August 25, 2022 - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg implies FBI told platform to intercept Hunter Biden laptop story because Russian disinformation was about to drop

“During a discussion with Joe Rogan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the removal of content, specifically citing the example of the pre-2020 election Hunter Biden laptop story. In his response Zuckerberg says the background context is important because the FBI came to Facebook and told them Russian disinformation was about to drop, just before the New York Post article was published.

This discussion comes on the heels of an FBI whistleblower approaching the Senate Judiciary Committee with evidence the Washington DC field office was specifically working to cover up any discoveries around the Hunter Biden laptop (per Chuck Grassley). Add the Zuckerberg statement to the whistleblower claim and the resounding implication is the FBI taking advanced proactive measures to stop information they deem adverse to the interests of democrats. The issue surfaces at 05:00 of the video below. WATCH (prompted): (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022) (Archive)

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Tucker Carlson and Harmeet Dhillon Discuss Facebook Suppression of Hunter Biden Laptop Story

During a segment on his broadcast this evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Center for American Liberty founder and lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon about how Facebook censored and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 election. {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH: (Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2022)  (Archive)

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Jimmy Dore also does an excellent job covering this story:

 

August 26, 2022 - Kash Patel reports the FBI affidavit used to raid Trump's home was attested to by phone via Facebook's WhatsApp

“Kash Patel released a statement Friday on Truth Social where he blasted the corrupt Deep State for not keeping his name redacted in the affidavit used to raid President Trump’s home.

Kash also shared some other insightful information.

Patel wrote on Truth Social that he was basically viciously attacked by the Deep State by them not redacting his name from the warrant used to raid the President’s home.  Then Patel shared this:

…This cartel of corruption inside our government is so devoid of concern about national security, they could not be bothered to see the judge in person.  Instead, they literally called in the raid on the home of a former President via the FBI’s best friend, Zuckerberg’s WhatsApp.

This isn’t the first time that we heard that the warrant to raid the President’s home with gun-toting FBI agents was attested to over a WhatsApp call.

Far-left Law and Crime reported that the warrant was attested to over WhatsApp.

The cover sheet was “[a]ttested to” by an FBI special agent “by Phone (WhatsApp),” the form reveals. Indeed, the form is titled as an “application for a warrant by telephone or other reliable electronic means.”

The criminal cover sheet document indicates, in the usual perfunctory fashion, that no other relevant matters are proceeding before other magistrate judges in other sections of the same federal district where the Mar-a-Lago-related proceeding is ongoing. Warrant applications routinely include such attestations to flag the judiciary if prosecutors are seeking search warrants from multiple magistrates.

What we didn’t know is that the FBI uses WhatsApp as their “best friend”.  WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.  What does Patel know about WhatsApp’s use by the FBI?

It appears the FBI uses WhatsApp to hold conversations that they can hide.  Are there any other reasons for using WhatsApp?

Below is Kash Patel’s Truth.

 

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/28/2020)  (Archive)

August 26, 2022 - Paul Sperry: The unsealed FBI affidavit contains some oddities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(More: Paul Sperry/Gettr)

August 26, 2022 - DOJ releases mostly redacted Mar-a-Lago affidavit; Judge Reinhart finds good cause to seal from the public

“The redacted affidavit released Friday by the Justice Department related to the recent FBI raid on former President Trump’s Florida estate shows the agency in part made their case to return Aug. 8 by saying agents in May had already collected 184 sensitive documents from Mar-a-Lago.

This is a developing story…

“The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location,” the affidavit said.

“There is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES,” the affidavit continued, following redactions. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”

Documents retrieved earlier this year from Mar-A-Lago included “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” according to the affidavit. “Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes.”

Trump reacted to the release of the affidavit on his Truth Social account Friday afternoon, saying:

A judge ordered the redacted document released.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in the order, “I find that the government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the affidavit,” and added that the redacted portions were needed for protecting witnesses, agents, and parties who were not charged, in addition to the strategy and scope of the probe.

The department blacked out the names of witnesses and agents to protect them and the agency’s investigation, but the document, which allowed for the warrant in the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid at Mar-a-Lago, is expected to provide at least some new details.

Trump posted on his Truth Social account on Friday morning, criticizing the raid on his home prior to the affidavit release:

(Read more: JusttheNews, 8/26/2022)  (Archive)  (Affidavit)

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Techno Fog has more:

August 26, 2022 - FBI special agent Tom Thibault is forced out and escorted from building

“A top FBI agent at the Washington field office reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings.

Timothy Thibault, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, was allegedly forced out after he was accused of political bias in his handling of probes involving President Biden’s son, sources told the Washington Times on Monday.

The agent was escorted out of the field office by at least two “headquarters-looking types” last Friday, the sources said.”  (Read more: New York Post, 8/29/2022)  (Archive)

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Morrison & Foerster LLC. Not surprising. https://t.co/P8aK6Vtdhp pic.twitter.com/wxFDAwIK5q

— Annie_E (@ds_abp) August 31, 2022

Brandon’s tagged in several entries and has a healthy mini-timeline going.

August 19-28, 2022 - The Pentagon invites multiple Ukrainian Nazis to Disney World; Jon Stewart honors one of the former fascist militants

Tucker Carlson covers my @TheGrayzoneNews report exposing the Pentagon’s invitation of multiple Ukrainian Nazis to Disney World, where comedian Jon Stewart honored a former fascist militant for his “personal example.”

Read the Grayzone investigation here: https://t.co/NWiqV4Yue0 pic.twitter.com/CGMIyTZS5G

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) September 7, 2022

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Defense Department-sponsored “Warrior Games” featured liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarding a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion at Disney World. The Pentagon refused to tell The Grayzone whether US taxpayers funded the foreign competitors’ travel.

This August, during the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida this August 19-28, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”

Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun.

(Read more: The Grayzone, 8/31/2022)  (Archive)

August 28, 2022 - Mary McCord is the architect putting lawfare strategy into lawfare ink and action, for the Trump targeting operations

“Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows.  This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for.  For the past five years, Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.

Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required ‘Wood’s file’.  McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump’s National Security Advisor.

Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort.  Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.

It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.

It was Mary McCord who then took up the lead congressional position within the impeachment construct created by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, and it was Mary McCord who then joined the January 6 Committee in the committee fight to obtain President Trump’s white house records.

Mary McCord surfaces today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to outline what her team has currently constructed, including the specific targeting approaches her DOJ-NSD and Lawfare crew have put together.

As noted by McCord, the ‘obstruction of justice’ angle is a repeat of the threat used by the Deep State to keep the criminal conduct of the DOJ-NSD from being exposed.  WATCH:

When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’).  That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important.  It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.

When the Carter Page title-1 search warrant application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin.  Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016).

John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.

♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents.  The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.

♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson.  In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ.  Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.

♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission.  Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint.  It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules.  Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General?  Michael Atkinson.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to?  Mary McCord.

Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment.   As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

♦  During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’) which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith.  Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.

When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.

♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith.  In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome.  Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.

As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.

Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus?  Mary McCord.

♦ SUMMARY:  Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier.  Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn.  Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee.  Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.

You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.  Then, as if on cue to keep the entire corrupt system protected, this happened:

November 4, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)

Mary McCord is the epitome of a person using a position to abuse the power within it.

Former Obama White House Counsel Lisa Monaco is now the Deputy Attorney General.  John Carlin is back inside the DOJ-NSD as the Biden administration continued the Obama administration targeting of President Trump.   Mary McCord returns back inside the House J-6 investigative committee put together to purposefully target Donald J Trump…

Now does the timing of Mary McCord surfacing publicly, immediately after the underlying search warrant used in the raid against Donald Trump, make sense?

McCord is the architect, the actual person putting lawfare strategy into lawfare ink and action, for the Trump targeting operations.” (Conservative Treehouse, 8/28/2022)  (Archive)

August 30, 2022 - DOJ releases staged photo of alleged "top secret" documents from Mar-a-Lago raid

“The Biden Department of Justice lobbed a pre-election grenade at the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump in a midnight filing on Tuesday by attaching a photo of alleged ‘top secret’ documents the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago.

The now-infamous photo is undoubtedly circulating throughout Americans’ email inboxes this morning, flooding social media channels, and is being heralded on the morning television shows. It would not be surprising if Attorney General Merrick Garland already has the photo framed and mounted and hung proudly in his office.

The ‘top secret’ documents photo, labeled ‘Attachment F’ (you can guess what the ‘F’ stands for) is indisputably provocative. The TS/SCI documents are splayed dramatically across the ornate blue carpet with white cover sheets neatly laid on top of them.

The obvious first question many people are asking about this photo is: Why are ‘top secret’ documents that are arguably so sensitive to national security that a court-appointed, independent “special master” should not be privy to them, being spread out for a publicity style photo? The attachment is not sealed, although the Department of Justice has asked for numerous redactions for the search warrant affidavit that purportedly justified the unprecedented raid on the former president.

So, why this photo? Why now? This is precisely the question that legal analyst Jonathan Turley is asking about Attachment F.

“Notably, this filing includes this picture which is being widely distributed,” Turley notes on Twitter.

 “It can, however, leave an obviously misleading impression that secret documents were strewn over the floor when this appears to be the work of the FBI agents. The picture is Attachment F and the textual reference on page 13 simply says ‘Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status’. It is curious that the DOJ would release this particular picture. The point is to state a fact that hardly needs an optical confirmation: the possession of documents with classified cover sheets.”

Thus arises the second question: If this is indeed a staged photo, then why the need for the box on the right-hand side? If you take a closer look, it shows a Time magazine cover that one might interpret as a veiled threat.

Let’s take a look at the actual Time magazine cover, which is from March 4, 2019.

It’s none other than Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential challengers spying on him while he is in the Oval Office. The cover story headline is “Knock, Knock…”

The Time magazine cover that is not-so-subtly displayed in the FBI’s staged photo is yet another sign that the bureau is unable to do its job in a professional and apolitical fashion. This compounds the problem of the apparent political timing of the FBI raid on August 8, which came over eighteen months into the Biden presidency, and despite the documents allegedly being an ‘urgent’ matter of national security.

The Time cover provoked a politicized response from whom we can only assume is the target audience. Business Insider didn’t miss the message.

“A photo released by the Department of Justice showing the documents found during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid has also unveiled a curious discovery — a framed image of an unflattering TIME magazine cover featuring former President Donald Trump,” BI reports.

“The cover, which appeared to be placed in a gold frame, was from a March 4, 2019 edition of the publication,” the report noted. “It showed 15 of Trump’s Democratic challengers at the time — including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — peering into the Oval Office at a nervous-looking Trump who is seated in his chair.”

It may also be the case that the FBI was merely using the photo to leak information to the press.

“The TIME magazine cover, along with Trump’s other personal items commingled with the classified, demonstrates that he was personally handling them,” CNN commentator Asha Rangappa remarked. “Thanks for highlighting key evidence of his guilt!”

New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman also noted the Time magazine cover.

Along with some framed Time Magazine covers https://t.co/fyfoqvdXXH

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 31, 2022

A Bloomberg reporter went further and provided a passage that he thought was relevant.

“Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status,” the filing reads, referring to the photo “of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office.'”

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) August 31, 2022

It is unclear why the DOJ felt it was necessary to attach a staged photograph that is not sealed showing “top secret” documents so sensitive that a “special master” should arguably not be privy to them.(Read more: Becker News, 8/31/2022) (Archive)

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Donald Trump Has Perfect Response to FBI’s ‘Gotcha’ Photo of ‘Top Secret’ Docs Scattered All Over Mar-a-Lago Floor

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Kash Patel also shares his opinion of the photo with Benny Johnson:

September 1, 2022 - A federal judge dismisses Carter Page lawsuit

“A federal judge has dismissed Carter Page’s lawsuit against the FBI and former Director James Comey alleging they improperly surveilled him under a FISA warrant.

The bureau surveilled Page under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in a process during which they concealed exculpatory evidence against him, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found in his 2019 report, per the Washington Examiner.

Judge Dabney Friedrich, in a Thursday ruling, dismissed the suit.

“Page alleges that the individual defendants violated §§ 1809(a) and 1810 both by unlawfully engaging in electronic surveillance and using or disclosing the fruits of that surveillance. … Each defendant claims that Page fails to sufficiently allege that he or she violated the statute,” Friedrich wrote. “The Court finds that the claims are not time-barred but that Page does not state a claim against any of the individual defendants.”

“Some of the defendants, such as Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, allegedly approved, encouraged, and facilitated Page’s investigation and the warrant applications,” the judge continued, adding “Absent from the complaint is any claim that these four defendants participated in drafting or substantively reviewing the faulty applications themselves, let alone that they performed the FISA surveillance and acquired Page’s communications.”

“If proven, these allegations clearly demonstrate wrongdoing… but Page does not allege that any of the individual defendants, including the unknown John Doe defendants and those most responsible for the applications’ critical errors, took part in obtaining the surveillance information, either by setting up the devices or gathering or listening to Page’s communications,” the judge wrote.

“Thus, the Court cannot plausibly infer from this complaint that any of the individual defendants, known or unknown, ‘engaged in electronic surveillance,’ in violation of §§ 1809(a) and 1810.,” Friedrich wrote.” (JusttheNews, 9/1/2022)  (Archive)

September-October 2022: Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs takes $400,000 in apparent bribe for state contracts

Full Text:

Pay-To-Play Scandal Involving AZ’s Democrat Governor Unfolding

State contractor donated $400,000 to Gov. Katie Hobbs and AZ Democrats, and got millions more in state money

DCS over the course of the past year approved what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day, meaning potentially millions of dollars more going to the company at taxpayers’ expense.

No other standard group home provider — there are dozens — was approved for any rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure.

After initial rejection, Sunshine’s rate increase comes after political donation. Sunshine Residential Homes in December 2022 sought a 20% rate increase, to $179 per day. DCS denied it on Feb. 6, 2023, according to records provided by the department.

Three days later, Sunshine donated $100,000 to a dark-money fund Hobbs’ campaign created…

Only recently did the company begin contributing to political campaigns in Arizona.

Two six-figure donations from Sunshine to the Arizona Democratic Party were reported when Hobbs was running for governor, totaling $200,000 in September and October 2022.

[Sunshine’s CEO] and his wife personally donated nearly the maximum amount, $5,000 each, to Hobbs’ campaign.

That’s not all the company would kick in. Another $200,000 was donated after Hobbs’ election, with half of that going directly to Hobbs’ inauguration fund through her dark money group.

[Sunshine’s Director of Programs] worked for DCS for a decade before joining Sunshine in 2022, according to his resume. Saifi donated $5,000 to Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign the same day his boss did, state records show.

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*The above are excerpts from an Arizona Republic article by Stacey Barchenger. Emphasis added.

Via Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman:

Full article about Katie Hobbs’ pay-to-play corruption here:https://t.co/w6ZaveYn6g

— Jake Hoffman (@JakeHoffmanAZ) June 5, 2024

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Full Article – AZCentral, 6/5/2024

Arizona’s child welfare agency has for years sought to move vulnerable kids out of group homes and into family-like settings.

To reduce the use of group homes, and combined with budget constraints, the Arizona Department of Child Safety has denied pay increases to home operators and cut loose 16 providers during the contract renewal process.

Yet even as the state cuts back, one group home provider with close ties to Gov. Katie Hobbs has benefited beyond all others.

DCS over the course of the past year approved what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day, meaning potentially millions of dollars more going to the company at taxpayers’ expense.

No other standard group home provider — there are dozens — was approved for a rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure. None is paid as much per day per child as Sunshine, according to DCS and state contract records reviewed by The Arizona Republic.

The private company has made the case for more money, citing financial hardships amid the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation.

Meanwhile, it also has undertaken a new six-figure spending campaign benefiting Hobbs and Democratic politics in Arizona.

The company’s CEO, Simon Kottoor, was on Hobbs’ inaugural committee, and the governor praised the organization on the campaign trail. As DCS was redoing its contracts with group homes, Hobbs and her husband attended a private event at what appears to be the Paradise Valley mansion of Sunshine’s CEO.

The small gathering was to recognize the organization’s work, according to two news organizations that documented the event last month.

September 1, 2022 - Judge to unseal more detailed list of materials seized at Mar-a-Lago

“A federal judge said she would make public a more detailed list of the items the FBI took during its search last month of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, opening the prospect of a much fuller picture of what documents might be among the classified material seized.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision came during a hearing Thursday over whether to appoint an outside party to review the materials now in the Justice Department’s hands to determine whether issues of executive and lawyer-client privilege put some of it out of bounds to investigators.

After hearing arguments from both sides, she said she would issue a written order in due course on Mr. Trump’s request for that third-party review.

Attorneys for Mr. Trump argued that the federal government’s handling of the investigation had damaged public confidence in the probe’s integrity and transparency. They said the appointment of a special master to review documents would help put issues raised by the case in proper context.

“We need respectfully to lower the temperature on both sides,” said Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general with ties to the GOP who was added this week to the former president’s legal team.

Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s lead attorney on the case, said Mr. Trump wasn’t entitled to the appointment of a special master because the classified and presidential records seized didn’t belong to him, but rather to the U.S.

“He is no longer the president,” said Mr. Bratt, chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section. “And because he is no longer the president, he had no right to take those documents.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 9/1/2022)  (Archive)

September 2, 2022 - Lee Smith: Why Did the FBI Raid Mar-a-Lago?

Trump’s ‘stash of nuclear secrets’ is this summer’s Kremlin collusion conspiracy. But the latest chapter of Russiagate may end with a bang.

“The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago feels like peak Russiagate. There’s the synchronized press hysteria, moving from one absurd end-of-America “bombshell” to the next, accompanied by dark intonations regarding secrets about to be revealed and blustering accusations of high treason. Donald Trump was said to be hoarding “nuclear documents,” which he planned to peddle for billions to the Saudis. Who’s buying the map of Fort Knox? Does Trump have access to Colonel Sanders’ secret fried chicken recipe, too?

It’s no laughing matter to the American press, or for the partisan operatives and national security bureaucrats who feed them their cues. For them, the Mar-a-Lago raid is Russiagate II: The Palm Beach Papers.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ proposed damage assessment of the documents is a remake of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment which claimed, without evidence, that Vladimir Putin wanted to put Trump in the Oval Office. The extensive redactions on the affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to raid Trump’s home are akin to the excessive redactions on the application that the FBI showed a secret court in 2016 to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What was true for the original Russiagate holds here, too: The redactions are designed to hide not state secrets, but government corruption.

The Mar-a-Lago raid feels like Russiagate because, well, it is Russiagate: a conspiracy theory weaponized by the country’s courtier class to serve the interests of a delirious and deracinated oligarchy, spawning daily prophesies of doom fed by an endless supply of national security “leaks” asserting that the former commander-in-chief really was and is a secret Russian agent. And proof of the president’s treachery, chant the priestly keepers of the “collusion” mysteries, will soon be revealed to the public. It is their blanket justification for every past crime and every new banana republic-style abuse of power, accompanied by a drumbeat of ever more outlandish and violent threats.

It is in this context that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago should be understood: Government records and reports from political and media operatives and bureaucrats who previously starred in Russiagate I give evidence that the FBI raided Trump’s home to seize documents exposing the crimes that the FBI and Justice Department have been committing since 2016. The fact that Russiagate shows no signs of ending anytime soon is bad news for the republic, betrayed from within by a performative elite whose ability to project power outside its gilded bubble requires a steady supply of paranoia, fear, and hysteria.

The story of the Mar-a-Lago raid begins at the end of Trump’s presidency when he declassified documents related to Russiagate. Those records contain evidence of how the FBI spied on Trump’s campaign, presidential transition team, and administration. The documents reportedly include transcripts of FBI intercepts of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to collect the electronic communications of Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, and reports regarding Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the two main confidential human sources used by the FBI to spy on Trump’s circle.

Kash Patel, who served in a variety of Pentagon roles and as a principal deputy in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, has said that 60% of the documents related to Russiagate are already in public view. As lead investigator for the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of the FBI’s illegal investigation of the Trump campaign, Patel helped get vital Russiagate records declassified. When Trump named Patel to the ODNI post, he and acting Director Richard Grenell put more Russiagate documents before the U.S. public in 2020. Patel has told the press that what Trump declassified on Jan. 19, 2021, constitutes the remainder of the Russiagate records—which is what the FBI was apparently after.

So, are the Russiagate documents secret? With hours left in Trump’s presidency, the DOJ raised “privacy concerns” about Trump’s declassification, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows agreed to submit the documents for a final review. “I am returning the bulk of the binder of declassified documents to the Department of Justice,” Meadows wrote in a memo, “with the instruction that the Department must expeditiously conduct a Privacy Act review under the standards that the Department of Justice would normally apply, redact material appropriately, and release the remaining material with redactions applied.”

The problem, however, is that Biden’s DOJ, which was tasked with conducting that review, is staffed with key operatives who targeted Trump starting in 2016, like Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. As Barack Obama’s Homeland Security adviser, Monaco met in the White House with Haines, then deputy national security adviser (and former deputy CIA director), and National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who is now director of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, to push the Trump-Russia narrative. As far as Monaco and her confederates were concerned, once Meadows turned over the declassified documents, the national security establishment was in the clear: The documents would never be seen again.” (Read more: Tablet Mag, 9/2/2022)  (Archive)

September 5, 2022 - Court order reveals Joe Biden ordered the Mar-a-Lago raid; Weissmann in a tizzy over Special Master review order

“As requested by the incumbent president” pic.twitter.com/aDhicuYwiz

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) September 5, 2022

Jean Pierre insisted that the President was not briefed on the raid.

AP’s @ZekeJMiller: “The FBI…served a search warrant on the [Trump’]s residence…Was [he] or anyone at the WH aware of that…or has [he] been briefed in the aftermath of that…being executed?”

KJP: “No. The President was not briefed…No one at the WH was given a heads up.” pic.twitter.com/jbk4jwRQhX

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 9, 2022

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Earlier today, Judge Aileen Cannon granted President Trump’s request for a Special Master review of the material confiscated by the Biden DOJ during their raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago.

Judge Cannon also ‘temporarily enjoins’ or forbids the Biden regime from ‘reviewing and using the seized materials’ pending the completion of the review.

The Gateway Pundit posted the judge’s decision earlier today. (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 9/5/2022) (Archive)

Judge Cannon takes the government to task in her order:

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Andrew Weissman, the former Justice official who ran the Mueller special counsel and is now a contributor on the fake news channels, suffered a meltdown following the decision.

Sal Greco, a politically persecuted and fired NYPD officer, responded to Weissman’s temper tantrum.

Via Sal Greco.

After violating the civil rights of mob victims, the Enron defendants ( who’s convictions were overturned because of his misconduct ) and Paul Manafort; Andrew Weissmann ranting about “ the rule of law “ is a joke.

Andrew Weismann is in a lavender rage because an honest and courageous judge has delayed the politicized DOJ effort to destroy @realDonaldTrump while holding him to a different standard then Barrack Obama.

For the second time in his legal career, Andrew Weismann comes across a judge that actually respects the rule of law. The last time was the when his Enron convictions were overturned for his prosecutorial misconduct.

Here are a few of the Twitter rants by Andrew Weissmann:

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 9/5/2022) (Archive)

September 7, 2022 - Turley: Hillary Clinton plays the victim — but her history of avoiding criminal charges shows she’s anything but

“I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails. . .”: Hillary Clinton’s disbelief this week was shared by many critics left dumbfounded by her claim her private server contained “zero” classified documents. The expression of utter incredulity was classic Clinton — she’s selling hats reading “But her emails” for $30 a pop.

But Hillary’s denial of what was found on her server exposes something far more serious than signature hypocrisy. It reflects establishment figures’ sense of license that they can literally rewrite history with little fear of contradiction by the media.

While calling for limits on free speech over “disinformation,” Hillary has no qualms about falsely denying what published government reports detail.

“As Trump’s problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again. There’s even a ‘Clinton Standard.’ The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified,” her but-my-emails tweet continued. “Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails. Trump’s own State Department, under two different Secretaries, found I had no classified emails.”

Virtually everything about that claim is breathtakingly untrue.

Let’s quickly deal with the light lifting before getting back to the “Clinton Standard.”

“Zero emails” were “classified.”

A  Department of Justice inspector general report revealed “81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails” were “classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels at the time.” Clinton is echoing her allies’ recent spin that there were only three documents with classification markings among 33,000 emails. It is utter nonsense.

The Clinton email scandal is a scandal because these were emails. There is no classification automatically stamped on text being typed out and sent within minutes. While attachments can have classification markings, the whole point of using secure servers is that emails are created in the moment with inevitable slips in referencing classified material.

Nevertheless, the emails had classified information, including top-secret information tied to “Special Access Programs.” Yet some allies emphasize the inspector general also noted that in some cases there was “conscious effort to avoid sending classified information, by writing around the most sensitive material.” It failed. The emails still contained classified information.

That’s why she was reckless to use her own server: Such mistakes on private servers are more vulnerable to capture by foreign intelligence services. Indeed, according to the FBI, “hostile actors gained access” to some of the information through the emails of Clinton’s associates and aides. (Read more: New York Post, 9/7/2022)  (Archive)

September 7, 2022 - Hillary and Chelsea appear on The View and discuss the seized documents from Mar-a-Lago raid

 

September 8, 2022 - Trump v Clinton lawsuit is dismissed - A different take

“Recently a Florida judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by President Trump against Hillary Clinton. [65-page ruling HERE]  The media have enjoyed ridiculing Trump by using the words of the judge who dismissed the case.  As noted by the Washington Times, “Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a Clinton appointee, said Mr. Trump’s filing was too lengthy, detailing events that “are implausible because they lack any specific allegations which might provide factual support for the conclusions reached.”

(…) In March 2022 President Trump filed a civil lawsuit against: Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe. [108-Page Lawsuit Here]

When I was about one-third of the way through reading the lawsuit, I initially stopped and said to myself this is going to take a lot of documentary evidence to back up the claims in the assertions.  Dozens of attachments would be needed and hundreds of citations to the dozens of attachments would be mandatory.  Except, they were not there.

After reading further, while completely understanding the background material that was being described in the filing, I realized this wasn’t a lawsuit per se’.  The 108-pages I was holding in my hands were more akin to a legal transfer mechanism from President Trump to lawyers who needed it.  The filing was contingent upon a series of documents that would be needed to support the claims within it.

Whoever wrote the lawsuit had obviously reviewed the evidence to support the filing.  However, the attachments and citations were missing. That was weird.  That’s when I realized the purpose of the lawsuit.  In hindsight, things became clear when the DOJ-NSD raided the home of Donald Trump, and suddenly the motive to confiscate the documents that would be the missing lawsuit attachments and citations surfaced.

With the manipulative, and I say intentional, “ongoing investigation” angle of the John Durham probe essentially blocking public release of declassified documents showing the efforts of all the lawsuit participants (Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax), President Trump needed a legal way to secure and more importantly share the evidence.

Think of it like the people around Trump wanting to show lawyers the evidence in the documents.  However, because of the construct of the lawfare being deployed against Trump, any lawyer would need a *reason* to review the evidence.   The Trump -v- Clinton et al lawsuit becomes that ‘reason.’

The “documents” (classified or not) are reviewed by lawyers in preparation for the lawsuit.  This is their legal justification for reviewing the documents.  In essence, the lawsuit is a transfer mechanism permitting the Trump legal team to review the evidence on behalf of their client, former President Donald Trump.

Once the formation of the lawsuit is established, the retainer and acceptance of the lawyers to represent their client cemented, the legal counsel, discussion and information within legal duties/obligations of those who represent the plaintiff (Trump) becomes an information silo.  In addition to previous executive privilege established by President Trump himself; outside government there is now another silo to defend against the motives of the Lawfare crew (DOJ), the attorney-client privilege.

The lawsuit itself is the transfer mechanism permitting sharing of the documents and providing legal cover for the reviewers (lawyers).  The details within the 108-page filing constitute the claims of the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which were established by the evidentiary documents later seized by the DOJ and FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/11/2022)  (Archive)

September 8, 2022 - Some revelations about the content of the documents seized during Mar-a-Lago raid

“Huge revelations pertaining to the content of the documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago. Trump made some comments to Newsmax and today Devin Nunes is saying he thinks that the docs are about Russiagate.

In a report today from Newsmax, Trump claims he kept them under Executive Privilege, to PROTECT THEM FROM BEING DESTROYED BY THE DEEP STATE.

“I think they thought it was something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,”

Initially, I found this peculiar, because Trump himself confirmed some of the docs were pertaining to the Iran Deal last week when he retruthed this post from Paul Sperry.

 

But based on Trump’s most recent comments to Newsmax, the docs are about essentially EVERYTHING! Trump said that the documents in question “expose a Deep State plot” against him. Which is the reason he Declassified them, and took the docs for protection. There are reportedly “11 sets of documents” the FBI were interested in.

So what are the docs about? All of the docs about Deep State’s crimes that Trump was concerned they might destroy. That could cover a wide variety of subjects. Thus far, we know some of the docs to pertain to the Iran Deal and Russiagate/Crossfire Hurricane, but what other crimes is Trump aware of that he might want to prevent the Deep State from destroying? Uranium One? Libya? Haiti? Benghazi? 9/11? JFK Assassination?

Whatever else is in those docs, Trump is insinuating the FBI is looking to retrieve them to prevent him from showing it to the American People.

“They were afraid that things were in there — part of their scam material.”

(…) While the Left think they are closing in, Trump just confirmed the boomerang is in effect. The docs don’t implicate him, they implicate the enemy in all of their most heinous crimes, and Trump wants them public.” (Read more: Clandestine/Substack, 9/8/2022)  (Archive)

September 13, 2022 - The possible reasons why the FBI made Danchenko a Confidential Human Source (CHS) after knowing he lied about the dossier

The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)

That developed into the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.

Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump.

Danchenko being a CHS also served another purpose: it protected the Bureau and the Mueller Special Counsel from revealing their “sources and methods.” How do you hide misconduct? Bury the witness.

The Motion in Limine

When the Steele Reports were released, the media picked up on the most salacious rumors, one that was utterly unbelievable: that Russian intelligence had a video of Trump involved with prostitutes at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Also known as the “pee tape.”

The allegation came from Danchenko, who attributed it to his sources – one from the Ritz-Carlton, and another being Sergei Millian. Durham will refute it, as it expects to call at trial “Bernd Kuhlen,” the then-general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, who will deny speaking with or ever meeting Danchenko “in June 2016, or at any time.”

What is Durham’s theory on Danchenko’s motive for lying about the Ritz-Carlton allegations? Because it reflects “a deliberate effort to conceal from the FBI Charles Dolan’s role as a source for the Steele Reports and to deceive the FBI regarding Millian’s role (or lack thereof).”

In support of the theory that Danchenko engaged in an “over-arching ‘plan’ to deceive the FBI” about his work for Orbis (the company that collected the information contained in the Steele Reports), Durham also plans to introduce:

Evidence that Danchenko “on multiple occasions communicated and emailed with, among others, Charles Dolan regarding his work for Steele and Orbis.”

“Evidence that proves Dolan was aware of [Danchenko’s] reporting was part of a ‘related project against Trump’ and that this work was being done on behalf of Steele and Orbis.”

(Techno Fog/Substack, 9/133/2022)  (Archive)

September 13, 2022 - Durham: Danchenko was on FBI payroll as a Confidential Human Source (CHS)

“Today, Special Counsel John Durham moved to unseal this motion in limine in the false statements case against Igor Danchenko.

This motion provides new information on the details of Danchenko’s lies to the FBI, further information on how Special Counsel Mueller ignored Danchenko’s false statements, expected testimony from Clinton-connected executive Charles Dolan, and one crazy development.

But we’ll start with the most damning development: Danchenko was on the FBI payroll as a confidential human source (CHS) from March 2017 through October 2020.

The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued with problems from the outset. The reasons for opening the investigation were bunk. Those problems continued as the investigation went on, with claims of Trump/Russia collusion proven unverified or outright false. (Thus the targeting of Flynn for a Logan Act violation.)

Those problems continued with the Carter Page FISA applications, first submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in October 2016, and which relied substantially on the Steele Dossiers (aka Steele Reports). The FISA applications were renewed three times – more on that later. Each application had its own problems, from FBI lawyers lying about Carter Page to the Court being generally misled.

Realizing its own misconduct, the FBI made Danchenko a paid CHS in March 2017 – just before the third FISA warrant was submitted in April 2017. This would allow Comey’s FBI to work directly with Danchenko in support of its counter-intelligence investigation against President Trump. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 9/13/2022)  (Archive)

September 13, 2022 - Durham: The court should admit evidence of the FBI's prior counterintelligence investigation of Danchenko for possibly being a Russian spy

Clippings from pages 30-32/Durham Motion in Limine, 9/13/2022