James Comey

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www.dailywire.com/news/obama-knew-about-wiretapped-flynn-phone-calls-former-top-official-claimed-in-declassified-docs

Obama Knew About Wiretapped Flynn Phone Calls, Former Top Official Claimed In Declassified Docs

A former top Department of Justice (DOJ) official alleged in newly released documents on Thursday that former President Barack Obama knew about the details of a wiretapped phone call between then-incoming national security advisor Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Fox News Editor Gregg Re reported:

www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-knew-details-of-wiretapped-flynn-phone-calls-surprising-top-doj-official-new-docs-show

On January 5, 2017, Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates attended an Oval Office meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, according to the newly declassified documents, including an FD-302 FBI witness report. They were discussing Russian election interference, along with national security adviser Susan Rice and other members of the national security council.

After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to “stay behind,” and said he had “learned of the information about Flynn” and his conversation with Russia’s ambassador about sanctions. Obama “specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.”
The Washington Examiner’s Byron York noted that former national security adviser Susan Rice had noted in a declassified memo to herself that she and then-Vice President Joe Biden were also in that meeting.

Rice’s memo stated: “At that point, Yates had no idea what the President was talking about, but figured it out based on the conversation. Yates recalled Comey mentioning the Logan Act, but can’t recall if he specified there was an ‘investigation.’ Comey did not talk.”

The Daily Wire reported that the documents were released as the DOJ dropped the case against Flynn:

Court documents released Thursday, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, reveal the DOJ decided to drop the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” The court documents further revealed that the DOJ concluded that the ill-fated FBI interview of Flynn on January 24, 2017 was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”

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www.dailywire.com/news/new-russia-transcripts-appear-to-show-schiff-obama-officials-knew-trump-was-not-colluding-with-russia

New Russia Transcripts Appear To Show Schiff, Obama Officials Knew Trump Was Not Colluding With Russia

Newly released transcripts from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) closed door Russia investigation hearings show that former Obama officials and Schiff appeared to know that there was little to no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials during the 2016 election.

Here is what former Obama officials testified to when asked during Schiff’s hearings if they had or had seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia:

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power: “I am not in possession of anything – I am not in possession and didn’t read or absorb information that came from out of the intelligence community.”
Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice: “I don’t recall any intelligence or evidence to that effect.”
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch: “I can’t say that it existed or not.”
Former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes: “I saw indications of potential coordination, but I did not see, you know, the specific evidence of the actions of the Trump campaign.”
Despite the testimonies contained in the 53 transcripts, Schiff repeatedly promoted the now-debunked claim that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia during the 2016 election and went as far as to say that he had “direct evidence” that it happened.

Donald Trump Jr. told The Daily Wire, “Sounds like it was 53 up, 53 down. None of the former Obama admin people were able to testify that they had seen evidence of collusion. These are probably the same people that the New York Times, CNN and WaPo quote as ‘former US officials’ saying that there totally was clear evidence of collusion.”

Clapper, who had testified that he had no evidence of collusion, said two years later when he was a paid CNN contributor, “What was the Trump campaign doing the same time was essentially aiding and abetting the Russians

The transcripts were released after Republicans pressured Schiff to release them and Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell informed Schiff that the transcripts were cleared to be released after redactions had been made.

Schiff reportedly panicked over releasing the transcripts because he knew what is is now public: that the things that he was claiming in public did not match what officials were testifying to behind closed doors.

A source close to the White House told The Daily Wire yesterday, “Schiff really is panicking In a state of panic, Schiff has been making sloppy mistakes. It was a colossally stupid mistake on his part to send his staff out to find out what role Grenell had in the process, it gave Grenell’s allies in the Intelligence Community the perfect opportunity to disclose that the redactions took place before Grenell got there. Some of Schiff’s other mistakes will play out over the next couple of days.”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/07/adam-schiff-changed-russia-document-release-strategy-because-grenell-forced-his-hand/

Adam Schiff Changed Russia Document Release Strategy Because Grenell Forced His Hand

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), had only planned to release partial transcripts from the committee’s Russia investigation, not all of them, a source with knowledge of his efforts told Breitbart News.

But then, when acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell announced he was prepared to release all of the transcripts in full—something Grenell had planned to do on Friday morning if Schiff had not done so—Schiff changed his strategy and agreed to release them all in full.

An intelligence community source told Breitbart News that Schiff was caught attempting to weaponize the information through selective and partial releases, but Grenell’s actions forced his hand and made him release them all in full. In a letter first reported by the Washington Examiner’s Byron York earlier this week, Grenell informed Schiff that the documents were ready for release.
Grenell wrote to Schiff in the May 4 letter:

All of the transcripts, with our required redactions, can be released to the public without any concerns of disclosing classified material. I urge you to honor your previous public statements, and your committee’s unanimous vote on this matter, to release all 53 cleared transcripts to Members of Congress and the American public as soon as possible.
Schiff had been, the intelligence source told Breitbart News, planning to selectively release the documents to try to frame his narrative instead of the one the documents show, which is that several key players in the investigation knew early on in the process that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians

Fox News reported before this set of documents was released that Schiff was in “panic mode” because of what Grenell was doing to bring these documents out to the public.
Then, when it became clear that Grenell was set to release the full set of documents through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Schiff changed course and decided to instead preempt Grenell’s planned release of the documents by releasing them himself.

Schiff’s change of course, the intelligence source noted, is easily evidenced by the fact that ODNI released the same documents Schiff did “minutes earlier” on Thursday night.

What’s more, this may keep getting worse for Schiff. Fox News’s Ed Henry on Thursday evening also reported that more documents may be forthcoming in the coming days, citing sources who witnessed Grenell hand-delivering documents to the Justice Department earlier in the day.

UPDATE 9:25 P.M. ET:
After the publication of this article, Schiff spokesman Patrick Boland responded to Breitbart News by denying the story.
“This is obviously untrue as it was the White House that held up the release of the transcripts with the acquiescence of the ODNI,” Boland said in an email. “The Chairman has been pushing for these transcripts to be released for almost two years, and these deliberate misrepresentations by Grenell and his staff are exactly the type of behavior you get when a president installs a political operative without any national security experience or qualification as DNI.”
It is worth noting that Boland’s assertion that Grenell does not have experience in national security matters is not true. Grenell’s first intelligence briefing was back in 2001, when Schiff was just a freshman congressman. Grenell was at the time the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He served in the role for all eight years of the George W. Bush administration. Also, later, as U.S. Ambassador to Germany during President Donald Trump’s administration, he managed one of the largest CIA stations in the world in Berlin and used the position to push Germany to ban Hezbollah.

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dailycaller.com/2020/05/07/house-intelligence-russia-transcripts-2/

House Intel Releases 53 Transcripts From Russia Probe

The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released transcripts of 53 interviews conducted as part of the panel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Chairman Adam Schiff released the documents, which total more than 6,000 pages, after an intense pressure campaign from House Republicans and Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence.

The committee had voted in September 2018 to release the transcripts, which were conducted with Obama administration officials, Trump associates and various other individuals.


Sources familiar with the documents have told The Daily Caller News Foundation that transcripts of the interviews with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice contain noteworthy revelations. (RELATED: CNN Hires Andrew McCabe As A Contributor)

The committee also interviewed Michael Sussmann and Marc Elias, two lawyers who commissioned the Steele dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The committee interviewed several Trump associates, including Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his son, Donald Trump Jr.

The committee released a report on April 27, 2018, that said the investigation turned up no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. The special counsel’s office arrived at the same conclusion following its investigation, according to a report released on April 18, 2019.

The interviews can be found here.

intelligence.house.gov/russiainvestigation/

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www.dailywire.com/news/ag-barr-fbi-tried-to-trap-flynn-i-believe-comey-was-driving-it-was-part-of-pattern-against-trump

AG Barr: FBI Tried To ‘Trap’ Flynn, I Believe Comey Was Driving It, Was ‘Part Of’ Pattern Against Trump

Attorney General William Barr told CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge during an interview that aired on Thursday that he believes the FBI under the leadership of former FBI Director James Comey laid a perjury trap for former national security adviser Michael Flynn and that it was part of a larger pattern of conduct presumably against President Donald Trump.


Herridge asked Barr if the new evidence showed “that the counterintelligence case against General Flynn was simply left open to lay a trap for lying?”

“Yes. Essentially. They had started a counterintelligence investigation during the summer, as you know, related to the campaign. But in December, the team, the Crossfire Hurricane team, was closing that and determined they had found nothing to justify continuing with that investigation against Flynn,” Barr responded. “On the very day they prepared the final papers, the seventh floor, that is the director’s office and the deputy director’s office up there, sent down word they should keep that open. So that they could try to go and question Flynn about this call he had with the Russian ambassador.”

Barr explained that for Flynn, who was already the designated national security adviser for President-Elect Trump, it would have been “very typical” and “very common” for someone in his position to talk with leaders of a foreign nation as part of an incoming administration.

Barr said that U.S. Attorney John Durham is continuing his criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation.


“This is one particular episode, but we view it as part of a number of related acts,” Barr continued. “And we’re looking at the whole pattern of conduct.”

Barr said that the pattern of conduct spanned before and after the election of Trump.

“I think a very important evidence here was that this was not a bona fide counterintelligence investigation – was that they were closing the investigation in December. They started that process. And on January 4th, they were closing it,” Barr said. “They initially tried some theories of how they could open another investigation, which didn’t fly. And then they found out that they had not technically closed the earlier investigation. And they kept it open for the express purpose of trying to catch, lay a perjury trap for General Flynn.”

“They didn’t warn him, the way we usually would be required by the Department,” Barr continued. “They bypassed the Justice Department. They bypassed the protocols at the White House and so forth. These were things that persuaded me that there was not a legitimate counterintelligence investigation going on.”

Barr later added that there “was no underlying investigation that was legitimate” and that “the whole exercise was just about creating the lie.”

Later, when asked who was “driving this” at the FBI, Barr responded, “I believe it’s Director Comey and the deputy’s office.”

WATCH:

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/07/former-trump-lawyer-mueller-badly-misled-white-house-schiff-is-nancys-liar/

Former Trump Lawyer: Mueller ‘Badly Misled’ White House, Schiff Is ‘Nancy’s Liar’

Appearing Thursday on Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show, President Donald Trump’s former attorney, John Dowd, said former special counsel Robert Mueller “badly misled” the White House during the Russia investigation and ridiculed House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) as a “liar” for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

A partial transcript is as follows:

BRIAN KILMEADE: You feel like you were misled on where this probe was going, what do you think now that the scope memos are out there?

JOHN DOWD: It’s interesting. In the last few days, I’ve been going back through my files and we were badly misled by Mueller and his senior people, particularly in the meetings that we had. It’s really awful. I had forgotten, but I found communications to Bob, where we called this thing early on as a total fraud and corrupt by the dossier and Democrats and I asked him to look into it and he never responded. There’s no question that it’s a fraud. What I’m afraid of is, I think the whole report is just nonsense and it’s staggering that the so-called ‘Dream Team’ would put on such a fraud. Durham has really got a load on his hands tracking all this down. It’s stunning.

KILMEADE: The scope memo shows that Rod Rosenstein did not hesitate to explicitalty authorize a deep dive, a criminal probe into the Trump team that extended well beyond the Russia interference effort. A third scope memo was also drafted. Meanwhile, I just played what Adam Schiff said. He said he’s seen direct evidence of collusion. He’s said it many times.

DOWD: Schiff doesn’t release these interviews, because they are going to make him a liar. They are going to expose him and he’s going to be run out of town. That’s what these interviews do. We all know he’s lying. He lied for months in the impeachment inquiry. He’s essentially Nancy’s liar.

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thefederalist.com/2020/05/08/obama-defense-official-evelyn-farkas-admitted-she-lied-on-msnbc-about-having-evidence-of-collusion/



Obama Defense Official Evelyn Farkas Admitted She Lied On MSNBC About Having Evidence Of Collusion
'I didn't know anything.'
MAY 8, 2020 By Sean Davis

Former Obama administration defense official Evelyn Farkas testified under oath that she lied during an MSNBC interview when she claimed to have evidence of alleged collusion, a newly declassified congressional transcript of her testimony shows. Farkas testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on June 26, 2017, as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Lawmakers keyed in on an appearance Farkas made on MSNBC on March 2, 2017, in which she urged intelligence community bureaucrats to disseminate within the government and potentially even leak to media any incriminating information they had about Trump or his aides.


“I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama administration] people who left…[that] it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy,” Farkas said.

Farkas, who served in the Obama administration as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2012 through 2015, also claimed that administration officials appointed by Trump might even destroy evidence of alleged collusion if they “found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff’s dealing with Russians.”

They might “try to compromise those sources and methods,” Farkas alleged in the MSNBC interview. “And we would no longer have access to that intelligence.”

“Not enough was coming out into the open and I knew there was more,” Farkas claimed.



But Farkas sang a different tone under oath when questioned by lawmakers about what she actually “knew” about collusion.

“Why don’t we go back to that sentence that I just asked you about. It says ‘the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their staff dealing with Russians,” Gowdy said. “Well, how would you know what the U.S. government knew at that point? You didn’t work for it, did you?”

“I didn’t,” said Farkas, a former mid-level Russia analyst who left the federal government in 2015.

“Then how did you know?” Gowdy responded.

“I didn’t know anything,” Farkas said.

“Did you have information connecting the Trump campaign to the hack of the DNC?” Gowdy asked.

“No,” Farkas admitted.

“So when you say, ‘We knew,’ the reality is you knew nothing,” Gowdy asked later during the deposition.

“Correct,” Farkas responded.

Gowdy didn’t stop there.

“So when you say ‘knew,’ what you really meant was felt?” he asked.

“Correct,” Farkas answered.

“You didn’t know anything?” Gowdy continued.

“That’s correct,” Farkas responded.

Farkas, a Democrat, is currently running for Congress in New York’s 17th district.

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Flashback:

www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/us/politics/sean-spicer-trump-wiretapping.html



But Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, asserted to reporters during his daily news briefing that members of Mr. Obama’s administration had done “very, very bad things,” just as Mr. Trump alleged without proof on March 4 when he posted messages on Twitter accusing Mr. Obama of “wire tapping” his phones at Trump Tower.

“The question is why? Who else did it? Was it ordered? By whom?” Mr. Spicer said. “But I think more and more the substance that continues to come out on the record by individuals continues to point to exactly what the president was talking about that day.”

Mr. Spicer appeared to be basing his assertions on reports from right-wing news outlets that took out of context a month-old interview with a former Obama administration official.

Mr. Spicer’s comments came in the midst of a drumbeat of developments in the multiple investigations into Russian contacts with Mr. Trump’s associates, and a week after the president failed to make good on his campaign promise to replace Mr. Obama’s signature health care law.

The two story lines have helped drag down Mr. Trump’s approval ratings, which slumped to a low of 35 percent in Gallup’s tracking poll on Wednesday.

Mr. Spicer’s remarks on Friday seemed designed to give new life to the allegations against Mr. Obama after weeks of trying to focus attention on the damage that Mr. Spicer said had been caused by leaks from the investigations into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The allegations dominated his briefing, crowding out other parts of the White House agenda, including the president’s signing of two executive orders on trade and meeting with manufacturing executives…

…Mr. Spicer provided no evidence of the surveillance allegations. But he pointed several times to news reports that he claimed backed up the president’s accusations.

One was a March 2 interview with Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration until leaving the government in October 2015.

TheGatewayPundit.com, a right-wing site, called it a “notorious” interview and said it proved Obama administration officials had disseminated “intel gathered on the Trump team.” Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that Ms. Farkas had made “just an incredible statement.” Breitbart News reported on Mr. Priebus’s comments.

The comments by Ms. Farkas, Mr. Spicer said, were evidence that Mr. Trump or his associates “were surveilled, had their information unmasked, made it available, was politically spread.” He said that such stories were proof that Obama administration officials had “misused, mishandled and potentially did some very, very bad things with classified information.”

In fact, the reports do not back up the allegations that Mr. Trump or any officials in his campaign were ever under surveillance.

........................................................

Looks like the New York Times owes apologies to:

Sean Spicer
President Trump & his administration
THe Gateway Pundit
etc.

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2020/05/08/christopher-steele-michael-flynn-lokhova/

Dossier Author Told John McCain Aide Of Unfounded Michael Flynn Affair Rumor

Christopher Steele peddled an unfounded rumor about Michael Flynn to a longtime aide to John McCain, according to a transcript released Thursday.
The rumor appears to center around Flynn’s visit to Cambridge in February 2014, when he served in the Obama administration.
An FBI memo released last week showed that a confidential informant provided the bureau with information regarding Flynn that mirrors the information that Steele provided the McCain aide.
Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian-British academic at the center of the allegation, has vehemently denied any improper contact with Flynn.

Christopher Steele told a longtime aide to John McCain in 2016 that he believed Michael Flynn was having an extramarital affair with a Russian woman, showing for the first time that the former British spy peddled an unsubstantiated rumor that later appeared in the media and made its way to the FBI.

Steele shared the allegation with David Kramer, a longtime associate of McCain’s, according to a transcript of Kramer’s House Intelligence Committee testimony released Thursday.


Kramer met with Steele in London in November 2016 at McCain’s direction to discuss Steele’s work on the Trump dossier. Kramer later gave the salacious document to a reporter from BuzzFeed News.

Kramer told House investigators in his Dec. 19, 2017, interview that Steele shared one allegation with him regarding Flynn that was not included in the dossier. (RELATED: DOJ Drops Case Against Michael Flynn)

“There was one thing he mentioned to me that is not included here, and that is he believed that Mr. Flynn had an extramarital affair with a Russian woman in the U.K.,” Kramer testified.

Kramer revisited the rumor later in the testimony. Flynn’s alleged mistress was a “Russian woman” who “may have been a dual citizen,” he said.


The rumor — which mirrors one regarding Flynn and Russian-British academic Svetlana Lokhova — has appeared in various forms in multiple news articles and an FBI memo dated Jan. 4, 2017.

The allegation centers around a visit that Flynn made on Feb. 28, 2014, to the University of Cambridge. Flynn, who then served as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), attended a dinner hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former chief of MI6 and Christopher Andrew, a Cambridge historian and mentor to Lokhova.

Lokhova attended the dinner along with other graduate students.

There was no mention of the dinner in the media until nearly three years after it took place, shortly after Flynn was fired as national security adviser.


In March 2017, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian reported that U.S. and British intelligence were notified about contacts between Flynn and Lokhova at the Cambridge event. The stories implied that the pair had some sort of improper contact and that Flynn had failed to report it to DIA.


Sir Richard Dearlove (L), Christopher Andrew (center), then-DIA Director Michael Flynn (R), at Cambridge University, Feb. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy Svetlana Lokhova)

Those reports spawned speculation that Lokhova was a Russian spy who tried to cozy up to Flynn.

Lokhova has said she spoke with Flynn at the Cambridge event after being asked to do so by Andrew, her mentor. But she has vehemently denied having any improper contact with Flynn, either at the dinner or after. She has told the Daily Caller News Foundation that she left the event with her husband, David North. North has told the DCNF the same.

A DIA official who was with Flynn at the Cambridge event told The Wall Street Journal in March 2017 that he did not witness any improper activity on Flynn’s part.

The mysterious allegation about Flynn and Lokhova was revived last week with the release of an FBI memo related to the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation of Flynn.

The memo said that an FBI confidential human source (CHS) provided information to the bureau regarding Flynn’s interactions at Cambridge with Lokhova.

An “established” CHS provided information to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team regarding an “incident” the source claimed to have witnessed involving Flynn’s trip to Cambridge, the memo stated.

The CHS said they saw someone get into Flynn’s cab following the event. They were “somewhat suspicious” of the person who allegedly hopped into Flynn’s cab, and believed that the individual’s father was a Russian oligarch, the source said. (RELATED: British University Deserves More Scrutiny Over Stefan Halper Ties, Cambridge Researcher Says)

The memo has the identity of Flynn’s alleged companion redacted, but Lokhova said she is the person discussed in the memo, citing rumors that circulated in the press and at Cambridge for years.

The Kramer testimony reveals publicly for the first time that Steele was aware of Lokhova and shared information about her with his associates. One source familiar with Steele’s activities previously told the DCNF that the former spy knew of Lokhova. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of issues involving Steele.

The identity of the FBI source who provided information on Flynn and Lokhova has not been revealed.

Lokhova has long suspected that Stefan Halper, a colleague of Dearlove and Andrew’s at Cambridge, was involved in sowing the stories about her and Flynn. Halper has been identified as a longtime confidential human source for the FBI who was used to go after Trump campaign aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

Halper has been an FBI source since 2008, according to a Justice Department inspector general’s report. The FBI approached him in August 2016 to ask if he would be interested in meeting with Page and Papadopoulos. He met with both and secretly recorded them. Halper told the FBI he was previously acquainted with Flynn, according to the IG report.

Steele had been an FBI source since 2013. He met several times with his FBI contacts through 2016 to share information from his dossier.

Neither Steele nor Halper are believed to have attended the Cambridge event for Flynn.

Dearlove, the former MI6 chief, has not been identified as an FBI source. But he and Steele reportedly met through 2016 to discuss Steele’s investigation of Donald Trump. The co-founders of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele to investigate Trump, reported in their recent book “Crime in Progress” that Steele met Dearlove in December 2016.

Kramer said in his House interview that Steele indicated to him that he had shared information from his Trump investigation with his former MI6 colleagues on an “ongoing basis.”

“My sense is that he maintains relations with people where he used to work, and that it was on an ongoing basis,” Kramer testified.

Flynn’s firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, did not respond to requests for comment about his involvement in the Lokhova-Flynn rumor.

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2020/05/07/dont-compare-me-tucker-carlson-adam-schiff-hope-hicks-testimony/

‘Please Don’t Compare Me To Tucker Carlson’: Adam Schiff Balks During Hope Hicks’ Testimony

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff balked during the testimony of former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, asking her not to compare him to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

According to transcripts that were released Thursday, Hicks mentioned the Daily Caller co-founder while she was being questioned by the House Intelligence Committee, and she got a quick reaction from Schiff. (RELATED: Jerry Nadler Has To Be Told To Stop Calling Hope Hicks ‘Ms. Lewandowski’)


California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell yielded the floor to Schiff, who addressed Hicks. “I’m going to be very quick with these,” he said. “Mostly will be a yes or no, I hope.”

“A lightning round sounds fun,” Hicks replied. “This is like Tucker Carlson on a Friday night.”

“Oh, please don’t compare me to Tucker Carlson,” Schiff said.

“Sorry. Sorry. Rachel Maddow,” Hicks corrected. “Sorry. Wrong crowd.”


The transcript of Hicks’ interview was just one of many transcripts related to the Russia investigation that were made public Thursday.

[Dotard is toast]

Wanna know what’s really sad? 75,000 Americans are dead. 1.5 million are infected. We have depression-level unemployment and cripplin’ debt, but the Right thinks America’s been saved because Trump’s toadie Attorney General dismissed charges against a traitor.

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www.dailywire.com/news/trump-on-obama-officials-behind-the-russia-collusion-hoax-hopefully-theyre-going-to-pay-a-big-price

Trump On Obama Officials Behind The Russia Collusion Hoax: ‘Hopefully They’re Going To Pay A Big Price’

President Donald Trump responded on Friday to transcripts released the night before showing former Obama administration officials admitting there was no evidence that the president’s 2016 campaign was colluding with Russia.


Trump, speaking on “Fox & Friends,” responded to a question from host Steve Doocey about whether the latest revelations were proof the president was right to call the investigation a hoax all along.

“Absolutely,” Trump replied, according to PJ Media. “I think most people knew it—really most people knew it from the beginning. and they knew it was just a total hoax, it was a made-up story, a disgrace to our nation.”

“It was a very dangerous situation what they did,” the president added. “These are dirty politicians and dirty cops and some horrible people and hopefully they’re going to pay a big price in the not too distant future.”

Trump went on during this segment to say more information will still be released pertaining to the origins of the Russia-collusion narrative, which U.S. Attorney John Durham is still investigating.


“There’s more to come from what I understand. and they’re gonna be far greater then what you’ve seen so far—and what you’ve seen so far has been incredible—especially as it relates to President Obama because if anyone thinks that he and sleepy Joe Biden didn’t know what was going on, they have another thing coming,” Trump said.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, the transcripts released on Thursday quoted various Obama officials, under oath and behind closed doors, admitting there was no evidence of Trump or his campaign colluding with Russia.

“I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,” said former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for example.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes all made similar statements under oath regarding the Russia-collusion narrative.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who led the charge that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, claimed for more than two years that he had evidence of this collusion:

On Sunday, Schiff told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that there was “significant evidence of collusion,” even though the special counsel determinedthere was “no evidence that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired with the Russians to influence the election, despite offers by the Russians to do so.”
In March 2018, Schiff wrote in his “Minority Views” response to the Republican-led House Intelligence investigation into Russian collusion (which also found no collusion) that the committee’s “findings are misleading and unsupported by the facts and the investigative record.”
In February 2018, Schiff claimed there was “ample evidence” that Trump colluded with Russia. He was speaking at a breakfasted hosted by the Christian Science Monitor when he said: “There is already, in my view, ample evidence in the public domain on the issue of collusion if you’re willing to see it.”
In March 2017, Schiff said on “Meet the Press” that there was “circumstantial evidence of collusion” and “direct evidence… of deception.”
Also in March 2017, and just a few days after simply saying there was “circumstantial evidence,” Schiff told MSNBC that there was “more than circumstantial evidence” – and he had seen it.
The unfortunate truth in Washington, D.C., however, is that despite an egregious miscarriage of justice and Trump’s warning about the people behind the hoax paying “a price,” no one is ever truly held accountable for their actions. Democrats and their media supporters who pushed the collusion narrative will never have to atone for their mistakes, will never have to return their Pulitzers, will never lose credibility or their jobs, and yet some people will always believe the allegations against Trump and his campaign, which was, in the end, the real goal.

[Dotard is toast]

He flat out asked for the Russians to interfere in our elections on national television! JFC, are you blind or dumb or both?

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www.dailywire.com/news/ag-barr-takes-shot-at-mueller-names-one-of-the-most-troubling-aspects-of-criminal-investigation-into-origins-of-russia-investigation

AG Barr Takes Shot At Mueller, Names ‘One Of The Most Troubling Aspects’ Of Criminal Investigation Into Origins Of Russia Investigation

Attorney General William Barr told CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge on Thursday that the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier in its investigation into the Trump campaign, especially given the evidence that it could have contained Russian disinformation, was one of the most troubling aspects of the entire situation that prosecutors are investigating.

Herridge asked Barr, “Based on the evidence that you have seen, did senior FBI officials conspire to throw out the national security adviser?”


“Well, as I said, this is a particular episode,” Barr responded. “And it has some troubling features to it, as we’ve discussed. But I think, you know, that’s a question that really has to wait an analysis of all the different episodes that occurred through the summer of 2016 and the first several months of President Trump’s administration.”

Herridge later brought up the Steele dossier and how recently declassified footnotes suggested that it was “the product of Russian disinformation.”

“And there were multiple warnings to the FBI at that time, yet they continued to use that. How do you explain that?” Herridge asked.


“I think that’s one of the most troubling aspects of this whole thing,” Barr responded. “And, in fact, I said it in testimony on the Hill, I can’t remember if it was my confirmation, that I said I was very concerned about the possibility that that dossier and Steele’s activities were used as a vector for the Russians to inject disinformation into the political campaign.”

“I think that is something that Robert Mueller was responsible for looking at under his charter, which is the potential of Russian influence,” Barr continued. “But I think it was ignored and there was mounting indications that this could very well have been happening and no one really stopped to look at it.”

Later, when talking about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to drop the charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Barr said the department acted out of a sense of justice and “undid what was an injustice,” adding, “it’s not gonna be the end of it.”

When asked what he meant when he said that it was “not gonna be the end of it,” Barr responded, “I said we’re gonna get to the bottom of what happened.”


When asked about the current status of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, Barr responded, “Well, as you know, I’m not gonna predict the outcome. But I said that we’re certainly — there probably will be a report as a byproduct of his work. But we also are seeing if there are people who violated the law and should be brought to justice. And that’s what we have our eye on.”

When asked whether individuals involved in the Flynn case would be brought to justice, Barr responded, “I don’t wanna get into particular individuals.”

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May 8, 2020 9:46:02 GMT -6 Dotard is toast said:

He flat out asked for the Russians to interfere in our elections on national television! JFC, are you blind or dumb or both?

Wrong, but keep the talking point alive. 

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May 8, 2020 9:26:47 GMT -6 Dotard is toast said:

Wanna know what’s really sad? 75,000 Americans are dead. 1.5 million are infected. We have depression-level unemployment and cripplin’ debt, but the Right thinks America’s been saved because Trump’s toadie Attorney General dismissed charges against a traitor.

Please explain to me what you believe Flynn did ?------Please for once try and think for yourself ,I know that is hard for you but please try     What conversation did he have that was improper ?

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thefederalist.com/2020/05/08/obama-biden-oval-office-meeting-on-january-5-was-key-to-entire-anti-trump-operation/

Obama, Biden Oval Office Meeting On January 5 Was Key To Entire Anti-Trump Operation
Susan Rice's bizarre Inauguration Day email about that meeting helps explain the campaign of leaks, lies, and obstruction that followed.
Mollie Hemingway
By Mollie Hemingway
MAY 8, 2020
Information released in the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case it brought against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn confirms the significance of a January 5, 2017, meeting at the Obama White House. It was at this meeting that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration.

“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote in an unusual email to herself about the meeting that was also attended by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden.


A clearer picture is emerging of the drastic steps that were taken to accomplish Obama’s goal in the following weeks and months. Shortly thereafter, high-level operatives began intensely leaking selective information supporting a supposed Russia-Trump conspiracy theory, the incoming National Security Advisor was ambushed, and the incoming Attorney General was forced to recuse himself from oversight of investigations of President Trump. At each major point in the operation, explosive media leaks were a key strategy in the operation to take down Trump.

Not only was information on Russia not fully shared with the incoming Trump team, as Obama directs, the leaks and ambushes made the transition chaotic, scared quality individuals away from working in the administration, made effective governance almost impossible, and materially damaged national security. When Comey was finally fired on May 9, in part for his duplicitousness regarding his handling of the Russia collusion theory, he orchestrated the launch of a Special Counsel probe that continued his efforts for another two years. That probe ended with Mueller finding no evidence of any American colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election, much less Trump or anyone connected to him.

An analysis of the timeline from early 2017 shows a clear pattern of behavior from the federal officials running the collusion operation against the Trump campaign. It also shows how essential media leaks were to their strategy to sideline key law enforcement and intelligence officials and cripple the ability of the incoming Trump administration to run the country.

Here’s a timeline of the key moments and news articles of the efforts, per Obama’s direction, to prevent the Trump administration from learning about the FBI’s operation against it.


January 4: Following the closure of a pretextually dubious and politically motivated FBI investigation of Flynn at the beginning of January, the leadership of the FBI scrambled to reopen a case against Flynn, the man who in his role as National Security Advisor would have to review their Russia collusion investigation. FBI officials openly discussed their concern about briefing the veteran intelligence official on what they had done to the Trump campaign and transition team and what they were planning to do to the incoming Trump administration. Flynn had to be dealt with. The FBI’s top counterintelligence official would later memorialize discussions about the FBI’s attempts to “get [Flynn] fired.” No reopening was needed, they determined, when they discovered they had failed to close the previous investigation. They found this mistake “amazing” and “serendipitously good” and said “our utter incompetence actually helps us.” Even more noteworthy were texts from FBI’s #2 counterintelligence official Peter Strzok to FBI lawyer Lisa Page noting that the “7th floor,” a reference to Comey and his deputy director Andrew McCabe, was running the show.

January 5: Yates, Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper briefed Obama on Russia-related matters in the Oval Office. Biden and Rice also attended. After the Obama briefing, the intelligence chiefs who would be leaving at the end of the term were dismissed and Yates and Comey, who would continue in the Trump administration, were asked to stay. Not only did Obama give his guidance about how to perpetuate the Russia collusion theory investigations, he also talked about Flynn’s conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to both Comey and Yates. Interestingly, Clapper, Comey, and Yates all said that they did not brief Obama about these phone calls. Clapper testified he did not brief Obama on the calls, Yates learned about the calls from Obama himself during that meeting, and Comey also testified he didn’t brief Obama about the calls, even though the intelligence was an FBI product. Rice, who publicly lied but later admitted under oath to her widespread use of unmasked intelligence at the end of the Obama administration, likely briefed Obama on the calls and would have had access to the intelligence. Comey mentions the Logan Act at this meeting.

It was this meeting that Rice memorialized in a bizarre inauguration-day email to herself that claimed Obama told the gathered to do everything “by the book.” But Rice also noted in her email that the key point of discussion in that meeting was whether and how to withhold national security information, likely including details of the investigation into Trump himself, from the incoming Trump national security team.

January 6: An ostensibly similar briefing about Russian interference efforts during the 2016 campaign was given to President-elect Trump. After that briefing, Comey privately briefed Trump on the most salacious and absurd “pee tape” allegation in the Christopher Steele dossier, a document the FBI had already used to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page. Comey told Trump he was telling him because CNN was looking for any reason it could find to publish a story about Russia having compromising information on him, and he wanted to warn Trump about it. He did not mention the dossier was completely unverified or that it was the product of a secretly funded operation by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.


January 10: In an amazing coincidence, CNN found the excuse to publish the Russia claims after a high-level Obama intelligence operative leaked that Comey had briefed Trump about the dossier. This selective leak, which was credulously accepted by CNN reporters Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein, may have been the most important step in the operation to harm the incoming Trump administration. The leak of the briefing of Trump was used to legitimize a ridiculous dossier full of allegations the FBI knew to be false that multiple news organizations had previously refused to report on for lack of substantiation, and created a cloud of suspicion over Trump’s campaign and administration by insinuating he was being blackmailed by Russia.

January 12: The next part of the strategy was the explosive leak to David Ignatius of the Washington Post to legitimize the use against Flynn of the Logan Act, a likely unconstitutional 1799 law prohibiting private individuals, not public incoming national security advisors, from discussing foreign policy with foreign governments. Ignatius accepted the leak from the Obama official. He wrote that Flynn had called Kislyak. “What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated?” Flynn’s routine and appropriate phone call became fodder for a developing grand conspiracy theory of Russia collusion. In discussions with investigators, both DOJ’s Mary McCord and Comey conspicuously cite this Ignatius column as somehow meaningful in the approach they would take with Flynn. “Nothing, to my mind, happens until the 13th of January, when David Ignatius publishes a column that contains a reference to communication Michael Flynn had with the Russians. That was on the 13th of January,” Comey said of the column that ran online on January 12. In fact, quite a bit had happened at the FBI prior to that leak, with much conversation about how to utilize the Logan Act against Flynn. And the leak-fueled Ignatius column would later be used by FBI officials to justify an illegal ambush interview of Flynn in the White House.

January 23: Another important criminal leak was given to Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller of the Washington Post, also based on criminal leaks. Their article, headlined “FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador but found nothing illicit,” was intended to make Flynn feel safe and put him at ease about the FBI stance on those calls the day before they planned to ambush him in an interview. The article was used to publicize false information when it said, “Although Flynn’s contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were listened to, Flynn himself is not the active target of an investigation, U.S. officials said.” In fact, emails prior to this date confirm Flynn was their prime target. This article was later cited by McCabe as the reason why they were justified in concealing from Flynn the real purpose of their interview. Flynn later asked McCabe if he knew how all the information about his phone calls had been made public and whether it had been leaked. Any potential response from McCabe to Flynn has been redacted from his own notes about the conversation.

January 24: Comey later admitted he broke every protocol to send agents to interview Flynn and try to catch him in a lie. FBI officials strategized how to keep Flynn from knowing he was a target of the investigation or asking for an attorney to represent him in the interview. The January 23 Washington Post article, which falsely stated that Flynn was not an FBI target, was key to that strategy. Though the interviewing agents said they could detect no “tells” indicating he lied, and he carefully phrased everything in the interview, he later was induced to plead guilty to lying in this interview. Ostensibly because White House officials downplayed the Kislyak phone calls, presumably in light of what Flynn had told them about the calls, Yates would go to the White House the next day and insinuate Flynn should probably be fired.


February 9: The strategy to get Flynn fired didn’t immediately work so another leak was deployed to Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post. That article, headline “National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say,” was sourced to people who happened to share senior FBI leadership’s views on the Logan Act. This article was also based on criminal leaks of top secret information of phone call intercepts and laid out the FBI’s case for why Flynn’s contacts with a foreign adversary were a problem. The fact that such phone calls are routine, not to mention Flynn’s case that improved relations with Russia in a world where China, North Korea, and Iran were posing increasing threats, never made it into these articles for context.

February 13: The operation finally succeeded in getting Flynn fired and rendering him unable to review the operations against the Trump campaign, Trump transition team, and Trump administration.

March 1: Flynn was the first obstacle who had to be overcome. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was the next. The Trump loyalist with a strong Department of Justice background would also need to be briefed on the anti-Trump efforts unless he could be sidelined. Comey admitted that early in Sessions’ tenure, he deliberately hid Russia-related information from Sessions because, “it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations.” To secure that recusal, yet another leak was deployed to the Washington Post’s Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller. The leak was intended to tar Sessions as a secret Russian agent and was dramatically spun as “Sessions Spoke Twice To Russian Envoy: Revelation contradicts his testimony at confirmation hearing.” One meeting was in passing and the other was in his function as a United States Senator, but the hysteria was such that the Post authors could get away with suggesting Sessions was too compromised to oversee the Department of Justice’s counterintelligence operations involving Russia. It is perhaps worth noting that the Special Counsel idea was pushed in this article.

March 2: Sessions recused himself from oversight of the FBI’s anti-Trump operation, providing no meaningful oversight to an operation that would be spun into a Special Counsel by mid-May. With the removal of Trump’s National Security Advisor and his Attorney General, there was no longer any chance of Trump loyalists discovering what Obama holdovers at the FBI were actually doing to get Trump thrown out of office. After Trump fired Comey for managerial incompetence on May 9, deceptively edited and misleading leaks to the New York Times ordered by Comey himself were used to gin up a Special Counsel run exclusively by left-wing anti-Trump partisans who continued the operation without any meaningful oversight for another two years.

This stunning operation was not just a typical battle between political foes, nor merely an example of media bias against political enemies. Instead, this entire operation was a deliberate and direct attack on the foundation of American governance. In light of the newly declassified documents released in recent days, it is clear that understanding what happened in that January 5 Oval Office meeting is essential to understanding the full scope and breadth of the corrupt operation against the Trump administration. It is long past time for lawmakers in Congress who are actually interested in oversight of the federal government and the media to demand answers about what really happened in that meeting from every single participant, including Obama and Biden

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www.dailywire.com/news/lead-prosecutors-abrupt-withdrawal-from-flynn-case-comes-after-accusations-he-withheld-evidence

Lead Prosecutor’s Abrupt Withdrawal From Flynn Case Comes After Accusations He Withheld Evidence

Justice Department prosecutor Brandon Van Grack withdrew from his position as federal counsel on a handful of court cases after allegedly withholding potentially exonerating evidence from the trial of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Van Grack, who worked on ex-special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, withdrew from at least three cases on Thursday, the most conspicuous being the DOJ prosecution of Flynn, a former adviser to President Trump. The DOJ did not state a reason in the filings for Van Grack’s withdrawals, and a department spokeswoman declined to comment after an inquiry by The Daily Wire.

Soon After Van Grack withdrew from Flynn’s case, the DOJ filed to dismiss the case. Because Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017, the case remains active pending a decision from D.C. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. Flynn’s defense team moved to withdraw his guilty plea on Jan. 31, asserting that he did not lie to the FBI.

Van Grack’s filings and the DOJ motion to dismiss the case came weeks after unsealed FBI documents showed that agents had strategized whether a Jan. 24, 2017, interview with Flynn was about “Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” After the interview, the FBI went on to accuse Flynn of violating the Logan Act, a 1799 law that was only used in one indictment before Flynn’s case and was never used in a criminal prosecution.

Van Grack, who heads DOJ’s Foreign Agents Registration Act unit, had been obligated for over two years before the FBI notes on Flynn’s meeting were unsealed to provide all evidence potentially favorable to Flynn’s defense to the court, even if the prosecutors believe the evidence to not be material. To not do so is a violation of the Brady rule for criminal proceedings.

The prosecution had for months told the court that all so-called exculpatory evidence had been turned over to the court. In an October 2019 filing, Van Grack stated that his team “has complied, and will continue to comply, with its discovery and disclosure obligations, including those imposed pursuant to Brady and the Court’s Standing Order,” according to Fox News.

In light of the new evidence, Van Grack faced a torrent of criticism from Flynn’s allies and others that the lead prosecutor had hidden evidence favorable to the defendant to help the prosecution, according to The Washington Examiner.

In other FBI documents unsealed last month, former FBI agent and head of counterintelligence Peter Strozk was revealed to have intervened in the investigation of Flynn to keep it open despite a lack of “derogatory information” on him. On Jan. 4, 2017, the same day FBI investigators moved to stop the inquiry into Flynn, Strozk sent a text to an FBI case manager directing him keep the probe into Flynn open until FBI leadership “decide what to do with him [with respect to] the [REDACTED].”

Strozk was fired from the FBI in August 2018 after it was revealed he sent a number of anti-Trump texts while working on Mueller’s team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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May 8, 2020 9:46:02 GMT -6 Dotard is toast said:

He flat out asked for the Russians to interfere in our elections on national television! JFC, are you blind or dumb or both?

Per Clapper,(who loathes President Trump):

www.nationalreview.com/news/james-clapper-former-director-national-intelligence-in-interview-transcript-i-never-saw-direct-empirical-evidence-of-trump-russia-collusion/

James Clapper Said He ‘Never Saw Direct Empirical Evidence’ of Trump-Russia Collusion in FBI Interview

Former director of national intelligence James Clapper in 2018 said that he hadn’t seen evidence that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 general election.

Clapper was responding to a query from then-representative Tom Rooney, a Florida Republican, during an interview before the House Intelligence Committee. The transcript of the interview was released on Thursday.

“I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting [or] conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,” Clapper said.

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dailycaller.com/2020/05/08/william-barr-christopher-steele-dossier-russian-disinformation-robert-mueller/

AG Barr: Mueller ‘Ignored’ Evidence Of Russian Disinformation In Steele Dossier

Attorney General William Barr said in an interview aired Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigators “ignored” evidence of possible Russian disinformation in the Steele dossier.

“I think that’s one of the most troubling aspects of this whole thing,” Barr told CBS News when asked about the possibility that the Kremlin fed disinformation to Christopher Steele, a former British spy who investigated the Trump campaign.


Barr said he was “very concerned” at the possibility that the dossier and Steele “were used as a vector for the Russians to inject disinformation into the political campaign.”

The FBI relied heavily on information from Steele to obtain warrants to wiretap Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Multiple news outlets and Democrats in Congress also touted Steele’s information as evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Despite Trump critics’ early confidence in the dossier, many of its allegations have come under scrutiny or been outright debunked over the past year or so. Mueller said in a report of his investigation released on April 18, 2019 that his investigators found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. (RELATED: Barr: FBI Set ‘Perjury Trap’ For Flynn)

A Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation did even more damage to Steele’s reputation, while raising questions about Mueller’s investigation.


It said that the FBI received evidence in early 2017 that Russian intelligence operatives may have fed disinformation to Steele, a former MI6 officer who investigated Donald Trump on behalf of Democrats.

The IG report also said that the U.S. intelligence community provided a report to the FBI in June 2017 that said two Russian intelligence officers were aware as early as July 2016 that Steele was investigating the Trump campaign.

Barr said in his CBS interview that Mueller should have investigated the dossier further, especially since the point of the special counsel’s investigation was to uncover Russia’s interference in the U.S. political system.

“I think that is something that Robert Mueller was responsible for looking at under his charter, which is the potential of Russian influence,” Barr told CBS News.


“But I think it was ignored and there was mounting indications that this could very well have been happening and no one really stopped to look at it.”

WATCH:



Mueller was appointed special counsel on May 17, 2017 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. The probe largely focused on allegations that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the election.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/08/james-clapper-undermined-russia-collusion-thesis-during-mueller-probe-his-comments-kept-classified/

James Clapper Undermined Russia Collusion Thesis During Mueller Probe, but His Comments Were Kept Classified

In declassified testimony, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper undermined the thesis of Russia collusion narrative that outlandishly claimed Russia wanted Donald Trump to win the 2016 presidential election because it possessed so-called blackmail information on the politician, or due to any purported collusion.

Instead, Clapper explained that Russia was largely motivated by animus against Hillary Clinton as well as a general strategic assessment from afar that Trump’s deal-making business background could make him easier to negotiate with.




Clapper also admitted the following: “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting [or] conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.”

The July 17, 2017, executive session with the House Intelligence Committee was conducted at the height of Russia collusion furor — two months after Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to probe the eventually discredited Russia collusion claims.

Those charges came as the FBI under James Comey used the infamous anti-Trump dossier financed by Trump’s political enemies to obtain successive warrants to spy on a Trump campaign advisor. The dossier, which also reportedly helped form a roadmap for the FBI’s collusion probe, wildly claims that the Russians possessed potential blackmail material against the president.

Yet in testimony that remained classified until the transcripts were released yesterday, Clapper outlined the following reasons he claimed Russia wanted Trump to win:

I think they believed — I mean, the first point, I think they had three objectives: One was to sow discord. Secondly, because of the significant personal animus that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin had for both the Clintons, both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton, so anything you do to undermine her.

And, in fact, at one point they kind of — reading the polls they believed that she was going to win and then their focus seemed to turn to how could they undermine up potential Clinton presidency.

I do think, though, they thought that…President Trump would be easier to deal with,” Clapper said. “He is a businessman. He’d be more willing to negotiate and make deals. And I don’t think it was anything more sophisticated than that sort of guided their objectives.

Hatred of the Clintons and a general assessment of Trump are far cries from the collusion claims that the Trump campaign was secretly working with Russia, or that Russia possessed blackmail information against the billionaire.

The dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was the source for some of those claims. Steele was working on behalf of Fusion GPS, which was paid to produce the dossier by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm. The FBI’s warrants to spy on campaign adviser Carter Page never specifically informed the FISA court of the dossier’s origins with Fusion GPS or Clinton campaign financing.



Meanwhile, there have been other indications of problems regarding the U.S. intelligence community assessment of Russian intentions when it came to the 2016 presidential election.

The January 6, 2017, U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) document assessing Russian interference efforts contained a notable assessment difference. In the IC report, the National Security Agency (NSA) assessed the conclusion that Putin favored Trump and worked to get him elected only with a classification of “moderate confidence,” while the FBI and CIA gave it a “high confidence” rating.

A previous Republican House Intelligence Committee’s 250-page report on alleged Russian collusion raised questions about the “high confidence” assessment by the FBI and CIA, perhaps explaining why the NSA didn’t share the conclusion when it came to Russian intentions regarding Trump during the election.

The House report found that the IC assessment of Putin’s strategic intentions for allegedly interfering in the U.S. election to aid Trump “did not employ proper analytic tradecraft” and contained “significant intelligence tradecraft failings that undermine confidence” in the judgments, including the failure to “be independent of political considerations.”


Also, there is a different narrative on the topic contained inside Clapper’s 2018 book. It was Clapper’s agency that released the IC report.

As Breitbart News reported, Clapper’s book describes numerous shifts in Russia’s alleged attitude toward Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

At first, Clapper writes that Russia simply opposed Clinton and didn’t favor one Republican presidential candidate. After Trump seemed initially poised to possibly win, Clapper relates an alleged Russian propaganda effort to aid Trump’s victory in order to defeat Clinton. Toward the final stretch of the presidential campaign, with Trump’s poll numbers falling, Clapper wrote that Russia shifted its position away from aiding Trump and focused mainly on opposing Hillary, even allegedly providing Green Party candidate Jill Stein with more favorable coverage.

Comey himself conceded that Russia’s primary goals were first to cause election chaos generally and then to ensure the defeat of Hillary Clinton. Russia’s third priority was to help Trump win the election, Comey stated.



Comey made the comments while speaking at a May 2019, CNN town hall event.

Here is the relevant portion of the transcript:

QUESTION: Hi, Director Comey. Having lived in Russia, I can tell you that the public opinion of President Trump there is lukewarm to negative at best. It also seems that the personal relationship between Putin and Trump has cooled. So personal collusion is pretty hard to buy into.

As such, do you think there are other Russian goals behind U.S. election interference beyond trying to destabilize our faith in American democracy and undermine our world leadership geopolitically?

COMEY: Well, they had three goals last election cycle, and Donald Trump was actually third on the list.

The first, as you said, was they want to dirty up this democracy so it’s not an example for other nations around the world.

Second, they wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton, who Vladimir Putin hated.

And last, they wanted to help Donald Trump, who even they weren’t sure could win the election.

Clapper’s testimony was part of yesterday’s release of 57 transcripts from witness interviews conducted by the House Intelligence Committee during its Russia probe in 2017 and 2018.

Rep. Adam Schiff, whose committee released the documents, claimed the transcripts “show precisely what Special Counsel Robert Mueller also revealed: That the Trump campaign, and Donald Trump himself, invited illicit Russian help, made full use of that help, and then lied and obstructed the investigations in order to cover up this misconduct.”

The transcripts, however, show testimony that senior officials didn’t possess any evidence of collusion.

Citing a source with knowledge of Schiff’s release efforts, Breitbart’s Matt Boyle reported Schiff had only planned to release partial transcripts with the goal of presenting a certain narrative.

That changed, the source said, when Richard Grenell, acting national intelligence director, informed Schiff the transcripts were ready to be more fully released and that Granell was planning a full release if Schiff didn’t do so.

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www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/05/08/pollak-7-bombshells-in-the-michael-flynn-case/

Pollak: 7 Bombshells in the Michael Flynn Case

The Department of Justice filed a motion Thursday to drop charges against former National Security Advisor (NSA) Michael Flynn. Democrats and the media claim the decision was the result of “politicization” at the DOJ.

But there was no way for the DOJ to proceed after several bombshell revelations in the past several days. Here are seven things you need to know about the new developments — and what happens next in the saga:


Last week:

1. New documents suggest the FBI laid a trap for Flynn. In February, Attorney General William Barr appointed U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen to review the prosecution against Flynn after reports of irregularities. Last week, Jensen delivered a trove of documents to Flynn’s defense team — including handwritten notes showing FBI agents discussed whether they would “get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.” In addition, emails showed the FBI had not properly warned Flynn that lying to the FBI was a crime when they met with him in the White House — a meeting then-Director James Comey planned to catch Flynn off guard.

2. Text messages showed the FBI leadership kept the case open: Jensen’s trove included a memorandum showing that the FBI wanted to close the case against Flynn on Jan. 4, 2017, but that agent Peter Strzok — who hated Trump and had led the troubled investigations into both Hillary Clinton and the Trump campaign — ordered that the case be kept open. When asked why, Strzok referred to the “7th floor,” i.e. the FBI leadership.



3. Flynn’s former law firm handed over documents suggesting secret pressure from the DOJ. Covington and Burling LLP, the legal team that handled his guilty plea in 2017, “discovered” that they had not handed all their documents to his new lawyer, Sidney Powell. Powell then told the court that the new documents showed the DOJ had threatened to indict his son unless Flynn pleaded guilty — a “side deal” that the DOJ kept hidden.

This week:

4. President Barack Obama set the Flynn investigation in motion: The House Intelligence Committee released 53 transcripts of interviews it conducted in the early days of the “Russia collusion” investigation. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told the committee it was Obama himself who told her about Flynn’s phone calls with the Russian ambassador. That information led the DOJ to investigate him under the obscure Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from diplomacy and is almost never enforced.

What comes next:

5. Flynn could go free for now, but could be prosecuted for perjury if Joe Biden wins the election. Sol Wisenberg, who helped investigate President Bill Clinton, pointed out on Fox News that Flynn could still be prosecuted for perjury, since he told the court he was guilty before deciding to withdraw his plea. Wisenberg said that a Biden administration could pursue those charges — unless President Trump pardoned Flynn.

6. What did Obama know? What did Biden know? The crucial event behind the investigation of Flynn and the public smearing of President-elect Trump through the “Steele dossier” now appears to be the Oval Office meeting where Obama told Yates about Flynn’s phone calls, and Comey was assigned to inform Trump about the dossier. Biden was among those present, and the Trump campaign has started to demand answers. Obama’s role now appears much more direct, and may not have been “by the book,” as former NSA Susan Rice claimed.

7. Possible indictment of former Obama officials. U.S. Attorney John Durham is still pursuing a criminal investigation into the origins of the Obama administration’s inquiry into the Trump campaign. Many believe indictments are imminent. Powell told Breitbart News Sunday last weekend that Comey and other officials may have committed obstruction of justice and similar crimes, though she did not echo Trump’s claims of treason.

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www.axios.com/fbi-michael-flynn-chris-wray-trump-00c13ada-569b-4f5e-bfa3-354b794ea9e0.html

Inside FBI director Chris Wray's fate

President Trump is not happy with FBI director Christopher Wray and would love to replace him, according to three sources who've discussed the matter with the president.

But Trump has been deferring to Attorney General Bill Barr and is unlikely to remove Wray before the election, these sources said.

Behind the scenes: Trump's dissatisfaction with Wray — whom he nominated for the post in 2017 after firing Jim Comey — is nothing new. A source who has discussed the FBI director repeatedly with the president said Trump "has never felt like Wray was his guy" and does not trust him to "change the culture" of the FBI.

Trump was especially angered by what he views as Wray's reluctance to publicly criticize actions taken by Comey and by Wray's relatively muted reaction to the FBI's misconduct in seeking the surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
What's new: Recent revelations in the case of Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, have heightened discontent with Wray in Trump's inner circle.

Figures close to Trump tell him that Wray cannot be trusted to root out what they view as "corruption" at the highest levels of the FBI.
While interviewing Trump on his eponymous podcast on Friday, pro-Trump commentator Dan Bongino said he doesn't "have a lot of faith" in Wray and asked the president if he trusts Wray to "enact reforms to ensure innocent Americans are not targeted again."
Trump dodged the Wray part of the question and instead pivoted to praising Barr.
Between the lines: Trump hasn't ousted Wray for two main reasons, according to senior administration officials and outside advisers who've discussed Wray's future with Trump.

First, some of Trump's key advisers don't want to kick the hornet's nest so close to an election by firing a second FBI director.
And, second, there isn't an obvious replacement who'd both pass muster on Capitol Hill and be the sort of loyalist Trump wants to run the FBI.
.................................................

If he is replaced, I know a former 3 Star General who was recently vindicated by the DOJ who would be a great Leader to rebuild the corrupt FBI.

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www.dailywire.com/news/obama-worried-that-flynn-cleared-by-doj-over-illegitimate-investigation-rule-of-law-is-at-risk

Obama ‘Worried’ That Flynn Cleared By DOJ Over Illegitimate Investigation: ‘Rule Of Law Is At Risk’

Former President Barack Obama said on Friday that he was “worried” by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to drop the charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn this week after Attorney General William Barr said that “there was not a legitimate counterintelligence investigation going on.”

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said. “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

Obama’s comments are misleading because former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had said that the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied.

“So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do,” Obama continued. “Whenever I campaign, I’ve always said, ‘Ah, this is the most important election.’ Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like it’s the most important election. This one — I’m not on the ballot — but I am pretty darn invested. We got to make this happen.”

Documents that were unsealed on Friday showed that Obama knew about the FBI’s wiretapping of Flynn’s phone calls.

Fox News reported:

President Obama was aware of the details of then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to documents released Thursday as exhibits to the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case.

Obama’s unexpectedly intimate knowledge of the details of Flynn’s calls, which the FBI acknowledged at the time were not criminal or even improper, raised eyebrows because of his own history with Flynn — and because top FBI officials secretly discussed whether their goal was to “get [Flynn] fired” when they interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017.

Obama personally had warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn, and made clear he was “not a fan,” according to multiple officials. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014; Obama cited insubordination, while Flynn asserted he was pushed out for his aggressive stance on combating lslamic extremism.
Obama’s remarks came after Comey appeared to try to undermine the legitimacy of the DOJ on Friday, writing on Twitter, “The DOJ has lost its way. But, career people: please stay because America needs you. The country is hungry for honest, competent leadership.”

Barr said in an interview with CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge that he believed the injustice against Flynn “came from the seventh floor” and further clarified his remark, saying, “I believe it’s Director Comey and the deputy’s office.”

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Tucker Carlson slams ‘sociopath’ Schiff, calls for resignation over Russia investigation

Tucker Carlson blasted the Washington establishment Friday night for getting bogged down in the Russia investigation for three years and ignoring other important issues that have come to light as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Issues like the dangerous rise of Chinese global dominance, the porousness of our domestic borders, this country’s crumbling infrastructure, government corruption and incompetence,” Carlson said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “We’re talking about all of this.

Over the past two months, you may have asked yourself, ‘Why weren’t we talking about these things before? They’re important.’ Well, it’s a good question, and there’s a simple answer to it.

“The answer is, we didn’t have time. There was no time to consider the fundamental health of America because we were busy talking about Russia,” Carlson went on. “In Washington, Russia is all we talked about for three years. All normal business in the capital city came to a halt as we embarked on a bizarre scavenger hunt in search of Vladimir Putin’s spies.”…

“Adam Schiff is a sociopath. He will do or say anything to achieve power. He is unfit to hold office. He should resign,” Carlson said.

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dailycaller.com/2020/05/08/exclusive-rod-blagojevich-fbi-did-michael-flynn/

EXCLUSIVE: ‘They Did It To Me First’ — Rod Blagojevich Knew Exactly What The FBI Did To Flynn

Former Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich says he knew the playbook the FBI was running against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — because they used it on him first.

In an exclusive statement to the Daily Caller, Blagojevich explained that his firsthand knowledge of the way the FBI operated in his case gave him unique insight into the way that Flynn — like so many others in President Donald Trump’s inner circle — was treated in the early days of the Russia investigation.(RELATED: Newly Released Rod Blagojevich Thanks Trump, Lists New Party Affiliation: ‘I’m A Trumpocrat’)


“In my long and unhappy experience, I saw how they use trickery and deceit as legal tools. They lie and they cheat; they manipulate and minimize evidence; they hide and cover up exculpatory evidence – evidence that proves innocence. And to this day, in my case, they are still covering up tape recordings they made because those tapes show innocence,” Blagojevich told the Caller.


Rod Blagojevich, the ex-Illinois governor convicted of trying to peddle Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat, speaks outside his home after U.S. President Donald Trump commuted his prison sentence, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Joshua Lott REFILE – CLARIFYING LOCATION – RC2V3F9SP87V

The former governor also said that the prosecution against him had only used about 1% of the recorded phone conversations and the rest had been sealed, a move that prevented him from using the remainder of the recorded calls in his own defense.

This, he said, was eerily similar to the way the documents in Flynn’s case were buried until last week — documents that appeared to show a concerted effort by the FBI to get Flynn to lie, thus giving them leverage over him that they could use to get him fired or to get through him to President Donald Trump.

“What they succeeded in doing at the Triple-A level to a Democratic Governor, they tried to do at the Major League level to a Republican President,” Blagojevich explained.


Blagojevich added that the end result in both cases — one successful and one not — was an attempt to undo a legal and fair election.

“This cannot be a Democratic or Republican issue. It is far too important. What these corrupt prosecutors and FBI agents are doing threatens the fundamental rights of the American people to choose their own leaders through free elections,” he concluded.

Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on corruption charges and had served eight years of his 14-year sentence when Trump commuted his sentence in February.