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 Jones story. 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.”

Neither Corn nor Isikoff responded to requests for comment. (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 12/09/2021)  (Archive)

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:

Watch the full show HERE:https://t.co/veXCxi0Jr9

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) April 11, 2024

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 August fundraiser 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

Prosecutors have sought a five-year sentence for Nader – after he completes the 10-year sentence he’s currently serving for possessing child pornography, and for sex-trafficking a minor to the US “for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 1/17/2022)  (Archive) (Nader Sentencing Memo)

By: Paul Sperry

RealClearInvestigations, 12/16/2021

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.

Giuliani has not been convicted of a crime or even charged with one. (RealClearInvestigations, 12/16/2021)  (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.)

“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.

This is verbatim from the official report of the U.N. General Assembly plenary of Dec. 16:

“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:

1. the Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the Fusion GPS reports sourced by Danchenko,
2. the Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Dancehnko’s collection methods and sub-sources,
3. meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and/or Steele regarding or involving Danchenko
4. Danchenko knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in and activities surrounding the Fusion GPS reports, and
5. 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.

To this observer, it seems like the Clinton Campaign’s involvement in the dossier might be deeper than anyone really knows.” (Read more: Techno Fog, 12/20/2021) (Archive)

Full video interview HERE:

“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)

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe appears before Congress. (Credit: Elyse Samuels Bastien Inzaurralde / Washington Post)

…this last Thursday the University of Chicago invited former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe to join a panel of partisans to discuss the Jan 6 “insurrection.”

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.

(Read more: The Daily Mail, 1/14/2022)  (Archive)

By: Victor Davis Hanson

“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)

Look carefully at this tweet from Catherine Herridge at CBS. Notice anything?

Durham “discovery update” filing 1/25/2022

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.

Why didn’t you tell us you had the murder weapon?  Well, you didn’t ask… and so it goes. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/25/2022)  (Archive)

(…) 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.”

Durham Filing 1/25/2022, Pg 17

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 2017 Washington Post column. “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. 31 tweet 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. 31 Times 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)

“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. 

(RealClearInvestigations, 1/27/2022)  (Archive)

[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.

She. Knew. Everything. All. Along.]

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.

Fusion GPS also lists as projects, the “Trump kids”.   (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 2/o8/2022)  (Archive)

“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)

“Due to high demand” – Bwahahaha!

(…) 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.

Senate Committee on Homeland Security Report, 1/17/2021

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)

In 2019 the Justice Dept fined Ericsson $1B to resolve the government’s investigation into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

I’ll highlight some salacious points but you should really read the whole thing. It’s pretty unbelievable.

Ericsson Agrees to Pay Over $1 Billion to Resolve FCPA Casehttps://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ericsson-agrees-pay-over-1-billion-resolve-fcpa-case

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.”

sec.gov/Archives/edgar…

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/717826/000119312510219206/filename1.htm

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…

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STOCKHOLM778_a.html

“Sweden blocked an effort by other EU states to add two telecoms firms in Syria with commercial links to Swedish firm Ericsson”

Telecoms control the Airwaves and the only Telecom allowed to do business with Terrorists and get away with it is Ericsson…

Sweden keeps Syrian telecoms firms off EU sanctions listSweden blocked an effort by other EU states to add two telecoms firms in Syria with commercial links to Swedish firm Ericsson to an EU sanctions list this week, EU diplomats said.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-syria-sweden-idUSTRE7B120J20111202

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’

Barack Obama announces total withdrawal of US troops from IraqPresident says ‘America’s war in Iraq will be over’ with decision to pull all troops from Iraq by the end of the yearhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/21/obama-us-troops-withdrawal-iraq

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…

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 TechnologyEXECUTIVE ORDER – – – – – – – BLOCKING THE PROPERTY AND SUSPENDING ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES OF CERTAIN PERSONS WITH RESPECT TO GRAVEhttps://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/23/executive-order-blocking-property-and-suspending-entry-united-states-cer

In 2013, the FCC put the Local Number Portability Administrator contract up for bid.

Neustar and Telcordia (Ericsson) were the only two bidders.

One concern was that the FCC didn’t include national security requirements in the initial bid process…

FCC Deal With Foreign-Owned Company Raises Security, Transparency Concernshttps://www.meritalk.com/articles/fcc-deal-with-foreign-owned-company-raises-security-transparency-concerns/

“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.”

nytimes.com/2016/07/22/bus…

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/business/fcc-backs-swedish-company-to-run-american-phone-routing-system.html?ref=technology&_r=2

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”

Leak exposes Ericsson’s secret dealings with ISIS amid Iraq corruption spree – ICIJThe embattled Swedish telecom giant concealed years of bribery and fraud in the war-torn nation and grappled with undisclosed corruption allegations in more than a dozen other countries.https://www.icij.org/investigations/ericsson-list/ericsson-leak-isis-iraq-corruption/

Iran seeks tech in Sweden for nuclear weapons – Swedish intel. reportIran, China and Russia are the biggest security threats to Swedenhttps://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/iran-seeks-tech-in-sweden-for-nuclear-weapons-swedish-intel-report-666792

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.

Telegram & Twitter link provided below. 

PLVS VLTRA TrustWe stand as a steadfast guardian of privacy, liberty, security, and freedom in the digital age. Our organization is dedicated to safeguarding the fundamental rights of individuals in an increasingly i…https://plvsvltra.org

(Michael Rae Khoury @Vltra_MK/Twitter, 3/04/2022) (Archive)

“Black Lives Matter filings reveal prominent Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and another longtime ally of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have taken on key roles in the charity amid scrutiny over its leadership and finances.

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: @TheLastRefuge2 https://t.co/O1eaAZhkTb

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) February 17, 2022

Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations

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)

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

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 28, 2022

(Archive)

(We created new tags for this one.)

“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:

Special Counsel’s Office Is Investigating The 2016 DNC Server Hack

Manos Antonakakis  (Credit: Public Domain)

Steve McLaughlin . (Credit: GaTech)

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?

Yes, lots of questions. Including: Has Durham got the answers to these questions? (MeaningInHistory/substack, 3/10/2022)  (Archive) (Federalist Archive)

(Credit: The New York Post)

(…) 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.

(Read more: The New York Post, 3/18/2022)  (Archive)

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’s 2020 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 Politico report 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)

(Credit: The Epoch Times)

Authored by Aaron Maté via Substack,

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for “inauthenticity” but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other “American and Canadian journalists.”

The FBI’s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files, a cache of leaked communications from the social media giant.

The FBI’s censorship request was relayed in a March 27th, 2022 email from FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the Assistant Legal Attaché at the US Embassy in Kyiv, to two Twitter executives. Four FBI colleagues were copied on the exchange.

“Thank you very much for your time to discuss the assistance to Ukraine,” Kobzanets wrote. “I am including a list of accounts I received over a couple of weeks from the Security Service of Ukraine. These accounts are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation. For your review and consideration.”

The document, drafted by Ukraine’s SBU, contained 163 accounts, including mine. (The list is numbered to 175, but some accounts have two corresponding numerical lines).

The listed Twitter profiles, the SBU alleged, have been “used to disseminate disinformation and fake news to inaccurately reflect events in Ukraine, justify war crimes of the Russian authorities on the territory of the Ukrainian state in violation of international law.”

In order “to stop Russian aggression on the information front,” the SBU continued, “we kindly ask you to take urgent measures to block these Twitter accounts and provide us with user data specified during registration.”

The SBU expressed its “gratitude for the existing level of interaction.”

If granted, the users on the list would not only have been banned from Twitter but had their phone number, date of birth, and email address disclosed to both the FBI and SBU.

In response, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then-Head of Trust and Safety, informed Special Agent Kobzanets and his FBI colleagues that Twitter would “review the reported accounts under our Rules.” But he warned that the list included “a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate).” Therefore, Roth said, Twitter’s review would “focus first and foremost on identifying any potential inauthenticity.”

The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled list of accounts marked for censorship extends to members of the media.

The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile, as well was several Russian journalists. pic.twitter.com/U7X9FNUYj8

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

The FBI’s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files.

The FBI described the suppression effort as “assistance to Ukraine.”

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

The FBI declined to answer my questions about its aid to Ukrainian intelligence censorship efforts.

“While we appreciate your inquiry, as a matter of practice we do not confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on specific interactions nor confirm the veracity of correspondence,” FBI…

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

New internal Twitter emails confirm, show Ukrainian intelligence pushing to ban American journalists via FBI https://t.co/29drH0Xccl

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 7, 2023

(Read more: Aaron Maté/Substack, 6/7/2023)  (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)

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 Examiner reported, 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 Examiner reported 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.”

Lokhova Reverse Remand Opinion/File

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.)

Jonathan Su (Credit: law.com)

“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.”

Clinton Twitter

Clinton later tweeted, “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

She also shared a lengthy statement by then-Clinton campaign adviser and current Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Clinton Twitter

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 –

–Read Techno Fog Substack Here.

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.”

(Read: Conservative Treehouse, 4/16/2022)  (Archive)

Michael Sussmann (Credit: CNN screenshot)

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)

Robby Mook (Credit: Douglas Graham/Getty Images)

“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.)

(Read more: Techno Fog/substack, 4/20/2022)  (Archive)

Hillary For America now intervenes in the Michael Sussmann case-

Says the Perkins Coie/Fusion GPS communications and work product is “privileged”

In support, Robby Mook swears under penalty of perjury that Fusion GPS was retained to provide “legal services and legal advice”

👀 pic.twitter.com/R6mOMeSfbM

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) April 19, 2022

(Credit: Wall Street Journal)

“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

— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) April 21, 2022

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.

Clinton Twitter

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.

What was that about misinformation, Hillary? (Read more: Zero Hedge, 4/22/2022)  (Archive)

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.”

April 26, 2017 – An unsealed FISC Report reveals systematic abuses in accessing 702 data

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)

Paul Sperry/RealClearInvestigations

“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 RCI reported. 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 2019 report. 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.

(Read more: Techno Fog, 4/28/2022)  (Archive)

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.

The hope of leaders like Clinton is the anti-free speech measure recently passed by EU countries, the Digital Services Act. The DSA contains mandatory “disinformation” rules for censoring “harmful” thoughts or views.

(Read more: Zero Hedge/Jonathan Turley, 11/02/2022)  (Archive)

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.”

Moreover, her call for censorship came just weeks after special counsel John Durham offered more details about the accusation that her campaign manufactured a false Russian collusion theory. One of Clinton’s former lawyers is under indictment for the effort. Clinton personally tweeted out the disinformation that is the subject of the federal prosecution. And the Federal Election Commission recently fined her campaign for hiding the funding of the Steele dossier.

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.”

Sound familiar? Freedom is tyranny, and democracy demands speech controls. (Jonathan Turley, 4/29/2022)  (Archive)

“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.”

(Read more: Techno Fog, 5/02/2022)  (Archive)

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/0ClLdqncB8 pic.twitter.com/JtFrb4mecG

— Judicial Watch ⚖️ (@JudicialWatch) May 17, 2022

“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

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 13, 2022

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

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 13, 2022

(Gateway Pundit, 5/13/2022) (Archive)

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:

1. 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.
2. 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)

(Credit: MarcoPoloUSA/Telegram)

(MarcoPoloUSA/Telegram, 5/14/2022)  (Archive) (BidenLaptopEmails)  (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

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 before Summer 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.

Timecodes: 00:00:00 – Intro 00:00:54 – Mindmap Overview 00:05:00 – Elon Musk Tweets 00:07:59 – Afternoon Session Transcript (Sussmann Trial Day 4) 00:10:01 – Witness James Baker (Direct Examination Continued) 00:40:55 – Witness James Baker (Cross-Examination) 01:24:20 – Superchats 01:28:23 – Morning Session Transcript (Sussmann Trial Day 5) 01:29:20 – Witness James Baker (Cross-Examination Continued) 01:41:54 – Witness James Baker (Redirect Examination) 01:44:47 – Defense Witness Robbie Mook (Direct Examination) 02:03:20 – Defense Witness Robbie Mook (Cross-Examination) 02:45:16 – Defense Witness Robbie Mook (Redirect Examination) 02:52:45 – Recap & Conclusion (Sussmann Trial Day 5)

#Sussmann #Durham #Trump

(…) 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.”

(Page 2 of 4, Grassley letter, 5/31/2022)

(Read more: The Epoch Times, 8/20/2022)  (Archive)

“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:

SEE HERE

(Conservative Treehouse, 5/31/2022)  (Archive)

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.”

Email, 7/29/2016

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.”

• And – Hillary Clinton herself approved of the strategy to disseminate the Alfa Bank allegations to the media. Per Robby Mook:

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.

Here Sussmann edits an FBI press release because the original wording “undermines” the DNC’s hacking narrative: https://t.co/UQJnjHvELJ pic.twitter.com/nNrxo6T6t2

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) May 31, 2022

(Read more: Techno Fog, 5/31/2022)  (Archive)

WATCH: (Jordan segment begins at 2:20)

“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)

(Credit: The Washington Free Beacon)

“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 2014 pledged 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.

Steinbach allegedly oversaw the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email server. (Credit:AFP/Getty Images)

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.

“Prosecution was declined,” the report adds.” (Read more: New York Post, 6/14/2022)  (Archive) 

Trump: “Hillary has to pay for what’s she’s done.” pic.twitter.com/cb4JqHRbJw

— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) June 17, 2022

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

— CAP Action (@CAPAction) June 16, 2022

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

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 17, 2022

(Read more: Conspatriot News, 6/17/2022) (Archive)

(…) 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)

(Credit: MEGA)

“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.

Perry/Pulaski Circuit Judge Alice Gray (Credit: ArkansasOnline)

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.

His death has generated little coverage in the mainstream media, but questions are still being asked.” (Read more: Western Journal, 6/07/2022)  (Archive)

Trump and Clinton during a 2016 election debate. (Credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters)

(…) On June 21, 2022, Trump filed an amended RICO suit against Clinton and a large number of other DNC-related individuals who were involved in the RussiaGate hoax.

The new suit, at 193 pages in length, was significantly more robust and detailed than Trump’s original March 24 RICO 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.”

The following day, June 22, Magistrate Bruce Reinhart suddenly recused himself from Trump’s suit against Clinton & Company. Just 44 days later, after his unexpected recusal from Trump’s RICO case against Clinton, Reinhart personally signed the search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 8/19/2022)  (Archive)

Twitter has been on a recruitment drive of late, hiring a host of former feds and spies. Studying a number of employment and recruitment websites, MintPress has ascertained that the social media giant has, in recent years, recruited dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety, and content.

Chief amongst these is the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The FBI is generally known as a domestic security and intelligence force. However, it has recently expanded its remit into cyberspace. “The FBI’s investigative authority is the broadest of all federal law enforcement agencies,” the “About” section of its website informs readers. “The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence [and] cyber crime,” it adds.

For example, in 2019, Dawn Burton (the former director of Washington operations for Lockheed Martin) was poached from her job as senior innovation advisor to the director at the FBI to become senior director of strategy and operations for legal, public policy, trust and safety at Twitter. The following year, Karen Walsh went straight from 21 years at the bureau to become director of corporate resilience at the silicon valley giant. Twitter’s deputy general counsel and vice president of legal, Jim Baker, also spent four years at the FBI between 2014 and 2018, where his resumé notes he rose to the role of senior strategic advisor.

Mark Jaroszewski (Credit: FBI Event Flyer, May 2018)

Meanwhile, Mark Jaroszewski ended his 21-year posting as a supervisory special agent in the Bay Area to take up a position at Twitter, rising to become director of corporate security and risk. And Douglas Turner spent 14 years as a senior special agent and SWAT Team leader before being recruited to serve in Twitter’s corporate and executive security services. Previously, Turner had also spent seven years as a secret service special agent with the Department of Homeland Security.

When asked to comment by MintPress, former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley said that she was “not surprised at all” to see FBI agents now working for the very tech companies the agency polices, stating that there now exists a “revolving door” between the FBI and the areas they are trying to regulate. This created a serious conflict of interests in her mind, as many agents have one eye on post-retirement jobs. “The truth is that at the FBI 50% of all the normal conversations that people had were about how you were going to make money after retirement,” she said.

Many former FBI officials hold influential roles within Twitter. For instance, in 2020, Matthew W. left a 15-year career as an intelligence program manager at the FBI to take up the post of senior director of product trust at Twitter. Patrick G., a 23-year FBI supervisory special agent, is now head of corporate security. And Twitter’s director of insider risk and security investigations, Bruce A., was headhunted from his role as a supervisory special agent at the bureau. His resumé notes that at the FBI he held “[v]arious intelligence and law enforcement roles in the US, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East” and was a “human intelligence and counterintelligence regional specialist.” (On employment sites such as LinkedIn, many users choose not to reveal their full names.)

Meanwhile, between 2007 and 2021 Jeff Carlton built up a distinguished career in the United States Marine Corps, rising to become a senior intelligence analyst. Between 2014 and 2017, his LinkedIn profile notes, he worked for both the CIA and FBI, authored dozens of official reports, some of which were read by President Barack Obama. Carlton describes his role as a “problem-solver” and claims to have worked in many “dynamic, high-pressure environments” such as Iraq and Korea. In May 2021, he left official service to become a senior program manager at Twitter, responsible for dealing with the company’s “highest-profile trust and safety escalations.”

Head of Twitter’s Strategic Response Team, Jeff Carlton, who worked for CIA & FBI, deleted his LinkedIn quickly in response to #TwitterFiles. Before deleting, he changed his name to an alias to make him harder to find.

But I have an archive: https://t.co/WniUAOd7N0 @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/h1TNkwPwEH

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) December 9, 2022

Other former FBI staff are employed by Twitter, such as Cherrelle Y. as a policy domain specialist and Laura D. as a senior analyst in global risk intelligence.

Many of those listed above were active in the FBI’s public outreach programs, a practice sold as a community trust-building initiative. According to Rowley, however, these also function as “ways for officials to meet the important people that would give them jobs after retirement.” “It basically inserts a huge conflict of interest,” she told MintPress. “It warps and perverts the criminal investigative work that agents do when they are still working as agents because they anticipate getting lucrative jobs after retiring or leaving the FBI.”

Rowley – who in 2002 was named, along with two other whistleblowers, as Time magazine’s Person of the Year – was skeptical that there was anything seriously nefarious about the hiring of so many FBI agents, suggesting that Twitter could be using them as sources of information and intelligence. She stated:

Retired agents often maintained good relationships and networks with current agents. So they can call up their old buddy and find out stuff… There were certainly instances of retired agents for example trying to find out if there was an investigation of so and so. And if you are working for a company, that company is going to like that influence.”

Rowley also suggested that hiring people from various three-letter agencies gave them a credibility boost. “These [tech] companies are using the mythical aura of the FBI. They can point to somebody and say ‘oh, you can trust us; our CEO or CFO is FBI,’” she explained.

Twitter certainly has endorsed the FBI as a credible actor, allowing the organization to play a part in regulating the global dissemination of information on its platform. In September 2020, it put out a statement thanking the federal agency. “We wish to express our gratitude to the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force for their close collaboration and continued support of our work to protect the public conversation at this critical time,” the statement read.

One month later, the company announced that the FBI was feeding it intelligence and that it was complying with their requests for deletion of accounts. “Based on intel provided by the FBI, last night we removed approximately 130 accounts that appeared to originate in Iran. They were attempting to disrupt the public conversation during the first 2020 U.S. Presidential Debate,” Twitter’s safety team wrote.

Yet the evidence they supplied of this supposed threat to American democracy was notably weak. All four of the messages from this Iranian operation that Twitter itself shared showed that none of them garnered any likes or retweets whatsoever, meaning that essentially nobody saw them. This was, in other words, a completely routine cleanup operation of insignificant troll accounts. Yet the announcement allowed Twitter to present the FBI as on the side of democracy and place the idea into the public psyche that the election was under threat from foreign actors.

Iran has been a favorite Twitter target in the past. In 2009, at the behest of the US government, it postponed routine maintenance of the site, which would have required taking it offline. This was because an anti-government protest movement in Tehran was using the app to communicate and the US did not want the demonstrations’ regime-change potential to be stymied.

A CARNIVAL OF SPOOKS

The FBI is far from the only state security agency filling Twitter’s ranks. Shortly after leaving a 10-year career as a CIA analyst, Michael Scott Robinson was hired to become a senior policy manager for site integrity, trust and safety.

The California-based app has also recruited heavily from the Atlantic Council, a NATO cutout organization that serves as the military alliance’s think tank. The council is sponsored by NATO, led by senior NATO generals and regularly plays out regime-change scenarios in enemy states, such as China.

The Atlantic Council has been associated with many of the most egregious fake news plants of the last few years. It published a series of lurid reports alleging that virtually every political group in Europe challenging the status quo – from the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and UKIP in Great Britain to PODEMOS and Vox in Spain and Syriza and Golden Dawn in Greece – were all secretly “the Kremlin’s Trojan Horses.” Atlantic Council employee Michael Weiss was also very likely the creator of the shadowy organization PropOrNot, a group that anonymously published a list of fake-news websites that regularly peddled Kremlin disinformation. Included in this list was virtually every anti-war alternative media outlet one could think of – from MintPress to Truthout, TruthDig and The Black Agenda Report. Also included were pro-Trump websites like The Drudge Report, and liberatarian ventures like Antiwar.com and The Ron Paul Institute.

PropOrNot’s list was immediately heralded in the corporate press, and was the basis for a wholescale algorithm shift at Google and other big tech platforms, a shift that saw traffic to alternative media sites crash overnight, never to recover. Thus, the allegation of a huge (Russian) state-sponsored attempt to influence the media was itself an intelligence op by the U.S. national security state.

In 2020, Kanishk Karan left his job as a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research (DFR) Lab to join Twitter as information integrity and safety specialist – essentially helping to control what Twitter sees as legitimate information and nefarious disinformation. Another DFR Lab graduate turned Twitter employee is Daniel Weimert, who is now a senior public policy associate for Russia – a key target of the Atlantic Council. Meanwhile, Sarah Oh is simultaneously an Atlantic Council DFR Lab non-resident senior fellow and a Twitter advisor, her social media bio noting she works on “high risk trust and safety issues.”

In 2019, Twitter also hired Greg Andersen straight from NATO to work on cybercrime policy. There is sparse information on what Andersen did at NATO, but, alarmingly, his own LinkedIn profile stated simply that he worked on “psychological operations” for the military alliance. After MintPress highlighted this fact in an article in April, he removed all mention of “psychological operations” from his profile, claiming now to have merely worked as a NATO “researcher.” Andersen left Twitter in the summer of last year to work as a product policy manager for the popular video platform TikTok.

Twitter also directly employs active army officers. In 2019, Gordon Macmillan, the head of editorial for the entire Europe, Middle East and Africa region was revealed to be an officer in the British Army’s notorious 77th Brigade – a unit dedicated to online warfare and psychological operations. This bombshell news was steadfastly ignored across the media.

POSITIONS OF POWER AND CONTROL

With nearly 400 million global users, there is no doubt that Twitter has grown to become a platform large and influential enough to necessitate extensive security measures, as actors of all stripes attempt to use the service to influence public opinion and political actions. There is also no doubt that there is a limited pool of people qualified in these sorts of fields.

But recruiting largely from the US national security state fundamentally undermines claims Twitter makes about its neutrality. The US government is the source of some of the largest and most extensive influence operations in the world. As far back as 2011, The Guardian reported on the existence of a massive, worldwide US military online influence campaign in which it had designed software that allowed its personnel to “secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.” The program boasts that the background of these personas is so convincing that psychological operations soldiers can be sure to work “without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.” Yet Twitter appears to be recruiting from the source of the problem.

These former national security state officials are not being employed in politically neutral departments such as sales or customer service, but in security, trust and content, meaning that some hold considerable sway over what messages and information are promoted, and what is suppressed, demoted or deleted.

It could be said that poachers-turned-gamekeepers often play a crucial role in safety and protection, as they know how bad actors think and operate. But there exists little evidence that any of these national security state operatives have changed their stances. Twitter is not hiring whistleblowers or dissidents. It appears, then, that some of these people are essentially doing the same job they were doing before, but now in the private sector. And few are even acknowledging that there is anything wrong with moving from big government to big tech, as if the US national security state and the fourth estate are allies, rather than adversaries.

That Twitter is already working so closely with the FBI and other agencies makes it easy for them to recruit from the federal pool. As Rowley said, “over a period of time these people will be totally in sync with the mindset of Twitter and other social media platforms. So from the company’s standpoint, they are not hiring somebody new. They already know this person. They know where they stand on things.”

IS THERE A PROBLEM?

Some might ask “What is the problem with Twitter actively recruiting from the FBI, CIA and other three-letter agencies?” They, after all, are experts in studying online disinformation and propaganda. One is optical. If a Russian-owned social media app’s trust, security and content moderation was run by former KGB or FSB agents and still insisted it was a politically neutral platform, the entire world would laugh.

But apart from this, the huge influx of security state personnel into Twitter’s decision-making ranks means that the company will start to view every problem in the same manner as the US government does – and act accordingly. “In terms of their outlooks on the world and on the question of misinformation and internet security, you couldn’t get a better field of professionals who are almost inherently going to be more in tune with the government’s perspective,” Rowley said.

Thus, when policing the platform for disinformation and influence campaigns, the former FBI and CIA agents and Atlantic Council fellows only ever seem to find them emanating from enemy states and never from the US government itself. This is because their backgrounds and outlooks condition them to consider Washington to be a unique force for good.

This one-sided view of disinformation can be seen by studying the reports Twitter has published on state-linked information operations. The entire list of countries it has identified as engaging in these campaigns are as follows: Russia (in 7 reports), Iran (in 5 reports), China (4 reports), Saudi Arabia (4 reports), Venezuela (3 reports), Egypt (2 reports), Cuba, Serbia, Bangladesh, the UAE, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Honduras, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Armenia, Spain, Tanzania, Mexico and Uganda.

One cannot help noticing that this list correlates quite closely to a hit list of US government adversaries. All countries carry out disinfo campaigns to a certain extent. But these “former” spooks and feds are unlikely to point the finger at their former colleagues or sister organizations or investigate their operations.

THE COLD (CYBER)WAR

Twitter has mirrored US hostility towards states like Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, attempting to suppress the reach and influence of their state media by adding warning messages to the tweets of journalists and accounts affiliated with those governments. “State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution,” it noted.

In a rather bizarre addendum, it explained that it would not be doing the same to state-affiliated media or personalities from other countries, least of all the US “State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the U.K. or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy,” it wrote. It did not explain how it decided that Cuban, Russian, Chinese or Iranian journalists did not have editorial independence, but British and American ones did – this was taken for granted. The effect of the action has been a throttling of ideas and narratives from enemy states and an amplification of those coming from Western state media.

As the US ramps up tensions with Beijing, so too has Twitter aggressively shut down pro-China voices on its platform. In 2020, it banned 170,000 accounts it said were “spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China,” such as praising its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic or expressing opposition to the Hong Kong protests, both of which are majority views in China. Importantly, the Silicon Valley company did not claim that these accounts were controlled by the government; merely sharing these opinions was grounds enough for deletion.

The group behind Twitter’s decision to ban those Chinese accounts was the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a deeply controversial think tank funded by the Pentagon, the State Department and a host of weapons manufacturers. ASPI has constantly peddled conspiracy theories about China and called for ramping up tensions with the Asian nation.

Perhaps most notable, however, was Twitter’s announcement last year that it was deleting dozens of accounts for the new violation of “undermining faith in the NATO alliance.” The statement was widely ridiculed online by users. But few noted that the decision was based upon a partnership with the  a counter-disinformation think tank filled with former spooks and state officials and headed by an individual who is on the advisory board of NATO’s Collective Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. That Twitter is working so closely with organizations that are clearly intelligence industry catspaws should concern all users.

NOT JUST TWITTER

While some might be alarmed that Twitter is cultivating such an intimate relationship with the FBI and other groups belonging to the secret state, it is perhaps unfair to single it out, as many social media platforms are doing the same. Facebook, for example, has entered into a formal partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, whereby the latter holds significant influence over 2.9 billion users’ news feeds, helping to decide what content to promote and what content to suppress. The NATO cutout organization now serves as Facebook’s “eyes and ears,” according to a Facebook press release. Anti-war and anti-establishment voices across the world have reported massive drops in traffic on the platform.

The social media giant also hired former NATO Press Secretary Ben Nimmo to be its head of intelligence. Nimmo subsequently used his power to attempt to swing the election in Nicaragua away from the leftist Sandinista Party and towards the far-right, pro-US candidate, deleting hundreds of left-wing voices in the week of the election, claiming they were engaging in “inauthentic behavior.” When these individuals (including some well-known personalities) poured onto Twitter, recording video messages proving they were not bots, Twitter deleted those accounts too, in what one commentator called a Silicon Valley “double tap strike.”

An April MintPress study revealed how TikTok, too, has been filling its organization with alumni of the Atlantic Council, NATO, the CIA and the State Department. As with Twitter, these new TikTok employees largely work in highly politically sensitive fields such as trust, safety, security and content moderation, meaning these state operatives hold influence over the direction of the company and what content is promoted and what is demoted.

Likewise, in 2017, content aggregation site Reddit plucked Jessica Ashooh from the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force to become its new director of policy, despite the fact that she had few relevant qualifications or experience in the field.

In corporate media too, we have seen a widespread infiltration of former security officials into the upper echelons of news organizations. So normalized is the penetration of the national security state into the media that is supposed to be holding it to account, that few reacted in 2015 when Dawn Scalici left her job as national intelligence manager for the Western hemisphere at the Director of National Intelligence to become the global business director of international news conglomerate Thomson Reuters. Scalici, a 33-year CIA veteran who had worked her way up to become a director in the organization, was open about what her role was. In a blog post on the Reuters website, she wrote that she was there to “meet the disparate needs of the US Government” – a statement that is at odds with even the most basic journalistic concepts of impartiality and holding the powerful to account.

Meanwhile, cable news outlets routinely employ a wide range of “former” agents and mandarins as trusted personalities and experts. These include former CIA Directors John Brennan (NBC, MSNBC) and Michael Hayden (CNN), ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (CNN), and former Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend (CBS). And news for so many Americans comes delivered through ex-CIA interns like Anderson Cooper (CNN), CIA-applicants like Tucker Carlson (Fox), or by Mika Brzezinski (MSNBC), the daughter of a powerful national security advisor. The FBI has its own former agents on TV as well, with talking heads such as James Gagliano (Fox), Asha Rangappa (CNN) and Frank Figliuzzi (NBC, MSNBC) becoming household names. In short, then, the national security state once used to infiltrate the media. Today, however, the national security state is the media.

Social media holds enormous influence in today’s society. While this article is not alleging that anyone mentioned is a bad actor or does not genuinely care about the spread of disinformation, it is highlighting a glaring conflict of interest. Through its agencies, the US government regularly plants fake news and false information. Therefore, social media hiring individuals straight from the FBI, CIA, NATO and other groups to work on regulating disinformation is a fundamentally flawed practice. One of media’s primary functions is to serve as a fourth estate; a force that works to hold the government and its agencies to account. Yet instead of doing that, increasingly it is collaborating with them. Such are these increasing interlocking connections that it is becoming increasingly difficult to see where big government ends and big media begins.

(MintPress News, 6/21/2022)  (Archive)

(MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.)

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

US v. Danchenko (Protective… by FightWithKash

(FightWithKash/Durham Watch, 6/22/2022)  (Archive)

“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.

The case was brought by Elias who reportedly represented a group of individuals in Louisiana.” (Read more: Gateway Pundit, 6/29/2022)  (Archive)

“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.

Fight With Kash/Durham Watch/sign up

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.

(Business Insider, 7/13/2022)  (Archive)

“Special counsel John Durham requested a federal court to issue 30 subpoenas for testimony in the trial against Igor Danchenko, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source for his discredited dossier.

The FBI 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 2017 WikiLeaks 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)

(Read more: The Daily Mail, 7/15/2022)  (Archive)

“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.

Also notable – Hunter had the numbers of several FBI agents in his iCloud contacts. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 7/25/2022)  (Archive)

3/4 of his contact were all in cyber division🤨 they could’ve accessed his cloud right? https://t.co/9qotT4L8jR

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) July 11, 2022

Margot Cleveland writes:

“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?”

FBI: “Sir, I can’t answer that.” pic.twitter.com/mjL6SeHWei

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 11, 2022

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)

Every “But her emails” hat or shirt sold helps @onwardtogether partners defend democracy, build a progressive bench, and fight for our values.

Just saying!https://t.co/4TiUxjmRNY pic.twitter.com/rflM8fTAbw

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 9, 2022

Hats are available for pre-order again.

Crisis averted.https://t.co/4TiUxjmRNY

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 9, 2022

“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.)

“According to Paul Sperry, the federal agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid are under investigation by Special Counsel John Durham.

“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.

Paul Sperry/GETTR

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/13/2022)  (Archive)

Paul Sperry continues to post about the Mar-a-Lago raid on GETTR:

(Much more: Paul Sperry/GETTR)

“… 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 Amy Berman Jackson (Credit: public domain)

“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.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C. ultimately rejected Judicial Watch’s suit by concluding there was no provision in the Presidential Records Act to force the National Archives to seize records from a former president.” (Read more: Just the News, 8/17/2022)  (Archive)

(Credit: William J. Hennessy Jr./News 7 Miami)

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.

The FBI announced earlier this month that it was “aggressively pursuing” its investigation into the laptop.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 8/24/2022)  (Archive)

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.

More Paul Sperry:

“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.

Far-left Law and Crime reported that the warrant was attested to over WhatsApp.

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?

Below is Kash Patel’s Truth.

(@Kash/Truth Social)

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/28/2020)  (Archive)

 Sperry/Gettr, 8/27/2022

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 Post 1,  Post 2, Post  3

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

Sperry/Gettr 8/26/2022 Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

Sperry/Gettr 8/27/2022 Post 1, Post 2

Sperry/Gettr Post 1, Post 2

(More: Paul Sperry/Gettr)

“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.”

Trump reacted to the release of the affidavit on his Truth Social account Friday afternoon, saying:

Trump Truth Social, 8/26/2022

Judge Bruce E. Reinhart (Credit: public domain)

A judge ordered the redacted document released.

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.

Trump posted on his Truth Social account on Friday morning, criticizing the raid on his home prior to the affidavit release:

Trump Truth Social, 8/26/2022

(Read more: JusttheNews, 8/26/2022)  (Archive)  (Affidavit)

Techno Fog has more:

The Trump Search Warrant Affidavit has been released

Here it is – with redactions

Techno Fog

The DOJ just released the affidavit submitted in support of the search warrant of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

Here it is for download.

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.”

Affidavit allegations:

(Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 8/26/2022)  (Archive)

“A top FBI agent at the Washington field office reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings.

Timothy Thibault, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, was allegedly forced out after he was accused of political bias in his handling of probes involving President Biden’s son, sources told the Washington Times on Monday.

The agent was escorted out of the field office by at least two “headquarters-looking types” last Friday, the sources said.”  (Read more: New York Post, 8/29/2022)  (Archive)

Morrison & Foerster LLC. Not surprising. https://t.co/P8aK6Vtdhp pic.twitter.com/wxFDAwIK5q

— Annie_E (@ds_abp) August 31, 2022

Brandon’s tagged in several entries and has a healthy mini-timeline going.

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.”

Read the Grayzone investigation here: https://t.co/NWiqV4Yue0 pic.twitter.com/CGMIyTZS5G

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) September 7, 2022

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)

(Read more: The Grayzone, 8/31/2022)  (Archive)

“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.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to?  Mary McCord.

Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment.   As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

♦  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.

Along with some framed Time Magazine covers https://t.co/fyfoqvdXXH

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 31, 2022

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.'”

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) August 31, 2022

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)

Donald Trump Has Perfect Response to FBI’s ‘Gotcha’ Photo of ‘Top Secret’ Docs Scattered All Over Mar-a-Lago Floor

Trump/Truth Social, 8/31/2022

Trump Truth Social, 8/31/2022

Kash Patel also shares his opinion of the photo with Benny Johnson:

“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)

Judge Dabney Friedrich, in a Thursday ruling, dismissed the suit.

“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)