(Credit: Fox News)

“Foreign actors” obtained access to some of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified as “secret” — according to a new memo from two GOP-led House committees and an internal FBI email.

Fox News obtained the memo prepared by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, which lays out key interim findings ahead of next week’s hearing with Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The IG, separately, is expected to release his highly anticipated report on the Clinton email case later Thursday.

The House committees, which conducted a joint probe into decisions made by the DOJ in 2016 and 2017, addressed a range of issues in their memo including Clinton’s email security.

“Documents provided to the Committees show foreign actors obtained access to some of Mrs. Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified ‘Secret,’” the memo says, adding that foreign actors also accessed the private accounts of some Clinton staffers.

The memo does not say who the foreign actors are, or what material was obtained, but it notes that secret information is defined as information that, if disclosed, could “reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.” (Read more: Fox News, 6/14/2018) 

Trey Gowdy (Credit: public domain)

“House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy warned the DOJ and the FBI on Sunday that Republicans will come after them if they choose not to comply with subpoena requests.

Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday” that House Speaker Paul Ryan led a meeting with FBI and DOJ officials on Friday night and “made very clear there’s going to be action on the floor of the House this week if FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request.”

“Paul Ryan led this meeting. You had Devin Nunes, Bob Goodlatte, myself and everyone you can think of from the FBI and the DOJ, and we went item by item on both of those outstanding subpoenas,” Gowdy explained. “We’re going to get compliance or the House of Representatives is going to use its full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray were present at Ryan’s meeting, according to Gowdy. (Read more: Daily Caller, 6/17/2018)

Andrew C. McCarthy (Credit: National Review)

(…) “The Obama Justice Department and FBI spin on intent takes no account of the 800-pound gorilla in the room: The only reason officials were put in this position of compromising intelligence was that their boss, Clinton, established an improper communications network. And, again, she perfectly well understood that this was a monumental security breach.

It was not just a matter of whether any single transmission was an intentional flouting of the rules. It was, more significantly, a matter of erecting a renegade network for the systematic conduct of the State Department’s most sensitive work — including communications with the president and other top national-security and foreign-policy officials.

And observe how perverse this is: The Justice Department and FBI’s crimped construction of intent and knowledge enabled Clinton — the person singularly responsible for creating the problem — to escape liability on the ground she could not be held responsible for poor decisions by her staff. Investigators reasoned that the secretary of state was one of the nation’s highest government officials, who was more often than not receiving, not sending, sensitive information, and who was inundated by so much information that she had no choice but to rely on underlings to make judgments about what information could safely be sent to her.

It is a classic in the Clinton genre: rules-don’t-apply-to-me sense of privilege causes mess; subordinates blamed for mess; Washington looks the other way. If the FBI thought it was tremendously important that Clinton was on the receiving end of most (but not all) classified emails (inference: it was not her fault that people who should have known better sent her secret intelligence), how could it not have been even more important that Clinton imposed a non-secure, non-government server on her subordinates’ ability to communicate with her?

Remarkably, even blinding themselves to critical evidence was not enough to bury the case. In order to conclude that there was no prosecutable offense, the Obama Justice Department and FBI still had to rewrite the applicable statute (the Espionage Act, codified in Section 793 of the federal penal code). That’s because, for all the supposed obsession about whether investigators had enough evidence of criminal intent, the law does not actually require such evidence — if one is an official who has been schooled in the handling of national defense secrets, gross negligence will do.

The IG obligingly confines this aspect of his perfunctory assessment to a footnote (number 124):

Even though Section 793(f)(1) does not require intent, prosecutors told us that the Department has interpreted the provision to require that the person accused of having removed or delivered classified information in violation of this provision possess knowledge that the information is classified. In addition, based on the legislative history of Section 793(f)(1), the prosecutors determined that conduct must be “so gross as to almost suggest deliberate intention,” be “criminally reckless,” or fall “just a little short of willful” to meet the “gross negligence” standard.

In other words, the Justice Department added proof elements that are not in the statute. The Espionage Act literally says that if you are a government official who has been entrusted with sensitive information, you are guilty if you either willfully cause its transmission to an unauthorized person or place (Section 793(d)), or are grossly negligent in permitting it to be removed from its proper custody, transmitted to an unauthorized person, or lost, stolen, or abstracted (Section 793(f)(1)).”  (Read more: National Review, 6/19/2018)

By: Margot Cleveland

“The media has focused almost exclusively on the conclusion of the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe, which found bias did not impact the probe, as well as the lack of any newly announced indictments or criminal referrals. The goal of course being to downplay the negative findings of the report.

At the same time, the press gave, at most, passing mention to the statement Attorney General Jeff Sessions simultaneously released. But his statement and the findings of the report make one thing clear: This isn’t over.

Here’s why. Throughout the 568-page report, the IG highlighted several areas meriting additional investigation. And Sessions said the report “reveals a number of significant errors by the senior leadership of the Department of Justice and the FBI during the previous administration,” and stressed “this is not the end of the process.”

John Huber (Credit: public domain)

United States Attorney John Huber continues his work in cooperation with the IG to review certain prosecutorial and investigative determinations made by the Justice Department in 2016 and 2017. Based on his review of the report and his own investigation, Huber will provide recommendations as to whether any matter not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation required further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of Special Counsel.”

Put simply: There is still much to be done and much to come. What is likely over is the possibility the Justice Department will re-investigate Clinton for mishandling of classified information, or prosecute her. That’s a good thing. Clinton is done. While she may never face justice in a court of law, perhaps losing the presidency is a more prescient and proper punishment.

Three areas remain, however, that the IG report tees up for further investigation and potential prosecution. (Read more: The Federalist, 6/19/2018)

(John Giacalone Transcript 6/21/2018)

Peter Strzok (Credit: Saul Loeb/Agence France Presse/Getty Images

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed Thursday that embattled anti-Trump FBI official, Peter Strzok, no longer has his security clearance.

This news comes just days after Strzok’s attorney confirmed that the agent was escorted out of FBI headquarters following the bombshell Inspector General’s report on the bureau’s mishandling of the Clinton email investigation.

In an interview with radio host, Howie Carr, Sessions said, “Mr. Strzok, as I understand, has lost his security clearance.”  Despite losing his clearance, the Attorney General said it was his “understanding” that Strzok remained on the FBI’s payroll, but that he wasn’t sure.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 6/22/2018)

Peter Kadzik (Credit: Venable LLP)

“Former Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik is unlikely to face any legal consequences for tipping off Clinton campaign manager John Podesta to a release of Hillary’s emails, experts tell the Daily Caller.

Kadzik’s conduct in the DOJ was described by Michael Horowitz’s IG report as constituting “poor judgment.” According to last week’s IG report, Peter Kadzik was trying to get his son hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign while Kadzik himself was part of the investigation into Clinton’s private server.

He also emailed Clinton’s 2016 campaign chair, John Podesta, with a “heads up” on when the some of her emails would be released publicly.” (Read more: Daily Caller, 6/21/2018)

Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Loretta Lynch (Credit: World Tribune)

“The FBI had little problem leaking “unverified” dirt from Russian sources on Donald Trump and his campaign aides – and even basing FISA wiretaps on it. But according to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the bureau is refusing to allow even members of Congress with top security clearance to see intercepted material alleging political interference by President Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch.

That material – which has been outlined in press reports – consists of unverified accounts intercepted from putative Russian sources in which the head of the Democratic National Committee allegedly implicates the Hillary Clinton campaign and Lynch in a secret deal to fix the Clinton email investigation.”

(…) “True or false, the material is consequential because it appears to have influenced former FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to break with bureau protocols because he didn’t trust Lynch. In his recent book, Comey said he took the reins in the Clinton email probe, announcing Clinton should not be indicted, because of a “development still unknown to the American public” that “cast serious doubt” on Lynch’s credibility – clearly the intercepted material.

If the material documents an authentic exchange between Lynch and a Clinton aide, it would appear to be strong evidence that the Obama administration put partisan political considerations ahead of its duty to enforce the law.

The information remains so secret that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz had to censor it from his recently released 500-plus-page report on the FBI’s investigation of Clinton, and even withhold it from Congress.”

(…) “The contents of the secret intelligence document — which purport to show that Lynch informed the Clinton campaign she’d make sure the FBI didn’t push too hard — were included in the inspector general’s original draft. But in the official IG report issued June 14, the information was tucked into a classified appendix to the report and entirely blanked out.

“The information was classified at such a high level by the intelligence community that it limited even the members [of Congress] who can see it, as well as the staffs,” Horowitz explained last week to annoyed Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight authority over Justice and the FBI.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 6/26/2018)

Chuck Grassley (Credit: Getty Images)

“A bipartisan proposal to empower and protect whistleblowers across the federal bureaucracy was signed into law yesterday. The Whistleblower Protection Coordination Act permanently extends a program requiring each inspector general office to designate an official focused on whistleblower protection issues. The law was introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

“It’s not always easy to figure out how to disclose waste, fraud or abuse in government when there are so many different rules governing different agencies. Empowering coordinators across the federal government will give whistleblowers a clear, confidential resource to make sure they are informed and equipped to lawfully carry out their patriotic duty to shine a light on inefficiencies or misconduct in government,” Grassley said. “This law represents an important step for keeping faith with the American people, but there is always more to do to protect whistleblowers.”

The Whistleblower Protection Coordination Act permanently extends the program requiring a dedicated official in each inspector general office focused on whistleblower protection issues. The bill changes the title of these officials from ombudsman to “Whistleblower Protection Coordinator” so that potential whistleblowers better understand the role of this position, and it authorizes them to more actively promote whistleblowing to employees in their agency. Under this new bill, the coordinators will be tasked with assisting inspectors general in productive communications with other stakeholders, like the Office of Special Counsel and congress. They will also be able to better help the inspectors general strengthen their own roles in investigating reprisal and whistleblower disclosures. The legislation also requires additional reporting to congress on actual steps taken to hold accountable those who retaliate against whistleblowers. (Senate Judiciary Committee, 6/26/2018)

Jim Jordan (l) and Mark Meadows. (Credit: public domain)

“The House Judiciary Committee approved for the first time a resolution Tuesday demanding that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein turn over all requested documents regarding the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation during the presidential election after seven days or face possible impeachment or contempt.

The decision to move forward with the resolution came after a year of battles with the Justice Department and FBI to turn over requested documents. The committee voted on party lines 15-11 to pass the resolution directing Rosenstein to comply within the next seven days or face the consequences.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who has been one of the lawmakers at the front lines of the committee’s investigation, said the resolution is the result of the frustration felt among lawmakers conducting oversight. He noted that it will be up to House Republican leaders to decide whether or not to take it to the full House for a vote.

“If they don’t comply with the resolution they know the remedies the House has, contempt and impeachment,” said Jordan. “If we don’t get that information entitled to us, everybody knows that we’ll do what we have to do to get it done.”

Jordan and Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., were the authors of the resolution. Both members have criticized Rosenstein and the FBI for failing to deliver documents. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-CA, has also been fighting the Justice Department for documents and has threatened as well to hold Rosenstein in contempt or impeachment if they are not produced.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 6/26/2018)

(Credit: public domain)

“During the closed door testimony, Strzok was asked by a Republican investigator with the committee if his affair made him “vulnerable to potential recruitment” by “hostile intelligence service[s].”

“I don’t think I would characterize it that way,” Strzok said. “I think it is not so much any particular action as it is the way that action might be used to coerce or otherwise get somebody to do something.”

Strzok said his extramarital affair did not make him vulnerable, nor did it “have any power in coercing me to do anything other than obeying the law and doing honest, competent investigation.”

However, it is common knowledge in the intelligence community and FBI that an extramarital affair is “a sure way to make you a target through blackmail and makes one susceptible to recruitment by foreign intelligence agencies,” said a former intelligence official, who spent nearly 30 years oversees.

“It’s an important question and one that should have been asked and investigated,” said the intelligence official. “Affairs are the number one way to get compromised.”

Strzok was defiant during the questioning regarding Page, saying he would absolutely not give in to blackmail by anyone who would attempt to do so. He said he had not been blackmailed or coerced by anyone but if he had he “would immediately go report that to my superiors and see how they wanted to follow up…But it is—I absolutely would not have been vulnerable or even let alone consider any sort of recruitment attempt.” (Read more: Sara A. Carter, 3/14/2019)

Bill and Hillary Clinton (Credit: public domain)

“The Justice Department and Hillary Clinton’s legal team “negotiated” an agreement that blocked the FBI from accessing emails on Clinton’s homebrew server related to the Clinton Foundation, according to a transcript of recently released testimony from last summer by former FBI special agent Peter Strzok.

“Under questioning from Judiciary Committee General Counsel Zachary Somers, Strzok acknowledged that Clinton’s private personal email servers contained a mixture of emails related to the Clinton Foundation, her work as secretary of state and other matters.

Were you given access to [Clinton Foundation-related] emails as part of the investigation?” Somers asked

“We were not. We did not have access,” Strzok responded. “My recollection is that the access to those emails were based on consent that was negotiated between the Department of Justice attorneys and counsel for Clinton.” – Fox News

Strzok added that “a significant filter team” was employed at the FBI to “work through the various terms of the various consent agreements.”

“According to the attorneys, we lacked probable cause to get a search warrant for those servers and projected that either it would take a very long time and/or it would be impossible to get to the point where we could obtain probable cause to get a warrant,” said Strzok.

(…) Later in his testimony last summer, Strzok said that agents were able to access “the entire universe” of information on the servers by using search terms to probe their contents – saying “we had it voluntarily.”

“What’s bizarre about this, is in any other situation, there’s no possible way they would allow the potential perpetrator to self-select what the FBI gets to see,” said former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz – former chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until 2017 and current contributor to Fox News. “The FBI should be the one to sort through those emails — not the Clinton attorneys.“

Chaffetz suggested that the goal of the DOJ was to “make sure they hear no evil, see no evil — they had no interest in pursuing the truth.”

“The Clinton Foundation isn’t supposed to be communicating with the State Department anyway,” said Chaffetz. “The foundation — with her name on it — is not supposed to be communicating with the senior officials at the State Department.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/15/2019)  (Strzok Transcript)

Peter Strzok (Credit: public domain)

“Former FBI official Peter Strzok told Congress in 2018 that he deleted “personal” communications he had with his mistress, former FBI attorney Lisa Page.

“As a fact of the matter, following the — at some point, I — you know, it was related to personal reasons — deleted all those,” Strzok told lawmakers on June 27, 2018, according to a transcript of the testimony released Thursday.

“But they were the personal communications, not the work ones,” added Strzok, who acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Page.

Aitan Goelman, an attorney for Strzok, told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday that Strzok deleted the messages before he was removed from the Mueller team.

“Pete deleted personal communications from his personal iPhone before and unrelated to these investigations,” said Goelman, who added in a follow-up comment that the deletions were made prior to July 27, 2017, when Strzok was kicked off the Mueller probe.

Goelman did not provide a specific date for the deletions.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/14/2019)

“Attorney General Rosenstein testified DOJ attorneys briefed him on the FISA application and told him something different than what “reports” are claiming!

Rod Rosenstein couldn’t say that he read the FISA application that he signed. He only affirmed that he had been briefed on it by DOJ attorneys.

People have been cogitating about what Rosenstein meant when he said that his understanding of the FISA application is different than what has been said in published reports. Those reports come from eyewitnesses who have read the FISA application, including Republicans in Congress.

The Conservative Treehouse suggests that this may indicate that the DOJ attorneys lied to Rosenstein. Not only that, they did it because Rosenstein answered to Trump and Trump was the target of a counterintelligence operation. In other words, they will be very difficult to prosecute.

The Conservative Treehouse writes:

First, the public information about the FISA application is: the Nunes memo; the Schiff memo; and the Grassley memo. All direct sourced from the actual application.  Second, all members of the House and Senate intelligence committee have been allowed access to the “full and unredacted” FISA application since April 6th, 2018. So there is no way for Rosenstein to hide behind the customary opaque nature of this specific FISA issue to congress. In short, he can’t lie about it.

Deputy AG Rosenstein is essentially saying he was mislead by “a team of attorneys from the Department of Justice.” That’s a fanciful way of saying the DOJ-NSD briefing officials lied to him about the content of the reauthorization application.

OK, so in response we might initially say: ‘well if they lied to you, then prosecute them damnit’…. and our voices would be righteous. However, the weasels have an out that President Obama helped create….

Remember the Susan Rice, James Comey, James Clapper and Loretta Lynch meeting in the Oval Office that Rice wrote down in her inauguration day memo-to-self?   Remember the “by the book” instructions.

Well, it would be “by the book” for the DOJ-NSD officials to lie to the Deputy AG about a counterintelligence operation, if the Deputy AG was within linear authority to the subject or target of the counterintelligence operation.  They are allowed to lie to him.

(Read more: Eagle Rising, 7/2018)

“Inspector General Michael Horowitz is currently investigating how the FISA processes and FISA Court was used by the DOJ and FBI to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign. Additionally, congress is requesting several witnesses appear before hearings to discuss their involvement in the events around the 2016 presidential election and the use of the intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government to influence the outcome.

However, to gain an idea of how the FISA inquiry is likely to end; perhaps it is worthwhile to look at how the IG viewed, and constructed, the last report (full pdf below).  Within the content of the released report it becomes obvious the Obama DOJ and FBI constructed a dual system of justice.  Political ideology determines which process to follow.

This is the second in a four part series of reports on the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the investigation of Hillary Clinton by the FBI and Justice Department.  Part one is here.  Part three and four follow.”

(…) “Over 640,000 people have read the IG report from our SCRIBD link alone. Tens of millions more have likely read parts or the majority from other links to the report. In essence, unlike all prior aspects of the government hiding material, a much larger percentage of the American population is currently awake and holding direct knowledge of what has taken place.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 7/05/2018)

Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan (l) and Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools (Credit: CNN)

“Scott Schools, the Department of Justice’s senior-most career attorney and a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, will step down to take a job in the private sector, the department announced this week.

As associate deputy attorney general, Schools is Rosenstein’s main adviser. Before Rosenstein, Schools was an aide to former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

Schools is also one of the few top DOJ officials who is regularly briefed on the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.” (Read more: Business Insider, 7/5/2018)

“Amid a series of documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee (See here) there is a rather alarming letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court in July 2018 that points toward an institutional cover-up.   (Letter]

Before getting to the substance of the letter, it’s important to put the release in context.  After the FISA Court reviewed the DOJ inspector general report, the FISC ordered the DOJ-NSD to declassify and release documents related to the Carter Page FISA application.

In the cover letter for this specific release to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees, the DOJ cites the January 7, 2020, FISA court order:

Keep in mind that prior to this release only the FISA court had seen this letter from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).  As we walk through the alarming content of this letter I think you’ll identify the motive behind the FISC order to release it.

First, the letter in question was sent by the DOJ-NSD to the FISA Court on July 12, 2018.  It is critical to keep the date of the letter in mind as we review the content.

Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application.   The DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:

As you can see: Christopher Steele is noted as “Source #1”.  Glenn Simpson of Fusion-GPS is noted as “identified U.S. person” or “business associate”; and Perkins Coie is the “U.S-based law firm.”

Now things get very interesting.

On page #8 when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the DOJ notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.

This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.

Let’s look at how the IG report frames the primary sub-source, and specifically notice the FBI contact and questioning took place in January 2017 (we now know that date to be January 12, 2017):

Those interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source took place in January, March and May of 2017; and clearly the sub-source debunked the content of the dossier itself.

Those interviews were 18-months, 16-months and 14-months ahead of the July 2018 DOJ letter to the FISC.   The DOJ-NSD says the sub-source was “truthful and cooperative” but the DOJ doesn’t tell the court the content of the truthfulness and cooperation.  Why?

Keep in mind this letter to the court was written by AAG John Demers in July 2018.  Jeff Sessions was Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein was Deputy AG; Christopher Wray was FBI Director, David Bowditch is Deputy, and Dana Boente is FBI chief-legal-counsel.

Why would the DOJ-NSD not be forthcoming with the FISA court about the primary sub-source?  This level of disingenuous withholding of information speaks to an institutional motive.

By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid.  Why?

It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.

In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.

This letter justifying the application and claiming the current information would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 DOJ needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant…. My research suspicion is that the DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority.  That’s the motive.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/17/2020)  (Archive)

Peter Strzok (l) and Louie Gohmert (Credit: public domain)

“A member of the House Committee on the Judiciary said during a hearing Thursday that a government watchdog found that nearly all of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent to a foreign entity and that the FBI didn’t follow-up on that finding.

“It was going to an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia,” he added.

Gohmert said the ICIG investigator, Frank Rucker, presented the findings to Strzok, but that the FBI official did not do anything with the information.

Strzok acknowledged meeting with Rucker, but said he did not recall the “specific content.”

“The forensic examination was done by the ICIG and they can document that,” Gohmert said, “but you were given that information and you did nothing with it.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/12/2018)

(Credit: Fox News)

“Page steadfastly maintained there was no bias present in either the Clinton-email investigation or the Trump–Russia investigation on the part of anyone within the FBI or the DOJ, and went to some lengths to illustrate that, in general, FBI personnel don’t like most of the people they tend to investigate.

At the same time, Page repeatedly and openly admitted to placing a greater emphasis and weight on the Trump–Russia investigation than the Clinton-email investigation:

“If you were weighing resources with respect to which poses a graver threat to national security, which is more, frankly, important, there is no doubt—at least in mine or anybody else’s mind that I know—that the Russia investigation posed an incredible threat to national security, and whether we got into the Weiner laptop simply did not.”

Page returned to this topic several times:

“The notion that there might be more emails that have not previously been seen that existed on Hillary Clinton’s email server just simply don’t even enter into the realm of the same room of seriousness. The Clinton investigation involved activities that had taken place three years prior. It’s an entirely historical investigation.”

“In the assessment of the Counterintelligence Division, they still don’t even come close to the threat posed if Russia had co-opted a member of a political campaign.”

Although Page admitted to a personal dislike for Trump, she also admitted to a less-than-favorable view of Hillary Clinton, noting that while she didn’t like then-candidate Trump, she “wasn’t particularly fond or favorable toward Secretary Clinton. Page summed her position up thusly: “I mean, given a Trump-Clinton race, yes, I was supporting Clinton, but I was not a particularly big fan of hers.” (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)

(…) “Page staunchly maintained that any briefings given to the White House were always about the “Russian active-measures effort” and were not in relation to “Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI’s name for its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump–Russia allegations.

Brennan admitted during congressional testimony that his intelligence helped establish the FBI counterintelligence investigation:

“I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred.”

This admission is important, particularly since Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had previously disclosed that no official intelligence was used to open the FBI’s investigation.

Brennan’s role was highlighted again during testimony, as one representative questioning Page questioned her in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text message: “What are you doing after the CH brief?” CH almost certainly referred to “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Page was asked specifically about an event that occurred on the same day:

John Brennan (l) and Harry Reid (Credit: public domain)

“It’s the same day that Director Brennan is briefing Harry Reid, is why I ask. And so what you’re saying is you were unaware that Director Brennan was briefing Harry Reid that same day?”

Page said she was unaware of Brennan’s briefing to Reid. She was then asked the following:

“You give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan is giving a brief. It’s not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on-one, from what we can tell, a one-on-one briefing with Harry Reid at that point. And it becomes apparent, based on your text messages and based on Director Comey’s emails, that you all are aware that that conversation took place. Were you aware that Director Brennan had a briefing with Harry Reid and that you expected a letter from Harry Reid?”

Page noted that she remembered the letter sent by Reid, but seemed confused as to Brennan’s involvement and possible knowledge of the Steele dossier. Worth noting is that while some within the FBI likely had parts of the dossier in July, the counterintelligence investigative team didn’t receive it until mid-September during a trip to Rome, where they met personally with Steele.

The representative, who was clearly aware of the disparity in timing, focused on precisely how Brennan might have been aware of the dossier in August:

Unidentified Representative: “So what you’re saying is, is that you had no knowledge of these potential unverified memos prior to the middle part of September in your investigation?”

Page: “That is correct, sir.”

Rep.: “OK. So on Aug. 30, you and Peter are going back and forth, and you go, ‘Here we go.’ If you’ll look at 9:44:50 on August the 30th, you go, ‘Here we go.’ And it’s referencing [the New York Times report] ‘Harry Reid Cites Evidence of Russian Tampering in the U.S. Vote and Seeks FBI Inquiry.’ Now, what happens is, and what I guess gives me a little bit of concern is, if you drop down, that if you drop down to the same day, August 30th, 9:45, it says, ‘The D’—which I assume means director—’said at the a.m. brief that Reid had called him and told him that he would be sending the letter.’

Page: “OK.”

Rep.: “So you get a brief that says, well, we got the letter, but it’s almost like it’s a coordinated effort between Harry Reid and the FBI director, because obviously, he’s briefing you.”

After a bit of back and forth, Page responded, “I don’t know what Harry Reid was told or why or what the purpose of Brennan [was.]”

The representative pressed on:

“Why would Director Brennan be aware of things that the FBI was not aware of at this particular point, when it actually would potentially involve, according to Peter Strzok’s word on January 10th of 2017, an unverified salacious set of memos?”

And then the big reveal:

Unidentified Representative: “We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then, obviously, we’re going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]?”

Page: “Yes, sir. Because with all due honesty, if Director Brennan—so we got that information from our source, right? The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did, because the first time we—”

Rep.: “We do know there are multiple sources.”

Page: “I do know that. I do know that the information ultimately found its way lots of different places, certainly in October of 2016.  But if the CIA as early as August, in fact, had those same reports, I am not aware of—I’m not aware of that and nor do I believe they provided them to us, and that would be unusual.”

Rep.: “Were you aware that Christopher Steele had conversations or multiple conversations with Fusion GPS and others outside of just working special intel for you?”

Page: “As of August of 2016, I don’t know who Christopher Steele is. I don’t know that he’s an FBI source. I don’t know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life. So let me just sort of be clear. When the FBI first receives the reports that are known as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele’s handler in September of 2016 at that time, we do not know who—we don’t know why these reports have been generated.  We don’t know for what purpose.”

A bit later in the discussion, the representative asked another question:

Rep.: “So you don’t know whether it’s a coordinated effort to get you those documents or not at that point in September?”

Page responds, “Coordinated by whom, sir?

Rep.: “Anybody, other than a confidential human source saying, ‘Listen, I’ve got reason to be concerned and bring it to you.’ It could be coordinated by the CIA. It could have been coordinated by Fusion GPS. You don’t know.”

Page: “At the time that we received the documentation, no. What we have is the preexisting relationship with the source and the reliability of his prior reporting.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

“The role of Moffa, currently a deputy assistant director at the FBI, may have been greater than previously understood. Page noted that most of the FBI personnel involved in the Clinton and the Trump–Russia investigations were separate from each other—they worked on one investigation or the other.

Strzok and Moffa, both from the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, worked on both investigations, as Page noted:

“Really, it’s the people that met with Jim Comey. Those are the only people that were really the same with respect to both teams. So it’s the same general counsel, the same deputy general counsel, me, Mr. McCabe, Dave Bowdich. The EAD for National Security Branch changed, but that was just because of regular personnel turnover.

“Bill Priestap was the same. Pete was the same. Jon Moffa was the same. But other than that, all of the rest of the personnel were, to the best of my knowledge—there could have been one or two—but all of the rest of the personnel on the Clinton team and the Russia team were different.” (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)

(Credit: State of the Nation)

(…) “Page also repeatedly noted a tension between the FBI and DOJ, noting that the DOJ was far more cautious in their approach to matters and was ultimately responsible for the decision not to prosecute in the Clinton case.

Another aspect that developed in the dynamic between the DOJ and the FBI was pressure from the department to place additional people into the FBI’s investigation. Page noted that “as soon as the planning started to begin to interview some of the more high-profile witness, not just Mrs. Clinton but also Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, and her sort of core team, the department wanted to change the sort of structure and the number of people who were involved.”

In particular, David Laufman, a deputy assistant attorney general and head of counterintelligence for the DOJ’s National Security Division at the time, pushed extensively to be present for the higher profile interviews. As Page noted, this quickly spiraled into a problem for the FBI:

“Once we started talking about including David, then the U.S. Attorney’s Office also wanted to participate in the interviews, although they had participated in virtually none by that point. And so, then the U.S. Attorney’s Office was pushing to have the AUSAs [Assistant U.S. Attorney], who were participating in the Clinton investigation, also participate.”

“And so now, all of a sudden, we were going from our standard two and two to this burgeoning number of people.”

Apparently, Laufman felt so strongly that he went to his boss, George Toscas, the deputy assistant attorney general in the National Security Division, who then approached McCabe directly.

The DOJ’s ongoing influence was felt in other ways as well. Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, both fact witnesses, were allowed to attend Clinton’s interview as her attorneys. As Page admitted, “I would agree with you, that it is not typically appropriate or operationally necessary to have fact witnesses attend the interview.”

The decision to allow attendance of fact witnesses during Clinton’s interview came from the DOJ, although Page said she wasn’t certain who had made the decision. She noted that the FBI protested the move but were overridden, so the decision must have come from a senior level within the DOJ.” (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)

(…) “Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who served as special counsel to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe during the time of the Clinton investigation, noted during her testimony in July 2018, that the DOJ was intimately involved in the investigation.

“Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step, other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction of the Justice Department,” Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.

Comey had also hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation in his July recommendation, stating that “there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent.”

Intent is a requirement of several statutes the FBI was looking into. But intent is specifically not a factor under the charge of gross negligence—contained within 18 U.S. Code § 793(f)—a fact that was brought up by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) during Page’s testimony:

John Ratcliffe (Credit: CSpan)

Rep. Ratcliffe: Okay. And that’s — I think, when you talk about intent, that’s certainly true under part of 18 793(f), but it sounds like you all just blew over gross negligence.

Ms. Page: We did not blow over gross negligence. We, in fact — and, in fact, the Director — because on its face, it did seem like, well, maybe there’s a potential here for this to be the charge. And we had multiple conversations, multiple conversations with the Justice Department about charging gross negligence.

Page made clear during her testimony that the DOJ had decided that due to “constitutional vagueness” a charge of gross negligence would not be supported without accompanying proof of intent—a seemingly oxymoronic position:

Rep. Ratcliffe: Okay. So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory, but when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —

Ms. Page: That is correct.

Rep. Ratcliffe: — bring a case based on that.

Trouble Defining Intent

The word “intent” drove the entirety of the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton email server.

It appears, however, that there were differing understandings of the word “intent” within the FBI. Trisha Anderson, the No. 2 lawyer at the FBI, told investigators that what she viewed as intent was “an email that the Secretary sent saying, I set up this server for the purpose of sending unclassified information for my convenience, even though I know it’s not a secure system.”

Page viewed the situation somewhat differently, agreeing they were looking for “an intent to do an act which is in violation of the law’s central command.” As she told investigators, the FBI “couldn’t find any indicia of knowledge that she knew that these [classified emails] shouldn’t be traversing her server.”

In Anderson’s understanding, she was looking for a prosecutable reason behind the establishment of the server itself. Page, however, was looking at whether Clinton knew which emails should not have traveled through the private server.

Meanwhile, Bill Priestap, head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and who was officially in charge of the Clinton investigation, said during testimony that he thought the “number of instances is absolutely a proper consideration” in establishing intent.

According to Ryan Breitenbach, who was the House Majority Counsel at the time of Priestap’s interview, the State Department had identified 22 top-secret emails and 1,300 classified emails on Clinton’s email server. As Breitenbach noted to Priestap during testimony, “I think there might be many who would question whether people in this room would still be in this room if we had hit 1,300 emails on our personal Gmail service.”

DOJ Not Willing to Charge This

Michael Steinbach (Credit: CSpan)

Priestap was shown an email sent from an unknown individual in the FBI general counsel’s office to Priestap’s former boss, Michael Steinbach, which contained a chart of “available statutes for prosecuting the former Secretary of State.” Gross Negligence was specifically excluded from the chargeable statutes available to the FBI. Priestap, who had not previously seen the document, expressed concerns that this might have hindered the work of FBI investigators.

Mr. Breitenbach: We see in this chart that DOJ is not willing to charge this, meaning 18 U.S.C. 793(f). My question is going back to those draft affidavits. If DOJ is not willing to charge this statute, why would the FBI in an affidavit use this statute as predication to obtain a search warrant if this statute is never going to be prosecuted?

Mr. Priestap: So I — I don’t know who put this together and used this language.

Mr. Breitenbach: Well, someone in the FBI general counsel’s office.

Mr. Priestap: Yeah. No. No. I trust you. But I don’t know why they, again, put it together. I don’t know why they used this language, ‘DOJ not willing to charge this.’

My attitude is that if there is a Federal criminal statute still on the books, then, you know — and we think there may or might be a violation of that, we still have to work to uncover whether, in fact, there was.

The prosecutive history of a particular statute isn’t going to affect — I sure hope it does not affect the fact-finder’s work.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/25/2019)

(Credit: A. Hunter/Washington Times)

“Page testified that as soon as they received the Steele dossier in September, they “set about trying to prove or disprove every single factual statement in the dossier.” Page noted that “to the best of my knowledge, we were never able to disprove any statement in it.”

This seems somewhat odd given that Comey told congressional investigators the Steele dossier still wasn’t verified as of May 2017. Additionally, her assertion doesn’t appear to address the generally debunked claim that Cohen was in Prague.

In response to Page’s comments, clarification was requested.

Unidentified Representative: “Ms. Page, are you talking about the Woods file?”

Page: “I’m not talking about the Woods file. I’m talking about a separate effort that was undertaken in order to try to verify for investigative purposes, not for purposes of the FISA, but a separate effort undertaken to try to validate the allegations contained within the Steele reporting.”

It quickly became apparent that this document hasn’t been seen by congressional investigators. One representative, who noted he has seen the Woods file, was clearly unaware of this file’s existence.

This discussion quickly led into another area—an Oct. 18, 2016, email from Strzok containing the subject line “Re: Dragon FISA.”

Page quickly noted that she couldn’t discuss the matter in an unclassified setting—but would be able to discuss the matter with congressional investigators in a classified setting.

“The Dragon FISA was referenced in an article by John Solomon in The Hill:

“In one email exchange with the subject line ‘Crossfire FISA,’ Strzok and Lisa Page discussed talking points to get then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to persuade a high-ranking DOJ official to sign off on the warrant.”

“Crossfire Hurricane” was one of the code names for four separate investigations the FBI conducted related to Russia matters in the 2016 election.

“At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him,” Strzok emailed Page on Oct. 14, 2016, less than four weeks before Election Day.

Four days later, the same team was emailing about rushing to get approval for another FISA warrant for another Russia-related investigation code-named “Dragon.”

At this point, the potential subject of the Dragon FISA remains unknown. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

On August 29, 2018, The Daily Caller News Foundation reports, “The FBI refuses to disclose whether or not it met with senior members of the Intelligence Community Inspector General on the subject of foreign intrusion of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server.

An FBI spokeswoman refused to confirm if Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) officials — including Frank Rucker, its chief investigator — briefed top bureau officials about evidence of penetration of Clinton’s private server by a Chinese government intelligence operation. “We have no comment,” she told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Earlier Wednesday, an FBI spokesman released what appeared to be a categorical statement about the Clinton server: “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised,” the FBI stated.

The statement does not address a central aspect of The DCNF’s reporting, which was that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an “anomaly” they found in 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails. The report is based on an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter. The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/29/2018)

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page arrives for a closed door hearing with the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees, Friday, July 13, 2018. (Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)

On January 11, 2019, Jeff Carlson writes of his exclusive access to the July 13, 2018 transcript of Lisa Page’s testimony to a joint congressional committee and she is asked why the FBI didn’t meet with Mr. Rucker and the ICIG team to further investigate the “anomaly” found embedded in Clinton’s private server:

“During one exchange, one of the representatives questioning her noted, “We have information from the inspector general of the intelligence community … that there were anomalies that would suggest that there were copies of every email going to a third party. … Is this news to you

Page admitted it was and noted it was “completely baffling to me.”

She was then asked the obvious question: “Why would the investigative team not have had multiple interviews with Mr. Rucker, who brought it to the FBI’s attention originally?”

Page responded by saying the following:

“My understanding is that the IC IG [Intelligence Community Inspector General] did refer the existence of the server to the FBI, but that was because of the existence of classified information on that server, not because of any anomalous activity, not because of potential intrusion activity. Because it’s not my understanding that the IC IG conducted any sort of forensic analysis like that.”

The questioning continued:

“So what you’re telling me, it would surprise you to know today that, if there were anomalies, that the inspector general’s forensic team found those before it was referred to the FBI?”

Page responded:

“To the extent that a foreign government or even a criminal outlet had had access to Secretary Clinton’s private email server, that would have been something we cared very much about. And it’s my understanding that there was no evidence that would have supported that kind of conclusion.”
(Read more: Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

“An internal chart prepared by federal investigators working on the so-called “Midyear Exam” probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails, exclusively reviewed by Fox News, contained the words “NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this” next to a key statute on the mishandling of classified information. The notation appeared to contradict former FBI Director James Comey’s repeated claims that his team made its decision that Clinton should not face criminal charges independently.

Fox News has confirmed the chart served as a critical tip that provided the basis for Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe’s explosive questioning of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page last year, in which Page agreed with Ratcliffe’s characterization that the DOJ had told the FBI that “you’re not going to charge gross negligence.” A transcript of Page’s remarks was published Tuesday as part of a major document release by the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins.

The document, entitled “Espionage Act Charges – Retention/Mishandling,” contained a list of several criminal statutes related to the mishandling of classified information, as well as a list of all the elements that prosecutors would need to prove in order to successfully prosecute a case.

Among the statutes listed are 18 U.S.C. 793(d), which covers the “willfull” retention of national defense information that could harm the U.S.; 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which pertains to “gross negligence” in the handling of classified information by permitting the information to be “removed from its proper place of custody”; and 18 U.S.C. 1924, listed as a misdemeanor related to retaining classified materials at an “unauthorized location.”

Listed directly below to the elements of 18 U.S.C. 793(f) were the words: “NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this; only known cases are Military, cases when accused lost the information (e.g. thumb drive sent to unknown recipient at wrong address.)

None of the other descriptions of the statutes had a similar notation.” (Read more: Fox News, 3/14/2019)

“Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted under questioning from Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe last summer that “the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information,” the congressman alleged in a social media post late Tuesday, citing a newly unearthed transcript of Page’s closed-door testimony.

(Credit: Twitter)

Page and since-fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, who were romantically involved, exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Republicans have long accused the bureau of political bias. But Page’s testimony was perhaps the most salient evidence yet that the Justice Department improperly interfered with the FBI’s supposedly independent conclusions on Clinton’s criminal culpability, Ratcliffe alleged.

“So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory,” Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. “But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —”

Page interrupted: “That is correct,” as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, ” — bring a case based on that.” (Read more: Fox News, 3/13/2019)

“Former FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint committee of the House of Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19, 2017 saying there was “no big there there,” he meant there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13^th this month Page gave her explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and Oversight/Government Reform Committees and in effect threw her lover, Strzok, under the bus.

Strzok’s apparent admission to Page about there being “no big there there” was reported on Friday by John Solomon in the Opinion section of The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page’s closed door interview.

Peter Strzok (Credit: ABC News)

Strzok’s text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some “there” — preferably a big “there” — but had failed miserably. If Solomon’s sources are accurate, it is appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The “no there there” text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn’t there.

Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon described to me last year as his model for journalistic courage and professionalism, was already able to discern as early as March 2017 the outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was the first to dare report on its implications.

Parry’s article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the self-incriminating comment to Page on there being “no big there there,” is a case study in professional journalism. His very first sentence entirely anticipated Strzok’s text: “The hysteria over ‘Russia-gate’ continues to grow … but at its core there may be no there there.”(Emphasis added.)

Courage at The Hill

Lisa Page (Credit: Getty Images)

Solomon’s article merits a careful read, in toto. Here are the most germane paragraphs:

“It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May 19, 2017] was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller’s special counsel team. [Page has since left the FBI.]

“‘Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or whoever?’” Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: ‘An investigation leading to impeachment?’ …

“A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: ‘You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.’

“So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.”

Solomon adds: “How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?”

The Timing

As noted, Strzok’s text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017. The day before, on May 16, The New York Times published a story that Comey leaked to it through an intermediary that was expressly designed (as Comey admitted in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.

Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best investigative efforts — legal and other—he could find no “there there”?

Comey’s leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by — you guessed it — the ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.

In any event, the operation worked like a charm — at least at first. And — absent revelation of the Strzok-Page texts — it might well have continued to succeed. After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of Comey’s best buddies, to be special counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when the Department of Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit on them.” (Much more: Consortium News, 7/23/2018)

(…) “Another issue that was brought up several times was the famous Strzok text regarding the “Insurance Policy”:

“I want to believe the path you threw out in Andy’s office—that there is no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

Page confirmed that “Andy” referred to Deputy FBI Director McCabe. Page was reminded that the text was sent just 15 days after the FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016. While Page attempted to provide an explanation, it came across as less than convincing:

“What this text reflects is our sort of continuing check-in almost with respect to how quickly to operate, what types of tools to use, trying to be as quiet as possible about it because we knew so little about what—whether this was true or not true or what was going to come, because this is, as you said, so nascent in the investigation, and then ultimately trying to balance that against my view, in this case, which was we don’t need to go at a total breakneck speed, because so long as he doesn’t become president, there isn’t the same threat to national security, right.”

Perhaps realizing she’d been less than perfectly clear, Page attempted to clarify her position, noting, “This reflects, ‘Let’s be reasonable, let’s not, you know, throw the kitchen sink at this because he’s probably not going to be elected, and so then, we don’t have quite as horrific a national security threat than we do if he gets elected.’”

In fairness to Page, at a later point in the interview, she did manage to provide a somewhat more coherent explanation:

“He’s making an analogy here so my suggestion is, let’s not, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater, let’s sort of be a little bit more cautious with respect to our investigative steps because if he’s not president, this plays as less of a threat to our national security.

“And he is saying, no, we have to, you know, do what we have to do in order to get to the bottom of this because it is like an insurance policy. There is no actual insurance policy. He is making an analogy.” (The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

Lisa Page (Credit: Fox News)

(…) “Still another issue mentioned with some frequency were two potentially related texts:

“And we need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting”; and

“We need to lock in [redacted] in a formal, chargeable, way.”

Again, Page confirms that “Andy” is indeed a reference to McCabe. Notably, that text was sent the day after Comey had been fired by Trump. Unfortunately, a certain level of clarity remains lacking as FBI counsel was limited to noting that “the decision to open the case was not about who was occupying the director’s chair.” She continued in a somewhat confusingly with, “if I was able to explain in more depth why the director firing precipitated this text, I would.”

One representative kept pursuing the question from multiple angles, asking, “Was that a fear that someone other than McCabe would eventually be put into that slot?” Page again consulted with counsel and noted she couldn’t answer that question.

The representative made the logical observation, “Well, that leads at least some of us to conclude that it may have been an obstruction-of-justice case.” Page responded, “That’s a reasonable inference, sir, but I cannot, sort of, confirm that that’s what we are referring to.”

The dialogue continued:

Unidentified Representative: “So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event, as opposed to the occupant of the director’s office?”

Page: “Yes, that’s correct.”

Rep.: “Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?”

Page: “I can’t answer that, sir. I’m sorry.”

Rep.: “Is there anything other than obstruction that it could have been?”

Page: “I can’t answer.”

Page maintained that the second text was a separate matter from the first—but time may have been a factor as it occurred in the days preceding Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. Page also claimed not to know exactly what it pertained to:

“My suspicion is, we have either been interviewing some witness or have been getting kind of closer to some target, either we’ve already had interviews or we haven’t.

“What this is suggesting is, like, we need to start thinking about locking in whomever in a way that might be able to support charges. … My suspicion is that we have somebody who we think is lying. … To the extent we want to be able to charge them for lying, we need to lock them in in a formal way, in a way in which we will be able to support those charges.”

The issue of obstruction came up several times, including a notable exchange that took place during the second day of testimony:

Unidentified Representative: “Were there discussions about opening an obstruction-of-justice case or any other case against Donald Trump prior to the firing of Jim Comey on May 9th of 2017, as reflected in the Comey memos?”

FBI legal counsel: “Congressman, to the extent that goes into the equities of the ongoing investigation that the special counsel is now conducting, I will instruct the witness not to answer.”

Normally, this line of questioning ends with inferences having to be made, but, in this case, what appears to be an honest error on the part of Page hinted firmly at the true answer:

Rep.: “I don’t want any of the details. I just want to know whether there was a discussion about the possibility of opening that prior to the firing of the director.”

Page: “Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the timeframe you have described.”

Rep.: “OK. Then—”

Page: “I think. One second, sir.”

Page: “Sir, I need to—I need to take back my prior statement.”

Rep.: “Which one?”

Page: “Whatever the last thing I just said was. Sorry. That there were no discussions of obstruction, yeah. That is—I need to take that statement back.”

Rep.: “So there were?”

Page: “Well, I think that I can’t answer this question without getting into matters which are substantively before the special counsel at this time.”

Rep.: “Well, I think you’ve just answered it by not answering it. Was Andy McCabe privy to those same conversations?”

Page: “I can’t answer this substantively, sir. I’m sorry.”

Rep.: “Well, were these related to some charges, whether obstruction or other charges, potentially against Donald Trump?”

Page: “I can’t—I can’t answer that question, sir, without getting into the substance of matters that are now before the special counsel.”

Rep.: “Again, I think you’re answering it by not answering it.”

At a later point in testimony, this issue was potentially further clarified:

Rep.: “Comey has admitted that he told the president, I think, that he wasn’t under investigation during that timeframe.”

Page: “That is not inconsistent, sir. … Somebody could not be under investigation, but there still could be discussions about potential criminal activity, and that is totally consistent with FBI policies and would not be unusual with respect to any investigation.”

This provides a perfect explanation as to why Comey refused to tell the press that Trump wasn’t under investigation—and the nature of the text messages.

The FBI hadn’t placed Trump under any formal investigation—but they were keeping their ability to do so open, and Acting FBI Director McCabe may have been planning to initialize a formal investigation before a permanent director could be appointed.

A question worth asking: What happens if an interim FBI director opens a formal investigation into a sitting president during a highly politically charged time? Is it then difficult, perhaps impossible, to appoint someone other than McCabe as a new FBI director, especially given Comey’s recent firing? (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

(…) “At several points, Page noted a frustration on the part of the FBI in relation to the speed with which the DOJ was moving in the FISA spy warrant-application process.

When questioned about the need to move swiftly, Page noted, “There was an operational reason that we were pushing to get the FISA up, which I am not at liberty to discuss.” Upon further questioning, Page tried to provide slightly more clarity: “We had an operational reason that we wanted to get this thing up quickly with respect to the subject himself.”

According to Page’s testimony, she first learned of plans to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page approximately a month before the FISA was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.

Stuart Evans testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance on June 27, 2017. (Credit: CSpan)

Page disclosed that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stu Evans was the person within the DOJ who was in charge of the entire FISA process, but notably, the FBI chose not to tell Evans that they had opened a counterintelligence investigation:

“We were so concerned about the fact that we were opening this investigation and we were so concerned about leaks that we were literally individually making decisions about who to tell and who not to tell, because we were trying to keep it so closely held.”

According to Page, the only DOJ official they told was Toscas, the deputy assistant attorney general in the National Security Division. Without forewarning to the FBI, Toscas informed Evans in August 2016—possibly earlier—of the FBI’s newly opened investigation.

The text in question was from Aug. 10, 2016, and was paraphrased by one of the congressional representatives:

George Toscas (Credit: Fox News)

“I remember what it was, Toscas already told Stu Evans everything. Sally called to set up a meeting.”

“Sally” is affirmed in the conversation as referring to Deputy AG Sally Yates.

Page was emphatic that this discussion didn’t have anything to do with the actual FISA but instead reflected the FBI’s concern that increasing numbers of people were learning of their investigation.

Notably, Toscas reported to Carlin, the head of the NSD, whose actions before the FISA court in relation to his presentation of the government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications, strongly suggest he was also aware of the FBI’s investigation. Carlin appears to have been aware of the FBI’s later FISA preparations, as well.

The congressional representative then asked the following question:

“What you’re saying is when the director briefed the White House 2 days prior to that, on August the 8th, or prepared for it, actually briefed him on the 10th, that it had nothing to do with any campaign. Even though George Toscas and Stu Evans knew about it.”

Normally, when a member of the FBI uses the word “director,” they would be referring to the FBI director. In this case, while not made absolutely clear in the transcript, it appears “director” refers to CIA Director John Brennan, who had been discussed in the preceding comments relating to Brennan’s briefing of Reid.

From Brennan’s congressional testimony, we know that he had briefed the White House at some point in early August 2016, prior to Aug. 11:

“In consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in election to congressional leadership, specifically Senators Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr; and to Representatives Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devon Nunes and Adam Schiff between 11 August and 6 September.”

Page responded to the question: “Sir, I would be shocked. I would truly be stunned to discover that the director had briefed the president on the substance of our investigation or even the existence of our investigation. I would be—I can’t say it didn’t happen, I wasn’t there, but I would be stunned to discover that.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)

John Carlin and John Brennan speak at the Center for Strategic & International Studies on September 19, 2016. (Credit: YouTube)

(…) “John Carlin was an assistant attorney general and head of the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD). He had previously served as chief of staff to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Carlin announced his resignation the day after he filed the government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications. This filing would be subject to intense criticism from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) following disclosures made by then-National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. Significant changes to the handling of raw FISA data would result.

Carlin was succeeded by Mary McCord–who would later accompany acting AG Sally Yates to see White House counsel Don McGahn about Trump’s national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn.

Page was asked at several points regarding influence from political appointees. At one point in the discussion, she singled out Carlin—and what she had to say proved interesting:

“I do know that at least John Carlin, for example, who is a political appointee, was kept abreast of the sort of investigative activity that was going on. And the only reason I know this is because when there was conflicts between us and DOJ, John might call over to—John Carlin might call over to Andy McCabe, and sort of make his team’s pitch, and then Andy would, you know, sort of the back-and-forth would go on. So it is clear that John had, was getting some sort of briefing, but he was not, it was, it never occurred by the FBI, which is, in my view, atypical.”

In response to a question asking who was McCabe’s direct counterpart at the DOJ on the investigation, Page responded, “it would have been John. It was either John Carlin or George Toscas who would have, who would have reached out to Mr. McCabe.”

The congressional staffer who was doing this particular line of questioning appeared to attempt to mitigate the information just revealed by Page:

“Numerous witnesses have confirmed to us that George Toscas, a career prosecutor, was in charge of the day-to-day operation of DOJ on this investigation. And that Carlin and other political folks above him had briefings certainly, so they had knowledge but didn’t have input in the investigation.”

“Do you have any personal knowledge of John Carlin, Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, or other political appointees at the DOJ issuing orders on how to conduct the Midyear investigation?” Page was asked.

Page answered that she had “no personal knowledge of that.” Despite the attempts to shift the conversation, these admissions are notable.

Carlin was a very senior official within the DOJ. He was also Toscas’s boss. It was Toscas who was contacted by New York prosecutors (possibly former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara) involved in the Anthony Weiner investigation regarding the Clinton emails found on Weiner’s computer. In response, Toscas contacted McCabe, his counterpart at the FBI, ultimately forcing McCabe to inform Comey of the existence of Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/21/2018)

“On July 13th, 2018, an indictment was filed by Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III.

This author is responding to the indictment because it features claims about Guccifer 2.0 that are inconsistent with what has been discovered about the persona, including the following:

Evidence was found over 500 days ago relating to the Guccifer 2.0 persona that showed they had deliberately manipulated files to have Russian metadata. We know the process used to construct the documents was not due to accidental mistakes during the creation process.

The original template document that Guccifer 2.0 used has been identified. It is also the source of the presence of Warren Flood’s name and can be found attached to one of Podesta’s emails (it has RSIDs matching with Guccifer 2.0’s first couple of documents).

The Trump opposition research, which CrowdStrike claimed was targeted at the DNC, apparently in late April 2016, isn’t what Guccifer 2.0 actually presented to reporters. It also didn’t come from the DNC but was an attached file on one of John Podesta’s emails – not the DNC’s. This specific copy appears to have been edited by Tony Carrk shortly before it was sent to Podesta. The fact that Guccifer 2.0’s initial releases were Podesta email attachments was even conceded by a former DNC official.

It appears that Guccifer 2.0 fabricated evidence on June 15, 2016, that coincidentally dovetailed with multiple claims made by CrowdStrike executives that had been published the previous day.

Guccifer 2.0 went to considerable effort to make sure Russian error messages appeared in copies of files given to the press.

Evidence – which Guccifer 2.0 couldn’t manipulate due to being logged by third parties – suggests he was operating in the US.

Additional evidence, which Guccifer 2.0 would have been unlikely to realize “he” was leaving, indicated that the persona was archiving files in US time zones before release, with email headers giving him away early on.

Virtually everything that has been claimed to indicate Guccifer 2.0 was Russian was based on something he chose to do.

Considering that Guccifer 2.0 had access to Podesta’s emails, yet never leaked anything truly damaging to the Clinton campaign even though he would have had access to it, is highly suspicious. In fact, Guccifer 2.0 never referenced any of the scandals that would later explode when the DNC emails and Podesta email collections were published by WikiLeaks.” (Read more: Adam Carter, Disobedient Media, 7/15/2018)

(…) Tony Podesta, longtime lobbyist in DC, and founder of the Podesta Group, was indicted in 2017 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Shortly thereafter, the Podesta Group closed up shop. Then, in July 2018, according to Tucker Carlson, Special Counsel Robert Mueller offered Tony Podesta immunity to testify against Paul Manafort, who had worked with the Podesta Group in a public relations campaign for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, founded by three senior members of the pro-Russia Party of Regions – and who had been indicted on bank and tax fraud charges. Paul Manafort was sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison. Meanwhile, Tony seems to have skated into the wind, without any confirmation as to whether an immunity agreement actually took place.

A Sampling of Tony Podesta’s Art Collection of Children

Tony Podesta’s gifts to the Katzen

In addition to Tony’s own collection of disturbing art surrounding children, his manager, as well as artists they bring into their exhibits, are equally disturbing. One such exhibit included artwork by ArtAngel, founded by Roger Took, a convicted pedophile in the worst degree imaginable.

Some refer to Tony as a “provocative artist,” while others find the idea of children being clothless and bound to be incredibly disturbing.

The Podesta brothers are close friends with Marina Ambramovic, a Serbian performance artist and film producer who is best known for her provocative, and to some – disturbing, art exhibitions and spirit cooking parties. Abramovic’s book “Spirit Cooking with Essential Aphrodisiac Recipes” was released in 1996, utilizing ingredients such as fresh sperm milk, breast milk, and fresh morning urine. The spirit cooking festivities typically include feasting on replicas of full-size bodies with edible ingredients that give the effects of oozing blood and tissue. It seems to be a Hollywood hit.

In one exhibit she was preparing, she painted the words in what appears to be actual blood, onto a wall, stating “With a sharp knife, cut deeply into the middle finger of your left hand. Eat the pain.” On another wall she painted the words, “Fresh morning urine sprinkle over nightmare dreams.”

In an email from June 2015, Marina emailed Tony about attending a spirit cooking dinner at her place, and asked if his brother would be joining him, signed “all my love, Marina.”

The Podesta Group and Amber Ready, Inc.

In May 2009, Amber Ready, Inc., selected the Podesta Group as their agency of record to be their PR company, covering all media relations, and building a campaign to promote Amber Ready’s cell phone technology. The program enables parents to create, store and lock their children’s Alert profiles in parent’s wireless phones so that if a child goes missing, police can transmit the Alert Profiles in minutes via Amber Alert. Then-Principle of the Podesta Group Ed Rothschild stated: “Working with AMBER Ready to help inspire nationwide support for their innovative child safety solution should prove to be very exciting and gratifying.”

That is a lot of data on children being stored in accessible cell phones. (Read more: Corey’sDigs, 4/11/2019)  (Archive)

David Resch (left), Howard Marshall (center) and Scott Smith (right) (Credit: Linked In)

“Three of the top cybersecurity officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are retiring from government service, according to people familiar with the matter—departures that come as cyberattacks are a major concern for the country’s security agencies.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials warn that the country is at a “critical point” facing unprecedented cyber threats, including Russia’s ongoing attacks on the American political system. The retirements also come as the FBI is facing regular criticism from President Donald Trump and his supporters, and is working to attract and retain top cyber talent.

Scott Smith, the assistant FBI director who runs the Bureau’s cyber division, is leaving this month. His deputy, Howard Marshall, also left in recent weeks. Mr. Marshall has accepted a job at Accenture , a consulting firm that is expanding its cybersecurity portfolio. Mr. Smith is also expected to move to the private sector.

David Resch, executive assistant director of the FBI’s criminal, cyber, response and services branch, is departing the bureau as well. Mr. Resch, who was named to his senior post by FBI Director Christopher Wray in April, supervised Mr. Smith and Mr. Marshall.

Additionally, Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, has decided to leave for the private sector. And Jeffrey Tricoli, a senior FBI cyber agent who oversaw a Bureau task force addressing Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. elections, left last month for a senior vice president position at Charles Schwab Corp. , the Journal reported last week.

The FBI confirmed the departures. One U.S. official said more people are expected to leave, declining to provide additional names. (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 7/19/2018)

“With the exceptional help of John Spiropoulos we investigate a conflict completely ignored by media and congress. Peter Strzok, the FBI’s lead Investigator in the Clinton email investigation, never intended to investigate the laptop before the election. The evidence, in his own words, is in the report by the Inspector General. In addition, the IG report includes a jaw dropping contradiction regarding the investigation of the laptop. Strzok says one thing; the FBI’s computer experts say another. It calls into question the entirety of the laptop investigation.

There is a great deal of inconsistent application of law surrounding the DOJ/FBI investigative authority during 2015 and 2016. There is also a great deal of fatigue surrounding discussion of those inconsistent applications. Contradictions, inconsistency and obtuse justifications are as rampant in our midst as the political narratives shaping them. Perhaps that’s by design.

Reading Chapter 11 of the IG Report reinforces an acceptance that not only is there a need for a special counsel, but there is a brutally obvious need for multiple special counsels; each given a specific carve-out investigation that comes directly from the content of the Inspector General report. This issue of the handling of the Weiner/Abedin laptop screams for a special counsel investigation on that facet alone. Why?

Well, consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):

Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.

The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”

Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.” (pg 388)

The key takeaway here is two-fold. First, the laptop is in the custody of the FBI; that’s important moving forward (I’ll explain later). Also, specifically important, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5]

Note: “OTD was able “to do some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop.”

OK, you got that?

Now lets look at the very next page, #389 (again, emphasis mine):

(…) The FBI determined that Abedin forwarded two of the confirmed classified emails to Weiner. The FBI reviewed 6,827 emails that were either to or from Clinton and assessed 3,077 of those emails to be “potentially work-related.”The FBI analysis of the review noted that “[b]ecause metadata was largely absent, the emails could not be completely, automatically de-duplicated or evaluated against prior emails recovered during the investigation” and therefore the FBI could not determine how many of the potentially work-related emails were duplicative of emails previously obtained in the Midyear investigation. (pg 389)

See the problem? See the contradiction?

Strzok is saying due to some amazing wizardry the FBI forensics team was able to de-duplicate the emails. However, FBI forensics is saying they were NOT able to de-duplicate the emails.

Both of these statements cannot be true. And therein lies the underlying evidence to support a belief the laptop content was never actually reviewed. But it gets worse, much worse… (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 7/20/2018)

(Note From the Editor: Conservative Treehouse has granted us permission to share more of their work than what Fair Use would normally allow. We thank them for their generosity and excellent, investigative work. Please don’t stop reading here, there is a lot more to their story.)

Katica @GOPPollAnalyst (Credit: Twitter)

Researcher and Paul Combetta aka Stonetear whistleblower, Katica@GOPPollAnalyst, tweets to Rep. Louie Gohmert after a combined House Judiciary and Oversight Committee hearing. Katica’s tweet was in response to a question Gohmert posed to Peter Strzok regarding a “foreign entity” found on Clinton’s private server, when a forensic analysis was done by the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General’s office.

The forensic analysis revealed nearly all of Clinton’s emails were automatically forwarded to an unknown email address (not Russia). Gohmert said the ICIG investigator, Frank Rucker, presented the findings to Strzok, but that the FBI official did not do anything with the information.

Here is a clip of Louie Gohmert’s exchange with Peter Strzok regarding Clinton’s emails sent to an unauthorized source:

Katica discovered in Part 3 of the FBI Vault report, mention of an unknown email address on Clinton’s server and tweets her findings to Representative Louie Gohmert:

Katica’s tweet to Representative Louie Gohmert (Credit: Twitter)

Katica then tweets: “FBI Vault part 3, page 61: The hackers then used the password to modify the users gmail/yahoo account to auto-forward to [redacted]. “

FBI Vault Part 3, page 61

Katica continues, “One common theme with hackers is they create an email account relatively close to the ID of the person they hacked. Huma: My email address is misspelled…and clintonmail has never been hacked. Part 3, page 89.”

FBI Vault Part 3, page 89

The FBI report also states, in February 2011, several State employees were victims of Yahoo and Gmail phishing attacks and Clinton’s private server was affected.(Read more: Katica@GOPPollAnalyst/Twitter, 7/22/2018)

(Timeline editor’s note: Katica constantly amazes us with her discoveries and is one of the few researchers willing to do the painstaking work of reading the Clinton FBI reports, making sense of them and then posting her findings to the public. Her work is invaluable for those seeking documented details.)

“In an unprecedented move, the Department of Justice has released 412 pages of top-secret documents related to surveillance conducted against former Trump campaign chairman Carter Page.

The documents include an October 2016 application and three renewal applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants taken out against Page.

The New York Times and other news outlets obtained the applications through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

“The FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government,” reads the FISA application.

“As discussed above, the FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government,” reads the initial FISA application, dated Oct. 21, 2016. The Justice Department and FBI obtained three additional FISAs in January, April and June 2017.

The application also says that the FBI had probable cause to believe that Page engaged in “clandestine intelligence activities” and is an agent of a foreign power.

Republican and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence previously released highlights from the documents. A memo released by Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has revealed that the Justice Department and FBI relied heavily on the Democratic-funded Steele dossier in the FISA applications.

The dossier is the first piece of evidence cited in the FISA application section laying out the allegations that Page coordinated with Russian government officials on election-related “influence activities.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/21/2019) ( Carter Page FISA Docs)

Victoria Nuland (Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“Last month, during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, it was revealed for the first time that “[f]ormer British spy Christopher Steele visited the State Department in October 2016 and briefed officials there about his work on the infamous anti-Trump dossier.” During questioning of President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, committee Chairman Richard Burr disclosed that “[b]ased upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October 2016.”

Nuland, who in June 2016 had authorized the FBI to meet with Steele in London, denied attending the October 2016 meeting with Steele. She also “said in previous interviews that she and other State Department officials referred the dossier to the FBI,” but as The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross noted, “Burr’s revelations suggest the agency maintained interest in Steele and his report much longer than previously known.”

Saturday’s release of the FISA applications now exposes a new troubling detail: The DOJ sought the FISA surveillance order based on the information provided “by the U.S. Department of State” “in or about October 2016.” When considered in light of last month’s revelation that Steele had met with State Department officials in October, it now appears that the Obama administration’s State Department bore equal responsibility for presenting the FISA court unverified hearsay to justify spying on the Trump campaign. (Read more: The Federalist, 07/23/2018)  (Archive)

The Carter Page FISA Applications are out.

Importantly, The released version appears to be from the FISA Court. Note the stamp of the Court Clerk on the first page.

Although heavily redacted, much information appears to be contained within.

You should consider the redactions acts of self-preservation by the DOJ rather than reflections of National Security concerns.

You can find the Page FISA Applications here, here and here. Embedded version below.

The first link is to the FBI Vault (you can download). The second link is to the New York Times pdf version. The third is a Scrib’d upload courtesy of the Conservative Treehouse.

For any who doubted assertions the Steele Dossier was the primary means to obtain the Page FISA Warrant doubt no longer.

As we’ve long-said, the Steele Dossier was a primary component of evidence the FBI presented to the FISA Court.

The four FISA Judges are now known with certainty. We’d previously narrowed down the list:

This next bit will ultimately prove important:

Other recognizable names were involved:

FISA APPROVED BY 5 Depts.
* FBI
* State Department
* CIA
* Defense Department
* Director of National Intelligence
* NSA

Check out the NAMES:
1- Comey
2- McCabe
3- Brennan
4- Clapper
5- O’Sullivan
6- John Kerry
7- Blinken
8- Carter
9- Susan Rice pic.twitter.com/caNzHwE8z4

— ヽ(o‿o) {нєℓℓσ (@TiaCarra) July 22, 2018

A suspicion – which I share:

Before you proceed, a reminder:

This is an excellent observation:

Source # 1 is Christopher Steele. Steele was paid by the FBI:

From the second page of the FISA Application:

There are indeed contradictions:

And some circular evidence-gathering:

Wait, what:

The subject of the FISA Application, Carter Page, had a reaction:

I’ll close it out with this:

The Carter Page FISA Documents:

2016 FISA Application on Carter Page by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd

(Jeff Carlson, themarketswork.com, 7/21/2018)

“It has long been known that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid Steele to compile the dossier. Media outlets have also reported, though, that the FBI did not compensate Steele. For instance, the Washington Post ran a story asserting, based on “several people familiar with the arrangement,” that Steele “had reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him,” but “[u]ltimately, the FBI did not pay Steele.” In another article, the Washington Post again claimed Steele was “not being paid as an informant,” but added that he may have been reimbursed for some travel expenses.

Those reports now appear questionable: The FISA applications state that Steele (identified as Source #1), “has been compensated” “by the FBI.” The redactions, though, leave open the question of how much and whether any of the payments compensated Steele for investigating the Trump campaign.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2018)  (Archive)

“The newly released FISA applications also confirm a fourth significant fact: To obtain the surveillance warrant, the DOJ and FBI relied on unverified hearsay from sub-sources (i.e., Steele’s sources) of unknown reliability.

While the government may rely on unverified information provided by an informant who has a history of providing reliable information, to establish probable cause with evidence coming from a source of unknown reliability, the government must corroborate that information. The FISA applications make no mention of corroboration of the sub-sources’ claims concerning Page’s purported conversations with two Russian agents.

Further, the FISA applications reveal that the DOJ only established Steele’s reliability, not that of “sub-sources.” But as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy first highlighted in February 2018:

The only reliability that counts is the reliability of the factual informants, not of the investigator who purports to channel the informants. The judge wants to know why the court should believe the specific factual claims: Was the informant truly in a position to witness what is alleged, and if so, does the informant have a track record of providing verified information? The track record of the investigator who locates the sources is beside the point. A judge would need to know whether Steele’s sources were reliable, not whether Steele himself was reliable.

While we do not know what lay behind the redacted portions of the applications, it seems clear from the placement, context, size of the blackouts that the FBI did not include information in the application either establishing the sub-sources’ reliability or detailing any efforts to corroborate Page’s claimed collusion with the Russian agents.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2018)  (Archive)

(…) George W. Bush nominated Rosemary Collyer to D.C. federal court and Michael Mosman to the District of Oregon. Ann Conway was a George H.W. Bush pick to the Middle District of Florida. Ronald Reagan tapped Raymond J. Dearie to take a seat in the Eastern District of New York. FISA court judges are appointed by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the conservative Roberts named all of them to those [sic] position. Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush.

The highly redacted warrants on Page were publicized Saturday. Authorities believed he worked as an agent of the Russian government. You can read the 412-page behemoth here, or you can read our breakdown for the most important details.

In a Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Page called the FISA warrant application “literally a complete joke,” and claimed it misled the courts.” (Read more: Law & Crime, 7/22/2018)

“The FISA applications further exposed the extent to which the DOJ relied on unverified media reports to support their request for court-ordered electronic surveillance of Page. Contrary to Democrat claims that the applications’ reliance on a Yahoo News article was passing, the FISA documents detailed the Yahoo News article’s assertion that a “well-placed Western intelligence source,” told the news organization that Page met with the Russian agents in July.

Just as statements from unverified “sub-sources” could not establish probable cause, unverified newspaper articles could not either. The DOJ, however, did not limit itself to repeating the Yahoo News article’s claims, which the public later learned had also originated from Steele. The FISA application also cited two other media reports.

One was apparently Josh Rogin’s Washington Post opinion article, which reported claims that Trump campaign members “worked behind the scenes to make sure [the GOP]’s platform would not call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.” The DOJ also relied on an article from August 2016—likely the Michael Crowley Politico piece—that “opined that while the reason for [Trump’s] shift [in Russian policy] was not clear, [Trump]’s more conciliatory words, which contradict [the GOP]’s official platform, follow [Trump]’s recent association with several people sympathetic to Russian influence in Ukraine, including foreign policy advisor Carter Page.”

There are two fundamental problems with this portion of the FISA application. First, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York explained, the GOP platform narrative the Washington Post and Politico pushed was extremely misleading. Second, when I asked Page whether he participated in the GOP Russia platform debate, the former Trump advisor responded with an emphatic “NEVER,” and shared this excerpt from his defamation lawsuit against a media conglomerate:

Plaintiff, Dr. Page arrived on Delta flight 5353 at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at 1:36 p.m. on July 18, 2016, the same day that the Washington Post published the following report: ‘Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine’. (Delta Air Lines flight confirmation attached as Exhibit 19(a)) Dr. Page played no role whatsoever in the drafting of the 2016 Republican party platform.

The FISA applications create the false impression that Page was involved with the GOP platform debate. The DOJ then used that misleading inference to support its claim that Page was a foreign agent.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2019)  (Archive)

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper admitted in a CNN interview Saturday that former President Obama instigated the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and those in his orbit.

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Clapper let slip:

“If it weren’t for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.”

James Wolfe (Credit: public domain)

“Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been notified they may be asked for testimony as part of the criminal trial of a veteran Senate staffer accused of lying to the FBI while working for the panel.

Attorneys for James A. Wolfe sent letters to all 15 senators on the committee, notifying them that their testimony may be sought as part of Mr. Wolfe’s defense, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Wolfe, who for nearly 30 years served as the director of security for the intelligence committee, was arrested last month and charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters while the bureau was conducting an investigation into leaks of classified information to journalists. Mr. Wolfe wasn’t charged with leaking any information.

Mr. Wolfe’s defense lawyers are considering calling the senators as part of the proceedings for a variety of reasons, including as potential character witnesses and to rebut some of the allegations made by the government in the criminal complaint, these people say.

If senators declined to appear voluntarily for either a deposition or at trial, they could be subpoenaed. That action could spark a legal battle over a constitutional provision that gives lawmakers certain immunity and privilege for actions undertaken as part of their official duties, as well as over how much national security information can be disclosed in open court.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 7/27/2018)  (Archive)

Michael Cohen leaves Federal court, Aug. 21, 2018, in New York. (Credit: ABC News)

The Fact

September 19, 2017 and October 25, 2017: In closed-door meetings with the House and Senate intelligence committees, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, testifies that he had no foreknowledge of the Trump Tower meeting and didn’t know if Trump did either. (Axios, 8/23/2018) (Michael Cohen opening statement)

The Plot Begins

July 5, 2018: Maggie Haberman reports Michael Cohen hires ex-Clinton lawyer, Lanny Davis – Mr. Cohen has made moves to separate himself from Mr. Trump  (The New York Times, 7/05/2018)

The Media – hot off the press!

• July 6, 2018: Another warning shot? Trump’s ex-lawyer hires Clinton ally (Chicago Sun Times, 7/6/2018)
• July 6, 2018: “Tell Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself”: Can the Clinton Defense Save Michael Cohen? Cohen’s new attorney, Lanny Davis, thinks the truth will set his clients free—which could be bad news for Donald Trump. (Vanity Fair, 7/06/2018)
• July 8, 2018 – “Why Am I Going to Continue to Be Silent?”: Michael Cohen Is Ready to Kick Off the Lanny Davis Era (Vanity Fair, 7/08/2018)
• July 17, 2018: All eyes on Lanny Davis as Trump’s performance smells of treason (Baltimore Post Examiner, 7/17/2018)
• July 25, 2018 – Michael Cohen is no longer a ‘punching bag’ for Donald Trump’s defense strategy, Lanny Davis says – He also said Cohen “has more truth to tell.” (CNBC, July 25, 2018)

Two days later, more of Cohen’s “truths” are told to CNN and the Washington Post, anonymously, of course. Gee, who could this source be?

It was the natural progression of the plan for this fake news story in order to continue the Russiagate narrative and their efforts to impeach Trump.

The Lie

July 27, 2018: CNN and the Washington Post report that Cohen was willing to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting in advance. (CNN, 7/27/2018) When The New York Post called Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, at the time to confirm the report, Davis spoke as an anonymous source and said it was accurate. (The New York Post, 8/23/2018)

July 27, 2018: The Washington Post – using an “anonymous source” they now admit was Davis, peddled the same story that “Cohen had told associates that he witnessed an exchange in which Trump Jr. told his father about an upcoming gathering in which he expected to get information about Clinton,” however the Post didn’t say Trump Jr. told Sr. it was the Russians.

WaPo has since updated the original article. (Washington Post, 7/27/2018)

The Bust

August 21, 2018 –  The Senate Intelligence committee finally responds to the CNN report because it conflicts with Cohen’s previous testimony. We’re curious as to why it took them nearly a month to respond.

“…What we can say is that we recently re-engaged with Mr. Cohen and his team following press reports that suggested he had advance knowledge of the June 2016 meeting between campaign officials and Russian lawyers at Trump Tower. Mr. Cohen had testified before the Committee that he was not aware of the meeting prior to its disclosure in the press last summer. As such, the Committee inquired of Mr. Cohen’s legal team as to whether Mr. Cohen stood by his testimony. They responded that he did stand by his testimony. 

We hope that today’s developments and Mr. Cohen’s plea agreement will not preclude his appearance before our Committee as needed for our ongoing investigation.” (Senate Intelligence Committee, 8/21/2018)

The next day, Davis taunts Trump, obviously unaware of the Intel committee’s press release.

• August 22, 2018: Cohen’s lawyer claims the flip happened because of the Trump-Putin meeting (Vox, 8/22/2018)
• August 22, 2018: Lanny Davis: Michael Cohen Has Information About Trump That Would Be “Of Interest” To Special Counsel Mueller (Real Clear Politics, 8/22/2018)
• August 22, 2018: Michael Cohen Lawyer Lanny Davis Begs for GoFundMe Donations to ‘Truth Fund’ (Newsweek, 8/22/2018)
• August 22, 2018: “I believe that Mr. Cohen has direct knowledge that would be of interest to Mr. Mueller that suggests — I’m not sure it proves — that Mr. Trump was aware of Russian government agents hacking illegally, committing computer crimes, to the detriment of the candidate who he was running against, Hillary Clinton,” Davis said in a Wednesday interview with PBS NewsHour.

Davis finally catches up and realizes the lie has placed his client in the precarious position of having to reappear before the Senate Intelligence committee and explain his now questionable testimony. Only then does Davis backpedal from his “confident assertions” that Cohen would share information with Mueller’s investigators.

(Credit: CNN)

August 23, 2018:  Davis, speaking on the record, apologized for confirming something he did not know to be true. “I regret that I wasn’t clear enough to The Post. I should have been more clear. I could not independently confirm the information in the CNN story,” he said. “I’m sorry that I left that impression. I wasn’t at the meeting. The only person who could confirm that information is my client.” (The New York Post, 8/23/2018)

August 25, 2018: President Trump tweeted about Davis’s stunning 180 on the Cohen claims, writing: “Michaels Cohen’s attorney clarified the record, saying his client does not know if President Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting (out of which came nothing!). The answer is that I did NOT know about the meeting. Just another phony story by the Fake News Media!” — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2018

August 26, 2018, The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Davis said in an interview that he is “no longer certain about claims he made to reporters on background and on the record in recent weeks about what Cohen knows about Trump’s awareness of the Russian efforts.”

Davis told the Washington Post that he cannot confirm media reports that Cohen is prepared to tell special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that Trump had advance knowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting –(Washington Post, 8/26/18)

August 27, 2018:- Lanny Davis Says He Was A Source For CNN’s Trump Tower Story  (Buzzfeed, 8/27/2018)

August 27, 2018 – CNN Is Standing By Its Trump Tower Story Despite Contradictions (The Daily Caller, 8/27/2018)

Lanny Davis talks to members of the media during a news conference on Jan. 10, 2015, in Philadelphia. (Credit: Joseph Kaczmarek/The Associated Press)

“Davis also walked back an idea he widely circulated after Cohen’s guilty plea that Trump knew about Russian hacking of Democratic emails in advance – which he has mentioned numerous times in recent interviews, “repeatedly touting his client’s potential value to Mueller.”

Four days later and Davis takes it all back.

Asked Saturday how confident he was that Trump knew about the hacking before it became public, Davis said: “I am not sure. There’s a possibility that is the case. But I am not sure.”

Davis said that in discussing the hacking allegations last week, he should have emphasized his lack of certainty. He said he raised the idea that Cohen might have information about Trump’s knowledge because he had a strong feeling that might be the case. –WaPo

“I was giving an instinct that he might have something to say of interest to the special counsel” about hacking, Davis said. In retrospect, he said, “I am just not sure.”

In response to the Washington Post’s original July 27th article:

“I should have been more clear — including with you — that I could not independently confirm what happened,” Davis said, adding perhaps the most difficult four words for an attorney to utter: “I regret my error.”

In the past week, when asked directly by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether there was information that Trump knew about his son’s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya beforehand, Davis said, “No, there’s not.”

In a statement Saturday, a CNN spokeswoman said, “We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it.” –WaPo

We wonder how many people donated to Cohen’s “GoFundMe” campaign assuming he had the goods?

We wonder if Podesta ever let Davis crisis manage Hillary Clinton’s email scandal?” (Zero Hedge, 8/28/2018)

“On my honor I give you my word I will not mention to anyone my involvement. ” — Michael Cohen lawyer Lanny J Davis to Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta https://t.co/8pydGMaYer pic.twitter.com/i7pfYdJbxL

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 24, 2018

A Good Explanation

(Timeline editor’s note: I decided to create a mini-timeline for this story because it is the most egregious example to date of how a fake story is born. I was reminded of the dozens of so-called journalists listed in the original email timeline, who were so ready and willing to tee-up stories in Clinton’s favor. Also, who can forget the MSM’s willingness to tout Donald Trump during the primary, at the Clinton campaign’s request?)

“A new release from the FBI Vault on the Hillary Clinton email investigation reveals the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop containing Clinton emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) was never reviewed for intrusion prior to the 2016 election.”

(Page #15)

“From this page (15): The day after the 2016 election Peter Strzok is asking the FBI forensics data lab to run an intrusion analysis of Huma Abedin’s laptop hard drive.”

(Page #16)

“From This Page (16):  The day after the 2016 election specific instructions to look for “evidence of intrusion” in the laptop of Huma Abedin.”

(Page #17)

“From This Page (17): The day after the election the FBI is requesting data forensics to identify intrusions into the Huma Abedin laptop.  Special instructions include the forensics lab to keep a list of anyone who sees this information, keep track of the FBI personnel doing this work, and tell the case agent who they are.

Then comes the kicker….

Item 4.4: “List any previous efforts to analyze this evidence”: “None”

The FBI never looked at the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop, which contained 100% of Clinton emails and blackberry text messages, for intrusion or security breaches PRIOR TO the election.

REMEMBER THE IG REPORT?  Reading Chapter 11 of the IG Report the content of the Inspector General report as it relates to the laptop device.  Consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):

Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.

The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”

Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.” (pg 388)

FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5, 2016]

Now, how does that square with the laptop being turned over to FBI forensics on November 9th, 2016?”

(Page #18)

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/03/2018)

“The media narrative surrounding FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s firing has been framed, almost exclusively, around his political text messages. Given the nature of the media participation in the events, this is not surprising.  However, Strzok’s text messages have no bearing on his firing.

In March 2018 the DOJ Office of Inspector General announced an ongoing review of how the DOJ and FBI used FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) as a weaponized tool against their political opposition.

“As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.”  (pdf link)

Two months later on Monday May 21st, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein added a significant DOJ mandate to the Inspector General review.  Rosenstein expanded the original FISA review to include looking at whether officials within the intelligence community may have unlawfully used human intelligence assets to “spy” or “surveil” the Trump campaign:

“The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.” (link)

Part of that ongoing IG review surrounds FBI Affidavits presented to the FISA Court (FISC) and whether those affidavits were fraudulent; thereby misleading the court. FBI Agent Peter Strzok is the primary affiant swearing to the truthfulness and fullness of the information that underlines the FISA application (ie. Woods Procedures) . We know Peter Strzok lied and misrepresented information to the court.

In addition to violating the Woods Procedures, FBI Agent Peter Strzok likely falsified, manipulated and shaped FD-302 investigative notes in both the Hillary Clinton and Michael Flynn interviews. His own text messages with DOJ Special Counsel Lisa Page highlight that Peter Strzok was very familiar with manipulating evidence by the narrative he could/did write in his 302 submissions.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Christopher Wray (Credit: public domain)

On May 11, 2018, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley dropped a sunlight grenade into the prosecution of Michael Flynn with a jaw-dropping request letter (full pdf below) to FBI Director Christopher Wray. [Judiciary Link Here]

Within the letter Chairman Grassley outlined a prior briefing from fired FBI Director James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and contrasts the false presentations of James Comey and by extension Peter Strzok, regarding Michael Flynn, against recently known evidence.

Additionally, Grassley requested:

♦the transcription of the phone call(s) intercepted by the FBI between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak;

♦the FD 302s written by the FBI in their interview with Michael Flynn;

♦testimony from Special Agent Joe Pientka, likely the second FBI agent who was partnered with Peter Strzok for the Flynn interview.

The name of the second FBI agent was previously unknown, and it’s likely Chairman Grassley outed the name for a very specific reason. This is a BIG shot across the bow.

Previously the Justice Department was refusing to provide any information to the committee pertinent to Grassley’s requests, citing the ongoing investigation. However, the Senator was outlining his request against the backdrop of the Judge in the Flynn case demanding the Special Counsel turn over all exculpatory information.

Judge Contreras was presiding judge on the initial guilty plea, then “was recused”. Judge Sullivan took over and demanded the DOJ turn over all exculpatory evidence.

Judge Contreras was presiding judge on the initial guilty plea, then “was recused”. Judge Sullivan took over and demanded the DOJ turn over all exculpatory evidence. (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Senator Grassley outlines the February 15th, 2017, briefing provided by James Comey to the committee:

(…) “Like the Flynn interview itself, that briefing was not transcribed. Also like the Flynn interview, there are notes taken by a career, non-partisan law enforcement officer who was present. The agent was on detail to the Committee staff at the time.

According to that agent’s contemporaneous notes, Director Comey specifically told us during that briefing that the FBI agents who interviewed Lt. General Michael Flynn, “saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying.” Our own Committee staff’s notes indicate that Mr. Comey said the “agents saw no change in his demeanor or tone that would say he was being untruthful.”

Contrary to his public statements during his current book tour denying any memory of those comments, then-Director Comey led us to believe during that briefing that the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he intentionally lied about his conversation with the Ambassador and that the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute him for false statements made in that interview. In the months since then, the Special Counsel obtained a guilty plea from Lt. General Flynn for that precise alleged conduct.”

It is important to remember – there is a widely held belief that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the FBI agents (Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka) to shape their FBI reports of the interview (FD-302s) to assist a “Flynn lied” narrative.

There is a great deal of debate surrounding the guilty plea as an outcome of a carefully constructed and coordinated plan by FBI and DOJ officials to target Flynn.

The letter continues:

(…) “The Department has withheld the Flynn-related documents since our initial bipartisan request last year, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. With Flynn’s plea, the investigation appears concluded.

Additionally, while we are aware that the Special Counsel’s office has moved to delay Lt. General Flynn’s sentencing on several occasions, we presume that all related records already have been provided to the defense pursuant to Judge Sullivan’s February 16, 2018 order requiring production of all potentially exculpatory material. Thus, although the case is not yet adjudicated, the Committee’s oversight interest in the underlying documents requested more than a year ago now outweighs any legitimate executive branch interest in withholding it. So too does the Committee’s interest in learning the FBI agents’ actual assessments of their interview of Lt. Gen. Flynn, particularly given the apparent contradiction between what then Directory Comey told us in March 2017 and what he now claims.”

Then comes the hammer:

(…) “In addition, please make Special Agent Joe Pientka available for a transcribed interview with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested documents.”

Regarding the “widely held belief” that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the FBI agents (Strzok and Pientka) to shape their FBI reports of the interview (FD-302’s) to assist a “Flynn lied” narrative. As Nick Falco points out evidence of that is within the most recent text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:

♦January 23, 2017, the day before the Flynn interview, Lisa Page says: “I can feel my heart beating harder, I’m so stressed about all the ways THIS has the potential to go fully off the rails.” Weird!”

♦Strzok replies: “I know. I just talked with John, we’re getting together as soon as I get in to finish that write up for Andy [McCabe] this morning.” Strzok agrees with Page about being stressed that “THIS” could go off the rails. (Strzok meets with Flynn the next day.)

♦Why would Page & Strzok be stressed about “THIS” potentially going off the rails if everything was by the book?

BECAUSE IT WASN’T!

♦February 14th, 2017, there is another note about the FBI reports filed from the interview.

Peter Strzok asks Lisa Page if FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is OK with his report: “Also, is Andy good with F-302?”

Lisa Page replies: “Launch on F 302.”

And we know from their discussions of manipulating FBI reports a year earlier, inside the Hillary Clinton investigation – that Peter Strzok has withheld information, and manipulated information, through use of the 302 reports:

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/15/2018)

(Timeline editor’s note: With special thanks to Conservative Treehouse for allowing us to post their well documented research to the timeline. We have decided to post this piece in full. Please visit their website and read more of Sundance’s work. His team is an organized group of super sleuths who are putting this maddening puzzle together, piece by piece.)

(George Toscas Transcript 8/16/2018)

“Judicial Watch today released two batches, 184 pages and 45 pages, of newly uncovered emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the U.S. Department of State sent and received over her unsecure, non-“state.gov” email system. Five emails contain classified information.

Judge James Boasberg (Credit: public domain)

(…) “The documents are part of the accelerated schedule of production ordered by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, which requires the State Department to complete processing by September 28, 2018, the remaining documents of the 72,000 pages recovered by the FBI in its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit email server. These new classified and other emails appear to be among those that Clinton had attempted to delete or had otherwise failed to disclose.

• On June 7, 2011, Clinton received classified information on her non-secure email account from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which Blair also forwarded to Jake Sullivan, about Blair’s Middle East negotiations with Israel, the Palestinians and the French
• On January 26, 2010, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan sent classified information via his unsecure Blackberry to Huma Abedin’s State Department email account that he’d earlier sent to Clinton’s and Abedin’s non-secure @clintonemail.com email accounts about U.K. negotiations with Northern Ireland.
• On October 28, 2010, Clinton exchanges information with her friend Marty Torrey – a congressional aide – who asks Clinton in an email if she would advise that Torrey meet with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Clinton responds through her non-secure email account approving the meeting and notes that she is emailing him from Hanoi, Vietnam.
• An email chain dated April 8, 2010, which contains a memo from Sid Blumenthal to Hillary Clinton related to the change of government in Kyrgyzstan, contains information classified “confidential” and is redacted as “foreign government information” and “foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.” Blumenthal urges Clinton to “develop relations” with the new government in Kyrgyzstan.

All of this suggests to me the necessity for the State Department to assert itself and take the lead in developing relations with the new government.

• A January 26, 2010, email to Hillary Clinton from her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan, is classified “confidential” and contains a “call sheet” that Clinton received prior to placing a call to Northern Ireland political leaders. It appears that the redacted portions contain the names of particular members of Sinn Fein who were invited to a particular meeting and the expectations of either themselves or other foreign ministers for the outcomes of that meeting.
• A June 13, 2009, email to Clinton from Sullivan with the subject line “Northern Ireland” is classified “confidential” and nearly completely redacted. The particular subject details are unclear.
• Abedin emails Clinton about “Invites for the week” in an undated email (but apparently written before November 1, 2011, the day Clinton’s mother died, because her mother is one of the invitees – probably written in early 2009, based on the period most of these emails seem to have been written), and notes that she (Clinton) has a “George Soros lunch from 1-3 in Southampton.”
• On October 20, 2010, lawyer Lanny Davis writes Clinton an email saying, “Thank you H for who you are and what you do,” followed in the exchange by another with “PS. I swear you look younger and better every time I see you, Good night dear Hillary. Lanny.” Mr. Davis is currently a lawyer for Michael Cohen.
• In an undated email, Blumenthal emails Clinton about State Department management issues suggests that Joseph C. Wilson “should be spoken with for his view of dept, personnel…is shrewd.” Wilson is a former ambassador to Gabon who went on to become an Africa consultant and deal-maker.

“These classified Hillary Clinton emails that she tried to hide or destroy show why it is urgent that the DOJ finally undertake an honest criminal investigation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These emails show how the prior sham investigation by the Comey-Strzok-McCabe-Lynch crowd was a joke. It is past time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to order a new investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 8/16/2018)

“The FBI has been dealt a major blow after a Washington DC judge ruled that the agency must respond to a FOIA request for documents concerning the bureau’s efforts to verify the controversial Steele Dossier, before it was used as the foundation of a FISA surveillance warrant application and subsequent renewals.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/The National Law Journal)

US District Court Judge Amit Mehta – who in January sided with the FBI’s decision to ignore the FOIA request, said that President Trump’s release of two House Intelligence Committee documents (the “Nunes” and “Schiff” memos) changed everything.

Considering that the FBI offered Steele $50,000 to verify the Dossier’s claims yet never paid him, BuzzFeed has unsuccessfully tried to do the same to defend themselves in a dossier-related lawsuit, and a $50 million Soros-funded investigation to continue the hunt have turned up nothing that we know of – whatever documents the FBI may be forced to cough up regarding their attempts to verify the Dossier could prove highly embarrassing for the agency.

“But then the ground shifted,” writes Mehta of Trump declassifying the House memos. “As a result of the Nunes and Schiff Memos, there is now in the public domain meaningful information about how the FBI acquired the Dossier and how the agency used it to investigate Russian meddling.”

The DOJ also sought to distinguish between the Steele Dossier and a synopsis of the dossier presented to both Trump and then-President Obama in 2016, however Mehta rejected the attempt, writing “That position defies logic,” while also rejecting the government’s refusal to even say if the FBI has a copy of that synopsis.

“It remains no longer logical nor plausible for the FBI to maintain that it cannot confirm nor deny the existence of documents,” Mehta wrote.

“It is simply not plausible to believe that, to whatever extent the FBI has made efforts to verify Steele’s reporting, some portion of that work has not been devoted to allegations that made their way into the synopsis. After all, if the reporting was important enough to brief the President-elect, then surely the FBI thought enough of those key charges to attempt to verify their accuracy. It will be up to the FBI to determine which of the records in its possession relating to the reliability of the Dossier concerns Steele’s reporting as discussed in the synopsis.”

“This ruling represents another incremental step in revealing just how much the FBI has been able to verify or discredit the rather personal allegations contained in that synopsis derived from the Steele dossier,” said Brad Moss, a lawyer pressing the lawsuit for the pro-transparency group, the James Madison Project. “It will be rather ironic if the president’s peripheral actions that resulted in this ruling wind up disclosing that the FBI has been able to corroborate any of the ‘salacious’ allegations.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 8/18/2018)

(…) “The signing process by the FBI director appears to be more of an official act than any sort of actual review. Anderson testified that each day, the director might receive 15 to 20 FISAs to sign, with each containing large amounts of documentation.

“[They’re] very thick. It’s not unusual for the Director to receive a stack this tall. I’m indicating about a foot and a half between my hands here, for the benefit of the reporter,” she said.

Anderson testified that the director was allotted 20 minutes in which to review the entirety of the day’s FISA applications—not 20 minutes per FISA.

Mr. Baker (House Majority Investigative Counsel): “And you said just a minute ago — I thought you said that the Director has 20 minutes set aside to review all the FISAs?”

Ms. Anderson: “Approximately, yes.”

(Read more: Epoch Times, 2/11/2019)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“Even during normal circumstances, Anderson noted that she did not view it as her primary responsibility to provide any verification or fact-checking of the FISA applications. According to Anderson, FISAs would typically return from DOJ inspection with a cover note that “summarized the FISA,” and unless an issue had been identified by the cover note, she typically wouldn’t read the actual application “because of the time pressures involved and the sort of very-last-stop-in-the-process nature of the review.” Anderson also testified that the only way she would be aware of the legal predicate for probable cause would be through the DOJ cover note.

Anderson told investigators that her direct supervisor, Baker, had personally read and reviewed the Page FISA, lending her additional confidence in the review process. However, according to Baker, he had only read the “factual section” relating to probable cause and had not read or reviewed any other section, including the Woods file.

The Woods file, which provides facts supporting the allegations made in a FISA application, is attached to every application and is provided by the originating FBI agent in each case.

Baker, during questioning as to why the FBI failed to disclose the political motivations of dossier author Steele to the FISC, testified that this fact should have been vetted during lower levels of preparation.

“So the people filing the FISA application and the people who checked the Woods file to verify that the way this works is that they would not have had any information that was derogatory about Source #1 at the time that this was submitted,” Baker said.

“That there might exist in the files of the FBI or in somebody’s memory some interaction that might be derogatory and that it didn’t make it into the files I don’t know that that happened or didn’t happen. That kind of thing in theory, in theory could happen. So, but the people responsible for this FISA should have believed that that was accurate at the time and should have had documentation to support that assertion.”

Sally Moyer (Credit: Patsy Lynch/Daily Mail)

However, Sally Moyer, who was a unit chief at the Office of General Counsel, told lawmakers that only the originating agent and the supervisory special agent in the field actually look at the Woods file during the preparation of a FISA application:

Mr. Somers: “So you don’t — do you review the Woods’ file?”

Ms. Moyer: “No.”

Mr. Somers: “Did you review the Woods’ file in the Carter Page application?”

Ms. Moyer: “No.”
…
Mr. Somers: “Okay.  So beyond the case agent, who looks at a Woods’ file?”

Ms. Moyer: “The supervisory special agent in the field.”

Mr. Somers: “In the field. But no one else out of the field of that chain looks at a Woods’ file in general?”

Ms. Moyer: “That is correct, except both of those individuals sign the Woods’ form indicating that the facts are true and accurate and that they have documents to support those facts.”

Moyer told investigators that “the person that’s signing the application is relying on the individuals who have signed the Woods form that they have the Woods file.” Moyer stipulated that in some cases, the supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters who is signing off on an application might choose to review the Woods file, but that it was not done for the Page FISA.

Mr. Somers: “Do you know if that happened in the case of the Carter Page?”

Ms. Moyer: “I don’t think it did in this case.”

(Read more: Epoch Times, 2/11/2019)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, (r) joined by committee counsel Robert Parmiter on the House subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, Nov. 18, 2015. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

(…) Much of the questioning of Moffa was done by Robert Parmiter, the chief counsel for the Republican staff on the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee. He asked Moffa about August 2016 text messages between Moffa and FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was putting together a meeting to discuss the initial organization of the investigation. Even at that early date, Strzok specified that they needed to discuss the use of “CHS” and “liaison.”

Parmiter asked about the acronym CHS: “What does that stand for?”

Moffa replied: “Confidential human source.”

When Parmiter asked Moffa whether Christopher Steele was a CHS, Moffa went off the record to confer with his bureau-provided counsel, Robert Sinton. When they came back on the record, Moffa answered the question: “Yes.”

That was merely confirmation of what had been known for some time — that Christopher Steele was an official informant expecting to be paid by the FBI for his dossier information. Moffa also confirmed that Steele’s status as a CHS had eventually been revoked. Moffa had been at a meeting where “closing” Steele as a Confidential Human Source was discussed, but Moffa declined to answer questions about what Steele did to lose his CHS status.

Steele was hardly the only CHS used in the FBI’s investigation. It has been widely reported that a retired Cambridge professor, Stefan Halper, was a CHS — we’ve all been lectured not to use the word “spy” in describing him.

And now the New York Times has put in print what was long suspected, that the woman Halper presented to George Papadopoulos as his “assistant” was actually something else altogether. “Azra Turk” was an FBI asset sent across the Atlantic with a mission to get incriminating information out of Papadopoulos. It’s not clear whether she counted as a CHS herself, or whether she was an “investigator” with some other official status at the bureau.

So the question remains: Other than the woman whose cover name was Azra Turk (and whose official position may or may not have been as a CHS), were Steele and Halper the only Confidential Human Sources used against the Trump campaign? It doesn’t appear so.

Moffa was asked in the closed-door Capitol Hill interview, “How many CHSs did you have working on this investigation at the time?”

Moffa again conferred with his counsel off the record.

“Okay,” he replied, back on the record. “So I legitimately do not know the total number of CHSs. That’s an operational side decision, but I also don’t want to imply to you that I don’t — I’m not aware of any CHSs, right. So that’s what we were just talking about. But I legitimately can’t tell you the overall number that are engaged. I just don’t know it.” (Read more: National Review, 5/3/2019)

(Jonathan Moffa Transcript, 8/24/2018)

Adam Lovinger (Credit: Olga Novitsky)

“A Pentagon whistleblower claims that a Department of Defense official inappropriately incentivized investigators to target him, according to documents sent to Congressional lawmakers and obtained by the Daily Caller.

The security clearance of Adam Lovinger, a Trump-supporting, 12-year Pentagon analyst, was revoked after he questioned why politically connected contractors and FBI-informant Stefan Halper, who spied on the Trump campaign for the bureau, received well-paid contracts to conduct “inherently governmental functions.”

Through a Statement of Reason (SOR) response, drawn up by his lawyer Sean Bigley, Lovinger claims Jim Baker, the Department of Defense’s Director of the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), targeted him through several tactics, one of which was recommending two military officers for prestigious military medals as motivation to look into Lovinger as the target of a classified leak probe.

One of the investigators Baker assigned to the probe, ONA Chief of Staff Cmdr. Anthony Russell (USCG), received a “Recommendation for Award of the Defense Superior Service Medal.” Russell, according to Lovinger’s SOR, was the architect of two national security inquiries targeting Lovinger.”

(,,,) “Russell’s investigation of Lovinger, however, seemed retaliatory even to Washington Headquarters Service General Counsel James Vietti, when Lovinger was up for a senior directorship at the National Security counsel and his superiors stopped the process.

Vietti told Russell in an e-mail on January 17, 2017, that his probe “could look like you’re trying to interfere with or hinder his advancement in some way—and that the e-mail would be sent after he complained  (I think I’m recalling this correctly) that Mr. Baker violated the Hatch Act.”

(..) Russell was not the only military officer reporting to Baker who was instructed to investigate Lovinger and to be nominated by Baker for a military medal. Baker designated Marine Lt. Col. Brian Bruggeman as investigating officer of the probe against Lovinger back on January 12, 2017.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/24/2018)

(Credit: Kelo)

“House lawmakers interviewed an FBI official on Friday, part of an ongoing congressional investigation into the bureau’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

A congressional source confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Judiciary and Oversight Committees met privately with FBI official Jonathan Moffa at the end of the week — the latest in a line of interviews conducted by the joint task force looking into the FBI’s controversial handling of the inquiry into the former secretary of state’s unauthorized server.

Moffa was mentioned in an April letter sent to Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who took note of emails from February 2016 that suggested Justice Department coordination with the FBI before ex-FBI Director James Comey publicly recommend in July that no charges be brought against Clinton, who was then a candidate for president.

In the letter, first reported by Fox News, Meadows pointed to emails found on Clinton’s server with “Top Secret” information that indicated Comey may have misled Congress when he testified that there was no DOJ-FBI coordination at “crucial moments of the investigation.” One of those emails from an unidentified senior Justice Department official sent to Peter Strzok, the former FBI official who led the Clinton probe and was recently fired for his anti-Trump texting; Moffa, an official in the FBI’s criminal division and the bureau’s Office of General Counsel; and members of the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, discussed being “kept in the loop as [a] response is drafted.”

The Judiciary-Oversight joint task force also reportedly set up interviews with at least three other FBI officials earlier this summer, including with Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, and Michael Steinbach, the former head of the FBI’s national security division, and John Giacalone, who preceded Steinbach.

Despite protests from across the aisle, the GOP-led task force isn’t done yet. According to Bloomberg, lawmakers will privately interview former top FBI lawyer James Baker on Aug. 30. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 8/26/2018)

Adam Lovinger (l) and Stefan Halper (Credit: public domain)

(…) “When [Adam] Lovinger raised concerns about DoD’s misuse of Stefan Halper in 2016, he did so without any political designs or knowledge of Mr. Halper’s spying activities,” Bigley told SaraACarter.com. “Instead, Mr. Lovinger simply did what all Americans should expect of our civil servants: he reported violations of law and a gross waste of public funds to his superiors.”

And for that, Bigley said, Lovinger has paid the ultimate price in his 12-year career as a strategist in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. According to Bigley, shortly after Lovinger began reporting and asking questions about suspicious contracts given to Halper and others, including one person closely associated Chelsea Clinton, his security clearance was suspended. Later, on April 3, 2018, the DoD’s Washington Headquarters Services Director Barbara Westgate sent a letter to Lovinger indefinitely suspending him from duty and pay status after his clearance was removed in March. The letter stated, “The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that I am proposing to indefinitely suspend you from duty and pay status in your position as a Foreign Affairs Specialist.”

(…) “Bigley suspects it was more than the Clinton-connected contracts adding, “Mr. Lovinger unwittingly shined a spotlight on the deep state’s secret weapon – Stefan Halper – and threatened to expose the truth about the Trump-Russia collusion narrative than being plotted: that it was all a set-up.”

Halper’s Ties to Russian Officials Raise Serious Questions

Halper has had a long career and worked in government with several GOP administrations. At 73, the elusive professor spent a career developing top-level government connections–not just through academia but also through his work with members of the intelligence apparatus.

Those contacts and the information Halper collected along the way would eventually, through apparent circumstance, become utilized by the FBI against the Trump campaign. But, it was during his time hosting the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar at the University of Cambridge where Halper shifted from a professor and former government consultant to FBI informant on the Trump campaign.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/27/2018)

(…) “Ohr testified at multiple points that he simply transmitted information from Steele and from Simpson to the FBI, but did nothing to attempt to verify its accuracy. Ohr knew that Steele held a bias against Trump. He was also fully aware that Fusion GPS was engaged in opposition research—his wife was part of the ongoing effort. Ohr also testified that although he didn’t know Fusion was employed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), he was aware “they were somehow working associated with the Clinton campaign.” From his testimony:

Q: “Who were Steele’s sources?”

Ohr: “I don’t know.”

Q: “How did you vet those—how did he vet those sources? How did Fusion GPS vet those sources?”

Ohr: “I think—I don’t know the specifics. The fact that my wife was looking at some of the same figures, like Sergei Millian, suggests that that was one way they were trying to vet the information.”

Ohr attempted to make clear his concerns—his reason for passing Steele’s information directly to the FBI—but his logic appeared somewhat one-sided:

Ohr: “I think any attempt by a foreign power to gain influence over a Presidential campaign would be troubling.”

Q: “But that does not include Steele relying on Russians to provide dirt on Trump?”

Ohr: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question … I think my understanding is that what Steele was finding out was investigating the links, the national-security threat posed by Russian Government officials attempting to gain influence over the Trump campaign.”

Q: “He was relying on foreign nationals for that information?”

Ohr: “I don’t know who he was getting it from.”

A bit later in Ohr’s testimony, an interesting exchange took place, during which Ohr admitted that the information he had provided to the FBI on the behalf of Steel and Simpson wouldn’t be admissible in court:

Q: “So tell me all of the questions, cross-examination-like questions, that you asked Chris Steele about the source of his information.”

Ohr: “I knew—he would not give me the source of his information, so I couldn’t get it.”

Q: “How much of what Chris Steele told you would have ever come out in a courtroom?”

Ohr: “I’m not sure it would have. It was source information. It was hearsay.”

Steele had no direct connections to his sources of information and everything Steele listed in the dossier was provided to him second- or third-hand. Which creates evidentiary problems:

Q: “I’m guessing you never talked to the sources or sub-sources.”

Ohr: “That is correct.”

Q: “Well, Mr. Ohr, that information would never see the inside of a courtroom, because you can’t cross-examine it. You can’t find out who, if anyone, really is the source of that. Do you agree?”

Ohr: “Yes. But this is not evidence in a courtroom. He is providing information from—this is source information.”

Q: “Best-case scenario, it’s double hearsay. Worst-case scenario, we don’t have any—it could be quintuple hearsay, right?”

Ohr: “I think—I don’t know. It definitely is hearsay, and it was source information, which is what I was telling the FBI.”

Q: “I guess what alarms me about this fact pattern is all the way in December of 2016, a guy named Comey was referring to the information as unverified. That’s in December of 2016.”

To this day, the Steele dossier remains unverified.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/14/2019)

“Ohr often struggled to explain why he got involved as an intermediary between the FBI and Steele and Simpson in the first place:

Q: “You got the world’s premier law enforcement agency investigating a fact pattern. Chris Steele already has a handler, already is in contact with the FBI; and you allow the person hired by the DNC to dig up dirt on a Presidential candidate to talk to you directly and use you as a conduit. We’re just trying to figure out why you let that happen?”

Ohr: “I took the information. I thought the information might be important, and I wanted to get it to the FBI. It seemed the only way to do it.”

Q: “What information would Glenn Simpson have that the Bureau couldn’t get or already have?”

Ohr: “I don’t know exactly what the FBI had access to, and I know Glenn Simpson was also gathering information. So more information is better. The FBI is in a position to decide whether the information is useful or credible.”

Toward the beginning of Ohr’s interview, he was questioned in regard to precisely who he had brought Steele’s information to within the FBI:

Q: “Who at the FBI did you pass it on to?”

Ohr: “Well, at that point I had—I believe I met with Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and some people from the Department’s—Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and I gave them the information that I had received.”

And a notable point was made:

Q: “Can you see how it might be troubling? You just called the names of two people, neither of whom I think are with the Bureau, one who was mentioned unfavorably in an IG report, both of whom had, at least from my standpoint, an unprecedented amount of animus or bias towards one of the candidates, and you are getting information from someone hired by the DNC and funneling it to the lead agent on the Russia investigation. Can you possibly see how that might be troubling to people?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Ohr also admitted that his actions represented an unusual pattern of behavior for him:

Q: “Are there other cases where you recall taking information from fact witnesses and passing it on to the Bureau?”

Ohr: “I don’t recall specific instances, but whenever I—over the years, as I’ve talked with people who are, you know, experts or have information one way or another on transnational organized crime, including Russian organized crime, I take their information, and if it looked like it—if there’s anything there, I would pass it to the FBI.”

Q: “I’ve been out of it for about 8 years, so you help me if I’m wrong, but a stick, or thumb drive, would be physical evidence for which a chain would exist if it were ever needed in court? And you made yourself part of the chain?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Q: “Can you think of other instances in your career since 1991 where you made yourself part of a chain of custody?”

Ohr: “Not—I don’t remember getting any other sticks or anything like that, so—”

Q: “And you can’t think of a single case where you inserted yourself into a chain of custody other than this one?”

Ohr: “That’s right.”

Q: “I guess my colleagues are wondering why. Why this one?”

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

(…) “Last year, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued dueling memos about the Russia investigation. The release of Ohr’s testimony backs up then-chair Devin Nunes’ memo. Nunes’ memo explained that, after the FBI fired Steele as a source, he continued to feed Ohr intel, with the FBI interviewing Ohr to document the communications with Steele. Ohr confirmed that that is exactly what occurred.

Ohr’s testimony also refuted Schiff’s Democrat’s response memo. In that memo, Schiff called Nunes’ “reference to Bruce Ohr misleading,” stating that the Republican “misleads about the timeframe of Ohr’s communications with the FBI.” Schiff then claimed Ohr informed the FBI of the information Steele had shared with him in late November 2016—weeks after the election, and more than a month after the court approved the initial FISA application.

But as his just-released testimony made clear, Ohr contacted McCabe shortly after his July 30, 2016, meeting with Steele, and conveyed the details of that tête-à-tête to McCabe. Steele continued to provide Ohr with information on Trump. Ohr then passed those details on to Strzok and Lisa Page. Th[is] occurred well before Steele’s firing and the first FISA court order.

Ohr’s testimony has helped to clear up this dispute and others, but unfortunately there are many more questions left unanswered.” (Read more: The Federalist, 3/11/2019)

Bruce Ohr arrives to testify before the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees on Aug. 28, 2018. (Credit: Chris Wattie/Reuters)

“Senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr testified Tuesday that prior to obtaining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page, the FBI was aware that former British spy and anti-Trump dossier author, Christopher Steele was biased against then-candidate Trump. He also stated that the FBI knew that his wife, Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS, the now-embattled research firm which was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC to compile the dossier with Steele. This, according to Congressional sources with direct knowledge of Ohr’s closed-door deposition.

Ohr stated during his hours-long testimony that the FBI failed to disclose this pertinent information to the nation’s secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when it sought an application to spy on Page. The FBI also failed to disclose that when it sought the application, it was using senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr as a cut-out for a source the bureau had terminated.

Ohr had also communicated with senior members of the FBI, including former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, at the bureau but stated that his superiors at the Justice Department were not aware that he was being used as a source for the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign, according to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com.

“When it comes to the dossier, the hours of testimony from Bruce Ohr only further confirm how wrong the FBI operated,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told this news outlet. Jordan would not give details on the testimony but stated that Ohr’s deposition was a necessary part of the investigation and getting to the truth.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/28/2018)

Bruce and Nellie Ohr (Credit: public domain)

“And now we learn, from testimony that is still being kept secret from the public, that Ohr admitted to Congress last year that he also took Russia information that his wife, Nellie, assembled against Trump on a computer drive and delivered that to the FBI in 2016 — a revelation that has raised fresh concerns in Congress about a possible conflict of interest.

Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion GPS and, for a time, worked on the same Clinton-financed Russian research project as Steele, according to the testimony.

DOJ ethics rules forbid department officials from working in cases where a spouse has a financial interest, a prohibition that Bruce Ohr said he knew about when he forwarded his wife’s evidence to the FBI.

The way Ohr described it, his wife’s research was like an additional dossier assembled from Fusion GPS research to augment what Steele was separately providing the FBI.

“She (Nellie Ohr) provided me with a memory stick that included research she had done for Fusion GPS on various Russian figures,” Ohr told congressional investigators.

“And the reason she provided that information to me is, my understanding was, it related to some of the same — it related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. And she gave me that stick to give to the FBI.”

Ohr’s revelation about his wife adds yet another example of people connected to the Clinton machine flooding the FBI with anti-Trump Russia research during the 2016 election.

Steele’s dossier was the opening salvo. A document sent to the State Department by Clinton proteges Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal was another. A thumb drive given by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman to FBI general counsel James Baker was a third. Simpson’s thumb drive given to Bruce Ohr was a fourth. And Nellie Ohr’s thumb drive would be a fifth. At least three of those work products — those from Steele, Shearer/Blumenthal and Nellie Ohr — resemble what many people might consider a dossier.” (Read more: The Hill, 2/21/2019)

(Credit: public domain)

(…) “Steele’s biases against then-candidate Trump have been reported in the media. Ohr testified that he relayed these to the FBI prior to the election.

“Prior to the election, when I spoke with Chris Steele, I got the sense he was very alarmed by this information, which I think he believed to be true. And so I definitely got the impression he did not want Donald Trump to win the election,” Ohr said in his testimony.

“I don’t recall the exact words. I definitely had a very strong impression that he did not want Donald Trump to win, because he believed his information he was giving me was accurate, and that he was, as I said, very concerned, or he was desperate, which is what I then told the FBI,” Ohr said.

Ohr later testified that he informed the FBI of Steele’s bias, along with details of his wife’s employment with Fusion GPS—and Fusion’s political mandate—prior to the Oct. 21, 2016, FISA application made on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page:

Q: “So the record is clear, what the Department of Justice and the FBI was aware of prior to the first FISA application was your relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, your wife’s relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, Mr. Steele’s bias against Donald Trump, Mr. Simpson’s bias against Donald Trump, your wife’s compensation for work for Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, correct?”

Ohr: “Right. So just, again, to reiterate, when I spoke with the FBI, I told them my wife was working for Fusion GPS. I told them Fusion GPS was doing research on Donald Trump. You know, I don’t know if I used the term opposition research, but certainly that was my—what I tried to convey to them. I told them this is the information I had gotten from Chris Steele. At some point, and I don’t remember exactly when, I don’t think it was the first conversation, I told them that Chris Steele was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected.”

It turns out that Ohr personally told Deputy FBI Director McCabe of his concerns about possible bias during the initial August 2016 meeting:

Q: “So in August of 2016, you tell Andy McCabe that you’re concerned because your wife works for Fusion GPS and that’s where you’re getting the information?”

Ohr: “I wanted Mr. McCabe to know that there was a possible, you know—that the—”

Q: “Conflict of interest—”

Ohr: “—of interest or appearance thereof, yeah.”

Q: “So there’s a possible conflict of interest in August of 2016 before a FISA warrant is actually initiated?”

Ohr: “I think I did not mean to say conflict of interest. What I would say is that in evaluating any information that I transmitted to the FBI, I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias—”

Q: “So you believe there was the possibility of bias?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

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

Inspector General Intelligence Community Logo (Credit: public domain)

“The FBI refuses to disclose whether or not it met with senior members of the Intelligence Community Inspector General on the subject of foreign intrusion of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server.

An FBI spokeswoman refused to confirm if Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) officials — including Frank Rucker, its chief investigator — briefed top bureau officials about evidence of penetration of Clinton’s private server by a Chinese government intelligence operation. “We have no comment,” she told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Earlier Wednesday, an FBI spokesman released what appeared to be a categorical statement about the Clinton server: “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised,” the FBI stated.

The statement does not address a central aspect of TheDCNF’s reporting, which was that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an “anomaly” they found in 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails. The report is based on an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter. The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.

The third party was a Chinese state-owned company based in Northern Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C., and was part of an ongoing Chinese government intelligence operation, according to two separate sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

According to one source, the last ICIG briefing was held in June 2016 about a month before former FBI Director James Comey stated that he did not recommend any indictment of Clinton for mishandling classified materials.

Comey in that widely reported July 5, 2016 press conference stated he did not find “direct evidence” that Clinton’s email domain was successfully hacked.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/29/2018)

(Credit: Fox News)

“Numerous congressional sources are telling SaraACarter.com that after Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr’s explosive closed-door testimony on Tuesday, lawmakers are gearing up to call his wife, Nellie Ohr, in for questioning regarding her work with the now-embattled research firm, Fusion GPS. Congress is also seeking access to Bruce Ohr’s text messages and emails with top FBI officials.”

(…) “Nellie Ohr, a Russia expert who was hired by Fusion GPS in 2016 to investigate the Trump campaign, received multiple large sum payments from the research firm, according to a U.S. official, with direct knowledge of the payments.

The payments from the DNC and Clinton campaign were made through the law firm Perkins Coie, which represented both clients. The research firm also hired former British spy Christopher Steele, who was friends with the Ohrs and who compiled the now infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. Steele was not only paid by Fusion GPS for his work but according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, he was also being paid by the FBI from Jan. 1. 2016 to Nov. 1, 2016.

The U.S. official did not disclose the amount of money paid to Bruce Ohr’s wife through Simpson’s firm, but said it “was not chump change, that much I can say.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/28/2018)

Rep. John Ratcliffe speaks about Bruce Ohr’s testimony to Congress with Sean Hannity. (Credit: Fox News)

“Sources told Fox News that Ohr’s contacts included Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who acknowledged meeting with Ohr in congressional testimony last month. Strzok once played a leading role in Mueller’s inquiry and was recently fired from the bureau over anti-Trump text messages he sent a colleague with whom he was having an affair.

Fox News also reported that Ohr claimed to have met with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Strzok’s one-time mistress, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Joe Pientka, an FBI agent who reportedly interviewed former national security adviser Michael Flynn with Strzok.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., noted that Ohr additionally mentioned Andrew Weissmann, who was the chief of the DOJ’s criminal fraud division, according to the Washington Post. Fox News‘ Catherine Herridge reported Thursday that Weissmann was “kept in the loop” about the dossier, Steele, and Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier.

During his testimony in closed-door testimony before the joint task force of the Judiciary and Oversight committees, Ratcliffe claims Ohr said at least one of these officials signed off on a FISA warrant application seeking the authority to spy on Page. To this individual, Ratcliffe advised: “I would retain a really good lawyer.”

Of the officials who have been identified in reports, McCabe was the only one known to have signed off one of them.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 8/30/2018)

Hillary Clinton (Credit: The Associated Press)

“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security clearance has been revoked at her request, the State Department told lawmakers, according to a letter made public Friday.

Clinton’s clearance was withdrawn on Aug. 30, according to a letter from the State Department to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), which he released.

Five others associated with Clinton, including longtime aide Cheryl Mills, also had their clearances revoked on Sept. 20, according to the letter. The aides were known as “research assistants,” which allowed them to keep their clearances after their time at the department concluded.

The move comes almost a year after Grassley asked the department to investigate and review whether Clinton’s aides still had security clearance.” (Read more: Politico, 10/12/2018)

“Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.

In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:

(National Security Division) FOIA consulted (Office of Intelligence) … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.

The Department of Justice previously released to Judicial Watch the heavily redacted Page warrant applications. The initial Page FISA warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election. (Read more: Judicial Watch, 8/31/2018) (Archive)

Edward Baumgartner (Credit: Twitter/Business Insider)

“In an effort to bolster the Steele dossier, Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the infamous report, tapped one of its contractors to investigate a Russian businessman accused of hacking Democrats’ computer systems.

But that contractor, a Russia expert named Edward Baumgartner, came back with something that was perhaps disappointing to Fusion GPS. According to an internal Fusion GPS report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Baumgartner’s Russian sources painted the Russian, Aleksej Gubarev, in largely positive terms. Unlikely, the sources claimed, had Gubarev taken part in the hacking operation, as former British spy Christopher Steele claimed in his dossier.

“Our interviews of people familiar with Gubarev paint a picture of a relatively well-known person in the IT sector with an entirely positive reputation as a successful self-made entrepreneur,” reads the five-page report, which was provided as evidence in a lawsuit that Gubarev filed against BuzzFeed News.

“Our sources were uncertain about Gubarev’s alleged ties to the hacking and collection of compromising material on Trump. Their lack of certainty is entirely understandable given the highly secretive nature of intelligence work, on the one hand, and the technical difficulty of establishing someone’s potential ties to hacking.”

A lawyer for Gubarev pressed Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch about the Baumgartner report during an Aug. 30, 2018, deposition. Fritsch confirmed Baumgartner, a Fusion GPS contractor who speaks Russian, filed the report, which is labeled “PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/15/2019)

(Credit: The Epoch Times)

“Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and current special prosecutor in the Russia case, once was hauled before the nation’s secret intelligence court to address a large number of instances in which the FBI cheated on sensitive surveillance warrants, according to evidence gathered by congressional investigators.

For most of the past 16 years, Mueller’s closed-door encounter escaped public notice because of the secrecy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

But thanks to recent testimony from a former FBI lawyer, we now have a rare window into documented abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and how the courts handled the matter.

(…) Trisha Anderson, who recently stepped down as the FBI’s principal deputy general counsel, told House investigators late last year in an interview that early in Mueller’s FBI tenure, nearly two decades ago, the FISC summoned the new director to appear before the judges to address concerns about extensive cheating on FISA warrants.

“It preceded my time with the FBI but as I understood it, there was a pattern of some incidents of omission that were of concern to the FISA court that resulted in former Director Mueller actually appearing before the FISA court,” Anderson told Congress.

(…) Other sources who worked for Mueller at the time told me the court’s concerns arose in 2002 and 2003 — shortly after America was stunned by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — when the FISC learned the FBI had omitted material facts from FISA warrant applications in more than 75 terrorism cases that dated back to the late 1990s.

(…) Mueller told the court the FBI had created a new system called the Woods Procedures — named for the FBI lawyer who drafted them — to ensure FISA warrant applications were accurate and did not omit material information, according to Anderson’s congressional interview.

“My understanding is he committed to the court to address the problem and then that the series of reforms that we implemented, including the use of the Woods form, were the direct result of his engagement before the FISA court,” Anderson told Congress.

Mueller does not appear ever to have publicly addressed his appearance before the FISC. But once, in follow-up written answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he acknowledged there was a period in which the FBI was caught filing inaccurate FISA warrants.

“Prior to implementation of the so-called Woods Procedures there were instances where inaccurate information was provided by FBI field offices and headquarters personnel to the Court,” Mueller wrote to senators in 2003.

A declassified FISC order from 2002 gives a glimpse into how serious the omissions were: In one case the FBI failed to tell the court that the person they were seeking a FISA warrant to surveil was, in fact, one of their own informants.

The court expressed concern that “misinformation found its way into the FISA applications and remained uncorrected for more than one year despite procedures to verify the accuracy of FISA pleadings.” (Read more: The Hill, 2/06/2019)  (Archive)

(Trisha Anderson transcript, 8/31/2018)

Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.

In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

(…) “In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a memo criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

Judicial Watch recently filed a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking the transcripts of all hearings related to the surveillance of Carter Page.

“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 8/31/2018) (Conservative Treehouse, 8/31/2018)  (Archive)

(Credit: A. Hunter/Washington Times)

“Judicial Watch revealed that the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the FISA Court never held hearings on the FISA applications for former Trump advisor Carter Page.

Judicial Watch said that, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.

“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement.

In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:

National Security Division FOIA consulted Office of Intelligence … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.

In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a memo criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

Judicial Watch recently filed a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking the transcripts of all hearings related to the surveillance of Carter Page.” (Read more: Conservative Daily News, 9/01/2018)

Trisha Anderson (Credit: public domain)

Congressional testimony by Trisha Anderson highlights unusual process used by FBI and DOJ to obtain FISA warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Trisha Anderson, the Principal Deputy General Counsel for the FBI and head of the National Security and Cyber Law Branch, signed off on a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page—before it went to FBI Director James Comey—despite admitting not having read it.

Anderson, whose division was also assigned the Mid-Year Exam—the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server—was responsible for legal oversight of the FBI’s FISA process, and provided a final sign-off before FISA applications were sent to the FBI Director level. Anderson, who supervised the FBI attorneys involved in FISA applications, including the Page FISA, characterized her role as being “involved at a supervisory level within the legal chain of command.”

Although she did not voluntarily reveal the information, she admitted during questioning that she was the individual responsible at the senior executive service (SES) level for signing off on the original Carter Page FISA application:

Mr. Breitenbach: You had mentioned earlier that all FISAs have to be signed off, have an approver at an SES level. In OGC? Or is that anywhere inside the FBI?

Ms. Anderson: In NSLB, in my particular branch.

Mr. Breitenbach: In NSLB?

Ms. Anderson: Yeah. Uh-huh.

Mr. Breitenbach: Okay. Who was that SES approver for the Carter Page FISA?

Ms. Anderson: My best recollection is that I was for the initiation.

In her Aug. 31, 2018, testimony, a transcript of which was reviewed for this article, Anderson described her role in the FISA process as “a backstop” whereby she would serve as “a last check in the process to ensure that all necessary elements of the FISA package were present and that it met the basic requirements of probable cause.”

However, there appears to be significant latitude in the “backstop” review process. According to Anderson, the Department of Justice (DOJ) attached a “cover note” that identified potential issues, if any, for her to review with every FISA application. If no issues were identified by the DOJ, then according to Anderson, there would be no need for her to read the FISA application:

Ms. Anderson: [So] there typically would be a cover note that would summarize the FISA. That cover note is generated by DOJ. And because of the time pressures involved and the sort of very-last-stop-in-the-process nature of the review, the SES review, that’s done, I wouldn’t read a FISA unless there were some sort of issue that was identified based on the cover note.

Mr. Breitenbach: You are, though, reviewing for the sufficiency of probable cause —

Ms. Anderson: After many people have reviewed that assessment. And so, as I mentioned, this was essentially a backstop to all of the other processes and the rigor that had been applied by DOJ attorneys and by FBI investigative and legal personnel.

Despite its politicized nature and obvious sensitivity, it appears that no issues were identified in relation to the Page FISA as Anderson testified that she had not read the FISA application, only the DOJ cover note:

Mr. Breitenbach: Does that mean you read the FISA —

Ms. Anderson: No.

(…)

Mr. Breitenbach: Okay. So you did not read the FISA, but you would’ve been familiar then with at least part of the FISA with regard to the legal predication for probable cause in the FISA in order to be able to sign it?

Ms. Anderson: I would be familiar based on the cover note, yes.

Mr. Breitenbach: On the cover note. Okay. So —

Ms. Anderson: In the case of the Carter Page FISA, I was generally familiar with the facts of the application —

Mr. Breitenbach: Okay.

Ms. Anderson: — before I signed that cover note.

Anderson claimed that in the case of the Page FISA, her approval was “more administrative in nature” because “all necessary approvals, including up through and including the leadership of the FBI and the leadership of the Department” had been obtained by the time the Page FISA came to her desk for sign-off.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/07/2019)

(Credit: The Epoch Times)

“A key player in the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign was Trisha Anderson, who, at the time, was the No. 2 lawyer at the agency’s Office of General Counsel.

Despite having no specific experience in counterintelligence before coming to the FBI, Anderson was, in some manner, involved in virtually all of the significant events of the investigation.

Anderson told members of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees in August last year during closed-door testimony that she was one of only about 10 people who had known about the Trump–Russia investigation prior to its official opening.

A transcript of Anderson’s testimony, which was reviewed for this article, reveals that she had read all of the FBI’s FD302 forms detailing information that the author of the Steele dossier, former British spy Christopher Steele, had provided to high-ranking Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr.

Anderson also told lawmakers that she personally signed off on the original application for a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page without having read it. The FBI relied heavily on the unverified information in the Steele dossier—which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee—to obtain the FISA warrant.

Anderson also was part of a small group of FBI personnel who got to read then-FBI Director James Comey’s memos about conversations he had with President Donald Trump.

Besides the investigation into Trump, Anderson also was involved in the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton for sending classified information using a private server.

Anderson’s testimony reveals that she received the original referral from the inspectors general for both the State Department and Intelligence Community on Clinton after hundreds of classified emails had been found on her server.

Her testimony also raises questions as to whether then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict of interest.

Lawmakers also questioned Anderson about whether she advised Comey against making a public announcement that the FBI had reopened its investigation into Clinton following findings on the laptop of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) because Comey would have been “responsible for getting Donald Trump elected.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 3/08/2019) (Trisha Anderson transcript, 8/31/2018)

(Credit: The Daily Caller)

“A nonprofit group linked to Fusion GPS and partially funded by George Soros worked in recent months with a technology company implicated in a scheme to use fake Russian bots during Alabama’s special Senate election.

The groups, the Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) and New Knowledge, partnered before the 2018 midterms to track alleged Russian disinformation networks, a website the organizations collaboratively run shows.

Both organizations have links to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), which is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as possible Trump campaign collusion.

SSCI provided New Knowledge with data from various social media companies as part of an investigation into Russian disinformation networks, according to a report New Knowledge released Dec. 17. Two days later, news broke that New Knowledge’s chief executive was involved in a self-described “false flag” operation in the special election for a Senate seat in Alabama, as was another staffer who was the lead author on the Senate report.

TDIP is also linked to the Senate Intelligence panel. Its founder, Daniel J. Jones, was previously a staffer for Democrats on SSCI. He was also in contact in early 2017 with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of SSCI. As part of TDIP’s own Trump-Russia investigation, the group hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier.

The extent of Warner’s contacts with Jones remains unclear.

The collaboration between TDIP and New Knowledge, which has not been previously reported, involved a dashboard set up at the site, Disinfo2018.com [no longer works], which tracked “social media disinformation networks — to include suspected foreign state-actors — conducting information warfare against the American public prior to the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.”

Jonathon Morgan (Credit: Yonder, formerly New Knowledge)

The project appears similar to Hamilton 68, a dashboard operated by the Alliance for Security Democracy. Jonathon Morgan, the founder of New Knowledge, helped create Hamilton 68 and has appeared frequently in the media to discuss Russia’s disinformation efforts.

In an interview with BBC, Morgan claimed Russians were behind #ReleaseTheMemo, the hashtag used to call for the release of a memo from House Intel Republicans that questioned the FBI’s reliance on the unverified Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

But New Knowledge and Morgan are now known for their tactics during the December 2017 Alabama special election.

The New York Times published a damning exposé Dec. 19, 2018, showing New Knowledge operatives targeted conservative Alabamans with fake Facebook pages intended to sow doubt about Roy Moore, the controversial Republican candidate.

The operatives also created thousands of fake Russian Twitter accounts set to follow Moore. The effect was that numerous news outlets reported Moore was being supported by a Russian disinformation network.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/10/2019) (Archive)

George Papadopolous (l) and Joseph Mifsud (Credit: public domain)

By: Margot Cleveland

(…) “Papadopoulos’ sentencing memo reveals new evidence that further indicates the FBI’s goal in Crossfire Hurricane was to investigate Trump—not Russia’s interference with the presidential election.

In the memo, Papadopoulos’s lawyers detailed the FBI’s January 27, 2017, questioning of their client, explaining that for two hours, Papadopoulos answered questions about professor Joseph Mifsud, Carter Page, Sergei Millian, the “Trump Dossier,” and others on the campaign. According to Papadopoulos, “[t]he agents asked George if he would be willing to actively cooperate and contact various people they had discussed.” Papadopoulos said he would be willing to try.

Yet when Mifsud—the Maltese professor who in late April 2016 told Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt on Hillary” in the form of “thousands of emails”—visited the United States just two weeks later to speak at a State Department-sponsored conference, the FBI didn’t even bother to have Papadopoulos reach out to his former colleague.

Instead, the FBI questioned Mifsud, then in the special counsel’s sentencing memorandum blamed Papadopoulos for the government’s inability “to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States.” According to Mueller’s office, Papadopoulos’ “lies also hindered the government’s ability to discover who else may have known or been told about the Russians possessing ‘dirt’ on Clinton,” and prevented the FBI from determining “how and where the Professor obtained the information [and] why the Professor provided information to the defendant.”

(…) “Why didn’t the FBI wire Papadopoulos and arrange for him to meet with Mifsud during the State Department conference? What would be more natural than Papadopoulos, who had spent months in London communicating with Mifsud and working at Mifsud’s London Centre of International Law, attending the professor’s speech at the February 2017, Washington D.C. Global Ties conference and inviting him for dinner or drinks? Then Papadopoulos could steer the conversation to the Russia hacking and Mifsud’s earlier comment about Russia having “thousands of emails.” (Read more: The Federalist, 9/5/2018)

Andrew McCabe (Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)

“Federal prosecutors have for months been using a grand jury to investigate former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — an indication that the probe into whether he misled officials exploring his role in a controversial media disclosure has intensified, two people familiar with the matter said.

The grand jury has summoned more than one witness, the people said, and the case is ongoing. The people declined to identify those who had been called to testify.

The presence of the grand jury shows prosecutors are treating the matter seriously, locking in the accounts of witnesses who might later have to testify at a trial. But such panels are sometimes used only as investigative tools, and it remains unclear if McCabe will ultimately be charged.

A spokesman for U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., which has been handling the probe, declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for McCabe.” (Read more: Washington Post, 9/6/2018)

The Department of Homeland Security hired a literal former spokesperson for the PLO and put her in charge of vetting “asylum” seekers

While working as an Asylum Officer, she remained an open pro-Hamas extremist who hates all Jews who don’t condemn Israelhttps://t.co/YTpcnqgQGz

— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) October 18, 2023

Two possibilities: Either DHS called the PLO to get a job reference as part of the vetting process, or it didn’t vet even the people it hires to vet immigrants She posted to public social media continuously about her true allegiance and goal to “root the resistance in Palestine” pic.twitter.com/moI7QY4tzu

— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) October 18, 2023

Newja Ali was promoted this year. Asked about it, DHS said “USCIS strongly condemns antisemitism & the use of violent rhetoric in any form,” adding that its vetting officers are unbiased & polite

Reached by phone, Ali said she is still employed &
to “mind your fucking business” pic.twitter.com/ipWh2EHEy6

— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) October 18, 2023

(Timeline Date Source)

(…) It is not merely NARA’s referral to the DOJ and Ferriero’s apparent bias that suggests a political motive, however: It is the reality that even if the documents were classified, Trump has the right to access them and NARA could have worked with the former president to set up a secure location for his presidential papers, which is precisely what Ferriero and the NARA did with Barack Obama.

In 2016, before President Obama left office, he rented a private facility in Hoffman Estates to serve as a storage place for his presidential papers, and by October of 2016, while he was still in office, shipments of artifacts from his presidency began arriving at the suburban Chicago storage facility. A year later, the Chicago Tribune reported that after the National Archives and Records Administration had worked with the former Democrat president to ship his documents to the Chicago suburb, where they were stored and kept secured, Obama decided not to retain a paper archive at his presidential museum, “meaning they would be shipped back to Washington once a decision [was] made on where to keep them permanently.”

The Obama documents — both classified and unclassified — remained in Hoffman Estates well into 2018, as evidenced by a letter of intent executed between Ferriero on behalf of the National Archives Trust Fund and the Obama Foundation. Among other things, the letter of intent memorialized the Obama Foundation’s agreement to “transfer up to three million three hundred thousand dollars ($3,300,000) to the National Archives Trust Fund (NATF) to support the move of classified and unclassified Obama Presidential records and artifacts from Hoffman Estates to NARA-controlled facilities that conform to the agency’s archival storage standards for such records and artifacts.”

The only difference between the Hoffman Estates’ storage of the Obama presidential records that began in 2016 and the Mar-a-Lago storage of Trump’s presidential records was that the documents were technically within the possession of NARA. But even though the documents were legally the property of NARA, Obama still had the right to access the records, including the classified documents.

So if upon receiving the 15 boxes of documents back from Trump, NARA had legitimate concerns about the security of Mar-a-Lago — a strange worry to hold given that the Secret Service must safeguard the location to protect Trump and his family — a bureaucracy committed to the country and safeguarding her artifacts would have worked to arrange for the documents to be preserved under the auspices of NARA control in a location chosen by Trump, as it had done with Obama.” (Read more: The Federalist, 8/15/2022)  (Archive)

Upon further investigation by Matt Margolis at PJ Media, 9/22/2022:

“The Obama Foundation stored classified documents in an abandoned furniture warehouse, according to a 2018 letter from the Obama Foundation to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The letter, available on the Obama Foundation website and dated Sept. 11, 2018, reveals that the Obama Foundation not only acknowledged possessing classified documents but also admitted that they kept them in a facility that did not meet NARA standards for the storage of those documents.

Media reports confirm that the Obama Foundation had rented space from Hoffman Estates to store these documents, and extended their original lease for four more years back in August.

“While no firm date has been announced for the completion and opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Library near the University of Chicago, its future contents will stay in Hoffman Estates for four more years,” the Daily Herald reported. “Village board members unanimously approved an extension to the special-use permit that enables landlord Hoffman Estates Medical Development LLC to lease the 74,200-square-foot former Plunkett Furniture store at 2500 W. Golf Road to the National Archives and Records Administration through Dec. 31, 2026.”

This means that, as the debate over the supposedly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is unfolding, the Obama Foundation is, at this very moment, storing classified documents in unused retail space in the suburbs of Chicago.” (Read more: PJ Media, 9/22/2022)  (Archive)

Alison Spann of the Hill discusses Alexander Downer’s close ties to the Clintons on the Laura Ingraham show. (Credit: Fox News)

“George Papadopoulos suggested on Monday that former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was sent by an “organization or entity” to meet with him in London during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“The notion that Downer randomly reached out to me just to have a gin and tonic is laughable. Some organization or entity sent him to meet me,” Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter.

“For the sake of our republic and the integrity of this investigation, I think it’s time Downer is as exposed as Christoper Steele,” he continued, referring to the former British spy who wrote the dossier accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia.”

(…) “Downer has given only one interview about his interaction with Papadopoulos.

He told The Australian in April that the Trump aide said Russians may have derogatory information about Clinton. He said that Papadopoulos did not mention emails and did not use the word “dirt” to describe the information. He also claimed to have passed the information along to others in the Australian government. The information was eventually shared with the FBI, which opened its counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion on July 31, 2016.

Downer’s claims about his interactions with Papadopoulos also ended up in the hands of State Department officials, sources have told The Daily Caller News Foundation.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/11/2018)

(Credit: Liberty One News)

Judicial Watch announced today that it has sued the U.S. Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for all emails the FBI found on the laptop of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Judicial Watch filed the suit after the Justice Department did not act on two FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:18-cv-02105)).

In October 2016 The Washington Post reported that the FBI obtained a warrant to search the emails found on a computer used by Weiner that may contain evidence relevant to the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

In light of that report, on December 12, 2016, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request to the FBI, seeking all emails seized pursuant to the search warrant. The FBI denied the request and Judicial Watch appealed. The FBI has not acted on the appeal. Judicial Watch then filed a second FOIA request on September 29, 2017, to which the FBI has not responded.

Weiner is the incarcerated husband of former Clinton top aide Huma Abedin. He was convicted of having sexually explicit communications with teenage girls. In October 2016, FBI investigators from its New York field office discovered Abedin’s emails on Weiner’s laptop, including data indicating the emails went through Clinton’s non-“state.gov” email system.

A separate Judicial Watch lawsuit already uncovered at least 18 classified emails from the Clinton server on the Weiner laptop

“The Anthony Weiner laptop-Clinton email cover-up by the Obama DOJ and FBI is central to uncovering the corrupt politicization of those agencies,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The same FBI that provided cover for Hillary Clinton was going full bore against then-candidate Trump and this lawsuit aims to uncover the full truth about that corruption.”

RealClearInvestigations’ reporter Paul Sperry recently reported that “only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails [found on the Weiner laptop] were directly reviewed for classified or incriminating information. Three FBI officials completed that work in a single 12-hour spurt the day before Comey again cleared Clinton of criminal charges.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 9/11/2018)

Admiral Michael Rogers appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 5, 2016. (Credit: CSpan3)

Former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on Tuesday disputed a report published in May 2017 alleging that President Donald Trump asked him to push back against the FBI’s collusion investigation.

“I’ve never had a discussion with collusion with the president of the United States,” Rogers said at an event held at George Mason University, according to CBS News.

“I’ve never been directed to do anything, coerced — any time I had a discussion I felt I was able to say, ‘Hey, here’s my view on that.’”

The Washington Post reported May 22, 2017, that Trump separately asked Rogers and Dan Coats, the director of the office of national intelligence, to push back against the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

The alleged request came after then-FBI Director James Comey testified that the bureau was investigating whether members of the Trump team conspired with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Citing multiple anonymous sources, WaPo reported that Rogers refused to comply with Trump’s request. The newspaper also reported that a senior NSA official wrote a memo detailing the interaction between Trump and Rogers.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/12/2018)

Trent Temeya (Credit: public domain)

Another cybersecurity expert at the FBI is headed for the private sector.

Trent Teyema, the FBI’s section chief for cyber readiness and chief operating officer of the bureau’s Cyber Division, has been named senior vice president and chief technology officer for the government-focused wing of Parsons Corporation.

The move comes as a number of cybersecurity experts at the bureau have left their positions over recent months. In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that a number of top-ranking cybersecurity officials were leaving for various roles in the private sector.

The FBI’s cyber readiness team works to educate enterprises on various cyberthreats and coordinate information-sharing initiatives. During his time at the bureau, Teyema helped establish the FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, which is responsible for investigating cyber threats that pose the most harm to the country.

Teyema also spent time as the director of cybersecurity policy at the National Security Council from 2010 to 2011. (Read more: Cyber Scoop, 9/13/2018)

Lisa Page arrives on Capitol Hill July 16, 2018, to participate in an interview with the House judiciary and oversight and reform committees. (Credit: Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE)

By: John Solomon

To date, Lisa Page’s infamy has been driven mostly by the anti-Donald Trump text messages she exchanged with fellow FBI agent Peter Strzok as the two engaged in an affair while investigating the president for alleged election collusion with Russia.

Yet, when history judges the former FBI lawyer years from now, her most consequential pronouncement may not have been typed on her bureau-issued Samsung smartphone to her colleague and lover.

Rather, it might be eight simple words she uttered behind closed doors during a congressional interview a few weeks ago.

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

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

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

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

(…) “For those who might cast doubt on the word of a single FBI lawyer, there’s more.”  (Read more: The Hill, 9/14/2018)

(…) “Jeff Carlson has assembled a strong and in-depth outline covering most of the weaponized intelligence agencies and how they related to “spygate” – SEE HERE –

However, there has also been a strong suspicion that most of the corrupt origination activity would never surface.

The downstream ramifications to the institutions of our IC apparatus would be too destructive. What follows below is the story that will never reach sunlight officially.

When reading the Department of State (DoS) letter today, I cannot avoid reviewing the information against the backdrop of known DoS corrupt political activity that extends beyond the Clinton emails scandal.   For this explanation, here’s the excerpt that matters:

Forget Clinton’s motives for a moment. We all know her “request” was a proactive measure due to the likelihood her clearance was going to be forcibly revoked.  Requesting the removal avoids multiple political and logistical issues of her security file being damaged by a forced revocation.  The request is transparent in motive; so lets get beyond the surface issue.

The “researchers” who Secretary Clinton designated is the topic of interest; and the redacted identifications therein are telling.  The Executive Order referenced is HERE.  The subsection [Sec. 4.4 (a)(2)] involves:

Sec. 4.4. Access by Historical Researchers and Certain Former Government Personnel.

(a) The requirement in section 4.1(a)(3) of this order that access to classified information may be granted only to individuals who have a need-to-know the information may be waived for persons who:

(1) are engaged in historical research projects;
(2) previously have occupied senior policy-making positions to which they were appointed or designated by the President or the Vice President; or
(3) served as President or Vice President.

(link)

Cheryl Mills (Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Essentially what this tells us is that Secretary Hillary Clinton used her authority to waive the ‘need to know‘ limit on the people she listed.  In essence, she gave unlimited access to her “researchers” for an unspecified reason.

When I see the wording, immediately I think of two distinct reasons for Clinton to grant her researchers with top-level security access to classified information: (1) to participate in searches of FISA databases (ie. ‘queries’); and (2) to make unmasking requests for any results within those search query results.

Keeping in mind these appear to be State Department access / authorized researchers.  The DoS is one of the intelligence authorized access portals. (FBI, DOJ-NSD, NSA, CIA, DoD are others.) In short, Clinton ‘researchers’ would have access to compartmented intelligence gathering systems, ie. FISA intelligence systems.

Now, remember all of the ‘unmasking requests’ attributed to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Powers?   Hundreds of them.  Ambassador Samantha Powers is a top-level official, for Obama a cabinet level official, within the Department of State.” (Read much more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/12/2018)

(Credit: Judicial Watch)

“Judicial Watch today released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries centering on talks within the DOJ/FBI allegedly invoking the 25^th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.

The records show that, following a September 21, 2018, report on Rosenstein suggesting he would wear a wire to secretly record Trump and his discussions on using the 25^th Amendment, Rosenstein sought to ensure the media would have “difficulty” finding anyone in the DOJ to comment and a concerted effort within the DOJ to frame the reporting as “inaccurate” and “factually incorrect.”

The records show DOJ officials had also discussed characterizing Rosenstein’s reported offer of wearing a wire to record Trump as merely “sarcastic.”

Additionally, the records show DOJ Public Affairs officer Sarah Isgur Flores, after conferring with other top DOJ officials and Rosenstein’s office about her email exchange with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman, waited 12 hours to forward the email exchange to DOJ Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had referred to Whitaker as the president’s “eyes and ears” in the DOJ.

Justice Department public affairs officer, Sarah Isgur Flores (r), is hired by CNN as a political editor in early 2019. (Credit: YouTube/CNN)

The records obtained by Judicial Watch include a September 21, 2018, email from Assistant U.S. Attorney (DOJ/NSD) Harvey Eisenberg to Rosenstein informing the DAG that Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima had called inquiring about a New York Times report on the 25^th Amendment/wire discussion, Rosenstein responds:

“Thanks! Hopefully, we are being successful, and the reporters are having difficulty finding anybody to comment about things. [Remainder of email redacted.]” Apparently in response to the redacted portion of Rosenstein’s reply, Eisenberg responds, “I’m aware. Besides letting you know, [redacted]. My best to you and the family.” Rosenstein replies, “I don’t mean about me. [Redacted.]”

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 9/11/2019)

Manos Antonakakis (Credit: GaTech)

(   ) …an email first obtained by The Federalist shows Chris Schneck from DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, known as “I2O,” writing Antonakakis on September 25, 2018, with the subject line of “Mueller case.” While redactions prevent a full understanding of the email, the “Mueller case” subject line and Schneck’s “great work” closer indicate the DARPA-funded Georgia Tech researcher was assisting Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The only apparent pending Mueller case at the time of the email appears to have been the special counsel’s case against the 12 officers of the Russian military intelligence organization known as GRU, who had been indicted two months earlier and charged with crimes related to the hacking of the DNC’s emails in 2016.

While DARPA’s September 25, 2018 email to Antonakakis about his “great work” regarding the “Mueller case” does not mention the DNC hack, a “chat log” for the DARPA Rhamnousia project shows the Georgia Tech researchers discussing both the DNC hack and GRU. One text reads: “For FBI to give a heads up to the DNC in fall 2015, this means that the attack was active for many months before.” In another message, one of the researchers jokes that if GRU sends the Russian beauty Annet Mahendru after him, he’s “giving up” his colleagues.

Moreover, another email reviewed by The Federalist reveals that Dagon told Durham’s team that the “entire set” of “Rhannousia chat logs” were “pertinent to” the Special Counsel’s investigation.” Those chat logs, in addition to involving chats between Dagon and Antonakakis, included conversations involving, or about, two other DARPA-connected individuals, Angelos Keromytis and Tejas Patel—both of whom were included on the September 25, 2018 email about the “Mueller case.” (The Georgia Tech emails obtained by The Federalist also established that Durham’s team sought to question Keromytis about his time at DARPA.)

The extensive redactions in the “Rhannousia chat logs” make it impossible to assess whether Antonakakis and his colleagues were working on the DNC hack or investigating the identity of Guccifer2.0 for the “Mueller case” against the Russian GRU agents. But if so, it raises serious questions, the foremost of which is: Why did DARPA claim no DARPA-funded researchers assisted the FBI’s or Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the DNC hack?

If Antonakakis assisted Mueller in the DNC hack investigation, as these various documents suggest, it raises a second significant question: Did Rodney Joffe provide Antonakakis the data necessary to conduct an attribution analysis of the hack? (Read more: The Federalist, 4/21/2022)  (Archive)

Richard H. Ledgett (Credit: public domain)

“Rick Ledgett recently joined the new advisory board of Halkuyt [sic] Cyber, the specialist subsidiary of the upscale British corporate intelligence firm Hakluyt. The unit, which opened discreetly in 2015, is headed by Nicholas ‘Nick’ Bidmead. A member of the US Chamber of Commerce, Ledgett will help develop Hakluyt Cyber’s business in the US and Canada.

In June this year, Ledgett also became an advisor to the cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks. After retiring from the NSA in 2017, he joined the board of M&T Bank. He is also an advisor to Polaris Alpha, Peter Cannito’s firm, which was acquired in May by the infrastructure protection giant Parsons, and to QiO Technologies, a cloud security and data mining company.

Ledgett is also a member of the Alliance for Securing Democracies (ASD), a pressure group founded in response to the hacking of the Democratic Party in 2016. Both Republican and Democratic iconic senior officials including Michael Chertoff and John Podesta, who was targeted by hackers in 2016, are members of the pressure group.

At Hakluyt Cyber, which employs a number of former interceptions staff of Five Eyes alliance member states (IOL 789), Ledgett will work with two British technical interceptions heavyweights, Iain Lobban, who headed GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA, from 2008 to 2014, and his former number two, Andrew France. Lobban and France are also in high demand in the cyber sector. Iain Lobban is an advisor to C5 Capital, the fund established by Andre Pienaar, as well as to the cryptology start-up SQR System and Standard Chartered Bank (IOL 757), while Andy France advises Darktrace, Deep Secure, Prevalent AI, RedQ and Telstra (IOL 807, IOL 767). (Intelligence Online, 9/26/2018)  (Archive)

(William Sweeney Transcript, 9/28/2018)

“The House Intelligence Committee voted on Sept. 28 to release the transcripts of 53 interviews conducted during the committee’s investigation of Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election.

The interviews include high-level officials of the Obama administration, such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

The list (pdf) also includes people from President Donald Trump’s circle, including his son, Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, and former campaign chair Corey Lewandowski.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/28/2018)

Eight years after its informant uncovered criminal wrongdoing inside Russia’s nuclear industry, the FBI has identified 37 pages of documents that might reveal what agents told the Obama administration, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others about the controversial Uranium One deal.

There’s just one problem: The FBI claims it must keep the memos secret from the public.

Their excuses for the veil of nondisclosure range from protecting national security and law enforcement techniques to guarding the privacy of individual Americans and the ability of agencies to communicate with each other.

(…) “I was the reporter who first disclosed last fall that a globetrotting American businessman, William Douglas Campbell, managed to burrow his way inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear giant, Rosatom, in 2009 posing as a consultant while working as an FBI informant.

Campbell gathered extensive evidence for his FBI counterintelligence handlers by early 2010 that Rosatom’s main executive in the United States, Vadim Mikerin, orchestrated a racketeering plot involving kickbacks, bribes and extortion that corrupted the main uranium trucking company in the United States. That is a serious national security compromise by any measure.

The evidence was compiled as Secretary Clinton courted Russia for better relations, as her husband former President Clinton collected a $500,000 speech payday in Moscow, and as the Obama administration approved the sale of a U.S. mining company, Uranium One, to Rosatom.

The sale — made famous years later by author Peter Schweizer and an epic New York Times exposé in 2015 — turned over a large swath of America’s untapped uranium deposits to Russia.

Mikerin was charged and convicted, along with some American officials, but not until many years later. Ironically, the case was brought by none other than current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — a magnet for controversy, it turns out.

But the years-long delay in prosecution mean that no one in the public, or in Congress, was aware that the FBI knew through Campbell about the Russian bribery plot as early as 2009 — well before the Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved Uranium One in fall 2010.

Since the emergence of Campbell’s undercover work, there has been one unanswered question of national importance.

Did the FBI notify then-President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other leaders on the CFIUS board about Rosatom’s dark deeds before the Uranium One sale was approved, or did the bureau drop the ball and fail to alert policymakers?

Neither outcome is particularly comforting. Either the United States, eyes wide open, approved giving uranium assets to a corrupt Russia, or the FBI failed to give the evidence of criminality to the policymakers before such a momentous decision.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/01/2018)

Stefan Halper (l) and Adam Lovinger (Credit public domain)

(…) “Judicial Watch is representing Adam Lovinger, a former ONA analyst who claims he was fired because he raised questions about contracts awarded to Halper and to a friend of Chelsea Clinton’s. The conservative watchdog group is seeking ONA records related to Lovinger’s security clearance, which was revoked months after the 12-year ONA veteran began raising questions about the contracts.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton questioned whether the Pentagon was aware that Halper was spying on the Trump campaign.

“Americans want to know if the Defense Department was working with the corrupt FBI, DOJ and other Obama agencies to spy on Donald Trump in an attempt to destroy his reputation,” Fitton said in a statement. “Our new lawsuit against the Defense Department will help determine to what extent it was helping to finance any Spygate targeting of President Trump.”

It is unclear if ONA funds were used to finance Halper’s efforts to meet Trump campaign officials. But as The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported in March, Halper used academic papers to approach at least one Trump campaign adviser.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/02/2018)

Kyle Freeny (l) and Brandon van Grack (Credit: LinkedIn/MSNBC)

“Two Justice Department prosecutors assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller‘s ongoing investigation are leaving the office to return to previous postings.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, confirmed in an email to The Hill that Kyle Freeny and Brandon Van Grack are leaving the probe.

The two prosecutors had worked on the criminal cases involving former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to CNN.

Van Grack recently left the probe to return to the agency’s national security division while Freeny will remain on until mid-October before returning to the agency’s criminal division.

Carr said that Van Grack will continue to contribute to the special counsel investigation “on specific pending matters that were assigned to him during his detail.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/02/2018)

(Credit: Fox News)

“A former top FBI lawyer acknowledged he was personally involved in the warrant application to surveil then-Trump campaign aide Carter Page and confirmed other “unusual” steps taken in the FBI’s Russia probe in 2016, during a closed-door congressional interview.

“I was aware of the [Russia] investigation,” James Baker told House investigators in October. Fox News has confirmed details of the transcript which is still under government review before its public release.

Baker said he was briefed on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant “as time went by” and recalled how he got involved early in the process. The warrant relied heavily on the unverified anti-Trump dossier, which was financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via the law firm Perkins Coie.

“I don’t want to see it at the end, like when it is about to go to the director [for] certification, because then it is hard to make changes then,” Baker told House investigators when Republicans controlled the chamber. “So I wanted to see it when it was gelled enough but before it went through the process and before it went to the director. I wanted to see it and I wanted to read it because I knew it was sensitive.”

Fox News confirmed the Baker transcript also includes the following exchange with investigators regarding his involvement in the surveillance application:

Question: “So that is why you took the abnormal or unusual step in this particular situation because it was sensitive?”

Baker: “Yes.”

Question: “So you actually got involved because you want to make sure that, what?”

Baker: “I wanted to make sure that we were filing something that would adhere to the law and stand up over time.” (Read more: Fox News, 1/22/2019) (Baker Transcript)

James Baker (Credit: Fox News)

“Former top FBI lawyer James Baker gave “explosive” closed-door testimony on Wednesday detailing for congressional investigators how the Russia probe was handled in an “abnormal fashion” reflecting “political bias,” according to two Republican lawmakers present for the deposition.

Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. “This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That’s extremely troubling.”

Meadows claimed the “abnormal” handling of the probe into alleged coordination between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign was “a reflection of inherent bias that seems to be evident in certain circles.” The FBI agent who opened the Russia case, Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and others sent politically charged texts, and have since left the bureau.

Baker, who had a closely working relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this year.

The lawmakers would not provide many specifics about the private transcribed interview, citing a confidentiality agreement with Baker and his attorneys. However, they indicated in broad terms that Baker was cooperative and forthcoming about the genesis of the Russia case in 2016, and about the surveillance warrant application for Trump campaign aide Carter Page in October 2016.” (Read more: Fox News, 10/03/2018)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“[James] Baker served as the FBI’s general counsel when the bureau investigated the Trump campaign and Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized private email server. During two days of testimony on Oct. 3 and Oct. 18, he told lawmakers that he believed even toward the end of the Clinton investigation that she should have been charged over her “alarming, appalling” mishandling of classified information.

He argued with others, including then-FBI Director James Comey, about the issue all the way toward the end of the investigation, but was ultimately persuaded that Clinton should be exonerated.

“My original belief … after having conducted the investigation and towards the end of it, then sitting down and reading a binder of her materials, I thought that it was alarming, appalling, whatever words I said, and argued with others about why they thought she shouldn’t be charged,” Baker told lawmakers.

As of October 2018, nearly two years after the Clinton probe concluded, Baker still believed that the conduct of the former secretary of state and her associates was “appalling” with regard to the handling of classified information.

(…) As general counsel, Baker advised senior FBI leaders on the legal aspects of key investigations and served as the liaison with the Department of Justice (DOJ). In testimony, he detailed a series of unusual steps he took in the Trump-Russia investigation, including serving as the conduit between Perkins Coie—the firm working for the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—and the FBI.

Baker left his position as general counsel in early January 2018 and then resigned from the FBI in early May 2018.” (Read more: Epoch Times, 1/18/2019)

Larry Klayman (l) and Dennis Montgomery (Credit: public domain)

On the same day House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes gave a press conference disclosing that President Trump had been under “incidental surveillance,” attorney and FreedomWatch chairman, Larry Klayman, sent a letter to the same committee, imploring them to pursue the claims and evidence presented under oath at a Washington DC FBI Field Office by his client, CIA/NSA whistleblower Dennis Montgomery, who Klayman claims “holds the keys to disproving the false claims that there is no evidence that the president and his men were wiretapped.”

When Montgomery attempted to deliver this information through the appropriate channels, he was met with closed doors.

In a March 2017 Newsmax article, Klayman writes:

(…) “Montgomery left the NSA and CIA with 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information, much of which is classified, and sought to come forward legally as a whistleblower to appropriate government entities, including congressional intelligence committees, to expose that the spy agencies were engaged for years in systematic illegal surveillance on prominent Americans, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen such as Donald Trump, and even yours truly. Working side by side with Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence (DIA), James Clapper, and Obama’s former Director of the CIA, John Brennan, Montgomery witnessed “up close and personal” this “Orwellian Big Brother” intrusion on privacy, likely for potential coercion, blackmail or other nefarious purposes.” 

(…) “After Montgomery was turned away as a whistleblower, he came to me at Freedom Watch. With the aid of the Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who I had come to respect and trust over the years of my public interest advocacy, we brought Montgomery forward to FBI Director James Comey, through his General Counsel James Baker. Under grants of immunity, which I obtained through Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Curtis, Montgomery produced the hard drives and later was interviewed under oath in a secure room at the FBI Field Office in the District of Columbia. There he laid out how persons like then-businessman Donald Trump were illegally spied upon by Clapper, Brennan, and the spy agencies of the Obama administration. He even claimed that these spy agencies had manipulated voting in Florida during the 2008 presidential election, which illegal tampering resulted in helping Obama to win the White House.

This interview, conducted and videoed by Special FBI Agents Walter Giardina and William Barnett, occurred almost two years ago, and nothing that I know of has happened since. It would appear that the FBI’s investigation was buried by Comey, perhaps because the FBI itself collaborates with the spy agencies to conduct illegal surveillance. In landmark court cases which I filed after the revelations of Edward Snowden, the Honorable Richard Leon, a colleague of Judge Lamberth, had ruled that this type of surveillance constituted a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

Deborah Curtis, the DoJ attorney who helped Montgomery receive a grant of immunity, also served on Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation team.

Here is the relevant testimony in James Baker’s transcript release:

“Could the impeachment scandal have been prevented if the now-fired U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman had followed up on Ukrainian allegations about Joe Biden and his family in 2018?

That’s the tantalizing question raised by emails from fall 2018 between an American lawyer and the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan that were obtained by Just the News.

The memos show that well before Ukrainian prosecutors reached out to Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, in 2019 to talk about the Bidens and alleged 2016 election interference they first approached Berman’s office in New York in October 2018 via another American lawyer.

Bud Cummins (Credit: public domain)

The memos show Little Rock, Ark., lawyer Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney himself, reached out at least five times in October 2018 to Berman seeking to arrange a meeting with then-Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko.

Lutsenko, who emerged as a key figure in the impeachment scandal, wanted to confidentially share with federal prosecutors in New York evidence he claimed to possess that raised concerns about the Bidens’ behavior as well as alleged wrongdoing in the Paul Manafort corruption case.

“Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko is offering to come to the U.S. meet with high-level law enforcement to share the fruits of investigations within Ukraine which have produced evidence of two basic alleged crimes,” Cummins wrote Berman on Oct. 4, 2018, one day after the two had talked on the phone about the allegations.

The allegations included that Joe Biden had “exercised influence to protect Burisma Holdings” after his son Hunter and his son’s business partner Devon Archer had joined the Ukrainian gas company’s board of directors and “substantial sums of money were paid to them,” Cummins wrote.

Devon Archer, far left, with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, far right, golf in the Hamptons 2014.

(…) “The allegation by Prosecutor General Lutsenko et al is that the US ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, Biden and Kerry made conclusions about who were the good guys and the bad guys in local government. They believe Biden and Kerry were influenced by payments to Hunter Biden and Devon Archer to influence certain decisions, particularly those benefitting Burisma,” Cummins wrote, relaying the allegations from the Ukrainian officials.

In addition, Cummins told Berman that Lutsenko had evidence that a ledger found in Ukraine in 2016 alleging to show payments to Manafort from a Russian-backed political party in Ukraine was doctored and the U.S. knew the evidence was corrupted. The emergence of the ledger caused Manafort to resign as Trump’s campaign chairman in August 2016, and eventually led to his conviction on money laundering and tax charges.

“The second allegation above is that the Embassy and FBI willfully pressured Ukrainian officials to falsify evidence to be leaked to the media about Manafort to affect the outcome of the 2016 election,” Cummins wrote Berman. (Read more: JustTheNews, 6/23/2020)  (Archive)

Attorney Ty Clevenger files a FOIA request with the NSA in November, 2017 for the communication records of Seth Rich. Here are the specific documents Clevenger requests:

The NSA responded to Ty Clevenger in a letter dated October 4, 2018 stating:

Executive Order 13526, Section 1.4, Subparagraph (c) reads as follows:

It is not clear if the Seth Rich documents found by the NSA are connected to Julian Assange because there are many other names listed in the FOIA request that could be connected to the documents.

(NSA letter, 10/04/2018)

Judge Royce C. Lamberth (Credit: Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press)

“Judicial Watch announced today that in his opening remarks at a Friday, October 12 hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth strongly criticized the U.S. Department of State, stating, “The information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the [Clinton email] search and… what we now know turned out to be the Secretary’s email system.”

Turning his attention to the Department of Justice, Judge Lamberth said that he was “dumbfounded” by the agency’s Inspector General report revealing that Cheryl Mills had been given immunity and was allowed to accompany former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her FBI interview:

I had myself found that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief, and I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in — by the Justice Department in the Hillary Clinton email case. So I did not know that until I read the IG report and learned that and that she had accompanied the Secretary to her interview.

(In an April 28, 2008 ruling relating to Mills’ conduct as a White House official in responding to concerns about lost White House email records, Judge Lamberth called Mills’ participation in the matter “loathsome.” He further stated Mills was responsible for “the most critical error made in this entire fiasco … Mills’ actions were totally inadequate to address the problem.”)

Lamberth also complained that the Justice Department attorney representing the State Department was using “doublespeak,” and playing “word games.”

The hearing had been ordered by Judge Lamberth regarding a request from Judicial Watch for testimony under oath from Clinton, Mills and several other State Department officials regarding the State Department’s processing of Judicial Watch’s FOIA request and Clinton’s emails. The State Department still opposes all of Judicial Watch’s requests for additional discovery into the Clinton email scandal.

Judge Lamberth said he was relieved that he did not allow the case to be shut down prematurely, as the State Department had requested.

The case started with a motion for summary judgment [seeking to close the case] here and which I denied and allowed limited discovery because it was clear to me that at the time that I ruled initially, that false statements were made to me by career State Department officials and it became more clear through discovery that the information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the search and this – what we now know turned out to be the Secretary’s email system.

I don’t know the details of what kind of IG inquiry there was into why these career officials at the State Department would have filed false affidavits with me. I don’t know the details of why the Justice Department lawyers did not know false affidavits were being filed with me, but I was very relieved that I did not accept them and that I allowed limited discovery into what had happened.

Judge Lamberth also said the State Department was using “doublespeak” and word games. (Read more: Judicial Watch, 10/12/2018)

Ron Johnson (l) and Christopher Wray (Credit: Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)

“Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is calling on FBI Director Christopher Wray to hand over documents related to a former FBI lawyer’s meeting during the 2016 campaign with an attorney that represented the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.

The meeting was revealed during a congressional deposition that former FBI general counsel James Baker gave on Oct. 3. Baker told lawmakers that in September 2016 he met with Michael Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie.

As the lead law firm for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC, Perkins Coie hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Sources familiar with Baker’s testimony say he testified that Sussmann provided him with documents related to Russian hacking of Democrats. He also testified that the meeting was unusual.

Republican lawmakers have questioned why Baker was meeting with a top Democratic lawyer at a crucial point in the campaign. Baker was interviewed as part of an investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe, as well as the Steele dossier.

Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee, is also asking Wray for FBI notes of interviews, known as 302s, conducted with Bruce Ohr, a Department of Justice official who met numerous times before and after the election with Steele. Ohr’s wife also worked for Fusion GPS while the firm was investigating President Donald Trump.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/13/2018)

Marc Elias (Credit: Getty Images)

Onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against the Democratic National Committee and a law firm that represented them.

The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal Oklahoma court against the DNC, Perkins Coie, and Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, is about obtaining “justice,” Page said.

“It goes beyond any damages or any financial aspects,” Page told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night. “There have been so many lies as you are alluding to, and you look at the damage it did to our democratic systems and institutions of government back in 2016. I’m just trying to get some justice in terms of getting some disclosure.”

Michael Sussmann (Credit: Perkins Coie)

Elias represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. Fusion GPS is the same firm that commissioned former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele who authored the so-called “Trump dossier” that contained scandalous and unverified claims about President Trump’s ties to Russia and was used by the FBI to help obtain the authority to spy on Page.

According to the dossier, Page was the Trump campaign’s intermediary to Russia and proposed disclosing stolen DNC emails via WikiLeaks, among other claims. Page has vehemently denied the allegations about him in the dossier.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 10/15/2018)

(Credit: Marco Polo)

“Hunter Biden shows himself to be a real first son-of-a-gun in the latest embarrassing personal video leak for President Biden’s scandal-scarred offspring.

A naked Hunter casually waves around a handgun and even points it at the camera while cavorting with a nude hooker in a swank hotel room, according to a video provided to The Post by the nonprofit Marco Polo research group.

The cavalier clip of Hunter Biden holding the apparently illegally obtained weapon emerged amid the rash of mass shootings — and random gun violence in major cities  — that included 11 incidents on Saturday and Sunday alone that left at least 15 people dead and 61 injured across the U.S., data shows.

It also came just days after his dad called on Congress to pass new gun-control measures to stem the slaughter, declaring in a televised, primetime address last week that “the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute.”

(…) Hunter Biden recorded the video on Oct. 17, 2018, according to Radar Online, which first revealed its existence. The outlet and a Post source described his companion in the video as a prostitute.

Five days earlier, he bought a .38-caliber handgun in Delaware, Politico reported last year.

In order to make the purchase, Hunter Biden answered “no” to a question that asked, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” Politico reported last year. (Read more: The New York Post, 6/06/2022)  (Archive)

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards (Credit: public domain)

“A senior official working for the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has been charged with leaking confidential financial reports on former Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort, Richard Gates and others to a media outlet.

Prosecutors say that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior adviser to FinCEN, photographed what are called suspicious activity reports, or SARs, and other sensitive government files and sent them to an unnamed reporter, in violation of U.S. law.

Banks file SARs confidentially in order to tip off law enforcement to potentially illegal financial transactions. The unauthorized document disclosures, which began last October, are said to have provided the basis for 12 news articles published by an unnamed news organization.

Edwards is being charged in the Southern District of New York with one count of unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports, both of which carry a maximum five years in prison.

The charges are the latest indication of the Trump administration’s efforts to root out alleged leakers within the government, something that prosecutors emphasized in announcing the charges on Wednesday.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/17/18)

Judge Dabney Friedrich Stephen (Credit: Stephen J. Boitano/The Associated Press)

“A Washington federal judge on Thursday ordered special counsel Robert Mueller’s team to clarify election meddling claims lodged against a Russian company operated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Bloomberg.

Concord Management and Consulting, LLC. – one of three businesses indicted by Mueller in February along with 13 individuals for election meddling, surprised the special counsel in April when they actually showed up in court to fight the charges. Mueller’s team tried to delay Concord from entering the case, arguing that the Russian company not been properly served, however Judge Dabney Friedrich denied the request – effectively telling prosecutors ‘well, they’re here.’

Concord was accused in the indictment of supporting the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian ‘troll farm’ accused of trying to influence the 2016 US election.

On Thursday, Judge Freidrich asked Mueller’s prosecutors if she should assume they aren’t accusing Concord of violating US laws applicable to election expenditures and failure to register as a foreign agent.

Concord has asked Dabney to throw out the charges – claiming that Mueller’s office fabricated a crime, and that there is no law against interfering in elections.

According to the judge’s request for clarification, the Justice Department has argued that it doesn’t have to show that Concord had a legal duty to report its expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. Rather, the allegation is that the company knowingly engaged in deceptive acts that precluded the FEC, or the Justice Department, from ascertaining whether they had broken the law. –Bloomberg

On Monday, Friedrich raised questions over whether the special counsel’s office could prove a key element of their case – saying that it was “hard to see” how allegations of Russian influence were intended to interfere with US government operations vs. simply “confusing voters,” reports law.com.

During a 90-minute hearing, Friedrich questioned prosecutor Jonathan Kravis about how the government would be able to show the Russian defendants were aware of the Justice Department and FEC’s functions and then deliberately sought to skirt them.

“You still have to show knowledge of the agencies and what they do. How do you do that?” Friedrich asked.

Kravis, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, argued that the government needed only to show that Concord Management and the other defendants were generally aware that the U.S. government “regulates and monitors” foreign participation in American politics. That awareness, Kravis said, could be inferred from the Russians’ alleged creation of fake social media accounts that appeared to be run by U.S. citizens and “computer infrastructure” intended to mask the Russian origin of the influence operation.

“That is deception that is directed at a higher level,” Kravis said. Kravis appeared in court with Michael Dreeben, a top Justice Department appellate lawyer on detail to the special counsel’s office. –law.com

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 10/20/2018)

Carter Page (Credit: Wall Street Journal)

“The U.S. government revealed in court filings Friday that the FBI used multiple confidential informants, including some who were paid for their information, as part of its investigation into former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“The FBI has protected information that would identify the identities of other confidential sources who provided information or intelligence to the FBI” as well as “information provided by those sources,” wrote David M. Hardy, the head of the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), in court papers submitted Friday.

Hardy and Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys submitted the filings in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for the FBI’s four applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page. The DOJ released heavily redacted copies of the four FISA warrant applications on June 20, but USA Today reporter Brad Heath has sued for full copies of the documents.

Hardy’s declaration acknowledged that the confidential sources used by the FBI were in addition to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the infamous anti-Trump dossier.

“This includes nonpublic information about and provided by Christopher Steele, as well as information about and provided by other confidential sources, all of whom were provided express assurances of confidentiality,” Hardy wrote, referring to information disclosed in the four FISA applications.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/20/2018)

Nellie Ohr and Serhiy Leshchenko (Credit: public domain)

“Eight months before Fusion GPS hired Steele, Simpson had hired Nellie Ohr to work for his firm as a researcher in October 2015.

Nellie Ohr told congressional investigators that part of her work for Fusion GPS was to research the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, including campaign associate Carter Page, early campaign supporter Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Trump’s family members, including some of his children.

Email communications between her and her husband, Bruce, show that she routinely sent him and several other DOJ officials articles on Russia. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie’s employment with Fusion GPS.

Nellie Ohr told congressional investigators that Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, served as “a source of information” and acknowledged that she then used that information in following up and formulating her opposition research.

Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the director of Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, was responsible for publicly disclosing the contents of the Ukrainian “black ledger,” which implicated Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, to the media.

Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.” (Read more: themarketswork, 7/06/2019)  (Archive)

Nellie Ohr arrives for a closed door hearing before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on October 19, 2018. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

(..) “According to a transcript of an Oct. 19, 2018, closed-door testimony, which was reviewed by The Epoch Times, Ohr acknowledged to congressional investigators that she worked as an independent contractor for “various agencies in the United States Government.”

Ohr testified that she worked for the CIA’s Open Source Works (OSW) division. She also revealed that prior to her work for the CIA, she worked for Mitre, which is funded by the U.S. government and interacts with various intelligence agencies.

Ms. Ohr: Starting in 2000, I did some part-time contracting for Mitre, which is a contract —

Rep. Jordan: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.

Ms. Ohr: Mitre. Mitre Corporation, which in turn had contracts with U.S. Government clients.

Rep. Jordan: Got it.

Ms. Ohr: Through most of 2008. And then starting in 2008, I worked for Open Source Works.

Mitre Corporation is a “not-for-profit company that operates multiple federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs).” In other words, Mitre is a government-funded enterprise that conducts research for the U.S. government.

Of greater interest was Ohr’s employment as an independent contractor for OSW, the CIA’s internal open source division.

Ohr’s Work for the CIA

The CIA describes OSW as a division that uses open-source information to produce intelligence products.

“[Open Source Works] was charged by the Director for Intelligence with drawing on language-trained analysts to mine open-source information for new or alternative insights on intelligence issues,” states an unclassified Nov. 16, 2010, CIA report headlined “Russia: Security Concerns About Iran’s Space Program Growing.”

Ohr told congressional investigators that she began working for Open Source Works in 2008, but provided no time-frame for her end date. Her profile on LinkedIn, however, provides some indication that she may have remained employed with Open Source Works through 2014.

From 2000 to 2014, Ohr lists herself on her resume as a “Linguist/Research Analyst – Self-employed.” But she also concurrently lists her 2013-2015 employment with Plessas Experts’ Networks as an “Expert/Content Creator.”

Ohr told congressional investigators that she intentionally did not list any agencies on her resume when working as an independent contractor for the U.S. government:

Rep. Meadows: So I have one follow-up. Have you ever submitted a resume that would list any of those agencies on that resume?

Ms. Ohr: No.

Rep. Meadows: So no resume that would indicate that you did work for those agencies on a resume?

Ms. Ohr: My resume stated that I was an independent contractor doing work in support of U.S. Government.

Rep. Meadows: But normally there is a sentence or two right after it on what they did. And so what I’m saying is, did — in those resumes, and for example, like with Mitre, we do work with the CIA, NSA whoever —

Ms. Ohr: I do not explicitly name those agencies in a resume.

(Read much more: The Epoch Times, 3/14/2019)

Nellie Ohr (Credit: Getty Images)

“The wife of a Justice Department official who worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign told Congress in 2018 that one of her tasks at the opposition research firm was to research President Donald Trump’s children, including their business activities and travel.

(…) Ohr, a trained Russian linguist, also detailed some of the topics she worked on for Fusion GPS, which was hired by the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Trump.

One area of focus was Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s two oldest children.

“But in terms of actually performing research, did you begin to break out President Trump’s family in terms of Melania Trump, all of his children? Were you doing independent research based off of each family member?” one lawmaker asked Ohr.

“I did some,” Ohr said. “As I recall, I did some research on all of them, but not into much depth.”

“How about Donald Trump Jr.? Did you do more in-depth research on Donald Trump Jr. than some of the others?” she was asked.

“I’m afraid it was relatively superficial. It was,” adding that, “I looked into some of his travels and you know not sure how much detail I remember, at this point.”

“Ivanka Trump?”

“I looked into some of her travels,” said Ohr.

The goal was “to see whether they were involved in dealings and transactions with people who had had suspicious pasts.”

Nellie Ohr also testified that she investigated any links between Russian oligarchs and the Trump real estate empire.

It is unclear whether Ohr shared any information that she gathered working for Fusion GPS with her husband, who served as associate deputy attorney general until he was reassigned in December 2017. There is also no indication that Ohr’s research of the Trump children wound up in the dossier, which the FBI used to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/30/2019)

“According to a recent FBI indictment, several American white supremacists were allegedly radicalized by and received training from Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which receives funding from the current government of Ukraine as well as the U.S. government. The group has also received weapons from the Israeli government.

FBI affidavit, 10/20/2018, pg. 9

In an undated photo posted to their since-deleted Instagram account, RAM members pose in skull masks. (Credit: ProPublica)

The indictment, filed in Los Angeles, California last month, asserts that four American members of the “Rise Above Movement” (RAM) — RAM co-founder Robert Rundo as well as Robert Boman, Tyler Laube and Aaron Eason — had “violently attacked and assaulted counter-protestors” at several white nationalist and white supremacist events throughout the U.S., including the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last year.

The named individuals are alleged to have “used the Internet to coordinate combat training in preparation for the events” and to have celebrated “their acts of violence in order to recruit members for future events.”

Court documents refer to RAM as a “white supremacy extremist group” while the group self-represents as “a combat-ready, militant group of a new nationalist white supremacy/identity movement.”

The recent indictment gives special attention to Rundo’s more recent activities, particularly his trip to Europe earlier this year where he traveled to Germany, Ukraine, and Italy “to meet with members of European white supremacy extremist groups.” The FBI became aware that one of the individuals with whom Rundo had met during this trip was Olena Semenyaka, a leader of the International Department for the National Corps, a Ukrainian political party that was formed as an offshoot of the Azov Battalion in 2016.

The affidavit detailing Rundo’s meeting with Semenyaka, signed by FBI agent Scott Bierwirth, states that “the Azov Battalion is a paramilitary unit of the Ukrainian National Guard which is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and use of Nazi symbolism.” It then adds that Azov Battalion “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations,” such as RAM.

Olena Semenyaka, (top left) and on the right in an interview with UATV. (Credit: public domain)

In other words, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion is suspected by the U.S. government of both training and radicalizing violent white supremacist groups based in America. This is particularly troubling when one considers the fact that the U.S. government directly enabled the Azov Battalion’s growth and prominence. Now, it seems that those actions have translated into troubling domestic consequences for the United States.” (Read more: “FBI: Neo-Nazi Militia Trained by US Military in Ukraine, Now Training US White Supremacists/Whitney Webb, 11/09/2018)  (Archive)

At the same time the FBI learned of American white supremacists traveling to Ukraine and training with the neo-nazi Azov Battalion, the American Foreign Policy Society hosted neo-nazi, Andriy Parubiy, inside the U.S. Senate on July 2, 2018.

Max Blumenthal visits The American Foreign Policy Society while they were hosting neo-nazi Andriy Parubiy inside the Senate on July 2, 2018, as Nazi violence rages in Ukraine. (Credit: Max Blumenthal/Mint Press News)

A year later in October 2019, US Ambassador to Ukraine  Marie Yovanovitch testifies about her long relationship with Ukrainian neo-nazi official, Arsen Avakov.

Avakov (left center) tweets on March 21, 2019: “Meeting with US Ambassador Marie Yovanovich (right center) discussed urgent issues of ensuring fair and transparent elections, security and preventing provocations at polling stations during voting.” (Credit: Yulia Babich/Twitter)

(Sally Moyer transcript, 10/23/2018)

Hunter Biden (Credit: clipping from video found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.)

“The Secret Service allegedly tried to intervene in a 2018 incident where President Joe Biden’s daughter-in-law Hallie Biden threw Hunter Biden’s gun in a trash can near a high-end grocery store and it briefly disappeared, according to a report from Politico.

Amid the incident, which occurred on Oct. 23, 2018, Secret Service agents allegedly tried to obtain the paperwork involving the gun sale from the owner of the store that Hunter bought the item from, Politico wrote, citing two sources.

The store owner, Ron Palmieri, reportedly refused to give the paperwork over. Palmieri was allegedly worried that the agents wanted the paperwork so they could hide Hunter’s ownership information in case the missing weapon was used in a crime, Politico noted.

He eventually gave the papers to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, And Explosives (ATF), as it oversees federal gun laws.

“Palmieri refused to hand over the transaction record to the Secret Service agents because such records fall under the purview of the ATF,” Politico noted. “The Secret Service agents left without the records, according to the people familiar with the case. Later that day, the ATF arrived at the store to inspect the records.”

Prior to the Secret Service’s alleged involvement, Hallie told Hunter that she tossed the gun, prompting him to demand she return for it. Upon returning, Hallie realized the gun was missing from the trash can, according to Politico. She told the grocery store, who then contacted police.

Delaware police began investigating because the grocery store was across from a high school. The FBI also arrived on scene as it was – and still is – investigating Hunter, according to Politico.

(…) Eventually, the .38 revolver was returned by an elderly man who often looked through garbages to collect recyclables. No one was charged in the incident, Politico noted.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/25/2021)  (Archive)

Twitter sleuth @FOOL_NELSON adds another interesting perspective to this story:

“Look man, it’s like they say, guns don’t kill people, people do . . . One time I popped a whole rock of crack in my mouth and started to chew it because it was sitting next to a piece of trident” – Hunter Biden one month before buying a gun (9/3/18) https://t.co/thxmeDJEIb pic.twitter.com/aYIpbTE8Gn

— FOOL NELSON (@FOOL_NELSON) March 25, 2021

I’ve seen Hunter commit and admit to more crimes than anyone on Earth. https://t.co/0EgEITl3HS

— FOOL NELSON (@FOOL_NELSON) March 25, 2021

“Sally Moyer was FBI unit chief in the Office of General Counsel (counterintelligence legal unit within the FBI Office of General Counsel). Moyer reported to an unnamed section chief, who reported to Trisha Beth Anderson, who was deputy legal counsel to James Baker.

Ms. Moyer is responsible for the legal compliance within the FBI counterintelligence operations that generated FISA applications:

(Sally Moyer Transcript)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

A review of the transcript clarifies a few aspects:

First, the DOJ/FBI team, “the small group”, specifically the legal officials who were ultimately participating in the process that permits politicization and weaponization of government intelligence systems, was also the exact same legal group who reviewed (and approved) the internal inspector general report which outlined their activity.

In essence, the DOJ/FBI bureaucratic corruption is so widespread, the corrupt officials involved are the same people who are the decision-makers in the amount of sunlight the Office of Inspect General is allowed to put forth.  Now the disconnect between the OIG executive summary and the body of content material makes sense:” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/21/2019)

Robert Mueller (Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

“Special counsel Robert Mueller appears to be locked in a dispute with a mystery grand jury witness resisting giving up information sought in the ongoing probe into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

It’s unclear exactly what the two sides are fighting over, but the case appears to resemble a separate legal battle involving an associate of Trump ally Roger Stone, Andrew Miller, who is fighting a Mueller subpoena. Miller’s lawyers are using the case, slated to be argued at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals early next month, to mount a broad legal assault on Mueller’s authority as special counsel.

In the more shadowy case, which involves an unknown person summoned before a grand jury this summer, the D.C. Circuit on Monday set a separate round of arguments for Dec. 14.

The case traveled in recent months from U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, back down to Howell and back up again to the appeals court with most details shrouded in secrecy, another indication that much of Mueller’s activity is taking place behind the scenes and is rarely glimpsed by the press or public.” (Read more: Politico, 10/24/2018)

The recently released redacted version of the Mueller Report. (Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“A former FBI attorney who worked on the Russia investigation told Congress last year the bureau learned information about dossier author Christopher Steele “that might bear on his credibility as a source.”

Trisha Anderson, the former principal deputy general counsel, said in a closed-door interview that meetings were held at the FBI with then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and the team working on the investigation to discuss Steele, a former MI6 officer who investigated President Donald Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.

Steele provided information from his dossier to the FBI, State Department and members of the press.

“There were meetings with Mr. McCabe about the Russia investigation that involved discussions of the various reports that were generated by Chris Steele that we had received, both with respect to the content of the reports as well as what we had learned about Christopher — we, I’m sorry — the FBI investigative team had learned about facts that might bear on his credibility as a source,” Anderson said in the Oct. 31, 2018 interview, a transcript of which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“And what were those facts? You had mentioned the contents. More specifically, what were these discussions about? But start with the credibility issues,” a congressional staffer asked Anderson.

Anderson did not say when the meetings occurred. Nor did she say what the possible credibility issues might have been.

When asked for further details, an FBI attorney intervened to say that Anderson could not answer more questions because they “pertain to matters that are being looked at by the special counsel and its investigation.”

At some point after relying on Steele as a confidential source, FBI officials were told that Steele was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Trump. The former British spy had been hired in June 2016 by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm.

(…) The Justice Department’s office of the inspector general is reportedly investigating the FBI’s use of Steele as a source as part of a broader probe into possible abuse of the FISA system. The New York Times reported on Friday that intelligence community officials determined at some point in 2017 that some of Steele’s allegations were either likely wrong, or based on exaggeration by Steele’s sub-sources.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 4/26/2019)

Matthew Whitaker (Credit: public domain)

“President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, replacing him with a loyalist who has echoed the president’s complaints about the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference and will now take charge of the inquiry.

Mr. Sessions delivered his resignation letter to the White House at the request of the president, who tapped Matthew G. Whitaker, Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff, as acting attorney general, raising questions about the future of the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Mr. Whitaker, a former college football tight end and United States attorney in Iowa, and a onetime Senate candidate in that state, has previously questioned the scope of the investigation. In a column for CNN last year, he wrote that Mr. Mueller would be going too far if he examined the Trump family’s finances. “This would raise serious concerns that the special counsel’s investigation was a mere witch hunt,” Mr. Whitaker wrote, echoing the president’s derisive description of the investigation. Mr. Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents related to Russia.” (Read more: The New York Times, 11/07/2018)

(…) “The Cause of Action Institute, a conservative watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit for Comey’s Gmail correspondence involving his work for the bureau.

The Justice Department responded that there were an eye-popping 1,200 pages of messages for Comey and his chief of staff that met the criteria.

Justice released 156 of them but refused to hand over seven emails because they would “disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.” And another 363 pages of emails were withheld because they discussed privileged agency communications or out of personal privacy concerns.

Cause of Action’s CEO slammed the former top G-man for minimizing the work he did using his private account. “Using private email to conduct official government business endangers transparency and accountability, and that is why we sued the Department of Justice,” said John Vecchione.

“We’re deeply concerned that the FBI withheld numerous emails citing FOIA’s law enforcement exemption. This runs counter to Comey’s statements that his use of email was incidental and never involved any sensitive matters.”

(Credit: The New York Post)

“In one email on Oct. 7, 2015, Comey seems to recognize the hypocrisy of the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices while he’s exchanging FBI info on his own private account because his government account was down.

Two days after complaining that his “mobile is not sending emails,” Comey asked an aide that the testimony he was to deliver to the Senate be sent on his private account — calling it an “embarrassing” situation.

“He [aide] will need to send to personal email I suppose,” Comey wrote. “Embarrassing for us.”

Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of Open the Government, a nonpartisan coalition that advocates for government transparency, said Comey’s practice of using personal email while investigating Clinton reeks of a double standard.

“It’s just so transparently hypocritical to have one standard for a person you are investigating and an entirely different standard for yourself when you are the one who’s enforcing the law,” Rosenberg said.” (Read more: New York Post, 11/09/2018)

“Judicial Watch announced that U.S. District Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan ruled that within 30 days Hillary Clinton must answer under oath two additional questions about her controversial email system.

In 2016, Clinton was required to submit under oath written answers to Judicial Watch’s questions. Clinton objected to and refused to answer questions about the creation of her email system; her decision to use the system despite warnings from State Department cybersecurity officials; and the basis for her claim that the State Department had “90-95%” of her emails.

After a lengthy hearing on Wednesday, Judge Sullivan ruled that Clinton must address two questions that she refused to answer under-oath: “Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com system, including who decided to create the system, the date it was decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up, and when it became operational.”

“During your October 22, 2015 appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails “were in the State’s system” and “if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do so.” Identify the basis for this statement, including all facts on which you relied in support of the statement, how and when you became aware of these facts, and, if you were made aware of these facts by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of these facts.”

Matthew Whitaker (Credit: ABC News)

“The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion Wednesday supporting President Trump’s appointment of Matt Whitaker as acting attorney general, despite criticism from Democrats who have questioned his qualifications to oversee the Russia investigation.

In its opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel said that the president’s appointment of Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was consistent with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (VRA) of 1998.

“This Office previously had advised that the President could designate a senior Department of Justice Official, such as Mr. Whitaker as Acting Attorney General,” the OLC said, noting that Whitaker has been serving at the Justice Department “at a sufficiently senior pay level for over a year.”

But a senior Justice Department official said this week that when reviewing Whitaker’s appointment, the OLC had to research back to 1866 to find a similar instance where a non-Senate confirmed individual sat as acting attorney general. The Justice Department wasn’t created until 1870, though an attorney general existed prior to that.” (Read more: Fox News, 11/14/2018)

Andrei Yermak (Credit: public domain)

“…The [MSM] coverage suggests Giuliani reached out to new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team this summer solely because he wanted to get dirt on possible Trump 2020 challenger Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in that country.

Politics or law could have been part of Giuliani’s motive, and neither would be illegal.

But there is a missing part of the story that the American public needs in order to assess what really happened: Giuliani’s contact with Zelensky adviser and attorney Andrei Yermak this summer was encouraged and facilitated by the U.S. State Department.

Giuliani didn’t initiate it. A senior U.S. diplomat contacted him in July and asked for permission to connect Yermak with him.

Then, Giuliani met in early August with Yermak on neutral ground — in Spain — before reporting back to State everything that occurred at the meeting.

That debriefing occurred Aug. 11 by phone with two senior U.S. diplomats, one with responsibility for Ukraine and the other with responsibility for the European Union, according to electronic communications records I reviewed and interviews I conducted.

When asked on Friday, Giuliani confirmed to me that the State Department asked him to take the Yermak meeting and that he did, in fact, apprise U.S. officials every step of the way.

“I didn’t even know who he [Yermak] really was, but they vouched for him. They actually urged me to talk to him because they said he seemed like an honest broker,” Giuliani told me. “I reported back to them [the two State officials] what my conversations with Yermak were about. All of this was done at the request of the State Department.”

So, rather than just a political opposition research operation, Giuliani’s contacts were part of a diplomatic effort by the State Department to grow trust with the new Ukrainian president, Zelensky, a former television comic making his first foray into politics and diplomacy.

Why would Ukraine want to talk to Giuliani, and why would the State Department be involved in facilitating it?

According to interviews with more than a dozen Ukrainian and U.S. officials, Ukraine’s government under recently departed President Petro Poroshenko and, now, Zelensky has been trying since summer 2018 to hand over evidence about the conduct of Americans they believe might be involved in violations of U.S. law during the Obama years.

The Ukrainians say their efforts to get their allegations to U.S. authorities were thwarted first by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, which failed to issue timely visas allowing them to visit America.

Then the Ukrainians hired a former U.S. attorney — not Giuliani — to hand-deliver the evidence of wrongdoing to the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, but the federal prosecutors never responded.

The U.S. attorney, a respected American, confirmed the Ukrainians’ story to me. The allegations that Ukrainian officials wanted to pass on involved both efforts by the Democratic National Committee to pressure Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election as well as Joe Biden’s son’s effort to make money in Ukraine while the former vice president managed U.S.-Ukraine relations, the retired U.S. attorney told me.

Eventually, Giuliani in November 2018 got wind of the Ukrainian allegations and started to investigate.

As President Trump’s highest-profile defense attorney, the former New York City mayor, often known simply as Rudy, believed the Ukrainian’s evidence could assist in his defense against the Russian collusion investigation and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/20/2019)  (Archive)

“FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn’t believe a key claim contained in the “Steele Dossier,” the document the Obama FBI relied on to obtain a surveillance warrant on a member of the Trump campaign.

The Post‘s Greg Miller told an audience at a [November] event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross.

“We’ve talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere — they don’t believe that ever happened,” said Miller during the October event which aired Saturday on C-SPAN.

“We literally spent weeks and months trying to run down… there’s an assertion in there that Michael Cohen went to Prague to settle payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters to every hotel in Prague, to all over the place trying to – just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty.” -Greg Miller

Ross notes that WaPo somehow failed to report this information, nor did Miller include this tidbit of narrative-killing information in his recent book, “The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy.”

Miller also admits that the dossier’s broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims.

Steele, using Kremlin sources, claimed in his dossier that Cohen and three associates went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials for the purpose of discussing “deniable cash payments” made in secret so as to cover up “Moscow’s secret liaison with the TRUMP team.”

Cohen’s alleged Prague visit captured attention largely because the former Trump fixer has vehemently denied it, and also because it would seem to be one of the easier claims in Steele’s 35-page report to validate or invalidate.

Debate over the salacious document was reignited when McClatchy reported April 15 that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence Cohen visited Prague. No other news outlets have verified the reporting, and Cohen denied it at the time.

Cohen last denied the dossier’s allegations in late June, a period of time when he was gearing up to cooperate with prosecutors against President Donald Trump. Cohen served as a cooperating witness for prosecutors in both New York and the special counsel’s office. –Daily Caller

Cohen’s attorney and longtime Clinton pal Lanny Davis vehemently denied on August 22, one day after Cohen pleaded guilty in his New York case – that Cohen had never been to Prague, telling Bloomberg “Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/16/2018)

Nathan (Nate) Cain (Credit: Twitter)

“FBI agents raided the home of a recognized Department of Justice whistleblower who privately delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a government watchdog, according to the whistleblower’s attorney.

The Justice Department’s inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges. Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

(…) Sixteen agents arrived at the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, a former FBI contractor, on the morning of Nov. 19 and raided his Union Bridge, Maryland, home, Socarras told TheDCNF.

Federal Magistrate Stephanie Gallagher (Credit: public domain)

The raid was permitted by a court order signed on Nov. 15 by federal magistrate Stephanie A. Gallagher in the U.S. District Court for Baltimore and obtained by TheDCNF.

A special agent from the FBI’s Baltimore division, who led the raid, charged that Cain possessed stolen federal property and demanded entry to his private residence, Socarras told TheDCNF.

“On Nov. 19, the FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity in the Union Bridge, Maryland area,” bureau spokesman Dave Fitz told TheDCNF. “At this time, we have no further comment.”

Cain informed the agent while he was still at the door that he was a recognized protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act and that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recognized his whistleblower status, according to Socarras.

He legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, told TheDCNF, noting that he considered the FBI’s raid to be an “outrageous disregard” of whistleblower protections.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 11/29/2018)

Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with Hillary Clinton during the town hall debate at Washington University on October 9, 2016, in St Louis, Missouri. (Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

By: John Solomon

(…) “Both the DOJ’s inspector general and multiple committees in Congress are investigating whether the FBI properly handled the Trump-Russia collusion case or whether it fell prey to political pressure and shoddy investigative work, as congressional Republicans and President Trump himself claim.

The FBI has an obligation to submit only verified information to support a FISA warrant.

If the FBI failed to perform the sort of due diligence required to ensure that Steele’s expertise on Russia was reliable and that his dossier was verified, it would mark a massive failure in the FISA process.

There are growing warning signs that the FBI may have rushed its due diligence on Steele’s Russia work product, perhaps in part because it had enjoyed an earlier successful relationship in a corruption case involving European soccer.

My sources tell me that FBI counterintelligence analyst Jon Moffa recently told congressional investigators in a transcribed interview that the bureau was still trying to verify the Steele dossier when it was submitted as evidence for the FISA warrant.

“Our work on verifying facts of the FISA would have been — facts of the reporting would have been ongoing at the time the FISA was generated,” Moffa told House investigators, according to the transcript.

Moffa’s statement isn’t the only red flag.

From my earlier reporting, we know that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page told Congress this past summer that in May 2017 — seven months after the FISA warrant was issued, and nine months after the Russia probe was started — the FBI had not corroborated the main allegation in Steele’s dossier about collusion between Moscow and the Trump.

And former FBI Director James Comey testified in June 2017 that the dossier was considered unverified and salacious.

Yet it was used as evidence to justify the FBI spying on the campaign of a duly-elected GOP presidential nominee’s campaign, even though it started as political opposition research paid for by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” (Read more: The Hill, 11/19/2018)

“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., revealed the existence of a “fourth bucket” of information related to potential misconduct by the FBI that he wants declassified.

On his way out as chairman, as Democrats will take control of the House next year, Nunes said his panel’s investigation into the Justice Department and FBI is largely complete. Still, he said the public release of these “buckets” would help give his efforts a sense of “finality.”

Speaking with anchor Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures,” Nunes said the first of three “buckets” were the Russia-related documents President Trump walked back from declassifying earlier this year.

The last tranche of documents, he said, pertains to emails showing knowledge about withholding information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

“The new fourth bucket that we’re asking to be declassified now is — for months we have been reviewing emails between FBI, and DOJ, and others that clearly show that they knew about information that should have been presented to the FISA court,” he said. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 11/19/2018)

Mark Meadows (Credit: public domain)

“Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said Tuesday that House Republicans plan to hear testimony on Dec. 5 from the prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to probe alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation.

Meadows, who is chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that it’s time to “circle back” to U.S. Attorney General John Huber’s investigation with the Justice Department into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged any improper activities.

“Mr. [John] Huber with the Department of Justice and the FBI has been having an investigation – at least part of his task was to look at the Clinton Foundation and what may or may not have happened as it relates to improper activity with that charitable foundation, so we’ve set a hearing date for December the 5th,” he told Hill.TV during an interview on Wednesday.

Meadow’s said the committee plans to delve into a number of Republicans concerns surrounding the foundation, including whether any tax-exempt proceeds for personal gain and whether the Foundation complied with IRS laws.

Sessions appointed Huber last year to work in tandem with the Justice Department to look into conservative claims of misconduct at the FBI and review several issues surrounding the Clintons. This includes Hillary Clinton’s ties to a Russian nuclear agency and concerns about the Clinton Foundation.

Huber’s work has remained shrouded in mystery. The White House has released little information about Huber’s assignment other than Session’s address to Congress saying his appointed should address concerns raised by Republicans.”  (Read more: The Hill, 11/20/2018)

https://youtu.be/_aevtHHULag

Matthew Whitaker (l) and Robert Mueller (Credit: CNBC/Getty Images)

“Much of the focus on President Trump’s appointment of Whitaker to temporarily replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been on the possibility of Whitaker removing Mueller, a move that would undoubtedly spark public outrage and trigger full-scale investigations by Democrats, who are poised to take control of the House in January.

But federal regulations offer Whitaker, now acting attorney general, broad authority with respect to the special counsel that extends beyond the ability to remove Mueller, giving him the ability to curtail the probe in ways that would not necessarily become public knowledge until after the Russia investigation is over.

Whitaker has the power to weigh in on any major steps in the probe, such as the issuance of new subpoenas and indictments.

Should he remain at the helm of the Justice Department until the conclusion of the investigation, it will be up to Whitaker to decide which portions, if any, of Mueller’s final report are submitted to Congress or released to the public.

“He has a lot of authority, starting with his authority to remove Mueller if he finds he has good cause for doing so under the relevant regulation,” said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor. “There are both hard and soft powers that the relevant regulation gives to the acting attorney general.”

Whitaker has assumed oversight of the probe from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a critical point in the investigation, as the special counsel reviews Trump’s written answers to questions about potential collusion between his campaign and Moscow in 2016 and mulls further steps in his scrutiny of longtime Trump ally Roger Stone.

There are no outward signs of Whitaker limiting the probe. In a court filing Monday, Mueller’s team signaled that their authorities remain intact following the leadership shuffle at the Justice Department. Sessions submitted his resignation at Trump’s request on Nov. 7, and Whitaker was named acting attorney general that same day.” (Read more: The Hill, 11/23/2018)

Appearing behind bars in the meme include Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Bill Clinton, John Podesta, Loretta Lynch, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, James Clapper and James Comey.

(Trump Twitter, 11/28/2018)

Paul Manafort (l) and Julian Assange (Credit: public domain)

By: Margot Cleveland

“On Tuesday The Guardian ran an exclusive claiming that “Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign.” According to The Guardian, Manafort met with the WikiLeaks’ founder at the embassy three times—in 2013, 2015, and in spring 2016.

While acknowledging that the purpose of the claimed meeting is unknown, The Guardian implies Manafort’s supposed March 2016 secret rendezvous concerned WikiLeaks’ role in releasing the hacked Democratic National Committee emails. “The revelation could shed new light on the sequence of events in the run-up to summer 2016, when WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails hacked by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency,” The Guardian wrote.”

(…) “what is clear is that The Guardian’s story was read round the world. Major media outlets quickly regurgitated the tale that “Manafort held secret talks with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange around the time he joined Trump’s campaign.”

The timing of Tuesday’s story suggests a concerted effort to craft a new Trump collusion narrative. Just the day before, in a court filing, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team claimed Manafort violated his plea agreement by lying to federal agents “on a variety of subject matters” that would be detailed later in a sentencing submission.

Manafort, who pleaded guilty earlier this year in a Washington D.C. federal court to two criminal counts related to foreign lobbying, denies lying to the FBI or the special counsel’s office, but The Guardian’s story now gives the public cause to imagine that Manafort’s purported prevarication concerned his supposed meeting with Assange in March 2016.

Tuesday also saw CNN contributor Carl Bernstein furthering the narrative that Manafort served as the Russia connection. According to the former Watergate reporter, Mueller’s team is investigating a 2017 meeting between Manafort and the Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. Bernstein reported that “according to a source with personal knowledge of the matter,” the special counsel is inquiring whether Manafort discussed WikiLeaks or Assange when he met with Moreno.

While CNN acknowledged that Moreno had previously stated that his 2017 meeting with Manafort involved a group of Chinese investors hoping to privatize the country’s electrical services, the goal of Bernstein’s source seems clear: to connect Manafort to Assange. That goal coincides with the story pushed by The Guardian’s two unnamed sources.

Here, the public would be wise to remember that The Guardian’s story represents the third attempt to connect the Trump campaign to the Russian hacking of the DNC emails in an effort to convince the American public that the Republican presidential candidate colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.” (Read more: The Federalist, 11/28/2018)

Abdul Huda Farouki (Credit: Patrick McMullan}

(…) “In a Nov. 29 DOJ press release, three executives including Abul Huda Farouki were charged “for their roles in a scheme to defraud U.S. military contracts in Afghanistan, engaging in illegal commerce in Iran, and laundering money internationally.” Farouki was the CEO of Anham, a defense contractor based in the United Arab Emirates

This wasn’t the first time Farouki or his company have been involved in allegations of misconduct. In a 2013 article by The Daily Caller, headlined “Clinton Donors Get a Pass on Shady Contracting,” Farouki and his company were highlighted:

“In June 2011, the Defense Department’s Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released a scathing report on a defense contracting company called Anham. The title of the report and its conclusion were the same: ‘Poor Government Oversight of Anham and Its Subcontracting Procedures Allowed Questionable Costs to Go Undetected.’”

The article then asked a simple question: Given prior violations, how was Anham able to secure an $8 billion contract in Afghanistan that “allowed it to illegally ship supplies through two Iranian border crossings and a seaport controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?”

Huma Abedin appears to Farouki’s right at a Tomorrow’s Youth Organization Gala event in Washington, DC on October 21, 2010. (Credit: public domain)

The $8 billion contract, along with the illegal shipment of supplies, being cited in the 2013 article appear to be exactly the same violations being alleged in the 2018 DOJ indictment. So why weren’t Farouki and his company charged with these same, known violations back in 2013?

The answer may lie within Farouki’s many connections to the Democratic Party. The Daily Caller notes that Farouki is a longtime donor to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and donated to Obama for America in 2008. But Farouki’s closest ties lie with the Clintons and their Foundation.

Farouki, a member of the now-shuttered Clinton Global Initiative, participated in annual CGI meetings since the group’s formation in 2005 through at least 2010 and made multiple donations to the Clinton Foundation. Farouki also made donations to Terry McAuliffe and has been photographed with Huma Abedin. (Read more: The Epoch Times/Jeff Carlson, 11/30/2018)

D.C. District Court (Credit: public domain)

“A case has been bouncing between the Washington, D.C. District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals at a breakneck pace since it was first filed in August. Pretty much everything about it has been under seal, though, so there’s no certainty on the issues involved. Whatever they may be, and whomever the person is, the court will address them in two weeks. The D.C. Circuit announced Friday that they will be hearing oral arguments in the case on December 14, in a closed session.

Law&Crime has previously reported on the mysterious legal battle that appears to be going on between Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s office and an unidentified grand jury witness.

This latest development comes two weeks after the unknown appellant filed a 6,487-word brief in the case.

Speculation has been rampant as to what the case is about. Is it a challenge to Mueller’s authority like those brought by Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller or Concord Management? Is it something else altogether?

And most intriguingly, who is it?” (Read more: Law & Crime, 11/30/2018)

“The evidence continues to mount that during the Obama administration, the FBI used George Papadopoulos as a prop to legitimize launching its investigation into the Donald Trump campaign. While the FBI claimed it initiated Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016 in response to reports that Russian-linked individuals told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, that story seemed shaky from the start.

Since then, text and email messages between former MI6 spy and Fusion GPS dossier author Christopher Steele and twice-demoted Department of Justice attorney Bruce Ohr raised the possibility that information Steele fed the FBI through Ohr was the true justification for the the FBI targeting the Trump campaign. A Wednesday tweet from Carter Page gives further credence to the suggestion that the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier served as the basis for the FBI’s interest in the Trump campaign.

In his tweet, Page included a screen grab of a July 2016 text message from Washington Post reporter Damian Paletta asking the former Trump campaign advisor about his supposed meeting in Moscow with Igor Sechin, and another meeting Page reportedly had with “a senior Kremlin official—Divyekin—and he said they have solid kompromat on Clinton as well as Trump.”

The details in Paletta’s text mirror the information contained in the Steele dossier memorandum dated July 19, 2016. The July 26, 2016, date of the text indicates Steele must have shared his supposed intelligence with the Washington Post reporter around that time. Here are relevant sections in the dossier memorandum, below.

It is difficult to fathom that Steele would share the details of his dossier with a reporter but not with his long-time friend Ohr when Steele met with Bruce and his wife Nellie on July 30, 2016 in Washington D.C. Yet, in his memorandum on the Russian investigation, incoming House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff claimed “Steele’s reporting did not reach the counterintelligence team investigating Russia at FBI headquarters until mid-September 2016, more than seven weeks after the FBI opened its investigation, because the probe’s existence was so closely held within the FBI.”

A second detail from this week’s reporting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation adds further evidence to the fraud the FBI pushed in pointing to Papadopoulos as the basis for the Russian probe. Papadopoulos’ purported Russian connection was a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud, who supposedly told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Clinton. However, as I noted previously, in February 2017—more than six months after the FBI launched their investigation into the Trump campaign—Mifsud spoke at a State Department-sponsored function in Washington D.C., at which time the FBI interviewed him. Mifsud later returned to Italy and disappeared.” (Read more: The Federalist, 11/30/2018)

Dmitry Peskov (Credit: Pavel Golovkin/The Associated Press)

(…) And as if the media needed more evidence that the Trump Tower Moscow controversy has already been litigated in the public eye, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday offered a quick reminder when he showed two of Cohen’s emails to a group of reporters, confirming a 15-month old report that Cohen had reached out to him to ask for help with facilitating the project (none was offered, and the project was eventually abandoned), the Daily Mail reported.

As a reminder, here’s what Peskov and Cohen said about Cohen’s ‘contact’ with the Kremlin at the time (per CNN). Cohen has since admitted to lying about the talks ending in January 2016, and has instead claimed that they continued – with the president’s involvement at times – until the summer of 2017.

“This email said that a certain Russian company together with certain individuals is pursuing the goal of building a skyscraper in the ‘Moscow City’ district, but things aren’t going well and they asked for help with some advice on moving this project forward,” Peskov said. “But, since, I repeat again, we do not react to such business topics — this is not our work — we left it unanswered.”
He added: “We cannot discuss with President Putin hundreds and thousands of different requests, which, by the way, come from a variety of countries.”

Cohen revealed Monday that he had made the overture to Moscow at a point well into Trump’s presidential campaign.

“The Trump Moscow proposal was simply one of many development opportunities that the Trump Organization considered and ultimately rejected,” Cohen said in a written statement.

“In late January 2016, I abandoned the Moscow proposal because I lost confidence that the prospective licensee would be able to obtain the real estate, financing and government approvals necessary to bring the proposal to fruition,” he added. “It was a building proposal that did not succeed and nothing more.”
(Read more: Zero Hedge, 11/30/2018)

“Today on Face The Nation Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Vice-Chairman Mark Warner describes how his committee is working with Robert Mueller; including: (a) several criminal referrals (Cohen was one); and (b) the sharing of congressional transcripts so Mueller (the team, not the person) can cross reference statements given to him with testimony given to the SSCI.

Tell me again how letting SSCI Security Director, James Wolfe, off the hook for leaking classified intelligence to the media, including the Carter Page FISA application, was not to cover for SSCI members instructing Mr. Wolfe to carry out those leaks.

For several years, and with increased urgency at each discovery/admission, CTH has been highlighting how the SSCI was part of the 2015, 2016, 2017 plan to eliminate Donald Trump (Spygate), and later remove President Trump (insurance policy).

The most recent series of events by Robert Mueller is a quid-pro-quo to cover for the SSCI involvement. This is not confirmational bias against the SSCI; this is factual evidence of the SSCI’s corruption. Please understand the basic issue here. The SSCI is complicit with the overall scheme – and Robert Mueller, via a plan of mutual benefit and coordination, is trying to protect that from surfacing.

(…) “Remember, those SSCI Senators (Vice-Chair Mark Warner, Dianne Feinstein and senior staffer Dan Jones etc.) were coordinating with Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign allies; and were direct participants in “Spygate” and the insurance policy known as the special counsel.

This is one of the reasons why it is likely, damned near certain, that senior SSCI senators instructed James Wolfe to leak information, including the March 17th copy of the Carter Page FISA application, and that is why Rosenstein and Mueller let James Wolfe plea to a much lesser one-count crime of lying.

Remember when SSCI senator Dianne Feinstein released the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony so that all of downstream participants could coordinate their stories? Oh, how quickly we forget.

It is near certain that Feinstein gave up her Senate Intelligence Vice-Chair position following the 2016 presidential election because there was an inherent political risk for any intelligence-oversight Democrat in relation to the FBI’s Trump operation, “spygate”. Feinstein’s staffer, Dan Jones, then paid Fusion-GPS $50 million to continue the efforts.

Remember Oleg Deripaska’s lawyer/lobbyist Adam Waldman having secret text messages with new SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner relaying communication from Christopher Steele that Senator Warner wanted to keep quiet?

Adam Waldman texting Senator Warner about Chris Steele and outlining how Feinstein’s former senior staffer Dan Jones was coming to see him.

(link)

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is as corrupt and complicit within the entire Spygate fiasco as the DOJ and FBI. That’s why Mueller and Rosenstein (small group) are working to protect the Senators and staff just like they protect the corrupt officials in the DOJ and FBI. Mueller’s entire operation is structured around this type of scheming cover-up.

This is Deep State (via Mueller/Rosenstein) fighting President Trump; and trying to blunt the declassification weapon he holds. Nothing more.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/03/2018)

Michael Sussmann (l) and James Baker (Credit: Perkins Coie/public domain)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking records of all meetings in 2016 between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and the Perkins Coie law firm. The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reportedly paid Fusion GPS to create the “salacious and unverified” Clinton-DNC anti-Trump dossier.

The lawsuit cites a specific media report that FBI top lawyer Baker met with Perkins Coie lawyers to discuss allegations of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. The meeting reportedly took place weeks before the 2016 election and before the FBI secured a controversial FISA spy warrant targeting then-candidate Trump’s campaign.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the DOJ failed to respond to an October 9, 2018, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02617)) seeking:

All records concerning any and all meetings between former FBI general counsel James Baker and one or more attorneys from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm during 2016.

On October 4, 2018, Fox News reported that Baker told congressional investigators that Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann “initiated contact with him and provided documents and computer storage devices on Russian hacking.” The contact was made in late 2016 as federal investigators prepared a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

At the time, Perkins Coie had hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig into President Trump’s background. Fusion GPS paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.

The DNC and Clinton campaign’s funding of the unverified dossier was revealed in a memo from House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes which was disclosed publicly on February 2, 2018.

According to an October 24, 2017, report, Perkins Coie lawyer Marc E. Elias retained Fusion GPS in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC: “The Clinton campaign and DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.” Fusion GPS gave Steele’s dossier and other research documents to Elias.

“The real collusion scandal is the hand-in-hand effort by the Clinton campaign and the Obama DOJ/FBI to spy upon and destroy Donald J. Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The FBI, pulled by the troika of Comey/McCabe/Strzok, became an arm of the Clinton campaign. And our new lawsuit aims to get to the bottom of the massive scandal.” (Judicial Watch, 12/03/2018)

Glenn Simpson (l) and Chuck Grassley (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is drawing parallels between the false testimony that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen gave to Congress in 2017 and the “extremely misleading” statements made by the founder of the firm that commissioned the infamous Steele dossier.

“I hope that the Justice Department is handling all these instances of false statements to Congress with the same level of seriousness they treated Mr. Cohen’s,” Grassley, an Iowa Republican, wrote Monday in a letter to Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

Cohen pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 in the special counsel’s investigation to lying to Congress in 2017 about the extent of his attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen admitted he lied about how long he worked on the project, which was ultimately scuttled in June 2016.

Grassley accused Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of Fusion GPS, of possibly lying during his Aug. 22, 2017 testimony when he claimed that his firm was not working for a client to investigate President Donald Trump after the 2016 election.

“So you didn’t do any work on the Trump matter after the election date, that was the end of your work?” Simpson was asked in his deposition.

“I had no client after the election,” said Simpson.

“As we now know, that was extremely misleading, if not an outright lie,” Grassley asserted in his letter to Blumenthal.

Grassley noted that a former Senate staffer named Daniel Jones told the FBI in March 2017 that he hired Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, after the election to continue an investigation into Trump’s possible ties to Russia. (Read more: Daily Caller, 12/04/2018)

“The only remaining FBI counterintelligence official at the center of all Spygate and Clinton investigation issues is departing. The enigma man, E.W. “Bill” Piestap is retiring from the FBI.  Bill Priestap is the FBI Asst. Director in charge of all counterintelligence operations.  Priestap was FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s boss; he was also at the epicenter of the story surrounding every action taken by the FBI in the Clinton investigation and the Trump campaign investigation.

Bill Priestap (Credit: public domain)

Bill Priestap was copied on every email of consequence including the writing of the Clinton exoneration talking points delivered by FBI Director James Comey.  Priestap was the central figure on the FBI side of both Clinton and Trump operations.  “Bill” is mentioned in hundreds of text messages sent by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

In short, Bill Priestap was everywhere – except where you would most likely expect to find him, in media discussion.  The timing seems curious though the Wall Street Journal goes to great lengths to describe the timing as a mere happenstance due to his 20-year service anniversary and the opportunity to retire with full benefits:

WASHINGTON—A top FBI official who helped oversee two politically sensitive investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign is retiring from government service.

Bill Priestap, who currently serves as assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterintelligence division, will leave his post by the end of the year. Mr. Priestap, a 20-year veteran of the bureau, worked on organized crime and drug cases in Chicago before rising through the national security ranks of the agency after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Priestap’s retirement is unrelated to the controversies over the handling of the 2016 investigations, according to a person familiar with the matter. He “became eligible to retire and has chosen to do so after 20 years of service,” the FBI said in a statement.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

(…) Priestap was so important that during FBI Director James Comey’s March 20th, 2017 congressional testimony Director Comey told congress it was Bill Priestap who recommended that congressional oversight should not be notified of the ongoing counterintelligence operations.  Priestap’s instruction was so important that despite the  rules violation FBI Director Comey followed his recommendation and kept congress in the dark.

On June 5th, 2018, FBI Director of Counterintelligence E.W. “Bill” Priestap testified to a joint session of the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees.

The hearing was a matter of strong public interest.  Mr. Priestap was questioned for approximately seven hours.  However, journalist Olivia Beavers covering for The Hill dropped a detail that seemed rather curious:

(…) Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), however, said he felt that Priestap didn’t say anything that would indicate there was “political bias that motivated the Hillary Clinton email investigation.”

Priestap “completely” backed up everything that Comey said, according to a source familiar with his testimony.

Only three lawmakers — Jordan, Meadows and Krishnamoorthi — attended the hearing, which took place on the first day after a week-long recess.

Priestap’s interview comes after the joint House investigation stalled for months after being first announced.  (more)

On the home-front: FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap is married to Sabina Menshell a self-employed “consultant” with a history of donations to Democrat candidates, specifically to Hillary Clinton.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/04/2018)

BREAKING: Joe Biden unwittingly financed Hunter Biden’s participation in an escort ring tied to Russia.

Joe Biden wired $100,000 to Hunter from Dec. 2018 through Jan. 2019, the same timeframe he spent 30k on escorts tied to .ru email addresses.https://t.co/HI1t8ndDB6

— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) June 27, 2022

A whole lot more on this in the story below:

w/ @JerryDunleavy @dcexaminer https://t.co/HI1t8ndDB6

— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) June 27, 2022

https://t.co/41Z5nwkPM5

— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) June 27, 2022

From the Washington Examiner:

(…) “What’s wrong with you?” Hunter told the Washington Examiner shortly after this story was published.

There is no suggestion in these messages that Joe Biden knew what his son was spending his support payments on.

Hunter Biden disclosed in text messages with a woman named Eva, the go-between who served as his primary point of contact for UberGFE, that his accounts were temporarily frozen at one point because his attempted payments to her “girls” with Russian email accounts were too much of a “red flag” for his bank. Eva refers to him as Robert in the messages, which is his birth name.

Hunter Biden’s text exchange with “Eva,” his primary point of contact for the Russian-linked escort agency UberGFE on Feb. 27, 2019. (Credit: Washington Examiner)

A 2020 Senate report by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) said: “Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries,” and records note some of these transactions are linked to what “appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”

The report said Hunter Biden “sent thousands of dollars” to people either involved in “transactions consistent with possible human trafficking” or “potential association with prostitution.” Some of the women “subsequently wired funds they have received from Hunter Biden to individuals located in Russia and Ukraine.”

Grassley and Johnson sent a 2019 letter to the director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network requesting “all Suspicious Activity Reports” tied to Hunter Biden and his businesses. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 6/27/2022)  (Archive)

Judge Royce C. Lambert (Credit: public domain)

“Judicial Watch announced today that, in a ruling excoriating both the U.S. Departments of State and Justice, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth has ordered both agencies to join Judicial Watch in submitting a proposed schedule for discovery into whether Hillary Clinton sought to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a private email system and whether the State Department acted in “bad faith” by failing to disclose knowledge of the email system.  The decision comes in a FOIA lawsuit related to the Benghazi terrorist attack.

Lamberth ruled:

“… the Court ORDERS the parties to meet and confer to plan discovery into (a) whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email while Secretary of State was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA; (b) whether the State Department’s attempts to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and (c) whether State has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s requests.”

Terming Clinton’s use of her private email system, “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency,” Lamberth wrote in his MEMORANDUM OPINION:

“… his [President Barack Obama’s] State and Justice Departments fell far short. So far short that the court questions, even now, whether they are acting in good faith. Did Hillary Clinton use her private email as Secretary of State to thwart this lofty goal [Obama announced standard for transparency]? Was the State Department’s attempt to settle this FOIA case in 2014 an effort to avoid searching – and disclosing the existence of – Clinton’s missing emails? And has State ever adequately searched for records in this case?”

***

At best, State’s attempt to pass-off its deficient search as legally adequate during settlement negotiations was negligence born out of incompetence. At worst, career employees in the State and Justice Departments colluded to scuttle public scrutiny of Clinton, skirt FOIA, and hoodwink this Court.

Turning his attention to the Department of Justice, Lamberth wrote:

“The current Justice Department made things worse. When the government last appeared before the Court, counsel claimed, ‘it is not true to say we misled either Judicial Watch or the Court.’ When accused of ‘doublespeak,’ counsel denied vehemently, feigned offense, and averred complete candor. When asked why State masked the inadequacy of its initial search, counsel claimed that the officials who initially responded to Judicial Watch’s request didn’t realize Clinton’s emails were missing, and that it took them two months to ‘figure [ ] out what was going on’… Counsel’s responses strain credulity.” [citations omitted]

The Court granted discovery because the government’s response to the Judicial Watch Benghazi FOIA request for Clinton emails “smacks of outrageous conduct.”

Citing an email (uncovered as a result of Judicial Watch’s lawsuit) that Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Benghazi was a terrorist attack immediately after it happened, Judge Lamberth asked:

Did State know Clinton deemed the Benghazi attack terrorism hours after it happened, contradicting the Obama Administration’s subsequent claim of a protest-gone-awry?”

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 12/06/2018)

(Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)

“A controversial and classified document, alleging potential misconduct by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, resurfaced on December 7, suggesting lawmakers may press Lynch about the memo during her own deposition.

While the contents of the document remain classified, media leaks suggest it includes an email from the then-chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations, the nonprofit organization run by billionaire Democratic fundraiser George Soros. The email shows Lynch assured Clinton-campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized access to the private email server would not “go too far.”

(…) Comey said the document was one of the factors that led him to break from established protocol and announce the exoneration of Clinton in a press conference. During his transcribed deposition (pdf) on Capitol Hill on Dec. 9, Comey answered questions about the document to both a Democrat and a Republican.

“[I’ve] tried to be very careful in public comments about this. There was material that had not been verified that I believed if it became public, would be used to cast doubt on whether the Attorney General had acted appropriately with respect to the investigation,” Comey said in response to a question from Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) about the document on Dec. 9. “I don’t think I’m allowed to go beyond that in characterizing that material.”

“So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate,” Comey added in response to a question from Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).

Comey had previously written about the document in his book, explaining that he made the exoneration announcement because of a “development still unknown to the American public” that “cast serious doubt” on Lynch.

During his testimony, Comey agreed disclosing information in the document to the public would “have caused some to question the objectivity of the Department of Justice (DOJ).”

According to Comey, Lynch and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates were briefed on the contents of the document. The FBI then interviewed Lynch about the matter, although he was not present, Comey said.

If, since last year, the FBI or lawmakers had found a way to verify the accuracy of the document, it would prove that Obama administration officials at the highest level were using their power to further a political agenda. The finding could be especially devastating since it could implicate the head of the Justice Department, an entity traditionally independent of The White House and politics.

Lynch’s actions are behind three of the main reasons that Comey cites for announcing that no charges will be brought against Clinton. The usual protocol is for the Justice Department, not the FBI, to make a determination about bringing charges. Neither the FBI nor the DOJ announces details of investigations that do not result in prosecution.

Comey said he decided to make the announcement because of the way Lynch’s tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton could be perceived. Lynch had also told Comey to refer to the Clinton investigation as a matter.

The FBI would go on to interview Clinton on July 2, five days after the tarmac meeting. According to Ratcliffe, Clinton was never asked about the tarmac meeting during the FBI interview.”  (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/09/2018)

Jimmy Dore explains how the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit against Wikileaks, is a threat against freedom of the press and our First Amendment rights.

The Department of Justice files a sentencing memo in the case against the Security Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe. Wolfe pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his media leaks and frequent contacts with journalists. The DOJ did not charge Wolfe with leaking classified intelligence despite their initial charging documents that outlined evidence therein.

James Wolfe DOJ Sentencing … by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd

Chairman Richard Burr speaks while flanked by ranking member Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Dianne Feinstein during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on August 1, 2018. (Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

“Three current or former leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are urging that one of the panel’s former aides escape prison time for lying amid an investigation into leaks related to the ongoing probe of the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and former Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are encouraging a federal judge not to put the committee’s former security director, James Wolfe, behind bars for a series of false statements he admitted giving to the FBI during the leak investigation.

“Jim has already lost much through these events, to include his career and reputation, and we do not believe there is any public utility in depriving him of his freedom,” Burr, Warner and Feinstein wrote in a letter Wolfe’s defense attorneys submitted Tuesday to U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The request could expose all three senators to criticism because they have been harsh critics of leaks of classified information and are now seeking leniency for a former colleague who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with reporters.” (Read more: Politico, 12/11/2018)  (Archive)

(Credit: public domain)

“Department of Justice investigators were unable to recover text messages Peter Strzok and Lisa Page sent during their short tenure on the special counsel’s investigation, according to a report released Thursday by the DOJ’s office of the inspector general (OIG).

(…) The new OIG report focuses mostly on a five-month gap in messages between Strzok and Page. When investigators began looking at Strzok and Page’s FBI-issued phones, they found no messages from Dec. 13, 2016, to May 17, 2017, the same day Mueller was appointed special counsel.

The FBI chalked the missing text messages up to a glitch that affected the message retention system on many FBI-issued phones. Government forensic analysts were able to recover many texts from the missing period. The OIG did not dispute the FBI’s claims about why the messages were missing from the phones.

The phone Strzok used while he was on the Mueller team was inspected by a records officer with the special counsel, who found no “substantive” messages on the device. Page’s device was only recovered by the inspector general in September. It had been reset to factory settings July 31, 2017.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/13/2018)   (OIG Report, December 2018)

Petr Aven (rt) and Mikhail Fridman file a defamation suit in the United States on October 3, 2017. (Credit: Reuters)

“There is an ongoing defamation lawsuit between Alfa Bank principals Mikhail Fridman, Peter Aven, German Khan, and FusionGPS. The three allege that FusionGPS defamed and harmed them in commissioning “Memo 112” of the now infamous Steele dossier, which purports that the three were collaborating with Vladimir Putin, and accuses another lower level Alfa bank employee of criminal misconduct at the behest of Putin.

Within a filing in the FusionGPS case, is an attachment from a related appeal that Fridman, Aven, and Khan filed in litigation they also brought against Orbis (Steele’s company). The filing includes written answers provided by Orbis in matters before the court in the UK. On page 76, is a courtesy copy of a British High Court Filing involving Christopher Steele and Orbis.

Orbis is asked why Perkins Coie needed the information in the memo about Alfa Bank. The response is quite alarming. Orbis answers (emphasis ours) “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie, LLP. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie, LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election. Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as “Hillary for America”) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of the election.”

There are serious implications to the testimony. What Orbis is certifying to the UK court, is that when Perkins Coie hired FusionGPS in June of 2016, they did so with the expectation that FusionGPS would provide the information they would need to challenge the validity of the 2016 election, based on Russian interference. The only problem is that FusionGPS was retained by Perkins Coie much earlier than what is purportedly the start date of the now infamous Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation. The FBI asserts that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation began in late July of 2016, based on a tip about George Papadopoulos meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. The entire premise of that investigation is now under its own scrutiny in the John Durham probe.

Marc Elias addresses the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 5, 2016. (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

As UncoverDC will detail in a moment, there was near-constant communication between Elias and FusionGPS principals throughout the duration of the engagement. Marc Elias, when questioned in front of the HPSCI in December of 2017, never mentions a word about Russian interference as he is probed about the odd retention of FusionGPS. From the transcript, we learn that Elias was initially approached by FusionGPS. FusionGPS told Elias that they had done research into candidate Trump for another client, and would be able to assist Perkins Coie in providing information that would be beneficial to the Clinton campaign and DNC. As the questioning continues, Trey Gowdy asks Elias specifically whether Simpson told him that there was information pertaining to Russia. Elias leaves his answer somewhat open-ended:

Excerpt from HPSCI testimony of Marc Elias

(Read more: UndercoverDC, 6/14/2020)  (Archive)

By: John Solomon

“When confronted by detractors, the Clinton Foundation often uses a common line of defense: The charity is one of the most scrutinized in history and no one has found anything wrong with it.

But state regulatory filings suggest that may not be true.

In December 2005, for example, the Utah Division of Consumer Protection flagged missing information in the Clinton Foundation’s federal tax filing with the IRS, known as a form 990. The state regulator specifically flagged money spent on professional fundraisers and consultants that were excluded from the required section of the filing.

The state regulator urged the charity to file “an amended IRS form 990 reporting professional fundraising/consultant fees on line 30.” In particular, officials questioned nearly a half-million dollars in consultant fees about which it wanted more detail.

The foundation’s tax filing for the year in question, 2004, showed zero dollars spent on the required line for fundraising consulting expenses, even though other documents filed with the IRS identified more than $400,000.

The review was standard for a charity seeking a license to operate in Utah. The response regulators got back, however, was not so standard: Former President Clinton’s charity declined to make the change, even though Utah was suggesting the foundation’s federal tax form was incomplete or misleading.

“The problem that the Foundation faces is the enormous expenses and undertaking it would be to amend its 990,” a law firm representing the Clinton Foundation wrote back.

“Given that obstacle, the Foundation has no choice but to withdraw its application to register to solicit the public in Utah.”

In lay words, the cost of properly informing the IRS and complying with federal tax law was too much, so the foundation just ditched its Utah licensing request. There is no record of amended 2004 tax form by the charity, which means Utah’s concerns about possible missing information for the IRS wasn’t addressed at the federal level.

Foundation officials confirm the episode but said they believed they did not mislead the IRS because other parts of their submission included fundraising consulting expenses in a category called “Other Expenses.” “Our 2004 Form 990 is complete by IRS standards as we fully disclose fundraising expenditures in Part II – Other Expenses,” the foundation said in a statement emailed to me.

The Utah episode, though a decade old, and other state regulatory issues involving the Clinton Foundation are gaining new attraction because they are included in thousands of pages of documents gathered in a whistleblower submission filed last year by a firm composed of former federal law enforcement investigators, called MDA Analytics LLC.

That submission made with the IRS and eventually provided to the Justice Department in Washington and to the FBI in Little Rock, Ark., alleges there is “probable cause” to believe the Clinton Foundation broke federal tax law and possibly owes millions of dollars in tax penalties. That submission and its supporting evidence will be one focus of a GOP-led congressional hearing Thursday in the House.

The foundation strongly denies any wrongdoing. But it acknowledges its own internal legal reviews in 2008 and 2011 cited employee concerns ranging from quid pro quo promises to donors, to improper commingling of personal and charity business.

Another of the issues the foundation’s own lawyers flagged: a culture of noncompliance.

Some issues with compliance are clear in a review of more than 2,000 pages of state regulatory filings and actions involving the foundation that were included in the whistleblower submission.

For example, the foundation entered into a consent decree in 2002 in Mississippi in which it admitted it had raised money in the state without a proper license. The foundation says it was simply an oversight, paying a small fine in the hundreds of dollars.

But the charity potentially engaged in false statements for years later, inaccurately declaring in numerous states that it had never been subject to an adverse regulatory action — while failing to disclose the Mississippi violation.

The whistleblower submission to the IRS identified more than 100 state forms in which the foundation inaccurately answered. The foundation conceded the errors to me but suggested they were akin to minor traffic violations, pointing to a column by a tax expert two years ago that made such a case.

Likewise, in 2008, the Clinton Foundation’s AIDs charitable arm had its license to collect donations in Massachusetts involuntarily revoked for failure to file the necessary paperwork.

Foundation officials blamed that action on paperwork failing to keep up with changes in the group, which altered its name and eventually spun off from the foundation. State regulators weren’t told the old group’s name had been allowed to expire.

The records also show the foundation received multiple deficiency notifications and had its license expire once in the state of Georgia, usually because of late paperwork. (Read more: The Hill, 12/06/2018)

Joe Biden called Hunter in December 2018 saying he wanted to talk to him after reading a New York Times story about Hunter’s dealings with the Chinese oil giant CEFC

Files on Hunter’s abandoned laptop previously disclosed by DailyMail.com show that he struck a deal with the Chinese company worth millions of dollars

The Times’ 2018 story pointed out CEFC’s chairman Ye Jianming had been arrested in China and his lieutenant Patrick Ho had been convicted of bribery

Hunter accidentally recorded himself referring to Ho as the ‘spy chief of China’

After seeing the story online, Joe called Hunter and left a voicemail

‘I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear,’ Joe said in the voicemail

The message flies in the face of the president’s repeated denials that he ever discussed Hunter’s overseas business dealings with his son

(Read more: The Daily Mail, 6/27/2022) (Archive)

Artem Sytnik (Credit: Oleksandr Stashevskyi/The Associated Press)

“A court in Ukraine has ruled that officials in the country violated the law by revealing, during the 2016 presidential election in the United States, details of suspected illegal payments to Paul Manafort.

2016, while Mr. Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign, anti-corruption prosecutors in Ukraine disclosed that a pro-Russian political party had earmarked payments for Mr. Manafort from an illegal slush fund. Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign a week later.

The court’s ruling that what the prosecutors did was illegal comes as the Ukrainian government, which is deeply reliant on the United States for financial and military aid, has sought to distance itself from matters related to the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.

(…) After President Trump’s victory, some politicians in Ukraine criticized the public release by prosecutors of the slush fund records, saying the move would complicate Ukraine’s relations with the Trump administration.

In Ukraine, investigations into the payments marked for Mr. Manafort were halted for a time and never led to indictments. Mr. Manafort’s conviction in the United States on financial fraud charges related to his work in Ukraine was not based on any known legal assistance from Ukraine.

Serhiy Leshchenko (Credit: Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press)

Two Ukrainian members of Parliament had pressed for investigations into whether the prosecutors’ revelation of the payment records, which were first published in The New York Times, had violated Ukrainian laws that, in some cases, prohibit prosecutors from revealing evidence before a trial.

Both lawmakers asserted that if the release of the slush fund information broke the law, then it should be viewed as an illegal effort to influence the United States presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton by damaging the Trump campaign.

The Kiev District Administrative Court, in a statement issued Wednesday, said that Artem Sytnik, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the agency that had released information about the payments, had violated the law. The court’s statement said this violation “resulted in meddling in the electoral process of the United States in 2016 and damaged the national interests of Ukraine.”

The court also faulted a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, Serhiy A. Leshchenko, who had commented on Mr. Manafort’s case and publicized at a news conference materials that the anti-corruption bureau had already posted on its website.

Mr. Leshchenko said he would appeal the ruling, and that the court was not independent and was doing the bidding of the Ukrainian government as it sought to curry favor with the Trump administration.” (Read more: The New York Times, 12/12/2018)  (Archive)

(Judge Rudolph Contreras suddenly recuses himself from the Flynn case on December 7, 2017. (Credit: public domain)

“A federal judge overseeing the case of Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is demanding to see the FBI’s first interviews with the retired three-star general after explosive information contained in a sentencing memo released Tuesday night revealed that senior FBI leadership suggested he not have a lawyer present, nor warn him that his interview was subject to penalties if he failed to provide all the answers, according to the 178 page Defendants memorandum submitted to the court.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office Wednesday night to turn over all the government’s documents by mid-day Friday. The exculpatory documents requested by Sullivan include any memorandums regarding Flynn’s case because of the extraordinary circumstances of the information, according to Sullivan’s request. Further, Sullivan is also requesting any documentation regarding the first interviews conducted by former anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka -known by the FBI as 302s- which were found to be dated more than seven months after the interviews were conducted on Jan. 24, 2017, a violation of FBI policy, say current and former FBI officials familiar with the process. According to information contained in Flynn’s memorandum, the interviews were dated Aug. 22, 2017.

FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com Sullivan must also request all the communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017 time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request “the workflow chart, which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a supervisor and who approved them.”

“The bureau policy – the absolute FBI policy – is that the notes must be placed in the system in a 1-A file within five days of the interview,” said Danik, who added that handwritten notes get placed into the FBI Sentinel System, which is the FBI’s main record keeping system. “Anything beyond five business days is a problem, eight months is a disaster.”

“In a case of this magnitude there is no question what is going on,” said Danik. “These agents went in the White House and had a case with a possible witness of his stature and didn’t write it up until almost eight months later? That is is unconscionable – it’s not fair to the defendant and absolutely goes against FBI policy.” (Read more: Sara Carter, 12/13 2018)

Lawrence Doyle (l) and John Moynihan testify to the House Oversight Committee on December 13, 2018. (Credit: CSpan)

December 13, 2018 was a day of anticipation for many that were waiting to hear from US Attorney John Huber about his findings on the Clinton Foundation. However, US Representative Mark Meadows, and financial analysts John Moynihan, and Larry Doyle all suggested he was not present at the hearing due to ongoing investigations into the Clinton Foundation. Interestingly, Moynihan and Doyle stated they sent documents to Huber’s office three times because his office stated they “misplaced” the documents. Meanwhile, they are confident that the FBI in Little Rock is in fact investigating the Clintons, and even have photos of the IRS and FBI loading a 757 plane with boxes of Clinton Foundation documents. When taking all of this information into consideration, it suggests that the investigation into the Clinton Foundation may have always resided with the FBI in Little Rock, and Huber may not even be involved in those specific investigations. It’s difficult to say at this point. One thing is for certain, it has been kept very quiet and without leaks.

On the same day as the hearing, It was later reported that Huber had been attending a media round table in Utah with FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart, to alert the public to victims of child exploitation, and discussed other topics on gangs, drug activity, and violent crimes. Both Barnhart and Huber reported that offenders are likely to commit the same crimes after being released from even lengthy prison terms and the best treatment efforts. Huber stated that his office takes on some of the worst cases you can imagine, and one particular case involved 600 images of child pornography. He had this to say about it:

600 images of child pornography translate to 600 victims who have been raped, sodomized, and otherwise exploited for sexual gratification. That’s why these crimes are serious… this isn’t looking at a dirty magazine… this is harming children, exploiting them and passing on those images and videos.

It’s supply and demand, and there’s a great demand. I don’t know what we do as a society to cure that problem, to lessen that problem, but it is a growing demand and it’s ever present, and our children are, unfortunately, the fodder and the currency in that world.

The House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on the Clinton Foundation proceeded without Huber. Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch, Associate Professor of Law Phillip Hackney, and outside whistleblowers and financial analysts Larry Doyle and John Moynihan, were all in attendance to testify. Doyle and Moynihan had been meticulously working on the Clinton Foundation financials and taxes for three years, and had submitted documents to the FBI in Little Rock, as well as several jurisdictions on both local and state levels. Their testimony provided some key information. As of December 20^th, the transcript and video currently remain on c-span, but may one day be scrubbed. Corey’s Digs has preserved the video, should it ever need to be resurrected.

Key takeaways from the testimony of Moynihan and Doyle, per c-span transcript (type errors included):

• “We sent our appeal in with a FOE COE – photo copy of the FBI and IRS removing boxes from the Clinton Foundation after they brought a 757 down and taken the materials out of the Clinton Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas. We sent that to demonstrate that your letter coming from Atlanta doesn’t reconcile with what’s going on in Little Rock.”

• “It was an open and ongoing investigation he couldn’t comment on. That would indeed indicate there’s an investigation.”

• “He stated (Clinton Foundation CFO Andrew Kessel) very specifically, and it took us both off guard, I’ve been doing this a long time, but when someone says, I know where all the bodies are buried.”

• “Overall it might have been 40% by our calculations, ended up going to programs, and 60% was administrative.” (This refers to the amount of CF funds that went to administrative, which is generally 15% for non-profits.)

• “Mr. Doyle, you said from $400 million to $2.5 billion might be subject to taxation. So you’re saying, worst case is in your opinion $400 million were improperly used in a charitable foundation named the ‘Clinton Foundation’, is that correct?” Doyle: “Yes.”

• “They were brokering money and brokering pharmaceuticals. They were an agent of money through these donors. They would take a fee, and broker the money and broker relationships with pharmaceutical companies. By the same token, they were brokering the pharmaceuticals and taking some.”

• “Our conclusions, in the interest of time, are this – foreign agent. The Foundation began acting as an agent of foreign governments throughout its life and continues to do so. As such, they should have registered under FARWA. The auditors acknowledged this fact and conceded in formal submissions that it did not operate as an agent.”

• Meadows: All right, so who approved the 501-C-3 status for the Foundation? Moynihan: Would have been the IRS. Meadows: Do you have the document? Moynihan: We have it. We’ve got the determination letters. Meadows: It was approved for what? Building a library or? Moynihan: The initial approval was simply for library. Meadows: Who modified it? Moynihan: We saw no modifications to the articles of incorporation. …. In order to go forward the application has a schedule G that asks you if CHAI is a successor organization to a previous one, so you have the library, then you have this CHAI running unapproved. You gotta get approved….. They go and make an application, and on the form schedule G, when it’s asked, is this a successor operation, they specifically and affirmatively answered no. That is a misrepresentation because it’s the same people doing the same thing.”

(Read more: Corey’s Digs, 12/20/2018)