Featured Timeline Entries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 6, 2007 – Jeffrey Epstein’s plea deal touts his close friendship with Bill Clinton and a claim he helped conceive the Clinton Global Initiative program

Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein (Credit: public domain)

“Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton’s controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, FoxNews.com has learned.

The 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in a sex ring based in Palm Beach, Fla., and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed “Orgy Island.” Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

“Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project ‘bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” read the July 2007 letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida. “Focuses of this initiative include poverty, climate change, global health, and religious and ethnic conflicts.”

The hedge fund magnate’s true role in creating the foundation could not be confirmed. Whether Epstein was an actual founder of the foundation or exaggerated his role in a phony effort to appear altruistic is not clear.

Epstein is not cited in official paperwork filed by the Clinton Global Initiative as a founder or director. Neither The Clinton Foundation nor Dershowitz responded to FoxNews.com’s inquiry as to the extent of Epstein’s involvement. FoxNews.com first reported that flight logs show the former president flew on Epstein’s private plane dozens of times. But Clinton has publicly credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now counselor and director of the foundation, as conceiving of the idea.” (Read more: Fox News, 7/06/2016)

January 2009 – 2012: Ghislaine Maxwell’s nephew is a high-ranking official in Clinton’s State Department

(…) Alexander Djerassi, who is Ghislaine Maxwell’s nephew, was a high-ranking official in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Here is Alexander Djerassi’s bio from his time as an associate with the Carnegie Endowment:

“Alexander Djerassi was a nonresident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focused on Tunisia and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and North Africa. From 2009 to 2012, Djerassi was chief of staff and special assistant in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, covering U.S. relations with Arab states, Israel, and Iran. He worked on matters relating to democratization and civil society in the Arab world, the Arab uprisings, and Israeli-Palestinian peace. Djerassi has served as a U.S. representative to the Friends of Libya conferences, Friends of the Syrian People conferences, U.S.-GCC Strategic Coordination Forum, and several UN General Assemblies.”

(…) Dale Djerassi, who gave $8,200 to Clinton’s “New York Senate 2000” committee in June, participated in the bizarre “St. Batman Crucifixion” in Woodside, Calif., in 1994.

The performance art piece was a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus, featuring a naked man wearing a Batman medallion and mask being tied to a giant cross by Djerassi and another man.

For the sake of posterity, and art, the event was photographed and can be viewed on the web (BatmanCrucifixion).  (Read more: National File, 12/07/2019)  (Archive)

June 29, 2009 – SoS Clinton warns the Wuhan Institute of Virology could lead to “biological weapons proliferation concern”

(Credit: Wikileaks)

“Emails from 2009 have surfaced that reveal Hillary Clinton knew about — and possibly covered up — the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party’s Wuhan Institute of Virology while she was in office as President Obama’s secretary of state.

In a leaked State Department cable obtained from Wikileaks, Clinton warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology could lead to “biological weapons proliferation concern.”

The email was sent in June of 2009 from the State Department to all embassies in member nations.

It is dated just before the Australia Group plenary session in Paris, which took place from September 21st to September 25th, 2009.

According to Human Events, “The Australia Group is an international export control forum organized to prevent the spread of technologies and research that could be used in chemical and biological weapons.

“All Five Eyes nations are members of the group, including the EU, India, Japan, and South Korea.

“China is not a member of the group.”

Clinton’s cable states: “We believe it is important to focus on emerging chemical and biological technologies, trends in the trade of CBW-related goods and threats.”

In reference to France, Clinton writes: “The U.S. believes participants would benefit from hearing about your experiences assisting China in setting up a Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from the export control and intangible technology transfer perspectives.

“We are particularly interested to know how China plans to vet incoming foreign researchers from countries of biological weapons proliferation concern.”

Broadly discussing China’s biological weapons program, Clinton’s cable noted:

“The U.S. believes AG members would be interested in any information you can share related to China and North Korea, specifically information related to:

  • China’s Institutes of Biological Products (locations in Beijing and Wuhan), to include overhead imagery analysis, if possible. 
  • Your perceptions of the CBW proliferation activities by Chinese entities. 
  • Your perceptions of Chinese government efforts to enforce its export control rules.” 

Of course, Clinton kept these concerns to herself once the coronavirus pandemic hit, even referring to allegations that it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the very lab she expressed concerns about — as racist.” (Read more: Slay News, 12/20/2021)  (Archive)

October 2009 – SoS Hillary launches USAID’s PREDICT, a project to study emerging pandemic threats; Hunter Biden’s company, Metabiota, becomes a partner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 22, 2010 – Cheryl Mills sends Clinton a news report on child trafficking fears in Haiti; a week later Laura Silsby is arrested for child trafficking

Cheryl Mills forwards an Agence France Presse article to Hillary Clinton on January 22, 2010, titled “Trafficking Fears as Haiti Children Go Missing.”

Clinton responds, “As predicted.”

One week later on January 29, 2010, Clinton friend, Laura Silsby,  is arrested in Haiti for suspected child-trafficking.

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

(A clipping from the Clinton Foundation website)

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

Why Nigeria’s Legal System is Worth Its Salt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Michael Smith writes more about the legal case:

Dr. Owens Wiwa (Credit: public domain)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The full court’s judgement is here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Hochstein had a secret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Credit: public domain)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Government Handout/Reuters

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

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

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

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

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how it looks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Wall Street Journal, 12/12/2012)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some significant segments:

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

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

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

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

And that’s just from a phone number.

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

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

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

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

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

Read this next excerpt carefully.

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

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

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

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

Also, notice this very important quote:

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

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

Specific people were being tracked/monitored.

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

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

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

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

Now it becomes important to remember in 2016:

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

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

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

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

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

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

None of this is a conspiracy theory.

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

This specific footnote, if declassified, would be key. Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”, this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.

Note also: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, that is important.

Important summary of this aspect: •The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system dating back to around 2012.  •The NSA database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities. •The same people had multiple searches performed against their private information from November of 2015 to May of 2016, the exact time of the Republican presidential primary.

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

September 12, 2012 – Defense, State Dept documents reveal Obama administration knew that al Qaeda terrorists planned Benghazi attack 10 days in advance

Clinton with Libyan rebels upon her departure from Tripoli in Libya on October 18, 2011. (Credit: Reuters)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance. Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, and is serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts.  The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria.  The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria.

The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders “on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi” (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of State(No. 1:14-cv-00812)).

Spelling and punctuation are duplicated in this release without corrections.

A Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group “to kill as many Americans as possible.”  The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Obama White House National Security Council.  The heavily redacted Defense Department “information report” says that the attack on the Benghazi facility “was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR).”  The group subscribes to “AQ ideologies:”

The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.

“A violent radical,” the DIA report says, is “the leader of BCOAR is Abdul Baset ((AZUZ)), AZUZ was sent by ((ZAWARI)) to set up Al Qaeda (AQ) bases in Libya.”  The group’s headquarters was set up with the approval of a “member of the Muslim brother hood movement…where they have large caches of weapons.  Some of these caches are disguised by feeding troughs for livestock.  They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS…they train almost every day focusing on religious lessons and scriptures including three lessons a day of jihadist ideology.”

The Defense Department reported the group maintained written documents, in “a small rectangular room, approximately 12 meters by 6 meters…that contain information on all of the AQ activity in Libya.”

(Azuz is again blamed for the Benghazi attack in an October 2012 DIA document.)

The DOD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:

Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.

The DIA document further details:

The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.  The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]

The heavily redacted document does not disclose who was shipping the weapons.

Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The growing sectarian direction of the war was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, which included the “grave danger” of the rise of ISIS:

The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:

This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.

Some of the “dire consequences” are blacked out but the DIA presciently warned one such consequence would be the “renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.”

From a separate lawsuit, the State Department produced a document created the morning after the Benghazi attack by Hillary Clinton’s offices, and the Operations Center in the Office of the Executive Secretariat that was sent widely through the agency, including to Joseph McManus (then-Hillary Clinton’s executive assistant).  At 6:00 am, a few hours after the attack, the top office of the State Department sent a “spot report” on the “Attack on U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” that makes no mention of videos or demonstrations:

Four COM personnel were killed and three were wounded in an attack by dozens of fighters on the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi beginning approximately 1550 Eastern Time….

The State Department has yet to turn over any documents from the secret email accounts of Hillary Clinton and other top State Department officials.

“These documents are jaw-dropping. No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them.  If the American people had known the truth – that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go – and yet lied and covered this fact up – Mitt Romney might very well be president. And why would the Obama administration continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood even after it knew it was tied to the Benghazi terrorist attack and to al Qaeda? These documents also point to a connection between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war – and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists,” stated Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president.  “These documents show that the Benghazi cover-up has continued for years and is only unraveling through our independent lawsuits. The Benghazi scandal just got a whole lot worse for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.” (Judicial Watch, 5/18/2015)

November 30, 2013 – How Hillary Clinton began the Ukraine war in 2013

Hillary Clinton with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2010. (Credit: State Dept)

The NATO and U.S.-backed war against Russia began in 2000 when Clinton courted New York’s large Ukrainian American constituency in her run for the U.S. Senate.  Hillary openly recognized the Holodomor [Stalin’s plan to starve millions of anti-Russian Ukrainian peasants to death in his 1932-33 communist collective farming disaster]. As a senator, she campaigned on admitting Ukraine to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and promised to set the legislative agenda to admit Ukraine to NATO.

In 2010, Secretary of State Clinton was warmly welcomed in Kyiv by Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. During that visit, Clinton told Yanukovych that “NATO’s door remains open” despite Yanukovych’s evident retreat from pursuing NATO membership. The battlelines between Hillary and Trump trace back to 2004 when Paul Manafort agreed to become a paid advisor to Yanukovych.  Manafort was a top-level Republican operative who had previously worked with Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  Yanukovych was a former governor of Donetsk, a Russian-speaking region of Ukraine close to the border with Russia.

The decisions that led Obama/Hillary/Biden to go to war against Russia in today’s proxy Ukraine-Russia war trace back to November 30, 2013, the day Yanukovych announced he was suspending preparations for signing an agreement to join NATO that had been scheduled to occur at an EU summit held that day in Vilnius, Lithuania.  The State Department’s efforts to block Yanukovych from power in Ukraine began with the Soros-funded Orange Revolution in 2004.  In December 2013, 300,00 Ukrainians took to the streets in the largest protests since the Orange Revolution, this time demanding Yanukovych resign.  These protests developed into the State Department and Soros-funded Maidan Revolution, which ultimately led to Yanukovych fleeing to Russia in February 2014.

On September 21, 2019, investigative journalist Lee Stranahan reported in TGP that Soros funded the International Renaissance Foundation that worked closely with Hillary Clinton’s State Department in Ukraine and contributed at least $8 million to Hillary-affiliated super-PACs in her 2016 presidential campaign cycle.  On March 19, 2015, the Wall Street Journal published a chart showing Ukrainian donors led the list of nations from which contributions by individuals of more than $50,000 went to the Clinton Foundation.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian individual donors contribute $10.0 million to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014.

In August 2016, the Associated Press (AP) broke the story that while she was secretary of state, Clinton hosted in June 2012, a private dinner for Clinton Foundation donors at her home, including Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman whose Ukrainian-based foundation donated at least $8.6 million to the Clinton Foundation.  During the period in which he attended Clinton’s private dinner, Pinchuk had retained Doug Schoen, a New York-based pollster who was a former advisor to President Bill Clinton, to set up meetings with State Department officials.  On February 12, 2014, the New York Times reported that Pinchuk, whose father-in-law is Leonid Kuchma, president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2005, “led a government criticized for corruption, nepotism, and the murder of dissident journalists.”  As president, Kuchma privatized a giant state steel factory and sold it to Pinchuk’s consortium for the low price of approximately $800 million.  The New York Times article also reported that between 2006 and 2014, Pinchuk donated roughly $13.1 million to the Clinton Foundation.  Pinchuk strongly advocated Ukraine joining the EU, a cause he championed with Secretary of State Clinton.

After Hillary left the State Department in 2014, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, took up the cause of getting Ukraine into NATO.  On December 13, 2013, amid the Maidan Revolution, Nuland gave a speech to the U.S. Ukraine Foundation.  In that speech, she said, “When Ukrainians say they are European, this is what they mean.  And as one very prominent Ukrainian businessman said to me, ‘The Maidan Movement’s greatest achievement is that it has proven that the people of Ukraine will no longer support any president—this one [i.e., Yanukovych] or a future one—who does not take them to Europe.’”  In February 2014, a leaked transcript of a telephone call between Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Nuland said, “F… the EU!” in apparent frustration the EU was not equally as strong as the State Department in supporting the Maidan Revolution’s push to for Ukraine to join NATO.

In March 2014, following the Maidan Revolution that ousted Yanukovych, Russian troops invaded and annexed Crimea while supporting Russian-backed separatists supported Russia-aligned Donbas and Luhansk republics as independent states in battles with the Ukrainian army.  On February 18, 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stepped in front of microphones for an impromptu press conference following a meeting of the NATO Defense Ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.  Stoltenberg openly admitted to the Western media that NATO has been at war with Russia since 2014.  “Since 2014, NATO allies have provided support to Ukraine with training and equipment. Ukrainian forces were much stronger in 2022 than they were in 2014.” (Read more: The Gateway Pundit/Corsi, 5/15/2023)  (Archive)

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

Ukraine Gold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 14, 2014 – Glenn Greenwald describes Hillary Clinton: “Banal, corrupted, principle-free, power-hungry…”

In May 2014 during a Q & A with GQ, Glenn Greenwald is asked the following question about the upcoming 2016 election, following with his reply:

How do you feel about the early presidential jockeying?

“Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

I hope this happens so badly, because I think it’ll be so instructive in that regard. It’ll prove the point. Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.” (GQ, 5/14/2014)

Later, in November 2014, Greenwald writes about Hillary’s forthcoming run for the Presidency. Here are some excerpts from the Intercept:

It’s easy to strike a pose of cynicism when contemplating Hillary Clinton’s inevitable (and terribly imminent) presidential campaign. As a drearily soulless, principle-free, power-hungry veteran of DC’s game of thrones, she’s about as banal of an American politician as it gets. One of the few unique aspects to her, perhaps the only one, is how the genuinely inspiring gender milestone of her election will (following the Obama model) be exploited to obscure her primary role as guardian of the status quo.

But one shouldn’t be so jaded. There is genuine and intense excitement over the prospect of (another) Clinton presidency. Many significant American factions regard her elevation to the Oval Office as an opportunity for rejuvenation, as a stirring symbol of hope and change, as the vehicle for vital policy advances. Those increasingly inspired factions include:

Wall Street

Down on Wall Street they don’t believe (Clinton’s populist rhetoric) for a minute. While the finance industry does genuinely hate Warren, the big bankers love Clinton, and by and large they badly want her to be president. Many of the rich and powerful in the financial industry—among them, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, Tom Nides, a powerful vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, and the heads of JPMorganChase and Bank of America—consider Clinton a pragmatic problem-solver not prone to populist rhetoric. To them, she’s someone who gets the idea that we all benefit if Wall Street and American business thrive. What about her forays into fiery rhetoric? They dismiss it quickly as political maneuvers. None of them think she really means her populism. (Read more: The Intercept, 11/14/2014)

In October 2016, candidate Donald Trump was of the same opinion:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015 – 2016: The IMF money withdrawal and laundering scheme, from Ukraine to the Clinton campaign

Translated:

(…) “In May 2016, according to the decision of the Kiev Pechersk Court, some Ukrainian credit organizations used shadow schemes for withdrawing funds through the correspondent accounts of the Austrian Meinl Bank AG, the damage from their actions amounted to more than $ 800 million.

(Credit: Kate Matberg/Mediapart)

Another “ingenious scheme” worked smoothly as follows. Ukrainian banks entered into custody and collateral agreements with a non-resident Austrian bank, in which all amounts of funds on correspondent accounts, accrued interest and any future receipts to these accounts were pledged to the foreign bank. The pledge was provided to ensure the fulfillment of obligations under the loan agreements that the non-resident bank, in turn, concluded with third parties – non-resident companies in Ukraine. The latter were associated with the owners of Ukrainian banking institutions. And the borrowers did not fulfill their loan obligations, for which Meinl Bank AG unilaterally extrajudicially charged (i.e., debited from the accounts of Ukrainian banks) all funds in its favor.

And now let’s take a closer look at the list of these Ukrainian banks and using their own reporting documents (by the way, already removed from the Internet, but still recorded by the author before this sad event), we will analyze some of their activities.

Former Ukraine Minister of Finance, Natalie Jaresko is named to manage Puerto Rico’s financial crisis on March 24, 2017. (Credit: public domain)

Of the 36 banks that were granted loans by the National Bank of Ukraine at the expense of IMF tranches, 11 were closed without returning borrowed funds (June 10, 2014 – March 15, 2018, Chairman of the Board Ms. Gontareva), 11 were closed without returning borrowed funds. It seems not so much in the framework of the “struggle for the purification and improvement of the financial and credit system of the state”.

However, the true scope, excuse my French, the scam becomes clear when it turns out that only eight credit institutions received up to 95% of this money. They strenuously pumped them through the already familiar Austrian Meinl Bank AG with a further withdrawal to private offshore companies in Cyprus and Belize. As a result, six of them have already left the orderly ranks of the banking system of Ukraine. And it happened somehow quietly, almost without ceremony, which suggests the national scale of such “Mummery”. Yes, and the ratio of the numbers 11 to 36, or 6 out of 11, not all the same – 6 out of 8 rather confirms our conjecture that Ms. N. Yaresko who held the post of Minister of Finance from February 12, 2014 to April 14, 2016 owned the situation.

It would not be superfluous to recall that Ms. N. Yaresko, a citizen of the United States treated by the highest presidential power, obtained the citizenship of Ukraine, so to speak, from the hands of Mr. Poroshenko for “special merit.” Was it only for merits to the state and what exactly were her merits?  Maybe in the ability to “correctly” distribute and divide financial flows, primarily taking care of the welfare of Mr. Poroshenko’s “team” and his inner circle?

Former IMF representative in Ukraine, Jerome Vacher (Credit: public domain)

Two more banks – participants of this scheme are PJSC “Credit Dnipro” and PJSC “Delta Bank” affiliated with it (declared insolvent in 2015, the bankruptcy procedure is not completed) continue to operate. Their owner is oligarch Pinchuk V.M. – son-in-law of the former President of Ukraine Kuchma L.D. Mr. Pinchuk maintained close ties with the former representative of the IMF in Ukraine, Mr. Jerome Vacher. In addition, the supervisory board of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the supervisory board of PJSC “Credit Dnipro”. It should also be noted that Mr. Pinchuk is the founder of the “Victor Pinchuk Foundation”, which is funded, including through some private offshore companies.

Do you think this is another final link in the chain of funds adventure allocated by the IMF? Do not hurry! Since 2012, for almost five years, only through the Pinchuk’s fund, “Clinton Foundation” received more than $ 29 million. Yes, my dear Ukrainian reader, Mr. Pinchuk, in fact, became one of the largest financial donors to the former American presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Simultaneously, Mr. Pinchuk did not forget Mr. Poroshenko, paying for his election campaign in the media. Mr. Dudnik A.P. was responsible for this truly significant event for one of the leading Ukrainian oligarchs – yes, exactly the head of the supervisory board of the PJSC “Credit Dnipro” bank.

And this already really looks like a “state level” of the highest standard, especially considering the “State Dept” past of Ms. N. Yaresko. Isn’t it a perfect mediator and “watchwoman” for all interested parties?!

Clinton Foundation mega-donor Victor Pinchuk, (l), Toomas Hendrik (c), President of the Republic of Estonia and Petro Poroshenko (r), President of Ukraine. (Credit: Pinchuk Fund)

So instead of financing own economy, the current Ukrainian government headed by Mr. Poroshenko in effect, created a corrupt scheme of international scope, replenished its personal reserves “for a rainy day” and pleased the “democrats” ruling in the USA at that time. However, the Ukrainian president is not very successful with the current American “partners”. Violating the laws of at least two countries, as well as all conceivable principles of democracy and decency (yes, they also exist in politics, to put it mildly, are peculiar, but still) the US Democratic Party actually received uncontrollable income at the expense of the world financial organization allocated to support economy of another state – Ukraine. A crime? Yes! And it is very similar to the “payoff”! (Read more: Kate Matberg/Mediapart, 4/15/2019)

(Timeline editor’s note: We hope documents will be released to further verify this information.)

March 19, 2015 – Hillary Clinton: ‘We really need camps for adults.’

“The likely 2016 presidential candidate who believes it takes a village to raise a child is now proposing “camps for adults.” Hillary Clinton is worried about America’s “fun deficit,” not our deficit-deficit, and told a group gathered for a speech that “We really need camps for adults.”

As I have gotten older, I have decided we really need camps for adults. And we need adults camps that you all run. Really. None of the serious stuff. None of the life-challenging stuff… more fun. I think we have a huge fun deficit in America. And we need to figure out how to fill that fun deficit, certainly for our kids but also for the rest of us. We need some [garbled] from time to time, maybe some enrichment, certainly some time outdoors. Maybe actually spending time with people that we didn’t know before.

This bizarre manifestation of Clinton’s well-known collective impulses has already been greeted by plenty of Twitter mockery. (Breitbart, 3/19/2015)  (Archive)

 

March 19, 2015 – Ukrainian oligarch, Victor Pinchuk’s ties to Serhiy Leshchenko and the Clintons

On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama’s former White House counsel and a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with Manafort, was paid more than $4 million to produce an “independent” report justifying Ukraine’s trial and conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig’s name was not included in the “Black Ledger” leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.

The indictment notes that “a wealthy private Ukrainian” was fully funding the report. In a recent YouTube video, Craig publicly stated that “it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who helped to fund the project.”

“The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk,” Skadden wrote in recent FARA filings.

Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:

“Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report.”

Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank, several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at severely below-market prices through political favoritism.

Between April 4 and April 12, 2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had four meetings, with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

FARA documents filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5)—in part to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It’s unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.

In September 2013, Pinchuk pays Clinton to appear at a YES event promoting Ukrainian membership of the European Union, break with Russia, and regime change in Kiev and Moscow. (Credit: Pinchuk Foundation)

Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons continued. According to the Kyiv Post:

“Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist.”

Although exact numbers aren’t clear, reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk’s donations went to the Clinton organization.

Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast, a traditional private event held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 4/26/2019)

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

 

Vadym Pozharskyi (Credit: public domain)

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

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

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

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

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

2015 – VP Joe Biden meets with Hunter, Devon Archer, and prospective client at VP mansion

Marc Holtzman, former CEO, JSC Kazkommertsbank (Credit: public domain)

Hunter Biden hosted a breakfast meeting between his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, his then-business partner Devon Archer, a prospective international business client — in the vice president’s mansion in Washington, D.C., in 2015, according to a report.

Just the News reported Thursday the prospective business client was international banker Marc Holtzman, who Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were courting for business in Kazakhstan. Holtzman in turn was advocating for former Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov — who is currently imprisoned for treason — to become the next United Nations Secretary General, according to the report.

The meeting was recently disclosed by Archer in congressional testimony, the report said.

Archer’s testimony contradicts President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly denied ever speaking to his son about his business dealings.

Although it is not the first time the then-vice president had met with his son and his son’s business partners, this meeting occurred in the then-vice president’s mansion at the Naval Observatory, and could be of interest to House investigators as they begin their impeachment inquiry that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced on Tuesday.

A view of the security around the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, Jan. 17, 2021. (Credit: Susan Walsh/AP)

The meeting was reportedly not registered in official entry logs released by the Obama administration.

According to a transcript of Archer’s testimony, Hunter Biden and Archer had hoped that Holtzman, who was then the top official at Kazakhstan’s largest bank, could help deliver an energy deal for their Burisma client in Ukraine with Kazakhstan, which he and Hunter Biden called the “Burisma Eurasia” deal.

“Joe Biden was in a position to influence both,” Just the News reported. (Read more: 9/14/2023)  (Archive)

(Timeline editor’s note: We have given this timeline entry an estimated date in 2015.)

Aug. 26, 2015 – Donna Brazile: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC

(Credit: Robyn Beck/Getty Images)

Donna Brazile is the former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee. Excerpted from the book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House to be published on November 7, 2017, by Hachette Books, a division of Hachette Book Group. Copyright 2017 Donna Brazile.

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

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

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

By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.

***

The Saturday morning after the convention in July, I called Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillary’s campaign. He wasted no words. He told me the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt.

“What?” I screamed. “I am an officer of the party and they’ve been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems.”

That wasn’t true, he said. Officials from Hillary’s campaign had taken a look at the DNC’s books. Obama left the party $24 million in debt—$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign—and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama’s campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016. Hillary for America (the campaign) and the Hillary Victory Fund (its joint fundraising vehicle with the DNC) had taken care of 80 percent of the remaining debt in 2016, about $10 million, and had placed the party on an allowance.

If I didn’t know about this, I assumed that none of the other officers knew about it, either. That was just Debbie’s way. In my experience, she didn’t come to the officers of the DNC for advice and counsel. She seemed to make decisions on her own and let us know at the last minute what she had decided, as she had done when she told us about the hacking only minutes before the Washington Post broke the news.

On the phone, Gary told me the DNC had needed a $2 million loan, which the campaign had arranged.

“No! That can’t be true!” I said. “The party cannot take out a loan without the unanimous agreement of all of the officers.”

“Gary, how did they do this without me knowing?” I asked. “I don’t know how Debbie relates to the officers,” Gary said. He described the party as fully under the control of Hillary’s campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. Under FEC law, an individual can contribute a maximum of $2,700 directly to a presidential campaign. But the limits are much higher for contributions to state parties and a party’s national committee.

Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund—that figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states’ parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement—$320,000—and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.

“Wait,” I said. “That victory fund was supposed to be for whoever was the nominee, and the state party races. You’re telling me that Hillary has been controlling it since before she got the nomination?”

Gary said the campaign had to do it or the party would collapse.

“That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook. “It was to sustain the DNC. We sent the party nearly $20 million from September until the convention, and more to prepare for the election.”

“What’s the burn rate, Gary?” I asked. “How much money do we need every month to fund the party?”

The burn rate was $3.5 million to $4 million a month, he said.

I gasped. I had a pretty good sense of the DNC’s operations after having served as interim chair five years earlier. Back then the monthly expenses were half that. What had happened? The party chair usually shrinks the staff between presidential election campaigns, but Debbie had chosen not to do that. She had stuck lots of consultants on the DNC payroll, and Obama’s consultants were being financed by the DNC, too.

When we hung up, I was livid. Not at Gary, but at this mess I had inherited. I knew that Debbie had outsourced a lot of the management of the party and had not been the greatest at fundraising. I would not be that kind of chair, even if I was only an interim chair. Did they think I would just be a surrogate for them, get on the road and rouse up the crowds? I was going to manage this party the best I could and try to make it better, even if Brooklyn did not like this. It would be weeks before I would fully understand the financial shenanigans that were keeping the party on life support.” (Read more: Politico, 11/07/2017)

NPR reports having seen a copy of the agreement dated August 26, 2015, that Clinton made with the DNC and transcribes it here.

September 25, 2015 – Professor John J. Mearsheimer: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis

UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.

October 22, 2015 – FBI leadership shows double standard for Clinton and Trump 2016 campaigns…defensive briefings for Clinton, FISA warrants for team Trump

“Declassified documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee show FBI leadership exhibited a “double standard” for President Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaigns, according to Chairman Lindsey Graham.

The South Carolina Republican said FBI materials, which he unveiled on Sunday, show an FBI field office wanted to pursue a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant in 2015 related to an “operative” believed to be connected to a foreign government trying to influence Clinton’s campaign by “illegally” funneling millions of dollars but were stopped by the bureau’s “Seventh Floor,” which demanded Clinton’s team receive a defensive briefing about “the problem so she could fix it.”

(…) Graham’s office released the documents soon after his appearance on Fox News. The chairman did not identify the Clinton campaign associate and told anchor Maria Bartiromo that he was not at liberty to identify the country the FBI believed to be attempting to infiltrate Clinton’s team.

“There was a clear double standard by the Department of Justice and FBI when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016,” Graham said in a statement. “These newly released documents indicate that a foreign government was trying to influence the Clinton campaign through a campaign associate and the FBI was seeking a FISA warrant. However, the Bureau, as it is supposed to do, required that Hillary Clinton be defensively briefed about the matter so she could engage in corrective action.”

When it came the Trump’s campaign, Graham said, “There were four counterintelligence investigations opened against Trump campaign associates. Not one time was President Trump defensively briefed about the FBI’s concerns. Even more egregious, when the FBI gave a generic briefing to the Trump campaign about foreign influence, not only did they fail to mention the specific concerns about Trump associates, they sent an FBI agent into the briefing to monitor President Trump and General Flynn.”

The defensive briefing to Clinton’s campaign was conducted at FBI headquarters on Oct. 22, 2015 by counterintelligence official David Archey. The briefing was also attended by two Clinton attorneys — referred to only as “Counsel to Hillary Clinton” from “Lawfirm” in the redacted documents. The summary of the briefing notes that a “full investigation” had been initiated on Nov. 25, 2014, and FBI emails indicate that the DOJ’s Office of Intelligence had sent the FBI a FISA application certification on Dec. 15, 2014, for final FBI approval, which apparently never happened.

“The purpose of the meeting was to provide a classified defensive briefing for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign,” Archey wrote. “Counsel to Hillary Clinton were advised the FBI has information that the Foreign Government is attempting to influence Hillary Clinton through lobbying efforts and campaign contributions. The campaign contributions may come in a form outside established parameters for such contributions.”

Archey also advised Clinton’s lawyers that “the FBI was providing them with this briefing for awareness and so Ms. Clinton could take appropriate action to protect herself.” The FBI provided Clinton’s lawyers with “examples of issues that were known to be potentially important to the Foreign Government” including five different pieces of “Sensitive Information,” which are redacted. Archey said the campaign “should increase its vigilance of contributions related to any of the matters discussed above.”

A number of declassified FBI emails from earlier in 2015, before her campaign began, show members of the FBI pushing for a FISA against the unnamed person connected to an unnamed foreign government attempting to influence Clinton’s probable campaign and wondering what was behind the holdup.

“WSJ is reporting that Hillary Clinton plans to formally announce her 2016 Presidential candidacy in April 2015. To me, this underscores the need for us to push this FISA. By the time we get it signed and go up, we would only be up a few weeks before she announces, at best,” one FBI official wrote on March 2, 2015. “On the other hand, if we wait for the events to unfold … her announcement may occur in advance of us getting the FISA coverage. That puts us even further behind the curve on the intel necessary for this operation.”

The next month, an unnamed FBI special agent-in-charge wrote an email to FBI Director James Comey, lamenting that “the FISA application has remained in limbo for the last four months, even though subsequent investigative activity” by an unnamed person held office “provided additional probable cause.” The field office was “still uncertain as to why the application has not been sent to DOJ for final approval,” according to the April 14, 2015 email, “although several reasons have been put forth” including that “the decision to put the application on hold” originated “on the seventh floor” — referring to FBI leadership.

“While superficially connected to political candidates, the investigation targets a NONUSPER [Non-U.S. Person] involved in illegal activity; it does not target the candidate(s), and there is no evidence the candidate is even aware of the potential targeting,” the special agent told Comey.

Ultimately, the FISA didn’t happen, according to Graham. His press release decried a “double standard” by the FBI when it came to the Clinton and Trump campaigns. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 8/23/2020)  (Archive)

SJC Clinton briefing by Danny Chaitin on Scribd

November 2, 2015 – Emails: Burisma adviser tells Hunter Biden his ‘ultimate purpose’ is to ‘close down’ investigations

Mykola Zlochevsky, founder of Burisma Holdings, hired U.S. consultants to help boost his company’s image. (Credit: Pavlo Gonchar/Zuma Press)

“An adviser to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma suggested in an email in 2015 that Hunter Biden was expected to provide “deliverables” for the company, including the “ultimate purpose” of stopping “cases/pursuits into the company’s founder.

The email, contained in a batch published by Ken LaCorte at the Media Action Network, is reportedly from the same laptop that has been the source for a recent series of articles in the New York Post purportedly about Hunter Biden’s business dealings. The authenticity of the emails has not been verified.

The batch includes an email in November 2015 from Burisma adviser Vadim Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden’s business partners (on which Hunter Biden was cc’ed), outlining a set of “deliverables.”

The emails make clear that Biden and his partners were expected to arrange meetings with U.S. and Ukrainian officials with the goal of “improving Nikolay’s case and his situation in Ukraine.”

“Nikolay” appears to refer to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, according to the Post.

Pozharskyi wrote that the “list of deliverables” included “the ultimate purpose” of stopping “cases/pursuits against Nikolay”:

Timeline editor’s note: When looking for a pic of Eric D. Schwerin who was cc’d in the letter, I found this pic and an interesting Twitter thread with more information about him:

Other emails in the trove show a keen awareness of Hunter Biden’s relationship to his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was leading U.S. diplomacy with regard to Ukraine.” (Read more: Breitbart, 10/16/2020)  (Archive)

November 2, 2015 – Burisma exec discusses with Hunter Biden the expectations of ‘high-ranking US officials in Ukraine

Hunter Biden’s associate in his business with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings discussed expectations of “high-ranking US officials in Ukraine” one month before then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to demand the firing of a prosecutor investigating the company.

Joe Biden, who bragged in 2018 about the firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin by Poroshenko, was on an official visit to Ukraine in 2015. During the visit, he met with Poroshenko in Kiev about Ukraine’s corruption. But four months after the meeting, Poroshenko fired Shokin, a prosecutor investigating Burisma, which paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month to sit on its board.

Vadym Pozharski (l) and Hunter Biden (Credit: public domain)

On November 2, 2015, one month before Joe Biden visited Ukraine, Hunter Biden received an email from Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma executive, about his “ultimate purpose” of working with Hunter Biden and his associates, Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer, a fellow Burisma board member.

Pozharskyi wrote the email with the subject line: “Re: Revised Burisma Proposal, Contract and Invoice.” The email outlines the scope of work he expected from Hunter Biden and his associates regarding a new project. It detailed the “ultimate purpose” of an agreement with Blue Star Strategies to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Mykola Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

Blue Star Strategies is a Washington, DC, PR firm that worked for Burisma. Hunter Biden connected the firm to Burisma through Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s wife, according to emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“Dear colleagues, Hope you are well. Thank you for the docs provided. I have analyzed them most carefully and came up with a few of the following observations…” Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter and his associates:

My only concern is for us to be on the same page re our final goals. With this in mind, I would like us to formulate a list of deliverables, including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions, incl. meetings/communications resulting in high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their ‘positive opinion’ and support of Nikolay/Burisma to the highest level of decision makers here in Ukraine: President of Ukraine, president Chief of staff, Prosecutor General, etc.

The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine.

Schwerin forwarded Pozharskyi’s message to Hunter Biden and Archer the same day and suggested how

Hunter Biden could placate Pozharskyi’s objections to the pitch as Hunter Biden’s initial pitch to Pozharskyi lacked specific names of officials who would visit the Ukrainian president:

I would tell Vadym that this is definitely done deliberately to be on the safe and cautious side and that Sally and company understand the scope and deliverables. And that we will be having regular (daily, weekly, monthly) opportunities be in through conference calls or memos to be continually refining and updating the scope.

Hunter Biden replied to Pozharskyi’s email, assuring him he could deliver. “You should go ahead and sign,” he wrote on Nov. 5, 2015. “Looking forward to getting started on this,” Hunter Biden added.

One month later, Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine to speak with the president of Ukraine. Soon afterward in March 2016, the president of Ukraine fired the prosecutor who was looking into Burisma. (Read more: Breitbart, 7/16/2023)  (Archive)

December 19, 2015 – A Wikileaks email reveals a Dominion advisor meets with John Podesta offering ‘anything’ that would help defeat Trump

Kamran Bajwa (Credit: Kirkland & Ellis)

“An email previously released by WikiLeaks reveals that a Dominion Voting advisor met with John Podesta during Hillary Clinton’s campaign to discuss ways that they could help to defeat Donald Trump.

In 2018, Dominion Voting announced that it had been acquired by its management team and Staple Street Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, who was being advised by Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

During Clinton’s campaign, according to an email chain released by WikiLeaks, Kirkland & Ellis LLP partner Kamran S. Bajwa met with John Podesta while offering “anything” to help defeat Donald Trump.

Podesta, at the time, was chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

On Saturday, December 19, 2015, Bajwa wrote to Podesta:

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 12/05/2020)  (Archive)

December 2015 – Patrick Byrne participates in a FBI sting to set Hillary Clinton up with accepting a foreign bribe

(Credit: UncoverDC)

(…) Between November 2015 and December 2015, Butina said that she got word from Aleksandr Torshin (a Russian politician) that four people would be in the running for the White House: Clinton, Trump, Rubio, or Cruz. He allegedly wanted her to focus on them so that she could have contacts in a new administration. Byrne relays that not long after, she mentioned she had made a contact in the Clinton camp and was now actively working on the other 3.

By December 2015 Byrne says he was having regular face-to-face meetings with the FBI to discuss Butina and how he should proceed. In late 2015, two FBI agents that Byrne was familiar with from the Wall Street 2005-2006 case told him, “We need you to shift to working on something more important. The Bureau is setting Hillary Clinton up in a sting. We need you to arrange a bribe for her.” Byrne relays that the FBI told him “There are two groups in the FBI investigating the Clintons. There is a group looking into Hillary’s emails, but we think that is a whitewash. Yet there is a group of agents in New York City looking into her finances, and they want to put her ass in stir.”

According to Byrne, the FBI agents explained, “Comey had been blocking such ‘aggressive investigative techniques’ (e.g., a sting) on Hillary, claiming there was insufficient predicate acts to establish that she had a prior disposition.” Byrne continued, “Recently information had come in, however, that Hillary had accepted a bribe in the low tens of millions of dollars. They told me who it was from (a foreign government) and how it was done. The FBI agents in New York had leveraged that information to force Comey to sign off on setting Hillary up in a bribery sting.” He went on, “Now those New York agents were asking for my help. It was believed that a different foreign government (of a country to which I had never traveled) wanted to pay Hillary a bribe (in the teens-millions) in return for having Hillary privately pledge what one aspect of President Hillary’s policy towards their nation would be. My assignment was to create the following end-state: within two months, Hillary Clinton and that government’s bagman are to be somewhere together alone in a room for 10 minutes. You take it from there, Byrne.”

Byrne says he was asked by New York FBI agents to set up a meeting with Hillary Clinton and a foreign government’s “bagman” to facilitate Hillary pledging one aspect of her presidential policy towards that foreign government. The assignment broke down into Steps A – B – C – D, with “D” being, Hillary Clinton walks into a room alone and spends 10 minutes with a bagman. Within 5 weeks he says he achieved A – B – C. In addition, Hillary was 13 hours away from walking into a room alone (using a method which would keep any record from appearing in Hillary’s schedule) to spend 10 minutes with that government’s bagman, where that government’s desires would be expressed and money offered. Byrne was not in the room when it happened and could not say for sure what happened over the next 13 hours.

Days later, Byrne says he was summoned once more by the FBI and they scrubbed the mission asking that he forget the entire conversation ever took place. “You must erase every second of this from your memory,” they said.

They further explained, “Hillary Clinton is going to be our next president and nothing can stop that now. The day she becomes President, the first thing she is going to do is send her people over to the FBI and find out who was part of investigating her, and we are all going to be destroyed. That includes you, Patrick. This mission has been scrubbed from the highest level.”

Byrne says that after several weeks, he requested another meeting with the FBI. He was unsettled by the last meeting and wanted more clarity. The agents elaborated, “What’s going on, Patrick is that at this point President Obama has his people across the federal bureaucracy, but especially the Department of Justice. Hillary is going to be president for eight years and nothing is going to stop that, but while she’s president the evidence about bribery that you were part of gathering is going to be sitting on a “Bunsen burner” inside the DOJ, and the hand on that Bunsen burner is going to be the hand of one of Barack Obama’s people. If Hillary is a good girl, defends Obamacare, etc., that hand will keep the Bunsen burner on “Low”. If she is a bad girl, starts thinking for herself, that hand [mimes twisting a dial] will turn the Bunsen burner to “High”. That way, for the eight years she is President, Hillary is going to be managed by Barack Obama. Then Hillary is going to step down, and Michelle is going to run… And Patrick, that’s the plan.”

Byrne recounts that he said, “I got it,” to the three federal agents as he thought to himself, “I am going to fuck this program up on a world-historic scale….. the moment I get a kill-shot.” (Read more: UncoverDC, 10/21/2020)  (Archive)

February 26, 2016 – Podesta emails reveal the Clinton campaign discussing a ‘Trump swift boat project’

Hillary Clinton and Jennifer Palmieri on the 2016 campaign trail. (Credit: public domain)

“The Clinton campaign discussed assembling a “swift boat project” earlier this year to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to newly released emails from WikiLeaks.

In a Feb. 26, 2016, exchange involving Democratic strategist Joel Johnson, as well as Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri and chairman John Podesta, assembling a group to destroy Trump was discussed.

Swift-boating refers to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that accused John Kerry of fabricating his exploits to win decorations during his military service in Vietnam when he ran for president in 2004.

The term “swift-boating” has since become synonymous with nasty campaign tactics. (Read more: The New York Post, 10/24/2016) h/t x22report.com

 

March 2, 2016 – Devon Archer meets with SoS John Kerry shortly after Ukraine prosecutor Shokin resigns

Devon Archer and John Kerry (Credit: Fox News)

(…) Archer was scheduled to meet with Kerry on March 2, 2016, weeks before the Ukrainian parliament removed Shokin from his position, a redacted State Department email reported on by Fox News shows.

“Devon Archer coming to see S today at 3:00pm – need someone to meet/greet him at C Street,” the March 2, 2016, email says, according to a screenshot shared by Fox. The “S” referred to in the email is a shorthand for Kerry, the outlet concluded based on additional email communications.

The email was first released in 2019 and it resulted in a records request from Republican Sens. Grassley of Iowa and Johnson of Wisconsin, sent to Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Ukrainian parliament relieved Shokin of his duties in March 2016, a month after Shokin filed his letter of resignation at the request of then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Then-Vice President Joe Biden bragged in September 2016 about how he used a $1 billion loan guarantee to pressure Ukraine into firing Shokin.

“You remember last year I was authorized to say we’d do the second tranche of a billion dollars,” Joe Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations. “And [Poroshenko] didn’t fire his chief prosecutor. And because I have the confidence of the president, I was there, and I said: ‘I’m not signing it. Until you fire him, we’re not signing, man. Get it straight. We’re not doing it.’”

Archer testified before the House Oversight Committee in July, saying the Biden family “brand” protected Burisma and kept the firm in business. He said Joe Biden spoke with his son’s business associates over 20 times and specifically recalled a spring 2014 dinner with Russian oligarch Elena Baturina, as well as a spring 2015 dinner with Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi.

Archer also testified that Hunter Biden “called D.C.” in December 2015 because of pressure from Pozharskyi and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky. It’s unclear if Joe Biden was on the other end of the phone call.

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/28/2023))  (Archive)

From Jonathan Turley’s Fox News link above:

(…) In 2013, Archer exchanged emails with Kerry’s then-chief of staff at the State Department, David Wade, organizing a call between Kerry and then-Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Yerlan Idrisov.

“Devon: understand you spoke to the Secretary re having him call Foreign Minister Idrisov today, can you let me know topics Idrisov wants to talk about/any requests he’ll have of the boss, so we can get paper prepared for a call,” Wade wrote.

Archer told Wade that Idrisov wanted to speak with Kerry about keeping open a direct line of communication between the two of them as well as brief him on a “subject as it relates to Afghanistan.”

Wade went on to advise Hunter on rapid response related to Burisma after leaving the State Department in June 2015, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Archer exchanged emails with Kerry’s then-chief of staff to organize a call between Kerry and then-Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Yerlan Idrisov. (Credit: Fox News)

Archer co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners with Hunter and Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, his Yale roommate, in 2009.

In a 2012 email chain, when then-Sen. Kerry was serving as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Archer listed him as one of his top references for Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) after one of the firm’s partners told Archer and Hunter they needed their “bazooka references.”

An individual with knowledge of the reference list told Fox News Digital they were not aware of Kerry ever vouching for RSTP or its clients. The individual, who requested anonymity, went on to say that Hunter and Archer’s role was to help navigate Washington but also said they would sever ties with Hunter after he was kicked out of the Navy Reserve for cocaine in late 2014 and that Archer’s position was cut the following year because he wasn’t doing any work for RSTP.

The State Department and Archer’s lawyer did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. (Fox News, 8/28/2023)

(Timeline editor’s note: According to our timeline, Shokin turned in his resignation to Poroshenko on February 19, 2016 and he was officially removed by the Ukrainian Parliament on March 29, 2016. The meeting between John Kerry and Devon Archer occurred after  Shokin had resigned and before Hunter Biden friendly Yuriy Lutsenko replaces Shokin .)

March 19, 2016 – The phishing email that hacks the account of John Podesta, originates from Ukraine

“This appears to be the phishing email that hacked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account. Further, The Clinton campaign’s own computer help desk thought it was real email sent by Google, even though the email address had a suspicious “googlemail.com” extension.”

podesta-phishing.png

The email, with the subject line “*Someone has your password,*” greeted Podesta, “Hi John” and then said, “Someone just used your password to try to sign into your Google Account john.podesta@gmail.com.” Then it offered a time stamp and an IP address in “Location: Ukraine.”

“Google stopped this sign-in attempt. You should change your password immediately.” And it then offered a link to change his password.

“This is a legitimate email,” Charles Delevan at the HFA help desk wrote to Podesta’s chief of staff, Sara Latham. “John needs to change his password immediately, and ensure that two-factor authentication is turned on his account.”

legitimate-email.png

Delevan included the Gmail link that would be used to change a user’s password, but whoever changed Podesta’s password instead clicked on the shortened URL that was in the original phishing email. This is the same technique used to hack Colin Powell’s emails and the Democratic National Committee emails, according to the website Motherboard.” (Read more: CBS News, 10/28/2016) (Wikileaks – Podesta Emails)

March 28, 2016 – National Archives refuses to release Hillary Clinton’s draft indictments in response to a Judicial Watch FOIA request

“Should the American public be allowed to view the draft indictment of Hillary Clinton over the Whitewater case? Judicial Watch, the organization founded to promote transparency in government, has sued to make the allegations against her public.

According to Judicial Watch:

The draft indictments relate to allegations that Clinton provided false information and withheld evidence from federal investigators to conceal her involvement with the defunct Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, the collapse of which lead to multiple criminal convictions. Clinton provided legal representation to Madison Guaranty as an attorney at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. Clinton’s Rose Law Firm billing records, long sought by prosecutors, were found in the private quarters of the White House shortly after an important statute of limitations had expired.

But the National Archives argues that Clinton’s privacy must be protected in this instance.

“While there may be a scintilla of public interest in these documents since Mrs. Clinton is presently a Democratic presidential candidate, that fact alone is not a cognizable public interest under FOIA, as disclosure of the draft indictments would not shed light on what the government is up to,” a statement from the organization read.

The draft indictment would open up new questions about the Whitewater case, which dogged the Clintons in the 1990’s and again remind the public of Hillary’s scandalous efforts to cover up politically damaging stories. Judicial Watch has sued the National Archives for the documents, filing a brief in February. The organization has already forced the release 246 pages of previously undisclosed Office of Independent Counsel internal memos related to the case.

“It is absurd for the Obama administration to argue that Hillary Clinton’s privacy would keep a draft indictment from the American public,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “One can’t help but conclude that the Obama administration is doing a political favor for Hillary Clinton at the expense of the public’s right to know about whether prosecutors believed she may have committed federal crimes.” (Breitbart, 3/28/2016)  (Archive)

April-September 2016: Unpacking the other Clinton-linked Russia dossier – A closer look at the Shearer memos/dossier

Cody Shearer (Credit: public domain)

“Rep. Nunes is not the first Republican to question what role the Shearer memo may have played in the FBI’s investigation into the Trump team and its possible role in securing the warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Chairman Charles Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee alluded to the Shearer document in a memorandum attached to a Jan. 4, 2018 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein referring Steele to the Department of Justice for a criminal inquiry. In their redacted classified memorandum, the two Republican senators hint at the possibility that the FBI’s probe into the Trump team’s possible ties to Russia is the result of an operation managed by the Clinton inner circle.

“One memorandum by Mr. Steele that was not published by BuzzFeed is dated October 19, 2016,” write Grassley and Graham. “Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company ‘received this report from [REDACTED] US State Department,’ that the report was second in a series, and that the report was information that came from a foreign sub-source who ‘is in touch with [REDACTED], a contact of [REDACTED], a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to [REDACTED].’ It is troubling enough that the Clinton campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele’s allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility.”

Writing in his Feb. 8 Washington Post op-ed about getting the Shearer memo from Sidney Blumenthal in  September 2016, Obama State Department official Winer explained that soon after the Blumenthal meeting, he met with Christopher Steele. Winer had known Steele, a longtime associate who often used Winer as his point of contact at the State Department. Steele had shown Winer the memos he’d written on Trump’s possible ties to Russia.

Winer asserted that in reading Shearer’s memo, he was “struck … how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources.” He shared Shearer’s memo with Steele, who described it as “potentially ‘collateral’ information,” presumably to buttress his own findings. The FBI, as Winer explained, had asked Steele to provide any supporting information. From the Grassley-Graham letter, it appears that Steele gave the FBI the Shearer report titled “FSB Interview,” “the second in a series.” He either withheld the first, “The Compromised Candidate” report, or Winer never gave it to him.

During the same period, late summer and early fall, the FBI was seeking a FISA warrant on Carter Page. A Department of Justice spokesperson declined comment when RCI emailed to ask if the Shearer memo was used as part of the Steele dossier to secure the warrant on Page’s communications that was granted Oct. 21, 2016.

When news of the Shearer memo broke more than a year later, the Guardian reported in a Jan. 30, 2018 article that the FBI “is still assessing details in the ‘Shearer memo’ and is pursuing intriguing leads.” The memo, the Guardian explained, “was initially viewed with skepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organizations before the election.”

Even as his FSB memo was provided to the FBI before the election,  it appears that Shearer was shopping his information to press outfits while also comparing rumors with leading journalists. Shearer’s first report, “The Compromised Candidate,” is a record of various journalists and media personalities explaining how they’ve heard the same rumors, and even tried, unsuccessfully, to report the story that Shearer is pushing in the second report.

Robert Baer (Credit: CNN)

(…) In the same report, Shearer quotes a conversation with former CIA officer Robert Baer, again hinting at another intermediary between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Shearer writes that Baer told him “the Russians had established an encrypted communication system with a cut out between the Trump campaign and Putin.”

Baer told RCI that “he’d heard that story from acquaintances at the New York Times who were trying to run the story down.”

Baer said he remembered speaking with Shearer about Trump and Russia in “March or April” of 2016. If Baer’s memory is correct then Shearer was investigating the Trump story at around the same time the Clinton campaign and the DNC hired Fusion GPS to compile opposition research on the Trump campaign.

Shearer writes in his first report that he was told by Alan Cullison of the Wall Street Journal that Fusion GPS principals and former Journal reporters, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch (Shearer misspells both names in the memo) had been hired by the DNC to “rack [sic] down Trump compromised story.”

(…) The inaccuracies in Shearer’s account fuel suspicions that he misidentified the source of the information on who was funding the Steele dossier. What matters is that Shearer knew who was paying for Fusion GPS’s work on Trump. More important, if Steele received both of Shearer’s reports in September 2016, that would contradict the information in the FBI’s warrant application that said Steele didn’t know who was paying for his work. The source of the funding was right there in Shearer’s first memo. The FBI’s warrant application, however, says Simpson “never advised Source No. 1 [Mr. Steele] as to the motivation behind the research into candidate’s #1 [Mr. Trump’s] ties to Russia.” If Steele had both of Shearer’s reports, he knew he was being paid by the DNC.

This Washington Post Steele dossier timeline indicates Steele’s memo dated September 14, 2016, sounds very similar to Shearer’s FSB “pee-pee” memo that Jonathan Winer gave to Steele in the same month. (Credit: Washington Post)

The members of the press corps whom Simpson and Steele were briefing during that period almost certainly knew who was paying. Shearer’s notes, according to the Feb. 9, 2018 Journal article, “circulated in political and journalistic circles in Washington in late 2016.” Whoever saw both of Shearer’s reports would have known that the DNC was paying for the Fusion GPS campaign—long before the information became public a year later, in October 2017.

Cullison, who declined to comment for this story, was the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow correspondent for 20 years. The memo has him telling Shearer that since May 2016 he, too, had been looking into rumors of Trump’s activities in Moscow, including allegations of his sexual activities.

“Our reporter was unable to corroborate these allegations,” WSJ spokesperson Severinghaus said in the February Journal article, “and determined the information provided by Mr. Shearer did not meet our high standards for fair and accurate reporting.”

To this date, no journalist has been able to confirm on its own any of the incendiary allegations of Trump-Russia collusion story since the rumors surfaced during the 2016 presidential campaign. The first accounts of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia were published by Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News (Sept. 23, 2016) and David Corn of Mother Jones (Oct. 31). Both were sourced to Steele’s research.

Shearer’s first report shows that the story was circulating through the press corps for months, and no one was able to confirm it.

Shearer tried to drum up interest in the collusion narrative but no one in the press was biting. No one was willing to sink time and prestige on material sourced to unnamed Russian intelligence officials that was provided by a Clinton political operative whose partner, Sidney Blumenthal, had an even more controversial reputation.

But it would be different if it came from someone else, an intelligence operative whose American handlers worked up a suitable legend of his exploits in a glamorous, allied clandestine service, and his deep knowledge of all things Russian. So what did it matter if Steele had become an executive in a corporate intelligence firm whose official cover had been blown a decade before and who hadn’t been to Russia in years? The byline of a former MI6 agent could credential a compendium of unsubstantiated rumors when the names of Clinton confederates Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal could not.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 4/26/2018)  (Archive)

 

May 4, 2016 – The FBI, CIA and Russia know what the Clinton campaign is doing with its Trump-Russia collusion plan

(Credit: Nick Diggory/Getty Images)

“Barack Obama’s spy chiefs never believed that Donald Trump was a Russian spy. The Trump-Russia collusion narrative originated as a diversionary tactic in the event emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server went public. FBI Headquarters attached itself to the project, devoting manpower and resources to investigating Trump, when the Bureau learned that foreign intelligence services had her correspondence.

U.S. Attorney John Durham’s nearly two-year-long investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe of the 2016 Trump campaign is, according to news reports, making “excellent progress” and expanding. The shape of the case has been clear for some time, as I reported in my 2019 book, “The Plot Against the President”: the Clinton campaign was worried about the candidate’s emails going public. The decision to protect her could not possibly be made by mid-level FBI field agents and lawyers but only by senior U.S. officials.

(…) The FBI seemed to have become aware several months earlier that her emails had been compromised and was already planning the second leg of its cover-up before it had concluded the first. On May 4, FBI agent Peter Strzok texted FBI lawyer Lisa Page “Now the pressure really starts to finish [Midyear Exam].” Page texted back: “It sure does.”

I asked the former Obama official why the FBI’s interests dovetailed with those of the Clinton campaign. Was the Bureau concerned that its counterintelligence mission would be tarnished with Clinton’s emails in possession of a foreign spy service? “They were on Team Hillary,” says the former Obama official. “They didn’t care about their mission. According to John Brennan’s handwritten notes, Russia knew what the Clinton campaign was doing with its Russia collusion plan. The FBI must have also known Russia knew and went ahead with it anyway. And then Brennan used it as the basis of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment, even though the Russians knew it was based on a fabrication.”

Government documents further substantiate the assessment that the purpose of Crossfire Hurricane was to defend against the potential release of Clinton’s emails and protect her candidacy.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/17/2020)  (Archive)

June 15, 2016 – Guccifer2.0 claims are debunked and discredited – “Russia-tainted metadata” and Warren Flood

“Guccifer2.0 stated in an interview with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (for Motherboard / Vice News) on June 21, 2016, that he breached the server using a “0-day exploit of NGP-Van”.

ThreatConnect, although still apparently unswayed from their assessment that Guccifer2.0 is a collective of Russians did report some very useful facts that serve to debunk Guccifer2.0’s claims.

(…) “Russia-Tainted Metadata” Reportage Mostly Ignored A Key Piece of Metadata

Warren Flood (Credit: LinkedIn)

There is a key fact about some non-Russian metadata that nobody seems to have reported and it certainly seems to be of critical importance – and that is the document creation timestamps…

There were multiple documents shared with TheSmokingGun, Gawker, ArsTechnica and others.

The first document, “1.doc” (mirror), was given considerable coverage, while the name “Warren Flood” was reported, the date in the report (rather than in the metadata) was reported and so it was attributed to Warren Flood on December 19, 2015.

Gawker incorrectly claimed the metadata showed the document was created in 2015 when it actually indicated the document was created by Warren Flood at a much later date.

The truth is that the metadata shows the document being created 30 minutes before Guccifer2.0 appears to have gotten his hands on it:

Created by Warren Flood on 15th of June at 13:38
Modified by Феликс Эдмундович on 15th of June at 14:08

The other document, “2.doc” (mirror) was not mentioned so much, but it too had interesting metadata:

Created by Warren Flood on 15th of June at 13:38
Modified by Феликс Эдмундович on 15th of June at 14:11

How did this get missed? – My guess is that people who investigated were using MS-Word. Recent versions of MS-Word tend to show limited metadata from RTF1 format files, for example, MS-Word 2010 shows:

If you open “2.doc” in OpenOffice though, you will spot what first alerted me to the timestamp correlations in the first place:

If you look at the raw data of “1.doc” you can see an ever closer correlation:

UPDATE (18 Feb 2017)

It was pointed out to me that I’d only focused on 2 documents and that there were more released by Guccifer2.0. – He had actually released a set of 5 RTF1-format documents, all had creation/modification dates as 15th of June and another one of them had Flood listed as it’s creator:

MD5 sums and mirror links are provided below in case the originals are altered or removed in future:

(Live links at source link)

A more detailed look at the actual contents of documents (eg. RSIDs of different changes and correlations across files) gives further clues about the procedures used to intentionally stick “Russian fingerprints” on some of the files.

Who is Warren Flood? (UPDATED June 3rd, 2018)

Warren Flood was Biden’s former IT director at the White House.

A document that Flood authored in 2008 and that was attached to one of John Podesta’s emails, was used by Guccifer 2.0 as a template into which he then copied the contents of the Trump Opposition Research, copied from this file (which is also attached to this leaked email). It is Flood’s document that the “CONFIDENTIAL” text in the background derives from.

The copy of the Trump research Guccifer 2.0 had was actually a document originally authored by Lauren Dillon (DNC research director) and modified (and sent to John Podesta) by Tony Carrk (Research Director at Hillary for America). (Read more: Adam Carter/g-2.space, 2/18/2017)  (Archive)

July 30, 2016 – Ohr meets with Steele, and within hours meets with McCabe and Page for the purpose of “passing on Steele’s info to them”

“Deputy FBI Director Andy McCabe and his legal counsel Lisa Page were in possession of the key Steele dossier allegations on Sat Jul 30 2016, one day BEFORE the FBI opened an investigation into Trump on Sun Jul 31 2016.

(…) Ohr’s testimony: “I wanted to provide the information he [Steele] had given me to the FBI”

And “I reached out to McCabe”

Page/McCabe/Ohr met on a Saturday at the office at very short notice, with Ohr coming almost straight from the Steele meeting to meet with the Deputy Director of the FBI and his legal counsel.

Sounds…unusual/urgent?

(…) Ohr’s testimony: “I went to his [McCabe’s] office to provide the information”

“Lisa Page was there”

“So I provided the information to them”

(After that Ohr is put in touch with Strzok, running the Trump/Russia case.)

The investigation was opened the next day, July 31, 2016.

Or at least it was *marked* July 31. Here’s Strzok texting to Page about exactly what “good faith date” they can put on the “LHM” (Letter Head Memo) for the opening case file for the Trump/Russia case.

(Read more: Undercover Huber, 3/10/2019)

July 31, 2016 – FBI Strzok’s electronic communication memo (EC) confirms the Trump campaign was investigated without justification

Peter Strzok testifies on FBI and Department of Justice actions during the 2016 Presidential election in a House Joint committee hearing on Capitol Hill July 12, 2018. (Credit: Chip Somodavilla/Getty Images)

“Late last week the FBI document that started the Trump-Russia collusion fiasco was publicly released. It hasn’t received a lot of attention but it should, because not too long from now this document likely will be blown up and placed on an easel as Exhibit A in a federal courtroom.

(…) To the untrained eye, the FBI document that launched Crossfire Hurricane can be confusing, and it may be difficult to discern how it might be inadequate. To the trained eye, however, it is a train wreck. There are a number of reasons why it is so bad. Two main ones are offered below (if you would like to follow along, the document is here):

First, the document is oddly constructed. In a normal, legitimate FBI Electronic Communication, or EC, there would be a “To” and a “From” line. The Crossfire Hurricane EC has only a “From” line; it is from a part of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division whose contact is listed as Peter Strzok. The EC was drafted also by Peter Strzok. And, finally, it was approved by Peter Strzok. Essentially, it is a document created by Peter Strzok, approved by Peter Strzok, and sent from Peter Strzok to Peter Strzok.

On that basis alone, the document is an absurdity, violative of all FBI protocols and, therefore, invalid on its face. An agent cannot approve his or her own case; that would make a mockery of the oversight designed to protect Americans. Yet, for this document, Peter Strzok was pitcher, catcher, batter and umpire.

In addition, several names are listed in a “cc” or copy line; all are redacted, save Strzok’s, who, for some reason, felt it necessary to copy himself on a document he sent from himself to himself.

(…) Second, the Crossfire Hurricane case was opened as a Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) investigation. A FARA investigation involves a criminal violation of the law – in this case, a negligent or intentional failure to register with the U.S. government after being engaged by a foreign country to perform services on its behalf – that is punishable by fines and imprisonment. It is rarely investigated.

(…) Ultimately, there was no attempt by Strzok to articulate any factors that address the elements of FARA. He couldn’t, because there are none. Instead, there was a weak attempt to allege some kind of cooperation with Russians by unknown individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign, again, with no supporting facts listed.

What this FBI document clearly establishes is that Crossfire Hurricane was an illicit, made-up investigation lacking a shred of justifying predication, sprung from the mind of someone who despised Donald Trump, and then blessed by inexperienced leadership at the highest levels who harbored their own now well-established biases.” (Read more: The Hill, 5/27/2020)  (Archive)

July 31, 2016 – August 2019: The FBI agent who interviews Gen. Flynn, Joseph Pientka, plays a critical role in Trump campaign investigation

This is the only known photo of Joseph Pientka (far left) found in the Washingtonian and dated in 2007. (Credit: Vincent Ricard)

(…) In a report released in December by Horowitz on the FBI’s FISA abuse during its investigation into the Trump campaign, the role of an unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA)—described in Horowitz’s report as “SSA 1”—was featured prominently throughout. The description of events and dates match the public information on Pientka’s actions, and on Dec. 13, Pientka was confirmed by Fox News as being “SSA 1.”

The inspector general report noted that all the participating members of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team were selected by Strzok, Pientka, and “the Intel Section chief,” who is almost certainly intelligence analyst Jonathan Moffa, who, according to July 16, 2018, testimony from Lisa Page, worked on both the Clinton and Trump investigations with Strzok.

On page xviii of the inspector general report, it was disclosed that Pientka was running the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign as its supervisor. Pientka also was the agent who provided defensive briefings to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in August 2016.

“We learned during the course of our review that in August 2016, the supervisor of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, SSA 1 [Pientka], participated on behalf of the FBI in a strategic intelligence briefing given by Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to candidate Trump and his national security advisors, including Michael Flynn, and in a separate strategic intelligence briefing given to candidate Clinton and her national security advisors,” the report states.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), during congressional testimony given by Horowitz, noted that the FBI used this meeting as an opportunity to effectively spy on the Trump campaign and gather further information—a characterization that Horowitz agreed with. Horowitz also said in his testimony he was concerned about this practice:

Sen. Graham: “So when we get defensively briefed tomorrow, would it be okay for FBI agents to open up 302s on what we said?”

Mr. Horowitz: “We have very significant concerns about that.”

Horowitz noted in his report that Pientka was specifically selected to “provide the FBI briefings, in part, because Flynn, who was a subject in the ongoing Crossfire Hurricane investigation, would be attending the Trump campaign briefing.”

Just prior to this defensive briefing, on Aug. 1, 2016, Strzok and Pientka “traveled to the European city to interview the FFG [Friendly Foreign Government] officials who met with Papadopoulos in May 2016.” The IG report noted that “during the interview they learned that Papadopoulos did not say that he had direct contact with the Russians.”

It also appears that Pientka was in charge of selecting the Confidential Human Sources (CHS) that were used against George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Flynn:

“In determining how to use CHSs in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, SSA 1 and the case agents told the OIG that they focused their CHS operations on the predicating information and the four named subjects,” the inspector general report states.

The report describes “a consensually recorded meeting in August 2016 between Carter Page and an FBI CHS.” The IG noted that Pientka and “Case Agent 1 told the OIG that this meeting was important for the investigation.” But it appears that important information from this meeting was left out of the Page FISA application.

In footnote 197, the IG noted that “Page’s comment about his lack of a relationship with Manafort was relevant to one of the allegations in the Steele reporting that was relied upon in the Carter Page FISA applications, but information about the August 2016 CHS meeting was not shared with the OI attorneys handling the FISA applications until June 2017.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/30/2019)  (Archive)

August 4, 2016 – Judge Napolitano: “Obama used the British GCHQ to spy on the Trump Team”

 

 

 

 

 

6. want to hear directly from Judge Napolitano?
there you go:
March 14, 2017 – 10 days after the Trump tweet:
. pic.twitter.com/7DjMNARzsu

— Greg Rubini (@GregRubini) May 9, 2020

August 4, 2016 – A few operational details of the CIA/NSA/FBI/White House counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign

Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell in August, 2018, to discuss President Trump’s abuse of power after removing former CIA director Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)

(…) “In the first week of August — directly after the creation of Crossfire Hurricane — Director Brennan contacted Avril Haines via telephone, as he had received intelligence in relation to President Vladimir Putin.

An envelope which contained “eyes only” instructions was sent by courier from the Central Intelligence Agency to the White House. The contents of the envelope were shown to four people: President Barack Obama, and three of his senior aides, most likely Denis McDonough, Susan Rice and Avril Haines.

Within the envelope was a valuable source that Director Brennan had used to ascertain certain information, a source which he intentionally kept away from the Presidential Daily Brief. This was because, by 2013, the Presidential Daily Brief was being received by over 30 recipients.

“Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objects — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.” — The Washington Post

As a result of this, Director Brennan created a secret task force at the Central Intelligence Agency’s Headquarters, which was composed of several dozen analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Working Group reported to two different groups.

  • President Barack Obama and less than 14 senior United States Government officials.
  • A team of operations specialists at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Also in early August 2016 — presumably the same week — agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, where they questioned her about a letter they had received in early March 2016 from a foreign source, supposedly written by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations regarding the Midyear Exam investigation.

During this meeting, the agents offered to give Attorney General Lynch a “defensive briefing”. Shortly after this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that the Benardo letter was an unreliable document.

President Obama ordered his aides to determine ways to retaliate or deter against the Russian Government through three steps:

  • Gain a high-confidence assessment from the United States intelligence agencies on Russia’s role and intent.
  • Check vulnerabilities in state-run election systems.
  • Seek bipartisan support from Congressional leaders for a statement condemning Moscow and urging states to accept federal assistance.

Obama meets with Kathryn Ruemmler (l), Lisa Monaco (c), and Susan Rice. (Credit: White House Flickr photo by Pete Souza)

The same week, Rice, Haines and Lisa Monaco convened meetings in the White House Situation Room, which would later be referred to as “Deputies Meetings”. These meetings were initially attended by:

  • Director John Brennan, Central Intelligence Agency
  • Director James Clapper, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
  • Director James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
  • Attorney General Loretta Lynch, United States Department of Justice

As time passed, another Cabinet member joined the Deputies Meetings: Vice President Joe Biden.

The Deputies Meetings needed to defend against any potential leaks, and therefore followed the same protocols taken during the planning stages of the raid of Osama bin Laden.

At a later time, agendas were directly sent to Cabinet secretaries, including Secretary John Kerry and Secretary Ashton Carter. When an agenda was received, their subordinates were ordered never to open the envelopes. Further to this, some agendas were withheld until the participants had arrived in the Situation Room and sat down.

Ordinarily, a video feed from the White House Situation Room is fed into various National Security Council offices to allow senior aides to view the events with zero sound. However, during the Deputies Meetings, the video feeds were switched off.

One of these Deputies Meetings was hosted by Haines, where the attendees of the meetings argued that any deliberative attempt to strike back against Russia would become a tool of propaganda for President Vladimir Putin, while another was concerned about the potential effect any action may have on Election Day 2016.

Haines would later note she was “very concerned” during this time about the potential of Russians gaining influence within the Trump campaign, although she apparently remained unaware of the existence of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/29/2019)

August 10, 2016 – FBI’s Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, Jonathan Moffa and others, discuss Seth Rich in mostly redacted emails

Seth Rich (l) and Julian Assange (Credit: public domain)

“A persistent American lawyer has uncovered the undeniable fact that the FBI has been continuously lying, including giving false testimony in court, in response to Freedom of Information requests for its records on Seth Rich. The FBI has previously given affidavits that it has no records regarding Seth Rich.

A Freedom of Information request to the FBI which did not mention Seth Rich, but asked for all email correspondence between FBI Head of Counterterrorism Peter Strzok, who headed the investigation into the DNC leaks and Wikileaks, and FBI attorney Lisa Page, has revealed two pages of emails which do not merely mention Seth Rich but have “Seth Rich” as their heading. The emails were provided in, to say the least, heavily redacted form.

Before I analyse these particular emails, I should make plain that they are not the major point. The major point is that the FBI claimed it had no records mentioning Seth Rich, and these have come to light in response to a different FOIA request that was not about him. What other falsely denied documents does the FBI hold about Rich, that were not fortuitously picked up by a search for correspondence between two named individuals?

To look at the documents themselves, they have to be read from the bottom up, and they consist of a series of emails between members of the Washington Field Office of the FBI (WF in the telegrams) into which Strzok was copied in, and which he ultimately forwarded on to the lawyer Lisa Page.” (Read much more: Craig Murray, 1/28/2020)  (Archive)

Persistent American lawyer Ty Clevenger writes:

(…) “As most people outside of solitary confinement know, the whole “Russian collusion” investigation began with the premise that Russia hacked the DNC, but considerable evidence suggests that the DNC emails were downloaded by someone inside the DNC — like Mr. Rich — and then provided to Wikileaks.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, I’ve copied and pasted my letter to U.S. Attorney John Durham, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue, and Inspector General Michael Horowitz:

Mr. Durham, Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Horowitz:

I wish to file a criminal complaint regarding false statements made by FBI Section Chief David M. Hardy in two affidavits [click here and here] filed in the FOIA case identified above [i.e., Ty Clevenger v. U.S. Department of Justice, et al., Civil Action No. 18-CV-01568]. I requested FBI records pertaining to Seth Rich, who allegedly was the source of Democratic National Committee emails published by Wikileaks in 2016 (rather than Russian hackers). In the affidavits (attached to the email version of this letter), Mr. Hardy testified that his office conducted a reasonable search, and it found no responsive records.

New evidence proves otherwise, and it appears that Mr. Hardy has perpetrated a fraud on the court. Judicial Watch recently published documents that it obtained in response to a FOIA request for communications between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page and I would direct your attention to pages 123-125. In those pages, you will find a heavily-redacted email discussion regarding Mr. Rich.  Note that the header on those emails is “Seth Rich.” (Read more: Ty Clevenger/Lawflog, 1/27/2020)  (Archive)

August 17, 2016 – Trump himself was the target of Obama administration’s Russia probe

(…) Among the most significant of the newly declassified documents is a memorandum written by FBI agent Joe Pientka III, the case agent on Trump-Russia. It was Pientka who, at the FBI’s New York City headquarters on August 17, 2016, purported to brief Trump and two top campaign surrogates — the aforementioned General Flynn and then–New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who was slated to run the transition if Trump won.

In reality, Pientka and the FBI regarded the occasion not as a briefing for the Republican presidential nominee but as an opportunity to interact with Donald Trump for investigative purposes. Clearly, the Bureau did that because Trump was the main subject of the investigation. The hope was that he’d blurt things out that would help the FBI prove he was an agent of Russia.

The Obama administration and the FBI knew that it was they who were meddling in a presidential campaign — using executive intelligence powers to monitor the president’s political opposition. This, they also knew, would rightly be regarded as a scandalous abuse of power if it ever became public. There was no rational or good-faith evidentiary basis to believe that Trump was in a criminal conspiracy with the Kremlin or that he’d had any role in Russian intelligence’s suspected hacking of Democratic Party email accounts.

You didn’t have to believe Trump was a savory man to know that. His top advisers were Flynn, a decorated combat veteran; Christie, a former U.S. attorney who vigorously investigated national-security cases; Rudy Giuliani, a legendary former U.S. attorney and New York City mayor who’d rallied the country against anti-American terrorism; and Jeff Sessions, a longtime U.S. senator with a strong national-defense track record. To believe Trump was unfit for the presidency on temperamental or policy grounds was a perfectly reasonable position for Obama officials to take — though an irrelevant one, since it’s up to the voters to decide who is suitable. But to claim to suspect that Trump was in a cyberespionage conspiracy with the Kremlin was inane . . . except as a subterfuge to conduct political spying, which Obama officials well knew was an abuse of power.

So they concealed it. They structured the investigation on the fiction that there was a principled distinction between Trump himself and the Trump campaign. In truth, the animating assumption of the probe was that Trump himself was acting on Russia’s behalf, either willfully or under the duress of blackmail. By purporting to focus on the campaign, investigators had the fig leaf of deniability they needed to monitor the candidate.

Just two weeks before Pientka’s August 17 “briefing” of Trump, the FBI formally opened “Crossfire Hurricane,” the codename for the Trump-Russia investigation. The Bureau also opened four Trump-Russia subfiles, related to Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Flynn.

There was no case file called “Donald Trump” because Trump was “Crossfire Hurricane.” The theory of Crossfire Hurricane was that Russia had blackmail information on Trump, which it could use to extort Trump into doing Putin’s bidding if Trump were elected. It was further alleged that Russia had been cultivating Trump for years and was helping Trump’s election bid in exchange for future considerations. Investigators surmised that Trump had recruited Paul Manafort (who had connections to Russian oligarchs and pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs) as his campaign manager, enabling Manafort to use such emissaries as Page to carry out furtive communications between Trump and the Kremlin. If elected, the theory went, Trump would steer American policy in Russia’s favor, just as the Bureau speculated that Trump was already corruptly steering the Republican party into a more pro-Moscow posture.” (Read more: National Review, 8/01/2020)  (Archive)

August 17, 2016 – The FBI Crossfire Hurricane team uses a ‘security’ and ‘defensive’ briefing to spy on Trump and Flynn

“Newly declassified internal Federal Bureau of Investigation documents prove the top U.S. law enforcement agency used a so-called defensive briefing of the Trump campaign in 2016 to spy on and collect information about Donald Trump himself. The new documents, which are just the latest in a string of declassifications regarding the FBI operation to spy on the Trump campaign and later the Trump administration, detail the FBI’s attempts to use a briefing ostensibly meant to warn the Trump campaign about foreign intelligence threats to spy on the Trump campaign itself.

FBI Summary Of August 17, 2… by The Federalist on Scribd

(…) In one of the documents declassified and released on Wednesday, FBI supervisory Special Agent Joe Pientka wrote that he deliberately used the briefing to “actively listen for topics or questions” from Trump “regarding the Russian Federation.” Rather than provide the Trump campaign a specific warning that certain campaign principals were being targeted by Russian intelligence, the FBI instead gave a general, non-specific warning that foreign intelligence services might eventually target the campaign.

Pientka’s written summary of the briefing noted that Trump, Michael Flynn, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were the only three Trump campaign members in attendance. Christie’s attendance had not previously been disclosed. The August 17, 2016 meeting came the day after the FBI opened a formal counterintelligence investigation against Flynn and just two days after FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted his former lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page, about an “insurance policy” he had designed to keep Trump from becoming president.

(…) Pientka was excoriated in a report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG) for his behavior during the FBI’s spy operation against the Trump campaign. Pientka told the OIG that he designed the August 17 meeting to “gain assessment and possibly have some level of familiarity with [Flynn].”

According to the OIG report, Pientka “was selected to provide the FBI briefings, in part, because Flynn, who was a subject in the ongoing Crossfire Hurricane investigation, would be attending the Trump campaign briefing.”

Pientka told the OIG that he was selected to attend on behalf of the FBI so he could “record” or “overhear” from Trump, Flynn, or Christie “any kind of admission” that they were colluding with the Russian government to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. Pientka also added that he wanted to get a baseline impression of Flynn’s “overall mannerisms” in case he needed to later use that information against him.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2020)  (Archive)

August 31, 2016 – Guccifer 2.0 leaks a DCCC email referring to Black Lives Matter as a “radical movement”

“On 31 August 2016, the hacker (or hackers) operating under the name Guccifer 2.0 (previously associated with a number of breaches of Democratic National Committee material) released a controversial document that purportedly outlined recommended practices for Democratic candidates’ engaging with the Black Lives Matter movement in 2015.

Troy Perry (Credit: public domain)

A number of documents supposedly accessed from the computer of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were posted to Guccifer 2.0’s blog, among them a 19 November 2015 memo to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) workers from staffer Troy Perry:

Presidential candidates have struggled to respond to tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement. While there has been little engagement with House candidates, candidates and campaign staff should be prepared. This document should not be emailed or handed to anyone outside of the building. Please only give campaign staff these best practices in meetings or over the phone.

In a sub-section of that document, DCCC staffers were advised to offer limited invitations for meetings with Black Lives Matter activists and not to “offer support for concrete policy positions” about the movement:

Tactics
Meet with Local Activists

° If approached by BLM activists, campaign staff should offer to meet with local activists. Invited BLM attendees should be limited. Please aim for personal or small group meetings.

° Listen to their concerns
° Don’t offer support for concrete policy positions
° Frontline district staff should meet with activists

Provide a Point Person

Always provide a campaign contact person for BLM activists. It is important to let activists know the campaign wants to engage in an open dialogue.

In response to the leaked documents, DCCC national press secretary Meredith Kelly said in a statement that:

The DCCC highly respects and values the leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement. In less than two years, BLM has evolved from three words into a political force that is changing and waking our nation. At the DCCC, we highly encourage our candidates to not only embrace the importance of this movement, but to meet with and listen to community activists to partner social change.

We will not allow this hacking to distract from our common goals nor disparage the BLM movement. We continue to welcome further engagement with activists and BLM leaders nationwide.

The Black Lives Matter movement expressed disappointment with the contents of the revealed material in a statement posted to Facebook and Twitter:

We are disappointed at the DCCC’s placating response to our demand to value all Black life. Black communities deserve to be heard, not handled. People are dying.

Whether Republican, Democrat or otherwise, our elected officials have an ethical and democratic responsibility to make legislation that reflects the needs of their constituents. That includes Black people facing life-threatening challenges because of racist, failed policies.

We demand, and are fighting every day for, a radical transformation of American democracy where all Black lives are valued.

Prominent Black Lives Matter activist Deray Mckesson published a tweet questioning whether the DNCC’s stance had changed since November 2015:

Fellow activist Shaun King also tweeted a criticism:

The DCCC acknowledged Guccifer 2.0’s Black Lives Matter document leak, but the DCCC has not yet issued any official comment on the content of the leak (or any dispute of its authenticity), and Nancy Pelosi has so far declined to comment.

The authenticity of previous DNC leaks was not questioned by any involved parties, and several high-ranking DNC officials (including former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz) resigned in the aftermath.” (Snopes, 8/31/2016)  (Archive)

September 2, 2016 – The FBI sends a possible honeypot posing as Stefan Halper’s research assistant, to spy on Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?

The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it “Spygate.”

Ms. Turk went to London to help oversee the politically sensitive operation, working alongside a longtime informant, the Cambridge professor Stefan A. Halper. The move was a sign that the bureau wanted in place a trained investigator for a layer of oversight, as well as someone who could gather information for or serve as a credible witness in any potential prosecution that emerged from the case.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Mr. Halper, Robert D. Luskin. Last year, Bill Priestap, then the bureau’s top counterintelligence agent who was deeply involved in the Russia inquiry, told Congress during a closed-door hearing that there was no F.B.I. conspiracy against Mr. Trump or his campaign.

The London operation yielded no fruitful information, but F.B.I. officials have called the bureau’s activities in the months before the election both legal and carefully considered under extraordinary circumstances. They are now under scrutiny as part of an investigation by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general. He could make the results public in May or June, Attorney General William P. Barr has said. Some of the findings are likely to be classified.” (Read more: The New York Times, 5/02/2019)

George Papadopoulos describes in his House testimony, how undercover CIA asset/FBI informant Stefan Halper introduces him to ‘Azra Turk.’ He also suggests she may be from Turkey.

On the same day the NYT article is published, George Papadopoulos appears on the Tucker Carlson Show to respond:

https://youtu.be/ewA34BJAKmI?t=512

(…) “Email traffic reviewed by TheDCNF shows that Papadopoulos exchanged emails with Turk, Halper and Halper’s wife.

Papadopoulos has described Turk as a “honeypot,” a spy term used to describe a situation where sex is used to lure targets of intelligence operations. Papadopoulos told TheDCNF that Turk, an attractive blonde, flirted heavily with him and attempted to make contact after the London meeting back in the States.

“I’m stunned by the come-hither tone of Azra Turk and her classic honeypot act,” Papadopoulos wrote in his tell-all, “Deep State Target.”

According to Papadopoulos, both Halper and Turk asked him whether he knew about Russian hacks of Democrats. Papadopoulos says he had knowledge of Russian hacking operations, and conveyed that to the two covert agents.

Papadopoulos says that he did not meet again with Turk, in part because he suspected she was working with foreign intelligence agencies. He has recently said he believes that Turk, who spoke little English during the London meetings, has links to the CIA and Turkish intelligence.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/3/2019)

September 3, 2016 – Kent email to Yovanovitch: Newly appointed and Biden approved Ukraine prosecutor is offered ‘high-level’ access to Clinton campaign

“We received 38 pages of records from the State Department revealing that Ukraine Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko was offered “high-level” access to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign by the same lobbying firm that represented Burisma Holdings.

This came to light in an email from George Kent, then-U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission to Ukraine and current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. The email was to then-Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

The offer was made by Karen Tramontano, who was an assistant to President Clinton and deputy White House Chief of Staff. She is the CEO of Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat lobbying firm that was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations.

In the same 2016 email, Kent stated that he responded to Lutsenko by recommending that he not take the offer due to corruption concerns with Burisma and the Clinton Foundation.

(…) The records include a September 3, 2016, email from Kent to Yovanovitch and other colleagues which details that Lutsenko informed him that he was pitched high-level access to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign by Blue Star Strategies. The email’s subject line is “Lutsenko now likely not to go to DC with Blue Star, other Ukr issue comments.” The email says:

[Lutsenko] confirmed he had been pitched by Blue Star, not sought them out. He said he honestly didn’t know how Blue Star was to get paid – he didn’t have funds – and that some BPP MP [Petro Poroshenko’s Solidarity Party member of Parliament] that we probably didn’t know “and that’s good” ([redacted]??) had introduced them to him. Blue Star CEO Tramontano’s pitch was that she could gain him access to high levels of the Clinton campaign (GPK note: she was Podesta’s deputy as deputy COS the last year of Bill Clinton’s tenure), and that was appealing – to meet the possible next Presidential Chief of Staff.

Later in the same email, Kent added that he suggested that Lutsenko not take that offer because Blue Star represented Burisma. Kent also mentioned corruption concerns related to the Clinton Foundation and Podesta:

In connection to Blue Star, I noted their representation of Burisma/Zlochevsky, mentioned the various money flows from Ukraine to lobbyists that had been prominently int he news this past month, whether Manafort/Klueyev via Brussels to Podesta Group and Weber/Mercury, Yanu’s Justice Minister Lavrynovych to Skaden/arps-and Greg Craig – and Pinchuk to Clinton Foundation, and the media attention being paid at present to the Kyiv/Washington gravy train….

…and he got the drift. Not ideal timing, little receptive audience, and wrong facilitator. He said he’d figure out a better time when there would be more traction/better audience.

This email is inconsistent with Yovanovitch’s October 2019 testimony under oath before the U.S. House of Representatives in the Trump impeachment inquiry that she knew very little about Burisma Holdings and the long-running corruption investigation against it stating, “it just wasn’t a big issue.”

This smoking gun email ties Hunter Biden’s Burisma’s lobbying operation to an influence-peddling operation involving the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. This further confirms the Obama-Biden-Deep State targeting of President Trump was to cover-up and distract from their own corruption. (Read more: Judicial Watch, 12/17/2020)  (Archive)

September 6, 2016 – Hillary compromised classified materials representing the full range of American espionage: human intelligence, signals intelligence, and imagery intelligence

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is introduced during a campaign stop Friday, Jan. 22, 2016, in Rochester, N.H. ((Credit: /Matt Rourke/The Associated Press))

(…) “Hillary compromised classified materials representing the full range of American espionage: human intelligence or HUMINT from CIA, signals intelligence or SIGINT from NSA, and imagery intelligence or IMINT from NGA.

Of those 81 classified email chains, the FBI assessed that 37 of them included Secret information while eight included Top Secret information. Worse, seven email chains included Special Access Program or SAP information, which is tightly protected by the Intelligence Community and shared on a restricted, need-to-know basis only.

Three more email chains contained Sensitive Compartmented Information or SCI, which was almost certainly SIGINT from NSA. SCI always requires special protection and handling. In fact, you’re only allowed to access it inside a specially-built Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a SCIF (pronounced “skiff”) in spy-speak. Any exposure of SCI brings severe penalties—at least if you’re not named Clinton.

It’s nice to see the FBI finally confirm just how much highly classified information got exposed here, but I reported this many months ago from Intelligence Community sources, including that Hillary’s “unclassified” emails included Top Secret SAP information from CIA and Top Secret SCI information from NSA.

Which leads to a troubling matter: What the FBI did not mention in its big data dump on EmailGate.

As I told you in this column back in January, Hillary emails included very highly classified intelligence from NSA. In early June 2011, the secretary of state received a long email from her longtime friend and factotum Sid Blumenthal regarding Sudan. This was an astonishingly detailed assessment of high-level political and military machinations in that country, specifically inside information about coup plotting.

This explosive information was timely and deep in the weeds on Sudanese happenings. It’s difficult to see how Blumenthal—a lawyer and Washington fixer, no sort of Africa hand or James Bond—got his hands on such juicy intelligence. As I’ve noted, “Blumenthal’s information came from a top-ranking source with direct access to Sudan’s top military and intelligence officials, and recounted a high-level meeting that had taken place only 24 hours before.” How did Sid obtain this amazing scoop for Hillary?

If Hillary Clinton becomes our next president, we can be certain that her trusty sidekick Sid Blumenthal will have an important role in her White House.

Not to mention that, in terms of verbiage and format, Blumenthal’s email read exactly like classified NSA reporting, as anybody acquainted with our SIGINT would immediately recognize. As one veteran agency official told me back in January, Blumenthal’s email was NSA information with “at least 90 percent confidence.”

Which was no coincidence, since an NSA investigation subsequently determined that Blumenthal’s Sudan assessment was derived from their reporting—in some cases, verbatim.  As I reported in March, NSA concluded that Blumenthal’s Sudan report came from four different agency SIGINT reports, all classified Top Secret/SCI. Then it got worse:

At least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program, or SAP, several of which Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails.

NSA had no doubt that Blumenthal somehow got his hands on some of their “crown jewels” information. “It’s word-for-word, verbatim copying,” an agency official of them explained. “In one case, an entire paragraph was lifted from an NSA report” that was classified Top Secret/SCI. To add to the mystery, Sid emailed Hillary his “personal” assessment on Sudan only hours after some of those classified NSA reports were issued.

Somehow Sid Blumenthal—who in 2011 was not working for the U.S. government in any capacity and had not held security clearances in a decade—was reading above-top-secret NSA reports just hours after they appeared in tightly restricted GAMMA channels.” (Read more: The Observer, 9/06/16)

September 7, 2016 – US Intel officials forward an investigative referral to Comey and Strzok re Clinton’s plan to make up Trump Russia collusion

Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, writes a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, with the following declassified information:

DNI releases a copy of the intelligence referral to Comey and Strzok on October 6, 2020:

(…) The declassification comes after Ratcliffe, last week, shared newly-declassified information with the Senate Judiciary Committee which revealed that in September 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral on Hillary Clinton purportedly approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” in order to distract the public from her email scandal.

Formal CIA Referral To FBI … by The Federalist

That referral was sent to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.

“The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate,” the CIA memo to Comey and Strzok stated.

“This memorandum contains sensitive information that could be source revealing. It should be handled with particular attention to compartmentation and need-to-know. To avoid the possible compromise of the source, any investigative action taken in response to the information below should be coordinated in advance with Chief Counterintelligence Mission Center, Legal,” the memo, which was sent to Comey and Strzok, read. “It may not be used in any legal proceeding—including FISA applications—without prior approval…”

“Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,” the memo continued. ““An exchange [REDACTED] discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

The memo is heavily redacted. (Read more: Fox News, 10/06/2020) (Archive)

September 17, 2016 – Obama State Dept officials Victoria Nuland and Jonathan Winer plan a face-to-face meeting on the “Russia matter”

Victoria Nuland and Jonathan Winer (Credit: public domain)

“Judicial Watch and The Daily Caller News Foundation today released 84 pages of documents, including a September 2016 email exchange between then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer, a close associate of dossier author Christopher Steele, discussing a “face-to-face” meeting on a “Russian matter.”

(In June 2016 Nuland permitted a meeting between Steele and the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome. Nuland told CBS News that the State Department knew about the Steele dossier by July 2016.)

According to an op-ed Winer wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, also in September 2016, “Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier… I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.”

A September 17, 2016, email exchange between Nuland and Winer – that was classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy – discusses the political situation in Libya, but also brings up a “Russian matter:”

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:31 PM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re. Libya Update

In ny face to face?

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: September 17, 2016 at 1:56:05 PM EDT
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Libya Update

Yes that was [sic] be good.

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:58 PM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re. Libya Update

Good. I’ll reach out when im there Sunday. [Redacted]

Other emails show senior State Department personnel using unsecure BlackBerrys to transmit classified information even after the Clinton email scandal became public.” (Read more: Judicial Watch 7/18/2019)

September 23, 2016 – The Crossfire Hurricane team knows by this date that Steele is running an “influence” operation and coordinating with the Clinton campaign

Researcher, @MonsieursGhost, raises some very interesting points about when Peter Strzok and Lisa Page could clearly see Alfa Bank, Carter Page, and the dossier unfold into a Steele “influence” operation that was coordinating with the Clinton campaign.

September 26, 2016 – December 10, 2016 – Top Hoyer aide, Daniel Silverberg, coordinates Clinton/DNC/Steele dossier work with key State Dept officials, Victoria Nuland and Jonathan Winer

Daniel Silverberg (Credit: Flickr)

“Daniel Silverberg, then-House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer’s national security adviser, coordinated “work on Russia dossier materials provided by Christopher Steele” with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Envoy for Libya Jonathan Winer, according to newly released documents made public June 12 by Judicial Watch.

A series of emails between Sept. 26, 2016, and Dec. 10, 2016, demonstrate that Winer shared “Russia-related information” he obtained from Steele—whom he described as his “old O friend”—with Nuland, who then shared it with Silverberg.

Winer delayed a previously scheduled meeting with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in order to share the information with Nuland, according to Judicial Watch.

Multiple references in the emails to additional telephone calls and other contacts with unnamed or redacted parties, as well as discussion of “a possible working group meeting,” suggest an active response by Silverberg to the Steele dossier information he was provided by Nuland and Winer.”

(Read more: The Epoch Times, 6/13/2019)

September 30, 2016 – FBI NY whistleblowers share classified info with Nunes about additional Clinton emails found on Weiner’s laptop

Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes listen to Gordon Sondland, the U.S ambassador to the European Union, testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill November 20, 2019. (Credit: Doug Mills/Getty Images)

“The House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff (Calif.), said Sunday it was “deeply disturbing” that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) received classified information about Hillary Clinton’s emails from FBI field agents in 2016.

“This is the first that we’ve heard about it, and it is deeply disturbing because if this was shared by New York field agents with Devin Nunes, was it also shared with Rudy Giuliani? Or did Devin Nunes do something, which we have seen subsequently, which is coordinated with the Trump team?” Schiff said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Was this information shared by the committee with Rudy Giuliani or shared directly with them? We don’t know the answer but we hope the inspector general will find out,” Schiff added.

Nunes said last week that FBI agents gave him information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, which were contained on former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D) laptop, in late September 2016.

“We had whistleblowers that came to us in late September of 2016 who talked to us about this laptop sitting up in New York that had additional emails on it. The House Intelligence Committee, we had that, but we couldn’t do anything with it,” Nunes told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Thursday.


Nunes said that, because the information was classified, he could not say anything about it until the Justice Department’s (DOJ) internal watchdog released its report… (Read more: The Hill, 6/17/2018)  (Archive)

October 1-15, 2016: Email exchanges between Comey, FBI and DOJ officials, suggests they are aware of intel concerns about reliability of main evidence, before obtaining Title 1 FISA warrant

Devin Nunes (Credit: Greg Nash)

“Just before Thanksgiving, House Republicans amended the list of documents they’d like President Trump to declassify in the Russia investigation. With little fanfare or explanation, the lawmakers, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), added a string of emails between the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to their wish list.

Sources tell me the targeted documents may provide the most damning evidence to date of potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), evidence that has been kept from the majority of members of Congress for more than two years.<

The email exchanges included then-FBI Director James Comey, key FBI investigators in the Russia probe and lawyers in the DOJ’s national security division, and they occurred in early to mid-October, before the FBI successfully secured a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The email exchanges show the FBI was aware — before it secured the now-infamous warrant — that there were intelligence community concerns about the reliability of the main evidence used to support it: the Christopher Steele dossier.

The exchanges also indicate FBI officials were aware that Steele, the former MI6 British intelligence operative then working as a confidential human source for the bureau, had contacts with news media reporters before the FISA warrant was secured.” (Read more: The Hill, 12/05/2018)

October 6, 2016 – General Flynn re Hillary and Libya: “By ignoring military and intelligence officials, she let personal interests conflict with U.S. foreign policy.”

LTG Michael Flynn (Credit: public domain)

“A failed state, a terrorist haven, four dead Americans – this is the Hillary Clinton record in Libya we know about.

But new evidence — and a review of the public record — reveals that Hillary Clinton’s actions in Libya were not just disastrous policy, but a violation of U.S. anti-terrorism law.

A recent report to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons concluded that Western intervention in Libya was based on “inaccurate intelligence” and “erroneous assumptions.” Advocates failed to recognize that “the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element,” and the failure to plan for a post-Qaddafi Libya led to the “growth of ISIL” in North Africa.

However, “inaccurate intelligence” doesn’t fully describe the whole story. A closer examination of the run-up to the Libya debacle on September 11, 2012, leads to the irrefutable conclusion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly armed radical Islamist terrorists in Libya.

False pretenses

The American public was told that the intervention in Libya was necessary to prevent a humanitarian crisis. But just as Hillary Clinton would describe the attack on our Benghazi diplomats as a spontaneous protest over a video, the military intervention that led inexorably to the debacle in Benghazi was sold on false pretenses: to prevent an imminent massacre of civilians engaged in a pro-democracy uprising.

Clinton with Libyan rebels upon her departure from Tripoli in Libya on October 18, 2011. (Credit: Reuters)

Hillary Clinton described the 2011 Arab Spring rebellion in eastern Libya as a spontaneous pro-democracy uprising, but the Libyan connection to radical Islamic extremist groups was well known long before 2011.

The region where the rebellion began was a fervid recruiting ground for jihadis who killed American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The leaders of the “civilian uprising” that Hillary Clinton supported were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who had pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. They refused to take orders from non-Islamist commanders and assassinated the then leader of the rebel army, Abdel Fattah Younes.

The LIFG had been jailed under Qaddafi until hundreds of their members were released through a de-radicalization program. That program was spearheaded by an exiled Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Libyan cleric based in Qatar named Ali al-Sallabi. The jihadis pledged they would never use violence against Gaddafi again.

But nearly as soon as the LIFG was released they took up arms against the Qaddafi regime.

Just as there was ample evidence that Hillary’s “pro-democracy protestors” were radical Islamists, there was no truth to the assertion a civilian massacre was imminent.

Libyan doctors told United Nations investigators that, of the more than 200 corpses in Tripoli’s morgues following fighting in late February 2011, only two were female. This indicates Qaddafi’s forces targeted male combatants and did not indiscriminately attack civilians. Nor had Qaddafi forces attacked civilians after retaking towns from the rebels in early February 2011.

While Muammar Qaddafi had a 40-year record of appalling human rights violations, his abuses did not include large-scale attacks on Libyan civilians. We restored full diplomatic relations with Qaddafi in 2007 and he was a key partner in counter-terrorism efforts.

LIFG and affiliated jihadis received at least 18 shipments of arms from Qatar with the blessing of the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reports. The arms shipments were funneled through none other than Ali al-Sallabi, the Qatar cleric who brokered their release from prison.

The Islamists were able to pay for the weapons because Clinton had convinced Obama to grant full diplomatic recognition to the rebels, against the advice of State Department lawyers and the Secretary of Defense.

As the Washington Post reported, this move “allowed the Libyans access to billions of dollars from Qaddafi’s frozen accounts.”

These arms shipments are significant for several reasons. It led to the indictment of American arms dealer Marc Turi who was charged with selling weapons to Islamist militants in Libya through Qatar. The charges were dropped this week after Turi threatened to reveal emails showing Clinton had approved the sales.

Here’s where it gets very sticky for Secretary Clinton. The rebel leaders were on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. It is a direct violation of the law to provide material support for terrorist organizations under 18 U.S. Code 2339A & 2339B. Penalties for providing or attempting to provide material support to terrorism include imprisonment from 15 years to life.

Nor is the Qatar connection insignificant. Qatar has donated anywhere from $1 to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, and emails reveal members of the Qatari royal family were privileged with back channel meetings with Secretary Clinton at the State Department. While whipping up support for the Libya military campaign, Clinton told Arab leaders, “it’s important to me personally,” the Washington Post reported.

Hillary Clinton’s prosecution of foreign policy in Libya crossed several lines: she showed extremely bad judgment by ignoring military and intelligence officials, she let personal interests conflict with U.S. foreign policy, and, most importantly, she may have broken the law — again.

Any one of these transgressions should disqualify her from holding any kind of leadership role in our government, let alone president of the United States. The last one qualifies Hillary Clinton for government housing, though not in the White House.” (Fox News, 10/06/2021)  (Archive)

(Timeline editor’s note: General Flynn’s OpEd was published just a month before the 2016 election and perfectly describes the war between white hats in the military and the corrupt political establishment. It is no surprise Obama asked Trump not to hire General Flynn.)

October 7, 2016 – Obama approves intel statement that accuses Russia of DNC hack, before FBI receives DNC server images

President Barack Obama speaks alongside Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson (R) following the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office on October 7, 2016. (Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

“President Barack Obama approved a statement by the U.S. intelligence community in October 2016 accusing Russia of stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), despite the U.S. government not having obtained the DNC server images crucial to ascertaining whether Moscow was involved in the theft.

FBI emails recently made public during the trial against now-acquitted DNC attorney Michael Sussmann show the bureau was still in the process of requesting images of the DNC servers on Oct. 13, 2016. The server images, which are equivalent to a virtual copy of the alleged crime scene, were taken by private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

On Oct. 7, six days before CrowdStrike agreed to mail the server images to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a statement accusing Russia of hacking U.S. political organizations and disseminating emails allegedly stolen through the hack. The statement was approved and encouraged by Obama, according to then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

“The president approved the statement. I know he wanted us to make the statement. So that was very definitely a statement by the United States government, not just Jim Clapper and me,” Johnson told the House Intelligence Committee in June 2017, referring to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 6/07/2022)  (Archive)

October 22, 2016 – After being told “time to hurry,” Slate’s Franklin Foer, sends Fusion GPS an advanced copy of his article smearing Trump and Alfa Bank

October 24-26, 2016: OIG reports McCabe and Loretta Lynch strong-arm FBI NY and NYPD into sitting on Clinton criminal evidence found on Weiner laptop

(McCabe OIG Report, February 2018)

November 4, 2016 – The Daily Beast attempts to rewrite the Clintons connection to the Laura Silsby Haitian child abduction scandal

(…) On November 3rd, 2016, this author made a post to Reddit containing preliminary research and information on the above story. The post was made to the pro-Trump subreddit r/the_donald due to the forum’s reputation as the only outlet on Reddit where news was not being censored during the U.S. Presidential Election. The same day, Wikileaks tweeted a link to the Reddit post labeling it as a “significant, if partisan, find.”

On November 4th, 2016 The Daily Beast wrote a non-factual and intentionally misleading article covering the Clinton-Silsby scandal. They accused Wikileaks of publicizing a “Reddit conspiracy theory” which was “riddled with incorrect information.” The author, Ben Collins neglected to do basic research on the totality of the links presented in the post as evidence. Mr. Collins attacked the policies of r/the_donald towards freedom of speech and accused the forum of being racist without citing extensive or definitive proof. At no point did The Daily Beast provide proof that the allegations were not true, and did not disprove any of the evidence submitted. A link to an extensive study of the case by the Harvard Human Rights Journal which clearly linked Bill Clinton to the scandal was totally ignored. They similarly failed to acknowledge or address emails published by Wikileaks between Hillary Clinton and her legal counsel which may potentially indicate that she violated State Department policy for the treatment of U.S. citizens arrested or detained abroad.

The Daily Beast is a holding of American media conglomerate InterActiveCorp. Chelsea Clinton, Vice President of the Clinton Foundation and daughter of Hillary and Bill Clinton, sits on InterActiveCorp’s Board of Directors. The proximity of the Clinton family to the organization responsible for oversight and direction of The Daily Beast raises questions about the publication’s journalistic independence and their commitment to factual and ethical reporting on current events and topics of public interest. Given their slanderous and incorrect reporting on the Clinton-Silsby scandal, it seems clear that they do not hold these values in high regard.

Since her release from detention in Haiti, Laura Silsby has returned to Idaho. In 2015, she married and took the last name Gayler. Silsby is currently employed by software company AlertSense as their Vice President of Marketing. AlertSense works with the Federal Government on FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS). One of IPAWS functions is to issue Amber Alerts during kidnapping events. (Read more: Disobedient Media, 1/25/2017)

Update: It appears that since the time of publication, Laura Silsby-Gayler is no longer listed as a member of Alert Sense’s Leadership Team.

November 5, 2016 – Charles Ortel: The Clinton Foundation is the ‘largest unprosecuted charity fraud ever’

“Wall Street investment analyst Charles Ortel called the Clinton Foundation “the largest unprosecuted charity fraud ever attempted” before all the newly-exposed emails from campaign chairman John Podesta’s account were released from WikiLeaks.

The leaks have fortified his findings. The Wall Street investment analyst, who retired at 46 and prides himself on researching complex problems like General Electric and the credit crisis, has been fly-specking the Clinton Foundation since the spring of 2015.

Ortel explains why he believes the Clinton Foundation is a “crooked charity cooking the books” with over $2 billion dollars in revenue, in this exclusive video interview for The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Clintons, according to Ortel, have figured out how to turn their public service into a business. This charity is “a perfect gathering place and a front” to act as if you are helping others, when in fact they bring powerful people together, concocting deals and making people rich, including the Clintons, Ortel says.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 11/05/2016)

November 6, 2016 – Despite Comey assurances, the vast bulk of Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop are never examined

Part of a letter from FBI director James Comey to Congress on Nov. 6, 2016. Comey tells Congress that a review of the Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop, “has not changed our conclusions” from earlier this year. (Credit: Jon Elswick/The Associated Press)

“When then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was closing the Hillary Clinton email investigation for a second time just days before the 2016 election, he certified to Congress that his agency had “reviewed all of the communications” discovered on a personal laptop used by Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.

At the time, many wondered how investigators managed over the course of one week to read the “hundreds of thousands” of emails residing on the machine, which had been a focus of a sex-crimes investigation of Weiner, a former Congressman.

Comey testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2017. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

Comey later told Congress that “thanks to the wizardry of our technology,” the FBI was able to eliminate the vast majority of messages as “duplicates” of emails they’d previously seen. Tireless agents, he claimed, then worked “night after night after night” to scrutinize the remaining material.

But virtually none of his account was true, a growing body of evidence reveals.

In fact, a technical glitch prevented FBI technicians from accurately comparing the new emails with the old emails.

Only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails 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.

“Most of the emails were never examined, even though they made up potentially 10 times the evidence” of what was reviewed in the original year-long case that Comey closed in July 2016, said a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Yet even the “extremely narrow” search that was finally conducted, after more than a month of delay, uncovered more classified material sent and/or received by Clinton through her unauthorized basement server, the official said. Contradicting Comey’s testimony, this included highly sensitive information dealing with Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. The former secretary of state, however, was never confronted with the sensitive new information and it was never analyzed for damage to national security.

Even though the unique classified material was improperly stored and transmitted on an unsecured device, the FBI did not refer the matter to U.S. intelligence agencies to determine if national security had been compromised, as required under a federally mandated “damage assessment” directive.

The newly discovered classified material “was never previously sent out to the relevant original classification authorities for security review,” the official, who spoke to RealClearInvestigations on the condition of anonymity, said.

Other key parts of the investigation remained open when the embattled director announced to Congress he was buttoning the case back up for good just ahead of Election Day.” (Read much more: RealClearInvestigations, August 28, 2018)  (Archive)

November 9, 2016 – The day after the election, DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa, pushes the Trump-Russia hoax in a Facebook post and admits to Obama’s DOJ/DHS joining a hacktivist group to scan state election systems

Alexandra “Ali” Chalupa (Credit: Facebook)

(…) “Alexandra “Ali” Chalupa is a Democratic National Committee operative linked to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and fake “whistleblower” / CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.

…Chalupa admits she was involved in a plot to scan a number of state’s voting systems with Obama’s Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security [teamed up with a group] in what Chalupa says is a DC unit of the hacktivist group “Anonymous.”

The Chalupa confession that the DOJ and DHS were hacking into state’s voting systems without the state’s permission is troubling enough, but the added detail about federal agencies working with an unknown independent hacking group raises serious national and cybersecurity issues.

(…) That’s because the unauthorized intrusions into a number of state voting systems on Election Day were admitted to in a Facebook post by Alexandra Chalupa and then appears to be corroborated by reporting months later that shows a number of states seem to have had their voting system scanned by computers at the Department of Homeland Security.

(…) “On the day after the election, November 9th, 2016 Chalupa wrote a Facebook post that claims the vote was stolen by Trump and Russians.

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 11/22/2019)  (Archive)  (Archive copy of Chalupa’s Facebook post)

November 22, 2016 – Bruce Ohr tells the FBI, “reporting on Trump ties to Russia were going to the Clinton campaign”

Judicial Watch released 34 pages of “302” report material from FBI interviews with Bruce Ohr on August 8, 2019.

In a FBI 302 report dated November 22, 2016, Bruce Ohr states,  “reporting on Trump’s ties to Russia were going to the Clinton Campaign, Jon Winer at the U.S. State Department and the FBI.”

November – December 2016: Poroshenko aide Oleksandr Onyshchenko gives Biden/Poroshenko audio tapes to DOJ fraud section (Andrew Weissmann) – A month later Biden confirms cover-up of his bribery scheme in another audio tape

December 20-29, 2016 – A newly semi-declassified Senate report details a 9 day ‘bitter argument’ between CIA And FBI over Steele dossier

“Documents declassified on Tuesday detail an intense debate between the CIA and FBI in late 2016 over the handling of information from Christopher Steele, with one CIA official telling the Senate Intelligence Committee that the former British spy’s allegations about Trump-Russia collusion were “very unvetted.”

Despite the CIA’s concerns about Steele’s allegations, the FBI successfully lobbied to include his information in an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. The bureau also continued using information from Steele to conduct surveillance against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Investigators have since debunked several of Steele’s allegations.

The newly declassified information is from a Senate Intelligence Committee report released on April 21 that detailed the creation of an ICA released on Jan. 6, 2017.

According to the Senate report, FBI investigators informed CIA analysts on Dec. 20, 2016 that the bureau wanted to include information from Steele in the ICA.

James Comey and Andrew McCabe, the FBI director and deputy director, respectively, negotiated with their counterparts at the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to include Steele’s information, saying that it was relevant to the question of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But CIA officials and analysts told the Senate panel that they had deep reservations about the dossier, according to the newly declassified materials.

“We would have never included that report in a CIA-only assessment because the source was so indirect. And we made sure we indicated we didn’t use it in our analysis, and if it had been a CIA-only product we wouldn’t have included it at all,” the CIA’s deputy director of analysis told the Senate panel.” (The Daily Caller, 7/28/2020)  (Archive)

January 5, 2017 – FBI texts discuss Obama WH briefing; Flynn case stays open; people are scrambling; it’s a mad house; Trump was right

“FBI employees discussed the January 5, 2017, briefing of Obama: “What’s the word on how O’s briefing went”? asked one employee, to which the other replied,

“Don’t know but people here are scrambling for info to support certain things and it’s a mad house.”  “Trump was right. Still not put together…why do we do this to ourselves. What is wrong with these people.” 

January 9, 2017 – Strobe Talbott shares a copy of the dossier with Fiona Hill the day before Buzzfeed publishes it

Fiona Hill (Credit: public domain)

“Fiona Hill, who served as a top Russia adviser to President Donald Trump, testified at an impeachment hearing Thursday that a longtime Clinton insider showed her a copy of the Steele dossier a day before it was published by BuzzFeed News.

Hill testified that Strobe Talbott, the former president of the Brookings Institution, shared the salacious document with her on Jan. 9, 2017. At the time, Hill was a director at Brookings, a left-of-center foreign policy think tank. She joined the Trump White House in early 2017 as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council.

A day after Hill’s exchange with Talbott, BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

Hillary Clinton and Strobe Talbott (Credit: Getty Images)

Hill’s testimony establishes yet another link between Steele’s dossier work and Clinton world. Talbott is a longtime Clinton associate who served in the Bill Clinton administration in the1990s. His brother-in-law is Cody Shearer, a Clinton-linked operative who is the author of a Trump dossier of his own that closely mirrors allegations made by Steele.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 11/21/2019)  (Archive)

January 10, 2017 – Flynn attorney Sidney Powell calls for the release of a letter from James Clapper who allegedly asks David Ignatius to, “in words to the effect of take the kill shot on Flynn”

In an October 24, 2019 court filing by Flynn attorney Sidney Powell, on page 15 she requests the phone records of James Clapper to confirm his contacts with Washington Post reporter, David Ignatius. In particular, she’s interested in getting a copy of a letter that Clapper sent to Ignatius, dated January 10, 2017, where Clapper asks that he “take the kill shot” on Lt. General Michael Flynn.

Two days later,  an article by Ignatius appears in the WaPo, dated January 12, 2017, titled “Why Did Obama Dawdle on Russia’s Hacking?” In it he writes the possible  “kill shot” and keep in mind, Ignatius allegedly had the transcripts of Flynn’s calls with Kislyak, thanks to the possible leak by ONA Director, Col. James H. Baker (see below).

Ignatius writes with attached links:

“Question 3: What discussions has the Trump team had with Russian officials about future relations? Trump said Wednesday that his relationship with President Vladimir Putin is “an asset, not a liability.” Fair enough, but until he’s president, Trump needs to let Obama manage U.S.-Russia policy.
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, cultivates close Russian contacts. He has appeared on Russia Today and received a speaking fee from the cable network, which was described in last week’s unclassified intelligence briefing on Russian hacking as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated?
The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
If the Trump team’s contacts helped discourage the Russians from a counter-retaliation, maybe that’s a good thing. But we ought to know the facts.” (Read more: The Washington Post, 1/12/2017)

James Clapper, now a CNN contributor and outspoken critic of President Trump, is known for falsely testifying in front of Congress in March 2013 that the National Security Agency does not collect data from millions of Americans. (Credit: Graeme Jennings/Getty Images)

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius listens to introductions before his interview with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, hosted by the Center on International Cooperation, at New York University, April 29, 2015. (Credit: Richard Drew/The Associated Press)

January 10, 2017 – A Lisa Page email shows direct evidence of investigative leaking and bias – IG Horowitz later finds no bias

Within the small group conducting the 2016 FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, the Steele Dossier was called “Crown Material“.  A name relating to Christopher Steele’s British intelligence position. [James Comey testimony to congress]

The “Crown Material” has become more interesting recently against the backdrop of U.S. Attorney John Durham seeking the documents and communication from former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey [SEE HERE] where John Brennan wanted the Crown Material (Steele Dossier) included the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.

However, there’s a coded email from Lisa Page, on January 10th, 2017, that might prove to be even more valuable for Mr. Durham as he investigates a possible conspiracy therein:

SOURCE: Page 365 of pdf

Note the highlighted box text in the email from Peter Strzok to members of the small group.

“CNN update – Per Rich, CNN to publish C material today betweeen 4 and 5″

The “C material” is a reference to “Crown Material”, and when put into context of the date and email participants this tells a remarkably explosive story.

FBI lawyer Lisa Page is forwarding an origination email from Peter Strzok and informing the FBI small group: Peter Strzok, Bill Priestap, Jonathan Moffa and Jennifer Boone, that “We have lots of details from [Mike] Kortan” for a briefing at 3:45 pm on January 10th.

“Kortan” is FBI Asst. Director of Media Comms Michael Kortan, who appears in multiple emails and text messages coordinating communication with the small group media allies.

However, for the context of this specific email, Peter Strzok has initiated contact with CNN to leak a story… and Strzok is informing the group that CNN will publish the “C Material”, or a story predicated on the Steele Dossier, on January 10th, 2017, between 4 and 5 pm.   That is Jake Tappers’ hour for broadcast.

What “C Material” did FBI Agent Peter Strzok leak to CNN, that FBI Spokesperson Mike Kortan confirmed for the FBI?

Here’s the January 10th, 2017, story from Tapper.  WATCH:

There is no doubt the FBI small group shared the information about the Steele Dossier with the CNN stenographers in a collaborative effort to generate the illusion of enhanced credibility for the Steele Dossier; a document they knew was demonstrably fraudulent, yet they relied upon it for the Carter Page FISA application.

That would be a clear “conspiracy”.

I find it curious that IG Horowitz could not find this email in his latest investigation.

Additionally, the Lisa Page FBI email, highlighting an internal “conspiracy”, becomes even more interesting when overlaying the third conspiracy referral previously mentioned by Devin Nunes:

The third conspiracy referral is less specific and pertains to evidence collected that shows a small group of government officials engaged in “global classified intelligence leaks” to the U.S. media and other entities and/or persons. (link)

My hunch is that email from Lisa Page is part of the evidence Nunes collected to show how the FBI manufactured “global classified intelligence leaks” to U.S. media.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/20/2019) (Archive)

January 12, 2017 – Flynn’s defense claims there is a letter from UK National Security Advisor Sir Mark Lyall Grant that invalidates Steel info, undermines Russiagate, and is being suppressed

Sir Mark Lyall Grant resigns as UK’s National Security Advisor in February 2017. (Credit: Reuters)

On page 30 of Sidney Powell’s most recent court filing on behalf of Lt. General Flynn, she states there is a letter written by the UK’s National Security Advisor, Sir Mark Lyall Grant,  that questions Christopher Steele’s credibility, undermines Russiagate, and it is being suppressed. The letter was hand-delivered to the incoming National Security team in New York. Powell writes:

January 12, 2017 – Comey tells Clapper FBI unable to ‘sufficiently corroborate’ Steele — then renews Carter Page’s FISA warrant

(…) The FBI had been warned the previous summer that Hillary Clinton’s campaign may have planted the false Russia collusion story as a way to “vilify” Trump and distract from her email scandal, and agents were about to interview Steele’s primary sub-source, who would discount much of the information in the dossier attributed to him as bar talk and unconfirmed rumor not worthy of official intelligence.

And the larger intelligence community had decided it did not want to vouch for the Steele dossier in its official Intelligence Community Assessment about Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

It was in that environment in the final days of the Obama administration that Clapper had written Comey earlier on Jan. 11, 2017 to inform the FBI that Clapper had decided to release a public statement declaring that the Steele dossier was only mentioned in an appendix to the intel community’s report because the “IC has not made any judgment that the information in the document is reliable.”

Comey tried to push back, suggesting Steele was deemed reliable (he actually had been terminated by the FBI for leaking by that time) and that his network included sources that might be in a position to know things (although the key source had already disavowed the information attributed to him in the dossier).

Then Comey added the line that undercut his argument: “That said, we are not able to sufficiently corroborate the reporting to include it in the body of the report.”

You can read the full memo here:

 ComeyClapperMemo1-12-17.pdf

(Read more: JustTheNews, 2/15/2021)  (Archive)

January 15, 2017 – FBI & NYPD: It is distinctly possible the Clinton Foundation has conducted business with terror-backed financial concerns

(…) The FBI’s probe of the Clinton Foundation is actually a compartmentalized investigation. Field offices in Los Angeles and New York are spearheading the case but other offices are involved and contributing, sources said.

According to federal sources, transactions linked to Clinton corporate holdings have raised several regulatory eyebrows even beyond of the Justice Department, specifically in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury that reports to the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. FinCEN’s mission is to combat and pinpoint money laundering for personal profit or underwriting terrorism through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities, namely banks and investment houses.

According to federal sources, FinCEN is warehousing numerous Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) forwarded to Treasury from financial institutions for transactions from Clinton-owned entities, both in the United States and globally, all triggered by anti-money laundering safeguards. These reports are confidential but federal agents are using these filings as key pieces to the Clinton Foundation financial puzzle.

According to details gleaned from FinCEN, federal agents acknowledge the Clinton Foundation operates a menagerie of subsidiaries and corporate structures beyond the parent charity. According to law enforcement sources, the FinCEN revelations coupled with the emails recovered by the NYPD detail a complex myriad of shell corporations linked to the Clintons and their charity. FBI sources describe these financial entanglements as vast and global. And many defy normal operating procedures of legitimate charities, officials said.

Has the Clinton Foundation underwritten or profited from linked terror groups per the intelligence warehoused in FinCEN’s vast Treasury database? It is distinctly possible the Clinton Foundation has conducted business — knowingly or not — with terror-backed financial concerns or groups, federal agents said, especially because these are the exact suspicious transactions the U.S. Treasury mandates compliance and security officials in U.S. financial institutions to report to FinCEN under threat of hefty fines and imprisonment.

Triggered by such anti-money laundering controls, federal investigators, for example, said they have examined a Clinton-affiliated offshore entity that essentially is a multi-million dollar private for-profit equity firm operated like an unsanctioned U.S. hedge fund outside the regulatory reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission. That for-profit business however, is controlled by New York-based Clinton Foundation, a not-for-profit registered charity. Also, while the profits of the offshore company are taxable in its foreign domicile, the parent company — the Clinton Foundation — is exempt from the same annual taxes in the United States.

Likewise, because the affiliate of the Clinton Foundation operates as a private offshore company, no one — including regulators in the United States — is privy to its clients, its investments or whether it perhaps served as a front company to secretly commission pay-for-play political schemes and favors during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

The challenge for the investigators? The Clinton Foundation and family have dozens of such affiliates and companies, an intricate corporate tapestry confusing to outsiders and intentionally complex by design.That’s why FBI agents in more than five separate field offices are working this case, federal sources said.”  (Read more: The True Pundit, 1/15/2017)  (Archive)

January 19, 2017 – Obama’s White House counsel emails a “top secret” letter to Comey and McCabe regarding Comey’s spies placed in the WH

On June 21, 2013, Obama and Comey applaud outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller after Obama announces his nomination of Mr. Comey to the same office. (Credit: Michael Reynolds/EU Press)

Recent revelations reveal that Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s team was out to “get Trump”:

An FBI agent who played a lead role investigating Michael Flynn told the Justice Department there was never evidence of wrongdoing by the retired general or Russian collusion by President Trump, but the probe was kept open by Special Counsel Robert Mueller because his team had a “get Trump” goal, according to an explosive interview released Friday.

(…) In spite of the Left and Deep State efforts to distance and isolate the Obama-Biden White House from James Comey, Andy McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bob Mueller’s phony investigation meant to “get Trump,” we have seen a steady stream of stories and information tying the Obama-Biden White House to the scheme.  One of those stories, that Mueller’s team accidentally wiped their phones, prompted the ACLJ to submit yet another FOIA request just last week.

Yet now we know and can report that new documents turned over to the ACLJ through our FOIA litigation over Comey’s spies placed in the White House show that President Obama’s White House Counsel emailed Comey and McCabe the day before Inauguration Day, and attached a letter.  The FBI has withheld the actual letter from us, and we will be challenging that in court. Here is what the records we obtained actually show:

On January 19, 2017 (the night before the President Trump’s Inauguration) at 9:52 PM, James Comey emails his General Counsel James Baker an “FYI” and an attached pdf “Letter.”  The email is marked TOP SECRET. The email is a forwarded email that Neil Eggleston, President Obama’s White House Counsel, had sent to Comey and McCabe earlier that day, with the subject line “[TOP SECRET, Record],” and an attached Letter, and says, “Director and Deputy Director – Please see the attached letter.”

Another FBI record the ACLJ obtained in this FOIA lawsuit shows that a meeting was organized by James Comey with a participant whose name has been redacted. That meeting was set for April 10, 2017, at 1:00 pm, in Room 7062 (the 7th floor).  The redacted name of the person with whom Comey set the meeting notice could only be a communication with or about, or regarding Anthony Ferrante, Jordan Rae Kelly, or Tashina Gauhar, in order for it to be responsive to the ACLJ’s request.”

(Read more: ACLJ, 9/26/2020)  (Archive)

January 20, 2017 – 2018: James Comey planted spies in the White House to keep an eye on President Trump

(…) “Two U.S. officials briefed on the inspector general’s investigation of possible FBI misconduct said Comey was essentially “running a covert operation against” the president, starting with a private “defensive briefing” he gave Trump just weeks before his inauguration. They said Horowitz has examined high-level FBI text messages and other communications indicating Comey was actually conducting a “counterintelligence assessment” of Trump during that meeting in New York.

Anthony Ferrante speaks at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham College, August 2019. (Credit: Chris Taggart)

In addition to adding notes of his meetings and phone calls with Trump to the official FBI case file, Comey had an agent inside the White House who reported back to FBI headquarters about Trump and his aides, according to other officials familiar with the matter.

Although Comey took many actions on his own, he was not working in isolation. One focus of Horowitz’s inquiry is the private Jan. 6, 2017, briefing Comey gave the president-elect in New York about material in the Democratic-commissioned dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Reports of that meeting were used days later by BuzzFeed, CNN, and other outlets as a news hook for reporting on the dossier’s lascivious and unsubstantiated claims.

Comey’s meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump — a meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN.

Jordan Rae Kelly and Robert Mueller (Credit: public domain)

At the same time Comey was personally scrutinizing the president during meetings in the White House and phone conversations from the FBI, he had an agent inside the White House working on the Russia investigation, where he reported back to FBI headquarters about Trump and his aides, according to officials familiar with the matter. The agent, Anthony Ferrante, who specialized in cybercrime, left the White House around the same time Comey was fired and soon joined a security consulting firm, where he contracted with BuzzFeed to lead the news site’s efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection with a defamation lawsuit.

Knowledgeable sources inside the Trump White House say Comey carved out an extraordinary new position for Ferrante, which allowed him to remain on reserve status at the FBI while working in the White House as a cybersecurity adviser.

“In an unprecedented action, Comey created a new FBI reserve position for Ferrante, enabling him to have an ongoing relationship with the agency, retaining his clearances and enabling him to come back in [to bureau headquarters],” said a former National Security Council official who requested anonymity.

“Between the election and April 2017, when Ferrante finally left the White House, the Trump NSC division supervisor was not allowed to get rid of Ferrante,” he added, “and Ferrante continued working — in direct conflict with the no-contact policy between the White House and the Department of Justice.”

Through a spokeswoman at FTI Consulting, which maintains the BuzzFeed contract, Ferrante declined to comment.

Another FBI official, Jordan Rae Kelly, who worked closely with Mueller when he headed the bureau, replaced Ferrante upon his White House exit (though she signed security logs for him to continue entering the White House as a visitor while he was working for BuzzFeed). Kelly left the White House last year and joined Ferrante at FTI Consulting.

Working with Comey liaison Ferrante at the NSC in early 2017 was another Obama holdover — Tashina Gauhar, who remains a top national security adviser at the Justice Department.

In January 2017, Gauhar assisted former acting Attorney General Sally Yates in the Flynn investigation. Later, she helped Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein resist, initially, Trump’s order to fire Comey. Gauhar also took copious notes during her meetings with White House lawyers, which were cited by Mueller in the section of his report dealing with obstruction of justice.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 7/22/2019)

January 20, 2017 – April 2017: James Comey has a mole in the White House, keeping tabs on President Trump and his aides

Anthony Ferrante (Credit: public domain)

“Former FBI Director James Comey had an inside man at the White House, feeding the bureau information about President Trump and his aides in 2017.

Now this individual, who after leaving the government was hired by BuzzFeed to verify parts of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier, may be tied to an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses by the DOJ and the FBI being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

This previously unreported mole in the White House appears in a new report by RealClearInvestigations that explored possible misconduct by Comey for what two U.S. officials described as essentially “running a covert operation against” the president even as he was assuring Trump he was not the subject of any investigation.

Anthony Ferrante, a longtime FBI official, worked as a cybersecurity adviser on the National Security Council. Officials said Ferrante was working in the White House even while the FBI held him on reserve status. All the while, he was sharing information about Trump and his aides back to FBI headquarters.

One former National Security Council official said Ferrante’s unique position was highly irregular.

“In an unprecedented action, Comey created a new FBI reserve position for Ferrante, enabling him to have an ongoing relationship with the agency, retaining his clearances and enabling him to come back in [to bureau headquarters],” the official said, adding that the NSC division supervisor was “not allowed to get rid of Ferrante” and that the arrangement appeared to be “in direct conflict with the no-contact policy between the White House and the Department of Justice.”

Ferrante left the White House in April 2017, not long before Trump fired Comey as FBI director. (Read more: Washington Examiner, July 22, 2019)

January 24-February 15, 2017: Tracking the original Flynn FD-302 report that mysteriously disappears

(Credit: CentipedeNation)

“FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka interviewed National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on January 24, 2017. According to documents presented in the court case, agent Peter Strzok did the questioning and agent Joe Pientka took most of the notes.

Following the interview agent Pientka then took his hand-written notes and generated an official FD-302; an FBI report of the interview itself. There has been a great deal of debate over the first draft, the original FD-302 as it was written by Joe Pientka. In the case against Flynn the DOJ prosecutors never presented the original Pientka 302.

On May 2, 2017, the DOJ, using new information gathered by U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, declassified and released a segment of James Comey testimony that was previously hidden.  Within the transcript Comey says Pientka wrote the Flynn 302 on January 24th immediately following the interview. Screengrab below – (pdf here).

That January 24, 2017, version of the 302 is the one that has gone missing.

(Timeline editor’s note: I’m including recently released text messages between Strzok and Page that may have relevance to this time)

People defending the FBI have even said it never existed.  However, the testimony of FBI Director James Comey proves the 302 was drafted on January 24th.

Additionally, recent evidence from Brady material turned over to the defense by auditing attorney Jeff Jensen showed FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI Agent Peter Strzok rewriting, editing and shaping the 302 on February 10, 2017, more than two weeks later:

Lisa Page is “pissed off” because Peter Strzok previously edited the 302 and she says he “didn’t even attempt to make this cogent and readable.”

Peter Strzok replies back to Lisa Page that he was “trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save Joe’s voice” because Joe Pientka was the actual author.

Peter Strzok is re-writing the interview notes of Pientka in order to construct the framework to accuse Flynn of lying. Lisa Page is editing the re-write to make it more cogent and readable.

The question has remained: Where is the original 302 report as written by Pientka?

While the question(s) around the missing original 302 have yet to be reconciled, one possible path to discover its location and a copy of its original content lies in the testimony of Sally Yates. Former DAG Sally Yates testified to Congress that after the Flynn interview DOJ-National Security Division:

“The DOJ-National Security Division received a detailed readout from the FBI agents who had interviewed Flynn.” Yates said she felt “it was important to get this information to the White House as quickly as possible.”

Yates is describing the Pientka 302. The Pientka 302 could have been received at the DOJ-NSD later in the evening of January 24th, or perhaps the morning of the 25th. Either is possible because Yates was having meetings about the topic.

The calendar of DOJ-NSD Associate Deputy AG Tashina Gauhar shows meetings with Sally Yates which align with the discussions of the Flynn interview and Yates receiving a summary on the 24th and the detail on the 25th:

Schedule of Associate Deputy Attorney General Tashina Gauhar

In the DOJ motion to dismiss the case against Flynn, the records indicate Yates received a summary of the interview the night of the 24th, and the full detailed record came on the morning of January 25th:

Aligning with what Sally Yates previously described, James Comey admits the FD-302 draft was written on January 24th, exactly as Sally Yates is describing:

Together with DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord, Sally Yates used the 302 from Joe Pientka to travel to the White House on January 26th and brief White House counsel Don McGahn about the Flynn interview contrast against the content of the previously captured call between Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Lt. Gen Mike Flynn.

If the FBI search for the original Pientka 302 is mysteriously impossible, perhaps the DOJ should go and get the version that was received by the DOJ-NSD on the evening of January 24th, or the morning of January 25th, 2017.

Sally Yates had the original Pientka FD-302 report

Yates testimony below:

•Wednesday January 25th, 2017, – The Department of Justice, National Security Division, (at this timeframe Mary McCord was head of the DOJ-NSD) – received a detailed readout from the FBI agents who had interviewed Flynn. Yates said she felt “it was important to get this information to the White House as quickly as possible.”

•Thursday January 26th – (morning) Sally Yates called White House Counsel Don McGahn first thing that morning to tell him she had “a very sensitive matter” that had to be discussed face to face. McGahn agreed to meet with Yates later that afternoon.

•Thursday January 26th – (afternoon) Sally Yates traveled to the White House along with a senior member of the DOJ’s National Security Division, “who was overseeing the matter”, that is Mary McCord. This was Yates’ first meeting with McGahn in his office, which also acts as a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).

Yates said she began their meeting by laying out the media accounts and media statements made by Vice President Mike Pence and other high-ranking White House officials about General Flynn’s activity “that we knew not to be the truth.”

According to Sally Yates testimony, she and Mary McCord presented all the information to McGahn so the White House could take action that they deemed appropriate. When asked by McGahn if Flynn should be fired, Yates answered, “that really wasn’t our call.”

Yates also said her decision to notify the White House counsel had been discussed “at great length.” According to her testimony: “Certainly leading up to our notification on the 26th, it was a topic of a whole lot of discussion in DOJ and with other members of the intel community.”

•Friday January 27th – (morning) White House Counsel Don McGahn called Yates in the morning and asked if she could come back to his office.

•Friday January 27th – (late afternoon) According to her testimony, Sally Yates returned to the White House late that afternoon. One of McGahn’s topics discussed was whether Flynn could be prosecuted for his conduct.

Specifically, according to Yates, one of the questions *McGahn asked Yates: “Why does it matter to DOJ if one White House official lies to another?” She explained that it “was a whole lot more than that,” and reviewed the same issues outlined the prior day.

McGahn then expressed his concern that taking any action might interfere with the FBI investigation of Flynn, and Yates said it wouldn’t: “It wouldn’t really be fair of us to tell you this and then expect you to sit on your hands,” Yates claims to have told McGahn.

McGahn asked if he could look at the underlying evidence of Flynn’s conduct, and she said they would work with the FBI over the weekend and “get back with him on Monday morning.”

•Friday January 27th, 2017 – (evening) In what appears to be only a few hours later, President Trump is having dinner with FBI Director James Comey where President Trump asked if he was under investigation. Trump was, but to continue the auspices of the ongoing investigation, Comey lied and told him he wasn’t.

Sally Yates received the original Flynn 302 (January 25th) and then went to the White House and informed Don McGahn (January 26th) about the nature of the interview.

The Flynn 302 was edited by Page and Strzok on February 10th.  The 302 was changed and altered to match the FBI claims of a discrepancy.  Flynn was fired on Feb 13th.  The Flynn 302 was debated again on Feb 14th and entered into the record on February 15th.

Sally Yates was fired, and later testified to congress on May 8, 2017.  She modified her testimony to avoid an admission that she held the original 302; likely because she knew the 302 was rewritten in February.

Bottom line the Flynn 302 was written on January 24, 2017.  James Comey, Andew McCabe and Sally Yates all saw it.” (Conservative Treehouse, 5/15/2020)  (Archive)

January 30, 2017 – Danchenko tells FBI the info he shared with Steele was “bar talk over beers”…then they classify it as “secret”

Christopher Steele leaves the High Court in London following a hearing in the libel case brought against him by Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev, July 22, 2020. A key sub-source for material in the Steele dossier has been unmasked: Igor Danchenko, a Ukraine-born think-tank analyst. (Credit: Victoria Jones/PA/AP)

(…) Danchenko was another matter. The FBI first interviewed him in late January 2017 after he was identified as Steele’s subsource. His interview was documented on an electronic communication, or EC, an internal FBI communication, and not on an FD-302, which is used to document interviews of witnesses. Nor was it logged on a specific source report form. Since it was made under a proffer agreement with his attorney present — meaning nothing he said could be used directly against him in court — Danchenko must have believed he was in legal jeopardy. This would make him not a traditional source, and certainly not someone who would be promised confidentiality indefinitely. If he continued cooperating with the FBI after the initial interview, he would have been considered a cooperating witness. Yes, the FBI would try to protect his identity, but no promises would be made — and not forever.

Critics who claim that Attorney General William Barr has recklessly declassified this FBI electronic communication, putting Danchenko and other sources — and future source operations — in peril are wrong. Steele was a “non-U.S. Person,” and not an FBI source when he was de facto working for the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to develop opposition research against Donald Trump. Steele subcontracted this work to Danchenko, also not a government agent or source, who, by his own admission during the FBI interview, provided what he categorized as “bar talk over beers” back to Steele. The fact that this kind of information in an FBI communication was classified as “secret” in the first place is unexplainable. How is bar talk by a collection of drinking friends a threat to the national security of the United States, the very description of what constitutes “secret” information?

The information that Danchenko provided was the last nail in the coffin of the Steele dossier, and it created a serious dilemma for the FBI. A substantial portion of the Russia collusion narrative, and all of the evidence used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, was no longer viable.” (Read more: The Hill, 8/01/2020)  (Archive)

January 30, 2017 – The hearsay whistleblower is overheard discussing with ally how to remove Trump

Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella – the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous “whistleblower” who touched off Trump’s impeachment – was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues.

Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama’s approach to international affairs.

“Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him,” said a White House colleague who overheard their conversation.

“They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda,” the former official added. “They were plotting to actually have him removed from office.”

Sean Misko (Credit: Center For a New American Century)

Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff’s committee, where sources say he offered “guidance” to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats.

(…) Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and Misko, close friends and Democrats held over from the Obama administration, discussing how to “take out,” or remove, the new president from office within days of Trump’s inauguration. These co-workers said the president’s controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking for.

“They didn’t like his policies,” another former White House official said. “They had a political vendetta against him from Day One.”

Their efforts were part of a larger pattern of coordination to build a case for impeachment, involving Democratic leaders as well as anti-Trump figures both inside and outside of government.

All unnamed sources for this article spoke only on the condition that they not be further identified or described. Although strong evidence points to Ciaramella as the government employee who lodged the whistleblower complaint, he has not been officially identified as such. As a result, this article makes a distinction between public information released about the unnamed whistleblower/CIA analyst and specific information about Ciaramella.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 1/22/2020)  (Archive)

January 30, 2017 – An internal memo shows the FBI’s Russia collusion case fell apart in first month of Trump presidency

“The piecemeal release of FBI files in the Russia collusion investigation has masked an essential fact: James Comey’s G-men had substantially debunked the theory that Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Moscow by the time the 45th president was settling into the Oval Office, according to declassified memos, court filings, and interviews.

And that means a nascent presidency and an entire nation were put through two more years of lacerating debate over an issue that was mostly resolved in January 2017 inside the bureau’s own evidence files. The proof is now sitting in plain view.

In rapid-fire sequence in January 2017, U.S. officials:

  • received multiple warnings about the credibility of informant Christopher Steele and his dossier;
  • affirmed key targets of the FBI counterintelligence investigation made exculpatory statements denying collusion to undercover sources;
  • concluded retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was not engaged in collusion with the Russians.

The latter revelation has mostly escaped much notice, contained in a single sentence in a once-sealed court motion filed by Flynn defense attorney Sidney Powell that requested what is known as Brady material, or evidence of innocence.

Sidney Powell appears on Fox News on November 6, 2019 to discuss the FBI admission that it has for years misattributed authorship of the notes used in preparing the FBI 302 interview summaries that were themselves altered to incriminate Flynn. (Credit: Fox News)

That motion dated Sept. 11, 2019 requested access to “an internal DOJ document dated January 30, 2017, in which the FBI exonerated Mr. Flynn of being ‘an agent of Russia.’”

Flynn’s motion is confirmed by a 2018 letter obtained by Just the News between Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and defense lawyers. It shows the DOJ exoneration memo was written after Flynn had been interviewed by FBI agents in January 2017 and after the government learned the former Defense Intelligence Agency chief had kept his old agency briefed on his contacts with Russia, something that weighed heavily against the notion he was aiding Moscow.

“According to an internal DOJ memo dated January 30, 2017, after the Jan. 24 interview, the FBI advised that based on the interview the FBI did not believe Flynn was acting as an agent of Russia,” Mueller’s team wrote in the letter.” (Read more: Just the News, 3/11/2020)  (Archive)

January 30, 2017 – Ten days into Trump’s presidency, the attorney for the ‘hearsay whistleblower’ tweets: “#coup has started. As one falls two more will take their place. #rebellion and #impeachment”

“A few people have started looking at the connections behind Mark Zaid, the attorney for CIA “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella.  What is starting to emerge is evidence of what CTH outlined yesterday; the current impeachment process is part of a coup continuum, and everything around the whistleblower is part of a long-ago planned and pre-constructed operation.

Two strong examples are very poignant:

(Twitter)   (Archive)

This 2017 tweet by the whistleblowers’ attorney is evidence of what we were sharing yesterday.  A point that almost everyone is missing…what is happening now with Adam Schiff and his Lawfare-contracted legal aide, Daniel Goldman, was designed last year.  The current HPSCI legislative impeachment process and every little aspect within it is the execution of a plan, just like the DOJ/FBI plan was before it in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Mark Zaid (Credit: MSNBC)

The use of a ‘whistle-blower’ was pre-planned long ago.  The agreements between Schiff, Lawfare and the CIA ‘whistle-blower’ were pre-planned.  The changing of whistle-blower rules to assist the plan was designed long ago.

Adam Schiff and Daniel Goldman are executing a plan concocted long ago. None of the testimony is organic; all of it was planned a long time ago, long before anyone knew the names Marie Yovanovitch, Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland or Bill Taylor.   All of this is the coordinated execution of a plan.

“The anti-Trump members of the National Security Council and U.S. State Department were always going to be used.  Throughout 2018 and 2019 embeds in the ‘resistance’ network were awaiting instructions and seeding evidence, useful information, to construct an impeachment narrative that was designed to detonate later.

When Bill Taylor is texting Gordon Sondland about a quid-pro-quo, and Sondland is reacting with ‘wtf are you talking about’, Taylor was texting by design.  He was manufacturing evidence for the narrative.  This was all a set-up. All planned.

When Marie Yovanovitch shows up to give her HPSCI deposition to Daniel Goldman with three high-priced DC lawyers: Lawrence Robbins, Laurie Rubenstein and Rachel Li Wai Suen, having just sent her statements to the Washington Post for deployment immediately prior to her appearance, Yovanovitch is doing so by design.  All planned.

Here is another example from Mark Zaid, attorney for the “Whistleblower”, just ten days after the inauguration of President Trump where he directly calls out an ongoing “coup“:

This mention of the “coup has started” is even more nefarious, and even more specific to a CTH warning, because Zaid is specifically noting that Dana Boente was/is part of the effort.

Why is that name important?  Because Dana Boente is currently FBI chief legal counsel, hired into the FBI in January 2018.  Boente is dirty.

In April of this year we outlined the evidence to show how Dana Boente was a dirty cop [SEE HERE]; and then in June of this year HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes threatened to send criminal referrals for FBI Director Christopher Wray and FBI counsel Dana Boente [SEE HERE].

(Dirty Cops – Full Backstory)

(Conservative Treehouse, 11/06/2019)

January 31, 2017 – John Podesta sets up fundraising meetings for Fusion GPS after Trump’s election victory

(Credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

“Former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was one of Fusion GPS’s “most helpful” resources in an effort to raise money after the 2016 election to continue investigating President Donald Trump, the co-founders of the opposition research firm revealed in a book released on Nov. 26.

Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the co-founders of Fusion GPS, wrote in “Crime in Progress” that Podesta provided welcome support in early 2017 for an effort to raise money to fund The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP), a nonprofit group former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer Daniel Jones created on Jan. 31, 2017.

Podesta agreed during a meeting with Simpson in early 2017 to contact potential donors to help arrange meetings with Fusion GPS and Jones, according to the book.

“In mid-February [2017] and then again in early March, Jones — supported by Fritsch and Simpson — took prospecting trips in the West. They didn’t know the tech community well, so before heading out, they sought some door openers and validators from the world they knew best,” the authors wrote.

“One of the most helpful” resources turned out to be Podesta, according to Simpson and Fritsch.

“Podesta agreed to contact some friends out west on Jones’s behalf and told him to drop his name in talks with other potential supporters,” they said. “It was a brave gesture: He could have easily chosen to stay out of it altogether, given the fact that he had served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/02/2019)  (Archive)

February 9, 2017 – The FBI corruption is so bad, they ask Trump to authorize his own surveillance via an Executive Order

“Last month the DOJ admitted to the FISA court that two of the four FISA warrants used against Carter Page were fraudulently obtained.

However, what the DOJ did not admit publicly was how the current FBI Chief Legal Counsel, Dana Boente, participated in obtaining the April 2017 warrant.  In hindsight, this story explains the ongoing issues within the FBI.

The original FISA application was October 21st, 2016. The first FISA renewal was January 12, 2017 (84 days from origination) and prior to the inauguration of President Trump. The second renewal was April 7, 2017 (85 days from prior renewal). The third renewal was on June 29th, 2017 (83 days from prior renewal).

The originating FISA and first renewal were authorized by the Obama administration officials.  However, it was the second renewal -now identified as fraudulent- on April 7th 2017, under the Trump administration, when the conniving FBI ran into a problem.

Here’s what happened.

On January 30th, 2017, Sally Yates was fired for refusing to defend the Trump travel ban from extremist countries.  Yates was replaced on January 31st by the U.S. Attorney from the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), Dana Boente.  There wasn’t an existing AG because Loretta Lynch had left.

As a result of Yates exit and Dana Boente’s entry, Boente was Acting Deputy Attorney General, and in charge until Jeff Sessions was confirmed on February 8th, 2017.

On February 9th, 2017, President Trump issued executive order 13775 changing the line of DOJ succession, moving the EDVA up, and granting Boente the full legal authority to carry out the duties of the Deputy AG until a permanent replacement was confirmed.

When Jeff Sessions became Attorney General, Dana Boente became Acting Deputy AG, a role Boente would retain until Rod Rosenstein was confirmed on April 25th, 2017. (Note: Boente also remained EDVA U.S. Attorney)

On March 2nd, 2017, Dana Boente was one of a small group who participated in a conversation that led to the recusal of Jeff Sessions from anything related to the 2016 election.  This recusal included the ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation known as Crossfire Hurricane, which was later picked up by Robert Mueller.

The other attendees for the recusal decision-making meeting (see above schedule) included Sessions’ chief of staff Jody Hunt; Criminal Chief in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, Jim Crowell; Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) in the Department of Justice National Security Division Tash Gauhar (FISA lawyer); and Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools.  [Note: Tash Gauhar was lawyer for FBI Clinton case; and Scott Schools was part of drafting Clinton exoneration letter.]

Boente, Crowell, Gauhar and Schools convinced AG Jeff Sessions he must recuse himself.  In hindsight each of the people giving Sessions advice was connected to previously corrupt activity within Main Justice that included the Clinton and Spygate operations.  Not knowing the conflict each advisor was carrying Sessions took their advice and recused himself; a big mistake.

With AG Jeff Sessions recused from anything involving the 2016 election; which included the Russia investigation; effective the evening of March 2, 2017, FBI Director James Comey now reported to Acting Deputy AG Dana Boente.

Technically, as this point in March 2017 Boente is still U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) and is only ‘acting’ as Deputy AG.  With Sessions recused Boente would be needed when the Carter Page FISA would be up for renewal (April, 2017).

With Sessions recused from the Russia investigation, and without a confirmed Deputy AG able to authorize, all of the material the FBI investigators needed from Main Justice would have to flow through Dana Boente.  [Note: Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was not confirmed until April 25th.]

The January 12th FISA renewal was going to expire on April 12th, 2017 (90-days).  FBI Director James Comey had to work with and brief Dana Boente on the sensitive issues around the Russia investigation; including discussions with Boente about President Trump as a target of that investigation, and surveillance issues; if he was going to extend the FISA warrant with DOJ approval.

Toward the end of March 2017 FBI Director Comey was in discussions with Dana Boente about the issue.

We discover the hand-written notes later on as they were leaked to MSNBC, almost certainly leaked by the people within the Mueller investigation in April 2018. [You’ll see how we know in a minute]  However, at the time of the 2018 leak there was no context for the notes that Boente was taking.

It was only after the FISA application was declassified in July 2018 that Boente’s hand-written notes and the topic therein made sense.   To date no-one has connected this issue… until now.  (Pay attention to the date, Comey March 30th, 2017)

Obviously these notes are from a conversation between then Acting AG Dana Boente and FBI Director James Comey on March 30th, 2017.  It appears to be a phone call.

In hindsight the subject matter almost certainly relates to the issue of the Russia investigation, the sensitivity of administration being under that investigation, and James Comey sharing his interactions with President Trump with Dana Boente.

With Jeff Sessions recused, it is now Acting AG Dana Boente approving whatever James Comey needs from Main Justice.  James Comey wants the Carter Page FISA extended.

AG Jeff Sessions is recused (incapable); there is no Deputy AG in position; therefore the U.S. Attorney for the EDVA holds the authority to perform the duties of the office.  Dana Boente is the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

After the February 9th executive order initiating the change of DOJ succession was signed Dana Boente can now officially sign the Carter Page FISA application renewal.  Which is exactly what happens a week after their March 30th call when James Comey and Dana Boente sign the admittedly fraudulent FISA renewal – April 7th, 2017:

(Page #271 – Carter Page FISA Application)

Do you see what just happened here? President Trump signed an executive order that facilitated the FBI continuing to spying on his administration.

(…) So when FBI Director James Comey is making contact with Acting DAG Dana Boente on March 30th, 2017, for issues relating to the need for a FISA renewal in April 2017, the FBI was absolutely certain there was no validity to the underlying evidence within the FISA application.

Yet the FBI team was so determined to get the fraudulent FISA reauthorized, they ignored all of the evidence that undermined their objective.

Think about the scale of deceit and corruption involved.

But it doesn’t end…. it gets worse.

On April 25th, 2017, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is confirmed.   Rosenstein now takes over the responsibilities held by Acting DAG Dana Boente; this includes the FBI counterintelligence probe.

On May 9th, 2017, FBI Director James Comey is fired.

On May 10th, 2017, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe opens a criminal ‘obstruction of justice investigation’ of President Trump to parallel the ongoing counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and administration.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Dana Boente now becomes the Asst. Attorney General and head of the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).  Simultaneously retaining role as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of VA.  At that moment, guess who is Dana Boente’s legal counsel – Michael Atkinson.

Yes, that’s the same Michael Atkinson who is the current ICIG who facilitated the Whistle-blower complaint; was senior legal counsel to Dana Boente while he headed the DOJ-NSD.

On May 16th, 2017, Rosenstein takes Robert Mueller to the White House to meet President Trump. On May 17th, 2017, Rosenstein appoints the Robert Mueller special counsel probe. And we’re off to the Trump-Russia-Collusion-Obstruction races…

On June 29th, 2017, Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe reauthorize that same fraudulent FISA application for Robert Mueller and his corrupt team of 19 special prosecutors and now 40 FBI agents to continue to exploit.

Dana Boente is still head of DOJ-NSD from May 11th, 2017 through the end of October 2017 when he officially announced his intent to retire.  But wait,… On January 23rd, 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray announces Dana Boente has shifted over to the FBI to be Chief Legal Counsel (replacing James Baker).

Yes, that is correct.  As Mueller is using 19 lawyers, and 40 FBI investigators, Boente now becomes a legal adviser to Christopher Wray, inside the FBI, while the Mueller probe is ongoing….. Oh, and as you can see from his participation with Mueller, Dana Boente is also now a fact witness within the Mueller investigation.

It gets better, who do you think is in charge of the 40 FBI agents now conducting the third year of that fraudulent Mueller investigation?

Yup, the very same Dana Boente!

This is staggeringly unreal.  It’s no wonder FBI Director Christopher Wray appears detached, disconnected and completely unfazed by the scale and scope of the corrupt enterprise he is in charge of.  His own chief legal counsel was a key player in the operation to remove the president.

It always seemed odd that White House Counsel Don McGahn left in 2018; until you look at the bigger picture.  The Carter Page FISA Application was officially declassified and made public in late July 2018.  No doubt as McGahn looked at the FISA issues from his unique perspective, he likely realized in hindsight how the FISA issues crossed-over two administrations and what the executive orders on DOJ succession were really all about.

In his position as White House Counsel, Don McGahn would now be a fact witness if anyone started investigating.   Approximately two weeks after the FISA applications were declassified and made public, in August 2018, Don McGahn submitted his resignation.

PS. The deadline for the FBI and DOJ to inform the FISA Court about their sequestration and recovery effort (ie. a proverbial search for the fruit of a poisonous tree. Where is it?), was February 5th. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/13/2020)  (Archive)

February 10, 2017 – Newly released texts reveal Strzok made major edits to Flynn’s lost FD 302 report

Peter Strzok testifies to the Judiciary Committee on July 12, 2018. (Credit: Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)