May 9, 2023 - Sen. Ron Johnson: "We have the evidence that Hunter Biden paid tens of thousands of dollars for prostitutes that were sex trafficked through an international sex trafficking ring"

Sen. Ron Johnson: "We have the evidence that Hunter Biden paid tens of thousands of dollars for prostitutes that were sex trafficked through an international sex trafficking ring." pic.twitter.com/Ja3gcBDsu3

— Becker News (@NewsBecker) May 9, 2023

May 10, 2023 - House Oversight reveals the nine Biden family members who received wire transfers from foreign nationals

NEW – House Oversight reveals the nine Biden family members that received wire transfers from foreign nationals via shell companies.

1. Hunter Biden
2. James Biden
3. Sara Biden
4. Hallie Biden
5. Kathleen Biden
6. Melissa Biden
7. Niece/nephew
8. Niece/nephew
9. Grandchild pic.twitter.com/tEer3O1e4E

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) May 10, 2023

Yes, the Biden family business is foreign kickbacks, money laundering, and organized crime. For example, on January 3, 2019, Hunter Biden told his daughter that he gave half of his salary for the last thirty years to Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/A2MdFpmOPj

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) May 10, 2023

May 10, 2023 - FBI refuses to turn over unclassified investigative report detailing Joe Biden bribery scheme

Christopher Wray (Credit: Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press)

During all of my research and discoveries about the DOJ and FBI, the one constant from everyone with a specific and granular knowledge of how the silo information operations are conducted is that the FBI is comprehensively and institutionally corrupt at every level.

Let us not pretend with each other. As an outcome of President Obama and Eric Holder’s specific actions, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was weaponized (top to bottom) as an enforcement mechanism to protect the interests of the DC democrats.   Top to bottom the FBI is a fully weaponized federal police agency with the primary mission to target political opposition.  In the modern political era, this is the sole purpose of the FBI – nothing more, nothing less.

Congress has specific knowledge of an investigative document inside the FBI known as an FD-1023.  The FD-1023 details the evidence delivered by confidential human sources to investigators.  The specific FD-1023 is a multi-page document outlining the entire bribery scheme used by Joe Biden and his family.  The person who helped detail the FD-1023 documents has informed Congress of its existence.

Because this unclassified FD-1023 outlines the details of how Joe Biden used his office to accept bribes from foreign officials, the FBI is refusing to release it. Instead, the FBI is telling Congress they have no right to see it [LETTER to Congress Here].

The FBI is claiming that reports from Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) cannot be released, regardless of classification status.  Further, what you will note in the claims of the FBI and DOJ is essentially what we have been talking about on these pages for several years.  Information is intentionally put into institutional silos that keep the information hidden and protected.  The silo use is everywhere in Washington DC.

WASHINGTON DC – House Oversight: […] “It’s clear from the FBI’s response that the unclassified record the Oversight Committee subpoenaed exists, but they are refusing to provide it to the Committee. We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations. The FBI has failed to do both. The FBI’s position is ‘trust, but you aren’t allowed to verify.’ That is unacceptable. We plan to follow up with the FBI and expect compliance with the subpoena,” said Chairman Comer.

“While the FBI has failed to produce the specific document by the subpoena deadline, their offer to provide an accommodation process in response to our legitimate request indicates the document is real. So the question remains, what did the FBI do to investigate very serious allegations from an apparent trusted FBI source implicating then-Vice President Biden? Today’s letter from the FBI raises additional questions, including whether the FBI has an open investigation based on these allegations. The American people pay the FBI’s salaries, and they’re entitled to a fulsome response,” Senator Grassley said.

Based on whistleblower disclosures, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose. (read more)

The only way through this issue is to defund and dismantle the FBI. (Conservative Treehouse, 5/10/2023)  (Archive)

Some House Republicans Call for Holding FBI Director in Contempt of Congress for Failing to Comply With Subpoena

May 15, 2023 - Durham Report: The Ohrs played bigger roles in dossier than known

Bruce and Nellie Ohr (Credit: public domain)

While it’s bad enough the debunked dossier the FBI used to spy on the Trump campaign was paid for by the Clinton campaign and authored by a foreign FBI informant and his carousing researcher, the newly released report of Special Counsel John Durham strongly suggests a top Justice Department official and his wife had an early hand in shaping the political rumor sheet.

According to the 306-page report, former Justice

Sergei Millian (Credit: Twitter)

Department prosecutor Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr first plowed the ground for the dossier with a series of research reports she wrote for Fusion GPS, the D.C.-based opposition research firm the Clinton campaign commissioned to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia.

Obtained by Durham, her reports zeroed in on Sergei Millian and his connections to Russia and Trump, falsely portraying him as a key intermediary between the Kremlin and the Republican candidate. They would later provide the foundation for the dossier’s many fictions.

“Fusion GPS records demonstrate that Nellie Ohr first identified Millian,” Durham states in his report. “All told, Ohr prepared at least 12 reports that discussed Sergei Millian.”

(Glenn Simpson (l) and Christopher Steele (Credit: Neil King and public domain)

She wrote her first Millian report in April 2016, the month before Fusion GPS hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to put his imprimatur as a supposed former “spy” and “Russian insider” on the dossier.

“This report was prepared just ten days after Fusion GPS was retained by [Clinton campaign law firm] Perkins Coie to conduct opposition research on Trump,” the Durham Report states, “and prior to Steele being retained by Fusion GPS.”

Durham suggests Nellie Ohr planted the seeds of sourcing for the most explosive allegations leveled by the dossier against Trump, including the oft-cited notion that he and his campaign were engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin. The dossier attributed this, falsely, to Millian. Durham found that the Belarusian-American realtor was never a source for the dossier and was simply invented as one, along with the allegations attributed to him.

Igor Danchenko (Credit: public domain)

In fact, Durham says that Millian initially wasn’t even on the radar of Steele and his dossier “collector” Igor Danchenko, a former Brookings Institution analyst who’s admitted much of the information he provided Steele was alcohol-lubricated gossip. Millian was called to their attention by Nellie Ohr, who the prosecutor said “implicated” Millian through her own reports. Durham suggests Steele and Danchenko merely followed her leads. circular

Meanwhile, the prosecutor added, Bruce Ohr, an anti-Trump Democrat, pushed his wife’s reports that cited Millian — 12 in all — onto the Crossfire Hurricane team at FBI headquarters that was investigating Trump and his campaign for possible espionage. Agents used her reports as a source of corroboration for the Steele reports they received in the summer and fall of 2016, even though it was circular reporting.

“The reports prepared by Ohr and others at Fusion GPS were ultimately provided to Crossfire Hurricane investigators by Ohr’s husband, Bruce Ohr,” according to the Durham Report.

Durham notes that Danchenko was tracking leads on Millian from Nellie Ohr within “approximately one week” of Fusion GPS retaining Steele to compile the dossier. He concludes that this “strongly supports the inference that Fusion GPS directed Steele to pursue Millian.”

In other words, Steele was not the catalyst behind the dossier’s central claims. Rather, it was Clinton’s contractor Fusion GPS — but more specifically, the wife of a senior DOJ official who worked for Fusion. So the FBI wasn’t really investigating “Crown reporting,” as officials referred to Steele’s dossier, implying it was British intelligence. More accurately, it was investigating information from inside its own department that was laundered through Steele and his dossier.

Michael Gaeta in Rome. (Credit: public domain)

On page 97 of their book, “Crime in Progress,” Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch maintained that it was Steele who identified Millian as “one of the key intermediaries between Trump and the Russians.” Durham’s report shatters their claim.

The special counsel also found that Simpson worked with Bruce Ohr to pressure the FBI to investigate the dossier allegations.

On Aug. 22, 2016, Simpson asked Ohr to call him. About an hour later, Ohr emailed the FBI agent handling Steele as an informant to, as he said, “check in.” Ohr and the agent, Michael Gaeta, spoke over the phone on Aug. 24. During their call, Ohr inquired if the FBI was going to do anything with the dossier reports that Steele had passed along to Gaeta in July. In response, Gaeta “told Ohr that a group at FBI headquarters was working on them,” according to the Durham report. This undercuts the official FBI timeline of when HQ first received the dossier. For years, the bureau has insisted it did not receive the reports until a month later — Sept. 19, 2016.

(L–R) Former FBI agent Peter Strzok; former FBI Director James Comey; and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. (Credit: Getty Images/Illustration by Epoch Times)

The Ohrs also appear to have directly influenced the dossier and the FBI’s investigation. Both Bruce and Nellie Ohr, who previously worked for the CIA, met with Steele in Washington at a critical time. Emails reveal that on July 30, 2016 — the day before the FBI formally opened its overarching case against Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane” — the couple sat down with Steele and an unidentified “associate” of his at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C. to compare notes — Nellie and Steele literally passed pieces of papers back and forth — regarding their research into “suspicions that Russian government figures were supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump.” After their breakfast, Bruce Ohr reportedly contacted then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe to relay their concerns.

Rodney Joffe (Credit: New York Post)

Throughout the summer and fall of 2016, Fusion GPS also promoted to the Washington media the false allegation the Trump campaign maintained a secret hotline to Moscow through Russia-based Alfa Bank. In an attempt to tie Millian to the Alfa Bank allegations, Durham found that Fusion GPS sought the assistance of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who in turn contacted D.C. tech executive Rodney Joffe to determine if Millian had any ties to Alfa Bank.

On Aug. 20, 2016, Joffe emailed federal computer contractors at Georgia Tech a document titled “birdsnest-1.pdf’ that contained “known associates” of Trump. Included in the attached document was a description of Millian along with his past mailing addresses; various email addresses; websites; and IP addresses that were associated with him. Joffe, who was recently fired as an FBI informant, described Millian as “the most likely intermediary” between Trump and Russia.

On Sept. 27, 2016, Simpson and Fritsch emailed IP “look-up” information for one of Millian’s websites to then-New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau, whom Fusion was pressuring to write a story about the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations. In the email, Fritsch pointed out that “Alfa” was the website service provider for Millian’s website. However, Durham determined that the relevant IP information did not indicate that “Alfa Bank” was the service provider, but rather Alfa Telecom — a Lebanese-based telecom company, which appears to have no affiliation with Alfa Bank.

Fusion GPS and Steele also provided the substance of the Alfa Bank allegations to Bruce Ohr, the DOJ official, who passed the false tip on to the FBI. The Crossfire Hurricane team used Ohr as a conduit to continue to receive information from Steele about Trump throughout 2017, even after the FBI had to terminate Steele as an informant for leaking information about its investigation to the media. (RealClearInvestigations, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 - Durham Report: Sunlight on detail never released by IG Michael Horowitz about FBI Targeting Trump

I’m going to go into the deep weeds on this story, because many people are missing a key facet.  The names behind the Trump targeting operation are included, along with citations for independent checks by House congressional investigators.

Inside the recently released report by John Durham [CITATION], the special counsel outlines how former FBI Director James Comey was intimately involved in the creation of the Carter Page FISA application.  Durham notes that Comey kept asking the DOJ National Security Division and FBI counterintelligence investigators, “Where’s the FISA, we need the FISA.”  However, John Durham never interviewed James Comey or Andrew McCabe.  The former FBI Director and Deputy refused to cooperate or give testimony to John Durham.  So, how did John Durham have details about the demands of Comey?

The answer is found in the footnotes.  Durham reviewed transcripts of interviews given by Andrew McCabe to the Office of the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, who previously investigated FBI conduct in the origin of the Carter Page FISA.  Durham pulled quotes from that transcript. [Footnote #1207, page 199 – Durham Report]

♦QUESTION: If Andrew McCabe gave testimony to the OIG about the motives and impetus of FBI Director James Comey in pushing for the Carter Page FISA application, why did the OIG report never outline those transcribed interviews?  Why was the interview transcript never included in the 2019 OIG report?

(NOTE to Congress.  Now that you know a transcribed interview of Andrew McCabe exists in the OIG office, request the transcription and release it to the public.)

Let me answer those questions without the customary pretending from the DC professional political class.  The short version is that OIG Michael Horowitz was trying to protect the DOJ and FBI. The longer version is a coverup that includes Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr and yes, John Durham.  I will share that story below.

“Where’s the FISA?  We need the FISA?” ~ James Comey

The DOJ-NSD and FBI CoIntel needed to find a safe and legal way to spy on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former FBI employee Carter Page became the fraudulent justification for that intent.

Because “FISA Title I” surveillance authority against a U.S. citizen is so serious (the U.S. government is essentially calling the target a spy), only a few people are authorized to even apply for such surveillance warrants.  One of the four people authorized to make such a Search Warrant request is the Asst. Attorney General as head of the National Security Division of the DOJ.

In September and October of 2016, at the same time the DOJ was putting the finishing touches on the FISA Court application to be used against Carter Page, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin resigned as head of the DOJ-NSD. [CITATION] Did Carlin resign in protest or fear?

Here’s context:

Carter Page was used as a UCE (FBI undercover employee), responsible for the bust of a high-level Russian agent in 2013 – and remained a UCE – throughout the court case of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian citizen who U.S. prosecutors say posed as a banker while participating in a Cold War-style spy ring. [CITATION]

Carter Page was an FBI undercover source for the FBI UP TO May of 2016.   How was it possible that on October 21st, 2016, Carter Page is put under a FISA Title 1 surveillance warrant as an alleged Russian agent?  Conclusion: Carter Page wasn’t a Russian agent. The DOJ National Security Division and the FBI Counterintelligence Division knew he wasn’t.

In order to manufacture the justification for the Carter Page FISA warrant, the DOJ-NSD and the FBI flat-out lied to the FISA Court.  Remember, IG Horowitz said there was no ‘Woods File’ in the Carter Page FISA application. Instead of the required section substantiating and citing all the claims in the application, the FBI used the Chris Steele Dossier.

However, as to the motive of John Carlin resigning before the application was completed and submitted, we look back to the March 2016 DOJ Press Release of the guilty pleading in the Evgeny Buryakov case as announced from the New York office:

…”Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and John P. Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced”…  (link)

DOJ-NSD head John Carlin obviously could not submit a FISA application against Carter Page, accusing him of being an “agent of a foreign government,” when just a few months earlier he used Carter Page as a witness and FBI UCE source in the case against Buryakov.

As James Comey is demanding that Andrew McCabe and his FBI counterintelligence agents get the FISA warrant, likely an ass covering necessity, the person responsible to get the warrant from the court, John Carlin, quits the DOJ.  Considering all the facets outlined above, this cannot be accidental.

Here’s where it gets SERIOUSLY sketchy.

The next in line person, who can fulfill the DOJ/FBI goal of getting the fraudulent application through the FISA court, is Mary McCord.  Put into the position as Acting Asst. Attorney General for the National Security Division, the job of submitting the FISA application now falls upon Mary McCord.

On October 21, 2016, When the FISA application was finally submitted, signed by DAG Sally Yates and FBI Director James Comey, it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

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.

Obviously, with the background and context of the entirely fraudulent Carter Page FISA application, a government surveillance warrant using a Clinton-funded political opposition research file known as the Steele Dossier to support the warrant, both Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson would know they were directly involved in an intentional effort to weaponize the mechanisms of the justice department against a political candidate.

While James Comey and Sally Yates’ signatures were on the FISA application falsely vouching for it, the attestations of legal compliance fall upon DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord and her top legal advisor Michael Atkinson.  McCord and Atkinson are doing, in October of 2016, what former DOJ-NSD head John Carlin refused to do.

WATCH WHAT COMES NEXT: Mary McCord then resigns from her position in the DOJ, and Michael Atkinson is left, as lawyer for the DOJ-NSD, to become Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

♦ The Impeachment Effort – Do you remember how the impeachment effort against President Donald Trump was created?  Do you remember Alexander Vindman, the claims about Ukraine; the statements of hearing from a CIA whistleblower about the content of a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky?

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.

Can you see how Atkinson and McCord are working together, both connected to the fraud behind the false FISA application used in the Trump-Russia narrative in 2016 and 2017, now both working together on a 2019 impeachment effort against President Trump holding an identical motive?  Can you see the stunning conflicts of interest and the coordination?

The weaponized FISA surveillance of the Trump administration doesn’t exist without Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson creating the surveillance mechanism.  The weaponized impeachment origin doesn’t exist without McCord – now in congress working for Nadler/Schiff – and Atkinson changing rules as CIA Inspector General, to create the baseline of a fraudulent whistleblower complaint.   Can you see it? 

But wait…. It gets worse.

♦ Chief Justice John Roberts – As if things could not possibly be more corrupt, now we have the construct of Atkinson and McCord forming the predicate for the impeachment effort.  To wit, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts now becomes the presiding judge over the impeachment trial of President Trump.

Mary McCord is married to a fellow traveler named Sheldon L. Snook.

From 2014 though 2020, not coincidentally the timeline of the Trump targeting and administration in office, Mary McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook, was the special assistant to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s counselor. [CITATION]

As noted by the Washington Post in discussing both McCord and Snook, “The counselor’s office advises the chief justice not only on the management and budget of the Supreme Court but also on his interactions with the executive and legislative branches, along with numerous other public roles in which Roberts serves.” [CITATION]

From 2014 through 2020, Sheldon Snook was responsible for running the office of the lawyer legally advising and counseling John Roberts.

Let me put this another way.  The most important guy in the judicial branch, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, has a lawyer to advise and construct the responsibilities of the SCOTUS chief judge, which includes the construct of the FISA court and appointment of judges therein.

As Chief Justice, John Roberts is in charge of everything to do with the FISA court.  The guy running the office of the lawyer doing the counseling of Roberts, is Mary McCord’s husband.

Mary McCord, knowingly and with specific intent, lied to the FISA court to support the FBI targeting of Trump.  Mary McCord’s husband runs the office which would intercept any communication from the FISA court to the Chief Justice if the FISC had any concerns about the false FBI application.  See the problem?

♦ SUMMARY – Now, we go back to where we came in.

Why did the Office of the Inspector General never publish the interview transcript about Andrew McCabe talking about how desperate FBI Director James Comey was to get a FISA warrant?

Why did John Durham never publish those same interview transcripts, but instead simply referenced the existence of the transcript in a footnote?

Follow these questions to their logical conclusion, and you will discover that all of the participants including Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr, James Baker, Dana Boente, Michael Horowitz and John Durham are trying to protect bureaucrats, who did criminal acts, and preserve institutions from collapse that sunlight would create.

Sunlight…

… The best disinfectant.

(Support CTH HERE)

(Conservative Treehouse, 6/04/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 - Durham Report: FBI shut down four criminal investigations into the Clintons

(Credit: Win McNamee/AFP/Getty Images)

Special Counsel John Durham’s highly-anticipated report on the origins of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016 revealed that top leaders at the Bureau shut down four criminal investigations into Hillary and Bill Clinton.

In 2014, the FBI investigated a “well-placed” confidential source’s claims that an unnamed foreign government intended to “contribute to Hillary Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign, as a way to gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency,” the report said.

The field office investigating these claims “almost immediately” sought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant, but it remained “in limbo” for approximately four months, primarily due to Clinton’s then-expected presidential campaign.

As stated in Durham’s report:

According to another agent, the application lingered because “everyone was ‘super more careful’” and “scared with the big name [Clinton]” involved. 321 “[T]hey were pretty “tippy-toeing’ around HRC because there was a chance she would be the next President.”

Durham’s report also revealed that three separate FBI field offices in Washington, DC; Little Rock, Arkansas; and New York City, New York, opened investigations into “possibly criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation” less than one year before the November 2016 presidential election.

One of these investigations was spawned by Breitbart News contributor Peter Schweizer’s book, Clinton Cash, which exposed the Clinton Foundation’s global nexus of influence peddling.

As Durham’s report detailed:

Beginning in January 2016, three different FBI field offices, the New York Field Office (“NYFO*), the Washington Field Office (“WFO*), and the Little Rock Field Office (“LRFO**), opened investigations into possible criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation. The IRFO case opening communication referred to an intelligence product and corroborating financial reporting that a particular commercial “industry likely engaged a federal public official in a flow of benefits scheme, namely, large monetary contributions were made to a non-profit, under both direct and indirect control of the federal public official, in exchange for favorable government action and/or influence.” The WFO investigation was opened as a preliminary investigation, because the Case Agent wanted to determine if he could develop additional information to corroborate the allegations in a recently-published book, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer, before seeking to convert the matter to a full investigation. Additionally, the LRFO and NYFO investigations included predication based on source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton.

Speaking with the DailyMail, Schweizer said he received “a call from somebody from the New York FBI office after the book came out.”

“There was a New York Times piece on Uranium One. It was kind of confirming what we had in the book. That’s what I think triggered the interest,” Schweizer said. “With the Clinton Foundation, you have the transfer of large sums of money, you had policy positions that were affected, and you had certifiable evidence.”

“I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t say what was illegal. But there was definitely a there there, with all the speeches, donations, and policy effects, and nobody’s ever really disputed that,” he added.

Ultimately, FBI leadership held a joint meeting with the three field offices, FBI Headquarters, and appropriate United States Attorney’s offices. The first joint meeting occurred on February 1, 2016. However, the Department of Justice Public Integrity Section Chief, Ray Hulser, said the FBI briefing at that meeting was “poorly presented,” and saw “insufficient predication for at least one of the investigations.”

A second joint meeting occurred on February 22, 2016, which former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe chaired.

McCabe “initially directed the field offices to close their cases,” but later agreed to “reconsider the final disposition of the cases,” Durham’s report noted.

Paul Abbate, who was the FBI Washington Field Office’s Assistant Director-in-Charge at the time, described McCabe’s demeanor during the joint meeting as “negative,” “annoyed,” and “angry.”

As the report detailed:

According to Abbate, McCabe stated “they [the Department] say there’s nothing here” and “why are we even doing this?” At the close of the meeting, Campbell directed that for any overt investigative steps to be taken, the Deputy Director’s approval would be required.

Durham’s report also revealed that former FBI Director James Comey demanded, through an intermediary, the New York Field Office “cease and desist” their Clinton Foundation investigation.

Earlier in the week, McCabe claimed the Durham report was “never a legitimate investigation.”

Andrew McCabe — a former FBI official who was fired by Donald Trump in 2018 — said that he stood by the original Russia investigation into Trump even after the Durham report revealed evidence that the probe had no serious basis. ((Credit: Screenshot / CNN)

“We knew from the very beginning exactly what John Durham was going to conclude, and that’s what we saw today. We knew from the very beginning this was never a legitimate investigation,” McCabe said. “This was a political errand to exact some sort of retribution on Donald Trump’s perceived enemies and the FBI.”

Durham’s report highlighted the FBI’s different approaches regarding their investigations into Clinton and former President Donald Trump.

“The use of defensive briefings in 2015 contrasts with the FBI’s failure to provide a defensive briefing to the Trump campaign approximately one year later when Australia shared the information from Papadopoulos,” the report stated. (Read more: Breitbart, 5/18/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 - IRS removes investigative team from Hunter Biden probe in move whistleblower calls ‘clearly retaliatory’

Hunter Biden gives journalists a thumbs-up on May 15, 2023, during the college graduation of his daughter Maisy. (Credit: AFP via Getty Images)

The IRS on Monday removed the “entire investigative team” from its long-running tax fraud probe of first son Hunter Biden in alleged retaliation against the whistleblower who recently contacted Congress to allege a cover-up in the case, The Post has learned.

The purge allegedly was done on the orders of the Justice Department, the whistleblower’s attorneys informed congressional leaders in a letter.

“Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice,” Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote.

The whistleblower, who supervised the Hunter Biden probe since early 2020, hasn’t publicly identified the first son as the subject of the case that he says is being brushed under the rug, but congressional sources confirmed it.

“On April 27, 2023, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel appeared before the House Committee on Ways and Means. He testified: ‘I can say without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.’ However, this move is clearly retaliatory and may also constitute obstruction of a congressional inquiry,” the lawyers went on.

“Our client has a right to make disclosures to Congress … He is protected by 5 U.S.C. § 2302 from retaliatory personnel actions — including receiving a ‘significant change in duties, responsibilities, or working conditions’ (which this clearly is) because of his disclosures to Congress.

“Any attempt by any government official to prevent a federal employee from furnishing information to Congress is also a direct violation of longstanding appropriations restriction. Furthermore, 18 U.S.C. § 1505 makes it a crime to obstruct an investigation of Congress,” Lytle and Leavitt wrote.

The whistleblower’s team added: “We respectfully request that you give this matter your prompt attention. Removing the experienced investigators who have worked this case for years and are now the subject-matter experts is exactly the sort of issue our client intended to blow the whistle on to begin with.” (Read more: New York Post, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 - Durham Report: Why there was no review of the DNC hack attribution

Why no Durham review of the DNC hack attribution?

Because that was outside the bounds of his appointment order from AG Barr.

Durham explains in general terms how he stayed within the order. pic.twitter.com/ADnk1tAxOc

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) May 16, 2023

The limited scope is on Barr.

Not buying that Durham is scared of the FBI. (See Boston FBI for that.)

Durham was responsible for perhaps the most important disclosure in the FBI’s history: that Director Hoover framed innocent men for murder 🤷‍♂️

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) May 16, 2023

May 15, 2023 - Durham Report: FBI didn't investigate Clinton Plan to frame Trump, even after CIA briefed Obama and Biden

Hillary Clinton reacts to FBI finding no criminality re her emails, before boarding her campaign plane at Miami airport October 26, 2016. (Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The FBI didn’t open any inquiry into an alleged Hillary Clinton campaign election interference plan even after the CIA director briefed then-president Barack Obama and other senior administration officials, Special Counsel John Durham’s report noted.

The FBI received Russian intelligence analysis in July 2016 alleging that Clinton’s campaign cooked up a scheme to divert attention away from “her use of a private email server,” the Durham report stated.

The alleged scheme, dubbed the “Clinton Plan,” showed that the Clinton campaign “had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump “by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee,” the Durham report reads.

The intelligence community didn’t know the accuracy of the Russian intelligence, but the findings were notable enough for then-CIA Director John Brennan to inform the Obama administration “within days” of learning about it.

Brennan briefed President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey about the Clinton campaign’s plan, the Durham report says.

The findings also prompted the CIA to send “a formal written referral memorandum” to Comey and “the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, Peter Strzok, for their consideration and action.”

In contrast to the speed at which the FBI opened a full investigation into Trump “on raw, uncorroborated information,” the FBI “never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information,” Durham wrote. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/16/2023)  (Archive)

May 15, 2023 - Durham Report: Techno Fog/Media lies and political bias

They lied.

They deceived the public for years, alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. President Trump and his advisors, the agents of Russia, were guilty of treason. The FBI investigation was above reproach, led by career agents and civil servants, and insulated from politics or influence from FBI leadership.

Their sources, anonymous to the public and known to only them, were from within the US intelligence and law enforcement communities. These were the originators of the falsehoods; the journalists were merely vessels. In return for this cynical tradecraft, the media protected – and continues to protect – high ranking current and former US government officials. Anything to keep the information flowing.

The list of publications and “journalists” (for purposes of this exercise, any of these other terms might apply: stenographers or adulators or parasitic hosts) who put out the now-discredit claims of the Trump-Russia hoax is long and distinguished. They were nearly all guilty; the skeptics were few. The volume of lies, spread in print and on TV and on social media, would take months, if not years, to compile. The Columbia Journalism Review’s “The press versus the president”, a thorough analysis of some of the worst Trump-Russia era reporting (including stories from The New York Times and The Washington Post), was a four-part series that only touched the surface.

Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez of CNN, citing “multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials,” said US investigators “corroborated some of the communications.” Jake Tapper, the face of CNN, was more than happy to use his primetime slot to spread these lies and others involving allegations of “collusion”. Marshall Cohen and Jeremy Herb of CNN made similar claims: “many of the allegations that form the bulk of the [Steele] intelligence memos have held up over time, or have proven to be at least partially true.” Durham would disagree: “not a single substantive allegation pulled from the Steele Reports and used in the initial Page FISA application had been corroborated at the time of the FISA submission -or indeed, to our knowledge, has ever been corroborated by the FBI.”1

CNN’s Jake Tapper, Evan Perez, and Jim Sciutto accept the Merriman Smith Award from ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., April 28, 2018. (Credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Natasha Bertrand was perhaps the most notoriously wrong reporter during the Trump-Russia hysteria. She spread the lies of the US intelligence community through various national platforms (Business Insider, The Atlantic, Politico, etc.): that the Steele Dossier had been corroborated, that the Horowitz probe would be of questionable quality, that it was “much more plausible that Trump did go to Russia and he did have these kinds of sexual escapades with prostitutes.”

By reporting these falsehoods as truth, Bertrand gave legitimacy to an improper and unlawful investigation. She also served the purposes of her sources – to slice through the hamstring of the Trump Administration, to put it on the defensive, to help influence elections. Her reward was professional advancement from near obscurity to her current position as National Security Reporter for CNN. No doubt her anonymous sources, which probably continue to enjoy their quid pro quo with Bertrand, are pleased with their investment.

Numerous reporters from The New York Times were guilty of similar offenses. The day before Trump’s 2017 inauguration, for example, The Times reported this bombshell from current and former senior American officials: “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump.” This was followed by The New York Times’ articles in February and March of 2017 pushing allegations of Trump-Russian Intelligence connections.

Peter Strzok (Credit: public domain)

What we didn’t know at the time was that high ranking FBI officials disagreed with The Times’ reporting. Internal FBI communications from Trump Russia collusion Peter Strzok himself said of The Times’ articles: “no substance and largely wrong.” Durham puts the FBI’s discussions of The Times reporting into context:

based on declassified documents from early 2017, the quid pro quo own records show that reports published by The New York Times in February and March 2017 concerning what four unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials claimed about Trump campaign personnel being in touch with any Russian intelligence officers was untrue. 2

While the reporting itself is part of the story, there’s something else here: the identity of the sources.

(Read more: Techno Fog/The Reactionary/Substack, 5/21/2023)  (Archive)