James Comey

[thievingmagpie]

SIAP

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So, Clapper basically admits Obama led the spying operation on Trump:



ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The 2017 assessment that the President says he now agrees with, that was done while you and then NCI Director John Brennan were still in office. So, how can we reconcile the President attacking you, but apparently after a very long time finally, allegedly saying — or saying he allegedly agrees with the product of the intelligence community that you, yourself oversaw?

JAMES CLAPPER: Yes, well, this is — yes, as we’ve come to know the President, he is not a stalwart for a consistency or coherence. So it’s very hard to explain that. One point I’d like to make, Anderson, that I don’t think has come up very much before, and I’m alluding now to the President’s criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn’t do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling. If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller’s investigation.

President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. [/i][/u]I think it’s an important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama.

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CNN Jake Tapper said CNN did not get anything wrong during the Russia story:



History says otherwise. A brief stroll down memory lane:

CNN fired three reporters,(forced them to resign), including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit in June of 2017 after a publication of a fake news Russia article.

money.cnn.com/2017/06/26/media/cnn-announcement-retracted-article/index.html

The story, which reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials,” cited a single anonymous source.

CNN falsely reported in December of 2017 that Donald Trump Jr. had received an email on September 4, 2016 with information about WikiLeaks that was not available to the public yet — that turned out to be a HUGE LIE. CNN’s ‘sources’ gave them the wrong date. It turns out that Donald Trump Jr. received the email on September 14, 2016 which was one day after the WikiLeaks information was already made public.

CNN’s Gloria Borger and Jake Tapper also falsely reported in June of 2017 that James Comey would dispute President Trump’s claims that Comey told him he was not under FBI investigation — that turned out to be a HUGE LIE — CNN was forced to make an embarrassing correction.

thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/336871-cnn-issues-correction-after-comey-statement-contradicts-reporting

A recent bungled Trump-Russia story on CNN involved none other than sewer-dwelling Clinton-fixer-turned-Michael Cohen’s-lawyer, Lanny Davis.

In August, Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis admitted he lied to the media when he claimed he confirmed a CNN report with anonymous sources about President Trump’s foreknowledge of the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016.

www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/08/lanny-davis-admits-he-lied-to-fake-news-cnn-about-bombshell-trump-tower-meeting-report/

In July, CNN rolled out another story using anonymous sources wherein they reported Michael Cohen claimed Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya in advance.

This dumpster fire of an article was published just a couple weeks after Cohen hired Lanny Davis to be his lawyer.

www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-june-2016-meeting-knowledge/index.html

CNN was giddy to report that Cohen’s information contradicted Don Jr.’s previous testimony to the Senate Intel Panel and repeated denials his father knew about the meeting — the story turned out to be false.

As usual, CNN was reporting fake news and curiously Lanny Davis himself confirmed to being one of the anonymous sources at the time it was published

But no one at CNN got anything wrong about the Trump-Russia collusion hoax according to Jake Tapper.

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Awkward :

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dailycaller.com/2019/03/31/steele-dossier-russian-disinformation/

Excerpt:

But intelligence experts said the intelligence community should be on the lookout for a more nefarious scenario.

“Any time in the counterintelligence business you believe the U.S. intelligence community was duped by foreigners, that is a prima facie reason a counterintelligence investigation,” said David B. Rivkin Jr., a constitutional attorney and intelligence expert who served in the Regan and Bush administrations.

“By definition, since there was no collusion, the dossier was disinformation, so the intelligence community was misled.”

Daniel Hoffman, a 30-year CIA veteran, said he believes the intelligence community has likely done an assessment of whether the dossier was the product of Russian disinformation, known as dezinformansiya or deza, for short.

“I would hope the intelligence community is doing that,” Hoffman told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Hoffman was a lone voice among former intelligence community officials to question the premise of the dossier.

In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal in January 2018 entitled “The Steele Dossier Fits the Kremlin Playbook,” Hoffman theorized that Russian intelligence knew in 2016 that Steele was investigating Trump and planted false information with the former British spy.

“There is a third possibility, namely that the dossier was part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot targeting both parties and America’s political process,” Hoffman wrote.

“If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that Vladimir Putin continues in the Soviet tradition of using disinformation and espionage as foreign-policy tools.”

Hoffman asserted Russians could easily have learned about Steele’s efforts to collect intelligence on Trump, especially if Russian intelligence had hacked into the computer systems of the DNC, as Mueller has alleged.

The DNC and Clinton campaign hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS during the spring of 2016. Fusion hired Steele in June 2016. During the run-up to the election, Steele and Fusion GPS executives briefed DNC lawyers, reporters and government officials on the Trump investigation. Any emails or documents referring to the Steele project in the DNC computer systems would have been vulnerable to Kremlin-backed hackers.

Steele was also likely on Russia’s radar because of his past work as MI6’s Moscow station chief. Though Steele left British intelligence in 2009 and has not visited Russia since, his private intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, has handled Russia-related issues. He also provided dozens of private intelligence reports to the State Department, and investigated Russian efforts to bribe FIFA officials to host the 2018 World Cup.

Steele also has a murky business relationship with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Deripaska had long done business with Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman.

Deripaska was spotted at an economic forum in St. Petersburg in June 2016 with Sergei Millian, a businessman who has been identified as a major source for the dossier. Millian was also in contact with George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign aide who was the FBI’s catalyst for opening its counterintelligence investigation. Papadopoulos is not mentioned in the dossier.

The bureau relied heavily on Steele’s allegations to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Page. In the dossier, Steele alleges Page was the Trump campaign’s liaison to the Kremlin for the purposes of collusion. He is also accused of meeting secretly with two Kremlin insiders to discuss blackmail material on Hillary Clinton and then-candidate Donald Trump.

Page, who testified before Mueller’s grand jury in November 2017, has vehemently denied the allegations. Like all other Trump associates, he has not been charged with conspiracy in the Mueller probe or any other.

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www.dailywire.com/news/45376/dems-ready-wave-subpoenas-mueller-report-white-emily-zanotti

House Democrats are wasting no time in preparing subpoenas for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian collusion in the 2016 election, and they have their eye on five key current and former White House staffers they say need to testify under oath in front of a House panel.

Yahoo News reports that Democrats will hold a vote Wednesday, in the House, on whether to send out subpoenas to the Department of Justice, demanding the full Mueller report, even though Attorney General William Barr, in a letter released late last week, promised to make the full document available to legislators by mid-April at the latest. Barr noted, on behalf of Mueller's own office, that any report issued to Congress must be redacted, and the DOJ is working to accomplish that as quickly as possible.

But, of course, that's not quick enough for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and other House members engaged in investigating the President.

Nadler made a statement on behalf of the House Judiciary Committee Monday, demanding that Barr and the rest of the DOJ speed up their efforts to meet an arbitrary timeline set by Democrats.

“Congress requires the full and complete Special Counsel report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence,” Nadler wrote. “Attorney General Barr has thus far indicated he will not meet the April 2 deadline set by myself and five other Committee chairs, and refused to work with us to provide the full report, without redactions, to Congress. The Attorney General should reconsider so that we can work together to ensure the maximum transparency of this important report to both Congress and the American people.”

Five former White Houes officials -- Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks, Reince Priebus, former White House Counsel Don McGahn, and former White House aide Ann Donaldson -- have also been singled out for subpoenas, under the assumption that they were interviewed by Mueller for his report, and under the suspicion that they may have received information about Mueller's report, despite not being covered by rules regarding classified and confidential documents.

Those five are also among the 81 individuals Democrats pestered last week, with official requests for documents relevant to their time serving the Trump Administration. Nadler said in his statement Monday that the five did not comply willingly with Democrat requests, hence the subpoenas.

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Apr 1, 2019 8:15:37 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

So, Clapper basically admits Obama led the spying operation on Trump:



ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The 2017 assessment that the President says he now agrees with, that was done while you and then NCI Director John Brennan were still in office. So, how can we reconcile the President attacking you, but apparently after a very long time finally, allegedly saying — or saying he allegedly agrees with the product of the intelligence community that you, yourself oversaw?

JAMES CLAPPER: Yes, well, this is — yes, as we’ve come to know the President, he is not a stalwart for a consistency or coherence. So it’s very hard to explain that. One point I’d like to make, Anderson, that I don’t think has come up very much before, and I’m alluding now to the President’s criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn’t do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling. If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller’s investigation.

President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.

As we go along expect it to get awfully crowded under that bus.

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dailycaller.com/2019/04/01/fusion-gps-steele-soros-millions/

FIRMS TIED TO FUSION GPS, CHRISTOPHER STEELE WERE PAID $3.8 MILLION BY SOROS-BACKED GROUP

The Democracy Integrity Project, a nonprofit that receives funding from George Soros, paid firms tied to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele more than $3.8 million in 2017.
Tax filings show that The Democracy Integrity Project provided its research to “government entities.”
The group’s founder, a former staffer for Dianne Feinstein, has described it as a “shadow media organization” that helps the government.
A nonprofit group partially funded by billionaire activist George Soros paid firms tied to Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele more than $3.8 million in 2017 to provide research and analysis to “government entities,” according to IRS filings.

The payments made by The Democracy Integrity Project are more than three times what the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS and Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign to investigate Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia.

Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Clinton campaign, paid $1 million to Fusion GPS in 2016 to investigate Trump. Fusion GPS in turn paid Steele, a former MI6 officer, nearly $170,000 for a project that resulted in the infamous Steele dossier.

Steele’s report, which alleged a “well-coordinated conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the special counsel’s findings in the 22-month Russia probe.

Daniel J. Jones, a former staffer to California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, founded TDIP on Jan. 31, 2017, seemingly to resume Democrats’ investigation of Trump’s possible links to Russia.

Jones operated what he called a “shadow media organization helping the government” to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He also told the FBI in March 2017 that he received funding from a group of between seven and 10 wealthy donors and that he planned to provide information to federal investigators, the press and lawmakers.

TDIP’s tax filing confirms some aspects of what has been reported about the group.

The group planned to work with a “network of experienced organizations and individuals” to gather information on foreign actors’ efforts to interfere in democratic elections around the world,” according to TDIP’s 2017 form 990, which is listed in a database maintained by ProPublica,

TDIP also says it provides “original, credible, and fact-based information” to a variety of organizations, including “government entities.”

The 990 form lists five separate independent contractors, including four that provided “research consulting,” and one law firm, Zuckerman Spaeder.

The group paid $3.3 million to Bean LLC., the holding company that controls Fusion GPS. Another $250,000 was paid to Walsingham Partners Ltd., a London-based firm owned by Steele and his partner, Christopher Burrows.

TDIP paid another London-based intelligence firm called Istok Associates Ltd. nearly $150,000, also for “research consulting.” The company has released investigative reports looking into whether Russia helped fund the Brexit campaign.

Nearly $130,000 was paid to Edward Austin Ltd., a London-based intelligence consultancy operated by Edward Baumgartner, a Fusion GPS contractor. Another $148,000 was paid to the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder, which has represented Fusion GPS in a variety of dossier-related legal matters.

The full extent of TDIP’s work remains a mystery, as do the identities of most of the organization’s donors.

Real Clear Investigations reported on March 20 that TDIP sends out daily newsletters with a roundup of news stories about the special counsel’s investigation and other Trump-related matters.

Jones has also taken credit for planting anti-Trump news stories. Adam Waldman, an attorney with links to Christopher Steele, revealed text messages showing that Jones took credit for a Reuters news article that raised questions about Russian purchases of Trump properties in Florida.

“Our team helped with this,” Jones wrote Waldman on March 17, 2017, in a text message provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Waldman testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee in November 2017 that Jones told him that Soros, the progressive billionaire financier, was one of TDIP’s backers.

That was confirmed in October, when The New York Times reported that Soros donated at least $1 million to TDIP.

TheDCNF has since found that a California-based nonprofit called the Fund for a Better Future (FBF) contributed nearly $2.1 million to TDIP in 2017. It is not clear who provided the donation to FBF as the group does not disclose its donors. (RELATED: Cabal Of Wealthy Donors Funding Fusion GPS-Linked Group)

According to TDIP’s tax filings, Jones’ group received just over $7 million in contributions in 2017 and spent close to $5 million. Of that, Jones received a salary of $381,263. Another $95,914 was spent on travel.

TDIP’s link to Istok Associates has not been previously reported.

The company’s founder is Neil Barnett, a former journalist who has recently investigated possible Russian influence in the Brexit campaign.

Barnett co-authored a report released on Oct. 17, 2018, for The Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C. think tank, which focused on British businessman Arron Banks’ contributions to the Brexit campaign.

Barnett also suggested in the report that the Trump campaign received millions of dollars in illicit donations, possibly from foreign adversaries. Barnett’s argument hinged on a large amount donations under $200, which is the cutoff point where donors are required to disclose their names and addresses.

Politicians typically hype small-dollar donations, which are seen as one gauge of grassroots support for political campaigns. But Barnett seemingly saw something more nefarious in the outsize ratio of small-dollar contributions flowing to the Trump campaign.

“Trump’s campaign team has presented these statistics as a positive, positioning him as a candidate with genuine support from grassroots donors. But, because it is without a doubt technically possible to automate and anonymize these donations electronically, the money actually came from unknown sources,” reads Barnett’s report, entitled “Democracy in the Crosshairs.”

There is no evidence that TDIP was involved in Barnett’s report for The Atlantic Council.

One of TDIP’s founders and board members is Adam Kaufmann, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. In private practice, Kaufmann served as an attorney for Derwick Associates, a Venezuelan firm that has come under scrutiny for money laundering and embezzlement.

Derwick hired Fusion GPS in 2014. Reporters and human rights activists have claimed that Kaufman and Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch pressured them to back off stories critical of Derwick.

Baumgartner, the Edward Austin Ltd. executive, has worked for years as a Fusion GPS contractor. Glenn Simpson, another Fusion GPS co-founder, said in congressional testimony in 2017 that Baumgartner helped the firm with an investigation of London-based financier Bill Browder, who is the leading proponent of the Magnitsky Act, a sanctions law opposed by the Kremlin.

After the Steele dossier was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017, Fusion GPS tapped Baumgartner to conduct a background investigation of Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian businessman accused in the dossier of having been recruited as a Russian spy and of hacking DNC computer systems.

Gubarev vehemently denied the allegations and filed defamation lawsuits against BuzzFeed and Steele.

Baumgartner’s report undercut the dossier’s claims about Gubarev. He found that Gubarev’s peers did not believe that he was working for the Kremlin to hack Democrats.

TDIP has also been linked to a controversial technology company that has been implicated in a disinformation campaign that targeted a special election for an Alabama Senate seat in 2017.

TDIP partnered with the tech company New Knowledge on DisInfo 2018, a project that aimed to track social media disinformation during the 2018 midterms.

New Knowledge gained national attention in December after releasing a report in partnership with the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding Russian social media disinformation. Days later, New Knowledge came under fire for using bots and fake social media personas in the Alabama special election.

Jones operates another nonprofit group that appears to focus on the same issues as TDIP.

On Jan. 29, 2018, Jones registered Advance Democracy Inc. That group received a $500,000 contribution last year from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a donor-advised fund that masks its contributors. (RELATED: Dark Money Org Gave $2 Million To Group Working With Fusion GPS, Steele)

Jones founded Advance Democracy four days after Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a letter seeking information from associates of Fusion GPS and Steele.

TDIP did not respond to a request for comment.

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www.dailywire.com/news/45399/man-fbi-first-targeted-collusion-gives-new-details-james-barrett

Trump Advisor FBI First Targeted For 'Collusion' Gives New Details About Feds' 'Preposterous' Claims

Carter Page speaks onstage at Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 20, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images


By JAMES BARRETT
April 1, 2019
62.8k views
Carter Page, the man who federal investigators first targeted for surveillance on the unfounded premise that he was a potential agent for Russia, part of the feds' now debunked "collusion" claim against the Trump campaign, wasn't charged — or even so much as mentioned — in Mueller's various indictments, none of which were related to the original focus of the investigation. Having been finally vindicated with Mueller's report submitted to the attorney general and no further indictments issued, Page is now getting his chance to tell his story without the cloud of the years-long investigation hanging over his head.

In an interview with former CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson published by Full Measure Sunday, Page describes the FBI's "outrageous, preposterous" claims against him. Full Measure offers a description of Page, details of which most reports citing him over the last two years have somehow failed to emphasize: He was "a Naval officer in Europe and the Mideast with a brief stint in Navy intelligence," holds two Masters and a PhD, was "a successful investment adviser and worked in Russia from 2004-2007," and — the part that really didn't get much play by the mainstream outlets — has a long history of helping the FBI and CIA in counter-Russia investigations.

fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/carter-page

"It’s been reported that you assisted the FBI years ago in the case of corporate espionage by a Russian spy case. Is that true?" asked Attkisson.

"I had alluded to the fact that I'd helped out CIA and FBI going back decades," Carter responded, citing relationships he developed in his time in the military as aiding him in those endeavors.

"So the theory was, at the time, that a guy who had helped the FBI and CIA in the past, including with potential spy cases, himself became a spy while being watched by the FBI?" asked Attkisson.

"It's just so outrageous, preposterous," Carter responded. "Where do you even begin?"

Page's involvement with the Trump campaign clearly made him a target for the infamous Democrat-funded "dossier," the claims of which have never been verified and, importantly in Carter's case against the feds, were not verified when it was used as rationale for securing a FISA warrant to spy on Carter for a full year.

Full Measure notes that Yahoo News was first to publish a story during the 2016 campaign attempting to link Page to Russian agents, which Page alleges was part of a government-orchestrated attempt to smear the campaign generally and him specifically.

"When you felt you were being targeted or became aware of this, you wrote a letter to then FBI director James Comey," said Attkisson. "Tell me about that."

"Literally that weekend, so this outrageous Yahoo News article came out on Friday September 23rd, 2016," he said.

"About the opposition research dossier that implicated Donald Trump and you in all types of outrageous behavior?" Attkisson asked for clarification.

"Yeah. And so I sent a letter to Director Comey over that weekend and just explaining, telling him reality, just how absolutely outrageous this whole thing is," said Page. "And I mentioned in there, again that's why I brought up the fact that I had helped CIA and FBI over many years, and I said we've had long conversations with the intelligence community, if you have any questions, I mean this is just so implausible on the face, but if you have any questions about it whatsoever, please do not hesitate to contact me. And that's essentially the message. And what's interesting is over the next two months, both the next month in October 2016 and then again January 2017 they put in these FISA warrants."

Those warrants were for wiretaps, Page explained, which they'd use to track his communication for a year, despite the only basis for the allegations against him being based in an unverified, partisan dossier.

Attkisson stressed that our intelligence agencies are supposed to have "evidence in hand" to take the "drastic step of a privacy invasion," yet all they really had was the dossier and reports based on unsubstantiated leaked information that appears to trace back to the dossier. The feds ended up getting four wire tap warrants of 90 days each to surveil Page.

During the interview, Page revealed that he has never even spoken with Trump.

"Had you met him?" Attkisson asked, referencing Trump.

"I never met him at all. No," said Page. Asked if he still hadn't met him, he replied, "Nope. Never." Not even on the phone, he said.

Attkisson noted that when the FBI is granted the ability to surveil a citizen, it "allows itself to also surveil everyone who's in touch with you and everyone who's in touch with those people. At least two layers back." That "two layers back" would mean that the FBI could have been able to monitor the communications of people that were in direct contact with Trump, thus monitoring Trump himself through those connections, Attkisson notes.

Page is now suing the federal government for what he says is the use of the media to spread false information about him.

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A reporter asked Sarah Sanders why President Trump said releasing Mueller’s report would not satisfy top House Democrats Nadler and Schiff.

“The President is right. They [Democrats] will never be satisfied — they’re sore losers,” Sanders said. “They lost in 2016. They lost because they tried to convince all of America of something that we all knew was untrue, that the president had colluded with Russia. It was a total lie then. It’s a total lie now.”

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dailycaller.com/2019/04/02/cnn-christine-amanpour-fbi-james-comey-lock-her-up/

CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour asked former FBI director James Comey on Tuesday if he should’ve restricted people from saying “lock her up” because the phrase amounts to “hate speech.”

Comey asserted during the interview that President Donald Trump targets private citizens with investigations and the power of the executive, citing Trump “calling for the locking up of his political opponents, including people like me.”

Amanpour seized on Comey’s use of the phrase “locking up,” and wondered if the FBI should censor the use of “lock her up” in reference to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (RELATED: CPAC Chants ‘Lock Her Up’ During Trump Speech)



Of course, ‘lock her up’ was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign,” Amanpour said. “Do you in retrospect wish that people like yourself, the FBI, I mean, the people in charge of law and order, had shut down that language — that it was dangerous potentially, that it could’ve created violence, that it’s kind of hate speech. Should that have been allowed?”

Comey explained the First Amendment to Amanpour, replying, “That’s not the role for government to play. The beauty of this country is people can say what they want, even if it’s misleading and it’s demagoguery.”

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And yet, the FBI, Mueller Investigation, etc have proved none of it,(some even saying there was no collusion, even though Russia attempted to, because the campaign turned them away).

dailycaller.com/2019/04/03/schiff-evidence-collusion-investigations/

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Wednesday that there is still plenty of evidence in the public record to continue investigating President Donald Trump for colluding with Russians during the 2016 presidential race in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”



When asked if he was wrong after Mueller’s report appeared to resolve there was no collusion from Trump or his family, Schiff said:

I think what you see in the public record is direct evidence. When the Russians, through an intermediary, offered dirt on the Clinton campaign as part of what’s described as the Russian government effort to help the Trump campaign, and Donald Trump’s son — who played a pivotal role in the campaign — who says, if it is what you say it is, I’d love it, and sets up a meeting to receive it, it is direct evidence of collusion.

The Chair of the House Committee on Intelligence was then asked why he was so sure there was collusion when Mueller couldn’t find evidence during his two-year investigation into the matter. (RELATED: Don Jr. Takes On ‘Leader Of The Tinfoil Hat Brigade’ Adam Schiff)

Schiff responded:

We won’t know until we get the report. Even looking at that fact pattern, Mueller could conclude that the Trump campaign didn’t know that this was, in fact, the Russian government. Even though it was portrayed as the Russian government, or that the dirt they got during that meeting wasn’t sufficient to prove beyond-a-reasonable-doubt conspirac,y or these other interactions with other Russians with Kilimnik, believed to be linked to Russian intelligence, maybe there wasn’t a sufficient link that could be proven by beyond a reasonable doubt between Kilimnik and the Russian government.

We won’t know until we see the there is no explaining away the eagerness of the president, that he demonstrated publicly, to have Russian help, pay Russians. If you’re listening, hack Hillary’s emails. There is no doubt that the Russians did hack the democratic emails.

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But back in 1998, as a member of the same committee, he vociferously opposed the release of the full Starr Report, saying that “as a matter of decency and protecting people’s privacy rights, people who may be totally innocent third parties, what must not be released at all.”

Then, the president was Bill Clinton. Now, it is a Republican, Donald Trump.

Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating then-President Bill Clinton, delivered his report to Congress on Sept. 9, 1998. That night, Nadler went on Charlie Rose's show to push back against the Republican demand that the voluminous report should be made public. “It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses," Nadler said. "Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release,”

What Nadler, 71, said in 1998 echoes what Attorney General William Barr told Congress last week. Barr, 68, wrote that he might redact grand jury testimony, information related to ongoing investigations, sensitive or classified information, and “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties” from the report that he provides to Congress and the public.

In a New York Times op-ed Monday, Nadler wrote: “We — the members of the Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives, and the entire American public — are still waiting to see that report… We have an obligation to read the full report, and the Department of Justice has an obligation to provide it, in its entirely, without delay.”

Twenty-one years ago, Nadler said that the Starr Report was inherently biased against Clinton: “'We should always remember this is a prosecutor's report — by its nature it's a one-sided report.” He complained about Clinton not being allowed to get a sneak peak at the Starr Report before it was made public: “The President is asking for two days. The Republicans say no.”

In October 1998, Nadler attacked the legitimacy of the independent counsel investigation: “Starr thinks he is going to be investigating things in four years … I find that astonishing and appalling. Is this a permanent inquisition against the president?” The language Nadler used was reminiscent of the “witch hunt” language used by Trump in reference to Mueller’s investigation.

In a February 1999 article in the New York Times, Nadler called the Starr Report and impeachment efforts by Republicans a “partisan coup d'etat.” He said he didn’t think Clinton had obstructed justice and that even if he had, it would not be an impeachable offense. “An impeachable offense is an abuse of Presidential power designed to or with the effect of undermining the structure or function of government, or undermining constitutional liberties,” Nadler said.

Last month, before Mueller had finished his investigation, Nadler was already claiming that “it’s very clear that the president obstructed justice.” He said impeachment was a possibility: "We have to do the investigations and get all this … We do not now have the evidence all sorted out to do an impeachment … Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen.”
.......

Humorous at how quickly one pivots when it's a political rival.

video link:

charlierose.com/videos/9548

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Hmmm, one has to wonder why?

thefederalist.com/2019/04/02/fbi-refuses-records-requests-for-e-mails-to-cnn-on-day-of-roger-stone-raid/


FBI Refuses Records Requests For Emails To CNN On Day Of Roger Stone Raid
The FBI rejected an open records request for any emails sent to or from CNN just prior to a pre-dawn FBI raid on the Florida home of Roger Stone.

APRIL 2, 2019 By Sean Davis

The FBI on Tuesday rejected an open records request from The Federalist for any and all emails sent to or from CNN the day of the pre-dawn raid at the home of Roger Stone.

“Please provide all e-mails sent to or received from any account with a ‘cnn.com’ domain from January 24, 2019 through January 25, 2019,” The Federalist wrote in a Freedom Of Information Act request submitted on the morning of January 25, 2019.


CNN was the only network present at the Fort Lauderdale home of Roger Stone, a former Trump associate who was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, prior to the arrival of FBI agents dispatched to arrest the bombastic former Nixon aide. The pre-dawn arrival of CNN at what was supposed to be a surprise raid of Stone’s home raised questions about whether the network had been tipped off about the impending FBI arrest of Stone.

David Shortell, the CNN reporter who broadcast live from Stone’s home during the raid, rejected suggestions that he had been tipped off to the raid and claimed that it was a gut feeling that compelled him to camp outside Stone’s residence the same day federal agents showed up to arrest Stone.

“It’s reporter’s instinct,” Shortell said shortly after the raid, according to the Washington Examiner.

In a letter to The Federalist justifying its refusal to provide the request records, the FBI claimed that the request for emails to and from a specific domain sent or received on two specific dates was “overly broad,” did not provide “enough detail to enable personnel to locate” the records, and sought information in “vague and undefined terms.” The FBI further claimed that the underlying request itself, which specified both the date and the sender’s or recipient’s email domain, did not comply with federal regulations regarding requests for information made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Using the same rationale, the FBI also rejected a separate FOIA request from The Federalist which specifically requested any and all FBI emails on the day of the Stone raid sent to or from Josh Campbell, a former FBI employee who worked under James Comey, former director of the FBI, and now works as a law enforcement analyst for CNN, as well as any and all emails from that day specifically mentioning Roger Stone.

“To the extent possible, requesters should include specific information that may assist a component in identifying the requested records, such as the date, title or name, author, recipient, subject matter of the record, case number, file designation, or reference number,” state the federal regulations governing FOIA requests. “In general, requesters should include as much detail as possible about the specific records or the types of records that they are seeking.”

The FBI did not explain how a request noting a specific date, specific character string, and specific sender or recipient did not satisfy federal regulations covering open records requests made pursuant FOIA.

Last year, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, issued a scathing report detailing a culture of unauthorized leaking within the FBI.

“We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review,” the inspector general wrote in the report. “We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters.”

“We do not believe the problem is with the FBI’s policy, which we found to be clear and unambiguous,” the report noted. “Rather, we concluded that these leaks highlight the need to change what appears to be a cultural attitude among many in the organization.”

The inspector general also suggested that FBI personnel were receiving gifts from reporters in exchange for leaks, including “tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”

The report noted that the inspector general’s office was conducting a separate investigation on the brewing gifts-for-leaks scandal within the FBI and would release that report to the public once it was concluded.

[sooner98]

Apr 2, 2019 7:00:32 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

www.dailywire.com/news/45399/man-fbi-first-targeted-collusion-gives-new-details-james-barrett

Trump Advisor FBI First Targeted For 'Collusion' Gives New Details About Feds' 'Preposterous' Claims

Carter Page speaks onstage at Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 20, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images

I still cannot believe this happened to this guy. He has a history of helping the FBI with anti-Russian intelligence, and was willing to help out in any way when the Yahoo story came out. The FBI was having none of it. They had their golden ticket to spy on anyone in Page's circle (which obviously included Trump himself). It is outrageous that this could happen here. I hope he sues the FBI, Covington style.

[soonernvolved]

www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/01/dershowitz_no_legal_basis_for_democrats_to_demand_public_release_of_full_mueller_report.html

Dershowitz: "No Legal Basis" For Democrats To Demand Public Release Of Full Mueller Report
......




Monday afternoon on FOX News, legal scholar Alan Dershowitz said there is "no legal basis" for Democrats to demand the release of the full Mueller report. "This is a political issue. This is a media issue. This is not a legal issue," he said.

"I think, even if Barr were hypothetically to refuse to issue anything, there would be no legal basis for a court to compel him to do that," Dershowitz said.




"The special counsel, under the rules, has an obligation to file a report with the attorney general. There’s nothing in the rules that require the attorney general to make the report public, particularly if it contains information critical of people who were not indicted. So, this is a political issue. This is a media issue. This is not a legal issue."

Dershowitz added: "This rush to release is understandable. The American public wants to see this report. They’re curious. But the law has to be complied with, and the law generally protects subjects of investigations who haven’t been indicted."

[soonernvolved]

freebeacon.com/politics/bharara-cautions-resistance-its-not-the-southern-districts-job-to-get-rid-of-trump/


Bharara Cautions Resistance: It’s Not the Southern District’s Job to Get Rid of Trump
.....



Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara advised opponents of President Donald Trump Tuesday not to put their hope into being "delivered from him" by law enforcement officials.

Bharara appeared on Deadline: White House and cautioned the "resistance" to focus on defeating Trump in the 2020 election. Many progressives were already disappointed last month with the report that Mueller's probe would produce no further indictments and cleared Trump on collusion with Russia in 2016.

"I also want to caution people. Maybe not everyone will love hearing this," Bharara said. "Lots of people don't like the president, think he should not be president, and they want to be delivered from him, and I get that, and I may be one of those people also. It doesn't mean that you're going to be delivered from that in some place other than the ballot box. It doesn't mean you're going to be delivered from that by Bob Mueller, as good as he is, because his job was not to get the president."

"The Southern District's job, the place I used to lead, is not to get the president," he added. "Maybe they'll find evidence of a crime, maybe they'll think they have something to say in a courtroom, whether it's about the hush money payments or something else or the Trump Organization, but if people don't like the direction of the country and they think we're moving away from the ideals of the country should be about, whether it's on immigration or decency or rule of law, then they should set their sights and their energy on doing things politically."

His tone appeared different than last month, when he said the Mueller probe's conclusion did not mean Trump was out of the woods.

"I don't think people should be taking victory laps, or jumping off bridges, depending on their political viewpoint, based on the face that the Mueller report has been concluded and there's no indictments," Bharara said on CNN. "But Donald Trump is not out of legal jeopardy and the Southern District of New York did not have the narrow mission that the special counsel had."

Bharara called the Southern District's attorneys "aggressive" and "fair-minded" Tuesday as he promoted his new book Doing Justice.

"If they find things they think are wrong and cross the line into criminality they will say so and bring the cases against the president themselves with the policy," Bharara said. "And if they don't, they'll do the right thing there, too, and walk away. They are not going to be swayed by public opinion and by any blood lust or any sort of penchant for forgiveness because people like the president."

The SDNY is investigating the Trump Organization and his inaugural committee, and it also prosecuted Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen for several crimes, including hush payments he claimed to have made to porn actress Stormy Daniels at Trump's behest.

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace, whose program has focused relentlessly on the investigations into Trump and his orbit, told Bharara she didn't believe the "resistance" thought federal prosecutors would "deliver us from Trump."

"I think there's a hope that no one's above the rule of law," she said.

[kcrufnek]

Apr 3, 2019 10:26:08 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

But back in 1998, as a member of the same committee, he vociferously opposed the release of the full Starr Report, saying that “as a matter of decency and protecting people’s privacy rights, people who may be totally innocent third parties, what must not be released at all.”

Then, the president was Bill Clinton. Now, it is a Republican, Donald Trump.

Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating then-President Bill Clinton, delivered his report to Congress on Sept. 9, 1998. That night, Nadler went on Charlie Rose's show to push back against the Republican demand that the voluminous report should be made public. “It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses," Nadler said. "Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release,”

What Nadler, 71, said in 1998 echoes what Attorney General William Barr told Congress last week. Barr, 68, wrote that he might redact grand jury testimony, information related to ongoing investigations, sensitive or classified information, and “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties” from the report that he provides to Congress and the public.

In a New York Times op-ed Monday, Nadler wrote: “We — the members of the Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives, and the entire American public — are still waiting to see that report… We have an obligation to read the full report, and the Department of Justice has an obligation to provide it, in its entirely, without delay.”

Twenty-one years ago, Nadler said that the Starr Report was inherently biased against Clinton: “'We should always remember this is a prosecutor's report — by its nature it's a one-sided report.” He complained about Clinton not being allowed to get a sneak peak at the Starr Report before it was made public: “The President is asking for two days. The Republicans say no.”

In October 1998, Nadler attacked the legitimacy of the independent counsel investigation: “Starr thinks he is going to be investigating things in four years … I find that astonishing and appalling. Is this a permanent inquisition against the president?” The language Nadler used was reminiscent of the “witch hunt” language used by Trump in reference to Mueller’s investigation.

In a February 1999 article in the New York Times, Nadler called the Starr Report and impeachment efforts by Republicans a “partisan coup d'etat.” He said he didn’t think Clinton had obstructed justice and that even if he had, it would not be an impeachable offense. “An impeachable offense is an abuse of Presidential power designed to or with the effect of undermining the structure or function of government, or undermining constitutional liberties,” Nadler said.

Last month, before Mueller had finished his investigation, Nadler was already claiming that “it’s very clear that the president obstructed justice.” He said impeachment was a possibility: "We have to do the investigations and get all this … We do not now have the evidence all sorted out to do an impeachment … Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen.”
.......

Humorous at how quickly one pivots when it's a political rival.

video link:

charlierose.com/videos/9548

There are some thi8ngs that cannot be released and it would be against the law. Grand jury transcripts are off limits.

Life, Liberty & Levin had Sara Carter and John Solomon on the show. It was excellent. They've done Pulitzer quality work.

[soonernvolved]

The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), sent a letter to the IRS Wednesday demanding President Trump’s tax returns for 2013 through 2018 as well as for several of Trump businesses.

www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/trump-tax-returns-house-democrats-request/index.html


Neal wrote that the committee needed Trump’s tax returns to consider legislation related to the IRS’s practice of auditing sitting presidents.

“Under the Internal Revenue Manual, individual income tax returns of a President are subject to mandatory examination, but this practice is IRS policy and not codified in the Federal tax laws,” Neal wrote in a letter to the IRS. “It is necessary for the committee to determine the scope of any such examination and whether it includes a review of underlying business activities required to be reported on the individual income tax return.”

In a statement to CNN, Neal stressed that the committee’s request was about “policy, not politics.”
“My preparations were made on my own track and timeline, entirely independent of other activities in Congress and the administration,” Neal said. “My actions reflect an abiding reverence for our democracy and our institutions, and are in no way based on emotion of the moment or partisanship. I trust that in this spirit, the IRS will comply with federal law and furnish me with the requested documents in a timely manner.”

Neal has given the IRS until April 10 to comply with the request.

CNN also reported the legal context for Neal’s request:

…Under IRS code 6103, only the Joint Committee on Taxation, the House Ways and Means chairman and the Senate Finance Committee chairman have the authority to request the tax information of an individual.

…Democrats believe the statute is clear. Under the code, it says “the secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request.”
..........

Trump responds:

[soonernvolved]

Mueller's team with another confidential leak:

www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/mueller-findings-barr.html


Mr. Barr has said he would move quickly to release the nearly 400-page report but needed time to scrub out confidential information. The special counsel’s investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report, and some team members believe that Mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions, according to government officials familiar with the investigation. Mr. Barr only briefly cited the special counsel’s work in his letter.

However, the special counsel’s office never asked Mr. Barr to release the summaries soon after he received the report, a person familiar with the investigation said. And the Justice Department quickly determined that the summaries contain sensitive information, like classified material, secret grand-jury testimony and information related to current federal investigations that must remain confidential, according to two government officials.

[soonernvolved]

Russia ties to another Clinton associate:

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/03/collusion-russians-gave-35-million-to-company-with-john-podesta-on-board/


Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, John Podesta, played a central role in another potential Russian collusion scandal that has not yet been investigated.

Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, served on the board of Joule Unlimited, a now defunct alternative energy company, from January 2011 to January 2014. He resigned from the company’s board to accept the powerful job of Counselor to President Barack Obama.


During Podesta’s tenure on the board of Joule Unlimited, a significant investment in the company by a firm owned by the Russian government escaped review and scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, John Podesta, played a central role in another potential Russian collusion scandal that has not yet been investigated.

Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, served on the board of Joule Unlimited, a now defunct alternative energy company, from January 2011 to January 2014. He resigned from the company’s board to accept the powerful job of Counselor to President Barack Obama.



During Podesta’s tenure on the board of Joule Unlimited, a significant investment in the company by a firm owned by the Russian government escaped review and scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Breitbart TV


Trump Calls for Stripping Washington Post, NYT of Pulitzer Prize for Russian Collusion Reporting


In September 2011, eight months after Podesta joined the board of Joule Unlimited, Rusnano, a venture capital fund wholly owned by the Russian government, announced it was investing one billion Russian rubles, $35 million, in the company, which accounted for 46 percent of the $75 million invested in it up to that time from its launch in 2007. Founders Afeyan Noubar and Dr. David Berry invested an estimated $10 million in the 2007 first round. The venture firm Noubar heads, Flagship Ventures – now known as Flagship Pioneering – led a second round investment of $30 million in 2010, as the Boston Globe reported.



Curiously, the CFIUS failed to initiate a review of the transaction despite statutory and administrative guidelines that any such transaction in which a foreign country or foreign company obtained more than a ten percent interest in an American company was reviewable.

“CFIUS has significant discretion to determine when a foreign entity has sufficient control to confer jurisdiction,” according to Overview of the CFIUS Process, a report prepared by the law firm Waltham & Lakins, a leading practitioner before CFIUS:

As a practical matter, the scope of CFIUS’ jurisdiction is often ambiguous. This ambiguity is illustrated by the one “safe harbor” explicitly established by CFIUS’ regulations, which provides that investments resulting in a foreign person having an ownership interest of 10% or less of the outstanding voting interests in the US business are not within CFIUS’ jurisdiction, if those investments are held “solely for the purpose of passive investment.”

While this formulation appears straightforward, a closer read reveals that the “passive” nature of the investment can be called into question in light of “other” facts deemed relevant by CFIUS — e.g., contractual or other arrangements between the foreign investor and the target. (emphasis added)



Apparently no member of the management teams or board of directors of either Joule Unlimited or Rusnano USA notified CFIUS of the transaction before it took place, which is surprising, given the sophistication and business experience of both parties, as well as typical practices in such transactions.

“Where CFIUS arguably has jurisdiction over a given transaction, the parties ‘voluntarily’ notify CFIUS of the transaction in the first instance,” Waltham & Lakins notes in Overview of the CFIUS Process:

If a given transaction arguably is within the scope of CFIUS’ jurisdiction, parties normally will file if they perceive a significant level of CFIUS-related risk associated with the target (often referred to as a “vulnerability”) or associated with the foreign investor (often referred to as a “threat”). Many factors inform the parties’ evaluation of the nature and extent of such risk, including (but not limited to):

The likely impact of proposed transaction on national defense requirements
The foreign investor’s nationality and the extent of its ownership by foreign governments (e.g., Chinese investments are generally perceived as high-risk)
The target’s involvement in and ties to national security-related activity and “critical infrastructure” in the United States
The proximity of the target’s assets to sensitive US government locations, such as military installations (which may be known or unknown to the target)
Established in 1988, CFIUS is an interagency board consisting of representatives from nine major cabinet departments, the most significant being the Dept. of Treasury, whose representative chairs the board, and the Department of State.



Assistant Secretary of State for Economy, Energy and Business Affairs Jose W. Fernandez served as the Department of State’s representative to CFIUS at the time it ignored the Rusnano investment in Joule Unlimited.

Nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate, Fernandez was sworn in on December 1, 2009 and was the State Department’s representative on the CFIUS board in October 2010 when it approved the controversial acquisition of Uranium One, the Canadian company that owned 20 percent of U.S. uranium reserves, by ARMZ, which is wholly owned by the Russian government.

That controversial approval came just four months after former President Bill Clinton–husband to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also the co-founder of the Clinton Foundation–was paid $500,000 by Renaissance Capital “for his 90-minute June 29, 2010, speech, one of the largest one-day fees Bill Clinton ever earned. Renaissance Capital had ties with the Kremlin and was talking up the Uranium One purchase in 2010, giving it an encouraging investment rating in Russia right at the time the U.S. was considering approval of the uranium sale, according to reports in the New York Times in 2015,” as The Hill reported.

Fernandez’s relationship with Podesta came under scrutiny in 2016, when a Wikileaks email describing a 2015 phone conversation between the two about how Fernandez described former Secretary of State Clinton’s role in the 2010 Uranium One deal approval by CFIUS came to light, as The Daily Caller reported:

But on April 17, 2015, just five days before Fallon sent his denial to The New York Times with Fernandez’s disclaimer, Podesta was in contact with Fernandez by phone.

Fernandez responded by enthusiastically declaring his loyalty to Hillary Clinton and his desire to do so in the future:

“John, It was good to talk to you this afternoon, and I appreciate your taking the time to call. As I mentioned, I would like to do all I can to support Secretary Clinton, and would welcome your advice and help in steering me to the right persons in the campaign.”

If Fernandez was not exactly an impartial observer, given his explicitly stated desire to assist in Clinton’s campaign, he was also connected to Podesta in another significant way – through membership on the board of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank with close ties to the Clintons. John Podesta founded the organization.

In an e-mail on March 29, 2015, Fernandez attributed his recent good fortune to Podesta’s intervention:

“Hi John, I trust you are getting a brief rest after a job well done. Thanks no doubt to your recommendation I have joined the CAP

board of trustees, which I’m finding extremely rewarding.”



That failure of CFIUS to scrutinize the Russian government’s investment in Joule Unlimited fit the pattern established by the Russian “reset” established by Hillary Clinton when she was confirmed as Secretary of State, as an August 2016 report from the Government Accountability Institute noted:

One area of quick movement and success was on technological cooperation and financial investment. In theory, the idea was simple: encourage U.S. companies to invest in Russia to tap the country’s strengths in basic scientific talent while creating opportunities for Russian investment in U.S. tech companies.

Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration saw the opportunity for widespread technological cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. During her October 2009 visit to Russia, she noted the country’s strength in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics): “t’s just a treasure trove of potential for the Russian economy.”

Vice President Joe Biden echoed that sentiment two years later during his visit to Russia: “Closer cooperation will allow American companies to benefit from greater access to Russia’s deep pool of talented engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists.”

According to leaked State Department cables, Russian government officials were told that the Obama Administration saw “building the science and technology (S & T) relationship with Russia as an important pillar in strengthening overall bilateral relations….”

Technological cooperation and investment deals seemed to be the sort of “win-win” deals President Obama said he sought. But as we will see, the Clintons and close aides appear to have personally benefitted from such deals. And these deals also raised serious questions from the FBI, the U.S. Army, and foreign governments that the Russian military was benefitting from them as well.

From the time Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State in January 2009, John Podesta was a close adviser to her, as the August 2016 GAI report indicated on page 21:

During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, he [John Podesta] was in regular contact with her and played an important role in shaping U.S. policy. For one thing, he sat on the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, appointed by Hillary. (The board was established in December 2011.)

The full extent of Podesta’s email communication cannot ultimately be known because Hillary Clinton deleted approximately half of her emails after she left the State Department. Of the emails that remain, there is ample evidence that Podesta played a major role in advising her.

According to publicly released emails, as early as May 20, 2009, Podesta joined Clinton for a working dinner in the Monroe Room at the State Department. Other emails indicate that a “monthly thinking group” met at the State Department with Clinton including John Podesta and six others. Podesta and Secretary Clinton exchanged emails concerning personnel matters. Podesta was also actively involved in reviewing and helping to edit Hillary Clinton’s speeches. There were emails in which Podesta would reach out and speak with Clinton about his meetings with foreign leaders.

Clearly these emails at times covered sensitive subjects; numerous email exchanges between Podesta and senior State Department officials were redacted because they dealt with sensitive material.



While serving on the board of Joule Unlimited, Podesta was joined in 2012 by one of Vladimir Putin’s closest associates, Anatoly Chubais, according to a press release still up on the Rusnano USA website:

Joule today announced the election of Anatoly Chubais to its board of directors, adding the expertise and insight of a prominent figure in international business, economics and government. The news was released in conjunction with Joule’s participation at the Russia Forum, an annual meeting of high-profile international economists and business leaders.

Mr. Chubais is Chairman and CEO of RUSNANO, a $10 billion Russian Federation-owned fund created to drive commercialization in the areas of nanotech, biotech and renewable energy, among others. Prior to joining RUSNANO, Mr. Chubais held numerous influential roles both in business and government, including Chairman of Unified Energy System (RAO UES); Russia’s privatized electric power holding, and as Minister of Finance, First Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Chief-of-Staff under Boris Yeltsin. He is credited for playing a key role in Russia’s transformation to a market-based economy.

“We are very pleased to welcome Anatoly to the board, given his considerable knowledge of global markets and focus on cutting-edge technologies,” said Noubar Afeyan, Founder and Chairman of Joule and Managing Partner of Flagship Ventures. “His expertise, together with the resources made possible through the RUSNANO network, will help accelerate Joule’s plans for growth overseas.”

“Renewable energy and jobs creation are critical goals to many regions outside of the U.S., and Joule is accordingly planning for global deployment to bring much-needed localization to fuel and chemical production,” said William J. Sims, President and CEO of Joule. “Anatoly joins the board at an ideal time as we advance towards our first phase of commercial production and international expansion in 2012. We look forward to his insight, contributions and assistance in locating Joule facilities in Russia.”

“It is an honor to join the board of a company like Joule, whose technology has far-reaching potential to make cost-efficient renewable fuel and chemical production a worldwide reality in the near term,” said Mr. Chubais. “Having closely studied its solar-driven process and system, I am confident that Joule is uniquely positioned to achieve the scale and costs that can finally alleviate global dependence on fossil fuels.”



The total amount invested in Rusnano USA by Joule Unlimited came to 1.1 billion Russian rubles, or a little more than $39 million in 2011 dollars. (Due to the dramatic decline of the ruble over the past eight years, the current value of that investment, in 2019 dollars, is a little over $16 million.) Here’s the Rusnano USA description of Joule Unlimited:

Joule Unlimited is a startup company operating at the interface between energy efficiency and biotechnology. The company is carrying out research into genetic engineering of cyanobacteria, designing and commercializing technology for the industrial production of ethanol and diesel fuel. Joule Unlimited was founded in 2007 by Flagship VentureLabs. It is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts (USA) and is a subsidiary of Joule Global Holdings B.V.

All told, Joule Unlimited received $200 million in investments before it was shut down in 2017, a consequence of the changed political attitude towards federal subsidization of experimental alternative energy sources in the new Trump administration.

Due to its investment in Joule Unlimited through Rusnano USA, the Russian government stood to benefit financially if pro-alternate energy Hillary Clinton won the presidency in 2016, and to lose financially if Donald Trump won, which The Daily Caller noted in this article on the demise of Joule Unlimited in October 2017:

Joule Unlimited, a secretive green energy company that appears to have placed a big bet hiring Democratic insider John Podesta to its board, appears to have been doomed when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election.

When the 2016 presidential election ended, senior company executives admitted the prospects for their renewable energy “biofuels” company evaporated. “We had a lot of prospects last year,” former Joule CEO Brian Baynes told BioFuels Digest in a rare interview in July. “But those new investor prospects walked away, particularly post-election.”

Dmitry Akhanov, the president and CEO of Rusnano USA Inc., a Kremlin-owned venture capital firm nicknamed “Putin’s child,” oversaw the Russian government’s investment in Joule and sat on its board along with two other Russians with ties to the Kremlin. Akhavov agreed that Clinton’s loss doomed the company.

“We lined up investors who were willing to buy the bonds, but after the elections, with some statements from the new administration regarding potential uncertainty, the future support of biofuels was stopped,” he told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “The company was not able to do the deal and it was one of the reasons why the company was closed.”

Akhanov confirmed to TheDCNF his company invested and lost 1 billion rubles, worth $35 million when Joule closed its doors.

According to the 2012 CFIUS annual report, there were no “covered transactions” from Russian companies reviewed in 2011, although a total of 111 other transactions that year were identified as “covered transactions,” including 25 from the UK, 14 from France, and ten from China.

Throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State from January 2009 to February 2013, Russian investments in American technology and related companies did not receive a great deal of attention from CFIUS.

In calendar year 2009, for instance, 65 “covered transactions” were reviewed by CFIUS. Not one was from a Russian Federation company. (Source: CFIUS 2012 Annual Report to Congress) Of these 65 reviewed transactions, five notices were withdrawn prior to the commencement of an investigation, 25 investigations were undertaken, and two notices were withdrawn after investigations commenced. In total seven of the 65 “covered transactions” were withdrawn, Law360.com reported.

In calendar year 2010, 93 “covered transactions” were reviewed by CFIUS during 2010, four from Russia. All four were approved. (Source: CFIUS 2012 Annual Report to Congress). Of these 93 reviewed transactions, six notices were withdrawn prior to the commencement of an investigation, 35 investigations were undertaken, and six notices were withdrawn after investigations commenced. In total 12 of the 93 “covered transactions” were withdrawn, Law360.com reported.

In calendar year 2011, 111 “covered transactions” were reviewed by CFIUS, but not one was from the Russian Federation. (Source: CFIUS 2012 Annual Report to Congress). Of these 111 reviewed transactions, one notice was withdrawn prior to the commencement of an investigation, Forty investigations were undertaken, and five notices were withdrawn after investigations commenced. In total six of the 111 “covered transactions” were withdrawn, Law360.com reported.

In calendar year 2012, 114 “covered transactions” reviewed by CFIUS during 2012 of which two were from the Russian Federation (Source: CFIUS 2014 Annual Report to Congress). Of these 114 reviewed transactions, two notices were withdrawn prior to the commencement of an investigation, 45 investigations were undertaken, ten notices were withdrawn after investigations commenced, and one presidential decision was made. In total 12 of the 114 “covered transactions” were withdrawn, Law360.com reported.

All told, in the four years between January 2009 and December 2012, CFIUS reviewed 383 transactions, only six of which involved companies from the Russian Federation.

Breitbart News asked CFIUS, Mr. Podesta, Rusnano, Rusnano USA, Flagship Pioneering, former Assistant Secretary of State Jose W. Fernandez, and former Joule Unlimited CEO William Sims for comment but did not receive a response from any of those contacted.

Lacking a focused investigation into John Podesta, Rusnano,and Joule Unlimited, we may never know why CFIUS failed to review a transaction that by all apparent indicators fit the statutory requirements for CFIUS review.

[kcrufnek]

Apr 3, 2019 18:59:23 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

Mueller's team with another confidential leak:

www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/mueller-findings-barr.html


Mr. Barr has said he would move quickly to release the nearly 400-page report but needed time to scrub out confidential information. The special counsel’s investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report, and some team members believe that Mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions, according to government officials familiar with the investigation. Mr. Barr only briefly cited the special counsel’s work in his letter.

However, the special counsel’s office never asked Mr. Barr to release the summaries soon after he received the report, a person familiar with the investigation said. And the Justice Department quickly determined that the summaries contain sensitive information, like classified material, secret grand-jury testimony and information related to current federal investigations that must remain confidential, according to two government officials.

If you go back and listen to Dan Bongino you'll hear him talking about this constantly. Ties to the Clintons. Ties to Obama. Ties to Russia. His follow up to Spygate is out soon.

[soonernvolved]

The Hill's Solomon was on Hannity last night discussing Biden getting the Ukranian Prosecutor fired to protect his son Hunter:

[soonernvolved]

Rep. Louie Gohmert: What has gone on in this country, did absolutely, unequivocally, no doubt about it involve collusion of people at the highest level with a foreign entity to try to bring down a candidate and then bring down a sitting president. That was collusion between top FBI officials, Justice officials, a former MI6 intelligence officer who has been discredited by those same Justice officials, FBI officials. But they colluded with him to try to bring down a candidate and now a sitting president. Enough is enough. At some point we’ve gotta say what will be written in the annuls of history of this country as an outrageous attempt at a real coup d’etat. It was unsuccessful. The truth came out about who really colluded with foreign agents, and by the way it did involve a Democrat’s campaign and a foreign agent who was colluding with some of Putin’s agents in all likelihood as he was not even in Russia but was talking by phone to Russian agents in his efforts to help the Clinton Campaign and top Justice officials bring down a sitting president. And for us to continue this outrageous assault on the office of president even after the truth has come out that there was no conspiracy by the Trump campaign or President Trump or anybody in his family with Russia, and to continue to push… enough is enough for heaven’s sakes. Let’s please move on… Obviously the only thing he (George Orwell) got wrong was the year because we’ve seen what the Obama administration did with those Orwellian abilities to spy on those American citizens. It’s time to go back and clean up the mess that’s been made.

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dailycaller.com/2019/04/04/doj-nyt-wapo-mueller/

The Justice Department explained why it did not release summaries included in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report after reports surfaced that his investigators felt Attorney General Bill Barr mischaracterized their findings.

“Every page of the ‘confidential report’ provided to Attorney General Barr on March 22, 2019, was marked ‘May Contain Material Protected Under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)’ — a law that protects confidential grand jury information — and therefore could not be publicly released,” Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement to The Daily Caller.

Kupec continued, “Given the extraordinary public interest in the matter, the attorney general decided to release the report’s bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately — without attempting to summarize the report — with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redaction process.”

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release, saying, “As the Attorney General stated in his March 29 letter to Chairman Graham and Chairman Nadler, he does not believe the report should be released in ‘serial or piecemeal fashion.’ The Department continues to work with the Special Counsel on appropriate redactions to the report so that it can be released to Congress and the public.”

Barr previously wrote to Congress that Mueller’s team found no evidence of collusion and not enough evidence to recommend prosecution of obstruction of justice. The attorney general later revealed, “I anticipate we will be in position” to release the redacted report “by mid-April, if not sooner.”

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