Featured Timeline Entries
December 20, 2022 -Biden aides find another batch of classified documents at separate location

“Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Since November, after the discovery of documents with classified markings in his former office, Biden aides have been searching for any additional classified materials that might be in other locations he used, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the ongoing inquiry.

Joe Biden (Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty)

The White House did not reply to a request for comment. The Justice Department had no comment.

The initial discovery of classified documents in an office used by Biden after his vice presidency was first reported on Monday by CBS News.

The classification level, number and precise location of the additional documents was not immediately clear. It also was not immediately clear when the additional documents were discovered and if the search for any other classified materials Biden may have from the Obama administration is complete.

Biden aides have been sifting through documents stored at locations beyond his former Washington office to determine if there are any other classified documents that need to be turned over to the National Archives and reviewed by the Justice Department, the person familiar with the matter said.” (Read more: NBC News, 1/11/2023)  (Archive)

“The initial statement issued by White House attorney Richard Sauber on Monday to address the CBS News report on classified documents being discovered at the Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022, failed to disclose that additional classified documents were found at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home on December 20 by Biden’s personal attorneys. It was not until Thursday morning that Sauber announced that a second set of classified documents were found in Biden’s garage and was confirmed by Biden in a contentious colloquy with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.”

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 1/12/2023) (Archive)

Merrick Garland Appoints Robert Hur as Special Counsel to Investigate Joe Biden’s Handling of Classified Documents 1/12/2023

December 26, 2022 - Former FBI agent offers perspective on the DOJ/FBI efforts to derail Nunes investigation into Russiagate hoaxes

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, along with Rep. Peter King and Rep. Ron DeSantis, speaks on Capitol Hill, October 24, 2017. (Credit: Susan Walsh/AP)

“My post yesterday regarding the DoJ/FBI investigation of two of Devin Nunes’ top lawyers sparked a response from a former FBI agent—as sometimes happens here. You’ll recall that the investigation in question was a full criminal investigation that featured the use of grand jury subpoenas to obtain personal information regarding the two staffers (including Kash Patel) who were involved in Nunes’ investigation of Russia Hoax abuses—especially the fraudulent FISA applications that were submitted against Carter Page. Because of various procedural irregularities it’s apparent—failure to notify Nunes—there seems little doubt that the purpose of the investigations was to obtain personal information that could be used to pressure Nunes into backing off from his investigation. In fact, DAG Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray had threatened to launch exactly such investigations in a meeting with Nunes and Kash Patel—unless Nunes backed off.

Needless to say, investigations launched for such a purpose are totally lacking in predication—they lack a legitimate government legal purpose, since conducting legislative oversight investigations is not a violation of federal law (!). I harp on this matter of predication because, to me—and I think objectively, the abuse of the investigative/prosecutorial process for political purposes is perhaps the ultimate and most serious form of corruption. It undermines the justice system and the very concept of rule of law rather than rule of men—the basis of our constitutional order. As I noted at that time, it is clear that such considerations play no part at all in the decisions of men like Rosenstein and Wray—and far too many more. These are real and serious violations of the law, which go unpunished.

Here is the email (slightly edited to preserve anonymity) that I received last night. Readers will readily imagine that the sentiments expressed are widely held among former and active FBI personnel. Bear in mind that, while these abuses are receiving widespread publicity, most FBI agents are not involved and are ashamed to be associated with the activities that are being exposed.

     Having been required to read and comprehend the Domestic Investigative Operations Guide (“DIOG”) when it came out and being a Bureau legal advisor which required that I speak DIOG fluently, I think we are collectively making a mistake to think that anyone at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Bureau cares one whit about predication.  No DOJ or Bureau employee has ever punished for violating the DIOG or federal criminal statutes.  As a result, when the DOJ and Bureau can claim the mantle of “national security” and effectively and easily thwart any attempts at Congressional oversight, what does it matter if the investigation of Nunes and his staffers was properly predicated?  I am asking rhetorically.  I understand that the DOJ and Bureau violated the DIOG/law/Constitutional requirements and should be held accountable.  But when no one can hold the DOJ or Bureau to account for such violations, why even bother with the charade of seeking predication?  I read the Electronic Communication (“EC”; after it was publicly released) that opened the investigation into general Flynn.  It was a complete joke.  All it alleged was that Flynn met with some Russians and did some overseas travel.   There was nothing within the four corners of that document that would have been the proper basis of any predication of the investigation (as a side note, had any agent brought such a piece of garbage to me to review as a legal advisor, I would have laughed them out of my office and then had a serious discussion with said agent’s supervisor about that agent’s fitness for duty, but I digress).  Yet the investigation proceeded, Flynn was indicted, arrested and prosecuted with no proper predication.  What is/was to stop the DOJ and Bureau from just opening an investigation on Nunes or anyone else for that matter and ignoring the need to abide by “the rules”?  I respectfully submit, not a damn thing.

Every crime victim I ever interviewed all shared the same sentiment:  “I didn’t think it (crime) could happen to me.”  The point is that it appears that many of the machinations by the DOJ and Bureau are completely lawless with no basis in legally comprehensible evidence of criminal violations. I think the sooner we all collectively realize “That it can happen here/to us” the better we will be able to address this issue.  Please don’t take this as a criticism of you and your work, it’s just an observation made by a retired agent.

All of which brings me to a serious question:  What concrete things can we do to:  A) Address the current issues facing our Republic (DOJ/Bureau overreach, profligate spending, creeping government sponsored surveillance state, potential nuclear war, and…?)  and B)How do we fix our society at a very basic level to create wise citizens who can keep our Republic in good order?  I am pretty much done reading the latest “outrage” in the conservative press.  I understand that things are a mess.  My overarching question to complainers/commentators/politicians is: “What are you going to do about it?”  I have steadily volunteered to assist the Republican party over the last two years to little or no avail.  I am redirecting my efforts and concentrating on assisting local legislators address local issues where I may have some small amount of control.

Anyway, deep thoughts on a rainy, cold afternoon.  I am going to throw another log on the fire.  Thanks for listening to my rant.  I fervently wish that you and yours have a peaceful, prosperous and boring New Year!

My response:

I’m totally on board with you. I would simply add–and I’m not making excuses for the Bureau–that too few people understand how much of this is driven by DoJ. Especially given that so many of the HQ legal people are joined at the hip with DoJ, either mentally from prior education or because they have prior work experience there. I refuse to believe that DoJ wasn’t in on the Twitter (and other) censorship. The Bureau gets the headlines, the talk of a new Church Commission, but DoJ is arguably the biggest threat to the nation.

And the response to my response:

As to the DoJ, there is absolutely no way any of this “stuff” happened without their full knowledge and support.

The long and the short of it is that the country has been hijacked by a ruling class that is working for its own benefit. (Read more: Mark Wauck/Substack, 12/29/2022)(Archive) (Original article: The Epoch Times, 12/27/2202)  (Archive)

December 31, 2022 - Whitney Webb exposes the deep corruption and cover up at the heart of the western power structure

Journalist Whitney Webb sits down with Redacted’s Clayton Morris for a dense conversation about her bombshell new book on Jeffrey Epstein’s deep connections to the world’s biggest power players.

 

January 3, 2023 - Twitter Files: Twitter and the "FBI Belly Button" - FBI's Elvis Chan: “We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies”

January 3, 2023 - Twitter Files: Former House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry

 

Paul Sperry responds 1/04/2023:

January 4, 2023 - Twitter Files: Twitter is pressured by Intel Community (including Senate Intel, Mark Warner)

“Matt Taibbi has a new substack out on the Twitter Files. This one concentrates on how Twitter found itself under political pressure from the Deep State to, in essence, lend support to the Russia Hoax. This, as usual, was an evidence free operation. Twitter looked but couldn’t find evidence of Russian “meddling”. Twitter execs said so to one another, but buckled to Deep State pressure. Overall, what we’re seeing from the Twitter File revelations is that the anti-Trump campaign was the biggest gaslighting of the public population ever witnessed since lower tech operations by the likes Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. It was all done with the appearance of an open society, but nothing could have been further from the truth. And it happened under a Republican administration. This will all be red meat for Sundance, as you’ll see the central role of Mark Warner and the Senate Intel Committee. Nevertheless, you can be sure that political masters higher up the food chain were directing all of this.

What I’ve done here is simply pasted in the text of Taibbi’s tweets—sans documentation, which you can find at the link.

1.THREAD: The Twitter Files

How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In

2.In August 2017, when Facebook decided to suspend 300 accounts with “suspected Russian origin,” Twitter wasn’t worried. Its leaders were sure they didn’t have a Russia problem.

3.“We did not see a big correlation.”

“No larger patterns.”

“FB may take action on hundreds of accounts, and we may take action on ~25.”

4.“KEEP THE FOCUS ON FB”: Twitter was so sure they had no Russia problem, execs agreed the best PR strategy was to say nothing on record, and quietly hurl reporters at Facebook:

5.“Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB,” wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowell:

6.In September, 2017, after a cursory review, Twitter informed the Senate it suspended 22 possible Russian accounts, and 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts, amid a larger set of roughly 2700 suspects manually examined.

Note the “possible”. That suggests that Twitter believed it best to offer up some meager results, whether there was real evidence or not.

7.Receiving these meager results, a furious Senator Mark Warner of Virginia – ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee – held an immediate press conference to denounce Twitter’s report as “frankly inadequate on every level.”

8.“#Irony,” mused Crowell the day after Warner’s presser, after receiving an e-circular from Warner’s re-election campaign, asking for “$5 or whatever you can spare.”

“LOL,” replied General Counsel Sean Edgett.

9.“KEEP PRODUCING MATERIAL” After meeting with congressional leaders, Crowell wrote: “Warner has political incentive to keep this issue at top of the news, maintain pressure on us and rest of industry to keep producing material for them.”

So, Twitter execs weren’t stupid. They knew exactly what this was about—politics. Evidence free political gaslighting, but of the entire country.

10.“TAKING THEIR CUES FROM HILLARY CLINTON” Crowell added Dems were taking cues from Hillary Clinton, who that week said: “It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.”

11. In growing anxiety over its PR problems, Twitter formed a “Russia Task Force” to proactively self-investigate.

So joining the gaslighting party had nothing to do with evidence—it was to handle a “PR problem”, which was really a problem with the political masters who regulated, or might regulate, their platform.

12.The “Russia Task Force” started mainly with data shared from counterparts at Facebook, centered around accounts supposedly tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). But the search for Russian perfidy was a dud:

Despite their best gaslighting intentions, there just wasn’t anything that could be plausibly called evidence.

13. OCT 13 2017: “No evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity (different timing, spend, targeting, <$10k in ad spend).”

14.OCT 18 2017: “First round of RU investigation… 15 high risk accounts, 3 of which have connections with Russia, although 2 are RT.”

What to do? Cast the net more widely! But—still no fish in the net.

15.OCT 20 2017: “Built new version of the model that is lower precision but higher recall which allows to catch more items. We aren’t seeing substantially more suspicious accounts. We expect to find ~20 with a small amount of spend.”

16.OCT 23 2017: “Finished with investigation… 2500 full manual account reviews, we think this is exhaustive… 32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia, only 2 of those have significant spend one of which is Russia Today…remaining <$10k in spend.”

Basically, a total bust. But that was good enough to generate MSM headlines to gaslight the populace and spread Russia hysteria.

17.Twitter’s search finding “only 2” significant accounts, “one of which is Russia Today,” was based on the same data that later inspired panic headlines like “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone”:

18.The failure of the “Russia task force” to produce “material” worsened the company’s PR crisis.

That sure has a Stalinesque show trial ring to it, doesn’t it? If you can’t prove guilt, you may be the guilty party! You may be a “wrecker”, a saboteur, … a, a, AGENT OF PUTIN!

19.In the weeks after Warner’s presser, a torrent of stories sourced to the Intel Committee poured into the news, an example being Politico’s October 13, “Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes.”

20.“Were Twitter a contractor for the FSB… they could not have built a more effective disinformation platform,” Johns Hopkins Professor (and Intel Committee “expert”) Thomas Rid told Politico.

21.As congress threatened costly legislation, and Twitter [again] was subject to more bad press fueled by the committees, the company changed its tune about the smallness of its Russia problem.

Fake confession time.

22.“Hi guys.. Just passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that may affect our political advertising,” wrote Crowell.

23. In Washington weeks after the first briefing, Twitter leaders were told by Senate staff that “Sen Warner feels like tech industry was in denial for months.” Added an Intel staffer: “Big interest in Politico article about deleted accounts.”

24.Twitter “pledged to work with them on their desire to legislate”:

25.“Knowing that our ads policy and product changes are an effort to anticipate congressional oversight, I wanted to share some relevant highlights of the legislation Senators Warner, Klobuchar and McCain will be introducing,” wrote Policy Director Carlos Monje soon after.

It’s bipartisan.

26.“THE COMMITTEES APPEAR TO HAVE LEAKED” Even as Twitter prepared to change its ads policy and remove RT and Sputnik to placate Washington, congress turned the heat up more, apparently leaking the larger, base list of 2700 accounts.

27.Reporters from all over started to call Twitter about Russia links. Buzzfeed, working with the University of Sheffield, claimed to find a “new network” on Twitter that had “close connections to… Russian-linked bot accounts.”

28.“IT WILL ONLY EMBOLDEN THEM.” Twitter internally did not want to endorse the Buzzfeed/Sheffield findings:

29. “SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE IS ASKING… POSSIBLE TO WHIP SOMETHING TOGETHER?” Still, when the Buzzfeed piece came out, the Senate asked for “a write up of what happened.” Twitter was soon apologizing for the same accounts they’d initially told the Senate were not a problem.

30.“REPORTERS NOW KNOW THIS IS A MODEL THAT WORKS”

This cycle – threatened legislation, wedded to scare headlines pushed by congressional/intel sources, followed by Twitter caving to moderation asks – would later be formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement.

The desired result has been achieved—Twitter is transformed into the PR gaslighting arm of the Intel Committee, censoring information that might lead the public to become suspicious of what its masters were up to.

31.Twitter soon settled on its future posture.

In public, it removed content “at our sole discretion.”

Privately, they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”

32.Twitter let the “USIC” into its moderation process. It would not leave.

Wrote Crowell, in an email to the company’s leaders:

“We will not be reverting to the status quo.”

(Meaning In History/Substack, 1/4/2023)  (Archive) (Taibbi thread)

January 6, 2023 - Louisiana AG lawsuit reveals Biden regime pressured Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson and targeting of Robert Kennedy, Jr.

(…) On Friday, January 6, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry released communications between Joe Biden’s Director of Digital Strategy, Joe Flaherty, pressuring Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson of FOX News.

Joe Flaherty demands to know what “reduction” of the information looks like on Facebook. The White House is very upset that the FOX News host is questioning the dangerous experimental vaccine.

Jeff Landry also released a Facebook document telling the White House how to censor Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense Fund. (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 1/7/2023) (Archive)

More on Rob Flaherty,  White House Director of Digital Strategy:

(…) This guy is middle management incarnate. Flaherty’s cartoonishly disrespectful language as he barks orders at various tech employees — who without fail respond with a “Thanks Rob” — has made me laugh aloud several times. I wanted to learn more about this perfect caricature of modern-day fascism. A bit about his background…

Rob Flaherty (Credit: Ithaca College News)

Flaherty got into politics as an undergraduate at Ithaca College. His social media aptitude quickly accelerated his career, landing him a position on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign just two years after graduating.

Screenshot of Flaherty post on Medium.

His thoughts on Hillary from an old blog post:

“Hillary Clinton went right in. That’s what she does. She’s tough as shit. It’s that toughness that, even in my worst moments in the last few months, has been genuinely inspiring to me. When she’s up against the wall, she grinds it out.”

I’m sure Mark Middleton can attest to that inspiring toughness.

Shortly thereafter, Flaherty became the “Digital Director” for Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 presidential campaign, engineering totally-not-authoritarian fundraising schemes like this one:

Apparently a huge success (note the timestamps compared to Beto’s):

Flaherty’s accolades do not end there. The social media savant was even behind the famous “We did it Joe!” promotional video, which announced Biden’s presidential victory for those who’d missed it. From Ithaca College News:

“One key moment in the campaign for Flaherty was the announcement of Biden’s running mate, then Senator Kamala Harris… had an extensive rollout plan, including a text message announcement, a video of Harris receiving the call from Biden.”

(Read more: Zero Hedge, 1/8/2023)  (Archive)

January 9, 2023 - Twitter Files: Pfizer board member used same Twitter manager as the WH to suppress debate on Covid vaccines

Former FDA Commissioner and present Pfizer board member, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. (Credit: Twitter)

On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers – saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines.

The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine mandates.

It came not from an “anti-vaxxer” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but from Dr. Brett Giroir, a physician who had briefly followed Gottlieb as the head of the Food & Drug Administration. Further, the tweet actually encouraged people who did not have natural immunity to “Get vaccinated!”

No matter.

Todd OBoyle, Sr. Manager, Twitter Public Policy (Credit: LinkedIn)

By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots. Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year.

Gottlieb stepped in, emailing Todd O’Boyle, a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House.

The post was “corrosive,” Gottlieb wrote. He worried it would “end up going viral and driving news coverage.” (Read more: Alex Berenson/Substack, 1/9/2023) (Archive)

January 12, 2023 - Twitter Files: The Fake Tale of Russian Bots - Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence

January 13, 2023 - Court filing: The FBI admits Seth Rich was directly involved in the DNC "hack"

 

Vox.com used the above graphic captured from a Fox News report to use in a published piece titled “The Bonkers Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory, Explained” on May 24, 2017. Now we know it’s no longer a conspiracy theory. (Credit: Fox News)

(Read more: Court Listener PDF (21 pages) , 1/13/2023)  (Archive)

Attorney Ty Clevenger explains further:

January 13, 2023 - Recently questioned Biden assistant Kathy Chung, appears in Biden laptop report 31 times, suggesting multiple felonies

From Marco Polo Biden laptop report:

January 13, 2023 - Twitter Files: More Adam Schiff ban requests and "Deamplification"

January 14, 2023 - Lawsuit: 6 Shocking Revelations of Government Censorship

(Credit: Getty Images/Forbes)

1. CISA considers your thoughts “Cognitive Infrastructure”

One of the most stunning things we’ve learned from this lawsuit is that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency now considers your thoughts and what you post online, a part of the United States Government’s “critical infrastructure,” thereby giving them the authority to regulate them. I don’t think anyone asked everyday Americans if they’d want the government regulating what goes on inside their brains, but alas, here we are.

2. Rob Flaherty coerced Facebook to ban and censor the vaccine injured, despite acknowledging their posts were true and didn’t break the Terms of Service

Rob Flaherty (Credit: public domain)

Rob Flaherty is the White House Director of Digital Strategy and a senior advisor to President Joe Biden. The government initially attempted to hide his involvement in censorship, but other discovery exposed his name, and the judge granted written interrogatory and discovery to the Plaintiffs in this case. As we will see in the examples below, Flaherty often acts as a ”boss” or manager to social media executives, cursing at them and treating them with disdain when they don’t follow his directives to censor the speech of Americans.

In an email response to Flaherty, Facebook beamed about removing post visibility and censoring the vaccine injured, stating:

3. Flaherty wanted Facebook to take more action in censoring the encrypted chat program “WhatsApp”

Rob Flaherty spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Facebook to more stringently censor WhatsApp, despite Facebook telling him they had no way to read the messages its users were sending one another. Facebook added multiple layers of censorship to the app, deboosting posts that were forwarded often and pinning what it called “authoritative” messages about COVID and vaccines to the application.

4. Flaherty wanted to know what Facebook was doing to censor vaccine claims that were “dubious” but not false

Rob Flaherty consistently demanded information about what Facebook was doing to censor content that was not false but that they considered “dubious.” He demanded internal data from the organization to confirm their efforts to censor Americans were working.

5. Joe Biden was inadvertently swept up in the censorship algorithm the White House forced Instagram to implement

In what can only be considered a stroke of serendipity, Joe Biden’s account on Instagram was inadvertently demoted and shadowbanned due to the frequency with which is was posting content about COVID-19 vaccines. Instagram, at the behest of an abusive Rob Flaherty, created an algorithm to demote accounts that were sharing an inordinate amount of vaccine-related content. Flaherty realized that the POTUS account wasn’t picking up followers and emailed execs at the company to let them know. They responded, stating that they couldn’t get into details, but the account had been fixed. After a profanity-laced email sent back from Flaherty, the execs were forced to admit that the very censorship algorithm they created to censor everyday Americans swept up the President as well. Needless to say, the White House didn’t much like being censored.

6. The office of First Lady Jill Biden was also involved in censoring Americans on Twitter

The First Lady also got into censorship action, begging Twitter to remove an edited video of Jill Biden that was clearly a parody. Twitter fought back against the demand but ultimately removed the content after Flaherty became involved and was copied on communications. We wouldn’t have known that censorship extended to the sitting First Lady without the expedited discovery order covering Rob Flaherty.

(Much more including docs: UndercoverDC/TracyBeanz, 1/14/2023)  (Archive)

January 15, 2023 - Andrew McCabe says the DOJ should obstruct the House GOP’s investigation into the Biden document scandal

(…) McCabe said it’s time for the DOJ to play hardball and obstruct Republicans in Congress.

“Chairman Jim Jordan announced this House Judiciary Committee investigation into the DOJ actions related to the President’s handling of the classified documents today,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said on Friday. “How much does that impact the DOJ ongoing investigation?”

McCabe said the DOJ should refuse to cooperate with the House GOP’s investigation and hide documents under the guise of an ‘ongoing investigation.’

“I certainly would advise them — if they were willing to listen to my advice — I would advise them to take a very hard line against that,” McCabe said. “There is a clear precedent here of not sharing information from an ongoing criminal investigation with Congress. And I think the DOJ is in a very strong position to resist on those grounds.”

“Who knows what comes of that resistance?” McCabe continued. “Maybe DOJ leadership starts getting subpoenaed.

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 1/15/2023)  (Archive)

January 19, 2022 - Bankman-Fried’s ties with the Clintons helped him dupe investors

“Disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly paid former President Bill Clinton roughly $250,000 to give a speech at his Crypto Bahamas Conference in April 2022, according to a Thursday report from the New York Post (NYP).

Bankman-Fried’s conference featured Clinton alongside other world leaders and top crypto executives. Not long after, Bill and Hillary Clinton invited Bankman-Fried to speak at the 2022 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in September, the NYP reported.

CGI is a philanthropic conference run by the Clinton Foundation. Bankman-Fried’s headshot is featured on the conference’s website next to other prominent names, such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Melinda French Gates. Bankman-Fried’s name was also included in a press release leading up to CGI.

The Clintons enabled Bankman-Fried to grow his reputation among prominent politicians and investors, the NYP reported. He was reportedly connected to the couple through former Clinton aide Michael Kives, whose venture capital fund, K5 Global, allegedly received a $300 million investment from Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.

“Kives (r), had ties to both the entertainment world and the political one. Prior to spending 15 years at CAA, he worked for former President Bill Clinton and also for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Washington office. In recent years, he has married the two by becoming a player in the Democratic fundraiser scene in Los Angeles and has hosted events at his Hollywood home. Hollywood Reporter, 2/26/2018    (Credit: public domain)

Bankman-Fried was the Democratic party’s seventh largest donor in the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to watchdog group OpenSecrets. He spent north of $37 million for Democrats in primaries and general elections and donated smaller sums to Republican campaigns, OpenSecrets shows.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/19/2023)  (Archive)

(Hollywood Insider and Clinton Ally Could Lose $300 Million in FTX Debacle: Insiders, NYP, 12/1/2022)

January 21, 2023 - Feds search Biden Delaware home and find six more classified documents

“Six more classified documents were found at the Wilmington, Delaware home of Joe Biden on Friday during a nearly thirteen-hour search of the home by the Department of Justice according to a statement released Saturday evening by Biden’s private attorney Bob Bauer. This is the fifth batch of classified documents found in Biden’s possession and the fourth to be found at the Wilmington home in searches stretching from December 20 to Friday. The first batch was found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. on November 2nd. (Update at end.)

Bauer also said, “The DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” and that some of the items taken by investigators were from Biden’s time as a senator as well as vice president.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents on January 12. Hur has not yet taken over the case from U.S. Attorney for Chicago John Lausch; the search was conducted by FBI agents under Lausch.

(The Gateway Pundit, 1/21/2023) (Archive)

January 21, 2023 - Sergei Millian tweets about a “secret sealed SpyGate case” that involves the Renteria Memo

On or about January 21st of this year, Sergei Millian teased a “secret sealed SpyGate case” via a series of now deleted tweets. Shout out to The Washington Pundit Telegram channel for posting this screenshot of it.

Twitter user @mgEyesOpen searched PACER and found it. Sure enough, it exists and is sealed.

I searched the case myself, 21-SC-3164 (ZMF), and it was difficult to find. That is probably on me for being a bit inexperienced and/or lacking some knowledge in how best to use PACER’s query system. I kept at it and did eventually locate the sealed case just as @mgEyesOpen did. However, in my searches for the case that Millian had teased everyone with, I kept getting a return for a different case, with a slightly different name:

20-SC-3361 (ZMF)

I didn’t find much on it, but the Case Title:

‘IN RE APPLICATION OF USA FOR 2703(d) ORDER FOR SIX EMAIL ACCOUNTS SERVICED BY GOOGLE LLC FOR INVESTIGATION OF VIOLATION OF 18 U.S.C….’

…was intriguing to me, so I bookmarked it.

About once or twice a week since, I have checked that bookmark and searched around again. Always coming up empty-handed… until now.

Paydirt.

Paydirt.

The New York Times filed to have records unsealed (notice that the violations that are being investigated here are redacted) in the very case that I kept happening upon when searching for the case that Millian teased. If that makes sense…

Here, just for clarity’s sake:

21-SC-3164 (ZMF) = Super secret Spygate case that Millian teased (Filed ?)

20-SC-3361 (ZMF) = Six Email Accounts Disclosure Case (Filed January 5th, 2021)

1:21-MC-00091 (ZMF) = NYT Case asking for unsealing in the Six Email Accounts Case (Filed June 8th, 2021)

As I began to read the first filing in the Time’s suit, I was struck by a familiar name from page 3.

I’m sure many readers will recall that Special Counsel Durham added Small to his team back on August 1st of 2022. However, it is possible Durham may have been tasking Small to do work for the Special Counsel’s Office before then. And the court battle over this case played out just a couple months before Small was added.

Which begs the question:

Is this Six Google Email Accounts case connected to the Durham SCO?

Back to the filing…

Two orders. One for information, another to gag the NYT’s attorney.

Four New York Times journalists?

What 2017 news report?

(checks the footnote)

Eric Lichtblau… his name came up in the Sussman case. Sussmann’s defense team wanted to call him up to testify, but wished for the scope of that testimony to be limited. In the end, they decided against it.

What April 2017 news report?

I wonder who the other journalists are?

Oh my.

DOJ was seeking information from the email accounts of these four journalists plus two others because of this article!

They are talking about the Renteria Memo!

This is about the highly classified Renteria Memo and who leaked information about it to the New York Times!

Article in that footnote.

Boom.

I wonder… are Karoun Demirjian and Devlin Barrett the other two journalists whose email accounts DoJ was interested in?

Gone Spearfishing.

At this point in the dig I decided to search around to see if anyone else had reported on this case. Something this significant has surely made waves somewhere.

It had.

This article is worth reading in full, but to summarize it…

In the last weeks of the Trump Administration the Justice Department seized the phone records of those New York Times journalists who are named in the filing and are the authors of that famous Comey piece — Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt. They also seized the records of journalists at the Washington Post and CNN. I’m guessing the other two journos must work at those organizations. The order for this seizure was issued by Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, hence the (ZMF) on the case titles.

DOJ also asked for and Judge Faruqui approved an unprecedented gag order on several executives at the Times to prevent them from alerting those journalists of the seizures. They specifically cited a concern that if the journalists knew of the order they may delete records.

There were some constraints on the records seizure. It was for “non-content information,” meaning only the order “covered… to whom the emails were sent and when they were sent and received.”

In early June of 2021, DoJ asked Judge Faruqui to quash the orders and he did, thus allowing the execs at the New York Times to inform the journalists of the seizure and the newspaper to then inform the public.

DoJ also informed the journalists “that it had obtained several months of their 2017 phone records and had unsuccessfully sought non-content information about their emails.” Google fought the production of the “non-content information” and delayed it over and over. Google’s efforts paid off.

Just days before the gag order was lifted, DoJ announced they would change their policy on seizing such records.

The Accidental Discovery.

The case I had accidentally found while searching for the “super secret SpyGate case” was 20-SC-3361 (ZMF) , the Six Email Accounts Disclosure Case (Filed January 5th, 2021).

The case I found that is connected to it, 1:21-MC-00091 (ZMF), is the NYT Case asking for further unsealing in the Six Email Accounts Case. They wanted the Justice Department to unseal the Application for the seizure of records and everything else.

The Times was successful in getting unsealed much, not all but much, of the docket for the case titled APPLICATION OF USA FOR 2703(d) ORDER FOR SIX EMAIL ACCOUNTS SERVICED BY GOOGLE FOR INVESTIGATION OF VIOLATION OF 18 U.S.C. §§ 641 AND 793.

With the full title there, I want to now define the violations being investigated here.

18 U.S. Code § 641 – Public money, property or records

18 U.S. Code § 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

Interesting…

Does this perhaps indicate that someone involved in the Renteria Memo leak sold that classified information?

Drawing the Line From Here to Durham.

I’ve already mentioned that Adam Small was on at least some filings in the case, but there is another connection I want to draw. It’s the “why it matters” now connection.

First though, just in case you don’t recall or did not click the links to read the Times’ Comey article or the WaPo article in this substack, I need to remind you, or perhaps inform you, of what the Renteria Memo is.

During the 2016 primaries, a document was given to the FBI that purported to be “Russian intelligence.” It revealed that there was an “understanding” between the Clinton Campaign and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

This document described an email in which AG Lynch “had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the [investigation into Hillary’s use of a private email server] would not push too deeply into the matter.”

The document is controversial and ultimately the FBI concluded it was unreliable.

However, that document was a major factor in FBI Director Comey deciding to himself announce in July of 2016 the closure of the investigation into Hillary’s Email Server, because, partially based on that document, he did not feel comfortable giving the investigation over to AG Lynch. Comey did not coordinate with the Justice Department when he did this. It was an extraordinary move and a very unpopular one with media, the administration, Democrats and Republicans.

To this day, media and Democrats are FURIOUS with Comey for doing this because in announcing the closure, he retained control of the investigation and then later reopened it 11 days before Election Day 2016. These two acts have media and Dems, likely Clinton as well, convinced that Comey cost Clinton the election.

The email described in the document (a copy of the email is not actually in the document) is between Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was at time the chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Leonard Benardo, an official at the George Soros owned Open Society Foundations. Wasserman Schultz informs Bernado that AG Lynch had privately communicated with Clinton Campaign staffer Amanda Renteria and told her that “she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far”.”

Remember of all of this information, even the very existence of the document, was highly classified AND STILL IS. The Renteria Memo has never been released and the Comey article triggered a criminal referral from “an agency in the intelligence community.”

During testimony on Capitol Hill in December 2018, Comey said in regards to the Renteria memo,

“So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate…”

“[I’ve] tried to be very careful in public comments about this. There was material that had not been verified that I believed if it became public, would be used to cast doubt on whether the Attorney General had acted appropriately with respect to the investigation… I don’t think I’m allowed to go beyond that in characterizing that material.”

So, why does it matter right now, in February of 2023?

This New York Times article from January 26th, 2023 is why.

This hit and spin piece on Barr and the Durham SCO, this smear piece, has one significant, never before revealed, very ‘dasting piece of information in it.

DOJ was investigating the Renteria Memo’s leak and now Durham is investigating the email described in it!

And notice what the Times doesn’t include:

That from June 2021 through December 2021, they were in court fighting the Justice Department over the seizure of the email records of four of their own reporters, THE SAME ONES WHO WROTE THE COMEY ARTICLE! THE ARTICLE THAT INFORMED THE WORLD OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE RENTERIA MEMO!

In the Sussmann case, Durham broke the Clinton Campaign’s attorney client privilege over a number of emails. This exchange from the transcript provided one of the most memorable, and for [them], foreboding exchanges.

“Not for this trial…”

Another possibility worth considering:

Might the issue Comey described with the memo, that the “material was genuine” but it’s accuracy was in question be due the fact that it may have come from a fake Debbie Wasserman Schultz email account like the one Imran Awan created and used?

It’s a darn good question and a strong possibility.

As detailed in this Daily Caller article,

“Wasserman Schultz frantically fought to stop police from looking at the laptop’s hard drive. For more than two months, police had been telling her they suspected him of cybersecurity breaches, including what she called “data transfer violations,” but she maintained that she thought the police were picking on him and wanted to protect his “due process” — even though she knew how serious cyber breaches can be because she was head of the DNC when its emails were released last year.”

The Durham Special Counsel’s Office ran at least two, possibly three, grand juries in 2022 while also putting on two trials.

We now know that one of those grand juries received documents from the Open Society Foundation and an appearance by Leonard Benardo.

I think we can be confident that Durham asked him about the Wasserman Shultz email.

And I think we can be confident that the Justice Department, in seeking the email records of the journalists who revealed the existence and some details of the classified Renteria Memo, are investigating that leak and did not give up on that effort because it was a dead end. Remember, they did seize the records. And look at this section from a filing that is STILL heavily redacted.

There’s a future shock to [their] systems under those black bars.

While taken separately, these seemingly-disparate nuggets of information appear as Small as the man this dig started on, by tying the various threads together, a tapestry begins to appear.

Or a web.

One that could tie the Media Industrial Complex together, and bind them in their own lies. Their complicity.

Keep those Saint Durham candles lit.

I don’t think he’s done quite yet.

(Just Human/Substack, 2/15/2023)  (Archive)

(Re-published in full with permission)

January 21, 2023 - A connection emerges between the Penn Biden Center, hearsay whistleblower, and Trump impeachment hoax

“The Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center, a Biden adviser named Michael Carpenter, now finds himself embroiled in a national controversy that threatens to take down a president. But it isn’t his first time.

Carpenter is implicated in the high-profile scandal since classified documents from Biden’s vice presidency were stored at the Penn Biden Center on his watch. The scandal has led to the quick appointment of a Special Counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

(…) Dr. Carpenter, readers might remember, was flanked to Biden’s right at the Council on Foreign Relations panel in 2018 where Biden infamously announced that he threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine if it did not fire the prosecutor charged with investigating the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

Burisma, of course, just so happened to be employing his son Hunter Biden on its Board of Directors for the hefty stipend of over $80,000 a month. Of course, we are to dismiss the obvious ‘quid pro quo’ implicated in the former vice president’s demands.

Such a ‘quid pro quo’ is a normal part of diplomacy (“sticks and carrots”), but it would become a scare word during the Trump impeachment hoax. If you recall, a “whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella had relayed second-hand information that Trump was attaching aid to Ukraine to assurances from then-president Volodymyr Zelensky that Biden’s demand for the prosecutor be fired get properly investigated.

That was it. The Democrats, desperate to wound and potentially rid the U.S. government of their nemesis Donald Trump, nonetheless launched theatrical impeachment hearings over the matter.

The unnamed star at the center of the impeachment theater was the “whistleblower,” believed by investigators to be pictured with Dr. Michael Carpenter below.

Carpenter, interestingly, is a Biden adviser with expertise on Russia and Ukraine, as well as on weapons trafficking, according to his bio at the Atlantic Council.

It is unknown what is in the classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center and at Joe Biden’s Wilmington Delaware home. However, CNN has reported that the classified documents involved Ukraine.

“Among the classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom,” a source told CNN.

“A total of 10 documents with classification markings were found last year in Biden’s private academic office and they were dated between 2013 and 2016,” the report added.

Joe Biden in 2016 had pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma’s leadership for corruption.

A series of documents from the Obama-Biden administration showed that representatives for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with the State Department in February 2016 to discuss the corruption allegations.

Burisma’s representatives invoked the former vice president’s youngest son, Hunter, in order to try to get a meeting with the State Department. The FOIA documents obtained in a lawsuit by John Solomon did not indicate if the meeting ever took place.

On one of the last days of his term as vice president, Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv. FOIA documents hosted at the U.S. State Department show one possible explanation why.

Viktor Nebozhenko, a political scientist, was cited in an email from then Foreign Service Institute director Karen Robblee to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch speculating on the timing of Biden’s visit and what it could possibly mean.

“Donald Trump said that he will carry out an audit of investments in security and democracy in Ukraine,” Nebozhenko said. “For 8 years the US Administration has turned a blind eye to our corruption and gave a lot of money through the IMF and various funds. And all this has disappeared somewhere. Trump, as the new director of the company under the name of the United States, wants to know where that money went.” (Read more: Trending Politics News, 1/21/2023)  (Archive)

January 21, 2023 - UN report: Uranium particles enriched to 83.7% found in Iran

A student looks at Iran’s domestically built centrifuges in an exhibition of the country’s nuclear achievements, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Tuesday underscored the urgency of resuscitating diplomatic efforts to limit Iran’s nuclear program, saying the situation could quickly worsen if negotiations fail. (Credit: Vahid Salemi/AP)

Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site, a report seen Tuesday by The Associated Press said.

The confidential quarterly report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency distributed to member states likely will raise tensions further between Iran and the West over its nuclear program. That’s even as Tehran already faces internal unrest after months of protests and Western anger over sending bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war on Ukraine.

The IAEA report only speaks about “particles,” suggesting that Iran isn’t building a stockpile of uranium enriched above 60% — the level it has been enriching at for some time.

The IAEA report described inspectors discovering on Jan. 21 that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Iran’s Fordo facility had been configured in a way “substantially different” to what had been previously declared. The IAEA took samples the following day, which showed particles up to 83.7% purity, the report said.

“Iran informed the agency that ‘unintended fluctuations’ in enrichment levels may have occurred during the transition period,” the IAEA report said. “Discussions between the agency and Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing.”

The IAEA report also said that it would “further increase the frequency and intensity of agency verification activities” at Fordo after the discovery.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations told the AP that Massimo Aparo, a top IAEA official, visited the Islamic Republic last week “and checked the alleged enrichment rate.”

“Based on Iran’s assessment, the alleged enrichment percentage between Iran and the IAEA is resolved,” the mission contended. “Due to the IAEA report being prepared before his trip, his trip’s results aren’t in it and hopefully the IAEA director-general will mention it in his oral report to the board of governors” in March.

A spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear program, Behrouz Kamalvandi, also sought last week to portray any detection of uranium particles enriched to that level as a momentary side effect of trying to reach a finished product of 60% purity. However, experts say such a great variance in the purity even at the atomic level would appear suspicious to inspectors. (Read more: AP News 2/28/2023) (Archive)

IAEA report spells out past secret nuclear activities in Iran 5/31/2025

Iran announces a new nuclear enrichment site after UN watchdog censure 6/12/2025

January 22, 2023 - Biden attorneys did not inform the DOJ of the illegal possession of classified docs at the Penn Biden Center; The National Archives IG informed them

“With the discovery of yet more classified documents at President Biden’s Wilmington home on Friday, the disclosure of which was withheld from the public until after the NFL playoff coverage began on Saturday evening, the Biden team is trying to put its best spin on things: The president, you’re to believe, is being fully cooperative.

The truth of the matter is that, like most criminal suspects as to whom there is already strong evidence of felony offenses, Biden consented to a search knowing that, if he did not, newly appointed special counsel Robert Hur would apply for a judicial warrant from a federal judge. Biden would then have been subject to the same political damage that has dogged former president Donald Trump since the Mar-a-Lago search in August: a judicial finding of probable cause to believe he has committed multiple offenses for which the penal code prescribes prison terms of up to ten years (for each offense).

National Archive IG, Dr. Brett M. Baker (Credit: NARA)

(…) The president did not consent to an FBI search of his home because he is unconcerned. He consented to it because he knew law enforcement had more than sufficient evidence to compel a search of his home. From his standpoint, with his 2024 reelection hopes now teetering, it was better to pose as a cooperative volunteer than be forced to open his door to federal agents brandishing a judicial warrant.

On this point, the scandal is: Why did the Justice Department wait so long? And why, in the interim, did both DOJ and the Biden White House allow Biden private lawyers who did not have security clearances conduct what turn out to have been incompetent searches that both (a) exposed them to secret intelligence they were not authorized to possess, and (b) failed to locate the secret intelligence they said they were looking for? (And recall that Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre assured us nearly ten days ago that Biden’s lawyers had completed the search for classified documents—only to have still more documents be discovered hours later.)

Remember the timeline here. The first batch of classified documents was found illegally stored in Biden’s office on November 2—i.e., over two-and-a-half months before the FBI finally conducted Friday’s search. Contrary to Biden’s claim of self-reporting, he did not report that discovery—evidence of a serious crime—to law enforcement. Rather, his private lawyers reported it to the Biden White House, which then notified not the Justice Department but the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It appears Biden was hoping NARA would just return the documents to the files and no one would be any the wiser.

The discovery, however, came to the attention of NARA’s inspector general—the watchdog official who reports agency wrongdoing to Congress. It was the IG’s office that, on November 4, notified the Biden Justice Department. (Read more: National Review, 1/22/2023)  (Archive)