July 15, 2020 - Seymour Hersh is deposed, confirms a trusted source told him Seth Rich spoke with Wikileaks requesting payment

“The National Security Agency is hiding records about murdered Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich, according to one of my sources, who informed me yesterday that the records are classified as a special access program (the highest level of classification) because they include intercepted communications between Mr. Rich and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Meanwhile, I’ve been authorized to release the transcript of a July 15, 2020 deposition of Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Sy Hersh, wherein Mr. Hersh is forced to admit that he did speak with a senior intelligence official about an FBI report about Mr. Rich and Wikileaks. That contradicts much of what Mr. Hersh has said publicly since early 2017 (more on that below).

As my regular readers know, Mr. Rich was murdered in Washington, D.C. on July 10, 2016, and shortly thereafter Wikileaks published thousands of DNC emails that were very embarrassing to then-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. On August 9, 2016, Mr. Assange intimated that the DNC emails were obtained from Mr. Rich, not Russian hackers.

If you doubt my source, recall that three weeks ago — after three years of denials — the FBI was finally forced to admit that it had thousands of records about Mr. Rich, as well as his laptop. Meanwhile, virtually no one in official Washington has lifted a finger to help.”

(Read more: LawFlog, 12/30/2020)  (Archive)

July 17, 2020 - New Russia probe memos reveal Strzok notes that point out massive errors in NYT anti-Trump story

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has released two newly-declassified documents related to government surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign in 2016.

(…) Document number two, also withheld from public view until now, takes apart a New York Times article written [2/14/2017] by Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo.

Comments made by then-FBI agent Peter Strzok undercut a litany of claims made in the Times article, which was entitled: “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contact With Russian Intelligence.”

Claim in NYT article: “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J.Trump’s presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”

Note by Strzok: “This statement is misleading and inaccurate as written. We have not seen evidence of any individuals in contact with Russians (both Governmental and non-Governmental)” and “There is no known intel affiliation, and little if any [government of Russia] affiliation[.] FBI investigation has shown past contact between [Trump campaign volunteer Carter] Page and the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation], but not during his association with the Trump campaign.”

Claim in NYT article: “… one of the advisers picked up on the [intercepted] calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months …”

Note by Strzok: “We are unaware of any calls with any Russian government official in which Manafort was a party.”

Claim in NYT article: “The FBI has obtained banking and travel records …”

Note by Strzok: “We do not yet have detailed banking records.”

Claim in NYT article: “Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, and how many of Trump’s advisers were talking to the Russians.”

Note by Strzok: “Again, we are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intel officials” and “Our coverage has not revealed contact between Russian intelligence officers and the Trump team.”

Claim in NYT article: “The FBI asked the NSA to collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls …”

Note by Strzok: “If they did we are not aware of those communications.”

Claim in NYT article: “The FBI has closely examined at least four other people close to Mr. Trump … Carter Page … Roger Stone… and Mr. Flynn.”

Note by Strzok: “We have not investigated Roger Stone.”

Claim by NYT: “Senior FBI officials believe … Christopher Steele … has a credible track record.”

Note by Strzok: “Recent interviews and investigation, however, reveal Steele may not be in a position to judge the reliability of subsource network.”

Claim by NYT: “The FBI’s investigation into Mr. Manafort began last spring [2016].”

Note by Strzok: “This is inaccurate … our investigation of Manafort was opened in August 2016.”

Claim by NYT: “The bureau did not have enough evidence to obtain a warrant for a wiretap of Mr. Manafort’s communications, but it had the NSA closely scrutinize the communications of Ukrainian officials he had met.”

Note by Strzok: “This is inaccurate …”

There is as yet no explanation in the documents or from the New York Times as to the identities of the four “American officials” who apparently provided the misleading and false information; or what their motivation was.” (Read more: Just the News, 7/17/2020)  (Archive)

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UPDATE:  The New York Times stands by their February 2017 article alleging that  Trump’s campaign was in communication with Russian intelligence officers, even after the release of an internal FBI memo that identified numerous inaccuracies in the story.

“We stand by our reporting,” New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told her own paper for its report on the newly released documents.” (Read more: New York Times, 7/17/2020)  (Archive)

July 17, 2020 - Senate Judiciary Committee releases FBI briefing with primary sub-source

“This release today dovetails nicely into a much bigger story about how the FISA application against Carter Page was weaponized by the leadership group within the DOJ, FBI and ultimately the Mueller probe. The Mueller team of resistance operatives were ultimately the team who took over the task of continuing the weaponization process.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham released today two recently declassified documents. (Thank You John Ratcliffe) The documents relate to how the intelligence apparatus conducted surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign in 2016; and ultimately the Trump administration after the inauguration.

The first document [Direct pdf here] is the Washington Field Office (WFO) FBI briefing summary of a three day interview with Chris Steele’s primary sub-source. The document is highly redacted, but we already know from the IG release what the total content of the briefing revealed. The first interview was conducted on January 12, 2017, during the transition period between administrations. The classification term “SIA” stands for Source Identifying Attribute.

Per Senator Lindsey Graham:

♦ This document not only demonstrates how unsubstantiated and unreliable the Steele dossier was, it shows that the FBI was on notice of the dossier’s credibility problems and sought two more FISA application renewals after gaining this awareness.

♦ The document reveals that the primary “source” of Steele’s election reporting was not some well-connected current or former Russian official, but a non-Russian based contract employee of Christopher Steele’s firm. Moreover, it demonstrates that the information that Steele’s primary source provided him was second and third-hand information and rumor at best.

♦ Critically, the document shows that Steele’s “Primary Sub-source” disagreed with and was surprised by how information he gave Steele was then conveyed by Steele in the Steele dossier. For instance, the “Primary Sub-source”: did not recall or did not know where some of the information attributed to him or his sources came from; was never told about or never mentioned to Steele certain information attributed to him or his sources; he said that Steele re-characterized some of the information to make it more substantiated and less attenuated than it really was; that he would have described his sources differently; and, that Steele implied direct access to information where the access to information was indirect.

In total, this document demonstrates that information from the Steele dossier, which “played a central and essential role” in the FISA warrants on Carter Page, should never have been presented to the FISA court.  (Senate Link)

Here’s the FBI Briefing Summary:  (Direct pdf Link)

The inspector general already reviewed this briefing material and explained the content in the IG report on FISA Abuse.  Here’s the nub of that full review:

The aspect of the primary sub-source deconstructing and undermining the underlying material within the Steele Dossier is critical because ultimately the dossier underpinned the FISA application.

When you recognize the FISA application itself was based on a fraudulent premise; and you recognize the intentional ignoring of the underlying evidence; then the motive behind the FISA becomes clear.  The FISA against Carter Page was used as a justification for surveillance of Donald Trump that had been ongoing by Obama intelligence officials.

This context becomes stunningly more important when you look at how the FISA was used by the Mueller investigation to continue its weaponization throughout 2017 and even into 2018.  Remember, in July of 2018 long after the source material was debunked, the special counsel office was still telling the FISA court the predication for the FISA application and renewals was valid.

Drive this point home.

This is key to understanding the scope of how weaponized the Mueller team was.

In July of 2018 the special counsel resistance group was lying to the FISA court in order to protect the cornerstone document that permitted them to weaponize the intelligence apparatus.

This letter was written July 12, 2018.  It is NOT accidental that only a week later, July 21st, the special counsel released the FISA application under the guise of FOIA fulfillment.

 

Aside from the date, the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The Mueller team running the DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application. The resistance unit running the DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

On page #8 [Source Document Here] when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the special counsel group notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.

This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.

By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?

It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.

In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.”

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 7/17/2020)  (Archive)

July 20, 2020 - Dissecting DOD contracts for Covid countermeasures - Pfizer's "Base Agreement"

An attorney once told me “you cannot contract for a crime”. I think this is very true, and I think ultimately the truth will prevail. In the meantime, let’s talk about the art of writing contracts for giving future crimes appearance of lawful acts. Here is a lesson brought to you by your government-military-industrial complex.

This post is Part 1 of the series that will cover publicly available Pfizer-ATI-MCDC-DOD-FDA-HHS contracts that have been disclosed to the public through Jackson v. Ventavia, Pfizer and ICON.

• 2020.07.20 DOD-ATI-MCDC-FDA-Pfizer Base Agreement
• 2020.07.21 DOD-ATI-MCDC-FDA-Pfizer Technical Direction Letter.
• 2020.12.22 DOD-Pfizer Purchasing Contract Order

These agreements refer to a third, still undisclosed contract, called the “Project Agreement.”

Here is the overall structure of how I think these documents fit together. This is a long-term contracting framework where first an “umbrella” agreement is established and then specific projects are separately negotiated and signed-off.

DOD-Pfizer Base Agreement.

This agreement was signed on July 20, 2020 between Advanced Technology International (ATI), located in Summerville, SC and Pfizer, Inc., New York (NY). ATI is the Consortium Management Firm (CMF) managing several industry consortia for the Department of Defense purchasing various things that they need. An eye-watering amount of money flows through this company, which is a specialist in “Other Transaction Authority” contracts – i.e. a way of contracting favored by the DOD because accountability and regulatory compliance can be avoided, and lots of secrecy can be maintained. ATI manages consortia that primarily make weapons and things related to defense. There are two consortia that have “biopharma” and health related companies in it, working on so-called dual-use (civilian and military) technologies. The consortium that is responsible for making “covid countermeasures” managed by ATI is called MEDICAL CBRN [Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear] DEFENSE CONSORTIUM (MCDC).

Authority cited in the contract: MCDC Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) No. W15QKN-16-9-1002 and 10 U.S.C. § 2371b, Section 815 of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Public Law (P.L.) 114-92.

I will review some key sections of this contract – the ones I find particularly relevant to how we ended up with “legal” (on paper) mass genocide of Americans and global population through a pretend “vaccination campaign” and under largely faked “public health emergency”.

First the general comment. It is a convenient, knee-jerk reaction to blame “bad Big Pharma who captured the Government” and try to bring the pharma to court. Sometimes you can even succeed in taking big pharma to court! Even Pfizer – several times in the past! This typically happens when the government needs to utilize corporate vassals as a crumple zone and “prosecute their crimes” to satisfy the thirst of masses for punishing the evil corporate baddies. After that the government obtains even more power and even more regulatory authority and even bigger budget to protect us from future corporate malfeasance, of course. Win-win. The corporate baddies continue as if nothing happened but nobody seems to notice. This may even happen with covid crimes, and maybe even soon, I am not at all discounting this possibility. Notice that Woody Harrelson was allowed to talk about bad pharma that bought off the government on SNL already! Your masters have thought of everything and are preparing the escape ramps.

I agree that pharmas are very bad, corrupt, and are in the criminal cartel that’s committing worldwide murder. The head of the cartel is not the pharma, however, and I believe that a proper investigation and prosecution strategy must take this view. Note that I also do not think that the US DOD is the ultimate head of the operation – they are the executor, the global military enforcement structure. They are the Chief Operating Officer and the CEO is someplace else. The head of the snake is located somewhere towards the global banking area. My post is about the immediate structure we are dealing with: DOD-FDA-Pharma as evidenced by their own written agreements.

I hope you can see this structure through the review of the the DOD contracts for covid countermeasures (~300+ available today). These contracts are written by the Government, by the Department of Defense and not by private pharmaceutical companies. The discussion below relates to the specifics of what these contracts state. (Read more: SashaLatypova/Substack, 2/27/2023)  (Archive)

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COVID-19 countermeasures: Evidence for an intent to harm – FULL
Alexandra Latypova – PANDEMIC STRATEGIES, LESSONS AND CONSEQUENCES

July 23, 2020 - “Neither Flynn nor Stone were guilty—there was no Russian hack” — Bill Binney makes his case

“Is there actually a way to know, and to then prove, that the “Russiagate” story of the 2016 elections—a story which resulted in massive federal prosecutions, escalating international tensions, national paralysis, and a presidential impeachment trial—was completely false?

William Binney, a thirty-year veteran of the National Security Agency and its former technical director, will expose the continuing suppression by British intelligence agencies and their American counterparts of his evidence disproving the entire “Russiagate” story. “We can prove, that all the data that Wikileaks published from the DNC, that was downloaded on the 23rd and 25th of May, and also the 26th of August of 2016; all of that carried the signatures of being downloaded to a thumb drive or a CD-ROM, and physically transported,” Binney says. “So, we can prove that in a court of law. In fact, I put that in sworn affidavits that I submitted in the Roger Stone case and also in the General Flynn case. And the judges would not let my testimony in. I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything (Russia) did in the 2016 election, let alone anything they’re trying to do in the 2020 election,” Binney said.

Roger Stone, speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox TV July 13 in the aftermath of the commutation of his jail sentence by President Donald Trump, stated: “I could have proved at trial, using forensic evidence and expert testimony from fellows like Bill Binney, former NSA counterintelligence expert…that no one hacked the DNC, that there was no online hack of the DNC… But I wasn’t allowed to present that defense, because Judge Jackson would not allow it.”

Binney, whose work has been featured in documentaries such as PBS Frontline’s “United States of Secrets” and the movie “A Good American,” was the designer of the “ThinThread” security system, which could well have prevented the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center from occurring, had he and his associates not been deliberately prevented from deploying it. “But the problem also was that it was a system that would’ve uncovered all of the criminal activity of our government employees and our secret intelligence agencies, and also others in the world, too,” Binney said. Instead, “universal surveillance” capabilities that he personally designed to protect Americans from terrorist attacks were deployed after 9/11 to illegally monitor virtually every citizen of the United States in possession of any electronic device.”

July 25, 2020 - Tashina "Tash" Gauhar and her key roles in the Clinton email, Spygate and Russiagate investigations

“When you are this close to the institutions, conversations come much easier.   According to those with direct knowledge, when Jeff Sessions recused (fire-walled) from anything to do with the special counsel in ’17, ’18, ’19, Rod Rosenstein “should have” held oversight.  However, in his Senate Judiciary testimony of June 3, 2020, Rosenstein admitted that he conducted no oversight over the Mueller probe.

Rosenstein’s justification was he did not feel it was his position to question their “investigative processes“, later saying “everything was an investigative process“, ergo anything the special counsel was doing was considered valid; nothing was questioned, and Rosenstein felt it was his position to “facilitate” the Mueller team.

This is a key point:  The special counsel took over Main Justice.

Which begs the question….. If Rosenstein was providing everything; who was managing the daily events inside Main Justice while the SC events were ongoing?  Who was the internal coordinator for the legal and investigative crew?  Who was the bridge?  Answer:

Tashina “Tash” Gauhar, literally from the school and law firm of former Obama “wingman” Attorney General Eric Holder.

2009- Tashina Gauhar is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Intelligence. Ms. Gauhar has extensive experience working with the U.S. Intelligence Community and has held a variety of national security positions within the Department since 2001, including serving as an Assistant Counsel in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and later as the Deputy Chief of Operations in the Office of Intelligence, and recently the Chief of Operations. Prior to joining the Justice Department, Ms. Gauhar was an associate at the law firm of DLA Piper (then Piper Marbury Rudnick and Wolfe, LLP).  (link)

Tashina Gauhar was the Mid-Year-Exam (MYE) team member who was on a September 29, 2016, conference call with the FBI New York field office about the Weiner/Abedin laptop.  Tash Gauhar was directly at the center, no, the epicenter, of the most controversial time frame for the Mid-Year-Event team.

Tashina was one of only three MYE people who actually had the responsibility to review the Clinton emails from the Weiner/Abedin laptop. (The other two were Peter Strzok and the unknown “lead analyst”)

Tashina is probably only eclipsed by Lisa Page and Peter Strzok in the level of influence within the entire Mid-Year-Team apparatus.  “Tash”, as she was known to the team, is a hub amid a very tight circle.  Tashina Gauhar held a great deal of influence.  Suffice to say, the spawn of Eric Holder is a big deal in the story.

Do you know what other decision Tashina Gauhar was influential in?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal:

Note this meeting was on March 2nd, 2017.  Which prompted this announcement:

WASHINGTON POST, March 2 2017 – Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that he will recuse himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which would include any Russian interference in the electoral process.

Speaking at a hastily called news conference at the Justice Department, Sessions said he was following the recommendation of department ethics officials after an evaluation of the rules and cases in which he might have a conflict.

“They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” Sessions said. He added that he concurred with their assessment and would thus recuse himself from any existing or future investigation involving President Trump’s 2016 campaign. (link)

Yes, the DOJ lawyer at the heart of the Clinton-email investigation; the DOJ lawyer hired by Eric Holder at his firm and later at the DOJ; the DOJ lawyer who was transferred to the Clinton probe;  the DOJ lawyer at the epicenter of the Weiner laptop issues, the only one from MYE who spoke to New York; the DOJ lawyer who constructs the FISA applications on behalf of Main Justice;…. just happens to be the same DOJ lawyer recommending to AG Jeff Sessions that he recuse himself.

Once Jeff Sessions recused, then what responsibilities did Tashina cover?

Tashina Gauhar was also the internal coordinator inside Main Justice who was the link between the special counsel and the resources of the entire department.  Essentially, Rod Rosenstein’s willful blindness put Tashina in a position of power.  This is how the special counsel group was able to take over Main Justice and coordinate their efforts.  Everything flowed through Tash while she protected the Weissmann, Zelby, Van Grack, et al team as they went about targeting the Trump administration. These were the usurpers embedded inside Main Justice while carrying out the “insurance policy” mission.

Ms. Tashina Gauhar had quite a portfolio:

Tashina Gauhar left the DOJ in Nov 2019.  She went to work for Boeing.

Tashina Gauhar was the Deputy Attorney General’s national security adviser and deputy assistant attorney general for intelligence since 2009. Tash was at the DOJ since 2001, and she formerly served as assistant counsel and chief of operations in what was then called the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.  She worked for DAG Rosenstein as she did for DAG Sally Yates.  Tash Gauhar was the DAG’s executor and enforcer for national security.

Tashina required all of the AG packages for foreign policy appointments to go through her.

As the DOJ point on national security, only Gauhar received an email notification about NSC meetings.  During her tenure, she did not always pass those notifications along, so the AG (Sessions) both missed NSC meetings and went unprepared when she let the notifications wait until the last minute.

She was very close to the Counter Intelligence division and came to David Laufman’s defense.  (David Laufman was a DOJ-NSD lawyer who later became the attorney for Monica McLean, the FBI public information officer who wrote the complaint letter against Justice Kavanaugh with Christine Blasey-Ford.)

Tashina is reported to have attempted to get access to highly compartmentalized NSA information and lied about being an appropriately cleared recipient.

In 2014 Attorney General Eric Holder changed the entire DOJ organizational chart making the Deputy AG the DOJ’s main point contact for the entire national security process.

Tashina Gauhar was also the person who retrieved the transcripts (tech cuts) of Gen. Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak, and she was assisting Mary McCord and Sally Yates at the meeting with White House Counsel Don McGahn.

Tashina Gauhar was frequently seen at public social gatherings with Mueller investigators.

Tashina Gauhar was deeply involved in the Iran JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) deal and the side agreements within the Iran deal.

Tashina Gauhar was one of a select few people to convince the AG that he should recuse himself.

Tashina Gauhar was/is best friends with Lisa Page.

Tashina Gauhar told the FBI to stop enforcing and prosecuting export control and sanctions laws to protect the Iran deal.

Gauhar told the FBI not to have any public information campaign targeting private companies and educating them about dual-use technologies.

Tashina Gauhar told the DEA to stop drug investigations re: Hezbollah related to Operation Casandra.

Tashina Gauhar attended NSC meetings during the Obama Administration representing DOJ.  Tashina also knows all about the Uranium One deal.

Tashina Gauhar blocked the AG’s office from getting Senior Executive Service (SES) people. The AG had three SES people and the DAG had nine.

Tashina Gauhar was put in charge of reviewing the classified material President Trump ordered be passed to Congress, and she was the liaison between the Deputy AG (Rosenstein) and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for national security.” (Conservative Treehouse, 7/25/2020)  (Archive)

July 29, 2020 - A federal court rules the FBI must release Andrew McCabe texts/emails regarding "conflicts of interest" with his wife's campaign

“Judicial Watch announced today the FBI will finally begin processing Andrew McCabe text message for release after a federal court rejected the FBI’s request to dismiss a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on behalf of Jeffrey A. Danik, a retired FBI supervisory special agent, for emails and text messages of former-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (Jeffrey A. Danik v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01792).  Mr. Danik filed his first request for the records in 2016. 

After years of suggesting that text messages are not subject to FOIA, the FBI told the court in a recent filing that it has located 150 text messages and 5,696 emails but will not have a schedule to release the records until August 28, 2020. 

Judicial Watch filed the suit in 2017 in support of Danik’s October 25, 2016, and February 28, 2017, FOIA requests for records about McCabe’s “conflicts of interest” regarding his wife’s (Dr. Jill McCabe’s) political campaign and Hillary Clinton. Specifically, the two FOIA requests are for:

Text messages and emails of McCabe containing “Dr. Jill McCabe,” “Jill,” “Common Good VA,” “Terry McAuliffe,” “Clinton,” “Virginia Democratic Party,” “Democrat,” “Conflict,” “Senate,” “Virginia Senate,” “Until I return,” “Paris,” “France,” “Campaign,” “Run,” “Political,” “Wife,” “Donation,” “OGC,” Email,” or “New York Times.” 

United States District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, denied the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case, concluding that DOJ had not provided sufficient evidence to support its attempt to end the lawsuit without providing all emails and text messages responsive to the FOIA requests. 

The FBI has outrageously stonewalled for years the release of these McCabe text messages about Clinton,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “You can be sure the text messages are something the corrupted FBI doesn’t want the American people to see.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 7/29/2020)  (Archive)

July 30, 2020 - Epstein/Maxwell victim, Virginia Giuffre, testifies she saw Bill Clinton on Epstein Island with "two young girls" from NY

“In recently unsealed court documents involving dead child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, a woman named Virginia Giuffre, who publicly accused Epstein of sex trafficking, said that she once saw former Democratic President Bill Clinton on Epstein’s island with “two young girls” from New York.

In the questioning by lawyer Jack Scarola, Guiffre was asked, “Do you have any recollection of Jeffrey Epstein’s specifically telling you that ‘Bill Clinton owes me favors?'”

Epstein had multiple ties to Clinton, and Clinton—along with many other big name celebrities—was a repeated passenger on Epstein’s private Boeing 727 plane which was nicknamed the “Lolita Express” due to the frequent delivery of apparently underage women to the island of Little Saint James, a reference to the 1955 Vladimir Nabokov novel about a 36-year-old literature professor who sexually engages a 12-year-old girl.” (Read more: Newsweek, 7/30/2020)  (Archive)  (Epstein/Maxwell docs – 7/30/2020)  (Archive)

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UPDATE:

“In a statement on Friday, Angel Ureña, a spokesperson for Clinton, told Newsweek that the former president has “never been to Little St. James Island.”

“He’d not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade,” he said. “Well before his terrible crimes came to light.”

Ureña referred Newsweek to a statement Clinton released in July 2019, where he issued the same denial. “He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida,” the statement read. (Newsweek, 7/31/2020)

July 30, 2020 - Senate investigators expand Russia probe and target CIA, State records

“Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters this week to the CIA, State Department, Office of Director of National Intelligence and the FBI that signal the scope of their probes has expanded with recent new revelations.

Many of the new requests appear to focus on people who are suspected to have contributed materials to Christopher Steele’s discredited anti-Trump dossier or who trafficked information from the opposition research memo to government officials.

For instance, the chairmen demanded records from Pompeo’s department concerning:

• Clinton acolyte and former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who has admitted he received and provided copies of the Steele dossier
• former Clinton associates Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal. Shearer, a relative of Talbott, wrote a dossier similar to Steele’s that was provided to the former MI-6 agent.
• former State officials Victoria Nuland, Jonathan Winer and Kathleen Kavalec, all of whom had contact with Steele as he was developing his dossier.

The senators also made their most sweeping demands for records from CIA, including any information the spy agency provided the FBI concerning the credibility of Steele as a human source. Recently declassified footnotes from Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report on Russia probe abuses revealed that the CIA had raised red flags about Steele’s reporting, including that he had been targeted with Russian intelligence agency disinformation about Donald Trump while writing the dossier.

(…) One of the most highly anticipated requests in the letters involved DNI John Ratcliffe, who was asked to declassify a lengthy report written by former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ staff highlighting major failures in the intelligence community’s assessment about Russia’s intentions in the 2016 election.”

(…) You can read the senators’ letters here:

File

 2020-07-28 RHJ-CEG Oversight Letter to Director Haspel.pdf

File

 2020-07-28 RHJ-CEG Oversight Letter to Secretary Pompeo.pdf

File

 2020-07-28 RHJ-CEG Oversight Letter to DNI Ratcliffe.pdf

File

 2020-07-28 RHJ-CEG Oversight Letter to FBI Director Wray & AG Barr.pdf

(Read more: Just the News, 7/30/2020)  (Archive)

July 31, 2020 - "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties"

The following is an excerpt from the new book “Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties.” 

Skolkovo was perhaps the Kremlin’s boldest maneuver yet. Envious of America’s technological success, the Russians sought to re-create the West Coast high-tech industrial hub in the suburbs of Moscow. But unlike the bottom-up innovation that defines Silicon Valley, where computer geniuses like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs pinched their pennies and built the first personal computers in their garages, Skolkovo was a top-down state-run project that sought to replicate decades of trial and error seemingly overnight.

It was also a ploy to steal American intellectual property and transfer technological secrets to the Kremlin.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy described the Skolkovo scam best: “The project was like an espionage operation in broad daylight, openly enhancing Russia’s military and cyber capabilities.”

Indeed, multiple Defense Department (DOD) agencies and the FBI condemned Skolkovo as an espionage front that posed a clear and present danger to U.S. national security.

In 2012, the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth examined the security implications of Skolkovo and concluded that Skolkovo was an apparent “vehicle for worldwide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.

The Kremlin and the Obama State Department praised the civilian endeavors of Skolkovo and its “clusters”—information, energy, biomedical, and even space technology (among other seemingly innocuous initiatives). The promoters of Skolkovo in Moscow and Washington conveniently neglected to mention the military applications.

According to the Army’s Fort Leavenworth report:

The Skolkovo Foundation has, in fact, been involved in defense-related activities since December 2011…the [Kremlin’s] operation of Skolkovo and investment positions in companies will likely provide [Russia’s] military awareness of and access to [American] technologies.

The FBI’s Boston field office sent warning letters to American companies involved with Skolkovo alerting them to the possibility that they had fallen prey to a Russian espionage trap. Assistant Special Agent in Charge Lucia Ziobro went so far as to publicly announce that Skolkovo “may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications.”

DOD’s European Command (EUCOM) posted an alert that stated, “Skolkovo is arguably an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage—with the additional distinction that it can achieve such a transfer on a much larger scale and more efficiently.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 7/31/2020)  (Archive)

August 3, 2020 - Were “contractors” extracting business and financial secrets from the NSA to sell/trade?

“Lots of discussions amid multiple circles about what West Texas USAO John Bash might be looking into.  Is he looking back in time into the FISA(702) abuses that took place during the 2016 primary season?…. That would be in addition to the familiar “unmasking” aspect?…  and, if yes, what would that indicate?

Short answer is: no-one is certain.  AG Barr did mention that Bash is looking backward on the unmasking issues beyond the timeline scope of the 2016 presidential election.  That would indicate surveillance “unmasking” and FISA “minimization” would meld because essentially the terms are synonymous depending on the type of intelligence exploitation.

Prior Obama officials were “unmasking” names associated with FBI investigations simply to dirty them up to give fuel to the fraudulent basis of “Trump-Russia”; that’s the political weaponization of intelligence.  This did happen and Bash is cited with authority to review this carve-out of the ongoing DOJ investigation into DOJ/FBI intelligence manipulation.

However, if Bash is going into the issues of the NSA database being exploited for political opposition research via FISA-702 authorities (the intentional extraction of information with intentional non-minimization) well, that’s a more expansive kettle-of-fish than would seem to be possible to fully outline before the November election.

FISC presiding judges Rosemary Collyer (2016) and James Boasberg (2018) have already outlined the continued use of the NSA database for ‘unauthorized’ purposes. [Use Site Search Tool for details]

Is this something that AG Barr would authorize USAO Bash to pursue?… that’s a big question without an answer.  We would hope yes, but think about the scale of that in totality to the interests of DC writ large… Ergo, I’m not confident.

Unmasking and Non-Minimization are essentially the same issues.  The former has to do with actual FBI and intelligence investigations; the latter has to do with using the NSA database to extract information (mostly unlawful use).  Unfortunately, the general belief is that FISA(702) and NSA metadata collection, which includes the ability to review information on all citizens, are critical to national security.

Even with the findings of former NSA Director Mike Rogers about the systemic abuse he was not supportive of shutting the programs down.  So, with that in mind, would AG Barr want to undermine an operational tool that is vital to the function of national security (as defined by the total apparatus) by having a U.S. attorney expose abuses?  See the issue….

Tangentially related to this NSA database aspect, it seems clear the exploitation is not just about targeting political adversaries.   This is about money and power.  While there is no direct evidence the NSA database was being used to make money, the mere fact that Crowdstrike was a contracting agency with access points to a more financially motivating aspect.

Were these “contractors” extracting corporate, business, and financial secrets to sell and or trade and make money?  Is this the ultimate insider trading scheme in Washington DC?  The answer is actually in the question.  What entity would not eventually use that access for this purpose… it is just too easy to make money.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/03/2020)  (Archive)

August 4, 2020 - FBI raids the offices of Ukraine oligarch Igor Kolomoisky in Ohio and Florida

“The FBI on Tuesday raided the Cleveland offices of a real estate company tied to a Ukrainian oligarch that owns several downtown buildings.

FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson said agents were searching the offices of the Optima Management Group in One Cleveland Center at East 9th Street and St. Clair Avenue. Optima is a conglomerate of companies across the United States that has interests in real estate in Cleveland, including One Cleveland Center, the 55 Public Square building, and the Westin Cleveland Downtown.

(…) Federal authorities in Cleveland have been conducting a wide-ranging probe involving Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky that has been ongoing for quite some time. Kolomoisky is a principal of the Privat Group, a large Ukrainian business company, and principals of the company are also part of Optima.

Optima had a much larger presence in Cleveland about a decade ago when it bought several buildings under the leadership of executive Chaim Schochet. Its presence in Northeast Ohio has dwindled in recent years.

Optima also controlled Warren Steel Holdings, a mill northwest of Youngstown that closed in 2016.

Kolomoisky and a fellow Ukrainian billionaire formed PrivatBank in the early 1990s. It became one of Ukraine’s key financial institutions, according to Forbes. The Ukrainian government nationalized the bank in 2016 after an investigation suggested there was large-scale fraud over a decade-long period, Forbes reported.” (Read more: Cleveland.com, 8/04/2020)  (Archive)

August 9, 2020 - Sen. Graham asks who in FBI gave false dossier talking points to SSCI ... Sleuths find McCabe testified to SSCI that day

“It would be an extreme long-shot if these two documented events were not analogous.

Senator Lindsay Graham asked today (Go Deep), who was the FBI official that delivered a set of false talking points to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) on February 14,2018?

Now we look within the SSCI Russian Active Measures Report… [Page #10, Footnote #25]

[Hat Tip DebateJudge] On the same day the false FBI talking points were used, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was briefing the SSCI.  Way too coincidental.  It seems almost certain McCabe was the one intentionally misleading the SSCI.

McCabe may have had someone with him, but records clearly indicate, despite his status of announcing his resignation on January 29, 2018, Andrew McCabe was clearly at the SSCI on February 14, 2018 

UPDATE: TheWarEconomy Confirms (via supplemental)

Andrew McCabe (FBI) and Scott Schools (Main Justice) were at SSCI Feb 14, 2018.

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/09/2020)  (Archive)

August 11, 2020 - Igor Danchenko and a 34 Month Long DOJ/FBI Cover-Up Operation

“CTH friend, researcher and producer John Spiropoulos helps connect the dots within the operation to cover-up corrupt activity by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Christopher Wray, Dana Boente and the entire special counsel group.

In this video John walks us through the internal evidence showing how the FBI intentionally hid the statements by Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source Igor Danchenko.  The result…. a 34-month cover-up operation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham released the declassified documents on July 17th. [Thank You John Ratcliffe] The documents relate to how the intelligence apparatus conducted surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign in 2016; and ultimately the Trump administration after the inauguration.

The first document [Direct pdf here] is the Washington Field Office (WFO) FBI briefing summary of a three-day interview with Chris Steele’s primary sub-source. The document is highly redacted, but we already know from the IG release what the total content of the briefing revealed. The first interview was conducted on January 12, 2017, during the transition period between administrations. The classification term “SIA” stands for Source Identifying Attribute.

Per Senator Lindsey Graham:

♦ This document not only demonstrates how unsubstantiated and unreliable the Steele dossier was, it shows that the FBI was on notice of the dossier’s credibility problems and sought two more FISA application renewals after gaining this awareness.

♦ The document reveals that the primary “source” of Steele’s election reporting was not some well-connected current or former Russian official, but a non-Russian based contract employee of Christopher Steele’s firm. Moreover, it demonstrates that the information that Steele’s primary source provided him was second and third-hand information and rumor at best.

♦ Critically, the document shows that Steele’s “Primary Sub-source” disagreed with and was surprised by how the information he gave Steele was then conveyed by Steele in the Steele dossier. For instance, the “Primary Sub-source”: did not recall or did not know where some of the information attributed to him or his sources came from; was never told about or never mentioned to Steele certain information attributed to him or his sources; he said that Steele re-characterized some of the information to make it more substantiated and less attenuated than it really was; that he would have described his sources differently; and, that Steele implied direct access to information where the access to information was indirect.

In total, this document demonstrates that information from the Steele dossier, which “played a central and essential role” in the FISA warrants on Carter Page, should never have been presented to the FISA court. (Senate Link)

Here’s the FBI Briefing Summary: [Direct pdf Link]

FBI Interview Release – Chr… by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd

The inspector general already reviewed this briefing material and explained the content in the IG report on FISA Abuse in December 2019. Here’s the nub of that full review:

The aspect of the primary sub-source deconstructing and undermining the underlying material within the Steele Dossier is critical because ultimately the dossier underpinned the FISA application.

When you recognize the FISA application itself was based on a fraudulent premise; and you recognize the intentional ignoring of the underlying evidence; then the motive behind the FISA becomes clear. The FISA against Carter Page was used as a justification for surveillance of Donald Trump that had been ongoing by Obama intelligence officials.

This context becomes stunningly more important when you look at how the FISA was used by the Mueller investigation to continue its weaponization throughout 2017 and even into 2018. Remember, in July of 2018 long after the source material was debunked, the special counsel office was still telling the FISA court the predication for the FISA application and renewals was valid.

Drive this point home.

This is a key to understanding the scope of how weaponized the Mueller team was.

In July of 2018 the special counsel resistance group was lying to the FISA court in order to protect the cornerstone document that permitted them to weaponize the intelligence apparatus.

This letter was written on July 12, 2018. It is NOT accidental that only a week later, July 21st, the special counsel released the FISA application under the guise of FOIA fulfillment.

Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The Mueller team running the DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application. The resistance unit running the DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

On page #8 [Source Document Here] when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the special counsel group notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.

This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.

By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?

It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.

In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.

This letter justifying the application and claiming the current information would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 DOJ needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant…. My research suspicion is that the DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority. That’s the motive.

In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller’s poisoned fruit.

If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there’s a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated… and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.

♦ The FISA was also released in July 2018 in order to retain the false premise behind it. The copy that was released by the special counsel, through Rod Rosenstein, contained redacted dates because the special counsel needed to hide the fact the FBI (Washington Field Office) had actually used the FISA to catch a leaker of classified intelligence, James Wolfe.

Again, Wolfe’s story is the fulcrum…. tell that story and the House of Cards collapses like the Potemkin village it is. {GO DEEP}

The resistance lawyers in the Mueller team released the same initial FISA application (and first renewal) used to catch Wolfe; they had to release that specific March 17, 2017, copy. However, they had to redact the dates on the document they released because the dates were changed by SSA Brian Dugan to catch Wolfe.

The March 17, 2017, copy of the FISA, an FBI investigative equity, went into Main Justice with the leak trap visible. When the special counsel released the FISA application to Rosenstein for public FOIA fulfillment they had to redact the dates or people would ask questions about why this specific version had different dates than the original.

The March 17, 2017, copy of the FISA application is the only one to date that has been in the public sphere; including reviewed by OIG Michael Horowitz. That’s why when Horowitz originally released his FISA report, the OIG kept the dates redacted and only revealed them after the irrelevance of classification was pointed out.

The March 17th Wolfe copy of the first half of the full FISA application (original and first renewal), is the only copy that has ever been made public. If we were to ever see the modified and unredacted copy the FBI gave to Wolfe, the dates would not match with the actual dates of the application(s). The dates were used as part of the leak trace.

The Mueller team knew the explosive nature of the FBI investigation to catch the SSCI leaker. The Mueller team, with full control over Main Justice, was the group that buried FBI Supervisor Special Agent Brian Dugan’s explosive investigative findings.

Expose the conduct of this group and everything about the insurance policy falls into place:

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/11/2020)  (Archive)

August 18, 2020 - Why John Brennan, Peter Strzok and DOJ needed Julian Assange arrested – and why UK officials obliged

“According to reports in November of 2019, U.S Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. One recent quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state notes:

“One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services””. (Link)

It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there appears to be evidence of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence services. In addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to the CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control. In this outline we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.

By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}

In a similar fashion, the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.

One of the more interesting aspects to the Durham probe is a possibility of a paper-trail created as a result of the tasking operations. We should watch closely for more evidence of a paper trail as some congressional reps have hinted toward documented evidence (transcripts, recordings, reports) that are exculpatory to the targets (Page & Papadop). HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes has strongly hinted that very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and yet withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page that also mentions George Papadopoulos. I digress…

However, there is an aspect to the domestic U.S. operation that also bears the fingerprints of the CIA; only this time due to the restrictive laws on targets inside the U.S. the CIA aspect is less prominent. This is where FBI Agent Peter Strzok working for both agencies starts to become important.

Remember, it’s clear in the text messages Strzok has a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA. Additionally, Brennan has admitted Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and it is almost guaranteed the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane” was co-authored from the CIA by Strzok…. and Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Downer.

In short, Peter Strzok appears to be the very eager, profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.

Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015; at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons.

It was also Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskya. A little-reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S.

Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion-GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting… back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan fell out of a helicopter to his death (just before it crashed).

Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid-2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s handler, it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where to send her. {Go Deep}

All of this context outlines the extent to which the CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit.

International operations directed by the CIA, and domestic operations seemingly directed by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin]

Recap: ♦Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Azra Turk, pretending to be Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI). ♦Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr (CIA, Fusion-GPS). ♦Butina tasked against Trump, and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).

Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion-GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate.

All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence; and all of this intended to give a specific Russia impression. This predicate is presumably what John Durham is currently reviewing.

The key point of all that background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ, put a hell of a lot of work into it. Intelligence community work that Durham is now unraveling.

We also know specifically that John Durham is looking at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is important because it ties into the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:

On Tuesday April 15th more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….

The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.

Why the delay?

What was the DOJ waiting for?

Here’s where it gets interesting….

The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”

(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take a keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.

Within three months of the grand jury the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA sat on the indictment while the Mueller probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and the U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).

As a person who has researched this three-year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.

This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor.

The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim. The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.

Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack.

This Russian “hacking” claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus…. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.

Now, if we know this, and you know this; and everything is cited and factual… well, then certainly AG Bill Barr knows this.

The $64,000 dollar question is: will they say so publicly?

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/18/2020)  (Archive)

August 19, 2020 - Kevin Clinesmith pleads guilty to one count false statements, key exchange goes to intent

CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge tweets this exchange that occurred between Kevin Clinesmith and Judge Boasberg during the plea hearing on August 19, 2020.

(Reformatted for an easier read.)

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleads guilty 1 count false statements, but key exchange goes to intent.

Judge Boasberg: Did you read plus understand this document before you signed it?

Clinesmith: I did your honor.

Judge Boasberg: This document actually sets forth the fact that the government contends occurred here. The act that you actually committed that you agree that what the government sets forth here is in fact true.

Clinemsith: Yes, your honor.

Judge Boasberg: And most specifically that on (garbled-date??) that you intentionally altered an email to add the language plus “not a source” in regard to individual one (Carter Page) plus you knew that (garbled) statement was not in fact true.

(20-second pause)

Judge Boasberg: I’m not sure whether you are conferring with your client, I didn’t hear a response to that question.

Lawyer: I apologize…on mute…give me a second…

Clinesmith: Sir, I, Sir at the time, I believed that the information I was providing in the email was accurate. but I, (stumbles) am agreeing that the information I entered into the email was not originally there. That I inserted that information.

Judge Boasberg: In other words, you agree that you intentionally altered the email to include information that was not originally in the email.

Clinesmith: Yes your honor.

August 27, 2020 - Sources tell CBS News FBI agent Joe Pientka has been interviewed by the Senate Judiciary and Oversight Committees

“Two sources close to the Senate probe tell CBS News that FBI agent Joe Pientka has been interviewed behind closed doors for “multiple hours” by investigators with Senate Judiciary and Senate Oversight/Government Affairs.

In 2018, then Chairman Chuck Grassley first sought Pientka’s testimony but the request was denied until now.

WHY IT MATTERS: Pientka is at the intersection of key events in the Durham investigation. Along with agent Peter Strzok, Pientka conducted the January 2017 WH interview of General Flynn that led to his dismissal.

More recently, declassified records showed Pientka and others used an August 2016 “defensive-briefing” to warn candidate Trump, Flynn Governor Christie about national security threats to gather information on their line of questioning about Russia for the  FBI probe known as Crossfire Hurricane. These events and decision making fall under Durham.” (Read more: Catherine Herridge/Twitter, 8/27/2020)  (Archive)

September 4, 2020 - Did Mueller prosecutors find problems with Page FISA; approve it anyway; recreate the Woods File; and cover up?

“On September 1, 2020, journalist Sarah Carter broke a story based on confidential sources that in a briefing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the FBI and Department of Justice informed the committee that the “Woods File” for the Carter Page FISA application had been somehow “lost” at some unknown point in time.  She reported that the Committee was told that the contents of the file had been “recreated” by the Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel office by “reverse engineering” — my words — through examining the application and determining what factual allegations would have required supporting documentation normally contained in a “Woods File”.

(…) Where to begin?

How about with the “disappearance” of an electronic file in a system where nothing disappears.  The Woods File is a subfile in the investigation’s case file.  It is created by the Case Agent by scanning in the documentary sources used as the basis to make a factual allegation in the affidavit.

The purpose of having the file is so that when third parties — supervisors, subsequent case agents, other agencies — who review the affidavit and have questions about a particular allegation, they can go to the Woods File and find the specific documents from which the allegation was sourced.  The file is not intended to “prove” the allegation true — only that the allegation has a source, and what that source is.

A question that has never received enough scrutiny is the role of the Special Counsel’s office in seeking the third extension of the Page FISA warrant.  That extension was requested on June 29, 2017.  That is six weeks after Mueller was appointed Special Counsel, and responsibility for Crossfire Hurricane was transferred to the Special Counsel’s Office.

(…) How does the Woods File — stored electronically in the FBI’s Sentinel database — get “lost”?  And at what point in time did the SCO decide it was necessary to “reconstruct” a replacement Woods File by reverse engineering it through analyzing the applications to determine the specific factual allegations needed source documentation — other than the Steele Memos — in order to justify their inclusion in the third application to extend.

Was the ACTUAL Woods File so lacking — or so dependent on the allegations of the Steele Memos — that someone in the SCO realized it was a “ticking time bomb” waiting to be uncovered once an authorized investigator was given the responsibility to sort things out?

We learn on page 220 of the IG Report that when time arrived for the third application, there were already concerns among the FBI personnel involved that the FISA warrant was “going dark” — it was yielding little of value in May and June 2017.  In addition, Carter Page had been interviewed multiple times at that point, telling Agents who did the interview that he suspected he was under surveillance.  Yet “Case Agent 6” and “Supervisory Special Agent 5” decided to proceed with the third extension according to the IG Report at page. 220.” (Read more: RedState, 9/04/2020)  (Archive) 

September 6, 2020 - Peter Strzok appears on CBS and shares new information about his Alexander Downer interview; the official story and dates don't jive

(…) Strzok’s September 6, 2020, interview with CBS (and related brief comments in Compromised) gave the very first information on the critical Downer interview, including the very first official explanation of why Downer decided to report the Papadopoulos conversation to the U.S. embassy when he did—in Strzok’s words, what “triggered him.”

Exact words are important, so here are Strzok’s exact words in the CBS interview (transcription and emphasis mine):

Narrator: Papadopoulos was in London having drinks with an Australian diplomat. 

Strzok: Papadopoulos told them that somebody on the Trump campaign had received an offer that said the Russians have material that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton and to Obama and they offered to coordinate the release of that information in a way that would help the Trump campaign.

Narrator: The Australians didn’t make much of it until Trump made this appeal about Hillary Clinton’s emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” Those Australian diplomats heard that and contacted the FBI.

Strzok: When they saw that speech by Trump, that triggered their memory of the conversation they had with Papadopoulos.

The CBS interviewer observed the implication that Trump had been hoisted on his own petard, as it was his own inflammatory statements that had originated the entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation, not malicious or mistaken conduct by others after all. Strzok agreed:

Interviewer: So, Donald Trump with his own words brought this investigation down on himself. 

Strzok: According to what the foreign government told us, yes.

In Compromised, Strzok similarly stated that Downer delivered his original information to the U.S. embassy “shortly after Trump’s Florida press conference”:

When we received the report about Papadopoulos’s revelations to the Friendly Foreign Government’s personnel—intelligence that they sent from their embassy to ours shortly after Trump’s Florida press conference…

In Downer’s recounting, Trump’s words jarred his memory of a series of conversations months earlier…

A vivid narrative from one of the most important figures in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane.

The Contradiction

Here’s the problem.

Trump’s “Russia, are you listening” quip was made at a July 27, 2016, press conference, while Downer’s tip was given to the U.S. embassy on July 26, one day earlier. (The July 26 date is provided in both the Mueller Report, published in April 2019, and the Horowitz Report, published in December 2019.) 

It was chronologically impossible for Trump’s quip to have actually triggered Downer’s tip.  

Worse, this implies that Strzok’s story about Downer telling him that he had been triggered by Trump’s speech was also untrue—either a false memory or fabrication—each as insalubrious as the other. 

Nobody in U.S. major media or its “fact checkers” noticed Strzok’s false information.

It was, however, quickly noticed by Hans Mahncke, a knowledgeable Twitter commentator on Russiagate, who issued the following challenge to Strzok on Twitter at 5:58 p.m. on Sept 6, 2020:

.@petestrzok told CBS that the Australians came forward because they were triggered by a Trump speech.

The problem is that the Australians came forward *before* Trump’s speech.

Strzok is lying or the Australians lied. Take your pick.

Either way, this destroys the predicate. pic.twitter.com/MBL2e1NJg1

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) September 6, 2020

Mahncke’s observation was picked up by Dan Bongino, who two days later (September 8, 2020) colorfully brought it to the attention of his large audience (citing Mahncke). In framing his comment as a choice between Strzok lying or Downer lying, Mahncke was allowing the remote possibility that Australian ambassador Downer had lied to Strzok about what had triggered him. Because Strzok’s interview with Downer took place after Trump’s quip, Downer would have had knowledge of the quip when he met Strzok, even though he didn’t have knowledge of the quip when he provided the tip. So it is not chronologically impossible that Downer lied, only implausible. But it remains a remote possibility that Strzok himself never suggested, and which became moot when Strzok (as discussed below) walked back part of his false story.

Later on September 6 (9:11 p.m.), Jerry Dunleavy of the Washington Examiner published a short article (together with accompanying announcement on Twitter) that pointed out the impossibility of Strzok’s chronology:

NEW: Strzok claims Downer was spurred to tell U.S. about Papadopoulos convo (FBI cited to open Trump-Russia inquiry) after Trump said “Russia if you’re listening…” But Mueller/Horowitz say Australia told U.S. on 7/26/16. Trump quip wasn’t til next day…https://t.co/ipjKNbqZTM

— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) September 7, 2020

While Dunleavy alertly noticed the chronological issue, unlike Mahncke, he didn’t connect the impossible chronology to Strzok’s false story about what Downer had told him. As discussed in the next section, Strzok capitalized on this oversight to construct a “limited hangout”—to borrow an apt phrase from Nixonian days. (Read more: American Conservative, 3/20/2021) (Archive)

September 10, 2020 - Besides 22 wiped devices, 44 Mueller team iPhones had zero records

“Forty-four iPhones used by members of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation contained no records when they were examined by an officer assigned to the team, according to internal documents.

Five more Special Counsel’s Office (SCO) phones contained only one record each, and four others contained fewer than 10 records per device, according to a log kept by a records officer over the course of more than 20 months.

The lack of records on the phones is extraordinary given the immense scope of the probe. It is also suspicious considering that at least 22 phones belonging to members of the Mueller team were wiped, with employees offering questionable explanations for the erasures.

Under U.S. law, government records are defined as “all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a federal agency under federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business  and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the United States government or because of the informational value of data in them.”

Of the 92 unique iPhones used by the Mueller team, only 12 contained a significant number of records, an Epoch Times review of available records determined.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/20/2020)  (Archive)