Featured Timeline Entries
1996 - Documentary: Obstruction of Justice 'The Mena Connection'

The pivotal event that began to unravel the mystery of Mena was the death of Don Henry age 16, and Kevin Ives age 17. The story expanded to encompass the lies of the US Government concerning the Iran-Contra Affair. Two teenagers stumble upon a major drug smuggling operation. The boys are brutally murdered and their bodies are placed on railroad tracks to give the appearance of a train accident. Soon, crime scene eyewitnesses vanish and investigations are shut down.

The grieving parents are stunned. Corruption involving high-level officials from Arkansas to Washington is documented in this incredible true-life story. Why were numerous county, state, and federal government investigations blocked? Why was a thirty-month federal-grand-jury investigation abruptly shut down? Why did the FBI tell one boy’s grieving parents, “You should accept the fact that a crime has not been committed?” This story of murder, drugs, corruption, and cover-ups, involves high-ranking government officials, reaching up to the most powerful office in the world. It shows that interference from sinister political allies continues to protect these criminals from prosecution. (Source: The Michelle Moore Show/Rumble)



Released in 1996, this documentary made by Pat Matriciana of Integrity Films is an irrefutable account of a corrupted Arkansas under Governor Bill Clinton.  The corruption was systemic throughout law enforcement as well as public and political officials at every level and from both political parties, enabling the immediate implementation of a cover-up of the murders of Kevin and Don and the perpetuation of outrageous lies at every turn.  Linda and Jean had editorial control over the contents of the video, and they went to great lengths to be absolutely accurate. They got it right for the most part, but the passage of 23 years has uncovered events that are more disturbing but closer to accurate.  After the release of the documentary, Saline County Deputy Sheriff John Brown (predominant in the last 3rd of the video), turned against Linda and Jean.  They don’t know why. Was he  threaten?  Was he blackmailed? They don’t know.  He never gave them an explanation.  See John Brown’s page.

During the making of the video, the FBI opened its own two-year investigation during which time a great deal more was learned.  The FBI has released 2,000+ documents under FOIA, but admit to having 15,000 more.  Although many of the documents  received are heavily redacted, one thing is clear, the FBI knows who killed the boys and law enforcement was involved in the cover-ups.  Our researcher, Ron, created a one-page collage from the documents that speaks volumes.  See FBI Collage.

(ID Files, 5/19/2019)



Hear the ‘Fat Lady’ Sing…..

This revealing documentary contains rare and unauthorized footage of a C-123 code-named “The Fat Lady” – The plane that nearly brought down the Reagan/Bush Administration when it was shot down in Nicaragua loaded with guns while piloted by an ex_air American crew. Her her astonishing life story. For the first time ever The Fat Lady sings….

The Mena Connection takes you into the dark history of CIA’s covert operations in Arkansas – Back to a time in which a young Governor, desperate to build power base from which to launch a bid for the Presidency, made a pact with the real power brokers behind America’s secret government.

All in the name of National Security, Bill Clinton ‘rented’ his state to CIA for covert arms manufacturing and shipment – at a time in which Congress had banned support for Nicaraguan Contras. The illegal activity led to subversion of our Judicial System, which then allowed drugs and drug profits to freely flow through America’s heartland.

Follow the trials and tribulations of former CIA asst Terry Reed and his family as they valiantly attempt to bring this saga to Federal Court. Told through a multitude of interviews and rare footage. The Mena Connection tells of those individuals whose lives have been changed forever as a result of the ongoing cover-up and containment of what is perhaps America’s darkest secret – the successful, silent coup that set up the unelected, elitist micro-government now firmly enriched in power.

September 28, 1999 - President Clinton bans reporter Paul Sperry from the White House after an impromptu interview on Chinagate

(Timeline editor’s note: This entry takes us to the beginning of our timeline and still seems relevant today. Even in 1999, the media was unwilling to ask the Clintons tough questions and they were never held accountable for the Chinagate scandal. Our team appreciates Mr. Sperry’s  fearless spirit and continued coverage of the Clintons through the years.)

President Clinton bans Investor’s Business Daily reporter Paul Sperry from the White House after an impromptu interview on the Chinagate scandal during a picnic for the press on the South Lawn in 1999.


Paul Sperry wrote of his experience and his article was originally published as the cover story for WorldNet Magazine (later renamed Whistleblower) in February 2000:

(…) It was my turn to meet the celebrity president. As he approached me, I politely, if coolly, asked him when he would hold his next formal press conference. It had been several months since his last and he’s had fewer than any recent president. I admit I was trying to agitate the proper forum for questions about the FBI agents’ charges. But, to me, this was still a rather innocuous question, even within the supposedly neutral zone of a party. A relevant question, too, given the gathering. Other hard-nosed reporters surely were wondering when they’d get another crack at Clinton.

Or so I thought. My simple question was rewarded with boos and hisses from the adoring Clinton groupies around me. So much for the adversarial press.

But that was nothing compared with Clinton’s reaction to my inquiry about his next press confab. In an instant, his 100-watt charm shut off, replaced by a taunting belligerence. “Why?” he barked.

Bill Clinton spars with Paul Sperry at a White House picnic when asked about Chinagate. (Credit: Fox News)

“Because the American people have a lot of unanswered questions,” I replied, struggling to hold my bladder. At that point, he moved back down the rope, pulling up square in front of me, and demanded, “Like what?”

“Well, like illegal money from China and the campaign-finance scandal …”

What happened over the next 10 minutes was nothing short of a “scene.” The party-goers collapsed in around us. I watched the blood rush to Clinton’s gargantuan face as he launched into a tirade against ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, the FBI, Bob Dole and Republicans in general. All the while, he tried to belittle me by making faces (to get a rise out of his fans) and intimidate me by getting in my face.

And now I can see how he can do that to people. Clinton’s not just intellectually intimidating, he’s physically imposing. He’s tall (6-2) and big-boned.

Luckily, I’m the same height and was able to stand toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with him. I’ll never forget the maniacal look in his bloodshot eyes. There was a moment, fleeting, where I sensed he wanted to try to take a swipe at me. I was getting full frontal Clinton. His volcanic temper, hidden so well from the public by his handlers, erupted less than 12 inches from my eyes.

Clinton always is game for a debate. That I asked him hard questions at a party wasn’t what ticked him off. It’s what I asked him about. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about the mother of all scandals — Chinagate.

He also may have been thrown by my grasp of the facts. I’d been tracking the Beijing-tied Lippo Group’s influence in the Clinton White House since 1996 and have been suspicious of the probity of Attorney General Janet Reno’s special task force since she let John Keeney Sr. set it up — a month after the election — to look into Lippo’s influence.

Keeney’s son is none other than a defense attorney for John Huang, the former Lippo executive and convicted Clinton-Gore fund-raiser. Junior, who’s also a long-time Democratic National Committee lawyer, cut Huang a deal with daddy’s old task force that got him no jail time and immunity from prosecution for espionage.

Clinton also was unprepared for my tenacity. Other reporters may back down after he singes their eyebrows with a verbal fusillade. Dummy me, I hung in there for more abuse, challenging his answers, following up with more questions. Which only made him madder. (Read more: WND/Archive, 9/24/2000)

November 20-22, 2003 - Secret Service docs reveal Bill Clinton’s trip with Ghislaine Maxwell to India

Clinton flew on a private jet owned by billionaire Ron Burkle with Maxwell as a passenger during a trip to India in November 2003. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it received 4 pages of records from the Secret Service that reveal that Bill Clinton took a trip with Ghislaine Maxwell to India. Maxwell, a longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, is now on trial for sex trafficking and other charges.

The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Secret Service asking for information about any trips Bill Clinton took with Ghislaine Maxwell.

The records include exchanges between Secret Service officers about a trip that Maxwell went on with President Clinton. In a November 20, 2003, email exchange titled ‘requested info’, a Secret Service official advises a colleague, “The LA lead is [redacted]. Manifest to Osaka and LA (has not been confirmed but this should not deviate too much). FPOTUS Clinton [redacted] Ghislaine Maxwell [redacted]. Crew [redacted].” 

The colleague replied, “Thanks [redacted] info helps. I’ll have the prelim sent to my office by this evening so the twx [teletype] can go out tomorrow [redacted].”

On November 22, 2003, a Secret Service agent responded to the same chain, writing, “[Redacted] I have just received an updated manifest for the trip to LA. The additional names are [redacted]. Hope this doesn’t create too many issues for you. I’ve attached the passport list. Thanks [redacted]; Agra, India to Los Angeles, CA (via Japan for fuel stop)”. 

An official replies, “Thanks [redacted] I met with the [redacted] today and they had given me that info along with [redacted] (another addition), so we have 4 crew members and 12 staff and [redacted] USSS [redacted] total. Not sure if they are feeding our [redacted] USSS, so I’ll have food and drinks waiting for them. Cheers”. 

Another agent responded, “as far as crew and usss are concerned then that is correct – staff/guest list could change – as you see [redacted] but I don’t think drastically. I just heard about [redacted] from my saic [Special Agent-in-Charge]. If you are able to get my guys food then it is greatly appreciated – evn [sic] an attempt. All you guys in Honolulu have made my job much less difficult. Thank you for all your help.” 

Finally, an agent wrote “[Redacted] no problem. We’re here to help and happy to do so. I know your guys have been run through the ringer and I think everyone wants to see this trip get over, so if I can help make their trip a little nicer, that’s the least we can do. I heard that when they flew from Oslo to Hong Kong via Russia fuel stop, they had nothing to eat that entire trip, so I don’t want that to happen again.”

“This new information raises more questions about the extent and nature of the relationship between Bill Clinton, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch previously sued the Secret Service for records about any Bill Clinton trips to Epstein’s private island. (Judicial Watch, 12/01/2021)  (Archive)

January 15, 2005 - Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband is part owner of Chinese company that sells spyware to U.S. military

Peter Schweizer’s new book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win tells the story of how Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) husband Richard Blum was part owner of a Chinese firm that allegedly sold computers with spyware chips to the U.S. military. The military has never been able to calculate how much sensitive data these computers allowed China to steal.

A hefty chapter of Red-Handed is devoted to tracking Feinstein’s long and expensive relationship with Communist China. The senator has made herself very, very useful to Beijing — so useful that she actually tried to excuse the Tiananmen Square massacre by suggesting China only called in combat troops to murder thousands of demonstrators because it ran out of cops.

Then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian at Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on November 9, 1984. (Neal Ulevich/AP)

In a total coincidence that could not possibly have been related in any way to Feinstein’s friendship with the tyrants of Beijing, her husband did a great deal of lucrative business with Chinese companies, including entities run by the Communist government and linked to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

One of those deals saw Blum becoming a major investor in a computer company that was founded by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), an institution tied to both the Chinese government and the PLA. The company was originally called Legend, but is better known by its second name, Lenovo.

Lenovo grew into a major player in the worldwide computer marketplace after it acquired IBM’s line of personal computer products in 2005. Lenovo’s deal to buy IBM’s business included $350 million in investments from three American private equity firms. One of them was Richard Blum’s Newbridge Capital.

Some lawmakers worried Lenovo’s purchase of IBM’s personal computer line could jeopardize U.S. national security and transfer advanced American computer technology to China. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, was not one of them.

It did not take long for security agencies across the Western world — including the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia — to discover security vulnerabilities in Lenovo products and ban them from sensitive operations. The U.S. State Department announced it would not allow Lenovo computers to connect to its classified networks in 2006, barely a year after the IBM acquisition.

Somehow Lenovo still managed to sell a large number of laptop computers to the U.S. military, which discovered that many of those machines included motherboard chips that “would record all the data that was being inputted into that laptop and send it back to China,” as a computer operations manager for the U.S. Marines in Iraq put it.

A year after that testimony was delivered, Blum sold his stake in Lenovo.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) with her husband Richard Blum at an election night event in San Francisco on November 6, 2018. (Credit: Jeff Chiu/AP)

The Pentagon released an audit in 2019 that found the Department of Defense (DoD) still has not formally banned computers from Lenovo, now the largest personal computer company in China, even though the Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Intelligence Directorate have both identified the machines as cyberespionage risks. The U.S. Air Force purchased 1,378 Lenovo products worth $1.9 million as recently as 2018. (Breitbart, 1/26/2022)   (Archive)

December 29, 2009 - Obama issues an Executive Order making it clear, all communications with a foreign government are automatically deemed classified information

(…) “In the first year of his administration (December 29, 2009, to be exact), President Obama issued Executive Order 13526, entitled “Classified National Security Information.” It explains what information is deemed classified if its disclosure would cause “damage to the national security.” Beyond that, whether the classified information is categorized as “top secret,” “secret,” or “confidential” depends on how serious the damage would be.

With that as background, the order makes clear that there is one category of information that is automatically deemed classified: information from foreign governments. Section 1.1(d) of the executive order decrees: “The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed to cause damage to the national security.”

The reason for this is plain: It is not just the often sensitive nature of diplomatic communications; it is the fact that, in order to protect our national security, the United States must rely on intelligence from foreign governments; if our government does not keep that information strictly confidential, the foreign governments will be unwilling to share it – endangering American lives. As Secretary of State, Clinton not only knew this elementary rule; it was her duty to ensure that the rule was followed throughout her department.

After an artist prints out 62,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails as part of an art exhibition titled “HILLARY: The Hillary Clinton Emails” in Venice, Italy, the former Democratic presidential nominee shows up and spends an hour reading them. She even poses for a picture that she posted on Twitter and jokes that someone should “alert the House GOP.” (Credit: Reuters)

As has been clear from the beginning, and is now patent after the latest disclosure of a subset of 6,000 of the emails Clinton deigned to preserve, at least 125 of which reportedly contain classified information, the emails Clinton sent, received and stored via her private server system were rife with information from foreign governments. This information was born classified. It makes no difference that these emails were not stamped “top secret”; all national security officials with security clearances know that foreign government information is deemed classified and must be handled as such. Period.

Indeed, since it is the State Department that deals most directly with foreign governments, the Secretary of State has the highest obligation and interest when it comes to assuring them that the information they share with the U.S. government is being handled with appropriate care.” (Read more: National Review, 9/01/2015)

June 14, 2010 - The untold story of a Nigerian woman who sued the Clinton Foundation for wrongful termination of employment due to a pregnancy

(A clipping from the Clinton Foundation website)

“In mid-February, investigative journalist Michael Smith unearthed an episode that rubbishes the Clinton Foundation’s decades-long claim of being supportive towards women worldwide: the case of Nigerian national Mrs Folarin Oreka Maiya tells quite a different story.

Why Nigeria’s Legal System is Worth Its Salt

On 14 June 2010, Maiya, an employee of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAIN) in Nigeria with an impeccable work record was sacked after informing her immediate supervisor that she was 12 weeks pregnant.

CHAIN’s decision to fire the pregnant African woman with zero explanations was subsequently endorsed by US-based CHAI Inc and the William J Clinton Foundation Inc despite Maiya’s repeated “self-humiliating” pleas.

Perhaps, the story would have ended here, but Maiya wasn’t easily frightened. She filed a suit with the National Industrial Court of Nigeria in the Abuja Judicial Division which found that the woman’s rights to protection from discrimination and inhumane, malicious, oppressive, and degrading treatment were breached by the Clintons’ entity that discharged her due to her pregnancy.

The court decision contains a description of the litigation that clearly shows the Incorporated Trustees of CHAIN not only showed no regret over its decision to sack the pregnant woman but insisted that she was “only insinuating that her rights to human dignity and freedom from discrimination were breached”.

The defendant also tried to convince the judge that CHAIN is a separate legal entity distinct from the US-based CHAI and the William J Clinton Foundation Inc. However, after examining the facts the court came to the conclusion that CHAIN is a mere agent of the two other entities, which were well aware of what had been going on.

The judge eventually ruled in Mrs Folarin Oreka Maiya’s favour citing “gross violations” of her constitutional rights by the Clintons’ charity. Still, the Clinton Foundation failed to disclose this fact to the general public, and presumably did not brief the US and state government authorities on it while Hillary Clinton was serving as US secretary of state.

The case is especially interesting since it happened under the presidency of Barack Obama, the first African American to be elected to the office of president of the United States, with his wife Michelle known for decrying the kidnapping of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram extremists and campaigning against it in 2014.

 

The Obama Foundation did not respond to a request by a Sputnik journalist to comment on the Maiya vs The Incorporated Trustees of CHAIN case. Similarly, the William J Clinton Foundation Inc, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Chelsea Clinton, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Organisation for Women, Association for Women’s Rights in Development, International Alliance of Women, Women for Women International, and International Women’s Health Coalition – all those who claim to spearhead feminist values – did not provide any comment on the controversial 2010 episode.” (Read more: Sputnik News, 2/26/2020)  (Archive)

****************

Michael Smith writes more about the legal case:

Dr. Owens Wiwa (Credit: public domain)

“On 11 November 2011 His Lordship the Honourable Justice BA Adejumo, President of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria delivered a scathing judgement against 3 Clinton Foundation entities.

It’s important to explain who and what those entities are.

Firstly the court found that The Incorporated Trustees of Clinton Health Access Initiative, Nigeria headed by Dr Owens Wiwa had committed a “gross violation of (Folarin’s) constitutional rights”.  The CHAI Nigeria had “severely wounded her, with their assault on her womanhood”.  The court found that the Nigerian entity had acted illegally and had tried to cover-up its unlawful actions by giving false evidence to the court.

But the court reserved its most scathing criticism for the US-based CHAI Inc and the William J Clinton Foundation Inc.

The court held that the Clinton Foundation’s Nigerian entity was a fully-controlled agent of the Clinton Foundation itself.  His Honour Judge Adejumo said, 

“It is on the record that (Folarin) made several self-humiliating entreaties to the US-based respondents (CHAI) to reconsider the decision to sack her which the respondents flagrantly rebuffed.  It is on the record that she appealed to the US head office in the United States (William J Clinton Foundation Inc), which instead of calling the Nigerian office to order, decided to ratify its illegal act.  It is equally on the record that the respondents have not shown any remorse, they have continued to justify the action.  Considering this high-handedness and gross violation of the constitutional rights of the applicant, it is my considered opinion that the applicant is entitled to the award of aggravated damages”.

The Nigerian court’s decision is now on the record at the International Labour Organisation’s legal precedent database.

The full court’s judgement is here.

Mrs Folarin Oreka Maiya received a full 12 months salary to compensate her for the Clintons’ inhumanity.” (Read more: Michael Smith News, 2/15/2020)  (Archive)

June 18, 2010 - Senators Obama, Lugar, partner with Ukraine officials and build a level 3 bio-lab in Odessa, Ukraine

Payback: Obama presented Lugar with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2013. (Credit: Getty Images)

“U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar applauded the opening of the Interim Central Reference Laboratory in Odessa, Ukraine, this week, announcing that it will be instrumental in researching dangerous pathogens used by bioterrorists.

The level-3 bio-safety lab, which is the first built under the expanded authority of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, will be used to study anthrax, tularemia and Q fever as well as other dangerous pathogens.

The continuing cooperation of Nunn-Lugar partners has improved safety for all people against weapons of mass destruction and potential terrorist use, in addition to advancements in the prevention of pandemics and public health consequences,” Lugar said.

Lugar said plans for the facility began in 2005 when he and then-Senator Barack Obama entered a partnership with Ukrainian officials. Lugar and Obama also helped coordinate efforts between the U.S and Ukrainian researchers that year in an effort to study and help prevent avian flu.

The Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, was established in 1991. Since that time it has provided funding and assistance to help the former Soviet Union dismantle and safeguard large stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The program has also been responsible for destroying chemical weapons in Albania, Lugar said.” (Archive-BioprepWatch, 6/18/2010)

(Timeline editor’s note: The original link to this article no longer exists but was archived before it disappeared. Also, we find it stunning that the American taxpayers would help pay for a bio-lab in what is infamously known to be one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.)

September 30, 2010 - A Hamas-linked cleric and other terrorist organizations take part in the FBI's Citizens Academy program, including a tour of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)

The FBI on Thursday defended its inclusion of a Chicago Muslim cleric tied in the past to the terrorist groups Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood in a group that recently visited the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and FBI headquarters.

Ross Rice announces his retirement from the FBI on September 27, 2012. (Credit: public domain)

Ross Rice, FBI spokesman in Chicago, acknowledged in an interview that Kifah Mustapha, imam of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Ill., was named as an unindicted co-conspirator during a Hamas funding trial six years ago.

However, Mr. Mustapha “has never been convicted of a crime and never charged with a crime,” Mr. Rice said.

“If we thought he was a security risk, we wouldn’t have included him” in the FBI’s Citizens Academy program, Mr. Rice said.

Mr. Mustapha took part in the six-week program at the FBI’s Quantico, Va., facility, which included a three-day visit to Washington, where a group of 30 people, including the cleric, visited the NCTC and FBI headquarters, Mr. Rice said.

Mr. Mustapha is listed in court papers as one of more than 240 unindicted co-conspirators, including people and organizations, that were named in the 2004 terrorism-funding trial of the Dallas-based charity Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

The Justice Department charged the group and its top officials with illegally funding the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has carried out bombing attacks in Israel. The NCTC website states that Hamas was behind “high-profile terrorist attacks” against civilians in Israel.

The foundation and five former leaders were found guilty in November 2008 of giving more than $12 million to Hamas. The investigation and trial also produced large numbers of documents from the group and its affiliates that disclosed a covert plan by the Muslim Brotherhood to subvert the U.S. government and create an Islamic state.

The list of co-conspirators identified Mr. Mustapha as among 53 people who were members of the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, a group set up to funnel funds to Hamas. Another document identified him as the Holy Land Foundation’s agent in Illinois.

Mr. Mustapha was named a Muslim chaplain for the Illinois State Police in December, but was dismissed in June after failing a background check that disclosed his past ties to the Holy Land Foundation.

State police spokesman Sgt. Isaiah D. Vega confirmed that Mr. Mustapha is no longer a chaplain.

“Due to information revealed during the background investigation, Sheik Kifah Mustapha’s appointment as a volunteer ISP chaplain was denied,” he said, declining to comment further because the matter is the subject of a lawsuit.

The Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations, also identified as a co-conspirator.

Mr. Rice said Mr. Mustapha was “an employee” of the Holy Land Foundation, but that his participation in the FBI outreach program was welcome.

“His application was reviewed and vetted by our office,” Mr. Rice said. “He is a very influential leader of the Palestinian community here and imam of the largest mosque and was a welcome addition.”

Mr. Mustapha declined to comment on the visits or whether he has any link to Hamas.

An NCTC spokesman referred questions to the FBI, and an FBI headquarters’ spokesman referred questions to Mr. Rice.

The visits were first reported by Andrew Breitbart’s website Big Peace, which included a photograph of Mr. Mustapha and 18 other people inside the NCTC.

Sheikh Kifah Mustapha (third from left) as well as other top Muslim terrorist operatives tour the National Counterterrorism Center.  A Department of Homeland Security official said Mustapha is on the highest watch list they have.” (Photo Credit: Breitbart via FBI)

A video of Mustapha asking for donations:

Mr. Rice said that during the recent Washington visit, Mr. Mustapha was escorted the entire time as he visited the NCTC headquarters near Tysons Corner in Northern Virginia and the FBI headquarters building.

“He’s very sympathetic to the mission of the FBI and has pledged his support,” Mr. Rice said.

A former FBI agent said Mr. Mustapha several years ago was listed in the FBI’s database as a member of Hamas. “This is a known senior Hamas guy,” the former agent said of Mr. Mustapha.

Asked if Mr. Mustapha is listed by the FBI as a Hamas member, Mr. Rice said, “not that I’m aware of.” (Read more: Washington Times, 9/30/2010)  (Archive)

October 22, 2010: Biden's energy adviser and Burisma deal-maker also aided in Russia's purchase of Uranium One

Annie Medaglia (l) of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, moderates a June 1 discussion with Todd Foley of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE); Amos Hochstein of the US State Department; and Adnan Z. Amin of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). (Credit: Larry Luxner/Atlantic Council)

(…) Between his visits to Congress (and well-connected think tanks) to apprise decision makers of Putin’s energy antics, [Amos] Hochstein was Biden’s right-hand man meeting with numerous world leaders. He frequently flew to Ukraine (and other nations) with Biden to work out energy deals.

But Hochstein had a secret.

Time and again, Biden’s advisor failed to mention that he had witnessed Putin’s energy strategy firsthand. Hochstein communicated Putin’s energy dominance strategy in the oil and gas sectors very effectively, but he never mentioned Russia’s attempts to corner the global uranium market. It was something he had assisted personally.

While working as a U.S. lobbyist in the private sector, Hochstein had advised Rosatom’s subsidiary: Tenex.

Hochstein became a revolving door extraordinaire early in his Beltway career. As he weaved in and out of the private sector, his positions (and profits) rose substantially. From 2001 to 2007, Hochstein worked in various capacities at Washington lobbying powerhouse Cassidy & Associates. In 2006, then-Governor Mark Warner (D-Va.) hired Hochstein to serve as a senior policy advisor. Hochstein purportedly left Cassidy in January 2007 to join Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd’s presidential campaign, according to a press release by the firm. …

Yet, Hochstein continued to work for Cassidy’s deep-pocketed foreign clients, even while he was employed by Governor Warner and Senator Dodd’s presidential campaign. In 2006, Russian nuclear corporation Tenex asked Doug Campbell (unaware that he was an FBI operative) to find a Beltway lobbying powerhouse to help further their interests.

By March 2006, Campbell found himself meeting with Hochstein, who ensured that Tenex hired Cassidy & Associates. Cassidy claimed that Hochstein left the firm in January 2007, but Hochstein continued to meet with Putin’s top nuclear officials throughout 2007 and 2008 while he was working with powerful Democrats.

Did Warner and Dodd know that Hochstein was simultaneously serving Russian interests? Hochstein’s public bios make no mention of his work on behalf of Tenex, although he does acknowledge returning to Cassidy in August 2008 (and remaining there until 2011).

Before long, he was directly advising Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her successor John Kerry, and finally Vice President Biden (and even President Obama). His LinkedIn profile is meticulously manicured to show no overlap between his public and private sector gigs, but, in fact, Hochstein advised multiple public officials and simultaneously worked to advance foreign interests while on the payroll of Cassidy.

According to the Obama White House’s visitor records, Hochstein visited more than 150 times between December 2010 and September 2016, including several trips to the Situation Room. His first visits occurred while he was still working with Cassidy.” (Read more: Just the News, 7/13/2020)  (Archive)

October 22, 2010 - Red flags are raised in national security assessments of the Uranium One deal

(Credit: public domain)

“My sources tell me President Trump is putting the finishing touches on a White House initiative to declassify documents that have remained hidden from the public for far too long.

This welcome effort to provide more public transparency and accountability almost certainly will focus early on the failings of the now-debunked Russia collusion probe. And I’m sure it will spread quickly toward other high-profile issues, such as the government’s UFO files that have been a focus of clamoring for decades.

But my reporting indicates three sets of documents from the Obama years should be declassified immediately, too, because they will fundamentally change the public’s understanding of history and identify ways to improve governance.

The first includes the national security assessments that the U.S. intelligence community conducted under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning the Russia nuclear giant Rosatom’s effort to acquire uranium business in the United States.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) – made up of Secretary Clinton and eight other senior federal officials – approved Rosatom’s purchase of mining company Uranium One’s U.S. assets in fall 2010, even as the FBI was gathering evidence that the Russian company’s American arm was engaged in bribery, kickbacks and extortion.

Sources who have seen these classified assessments tell me they debunk the last administration’s storyline that there were no national security reasons to oppose Rosatom’s Uranium One purchase or Vladimir Putin’s successful efforts to secure billions of dollars in new nuclear contracts with American utilities during the Obama years.

“There were red flags raised, and the assessments expose other weaknesses in how CFIUS goes about these approval processes,” one knowledgeable source told me.

Under Obama, sensitive foreign acquisitions almost routinely were rubber-stamped by CFIUS, and the approval process sometimes was delegated by Cabinet officials on the CFIUS committee to lower-ranking aides.

Clinton, for example, claims she allowed a deputy to decide the Uranium One purchase, even as her family foundation collected millions in donations from parties interested in the transaction and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, collected a $500,000 speech fee from Moscow.

Since Trump took office and Steve Mnuchin took over as Treasury secretary, laudable legislative and administrative changes have been designed to tighten up the CFIUS process, and the percentage of rejected foreign acquisitions has increased because of more aggressive national security vetting.

But sources say the release of the Rosatom intelligence assessments would identify additional steps that can improve the process, and finally would give Americans a complete picture of what happened during one of the most politically controversial CFIUS decisions in history.” (Read more: The Hill, 8/28/2019)

March 27, 2011 - A Blumenthal email to Clinton contains clear evidence of war crimes on the part of NATO-backed rebels in Libya

A March 27, 2011, intelligence brief on Libya, [archived here], sent by long-time close adviser to the Clintons and Hillary’s unofficial intelligence gatherer, Sidney Blumenthal, contains clear evidence of war crimes on the part of NATO-backed rebels. Citing a rebel commander source “speaking in strict confidence” Blumenthal reports to Hillary [emphasis mine]:

Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to encourage additional defections.

(Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting…).

While the illegality of extra-judicial killings is easy to recognize (groups engaged in such are conventionally termed “death squads”), the sinister reality behind the “foreign mercenaries” reference might not be as immediately evident to most.

While over the decades Gaddafi was known to make use of European and other international security and infrastructural contractors, there is no evidence to suggest that these were targeted by the Libyan rebels.

There is, however, ample documentation by journalists, academics, and human rights groups demonstrating that black Libyan civilians and sub-Saharan contract workers, a population favored by Gaddafi in his pro-African Union policies, were targets of “racial cleansing” by rebels who saw black Libyans as tied closely with the regime.[1]

The 30,000 people living in a town in northern Libya have been driven out of their homes, in what appears to have been an act of revenge for their role in the three-month siege of the city of Misrata. (Credit: BBC)

Black Libyans were commonly branded as “foreign mercenaries” by the rebel opposition for their perceived general loyalty to Gaddafi as a community and subjected to torture, executions, and their towns “liberated” by ethnic cleansing. This is demonstrated in the most well-documented example of Tawergha, an entire town of 30,000 black and “dark-skinned” Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its takeover by NATO-backed NTC Misratan brigades.

These attacks were well-known as late as 2012 and often filmed, as this report from The Telegraph confirms:

After Muammar Gaddafi was killed, hundreds of migrant workers from neighboring states were imprisoned by fighters allied to the new interim authorities. They accuse the black Africans of having been mercenaries for the late ruler. Thousands of sub-Saharan Africans have been rounded up since Gaddafi fell in August.

It appears that Clinton was getting personally briefed on the battlefield crimes of her beloved anti-Gaddafi fighters long before some of the worst of these genocidal crimes took place.

(Read more: Foreign Policy Journal, 1/06/2016)  (Archive)

February 12, 2012 - An email from Jake Sullivan to Hillary: 'Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria'

‘Al Qaeda Is on Our Side’: How Obama-Biden team empowered terrorists in Syria
Aaron Maté, 2/20/2022

“Hours after the Feb. 3 U.S. military raid in northern Syria that left the leader of ISIS and multiple family members dead, President Biden delivered a triumphant White House address.

The late-night Special Forces operation in Syria’s Idlib province, Biden proclaimed, was a “testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they hide around the world.”

U.S. Government Handout/Reuters

Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi: Before he was killed by U.S. forces in February the ISIS leader operated from an Al Qaeda safe haven in Syria. (Credit: U.S. Government/Reuters)

Unmentioned by the president, and virtually all media accounts of the assassination, was the critical role that top members of his administration played during the Obama years in creating the Al Qaeda-controlled hideout where ISIS head Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, as well as his slain predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, found their final refuge.

In waging a multi-billion dollar covert war in support of the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, top Obama officials who now serve under Biden made it American policy to enable and arm terrorist groups that attracted jihadi fighters from across the globe. This regime change campaign, undertaken one decade after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, helped a sworn U.S. enemy establish the Idlib safe haven that it still controls today.

A concise articulation came from Jake Sullivan to his then-State Department boss Hillary Clinton in a February 2012 email: “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Jake Sullivan: “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria,” the then-State Dept. official – and current national security adviser – told Hillary Clinton in a Feb. 2012 email. (Credit: The Associated Press)

Sullivan, the current national security adviser, is one of many officials who oversaw the Syria proxy war under Obama to now occupy a senior post under Biden. This group includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken, climate envoy John Kerry, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, NSC Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, and State Department Counselor Derek Chollet.

Their efforts to remake the Middle East via regime change, not just in Syria but earlier in Libya, led to the deaths of Americans – including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi in 2012; the slaughter of countless civilians; the creation of millions of refugees; and ultimately, Russia’s entry into the Syrian battlefield.

Contacted through their current U.S. government agencies, none of the Obama-Biden principals offered comment on their policy of supporting an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria. (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 4/20/2022)  (Archive)

March 22, 2012 - The Obama administration announces new rules that will allow millions of U.S. citizens’ government files to be copied and analyzed for terrorism clues

(…) “Within the 99-page opinion from Judge Rosemary Collyer  she noted none of this FISA-702 database abuse was accidental. In a key footnote on page 87: Collyer outlined the years of unlawful violations was the result of “deliberate decisionmaking“:

This specific footnote, is key to peeling back the onion.

Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”.  This sentence exposes an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; and outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data. Note: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“.

We feel confident we’ve now found the source of the “memorandum of understanding” that lies at the heart of the issue.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder (Credit: Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)

In March 2012 the Obama administration through Attorney General Eric Holder made changes to the exploitation of intelligence databases as noted in this Wall Street Journal article later in the year:

(December 2012WSJ) Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Not everyone was on board. “This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public,” Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.

A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.

The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation.

Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans “reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information” may be permanently retained.

The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the information to look for clues that people might commit future crimes.  (more)

The 2012 changes, instituted by Eric Holder, permitted files of specific Americans to be generated under the auspices of potential terror threats.  The NSA databases could be exploited by the National Counterterrorism Center to extract content that would be contained within these files on targeted Americans.

Keep in mind this is early 2012, John Brennan is Deputy National Security Advisor and Asst. to President Obama for Homeland Security.

When Attorney General Eric Holder empowered the National Counterterrorism Center with this new authority, the office assigned to the data-collection was the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC).  The founder of the TTIC was John Brennan:

On 1 May 2003, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) opened its doors. Led by its first Director, John Brennan, TTIC filled its ranks with approximately three dozen detailees from across the US Government (USG) and was mandated to integrate CT capabilities and missions across the government. (link)

Also note the date of this DOJ Memorandum is March 2012:

Under the new rules issued in March, the National Counterterrorism Center, known as NCTC, can obtain almost any database the government collects that it says is “reasonably believed” to contain “terrorism information.”  (link)

The March 2012 date is right before the IRS scandal hit the headlines.

The IRS targeting scandal is where the term “Secret Research Project” originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:

The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)

Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there’s a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in spring 2012.

Here’s how it looks:

♦ In 2010 Eric Holder asked the IRS to send him the records of 501(c) non profit groups and individuals representing conservative voters. [LINK] Lois Lerner sent the DOJ 1.1 million pages of 501(c)(4) tax filing data. Including a very specific set of “33 Schedule B attachment files”. The Schedule B’s were specific to Large Conservative 501(c)(4) groups operating and organized to oppose the agenda of President Obama. The Schedule B’s include the donor lists of specific people and sub-groups attached to the 501(c)(4).

The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)

♦ In 2012 Eric Holder authorizes the use of government databases to search records of Americans and assemble “files” on potential targets. [Link] “The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior.”

♦ In the period of 2012 through April 2016According to FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer, there were tens of thousands of illegal (“non-compliant”) search queries of the NSA database targeting Americans.  The search results were unlawfully “extracted” to unknown entities.  Eighty-five out of every hundred searches were illegal (85% non-compliant rate).

Consider purposeful actions, as a political targeting operation, by weaponizing the systems of government.  Steps:

  • First, identify the targets (IRS Database).
  • Second, research the targets (NSA Database).
  • Third assemble files on the targets (DOJ Authorization).
  • Fourth use the files to leverage/destroy your opposition.

We now have evidence of the first three steps; and my hunch is if we apply hindsight a lot of unusual activity will now make sense.  We have been living inside the fourth step for a few years.  We noticed the consequences… but we only had suspicions, until now.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/28/2019)

***

On December 12, 2012, the Wall Street Journal publishes a timeline of events regarding the National Counterterrorism Center controversy:

Dec. 25, 2009 – On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, boarded a flight to Detroit from Amsterdam wearing explosives sewn into his undergarments. His bomb didn’t properly detonate. He eventually pleaded guilty to terror-related charges.

Jan. 7, 2010 – The White House issued a report about the attempted bombing, citing the need to strengthen the watchlisting process.

May 18, 2010 – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the Christmas Day bombing concluded that “NCTC was not organized adequately to fulfill its mission.”

Feb 24, 2011 – In February 2011, Homeland Security staffers began corresponding about their concerns about the proposed NCTC guidelines, including issues with “oversight/compliance” and difficulty stripping down “what you need to focus on as the problems.”

March 4, 2011 – By March, Justice Department was on its “third round of edits” with NCTC. DHS Associate General Counsel Matthew L. Kronisch encouraged Homeland Security colleagues to submit their comments soon.

March 7, 2011 – In a heated exchange, an official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – whose name was redacted – said that several Homeland Security comments “suggest a potential lack of understanding” and “would eviscerate the authorities” of the counterterrorism center.

March 11, 2011 – Homeland Security Associate General Counsel Matthew Kronisch expressed “little expectation of resolving our concerns” but requested a meeting with the Office of Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice.

May 12, 2011 – Homeland Security Chief Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan and Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Margo Schlanger elevated their concerns to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in a memo titled “How Best to Express the Department’s Privacy and Civil Liberties-Related Concems over Draft Guidelines Proposed by the Office of The Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center.”

June 17, 2011 – Ms. Callahan expressed frustration with the process, stating that she “non-concurred” on “operational examples,” and that the examples were “complete non-sequiturs” and “non-responsive.”

November 8, 2011 – “I’m not sure I’m totally prepared with the firestorm we’re about to create,” Margo Schlanger wrote in an e-mail to Mary Ellen Callahan in November, referring to the fact that the two wanted to push for further privacy protections in the guidelines. Others in the department were willing to agree to the counterterrorism proposal.

March 7, 2012 – Staffers for the Homeland Security Privacy and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties offices’ prepared talking points for the “Deputies Committee meeting” at the White House to discuss the guidelines.

March 22, 2012 – But right after the meeting the guidelines were finalized and quietly released with a statement from the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who cited the Abdullmutallub failures. “Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counterterrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of datasets from various agencies that contain terrorism information,” said Clapper, “The ability to search against these datasets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated Guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively than the 2008 Guidelines allowed.”

April 2, 2012 – Homeland Security staffers began preparing the terms under which they would hand over the “six DHS datasets associated with the revised NCTC AG Guidelines.”

(Wall Street Journal, 12/12/2012)

2012 - 2017: DOJ Political Surveillance – From the IRS, to the FISA Court

An assembly of government reports and public records now indicates political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid-2012.  After an initial attempt to exploit IRS records, the legal tool used to access the NSA database was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA.

With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations & gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of four to six years.

The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process only after a previous DOJ effort ran into trouble. The established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017, helps explain the details.

I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court.  Very specifically, the court outlined how the Obama administration was continually lying to the court about both their activity and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information. These violations continued for multiple years throughout Obama’s terms.

Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology, Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result, most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.

For the sake of brevity and common understanding, CTH will highlight the most pertinent segments showing just how systemic and troublesome the unlawful electronic surveillance was.

Early in 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted of a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) “About” queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.

The NSA compliance officer alerted Admiral Mike Rogers who then initiated a full compliance audit on/around March 9th, 2016, for the period of November 1st, 2015, through May 1st, 2016.

While the audit was ongoing, due to the severity of the results that were identified, Admiral Mike Rogers stopped anyone from using the 702(17) “about query” option and went to the extraordinary step of blocking all FBI contractor access to the database on April 18, 2016 (keep these dates in mind).

Here are some significant segments:

The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or ‘exporting’, the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.

Searching the highly classified NSA database is essentially a function of filling out search boxes to identify the user-initiated search parameter and get a return on the search result.

FISA-702(16) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (“702”), and the “16” is a checkbox to initiate a search based on “To and From“. For example, if you put in a date and a phone number and check “16” as the search parameter the user will get the returns on everything “To and From” that identified phone number for the specific date. Calls, texts, contacts, etc. Including results for the inbound and outbound contacts.

FISA-702(17) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (702), and the “17” is a checkbox to initiate a search based on everything “About” the search qualifier. For example, if you put a date and a phone number and check “17” as the search parameter the user will get the returns of everything about that phone. Calls, texts, contacts, geolocation (or GPS results), account information, user, service provider, etc. As a result, 702(17) can actually be used to locate where the phone (and user) was located on a specific date or sequentially over a specific period of time which is simply a matter of changing the date parameters.

And that’s just from a phone number.

Search an IP address “about” and read all data into that server; put in an email address and gain everything about that account. Or use the electronic address of a GPS enabled vehicle (about) and you can withdraw more electronic data and monitor in real-time. Search a credit card number and get everything about the account including what was purchased, where, when, etc. Search a bank account number, get everything about transactions and electronic records, etc. Just about anything and everything can be electronically searched; everything has an electronic ‘identifier’.

The search parameter is only limited by the originating field filled out. Names, places, numbers, addresses, etc. By using the “About” parameter there may be thousands or millions of returns. Imagine if you put “@realdonaldtrump” into the search parameter? You could extract all following accounts who interacted on Twitter, or Facebook, etc. You are only limited by your imagination and the scale of the electronic connectivity.

As you can see below, on March 9th, 2016, internal auditors noted the FBI was sharing “raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information”.

In plain English, the raw search returns were being shared with unknown entities without any attempt to “minimize” or redact the results. The person(s) attached to the results were named and obvious. There was no effort to hide their identity or protect their 4th amendment rights of privacy:

But what’s the scale here? This is where the story really lies.

Read this next excerpt carefully.

The operators were searching “U.S Persons”. The review of November 1, 2015, to May 1, 2016, showed “eighty-five percent of those queries” were unlawful or “non-compliant.”

85% !! “representing [redacted number].”

We can tell from the space of the redaction the number of searches was between 1,000 and 9,999 [five digits]. If we take the middle number of 5,000 – that means 4,250 unlawful searches out of 5,000.

The [five digit] amount (more than 1,000, less than 10,000), and 85% error rate, was captured in a six month period, November 2015 to April 2016.

Also, notice this very important quote:

”many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges.”

This tells us the system users were searching the same phone number, email address, electronic “identifier”, or people, repeatedly over different dates.

Specific people were being tracked/monitored.

Additionally, notice the last quote: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of” these non-lawful searches “since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 coincided with an unusually high error rate”.

That means the 85% rate of unlawful FISA-702(16)(17) database abuse has likely been happening since 2012.

2012 is an important date in this database abuse because a network of specific interests is assembled that also shows up in 2016/2017:

  • Who was the 2012 FBI Director? Robert Mueller.  The same Mueller selected by the FBI group to become a special prosecutor in 2017.
  • Who was Robert Mueller’s chief-of-staff? Aaron Zebley.  The same Aaron Zebley, who became one of the lead lawyers on the Mueller special counsel.
  • Who was the 2012 CIA Director? John Brennan.
  • Who was the 2012 ODNI? James Clapper.
  • Remember, the NSA is inside the Pentagon (Defense Dept) command structure. Who was Defense Secretary? Ash Carter.

Now it becomes important to remember in 2016:

  • Who wanted NSA Director Mike Rogers fired? Brennan, Clapper, and Carter.
  • And finally, who wrote and signed-off-on the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment and then lied about the use of the Steele Dossier? John Brennan, James Clapper

Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal. The results were extracted for?…. (I believe this is all political opposition use, and I’ll explain why momentarily.)

OK, that’s the stunning scale; but who was involved?

Private contractors with access to “raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI’s requests“:

And as noted, the contractor access was finally halted on April 18th, 2016.

[Coincidentally (or not), the wife of Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, goes to the White House the next day on April 19th, 2016.]

None of this is a conspiracy theory.

All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decisionmaking“:

This specific footnote, if declassified, would be 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 also: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, that is important.

Important summary of this aspect: •The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system dating back to around 2012.  •The NSA 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 same people had multiple searches performed against their private information from November of 2015 to May of 2016, the exact time of the Republican presidential primary.

The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation, and we are not the only one to think that’s what this system is being used for.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 3/09/2020)  (Archive)

March 7, 2014 - Nearly a billion dollars of Ukraine's gold reserve is loaded on a plane destined for the United States

Ukraine Gold

(…)  “…one place where any serious probe can start is with a story we wrote in March 2014, when citing a local media report, we shone light on a mysterious operation in which a substantial portion of Ukraine’s gold reserves were loaded onboard an unmarked plane, and flown to the US, just weeks after the February 2014 revolution. From the source, March 7, 2014:

Tonight, around at 2:00 am, an unregistered transport plane took off took off from Boryspil airport.

According to Boryspil staff, prior to the plane’s appearance, four trucks and two cargo minibuses arrived at the airport all with their license plates missing. Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. These people loaded the plane with more than forty heavy boxes.

After this, several mysterious men arrived and also entered the plane. The loading was carried out in a hurry. After unloading, the plateless cars immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis.

Airport officials who saw this mysterious “special operation” immediately notified the administration of the airport, which however strongly advised them “not to meddle in other people’s business.”

Later, the editors were called by one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of Income and Fees, who reported that, according to him, tonight on the orders of one of the “new leaders” of Ukraine, all the gold reserves of the Ukraine were taken to the United States.

Needless to say, there was no official confirmation of any of this taking place, and in fact, our report in which we mused if the “price of Ukraine’s liberation” was the handover of Ukraine’s gold to the Fed at a time when Germany was actively seeking to repatriate its own physical gold located at the bedrock of the NY Fed, led to the usual mainstream media mockery.

But then everything changed in November 2014, when in an interview on Ukraine TV, none other than the then-head of the Ukraine Central Bank, Valeriya Gontareva (who became head of the Ukraine central bank in June 2014 when she replaced Stepan Kubiv and also presided over the nationalization of Kolomoiski’s PrivateBank in December 2016), made the stunning admission that “in the vaults of the central bank there is almost no gold left. There is a small amount of gold bullion left, but it’s just 1% of reserves.”

As Ukraina reported at the time, this stunning revelation means that not only has Ukraine been quietly depleting its gold throughout the year, but that the latest official number, according to which Ukraine gold was 8 times greater than the reported 1%, was fabricated, and that the real number is about 90% lower.

According to official statistics the NBU, the amount of gold in the vaults should be eight times more than is actually in stock. At the beginning of this month, the volume of gold was about $ 1 billion, or 8% of the total gold reserves. Now this is just one percent.

Assuming Gonaterva’s admission was true, it would imply that the official reserve data at the Central Bank was clearly fabricated, prompting questions about just how long ago the actual gold “displacement” took place. Could it have been during a cold night in March when “more than 40 heavy boxes” full of gold were loaded up on the plane and flown off to an unknown destination in the US?

To help out in this puzzle, we got some additional information from Rusila, which in Nov 2014 reported that “Ukraine’s gold reserves disappeared.”

According to recent data, the value of Ukraine gold should be $988.7 million. That is the value of gold proportion of gold in gold reserves is 8%. If you believe Gontareva, it turns out there is a mere $123.6 million in gold remaining. The figure is fantastic, considering that the amount of gold at the end of February (when the new authorities have already taken key positions) was $1.8 billion or 12% of the reserves.

In other words, since the beginning of the year gold reserves dropped almost 16 times. Gold stock in February were approximately 21 tons of gold, the presence of which was once proudly reported by Sergei Arbuzov, who led the NBU in 2010-2012. So what happened to 20.8 tons of gold?

Explaining the dramatic reduction in the context of the hryvnia devaluation through gold sales is impossible. After all, 92% of the reserves of the National Bank is in the form of a foreign currency that is much easier to use to maintain hryvnia levels and cover current liabilities. Besides since March the international price of gold has plummeted. Selling gold under such circumstances is a crime. In fact it would be more expedient to increase gold reserves through currency conversion in precious metals.

But apparently the result is not due to someone’s negligence or carelessness. The gold reserve has been actively carted out of the country, as a result of the very vague economic and political prospects of Ukraine. Something similar happened to the gold reserves of the USSR – when the Gorbachev elite realized that perestroika is leading the country to the abyss, gold simply disappeared in an unknown direction.

Oddly enough there was no official gold reduction just prior to the time when Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland was planning Yanukovich’s ouster, and as shown above, quite the contrary: Ukraine’s gold pile was increasing with every passing year… until it collapsed in early 2014. It is a little odder that it was during the period when Ukraine was “supported” by its western allies that several billion dollars worth of physical gold – the people’s gold – just “vaporized.”

Which brings us to the $1.8 billion question: what happened to Ukraine’s goldbecause if the now-former central banker’s story is accurate, that’s roughly the amount of gold that quietly left the country just days after the US-backed presidential coup. And, it is also roughly how much taxpayer-funded Ukraine aid, procured by Joe Biden while his son was working at Burisma, is now missing.

At this point, there are certainly many pressing questions but one stands out: was the real “quid pro quo” not one of Trump holding up payments to Kiev in exchange for a probe of Biden – which after reading all of the above is more than warranted – but if the quo, namely US support for regime change in Ukraine and almost two billion in now missing taxpayer funds which ended up in an oligarch’s bank and mysteriously “vaporized” but not before said oligarch hired the son of the US vice president, wasn’t the quid to some 40 tons of Ukraine leaving forever to an unknown destination in the US.

We hope that Trump’s second term will provide ample time and opportunity to answer this critical question, and just to set off investigators on the right track, we believe that any investigation should begin with the former central bank head, Gontareva, who he also fled to London where she now lives in self-appointed exile and where she now “fears for her life” after one of her homes near Kiev was badly damaged in an arson attack and was also injured in August when she was knocked down by a car in London. Failing that, one can always check the flight manifests and the cargo contents of all planes that left Ukraine and arrived in the US on March 7, 2014, with a cargo consisting of billions of dollars in gold…” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 2/08/2020)  (Archive)

April 16, 2014 - Biden laptop email to Hunter Biden places him in WH meeting with Devon Archer; shortly after, they join Burisma's Board and receive handsome checks

“Previously unseen e-mails on Hunter Biden’s “Hard Drive from Hell” point to never-before-seen evidence of involvement by Joe Biden in his son’s lucrative business dealings in Ukraine with natural gas conglomerate Burisma Holdings, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.

In a previously unreported email reviewed by The National Pulse, Rosemont Seneca Partners employee Joan K. Peugh advises Hunter Biden – who is addressed by his given name, Robert – that he is scheduled for a White House meeting on April 16th, 2014.

Prior to today, it was known that Devon Archer had attended the meeting in the West Wing, and corporate media outlets excused the matter as an “art project” discussion. Today, that version of events ends.

Just days after this meeting, then Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukraine, and both Hunter and Archer would start receiving whopping checks from energy company Burisma, an industry in which they had zero experience.

Hunter Biden recently admitted the previously dismissed “hard drive from hell” actually “could” be his.

The line item of the e-mail, itself dated April 15th 2014, reads: “1115AM- Meet Devon and Luke @ Peet’s Coffee and head to WH (Jamie Lyons is ####### if anything comes up).”

Lyons, at the time, was an assistant to Joe Biden’s chief of staff Steve Richetti, which indicates attention by the Vice President himself into the visit of the two soon-to-be Burisma board members.

Significantly, this April 16th meeting occurred only five days before Joe Biden took his second vice presidential trip to Ukraine to deliver a substantial package of assistance to Ukraine, including energy security, some of which directly benefitted the company – Burisma – which would simultaneously start fattening his son’s wallet.” (Read more: The National Pulse, 4/07/2021)  (Archive)

May 13, 2014 - Hunter Biden coaches VP Biden's press secretary on how to answer Burisma questions

Kendra Barkoff as press secretary to VP Joe Biden  (Credit: Twitter)

“Then-second son Hunter Biden coached then-Vice President Joe Biden’s press secretary on how to respond to media questions about him joining the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, emails reviewed by The Post show.

The May 13, 2014, exchanges between Hunter and Kendra Barkoff, which have not been previously reported, form the basis of a complaint sent to the Justice Department on Friday alleging that the Biden scion, now 53, violated federal law by failing to register as a foreign agent.

“In advising the Office of the Vice President how to respond to press inquiries about his appointment, Hunter Biden ‘represent[ed] the interests of [a] foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States,’” America First Legal Foundation general counsel Gene Hamilton wrote to the assistant attorney general for national security, Matthew Olsen, quoting the relevant statute.

Burisma announced Hunter Biden’s appointment to its board of directors on May 12, 2014. The following day, according to the complaint, Barkoff sent Hunter an email saying: “Thanks for talking to me. [L]et me know who I should refer folks to.”

“What exactly are they asking?” Hunter responded. “For the time being I’d just refer them to my office. FYI I joined the board of Burisma Holdings Ltd. (Burisma.com) an independent/private natural gas producer in Ukraine along with the former president of Poland. I think the press release is on their website.”

Barkoff then forwarded Hunter an email from Max Seddon, then a foreign correspondent at BuzzFeed News.

“Russian state media is loving this press release, supposedly from a Cypriot-held Ukrainian natural gas company, claiming that the Vice President’s son has joined its board of directors,” Seddon wrote, addressing then-National Security Council spokesperson Laura Lucas Magnuson, who had forwarded it to Barkoff.

“The news seems rather odd on its face and, if true, would present a fairly glaring conflict of interest given the VP’s role on Ukraine policy – particularly since the company is controlled by Nikolai Zlochevsky, who was energy minister and deputy NSC chief under [former pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych,” the reporter added. “Is this true? What exactly is going on here?”

“Interesting,” Hunter wrote back. “Burisma is completely independent of the Ukrainian government with an independent board of directors. [Zlochevsky] served as Minister of Ecology and resigned in 2010. I joined the board as legal adviser and Burisma also engaged the law firm I am of counsel to Boies Schiller Flexner on matters pertaining to corporate governance, transparency, and expansion. Alana Apter former head of Morgan Stanley Europe is chairman of the board.”

In addition to forwarding Seddon’s questions, Barkoff told Hunter: “Let me know who in your office” to refer media to.

“Eric‐ he’s cc’d here,” Hunter answered, referring to one of his business partners, Eric Schwerin — who chimed in: “Kendra, I am around the next few days if you need me.”

“If anything beyond referring questions to my office is required from you or counsel you can contact Heather King at Boise Schiller,” Hunter directed Barkoff, who later sent him the statement her office was putting out to the press. (Read more: New York Post, 3/03/2023)  (Archive)

May 2014 - Hunter Biden is on the board of a trade coalition lobbying Obama admin on Ukraine aid

Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Hunter Biden, a member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) Board, attend the USGLC awards dinner at the Grand Hyatt Washington on December 12, 2017, where Biden, along with Reps. Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), were honored for their long-standing commitment to America’s global leadership through strong U.S. development and diplomacy programs. (Credit: U. S. Global Leadership Coalition)

“Hunter Biden was on the board of a trade coalition that lobbied the Obama administration in 2014 on foreign assistance to Ukraine and appears to have set up a State Department meeting for the group’s president.

Biden’s links to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) and its affiliate, the Center for U.S. Global Leadership, have gone largely unreported in the coverage of his various business dealings, which have caused a headache for his father as he runs for president.

(…) USGLC, which lobbies and advocates for increased spending in the State Department’s International Affairs Budget, added a series of Ukraine-related bills to its lobbying portfolio at around the same time, lobbying disclosures show.

Biden’s private equity firm, Rosemont Seneca, was by far the smallest company of any of the directors on USGLC or the Center for U.S. Global Leadership.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/17/2020)  (Archive)

June 23, 2014 - Hunter emails pseudonym Joe recommending he fill an open treasury position with his White House counsel

Last week Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer wrote to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requesting unredacted copies of all Joe’s vice presidential communications using pseudonyms, including ‘Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware’.

(…) Joe and Hunter appeared to use the then-VP’s secret email to discuss government business in another incident in June 2014.

Hunter used his Rosemont Seneca consultancy email address to write to his father on June 23, 2014 about the employment of then-deputy White House counsel John McGrail.

‘Before you fill position pls talk to me — J. McGrail very much wants to serve as detail fr treasury,’ Hunter wrote.

‘Re Johnny call me right away Dad,’ Joe wrote back from the email robinware456@gmail.com.

McGrail was promoted to VP’s counsel the following year, then got his desired move to the Treasury as Senior Counsel in January 2017. He is currently Counselor to the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the department, according to his LinkedIn account.

Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson have been asking for unredacted records from NARA regarding Joe’s alias emails since 2021. (Read more: Daily Mail, 8/23/2023)  (Archive)

April 17, 2015 - Emails: Hunter Biden is thanked for introducing his father to Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma Holdings

 

Vadym Pozharskyi (Credit: public domain)

“Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.

The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.

An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.

The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer.” (Read more: The New York Post, 10/14/2020)  (Archive)