Featured Timeline Entries
February 21, 2020 - New details revealed in interview with Clinton Whistleblower, Nate Cain

“Nate Cain is a Patriot. He risked everything to reveal the active cover-up of FBI Director Comey and his efforts to protect the Clinton Global Crime Network. Comey suppressed huge troves of FBI investigative files; Nate found them and turned them over to Rep. Devin Nunes and IG Michael E. Horowitz. This is Nate’s story, many of the details never before disclosed.

Bards Of War Podcast explores politics, culture, economics, faith, war, and human nature by building context through story and narrative. Effective research will cross-reference material to create a hybrid map built on qualitative and quantitative data cycling. This allows narratives to be developed, assessed and analyzed. This is the foundation of cultural analysis.

The podcast episodes are presented by Scott Kesterson, a U.S. documentary filmmaker, backpack journalist, researcher and writer.”

February 23, 2020 - DNI briefer Shelby Pierson “overstated” (manufactured) intelligence on Russia election interference

“…anonymous intelligence officials are reporting to CNN that Ms. Pierson “overstepped” her position, was “misleading” in her briefing, and “mischaracterized” the underlying intelligence. Imagine that.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Washington (CNN)–The US intelligence community’s top election security official appears to have overstated the intelligence community’s formal assessment of Russian interference in the 2020 election, omitting important nuance during a briefing with lawmakers earlier this month, three national security officials told CNN.

The official, Shelby Pierson, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping President Donald Trump get reelected.

[…] “The intelligence doesn’t say that,” one senior national security official told CNN. “A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it’s a step short of that.

[…] One intelligence official said that Pierson’s characterization of the intelligence was “misleading” and a national security official said Pierson failed to provide the “nuance” needed to accurately convey the US intelligence conclusions.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where Pierson is a senior official, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. (more)

Why would Shelby Pierson and Joseph Maguire intentionally blindside the White House?

The briefing was obviously spun by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff and Democrats on the House Intel Committee; and there was no intelligence presented during the briefing to support the claims made by Pierson, Democrats, and media. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/23/2020)  (Archive)

February 24, 2020 - Declassified FBI memos undercut Mueller team claims that Papadopoulos hindered Russia probe

Joseph Mifsud and George Papadopoulos (Credit: Financial Times Graphic)

“Newly declassified FBI memos directly conflict with court filings that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team made in asking a federal judge to send former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos to prison, further calling into question the government’s conduct in investigating the now-debunked “Russia collusion” narrative.

The memos, released under federal Freedom of Information laws, are likely to focus renewed attention on former Mueller prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who played a key role in prosecuting Papadopoulos before working on the case of longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone.

(…) Zelinsky was one of three Mueller team prosecutors who signed a sentencing memo in August 2018 seeking prison time for Papadopoulos. They argued there that Papadopoulos hindered federal prosecutors’ ability to question or arrest a European professor named Joseph Mifsud in mid-February 2017 while the Maltese academic was in Washington.

According to the sentencing memo signed by Zelinsky and fellow Mueller prosecutors Jeannie Rhee and Andrew Goldstein: Papadopoulos’ “lies undermined investigators’ ability to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States. The government understands that the Professor left the United States on February 11, 2017, and he has not returned to the United States since then.”

Aaron Zelinsky (l) Jeannie Rhee (c) and Andrew Goldstein (Credit: public domain)

But FBI 302 reports detailing agents’ interviews with Papadopoulos show that he had in fact supplied information that would have enabled investigators to challenge or potentially detain or arrest  Mifsud while he was in the United States.

Papadopoulos, a former volunteer foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, told agents during an interview on Feb. 10, 2017 that he “inquired to Mifsud about how he knew the Russians had [Clinton’s] emails, to which Mifsud strangely chuckled and responded, ‘they told me they have them.’”

According to the Mueller Report, in an interview with the FBI on the same day, Feb. 10, Mifsud “denied that he had advance knowledge that Russia was in possession of emails damaging to candidate Clinton.”

Mifsud did not leave Washington until the next day, Feb. 11. Papadopoulos’ information should have enabled investigators to confront Mifsud with conflicting testimony on a point of critical importance to the stated purpose of the Russia collusion investigation before the professor’s departure. But this information was not mentioned in Team Mueller’s original statement of offense, or plea agreement, filed Oct. 5, 2017, nor its later sentencing recommendation. In contrast, those documents portray Papadopoulos as trying to thwart the investigation.

According to Zelinksy, Rhee, and Goldstein’s August 17, 2018 sentencing memo filed with U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, “the defendant’s false statements were intended to harm the investigation, and did so.” Papadopoulos’ “lies negatively affected the FBI’s Russia investigation,” they argued, “and prevented the FBI from effectively identifying and confronting witnesses in a timely fashion.”

The FBI interview memos, however, paint a far different picture. They show, for example, that Papadopoulos expressed his willingness to participate actively in helping the bureau locate Mifsud personally even before Feb. 10, 2017.” (Read more: Lee Smith/JustTheNews, 2/24/2020)  (Archive)

February 24, 2020 - House Republicans consider criminal referrals against Mueller prosecutors after finding evidence they may have misled the courts and Congress

“House Republicans have found evidence that Russia Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team may have misled the courts and Congress and are considering making criminal referrals asking the Justice Department to investigate those prosecutors, a key lawmaker says.

Aaron Zelinsky (l) Jeannie Rhee (c) and Andrew Goldstein (Credit: public domain)

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Just the News that his team has been scouring recent documents released by the FBI, including witness reports known as 302s, and found glaring evidence that contradicts claims the Mueller team made to courts and Congress.

“We’re now going through these 302s, and we’re going to be making criminal referrals on the Mueller dossier team, the people that put this Mueller report together,” Nunes said during an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast set to air on Tuesday.

Nunes specifically reacted to a story in Just the News disclosing that FBI interview memos of key figure George Papadopoulos show he was helpful in trying to locate a witness named Joseph Mifsud but that Mueller’s prosecutors portrayed Papadopoulos as trying to thwart or frustrate the investigation’s efforts to question Mifsud.

The new FBI memos provide “our first evidence of the Mueller team lying to the court. It a lie. It’s a total lie,” the lawmaker said, referring to the Mueller team’s claim that Papadopoulos tried to hinder efforts to locate and question Mifsud.

“I always assumed that Papadopolis probably was helpful. I mean, he’s kind of alluded to that, that he offered to be helpful, but we had never seen the actual 302s,” Nunes said.

You can listen to the Nunes interview here.

(Read more: John Solomon/JustTheNews, 2/24/2020)  (Archive)

February 25, 2020 - Ex-FBI unit chief blows whistle on Comey, McCabe over warrantless spying

Andrew McCabe (l) and James Comey (Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu/Matt McClain, Getty Images)

“The FBI agent who ran the bureau’s warrantless spying program said Wednesday he warned ex-Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe that the program was a useless waste of taxpayer money that needlessly infringed Americans’ civil liberties but his bosses refused to take action.

Retired Special Agent Bassem Youssef ran the FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit from late 2004 until his retirement in late 2014. He told Just the News he fears the deeply flawed program, which was started in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, was allowed to keep going to give Americans a false sense of security in the war on terror and possibly to enable inappropriate spying, such as that which targeted President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“I have no doubt, or very little doubt, that it was used for political spying or political espionage,” Youssef said during a lengthy interview for the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Retired Special Agent Bassem Youssef tells The Hill in an interview March 2018, that the surveillance program was responsible for helping disrupt just one possible terror plot over more than a decade, searching through thousands of Americans’ records. (Credit: The Hill)

Youssef confirmed that the FBI performed an audit of the highly classified program (also known as the NSA program because it searched call records captured by the National Security Agency) after Edward Snowden leaked its existence.

The audit showed that while the program had generated two moderate leads for counterterrorism cases, it had not helped thwart dozens of terrorism attacks as officials had claimed, despite costing tens of millions of dollars per year.

In fact, the program was generating large numbers of “false negatives and positives,” Youssef said.

The audit, he added, also showed “there was collateral damage in terms of civil liberties” of Americans whose phone records were unnecessarily searched or who were falsely identified as connected to terrorism.

Youssef said he discussed the concerns with McCabe both when McCabe served as assistant director for counterterrorism and then when he was promoted to acting executive assistant director, the No. 3 job in the bureau. But his efforts to pause the program and reform it so it could work better, cost less, and infringe less on American privacy fell on deaf ears, he said. (Read more: JustTheNews/John Solomon, 2/26/2020)  (Archive)

February 25, 2020 - Bill Barr wants a clean FISA re-authorization and promises not to abuse it

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020:

WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that the Trump administration could support a clean extension of contentious surveillance laws set to expire next month. And Barr said he could make changes on his own to satisfy President Donald Trump and his allies who have railed against the use of the law to monitor his 2016 campaign, according to senators at a party briefing.

But Barr also clashed with GOP critics of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has three key provisions set to lapse on March 15.

(…) Republicans emerged from the lunch meeting mostly supportive of a clean extension of the law to avoid a gap; doing so is a top priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The attorney general just wanted to underscore again the importance of these provisions that were enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attack. They’re still relevant to our effort to go after terrorists today like they were after 9/11,” McConnell told reporters.

But Barr also sparred with skeptics, primarily libertarian-leaning Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Barr told Lee his criticisms of surveillance law are dangerous, while Paul said Americans shouldn’t be subject to secret FISA courts, one of the people said.

(…) Senate Republicans prefer kicking a broad FISA debate to as late as 2022, when other pieces of the law expire. In the interim, Barr would make administrative changes to address complaints from conservatives that surveillance authorities were abused during Trump’s campaign — something the president continues to seethe over.

“You’ve got three provisions to deal with. I think it’d be smart to keep them in place. It would give us some time to work on FISA writ large, we’ve got three years,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is preparing hearings on FISA.

(…) “A lot will happen between now and March 15. We may do a placeholder and take it past March 15. We’ve got to get this right,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “Anybody who reads the Horowitz report on misfire hurricane will understand what I’m talking about.” (read more)

Prior to the December 9, 2019 inspector general report on FISA abuse, FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons. For the past several years no corrective action taken by the intelligence community has improved the abuses outlined by the FISA court.

The sketchy programs, and abuse therein, has public attention yet congressional representatives are not responding to the findings.

Worse still, there is a confluence of current events pointing toward a likelihood Congress and the intelligence apparatus writ large want to reauthorize the FISA surveillance and collection authorities without further sunlight and without public input.

Keep in mind the deadline for the DOJ to respond to the FISA court about the abusive intelligence practices identified in the Horowitz report was February 5th, more than two weeks ago. The responses from the DOJ and FBI have not been made public.

FISA Court Order – FISA Court Notice of Extension.

It appears the DOJ is trying to get the FISA reauthorization passed before the FISC declassifies the corrective action outlined from the prior court order. This response would also include information about the “sequestering” of evidence gathered as a result of the now admitted fraudulent and misrepresented information within the FISA applications.

The FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], again all parts of the Patriot Act, must not be reauthorized without a full public vetting of the abuses that have taken place for the past several years.

At a minimum the pending DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court needs to be made public prior to any reauthorization by congress.  And to better understand the scale of the issue, the consequences when the system is abused, the upstream sequester material needs to be made public.

Let the American public see what investigative evidence was unlawfully gathered, and let us see who and what was exposed by the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants. At a minimum congress and the American people need to understand the scale of what can happen when the system is wrong – BEFORE that exact same system is reauthorized. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/25/2020)  (Archive)

February 27, 2020 - Trump supports FISA reform

President Trump is threatening to blow up an extension of expiring intelligence programs as he backchannels with a cadre of top allies who want to use the bill to reform a shadowy surveillance court.

Congress has approximately 10 working days to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act, a 2015 bill that overhauled the country’s surveillance laws, with Attorney General William Barr and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) backing a “clean” extension.

But Trump threw a grenade into those already fragile plans Thursday when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told reporters that the president supports his effort to include broader reforms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as part of any reauthorization of the intelligence programs.

“I’ve talked to the president, and I plan on insisting on getting a vote,” Paul said, asked by The Hill about including broader FISA reforms in a bill would authorize the expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act.

Paul wants a vote on an amendment that would prevent FISA warrants from being used against Americans. Paul’s proposal would also prevent FISA information from being used against Americans in a domestic courtroom. The president, according to Paul, is supportive of his amendment.

Trump’s apparent support for including broader changes to the surveillance court associated with FISA comes as he’s railed repeatedly about his campaign being “spied” upon by the Obama-era FBI.” (Read more: The Hill, 2/27/2020)  (Archive) 

March 2, 2020 - Senate panel plans to issue first subpoena in Burisma-Biden probe

“Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is preparing to issue the panel’s first subpoena as part of an investigation into Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company linked to Hunter Biden, he said in a letter on Sunday.

Andrii Telizhenko (Credit: Twitter)

Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, told Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters of his plans to subpoena Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian embassy official and former consultant for Blue Star Strategies, a firm that Burisma hired to fight against corruption allegations.

Telizhenko, who was a consultant for Blue Star from July 2016 to June 2017, has provided some documents to the committee, according to Johnson. But he says that he cannot turn over others without a subpoena because they are protected by a non-disclosure agreement.

“He cannot provide this responsible information unless he is compelled to do so by subpoena,” Johnson wrote to Peters in his letter, which was first reported by CBS News.

Republicans have been investigating whether Hunter Biden leveraged his father’s position as vice president to help Burisma, which has long been dogged by allegations of corruption.

Hunter Biden, who joined Burisma’s board in April 2014, is reportedly who linked the energy company up with Blue Star Strategies. Biden served on the board of the Truman National Security Project, a liberal national security think tank, with Sally Painter, one of Blue Star’s co-founders.

“As part of the Committee’s ongoing investigation, it has received U.S. government records indicating that Blue Star sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department,” Johnson said in the letter.

State Department records show that Painter and her Blue Star co-founder, Karen Tramontano, reached out to top State Department officials through 2016 to set up meetings to discuss Ukraine and Burisma.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/02/2020)  (Archive)

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Sally Painter (c) Karen Tramontano (r) U.S. -Ukraine Business Council members Greenbrier/Amsted Rail, Deloitte Ukraine, Blue Star Strategies, LLC and others for attending the event. (Credit: Burisma Group)

On February 18, 2020, Blue Star Strategies lobbyist, Karen Tramontano participated in a discussion on CSpan where she discusses Ukraine, Trump’s impeachment and where to go from here. It was introduced on CSpan as follows:

Impeachment Inquiry

The Institute of Politics, Policy and History at the University of the District of Columbia hosted a discussion that dissected the impeachment process, as well as the next steps moving past impeachment. Speaking at the event were House Judiciary Committee member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, former deputy Clinton White House deputy chief of staff Karen Tramontano, and Georgetown University law Professor Paul Butler. Sharon Pratt, former Washington, D.C., mayor and the founding director for the Institute of Politics Policy and History, moderated. (CSpan Video)

March 2, 2020 - Despite DOJ objections Judicial Watch wins court order forcing Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills to sit for depositions

A federal judge has ruled that Hillary Clinton and her former chief of staff Cheryl Mills must sit for a deposition within 75 days.   Judicial Watch won the court ruling despite the ongoing efforts by the DOJ to block their inquiry. (JW Link)  (PDF)

Cheryl Mills (l), walks with Hillary Clinton as they arrive at Caracol, Haiti, October 22, 2012. (Credit: Getty Images)

From the Ruling – “The Court has considered the numerous times in which Secretary Clinton said she could not recall or remember certain details in her prior interrogatory answers. In a deposition, it is more likely that plaintiff’s counsel could use documents and other testimony to attempt to refresh her recollection. And so, to avoid the unsatisfying and inefficient outcome of multiple rounds of fruitless interrogatories and move this almost six-year-old case closer to its conclusion, Judicial Watch will be permitted to clarify and further explore Secretary Clinton’s answers in person and immediately after she gives them. The Court agrees with Judicial Watch – it is time to hear directly from Secretary Clinton.”

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 3/02/2020)  (Archive)

Greg Jarret writes:

“It’s not over yet, Hillary. The Clintons have become accustomed to the mainstream media and bureaucracies forgiving their misdoings. Not this time. Judicial Watch, the conservative activist group issued a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the United States District Court for D.C. regarding Clinton’s emails while she was Secretary of State.

Thus far, Mrs. Clinton has skated through the serious issue that she used her personal email account surely compromised national security. She did not even face consequences while running for the President of the United States. Democrats were more than thrilled to put corrupt Clinton in the White House over Donald Trump.

Revenge is sweet, particularly when a Clinton has evaded consequences for far too long. The Federal court ruled today that the former Secretary of State must “sit for a deposition where she will be questioned on matters relating to her use of a private server during her time at the State Department” reports Fox News.

With each passing round of discovery, the Court is left with more questions than answers…

Previously, the court had ordered, “discovery into three main areas: whether Clinton’s use of a private email server was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA; whether the State Department had previously attempted to settle the case in ‘bad faith’; whether the State Department had ‘adequately searched’ for records pertinent to Judicial Watch’s request.”

Not surprisingly for those who are not under the spell of the Clinton cult, further discovery was required. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth stated, “Although discovery in FOIA cases is rare, the Court again reminds the government that it was State’s mishandling of this case – which was either the result of bureaucratic incompetence or motivated by bad faith – that opened discovery in the first place.” (Read more: Gregg Jarrett, 3/02/2020) (Archive)

March 3, 2020 - Crowdstrike attempts to create distance from Ukraine and Russia's link to Wikileaks

On January 22, 2020, Crowdstrike’s editorial team publishes an article that appears to create distance from Ukraine and Russia’s connections to Wikileaks.

“For more than three years, the mainstream media promoted the biggest fraud in US history – that the Russians hacked the DNC’s emails and gave the emails they hacked to WikiLeaks who then leaked the emails before the 2016 election.

Now, suddenly the firm at the center of this fraud, Crowdstrike, is taking a step back from their previous actions related to the entire sham.

(…) A week ago Personal Liberty ran a wire story originally published in the Los Angeles Times.

In the article ‘Editor’s Notes’ were added in places where the LA Times piece reported fake news.  One of the editor’s notes concerned the MSM trope that “Russian intelligence operatives stole and released thousands of internal emails and other documents in an effort to boost Trump’s chances, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.”

The Editor’s note was as follows:

This is fake news. While it’s oft-repeated by the propagandists in the MSM legacy corporate media, there is no evidence that the emails were stolen and released by “Russian intelligence operatives.” The emails were released by WikiLeaks and an entity called Guccifer 2.0. WikiLeaks denies it got them from any Russians, and Julian Assange has hinted that they were stolen by murdered DNC operative Seth Rich. The FBI was denied access to the emails and the conclusion that they were stolen and released by “Russian intelligence operatives” was made by the DNC-hired cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which has ties to Ukrainian oligarchs and the Council on Foreign Relations. –BL

John Eddy (Credit: Goldin Solutions)

A few days later, this past Tuesday, Personal Liberty reportedly received an email from John Eddy, Executive Vice President of the PR firm Goldin. The email follows:

My firm works with CrowdStrike and we read your article titled “Trump seeks to boost Sanders and foment discord among Democrats”  (personalliberty.com). We need to request important updates to the article.

The article states that the “FBI was denied access to the emails and the conclusion that they were stolen and released by ‘Russian intelligence operatives’ was made by the DNC-hired cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which has ties to Ukrainian oligarchs and the Council on Foreign Relations.” This is incorrect.

CrowdStrike’s founders have no connections to Ukraine. The company also provided all forensic evidence and analysis to the FBI that they requested, and the conclusions have been fully supported by the US Intelligence community (https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/). Additionally, CrowdStrike was hired by the DNC to respond to the suspected breach of its servers, and did not do any investigations around the release of the information.

Could you please update the article for accuracy to clarify that CrowdStrike does not have ties to Ukraine, and that the company was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack of the servers?

Note the phrase from Crowdstrike’s PR firm, stating that Crowdstrike “did not do any investigations around the release of the information.

January 2018 Crowdstrike blog features a Russia-based actor we call VOODOO BEAR. (Credit: Crowdstrike)

UPDATE—  We contacted the Crowdstrike’s PR Firm Goldin Solutions and they confirmed their email to Personal Liberty.

Now after three and a half years of the fraudulent Russia collusion scam being repeated so often that half of America believes that Russia hacked the DNC and gave their emails to WikiLeaks, Crowdstrike announces that it had nothing to do with assessing that Russians gave the emails to WikiLeaks??!!

So why is Crowdstrike announcing this now?  Are they liable for fraud by not announcing this years ago? Their lack of response allowed the coup against the President of the United States to progress!  If they didn’t confirm the Russians gave the emails to WikiLeaks, then who did?

The Mueller report clearly states that Russians hacked the DNC and gave the hacked emails to WikiLeaks:

So if Crowdstrike now claims they didn’t confirm that Russians gave emails to WikiLeaks, then who the hell did?

We believe that both Mueller and Crowdstrike are lacking candor!”  (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 3/06/2020)  (Archive)

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Personal Liberty also published an update that says the following:

Update: On March 3, 2020 we received an email from the PR firm Goldin which claimed to represent Crowdstrike asking us to correct information in the editor’s note referencing Crowdstrike’s “owners” ties to Ukrainian oligarchs and claims that the DNC denied the FBI access to the servers. A Mr. John Eddy requested we publish a clarification stating “that Crowdstrike does not have ties to Ukraine that the company was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack of the servers.” We responded by informing Mr. Eddy that we did not state Crowdstrike’s owners had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs, but that the company did, and we linked several articles published in the MSM stating as much and what those ties were. We also provided Mr. Eddy with links from the MSM in which FBI Director Comey had testified and other sources had verified that the FBI was denied access to the servers and emails.

March 4, 2020 - FISA court bans officials involved in Carter Page wiretaps from seeking surveillance...order does not lay out consequences for FISC abuses

(Illustration on examining the FISA court by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times)

“Justice Department and FBI officials under review for their role in the flawed wiretaps of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page are banned from having any involvement in the pursuit of electronic monitoring through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Judge James Boasberg issued a 19-page opinion on Wednesday, ordering that “no DOJ or FBI personnel under disciplinary or criminal review relating to their work on FISA applications shall participate in drafting, verifying, reviewing, or submitting such applications to the Court.”

“Any finding of misconduct relating to the handling of FISA applications shall be promptly reported to the Court,” the U.S. District Court judge added.

Boasberg said, “The frequency and seriousness” of the errors found by the DOJ independent watchdog “called into question the reliability of the information proffered in other FBI applications.” The judge said the government has been “acknowledging its deficiencies” and “undertaking multiple remedial measures” in response to Horowitz’s report and to court orders but also noted that “the errors the OIG pointed out cannot be solved through procedures alone” and that everyone at the DOJ and FBI “must fully understand and embrace the heightened duties of probity and transparency” in the secret court proceedings.

Boasberg touched on three main areas of the FBI’s internal FISA reforms: improvements to procedures for preparing FISA applications, improvements to training and other efforts to institutionalize the importance of accuracy and completeness, and oversight more broadly.

“While more rigorous procedures for preparing FISA applications should prove helpful, the Court is also mindful that changes in culture will require more than checklists,” Boasberg said.” (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 4/04/2020)  (Archive)

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(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

The Conservative Treehouse writes:

(…) The issues of what evidence the FBI/DOJ gathered from the exploitation of the fraudulent warrant is not addressed.  Nor does the court deal with the downstream issues of what cases may have been enhanced with illegally obtained surveillance authority.  Additionally, how the DOJ and FBI are attempting to round-up (“sequester”) any evidence that was gathered as a result of the fraudulent and unlawful FISA application is also not addressed.

Instead, within his opinion & order Judge Boasberg focuses exclusively on the recommendations from Amici Curiae David Kris, the appointed arbiter and liaison between the court and the DOJ, along with the changes proposed by FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. AG Bill Barr to the FISA application process.

The FISC opinion and order is embedded below and available in pdf form here.  I would strongly urge everyone to read it and make up your own mind.  From my perspective the 19-page outline is ridiculous.

The only FISC reform proposed, that could dissuade corrupt exploitation of the court, is simply a ruling that no DOJ or FBI official is allowed to participate in the FISA process if they are caught -and under review- for engaging in illicit conduct.   There are no legal consequences upon any DOJ or FBI member for any fraud upon the court in the past, present or future; they just get put in time-out. (Read more)

March 5, 2020 - In a corrected opinion and order, FISA Judge Boasberg states the FBI/DOJ misled the court and suggests process reform isn't enough

(Credit Conservative Treehouse)

“For much of the last three years, key law enforcement leaders have insisted they did nothing wrong in pursuing counterintelligence surveillance warrants targeting the Trump campaign starting during the 2016 election. And, they’ve added, if mistakes were made, they were unintentional process errors downstream from them and not an effort to deceive the judges.

But in a little-noted passage in a recent order, U.S. District Judge James A. Boasberg, the new chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, took direct aim at the excuses and blame-shifting of these senior Obama administration FBI and DOJ officials.

In just 21 words, Boasberg provided the first judicial declaration the FBI had misled the court, not just committed process errors. “There is thus little doubt that the government breached its duty of candor to the Court with respect to those applications,” Boasberg wrote.

(…)”The frequency and seriousness of these errors in a case that, given its sensitive nature, had an unusually high level of review at both DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have called into question the reliability of the information proffered in other FBI applications,” Boasberg wrote.

(…) For those who have begged the FISA court for years to more aggressively rebuke the conduct in the Russia case, Boasberg’s ruling was a welcome step in the right direction and a first effort to end the excuse-making. But those critics are holding out for more, including prosecutions or disciplinary action.

In the meantime, those who led the FBI and DOJ through that turbulent time — Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as well as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Rosenstein — must come to grips with this new reality. A judge has formally concluded that his court was misled by the work product they oversaw and signed. (Read more: JustTheNews, 3/09/2020)  (Archive)

March 6, 2020 - Christopher Steele speaks publicly for first time, defends the dossier, attacks Mueller Report and Trump

Graphic by: Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty Images)

(…) Speaking to students at Oxford University in England, he described the probe into Russian interference as having failed to do any “drilling down into financial networks and leverage,” which he said was “the way Russian influence works.”

His appearance at the Oxford Union, a 200-year-old debating society, was held in private but attended by The Daily Beast.

Steele said he had been interviewed by Robert Mueller’s team probing potential collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government for “two whole days” but said: “I was surprised that very little of what I had discussed with them appeared in the final report.”

He criticized the report for being “too narrow” and failing to follow up on crucial evidence. “There were many things about the report that were good… but other (aspects) that were not so good,” he said.

Steele said the fact that “a number of witnesses—including for instance, Donald Trump Jr.” had avoided being interviewed “wasn’t great.”

The former head of the Russia desk at Britain’s MI6 said it was no surprise that Trump did not appreciate the work of the secret service. “Trump himself doesn’t like intelligence because its ground truth is inconvenient for him,” he said.

Steele also attacked the U.S. Department of Justice’s inspector general report on the Russia probe, which criticized the FBI’s interactions with him, when The Daily Beast asked him about its findings.

Steele described having cooperated with the inquiry over “4 to 5 months” but he said he had seen some “very bad qualities” from U.S. officials, whom he accused of acting in “bad faith.” (Read more: The Daily Beast, 3/06/2020)  (Archive)

March 8, 2020 - Devin Nunes: UK memo warning about Christopher Steele's credibility 'went missing'

“A top House Republican said a memo from the British government disavowing British ex-spy Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier, has gone “missing.”

Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News on Sunday that Republicans have asked around for the communique a top United Kingdom national security official is said to have delivered to the Trump transition team a week before President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.

“Now look, that document went missing,” the California Republican said on Fox & Friends Weekend, noting that the letter is “critical” for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s defense.

“Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have asked, but like everything on this Russia hoax, the documents seem to disappear that are really important for the Trump administration and Republicans,” Nunes added.

A letter from the British Embassy to the incoming national security team after Trump was elected to the White House was mentioned in an unsealed filing in federal court by former national security adviser Flynn’s lawyers. The filing claimed this letter was also sent to outgoing national security adviser Susan Rice and “apparently disavows former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question and declares him untrustworthy.”

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a Republican ally of Nunes and Trump, said in May that he sent a referral to the Justice Department for the memo after its existence was revealed by a whistleblower.

“Based on my conversations with that individual, and the credible timelines that are supported by other events, I made a referral to Attorney General William Barr and Inspector General Michael Horowitz for further investigation,” Meadows said at the time. “There now is overwhelming evidence to suggest that on multiple occasions the FBI was warned that Christopher Steele and the dossier had severe credibility issues.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 3/09/2020)  (Archive)

March 10, 2020 - Judicial Watch sues State Department for text messages of Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin

“Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department for all text and other electronic messages of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin after discovering an email that strongly suggests Clinton used text messages for official business (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00441)).

In January 2020, Judicial Watch released emails that included an August 2011 email from Abedin to Clinton stating: “Sent you a couple of text messages.” The email was among other emails that had only recently been found by the FBI and produced to the State Department. Last week, a federal court criticized the State and Justice Departments for providing no explanation about how these emails were found at this late date:

State failed to fully explain the new emails’ origins when the Court directly questioned where they came from.

Judicial Watch filed its recent FOIA lawsuit after the State Department denied any responsive records exist in response to two January 2020 FOIA requests for:

  • All text messages, encrypted app messages and instant messages involving official government business sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013.
  • All text messages, encrypted app messages and instant messages involving official government business sent or received by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013.

“Where are Hillary Clinton’s text messages?” asked Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch uncovered the hidden Clinton emails and now we’ve uncovered that Secretary Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin used text messages.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 3/10/2020)  (Archive)

March 16, 2020 - The world is gaslit by Fauci, Big Pharma, doctors and the media about the benefits of Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin - many die unnecessarily

Comment on Clip above:

There’s no way that Cuomo didn’t know. Their questions weren’t confused or inquisitive they were leading and deceptive. I’ll have a lot of comments below and add more in time. But quickly:

– HCQ was presented in Week 3 of the Scam by Trump. No one knew if it would work but Docs Everywhere knew it was safe.

– Trump presented hope where there was none. “We don’t know if it works but we know it’s safe. Please try, You have nothing to lose”. Over and Over he said this offering hope where there was none.

– Media jumped on a smear campaign led by Cuomo and others discrediting HCQ. Headlines everywhere – “Studies show it’s Ineffective…” then spun into “Not only does it not work it’s not safe”. Turns out it did.

– HCQ is one of the safest Drugs in history.

– Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a staff Doc at CNN. If he didn’t know this he shouldn’t have a medical license. He should’ve spoken up and given the same advise. “Hell, We got nothing else. Please Try HCQ rather than Die”. He didn’t. Instead he fed the narrative.

– Cuomo saying “We didn’t Know… Docs didn’t tell us” is bullshit. He had access to a staff physician to investigate and present all sides. He didn’t do that. instead he watched his brother receive an Emmy for lying to the world.

– They don’t talk of HCQ because it was the treatment that worked 3 weeks in. Ivermectin presents as 5 months of chaos until anyone had any ideas…. Bullshit. This scam was solved 3 weeks in. None of it had to happen.

– I’ll post more clips and hopefully someone does a space. I’ve been screaming this since day one. This is my 10th Account. DO NOT LET THE CONVERSATION DRIFT TO IVERMECTIN.

Much of the footage is from a Documentary called “Epidemic of Fraud” from @BrokenTruthTV

It’s excellent but very long. Many won’t sit for 2.5 hrs. I’ve broken it up into short clips Please go watch the full at http://EpidemicOfFraud.com

March 16, 2020 - DOJ drops Rosenstein and Mueller’s nonsense case against Russian company Concord LLC

Almost everyone who researched the substance behind Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller’s heavily promoted Russian indictments knew the underlying claims were centered on the thinnest of evidence.

A few Facebook memes were used to accuse Russian company Concord LLC of violating FARA and FEC election laws.

In July 2018, Robert Mueller asked a federal judge in Washington for an order that would protect the handover of voluminous evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three companies and 13 Russian nationals charged in a February 2018 indictment. They are accused of producing propaganda, posing as U.S. activists and posting political content on social media as so-called trolls to encourage strife in the U.S.

Indeed, to an incurious media, a Russian catering company posting Facebook memes might sound like a good justification for a vast Russian election interference prosecution; however, when Concord & the accused Russians show up in court and request to see the evidence against them, well, the prosecutors might just have a problem.  It’s that problem that dogged the Mueller prosecution since 2018.   Today, predictably and finally, the DOJ dropped the nonsense case (full pdf below):

The prosecution was always just a farce.  The ridiculous Russian indictments were only created to give some sense of validity to a premise that did not exist and to allow the Robert Mueller investigation to continue operating when there was never a valid justification for doing so.

This was perhaps the biggest shell game operation, with a non-existent pea, using the DOJ and FBI to give the impression that something nefarious had happened; when factually the ‘Russian Conspiracy Narrative’ was all just one big hoax upon the American people.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 3/16/2020)  (Archive)

March 17, 2020 - Steele testifies he believes Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice knew about his anti-Trump research

(Glenn Simpson (l) and Christopher Steele (Credit: Neil King and public domain)

(…) Steele recently testified in a British court that he believed both then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and then-Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice were aware of his dossier research as it was going on in summer 2016.

The testimony makes his most direct link yet between his Russia collusion research and the top of the Clinton campaign and Obama White House.

Steele told a British court he believed he had been hired by the Fusion GPS firm owned by Glenn Simpson through the Democratic National Committee-linked law firm Perkins Coie to assist the Clinton campaign during the election, according to a transcript of the testimony.

“I presumed it was the Clinton campaign, and Glenn Simpson had indicated that. But I was not aware of the technicality of it being the DNC that was actually the client of Perkins Coie,” Steele testified in March under questioning from lawyers for Russian bankers suing over his research.

“You knew it was the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign didn’t you?” a lawyer for the businessmen asked.

“I believed it was the campaign. Yes,” he answered.

“The leadership of the Clinton campaign?” he was asked.

“Fine, the leadership of the campaign,” Steele conceded.

The lawyer persisted.

“You also understood that Hillary Clinton herself was aware of what you were doing?” the lawyer asked.

“I think Glenn had mentioned it, but I wasn’t clear,” Steele answered.

Then Steele was confronted with what lawyers said were notes he took at a meeting with the FBI in 2016 in which he purported to tell agents that Clinton was aware of his research. The lawyers read from those notes during the court proceedings.

The notes, according to the transcript, read: “We explained that Glenn Simpson/GPS Fusion was our commissioner but the ultimate client were the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign and that we understood the candidate herself was aware of the reporting at least, if not us.”

The lawyers prodded: “It’s your note, so we assume it’s accurate?”

“Yes,” Steele answered during the March 17 testimony.

You can read that testimony here:

File
SteeleTestimonyonClinton.pdf

(Read more: JusttheNews, 4/28/2020)  (Archive)

March 17-18, 2020 - Christopher Steele testifies his emails were ‘wiped’ and he no longer has documents related to primary source

“Christopher Steele told a British court last month that he no longer has documents and other information from his meetings with the main source for his Trump dossier, suggesting that the former British spy has no way of backing up his side in a dispute with the Justice Department’s inspector general (IG), according to a deposition transcript obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Steele also told the court that his communications regarding the dossier, including with Fusion GPS, were “wiped” in December 2016 and January 2017, the transcript shows.

The former MI6 officer made the disclosures during a March 17-18 deposition in a defamation case related to the dossier. The DCNF obtained a transcript of the deposition.

Steele suggested in a Dec. 10 statement that he had evidence that would shed light on what his main dossier source told him back in 2016 when Steele was working for the firm Fusion GPS to investigate the Trump campaign.

Steele’s statement was a response to an IG report released the day before that said that Steele’s source — dubbed the “Primary Sub-Source” — told the FBI in January 2017 that Steele misrepresented or embellished information in the dossier.

(…) The status of the information was revealed during an exchange Steele had on March 18 with Hugh Tomlinson, a lawyer for Petr Aven, German Khan, and Mikhail Fridman, the owners of Alfa Bank.

Mikhail Fridman (l), Petr Aven (c), and Lord Browne at the L1 Energy launch in New York, May 2015. (Credit: LetterOne Group)

The three Russian bankers are suing Steele for defamation over a memo in the dossier that accused them of making illicit payments to Vladimir Putin.

Tomlinson pressed Steele over the accuracy of his memo, as well as his relationship with “Primary Sub-Source,” the transcript shows.

The lawyer asked Steele about the existence of the documents and recordings that his attorneys mentioned in their rebuttal to the IG report.

“But none of these documents exist, so they have all been destroyed?” a lawyer asked Steele.

“They no longer exist,” Steele said.

(Read more: Daily Caller, 4/23/2020)  (Archive)

March 30, 2020 - A DOJ OIG audit of how FBI executes the Woods Procedures, reveals numerous flaws in their surveillance

A clipping of the DOJ OIG memorandum released on March 30, 2020: