February 29, 2020 - We Need to Talk About Hillary Clinton’s Disturbing Harvey Weinstein Ties

(Credit: Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

(…) As many outlets have reported, Weinstein has strong ties to both the Clintons and the Obamas, as well as to the Democratic Party establishment overall. Weinstein has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats since the ‘90s, and has hosted fundraisers for candidates and even a birthday party for Hillary in 2000, during her candidacy for senator of New York. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was a Republican but is now in the race for the Democratic presidential primary, also had a “years-long, mutually beneficial relationship” with Weinstein, as reported by Fox Business. (Bloomberg’s “company, through its male managers and employees from Chief Executive Officer Bloomberg on down, engaged in a pattern and practice of sexual harassment, sexual degradation of women,” according to one lawsuit; that multi-billion dollar corporation has had several women sign NDAs.)

(Credit: CNN, May 2012)

(…) The Times has also reported that political allies tried to warn Hillary Clinton about his behavior. Both Lena Dunham and Tina Brown (former editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast) allege that they told Hillary’s aides about the stories going around about Weinstein—Brown says she did so in 2002, and Dunham in 2016, during Hillary’s presidential campaign. There’s also reporter Ronan Farrow’s claims to BuzzFeed that Hillary refused to meet with him about another, unrelated book once her team caught wind of his investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Weinstein.

Weinstein is especially proud of his connection to the Clintons, and before the allegations against him became public, both parties did what they could to hand favors back and forth. These indulgences included a Weinstein TV appearance where he interviewed Bill, as well as an appearance on CBS News during Hillary’s 2016 primary campaign that the Clinton team coached him for, according to leaked emails. (As revealed via screenshots by conservative writer Alexandra DeSanctis, in 2012, beloved Hollywood director and former public relations mogul Ava DuVernay tweeted that she had “heard all the Harvey stories over the years” but was “still a fan,” based on this interview with the former president.)

PHOTO: Michelle Obama once described Weinstein as a “wonderful human being”. (Credit: Kevin Lamarque/Getty Images)

(…) The Obamas also cashed in on their Weinstein connections while the air was clear. In February 2017, Barack Obama’s daughter Malia interned at The Weinstein Company mere months before the allegations against the producer were published. Before that, during the summer of 2015, Malia interned on the set of Dunham’s HBO TV show Girls; Dunham told the Times that, in 2016, during the Clinton presidential campaign, she warned Hillary’s aides—including the campaign’s deputy communications director Kristina Schake and spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod—that Weinstein was a rapist and known throughout the industry to be a predator. According to Dunham, Schake said they would share this information with campaign manager Robby Mook, who is now a political pundit on CNN. Both Elrod and Schake deny that Dunham “mentioned rape,” and Hillary’s current communications director Nick Merrill implied to Times reporters that Dunham should’ve contacted the police, not Hillary’s aides, about the allegations.

Mook knew Weinstein personally, as well. In October, just before the 2016 general election, The Intercept reported on hacked emails that showed Weinstein and Mook strategizing, in April of that year, about how to counter Bernie Sanders’ support from African-American communities, especially given the Sanders campaign’s endorsement from the late Black Lives Matter activist Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, who was killed while unarmed by police officer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014. In the emails, Weinstein brought up the Vermont senator’s voting history on guns, suggesting that Hillary’s campaign link it to the recent Sandy Hook massacre. According to emails, Mook was enthusiastic about the strategy and made plans to meet up with Weinstein to work it out. (Read more: The Daily Beast, 2/29/2020)  (Archive)

March 12, 2020 - Kimberley Strassel: Adam Schiff's surveillance state

“Lawmakers are debating ways to prevent the Federal Bureau of Investigation from abusing its surveillance authority again. While they’re at it, they have an obligation to address their own privacy transgressor, Rep. Adam Schiff.

Brendan Carr (Credit: public domain)

That’s the gist of a pointed letter from Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr, which landed Thursday at the House Intelligence Committee. Chairman Schiff spent months conducting secret impeachment hearings. His ensuing report revealed that he’d also set up his own surveillance state. Mr. Schiff issued secret subpoenas to phone carriers, to obtain and publish the call records of political rivals. Targets included Rudy Giuliani and another attorney of the president, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee (Rep. Devin Nunes) and a journalist (John Solomon).

Impeachment is over, but Mr. Carr hasn’t forgotten this abuse of power, and his letter, which I obtained, calls for answers and reform. The FCC takes call privacy seriously, only recently having proposed some $200 million in fines on phone carriers for failing to protect customer data. Mr. Carr’s message to Mr. Schiff is that Congress doesn’t get a pass. It is not automatically entitled to “a secret and partisan process that deprives Americans of their legal right to maintain the privacy of this sensitive information.”

Mr. Carr doesn’t dispute that Congress may, “in at least some circumstances,” have the legal authority to obtain call records under the Communications Act. The offense, he writes, was denying his targets the right to fight the subpoenas: “Courts long ago established a process for Americans to seek judicial review before Congress obtains and then publishes documents in response to a congressional subpoena.” (Read more: Fox News, 3/12/2020)  (Archive)

April 22, 2020 - Fred Fleitz: Brennan suppressed intelligence that suggests Putin favored Clinton in 2016 election

(…) Accusing the intelligence community of improper “analytic tradecraft” in analyzing Russia’s strategic intentions is an extremely grave indictment for a congressional oversight committee to make. In my opinion, there is no question the House Intelligence Committee is right for the reasons in its 2018 report and other subsequent findings.

The House committee found the intelligence community assessment violated protocols for drafting such assessments. This major finding shows why America needs strong legislative oversight over the intelligence services.

For example, although the protocols require intelligence community assessments to be “community products” and vetted with all intelligence agencies and analysts with equities in a given subject, only three intelligence agencies were asked to draft this assessment: the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI.

With the 14 other intelligence agencies left out, the three participating agencies included only two dozen “handpicked” analysts. Other intelligence agencies working on this issue, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, were excluded.

In addition, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed the actual drafting of the intelligence community assessment was done by three close associates of former CIA Director Brennan, who has proven to be the most politicized intelligence chief in American history.

Contrary to common practice for controversial intelligence community assessments, Brennan’s team allowed no dissenting views or even an annex with reviews by outside experts.

These were extraordinary violations of intelligence community rules to ensure that analysis is accurate and trusted. The Senate committee reports ignored these foundational violations.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report falsely claims that “all analytical lines are supported with all-source intelligence” and that analysts who wrote the intelligence community assessment consistently said they “were under no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.”

House Intelligence Committee staff members found the opposite. They told me there was conflicting intelligence evidence on Russian motivations for meddling in the 2016 election.

More gravely, they said that CIA Director Brennan suppressed facts or analysis that showed why it was not in Russia’s interests to support Trump and why Putin stood to benefit from Hillary Clinton’s election. They also told me that Brennan suppressed that intelligence over the objections of CIA analysts.

House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election.

Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment.” (Read more: Fox News, 4/22/2020)  (Archive)

On May 12, 2020, Ed Henry confirms Fred Fleitz’s findings:

May 22, 2020 - Editorial: Media Cowardice and the Collusion Hoax

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

(Credit: Sean Delonas/PoliticalCartoons)

(…) “To many hack commentators, “conspiracy theory” has become a term used to make certain kinds of implicit and explicit cooperation unacknowledgeable.

With evidence newly in hand last week, we see that the resources poured into promoting the Steele dossier before the 2016 election were nothing next to those mobilized by Clinton campaign chief John Podesta after the inauguration. Transcripts two years old show various Obama officials denying under oath that they possessed evidence of Trump-Russia collusion while they implied the opposite on TV.

Even the outside firm that the FBI relied on for its claim that Democratic emails were hacked by the Russians admitted under oath to finding no evidence that emails had been actually removed from Democratic servers.

Newsies in the aftermath of the Russia hoax now insist they were merely reporting on official actions. They carefully avert their eyes from the fact that the leaks they received and possibly even the official acts they reported were manufactured deliberately to put lies into the news.

If they had any grit, many of our senior reporters would be hopping mad now to learn they had been manipulated into reporting untruths to the public.

If they had any grit. Instead many of them seem to be hanging around the same leakers and whisperers, hoping for new talking points to get themselves off the hook in air-clearing now coming. It’s all part of what Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone and Aaron Maté of The Nation (two left-wing critics of the Russia hoax) call the “privilege protection racket.”

Take a podcast in February with former Obama adviser David Axelrod and Rep. Adam Schiff, under the auspices of the University of Chicago and CNN. In an hourlong, intimate setting, how could Mr. Axelrod not ask about the unraveling of the Russia collusion theory and the Steele dossier that Mr. Schiff so assiduously promoted for three years?

The questions needn’t be accusatory, but how does someone with a living mind not ask? Instead, Mr. Axelrod abused JFK by painting Mr. Schiff as a profile in courage for peddling a lie that made him extraordinarily popular with the anti-Trump media (as if this could ever be courage).

At least Mr. Axelrod noted that Mr. Schiff comes from a safe seat unlike the many Republicans Mr. Schiff constantly accuses of cowardice. But how could any GOP officeholder work with Democrats to rein in Mr. Trump when voters back home see Mr. Schiff falsely trying to frame the GOP president as a Kremlin mole?

The failure to think about these larger consequences is the real cowardice. (For the record, Messrs. Taibbi and Maté in their own podcast refer to Mr. Schiff as a “pathological liar” and the person most likely to assure Mr. Trump’s re-election.)

When all is said and done, half the story of our age will be how Democrats and the press became more Trumplike than Trump in their opposition to Trump.”  (Read more: The Wall Street Journal, 5/22/2020)  (Archive)

May 27, 2020 - Plandemic - A Documentary

We are posting this video to our site for posterity’s sake.

“Humanity is imprisoned by a killer pandemic. People are being arrested for surfing in the ocean and meditating in nature. Nations are collapsing. Hungry citizens are rioting for food. The media has generated so much confusion and fear that people are begging for salvation in a syringe. Billionaire patent owners are pushing for globally mandated vaccines. Anyone who refuses to be injected with experimental poisons will be prohibited from travel, education, and work. No, this is not a synopsis for a new horror movie. This is our current reality.

Let’s back up to address how we got here…

In the early 1900s, America’s first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller bought a German pharmaceutical company that would later assist Hitler to implement his eugenics-based vision by manufacturing chemicals and poisons for war. Rockefeller wanted to eliminate the competitors of Western medicine, so he submitted a report to Congress declaring that there were too many doctors and medical schools in America and that all-natural healing modalities were unscientific quackery. Rockefeller called for the standardization of medical education, whereby only his organization be allowed to grant medical school licenses in the US. And so began the practice of immune suppressive, synthetic and toxic drugs. Once people had become dependent on this new system and the addictive drugs it provided, the system switched to a paid program, creating lifelong customers for the Rockefellers. Currently, medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US. Rockefeller’s secret weapon to success was the strategy known as, “problem-reaction-solution.” Create a problem, escalate fear, then offer a pre-planned solution. Sound familiar?

Flash forward to 2020…

They named it COVID19. Our leaders of world health predicted millions would die. The National Guard was deployed. Makeshift hospitals were erected to care for a massive overflow of patients. Mass graves were dug. Terrifying news reports had people everywhere seeking shelter to avoid connect. The plan is unfolding with precision. But the masters of the Pandemic underestimated one thing… the people. Medical professionals and every-day citizens are sharing critical information online. The overlords of big tech have ordered all dissenting voices to be silenced and banned, but they are too late. The slumbering masses are awake and aware that something is not right. Quarantine has provided the missing element: time. Suddenly, our overworked citizenry has ample time to research and investigate for themselves. Once you see, you can’t unsee.

The window of opportunity is open like never before. For the first time in human history, we have the world’s attention. Plandemic will expose the scientific and political elite who run the scam that is our global health system, while laying out a new plan; a plan that allows all of humanity to reconnect with healing forces of nature. 2020 is the code for perfect vision. It is also the year that will go down in history as the moment we finally opened our eyes.

https://plandemicmovie.com/

June 24, 2020 - Appeals court rules against Flynn judge; Judge Rao writes scathing rebuke of Judge Wilkins dissenting opinion

Judge Neomi Rao (Credit: Diego Radzinsch/ALM)

“In all my years of appellate practice, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-US Supreme Court appellate opinion that so thoroughly demolishes a dissenting opinion as this one. Judge Rao could not have done better in writing the opinion, and it should be required law school reading.

Judge Robert Wilkins (Credit: public domain)

In addition, Judge Wilkins’ dissenting opinion is so off-the-mark that I believe he has shot himself in the foot for purposes of en banc review–in other words, he has ensured that otherwise-sympathetic judges on the DC Circuit will vote against en banc review.

Judge Rao comes out swinging by holding that its earlier opinion in Fokker “foreclose[s] the district court’s proposed scrutiny of the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn prosecution.” p. 7.

In relying on Fokker, Judge Rao explicitly rejects Judge Wilkins argument that Fokker’s holding is dicta (that is, non-binding). She holds Fokker “is directly controlling here.” p. 14.

Keep in mind that Fokker was written by Chief Judge Srinivasan, an OBAMA appointee. Judge Srinivasan does NOT want Fokker’s legitimacy undermined, no matter his politics.

Judge Wilkins’ dissent implies that Fokker was wrongly decided and that it conflicts with other federal appellate courts. See p. 23 of 28. Judge Srinivasan will NOT be impressed by this argument in deciding whether to grant en banc rehearing. Fokker does not create a split.

Judge Rao goes on to emphasize that while judicial inquiry MAY be justified in some circumstances, Flynn’s situation “is plainly not the rare case where further judicial inquiry is warranted.” p. 6.

Rao notes that Flynn agrees with the Govt.’s dismissal motion, so there’s no risk of his rights being violated. In addition, the Government has stated insufficient evidence exists to convict Flynn. p. 6.

Rao also holds that “a hearing cannot be used as an occasion to superintend the prosecution’s charging decisions.” p. 7.

But by appointing amicus and attempting to hold a hearing on these matters, the district court is inflicting irreparable harm on the Govt. because it is subjecting its prosecutorial decisions to outside inquiry. p. 8

Thus, Judge Rao holds, it is NOT true that the district court has “yet to act” in this matter, contrary to Judge Wilkins’ assertions. p. 16.

“[T]he district court HAS acted here…[by appointing] one private citizen to argue that another citizen should be deprived of his liberty regardless of whether the Executive Branch is willing to pursue the charges.” p. 16. This justified mandamus being issued NOW.

Judge Rao also makes short work of Judge Wilkins’ argument that the court may not consider the harm to the Government in deciding whether to grant mandamus bc the Government never filed a petition for mandamus. p. 17.

Judge Rao notes “[o]ur court has squarely rejected this argument,” and follows with a plethora of supporting citations. p. 17.

Judge Rao also notes–contrary to what many legal commentators have misled the public to believe–that it is “black letter law” that the Govt. can seek dismissal even after a guilty plea is made. This does not justify greater scrutiny by the district court. p. 6, footnote 1.

As to Judge Wilkins’ argument that a district court may conduct greater scrutiny where, as here, the Govt. reverses its position in prosecuting a case, Judge Rao points out that “the government NECESSARILY reverses its position whenever it moves to dismiss charges….” p. 13

“Given the absence of any legitimate basis to question the presumption of regularity, there is no justification to appoint a private citizen to oppose the government’s motion to dismiss Flynn’s prosecution.” p. 13.

But Judge Rao saves her most stinging and brutal takedown of Judge Wilkins’ dissent for the end
Judge Rao writes that “the dissent swings for the fences–and misses–by analogizing a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss with a selective prosecution claim.” p. 17.

While it is true that the Executive cannot selectively prosecute certain individuals “based on impermissible considerations,” p. 18, “the equal protection remedy is to dismiss the prosecution, NOT to compel the Executive to bring another prosecution.” p. 18

And Judge Rao is just getting warmed up here…She then notes that “unwarranted judicial scrutiny of a prosecutor’s motion to dismiss puts the court in an entirely different position [than selective prosecution caselaw assigns the court].” p. 18

“Rather than allow the Executive Branch to dismiss a problematic prosecution, the court [as Judge Wilkins and Judge Sullivan would have it] assumes the role of inquisitor, prolonging a prosecution deemed illegitimate by the Executive.” p. 18

And now for Judge Rao’s KO to Judge Wilkins and Judge Sullivan: “Judges assume that role in some countries, but Article III gives no prosecutorial or inquisitional power to federal judges.” p. 18.

In other words, Judge Rao is likening Judge Wilkins’ arguments, and Judge Sullivan’s actions, to what is done in non-democratic, third world countries. p. 18. Outstanding opinion. No mercy. (Appeals Court opinion re Mandamus, 6/25/2020)  (John M. Reeves@reeveslawstl/Twitter)

December 23, 2020 - Roger Stone on ‘The Special Counsel’s Redacted Justice’

“In this exclusive report from Roger Stone, he explains his entire ordeal after being targeted by the Mueller gang and placed in front of Obama Judge Amy Berman Jackson. In this lengthy and detailed account of what he endured, Stone lays out his case and then asks that he be fully pardoned by President Trump.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson and Roger Stone (Credit: The Gateway Pundit)

At midnight on election day November 3rd, 2020– the busiest news day of the year and timed to get as little press coverage as possible, the United States Department of Justice released the remaining unredacted sections of the Mueller Report regarding me specifically, in which they had admitted that despite two years of intense investigation, spending millions to pour through every aspect of my life, dragging 36 witnesses to the grand jury and after obtaining all my electronic communications for four years ( literally millions of e-mails and pages of documents, tax returns, banking, and financial records –they found no factual evidence of any collaboration or coordination between me and WikiLeaks regarding the release of emails regarding John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton or that I had any advance knowledge of the timing, content or source of their disclosures).

Even BuzzFeed, who won the release of the data in a lawsuit actually said I was “vindicated”. The rest of the media? They reported nothing at all.

The report is a voluminous effort by the ‘Special’ Counsel’s unethical, if not criminally-corrupt, lawyers, as their prolonged, baseless, partisan-motivated legal fishing expedition finally came to an end, to blunt the logical conclusion by the public that the entire corrupt multi-year multi-million dollar boondoggle was, in reality, a malicious fraud against President Donald Trump and anyone who supported him and a runaway purveyor of kangaroo “justice” against its unfortunate political targets.

For its hundreds of pages tediously propping up a convoluted defamatory narrative now known to be nothing more than a brazen fabrication by the Democrat Party and Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, the report is rife with highly-parsed wording, deceitful innuendo, and presumptuous, conclusory leaps of illogic, often delving into irrelevant minutiae, engaging in misleading factual cherry-picking and employing officious-sounding spin as dishonest substitutes for evidence that never existed. Despite this sugar-coating what the unredacted documents do show is shocking.

Specifically, the newly unveiled documents say:

Page 178

“The Office’s determination that it could not charge WikiLeaks or Stone as part of the Section 1030 conspiracy was also informed by the constitutional issues that such a prosecution would present. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001), the First Amendment protects a party’s publication of illegally intercepted communications on a matter of public concern, even when the publishing parties knew or had reason to know of the intercepts’ unlawful origin.”

Also Page 178,

“The Office determined that it could not pursue a Section 1030 conspiracy charge against Stone for some of the same legal reasons. The most fundamental hurdles, though, are factual ones.1279 As explained in Volume I, Section III.D.1, supra, Corsi’s accounts of his interactions with Stone on October 7, 2016 are not fully consistent or corroborated. Even if they were, neither Corsi’s testimony nor other evidence currently available to the Office is sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stone knew or believed that the computer intrusions were ongoing at the time he ostensibly encouraged or coordinated the publication of the Podesta emails. Stone’s actions would thus be consistent with (among other things) a belief that he was aiding in the dissemination of the fruits of an already completed hacking operation perpetrated by a third party, which would be a level of knowledge insufficient to establish conspiracy liability. See State v. Phillips, 82 S.E.2d 762, 766 (N.C. 1954) (“In the very nature of things, persons cannot retroactively conspire to commit a previously consummated crime.”) (quoted in Model Penal Code and Commentaries § 5.03, at 442 (1985).

“Regardless, success would also depend upon evidence of WikiLeaks’s and Stone’s knowledge of ongoing or contemplated future computer intrusions-the proof that is currently lacking.”

Judge Amy Berman withheld this from my lawyers at trial. The Mueller’s dirty cops concluded in their report that even if they had found evidence that I had received documents from Assange of WikiLeaks and passed them to anyone, which I did not and for which they found no evidence whatsoever, it would not have been illegal. The whole thing was a hoax.

For three years the fake News media has insisted that Julian Assange ( a journalist who has never had the accuracy of anything he has published questioned) is actually an asset for the Russians and that his website Wikileaks got the documents and e-mails via a hack via the Russians.

Worse they insisted that I had served as the link between Assange and WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. I was called a traitor and a Russian spy. The left insisted that my colorful Twitter feed and some of my speeches and interviews proved that I had advance knowledge of the source and content of the WikiLeaks disclosures that so roiled the 2016 campaign. I was falsely accused of having advance knowledge of the publication of John Podesta’s e-mails.

The only three news outlets who reported on this shocking election day admission that there was no evidence found that would support this narrative were BuzzFeed, who successfully brought the lawsuit for the release of this material, the Washington Examiner and ZeroHedge. Where were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Hill, Politico, Salon, Vox, Vice, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and the Business Insider – all of who were quick to smear me as a “go-between for WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign” but none of whom reported on the stunning conclusions of Mueller’s thugs.

For three years the fake News media has insisted that Julian Assange ( a journalist who has never had the accuracy of anything he has published questioned) is actually an asset for the Russians and that his website Wikileaks got the documents and e-mails via a hack via the Russians.

Worse they insisted that I had served as the link between  Assange and WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. I was called a traitor and a Russian spy. The left insisted that my colorful Twitter feed and some of my speeches and interviews proved that I had advance knowledge of the source and content of the WikiLeaks disclosures that so roiled the 2016 campaign. I was falsely accused of having advance knowledge of the publication of  John Podesta’s e-mails.

The only three news outlets who reported on this shocking election day admission that there was no evidence found that would support this narrative were BuzzFeed, who successfully brought the lawsuit for the release of this material, the Washington Examiner and ZeroHedge. Where were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Hill, Politico, Salon, Vox, Vice, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and the Business Insider – all of who were quick to smear me as a “go-between for WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign” but none of whom reported on the stunning conclusions of Mueller’s thugs.” (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 12/23/2020)  (Archive)

April 16, 2021 - Caity Johnstone: The CIA Used To Infiltrate The Media. Now The CIA Is The Media.

Caity Johnstone

“Back in the good old days, when things were more innocent and simple, the psychopathic Central Intelligence Agency had to covertly infiltrate the news media to manipulate the information Americans were consuming about their nation and the world. Nowadays, there is no meaningful separation between the news media and the CIA at all.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald just highlighted an interesting point about the reporting by The New York Times on the so-called “Bountygate” story the outlet broke in June of last year about the Russian government trying to pay Taliban-linked fighters to attack US soldiers in Afghanistan.

“One of the NYT reporters who originally broke the Russia bounty story (originally attributed to unnamed ‘intelligence officials’) say today that it was a CIA claim,” Greenwald tweeted. “So media outlets — again — repeated CIA stories with no questioning: congrats to all.”

Indeed, NYT’s original story made no mention of CIA involvement in the narrative, citing only “officials,” yet this latest article speaks as though it had been informing its readers of the story’s roots in the lying, torturing, drug-running, warmongering Central Intelligence Agency from the very beginning. The author even writes “The New York Times first reported last summer the existence of the C.I.A.’s assessment,” with the hyperlink leading to the initial article which made no mention of the CIA. It wasn’t until later that The New York Times began reporting that the CIA was looking into the Russian bounties allegations at all.

This would be the same “Russian bounties” narrative which was discredited all the way back in September when the top US military official in Afghanistan said no satisfactory evidence had surfaced for the allegations, which was further discredited today with a new article by The Daily Beast titled “U.S. Intel Walks Back Claim Russians Put Bounties on American Troops”.

The Daily Beast, which has itself uncritically published many articles promoting the CIA “Bountygate” narrative, reports the following:

It was a blockbuster story about Russia’s return to the imperial “Great Game” in Afghanistan. The Kremlin had spread money around the longtime central Asian battlefield for militants to kill remaining U.S. forces. It sparked a massive outcry from Democrats and their #resistance amplifiers about the treasonous Russian puppet in the White House whose admiration for Vladimir Putin had endangered American troops.

But on Thursday, the Biden administration announced that U.S. intelligence only had “low to moderate” confidence in the story after all. Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the story is, at best, unproven — and possibly untrue.

So the mass media aggressively promoted a CIA narrative that none of them ever saw proof of, because there was no proof, because it was an entirely unfounded claim from the very beginning. They quite literally ran a CIA press release and disguised it as a news story.

This allowed the CIA to throw shade and inertia on Trump’s proposed troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Germany, and to continue ramping up anti-Russia sentiments on the world stage, and may well have contributed to the fact that the agency will officially be among those who are exempt from Biden’s performative Afghanistan “withdrawal”.
In totalitarian dictatorships, the government spy agency tells the news media what stories to run, and the news media unquestioningly publish it. In free democracies, the government spy agency says “Hoo buddy, have I got a scoop for you!” and the news media unquestioningly publish it.

In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “The CIA and the Media” reporting that the CIA had covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as Operation Mockingbird. It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media is meant to report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the agendas of spooks and warmongers.

Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and people are too propagandized to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like The New York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news pundits. The sole owner of The Washington Post is a CIA contractor, and WaPo has never once disclosed this conflict of interest when reporting on US intelligence agencies per standard journalistic protocol. Mass media outlets now openly employ intelligence agency veterans like John Brennan, James Clapper, Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall, Samantha Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano, Jeremy Bash, Susan Hennessey, Ned Price and Rick Francona, as are known CIA assets like NBC’s Ken Dilanian, as are CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like Tucker Carlson.

This isn’t Operation Mockingbird. It’s so much worse. Operation Mockingbird was the CIA doing something to the media. What we are seeing now is the CIA openly acting as the media. Any separation between the CIA and the news media, indeed even any pretence of separation, has been dropped.

This is bad. This is very, very bad. Democracy has no meaningful existence if people’s votes aren’t being cast with a clear understanding of what’s happening in their nation and their world, and if their understanding is being shaped to suit the agendas of the very government they’re meant to be influencing with their votes, what you have is the most powerful military and economic force in the history of civilization with no accountability to the electorate whatsoever.

It’s just an immense globe-spanning power structure, doing whatever it wants to whoever it wants. A totalitarian dictatorship in disguise.

And the CIA is the very worst institution that could possibly be spearheading the movements of that dictatorship. A little research into the many, many horrific things the CIA has done over the years will quickly show you that this is true; hell, just a glance at what the CIA was up to with the Phoenix Program in Vietnam will.

There’s a common delusion in our society that depraved government agencies who are known to have done evil things in the past have simply stopped doing evil things for some reason. This belief is backed by zero evidence, and is contradicted by mountains of evidence to the contrary. It’s believed because it is comfortable, and for literally no other reason.

The CIA should not exist at all, let alone control the news media, much less the movements of the US empire. May we one day know a humanity that is entirely free from the rule of psychopaths, from our total planetary behavior as a collective, all the way down to the thoughts we think in our own heads.

May we extract their horrible fingers from every aspect of our being. (Caity Johnstone, 4/16/2021)
____________________
(The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. – Caity Johnstone)

January 17, 2022 - Conspiracies As Realities, Realities As Conspiracies

By: Victor Davis Hanson

“American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them.

The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events.

Russians on the Brain 

Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.”

The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop.

Robert Mueller and his “dream team” consumed $40 million of Americans’ money and 22 months of our time—to find the nothingburger that most of the country already knew was nothing. Yet the subtext of the 2018 Democratic takeover of the House was the media narrative that Trump, as Hillary Clinton put it, was an “illegitimate” president, due to Russian collusion.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed on national television that Trump was a “Russian asset.” Former CIA head John Brennan assured the nation that the president was “treasonous,” due to his supposed “lies to the American people.”

All sorts of politicians, retired military, and news anchors echoed the charges. The lies and myths of has-been British spy Christopher Steele made him a leftist hero. They were repeated ad nauseam as truth.

FBI grandees like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and others destroyed their careers in their obsessions over Trump. In the process of destroying themselves, they also nearly wrecked the reputation of the FBI. The Pentagon has the lowest popular support in modern memory. The CIA is more feared by millions of Americans than by our enemies.

Steele could not produce any evidence to back up his scurrilous charges. The inspector general of the Department of Justice found little evidence to substantiate any of the charges. James Comey and Robert Mueller under oath both pleaded either memory problems or denied any knowledge about the FBI’s use of Steele and the role his fake dossier played.

Most of the televised accusers, when under oath before Congress, admitted they had no evidence for their flamboyant charges. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who claimed the dossier was authentic and that Trump was compromised, has repeatedly been revealed as a liar. In various televised House hearings, he kept getting caught either fabricating, misrepresenting, or warping evidence before his own committee.

No matter. Hillary Clinton and the Left kept pounding “collusion.” The more it was proven false, the more they shouted the lie.

Finally, special counsel John Durham’s investigations, some authentic media investigative reporting, and the preponderance of evidence showed not only that Trump did not collude with the Russians, but that the entire charge was a sick sort of projection on the part of Hillary Clinton and her vassals.

Steele concocted the election-cycle fantasy using a former Clintonite totem in Moscow. Another source was the now indicted Igor Danchenko ( a “primary sub-source”), who was working at the leftist Brookings Institution while feeding Steele.

A cynic might look at this sad chapter and conclude that Hillary Clinton sought to destroy her opponent by paying Christopher Steele to manufacture fantasies fabricated from left-wing and former Clinton associates. Then she used the media, the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department to seed the farce while hiding her own role behind three firewalls including the DNC, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS.

The ultimate irony?  

Hillary Clinton did collude with those claiming to have Russian connections to warp an election, and she projected her likely illegal activity onto the target of her attacks. No conspiracist could trump such reality. Will Merrick Garland look at her role in this episode as he conducts his insurrectionist investigations concerning efforts to undermine an election?  (Read more: American Greatness, 1/16/2022)  (Archive)

August 15, 2022 - Larry Johnson: Understanding why the deep state is terrified of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents

“… I can sum up the Trump documents very succinctly–the documents show that there was a coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI, and DOD starting in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election. Part of this effort involved using NSA-produced intelligence. Oliver Stone’s movie, Snowden, has a scene that accurately describes what NSA was collecting and how it could be used:

When the conspiracy started in the summer of 2015 to interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton by the leadership of the CIA, the FBI and DOD, Donald Trump was not the only target. Few believed at the time that Trump had a snowball’s chance in the raging inferno of Hell to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. There were active searches for compromising intel on all of the leading Republican candidates, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and on Bernie Sanders.

The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure his taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts, and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as “liaison reporting.” This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.

This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don’t have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.

Let me give you one example of how intelligence intercepts were used to target specific individuals. Ask yourself, “how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar?” Papadopoulos was living in London and communicating with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager at the time. Those communications were intercepted by the UK’s GCHQ and passed, through liaison channels, to the NSA. That information was used in turn by the CIA and the FBI, working with British Intelligence, to ensnare Papadopoulos. He was offered a job, for example, at a firm tied to British Intelligence and subsequently introduced to Joseph Mifsud.

I am confident that some of the documents Trump has show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was “masked.” But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names “unmasked.” You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report.

Here is another example, we also know that Felix Sater–a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann)–initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don’t take my word for it, that’s what Robert Mueller reported:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov’s purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Sater’s communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies–GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the “bait” to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.

By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta’s email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:

“That’s good, sooner it’s clarified the better, and the stronger the better,” Budowski replies, later adding: “Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.”

By late December, the intelligence/law enforcement operation targeted Donald Trump as it became clear that he was likely to win the Republican nomination.

I believe Donald Trump is holding trump cards that irrefutably show that the CIA, the FBI and DOD were communicating in Top Secret channels about these activities and that the coordination also included foreign intelligence personnel in at least the UK and Australia.

I hope this helps you understand the desperation of the U.S. national security agencies to keep this stuff hidden. The revelations, if they come, will be devastating. (Larry Johnson/Gateway Pundit, 8/15/2022)  (Archive) 

August 28, 2022 - Lee Smith: People I trust say FBI raid was search for Russiagate documents at Mar-a-Lago

(Credit: Lee Smith/Twitter, Mar-a-Lago/Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)

“Columnist Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History, said colleagues and peers of his — whose judgment he trusts — speculate that the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, was a search for documents related to its “Russiagate” surveillance operation of the 45th president.

“I think the best way to understand this is in the context of a six-year-long operation targeting Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s aides, and Donald Trump’s supporters,” Smith said on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak. “I have different colleagues and people whose insight and whose wisdom I trust very much, and they believe that what the FBI was looking for were documents related to … what the FBI called the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, but what most of the rest of us know as the Russiagate operation meant to target candidate Trump, then President-elect Trump, and then President Donald J. Trump.”

Smith said the people whose speculation he was relaying “have much more insight” and “much more knowledge” about the FBI’s operations than he.

(…) “We need to remember these [are] intelligence agencies that Hillary Clinton was using to spy on the Trump campaign and to smear the Trump campaign,” he remarked. “This was in the Obama administration. There is no way that any of this happened without the White House knowing about it.”

Smith said it was “good news” that whistleblowers within the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) provided information to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) office about political and partisan internal efforts to suppress information about Hunter Biden.

The existence of whistleblowers within the FBI and DOJ, Smith surmised, could lead to some restraint among the bureaucracies’ worst “anti-Trump” operatives due to fear of exposure.

He remarked, “Thanks to the whistleblowers — and to thanks to Charles Grassley’s letters — now we have anti-Trump operatives at the DOJ and the FBI worried about who they can trust. Under our circumstances at present, that’s very important, and it’s very good news, because we want them looking at each other. We want them fearful of each other. We want them suspicious.” (Read more: Breitbart, 8/28/2022)  (Archive)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell to complain about President Trump’s abuse of power after removing Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)

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

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

Kash Patel (Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

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

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

President Barack Obama meets with, from left: Kathryn Ruemmler, Lisa Monaco, and Susan E. Rice (Credit: Pete White House Flickr photo)

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

September 5, 2022 - FBI chief Chris Wray must explain the suppression of the Hunter Biden investigation

(Credit: Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)

“We’ve been pushing Attorney General Merrick Garland for far greater transparency over the Mar-a-Lago raid, but he and FBI chief Christopher Wray owe the nation clear explanations over the Hunter Biden investigation, too.

Particularly in the wake of Timothy Thibault’s resignation from the bureau amid charges he suppressed evidence in the case and even shut down the FBI’s “laptop” investigation on spurious “Russian misinformation” grounds. He also faced an ongoing Office of Special Counsel probe of his partisan, anti-Trump social-media posts.

Top Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Charles Grassley in late July wrote Wray and Garland (following up on a May letter) citing charges by multiple FBI “highly credible whistleblowers” about the burying of “verified and verifiable” dirt on Hunter by falsely dismissing valid intelligence as “disinformation.”

The whistleblowers claim Thibault (then assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office) shut down an entire avenue of the Hunter investigation in October 2020. (Seemingly, that avenue centered on info from the infamous laptop, which the FBI first acquired in December 2019.)

Now Miranda Devine reports that Thibault that October also apparently buried the extensive testimony of whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s former business partner, about the Biden family’s corrupt influence-peddling.

After Bobulinksi’s initial five-hour FBI interview, he was told Thibault would be his FBI contact, yet the bureau never contacted him again. Nor was he brought before the Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter.

Incidentally, the drive to write off the laptop as “Russian disinformation” apparently began long before The Post’s first October 2020 scoops. FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten had opened an “assessment” that August; per Grassley, its result in October was that: “Verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.”

Grassley tried to press Wray about all this at an Aug. 4 hearing — only to have the FBI chief leave early, claiming he had to catch a flight.” (Read more: The New York Post, 9/05/2022)  (Archive)

Miranda Divine appears on WarRoom, September 6, 2022, to discuss the story with Steve Bannon:

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

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

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

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

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

Virtually everything about that claim is breathtakingly untrue.

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

“Zero emails” were “classified.”

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

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

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

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

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)

May 4, 2023 - How Corrupt Is Our Current Situation? It’s Worse Than Most Can Fathom…

Everything that preceded the 2020 federal election was a complex system of control by a network of ideologues, federal agencies, allies in the private sector, financial stakeholders and corrupt interests all working toward a common goal.  There’s no need to go through the background of how the election was manipulated and how the government and private sector, specifically social media, worked to influence the 2020 outcome because you have all seen it.

Whether it was local election officials working to control outcomes, federal agencies working to support them (CISA, FBI, DHS), financial interests working to fund them (Zuckerberg et al), or social media platforms controlling the visible content and discussion (Twitter Files, Google, Facebook etc.), the objective was all the same.  It was a massive one-sided operation against the freewill of the American voter.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, those same system operators, govt officials, corporate media, private sector groups and social media platforms then circled the wagons to scatter the evidence of their conduct.  If you questioned anything you were a threat.  That’s the context to the dynamic that unfolded.

Lawfare operatives joined forces with Democrat staffers, and allies in social media platforms all worked in concert to target the voices of anyone who would rise in opposition to the corruption that was stunningly clear in the outcome of the election process.  Corporate media then labeled, isolated, ridiculed and marginalized anyone who dared to point out the obvious.

When AG Merrick Garland says this of January 6, 2021: (…) “the Justice Department has conducted one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history. We have worked to analyze massive amounts of physical and digital data. We have recovered devices, decrypted electronic messages, triangulated phones, and pored through tens of thousands of hours of video. We have also benefited from tens of thousands of tips we received from the public. Following these digital and physical footprints, we were able to identify hundreds of people.” {link} The targeting operation needs context.

Do you remember on April 27th when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz recently said, “more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government.”  The result was “more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans that were illegal and non-compliant,” and over “10,000 federal employees have access to that database.” {OIG Testimony}.

Put the statement from Garland together with the statement from Horowitz, and you get an understanding of what was done.

Hundreds of stakeholders in the Lawfare network joined forces with hundreds of people who became staff researchers for a weaponized Congress.  Hundreds more social media background agents then poured thousands of hours into feeding private information to the DOJ, FBI, J6 Committee and all of their hired staff working on the project.

How do I know?

I was one of their targets.

Before telling the rest of the story, some background is needed.

I am well versed in the ways of the administrative state and the corrupt systems, institutions and silos that make up our weaponized government. I can (a) see them; (b) predict their activity; and (c) know where their traps and operations are located.

Traveling the deep investigative weeds of the administrative state eventually gives you a set of skills.  When people ask how the outlines on this website can seem so far ahead of the sunlight that eventually falls upon the outlined corruption, this is essentially why.  When you take these skills on the road, you learn to be a free-range scout, and after a long while you learn how to track the activity.

When I was outlining how the Fourth Branch of Government works and/or Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and the DHS system operating inside it, I wasn’t shooting from the hip. However, people will always seek to dismiss the uncomfortable truth.

Sometimes you just have to wait for the evidence you know exists to surface, or for a situation to unfold that is driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy. The bizarre CTH predictions turn out to be the truth of the issue because they are based on the factual evidence of the issue.

That level of how the system works came in very handy when I received this subpoena from Chairman Bennie Thompson and the J6 Committee.  Warning, things are about to get very uncomfortable if you don’t accept the scale of corruption that exists.

Pay attention to the red box on the page shown. This is essentially the probable cause that justifies the subpoena itself.  I have redacted a name in the box for reasons you will see that follow.

I was never in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, nor did I work with or communicate with anyone who was involved in any of the activities that are subject to the J6 committee investigative authority.

I’m going to skip a lot of background noise, irrelevant legal stuff, jurisdictional issues, discoveries from discussions with lawyers and the experience gained in association with this ridiculous subpoena.  I am going to focus on the biggest story within it.

Sticking to the information in the Red Box above, notice how the J6 committee has evidence, “public-source information and documents on file”, showing my participation, communication, and contact with people and technology that are material interests to the committee.

Here’s the kicker…. I had no clue what the hell they were talking about.  There’s not a single aspect of their outline that I had any knowledge or connection of.

I had no idea what Zello was. I had no idea who 1% watchdog might be. I had never heard of “Stop the Steal J6” or associated “channel.”  I had never heard of the person redacted, and I had never communicated with any Oath Keeper, any communication system, or platform, or anyone or anything – nothing – that is outlined in that subpoena.

Those points of evidence outlined in the subpoena had no connection to me at all.

The subpoena might as well have been asking me to appear in Michigan because my Red Ferrari was involved in a hit and run accident, during my trip to Detroit.  I don’t own a Ferrari; I have never been to Michigan; I certainly never had an accident; I wasn’t on a trip and have never visited Detroit.  The entire construct of their probable cause for the subpoena was silly. Complete and utter nonsense.

That said, how could there be “public records” and “documentary” evidence of something that never happened?

At first, I thought this was some silly case of mistaken identity and they just sent a subpoena to the wrong person.  However, the investigators were adamant the evidence existed, and the need for testimony was required.

After taking advice from several smart people, and after discovering the costs associated with just the reply to the committee and/or representation therein; suddenly I realized there might be more value for me in this subpoena than the committee.  After all, how can there be public-records and documents that I own a red Ferrari and went to Michigan when I don’t and never did.

After several back and forths I discovered, through their admissions of their own research, and through documents they extracted as an outcome of their tasks to prove the merit of their claims, that someone *inside* Twitter had created a fictitious identity of me associated with the networks and communications as the investigators described them.

Think about what was discovered here.

Someone inside the Twitter platform, an employee of Twitter, had made a decision to target me. As a result: (a) they had been doing this for a long time with a specific goal in mind; and (b) they created an elaborate trail of background activity and identity that was entirely fabricated.

Eventually, my assigned investigative unit admitted this.

Once, the federal investigators realized what took place they wanted to get rid of me -and my snark filled curiosity- with great urgency.

They also had an ‘oh shit’ moment, when they contemplated everything, including what they had revealed to me from the outset of my contact, now several months prior.

What I discovered in this experience was that DHS, and by extension DOJ/FBI and the January 6 investigators, had direct administrative level backdoors into all social media platforms.

Overlay the Twitter files now, and then expand your thinking….

In their quest to prove that I owned a Red Ferrari, traveled to Michigan and had a hit-and-run accident, these investigators outlined to me how the United States Government, through their DHS authority, has employees, agents and contractors with open portals into all social media platforms.

Yes, the federal government is inside the mechanics of the systems (Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Instagram, Google, YouTube, WhatsApp, Zello, etc) and they have administrative access in real time to monitor, review, extract and evaluate everything, soup-to-nuts.

It was only because the investigators and forensic data knuckleheads have these portals, that they were able to locate the source of the fabricated evidence they were originally attributing to me.  This was an investigative process and research discovery being conducted in the data processing systems of Twitter in real time as they questioned me.

Once they realized what had taken place, and as soon as I started asking how they were making these admissions (now carrying an apologetic certainty), suddenly the investigators wanted no further contact or communication with me.  You’re good, whoopsie daisy, our bad, sorry.

Now, take some time to fully digest and absorb what I have just shared.

The U.S. government is worried about TikTok, because U.S. citizen data might be extracted?

Meanwhile, the U.S. government, at a fully unrestricted administrative level, is inside Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Insta, YouTube etc., running amok and extracting anything – including private messages… and they’re somehow worried about protecting us from TikTok data collection.  Think about it.

(Conservative Treehouse, 5/4/2023)  (Archive)

June 25, 2023 - 'We face a new Marxism' - Senator Hawley calls out the 'Religion of Woke'

March 6, 2024 - Why the left does not understand MAGA (video)

“Donald Trump Is Like A New Deal Democrat”: Batya Ungar-Sargon Explains The MAGA Philosophy That The Left Can’t Understand

March 23, 2024 - Gen. Michael Flynn: Deep State is at war with ‘America and the American people’

General Michael  Flynn (Credit: Dustin Franz/Getty Images)

The Deep State is at war with “America and the American people,” Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday, previewing his upcoming documentary film.

The movie, Flynn: Deliver the Truth. Whatever the Cost, details how the Deep State went after Flynn, and the story, he said, is “really two parts.”

“The first part is really about my life and service to the military” and how he rose to the levels he reached, Flynn explained, noting that the second part is “really about the persecution and the resurrection.”

“Really, it’s a story of survival. And it’s a story of hope,” he said, explaining that the story is largely about how one responds to the bad things that happen to them. Further, Flynn said he exposes things in the film that he has “never talked about.”

When asked why the Deep State chose to go after him, Flynn noted that “they’re not just at war with Donald Trump.”

“They’re at war with America and the American people. So I want to sort of emphasize that, you know, ‘Why me?’ And I do describe this in the film because you don’t get to leading one of the largest intel agencies in the world, which I did, you don’t get to being the national security adviser, chosen by a duly-elected president of the United States of America, which I was, I mean, you know, without having your act together, and then, of course, I served five years in combat overseas against foreign enemies,” Flynn said. “The biggest enemies that I faced was right here at home.”

Flynn said he discusses this at length in the film.

“So, ‘Why me?’ The things that I had done in the latter part of my military career do sort of tell a little bit, and I talk a little bit about this, tell a little bit of a story about ‘Why me?’ when I helped Donald Trump become president of the United States and I was chosen to be his national security adviser,” he explained.

“I started immediately digging into things that I knew about, right? When people say, ‘Flynn knows where the bodies are buried,’ that is a metaphor for the things that I was aware of as not only the head of one of the largest intel agencies in the world — I also worked at the director of national intelligence level — but as I got into the transitioning into the White House, I started to ask questions that I knew the answers to, and I wanted to find out, you know, who was actually doing some of these things, right?” he explained. (Read more: Breitbart, 3/23/2024)  (Archive)

March 24, 2024 - Mop-Up Man: Is this former ATF agent running the J6 pipe bomb cover-up?

We have long maintained that the two smoking guns of the January 6 Fedsurrection are the curious case of Ray Epps, on the one hand, and the RNC/DNC pipe bomb hoax, on the other.

(…) All of this changed when we drew attention to a certain explosive (no pun intended) surveillance video that had quietly and with great reluctance been released by the Capitol Police thanks to the persistent efforts of Thomas Massie, who has valiantly used his Congressional perch to advance our body of research on the January 6 pipe bomb.

Below, courtesy of Thomas Massie, is the most damning and explosive J6 footage yet released.

In my view this will end up demolishing the Regime’s J6 narrative and with it a major pillar of Dem’s 2024 strategy.

You paying attention Kamala? pic.twitter.com/1LuNm6pGdB

— Darren J. Beattie 🌐 (@DarrenJBeattie) January 18, 2024

(…) When asked about the flagrant and explicable lack of concern in relation to the pipe bomb, a more senior Capitol Police official who spoke for the group offered the following shocking response: the nonchalant response of the Secret Service and Capitol Police to the pipe bomb was deliberately designed so as not to cause panic among the public. Think of that: we’re supposed to believe that Secret Service agents and Capitol Police stood lackadaisically within feet of what could have been a live explosive device and allowed a group of children to walk within feet of said device in order to not cause panic.

Revolver:

As it so happens, Congressman Massie and a number of other Judiciary officials had the opportunity to meet with relevant Capitol Police officials, including at least one Capitol Police officer who was present during the discovery of the DNC bomb depicted in the video above. When asked the obvious and burning question as to why Secret Service officials, as well as the Capitol Police officers on scene, were so utterly unconcerned with the recently discovered bomb just feet within their proximity, the Capitol Police responded that they and the Secret Service officials on scene reacted with such utter indifference in order not to cause panic.

Think about this. The Secret Service was notified of the presence of an explosive device within feet of themselves, the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, whom they’re supposed to protect, and children and other passersby, and we are supposed to believe that the officials did nothing because they didn’t want to cause panic!

(…) We are now in a position to expose the identity of the most senior Capitol Police official in that meeting and the man who reportedly presented congressional officials and staffers with the absurd excuse that the Capitol Police and Secret Service allowed a group of children to walk in front of the bomb so as not to cause panic—a baffling explanation for such a flagrant breach of protocol as to be unbelievable to the point of offense. That Capitol Police official is Ashan Benedict, currently Assistant Chief of Police of the Capitol Police in charge of Protective and Intelligence Operations. Yes, you read that right. A man who would excuse the flagrant violation of security protocol as depicted in the footage of the DNC bomb discovery is the head of Protective Operations at the Capitol Police. This alone should be sufficient to cause a national scandal, but it gets far worse. Ashan Benedict’s conduct and statements in the meeting described above, together with new (yet entirely overlooked) information that has come out as a result of a recent Judicial Watch FOIA request, lead us to believe with a high degree of conviction that Ashan M. Benedict is one of the key cover-up men of the entire January 6 pipe bomb hoax.

Ashan M. Benedict, Assistant Chief of Police in Charge of Protective and Intelligence Operations, US Capitol Police (Credit: public domain)

Up until this point, Benedict remained, for the most part, an unknown figure to the public. In fact, the only public exposure of Benedict of any note occurred quite recently in the context of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) documents released as a result of Judicial Watch’s FOIA requests. The headline that emerged from this story is the exposure of CIA involvement on January 6. As we shall soon see, however, the documents FOIAd by Judicial Watch inadvertently expose information that serves to dramatically reinforce our belief that Benedict is a key coverup man for the January 6 pipe bomb hoax.

The ATF documents obtained by Judicial Watch run 88 pages, which includes a number of screenshots from a text group chat of various ATF officials on January 6 called the “January 7 Intel Chain.” The first thing we notice about the group chat in question is how nearly every single name is redacted—not an uncommon feature, to be sure—in FOIAd documents from three-letter agencies. Ashan Benedict’s name, interestingly, is one of the very few that is not redacted. Note that on January 6, 2021, Benedict was a senior ATF official as the Special Agent in Charge for all of Washington, D.C. (hence his presence in the FOIA documents).

(…) The location of the command center notwithstanding, one of the several damning and unanswered questions pertaining to the discovery of the DNC pipe bomb has always been how quickly it was discovered after the first pipe bomb at the Capitol Hill Club had been discovered. We learn from the surveillance footage of the discovery of the DNC bomb that this took place a mere 15 minutes after the discovery of the first bomb.

(…) So what are the chances that some Nostradamus-like figure working for the Capitol Police or ATF would somehow, after the discovery of the first pipe bomb at the Capitol Hill Club, magically intuit that there must be another bomb at the DNC and go on to discover this DNC bomb (which had been undiscovered for over 17 hours) a mere 15 minutes later?

As it so happens, this very question came up in the closed-door meeting between certain members of Congress, their staff, and Congressional officials (including Benedict as the senior officer) and was posed to one of the Capitol Police officers on the scene when the DNC bomb was discovered—in fact, he’s the partner of the plainclothes Capitol Police Officer who discovered the bomb. The answer Benedict and the Capitol Police officer provided was just as offensively implausible as the claim they didn’t attempt to warn schoolchildren of the bomb in order to avoid panic. The Capitol Police officer who was on the scene at the discovery of the DNC bomb claimed that they were at the location of the first bomb and simply had a hunch there might be something at the DNC, and sure enough, 15 minutes later they found it. Remarkable!

The impossible coincidences and absurd explanations for them don’t stop there, however. Just as the notion that the Capitol Police officers just managed to have a hunch that a second bomb would be at the DNC doesn’t add up, it is equally, if not more puzzling, as to how the same officers in question would have had the clairvoyance to know there wouldn’t be a third bomb. After all, if two bombs are discovered in relatively close proximity to the Capitol and in quick succession, wouldn’t the natural assumption be that there would be a third and possibly additional devices? And yet the same officers with sufficient clairvoyance to think to search for and discover a second bomb at the DNC, and to do so an astonishing 15 minutes after the first bomb was discovered—the same officers with sufficient clairvoyance to somehow know that the DNC bomb posed no threat to themselves or the schoolchildren passing by—are, astonishingly enough, the very same officers with the clairvoyance to know that there would be no third bomb in addition to the RNC and DNC bombs, or at least it was not worth looking at or fretting over.

As it so happens, the Capitol Police officer, whose partner was the plainclothes officer who discovered the DNC bomb and who was also on the scene at the discovery of the bomb, was asked by Congressional officials in this meeting whether they had searched for a third bomb upon discovering the second, and if not, why not? The answer, under the watchful and approving eye of Ashan Benedict (whom we now have revealed to be the senior Capitol Police official at this meeting), answered that they did not think there would be a third bomb and provided no explanation as to why. (Read much more: Revolver, 3/24/2024)  (Archive)