December 20, 2019 - The FISA court does not call for a review of all FBI FISA deceptions

Submitted to Zero Hedge by Twitter journalist Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog)

“This week, Presiding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Judge Rosemary Collyer, released two stern Orders taking the FBI to task for its repeated failures, omissions, and misrepresentations in its application and subsequent renewals to surveil Carter Page.

And while one FBI employee has received a criminal referral for doctoring evidence in the scheme to defraud the court, key players with oversight responsibilities – under penalty of perjury – have been given a pass.

(…) While it’s laudable that Judge Collyer has ordered the government to double-check their submissions in the prior FISA applications that involved Clinesmith, what about the previous FISA applications verified by the FBI agents who lied – under penalty of perjury, we might add – in the Carter Page applications and renewals?

In other words, whether an FBI lawyer changes an e-mail about a target’s history of cooperation with the CIA or an FBI agent lies about the underlying intelligence, the goal is the same: secure the warrant through deception. Both these acts are criminal. Why is only one deserving of review?

Related: A Techno_Fog thread on Joe Pientka, and the FBI’s efforts to keep him out of the spotlight (click a tweet to read the rest):

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/22/2019)  (Archive)

December 28, 2019 - OAN three part investigative report on Ukraine, corruption and Biden family – Rudy Giuliani and Chanel Rion travel to Ukraine

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

One America News produced a three-part series on the Biden family financial attachment to the corruption in Ukraine.   Each segment in the series is nearly an hour-long; they are presented below for viewer/reader reference and review.

One America News Investigates – Chanel Rion interviews several witnesses who destroy Adam Schiff’s baseless impeachment case against President Trump. In a three-part EXCLUSIVE report, Rudy Giuliani debunks the impeachment hoax and exposes Biden family corruption in Ukraine. (Conservative Treehouse, 12/28/2019)

Part One:

Part Two

Part Three

2020 - 2021: FBI repeatedly abuses surveillance tool to spy on Americans in wake of Jan. 6

(Credit: Director of National Intelligence)

The FBI abused a digital surveillance tool nearly 300,000 times between 2020 and early 2021, running 23,132 inquiries alone after Jan. 6., according to a newly unsealed court document.

The Section 702 database, which the FBI is authorized to use to gather foreign intelligence information or if they believe there is evidence of a crime, was used on Jan. 6 suspects, along with congressional campaign donors and protestors arrested in riots after George Floyd was killed in 2020, a newly unsealed court document reveals. An April 2022 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) opinion described these abuses, noting that the employee who ran the queries after Jan. 6 did so “to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence related to the query term used.”

No “raw Section 702 information was accessed” as a result of Jan. 6 queries, according to the court document. A senior F.B.I. official said analysts “had a mistaken understanding of the standard” and were required to undergo training, according to The Washington Post.

An FBI official conducted a search in June 2020 for individuals arrested “in connection with civil unrest and protests between approximately May 30 and June 18, 2020,” the same time Black Lives Matter protests were happening nationwide after the death of George Floyd.

An FBI analyst also “conducted a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign,” on a campaign the analyst said was a target of foreign influence.

FISA court Judge Rudolph Contreras permitted Section 702 to continue for another year because he was “encouraged by the amendments to the FBI’s querying procedures,” but noted compliance problems “have proven to be persistent and widespread.”

“If they are not substantially mitigated by these recent measures, it may become necessary to consider other responses, such as substantially limiting the number of FBI personnel with access to unminimized Section 702 information,” Contreras wrote. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/19/2023)  (Archive)

FBI Used Cash Bonuses To Encourage Agents To Wiretap More Americans, Whistleblower Says

January 10, 2020 - FBI director Christopher Wray tells the FISA court in a letter that he "deeply regrets" the many errors in FISA warrants

Christopher Wray (Credit: Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press)

“FBI Director Christopher Wray told the federal surveillance court in a letter Friday that he “deeply regrets” the bureau’s many errors in the process to obtain surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“The FBI has the utmost respect for this Court, and deeply regrets the errors and omissions identified by the OIG,” Wray wrote in a letter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

A judge on the FISC ordered the FBI on Dec. 17 to respond by Friday with a roadmap on how the bureau plans to address the problems identified in a Justice Department inspector general’s (IG) report regarding applications for warrants to wiretap Page.

(…) FBI personnel will be instructed on the errors and omissions that were made in the Carter Page FISA applications and associated processes,” Wray said.

The training will include a test “to confirm that personnel understand the expectations and the materials,” as well as certification for FBI employees who have completed the training, he added.

Wray set April 30 as a deadline to complete the training.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/10/2020)  (Archive)

January 10, 2020 - An Ex-DOJ official who is chosen by FISC Judge James Boasberg to assist in FISA reform, was ardent defender of FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page

Judge James Boasberg (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM/The Associated Press)

“A former Justice Department official picked Friday to oversee the FBI’s reforms of its surveillance procedures in the wake of a damning inspector general’s report was one of the many pundits during the Russia probe to defend the bureau’s surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

David S. Kris, a former assistant attorney general for national security, was also an outspoken critic of Rep. Devin Nunes and other congressional Republicans who accused the FBI of misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in applications to wiretap Page.

An inspector general’s (IG) report released Dec. 9, 2019, largely vindicated Republicans and Page. The report identified 17 errors and omissions the FBI made in its four applications to surveil Page. The IG also said the FBI was unable to corroborate allegations that Page was a Russian agent.

Judge James E. Boasberg, who presides over the FISC, tapped Kris [to] serve as amicus curiae for a review of the FBI’s handling of the Page surveillance warrants. In that role, Kris will “assist” the FISC in assessing the FBI’s implementation of a series of reforms to address the problems uncovered in the IG report.

Assistant Attorney General David Kris (l) of the Justice Department’s National Security Division testifies with Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson before the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 7, 2009. (Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Nunes and Page both panned the choice of Kris given his past commentary defending the FBI.

“It’s hard to imagine a worse person the FISC could have chosen outside Comey, McCabe, or Schiff,” Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  

“The choice is shocking and inexplicable.”

Page also weighed in on Kris’s selection to oversee the FBI’s reforms.

“If there were any hope for the system fixing this FISA mess, it extinguished with David Kris’ appointment,” he told The DCNF.

“Nobody trying to fix the rampant abuse and coverup plaguing the entire FISA process would have picked Kris,” continued Page, who called Kris a “longtime FISA apologist.”

“Instead, you appoint Kris for only one reason: you don’t want the system fixed. You just want it to look like you do.”

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/11/2020)  (Archive)

January 10, 2020 - FBI finds new Clinton classified emails – discloses that Clinton used text messages for government business

“Judicial Watch today released 37 pages of new Clinton emails recently found by the FBI that show former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her unsecure, non-government email to transmit classified information. The new emails also show Clinton used text messages for government business. The documents, produced to Judicial Watch after a review by the State Department, include 13 new Clinton emails.

The State Department did not provide information about where the emails were found; why they were not previously produced; or if additional records are anticipated. Last month, a Justice Department attorney could not tell a federal court judge how and where the FBI discovered the new cache of Clinton emails. The State Department previously claimed it had produced all releasable Clinton emails, including emails recovered by the FBI that Hillary Clinton tried to destroy or withhold. The State Department initially claimed all responsive emails had been produced in 2018, but then found more emails which were produced, for the first time, early last year.

Then in November 2019, the State Department first disclosed to the court that the FBI had found this latest batch of emails.

(…) “Magically, after years, the FBI finds more Clinton emails that show Clinton used text messages for government work, not to mention the continuing flow of classified information transmitted over her unsecure email system,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These documents further underscore the need for a fresh, unbiased and thorough criminal investigation into Clinton’s blatant malfeasance – and the related DOJ, FBI, and State Department cover-up.”

Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in another Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury that she had “directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.”

The production of documents in this case was to have been concluded with the FBI’s recovery of approximately 5,000 of the 33,000 government emails Clinton took and tried to destroy, however, the case remains ongoing. (Emails highlighted at Judicial Watch, 1/10/2020)  (Archive)

January 12, 2020 - McCord is the key – Devin Nunes discusses sketchy issues surrounding ICIG Michael Atkinson and origination of the “whistle-blower” complaint

“House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss two very important issues.  The first is the origination of the “whistle-blower” complaint and new issues surrounding Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.  The second important subject is the background of newly installed FISA Court monitor, David Kris, to oversee the FBI reform promises.

CTH has some explosive new information that has been shared with Mr. Nunes on both issues, but we start with the interview and ICIG Michael Atkinson.

Since our original research into Atkinson, there have been some rather interesting additional discoveries.

The key to understanding the corrupt endeavor behind the fraudulent “whistle-blower” complaint, doesn’t actually originate with ICIG Atkinson. The key person is the former head of the DOJ National Security Division, Mary McCord.

Mary McCord (Credit: public domain)

Prior to becoming IC Inspector General, Michael Atkinson was the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division, Mary McCord.

It is very safe to say Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson have a working relationship from their time together in 2016 and 2017 at the DOJ-NSD. Atkinson was Mary McCord’s senior legal counsel; essentially her lawyer.

McCord was the senior intelligence officer who accompanied Sally Yates to the White House in 2017 to confront then White House Counsel Don McGahn about the issues with Michael Flynn and the drummed up controversy over the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak phone call.

Additionally, Mary McCord, Sally Yates, and Michael Atkinson worked together to promote the narrative around the incoming Trump administration “Logan Act” violations. This silly claim (undermining Obama policy during the transition) was the heavily promoted, albeit manufactured, reason why Yates and McCord were presumably concerned about Flynn’s contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It was nonsense.

However, McCord didn’t just disappear in 2017 when she retired from the DOJ-NSD. She resurfaced as part of the Lawfare group assembly after the mid-term election in 2018.

THIS IS THE KEY.

Mary McCord joined the House effort to impeach President Trump; as noted in this article from Politico:

“I think people do see that this is a critical time in our history,” said Mary McCord, a former DOJ official who helped oversee the FBI’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and now is listed as a top outside counsel for the House in key legal fights tied to impeachment. “We see the breakdown of the whole rule of law. We see the breakdown in adherence to the Constitution and also constitutional values.”

“That’s why you’re seeing lawyers come out and being very willing to put in extraordinary amounts of time and effort to litigate these cases,” she added. (link)

Former DOJ-NSD Head Mary McCord is currently working for the House Committee (Adam Schiff) who created the impeachment scheme.

Now it becomes critical to overlay that detail with how the “whistle-blower” complaint was organized.  Mary McCord’s former NSD attorney, Michael Atkinson, is the intelligence community inspector general who brings forth the complaint.

The “whistle-blower” had prior contact with the staff of the committee.  This is admitted.  So essentially the “whistle-blower” almost certainly had contact with Mary McCord, and then ICIG Michael Atkinson modified the whistle-blower rules to facilitate the outcome.

There is the origination.   That’s where the fraud starts.

The coordination between Mary McCord, the Whistle-blower, and Michael Atkinson is why HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff will not release the transcript from Atkinson’s testimony.

It now looks like the Lawfare network constructed the ‘whistle-blower’ complaint aka a Schiff Dossier and handed it to allied CIA operative Eric Ciaramella to file as a formal IC complaint.  This process is almost identical to the Fusion-GPS/Lawfare network handing the Steele Dossier to the FBI to use as the evidence for the 2016/2017 Russia conspiracy.

Atkinson’s conflict-of-self-interest, and/or possible blackmail upon him by deep state actors who most certainly know his compromise, likely influenced his approach to this whistleblower complaint.   That would explain why the Dept. of Justice Office of Legal Counsel so strongly rebuked Atkinson’s interpretation of his responsibility with the complaint.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/12/2020)  (Archive)

January 14, 2020 - Adam Schiff transmits newly "coordinated" evidence to Jerry Nadler to be included in the impeachment articles

“Yesterday’s ridiculous, albeit proactive, New York Times narrative about Russians hacking Burisma now makes sense.  Today the Lawfare team (Mary McCord et al) within Adam Schiff’s impeachment crew sends additional files of evidence (pdf below) to be included in the impeachment articles constructed by HJC Chairman Jerry Nadler.

It is all coordinated. The “new evidence” relates to information turned over by Lev Parnas, an SDNY indicted former associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.  The Lawfare purpose is to bolster their premise that President Trump was trying to force Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s corrupt activity around the Ukrainian company Burisma.

The Lawfare crew behind Schiff waited until the last minute to push the new “evidence” because they didn’t want republicans to deconstruct it during the impeachment evidence-gathering phase. Additionally, the Lawfare crew anticipates a Trump impeachment defense surrounding actual evidence of the Biden corruption, which makes the Trump request to Zelensky valid.

So the proactive democrat strategy was/is to use the New York Times presentation of Russia hacking Burisma to negate the provenance of the evidence against the Bidens.  In essence, to cast doubt upon any documents that would show Joe and Hunter Biden participating in an actual influence and money-laundering scheme.

The SDNY created legal leverage upon Lev Parnas using the familiar strategy of charging “FARA violations”, as noted in the background of the House explanation.

The purpose was/is to extract anything from Parnas that could be twisted or construed to show evidence that Rudy Giuliani was working on behalf of President Trump to pressure Ukraine into investigating Burisma, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.

To counter any evidence that would highlight the truth that Hunter and Joe Biden were indeed participating in a pay-to-play influence and money laundering scheme for personal financial benefit, the same democrat operatives created a 2020 Russian ‘hacking claim’ using former Crowdstrike employee Blake Darché and his colleague Oren Falkowitz.

NYT – […] The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area 1 said.

“The attacks were successful,” said Oren Falkowitz, a co-founder of Area 1, who previously served at the National Security Agency. Mr. Falkowitz’s firm maintains a network of sensors on web servers around the globe — many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers — which gives the firm a front-row seat to phishing attacks, and allows them to block attacks on their customers. (link)

Blake Darche’ and Oren Falkowitz formed a new cyber-security company named “Area-1 Security”.  It is an analysis from this group that the New York Times uses to push the Russian hacking of Burisma narrative.  It’s all the same players, just switching around the subject.

• The 2016 Lawfare group is now 2020’s Just Security;
• the 2016 CrowdStrike group is now 2020’s Area-1 Security;
• and the 2016 Russia DNC hack is now the 2020 Russia Burisma hack… 

It’s the same players, the same story, the same approach.

Go deep on Oleg Falkowitz and Oren Falkowitz HERE

In February 2008, Oleg Falkowitz was hired as the Iran Mission Manager and Special Assistant For Policy and Cybersecurity at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In February 2009, Oleg Falkowitz left his position at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In August 2010, Oleg Falkowitz was hired as Director of Technology and Data Science Program (J2 — Intelligence) at the United States Cyber Command.

In July 2012, Oleg Falkowitz left his position at both the United States Cyber Command and the National Security Agency.

The same month, Oren Falkowitz co-founded the organisation sqrrl and became the Chief Executive Officer.

In January 2013, Falkowitz left his position at sqrrl.

In November 2013, Oren Falkowitz, Blake Darché and Phil Syme founded the organisation Area 1 Security.

Blake Darché published the article “Once a Target, Always a Target” in Medium, which was about “Cozy Bear”.

Between July 17–19, 2017, Oren Falkowitz, John Brennan, Andrea Mitchell and David Sanger attended the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference in Aspen, CO.

LINK to Background

(Conservative Treehouse, 1/14/2020)  (Archive)

January 16, 2020 - Flynn’s lawyer: Documents show prosecutors knew they pressed him to lie

Sidney Powell (Credit: The Epoch Times)

“Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, presented evidence that shows that prosecutors knowingly pressured him to lie, his lawyer said.

“This evinces the strong inference the prosecutors themselves conspired to cause Mr. Flynn to make false statements,” Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell said in a Jan. 16 court filing (pdf).

(…) The lobbying registration, filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by the Flynn-hired law firm Covington & Burling, pertained to a job that Flynn’s now-defunct consultancy, Flynn Intel Group (FIG), did for Alptekin’s firm Inovo.

Alptekin hired FIG in the summer of 2016 to do research and lobbying focused on an Islamic cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen. Gulen runs a group that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed for an attempted 2016 coup. Prosecutors said Flynn lied in the FARA forms about the extent the Turkish government was involved with the project.

In June 2019, after Flynn fired Covington and hired new lawyers, led by Powell, prosecutors asked Flynn to testify that he signed the lobbying forms intentionally knowing there were lies in them. He refused, saying he only learned about the issues with the forms in retrospect.

That angered the lead prosecutor, Brandon Van Grack, notes from a June 27, 2019 conference call indicate.

(Supplemental Brief, footnote pg 3)

But Powell now argues that the prosecutors knew they were asking for a false statement. She filed with the court a draft of Flynn’s Statement of Offense, which shows that the words pertaining to the FARA registration, “FLYNN then and there knew” were cut from the final version.

Moreover, Powell submitted emails that indicate the words were cut by the prosecutors themselves after Flynn’s then-lawyers raised some objections to the draft.

“Point is, they knew that what they were demanding Flynn do was lie about himself and admit he did something that all along he said he didn’t,” Powell said in an email to The Epoch Times. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/19/2020)  (Archive)

January 17, 2020 - The Comey Coverup Unravels

Former FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill, Dec. 17, 2018. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

“In a curious report on Thursday evening, the New York Times carefully averts its eyes from everything that’s interesting. Even Adam Schiff has acknowledged that James Comey’s actions in 2016 may represent the most important and significant Russian influence on the election. (Hoist your shot glass. This will be the umpteenth time I’ve quoted Mr. Schiff on this matter in this column.)

January 17, 2020 - John Durham is investigating a 'strong paper trail' during the months before Mueller appointment

“A trail of documents has reportedly led Attorney General William Barr’s handpicked federal prosecutor to focus his inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation on the first several months of President Trump’s tenure.”

John Durham is zeroing in on the period spanning from January 2017, when Trump took office, to May of that year. A “strong” paper trail,   has led the investigation into possible misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials to that time frame.

Barr and Durham have traveled around the world for the investigation, and Durham’s team has already asked witnesses about possible anti-Trump bias among former FBI officials. The secretive DOJ inquiry includes scrutiny of former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, and British ex-spy Christopher Steele.

Little else is known about the investigation other than that Durham is exploring whether a crime was committed by Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer who was found by the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to have altered a document during the FBI’s efforts to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewal to continue wiretapping onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The period of time under scrutiny by Durham also covers a leak to reporters that federal prosecutors in D.C. are investigating. The Russian intelligence document under scrutiny, word of which made its way into press reports in the spring of 2017, factored into former FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server, and Comey himself appears to be the focus of that inquiry. Comey was fired in May 2017, after which Mueller was appointed special counsel to lead the Russia investigation.

Barr says, “We have to be careful about the way we collect evidence. And we have to make sure that we have enough evidence to justify our actions. And we’re not going to cut corners in that respect,”  . “You know, there’s some people who think this thing is going to drop in a few weeks. That’s not the case. I see this, perhaps, reaching an important watershed perhaps in the late spring, early summer.” (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 1/17/2020)  (Archive)

January 17, 2020 - In a radio interview, Flynn attorney Sidney Powell says, “we have a witness to the original Flynn 302″

“Remarkable interview between the attorney for Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, on WMAL radio with Larry O’Conner.  Ms. Powell describes the current status of the case and the filings to withdraw the guilty plea.  Additionally, Ms. Powell drops a bombshell in that they have a witness to the original Flynn-302 the government says doesn’t exist.

O’Conner does a great interview because he understands the background and details of the case.  His probing questions allow Ms. Powell to share valuable insight.

The original FBI report is reported to have statements to the effect that Michael Flynn was not lying.  The prosecution says no such FBI FD-302 report exists; however, Ms. Powell now shares that they have a witness to it.   Audio Below  Just hit play on the toolbar:”

(Conservative Treehouse, 1/17/2020)  (Archive)

**********

The Epoch Times adds, “Powell said in the WMAL radio interview that if Sullivan allows the plea withdrawal and the case goes to trial, she will call witnesses including former FBI Director James Comey, his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, and the “agent who cannot be named,” referring to Special Agent Joe Pientka.

It was Strzok and Pientka who interviewed Flynn, while Comey and McCabe were involved in planning the interview. Powell previously requested Clapper’s phone records to “confirm” whether he communicated with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, “especially on January 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of ‘take the kill shot on Flynn,’” she said.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/20/2020)   (Archive)

January 25, 2020 - Rudy Giuliani "Common Sense" - A series of videos about Ukraine

January 25, 2020 – Rudy Giuliani Common Sense EP. 1: Since No Crimes Exist, It Must Be Dismissed

January 30, 2020 – Rudy Giuliani Common Sense Ep. 2 The Trial: Opening Statement | Bombshell Documents

January 31, 2020 – Common Sense Ep. 3 The Trial: Witness One | exclusive interview with Viktor Shokin

February 6, 2020 – Common Sense Ep. 4 The Trial: The Biden family crimes conclusively proved | sworn affidavit

February 8, 2020 – Common Sense Ep. 5 | The Complete Witness: Proof of Bribery & Collusion

February 12, 2020 – Proving Extensive Corruption & Criminal Conduct by the Biden Family Enterprise | Common Sense Ep. 6

February 14, 2020 – EXCLUSIVE Interview with Steve Bannon: 2020 Campaign, Ukraine, and Crooked Democrats

February 19, 2020 – Inside the Prosecutor’s File and Bombshell Documents | Common Sense Ep. 8

February 21, 2020 – The BLOCKBUSTER Report & RAPE of Ukraine | Common Sense Ep. 9

February 26, 2020 – Interview with Ukrainian Whistleblower Over EXCLUSIVE New Documents | Common Sense Ep. 10

February 29, 2020 – $5.3 Billion in Ukrainian Foreign Aid Missing | Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense Ep. 11

(Credit: Rudy Giuliani – Common Sense)

January 27, 2020 - Ratcliffe, Meadows, Stefanik, Jordan and Johnson deconstruct the 'House Bolton Maneuver'

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“The “House Bolton Maneuver” was a pre-planned operation to use a timed NSC ‘resistance’ leak to frame a new demand for testimony in the Senate. From the beginning the House intentionally constructed an impeachment process to avoid the judicial branch because the construction of the articles was dependent on an unconstitutional creation: impeachment by decree of the Speaker.

As a result of their approach, the House fully intended to usurp their lack of judicial subpoena authority by placing political pressure on the Senate to call the trial witnesses they knew were unattainable due to separation of powers within the constitutional process.  By design the House plan puts the burden of compulsory witness testimony upon the Senate because the House refused to create their own authority with a vote to initiate the impeachment process.

The House effort was, and is, an end-run around the constitutional outline for impeachment.  This was not a flaw; it was a feature of the House creation.

(Conservative Treehouse, 1/27/2020)  (Archive)

January 27, 2020 - Pam Bondi exposes Biden connections to corrupt Burisma

Before her nomination, Ambassador Yovanovitch was briefed specifically on Burisma by the Obama Administration in case she got a question about it.

The Washington Post reported that the fired prosecutor believed he lost his job because he was investigating Burisma.

The media asked about Hunter’s position on multiple occasions.

ABC questioned Hunter’s business dealings in both Ukraine and China.

Witnesses testified that there was at least an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Hunter Biden was paid $83,333 per month by Burisma for 17 months.

(Videos clips are posted for each point: Benny@bennyjohnson/Twitter, 1/27/2020)

Full Video:

January 27, 2020 - Recently appointed by the FISA Court to review FISA abuse, David Kris, was clearing his WaPo op-eds attacking the Nunes memo, with DOJ's NSD

“New FOIA docs expose David Kris, the anti-Trump Obama- period DOJ official appointed to oversee FISA reforms was sending WaPo op-ed drafts attacking Nunes’s FISA memorandum to other DOJ participants requesting for edits as well as clearance.

(Credit: @Techno_Fog)

There’s more …

David Kris likewise called Nunes a “chairman who appears to have gone rogue.”

(Credit: Techno_Fog)

David Kris (Credit: public domain)

(…) GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH) and Mark Meadows (NC) recently sent a letter to Judge Boasberg demanding answers about David Kris’s appointment to oversee FISA reforms.

In a letter obtained by The Gateway Pundit, the GOP Congressmen stated that “if the FISC’s goal is to hold the FBI accountable for its serious misconduct, Mr. Kris does not appear to be an objective — or likely effective — amicus curiae for several reasons.”

Meadows and Jordan gave Judge Boasberg until January 30th to provide the information they requested.” (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 1/27/2020)  (Archive)

January 27, 2020 - "Because I am a snake" - Tucker Carlson deconstructs John Bolton

Fox News host Tucker Carlson aimed his Monday night “Tucker Carlson Tonight” opening monologue at “disgraced former National Security Adviser John Bolton.”

Bolton’s upcoming book, the New York Times reported Sunday, will contend that President Donald Trump intentionally tied aid to Ukraine to a desired investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

WATCH: 

Part I

Part II

“Back during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump used to recite a poem about a woman who took a dying snake into her home and nursed it back to health,” Carlson began. “The snake did become healthy, and then immediately whipped around and bit the woman. As she breathed her last breaths, the woman asked the snake, ‘why did you do this?’ ‘Because I’m a snake,’ was the reply. ‘That’s what we do.’”

The Fox News host likened the story to “former National Security Adviser John Bolton,” whose betrayal of President Donald Trump seemingly “shocked” Washington Republicans.

“But they shouldn’t be shocked,” Carlson said. “That’s who John Bolton is. That’s who John Bolton has always been. That’s what John Bolton does.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/27/2020)  (Archive)

January 29, 2020 - Lt. General Flynn explains the reason why he accepted a guilty plea

Lawyers representing Lt. General Michael Flynn have filed a motion to dismiss [pdf here] citing “government misconduct”.  Additionally, Mr. Flynn has filed a declaration [pdf here] requesting to remove his prior guilty plea and take the case to trial.  Hours later the DOJ revised their sentencing memo, dropped their request for jail time and offered probation.

Within the motion to dismiss (full pdf embed below) Flynn’s legal team points out several issues with the prosecution of Mr. Flynn and highlights the recent findings, admissions and briefs amid the IG report, DOJ notifications to the FISA Court, and FISC orders therein.

NOTE: FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Pientka III, the FBI agent with his finger in the majority of the corrupt FBI activity, has an ongoing protective court order upon his personage requiring the redaction and/or removal of his name from any government or case document.   No-one has publicly stated the reason for the protective order.

Complete Motion for Dismissal

Additionally, for the first time, in a declaration to the court, we get to hear from Lt. General Michael Flynn himself about the situation and legal status.  Mr. Flynn explains the reason why he accepted a guilty plea on December 1st, 2017.

Full Flynn Declaration

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/29/2020)  (Archive)

January 30, 2020 - Justice Roberts thwarts questions about hearsay whistleblower in Senate

(Credit: Senate Television clipping)

(…) “The contacts between members of Schiff’s staff and the whistleblower are shrouded in secrecy to this day,” deputy Trump counsel Patrick Philbin said responding to a question asked at Wednesday’s trial by senators about RCI’s reporting earlier this month. “Obviously to get to the bottom of motivations, bias, how this inquiry was all created, [it] could be relevant.”

Schiff claimed he cannot talk about who among his staff met with the “whistleblower,” because they have received “threats” online. He says he must “protect” them, along with the whistleblower’s identity, which he insists he does not know. Schiff also suggested RCI was “circulating smears on my staff,” though he did not deny the story.

On an official question card, GOP Sen. Rand Paul Thursday submitted a direct question for Schiff based on  story: “Are you aware that House Intelligence Committee staffer Sean Misko has a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella when at the National Security Council together? Are you aware and how do you respond to a report that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the president before there were formal House impeachment proceedings?”

However, the question was never asked. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, blocked it after screening the card, ostensibly because it included the name of the official believed to be the whistleblower. “The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted,” Roberts declared in rejecting Paul’s query.

Earlier, Roberts had signaled to Senate leaders behind the scenes that he would not read aloud the alleged whistleblower’s name or otherwise publicly relay questions that might out the official.

Constitutional scholars say the disputed question was an unprecedented situation.

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who testified as an expert in the House impeachment hearings, said Roberts had no legal reason to quash the senator’s question since it did not violate federal whistleblower laws.

“This is relatively uncharted because the reading of the name does not directly violate federal law,” Turley said.

He speculated Roberts simply claimed an inherent authority to block the question under “decorum and restraint.”

It remains unclear how Roberts knew Eric Ciaramella was the whistleblower when Paul did not outright say he was the whistleblower in the question card that was handed Roberts to read. “My question made no reference to any whistleblower,” Paul affirmed. Did the presiding justice consult with Schiff or other House managers prior to the 16-hour question period? If so, did Roberts violate his own impartiality oath?

Paul said he was given no explanation for the rejection of a question that could have drawn out exculpatory information for the president. He blamed Roberts and the Senate for “selective belief in protecting the whistleblower statute … Nobody says they know who the person is. But anybody you say might be [the whistleblower] all of a sudden is protected from being part of the debate.”

The Kentucky senator said he considered requesting a roll call vote to overrule Roberts’ “incorrect finding,” but decided Friday’s debate over witnesses would generate too many motions and votes to make it feasible.

Effectively silenced, Paul held a press conference Thursday afternoon in which he explained the significance of asking such questions: “It’s very important whether or not a group of Democratic activists, part of the Obama-Biden administration, were working together for years looking for an opportunity to impeach the president.”

He compared Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko to disgraced FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page plotting to prevent Trump from being president.

With a paucity of information about the whistleblower forthcoming from both government and media, only one side has been allowed to do any real fact-finding during the impeachment process. And that’s left the defendant — Donald J. Trump — still unable to cross-examine his main accuser.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 1/31/2020)  (Archive)

February 6, 2020 - The group that sabotages the Iowa caucus was begun by billionaire backer of the Alabama ‘False Flag’ campaign

Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman not only funded the group that sabotaged the Iowa caucus, he also bankrolled the notorious online “false flag operation” in Alabama’s 2017 senate campaign, reports Max Blumenthal.

Reid Hoffman (Credit: public domain)

(…) The force accused of sowing the confusion and disarray surrounding the first Democrat Party contest of the 2020 election season is a dark money Democratic nonprofit called Acronym. It was Acronym that launched Shadow Inc, the mysterious company behind the now-infamous, unsecured, completely unworkable voter app which prevented precinct chairs from reporting vote totals on caucus night.

The exceptionally opaque Acronym was itself created with seed money from a Silicon Valley billionaire named Reid Hoffman who has financed a series of highly manipulative social media campaigns.

Dmitri Mehlhorn (Credit: public domain)

The billionaire founder of LinkedIn, Hoffman is a top funder of novel Democratic Party social media campaigns accused of manipulating voters through social media. He is assisted by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a corporate consultant who pushed school privatization before joining Hoffman’s political empire.

One of the most consequential beneficiaries of Hoffman’s wealth is Acronym CEO Tara McGowan, a 33-year-old former journalist and Obama for America veteran.

Once touted as “a weapon of a woman whose innovative tactics make her critically important to the Democratic Party,” McGowan’s name is now synonymous with the fiasco in Iowa. She happens to be married to a senior advisor to Buttigieg’s presidential campaign.

Back in December 2018, McGowan personally credited Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s Investing in US initiative with the birth of her dark money pressure group, Acronym.

“I’m personally grateful and proud to be included in this group of incredible political founders + startups @reidhoffman and his team, led by Dmitri [Mehlhorn], have supported and helped to fund over the past two years,” she declared on Twitter in December 2018.

At the time, Hoffman had just been exposed for funding Project Birmingham, a covert disinformation campaign consisting of false flag tactics that aimed to depress voter turnout and create the perception of Russian interference in the 2017 Alabama senate election.

Hoffman and Mehlhorn have also faced scrutiny for their alleged operation of a series of deceptive pages that attempted to manipulate center-right users into voting for Democrats. Today, Acronym’s McGowan oversees a massive Facebook media operation that employs similarly deceptive techniques to sway voters.

Tara McGowan (Credit: public domain)

Through youthful, tech-centric operatives like McGowan, Hoffman and Mehlhorn are building up a massive new infrastructure that could supplant the party’s apparatus.

As Vanity Fair reported, “Hoffman and Mehlhorn, after all, are not just building a power base that could supplement traditional Democratic organizations, they are, potentially, laying the groundwork to usurp the D.N.C. entirely.” (Read more: Consortium News, 2/06/2020)  (Archive)

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“Iowa’s voting debacle has renewed fears that the DNC is again working against Bernie Sanders and his grassroots campaign. The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal breaks down the network of dark money billionaires, Democratic elites, and Russiagate profiteers behind the app that ruined the Iowa vote, and a wider effort to stop Sanders’ progressive momentum. Guest: Max Blumenthal, Editor of The Grayzone and author of “The Management of Savagery.”