Featured Timeline Entries
December 10, 2020 - Sexual misconduct shakes FBI’s senior ranks
“An assistant FBI director retired after he was accused of drunkenly groping a female subordinate in a stairwell. Another senior FBI official left after he was found to have sexually harassed eight employees. Yet another high-ranking FBI agent retired after he was accused of blackmailing a young employee into sexual encounters.
An Associated Press investigation has identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought this week by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.
Each of the accused FBI officials appears to have avoided discipline, the AP found, and several were quietly transferred or retired, keeping their full pensions and benefits even when probes substantiated the sexual misconduct claims against them.
Beyond that, federal law enforcement officials are afforded anonymity even after the disciplinary process runs its course, allowing them to land on their feet in the private sector or even remain in law enforcement.
“They’re sweeping it under the rug,” said a former FBI analyst who alleges in a new federal lawsuit that a supervisory special agent licked her face and groped her at a colleague’s farewell party in 2017. She ended up leaving the FBI and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“As the premier law enforcement organization that the FBI holds itself out to be, it’s very disheartening when they allow people they know are criminals to retire and pursue careers in law enforcement-related fields,” said the woman, who asked to be identified in this story only by her first name, Becky. (Read more: The Associated Press, 12/10/2020) (Archive)
December 17, 2020 - Newly released Strzok emails provide an innocent explanation for the Trump email domain disappearance
A graphic promoting the conspiracy theory is posted on April 3, 2017, by Tea Pain and titled “Trump Tower’s “Stealth Russian Data Machine.”
(…) Mr. Strzok‘s text messages were released on Thursday by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican.
Mr. Strzok talked of more investigative steps needed before coming to a finding. By February, the FBI finished its Alfa probe and concluded that no such Alfa-Trump server connection existed, according to a December 2019 report by the Justice Department inspector general.
Computer scientists, one going by the name “Tea Leaves,” had posted their Alfa-Trump conspiracies online. But it was a Slate.com story on Oct. 31, 2016, that propelled the story into the ongoing presidential election.
Hillary Clinton tweeted the Slate.Com assertion, as did her chief adviser, Jake Sullivan, the incoming national security adviser for president-elect Joseph R. Biden.
The Slate.com story reported that after a New York Times reporter contacted Alfa in September, the “Trump domain name in question seemed to suddenly stop working.”
That coincides with Mr. Strzok‘s innocent explanation that same month: the FBI had informed Central Dynamics (Cendyn) that it still maintained the obsolete “Trump-email.com” domain name and after the notification, the firm terminated it.
On the broader question of whether Alfa-Trump secretly communicated––a theory dismissed by the FBI––Alfa Bank has filed a lawsuit in Lancaster County, Pa., Court of Commons Pleas against “John Doe.”
In essence, the lawsuit says a hacker, or group of hackers, duped computer scientists and the news media.
The purpose is to try to find out who created phony DNS pings of supposed communication that never actually happened, the lawsuit says. Alfa lawyers have contacted computer scientists who endorsed and wrote about the conspiracy to see if they can lead them to the hackers.
Alfa’s assertions are based on the findings of three cybersecurity firms it hired.
“Alfa bank in fact engaged in no communications with the Trump Organization in 2016 or 2017 beyond the falsely generated and inauthentic DNS queries,” the court action says. “Indeed, Alfa bank has never had any business dealings with the Trump Organization.”
“Tea Leaves” findings were promoted during and after the election by Fusion GPS and its co-founder Glenn Simpson, who handled anti-dossier writer Christopher Steele. The dossier, financed by Democrats, stands today as discredited in its dozen or so felony allegations against President Trump and aides.” (Read more: Washington Times, 12/18/2020) (Archive) (Strzok emails)
December 23, 2020 - Roger Stone on ‘The Special Counsel’s Redacted Justice’
“In this exclusive report from Roger Stone, he explains his entire ordeal after being targeted by the Mueller gang and placed in front of Obama Judge Amy Berman Jackson. In this lengthy and detailed account of what he endured, Stone lays out his case and then asks that he be fully pardoned by President Trump.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson and Roger Stone (Credit: The Gateway Pundit)
At midnight on election day November 3rd, 2020– the busiest news day of the year and timed to get as little press coverage as possible, the United States Department of Justice released the remaining unredacted sections of the Mueller Report regarding me specifically, in which they had admitted that despite two years of intense investigation, spending millions to pour through every aspect of my life, dragging 36 witnesses to the grand jury and after obtaining all my electronic communications for four years ( literally millions of e-mails and pages of documents, tax returns, banking, and financial records –they found no factual evidence of any collaboration or coordination between me and WikiLeaks regarding the release of emails regarding John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton or that I had any advance knowledge of the timing, content or source of their disclosures).
Even BuzzFeed, who won the release of the data in a lawsuit actually said I was “vindicated”. The rest of the media? They reported nothing at all.
The report is a voluminous effort by the ‘Special’ Counsel’s unethical, if not criminally-corrupt, lawyers, as their prolonged, baseless, partisan-motivated legal fishing expedition finally came to an end, to blunt the logical conclusion by the public that the entire corrupt multi-year multi-million dollar boondoggle was, in reality, a malicious fraud against President Donald Trump and anyone who supported him and a runaway purveyor of kangaroo “justice” against its unfortunate political targets.
For its hundreds of pages tediously propping up a convoluted defamatory narrative now known to be nothing more than a brazen fabrication by the Democrat Party and Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, the report is rife with highly-parsed wording, deceitful innuendo, and presumptuous, conclusory leaps of illogic, often delving into irrelevant minutiae, engaging in misleading factual cherry-picking and employing officious-sounding spin as dishonest substitutes for evidence that never existed. Despite this sugar-coating what the unredacted documents do show is shocking.
Specifically, the newly unveiled documents say:
Page 178
“The Office’s determination that it could not charge WikiLeaks or Stone as part of the Section 1030 conspiracy was also informed by the constitutional issues that such a prosecution would present. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001), the First Amendment protects a party’s publication of illegally intercepted communications on a matter of public concern, even when the publishing parties knew or had reason to know of the intercepts’ unlawful origin.”
Also Page 178,
“The Office determined that it could not pursue a Section 1030 conspiracy charge against Stone for some of the same legal reasons. The most fundamental hurdles, though, are factual ones.1279 As explained in Volume I, Section III.D.1, supra, Corsi’s accounts of his interactions with Stone on October 7, 2016 are not fully consistent or corroborated. Even if they were, neither Corsi’s testimony nor other evidence currently available to the Office is sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stone knew or believed that the computer intrusions were ongoing at the time he ostensibly encouraged or coordinated the publication of the Podesta emails. Stone’s actions would thus be consistent with (among other things) a belief that he was aiding in the dissemination of the fruits of an already completed hacking operation perpetrated by a third party, which would be a level of knowledge insufficient to establish conspiracy liability. See State v. Phillips, 82 S.E.2d 762, 766 (N.C. 1954) (“In the very nature of things, persons cannot retroactively conspire to commit a previously consummated crime.”) (quoted in Model Penal Code and Commentaries § 5.03, at 442 (1985).
“Regardless, success would also depend upon evidence of WikiLeaks’s and Stone’s knowledge of ongoing or contemplated future computer intrusions-the proof that is currently lacking.”
Judge Amy Berman withheld this from my lawyers at trial. The Mueller’s dirty cops concluded in their report that even if they had found evidence that I had received documents from Assange of WikiLeaks and passed them to anyone, which I did not and for which they found no evidence whatsoever, it would not have been illegal. The whole thing was a hoax.
For three years the fake News media has insisted that Julian Assange ( a journalist who has never had the accuracy of anything he has published questioned) is actually an asset for the Russians and that his website Wikileaks got the documents and e-mails via a hack via the Russians.
Worse they insisted that I had served as the link between Assange and WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. I was called a traitor and a Russian spy. The left insisted that my colorful Twitter feed and some of my speeches and interviews proved that I had advance knowledge of the source and content of the WikiLeaks disclosures that so roiled the 2016 campaign. I was falsely accused of having advance knowledge of the publication of John Podesta’s e-mails.
The only three news outlets who reported on this shocking election day admission that there was no evidence found that would support this narrative were BuzzFeed, who successfully brought the lawsuit for the release of this material, the Washington Examiner and ZeroHedge. Where were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Hill, Politico, Salon, Vox, Vice, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and the Business Insider – all of who were quick to smear me as a “go-between for WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign” but none of whom reported on the stunning conclusions of Mueller’s thugs.
For three years the fake News media has insisted that Julian Assange ( a journalist who has never had the accuracy of anything he has published questioned) is actually an asset for the Russians and that his website Wikileaks got the documents and e-mails via a hack via the Russians.
Worse they insisted that I had served as the link between Assange and WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. I was called a traitor and a Russian spy. The left insisted that my colorful Twitter feed and some of my speeches and interviews proved that I had advance knowledge of the source and content of the WikiLeaks disclosures that so roiled the 2016 campaign. I was falsely accused of having advance knowledge of the publication of John Podesta’s e-mails.
The only three news outlets who reported on this shocking election day admission that there was no evidence found that would support this narrative were BuzzFeed, who successfully brought the lawsuit for the release of this material, the Washington Examiner and ZeroHedge. Where were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Hill, Politico, Salon, Vox, Vice, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and the Business Insider – all of who were quick to smear me as a “go-between for WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign” but none of whom reported on the stunning conclusions of Mueller’s thugs.” (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 12/23/2020) (Archive)
December 27, 2020 - Ukraine holds a press conference to discuss their eyewitness and documentary evidence against the Bidens
“A video from a press conference in Ukraine is going viral. It is the follow-up to a video press conference that Ukraine released over a year ago, in which members of the Ukraine Parliament demanded that President Zelensky and President Trump investigate billions of dollars of corruption in Ukraine that is tied to the U.S. The newly released video is meant to provide documentary and eyewitness information about the corruption — and the Biden family figures prominently in the story.
(…) With that intro, here’s the video, followed by quotations from the video regarding Joe and Hunter Biden. I recommend Nabu Leaks for more information, enlarged pictures of the relevant documents naming the Bidens, audio of phone calls between Biden and former President Poroshenko after Trump won the election, and the full transcript of the press conference.
(…) From the introduction:
At one of the first press conferences about a year ago, we showed bank transactions for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the family of former US Vice President Joe Biden, namely to his son Robert Hunter Biden. The latter was a member of the board of directors of the infamous gas production company Burisma.
Burisma belongs to the fugitive Yanukovych-era minister Mykola Zlochevsky.
The inclusion of Biden in the Burisma leadership and payment for his services is nothing more than a political cover that protected Zlochevsky from the Ukrainian law, namely from the criminal code.
Two foreign witnesses whose identities are protected — Witness 1 and Witness 2 — came forward to testify about the facts of the case. Konstantyn Kulyk, the Head of the Group of Prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, explained what the witnesses offered:
One quote from a statement by a Witness:
“All the described financial transactions were fictitious. And a lot of money was paid in Ukraine so that the state authorities turned a blind eye to it.”
[snip]In the period from November 2014 to October 2015, the Witnesses noticed strange recurring payments that, at the direction of Oleh Nelin (Zlochevsky’s assistant in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine), were sent from the account of BURISMA HOLDINGS LTD, which was opened for the personal needs of Mykola Zlochevsky, in the Latvian PrivatBank AS to the account of the American company ROSEMONT SENECA BONAI LLC.
The witnesses drew attention to these payments since about 20 times the same uneven amount was recurring — $83,333.33 as payment for consulting services.
[snip]In the period from November 2014 to October 2015, the money stolen from Ukrainians, located on account of BURISMA HOLDINGS LTD with the Latvian PrivatBank AS, was transferred to the account of ROSEMONT SENECA BONAI LLC in the American bank MORGAN STANLEY in payments in total amounting to $3.4 million for consulting services.
[snip]This is a payment for the political “cover” that Biden provided to Zlochevsky.
A graphic image from the press conference shows the flow of money and favors.Andrii Derkach picked up the narrative. He focused on Joe Biden’s conversations with former president Poroshenko when Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor, started looking into Zlochevsky’s graft. As we all know, Biden openly boasted about holding up money from the U.S. unless Poroshenko fired Shokin.
The press conference included audio from a November 16, 2016 conversation between Biden and Poroshenko. Biden was wheeling and dealing for influence and money — and conducting foreign policy behind Trump’s back. The men spoke again in February 2017, at which time Biden smothered Poroshenko with fulsome compliments.
Ukraine’s government is gunning for Joe Biden. The Ukrainians know that Biden helped prop up a corrupt government in their country and that he profited mightily from doing so. No wonder this video has gone viral.” (Read more: American Thinker, 12/29/2020) (Archive)
December 30, 2020 - Georgia SoS Raffensperger's aide, Jordan Fuchs, lies to WaPo about Trump's phone call then deletes the audio recording
President Trump made an infamous call with SOS Brad Raffensperger and SOS Official Jordan Fuchs who later lied to the WaPo about the contents of the call. She was caught when the original recording of the call was found deleted on her computer. (Credit: The Gateway Pundit)
In late December 2020, President Trump made a call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to look at some of the items that were uncovered by his auditor. There was plenty of evidence for a competent auditor or any man of integrity to know that the election was uncertifiable.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger’s office secretly recorded the phone call with President Trump, then lied about it to the far left Washington Post.
Raffensperger’s office later ran to the Washington Post and leaked a fraudulent transcript of the call.
After they were caught lying to the America public, The Washington Post outed Jordan Fuchs as their anonymous source for their garbage hit piece.
Fuchs provided the WaPo with a fraudulent Trump quote that the paper ran in an anti-Trump hit piece on January 9th.
They planned this to do the most damage to President Trump before the sham impeachment trial in the US Senate.
Georgia Chairman of the Republican Party David Shafer later revealed that Raffensperger and Fuchs lied to the Washington Post about Trump demanding that they “find the fraud.”
Then after they leaked their version of the story to the Washington Post they deleted the audio of the call.
The audio file was later found in the laptop’s “trash” folder.
The Secretary of State’s office secretly recorded the conversation, mischaracterized its contents to The Washington Post and then attempted to delete the recording. It was recently discovered in a laptop “trash” folder as part of an open records search.
— David Shafer (@DavidShafer) March 15, 2021
Former Georgia Chairman of the Republican Party, David Shafer, was criminally indicted by Fani Willis in August 2023 and this is his mugshot profiled on Twitter. (Credit: David Shafer/Twitter)
(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 8/24/2023) (Archive)
January 4, 2020 - President Trump awards the Medal of Freedom to Congressman Devin Nunes
Medal of Freedom (Credit: The White House)
“On Monday, President Donald J. Trump will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Devin Nunes. This prestigious award is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, which is awarded by the President to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
Devin grew up on a farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Since his election to Congress in 2002 at the age of 29, he has been a tireless fighter for the farmers of California, waging a long and successful battle to bring water to the Central Valley. In 2014, Devin was selected to chair the House Intelligence Committee. As Chairman, he confronted Russian aggression and opposed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Against fierce opposition, he led the effort to declassify documents seized in the bin Laden raid that showed Al Qaeda’s collaboration with Iran.
In 2017, Congressman Nunes launched an investigation into the Obama-Biden administration’s misconduct during the 2016 election – and began to unearth the crime of the century. As a result of his work, he discovered that the infamous Steele Dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. He found that a senior Justice Department attorney was married to one of the architects of the document. He learned that the Obama-Biden administration had issued Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to spy on President Trump’s campaign and illegitimately unmasked several innocent spying victims for political gain.
Devin Nunes’ courageous actions helped thwart a plot to take down a sitting United States president. Devin’s efforts led to the firing, demotion, or resignation of over a dozen FBI and DOJ employees. He also forced the disclosure of documents that proved that a corrupt senior FBI official pursued a vindictive persecution of General Michael Flynn — even after rank and file FBI agents found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Congressman Nunes pursued the Russia Hoax at great personal risk and never stopped standing up for the truth. He had the fortitude to take on the media, the FBI, the Intelligence Community, the Democrat Party, foreign spies, and the full power of the Deep State. Devin paid a price for his courage. The media smeared him and liberal activists opened a frivolous and unjustified ethics investigation, dragging his name through the mud for eight long months. Two dozen members of his family received threatening phone calls – including his 98 year old grandmother.
Congressman Devin Nunes is a public servant of unmatched talent, unassailable integrity, and unwavering resolve. He uncovered the greatest scandal in American history.”
January 11, 2021 - Letter by Rep. Thompson is potential cause of TSA placing innocent Americans on terror watchlist
On January 6th, 2021, “insurrectionists attacked the United States Capitol intent on preventing the certification of a democratic election and, apparently, inflicting violence upon elected officials… Several lives were lost, including at least one Capitol Police officer…” wrote Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), then-Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security to Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske on January 11th, 2021, in a previously unrevealed letter. This committee “focuses on legislation and oversight related to the security of the United States” with the goal of “[ensuring] that the American people were protected from terrorist attacks.”
Clipping from Thompson Letter
Chairman Thompson started his letter with unproven charges and false information in this salacious statement of fiction as he requested an Executive Branch agency ignore due process and deprive thousands of Americans of their Constitutionally protected rights to travel freely within the United States (a right recognized since at least 1870.) Rep. Thompson’s account of the events on January 6th, 2021, could have been lifted directly from a far-left opinion website like HuffPost or ProPublica. While Thompson does not source his wild allegations, he could have easily credited a ProPublica article that made identical claims: law enforcement agencies were “unprepared,” and “the attack was planned largely in open internet forums.” A subsequent article by the same author falsely claimed that “Officer Brian Sicknick died defending the Capitol.”
But Congressman Thompson’s concern was not about how to better protect the U.S. Capitol. His immediate concern, less than a week after the events of January 6th, was punishing those who came to Washington, DC, without trial or investigation. He said the “perpetrators have continued to enjoy freedom of movement throughout the country. Only a fraction of the insurrectionists have been arrested, and many of those arrested have been released pending a future court date. To our knowledge, the Federal government has not prevented a single insurrectionist from boarding an aircraft.” Perhaps the Chairman is less than familiar with the U.S. Constitution to which he was required to swear allegiance in his 15 terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, but the 5th Amendment is quite clear on the following: “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Chairman Thompson continued with a statement he attributed to “growing online chatter,” which informed his belief that “many of the same groups that planned and carried out Wednesday’s attack intend to return to Washington, D.C., to cause further disruption and violence in the coming days, including at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.” Those of us who were working in law enforcement during the inauguration of Joe Biden marveled at the speed and efficiency of locking down Washington DC into a Police State scene out of the Cold War. The anti-scale fencing, which was nowhere to be found during the summer riots of 2020, was installed with an efficiency that shocked the government sensibilities in a place like Washington, DC. But at the bottom of his third paragraph, Rep. Bennie Thompson says the so-called quiet part out loud: “It appears little is being done to disrupt the travel of terrorists who just attacked the seat of the U.S. Government and wish to do so again.” Furthermore:
“Please provide a briefing not later than the end of this week on the following topics:
- Current efforts to disrupt the travel of white supremacist and other domestic terrorist groups who may be planning further attacks against the U.S. Government and may be targeting the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden;
- Options available for quickly denying air carrier service to individuals identified as posing a potential threat, including TSA’s authorities to prevent individuals from flying on a temporary or flight-by-flight basis;”
After this letter was received by the top official at the TSA, many Americans who had simply traveled to the National Capitol Region on or around January 6th, 2021, were welcomed to the “Quiet Skies.” These unsuspecting (and unconvicted) American citizens were added to a secretive program known as Quiet Skies—which the TSA claims identifies “international travelers who may require enhanced screening” by a “set of risk-based, intelligence-driven scenario rules.” It further claims that “these rules have strict oversight by the Department of Homeland Security, including the privacy, civil rights and liberties, and general counsel offices.” However, several Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) whistleblowers and retired supervisory FAM Sonya Labosco have blown the lid off some of the abuses of this program in numerous national interviews and a previous article published by UncoverDC. Additional coverage by UncoverDC’s Wendi Mahoney introduced those unfamiliar with Quiet Skies to the “Quad S” designation. (Read more: UncoverDC/FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin, 11/27/2023) (Archive)
January 15, 2021 - Solomon confirms Fiona Hill introduced Steele to Danchenko
Fiona Hill testifies to the House Intelligence Committee on November 21, 2019. (Credit: Chip Somodovilla/Getty Images)
“Delivering in his final days on one of his last unfulfilled promises, President Trump is declassifying a massive trove of FBI documents showing the Russia collusion story was leaked in the final weeks of the 2016 election in an effort to counteract Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.
The memos to be released as early as Friday include FBI interviews and human source evaluation reports for two of the main informants in the Russia case, former MI6 agent Christopher Steele and academic Stefan Halper.
(…) The probes found the FBI wrongly continued to rely on the allegations of Russia collusion to target Trump campaign figures for investigation and failed to disclose major flaws in their investigations to the courts that had authorized surveillance warrants.
The investigation also found that Steele’s primary source of Russian intel later disowned or distanced himself from the claims attributed to him in the Steele dossier and that U.S. intelligence had concerns the source was tied to Russian intelligence.
The soon-to-be-released records also expose a tantalizing connection between Steele, his primary source, and one of the Democrats’ key impeachment witnesses in the Ukraine scandal, former Trump National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill.
Steele divulged to the FBI that he was introduced by Hill to his primary sub-source of information for his anti-Trump dossier and that he later told Hill that the source had provided information for his now infamous memos. (Read more: JusttheNews, 1/14/2021) (Archive)
January 16, 2021 - Homeland Security Committee releases report outlining Biden family selling US policy for personal, financial gain
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee finalizes a report [pdf available here] with evidence of Joe and Hunter Biden conducting financial deals with foreign governments. The report outlines how the Biden family sold access to government policy for personal financial benefit.
(Embed pdf Below) Considering the scale of evidence showing massive conflicts of interest, it is quite astounding that Joe Biden is currently ‘president-elect’… (Conservative Treehouse, 1/16/2021)
Hsgac Finance Report Final by The Conservative Treehouse
January 19, 2021 - Trump declassifies a binder with hundreds of pages about Crossfire Hurricane and orders they be published in Federal Register; Biden DOJ refuses
“President Trump declassified a binder on January 19th, 2021 that contains hundreds of pages about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal. It contains damaging information about the corrupt actors involved with our government. Two different DOJ Attorney Generals have defied President Trump’s direct lawful order to publish the binder in the Federal Register. It’s been 19 months as the DOJ defies the order, and every FOIA request to make it public.
The DOJ had already made redactions to protect sources & methods and returned the binder back to the White House. But the corrupt FBI also wanted to hide names. So at the last minute, the DOJ demanded the binder comply with the 1974 Privacy Act. The Act requires any “agency” that releases records to hide personal or identifiable name information. The DOJ knew this Act didn’t apply to the White House, it was a stall tactic. The courts decided 22 years ago that the Privacy Act was based on FOIA requests, and the White House is not an agency.
Hours before Trump left office on January 20th, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows gave the binder back to the DOJ, along with this memo. He asked the DOJ to make any Privacy Act redactions “out of an abundance of caution.” In the memo, he asks they expeditiously release the binder when finished. Meadows foolishly expected this would take 3-4 days. It’s been 19 months and still not released. Just the News recently obtained the Meadows memo from the National Archives, who also denied having a copy of the declassified binder.
Meadows admits in interviews various agency’s often stalled or defied Trump’s orders. Meadows knew better than to rely on the DOJ to release this damaging binder after they left the White House. He should have released the binder to the public himself. But in doing so, there was a chance he would become a target of the DOJ and FBI. The memorandum below is what Mr. Meadows sent to the DOJ Attorney General on January 20th, 2021.
The binder has intercept transcripts made by the FBI on various Trump staff. It has the tasking orders and debriefings of Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the FBI’s main human sources. There is a copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court. It also contains details about Fiona Hill, who introduced Steele to the FBI, and much more There is tremendously important information in this binder that has never seen the light of day. Is it possible a copy of this binder was at Mar-a-Lago? (Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/10/2022) (Archive)
January 25, 2021 - Biden's Secretary of State pick, Tony Blinken, is linked to Hunter Biden and Chinese funding
Tony Blinken (Credit: Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press)
“Tony Blinken, the Biden administration’s nominee for Secretary of State, managed a Joe Biden project that received millions of anonymous Chinese donor dollars. Blinken appeared a handful of times in emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop agreeing to advise Hunter Biden when Hunter worked at the scandal-plagued firm Rosemont Seneca Partners. The Obama State Department set up a meeting between Hunter and Blinken which was postponed, and the two met two months later in 2015.
Hunter Biden coordinated introductions between Blinken and his associates and Blinken was named in an email in connection to a shady prospective deal involving the federal government and Amtrak, a company that previously had Hunter Biden on its board. National File, which obtained most of the contents of Hunter’s laptop, features the most relevant Tony Blinken-Hunter Biden emails below.
Will these issues complicate Blinken’s bid to become Joe Biden’s Secretary of State? Blinken sat for his confirmation hearing, where he counted neocon support including from Lindsey Graham. But Blinken has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Blinken’s nomination heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Monday with a confirmation vote this week. Blinken’s link to Biden’s China dealings is especially concerning.
Hunter Biden Received An Email About An Amtrak Deal In 2017 That Named Blinken:
Blinken wrote to Hunter agreeing to a meeting with a Hunter associate, October 3, 2012:
November 2012, Hunter tried to set up a meeting for his associate with Blinken:
Meeting in May 2015: The Obama State Department actually SETS UP the meeting for Hunter with Blinken at the State Department. This meeting reportedly did not occur supposedly due to Beau Biden’s death, even though Beau died three days after the meeting was scheduled, but Hunter met with Blinken in July 2015.
May 2015, Hunter’s assistant at Rosemont Seneca discusses the scheduled Blinken meeting:
Hunter schedules a meeting in July 2015. This meeting did occur.
Naomi Biden Wanted to Go To China for a forum in 2019. Biden thought it was a “great opportunity” but Blinken said no:
July 2011, Hunter Tells An Acquaintance to Inform Blinken That They Are Friends:
(Read more: National File, 1/25/2020) (Archive)
In addition, Gateway Pundit reports Blinken is connected to the Bidens in Ukraine:
Yaacov Aplebaum shared an email from the Hunter laptop that confirms this:
Even crazy Senator John McCain had problems with Blinken.
In 2014 McCain blocked Blinken’s appointment by Obama over Obama’s Iraq policy:
U.S. Senator John McCain said on Thursday he is blocking President Barack Obama’s nomination of Anthony Blinken as the country’s number two diplomat, citing sharp disagreement with the nominee’s past statements on Iraq. “He’s totally unqualified,” the Republican senator told Reuters, when asked why he was holding up Blinken’s nomination to be deputy Secretary of State. “He’s the guy who said we’re leaving behind the richest, safest Iraq in history. Look it up,” McCain said, referring to Blinken’s reassuring comments two years ago about the decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq.
Blinken’s friends, including Hunter, were appalled that McCain would call Blinken ‘unqualified’ per another email found on Hunter’s laptop:
The Senate on January 26, 2021, easily confirmed Tony Blinken to be President Biden’s secretary of state.
Blinken won broad bipartisan support in the 78-22 vote. He previously was deputy secretary of state under former President Barack Obama. (New York Post, 1/26/2021)
January 29, 2021 - Kevin Clinesmith gets slap on the wrist with probation for forging Carter Page document to justify FISA warrant
Kevin Clinesmith (Credit: Facebook)
The former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email to help obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wiretap authorization against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page was sentenced to one year of probation and no prison time on Friday.
Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied the Justice Department’s efforts seeking up to six months behind bars, instead giving Kevin Clinesmith probation, 400 hours of community service within a year, and a special assessment of $100 to the court but no fine.
Clinesmith, who worked on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server and on the FBI’s Trump-Russia inquiry, as well as special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, admitted in August that he falsified a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA surveillance authority against Page, who had been a foreign policy adviser to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Clinesmith edited a CIA email in 2017 to state that Page was “not a source” for the CIA when it had told the bureau on multiple occasions that Page had been an “operational contact” for the agency.
“Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said was true,” Boasberg concluded on Friday, saying, “I do not believe he was attempting to achieve an end he knew was wrong.” The judge added that “it is not clear to me that the fourth FISA warrant would not have been signed but for this error. … Even if Mr. Clinesmith had been accurate about Mr. Page’s relationship with the other government agency, the warrant may well have been signed and the surveillance authorized.”
U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was elevated to special counsel in October, and Clinesmith dueled in court over how long the lawyer should spend behind bars. Clinesmith’s team has argued for leniency, while the federal prosecutor from Connecticut asked the court to sentence Clinesmith to up to six months in prison.
“As a licensed attorney and an officer of the Court, the defendant took an oath, was bound by professional and ethical obligations, and should have been well-aware of this duty of candor. … His deceptive conduct … was antithetical to the duty of candor and eroded the FISC’s confidence in the accuracy of all previous FISA applications worked on by the defendant,” Durham wrote in December. “The defendant’s conduct also undermined the integrity of the FISA process and struck at the very core of what the FISC fundamentally relies on in reviewing FISA applications.”
Durham said Clinesmith’s deception “fueled public distrust of the FBI and of the entire FISA program itself.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 1/29/2021) (Archive)
February 9, 2021 - Clinton donor has secret ties to U.S. intelligence and is convicted after he refuses to help get Trump
“Imaad Zuberi hobnobbed for two decades among America’s political elite, raising millions for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, texting with kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers and jet-setting with Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain.
Then Zuberi resisted pressure to cooperate in the investigation of then-President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, and the California millionaire’s world came crashing down. Late last year, he pleaded guilty to what federal prosecutors said was a “mercenary” scheme to funnel large sums of foreign money into U.S. campaign coffers so Zuberi could gain political influence and build his global business empire.
When Zuberi was sentenced last month to 12 years in prison and more than $18 million in fines — one of the harshest penalties ever meted out for a donor fraud case — it seemed like an open-and-shut case of political corruption. To the news media, it was a made-for-TV tale of greed and graft felling a man whose charity and good nature otherwise endeared him to many from Hollywood to Washington.
But back in the nation’s capital, the U.S. government harbored a deep secret about Zuberi, a Pakistani-American who ran a highly successful venture capital firm with reach across the globe.
Just the News has confirmed from multiple current and former U.S. officials that Zuberi enjoyed a long and complex relationship with U.S. intelligence. His early help to the Drug Enforcement Administration with illegal drug trade and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in the war on Islamic terrorism in the early 2000s eventually elevated him to becoming a valuable source inside Washington’s security and spy establishment for much of the last two decades, the officials said. They declined to be more specific.
The first hint of that secret emerged recently when U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips ordered the unsealing of court documents, in which the four-letter acronym “CIPA” unexpectedly appeared, with little or no explanation.
02-09-21_Minute_Order_on_Redactions (1).pdf
CIPA stands for the Classified Information Protection Act, a law that protects the intelligence operations of the United States and shields the release of sensitive information. It’s rare for CIPA to show up in a normal criminal case, let alone one involving political donations. And it signaled that Zuberi may have been much more than just a fundraising, hobnobbing global businessman. Zuberi’s account of his intelligence work is contained in one of the CIPA filings mentioned in the court case.” (Read more: Just the News, 3/16/2021) (Archive)
February 11, 2021 - New details on a much broader scope of the Mueller investigation
Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on May 9, 2012. (Credit: Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)
“The process, investigative steps, and execution of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation have always been somewhat of a mystery. While the Mueller Report lays out what was done and many of the Special Counsel’s findings, questions still remain on a number of issues, including when Team Mueller knew Carter Page FISA warrants were fraudulent and when they determined there was no criminal conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia.
Not surprisingly, the Department of Justice has not provided adequate answers, even with the occasional release of documents. The DOJ typically doesn’t like to release information on prosecutorial decisions or investigative steps. Try a FOIA request and find out for yourself. Add to this an understandable reluctance to divulge the extent Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the “activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns,” which include but are “not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.”
More specifically, there have been questions of whether Special Counsel Mueller’s team investigated matters outside its known authority. Before we answer that question, let us provide context.
The Scope Memos
Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel by then-Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17, 2017. Rosenstein’s letter set forth the scope of Mueller’s authority, which included:
The May 2017 appointment letter was specifically worded to keep the public in the dark on the extent of Mueller’s investigation (or, perhaps more accurately, the investigation that Mueller inherited). A subsequent memorandum, dated August 2, 2017, revealed that it had been “worded categorically in order to permit its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals.”In fact, Mueller had been appointed to investigate the following (redacted parts not included):
A few months later, in October 2017, Special Counsel Mueller requested, and was given, the additional authority to investigate Michael Cohen, Richard Gates, Roger Stone, Bijan Rafikian and Ekim Alptekin (a Foreign Agent Registration Act case involving those two members of the Flynn Intel Group) and other unnamed individuals (one of whom is suspected to be Michael Flynn, Jr.).
Scope Memos: Limitation or Suggestion?
As the Special Counsel’s investigation dragged on, and as the allegations of Trump/Russia collusion turned up no criminal activity on the part of Trump (as relayed to Trump lawyer John Dowd by Robert Mueller on March 5, 2018), its team looked elsewhere in search of a crime. Any crime.
According to one former DOJ official, some members of the Special Counsel team began to focus on an inquiry into how members of the Trump administration, current and former, handled classified information. Not whether classified information was shared with Russia or those alleged to have been foreign agents (like Carter Page). Simply whether they had mishandled or leaked classified information.
Mike Cernovich
Their inquiry also looked at the reporting on H.R. McMaster by a name familiar to many readers: Mike Cernovich.
Back in February 2017, President Trump appointed H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser. That summer, Cernovich reported that Eric Ciaramella was appointed to be McMaster’s personal aid. (Ciaramella would later be alleged to have leaked Trump’s call with the Ukrainian President to Alexander Vindman.) Cernovich discussed Ciaramella’s ties to the Obama administration, particularly Susan Rice, and the internal concerns that he had been leaking classified information. He also accused McMaster of trying to purge Trump loyalists from the NSC and orchestrating leaks about Trump to his allies. For this he was an investigative target.
We were further advised that FBI 302s (interview summaries) relating to these matters have been kept under wraps by the DOJ. This checks-out, considering the Special Counsel Office 302s that the DOJ still refuses to release to the public in ongoing FOIA litigation.” (Read more: TechnoFog, 2/11/2021) (Archive)
February 23, 2021 - Rod Rosenstein concedes to having a discussion about secretly recording Trump
Rod Rosenstein (Credit: Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
“Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is finally opening up about his discussion with a top FBI official concerning the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential ties to Russia.
In his first TV interview since leaving the Trump administration in May 2019, Rosenstein told FOX 5 that there was talk of recording the 45th president for the inquiry but denied that he ever intended to wear a “wire” during the turbulent days that followed Trump firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017 before the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.
“I had a conversation with Andrew McCabe about an investigation that he was conducting involving the president. And there was a discussion about whether or not the president would be recorded in the course of that investigation. I never intended to wear a wire, and I think that if Mr. McCabe asked me to wear a wire, we would’ve had to reconsider the whole thing. Because you can’t run an investigation and serve as a witness,” Rosenstein said in an episode of the Siege on Democracy podcast published last month.
McCabe, Comey’s deputy who became acting FBI director for a couple months after the firing, made headlines in February 2019, when he corroborated reporting that claimed Rosenstein offered to wear a recording device while talking to other officials to tape Trump secretly.
“Well, it depends on what you mean by the word ‘fit,'” Rosenstein said. “There was a lot of talk about whether the president should have been removed under the 25th Amendment. I don’t believe that. I mean, I think the president was capable of doing the job. Doesn’t mean I agree with the way he did it.”
(…) Rosenstein also disputed the report in testimony before Congress.
“I did not suggest or hint at secretly recording Mr. Trump,” Rosenstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I have never in any way suggested the president should be removed from office under the 25th Amendment,” he added.
Multiple reports had a source who said Rosenstein was merely being sarcastic in making the remark about secretly recording the president, but McCabe insisted that Rosenstein was “absolutely serious.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 3/03/2021) (Archive)
February 24, 2021 - Biden DOJ shuts down Clinton Foundation “investigation” – FBI returns or destroys all evidence
Biden’s corrupt Justice Department shut down their ‘investigation’ into the Clinton Foundation in August 2021, according to FOIA documents obtained by the New York Times.
The FBI then ‘returned’ or destroyed all of the evidence!
“The Justice Department kept open the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s family foundation for nearly all of President Donald J. Trump’s administration, with prosecutors closing the case without charges just days before he left office.” The New York Times reported.
The DOJ investigated the Clinton Foundation’s relationships with foreign donors while Hillary Clinton was the head of the Department of State during Obama’s presidency.
(…) “In August 2021, the F.B.I. received what is known as a declination memo from prosecutors and as a result considered the matter closed.” the New York Times reported.
NYT FOIA Doc
And all the evidence is forever destroyed!
The Times reported: “All of the evidence obtained during the course of this investigation has been returned or otherwise destroyed,” according to the FBI.
BREAKING: Biden Justice Department formally shut down Clinton Foundation “investigation” in August, 2021. FBI destroyed all evidence. https://t.co/5reEWbB3tB
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) May 22, 2023
(Read more: TheGateway Pundit, 5/22/2023) (Archive) (New York Times, 5/22/2023) (NYT Docs)
(Timeline editor’s note: The NYT FOIA documents reveal the actual “formal closure” date was February 24, 2021. Also, be sure to check out the CGEP tag that reveals the Clinton Giustra Partnership was about 1,100 secret foreign donors the Clinton Foundation failed to disclose.)
February 25, 2021 - A newly declassified document reveals Stefan Halper was behind the Lokhova/Flynn false intel
Stefan Halper (l), Svetlana Lokhova (c), and Lt. General Michael Flynn (Credit: public domain)
“Stefan Halper, a former Cambridge professor who snooped on the Trump campaign for the FBI, told investigators that he witnessed Michael Flynn leave a 2014 event at the British university with a Russian graduate student, a claim that an FBI agent later deemed likely to be false.
The bombshell revelation is contained in a declassified summary of Halper’s meeting with FBI agents in mid-August 2016, shortly after he agreed to serve as a confidential human source (CHS) for the bureau in its investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.
Halper, a longtime Republican political operative who served in four presidential administrations, met with and secretly recorded three Trump campaign aides, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis, as part of his work for the FBI.
The FBI document, which President Donald Trump ordered declassified at the end of his term, was published by Just the News on Thursday.
Stephan Halper Source Docum… by The Conservative Treehouse
The source for the allegation about Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian student, had been a longstanding mystery.
(…) Details from the newly declassified document match up with those found in a memo that FBI special agent William Barnett wrote on Jan. 4, 2017, as part of Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the investigation of the Trump campaign.
Barnett, who was the lead agent in the investigation of Flynn, wrote in the memo that a CHS had told the FBI about Flynn’s alleged encounter with a “suspicious” person during an overseas trip. Flynn allegedly got into a cab with the person. The memo did not identify the CHS who provided the information to investigators.
Barnett wrote that the FBI investigated the lead by checking travel records and asking around about Flynn and his alleged sidekick. He told federal prosecutors in September 2020 that he believed the tip was probably false.
“BARNETT found the idea FLYNN could leave an event, either by himself or [redacted] without the matter being noted as not plausible,” reads a summary of Barnett’s interview with U.S. attorney Jeff Jensen on Sept. 17. “With nothing to corroborate the story, BARNETT thought the information was not accurate.”
(Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/25/2021) (Archive)
(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)
February 25, 2021 - Russian student, Svetlana Lokhova, accuses the FBI of “a cover-up” by withholding the Halper memos
Svetlana Lokhova (Credit: Fox News)
(…) The source for the allegation about Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian student, had been a longstanding mystery.
The claim first popped up in news reports from The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian in March 2017. The innuendo-laden stories said that U.S. and British intelligence officers had suspicions about Flynn’s interactions with Lokhova during his visit to the University of Cambridge in February 2014, when he served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Lokhova, who studied Soviet-era history at Cambridge, has emphatically denied having any improper contact with Flynn, or leaving with him from the Cambridge event. She has told The Daily Caller News Foundation that she left the event with her husband, David North. North has also told the DCNF that he picked Lokhova up from the event.
Lokhova has waged a legal battle to find out how the rumor about she and Flynn made its way to press. She has sued The Wall Street Journal and Halper to get to the bottom of the story.
In a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation, Lokhova accused the FBI of “a cover up” by withholding the Halper memos.
“These documents should have been released four years ago,” Lokhova said in a phone interview.
Lokhova also said that the documents confirmed her suspicions that Halper, who she referred to as “this man who lied about me,” was the source who provided dirt about her to the FBI.
She said that the FBI, members of Congress and journalists knew the truth about Halper’s allegations, but “sat on this and concealed it from the public.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/25/2021) (Archive)
February 26, 2021 - John Carlin returns as Biden's acting Deputy AG
“Those who have followed all of the internal research will know the name, John Carlin. As noted in this text message below Carlin has returned to the DOJ and is currently Acting Deputy Attorney General inside Main Justice. Once again the corrupt DOJ is attempting to secure itself from sunlight upon prior activity, very corrupt activity.
John Carlin was the assistant attorney general and head of the National Security Division inside the DOJ when efforts against the Trump campaign and incoming administration were underway. John CarIin was previously chief of staff to FBI Director Robert Mueller.
In September of 2016 Carlin manipulated the FISA court by misleading them on the Section 702 certifications. Carlin never informed the court of FBI contractors having access to the NSA database and exporting the search results to unknown actors. The FBI was using the database to monitor 2016 political campaigns and political opposition.
Carlin announced his resignation Sept 27, 2016, the day after he filed the Government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications. Carlin departed the NSD October 15, 2016, five days before the Carter Page FISA was approved by the FISC.
It was John Carlin who ultimately facilitated the fraudulent FISA application against Carter Page in order to continue surveillance of the risk represented by Donald Trump. John Carlin’s legal counsel in the NSD was Michael Atkinson.
You might remember the name Michael Atkinson from the first impeachment effort against President Trump. Atkinson became the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) who changed the rules to allow an anonymous complaint (Ciaramella) from inside the CIA and National Security Council member, Alexander Vindman.
The network of the crew is all connected by their efforts.
John Carlin was replaced in the DOJ-NSD (October 2016) by Mary McCord. You might remember it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn when the January 2017 DOJ and FBI efforts against National Security Advisor Michael Flynn were underway. With the new position Michael Atkinson became the legal counsel for Mary McCord in the NSD.
Mary McCord left the DOJ-NSD and went to work for the democrat party controlled congress after the mid-term election in 2018.
Mary McCord went to work for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler; she was the lead agent inside the first impeachment effort that used information from her prior legal counsel Michael Atkinson who was now Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG).
Again, the network of the crew is all connected by their efforts.
Now we have a better feel for the role played by John Carlin, it helps to make sense why the Joe Biden administration would bring him back inside the DOJ to control any/all sunlight that might resurface. Carlin’s prior corrupt activity, fraud to the FISA Court, makes him a willing and vested participant in sunlight avoidance for the Biden team.
Do you really think this crew could allow Donald Trump to have a second term?
(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/27/2021) (Archive)
March 8, 2021 - Deep state propagandist behind Russia hoax pushes for new rules to rid internet of opposing voices
Anne Applebaum
“Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev published a piece at The Atlantic [March 8, 2021] arguing that opposing voices must be stamped out in society and on the internet.
Applebaum and Pomerantsev used the infamous works of Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy in America to introduce this most un-American idea.
Applebaum argues, “An internet that promotes democratic values instead of destroying them—that makes conversation better instead of worse—lies within our grasp.”
In a head fake, Applebaum condemns Chinese internet censorship then goes on to promote communist-style regulations on internet free speech to prevent unwanted ideas from taking root. The ideas Anne does not approve of. There is nothing democratic about Applebaum’s ideas. Instead, they wreak of the same old authoritarianism of the modern-day left.
What is most astonishing is that Applebaum is a covert intelligence conduit — a spook — who was outed in the “Integrity Initiative” leaks of 2018.
So while she ridicules ANY discussion of election fraud in the 2020 election, she was paid to promote the second greatest political fraud in history, the Russia collusion hoax.
This was all revealed at Revolver News this week:
If all of that was not enough to convince you of a Counter-American, Counterintelligence operation being run by the U.S. national security state to stamp out MAGA, consider the following article last week from Anne Applebaum.
Applebaum’s piece stresses the need for increased China-style Internet censorship to stop the proliferation of dissident political opinions. A sample passage reads:
In the surreal interregnum that followed the 2020 election, the price of America’s refusal to reform its internet suddenly became very high. Then-President Donald Trump and his supporters pushed out an entirely false narrative of electoral fraud. Those claims were reinforced on extreme-right television channels, then repeated and amplified in cyberspace, creating an alternative reality inhabited by millions of people where Trump had indeed won. QAnon—a conspiracy theory that had burst out of the subterranean internet and flooded onto platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, convincing millions that political elites are a cabal of globalist pedophiles—spilled into the real world and helped inspire the mobs that stormed the Capitol. Twitter made the extraordinary decision to ban the U.S. president for encouraging violence; the amount of election disinformation in circulation immediately dropped. [The Atlantic]