a panel that also included Clinton, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Sustainable Energy for All CEO Damilola Ogunbiyi. BlackRock reportedly uses its investments to push companies to adopt ESG, with Fink calling for changes to the charters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to support ESG.
The ESG framework pushes companies to prioritize social and environmental factors into their investment considerations instead of “simply considering the potential profitability,” according to Investopedia. Critics of ESG and other “woke” agenda items have pointed to crises in Ghana, where blackouts took place, and Sri Lanka, which suffered an agricultural crisis, as reasons to oppose the agenda.
Steve Friend was suspended, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office after complaining about the violations.
(…) In his whistleblower complaint to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, obtained by The Post, Friend lays out multiple violations of FBI policy involving J6 investigations in which he was involved.
He says he was removed from active investigations into child sexual exploitation and human trafficking to work on J6 cases sent from DC. He was told “domestic terrorism was a higher priority” than child pornography. As a result, he believes his child exploitation investigations were harmed.
He also has reported his concerns about a politicized FBI to Republican members of Congress, among 20 whistleblowers from the bureau who have come forward with similar complaints.
Among Friend’s allegations:
Friend served as a SWAT team member. (Credit: Anna Friend)
The Washington, DC, field office is “manipulating” FBI case management protocol and farming out J6 cases to field offices across the country to create the false impression that right-wing domestic violence is a widespread national problem that goes far beyond the “black swan” event of Jan. 6, 2021.
As a result, he was listed as lead agent in cases he had not investigated and which his supervisor had not signed off on, in violation of FBI policy.
FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called “guardians,” after the FBI software that collates them.
The FBI has post-facto designated a grassy area outside the Capitol as a restricted zone, when it was not restricted on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to widen the net of prosecutions.
The FBI intends to prosecute everyone even peripherally associated with J6 and another wave of J6 subjects are about to be referred to the FBI’s Daytona Beach resident agency “for investigation and arrest.”
The Jacksonville area was “inundated” with “guardian” notifications and FBI agents were dispatched to conduct surveillance and knock on people’s doors, including people who had not been in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, or who had been to the Trump rally that day but did not go inside the Capitol.
Friend says he was punished after complaining to his bosses about being dragged into J6 investigations that were “violating citizens’ Sixth Amendment rights due to overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.”
His top-secret security clearance was suspended last week because he “entered FBI space [his office] and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems [an employee handbook and guidelines for employee disciplinary procedures] to an unauthorized removable flash drive.” (Read more: New York Post, 9/22/2022)(Archive)
Trump appointed Judge Britt Grant votes to lift the hold on Mar-a-Lago documents.
Trump appointed Judge Andrew Brasher votes to lift the hold on Mar-a-Lago documents.
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit amounts to an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they evaluate whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
The court also pointedly noted that Trump had presented no evidence that he had declassified the sensitive records, as he has repeatedly maintained, and rejected the possibility that Trump could have an “individual interest in or need for” the roughly 100 documents marked as classified.
The government had argued that its investigation had been impeded by an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that temporarily barred investigators from continuing to use the documents in its probe. Cannon, a Trump appointee, had said the hold would remain in place pending a separate review by an independent arbiter she had appointed at the Trump team’s request.
The appeals panel agreed with the Justice Department’s concerns.
(…) Trump’s lawyers had argued that an independent review of the records was essential given the unprecedented nature of the investigation. The lawyers have also said the department had not yet proven that the seized documents were classified, though they have notably stopped short of asserting — as Trump repeatedly has — that the records were previously declassified.
The Trump team this week resisted providing Dearie with any information to support the idea that the records might have been declassified, signaling the issue could be part of their defense in the event of an indictment.
But the appeals court appeared to scoff at that argument.
“Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified,” they wrote. “In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.” (Read more: WABI5)(Archive)
It turns out Adam Kinzinger and Malcolm Nance have been promoting a guy for months who wasn’t actually a soldier and was just taking photos in front of destroyed tanks in Ukraine all along pic.twitter.com/e4UvZfSOvw
Today, a federal judge ordered the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop.”
(…) This fight dates back to 2017 and includes two FOIA lawsuit. In the first lawsuit, the FBI produced no responsive documents. The parties knew the FBI had something, and so this sparked a second lawsuit – where the FBI somehow found 20,000 pages of potentially responsive documents. The court explains:
Judge Amos L. Mazzant (Credit: public domain)
Of those 20,000 pages, the government found 1,596 pages of responsive documents, of which the government withheld 1,469 pages under various FOIA exemptions (privacy, law enforcement exemption, etc.).
The FBI also withheld the contents of Seth Rich’s personal laptop, which it possesses, in its entirety, alleging the privacy of Rich’s family in “preventing the public release of this information” outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
The court rejected that argument, stating “the FBI has not satisfied its burden of showing more than a de minimis privacy interest that would justify withholding information from Seth Rich’s laptop.”
“During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” former Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski stated that if Facebook, Twitter, or anyone else had reached out to him to verify the authenticity of emails sent to him in The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, he would have produced the email, with the metadata, within minutes, but no one did.
Bobulinski said, “I went to the second debate in Nashville between President Trump and Joe Biden. That night, I flew to D.C., and the next morning, there was a big debate. Do I voluntarily walk into the FBI or do I go sit down with Sen. Johnson (R-WI) and Sen. Grassley (R-IA)? My lawyers decided it was better that I voluntarily go in to sit and provide these facts. And so, on the morning of October 23, the morning after the debate, I spent five-plus hours sitting in a room with, at one point, I think as [many] as six federal agents, walking through all the facts of my knowledge of the Biden family, how I got involved in this, the trips around the world, CEFC, Chairman Ye, and stuff like that. At the end of that meeting, and remember, I voluntarily went there, so they were happy to take any information I provided to them. I wish I had pictures of the faces of the two main agents that were interviewing me. Because I would say something and you could just see the shock in their face and they would say, let’s take a minute, they’d get up and walk out of the room, and the agents would sort of convene and then come back and restart the interview. Because these facts are just for the sake of our country, for national security, at that point, he was candidate Joe Biden, now he’s the sitting President of the United States, the most powerful person in the free world, and daunting.”
He continued, “So, at the end of that five-plus hour interview, the head of station told my lawyers, listen, an individual named Tim Thibault is going to run point on all of this. We’re definitely going to have Tony come back in for a follow-up interview. It could be as early as next week. Some of the people that were in the room weren’t well-versed on all these facts, we may want to have people come in from Baltimore or Delaware. And I was ready to sit down with anybody that needed me to or travel wherever I wanted to. And so the head of station gave my lawyers Tim Thibault’s cell phone number. Tim was not there that day. … But my lawyers had an hour, hour-and-a-half call with him that Friday night, October 23. And subsequent calls through the weekend and the following week, when I was then coming on your show to provide the facts to the American people. And they were supposed to be working [on] a follow-up interview. And Tim Thibault, in his last discussion with my legal counsel [said], listen, we know Tony’s cooperating. We appreciate all the information he’s provided. We will follow up with you. We’re definitely going to have him come in for a follow-up interview or spend some more time on this. And I haven’t heard from them since.”
Huma Abedin joins “The View” on October 6, 2022. (Credit: Screenshot/ABC/The View)
“Former campaign vice chair for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Huma Abedin, told “The View” hosts on Thursday that Clinton faced “impossible standards” as a woman in politics.
Co-host Ana Navarro said “politics have become a personality contest” and asked Abedin about Vice President Kamala Harris being “judged” by the same “phantom ideal woman” as Clinton.
“I know the challenge and you know this well that Hillary had to face just as a woman in politics,” Abedin said. “All these impossible standards, you know, she needs to be taller, shorter, talk this way. This is annoying, you know, she looks angry when she speaks. It was almost like you couldn’t win no matter what you said.”
(Timeline editor’s note: Our timeline suggests the “impossible standards” that Hillary “faced” and had a hard time living up to, are the basic moral standards most people try to live by every day.)
(…) Expect Charles Dolan to testify to his conversations with Danchenko and others relating to the dossier allegations at the trial. He’s already testified before a grand jury. For background, Dolan is described in the Danchenko indictment as having “maintained historical and ongoing involvement in Democratic politics.” His history includes serving as chairman of a national Democratic political organization, being a state chairman of Bill Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, and an advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Based on his ties with the Clintons, one would think that the Clinton Campaign would have known about Dolan’s contacts with Danchenko. However, the Danchenko indictment states “individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign did not direct, and were not aware of, [Dolan’s] meetings with Danchenko and other Russian nationals.”
That statement concerns Dolan’s lack of interactions with the Clinton Campaign. It still leaves unanswered the question of whether Danchenko had any contacts with the Clinton campaign, and whether the Clinton campaign was aware of Danchenko’s activities.
Two theories on that. It’s possible that the Clinton campaign received updates on the opposition research but otherwise isolated itself from these matters, preferring its lawyers at Perkins Coie and its contractors at Fusion GPS (and their sources) get their hands dirty. That would be consistent with what we saw in the Michael Sussmann trial, a real-time demonstration of how the Clinton machine uses the attorney-client and work-product privileges to manipulate the press, spread false accusations, and hide a number of sins.
It is also possible that the Clinton campaign had more knowledge about Danchenko than has been made publicly available. I bring that up because back in December, we discussed a curious filing by Durham, which confirmed that the Clinton campaign and “multiple former employees of that campaign” were subject to “matters before the Special Counsel.” In that filing, Durham discussed the potential conflict of interest of Danchenko’s lawyers, whose firm also represented the Clinton campaign and those former campaign employees.
Specifically, Durham raised these areas of inquiry that may become issues at the Danchenko trial:
The Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the dossiers sourced by Danchenko;
The Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Danchenko’s collection methods and sub-sources;
Meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and Christopher Steele regarding or involving Danchenko;
Danchenko’s knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in the activities surrounding the Steele Dossier; and
The extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.
All of those points are important, but that last one is particularly compelling and is worth repeating: “The extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.”
That implies the Clinton Campaign’s awareness of Danchenko and contacts with Danchenko. (After all, if the answer was “no,” then there would be no conflict.) Thus the potential conflict described by Durham:
“the Clinton Campaign and [Danchenko] each might have an incentive to shift blame and/or responsibility to the other party for any allegedly false information that was contained within the Company Reports and/or provided to the FBI.”
All this reminds us of a question we have previously asked. If the Clinton Campaign was being informed of the work by Fusion GPS, what of the likelihood that the Clinton Campaign was informing the work of Fusion GPS?
And here’s a follow-up question: from whom did Danchenko get the name Sergei Millian?
Furthermore, one has to ask whether those Clinton Campaign/Danchenko contacts, if they existed, stopped after the election – or whether they continued through Danchenko’s 2017 interviews with the FBI.
Will these issues be raised, and will we get answers on the Clinton Campaign’s ties to Danchenko (or Danchenko’s “sources”)? As outside observers, we can’t – and won’t – make guarantees. There’s danger in false promises just like there’s danger in false hope. Durham, however, has suggested the possibility of former representatives of the Clinton Campaign testifying at trial, stating:
“in the event that one or more former representatives of the Clinton Campaign are called to testify” at trial, Danchenko and the witness “would be represented by the same law firm, resulting in a potential conflict.”
“Yesterday the government asked for more time to respond to U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant’s September 29, 2022order directing the FBI to produce all records related to Seth Rich’s laptop. Somewhat relatedly, the FBI is withholding three reports produced by CrowdStrike in August of 2016 regarding the purported hack of the Democratic National Committee.
The order itself is pretty straightforward, at least with respect to Seth’s personal laptop, because it directs the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop and responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA requests within 14 days of this Order.” On the other hand, the order does not discuss Seth’s work laptop, which is also in the possession of the FBI.
I’m waiting for the FBI to explain what it thinks needs to be clarified, then I may be filing my own motion for clarification. Meanwhile, the FBI has cited only one narrow basis for withholding the records related to Seth’s laptop, namely his privacy. I’m not sure why it takes four weeks and an appellate lawyer to figure out why the judge did or didn’t get that issue right.
In any event, I’m reminded of something that I learned almost thirty years ago when I was a newspaper reporter: people with nothing to hide don’t try to hide nothing. (Read more: Lawflog, 10/13/2022)(Archive)
Charles Dolan Jr. is the first witness on the stand. Kielty will be examining for the government.
Dolan goes through his background. Involved in the 1980 presidential campaign for President Jimmy Carter.
Dolan also worked as a political consultant for Congressional campaigns and the Democratic Governors Association. He has joined a government relations firm and served as a liaison between lobbying operations and public affairs communications operations.
He reportedly worked for DC-based PR unit Powell Tate as well as Ketchum Inc. in early 2000s for 4-5 years. Beyond Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, Dolan says that he has worked as a paid advisor or a volunteer for every DNC campaign since Carter’s besides Obama campaign.
While working for Ketchum, Dolan worked closely with Russia because Ketchum represented the Russian federation. His role at Ketchum was to attract foreign investment. Dolan had regular conference calls with Dmitry Peskov, who is the press secretary for Russian President Putin.
Dolan had meetings with Russian ambassadors and people at embassy as well as various ministers. As far as Dolan’s personal interactions with Peskov, the 2 men met 1-2x per year. When Kielty asks what Dolan talked about w Peskov, Dolan stutters & says: “Things we were working on.”
While working with Ketchum, Dolan traveled to Russia 1-2 times per year, and through this work with the Russian Federation he was also involved in the G20 summit. Dolan also worked with Walt Disney in Russia helping to get their cable TV network and broadcast underway.
Around 2015 Dolan was employed at KGlobal, a PR firm in D.C. Danchenko met Dolan through Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institute who, per the Brookings Institute website: “[is] a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings.
She recently served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.
From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council.” Fiona Hill had previously been appointed by Trump as deputy assistant to the president and senior director…for European and Russian affairs on his National Security Council staff. Hill left the White House on July 15, 2019.
Back to how Dolan and Danchenko met.
Olga Galkina (Credit: The Daily Mail)
Danchenko was trying to help his former schoolmate Olga Galkina find a PR firm. During March or April of 2016, she met with Dolan in the company of Danchenko. Dolan says he met with Galkina to discuss KGlobal doing business with the company she worked for.
Dolan also mentioned Gregg Hartley, a Republican lobbyist. Dolan said that his communications with Danchenko occurred over email and phone, plus having breakfast and lunch together at times.
Dolan said that he would communicate with Danchenko to check on Olga Galkina. Dolan understood that Danchenko was working as a political risk operative in London, where Orbis is based.
Dolan learned of Christopher Steele and Christopher Borrows of Orbis through Danchenko, who said in an email that Dolan would meet Steele and Borrows at some point if he was in London or if Steele and Borrows came to Washington, D.C.
Government Exhibit 702 is an email from Danchenko to Dolan dated April 29, 2016. Danchenko thanks Dolan for lunch and says he forwarded Dolan’s letter to Steele and Borrows.
He makes the point that he’ll introduce the 3 men if they ever are in London or D.C., respectively.
Danchenko says he didn’t get his new passport this month so he would be available for breakfast on May 20 or 13; he also said he’d be in Russia the first half of June. Mentions the Hotel Peter across the street from the Central Bank…
Dolan says he never met Christopher Steele in person and didn’t work with Orbis Business Intelligence which is Steele’s company.
Keilty* brings up Government Exhibit 703, an email dated April 29, 2016, from Danchenko to Dolan with an attachment and subject line is: Business Intelligence.
The email roughly read: “FYI, sample byproduct of my due diligence practice. Confidential: We don’t post these projects online.” The attachment is an Orbis document prepared by Danchenko; Dolan says he didn’t know what the document was about.
Note mentioned in the middle of this information: In May of 2016, Dolan finalized a trip to Cyprus to meet with Olga Galkina and make a presentation to her boss. Dolan’s PR firm, KGlobal, signed a contract with Galkina’s company.
Dolan says he kept communicating with Danchenko, and was approached by the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) to set up a conference in Moscow. Dolan felt that Danchenko would be useful.
YPO, according to Dolan, is an organization that sets up networking events to connect CEOs of various companies. Dolan mentions his relations with Steven Kupka, a D.C. attorney who was involved in YPO. Kupka wanted to organize a visit to Moscow.
The YPO conference scheduled for October 2016 was to be called “Inside the Kremlin.” Dolan was to be involved due to his extensive experience in Russia. The conference purpose was to introduce business people to Russian government officials.
Dolan approached Danchenko because he’s fluent in Russian and knows English well. At one point, they scouted hotels and venues in Moscow for the attendees to gather.
Dolan recalls meeting with Danchenko in Moscow in June 2016 and having lunch together. He reiterates their communications involved emails, phone calls, lunch, and breakfast, and would both attend the YPO conference. In fact, Danchenko was a speaker there.
In July 2016, when Dolan went to Cyprus for 3-5 days to meet w Danchenko’s friend Galkina for purported business with her company, Dolan confirms to Keilty he did “superficially” discuss upcoming US Presidential election with Galkina. Dolan specifically says they spoke about HRC.
After his visit in Cyprus, Dolan returned to the U.S., continuing to be in contact with Danchenko and planning the YPO conference.
Government Exhibit 712A is an email dated August 19, 2016 at 1:08 PM from Danchenko to Dolan. Danchenko says:
“Hi Chuck,
“Here are the bios of two of four. Who were the others?” This is referring to the people speaking at the YPO conference.
Danchenko then writes: “Could you please ask someone to comment on Paul Manafort’s resignation and anything on the Trump campaign? Off the record of course! Any thought, rumor, allegation. I am working on a related project against Trump.
I asked Gregg three months ago but he didn’t say much although shared a couple insights.
Thanks a lot!
Best,
Igor”
Gregg Hartley (Credit: public domain)
The “Gregg” that Danchenko is referring to is the aforementioned Gregg Hartley, Republican D.C. lobbyist.
Next, Keilty shares Dolan’s response. It roughly says: “Let me dig around on Manafort. Pretty sure the new team wanted him gone asap and used the recent NYT story to drive a stake in his heart.”
There an add’l reply after from Dolan to Danchenko that includes:
“Hi Igor,
I had a drink w a GOP friend of mine who knows [some things]. . . Corey Lewandowski who hates Manafort and still speaks to Trump & regularly played a role. He is said to be doing a happy dance for it.”
There was also a following paragraph that said “a number of people wanted Manafort out.”
At the end of the email, Dolan attached a Politico article about Paul Manafort.
On the stand, Dolan testifies under oath to Keilty that he actually never met this “GOP friend,” but got his story from cable news.
Dolan says he felt like embellishing the story because he knew Danchenko was working in political risk and inferred that Danchenko had helped him before so he was trying to return the favor.
Government Exhibit 713B is Danchenko’s response email to Dolan regarding the Manafort information.
Dated August 20, 2016, Danchenko wrote: “Our goals clearly coincide.” He adds that any additional insights from Dolan would be greatly appreciated.
Dolan’s ultimate response to Danchenko asking for more information was, “Thanks, I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.” Dolan testifies that he did not provide more insights on Manafort.
Dolan says that he probably would’ve been involved in the Clinton campaign but at that time was not.
Despite Danchenko writing to Dolan that he was working on an important project, Dolan did not know if Danchenko was working for anyone in particular.
Dolan makes it a point to note that this email exchange was one of 50 emails he had received from various people and didn’t put too much thought into it.
Dolan met with the Special Counsel on numerous occasions. He claims that he knew about the Steele dossier because his client at the time of its publishing, Galkina’s company, was named in the report.
Government Exhibit 112, a page from the dossier, dated August 22, 2016, Paragraph 3 reads: “Speaking separately, also in late July 2016, an American political figure associated with Trump and his campaign outlined the reason behind Manafort’s recent demise. . .”
The paragraph cites nearly verbatim what Charles Dolan wrote in his email to Danchenko about Paul Manafort. Coincidentally, Dolan’s email with the Manafort information was sent to Danchenko on August 20, 2016. So two days later, the information ended up in the Steele dossier.
There’s more discussion of Dolan describing his relationship with Danchenko. Dolan mentions a time that he saw Danchenko was at a park near his house with his daughter, so he went to go meet with him. Note: Dolan casually mentions picking up over the counter drugs for Danchenko.
Keilty brings up Government Exhibit 1202, the January 10, 2017, Buzzfeed article all about Trump’s “alleged” ties to Russia with the Steele dossier attached to it.
Conversation under seal.
Morning after Buzzfeed article published, on Jan 11, 2017, Dolan testifies he received many calls from # of people. Keilty asked if Dolan spoke with Danchenko that day. Dolan, stuttering on the stand, says he called Danchenko because he, “Was curious where the article came from.”
Keilty asked if Galkina was involved in the Steele dossier, to which Dolan responds that he isn’t sure but, “heard she was.”
In the January 11, 2017 phone call between Dolan and Danchenko, Dolan says that Danchenko told him that he would find out where the Steele dossier came from, but never got back to Dolan.
No further questions.
Fiona Hill (Credit: public domain)
Sears begins cross-examining Dolan. Sears asks, “Besides Fiona Hill, how did you meet Danchenko?” Dolan says maybe through the Brookings Institute.
Regarding Dolan’s relationship with Olga Galkina, Dolan says he spoke to Galkina without Danchenko for most of their relationship, which began in D.C. in March 2016.
Sears probes that the YPO October 2016 conference was not always held in Russia? Dolan confirms that the conference was regularly held in various capitals around the world; just so happened to occur in Moscow at that time.
Dolan says that he and Danchenko were together at the October 2016 conference in Moscow and that Danchenko was a speaker there.
During cross examination, Dolan claims that the first time he ever saw the Steele dossier was in the January 10, 2017Buzzfeed article, and that he was unaware Danchenko was working on the project.
Regarding Dolan’s October 31, 2021 meeting with the Special Counsel, Dolan says he doesn’t recall if he told the Special Counsel at the time that he didn’t think anything in the Steele dossier was from him.
Defense Exhibit 250 is shown. In August of 2021, Dolan still didn’t see anything in the Steele dossier that was from him.
On September 7, 2021, Dolan brought emails he had to the Special Counsel interview. Sears asks if they pressured Dolan to say that information in the dossier came from him? Dolan agreed that the information in the dossier was “very similar.”
Dolan doesn’t recall that he was being told by the Special Counsel that he was the subject of this investigation. Sears suggests that Dolan was upset upon finding out; Dolan still seems confused and says he’s not familiar with these terms, but hesitantly says, “Yes.”
Dolan says that the government reminded him that he needed to tell the truth. Dolan agreed that he had zero insider knowledge about Paul Manafort; he simply read articles and consumed news.
Dolan says that he had “no phone calls” about specific issues [related to the Steele dossier) or anything about the Trump campaign’s alleged connections to Russia.
Sears asks: “Wasn’t it your understanding Danchenko was writing a book?”
Dolan doesn’t agree and clarified that his understanding was that Danchenko was a political risk analyst and simply responded, and per Sears’ rhetoric, “threw [Danchenko] a bone” with the Manafort story.
Dolan reiterates that the specific email exchange with Danchenko was “1 of 50 that he had” with various individuals that day.
Sears asks Dolan if he’s aware that the government issued subpoenas for most of Dolan’s communications. Dolan testifies under oath that he never communicated with Danchenko about anything that was in the Steele dossier.
[END OF CROSS-EXAMINATION]
Keilty begins his redirect of Dolan and brings up the August 20, 2016 email where Dolan talked about “having a drink with his GOP friend” who Dolan alleged had dirt that could be useful for Danchenko, followed by the Manafort story.
Keilty makes it a point to tell Dolan that he said nothing about cable news in that email, only the GOP friend. This email was a response to Danchenko’s August 19, 2016 email asking Dolan for any “truth, rumor, etc.” about Manafort.
Keilty: “You think Danchenko was after you for open source research?”
The government retracts question just as the defense objects.
A few short reiterations of previously stated queries.
No further questions.
Kevin Helson, Danchenko’s handling agent, is called to the stand.
Helson has worked for the FBI for 20 years. He has a bachelors degree in chemistry and microbiology. He worked at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation until 2002 before signing on to the FBI.
“Russia” is Helson’s assigned area within the FBI. Helson says his job is to identify individuals who are in U.S. under false pretenses or are acting against U.S.
In 2016, Helson worked in Washington, D.C. field office. He was asked to join Crossfire Hurricane, Helson declined.
Durham asks if Helson was aware in mid-September 2016, there was a Yahoo News article that the FBI was investigating Carter Page, or anything about Christopher Steele. Helson says that he was later aware but not part of the project.
At the end of January 2017, Helson was approached by people from Crossfire Hurricane (Steve Somma* and supervisory intelligence analyst Crossfire Hurricane). For context, Helson confirms to Durham that Auten worked out of headquarters but that Helson worked in the D.C. field office.
Helson’s supervisor gave him a task to meet with Igor Danchenko and eventually bring him on as a confidential human source (CHS). Auten and others related to Crossfire Hurricane were reportedly concerned about follow-up questions from the Steele dossier…
…that merged with Helson’s own projects out of the D.C. office, since Helson’s assigned focus area is matters of intelligence related to Russia.
In late Feb or early March 2017, Kevin Helson, Steve Somma, and Jason Ruehle (Danchenko’s co-handling agent to Helson) had initial meeting with Danchenko to set stage for future meetings & discuss questions regarding the Steele dossier. Helson says this lasted less than an hour.
Durham asks Helson if he had any trouble understanding Danchenko, to which Helson says that Danchenko spoke fluent English and that he had no difficulty communicating with him.
Helson says he didn’t know much about the Steele dossier, and if he wanted to know anything, other people involved in the project had to provide him with the information. Helson makes it a point to note that Crossfire Hurricane later became known as the Mueller investigation.
In conversing with Durham during the examination, Helson discusses his own methods of assessing whether a subject is lying or not based on the idea that, “It’s harder to keep a lie straight during multiple times of telling the same story.”
Sergei Millian (Credit: Twitter)
Durham asks how Helson first became familiar with the names Sergei Milian and Chuck Dolan. Helson somehow found out about them and needed to look it up.
Helson says during his working relationship with Danchenko, his goal was to obtain any new information that could corroborate the Steele dossier. Helson says Danchenko didn’t provide corroborating information.
Durham asks Helson if he’s aware how much of the Steele dossier was attributed to Danchenko. Off the top of his head, Helson says 80%.
Special Counsel John Durham pulls Government Exhibit 1502, which is the LinkedIn message from Igor Danchenko to Anastasia Gnezditskaia where he says he was responsible for 80% of the raw intelligence & 50% of the analysis. Helson says he had no reason to doubt that this is true.
Durham: “Do you recall if Danchenko was to be a paid CHS or not?”
Helson: “[That was dependent upon] what information he gave.” Helson said he probably would become paid over time.
Helson recalls that Danchenko was not paid during their initial meeting in the Alexandria, Virginia, field office, and that when Danchenko was paid for the first time it was less than $3,000.
Helson expected, given that he was eventually paid, that Danchenko would be giving full disclosure, truthful, and as forthright as possible.
Durham shows Government Exhibit 118 paragraph #1. Which reads: “Your client agrees to supply complete and truthful info and testimony to all persons in this matter, as well as other proceedings, etc. …
and that the client must not withhold any info or attempt to protect any person or entity through false info or false implication.”
Helson discusses with Durham his process of collecting information during meetings with Danchenko—by getting record of what was being said and for nuanced things, needed a recording. Helson tells Durham that Danchenko was unaware he was being recorded.
Government Exhibit 151 is a recording; G.E. 151T is the transcript. There was some information in the recording related to the Steele dossier, Helson says, but not all of it.
Government Exhibit 118-11 is a stipulation for the aforementioned recording and translation, wherein both parties agreed that both were a true and accurate copy of a meeting between Danchenko, Helson, and Ruehle. This is one recording among numerous.
Trenga instructs the jury that if there’s any discrepancy while looking at the transcript and the recording to go by the recording.
Durham asks if Danchenko had a copy of the dossier in front of him in each instance that the Steele dossier was discussed. Helson says yes.
Per the FBI recording of the meeting recorded in G.E. 151 and G.E. 151T, Durham asks Helson if it’s relevant that Danchenko said he himself would “record things when speaking with people in case he ever needed them.” Helson concurs this is relevant and [odd].
Durham asks Helson if or when Sergei Milian came up. Helson says that Milian came up at one of his first meetings with Danchenko. Durham asks if Helson is familiar with Report 2016/95; Helson says he looked at this during trial prep.
Helson adds that in March of 2017, Brian Auten raised an issue about Milian, saying there were discrepancies in the information about him.
Government Exhibit 152 and 152T are a recording and transcript.
Durham: “Was there any record that could corroborate that Danchenko received [the] anonymous phone call?”
Helson: “That would have requiring looking at phone records.” Helson says that they had asked Danchenko to provide any phone communication records, which he says would include apps, but Danchenko produced nothing.
Durham: “Was it then your job to get the records?”
Helson said that he wasn’t allowed to legally obtain the phone records of Danchenko since Danchenko was voluntarily providing the FBI information. Helson said to obtain the records legally, they would have needed a predicated investigation and they didn’t have that.
Back to Government Exhibit 152 and 152T; in the recording, Danchenko mentions that he uses WhatsApp.
In this recording, it’s also the first time that Helson says he inquired about Milian’s part of the dossier.
Durham asks if Helson ever recorded Danchenko in conversations outdoors. Helson says it’s difficult to record outdoors because of picking up outside noise but also because the FBI seeks to limit outdoor communications [with brevity].
Durham asks Helson about the electronic Dropbox where Danchenko was supposed to provide documents to the FBI. Helson says that Danchenko provided a “wide depth” of information, and that himself and Ruehle were in “receive mode” during their meetings with Danchenko.
Helson says they allowed the intelligence team to analyze the information.
Durham asks if Danchenko provided corroborating info for the Steele dossier. Helson says no.
Helson says that the information he received depended upon what was received from the Crossfire Hurricane team and later the Mueller investigation. Helson says that eventually the Steele dossier talk “faded off” as a topic they discussed.
Durham asks Helson if Danchenko ever provided supporting documents about the alleged anonymous call from Milian or communications.
Durham pulls Government Exhibit 164 and 164T. In this recording, Helson asks Danchenko about his relationship with Milian. Helson: “There was an email and I think there was a call with a guy up in New York who you thought was Milian?”
Danchenko responds that he doesn’t have Milian’s number; doesn’t remember. Danchenko says, “He never showed up in NY.”
Danchenko provides the email to Helson: “sergio@russianamericanchamber.com”
Durham asks Helson if he ever found out how Danchenko obtained these email addresses. Helson says: “No.”
Back to the recording. Danchenko provides Helson with a phone number that he says is one of Milian’s with a Georgia area code.
It’s very evident in this recording that Danchenko was avoiding having a conversation.
Durham: “It would’ve been helpful to know how Danchenko got Milian’s email addresses and for the dossier, right?”
Helson agrees.
Prior to dealing with Danchenko, Helson says he was unaware of Milian’s prior history with FBI.
Durham shows G.E. 204; it’s an email from Danchenko to MilianGroup July 21, 2016. The subject is “Question about Trump + China”.
Helson says Danchenko never provided him this email.
Durham: “Seeing this email would’ve been important to the investigation, yes?” Since Milian is an alleged sub source of the Steele dossier.
Helson agrees with Durham.
Durham then shows Government Exhibit 205 and 205T; the translation is there because this email was originally written in Russian. It’s from Sergei Milian to Dmitri Zlodorev. Dated July 26, 2016. Milian is asking Zlodorev “Who is Igor?” After receiving an email from him.
Helson does not know if Crossfire Hurricane team ever had a record of whether Milian was in fact even in the U.S. during July 2016. This is relevant because of the allegations that Danchenko said he was supposed to meet with Milian toward the end of July and he “never showed up.”
Government Exhibit 206 and 206T is Zlodorev’s response to Sergei.
Government Exhibit 207 and 207T is an email from Danchenko to MilianGroup dated August 18, 2016.
It opens with:
“Hello Sergey,
I wrote to you several weeks ago. We are contacts on LinkedIn.”
Later in the email Danchenko wrote: “If there’s any opportunity let’s meet.” Zero reference to phone app or anything that Milian never showed up to a meeting.
Helson says that any communications between Danchenko and Sergei would’ve been relevant.
Durham asks if Helson had these communications, would it have changed the investigation? Helson says yes.
On July 21, 2016, Danchenko wrote an email asking Milian about a construction company from Switzerland. To Helson’s knowledge, Danchenko was not in business with this construction company.
Durham asks Helson if he has knowledge of the communications between Danchenko and Milian between July 21, 2016 and August 18, 2016.
Helson says he expected he would’ve been provided those but he was not.
Helson believed documents Danchenko provided that he would say how he was communicating (either thru regular phone calls or thru phone apps).
Durham brings up Government Exhibit 610 & 610T. It’s a Facebook exchange that was originally in Russian between Galkina and Danchenko.
Galkina: “Call me in exactly 15 minutes. It’s regarding Chuck and me.”
Danchenko: “I will try. If I can get thru directly. Possibly Viber or WhatsApp.”
Gov Exhibit 611 is a Facebook message from Igor asking recipient if they have Signal after he referred to something as a “Delicate topic.” According to Helson, Signal is an “encrypted app in which parties can communicate back and forth. The conversations erase when you’re done.”
Government Exhibit 102. On October 24, 2017, there was an in-person meeting with Danchenko in Alexandria, Virginia. Helson raised questions about Danchenko’s communications with the alleged anonymous caller that Danchenko believed was Milian.
His reasoning for believing that the caller was Milian was because he listened to a YouTube video of Sergei Milian speech and in his opinion it sounded just like him. Danchenko said he has no in-person meeting with Milian.
The FBI confronted this because it didn’t line up with what Steele said. Danchenko refuted Steele’s take but never corrected him. Danchenko told FBI he never met with Milian in person. However, Danchenko claimed he spoke on the phone a few times with who he believed was Milian.
Durham: “How confident are you (Helson) that on October 24, 2017, Danchenko said he spoke to Milian on the phone a couple times?
Helson: “Very confident.”
G.E. 103 confirms on November 2, 2017, Helson and Danchenko had an in-person meeting and they discussed Milian again.
Durham: “Why did you have to go back to the Milian piece?”
Helson: “Brian Auten said there were inconsistencies between what Danchenko said regarding his contact with Milian versus what Steele said.”
Durham: “Going off of what Danchenko told Steele, right?”
Helson: “Steele thought Danchenko and Milian met in-person but Danchenko never corrected him.”
Durham: “Based on your interactions with Danchenko, was there ever any indication that there was other information besides what came from Steele? Did Charles Dolan ever come up?”
Helson: “Yes. I didn’t know of Dolan until I found out through Crossfire Hurricane.” Helson said that Danchenko never brought up Charles Dolan to him.
Durham probes: “Isn’t it the goal to corroborate what’s in the Steele dossier?”
Helson: “Yes, to identify the source.”
Durham: “Would it have been helpful to have a U.S. citizen whose info was in the dossier?”
Helson: “Yes. Much easier.”
Government Exhibit 171T. June 15, 2017. The third recorded conversation between Helson, Danchenko, and Ruehle.
Eventually after Helson was Danchenko’s handler, he learned of the emails between Danchenko and Dolan.
Durham shows email G.E. 712A August 19, 2016 from Danchenko to Dolan asking him about info on Paul Manafort and how Danchenko said he was working on a project on Trump. As well as Dolan’s reply to Danchenko G.E. 712B with the “Drink w GOP friend of mine & Paul Manafort” info.
Prior to June 15, 2017, Helson said he had not seen these emails; he said no one on Crossfire Hurricane gave this to him.
Durham: “With respect to his email, wouldn’t it have been good to know this during June of 2017 and prior?”
Helson: “Yes.”
Durham pulls up G.E. 714, the dossier report 216/105. Paragraph 3 is the paragraph that is nearly identical (with superfluous language to polish it up) language that was in Dolan’s email to Danchenko about Paul Manafort.
While looking at this, Durham is asking Helson questions about how he gathered information to corroborate the dossier. Helson, with the request of Mueller’s investigative team, obtained questions to ask Danchenko by Brian Auten and Amy Anderson.
G.E. 171 & 171T is recording & transcript from June 15, 2017 between Helson & Danchenko.
Helson: “For whatever reason, they’re either missing you? Or they’re not finding . . . We’re trying to figure out. . You said something to Steele. . . Do you know Chuck Dolan?”
(Long pause)
Danchenko: “Yes. I’ve known [of] Chuck for 12 years… a couple years [close].” Danchenko says Dolan was always in Russia,
Helson: “You never talked to him about anything shown in the dossier, right?”
Danchenko: “No.”
Helson asks when was last time Danchenko saw Dolan. He replies September of last year in Moscow, but then pulls an exact time.
Helson: “I wasn’t expecting an exact time!” He then asks if Dolan is close to the Kremlin.
Danchenko suggests Dolan is close to Putin professionally.
Durham asks Helson what Danchenko’s demeanor was during this interaction and Helson responds: “A bit of hesitation and a noticeable pause.”
Durham: “Did Danchenko ever mention immediately after the Steele dossier was published in Buzzfeed on January 10, 2017, that Dolan reached out to Danchenko on January 11, 2017?”
Helson: “No.”
Durham: “You would’ve wanted to know that, right?”
Helson: “Yes.”
Durham and Helson briefly talk about the FBI interview with Olga Galkina in D.C.
Helson’s intent was to obtain any knowledge he could find to corroborate the dossier.
Durham asks about how Danchenko referenced his communications in forms (apps, etc.) how he would send screenshots of conversations to Helson.
Helson: “Yes.”
Durham brings up how on New Year’s Day in 2017, Danchenko met with Dolan in a park. “What was your impression of this?”
Helson found it to be interesting. Helson was under the impression that Danchenko introduced Galkina to Dolan.
When Helson asked Danchenko if Dolan would know Steele, he replied: “I think he would.” However, Danchenko did not mention business interactions with either to Helson.
Durham: “Would you learn of Dolan’s connections to Dmitry Peskov?” (Putin’s press secretary)
Helson: “Yes.”
Government Exhibit is a May 17, 2017 2-page report with 3 screenshots of a conversation between Galkina and Danchenko. On bullet point 4, there’s a note that “Galkina claims she can’t travel til September but [Danchenko] made a good pitch.”
G.E. 120 mostly redacted doc. There’s a part discussing Danchenko speaking on social media and another portion. “At this point the development . . . Trump collusion and the gov’t . . . ”
“All of Danchenko’s info was obtained through conversations with colleagues and friends.”
Durham: “Do you recall that Danchenko discussed Dolan’s relationship to Peskov?”
Durham and Helson are talking about “Russian disinformation” in relation to Peskov’s role as Putin’s press secretary.
It’s noted that even as a paid informant, Danchenko did not get Helson any information on Dolan [to corroborate the dossier].
Government Exhibit 605 is a picture of Danchenko and Dolan together in Russia from June 14, 2016. This had been posted to Facebook.
The day the photo was posted to Danchenko’s profile, Galkina tried to arrange a [vicinity?] for Danchenko.
In March 2017, Helson said he first asked Danchenko about Dolan. Danchenko said Dolan was, “A nice guy, a friend.”
Then on September 22, 2017, Danchenko’s story changed and he told Helson that Dolan “has dubious connections in Russia.”
Helson attributed this to the fact that he was simply asking Danchenko about people around him who could be a security risk.
Durham makes a point to conclude that a well-coordinated conspiracy, Report 95 was used on a FISA application, unvetted, against an American citizen.
No further questions.
During cross-examination, Sears probes that, “Wasn’t Danchenko SHOCKED at how Steele presented what he said in the dossier?” Helson agreed. The two men agree that Danchenko never vouched for the information.
Defense Exhibit 100 discusses what the motivations were for Danchenko to become a confidential human source. Helson said: “Patriotism.” Both Helson and Danchenko had concerns for his safety.
Sears states that Helson and Danchenko had a working relationship from March 2017 to October 2020.
Sears asks Helson about the “one time” that Danchenko allegedly acted erratic.
He supposedly walked into an in-person meeting and demanded more money, jumping up and down and very upset.
Sears says that Danchenko later apologized for this and it was revealed that his wife and lawyer had been telling him he should be asking for more money due to his having children and being at risk. Helson confirms this.
Sears reminds Helson he testified to OIG that Danchenko was “gold” as human source following “single erratic behavior incident” because Helson would have known going forward if there was a time that Danchenko was lying. According to Helson, Danchenko never acted like that again.
Helson also said that the Crossfire Hurricane team never raised an issue about information Danchenko had provided Helson. However, Helson says that there were times Danchenko couldn’t recall where something or someone came from source-wise in the dossier.
Sears is pushing that Danchenko, as far as Helson was aware, had never known about or seen the Steele dossier until it was published in Buzzfeed on January 10, 2017.
During this interaction, Helson says he legally wouldn’t have been able to obtain all of Danchenko’s communications unless he had voluntarily provided them himself. Danchenko would later tell Crossfire Hurricane that he deleted nearly all of his communications.
Helson reportedly TOLD Danchenko to scrub his phone. He says following the January 2017 FBI interview, Danchenko was instructed on multiple occasions to scrub his phone because he’d be, “A target to Russians.”
Sears asks Helson about Danchenko’s relationship with Dolan. The two men agree that Danchenko said he approximately knew Dolan for 10 years based on Russia connections.
Danchenko knew that Dolan worked for Ketchum, who did PR for the Kremlin. According to Helson, Danchenko reportedly said Dolan was “naive to Russia.”
In reference to Danchenko saying in October 2017 that Dolan had dubious connections to Russia, Sears and Helson agree that Danchenko then provided the FBI with the names of the “dubious Russia contacts.”
It’s noted that Steele did not contain Danchenko’s identity as the primary source of the dossier, but that Danchenko concealed his own identity.
During Helson’s testimony to the OIG, Sears reminds him that he said Danchenko never struck him as “someone who would lie.”
Danchenko never told Helson that he lied to Steele about his meeting Milian; Danchenko simply never corrected Steele.
About 10 months after Danchenko met with FBI, he told them that he was going to meet with Steele. The FBI was having Danchenko fish information from Steele.
Sears asks Helson if he was trying to drive a wedge between Danchenko and Steele; he replies, “Yes.”
According to Sears & Helson, Danchenko had concerns about giving more info to Steele because he supposedly embellished info Danchenko originally gave to him for the dossier.
Items that Danchenko said were rumors, Steele wrote as fact. Sears is animatedly suggesting that according to Danchenko, Steele was obsessed with “proving the dossier to be true” and that Danchenko eventually “expressed concern about Dolan and Galkina’s relationship.”
Sears: “Danchenko is charged with lying, saying he never spoke to Dolan about anything in the Steele report.”
Helson: “Correct.”
Defense Exhibit 102 is debrief notes from the June 15, 2017 recorded meeting between Helson and Danchenko. Helson’s wrote in a note that Danchenko had known Dolan for “2 years more closer.”
Helson had asked how long it had been since Danchenko had spoken to Dolan. He mentioned the Moscow trip in 2016 and then the January 1, 2017 meeting in the park.
Defense Exhibit 103. Helson does not know if Danchenko ever saw Report 105, which was all about Dolan.
Auten also did not ask Danchenko about it. No one apparently ever focused Helson’s attention on
Paragraph 3 of the dossier report that was all about Paul Manafort; nearly verbatim to what Dolan had written in his reply email to Danchenko.
Government Exhibit 120 is very redacted but begins w/: “At this point in the development source understands the priority is to obtain any and all info that would indicate collusion between Trump’s campaign, administration, & the Russian government or any of its representatives.”
It continues: “Speaking on social media. He keeps asking when I am visiting. On good terms. Asking him about Romeo and Juliet setting.”
In reference to the anonymous phone call with Milian, Danchenko told Auten he emailed Milian after the alleged scheduled meeting that Milian never showed up for, but he did not tell Helson or show him that email.
The issue is again raised that there was contradictory information about Danchenko’s meeting with Milian due to what Steele said, which is why Helson had an October 24, 2017 meeting with Danchenko and then another on November 2, 2017.
Sears: “Did you believe Danchenko knew what Steele told the FBI about his communications with Milian?”
Helson: “I don’t recall.”
Testifying to OIG on Oct 21, 2019, Helson states Danchenko said Steele was completely wrong about his relationship w/ Milian & that Danchenko was not happy w/ Steele about what he put in dossier. Sears insists that Danchenko lying about this could compromise relationship w/ FBI.
Referring to how Danchenko’s August 2016 email to Milian read that the two men never met, Sears argues that if Danchenko had written in the email that they had talked a few weeks back (alluding to the purported anonymous 10-15 call…
…that Danchenko believed to be Milian), Milian may have never called him again if he was trying to remain anonymous.
Sears brings up the Amtrak records of Danchenko going to New York and that Milian was supposedly flying into JFK airport on July 27, 2016.
Helson was unaware of late July FB message from Danchenko to his wife about the giraffes at the Bronx zoo that said “Another meeting later.”
Sears also raises Milian reached out to @GeorgePapa19 around same time that Danchenko believed he received an anonymous call from Milian.
In two of Helson’s Field Office Annual Source Reports, he wrote that any inconsistencies in Danchenko’s report were minor. Steele’s motivations came into question. Helson testified to the OIG that Danchenko’s had “real information” that was helpful to the FBI.
Defense Exhobit 109 stated that Danchenko reported critical reporting that added in a top FBI investigation. It also said that some of Danchenko’s reporting has been added to 25 IRs. An IR is an intelligence report.
Defense Exhibit 110 is a payment amount of $10,000 for the confidential human source, Danchenko, for reporting he provided during January of 2018. He was involved in 5 separate investigations, and his information…
…led to recognizing cyber actors [affecting] the 2016 election, according to the FBI. Danchenko reportedly assisted in uncovering “ongoing-maligned influence.”
Notes that former AG Bill Barr was launching an investigation into how the FBI handled Carter Page. Helson was concerned that the publishing of the redacted January 2017 interview would damage Danchenko.
Helson wrote a memo in July of 2020 that he disagreed with the move to release this. “Internet detectives” figured out who had been interviewed.
On October 21, 2020, Helson drafted an electronic communication to give a lump sum payment of $346,000 to Danchenko, since he would now have safety issues and had provided information for at least 25 FBI investigations.
The lump sum payment request was denied. Danchenko’s total lifetime payments would have been around $565,000 if he had actually received the $346,000.
Sears argued that the FBI didn’t have as much information until Danchenko, which Helson agrees with.
Helson says that they never thought Danchenko was partisan because said some of the things Danchenko brought to FBI were items that would negatively affect Trump. In other words, they’re inferring Danchenko tried to prevent those things from occurring.
No further questions.
In redirect, Durham calls out Helson, because he said there was no derogatory info on Danchenko in reports, but this wasn’t true. Durham raises that there is an open espionage case on Danchenko at that time.
References 65/8, a counterintelligence report. Durham asks if Helson bothered to obtain access to the report and see what it was about. Helson says that he spoke with Laura Pino about it and she said it was hearsay.
Durham: “Did you read the underlying documents? Is it not true that Human Validation recommended that Helson read the file.”
Again, Helson claiming he didn’t have access. Despite his knowledge that there was a witness, Helson said someone countered the witness.
Durham: “Danchenko’s Visa had expired. Did you know whether or not he stayed in the country anyway?” Durham raises the need to determine whether or not there was fraud committed with his immigration status in the states.
Durham: “Did Crossfire Hurricane, Mueller, or ANYONE do what was recommended?”
Conversation under seal.
Helson said he only checked Danchenko’s travel records going forward at that point, not backward.
Durham: “Did you check his financials to find unsolicited reporting that would have [indicated] the FBI might NOT be the primary audience for his reporting?”
Helson: “No.”
Durham: “Did you look into anything regarding his Visa or immigration status?!”
Helson: “No.”
Durham: “Did you polygraph? He could’ve been tasted by a foreign government entity to get intelligence?”
Helson: “No.”
Durham is pissed.
Sears cuts in and tries to say it that Helson disagreed with people trying to invalidate Danchenko as a human source.
“Did you know this woman from Human Validation Unit was an army counterintelligence officer in Europe.”
Helson says this doesn’t make her an expert on Russian intelligence officers in U.S.
Durham probes that Helson maybe opposed this being a 65A case instead of 105.
Durham: “Do you recall any of you or any of your colleagues attempting to corroborate the report? Did you do ANYTHING when the FBI mistakenly thought Danchenko left the country.”
(…) The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)
Those problems continued with the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.
Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump.
Danchenko being a CHS also served another purpose: it protected the Bureau and the Mueller Special Counsel from revealing their “sources and methods.” How do you hide misconduct? Bury the witness. (Techno Fog, 9/13/2022)(Archive)
On Friday, October 14th, we learned the FBI directed Igor Danchenko to scrub his phones and erase all incriminating evidence:
We’ve known since last week that the FBI made Danchenko a confidential human source so as to hide him from Nunes’ and other inquiries into the Russiagate scam. Now we find out that an added benefit was that Danchenko could legally dispose of evidence of the Russiagate scam. Ufb. pic.twitter.com/fHQoLp2Pfv
Russian analyst Igor Danchenko walks to the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse on Oct. 11, 2022, in Alexandria, VA (Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham finished presenting evidence in the Igor Danchenko trial.
The most damning part of the day, if not the trial? Testimony that FBI supervisors within the Mueller Special Counsel refused requests to interview a source for the Steele Dossier: longtime Democrat activist Charles Dolan.
But first we start with the redirect examination of a witness from Thursday afternoon – FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson – who handled Danchenko when he was a confidential human source. (Our prior article discussed Helson’s investigative failures at length.)
Durham questioned Helson about efforts to determine the Danchenko-Dolan connection in the summer of 2017. By that time, the Mueller Special Counsel had been ongoing since May 2017 and had, on its own, taken part in the last Carter Page FISA renewal. And if you recall from our last articles, Danchenko had been an FBI CHS since March 2017. Once Mueller was appointed, Helson was the go-between, asking Danchenko questions posed by the then-Special Counsel’s team.
By June 2017, the Mueller Special Counsel had developed information that Democrat Charles Dolan may have been a source of the Steele Dossier. They passed questions about Dolan to Agent Helson:
Q Who did those [Dolan] questions come from?
A It came from the Mueller investigative team, particularly Ms. [Amy] Anderson.
Durham also cleaned-up Helson’s sloppiness. The previous day, Helson testified that Danchenko didn’t know the Steele Dossier was going to the FBI. Helson admitted he didn’t have any evidence to support his own conclusion.
Q You were asked a question yesterday that you adopted — you were asked a question about, well, the defendant didn’t know that Steele’s reports were going to the FBI, and you said yes. Do you have any independent knowledge of that?
A No.
Q That’s just what the defendant told you, right?
A Yeah.
Q So when you told the jury that he, Mr. Danchenko, didn’t know that they were going to the FBI, you don’t know that to be the case?
A I had no other knowledge that suggested that, no.
Q Right. There’s no independent evidence of any sort, correct?
A Yes, correct.
Helson was also asked about Danchenko’s lack of complete honesty with respect to his interactions with Charles Dolan and his travels to Moscow. As you’ll see, Helson’s answers also implicate his own failure to fully investigate his source.
Q Did Mr. Danchenko tell you about his having been in Moscow in June of 2016?
A No, he did not tell me that.
Q Did he tell you anything about his having met with or seen Mr. Dolan in Moscow in June of 2016?
A No, sir.
Q Do you recall, sir, whether or not you ever learned the dates on which Mr. Danchenko was in Moscow in June of 2016?
A I learned of it later.
Q And do you remember: When you learned at a later point in time he had been in Moscow in June of 2016, did you talk to him about that?
A No.
Danchenko’s June 2016 Moscow trip, where he met with Dolan, has significant timing because Danchenko flew from Moscow to London to give “a report”. Who was in London? Christopher Steele.
Durham also inquired about Helson’s October 24, 2017 interview of Danchenko. Helson described the purposes of that meeting:
“This meeting was — in part, it was a direction from the Mueller investigative team bringing up the discrepancies in the Sergei Millian matter, and they wanted me to go back specifically to ask the questions and get his response.”
Just so we’re clear – by October 24, 2017, the Mueller Team knew there were issues with Danchenko’s allegations about Sergei Millian. At a minimum, they were aware of the discrepancies in Danchenko’s claims about Millian. And how did Danchenko respond? By changing his story.
The importance is two-fold. First, it confirms to the Mueller Special Counsel that there are even more problems with Danchenko’s story. Second, it catches Danchenko in a lie that would, 4+ years later, be part of his own indictment. (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 10/15/2022)(Archive)
“Hertzog was with the FBI from 2008 through 2019 as an intelligence analyst with a primary focus on Russian counterintelligence. She described her role as an analyst who “looks at information and tries to identify trends, patterns, and investigative next steps.” She was assigned to the Directorate of Intelligence at FBI Headquarters.
Hertzog was assigned to Special Counsel Mueller’s Office in July 2017. She described her role and chain of command with the Mueller Team:
Q And what, generally, was your role with the Special Counsel Mueller’s team?
A I was primarily initially to focus on looking into reports that the FBI had received on Russian matters.
Q All right. Did those reports have a particular name?
A We referred to them typically as the Steele dossier.
Q Now, as a member of Special Counsel Mueller’s team, was there a chain of command?
A Yes.
Q Can you describe the chain of command that you worked with?
A I reported directly to SIA Brian Auten. Above him was Special Counsel Mueller. There were horizontal chains of reporting as well. So there was an attorney, a supervisory special agent, and then head of FBI personnel.
Q Okay. So you had occasion to work with special agents as well, correct?
A Correct.
Q And who were some of the special agents that you worked with Special Counsel Mueller?
A I worked with Supervisory Special Agent Amy Anderson and Supervisory Special Agent Joe Nelson.
Hertzog became familiar with the Steele Dossier, and with the parties involved in the Steele Dossier, once she joined the Mueller Team:
Q And how did you become familiar with Mr. Steele?
A When I reported [July 2017] to the Special Counsel’s Office, SCO, I had received background information on the investigation up until that point.
It was her job to “look into the Steele Dossier.” She described this as “trying to identify the sourcing for the claims in the dossier and, specifically, the national security threat with regards to the Russian influence piece.” Hertzog explains:
Q And a lot of names appeared in those dossier reports?
A Correct.
Q Did you learn that there were a number of different sources that the defendant relied on?
A Yes.
Q Did you have a particular focus on any of those sources?
A There were a number of sub-sources that were identified for investigative next steps.
Q Okay. And did you have a particular individual that you focused on?
A Yes. There was an individual named Olga Galkina who was — when I was assigned to SCO, was my primary focus initially.
Compare Hertzog’s testimony to the words of Robert Mueller:
How do we not conclude that Mueller lied to Congress?
Unless his own team kept him in the dark about their own investigation of the Steele Dossier?
The title of this post references “obstruction” by the Mueller Special Counsel. Just to clarify, we’re not saying that there will be charges of obstruction of justice from anyone on the Mueller Team. (We’re not going to predict what comes next.) By obstruction we mean obstructing the truth, or obstructing the efforts to determine the truth. We plan to dive deeper into this Mueller issue in the near future.
Back to Hertzog. She took investigative steps to look into the Steele Dossier. She investigated Olga Galkina. She also looked into Charles Dolan:
Q And what’s your understanding of who Mr. Dolan is?
A Mr. Dolan, to my understanding, having reviewed FBI databases, had connectivity to both Mr. Danchenko and Ms. Galkina.
Q So your testimony is that you learned about Mr. Dolan through the various FBI databases?
A I believe information was provided to me as background when I on boarded with SCO, and I became aware of more information as I researched.
In fact, Hertzog connected Dolan to Olga Galkina, and also to those who had worked in the Russian government (such as Putin ally and confidant Dmitry Peskov). She checked Dolan’s travel records, finding he had traveled to Cyprus (where Galkina was located) and also to Russia. She found Dolan’s link to Galkina, a “sub-source for the Steele Dossier” of particular importance.” (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 10/15/2022)(Archive)
FISA Court rubber stamps FBI warrant applications to spy on Americans. (Credit: River City Reader)
(…) The FBI’s use of the uncorroborated Steele dossier was not the FBI’s worst offense, however. Worse still was the Crossfire Hurricane team’s last-minute amendment to the FISA application that misleadingly framed Steele’s source network as one established during his time as an MI6 agent, when, in fact, neither Danchenko nor any of Steele’s other dossier sources had been sources during his time with British intelligence.
While Steele would later confirm for the inspector general that his source network did not involve sources from his time with MI6, but “was developed entirely in the period after he retired from government service,” from Auten’s detailed trial testimony, we now know that the Crossfire Hurricane team either knew Steele’s source network was not connected to British intelligence or knew that it could not, in good faith, make that representation to the FISA court.
For two days, Durham elicited testimony from Auten of the FBI’s attempts to ascertain Steele’s source network, including during a trip to Europe in early October, but Steele refused to identify his sources. Auten’s testimony in this regard proves significant when considered together with details previously revealed in the Office of Inspector General’s report on FISA abuse.
In discussing the process the FBI undertook to obtain the first FISA warrant on Page, the OIG explained that the day before the FISA court granted the surveillance order, the government submitted a “read copy” of the FISA application to the FISA court’s legal adviser for a preliminary assessment of any issues. The FISA court’s legal adviser asked the attorney working with the FBI on the application “how it was that Steele had a network of subsources?”
The government lawyer “provided additional information to him regarding Steele’s past employment history,” the OIG report explained; that response implied Steele’s source network came from his time with MI6. Significantly, the FISA court’s legal adviser then indicated the additional detail of Steele’s prior work with British intelligence should be included in the official FISA application to the court.
“That the legal advisor not only raised the question about Steele’s access to a network of sources, but then insisted that the FISA application be updated to include information concerning Steele’s prior government position, shows the FISA court placed great significance on Steele’s previous British intelligence work for purposes of assessing the reliability of his source network.” And with that misleading information added, the next day, Oct. 21, 2016, the FISA court issued the first of four orders authorizing the surveillance of Page’s phone and email accounts.
Given the importance the legal adviser placed on understanding Steele’s source network, it seems unlikely the FISA court would have authorized the surveillance of Page had the FBI either acknowledged that Steele’s source network came from his private work with Orbis or conceded that Steele had refused to reveal his sources. It was this final deception, then, and not merely the FBI’s reliance on the uncorroborated Steele dossier, that led to the illegal surveillance of Page. And, here, those involved in adding the last-minute, credibility-boosting footnote reference to Steele’s MI6 work knew full well that misrepresentation would score the bureau a surveillance warrant, making it an even worse transgression.” (Read more: The Federalist, 10/14/2022) (Archive)
There are, at the very least, 459 documented violations of state and federal laws and regulations on the infamous device.
For the past thirteen months, MarcoPolo—a nonprofit research group comprised of six men from across the U.S. dedicated to exposing corruption and blackmail—has been writing a comprehensive Report on the Biden Laptop and the crimes thereon. Our motives and budget were transparent; thousands of Americans financed its production. We neither sought nor received any institutional/corporate backing. We were delayed for various reasons, but finished the dossier for 35k underbudget.
At long last, the Report is complete. It has been sent to members of the U.S. House & U.S. Senate, U.S. attorneys for the jurisdictions in which the Bidens and their associates committed crimes, state and local law enforcement, and—for good measure—every contact on the Biden Laptop, which includes all of Hunter’s classmates at Archmere Academy and a portion of the current White House staff.
It is simple but dense: 630 pages. 2,020 footnotes. Broken up neatly into seven sections with the biggest focus being Business-Related Crimes. We believe that it is the deepest digital colonoscopy ever performed on a sitting U.S. first family.
Let’s talk about Hillary Clinton, Lafarge, ISIS, the law firm Paul | Weiss and Corporations paying “fines” for “Conspiring to Provide Material Support to Foreign Terrorist Organizations” ⚖️💥🎻
From 1985-1992, HRC made $31,000 per year as a board member of Lafarge Corporation 🧵 pic.twitter.com/sAGodpNN5A
In 2001, Loretta Lynch signed off as Commissioner of the Telcordia Technologies, Inc. > NeuStar, Inc. transfer 22 days before 9/11.https://t.co/zofZuPZRvO
“We need to make sure that those who get the benefit of such an arrangement comply with their responsibility.” said John Carlin, a senior member of the deputy attorney general’s office. “If not, you should expect to see serious repercussions.”https://t.co/eKuD1Bv1Na
Paul, Weiss was advising Neustar in its $3.1 billion sale to TransUnion… Coincidentally, announced just THREE DAYS before the Sussman Indictment is unsealed.https://t.co/Pwo5IJ1Jpypic.twitter.com/HU2rVOqyRp
Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia <=> Hogan Lovells <=> Neustar <=> Rodney Joffe <=> Perkins Coie <=> John Podesta <=> Michael Sussman <=> Hillary for America <=> Steptoe & Johnson | Hogan Lovells | Kirkland & Ellis ALL DONATED to HFA.
Howard Topaz was the tax lawyer who filed income tax returns for the Clintons’ 2004 + 2007-14 joint tax returns – which were prepared by Hogan & Hartson/Hogan Lovells.
Hogan & Hartson employed Gold Star Father Khizr Khan, there he worked on the EB5 travel visa program. pic.twitter.com/cyRhV4kJIZ
SWEDISH TELECOM GIANT LM ERICSSON & ITS U.S. DIVISION ERICSSON INC. SUED BY 862 AMERICANS FOR ALLEGED PROTECTION MONEY PAYMENTS TO AQ, AQ-IN-IRAQ & ISLAMIC STATE
“The FBI is asking a U.S. court to reverse its order that it produce information from Seth Rich’s laptop computer.
If the court does not, the bureau wants 66 years to produce the information.
(…) In the new filing, government lawyers said the FBI never extracted the data, which it revealed as originating with a law enforcement agency. They said the information is on a compact disc containing images of the laptop.
“The FBI did not open an investigation into the murder of Seth Rich, nor did it provide investigative or technical assistance to any investigation into the murder of Seth Rich. As a result, the FBI has never extracted the data from the compact disc and never processed the information contained on the disc,” they said.
To produce the information, the FBI would have to convert information on the disc into pages and then review the pages to redact information per FOIA, according to the government.
If Mazzant upholds his order, the FBI wants a lengthy period of time to perform the work—66 years, or 500 pages a month.
“If the court overrules the FBI’s motion, the FBI wants to produce records at a rate of 500 pages per month. At that rate, it will take almost 67 years just to produce the documents, never mind the images and other files,” Ty Clevenger, a lawyer representing Huddleston, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“After dealing with the FBI for five years, I now assume that the FBI is lying to me unless and until it proves otherwise. The FBI is desperately trying to hide records about Seth Rich, and that begs the question of why.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 10/28/2022)(Archive)
Joe Biden speaks at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. (Credit: New York Post)
“Classified documents from Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President were found in early November at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, CBS News reports, citing two sources with knowledge of an inquiry launched by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The investigation into the roughly 10 documents will be conducted by the US Attorney in Chicago (shocking!), according to the sources.
The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, the day before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement to CBS News. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the classified documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets. -CBS News
Remember when the DOJ raided former President Trump and made a huge deal about classified documents having been commingled with not-classified documents? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
According to Sauber, the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives on the same day the material was discovered, after which the Archives took possession the next morning.
“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” said Sauber. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
In charge of the investigation is John Lausch, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who will seek to determine how the classified material ended up at the Penn Biden Center (which received $54.6 million in Chinese donations after the Biden Center was announced in 2016). (Zero Hedge, 1/10/2023)(Archive)
(…) Joe Biden STOLE highly classified documents from a SCIF while he was a US Senator and Vice President. He had no right to store any classified material at his home or the Penn Biden Center.
Not only did Biden steal SCIF-designated documents and improperly scatter them everywhere, evidence shows he likely used them to provide classified briefings on Ukraine to his son/bagman Hunter Biden.
It also appears Biden is hiding documents from NARA.
According to investigative reporter Paul Sperry, records reveal Joe Biden had his personal lawyer send a FedEx driver to the Penn Biden Center to pick up his boxes of classified White House documents on November 2, 2022 – just ONE DAY BEFORE the National Archives (NARA) arrived to the center to seize the documents.
Did Joe Biden withhold classified documents from the National Archives?
BREAKING: Records reveal Biden had his personal lawyer send a FedEx driver to the Penn Biden Center to pick up boxes of WH docs on Nov 2, 2022–the day before (Nov 3) the National Archives arrived @ the Center to retrieve classified WH docs “discovered” there. Docs w/h from NARA?
Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), is expected to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if Republicans take the House. (Credit: yahoo!news)
“House Judiciary Republicans on Friday released a 1,000-plus page report on FBI whistleblower disclosures on “the politicization of the FBI And Justice Department.”
The members called the report “the first comprehensive accounting of the FBI’s problems to date, which undermine the FBI’s fundamental law-enforcement mission.”
They also say in an announcement about the report that the 1,050 document “primarily concerns FBI abuses, due to the experiences and roles of whistleblowers, but also examines the actions of the Justice Department where appropriate for context and explanation.”
(…) “The thousand-page report builds on various whistleblower disclosures describing the FBI’s Washington hierarchy as ‘rotted at its core’ with a “systemic culture of unaccountability,” the report also reads.
The House Judiciary Republicans list as some of the “key takeaways” in the report as:
FBI leadership abusing its law-enforcement authority for political reasons.
The FBI artificially inflating and manipulating domestic violent extremism statistics for political purposes.
The FBI downplaying and reducing the spread of the serious allegations of wrongdoing leveled against Hunter Biden.
The Justice Department and FBI using counterterrorism resources to target parents resisting a far-left educational curriculum.
“The FBI took possession of the Biden Laptop—via grand jury subpoena—on December 9, 2019. The two agents from the Wilmington Resident Agency of the Baltimore Field Office who delivered that subpoena to the laptop repair shop owner (Mac Isaac) were Josh Wilson and Mike Dzielak.
Wilson and Dzielak have since attempted to scrub their online footprint, but Wilson is still featured in several articles. Locating a picture of Dzielak, however, proved somewhat difficult—and now we know why. In his soon-to-be-released book, Mac Isaac recounts how Dzielak told Mac Isaac the following—in a serious tone—after delivering the grand jury subpoena: “It is our experience that nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things.” Well, Mac Isaac did “talk about these things” after Dzielak and Wilson (& the FBI HQ) slow-walked the investigation into the Bidens.”
Alexander Vindman testifies before a House Intelligence Committee hearing as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump on November 19, 2019. (Credit: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)
“A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by star impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Ret.) against Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and two Trump White House staffers for supposed “witness intimidation” during Trump’s impeachment hearings.
Vindman filed his suit in February, just over a year after he had enjoyed fifteen minutes of infamy before Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the House Intelligence Committee, as Democrats sought to impeach and remove Trump for allegedly pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate allegations of corruption against Joe Biden, his leading rival in the 2020 election.
(…) Vindman alerted a contact in the intelligence committee — whom he refused to name under oath — about a July 2019 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, triggering the investigation into Trump. Schiff would not allow Vindman to be questioned about the so-called “whistleblower” who first approached the House Intelligence Committee with his second-hand concerns about the call. Vindman did admit, however, that the Ukrainians felt no “pressure” to investigate Biden.
(…) U.S. District Court James Boasberg of the District of Columbia, a Barack Obama appointee, issued a 29-page ruling, The Hillreported, concluding that even if “Defendants leveled harsh, meanspirited, and at times misleading attacks” against Vindman, “political hackery alone does not violate [the law at issue].” White House staffers Dan Scavino and Julia Hahn, a former reporter for Breitbart News, were also named as defendants in the lawsuit.” (Read more: Breitbart, 11/8/2022)(Archive)
Patrick Moore (l, bottom) and his law office in Boston, Massachusetts. Moore was appointed as the First Assistant Attorney General by the newly elected Massachusetts Attorney General, Andrea Campbell, in December 2022. (Credit: MSN)
Nine boxes of documents were taken from President Biden’s attorney Patrick Moore’s Boston office, but have yet to be reviewed, the National Archives disclosed in a response letter to Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, this week first obtained by Fox News Digital.
The Archives had not previously publicly disclosed the number of boxes taken from Boston. It had been reported that Moore had shipped boxes of documents from the Penn Biden Center to his Boston office before discovering the initial trove of classified documents at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
In response to questions by Johnson and Grassley in a Feb. 24 letter asking how and when the archives learned that records were transported to Boston, Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall responded the agency learned about it on Nov. 3, 2022.
“When NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] contacted President Biden’s personal counsel on November 3, 2022, to arrange to pick up boxes from the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., they informed NARA that Mr. Moore had moved other boxes from the Penn Biden Center to Mr. Moore’s law firm in Boston,” the letter states.
In addition, the archives notified the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General on Nov. 4 that the documents had been moved. The documents were then picked up on Nov. 9 and were secured in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
“NARA staff retrieved nine boxes from Mr. Moore’s Boston office,” Wall continued, which had not been previously known.
Despite having possession of the documents since November, the Archives has not yet reviewed the boxes’ content to determine whether additional classified materials are inside.
“NARA has not reviewed the contents of the boxes found at Mr. Moore’s Boston office,” Wall states in the letter dated Tuesday. (Read more: Fox News, 3/08/2023)(Archive)
“In the shift of the left against free speech principles, there is no figure more actively or openly pushing for censorship than Hillary Clinton. Now, reports indicate that Clinton has unleashed her allies in the corporate world to coerce Musk to restore censorship policies or face bankruptcy. The effort of the Clinton-linked “Accountable Tech” reveals the level of panic in Democratic circles that free speech could be restored on one social media platform. The group was open about how losing control over Twitter could result in a loss of control over social media generally. For Clinton, it is an “all-hands on deck” call for censorship. She previously called upon foreign governments to crackdown on the free speech of Americans on Twitter.
We have been discussing how Clinton and others have called on foreign countries to pass censorship laws to prevent Elon Musk from restoring free speech protections on Twitter. It seems that, after years of using censorship-by-surrogates in social media companies, Democratic leaders seem to have rediscovered good old-fashioned state censorship.
Accountable Tech led an effort to send a letter to top Twitter advertisers to force Musk to accept “non-negotiable” requirements for censorship.
General Motors was one of the first to pull its advertising funds to stop free speech restoration on the site.
Of course, the company had no problem with supporting Twitter when it was running one of the largest censorship systems in history — or supporting TikTok (which is Chinese-owned and has been denounced for state control and access to data). Twitter has been denounced for years for its bias against conservative and dissenting voices, including presumably many GM customers on the right. None of that was a concern for GM but the pledge to restore free speech to Twitter warrants a suspension.
The letter is open about the potential cascading effect if free speech is restored on one platform: “While the company is hardly a poster child for healthy social media, it has taken welcome steps in recent years to mitigate systemic risks, ratcheting up pressure on the likes of Facebook and YouTube to follow suit.”
The letter insists that free speech will only invite “disinformation, hate, and harassment” and that “[u]nder the guise of ‘free speech,’ [Musk’s] vision will silence and endanger marginalized communities, and tear at the fraying fabric of democracy.”
Among other things, the letter demands “algorithmic accountability,” a notable inclusion in light of Democratic politicians demanding enlightened algorithms to protect citizens from their own bad choices or thoughts.
This is a copy of the letter posted in Turley’s article. The original letter was posted on Scribd and has since been removed.)
General Motors was one of the first to pull its advertising funds to stop free speech restoration on the site.
Of course, the company had no problem with supporting Twitter when it was running one of the largest censorship systems in history — or supporting TikTok (which is Chinese owned and has been denounced for state control and access to data). Twitter has been denounced for years for its bias against conservative and dissenting voices, including presumably many GM customers on the right. None of that was a concern for GM but the pledge to restore free speech to Twitter warrants a suspension.
The letter is open about the potential cascading effect if free speech is restored on one platform: “While the company is hardly a poster-child for healthy social media, it has taken welcome steps in recent years to mitigate systemic risks, ratcheting up pressure on the likes of Facebook and YouTube to follow suit.”
The letter insists that free speech will only invite “disinformation, hate, and harassment” and that “[u]nder the guise of ‘free speech,’ [Musk’s] vision will silence and endanger marginalized communities, and tear at the fraying fabric of democracy.”
Among other things, the letter demands “algorithmic accountability,” a notable inclusion in light of Democratic politicians demanding enlightened algorithms to protect citizens from their own bad choices or thoughts.
In addition to Accountable Tech, twenty-five other groups signed the letter to demand the restoration of censorship policies, including Media Matters and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Accountable Tech has partnered in the past with Hillary Clinton’s Onward Together nonprofit group.
I have no objection to boycotts, which are an important form of free speech. However, this boycott action is directed at restoring censorship and preventing others from being able to post or to read opposing viewpoints.
If consistent with their past records, these companies will likely cave to these demands. While the public has clearly shown that they want more (not less) free speech, these executives are likely to yield to the pressure of Clinton and other powerful figures to coerce Musk into limiting the speech of others on his platform.
These campaigns only add support to Musk’s push for alternative revenue sources, including verification fees. As I previously wrote, we can show that there is a market for free speech by supporting Twitter in trying to reduce the dependence on corporate sponsors. If Musk remains faithful to free speech, many customers are likely to join his platform and support his effort to reduce censorship on social media. (Read more: Jonathan Turley, 11/17/2022) (Archive)
“A Big Tech lawsuit has uncovered one of the most disturbing revelations yet about social media companies’ collusion with law enforcement agencies to police speech on the Internet. A former FBI agent, Elvis Chan, revealed during the court hearings that the bureau held weekly meetings with major social media companies prior to the 2020 and 2022 elections.
On Wednesday, the court transcript of former FBI agent Elvis Chan’s testimony was released and corroborated earlier reports.
“Mr. Chan, or Agent Chan, who do you recall on the social media platform side participating in these — in these working group meetings that you have been testifying about from 2020 and 2022?”
“The companies that I remember attending the meetings are Facebook; Microsoft; Google; Twitter; Yahoo!, which have been known as Verizon Media at the time; Wikimedia Foundation and Reddit,” Agent Chan said.
Chan was then asked why the FBI was participating in these meetings.
“And why are you included in particular?”
“The reason that I attend these meetings is because the way the FBI works is FBI field offices are responsible for maintaining day-t0-day relationships with the companies that are headquartered in their area of responsibility, which I may occasionally abbreviate AOR,” Chan responded. “And all of the companies that have been listed, with the exception of Microsoft, are all headquartered in San Francisco’s territory.”
Chan also testified that he was in regular contact with Facebook’s Steven Siegel and Twitter’s Yoel Roth, as reported by Lee Fang.
FBI agent Elvis Chan, at the San Francisco field office for the agency, testified that he was in regular contact with Facebook’s Steven Siegel and Twitter’s Yoel Roth. pic.twitter.com/oIoeRQ5STR
Yoel Roth, formerly Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety, was recently terminated by Elon Musk, as was Twitter’s General Counsel Jim Baker, who was formerly the FBI’s General Counsel.
Chan also related the U.S. government is in regular correspondence with major social media platforms regarding elections; namely, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (or CISA).
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, one of the attorneys general that filed the lawsuit, earlier disclosed an overview of FBI agent Elvis Chan’s testimony on ‘weekly meetings’ about censoring Internet posts ahead of the 2020 election.
“In our deposition of FBI agent Elvis Chan on Tuesday, we found that the FBI plays a big role in working with social media companies to censor speech – from weekly meetings with social media companies ahead of the 2020 election to asks for account takedowns,” Schmitt wrote in a Twitter thread.
“Chan, the FBI’s FITF, and senior CISA officials had meetings with social media companies in the lead-up to the 2020 election, in which Chan personally told the social media companies that there could potentially be a Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation shortly before the election,” he continued. “Those meetings were initially quarterly, then monthly, then weekly heading into the 2020 election.”
“Chan stated that the FBI regularly sent social media companies lists of URLs and social media accounts that should be taken down because they were disinformation from ‘malign foreign influence operations’,” Schmitt went on. “The FBI then inquired whether the platforms have taken down the content. On many occasions, the platforms took down the accounts flagged by the FBI.”
Chan testified because of the agent’s extensive knowledge of the FBI’s interaction with social media companies, the judge in the case stated.
“Chan had authority over cybersecurity issues for the FBI in the San Francisco, California region which includes the headquarters of major social-media platforms and played a critical role for the FBI in coordinating with social-media platforms related to censorship,” Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in his court order.
“Even if Chan played no role in the Hunter Biden laptop communication issue, he may have knowledge of who did, and his deposition is nonetheless warranted,” the judge aded. “If Chan played no role in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, then such information will be made clear in his deposition.” (Read more: Becker News, 12/07/2022)(Archive)
Attorneys representing the Missouri and Louisiana AGs in their case against the government have uncovered that the State Department was funding fact checkers possibly in the US.
(…) The Gateway Pundit readers know that The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft is a co-Plaintiff, along with several doctors and a Louisiana news outlet, in Missouri and Louisiana lawsuit against the Biden Administration. The AGs of Missouri and Louisiana are suing the Biden Administration (Missouri, et al, v. Biden, et al), the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the DOJ, Jen Psaki, Anthony Fauci, Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, and other federal agents and agencies for colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans all across the nation.
Daniel Kimmage (Credit: video screenshot)
(…) The Attorneys General recently deposed Daniel Kimmage, the Acting Coordinator for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State.
The Gateway Pundit tonight can confirm that we’ve uncovered something shocking and potentially corrupt or even criminal that was revealed during his deposition.
…the Acting Coordinator for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State. In this role, Mr. Kimmage leads [led] efforts to coordinate and synchronize U.S. government communications efforts designed to counter terrorist recruitment and state-sponsored propaganda and disinformation.
Based on Kimmage’s testimony we’ve uncovered information that the State Department was funding online fact-checkers. Kimmage doesn’t state whether it was foreign or domestic fact-checkers that the State Department was funding.
In the deposition in the Missouri and Louisiana case against the government, Kimmage shared the following:
(Page 183 / Lines 1-4 & 17-25)
1 Q. Has the GEC ever supported
2 fact-checking organizations inside the United
3 States?
4 A. I don’t believe so.
17 Q. What fact-checkers do you work
18 with?
19 A. I believe the Pointer(sp) Institute is
20 the only one I recall. I don’t recall the —
21 the specific organizations.
22 Q. Where is that? Where is that
23 located?
24 A. I don’t recall.
25 Q. Is that a foreign or domestic
(Page 184 / Lines 1-4 & 12-23 )
1 fact-checking organization?
2 A. I don’t — I don’t recall. I don’t
3 recall anything beyond the name.
12 Q. Do you have any understanding of
13 how GEC works with fact-checking organizations,
14 in general?
15 A. I believe it would be identifying
16 an organization that works in a location where a
17 foreign propaganda disinformation actor, like
18 Russia or China, would be active and supporting
19 them in some fashion.
20 Q. What kind of fashion?
21 A. Support could range from a grant or
22 a financial support to information sharing or
23 training in tools and techniques.
Kimmage must have tried to hide who that entity was that he was talking about.
The Gateway Pundit found that Poynter Institute operates Politifact one of the most notorious fact-checkers in the business. The Poynter Institute also brags about teaching classes on ethics. This and all the while the Institute according to Kimmage was being given grants by the US State Department.
The Poynter Institute does mention that it is supported by government agencies:
We rely on support from several funding sources who value the essential role of the free press in our society, including corporate partners, philanthropic foundations, government agencies and individual donors.
We have newly unsealed documents – including the depositions of Ghislaine Maxwell and one of her victims – revealing new details on the extent of the abuse and victimization that took place by Jeffrey Epstein. Those filings come from Giuffre v. Maxwell, a civil case filed against Maxwell in 2015 in the New York Southern District.
Some of the broader allegations have already been made public. Sarah Ransome, who accused Epstein and Maxwell of abuse that took place during her early 20s, settled a civil lawsuit against them in 2018. Ransome has publicly described some of the abuse. And there have been reports on what transpired at Little St. James, often referred to as Epstein Island.
Unsealed photographs of Ghislaine Maxwell at Epstein Island. (Credit: public domain)
Let’s get to the new details, starting with the testimony of Ransome, available here. She actually lived one of Epstein’s apartments in 2006 with a few other girls. During that time, she worked for what she described as an “agency” which arranged paid dinners with wealthy clients: “I was paid to spend dinner with a gentleman.” Whatever happened after dinner with the client was done on her “own accord” and “after that time period had finished.”
Ransome was introduced to Epstein by a female associate of his (her name is still redacted), who described Epstein as a wealthy “philanthropist” who “really cares about people” and “really wants to help them.” She was open to meeting Epstein because she was struggling financially. Soon after meeting Epstein, Ransome was invited to travel on Epstein’s plane to Epstein Island. She was told it “was going to be a girls’ week” and they would have “so much fun”:
Q. How did the flight meeting become arranged, if you know?
A. So it was pretty a last-minute thing. phoned me up and said that Jeffrey Epstein would very much like to have me go to his island. It was going to be so much fun, it was going to be a girls’ week, there were lots of other girls going, we were going to have so much fun, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
What happened on the flight – her first flight with Epstein – must have been shocking to Ransome. She described what happened after they took off:
“The rest of the passengers in the — I think it’s towards the front of the plane where all the seats are — we all — all the guests were — fell asleep. I pretended to be asleep.
Jeffrey then went – Jeffrey went to his — was in his bed on the plane, having open sex with for everyone to see, on display.”
Ransome would eventually give massages to Epstein at the Island. She had been told that Epstein “loves women, loves getting massages” and that this “was a nice way to make extra cash.” At first, the massages were relatively normal. Then they escalated to the type of “massage” Epstein is now notorious for – much of which was done without Ransome’s consent.
She described her experiences at Epstein’s Island as being constantly surrounded by “beautiful young people” and that there “were always girls” there to visit “Jeffrey and Ghislaine.” Ransome also gave a description of the Island as having multiple buildings – a main house and then various buildings around the Island for Epstein and his guests:
“like little shelter things where him and his guests used to have sex with the girls, like beds set up for instant sexual entertainment.”
There was a “constant influx of girls” at this Island. It was a type of brothel. According to Ransome:
“It’s like, I’m sure if you go into a hooker’s brothel and see how they run their business, I mean, it’s just general conversation about who’s going to have sex with who and, you know — what do you talk about when all do you is have sex every day on rotation? I mean, what is there to talk about?”
She testified that all those girls “appeared to be teenagers.” They “looked young.” One girl in particular “looked well under 18.” This girl told Ransome that “they abused her on the island.” Another girl ran out of Epstein’s room crying and saying she was “forced to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein.” (Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary, 12/14/2022)(Archive)
(…) The recently disclosed Twitter Files — a cache of internal communications from the social media giant — offer new evidence of one of the Russiagate disinformation campaign’s core functions: protecting the rule of domestic elites, particularly in the Democratic Party.
In two consecutive presidential elections, the Russian boogeyman has been invoked to stigmatize and silence reporting on the Democratic candidate. It began in 2016 when journalists who reported on the stolen DNC emails’ revelations about Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speeches or the DNC’s bias against Bernie Sanders were blamed for Trump’s victory and deemed to be unwitting Kremlin dupes promoting “disinformation” – in reality, factual material that embarrassed the pre-ordained winner.
Four years later, that same playbook was deployed for Clinton’s successor at the top of Democratic ticket, Joe Biden. In the weeks before the November 2020 election, Twitter and Facebook censored the New York Post’s reporting about the contents Hunter Biden’s laptop on the grounds that the computer material could be “Russian disinformation.” The Post’s stories detailed how Hunter Biden traded on his family name to secure lucrative business abroad, and raised questions about Joe Biden’s denials of any involvement.
The US media responded to the suppression of the laptop story with indifference or even approval. In one notable case, Glenn Greenwald resigned from the outlet that he co-founded, The Intercept, after its editors attempted to censor his coverage of the laptop controversy. Even stories that had long been public — such as the unqualified Hunter receiving an $80,000-per-month Burisma board seat just months after his father’s administration helped overthrow Ukraine’s government – were effectively off-limits.
There was never a shred of evidence that Russia was behind the laptop story, but that was of no consequence. Dutiful media editors, reporters, and pundits took their cues from a group of more than 50 former intelligence officials, who issued a statement declaring that the Hunter Biden laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
These intelligence veterans’ claim was in fact a classic Russiagate disinformation operation, as the Twitter files newly underscore.
“To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says as authorities are investigating if recently published emails are tied to a Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden. https://t.co/shyMNnJ7Yrpic.twitter.com/GFSeIWXeY4
The files, obtained by journalist Matt Taibbi, confirm that Twitter executives suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story based on the suspicion that Russia was behind it, despite their awareness that they had no evidence for that belief.
Asked to explain the rationale, Twitter’s then-Global Head of Trust and SafetyYoel Roth told colleagues that the “policy basis is hacked materials,” even though, he added, “the facts remain unclear.” Roth justified the fact-free censorship by invoking what he called “the SEVERE risks here and lessons of 2016.” By “lessons of 2016”, Roth was referring to the similarly evidence-free claims that Russia was behind the release of stolen DNC emails. By “SEVERE risks,” one plausible interpretation is that Roth is referring to the risk that dissemination of factual material could again, as in 2016, hurt the Democratic candidate, not to mention the career prospects of those who allow that to happen.
Joining Roth in agreement was Jim Baker, Twitter’s deputy general counsel, who advised that “it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.” (emphasis added) Baker’s mere presence at Twitter, and willingness to “assume” a falsehood that could justify censorship, reveals another lesson of 2016: from media outlets to social media giants, US intelligence officials have been granted unprecedented influence over the flow of public information – including stories in which they have blatant conflicts of interest. (Read more: Aaron Maté/Substack, 12/16/2022)(Archive)
“The FBI relied more extensively on Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in their Russiagate investigation than has been revealed, inserting key parts from it into their applications for warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign.
Agents did this without telling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the precise wording was plucked directly from a political rumor sheet paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign or providing judges with any independent corroboration of the explosive allegations.
But the notion that mere “snippets” of the reporting by paid Clinton subcontractor Christopher Steele showed up in FISA applications, as CNN has described it, no longer holds up to scrutiny.
A close examination of all four of the FISA warrants reveals that the FBI lifted dozens of key phrases from the dossier – as well as practically some entire sentences – and pasted them verbatim into their sworn affidavits. It did so repeatedly without citing its sources or using typical hedging language such as “allegedly” or “purportedly” to indicate that the claims were unverified.
As a result, the FBI lent its voice of authority to many of the unsourced – and now debunked – accusations in the dossier.
For example, it avowed under oath in all four warrant applications that “the FBI has learned” that onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had secretly met with sanctioned Kremlin officials in Moscow. But those allegations came from Steele’s D.C.-based collector Igor Danchenko, who admitted to the FBI in a January 2017 interview his input was just “hearsay” gathered from “conversation with friends over beer.”
It is not clear whether the bureau decided to pay Steele in connection with the dossier so that it could represent the material as originating from one of its own confidential sources. At one point it reportedly offered him $1 million if he could verify key claims (he could not).
Meanwhile, the FBI repeatedly portrayed improbable third-hand rumors as sound “intelligence,” despite taking them directly from paid political opposition research operatives. Suggesting independent verification, the bureau repeatedly assured the FISA court it “assesses” the truth of damning claims.
In some cases, the FBI mixed partial information from one dossier report with partial information from another report to draw broader conclusions. It then used these as a foundation to claim evidence of a grand election “conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and Russia, with Page acting as an “intermediary.” Such a conspiracy was what counterintelligence agents needed to convince the FISA court that their main target Page was a Kremlin agent who posed a national security threat, and that deploying the government’s most intrusive investigative method – electronic surveillance – was necessary to investigate him.
In short, the FBI fabricated conclusions from fabrications and turned them into sworn representations before the powerful Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Veteran FBI investigators who have worked counterintelligence cases and sworn out wiretap warrants say the agents who ran the Russiagate investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, violated the fundamental principle requiring them to independently verify evidence they present to the court.
Cl “Their actions – lying and misrepresentations on warrants and affidavits – are antithetical to every instruction at FBI training at Quantico and in the field,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “Any FBI Academy trainee and agent in the field is aware that search warrants, affidavits and any accompanying documents and information contained therein requiring federal judicial approval is to be vetted and verified to create a pristine document. Their accuracy is vital.”
The FBI declined comment.
The bureau’s reliance on the dossier – a series of 17 reports compiled by Steele for Fusion GPS, the Washington-based opposition research firm employed the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee – has been brought into sharp relief by the work of Special Counsel John Durham.
His team investigated for possible criminal misconduct the Russiagate probe that hobbled the Trump presidency. It zeroed in on the FBI’s handling of the dossier both before and after the agency began using it to gain FISA court approval to wiretap Page in 2016 and 2017. Investigators questioned several FBI witnesses about their interactions with Steele and Danchenko, some of whom Durham said were not forthcoming about their involvement and obtained related documents. Danchenko, who provided an estimated 80% of the dossier’s content, was indicted last year for lying about the sources of his information, though he was acquitted in October by a D.C.-area jury.
Like CNN, the New York Times has tried to minimize the agency’s reliance on the dossier. In a recent article on Durham’s inquiry, the Times maintained that the FBI only used “some” claims from the dossier in applying for court permission to wiretap Page.
In fact, the FBI used several claims – and those claims happened to constitute the most critical “evidence” in the wiretap applications. Even former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe has admitted that if not for the Steele dossier, no surveillance warrant would have been sought for Page.
All told, the FBI used four dossier reports – Report 80, Report 94, Report 95 and Report 102 – in all four of its FISA wiretap warrants targeting Page in 2016 and 2017. And three of the reports were based on a fictitious source.(Read more: RealClearWire, 12/20/2022)(Archive)
“Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Since November, after the discovery of documents with classified markings in his former office, Biden aides have been searching for any additional classified materials that might be in other locations he used, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the ongoing inquiry.
Joe Biden (Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty)
The White House did not reply to a request for comment. The Justice Department had no comment.
The initial discovery of classified documents in an office used by Biden after his vice presidency was first reported on Monday by CBS News.
The classification level, number and precise location of the additional documents was not immediately clear. It also was not immediately clear when the additional documents were discovered and if the search for any other classified materials Biden may have from the Obama administration is complete.
Biden aides have been sifting through documents stored at locations beyond his former Washington office to determine if there are any other classified documents that need to be turned over to the National Archives and reviewed by the Justice Department, the person familiar with the matter said.” (Read more: NBC News, 1/11/2023)(Archive)
“The initial statement issued by White House attorney Richard Sauber on Monday to address the CBS News report on classified documents being discovered at the Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022, failed to disclose that additional classified documents were found at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home on December 20 by Biden’s personal attorneys. It was not until Thursday morning that Sauber announced that a second set of classified documents were found in Biden’s garage and was confirmed by Biden in a contentious colloquy with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.”
Peter Doocy: “Classified materials, next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, along with Rep. Peter King and Rep. Ron DeSantis, speaks on Capitol Hill, October 24, 2017. (Credit: Susan Walsh/AP)
“My post yesterday regarding the DoJ/FBI investigation of two of Devin Nunes’ top lawyers sparked a response from a former FBI agent—as sometimes happens here. You’ll recall that the investigation in question was a full criminal investigation that featured the use of grand jury subpoenas to obtain personal information regarding the two staffers (including Kash Patel) who were involved in Nunes’ investigation of Russia Hoax abuses—especially the fraudulent FISA applications that were submitted against Carter Page. Because of various procedural irregularities it’s apparent—failure to notify Nunes—there seems little doubt that the purpose of the investigations was to obtain personal information that could be used to pressure Nunes into backing off from his investigation. In fact, DAG Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray had threatened to launch exactly such investigations in a meeting with Nunes and Kash Patel—unless Nunes backed off.
Needless to say, investigations launched for such a purpose are totally lacking in predication—they lack a legitimate government legal purpose, since conducting legislative oversight investigations is not a violation of federal law (!). I harp on this matter of predication because, to me—and I think objectively, the abuse of the investigative/prosecutorial process for political purposes is perhaps the ultimate and most serious form of corruption. It undermines the justice system and the very concept of rule of law rather than rule of men—the basis of our constitutional order. As I noted at that time, it is clear that such considerations play no part at all in the decisions of men like Rosenstein and Wray—and far too many more. These are real and serious violations of the law, which go unpunished.
Here is the email (slightly edited to preserve anonymity) that I received last night. Readers will readily imagine that the sentiments expressed are widely held among former and active FBI personnel. Bear in mind that, while these abuses are receiving widespread publicity, most FBI agents are not involved and are ashamed to be associated with the activities that are being exposed.
Having been required to read and comprehend the Domestic Investigative Operations Guide (“DIOG”) when it came out and being a Bureau legal advisor which required that I speak DIOG fluently, I think we are collectively making a mistake to think that anyone at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Bureau cares one whit about predication. No DOJ or Bureau employee has ever punished for violating the DIOG or federal criminal statutes. As a result, when the DOJ and Bureau can claim the mantle of “national security” and effectively and easily thwart any attempts at Congressional oversight, what does it matter if the investigation of Nunes and his staffers was properly predicated? I am asking rhetorically. I understand that the DOJ and Bureau violated the DIOG/law/Constitutional requirements and should be held accountable. But when no one can hold the DOJ or Bureau to account for such violations, why even bother with the charade of seeking predication? I read the Electronic Communication (“EC”; after it was publicly released) that opened the investigation into general Flynn. It was a complete joke. All it alleged was that Flynn met with some Russians and did some overseas travel. There was nothing within the four corners of that document that would have been the proper basis of any predication of the investigation (as a side note, had any agent brought such a piece of garbage to me to review as a legal advisor, I would have laughed them out of my office and then had a serious discussion with said agent’s supervisor about that agent’s fitness for duty, but I digress). Yet the investigation proceeded, Flynn was indicted, arrested and prosecuted with no proper predication. What is/was to stop the DOJ and Bureau from just opening an investigation on Nunes or anyone else for that matter and ignoring the need to abide by “the rules”? I respectfully submit, not a damn thing.
Every crime victim I ever interviewed all shared the same sentiment: “I didn’t think it (crime) could happen to me.” The point is that it appears that many of the machinations by the DOJ and Bureau are completely lawless with no basis in legally comprehensible evidence of criminal violations. I think the sooner we all collectively realize “That it can happen here/to us” the better we will be able to address this issue. Please don’t take this as a criticism of you and your work, it’s just an observation made by a retired agent.
All of which brings me to a serious question: What concrete things can we do to: A) Address the current issues facing our Republic (DOJ/Bureau overreach, profligate spending, creeping government sponsored surveillance state, potential nuclear war, and…?) and B)How do we fix our society at a very basic level to create wise citizens who can keep our Republic in good order? I am pretty much done reading the latest “outrage” in the conservative press. I understand that things are a mess. My overarching question to complainers/commentators/politicians is: “What are you going to do about it?” I have steadily volunteered to assist the Republican party over the last two years to little or no avail. I am redirecting my efforts and concentrating on assisting local legislators address local issues where I may have some small amount of control.
Anyway, deep thoughts on a rainy, cold afternoon. I am going to throw another log on the fire. Thanks for listening to my rant. I fervently wish that you and yours have a peaceful, prosperous and boring New Year!
My response:
I’m totally on board with you. I would simply add–and I’m not making excuses for the Bureau–that too few people understand how much of this is driven by DoJ. Especially given that so many of the HQ legal people are joined at the hip with DoJ, either mentally from prior education or because they have prior work experience there. I refuse to believe that DoJ wasn’t in on the Twitter (and other) censorship. The Bureau gets the headlines, the talk of a new Church Commission, but DoJ is arguably the biggest threat to the nation.
And the response to my response:
As to the DoJ, there is absolutely no way any of this “stuff” happened without their full knowledge and support.
Journalist Whitney Webb sits down with Redacted’s Clayton Morris for a dense conversation about her bombshell new book on Jeffrey Epstein’s deep connections to the world’s biggest power players.
https://t.co/BcFhHCvjAE February, 2020, as COVID broke out, the Global Engagement Center – a fledgling analytic/intelligence arms of the State Department – went to the media with a report called, “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” pic.twitter.com/KjUeE8vejt
5.State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. ZeroHedge, claiming the episode “led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.” ZH had done reports speculating that the virus had lab origin. pic.twitter.com/JlIobPzAFE
7.“YOU HAVEN’T MADE A RUSSIA ATTRIBUTION IN SOME TIME” When Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub complained Twitter hadn’t “made a Russia attribution” in some time, Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth said it was “revelatory of their motives.” pic.twitter.com/zByT5aCaBo
9.Twitter was also trying to reduce the number of agencies with access to Roth. “If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them a direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,” said policy director Carlos Monje. pic.twitter.com/ytvK532j4M
11.The GEC report appeared based on DHS data circulated earlier that week, and included accounts that followed “two or more” Chinese diplomatic accounts. They reportedly ended up with a list “nearly 250,000” names long, and included Canadian officials and a CNN account: pic.twitter.com/GYi4YuPdyu
13.The GEC was soon agreeing to loop in Twitter before going public, but they were using a technique that had boxed in Twitter before. “The delta between when they share material and when they go to the press continues to be problematic,” wrote one comms official. pic.twitter.com/ONn9BfYybi
15.“IT MAKES SENSE TO PUSH BACK ON GEC PARTICIPATION IN THIS FORUM” When the FBI informed Twitter the GEC wanted to be included in the regular “industry call” between companies like Twitter and Facebook and the DHS and FBI, Twitter leaders balked at first. pic.twitter.com/S4aUMXW2ed
17.A deeper reason was a perception that unlike the DHS and FBI, which were “apolitical,” as Roth put it, the GEC was “political,” which in Twitter-ese appeared to be partisan code.
“I think they thought the FBI was less Trumpy,” is how one former DOD official put it. pic.twitter.com/y33deYO50B
19.When senior lawyer Stacia Cardille tried to argue against the GEC’s inclusion to the FBI, the words resonated “with Elvis, not Laura,” i.e. with agent Elvis Chan, not Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) unit chief Laura Dehmlow: pic.twitter.com/zOfVr8VlRx
21.Roth reached out to Chan with concerns about letting the “press-happy” GEC in, expressing hope they could keep the “circle of trust small.” pic.twitter.com/17qLQFldVj
23.”BELLY BUTTON” “We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies,” Chan explained, but the DHS agency CISA “will know what’s going on in each state.” He went on to ask if industry could “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the USG.” pic.twitter.com/CHiCsZJBAh
25.Twitter was taking requests from every conceivable government body, beginning with the Senate Intel Committee (SSCI), which seemed to need reassurance Twitter was taking FBI direction. Execs rushed to tell “Team SSCI” they zapped five accounts on an FBI tip: pic.twitter.com/hWnkOX292C
27.They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry: pic.twitter.com/SXI1ekqi13
29.Twitter honored almost everyone else’s requests, even those from GEC – including a decision to ban accounts like @RebelProtests and @BricsMedia because GEC identified them as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government,” respectively: pic.twitter.com/OQjQuKTzTO
31.Remember the 2017 “internal guidance” in which Twitter decided to remove any user “identified by the U.S. intelligence community” as a state-sponsored entity committing cyber operations? By 2020 such identifications came in bulk. pic.twitter.com/OrSC1uwgm8
35.They were even warned about publicity surrounding a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin, who alleged “corruption by the U.S. government” – specifically by Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/EWdl5L2IpG
37.“I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR WORK LOAD”: Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour: If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: “Was action taken?” “Any movement?” pic.twitter.com/KAu2YesocC
https://t.co/08M51rg2BM all led to the situation described by @ShellenbergerMD two weeks ago, in which Twitter was paid $3,415,323, essentially for being an overwhelmed subcontractor.
Twitter wasn’t just paid. For the amount of work they did for government, they were underpaid.
27.They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry: pic.twitter.com/SXI1ekqi13
29.Twitter honored almost everyone else’s requests, even those from GEC – including a decision to ban accounts like @RebelProtests and @BricsMedia because GEC identified them as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government,” respectively: pic.twitter.com/OQjQuKTzTO
BREAKING: Dem Rep. Adam Schiff wanted journalist Paul Sperry’s account suspended over reporting on Trump whistleblower, TwitterFiles revealshttps://t.co/Er4oopJGLr
“Matt Taibbi has a new substack out on the Twitter Files. This one concentrates on how Twitter found itself under political pressure from the Deep State to, in essence, lend support to the Russia Hoax. This, as usual, was an evidence free operation. Twitter looked but couldn’t find evidence of Russian “meddling”. Twitter execs said so to one another, but buckled to Deep State pressure. Overall, what we’re seeing from the Twitter File revelations is that the anti-Trump campaign was the biggest gaslighting of the public population ever witnessed since lower tech operations by the likes Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. It was all done with the appearance of an open society, but nothing could have been further from the truth. And it happened under a Republican administration. This will all be red meat for Sundance, as you’ll see the central role of Mark Warner and the Senate Intel Committee. Nevertheless, you can be sure that political masters higher up the food chain were directing all of this.
What I’ve done here is simply pasted in the text of Taibbi’s tweets—sans documentation, which you can find at the link.
1.THREAD: The Twitter Files
How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In
2.In August 2017, when Facebook decided to suspend 300 accounts with “suspected Russian origin,” Twitter wasn’t worried. Its leaders were sure they didn’t have a Russia problem.
3.“We did not see a big correlation.”
“No larger patterns.”
“FB may take action on hundreds of accounts, and we may take action on ~25.”
4.“KEEP THE FOCUS ON FB”: Twitter was so sure they had no Russia problem, execs agreed the best PR strategy was to say nothing on record, and quietly hurl reporters at Facebook:
5.“Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB,” wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowell:
6.In September, 2017, after a cursory review, Twitter informed the Senate it suspended 22 possible Russian accounts, and 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts, amid a larger set of roughly 2700 suspects manually examined.
Note the “possible”. That suggests that Twitter believed it best to offer up some meager results, whether there was real evidence or not.
7.Receiving these meager results, a furious Senator Mark Warner of Virginia – ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee – held an immediate press conference to denounce Twitter’s report as “frankly inadequate on every level.”
8.“#Irony,” mused Crowell the day after Warner’s presser, after receiving an e-circular from Warner’s re-election campaign, asking for “$5 or whatever you can spare.”
“LOL,” replied General Counsel Sean Edgett.
9.“KEEP PRODUCING MATERIAL” After meeting with congressional leaders, Crowell wrote: “Warner has political incentive to keep this issue at top of the news, maintain pressure on us and rest of industry to keep producing material for them.”
So, Twitter execs weren’t stupid. They knew exactly what this was about—politics. Evidence free political gaslighting, but of the entire country.
10.“TAKING THEIR CUES FROM HILLARY CLINTON” Crowell added Dems were taking cues from Hillary Clinton, who that week said: “It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.”
11. In growing anxiety over its PR problems, Twitter formed a “Russia Task Force” to proactively self-investigate.
So joining the gaslighting party had nothing to do with evidence—it was to handle a “PR problem”, which was really a problem with the political masters who regulated, or might regulate, their platform.
12.The “Russia Task Force” started mainly with data shared from counterparts at Facebook, centered around accounts supposedly tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). But the search for Russian perfidy was a dud:
Despite their best gaslighting intentions, there just wasn’t anything that could be plausibly called evidence.
13. OCT 13 2017: “No evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity (different timing, spend, targeting, <$10k in ad spend).”
14.OCT 18 2017: “First round of RU investigation… 15 high risk accounts, 3 of which have connections with Russia, although 2 are RT.”
What to do? Cast the net more widely! But—still no fish in the net.
15.OCT 20 2017: “Built new version of the model that is lower precision but higher recall which allows to catch more items. We aren’t seeing substantially more suspicious accounts. We expect to find ~20 with a small amount of spend.”
16.OCT 23 2017: “Finished with investigation… 2500 full manual account reviews, we think this is exhaustive… 32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia, only 2 of those have significant spend one of which is Russia Today…remaining <$10k in spend.”
Basically, a total bust. But that was good enough to generate MSM headlines to gaslight the populace and spread Russia hysteria.
17.Twitter’s search finding “only 2” significant accounts, “one of which is Russia Today,” was based on the same data that later inspired panic headlines like “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone”:
18.The failure of the “Russia task force” to produce “material” worsened the company’s PR crisis.
That sure has a Stalinesque show trial ring to it, doesn’t it? If you can’t prove guilt, you may be the guilty party! You may be a “wrecker”, a saboteur, … a, a, AGENT OF PUTIN!
19.In the weeks after Warner’s presser, a torrent of stories sourced to the Intel Committee poured into the news, an example being Politico’s October 13, “Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes.”
20.“Were Twitter a contractor for the FSB… they could not have built a more effective disinformation platform,” Johns Hopkins Professor (and Intel Committee “expert”) Thomas Rid told Politico.
21.As congress threatened costly legislation, and Twitter [again] was subject to more bad press fueled by the committees, the company changed its tune about the smallness of its Russia problem.
Fake confession time.
22.“Hi guys.. Just passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that may affect our political advertising,” wrote Crowell.
23. In Washington weeks after the first briefing, Twitter leaders were told by Senate staff that “Sen Warner feels like tech industry was in denial for months.” Added an Intel staffer: “Big interest in Politico article about deleted accounts.”
24.Twitter “pledged to work with them on their desire to legislate”:
25.“Knowing that our ads policy and product changes are an effort to anticipate congressional oversight, I wanted to share some relevant highlights of the legislation Senators Warner, Klobuchar and McCain will be introducing,” wrote Policy Director Carlos Monje soon after.
It’s bipartisan.
26.“THE COMMITTEES APPEAR TO HAVE LEAKED” Even as Twitter prepared to change its ads policy and remove RT and Sputnik to placate Washington, congress turned the heat up more, apparently leaking the larger, base list of 2700 accounts.
27.Reporters from all over started to call Twitter about Russia links. Buzzfeed, working with the University of Sheffield, claimed to find a “new network” on Twitter that had “close connections to… Russian-linked bot accounts.”
28.“IT WILL ONLY EMBOLDEN THEM.” Twitter internally did not want to endorse the Buzzfeed/Sheffield findings:
29. “SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE IS ASKING… POSSIBLE TO WHIP SOMETHING TOGETHER?” Still, when the Buzzfeed piece came out, the Senate asked for “a write up of what happened.” Twitter was soon apologizing for the same accounts they’d initially told the Senate were not a problem.
30.“REPORTERS NOW KNOW THIS IS A MODEL THAT WORKS”
This cycle – threatened legislation, wedded to scare headlines pushed by congressional/intel sources, followed by Twitter caving to moderation asks – would later be formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement.
The desired result has been achieved—Twitter is transformed into the PR gaslighting arm of the Intel Committee, censoring information that might lead the public to become suspicious of what its masters were up to.
31.Twitter soon settled on its future posture.
In public, it removed content “at our sole discretion.”
Privately, they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
32.Twitter let the “USIC” into its moderation process. It would not leave.
Wrote Crowell, in an email to the company’s leaders:
(…) On Friday, January 6, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry released communications between Joe Biden’s Director of Digital Strategy, Joe Flaherty, pressuring Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson of FOX News.
Joe Flaherty demands to know what “reduction” of the information looks like on Facebook. The White House is very upset that the FOX News host is questioning the dangerous experimental vaccine.
More on Rob Flaherty, White House Director of Digital Strategy:
(…) This guy is middle management incarnate. Flaherty’s cartoonishly disrespectful language as he barks orders at various tech employees — who without fail respond with a “Thanks Rob” — has made me laugh aloud several times. I wanted to learn more about this perfect caricature of modern-day fascism. A bit about his background…
Rob Flaherty (Credit: Ithaca College News)
Flaherty got into politics as an undergraduate at Ithaca College. His social media aptitude quickly accelerated his career, landing him a position on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign just two years after graduating.
“Hillary Clinton went right in. That’s what she does. She’s tough as shit. It’s that toughness that, even in my worst moments in the last few months, has been genuinely inspiring to me. When she’s up against the wall, she grinds it out.”
I’m sure Mark Middleton can attest to that inspiring toughness.
Shortly thereafter, Flaherty became the “Digital Director” for Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 presidential campaign, engineering totally-not-authoritarian fundraising schemes like this one:
Flaherty’s accolades do not end there. The social media savant was even behind the famous “We did it Joe!” promotional video, which announced Biden’s presidential victory for those who’d missed it. From Ithaca College News:
“One key moment in the campaign for Flaherty was the announcement of Biden’s running mate, then Senator Kamala Harris… had an extensive rollout plan, including a text message announcement, a video of Harris receiving the call from Biden.”
Former FDA Commissioner and present Pfizer board member, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. (Credit: Twitter)
On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers – saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines.
The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine mandates.
It came not from an “anti-vaxxer” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but from Dr. Brett Giroir, a physician who had briefly followed Gottlieb as the head of the Food & Drug Administration. Further, the tweet actually encouraged people who did not have natural immunity to “Get vaccinated!”
No matter.
Todd OBoyle, Sr. Manager, Twitter Public Policy (Credit: LinkedIn)
By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots. Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year.
Gottlieb stepped in, emailing Todd O’Boyle, a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House.
1/ My first #TwitterFiles report: how @scottgottliebmd – a top Pfizer board member – used the same Twitter lobbyist as the White House to suppress debate on Covid vaccines, INCLUDING FROM A FELLOW HEAD OF @US_FDA!
3/ Twitter put a misleading tag on the tweet, preventing it from being shared. Gottlieb then went after a tweet about Covid’s low risk to kids from @justin_hart. Pfizer would soon win the okay for its mRNA shots for children, so keeping parents scared was crucial…
4/ In October 2022, @scottgottliebmd claimed on Twitter and CNBC that he was not trying to suppress debate on mRNA jabs. These files prove that Gottlieb – board member at a company that has made $70 billion on the shots – did just that.
3.Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence:
“We are feeding congressional trolls.”
“Not any…significant activity connected to Russia.”
“Putting the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots.” pic.twitter.com/r8O21QacME
5.On January 18th, 2018, Republican Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee detailing abuses by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against Trump-connected figures, including the crucial role played by the infamous “Steele Dossier”: pic.twitter.com/uhl7TXYsBC
7.Nonetheless, national media in January and early February of 2018 denounced the Nunes report in oddly identical language, calling it a “joke”: pic.twitter.com/IkTXRGrfaH
11.Feinstein, Schiff, Blumenthal, and media members all pointed to the same source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard created by former FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts, under the auspices of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). pic.twitter.com/sifFJhBTn6
13.Inside Twitter, executives panned Watts, Hamilton 68, and the Alliance for Securing Democracy. Two key complaints: Hamilton 68 seemed to be everyone’s only source, and no one was checking with Twitter.
17.Roth couldn’t find any Russian connection to #ReleaseTheMemo – at all. “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with #releasethememo and… none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.” pic.twitter.com/wJJ3rmI3Ks
19.A staffer for “DiFi” – Feinstein – agreed it would be “helpful to know” how Hamilton 68 goes by “the process by which they decide an account is Russian.”
21.Added another: “It might be worth nudging Blumenthal’s staffer that it could be in his boss’ best interest not to go out there because it could come back to make him look silly.” pic.twitter.com/tP6VZF0PPC
25.They expressed this explicitly to Blumenthal’s camp, saying “Twitter spent a lot of resources” on this request and the reward from Blumenthal shouldn’t be round after round of requests.”
27.Ultimately senior executives talked about “feeding congressional trolls” and compared their situation to the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” pic.twitter.com/xk6reot1lf
29.The metaphor for the endless Russia requests was so perfect, one exec wrote, “I’m legit embarrassed I didn’t think of that first.” pic.twitter.com/MbI6XrnS18
31.Outside counsel from DC-connected firms like Debevoise and Plimpton advised Twitter to use language like, “With respect to particular hashtags, we take seriously any activity that may represent an abuse of our platform.” pic.twitter.com/DW5nO9Syh5
Vox.com used the above graphic captured from a Fox News report to use in a published piece titled “The Bonkers Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory, Explained” on May 24, 2017. Now we know it’s no longer a conspiracy theory. (Credit: Fox News)
1/6 New Seth Rich documents, fresh off the grill! FBI filed a new motion about CrowdStrike records. I’ve only given it a cursory review, but we have at least one bombshell (in 5/7). #FridayNightDocumentDumphttps://t.co/zN6CzphV9K
5/7 Oh wow, this one is huge. That “forensic report” on Seth’s laptop? It was indeed produced by CrowdStrike. Major ramifications…https://t.co/CtOnLCMISc
7/7 Lo and behold, we have an EIGHTH sworn declaration from Mr. Seidel. I must have become a full-time job for him. That makes me happy.https://t.co/Zkc3B7qqAx
3.The real issue was Donald Trump retweeted the Biden pic. To its credit Twitter refused to remove it, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying it had obvious “humorous intent” and “any reasonable observer” – apparently, not a Schiff staffer – could see it was doctored. pic.twitter.com/QJtS6s506Z
5.Twitter also refused requests for bans of content about Schiff and his staff, e.g. “complete suppress[ion of] any and all search results about Mr. Misko and other Committee staffers.” Twitter said this would not be “conceivable.” pic.twitter.com/2HQrmp4fnY
7.Twitter policy at the time didn’t ban QAnon, but “deamplified” such accounts. About the batch of tweets that included those above, Twitter execs wrote: “We can internally confirm that a number of the accounts flagged are already included in this deamplification.” pic.twitter.com/IWss2BoUKx
9.“WE APPRECIATE GREATLY”
“We are curious whether any deamplification measures implemented by Twitter’s enforcement team – which we appreciate greatly – could… impede the ability of law enforcement to search Twitter for potential threats about Misko and other HPSCI staff.” pic.twitter.com/h7TRauK6j5
1. CISA considers your thoughts “Cognitive Infrastructure”
One of the most stunning things we’ve learned from this lawsuit is that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency now considers your thoughts and what you post online, a part of the United States Government’s “critical infrastructure,” thereby giving them the authority to regulate them. I don’t think anyone asked everyday Americans if they’d want the government regulating what goes on inside their brains, but alas, here we are.
2. Rob Flaherty coerced Facebook to ban and censor the vaccine injured, despite acknowledging their posts were true and didn’t break the Terms of Service
Rob Flaherty (Credit: public domain)
Rob Flaherty is the White House Director of Digital Strategy and a senior advisor to President Joe Biden. The government initially attempted to hide his involvement in censorship, but other discovery exposed his name, and the judge granted written interrogatory and discovery to the Plaintiffs in this case. As we will see in the examples below, Flaherty often acts as a ”boss” or manager to social media executives, cursing at them and treating them with disdain when they don’t follow his directives to censor the speech of Americans.
In an email response to Flaherty, Facebook beamed about removing post visibility and censoring the vaccine injured, stating:
3. Flaherty wanted Facebook to take more action in censoring the encrypted chat program “WhatsApp”
Rob Flaherty spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Facebook to more stringently censor WhatsApp, despite Facebook telling him they had no way to read the messages its users were sending one another. Facebook added multiple layers of censorship to the app, deboosting posts that were forwarded often and pinning what it called “authoritative” messages about COVID and vaccines to the application.
4. Flaherty wanted to know what Facebook was doing to censor vaccine claims that were “dubious” but not false
Rob Flaherty consistently demanded information about what Facebook was doing to censor content that was not false but that they considered “dubious.” He demanded internal data from the organization to confirm their efforts to censor Americans were working.
This is the most heart wrenching so far. As vaccine injury begins to rear its ugly head, people flock to Facebook to share their experiences. FB tells the government that they are taking action on that content even though it is true and doesn’t violate TOS. This is evil. RT this pic.twitter.com/nU9944aUw4
5. Joe Biden was inadvertently swept up in the censorship algorithm the White House forced Instagram to implement
In what can only be considered a stroke of serendipity, Joe Biden’s account on Instagram was inadvertently demoted and shadowbanned due to the frequency with which is was posting content about COVID-19 vaccines. Instagram, at the behest of an abusive Rob Flaherty, created an algorithm to demote accounts that were sharing an inordinate amount of vaccine-related content. Flaherty realized that the POTUS account wasn’t picking up followers and emailed execs at the company to let them know. They responded, stating that they couldn’t get into details, but the account had been fixed. After a profanity-laced email sent back from Flaherty, the execs were forced to admit that the very censorship algorithm they created to censor everyday Americans swept up the President as well. Needless to say, the White House didn’t much like being censored.
6. The office of First Lady Jill Biden was also involved in censoring Americans on Twitter
The First Lady also got into censorship action, begging Twitter to remove an edited video of Jill Biden that was clearly a parody. Twitter fought back against the demand but ultimately removed the content after Flaherty became involved and was copied on communications. We wouldn’t have known that censorship extended to the sitting First Lady without the expedited discovery order covering Rob Flaherty.
(…) McCabe said it’s time for the DOJ to play hardball and obstruct Republicans in Congress.
“Chairman Jim Jordan announced this House Judiciary Committee investigation into the DOJ actions related to the President’s handling of the classified documents today,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said on Friday. “How much does that impact the DOJ ongoing investigation?”
McCabe said the DOJ should refuse to cooperate with the House GOP’s investigation and hide documents under the guise of an ‘ongoing investigation.’
“I certainly would advise them — if they were willing to listen to my advice — I would advise them to take a very hard line against that,” McCabe said. “There is a clear precedent here of not sharing information from an ongoing criminal investigation with Congress. And I think the DOJ is in a very strong position to resist on those grounds.”
“Who knows what comes of that resistance?” McCabe continued. “Maybe DOJ leadership starts getting subpoenaed.
“Disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly paid former President Bill Clinton roughly $250,000 to give a speech at his Crypto Bahamas Conference in April 2022, according to a Thursday report from the New York Post (NYP).
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton on the same stage (and SBF.) You don’t see that very often these days, eh? pic.twitter.com/Vt5pn6egHn
Bankman-Fried’s conference featured Clinton alongside other world leaders and top crypto executives. Not long after, Bill and Hillary Clinton invited Bankman-Fried to speak at the 2022Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in September, the NYP reported.
CGI is a philanthropic conference run by the Clinton Foundation. Bankman-Fried’s headshot is featured on the conference’s website next to other prominent names, such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Melinda French Gates. Bankman-Fried’s name was also included in a press release leading up to CGI.
The Clintons enabled Bankman-Fried to grow his reputation among prominent politicians and investors, the NYP reported. He was reportedly connected to the couple through former Clinton aide Michael Kives, whose venture capital fund, K5 Global, allegedly received a $300 million investment from Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.
“Kives (r), had ties to both the entertainment world and the political one. Prior to spending 15 years at CAA, he worked for former President Bill Clinton and also for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Washington office. In recent years, he has married the two by becoming a player in the Democratic fundraiser scene in Los Angeles and has hosted events at his Hollywood home. Hollywood Reporter, 2/26/2018 (Credit: public domain)
Bankman-Fried was the Democratic party’s seventh largest donor in the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to watchdog group OpenSecrets. He spent north of $37 million for Democrats in primaries and general elections and donated smaller sums to Republican campaigns, OpenSecrets shows.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/19/2023)(Archive)
“Six more classified documents were found at the Wilmington, Delaware home of Joe Biden on Friday during a nearly thirteen-hour search of the home by the Department of Justice according to a statement released Saturday evening by Biden’s private attorney Bob Bauer. This is the fifth batch of classified documents found in Biden’s possession and the fourth to be found at the Wilmington home in searches stretching from December 20 to Friday. The first batch was found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. on November 2nd. (Update at end.)
Bauer also said, “The DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” and that some of the items taken by investigators were from Biden’s time as a senator as well as vice president.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents on January 12. Hur has not yet taken over the case from U.S. Attorney for Chicago John Lausch; the search was conducted by FBI agents under Lausch.
A separate statement from the White House Counsel’s Office notes “Neither the President nor the First Lady were present during the search. The President’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the Special Counsel…” pic.twitter.com/O3UxV4iY8W
On or about January 21st of this year, Sergei Millian teased a “secret sealed SpyGate case” via a series of now deleted tweets. Shout out to The Washington Pundit Telegram channel for posting this screenshot of it.
Twitter user @mgEyesOpen searched PACER and found it. Sure enough, it exists and is sealed.
I searched the case myself, 21-SC-3164 (ZMF), and it was difficult to find. That is probably on me for being a bit inexperienced and/or lacking some knowledge in how best to use PACER’s query system. I kept at it and did eventually locate the sealed case just as @mgEyesOpen did. However, in my searches for the case that Millian had teased everyone with, I kept getting a return for a different case, with a slightly different name:
‘IN RE APPLICATION OF USA FOR 2703(d) ORDER FOR SIX EMAIL ACCOUNTS SERVICED BY GOOGLE LLC FOR INVESTIGATION OF VIOLATION OF 18 U.S.C….’
…was intriguing to me, so I bookmarked it.
About once or twice a week since, I have checked that bookmark and searched around again. Always coming up empty-handed… until now.
Paydirt.
Paydirt.
The New York Times filed to have records unsealed (notice that the violations that are being investigated here are redacted) in the very case that I kept happening upon when searching for the case that Millian teased. If that makes sense…
Here, just for clarity’s sake:
21-SC-3164 (ZMF) = Super secret Spygate case that Millian teased (Filed ?)
20-SC-3361 (ZMF) = Six Email Accounts Disclosure Case (Filed January 5th, 2021)
1:21-MC-00091 (ZMF) = NYT Case asking for unsealing in the Six Email Accounts Case (Filed June 8th, 2021)
As I began to read the first filing in the Time’s suit, I was struck by a familiar name from page 3.
I’m sure many readers will recall that Special Counsel Durham added Small to his team back on August 1st of 2022. However, it is possible Durham may have been tasking Small to do work for the Special Counsel’s Office before then. And the court battle over this case played out just a couple months before Small was added.
Which begs the question:
Is this Six Google Email Accounts case connected to the Durham SCO?
Back to the filing…
Two orders. One for information, another to gag the NYT’s attorney.
Four New York Times journalists?
What 2017 news report?
(checks the footnote)
Eric Lichtblau… his name came up in the Sussman case. Sussmann’s defense team wanted to call him up to testify, but wished for the scope of that testimony to be limited. In the end, they decided against it.
What April 2017 news report?
I wonder who the other journalists are?
Oh my.
DOJ was seeking information from the email accounts of these four journalists plus two others because of this article!
They are talking about the Renteria Memo!
This is about the highly classified Renteria Memo and who leaked information about it to the New York Times!
I wonder… are Karoun Demirjian and Devlin Barrett the other two journalists whose email accounts DoJ was interested in?
Gone Spearfishing.
At this point in the dig I decided to search around to see if anyone else had reported on this case. Something this significant has surely made waves somewhere.
It had.
This article is worth reading in full, but to summarize it…
In the last weeks of the Trump Administration the Justice Department seized the phone records of those New York Times journalists who are named in the filing and are the authors of that famous Comey piece — Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt. They also seized the records of journalists at the Washington Post and CNN. I’m guessing the other two journos must work at those organizations. The order for this seizure was issued by Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, hence the (ZMF) on the case titles.
DOJ also asked for and Judge Faruqui approved an unprecedented gag order on several executives at the Times to prevent them from alerting those journalists of the seizures. They specifically cited a concern that if the journalists knew of the order they may delete records.
There were some constraints on the records seizure. It was for “non-content information,” meaning only the order “covered… to whom the emails were sent and when they were sent and received.”
In early June of 2021, DoJ asked Judge Faruqui to quash the orders and he did, thus allowing the execs at the New York Times to inform the journalists of the seizure and the newspaper to then inform the public.
DoJ also informed the journalists “that it had obtained several months of their 2017 phone records and had unsuccessfully sought non-content information about their emails.” Google fought the production of the “non-content information” and delayed it over and over. Google’s efforts paid off.
The case I had accidentally found while searching for the “super secret SpyGate case” was 20-SC-3361 (ZMF) , the Six Email Accounts Disclosure Case (Filed January 5th, 2021).
The case I found that is connected to it, 1:21-MC-00091 (ZMF), is the NYT Case asking for further unsealing in the Six Email Accounts Case. They wanted the Justice Department to unseal the Application for the seizure of records and everything else.
Does this perhaps indicate that someone involved in the Renteria Memo leak sold that classified information?
Drawing the Line From Here to Durham.
I’ve already mentioned that Adam Small was on at least some filings in the case, but there is another connection I want to draw. It’s the “why it matters” now connection.
First though, just in case you don’t recall or did not click the links to read the Times’ Comey article or the WaPo article in this substack, I need to remind you, or perhaps inform you, of what the Renteria Memo is.
During the 2016 primaries, a document was given to the FBI that purported to be “Russian intelligence.” It revealed that there was an “understanding” between the Clinton Campaign and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
This document described an email in which AG Lynch “had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the [investigation into Hillary’s use of a private email server] would not push too deeply into the matter.”
The document is controversial and ultimately the FBI concluded it was unreliable.
However, that document was a major factor in FBI Director Comey deciding to himself announce in July of 2016 the closure of the investigation into Hillary’s Email Server, because, partially based on that document, he did not feel comfortable giving the investigation over to AG Lynch. Comey did not coordinate with the Justice Department when he did this. It was an extraordinary move and a very unpopular one with media, the administration, Democrats and Republicans.
To this day, media and Democrats are FURIOUS with Comey for doing this because in announcing the closure, he retained control of the investigation and then later reopened it 11 days before Election Day 2016. These two acts have media and Dems, likely Clinton as well, convinced that Comey cost Clinton the election.
The email described in the document (a copy of the email is not actually in the document) is between Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was at time the chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Leonard Benardo, an official at the George Soros owned Open Society Foundations. Wasserman Schultz informs Bernado that AG Lynch had privately communicated with Clinton Campaign staffer Amanda Renteria and told her that “she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far”.”
Remember of all of this information, even the very existence of the document, was highly classified AND STILL IS. The Renteria Memo has never been released and the Comey article triggered a criminal referral from “an agency in the intelligence community.”
During testimony on Capitol Hill in December 2018, Comey said in regards to the Renteria memo,
“So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate…”
“[I’ve] tried to be very careful in public comments about this. There was material that had not been verified that I believed if it became public, would be used to cast doubt on whether the Attorney General had acted appropriately with respect to the investigation… I don’t think I’m allowed to go beyond that in characterizing that material.”
So, why does it matter right now, in February of 2023?
This hit and spin piece on Barr and the Durham SCO, this smear piece, has one significant, never before revealed, very ‘dasting piece of information in it.
DOJ was investigating the Renteria Memo’s leak and now Durham is investigating the email described in it!
And notice what the Times doesn’t include:
That from June 2021 through December 2021, they were in court fighting the Justice Department over the seizure of the email records of four of their own reporters, THE SAME ONES WHO WROTE THE COMEY ARTICLE! THE ARTICLE THAT INFORMED THE WORLD OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE RENTERIA MEMO!
In the Sussmann case, Durham broke the Clinton Campaign’s attorney client privilege over a number of emails. This exchange from the transcript provided one of the most memorable, and for [them], foreboding exchanges.
“Not for this trial…”
Another possibility worth considering:
Might the issue Comey described with the memo, that the “material was genuine” but it’s accuracy was in question be due the fact that it may have come from a fake Debbie Wasserman Schultz email account like the one Imran Awan created and used?
It’s a darn good question and a strong possibility.
“Wasserman Schultz frantically fought to stop police from looking at the laptop’s hard drive. For more than two months, police had been telling her they suspected him of cybersecurity breaches, including what she called “data transfer violations,” but she maintained that she thought the police were picking on him and wanted to protect his “due process” — even though she knew how serious cyber breaches can be because she was head of the DNC when its emails were released last year.”
The Durham Special Counsel’s Office ran at least two, possibly three, grand juries in 2022 while also putting on two trials.
We now know that one of those grand juries received documents from the Open Society Foundation and an appearance by Leonard Benardo.
I think we can be confident that Durham asked him about the Wasserman Shultz email.
And I think we can be confident that the Justice Department, in seeking the email records of the journalists who revealed the existence and some details of the classified Renteria Memo, are investigating that leak and did not give up on that effort because it was a dead end. Remember, they did seize the records. And look at this section from a filing that is STILL heavily redacted.
There’s a future shock to [their] systems under those black bars.
While taken separately, these seemingly-disparate nuggets of information appear as Small as the man this dig started on, by tying the various threads together, a tapestry begins to appear.
Or a web.
One that could tie the Media Industrial Complex together, and bind them in their own lies. Their complicity.
“The Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center, a Biden adviser named Michael Carpenter, now finds himself embroiled in a national controversy that threatens to take down a president. But it isn’t his first time.
Carpenter is implicated in the high-profile scandal since classified documents from Biden’s vice presidency were stored at the Penn Biden Center on his watch. The scandal has led to the quick appointment of a Special Counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
(…) Dr. Carpenter, readers might remember, was flanked to Biden’s right at the Council on Foreign Relations panel in 2018 where Biden infamously announced that he threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine if it did not fire the prosecutor charged with investigating the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
Burisma, of course, just so happened to be employing his son Hunter Biden on its Board of Directors for the hefty stipend of over $80,000 a month. Of course, we are to dismiss the obvious ‘quid pro quo’ implicated in the former vice president’s demands.
Such a ‘quid pro quo’ is a normal part of diplomacy (“sticks and carrots”), but it would become a scare word during the Trump impeachment hoax. If you recall, a “whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella had relayed second-hand information that Trump was attaching aid to Ukraine to assurances from then-president Volodymyr Zelensky that Biden’s demand for the prosecutor be fired get properly investigated.
That was it. The Democrats, desperate to wound and potentially rid the U.S. government of their nemesis Donald Trump, nonetheless launched theatrical impeachment hearings over the matter.
The unnamed star at the center of the impeachment theater was the “whistleblower,” believed by investigators to be pictured with Dr. Michael Carpenter below.
Carpenter, interestingly, is a Biden adviser with expertise on Russia and Ukraine, as well as on weapons trafficking, according to his bio at the Atlantic Council.
It is unknown what is in the classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center and at Joe Biden’s Wilmington Delaware home. However, CNN has reported that the classified documents involved Ukraine.
“Among the classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom,” a source told CNN.
“A total of 10 documents with classification markings were found last year in Biden’s private academic office and they were dated between 2013 and 2016,” the report added.
Joe Biden in 2016 had pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma’s leadership for corruption.
A series of documents from the Obama-Biden administration showed that representatives for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with the State Department in February 2016 to discuss the corruption allegations.
Burisma’s representatives invoked the former vice president’s youngest son, Hunter, in order to try to get a meeting with the State Department. The FOIA documents obtained in a lawsuit by John Solomon did not indicate if the meeting ever took place.
On one of the last days of his term as vice president, Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv. FOIA documents hosted at the U.S. State Department show one possible explanation why.
Viktor Nebozhenko, a political scientist, was cited in an email from then Foreign Service Institute director Karen Robblee to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch speculating on the timing of Biden’s visit and what it could possibly mean.
“Donald Trump said that he will carry out an audit of investments in security and democracy in Ukraine,” Nebozhenko said. “For 8 years the US Administration has turned a blind eye to our corruption and gave a lot of money through the IMF and various funds. And all this has disappeared somewhere. Trump, as the new director of the company under the name of the United States, wants to know where that money went.” (Read more: Trending Politics News, 1/21/2023)(Archive)
“With the discovery of yet more classified documents at President Biden’s Wilmington home on Friday, the disclosure of which was withheld from the public until after the NFL playoff coverage began on Saturday evening, the Biden team is trying to put its best spin on things: The president, you’re to believe, is being fully cooperative.
The truth of the matter is that, like most criminal suspects as to whom there is already strong evidence of felony offenses, Biden consented to a search knowing that, if he did not, newly appointed special counsel Robert Hur would apply for a judicial warrant from a federal judge. Biden would then have been subject to the same political damage that has dogged former president Donald Trump since the Mar-a-Lago search in August: a judicial finding of probable cause to believe he has committed multiple offenses for which the penal code prescribes prison terms of up to ten years (for each offense).
National Archive IG, Dr. Brett M. Baker (Credit: NARA)
(…) The president did not consent to an FBI search of his home because he is unconcerned. He consented to it because he knew law enforcement had more than sufficient evidence to compel a search of his home. From his standpoint, with his 2024 reelection hopes now teetering, it was better to pose as a cooperative volunteer than be forced to open his door to federal agents brandishing a judicial warrant.
On this point, the scandal is: Why did the Justice Department wait so long? And why, in the interim, did both DOJ and the Biden White House allow Biden private lawyers who did not have security clearances conduct what turn out to have been incompetent searches that both (a) exposed them to secret intelligence they were not authorized to possess, and (b) failed to locate the secret intelligence they said they were looking for? (And recall that Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre assured us nearly ten days ago that Biden’s lawyers had completed the search for classified documents—only to have still more documents be discovered hours later.)
Remember the timeline here. The first batch of classified documents was found illegally stored in Biden’s office on November 2—i.e., over two-and-a-half months before the FBI finally conducted Friday’s search. Contrary to Biden’s claim of self-reporting, he did not report that discovery—evidence of a serious crime—to law enforcement. Rather, his private lawyers reported it to the Biden White House, which then notified not the Justice Department but the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It appears Biden was hoping NARA would just return the documents to the files and no one would be any the wiser.
The discovery, however, came to the attention of NARA’s inspector general—the watchdog official who reports agency wrongdoing to Congress. It was the IG’s office that, on November 4, notified the Biden Justice Department.(Read more: National Review, 1/22/2023)(Archive)
Ex-FBI counterintelligence official, Charles F. McGonigal (left), was charged with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (right). (Credit: Law and Crime)
“Charles F. McGonigal, 54, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field office, has been arrested on charges relating to his receipt of $225,000 in cash from an individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service, while McGonigal was serving as Special Agent in Charge of FBI counterintelligence efforts in the New York Office. McGonigal retired from the FBI in September of 2018.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew M. Graves, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office Donald Alway, and Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office David Sundberg.
According to the nine-count indictment, unsealed today, from August 2017, and continuing through and beyond his retirement from the FBI in September 2018, McGonigal concealed from the FBI the nature of his relationship with a former foreign security officer and businessperson who had ongoing business interests in foreign countries and before foreign governments. Specifically, McGonigal requested and received at least $225,000 in cash from the individual and traveled abroad with the individual and met with foreign nationals. The individual later served as an FBI source in a criminal investigation involving foreign political lobbying over which McGonigal had official supervisory responsibility. McGonigal is accused of engaging in other conduct in his official capacity as an FBI Special Agent in Charge that he believed would benefit the businessperson financially.
McGonigal’s initial appearance in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has not yet been scheduled.
“Covering up your contacts with foreign nationals and hiding your personal financial relationships is a gateway to corruption,” said U.S. Attorney Graves. “The FBI should be commended for handling the delicate and difficult task of investigating a former executive. This investigation demonstrates their commitment to act as an impartial enforcer of the law. The FBI and the Department will guard the best interests of the United States and hold to account those who make false statements and try to deceive the Bureau.”
“Mr. McGonigal betrayed his solemn oath to the United States in exchange for personal gain and at the expense of our national security,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Alway. “A senior FBI executive at the time, McGonigal is alleged to have committed the very violations he swore to investigate while he purported to lead a workforce of FBI employees who spend their careers protecting secrets and holding foreign adversaries accountable. Agents in my office, with the support of agents in Washington, D.C. and New York, vigorously pursued a former colleague without bias.”
“As an FBI agent, Charles McGonigal took an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Sundberg. “In betrayal of that oath, McGonigal is alleged to have received money from a businessman with foreign business interests, to have concealed these payments, and to have lied about related foreign contacts and travel. Integrity is one of the FBI’s core values and we hold our own to the highest standards.”
The charge of falsification of records and documents carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The charge of making false statements carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison for each count. The charges also carry potential financial penalties. The maximum statutory sentence for federal offenses is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. The sentencing will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. (Read more: Justice.gov, 1/23/2023)(Archive)
(…) In twin indictments last month, McGonigal was charged with taking secret cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer, holding secret meetings with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and attempting to remove top Kremlin oligarch Oleg Deripaska from a US sanctions list.
The Albanians cited by prosecutors tie this scandal to Hunter Biden and the Chinese energy company CEFC that paid him and uncle Jim Biden millions of dollars in a deal which Joe Biden was slated to join after his vice presidency ended.
According to prosecutors, McGonigal received $225,000 in cash in the fall of 2017 while he was the FBI’s counterintelligence chief in New York, from an Albanian former intelligence official, identified in the Albanian and European media as Agron Neza.
Mayor of Tropoja, Rexh Byberi (r), and former intel official, Agron Neza (l), recognize Charles McGonigal (c) with an award on September 23, 2021. (Credit: public domain)
In turn, Neza introduced McGonigal to another well-connected Albanian, Dorian Ducka, who was an adviser to Rama and also worked for CEFC.
Edi Rama (l), Dorian Ducka (c), and Charles McGonigal (r) (Credit: VOX News Albania)
A photograph published last month in Albanian media sourced from China Daily in May 2017 shows Ducka standing with CEFC chairman Ye Jianming, who famously gave Hunter a 3.16-carat diamond estimated to be worth $80,000 in February 2017.
(…) Why were the Albanians paying McGonigal?
According to Belind Kellici, the Opposition Democratic Party candidate for May’s mayoral election in Tirana, Albania, McGonigal opened FBI investigations into political opponents of Albanian Socialist Party PM Rama, probes used to declare them personae non gratae, unable to do business or open a bank account in the US. (Read more, New York Post, 2/15/2023)(Archive)
5.These are quotes by Twitter executives about Hamilton 68, a digital “dashboard” that claimed to track Russian influence and was the source of hundreds if not thousands of mainstream print and TV news stories in the Trump years. pic.twitter.com/KzCVBCm1hv
7.The ASD advisory council includes neoconservative writer Bill Kristol, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, ex-Hillary for America chief John Podesta, and former heads or deputy heads of the CIA, NSA, and the Department of Homeland Security. pic.twitter.com/Nug3CpF6iK
11. Hamilton 68 never released the list, claiming “the Russians will simply shut [the accounts] down.” All those reporters and TV personalities making claims about “Russian bots” never really knew what they were describing. pic.twitter.com/q89kuDPIIH
11. Hamilton 68 never released the list, claiming “the Russians will simply shut [the accounts] down.” All those reporters and TV personalities making claims about “Russian bots” never really knew what they were describing. pic.twitter.com/q89kuDPIIH
https://t.co/om9vyL01e5 was a scam. Instead of tracking how “Russia” influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.
19.“We have to be careful in how much we push back on ASD publicly,” said future White House and NSC spokesperson Emily Horne. pic.twitter.com/BRZEESQZlT
21. So the “legitimate people,” as one Twitter exec called them, never found out they’d been used as fodder for mountains of news stories about “Russian influence.” Because the #TwitterFiles contain the list, they’ve begun finding out.
23. “I’ve written a book about the U.S. Constitution,” says Chicago-based lawyer Dave Shestokas. “How I made a list like this is incredible to me.” pic.twitter.com/nJYekHzEIJ
25. Even Twitter execs were stunned to read who was on the list. Wrote policy chief Nick Pickles about British comic @Holbornlolz: “A wind-up merchant… I follow him and wouldn’t say he’s pro-Russian… I can’t even remember him tweeting about Russia.” pic.twitter.com/kFCqyFjG0l
27. Consortium editor Joe Lauria too was angered to find he was on the list, which targeted voices across the spectrum: “Organizations like Hamilton 68 are in business to enforce an official narrative, which means excising inconvenient facts, which they call ‘misinformation.’” pic.twitter.com/KtRKiE7C7G
29.Hamilton 68 was used as a source to assert Russian influence in an astonishing array of news stories: support for Brett Kavanaugh or the Devin Nunes memo, the Parkland shooting, manipulation of black voters, “attacks” on the Mueller investigation… pic.twitter.com/GU9UCBLEeO
31.Incredibly, and ironically, these stories were also frequently used as evidence of the spread of “fake news” on sites like Twitter: pic.twitter.com/dyNZNRFIdH
In the below, now declassified text messages between, at the time, FBI agents Peter Strzok and Charles McGonigal, we can see the inception of the Russiagate scam on the American people and President Donald J. Trump beginning to unfold. (FightWithKash.com, 1/29/2023)(Archive)
A 2012 Ukrainian news report discussed the U.S. Department of Defense building biological weapons laboratories in cities across Ukraine as part of its “Biological Threat Reduction Program.” pic.twitter.com/OG45BbLWzy
3) “Under the agreement, the U.S. will assist Ukraine to upgrade the security for pathogens currently stored at various health laboratories throughout Ukraine.”
5) On Linkedin, Metabiota’s David Mustra, described how he managed a team of Ukrainians and served as “the Biosurveillance and Research Manager” on the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) in Ukraine.https://t.co/OWfmhS2S4Xpic.twitter.com/upOnjaDL6Q
7) In April 2014, Metabiota vice president Mary Guttieri wrote a memo to Hunter outlining how they could “assert Ukraine’s cultural and economic independence from Russia.”
9) Hunter was not only involved in Ukrainian Biolabs.
In fact, his actual boss at Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, was also the boss of Volodymyr Zelensky before he became Ukraine’s president.
11) The Pandora Papers revealed that Volodymyr Zelensky was the beneficiary of a web of offshore firms created in 2012.
That same year Zelensky’s production company entered into a deal with Kolomoisky’s media group & received $41 million from Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank. pic.twitter.com/EA4XglXDAs
16) On text messages found in the Biden Laptop, Hunter asks Hallie if she believed that he had “children burned alive in DONETSK” or “children killed in donetsk, Ukraine.”
… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation. The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept.
The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link).
(…) To put it in brutally honest terms, the State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring). However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in…. The United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.
You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is. Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.
Regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd data points only reconcile in one direction. The State Dept started it, but now DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.
Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt controlled enterprise.
If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.
Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating any consequential public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding Mr. Musk selected information about their prior Twitter operations. DHS is still the ghost in the machine.
TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.
The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.
Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment. Until then, we keep watching and smiling… (Much more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/07/2023)(Archive)
Wow, Stengel is explicitly saying that GEC is deceiving the American public! That’s what “propaganda” means.
What he forgot to mention is that GEC was used to sway US elections. @DOJPH
9) @elonmusk is right to call the State Department’s GEC “a threat to our democracy.”
The State Department’s “chief propagandist,” Richard Stengel, exemplifies why freedom of speech is a fundamental human right that must be defended at all costs.https://t.co/alTZwB0Mlq
Richard Stengel is joined on NewsGuard's Board of Advisors by former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who FFO has covered extensively for his role in the "Transatlantic Flank Attack" on Internet censorship on the Europe side of NATO pic.twitter.com/a109vzyUl4
During the House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna calls out the U.S. government and Twitter’s use of the private cloud server, Jira, to censor American citizens.
Luna: “Do you remember communicating on a private cloud server [with government entities] to remove a posting? Yes or no.
Roth: “I don’t believe I can give you a yes or no answer.”
Luna: “Well I’m gonna tell you right you you did it… It is highly illegal.”
Part 1: Anna Luna discusses the hearing with WarRoom’s Steve Bannon:
“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “You permanently banned my personal Twitter account and it was my campaign account, too…You abused the power of a large corporation, big tech, to censor Americans…I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs. Thank God @elonmusk bought Twitter.”
Child pornography on Twitter was also addressed:
Can high school students ever meaningfully consent to sex with their teachers? http://bit.ly/bbpH68
“Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz pressed a Democrat witness on his position as a partner at a lobbying firm that reportedly represents Pfizer and Google during a hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday.
The line of questioning was directed at Elliot Williams during a House Judiciary Committee hearing investigating “the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties.”
“Mr Williams, wouldn’t the American people feel like this government wasn’t so weaponized against them if there wasn’t such a revolving door between Department of Justice senior officials and lobbying?” Gaetz asked Williams.
Williams is a principal at the Raben Group, a lobbying firm that represents Pfizer, Microsoft, Google and other companies, according to the hearing.” (Read more: Daily Caller, 2/09/2023)(Archive)
This is the second part of a Washington Examiner investigative series about self-styled ‘disinformation’ tracking groups that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech. To read part one, click here.
The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.
The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.
“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”
GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.
The Washington Examinerrevealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.
GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.(Read more: The Washington Examiner, 2/09/2023)(Archive)
Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Weaponization this week. Turley was there to offer analysis as a legal expert on Twitter and the revelations of the Twitter Files. (Credit: Still-shot from YouTube)
“Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Weaponization this week. Turley was there to offer analysis as a legal expert on Twitter and the revelations of the TwitterFiles.
His testimony was calm and reasoned, as usual, but when Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a chance to question him, all she did was try to discredit him.
Here’s how Wasserman-Schultz kicked off her line of questions of the legal expert:
“So essentially your answers to questions yesterday were your own opinion and pure conjecture.”
As is his style, Turley politely responded, “No, I wouldn’t say that, I try to base them on what we know from the Twitter Files—” before DSW interrupted with the same nonsensical premise: “But this is only just your opinion, would you say, as a Twitter account user?” Is it possible Debbie’s unaware of the role of legal expert, or any expert witness?
Turley tried again: “No, I’ve come to give legal advice based on facts that are in the public domain and I would really refer to—” but Wasserman Schultz again butted in, telling Turley he was using up her time. So, that’s how that went. Wasserman Schultz was simply in way over her head, and Turley refused to agree with her silly premise, so she continued to interrupt him.
Turley addressed her line of questioning on FOX News:
JONATHAN TURLEY: The congresswoman was asking if I’ve ever worked at Twitter as a condition for my talking about what the Twitter Files say. It’s like saying you have to work at the Pentagon if you want to testify about the implications of the Pentagon Papers. The point of witnesses before committees is often to give legal analysis based on what is known and what could be found in this investigation. The exchange she was referring to was a member who expressly asked me about the Twitter Files and what this suggests about what I’ve called censorship by surrogate. And then she went into this issue of, ‘Well, you’ve never worked at Twitter.
How do you know what goes on at Twitter?,’ which is completely absurd. The whole premise of my testimony was that Twitter has now authenticated and confirmed these facts. These facts are coming from Twitter. These are Twitter files. And the facts indicate that they had weekly meetings with the government. They indicate that the government would send long lists of citizens and others to be targeted, censored, to be in some cases, banned. Those are very serious allegations that raise constitutional questions, which is why I was there to discuss it.
They will provide us with their interview(s) of Jeffery Epstein in the next couple months.
Here’s the FBI’s representation:
“FBI has completed its search for documents responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request and anticipates beginning to produce any non-exempt documents responsive to Plaintiff’s request as early as April 2023. FBI anticipates only one production of documents instead of rolling productions due to the relatively limited number of responsive documents.”
There’s a ton of unanswered questions about Epstein’s involvement with the FBI, and we hope that these records provide some answers. The FBI has fought the disclosure of these records, necessitating the filing of our lawsuit (a lawsuit which was possible through your support – thank you for that).
(…) The Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell “John Does”
There’s more on the Epstein front. A federal judge in New York’s Southern District is currently considering whether to disclose the names of the “John Does” arising out of Virginia Giuffre v. Ghislaine Maxwell. Here’s the list she’s reviewing.
Sadly, reporting from the media has created a lot of false hope about whose names might be unsealed. I have to break the unfortunate news: this isn’t “Epstein’s list.”
Let me lay out the facts of what we do know about these individuals. Here’s the breakdown:
There are approximately 165 “John Does”. These are not all perpetrators. The vast majority are witnesses of varying degrees (meaning material or immaterial), employees of Epstein, or affiliates of Epstein or the victims. The term “affiliate” ranges from those in Epstein’s address book to the doctors or acquaintances of the victims.
The majority of the John Does – nearly 100 of them – have already been identified, whether through the media or court proceedings.
Many of the unidentified John Does are immaterial to the allegations against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The roles of some are unknown. Some are only referenced in passing, such as a deposition question where the deponent denies knowing the individual. For many others the nature of the information relating to them is “not salacious.”
There are approximately 67 John Does that remain unidentified. Of that number, around 11 are listed as potential victims.
By my count, there are two alleged perpetrators who have yet to be identified: John Doe 058 and John Doe 094. More on them below.
There are two other John Does of interest. John Doe 086 is an alleged “Epstein Affiliate”; some material related to them is “salacious.” John Doe 113 is an alleged “Alleged Epstein Affiliate; Alleged Witness”. This individual “is alleged to have engaged in serious wrongdoing.” Counsel for Maxwell maintains John Doe 113 is referenced in a “hearsay statement that the name appears in Epstein’s address book.”
Here are the alleged perpetrators who are yet to be identified:
John Doe 058 (identified as “Alleged Witness Affiliate; Alleged Perpetrator”)
John Doe 058 is referenced in a letter submitted by counsel for Professor Alan Dershowitz. We suspect his identity may be disclosed in these quotes from the e-mails of Sarah Ransome:
John Doe 094 (identified as Alleged Victim Affiliate; Alleged Perpetrator)
John Doe 094 is discussed in the deposition of victim Virginia Giuffre. The excerpts from her deposition (docket entry 235-4) filed with the court are nearly 90 pages.
There’s a significant amount of redactions and a number of alleged perpetrators – both relating to Epstein/Maxwell and not having anything to do with Epstein/Maxwell – within Giuffre’s deposition. This makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact claims against John Doe 094. In fact, it’s entirely possible that John Doe 094 doesn’t have to do with Epstein or Maxwell. However, if we were to focus on the Epstein/Maxwell connection, here are two different allegations – either of which might relate to John Doe 094:
Giuffre describing a foreign president she met in New Mexico.
Giuffre’s allegations from France
This isn’t to say that we won’t learn anything about those whose names have already been publicized. We anticipate that there may be new and important information, or information that provides additional context, about some of the alleged “perpetrators” – of which the John Doe log lists approximately 17. This includes Sarah Kellen, who is alleged to have to have taken part in Epstein’s abuse scheme. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 2/14/2023)(Archive)(Doe List-Archived)
Whistleblowers Kyle Seraphin (l) Aaron Stevenson (c) and Tara Rodas (r) (Credit: Kyle Seraphin/Rumble)
Kyle interviews two Federal Whistleblower who helped uncover different angles of the same problem: The US federal government assisting in settling “unaccompanied children” with known members of organized crime for sex and labor trafficking.
Aaron Stevenson (@Called_Out_DHS) is a prior USMC and spent a decade within the Department of Homeland Security. Tara Rodas (@TaraLeeRodas) is a Spanish speaker with over 20 years in federal service who volunteered to help out HHS. They combined and shared their stories with @Project_Veritas in order to expose the intel and the actions of our government that wants to ignore the problem. The details will shake you.
“Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News, and naturally all the coverage shrieks, “OMG FOX KNEW IT WASN’T TRUE BUT LIED!”
Actually, I think we all remember Tucker Carlson grilling Sidney Powell and the fact that the news network scarcely dipped a toe into any investigative work in the area. As their lawyers argued in response to Dominion, Fox’s role was limited to reporting to its viewers the claims and counterclaims surrounding the election.
(…) More galling, however, is the refusal to cover the admissions found by Fox, that Dominion employees themselves were not sure about the security of their own systems.
Page 15 of Fox’s filing reveals fascinating discovery material.
Some of the most critical examples include (with emphasis added):
Discovery in this case has revealed that Dominion’s own employees expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines. Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, confirmed that other parties “have gotten ahold of [Dominion’s] equipment illicitly” in the past.
Beckstrand identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was “hacked” in Michigan.
Beckstrand confirmed that these security failures were “reported about in the news.”
And just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Dominion’s Director of Product Strategy and Security, Eric Coomer, acknowledged in private that “our shit is just riddled with bugs.” Indeed, Coomer had been castigating Dominion’s failures for years. In 2019, Coomer noted that “our products suck.”
A photo from Eric Coomer’s Facebook page is included in his Deposition Exhibits, page 56
He lamented that “[a]lmost all” of Dominion’s technological failings were “due to our complete f— up in installation.” And in another instance, he identified a “*critical* bug leading to INCORRECT results.” He went on to note: “It does not get much worse than that.”
And while many companies might have resolved their errors, Coomer lamented that “we don’t address our weaknesses effectively!”
These were recent (2019) messages, which don’t just provide justification for a news network covering potential exploitation of voting machines, but are enough to warrant a wider investigation of Dominion, State Street Capital, and their products and services. (Read more: Raheem Kassam/Substack, 2/17/2023)(Archive)
“Matt Taibbi [@mtaibbi] is a smart guy, he’ll get there. I’m not sure why my gut says to trust him, but it does – and I do. Recently he’s been getting hit by the leftists who are asking why Taibbi is not looking at the Trump administration pressure on social media to control and manipulate public information [Twitter Here].
Taibbi has been hitting back against his detractors by saying, there’s no evidence of Trump doing that; yet there is massive evidence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) contacting Twitter to do exactly that.
This is interesting to me and CTH readers because we outlined in real time what the SSCI and HPSCI were doing in order to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy before and after the 2016 election.
What’s fascinating about this… is that the same people who are attacking Taibbi right now, are the same people who received and promoted the propaganda from the SSCI (Burr and Warner) in addition to the HPSCI (Schiff and Swalwell).
In essence, the ancillary media attack hounds are attacking Taibbi because at the end of the research trail Taibbi is following he will find the same names of the ancillary media who are attacking him.
In my opinion, Taibbi is on the right trail in following the SSCI and HPSCI manipulation of the social media platforms, specifically Twitter. In addition to the SSCI creating the structure that supports the intelligence weaponization by DHS and FBI, Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr and then Senate Intel Vice-Chair Mark Warner are at the epicenter of it.
I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it’s been true since the outset of my own research discoveries of the issue four years ago. The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative couldn’t exist without the SSCI participating in it. This is why I have talked and written so much about it.
James Wolfe (Credit: public domain)
Factually, and I say this with no compunction for attribution, if you want to tell the public the story of the larger issue, the absolute best starting point is how SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner told SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to leak the Carter Page FISA application to then Politico journalist Ali Watkins. It’s an easy story to outline because there is ample evidence to highlight it, including open admissions by the DOJ and FBI (in documented court records) that the leak event on March 17, 2017, took place.
That week in mid-March, 2017, when Mark Warner leaked the Page FISA application followed two days later by James Comey testifying to congress (March 20th), was/is the most openly documented evidence-based story that leads to everything that follows.
On March 17, 2017, Senator Mark Warner leaked the FISA in order to stimulate the media to support the demand for a Trump-Russia special counsel. On March 20, 2017, holding the exact same motive, FBI Director James Comey first made the public admission that President Donald Trump was under FBI investigation for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy. Senator Warner and Director Comey held the exact same motive.
Everything done by the SSCI before and after that mid-March event, touches everything before and after the special counsel was appointed. It’s like a fulcrum point that creates massive tentacles into the entire apparatus of the effort by the legislative branch, the executive branch, the intelligence community and the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel to cover it up.
Expose that moment on March 17, 2017, and the entire house of cards built by Weissmann/Mueller and the DC media apparatus collapses.
There is not another single moment during the entire arc of the Trump-Russia madness, that creates the inflection point as well as the March 17, 2017, leak. EXAMPLE:
Keep cheering on Matt Taibbi. Keep supporting him as he follows this trail. Yes, you know where it ends, but you are a select rare few who have followed this story. Taibbi can blow it wide open if he continues.
Additionally, remember and understand that the entirety of the media apparatus was in on this scheme.
Every single outlet promoted the narrative that was collectively pushed by Senator Mark Warner, Director James Comey, the corrupt intelligence apparatus and the Robert Mueller special counsel. They are all opposed to Taibbi following this trail.
“On March 1, 2022, the Texas Bar filed suit against Sidney Powell in Texas state court, alleging six ethical violations arising from the election fraud suits she filed on behalf of electors following the 2020 presidential election.
Full discovery ensued with multiple depositions, Powell’s production of more than 55,000 pages of documents and a massive privilege log.
Eric Schwerin (l) and Hunter Biden (Credit: public domain)
“Hunter Biden’s top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin is expected to “soon” provide documents to the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Biden family for nine violations, including money laundering and wire fraud, a spokesperson for the committee told Breitbart News.
Schwerin, who shared bank accounts with President Joe Biden and dubbed the family’s “moneyman,” also maintained guest lists for White House functions and negotiated the settlement with Hunter’s first wife, Kathleen. Emails from Hunter’s laptop show Schwerin was deeply embedded in Hunter’s personal life and the Biden family networks for nearly two decades and is even pictured at campaign events with Joe Biden.
Schwerin was also the president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter Biden and several associates that spawned business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania. Many of those deals yielded the Biden family business millions over decades while Joe Biden was an elected official.
Joe Biden and his team have claimed at least seven times the president is not involved in the family’s international business deals, but more than 17 instances show that Joe Biden was involved in the business. In one example, Schwerin visited the White House and other official locations 27 times when Joe Biden was vice president.
A committee spokesperson told Breitbart News it has been in contact with “Schwerin’s attorney and expect him to start producing documents to the Oversight Committee soon.”
Wednesday was the deadline set by the committee for Schwerin, James, and Hunter to comply with demands to disclose a host of both classified and unclassified documents, records, and communications between business associates and family members, including Joe Biden.
While Hunter has refused to comply with the request, the committee told Breitbart News that James has received correspondence from his attorneys. It is unknown if James is complying with the requests.
“Oversight Committee staff will be in communication with them about Chairman Comer’s request,” the spokesperson said.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has stated in February the “next step” to compel the relevant information from Hunter and James is to issue subpoenas to Hunter and James if they do not comply.
The revelations about Schwerin’s willingness to turn over documents to the committee comes as Republicans have been stonewalled by Hunter, the Treasury Department, and former FBI “point man” Timothy Thibault, who allegedly “improperly” “shut down” a probe into Hunter’s laptop that is likely unrelated to the ongoing criminal probe concerning reported tax fraud by the president’s son.
In January, the Treasury denied the Committee’s request to disclose 150 suspicious reports flagged by U.S. banks concerning Biden family business transactions, causing Comer to threaten a subpoena. (Read more: Breitbart, 2/22/2023)(Archive)
3/10 It all began at Brown, when Nuland developed an interest in Russia. She had read and loved Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and wondered how a culture could both have produced writers like those and also developed the brutal Communist system under which Russians were living. pic.twitter.com/V2BUGMqDAM
5/10 I’m personally believing that her engagement with #CIA happened during her latest years of Brown University. In 1984 Toria spend a six months on the Soviet Union fishing ship (big one) mastering her understanding of Russian sociology https://t.co/dIcMbbN3rKpic.twitter.com/NwSpMObrq9
7/10 Next big thing in Toria life as a warmonger was engineering of #IraqWar together with her husband, Robert Kagan – prominent neocon, and on that time Toria and MIC strike a deal – Producing tensions-Starting War-Profiting from Weapons sales – https://t.co/s9cMHoTjEs
9/10 We was covering Toria activities in #Ukraine in our film Ukraine on Fire You need to watch that movie to understand her leading role in that coup, film is available on #amazonprime and everywhere else https://t.co/JVJb3W4ile
13/10 This is how exactly Viktoria Nuland acting in favor of @HillaryClinton was inserting Chris Steele dossier on Donald Trump into the @StateDept Excerpt from our documentary “Revealing Ukraine” @stranahan great analysis pic.twitter.com/H8bjm8bIpq
14/10 Bio-Labs After Maidan coup (2014) #Ukraine was a testing site not only of political technology of mass brainwashing, but as well a gathering of pathogen’s for creating a new kinds of biological warfare. Russia seized a lot of evidences and #ViktoriaNuland was worried pic.twitter.com/OBNMvwLQaS
15/10 Nordstream 2 pipeline destroying – This is hard to hold when you see how cynical #ViktoriaNuland when she is bragging about act of international state terror act – blowing Nordstream 2 pipeline
Great story by Seymour Hersh under that link+videohttps://t.co/iY47iwUIvlpic.twitter.com/8k0w9Gl3fo
And this is latest from @UnderSecStateP her self, now you will read that speech with very different perspectives. As an American journalist I believe that we need to educate our audience, enlighten audience, and let’s audience to decide! https://t.co/T7V9WG7doB
On her way to #Maidan in #Kiev in 2013 to deliver some “cookies” with Jeff Payat, her lieutenant and protégés (he was serving Deep State well before on position in IAEA trying hard to present Iranian atomic program in the bad light) pic.twitter.com/8zXplA7KPA
“A federal judge has agreed to permit former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to take sworn testimony from former President Donald Trump for two hours as part of their long-running lawsuits related to Strzok’s firing in 2018 after Trump repeatedly and publicly pilloried the pair.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson (Credit: public domain)
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled on Thursday that Strzok and Page — whose text messages disparaging then-candidate Trump cast a pall over the FBI’s investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia — would also be allowed to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray for a similar two-hour period on a limited set of topics.
But there’s a twist: Their ability to ask Trump and Wray about these circumstances might come down to a decision from President Joe Biden. Jackson’s order gave the Justice Department a month to “inform the Court whether the current President will invoke … executive privilege” over any aspects of Trump’s testimony.
Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, also stressed that she had not yet considered all potential objections to the demands for testimony from Trump and Wray. That could include arguments by Trump that he has the unilateral right as a former president to assert executive privilege.
Trump has spent years publicly assailing Strzok and Page for their disparaging private messages about him, claiming they proved that FBI bias fueled the Russia probe, despite independent reviews that failed to substantiate those claims. Strzok was fired amid the controversy, and Page resigned. Strzok is contesting his dismissal, and both are claiming invasion of their privacy over the manner in which the Justice Department released hundreds of their text messages.
In the suits, Strzok and Page contend that Trump and his Justice Department appointees were carrying out a political vendetta.” (Read more: Politico, 2/23/2023)(Archive)
“Billionaire financier and investor Thomas H. Lee was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Manhattan office on Thursday morning, police sources said.
Cops responded to a 911 call at 767 Fifth Avenue — where Thomas H. Lee Capital, LLC is located on the sixth floor — at around 11:10 a.m., the sources said.
EMTs pronounced the 78-year-old businessman dead at the scene.
Lee is pictured golfing with then-President Bill Clinton on Martha’s Vineyard in 1999. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
(…) Lee was a good friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and in June 2008, following Hillary’s unsuccessful presidential run, the couple reportedly stayed at his East Hampton home. (Read more: The Daily Mail, 2/23/2023) (Archive)
We knew that they would ignore it, but what was so shocking was the power of social media, of the Big Tech oligopolies, Facebook and Twitter. And within a couple of hours of our story going online at 5 a.m. October 14, Facebook had come out and said that they were blocking it pending a fact check, which still — more than a year later — has never happened. And then Twitter followed suit and locked the New York Post’s account the next two weeks until a few days before the election and people couldn’t even share the story in true and correct message.
DEVINE: Look, the importance of the laptop is really not Hunter Biden, who is this sort of tragic figure: Drug addicted for most of the nine years the laptop covered, crackhead. The story is actually about Joe Biden and what the laptop tells you about his involvement in not just Hunter’s about his younger brother Jim’s scheme around the world to monetize his power, Joe Biden’s power, and what Joe Biden did in return for that money and how he financially benefited.
“It is plausible that his strong political views and/or personal dislike of [Trump] made him more willing to engage in the fraudulent and unethical conduct to which he has pled guilty,” Durham told U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg.
![CBS](https://i0.wp.com/assets.realclear.com/images/43/433545_5_.jpg?resize=650%2C486&ssl=1 "Clinton Press Sec: \")
Secret Service entrance logs reveal Joffe visited the White House several times during the Obama administration. And in 2013, Comey gave Joffe an award recognizing his work helping agents investigate a cybersecurity case. Sources told RCI that Joffe has also worked as an FBI informant on various cybersecurity cases opened by the bureau over roughly the past 15 years.
“Special counsel John Durham requested a federal court to issue 30 subpoenas for testimony in the trial against Igor Danchenko, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source for his discredited dossier.
In Part One we outlined the background of the modern Deep State {Go Deep}. In Part Two we outlined the specifics of how President Trump was targeted by political operatives using tools created by the DC system {Go Deep}. In Part Three we outlined how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing documents {Go Deep}. Here in Part 4, we begin to assemble the specifics of what documents likely existed in Mar-a-Lago.
“Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows. This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for. For the past five years, Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.
“Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.
