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.

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

“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.

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

“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'

“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.

There’s more …

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

(…) 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

(…) “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.

(…) 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.

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.

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)

***

“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.”

February 7, 2020 - Alexander Vindman and his brother Eugene, are escorted out of the White House

Anti-Trump impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother have been fired and escorted out of the White House by security, according to his attorney.

Vindman, a Ukraine specialist who sat on the National Security Council who was accused of being coached by House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), was present on a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, when the US president asked that Ukraine investigate former VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as claims of pro-Clinton meddling in the 2016 US election.

He was also notably counseling Ukraine on how to counter President Trump’s foreign policy according to the New York Times, which led some to go as far as accusing him of being a double agent.

The now-former White House employee, who admitted to violating the chain of command when he reported his concerns over the call, had been rumored to be on the chopping block for much of Friday.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 2/07/2020)  (Archive)

February 10, 2020 - White House has identified and will soon part ways with the “anonymous” official behind a recently released book and a “resistance” focused NYT editorial

Joe diGenova tells D.C. radio show “Mornings on the Mall” that a senior admin official told him the White House has identified the “Anonymous” NY Times writer, and that person’s departure is expected shortly.

*****

The Daily Caller writes:

(…) White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham previously called the anonymous official a “coward” and the claims within the book “nothing but lies.”

“Real authors reach out to their subjects to get things fact-checked–but this person is in hiding, making that very basic part of being a real writer impossible,” she said in response to the news of the book’s release.

Just prior to the book’s release, the Justice Department took steps toward possibly unmasking the official. Joseph Hunt, assistant attorney general for the civil division, sent a letter to the anonymous official’s publisher and literary agency asking about the official’s access to classified information.

“If the author is, in fact, a current or former ‘senior official’ in the Trump administration, publication of the book may violate that official’s legal obligations under one or more nondisclosure agreements,” the letter reads.”

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/10/2020)  (Archive)

February 11, 2020 - The DC Cover-up That’s As Big As Spygate

“Former U.S. Attorney for DC, Jessie Liu, is scheduled for a Senate confirmation hearing this upcoming Thursday at 10:00am.  There’s also an unreported background story connected to the DOJ, Rod Rosenstein and Ms. Liu so controversial, it’s as big as Spygate.

In the event any Senator on the approval committee would be brave enough to question the participant here’s the story:

EVENT ONE – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.  In 2017 and 2018 Mr. Waldman represented the interests of dossier author Chris Steele and Russian Billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

There was some initial media discussion of the text messages, and some eyebrows raised over why the Vice-Chairman of the SSCI would make statements saying “he would rather not have a paper trail” around the Steele communication, but generally speaking the DC media dropped the story quickly.  It just didn’t fit the anti-Trump narrative in early 2018.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of media curiosity, some rather elementary questions were never asked (let alone answered).  Questions including: •Why were the 2017 text messages between Mark Warner and Adam Waldman captured?  •Who captured them?.. and, perhaps more importantly: •why were they released?

The February 2018 story soon disappeared, and no-one ever paid enough attention to go back and see the answers to the questions….

We did.

EVENT TWO – Four months after the Mark Warner texts were made public, on June 8th, 2018, another headline story surfaced.  An indictment for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Security Director James Wolfe was unsealed on June 7th, 2018.

Mr. Wolfe was indicted for leaking information from within the SSCI to four journalists; and lying to FBI investigators.

Within the indictment we discover the FBI were conducting an ongoing leak investigation throughout 2017.  Within that investigation a top-secret document was transferred to the custody of SSCI Security Director James Wolfe on March 17, 2017.  The details inside that document were leaked to the media.

The indictment describes FBI investigators informing Mr. Wolfe in October of 2017 about their investigation of national security leaks.  In December of 2017, Mr. Wolfe was confronted with evidence of his leaking to journalists including a woman now working for the New York Times named Ali Watkins, with whom he was having a sexual relationship – implied as a possible quid-pro-quo.

Wolfe left the SSCI quietly in mid-December and resigned shortly thereafter.   No-one, outside of the principal characters involved, knows about the investigation until six months later, June 2018, when the indictment is made public.  [Keep this in mind]

The June 2018 media coverage of the Wolfe indictment primarily focused on the affair with Ms. Watkins and Wolfe’s lying to investigators.   Headlines quickly disappeared as the case moved into the formality of legal proceedings between the DOJ and Wolfe’s defense.

No-one drew a connection between the February ’18 publicity of SSCI Vice-Chairman Warner’s text messages and the June ’18 release of the FBI investigation of Wolfe from inside the SSCI the prior year (2017).

EVENT THREE – Slightly less than two months after the release of the Wolfe indictment, another headline story.  On July 21st, 2018, the DOJ/FBI declassified and publicly released the FISA application(s) used against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The release was connected to a FOIA case filed by the New York Times the year prior [NOTE THIS].  There has never been a good explanation of why the application was declassified and released.  Despite the pre-existing NYT FOIA case, it never made sense why the DOJ/FBI did not attempt to deny the FOIA request.  The request was a FOIA for FISA information, the highest security classification possible.  It would have been very easy to deny the FOIA simply because the NYT was seeking classified documents.  A no brainer for shielding any release.  FISA is classified as “Top-Secret”.

So, given the nature of the FISA application itself; and considering the DOJ had denied a similar request from congress; why did the DOJ/FBI suddenly decide it was okay to release the FISA application to the public?

[Short Answer (ah-ha moment): The DOJ/FBI knew the New York Times already had it.]

The media discussion of the FISA application release was very heavy.  The story consumed a great deal of air time, print coverage and debate from the release on July 21st, 2018, all the way through to the Inspector General Horowitz report of December 2019, and that coverage continues through today.   However, just like the Warner Texts; and just like the Wolfe indictment; no-one bothered to go back and connect the three component stories.

♦ Within the Wolfe indictment you’ll notice the “Top Secret” document picked-up by SSCI Director James Wolfe took place on March 17th, 2017:

♦ Within the Mark Warner text messages you’ll note the SSCI Vice-Chairman went into the SSCI Secured Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on March 17th, 2017, shortly after 4:00pm:

♦ Within the declassified and released FISA application you’ll notice the copy date from the FISA clerk for the FISA application was March 17th, 2017:

The information within the three events (Warner Text release, Wolfe Indictment release, and Carter Page FISA release) shows the connection of the events.  James Wolfe took custody of the Carter Page FISA, delivered it to the SCIF, it was reviewed by SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner, and then leaked by James Wolfe.

It was the Carter Page FISA application that James Wolfe leaked to Ali Watkins as outlined within the unsealed June 2018 indictment.

Sidebar, a fourth albeit buried public release on December 14, 2018, confirmed everything.  The FBI filed a sentencing recommendation proving it was the Carter Page FISA that was leaked:

I only share the sidebar (out of chronological sequence) to emphasize there is no doubt it was the FISA application that James Wolfe leaked.  (Don’t get hung up here).

This explains (slightly, but there’s a much bigger story) why the DOJ/FBI released the FISA application in July 2018, as the result of a New York Times FOIA request.

The investigators within the DOJ/FBI knew the New York Times already had the FISA application from the James Wolfe leak to journalist Ali Watkins.

It’s going to get complex and I’m likely to lose all except the most dedicated readers who can understand what comes next…..

Keep in mind when the FISA court released the application copy to Wolfe on March 17th, 2017, there was only the original application from October 21st, 2016, and one renewal from January that existed.  [The release was March 17th, 2017 – the April and June 2017 renewals had not taken place.]

Additionally, within the July 2018 public release (of the March 17th 2017 copy), the FBI investigators redacted all dates relating to the copy they released to Wolfe.  AND, in all subsequent releases of any information from the FBI -through the declassification process- (including the initial version of the IG report on FISA) those dates were always redacted.

There has purposefully never been a clean copy release of the original FISA application and the three renewals.  Therefore there has never been a clean copy release without date redactions – which includes the FISC copy dated March 17th.

When the DOJ/FBI released its July 2018 FOIA compliant set of FISA application(s) they didn’t just print a new copy, instead they re-released the Wolfe version and then added the last two renewals.

RECAP Chronology:  February 2018 release of Warner Texts.  June 2018 unsealed Wolfe Indictment.  July 2018 release FISA application.  All three of these releases are connected to one much larger story.

Knowing that James Wolfe was caught by the FBI and DOJ leaking the FISA application, why wasn’t the SSCI Security Director ever charged with leaking classified information?

Here’s where the poop hits the fan.

Here’s the cover-up.

Here’s where another event comes in.

Keep in mind SSCI Vice-Chairman Senator Mark Warner was the impetus for the FISA Court releasing the March 17th copy; also keep in mind the purpose of the text messages between Senator Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman.

During his initial summer and fall negotiations with the DOJ, James Wolfe threatened to subpoena the SSCI in his defense.  The implication was that Wolfe was directed to leak the FISA by members of the committee; and/or Wolfe was operating independently but under the assumption of alignment with SSCI members who were not averse to Wolfe’s leak.

The investigation of Wolfe (October through December 2017) explains how and why the Warner text messages surfaced in Feb 2018.  It’s highly likely Warner’s communication with Waldman was intercepted by FBI investigators who then questioned the Vice-Chairman about those texts.  Or it’s possible/probable the FBI investigators asked Warner if he was aware of Wolfe’s leaks.

That investigative scenario prompted Senator Warner to attempt to get out in front of the story about his secret and covert communication efforts to contact and meet with Christopher Steele.  Thus in February 2018 the Warner texts hit the media.  The texts go from February 2017 though May 2017 [SEE HERE] and encompass the exact period when Wolfe leaked the FISA application – March 2017 (with April discussion).

As the Wolfe defense team discussions with the DOJ played out throughout the fall of 2018, there was little movement. Then came another event, the November 2018 mid-term election where Democrats took control over the House.

Meanwhile, in the lame-duck congressional period Senators on the SSCI asked the DOJ to go easy on Wolfe:

Immediately after the 2018 mid-terms DC Attorney Jessie Liu dropped most of the charges against Wolfe, and he was allowed -under a plea agreement- to plead guilty to only one count of lying to investigators.

December 11th, DOJ sentencing memo [HERE], and then a very pissed-off FBI follow-up within the DOJ response to the Defense sentencing memo [HERE] dated December 14th.

In essence, after the November election, SSCI Director Wolfe was allowed to avoid prosecution for leaking top-secret classified documents; and the bigger issue was covered-up.

DAG Rod Rosenstein was in charge; the Mueller investigation was ongoing; and DC U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu signed-off on the plea deal.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/11/2020)  (Archive)

February 14, 2020 - Impeachment Was Cover for CrowdStrike and Democrats Got What They Wanted

“A lot of people are laughing at the huge mistake the Democrats made by trying to impeach President Trump. Besides being stuck with Trump, the argument goes, they may also pay a heavy price in November for single-mindedly pursuing impeachment without being able even to gesture at any underlying crime.

But it might be a good idea to think a bit before joining in.

All the ruckus Democrats raised over Trump’s concern about the Biden family’s wheeling and dealing in Ukraine turned out to be very useful in ways some Republicans are not calculating. It did, after all, make the rest of us forget the other subject broached in that now historic chat with President Volodymyr Zelensky: the alleged Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee’s servers that we’re all supposed to think netted the emails WikiLeaks published during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

The Democrats’ apparently self-destructive obsession allowed the media, once more, to distract from the crucial question on which the president keeps trying to focus our attention: Why did the DNC repeatedly reject FBI and Department of Homeland Security requests to examine their supposedly hacked machines?

Whenever Trump raises that question, the establishment press tries to smother public interest by carpet-bombing us with stories about how delusional he is. We’re told over and over again that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary occurred and the words “debunked conspiracy theory” are scattered like shrapnel at anyone bold enough to dissent.

But it’s all misdirection and blatant lies.

FBI Director James Comey and Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson both testified to Congress about the DNC’s reluctance to cooperate in a case the Democrats nonetheless relentlessly hyped as tantamount to an act of war.

Comey claimed he didn’t know why the DNC rejected the FBI’s “[m]ultiple requests at different levels” to collect forensic evidence. Johnson was so unsettled by the DNC’s refusal even so much as to discuss the case with the DHS that he twice remarked he “should have brought a sleeping bag and camped out in front of” their headquarters.

A week before Comey’s remarks, the DNC even tried to shift the blame, claiming it was all the FBI’s fault for having “never requested access.” Apart from Comey’s testimony, they were also contradicted in no uncertain terms the very next day, when a senior FBI official told The Hill:

The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise . . . This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information.

That third party was CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm on the DNC’s payroll. The firm was the only entity ever allowed to inspect the Democrats’ allegedly hacked machines as well as the first to finger Russia publicly for the alleged crime. Trump also mentioned CrowdStrike to Zelensky.

But the establishment press spent a couple of days bullying us into thinking any concerns about CrowdStrike were nuts. Then Democrats started hysterically shouting their patent nonsense that Trump’s remarks about Biden were an impeachable offense. The unrelenting media coverage of their obviously hopeless quest to oust him kicked in.

Within just a few days of hearing their name, everyone had forgotten all about CrowdStrike. And a public discussion of the very questionable role the company played in the Democrats’ efforts to destroy the president was, thus, forestalled.

What a Lucky Coincidence

Neither Hillary Clinton nor any of her surrogates ever once challenged the authenticity of any of the emails WikiLeaks published. Instead, from the very beginning, her sole strategy was relentlessly hammering home the narrative that there was a Russian plot allegedly responsible for making them public.

Paying any attention to all the proof of her corruption and incompetence would be unpatriotic, Clinton warned, because its publication was part of a nefarious plot hatched by that arch-fiend Putin to throw the election to Trump. The real story here, we were told, is that the Kremlin attacked, not just her campaign, but literally all of America on Trump’s behalf. A New York Times headline published a few days after the DNC emails started dropping said it all: “Democrats Allege D.N.C. Hack Is Part of Russian Effort to Elect Donald Trump.”

The Times supported Clinton’s allegations by citing some unnamed “researchers” who’d claimed that “the D.N.C.’s server had been breached by Russian intelligence agencies.” Besides not naming CrowdStrike, the Times failed to mention that the “researchers” it used to substantiate the Democrats’ accusations were on the DNC’s payroll.

It sure was lucky that CrowdStrike’s conclusions turned out to be so useful for Hillary Clinton. The DNC’s tech firm couldn’t have come up with something better suited to transform WikiLeaks’ disturbing revelations about her into suspicions about her opponent if they’d concocted it out of thin air just for that purpose.

Interestingly, CrowdStrike had first publicly announced the alleged Russian breach of the DNC’s servers exactly two days after WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange had warned that the DNC emails were coming by declaring he had “upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton . . . We have emails pending publication.”

But CrowdStrike’s conclusions wouldn’t have been very useful at all had they been the only ones fingering the Russians. To get any mileage out of their allegations, Clinton obviously needed confirmation by some authority not on the DNC’s payroll.

And, lo and behold, the very next day she was blessed by yet another remarkable coincidence. Some anonymous FBI officials just happened to leak information to the New York Times for a follow-up story with the incredibly useful headline: “Spy Agency Consensus Grows That Russia Hacked D.N.C.”

According to the Times, a “federal investigation, involving the F.B.I. and [other] intelligence agencies” had concluded that “the Russian government was behind the theft” of the emails WikiLeaks had just published. So certain was Russia’s guilt that senior intelligence agency officials had even informed President Obama.

Thanks to that timely leak, Clinton could now cite the authority of the U.S. intelligence community to back her insistence that the dreaded embodiment of evil, Vladimir Putin, was the one responsible for informing American voters about her gross unfitness for office. She was thus spared reliance on the word of a private contractor working on the DNC’s dime whose interest even her allies in the media would have to admit was conflicted.

Or so we were led to believe, at any rate.

A Highly Respected, High-Class Entity

Though the New York Times’ follow-up story did report that the DNC had hired CrowdStrike, the Times either didn’t know or neglected to mention that Comey’s FBI had accepted CrowdStrike’s forensics in lieu of being allowed to collect any themselves. More than five months would pass before Americans learned that the official conclusions Hillary Clinton so successfully wielded as a shield to deflect any damage inflicted by WikiLeaks email releases on to Trump had relied on forensics commissioned by her good friends at the DNC.

Besides Comey’s January 2017 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the DNC had rejected “[m]ultiple [FBI] requests at different levels,” to collect forensic evidence, he also testified twice more (once before the House in March and again to the Senate in June) about their adamant refusal to cooperate with the federal agencies investigating the alleged Russian espionage Clinton has never stopped hyping.

On all three occasions, Comey repeatedly tried to downplay any natural concern about the DNC’s recalcitrance by quickly adding that they’d allowed someone else to examine their servers who had eventually shared “what they saw there” (as he’d put it in January 2017) with the FBI. Not once did Comey refer to CrowdStrike by name, instead preserving their anonymity by means of descriptions like “the private party.” He also made sure to always toss in at least one confidence-inspiring superlative. In his January testimony, CrowdStrike was “a highly respected private company.” In March, they were “pros.” In June, the assembled Senators learned that the FBI had gotten its evidence from “a high-class entity.”

Apart from sounding like a third-rate salesman with a head injury, Comey also tortured the English language in what seemed like an attempt to disclaim any knowledge of exactly what information CrowdStrike had turned over or even any precise idea of how his investigation had been conducted.

During his June testimony, when Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.) pointed out the obvious importance of examining evidence firsthand, Comey responded:

It is but what was briefed to me by the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.

But no one seemed to notice that Comey had contradicted this reassuring story of CrowdStrike’s promptness in March, when U.S. Representative Will Hurd (R-Texas) pressed him on exactly when the company turned over its forensics to the FBI. Comey first said he couldn’t recall, that it might have been in June, but that he very well might be wrong. One suspects to his great chagrin, National Security Agency chief Admiral Michael Rogers happened also to be testifying and chimed in, reminding Comey that the handoff had occurred in mid-June 2016. Comey was forced to agree without any commitment-dodging qualifications; meaning that, contrary to his later testimony, a full six weeks had gone by since CrowdStrike had started investigating the DNC breach in early May before they handed anything over to the FBI.

On whichever occasion it turns out Comey had falsely testified about when he’d received CrowdStrike’s forensics, one can understand why he might have wished to palm off responsibility on “the people who were his folks at the time” for accepting it. Even if he had no recourse against the DNC’s dogged determination to keep the FBI from collecting any evidence themselves, that didn’t justify accepting it from a private contractor the DNC had hired as a substitute regardless of how “high class” an “entity” they were.

A Concrete Motive

Contrary to all the media gaslighting about Trump’s suspicions being utterly groundless, it was exactly as though someone had reported a burglary but then refused to give the cops access to the crime scene. Even if doing so was perfectly within the victim’s rights, that wouldn’t make it okay for law enforcement to accept evidence from a private investigator he’d hired as a substitute.

Indeed, the self-professed victim’s adamance that law enforcement not collect any evidence themselves would make his eagerness to hand over a privately commissioned dossier all the more suspect. Especially if the private eye’s conclusions just so happened to tarnish the reputation of someone possessing proof of his client’s misdeeds.

Forensics gathered without any supervision by a private contractor hired by the DNC couldn’t possibly satisfy any reasonable chain of custody requirements. And the utility of CrowdStrike’s conclusions to the Clinton campaign made mischief more than just an abstract possibility; it provided a concrete motive.

Both WikiLeaks’ DNC emails and those from John Podesta’s Gmail account published a few months later were undeniably authentic. The proof of Hillary Clinton’s corruption and incompetence they contained was all in her own words or those of her closest advisors. None of them ever even once tried denying any of it. Instead, from the moment their own words appeared in public to haunt them, they endlessly chanted “Russia, Russia, Russia!” to try and make them haunt Trump instead.

Absent CrowdStrike’s conclusions, Clinton’s campaign would have had no response whatsoever to all the damaging emails by and about her.

But why on earth had the DNC let CrowdStrike announce they’d been hacked by Russia at all? Publicizing the breach only made the Democrats look bad at a time when Clinton was being battered daily about her unsecured private email server. Comey’s surprise announcement exonerating her was still three weeks away. What purpose could announcing the Russian DNC breach have possibly served if not to deflect attention away from the damaging emails Assange had forewarned would be released just two days before. Why better strategy than to make it seem like they were part of a Russian plot to help Trump? If nothing else, Comey ought to have considered all this before blithely accepting CrowdStrike’s DNC-funded forensics.

Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta’s emails were stolen in March 2016, when he foolishly gave the password to his Gmail account away to a fake representative of Google. Ironically, the pilfered emails themselves contain the correspondence documenting Podesta’s pathetic but immensely consequential blunder. Clinton’s campaign knew almost immediately that a lot of devastatingly irrefutable information had fallen into unfriendly hands. They must have quickly convened some kind of investigation to develop a strategy for dealing with its likely disastrous publication during the campaign. We know the strategy on which they ultimately settled was claiming that Russia had hacked Podesta’s emails as a favor to Trump.

But, of course, we’ve never heard anything about how they first developed it.

Some Hidden Opportunity

What we do know is that, on April 29, 2016, CrowdStrike supposedly completed a five-week investigation for the DNC of an entirely unrelated computer episode that had occurred in mid-December. That means the DNC had called CrowdStrike in to work three months after the incident we’re supposed to think they were investigating but only around five days after they discovered the theft of Podesta’s emails. And, of course, whoever dealt with the technical aspects of Podesta’s stolen emails would need some other excuse for any work they were doing at the DNC.”

(Read much more: Michael Thau/AClearerPicture, 2/14/2020)  (Archive)

February 17, 2020 - Ex-DOJ official named In FISA Abuse Report signs petition calling on William Barr to resign

“A former Justice Department official who is discussed throughout the inspector general’s report on FISA abuse added his name Monday to a petition calling on William Barr to resign as attorney general.

David Laufman, who served as chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section through 2018, said Monday that he joined more than 2,000 former Justice Department employees who signed the petition, which was started by the anti-Trump activist group, Protect Democracy.

(…) Laufman, who appears frequently on MSNBC and CNN, often to criticize the Trump administration, played a key role in both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia probe.

He conducted interviews alongside disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok during the Clinton email investigation. Laufman and Strzok interviewed Clinton herself July 2, 2016. They also conducted interviews with Clinton aides Human Abedin and Cheryl Mills in which the pair appear to have made inconsistent statements about their knowledge of Clinton’s private email server.

The Justice Department inspector general’s report on FISA abuse said Laufman helped arrange a key meeting for FBI and Justice Department officials that would raise significant concerns about the reliability of Christopher Steele, the former British spy whose dossier the FBI used to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Carter Page.

The inspector general report said Laufman arranged a meeting in January 2017 for Steele’s main source for information in the dossier. Laufman sat in on part of the interview.

Steele’s source disputed much of what was attributed to him in the dossier. The source, who has not been identified, told FBI agents and DOJ officials that Steele embellished or misrepresented information in the dossier that suggested a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government, according to the inspector general report.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/17/2020)  (Archive)

February 20, 2020 - Fake news constructs Russia narrative 2.0 via Democrat intel briefing spin

“The New York Times and a host of allied political narrative engineers attempted to spin up another Russia narrative yesterday.  The claim surrounds a briefing by DNI Joseph Maguire (pictured below) to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  Adam Schiff and house Democrats in the briefing claim DNI Maguire stated Russians favored President Trump and would work to assist his re-election.

The Democrat spin was to claim President Trump replaced Maguire as an outcome of this briefing, and Trump wants to ignore Russia interference assistance. etc. etc.  The media ran with the framework of the Democrat narrative; and the political operatives piled-on.

However, in a surprise move Jake Tapper actually undercuts the narrative engineering through his own sources with information on the reality of the briefing:

(1) DNI Joseph Maguire never said Russia was, would, or is working to interfere in the election to help President Trump.  Rather the briefing nuance was that Russia has an understanding of Trump and would likely view him as a deal-maker they could work with and Sanders, Buttigieg et al were unknowns.

(2) President Trump wasn’t angered at the Maguire briefing; however, he was angered that he had to find out about the briefing from GOP members of the HPSCI instead of Maguire briefing the President on the material prior to briefing congress.  The executive office was blindsided by committee members asking questions of the White House when Maguire never informed the President of his briefing material in advance.

Those two points were spun wildly by the left-wing media.  Kudos to Jake Tapper for setting the record straight.

However, it is not a surprise for President Trump to end the tenure of Maguire as DNI given this end-run around the President and the possibility Maguire’s motives might just be another example of the intelligence community undercutting the office of the President. [I would say that’s highly likely]

The fact DNI Joseph Maguire would brief Congress without informing the White House of the briefing material highlights a possible intent by Maguire to undermine the President.  Whether that intent is accurate is a moot point.  The action by Maguire leaves open the possibility, and his lack of judgment created a mess for the White House.

Therefore Maguire’s action showed poor judgment and a compromise within his position.  Given the sensitive nature of the position he holds, both issues are fatal flaws.

Hence, President Trump selected a more dependable Richard “Ric” Grenell to replace Maguire as interim Acting DNI.”

(Conservative Treehouse, 2/21/2020)  (Archive)