Featured Timeline Entries
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:

March 30, 2020 - DOJ IG Horowitz identifies 93 percent non-compliance within FISA review

“After the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG), Michael Horowitz presented his December 2019 findings of the FISA application used against U.S person Carter Page, the gross deficiencies and intentional fraud were so extensive the IG said he was going to review a sample of FISA applications to identify if the fraud and abuse were widespread.

The OIG began reviewing FISA applications from eight field offices (the proverbial “rank and file”).  The OIG selected 29 FISA applications from those field offices over the period of October 2014 to September 2019.  Additionally, every field office and the DOJ-NSD generate internal “Accuracy Reviews”, or self-checks on FISA applications; so the OIG inspected 42 of the accuracy review FISA files to determine if they were compliant.

The results were so bad the IG produced an interim memorandum to the DOJ and FBI [pdf link here].  Within the 17-page-memo the IG notifies Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray that all of the claimed FISA processes, in every field office, are grossly deficient, and in most cases, there is zero compliance with FISA standards.  The IG memorandum is presented before the IG even looks at the specifics of the non-compliance.

Below is the report/memorandum.  Additionally, I am summarizing the stunning top-lines identified by the IG memo:

  • The IG reviewed 29 FISA applications, surveillance warrants, used against U.S. persons.
  • The 29 FISA applications were from eight different field offices.
  • The FISA applications were from Oct/2014 through Sept/2019.
  • All of the FISA applications reviewed were approved by the FISA court.

The ‘Woods File’ is the mandatory FBI evidence file that contains the documentary proof to verify all statements against U.S. persons that are contained in the FISA application.  Remember, this is a secret court, the FISA applications result in secret surveillance and wiretaps against U.S. persons outside the fourth amendment.

♦ Within the 29 FISA applications reviewed, four were completely missing the Woods File.  Meaning there was zero supportive evidence for any of the FBI claims against U.S. persons underpinning the FISA application.  [ie. The FBI just made stuff up]

♦ Of the remaining 25 FISA applications, 100% of them, all of them, were materially deficient on the Woods File requirement; and the average number of deficiencies per file was 20.  Meaning an average of twenty direct statements against the target, supporting the purpose of the FISA application, sworn by the FBI affiant, were unsubstantiated.  [The low was 5, the high was 63, the average per file was 20]

♦ Half of the FISA applications reviewed used Confidential Human Sources (CHS’s).  The memo outlines that “many” of applications containing CHS claims had no supportive documentation attesting to the dependability of the CHS.

♦ Two of the 25 FISA applications reviewed had renewals; meaning the FISA applications were renewed to extended surveillance, wiretaps, etc. beyond the initial 90-days.  None of the renewals had any re-verification.  Both FISAs that used renewals were not compliant.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

But wait… it gets worse.

The DOJ and FBI have an internal self-check mechanism.  The DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) chief counsel and the chief counsel for every FBI field office are required to conduct an “Accuracy Review” of selected FISA applications.  One per field office (25 to 30 field offices), which are also sent to DOJ-NSD (main justice) for general counsel inspection.

Keep in mind, these “accuracy reviews” are known in advance, so the FBI has all the time in the world to select the best FISA file for review.  Additionally, I surmise the OIG wanted to inspect the “accuracy review” FISA’s because they would show the best light on the overall system itself.  The OIG was looking for the best, most compliant, product to report on.

However, when the OIG inspected 42 of these Accuracy Reviews, the IG identified that only three of them had accurately assembled documents (Woods File) supporting the application.  The error rate within the files self-checked was over 93%.

So the best FBI files are selected to undergo the FBI and DOJ-NSD accuracy review.  The accuracy review takes place by FBI legal counsel and DOJ-NSD legal counsel.  However, the IG finds that only three FBI applications in the accuracy reviews were compliant.

The error rate in the files undertaken by the internal accuracy review was over 93% (3 compliant out of 42 reviewed).  These were the FISA files with the greatest possibility of being accurate.  Let that sink in…” (Read more: The Conservative Treehouse, 3/31/2020)  (Archive)

April 3, 2020 - FISA Court requires DOJ/FBI to name the targets within their corrupt surveillance applications

“Stung by new evidence of surveillance errors, the nation’s intelligence court on Friday ordered the FBI to review more than two dozen wiretap applications to determine if they were so flawed as to have led to inappropriate spying on Americans.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Chief Judge James Boasberg gave the bureau until June 15 to complete the review, moving quickly to react to a Justice Department inspector general’s memo earlier this week that found 29 FISA warrants to spy on Americans contained inaccurate or unverified information in violation of the FBI’s so-called Woods Procedures.

The judge’s order requires the FBI to determine if the errors were material enough to void the already approved warrants.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

(…) The court signaled on Friday additional action may be taken given the widespread problems now revealed about the FBI’s handling of FISA warrants dating back five years. “When problems are identified in particular cases, furthermore, the Court must evaluate what remedial measures may be necessary,” Boasberg wrote.

The FBI said Friday night it would cooperate with the court and noted that since the problems with the Page warrants were revealed it has taken more than three dozen corrective actions to ensure future FISA would meet the standard of accuracy required by the court and the bureau’s rules.

You can read the IG’s memo here.

You can read the ruling here.

(Read more: JusttheNews, 4/03/2020)  (Archive) (Ruling Archive)

April 3, 2020 - State/DOJ tells Appeals Court it should reject Clinton/Mills effort to avoid testimony

(Credit: CNN)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it and the State Department, which is represented by Justice Department lawyers, filed responses opposing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills’ Writ of Mandamus request to overturn a U.S. District Court order requiring their testimony under oath regarding Clinton’s emails and Benghazi attack records. At the same time, the government argued that it did not engage in “bad faith” in failing to disclose the Clinton non-government email system to Judicial Watch and the court. The briefs were filed on April 3 with the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The filings come in the appeals court’s proceedings concerning Judicial Watch’s lawsuit that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State

Judicial Watch argues that Clinton and Mills “must demonstrate that they have no other adequate means of relief,” which they failed to show. Also, Clinton and Mills do not demonstrate “that the District Court’s order was a judicial usurpation of power or a clear abuse of discretion, or that [Clinton and Mills] have a clear and indisputable right to a writ.” In fact, “the District Court reasonably concluded that Clinton’s previous explanations for using a personal email server are cursory, incomplete, and seemingly at odds with what discovery has yielded to date.”

Judicial Watch further argues that Clinton and Mills are trying to avoid their deposition testimony by relying on, “their status as former high-level government officials.” Clinton and Mills, “do not offer a single case from this Court or any other, holding that former high-level government officials should not be required to follow regular appellate channels to challenge a discovery order.” Particularly in Mills’ case, Judicial Watch notes that they, “identify no case in which a court entertained a mandamus petition to stop the deposition of even a sitting cabinet member’s chief of staff.” [Emphasis in original]

Judicial Watch also argues against Clinton’s argument that she held the server under “claim of right,” when it contained thousands of federal records. Judicial Watch states that unlike other Secretaries of State, like Henry Kissinger, Clinton did not obtain an opinion from State’s Legal Adviser on whether she could take the federal records prior to her departure from State. Clinton’s “claim of right” argument over her server would be like a bank robbery:

A bank robber who stuffs bills into a duffle bag during a robbery may own the bag, but has no “claim of right” to the stolen cash. Is Clinton claiming a legal right to the agency records stored on the server? If so, Petitioners offer no factual or legal support for such a claim. While the server may have been Clinton’s property, the agency records on the server plainly were not.

Though they repeatedly sought to shut down any further inquiry in the lower court proceedings, the State and Justice Departments also argue against Clinton and Mills’ appeal to overturn the order for their depositions:

The government did not seek and thus does not support the extraordinary relief of mandamus due to the unique circumstances of this case.

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/06/2020)  (Archive)

April 9, 2020 - The exculpatory Papadopoulos transcript, including FBI surveillance wire, is declassified and released

It has been so long since the original 2018 congressional request that many people have forgotten what was included in the “Bucket Five” declassification request.

George Papadopoulos is released from prison, December 7, 2018. (Credit: Fox News)

Bucket Five – Intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all exculpatory intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court.

Bucket Five includes transcripts of the FBI wiretap operations using confidential human sources that were run against members of the Trump campaign; including George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

One of those transcripts, from the operation against Papadopoulos was declassified on April 1st, and released last night and today.

(…) ♦ A note of caution…the declassification of documents in/around the core issues of Spygate may indicate a more political approach to sunlight, and not any criminal investigation, at least in part, of the overall IC schemes.  Whatever U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking into (seems targeted to John Brennan) does not appear to be related to a criminal finding of wrongdoing by the FBI actors.   However, don’t be alarmed by that nuance because it has long been visible that the FBI position would boil down to a claim they were hoodwinked by an unknown political agenda within the CIA.

Former FBI Director James Comey has leaned into the “we were duped” approach; but the “we” in that deflection doesn’t necessarily apply to the reality of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s participation.   Comey may have been willfully blind, and incompetent toward his responsibilities, thereby holding plausible deniability as his exit strategy; thus Comey kept all those notes and memos to cover his ass. However, McCabe was not a mere bystander, subject to the manipulation of bad actors within the schemes. McCabe was an active participant, that’s the essential difference between the two.

OK, now on to the transcript as released…

In May 2016 George Papadopoulos was contacted by two members of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Terrence Dudley and Greg Baker, working out of the U.S. embassy in London. Two American spies working in London put Papadopoulos in contact with their ally/counterpart in the Australian Embassy, Erika Thompson. [ie. ‘unofficial channels’] After meeting with Downer’s aide, Erika Thompson on May 6th, she sets up a meeting between George Papadopoulos and her boss for May 10th.

On May 10th, 2016, Ms Erika Thompson and Mr. Alexander Downer then meet with George Papadopoulos.  After the meeting, Ambassador Downer reports back to the Australian government on his conversation with Papadopoulos. [document release]. It is from this May 10th, 2016, meeting where communication from Downer, July 26th, 2016, is referenced as the origin of Crossfire Hurricane July 31st.

On August 2, 2016, Special Agent Peter Strzok and another agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation met with Alexander Downer in London to discuss his conversation with Papadopoulos further. Strzok then received reading materials, which he texted about to Lisa Page.

A month later September 2016, the FBI used a longtime informant, Stefan Halper, to make contact with George Papadopoulos, pay him $3k and fly him to London for consulting work and a policy paper on Mediterranean energy issues.  As part of the spy operation, the FBI sent a female intelligence operative (a spy) under the alias Azra Turk to pose as Halper’s assistant and engage Papadopoulos.

A month later, October 21, 2016, the FBI used Papadopoulos as a supplemental basis for a FISA warrant against Carter Page.

A few weeks after the FBI received the FISA warrant against Carter Page, they ran another operation against George Papadopoulos using a friend as an asset; a wired asset.

The FBI labeled Papadopoulos as “crossfire typhoon”, and ran a confidential human source (CHS #3) recently identified as Jeffrey Wiseman.

Former Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy, told Maria Bartiromo in May 2019 that he had seen the transcripts of the FBI’s Jeffrey Wiseman operation and those transcripts exonerate Papadopoulos.  WATCH:

(Transcript Video 01:10) Bartiromo: I’m really glad you brought that up; the FBI agents’ discussion with George Papadopoulos. Because when the FBI sends in informants to someone they’re looking at, typically those conversations are recorded right? Those people are wired?

Gowdy: Yeah, I mean if the bureau is going to send an informant in, the informant is going to be wired; and if the bureau is monitoring telephone calls there’s going to be a transcript of that.

And some of us have been fortunate enough to know whether or not those transcripts exist; but they haven’t been made public and I think one in-particular is going – it has the potential to actually persuade people.  Very little in this Russia probe I’m afraid is going to persuade people who hate Trump, or who love Trump, but there is some information in these transcripts that I think has the potential to be a game-changer if it’s ever made public.

Bartiromo: You say that’s exculpatory evidence and when people see that they’re going to say: wait, why wasn’t this presented to the court earlier?

Gowdy: Yeah, you know, Johnny Ratcliffe is rightfully exercised over the obligations that the government has to tell the whole truth to the court when you are seeking permission to spy, or do surveillance, on an American.  And part of that includes the responsibility of providing exculpatory information, or information that tends to show the person did not do something wrong.  If you have exculpatory information, and you don’t share it with the court, that ain’t good.  I’ve seen it, Johnny’s seen it, I’d love for your viewers to see it.

Today the transcript of the Wiseman operation was released.  This is the transcript where Papadopoulos’s friend Jeffrey Wiseman is wired by the FBI for a meeting in Chicago.

Papadopoulos told Wiseman that he knew “for a fact” that nobody on the Trump campaign was involved in hacking the DNC.

The IG report said the FBI tapped Wiseman, referred to as “Source 3” in the report, due to a previous “connection” with Papadopoulos. The report said Wiseman indicated years earlier during an interview for a separate investigation he would be willing to work with the FBI.

After lunch, Wiseman and Papadopoulos traveled to a casino, where they played blackjack. According to the transcript, in addition to discussing Russia and the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos said he had worked for Israeli businesses, “to lobby for them in Washington.”  This conversation appears to be taking place in late October or early November 2016, prior to the election.

Despite all of the surveillance operations against Papadopoulos, the target was not interviewed by the FBI until January 2017. None of the exculpatory information was included in the January FISA renewal or the two subsequent renewals.

It’s likely the FBI will justify not including the exculpatory evidence based on the fact that Carter Page and not Papadopoulos was the primary target of the FISA application.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

With the release of the Papadopoulos transcript, this interview from May 2019 also takes on new context.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/09/2020)  (Archive)

April 9, 2020 - Russia case footnotes in Horowitz FISA abuse report to be declassified

Sen. Chuck Grassley suggests the redacted footnotes contradict IG Report statements. (Crecit: Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

“U.S. intelligence has decided to declassify several redacted footnotes from a recent Justice Department report that will expose more problems with the FBI’s investigation into President Trump’s campaign, including that agents possessed evidence their main informant may have been the victim of Russian disinformation, Just the News has learned.

The previously redacted footnotes are likely to raise new concerns that the FBI ignored flashing red warning signals about the informant Christopher Steele and gave a false picture in briefing materials supplied to Congress.

(…) The unredacted footnotes are expected to provide new data points in the timeline showing when the FBI learned, or should have suspected, that its key evidence suggesting Trump was colluding with Russia was erroneous and how high up those concerns were known, the sources said.

The new information “will make clear the FBI possessed information at multiple levels that undercut the evidence it was using to sustain a collusion investigation” and will be specific enough to renew a debate in Washington over “whether the FBI intentionally ignored red flags or simply was blinded by ambition from seeing them clearly,” one source with direct knowledge said.

The evidence could also raise new questions about whether statements made to Congress during the Russia probe were false or misleading, and whether the intelligence community’s official assessment that Vladimir Putin was solely trying to help elect Trump was contradicted by some evidence in FBI files, the sources said.(Read more: JusttheNews, 4/09/2020)  (Archive)

April 10, 2020 - The DOJ unredacts and releases 3 of the 4 footnotes requested by senators Grassley and Johnson

“Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson asked that four footnotes be unredacted in the IG FISA abuse report. The footnotes at issue are: Footnotes 302, 334, 342* and 350. The letter states that the classified footnotes contradict information in Horowitz’s report that appears to have misled the public.

The contradiction can be found in footnote 334 recently unredacted. @JohnWHuber highlights it here:

All but one of the footnotes (342*), were mostly unredacted and released by the DOJ on April 10, 2020.  Senator Grassley’s office then responds with a letter:

“The “central and essential” evidence used to justify invasive surveillance of an American citizen in the FBI’s probe into Russian interference was, itself, an example of Russian interference, according to once-secret footnotes declassified at the urging of two U.S. Senators. The footnotes, part of the Justice Department Inspector General’s postmortem of the FBI’s flawed operation to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, were released just hours after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) renewed their push for transparency. The senators expect a fuller declassification in the coming days.

The footnotes reveal that beginning early on and continuing throughout the FBI’s Russia investigation, FBI officials learned critical information streams that flowed to the dossier were likely tainted with Russian Intelligence disinformation. But the FBI aggressively advanced the probe anyway, ignoring internal oversight mechanisms and neglecting to flag the material credibility concerns for a secret court. Despite later intelligence reports that key elements of the FBI’s evidence were the result of Russian infiltration to undermine U.S. foreign relations, the FBI still pushed forward with its probe. It would eventually spill over into the years-long special counsel operation, costing taxpayers more than $30 million and increasing partisan divisions – all based on faulty evidence. In the end, the special counsel concluded that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia.

“For years, the public was fed a healthy diet of leaks, innuendo and false information to imply that President Trump and his campaign were part of a Russian conspiracy to spread disinformation. The FBI’s blind pursuit of the investigation, despite exculpatory and contradictory information, only legitimized the narrative. The mounting evidence undercutting this narrative should have stopped the investigation early in its tracks. Instead, it took several years and millions in taxpayer dollars to conclude that the allegations were baseless,” Grassley and Johnson said.

“Had FBI leadership heeded the numerous warnings of Russian disinformation, paid attention to the glaring contradictions in the pool of evidence and followed long-standing procedures to ensure accuracy, everyone would have been better off. Carter Page’s civil liberties wouldn’t have been shredded, taxpayer dollars wouldn’t have been wasted, the country wouldn’t be as divided and the FBI’s reputation wouldn’t be in shambles.

“It’s ironic that the Russian collusion narrative was fatally flawed because of Russian disinformation. These footnotes confirm that there was a direct Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and there were ties between Russian intelligence and a presidential campaign – the Clinton campaign, not Trump’s.”

The IG report detailed how the FBI’s application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Page relied heavily on an unverified dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of Fusion GPS, which was conducting opposition research for the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. According to Footnote 302, in October 2016, FBI investigators learned that one of Steele’s main sources was linked to the Russian Intelligence Service (RIS), and was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer.  However, the FBI neglected to include this information in its application, which the FISA Court approved that same month. Two months later, investigators learned that Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, told a Justice Department attorney that he assessed the same source “was a RIS officer who was central in connecting Trump to Russia.” In January, the FISA warrant was renewed.

Footnote 302 – Redacted

 

Footnote 302 – Unredacted

 

Footnote 334 – Redacted

 

Footnote 334 – Unredacted

 

Footnote 350 states that, in 2017, the FBI learned that intelligence reports “assessed that the referenced subset [of Steele’s reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen] was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.”

That same footnote states that a separate report, dated 2017, “contained information … that the public reporting about the details of Trump’s [REDACTED] activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and that they were the product of RIS ‘infiltra[ing] a source into the network’ of a [REDACTED] who compiled a dossier of information on Trump’s activities.”

Footnote 350 – Redacted

 

Footnote 350 – Unredacted

 

The surveillance warrant against Page was renewed two more times – in April and in June of 2017 – raising questions about when exactly the FBI received and reviewed these new intelligence reports, and what it did with them. Grassley and Johnson expect the footnotes to be further declassified in the coming days.

Citing the IG report, the FISA court ordered the FBI to explain how it will take corrective action on the FISA process.  A subsequent IG audit of the FBI procedures to ensure accuracy of FISA applications found errors in 29 unrelated applications, prompting the court to order more information from the FBI.

The declassified footnotes were contained in an April 2, 2020, letter from the Justice Department responding to Grassley and Johnson’s January 28, 2020, inquiry. (U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, 4/10/2020)  (Archive)

April 15, 2020 - Judicial Watch subpoenas Google in Hillary Clinton email lawsuit

“Judicial Watch announced today that it served a subpoena, authorized by a DC federal court, on Google to produce all Clinton emails from a Google account believed to contain former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. Platte River Networks’ IT specialist Paul Combetta reportedly used the Google account to transfer Clinton’s emails from a laptop to a Platte River server, then used BleachBit to remove any traces of the emails from the laptop. Judicial Watch’s subpoena seeks all Clinton emails from her time at State, January 21, 2009, to February 1, 2013. Google is requested to produce the emails by May 13.

The Google subpoena comes in a Judicial Watch’s lawsuit that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). Judicial Watch famously uncovered in 2014 that the “talking points” that provided the basis for Susan Rice’s false statements were created by the Obama White House. This Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

During an August 2019 federal court hearing, U.S District Court Judge Royce Lamberth raised concerns about Clinton’s Gmail cache and ordered Judicial Watch to “shake this tree” on the issue. Judge Lamberth noted that Senator Grassley released:

…a report in which he had some very troubling information about a guy named Combetta who had been one of the contract employees on the Clinton emails, and he and the Senator who Chairs the Homeland Security Committee released in the Senate this report Friday, and the gist of it was that Combetta had said, I guess, that he had created a dummy email account with all of the Hillary Clinton emails in it in a different name, and the FBI had investigated that to see whether or not the Chinese had ever hacked into it. They have determined that the Chinese hadn’t, but that the FBI never told the State Department about that account and that the emails that were not given over to State could have been obtained from that account, but the FBI never told State about it. So it leaves out in the open whether there are these other emails that State could have obtained but nobody ever bothered to tell State about them. I don’t know the status of that and I’m sure you don’t either, but that did occur to me that would be a problem for me as to whether an adequate examination of that circumstance occurred and, assuming that Combetta deleted them, as he said he did before he took the Fifth, I guess, whether or not the server that they were on or the — or whoever maintained the server, whether they can be reconstructed from — by that …

Just last week, the Senate’s – Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing that Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

On March 2, 2020, Judge Lamberth granted Judicial Watch’s request to subpoena Google for relevant documents and records associated with Clinton’s emails during her tenure at the State Department.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/15/2020)  (Archive)

April 16, 2020 - Judiciary Committee releases key material related to FISA abuse investigation

(Graphic by the Federal Bureau of Investigations)

“The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), today released declassified confidential human source transcripts related to the Crossfire Hurricane operation.

In addition to the transcripts, the Committee released other material related to the Committee’s investigation into Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) actions leading up to and during the Crossfire Hurricane operation, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant process.

“I’m committed to being as transparent as possible about the circumstances surrounding FISA abuse. The goal is to make sure it never happens again,” said Chairman Graham.

As part of Chairman Graham’s efforts to increase transparency and accountability to the American people, these declassified documents and other material may be accessed at the following link: judiciary.senate.gov/fisa-investigation.

Today, the Committee released three categories of material.

  1. Declassified DOJ materials related to the Crossfire Hurricane operation.
  2. Timeline of correspondence sent or received by Chairman Graham and Committee activity regarding the FISA abuse investigation.
  3. Corrective actions taken by DOJ and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as a result of the FISA abuse investigation.

Declassified Department of Justice Materials Related to the Crossfire Hurricane Operation:

In response to Graham’s letters on March 7, August 29, and December 19, 2019 urging Attorney General Barr to declassify as much material as possible relating to the abuse of the FISA process targeting the Trump campaign, DOJ has produced the following documents:

  • Confidential human source transcripts related to the Crossfire Hurricane operation
    • Transcript of George Papadopoulos and FBI Confidential Human Source (declassified March 13, 2020) (document)
    • Transcript of George Papadopoulos and FBI Confidential Human Source (declassified April 1, 2020) (document)
  • FISA Warrant Application for Carter Page and Three Subsequent Renewals
    • FISA Warrant Application for Carter Page (document)
    • FISA Warrant Application for Carter Page, Renewal One (document)
    • FISA Warrant Application for Carter Page, Renewal Two (document)
    • FISA Warrant Application for Carter Page, Renewal Three (document)
  • A July 2018 letter from DOJ to the FISA court alerting the court to some of the significant errors and omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications (letter)

Timeline of Correspondence Sent or Received by Chairman Graham and Committee Activity Regarding the FISA Abuse Investigation:

March 7, 2019

Graham to Attorney General Barr: Requested documents related to Carter Page FISA warrant application, Steele dossier (press release, letter)

May 10, 2019

Graham to DOJ Inspector General (IG) Horowitz and Secretary of State Pompeo: On political motivation behind Carter Page FISA warrant application (press release, letter to IG Horowitz, letter to Secretary Pompeo)

August 29, 2019

Graham to Attorney General Barr: Urged declassification of key documents in FISA abuse investigation (press release, letter)

October 2, 2019

Graham to Prime Ministers of Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom: Requested continued cooperation with AG Barr during the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 U.S. presidential election (press release, letter)

November 18, 2019

Graham to IG Horowitz: Invitation to testify publicly on IG’s report on FISA abuse investigation (press release)

November 21, 2019

Graham announced IG Horowitz’s report to be released on December 9, 2019 (press release) IG Horowitz response to Graham

December 11, 2019

Senate Judiciary Committee held oversight hearing entitled “Examining the Inspector General’s Report on Alleged Abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (hearing)

December 17, 2019

After the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court condemned the FISA warrant process and application with respect to Carter Page, Chairman Graham declared that FISA reform would be a top priority for the Judiciary Committee in 2020 (press release)

December 19, 2019

Graham to Attorney General Barr and IG Horowitz: Requested the previously redacted names of the individuals – along with their previous and current positions at DOJ or FBI – who were involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation during the 2016 presidential election (letter)

January 15, 2020

Graham to FBI Director Wray: After concerns were raised about certain personnel at DOJ and FBI involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation receiving promotions or being rewarded, Graham requested the current employment status of these individuals, including what types of promotions or rewards were given or whether legal action or other remedies were taken for terminated personnel (letter)

February 14, 2020

Graham to Attorney General Barr: Requested transcribed interviews with DOJ, FBI officials regarding Crossfire Hurricane investigation during the 2016 presidential election (press release, letter)

March 3, 2020

Committee began depositions of individuals involved in the Justice Department and FBI’s handling of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, including the applications and renewals of a FISA warrant on Carter Page (The Hill, Washington Examiner)

March 31, 2020

Graham invited IG Horowitz to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding initial findings of FISA warrant application audit (press release)

Corrective Actions Taken by the Department of Justice and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as a Result of the FISA Abuse Investigation:

During the Committee’s December 11, 2019 hearing on IG Horowitz’s report on alleged FISA abuse, Chairman Graham publicly called on the FISA court to take “corrective action”. Less than a week after Graham’s comments, the FISA court started what would become a series of orders to DOJ and FBI to reform the FISA process and examine where the system failed.

December 17, 2019

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered DOJ to conduct a review and FBI to propose changes to remedy faulty FISA warrant application process (FISC order)

January 13, 2020

Attorney General Barr and FBI Director Wray announced DOJ is raising the standard for opening of a counterintelligence investigation of a presidential campaign (press conference)

March 4, 2020

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court banned FBI officials involved in errors and omissions with Carter Page FISA warrant applications from appearing before the court (FISC opinion and order)

March 31, 2020

IG Horowitz released initial findings of audit of the FBI’s procedures and actions during the FISA warrant application process (memo)

April 3, 2020

In response to the Inspector General’s audit, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered FBI to reexamine the FISA warrant application process, including by reviewing the 29 FISA warrant applications that the Inspector General identified as flawed and identifying the targets of these warrants  (FISC order)

(Senate Judiciary Committee, 4/16/2020) (Archive)

April 19, 2020 - John Brennan's actions during the 2016 election - in his own words

John Brennan is nominated for the CIA director’s position and appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a hearing in 2013. (Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters)

By: Jeff Carlson @themarketswork

A John Brennan thread touching on some of his 2016 actions – mostly in his own words.

Brennan used unofficial intelligence from unofficial channels and then fed this information repeatedly into the FBI as a tactic to push the FBI into starting a Counterintelligence Investigation.

Brennan Testimony:

“Sometime this summer, there was information that the CIA had that was shared with the Bureau. But it wasn’t the only period of time where such information was shared with the Bureau.”

February 4, 2018 on Meet the Press:

“The CIA and the Intelligence Community had collected a fair amount of information in the summer of 2016 about what the Russians were doing on multiple fronts. And we wanted to make sure that the FBI had full access to that.”

Brennan Testimony:

“We were uncovering information intelligence about interactions and contacts between U.S. persons and the Russians. And as we came upon that, we would share it with the bureau.”

Brennan Testimony (Responding to Gowdy):

“I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper personally confirmed foreign intelligence involvement during congressional testimony in May 2017:

Brennan Testimony:

“I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign was shared with the bureau [FBI].”

Brennan on Maddow:

“Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI…we were picking things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there…”

Brennan established a Task Force to investigate:

Maddow: “So, it’s an intelligence-sharing operation…”

Brennan: “Right. We put together a Fusion Center at CIA that brought NSA and FBI officers together with CIA to make sure that those proverbial dots would be connected.”

February 4, 2018 on Meet the Press:

Brennan: “The FBI has a very close relationship with its British counterparts. And so the FBI had visibility into a number of things that were going on involving some individuals…”

Brennan’s “intelligence” served as the basis for the FBI Counterintelligence Investigation:

“I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons…and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation.”

Brennan stated that he briefed the Gang of Eight. Brennan had already informed the Obama WH:

“Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept congress apprised of these issues…In consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details.”

But there’s a problem. Devin Nunes told us on April 22, 2018:

“There was no intelligence that passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government…We now know that there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation.”

Brennan on his knowledge of the Steele Dossier:

Brennan: “I know that there were efforts made by the Bureau to try to understand whether or not any of the information in that was valid, but I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of it.”

Todd: “When did you first learn of the so-called Steele dossier and what Christopher Steele was doing?”

Brennan: “I had heard just snippets about it…I did not see it until later in that year. I think it was in December…it did not play any role whatsoever in the [ICA]”

But during a CNN Interview with Clapper a slightly different story was told:

Clapper: “Some of the substantive content of the dossier we were able to corroborate in our Intelligence Community assessment from other sources in which we had very high confidence.”

And Meadows indicated that Brennan knew of the dossier in Aug ’16 during Q&A of Lisa Page:

Meadows: “We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid…Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware of [dossier]?”

Brennan’s ICA was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Trump.

Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.

Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama on the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in early Jan 2017.

Gowdy asked Brennan about unmasking:

Gowdy: Have you ever requested that a U.S. person’s name be unmasked?

Brennan: Yes I have.

***

Gowdy: Do you recall any U.S. ambassadors asking that names be unmasked?

Brennan: I don’t know. Maybe it’s ringing a vague bell…

Gowdy: On either Jan 19th or up to noon on Jan 20th did you make any unmasking requests?

Brennan: I do not believe I did.

Gowdy: You did not make any requests on the last day that you were employed?

Brennan: No, I was not in the agency on the last day I was employed.

(Read more: Jeff Carlson, themarketswork/Twitter, 4/18/2020)  (Archive)  (The Epoch Times, 4/21/2020)

April 22, 2020 - Fred Fleitz: Brennan suppressed intelligence that suggests Putin favored Clinton in 2016 election

(…) Accusing the intelligence community of improper “analytic tradecraft” in analyzing Russia’s strategic intentions is an extremely grave indictment for a congressional oversight committee to make. In my opinion, there is no question the House Intelligence Committee is right for the reasons in its 2018 report and other subsequent findings.

The House committee found the intelligence community assessment violated protocols for drafting such assessments. This major finding shows why America needs strong legislative oversight over the intelligence services.

For example, although the protocols require intelligence community assessments to be “community products” and vetted with all intelligence agencies and analysts with equities in a given subject, only three intelligence agencies were asked to draft this assessment: the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI.

With the 14 other intelligence agencies left out, the three participating agencies included only two dozen “handpicked” analysts. Other intelligence agencies working on this issue, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, were excluded.

In addition, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed the actual drafting of the intelligence community assessment was done by three close associates of former CIA Director Brennan, who has proven to be the most politicized intelligence chief in American history.

Contrary to common practice for controversial intelligence community assessments, Brennan’s team allowed no dissenting views or even an annex with reviews by outside experts.

These were extraordinary violations of intelligence community rules to ensure that analysis is accurate and trusted. The Senate committee reports ignored these foundational violations.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report falsely claims that “all analytical lines are supported with all-source intelligence” and that analysts who wrote the intelligence community assessment consistently said they “were under no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.”

House Intelligence Committee staff members found the opposite. They told me there was conflicting intelligence evidence on Russian motivations for meddling in the 2016 election.

More gravely, they said that CIA Director Brennan suppressed facts or analysis that showed why it was not in Russia’s interests to support Trump and why Putin stood to benefit from Hillary Clinton’s election. They also told me that Brennan suppressed that intelligence over the objections of CIA analysts.

House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election.

Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment.” (Read more: Fox News, 4/22/2020)  (Archive)

On May 12, 2020, Ed Henry confirms Fred Fleitz’s findings:

April 24, 2020 - The role of Giglio in Flynn’s case

Michael Flynn Jr. (l) with his father Lt. General Michael Flynn. (Credit: ABC News)

“The criminal case against Michael Flynn imploded Friday. First, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia provided Flynn’s legal team with documents discovered by an outside review of the Flynn prosecution — documents withheld for years. Then, Sidney Powell, the attorney who took over Flynn’s defense nearly a year ago, filed new documents in the case, revealing a secret “lawyers’ understanding” not to prosecute Flynn’s son if the retired lieutenant general pleaded guilty.

(…) When a defendant cuts a deal with the government and agrees to cooperate and testify against a co-defendant or others, under Giglio those other defendants are entitled to learn the benefit of the plea agreement. But the email excerpts above suggest as Powell argued in her latest filing, that the lead prosecutor, Van Grack, “made a side deal not to prosecute Michael G. Flynn [Jr.] as a material term of the plea agreement, but he required that it be kept secret between himself and the Covington attorneys expressly to avoid the requirement of Giglio.”

Those emails also distinguish Flynn’s case from the run-of-the-mill criminal case in which a defendant seeks to avoid a plea agreement because of a side deal. Courts regularly dismiss such challenges because the terms of the plea agreement expressly provide that there are no other agreements beyond those set forth in the written plea agreement. As typical, Flynn’s plea agreement included such a provision, as seen below.

But Flynn’s case is different for two reasons. First, the emails attached as Exhibits 1 and 2 in Friday’s filing provide evidence of a side agreement — something lacking in most criminal cases. Second, the emails suggest the government intended to bind itself to this commitment via a “lawyers’ understanding” and omitted the term from the written plea agreement for an improper purpose — to avoid the constitutionally mandated disclosures. Thus, in this case, the side agreement implicates the integrity of the judicial process and suggests prosecutorial misconduct.” (Read more: The Federalist, 4/27/2020)  (Archive)

April 24, 2020 - Newly released Flynn documents reveal the coercion behind his corrupt plea agreement

“In a supplement to the defense motion to dismiss [pdf here] we discover some of the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct turned over by the DOJ to the Flynn defense. Specifically Lt. General Michael Flynn’s plea was based on a threat against Michael Flynn Jr. if his father didn’t sign the plea.  This will very likely get the plea dismissed.

Because the exhibits had to be filed under seal, they are heavily redacted; however, Flynn’s defense counsel, Sidney Powell, has asked the court to release & unredact the full content of the exhibits so the world can see the coercion behind the corrupt plea agreement.

The Mueller prosecution team lead by Brandon Van Grack put the agreement and threat in writing, but they also made a deal with the former defense team to hide the terms in an effort to cover-up their misconduct.  Coercion to force a plea is unethical and unlawful.

The full filing is here.

Today’s filing by Sidney Powell proves what Conservative Treehouse originally outlined in April 2019.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/24/2020)  (Archive)

May 6, 2020 - DOJ releases less redacted 2nd scope memo (Aug 2, 2017) – Still missing 3rd scope memo (Oct 20, 2017)

The DOJ has finally released a less redacted version of the second special counsel scope memo, written August 2, 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The second scope memo (full pdf here) authorized Robert Mueller to target Carter Page, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and an unknown entity (Richard Gates, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn Jr. likely possibilities).

The DOJ has been hiding the second scope memo behind redactions for almost three years.  A heavily redacted version was released in April 2018.  They are finally releasing a less redaction version today (see below).  Don’t forget, the DOJ has never released or discussed the third (super secret) scope memo written on October 20, 2017.

The scope memos are important because when contrast against known evidence of investigative corruption the scope memos show how targets were selected by the Mueller team and approved by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.  Additionally, the scope memos show what actions Mueller’s corrupt investigative authorities were looking into.

On a personal note CTH has been like a dog with a bone on these scope memos for almost three years because it was clear the FBI investigative unit was fully aware the Russian involvement was total nonsense in early 2017.  So all of these expanded scopes were based on a false premise.  DAG Rosenstein was authorizing the special counsel to target people with clear knowledge the primary basis for the targeting was false. These were investigations in search of a crime.

When the 2nd scope was previously released (April 2nd 2018), page two was almost entirely redacted.  Everyone knew Carter Page was primary, and now we can officially see who three additional targets were, and based on what claims: (page 2)

The strongest possibility for the remaining redaction is Richard Gates (Manafort’s partner who was never charged).  However, it could be Michael Cohen, President Trump’s attorney; or it could be Michael G Flynn Jr (Mike Flynn Jr) who was also never charged.

The fifth redaction will likely be claimed as justified by the DOJ, because the person outlined was not charged with a crime. Hence the possibility of Mike G Flynn or Richard “Rick” Gates…. [It could also be Jeff Sessions]

However, with public trust in the DOJ/FBI at nil, I will not trust that traditional justification….

There is a possibility the Fifth name is redacted because it would be damaging or embarrassing to the DOJ and/or would highlight the corrupt intents of the Mueller investigation.  My gut tells me this is the reason.

♦Regarding Papadopoulos:  Notice how the Mueller team was claiming the possibility of “lobbying for the Israeli government”.  Another FARA violation.  It was non-existent because Papadopoulos wasn’t lobbying, however, it now makes more sense why the corrupt Mueller team tried to set-up Papadopoulos with the $10,000 sting operation.

Papadopoulos was lured to Israel under the pretense of a contract for consultation on energy development.  That’s where CIA operative George Tawil gave Papadopoulos $10,000 in cash under sketchy circumstances.   The FBI was waiting for Papadopoulos at Dulles airport upon his return, and they searched for the cash without a warrant using the authority of customs, duties and a legal airport search.  [More Here]

#1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges.

(A “laundering” charge applies if the money is illegally obtained. The FARA violation would be the *illegal* aspect making the treasury charges heavier. Note: the use of the airport baggage-check avoids the need for a search warrant (the agents didn’t have one).)

Andrew Weissmann and Brandon Van Grack (special counsel 951/FARA expert) were conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation; (2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering…. All they needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S.

The key aspect is the FARA violation.  As we have seen in the EDVA case against Flynn’s partner Bijan Rafiekian, the DOJ-NSD bizarre interpretation of FARA laws creates a violation from any unregistered purposeful business contact with a foreign entity.

What Weissmann wanted for Papadopoulos was to create the same FARA scenario that previously trapped Manafort, Flynn, and Rafiekian.  They intercepted Papadopoulos in Washington DC because it was the customs port of entry.  Papadopoulos was ticketed to Chicago with a transfer flight at Dulles.

However, because Papadopoulos suspected something, and left the money in Greece with his lawyers, upon arrival at the DC airport the sting operation collapsed in reverse.

No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy agreement; which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil (FARA 951 violation) and Tawil would have become a confidential informant and witness (though Tawil would likely never be used to testilie because the special counsel would force a plea).

That operational collapse is why the FBI agents were “scrambling” at the airport and why they had no pre-existing criminal complaint.  The DOJ couldn’t get a warrant because they couldn’t tell a judge their suspect was traveling with $10k from Israel because the judge would ask how they knew that.

The entrapment’s success was contingent upon the cash as a pre-existing condition; and arriving at a Federal airport means they didn’t need a search warrant.

Note how even if Papadopoulos didn’t have the full $10k, the DOJ-NSD would only have lost the treasury violation…. they could still have used any substantial amount of money to charge the FARA part of the business arrangement by questioning Papadopoulos about where he gained the cash from.  [Full Backstory Here]

♦Regarding Michael Flynn – Notice the first ridiculous point: “Committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian government officials during the period of the Trump transition.”   That’s Rod Rosenstein authorizing the Mueller special counsel to investigate a Logan Act violation…. authorizing that IN AUGUST 2017?  Total nonsense.

The fourth bullet point on Flynn was the claim they used against Mike G Flynn Jr. to get Lt. General Flynn to plea.   This argument was later made in court against Flynn’s business partner Bijan Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group), only to have the case totally thrown out of court by a Virginia judge; in a blistering and extremely rare judicial move.

All four points against Flynn were fabrications; but seeing them written down as to justify the fraudulent investigations is blood-boiling.

Page #3 of the August 2, 2017, scope memo:

But wait… The release of the second scope memo is not good enough…

We know there is a third scope memo dated October 20, 2017, because it was outlined in the Mueller report:

This third scope memo is perhaps the most damaging of all because it was written so long after the DOJ and FBI knew the underlying claims of the Trump-Russia investigation were totally and completely untrue.  Yet DAG Rosenstein authorized another expanded scope.

The October 20, 2017, scope memo will be guaranteed to show Robert Mueller asking Rod Rosenstein to authorize the targeting of Mike G Flynn and at least one other person.

If anyone from the DOJ, FBI or ODNI is reading this, please don’t think we will be satisfied with only one expanded scope memo….

….We also need to see the October 20th scope!

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/06/2020)  (Archive)

May 7, 2020 - Russia Probe Transcript: Crowdstrike official Shawn Henry testifies they did not have "concrete evidence" the DNC was hacked by Russia

Shawn Henry Transcript (Credit: Fox News graphic)

Aaron Mate’ does a deep dive into Shawn Henry’s recently released transcript of his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee:

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) May 7, 2020

 

9:42 PM · May 7, 2020

 

11:37 PM · May 7, 2020

11:40 PM · May 7, 2020

 

11:43 PM · May 7, 2020

Shawn Henry had an entirely different message for the American public when he wasn’t under oath. From January 6, 2017:

(Shawn Henry Transcript)