James Comey

[soonernvolved]

thefederalist.com/2020/05/13/obamagate-isnt-a-conspiracy-theory-its-the-biggest-political-scandal-of-our-time/

‘Obamagate’ Isn’t A Conspiracy Theory, It’s The Biggest Political Scandal Of Our Time
And the media know it.

John Daniel Davidson
By John Daniel Davidson
MAY 13, 2020

When former president Barack Obama told supporters last week that the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case against former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is a “threat to the rule of law,” he was relying wholly on the fiction, willingly propagated for years by a pliant media, that the Russia-Trump collusion probe launched by his administration was lawful and legitimate.

But of course it wasn’t. A string of recently released documents have confirmed that the entire Russia-Trump investigation, which eventually entrapped Flynn and forced then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself, was an unprecedented abuse of power that amounted to organized effort by the Obama administration to nullify the results of the 2016 presidential election. It was in effect an attempted coup.


If you haven’t picked that up from the news media, it’s not your fault. Instead of grappling with the implications of newly released details about what Obama officials were doing to undermine the incoming Trump administration during the transition, the mainstream media have fixated on Trump’s use of the term “Obamagate” and dismissing it as a conspiracy theory.

A Brief History of the Flynn Case
This is to be expected. For years now the media have done everything they can to push the Trump-Russia collusion hoax—even after a years-long special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller turned up nothing—using the complexity of the scheme to hide the greatest political scandal of our time in plain sight.

A key aspect of that scheme was—and is—to make the case against Flynn appear legitimate. Flynn faced trumped-up charges that he mislead FBI agents about conversations he had with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislak in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration. (As the incoming national security advisor, Flynn was doubtless having conversations with numerous heads of state and ambassadors during this time, so there was nothing unusual about him talking to the Russian ambassador.)

The Obama administration already knew about the conversations with Kislak because it had recordings of them thanks to a series of investigations it spun out of the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign. Crossfire Hurricane, launched in the summer of 2016, was itself a bogus investigation based on the Steele dossier—an entirely fraudulent document riddled with Russian disinformation and paid for by the Democratic Party.


So why did the FBI want to interview Flynn ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January 2017? Top brass at the FBI weren’t exactly sure about their approach, but they knew they needed to get Flynn out of the way. As the bureau’s former head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, recorded in his notes, “What is our goal? Truth/Admission, or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

Apparently the Obama administration settled on trying to entrap him in a lie. The recent disclosure of an early January 2017 Oval Office meeting attended by Obama, vice president Joe Biden, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and FBI Director James Comey, confirms the administration’s plan to hide the Russia probe from the incoming Trump team—including Flynn.

The idea was to use the Kislak calls as a pretext to keep the Flynn investigation open, even though there was no reason to do so. After months of spying on him, the FBI had found nothing to indicate Flynn was conspiring with the Russians.

As Rice wrote in an email to herself after the meeting, “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.”


The point was to keep the Flynn investigation open as a way for Obama holdovers like Comey, Yates, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to continue the Russia-Trump collusion probe even after Trump took office—and keep Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor, out of the loop. Since there was no reason to keep investigating Flynn, the Obama administration invented one: the preposterous notion that he intentionally mislead Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislak and then lied about it to the FBI.

There’s no evidence this happened, but even if there were it wouldn’t matter. As the Justice Department explained in its decision to drop the Flynn case, the investigation of Flynn was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.”

Later, top FBI and Justice Department officials gave the House Intelligence Committee different answers about why they were pursuing Flynn. Comey, McCabe, Yates, and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord all gave conflicting testimony about the “primary purpose” of the FBI’s interview with Flynn, ranging from the outlandish notion that he violated the Logan Act—a constitutionally dubious 1799 law forbidding unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments—to the concocted charge that he lied to the FBI, which even the agents that conducted the interview with him didn’t believe.

Here’s Why Americans Need to Understand the Flynn Case
The Flynn case is just one piece of a much larger story about how the Obama administration—with the full knowledge and support of both Obama and Biden—targeted incoming Trump officials in a failed attempt to cripple the new administration with allegations it had colluded with Moscow.


The complexity of their scheme, and the efforts to hide it and mislead the American people, are frustrating. The cast of characters—from high-ranking Obama administration officials to relative nobodies loosely associated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign—is long, as is the timeline of events. Details have come out slowly, in fits and starts, over the course of years. Following all the leaks and declassified transcripts and congressional hearings requires constant vigilance, and if you don’t keep up with it you can easily lose the thread.

That all works to the advantage of those who perpetrated this hoax, because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and tune it all out, or simply accept the corporate media’s deceptive reporting. But the ongoing revelations about the FBI’s targeting of Flynn can’t be ignored. They demand a full accounting. If ever there was a threat to the rule of law, it was the Obama administration’s abuse of power and its weaponization of intelligence agencies in an attempt to take down Trump.

However convoluted it might seem, pay attention to it. It’s the biggest political scandal of our time

[soonernvolved]

thefederalist.com/2020/05/13/instead-of-dismissing-michael-flynn-judge-opens-his-court-to-litigate-russiagate/


Instead Of Dismissing, Michael Flynn Judge Opens His Court To Litigate Russiagate
Absent reconsideration or reversal of his order, Judge Emmet Sullivan has just ensured that the Russia collusion hoax will be relitigated on the federal docket.

Margot Cleveland
By Margot Cleveland
MAY 13, 2020

Late on May 12, the federal judge presiding over the Michael Flynn criminal case entered a short order announcing to the world his intent to accept outside briefing on the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the charges against Flynn with prejudice. Absent reconsideration or reversal of that order, Judge Emmet Sullivan has just ensured that the Russia collusion hoax will be relitigated on the federal docket.

While Flynn’s connection to the broader Russia conspiracy theory was tangential, he was caught up in the plot to take down the president when FBI agents discovered he had spoken with the Russian ambassador in late December 2016. Realizing they could use the Russia collusion investigation as a pretext to quiz Flynn on this conversation, FBI Agent Peter Strzok intercepted the documents closing the investigation into Flynn, then led a casual chat with Flynn, designed to trip up the newly named Trump national security advisor.


The ploy worked, and Flynn’s responses to the Strzok’s questioning served as a sufficient predicate for a charge of making false statements to government officials under Section 1001. Flynn later pleaded guilty in late 2017 to the charge that he lied to the FBI concerning his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Shortly after Flynn entered his guilty plea, the case was transferred to Judge Sullivan. A year later, the retired lieutenant general appeared before Judge Sullivan for sentencing.

After Judge Sullivan suggested Flynn might receive some jail time if sentencing proceeded—even though federal prosecutors recommended against a prison sentence—Flynn requested a delay to allow him to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. Flynn continued to cooperate with Mueller’s team for the next six months and then, after the special counsel’s office disbanded, he fired his Covington and Burling attorneys and replaced them with Sidney Powell.

Powell requested several continuances of sentencing to allow her to review the files Flynn’s former attorneys began to transfer. Powell then filed several motions seeking to compel the government to produce exculpatory evidence improperly withheld from Flynn, and later requesting dismissal of the charge against Flynn for outrageous prosecutorial misconduct.

In a nearly 100-page opinion, Judge Sullivan shot down every one of Powell’s requests for evidence. Powell then pushed for Flynn to be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing the government breached its plea agreement with her client and that Flynn’s Covington and Burling attorneys had a conflict of interest and had provided ineffective assistance of counsel. Powell also stressed that Flynn was innocent of the charge and had pleaded guilty only because federal prosecutors threatened to go after his son if he did not plead guilty.


Before Judge Sullivan could rule on Flynn’s motions to withdraw his guilty plea, a trove of newly declassified documents supporting Flynn’s arguments became public. Powell filed these documents with the court, including text messages and handwritten notes suggesting the FBI’s questioning of Flynn was really a perjury trap.

Then came the next shocker: The U.S. attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn with prejudice—meaning he cannot be tried again. In the government’s 20-page motion, federal prosecutors explained that, “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information,” the government believed it could not establish the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

The motion then laid out evidence indicating that Flynn had not lied to FBI agents Strzok and Joe Pientka, and that the 302 summaries of Flynn’s interview had been wordsmithed to create the impression he had. Federal prosecutors also detailed their view that Flynn’s statements to the FBI agents, even if false, were not material to any legitimate investigation and thus could not form the basis for a Section 1001 prosecution.

Because Flynn had already pleaded guilty to the offense, Judge Sullivan needed to grant the government’s motion to dismiss the charge before the criminal case could end. Instead, however, Judge Sullivan shocked everyone yesterday afternoon by entering an order allowing outside parties to file “amicus curiae” or “friend of the court” briefs.


“An amicus brief should normally be allowed when a party is not represented competently or is not represented at all,” Judge Sullivan wrote, concluding that “at the appropriate time, the Court will enter a Scheduling Order governing the submission of any amicus curiae briefs”

Instantaneously, a group of attorneys, self-styled the Watergate Prosecutors, filed a notice of an intent to file an amicus brief. Flynn’s attorney responded by both objecting to the Watergate Prosecutors’ notice, and to the court’s broader decision to accept amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case.

It seems likely the Department of Justice will also object to the court’s apparent solicitation of amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case, given that the executive branch holds the sole constitutional authority to determine whether to prosecute a case. It seems equally likely that Judge Sullivan won’t change his mind about his order. However, once the flurry of politically charged briefing starts, the long-time federal judge may find himself regretting his decision

[soonernvolved]

Acting DNI Richard Grenell declassified the list of Obama officials involved in the unmasking of General Mike Flynn in his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

CBS reporter Catherine Herridge obtained the list of Obama operatives who unmasked General Flynn.

Names include former CIA Director John Brennan, Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and former DNI chief James Clapper.

Joe Biden is also on the list!

[soonernvolved]

Former Vice President Joe Biden unmasked General Flynn on January 12, 2017.

And Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough unmasked Flynn on January 5, 2017!

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2020/05/13/joe-biden-james-comey-john-brennan-unmasked-michael-flynn/

Biden, Comey, Brennan Submitted Flynn ‘Unmasking’ Requests

Former Vice President Joe Biden and the directors of the three main U.S. intelligence agencies submitted so-called “unmasking” requests for information about Michael Flynn contained in highly classified intelligence reports, according to documents released Wednesday.

The documents show that an unmasking request was made in Biden’s name on Jan. 12, 2017. Similar requests were made under the names of James Comey, John Brennan and James Clapper, the former directors of the FBI, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, respectively.

Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson released the list on Wednesday. Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, declassified the list of names last Thursday, and provided them to the senators this week.

It is not clear whether Biden or the other intelligence chiefs saw the documents related to Flynn. The document released on Wednesday said that the unmasking requests were made under 16 different government officials’ names.

“Below is a list of recipients who may have received Lt. Gen Flynn’s identity in response to a request processed between 8 November 2016 and 31 January 2017 to unmask an identity that had been generically referred to in an NSA foreign intelligence report,” the document stated.

“While the principals are identified below, we cannot confirm they saw the unmasked information.”

Flynn spoke by phone on Dec. 29, 2016, with Kislyak.

Days after the call, FBI and Justice Department officials began discussing whether Flynn violated the Logan Act, an obscure law that prohibits American citizens from negotiating with foreign governments regarding U.S. government policy.

Unmasking describes the process where high-level U.S. government officials request to see information regarding American citizens mentioned in classified transcripts of communications involving foreigners. It is not illegal to make unmasking requests. But the Flynn case is unique because the mentions of him in the classified transcripts was leaked to the media.

David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, mentioned the call and the possible Logan Act violation in a Jan. 12, 2017, column. (RELATED: Documents Shed Light On Media Leak Central To Michael Flynn Case)

WaPo’s source has still not been identified.

The Justice Department filed a motion to drop the case against Flynn May 7 for making false statements to the FBI regarding his conversations with Kislyak.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to the false statements charge.

The Justice Department filed its motion to drop charges against Flynn citing new FBI documents discovered in the case.

Grenell, who also serves as ambassador to Germany, took the list of names to the Justice Department last week asking for the information to be released to the public. Grenell has been behind a recent push to declassify and release documents related to the FBI’s investigation of Trump associates.

He was involved in the process of declassifying footnotes from a Justice Department inspector general’s report on the investigation. Those footnotes showed that the FBI received evidence in 2017 that Russian intelligence operatives might have fed disinformation to Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier that accused the Trump campaign of conspiring with the Kremlin.

Grenell also recently pressured House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to release 53 transcripts of interviews that the committee conducted as part of its own Russia probe. The transcripts showed that Obama officials such as James Clapper, Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes had not seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia by the time they left office.

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-list-of-obama-officials-involved-in-unmasking-michael-flynn-revealed-the-list-includes-joe-biden

BREAKING: List Of Obama Officials Involved In ‘Unmasking’ Michael Flynn Revealed. The List Includes Joe Biden.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell had declassified a list of former Obama administration officials who were allegedly part of the effort to “unmask” then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, which led to charges against the retired lieutenant general.

CBS News’ Catherine Herridge has now received the list of names who, according to Grenell’s declassification notification, “may have received Lt. Gen. Flynn’s identity in response to a request processed between 8 November 2016 and 31 January 2017 to unmask an identity that had been generically referred to in an NSA foreign intelligence report.”

Each individual was an authorized recipient of the original report and the unmasking was approved through NSA’s standard process, which includes a review of the justification for the request,” Grenell continued. “Only certain personnel are authorized to submit unmasking requests into the NSA system. In this case, 16 authorized individuals requested unmaskings for [redacted] different NSA intelligence reports for select identified people.”

“While the principals are identified below, we cannot confirm they saw the unmasked information,” Grenell warned. “This response does not include any requests outside of the specified time-frame.”

The list includes the usual suspects involved in the Russia-collusion narrative, such as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former Director for National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, and former FBI Director James Comey.

The last entry on the list, however, raises some eyebrows. It appears former vice president and de facto Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had requested the information.

To be clear, this information does not suggest these people were behind the investigation into Flynn, as they merely requested the identity of a then-unknown individual. Biden’s inclusion on the list will certainly raise questions for the candidate, who recently claimed President Donald Trump was using Flynn as a “diversion” to hide his allegedly poor handling of the coronavirus

Biden also in that interview with Good Morning America, said he was “aware” of Obama administration’s investigation into Flynn, after first denying he knew anything about a pending investigation of Flynn, The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti previously reported.

[soonernvolved]

www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-politicized-order-inviting-amicus-briefs-against-the-flynn-cases-dismissal/

The Politicized Order Inviting Amicus Briefs against the Flynn Case’s Dismissal
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
May 13, 2020 11:53 AM

Judge Sullivan's blatantly political directive is designed to frame the Justice Department as politicized.
Late Tuesday, federal district judge Emmet Sullivan issued a bizarre order, inviting third-party groups with no legal interests in the case to file amicus briefs addressing the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the false-statements charge against Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national-security adviser.

The cantankerous jurist is stoking opposition to the dismissal. He knows the law calls for him to accede to attorney general Bill Barr’s decision. But Barr can’t stop Sullivan from turning the dismissal into anti-Trump group therapy — and who knows, maybe the grieving Legal Left will figure out some way for the judge to convict Flynn despite DOJ’s retreat.

Flynn’s counsel relates that on 24 prior occasions, Judge Sullivan has summarily refused to entertain input from non-parties to the case. No federal criminal rule authorizes such interventions. Yet Sullivan now encourages them.

There is no complex legal issue to be resolved. DOJ’s dismissal motion may be politically controversial, but legally it is pro forma. The only branch of government constitutionally authorized to proceed with a criminal prosecution is the executive. The Justice Department has declined to prosecute. There is nothing for the judge to do besides the ministerial task of ending the case on the court’s records.

Lest we forget, the primary function of the federal judiciary is to protect the accused from overbearing government action, not to agitate for the prosecution of Americans. Even if he’s convinced Flynn is as guilty as the day is long, one might expect Judge Sullivan to be disturbed by the FBI’s perjury trap, by its editing of and misrepresentations about the “302 report” of Flynn’s interview. By the prosecution’s withholding of exculpatory evidence and concealment from the court of its threat to prosecute Flynn’s son. By the derelictions of Flynn’s original counsel, who took the case notwithstanding a deep conflict-of-interest, and who appear to have counseled Flynn to plead guilty without ever reviewing rudimentary discovery — we know they never inspected the 302 (which is mind-boggling in a false-statements case); did they ever demand that Mueller’s prosecutors produce the recording of the Flynn–Kislyak “sanctions” conversation that is the heart of the case?

Those are the kinds of questions a responsible judge would be posing, not, “How do I sentence this guy if DOJ won’t prosecute?” Regardless of what the DNC and CNN have to say on the matter, Flynn is supposed to be presumed innocent as far as Judge Sullivan is concerned.

If there is anything legally dubious here, it is the proposition that a judge may deny a dismissal motion filed by the Justice Department. Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure purports to require “leave of the court” before prosecutors may dismiss an indictment. Yet a statutorily enacted rule cannot amend the Constitution, which vests solely in the executive the power to prosecute.

NOW WATCH: 'Elon Musk Confirms Tesla Is Restarting Factory Against Local Orders'


Elon Musk Confirms Tesla Is Restarting Factory Against Local Orders

In the federal system, the Justice Department’s discretion to charge or proceed with a criminal case is unreviewable. The judiciary has no more power to compel the executive branch to prosecute an indicted case than it has to force the executive to indict the case in the first place. If the public believes the Trump administration is abusing prosecutorial discretion, it may vote the president out of office. But a judge has no authority to order the executive to investigate, indict, or try a criminal case. None.

Moreover, Congress prescribed Rule 48 to protect defendants — exactly the opposite of what Sullivan is doing. Lawmakers were concerned about the potential for prosecutorial misconduct: They wanted to prevent strategic dismissals, where a prosecutor pulled the plug on a case that was not going well for the government, only to recharge it later; they wanted to forbid such abuses as repeatedly charging then dismissing an indictment, exhausting an accused’s resources and capacity to defend himself.

The objective to protect defendants is elucidated by Rule 48’s requirement that, after a trial has started, the prosecutor must obtain the defendant’s consent before dismissing the case. Once a criminal trial starts, a defendant’s double-jeopardy protection is triggered. The rule thus ensures that, if the trial is going badly for the government, the prosecutor cannot get a do-over unless the accused agrees. Most defendants would prefer to continue a trial that appears headed to acquittal rather than to risk a retrial at which prosecutors can shore up their case.

How perverse, then, that Judge Sullivan sees Rule 48 not as a safeguard for defendants but an artifice to pressure the executive against dropping a case.

Note that Justice Department’s motion seeks to dismiss the charge against Flynn with prejudice. That means once the case is dismissed, the government would be prohibited from re-indicting Flynn on the same charge. There is no possibility of the gamesmanship Rule 48 was enacted to prevent.

Judge Sullivan knows this. He is a highly experienced judge. He knows he has no authority to stop the Justice Department from dropping the case. He knows if he tried to do that, he would be reversed by the Court of Appeals. He knows he could not force prosecutors to participate in the sentencing of Flynn, or in any other proceedings in a case that the Justice Department has decided is not worthy of prosecution. The judge knows the question of whether the case should be prosecuted is not his call.

So what does he do? Rather than just doing his job and dismissing the case, he invites amicus briefs. He can’t compel the Justice Department to further hound Flynn, but he figures he can encourage the legal establishment to trumpet the political theme that Trump’s Justice Department is undermining the rule of law. Without a hint of irony, Sullivan’s blatantly political directive is designed to frame the Justice Department as politicized.

In criminal cases, the accused is already pitted against the awesome resources of the government. Forcing the accused to bear the additional burden of defending against amicus briefs is unfair. A good judge would never encourage such a thing. A good judge would assume he could figure out what the law requires, without fear or favor. And if leave to file a brief were sought by an unsolicited amicus curiae — i.e., a true “friend of the court,” a non-party who might help the court do justice in a complex case — a good judge would at that point weigh whether such a brief might be helpful. A good judge never signals: I just don’t know what to do here — help!

Alas, in the Flynn case, we are dealing with a judge who prefers bloviation to preparation.

82
“I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain, for this criminal offense,” he railed in his first appearance in the case. “This criminal offense” was actually a relatively low-level process crime: a false-statements charge against a career military officer, brought even though the FBI did not think Flynn made intentional misstatements, the bureau was not obstructed in any way, and the prosecutors originally recommended no jail time. Sullivan, however, was not up to speed, but could not contain himself: He inveighed that Flynn, a decorated U.S. combat commander, had sold out his country and committed treason, a death-penalty offense.

Judge Sullivan’s order inviting amicus briefs is a travesty. Sad to say, it is not a surprise.


ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of BALL OF COLLUSION: THE PLOT TO RIG AN ELECTION AND DESTROY A

[soonernvolved]

www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/05/13/hidden_over_2_years_dem_cyber-firms_sworn_testimony_it_had_no_proof_of_russian_hack_of_dnc_123596.html

Hidden Over 2 Years: Dem Cyber-Firm's Sworn Testimony It Had No Proof of Russian Hack of DNC
By Aaron Maté, RealClearInvestigations
May 13, 2020


CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee’s server.


Crowdstrike President Shawn Henry: "We just don’t have the evidence ..."
Crowdstrike.com
CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry's admission under oath, in a recently declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee, raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public. The allegation that Russia stole Democratic Party emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and others and then passed them to WikiLeaks helped trigger the FBI's probe into now debunked claims of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 election. The CrowdStrike admissions were released just two months after the Justice Department retreated from its its other central claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when it dropped charges against Russian troll farms it said had been trying to get Trump elected.

Henry personally led the remediation and forensics analysis of the DNC server after being warned of a breach in late April 2016; his work was paid for by the DNC, which refused to turn over its server to the FBI. Asked for the date when alleged Russian hackers stole data from the DNC server, Henry testified that CrowdStrike did not in fact know if such a theft occurred at all: "We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated [moved electronically] from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated," Henry said.

Henry reiterated his claim on multiple occasions:

"There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left."
"There’s not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There's circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated."
"There is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network. … We didn't have a sensor in place that saw data leave. We said that the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made."
"Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn't see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw."
Asked directly if he could "unequivocally say" whether "it was or was not exfiltrated out of DNC," Henry told the committee: "I can't say based on that."

Rep. Adam Schiff: Offered Crowdstrike what appeared to be a face-saving follow-up.
(Senate Television via AP)
In a later exchange with Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, Henry offered an explanation of how Russian agents could have obtained the emails without any digital trace of them leaving the server. The CrowdStrike president speculated that Russian agents might have taken "screenshots" in real time. "[If] somebody was monitoring an email server, they could read all the email," Henry said. "And there might not be evidence of it being exfiltrated, but they would have knowledge of what was in the email. … There would be ways to copy it. You could take screenshots."

Henry’s 2017 testimony that there was no “concrete evidence” that the emails were stolen electronically suggests that Mueller was at best misleading in his 2019 final report, in which he stated that Russian intelligence “appears to have compressed and exfiltrated over 70 gigabytes of data from the file server.” It is unlikely that Mueller had another source to make his more confident claim about Russian hacking.

The stolen emails, which were published by Wikileaks – whose founder, Julian Assange has long denied they came from Russia – were embarrassing to the party because, among other things, they showed the DNC had favored Clinton during her 2016 primary battles against Sen. Bernie Sanders for the presidential nomination. The DNC eventually issued an apology to Sanders and his supporters "for the inexcusable remarks made over email." The DNC hack was separate from the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server while serving as President Obama’s Secretary of State.

The disclosure that CrowdStrike found no evidence that alleged Russian hackers exfiltrated any data from the DNC server raises a critical question: On what basis, then, did it accuse them of stealing the emails? Further, on what basis did Obama administration officials make far more forceful claims about Russian hacking?


Michael Sussmann: This lawyer at Perkins Coie hired CrowdStrike to investigate the DNC breach. He was also involved with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele in producing the discredited Steele dossier.
perkinscoie.com
The January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which formally accused Russia of a sweeping influence campaign involving the theft of Democratic emails, claimed the Russian intelligence service GRU "exfiltrated large volumes of data from the DNC." A July 2018 indictment claimed that GRU officers "stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees."

According to everyone concerned, the cyber-firm played a critical role in the FBI's investigation of the DNC data theft. Henry told the panel that CrowdStrike "shared intelligence with the FBI" on a regular basis, making "contact with them over a hundred times in the course of many months." In congressional testimony that same year, former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that the FBI "never got direct access to the machines themselves," and instead relied on CrowdStrike, which "shared with us their forensics from their review of the system." According to Comey, the FBI would have preferred direct access to the server, and made "multiple requests at different levels," to obtain it. But after being rebuffed, "ultimately it was agreed to… [CrowdStrike] would share with us what they saw."

Henry’s testimony seems at variance with Comey’s suggestion of complete information sharing. He told Congress that CrowdStrike provided "a couple of actual digital images" of DNC hard drives, out of a total number of "in excess of 10, I think." In other cases, Henry said, CrowdStrike provided its own assessment of them. The firm, he said, provided "the results of our analysis based on what our technology went out and collected." This disclosure follows revelations from the case of Trump operative Roger Stone that CrowdStrike provided three reports to the FBI in redacted and draft form. According to federal prosecutors, the government never obtained CrowdStrike's unredacted reports.


CrowdStrike's newy disclosed admissions raise new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller (above), intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
There are no indications that the Mueller team accessed any additional information beyond what CrowdStrike provided. According to the Mueller report, "the FBI later received images of DNC servers and copies of relevant traffic logs." But if the FBI obtained only "copies" of data traffic – and not any new evidence -- those copies would have shown the same absence of "concrete evidence" that Henry admitted to.

Adding to the tenuous evidence is CrowdStrike's own lack of certainty that the hackers it identified inside the DNC server were indeed Russian government actors. Henry's explanation for his firm's attribution of the DNC hack to Russia is replete with inferences and assumptions that lead to "beliefs," not unequivocal conclusions. "There are other nation-states that collect this type of intelligence for sure," Henry said, "but what we would call the tactics and techniques were consistent with what we'd seen associated with the Russian state." In its investigation, Henry said, CrowdStrike "saw activity that we believed was consistent with activity we'd seen previously and had associated with the Russian Government. … We said that we had a high degree of confidence it was the Russian Government."

But CrowdStrike was forced to retract a similar accusation months after it accused Russia in December 2016 of hacking the Ukrainian military, with the same software that the firm had claimed to identify inside the DNC server.

The firm's work with the DNC and FBI is also colored by partisan affiliations. Before joining CrowdStrike, Henry served as executive assistant director at the FBI under Mueller. Co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the pro-NATO think tank that has consistently promoted an aggressive policy toward Russia. And the newly released testimony confirms that CrowdStrike was hired to investigate the DNC breach by Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie – the same Democratic-tied law firm that hired Fusion GPS to produce the discredited Steele dossier, which was also treated as central evidence in the investigation. Sussmann played a critical role in generating the Trump-Russia collusion allegation. Ex-British spy and dossier compiler Christopher Steele has testified in British court that Sussmann shared with him the now-debunked Alfa Bank server theory, alleging a clandestine communication channel between the bank and the Trump Organization.

Henry’s recently released testimony does not mean that Russia did not hack the DNC. What it does make clear is that Obama administration officials, the DNC and others have misled the public by presenting as fact information that they knew was uncertain. The fact that the Democratic Party employed the two private firms that generated the core allegations at the heart of Russiagate -- Russian email hacking and Trump-Russia collusion – suggests that the federal investigation was compromised from the start.

The 2017 Henry transcript was one of dozens just released after a lengthy dispute. In September 2018, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee unanimously voted to release witness interview transcripts and sent them to the U.S. intelligence community for declassification review. In March 2019, months after Democrats won House control, Rep. Adam Schiff ordered the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to withhold the transcripts from White House lawyers seeking to review them for executive privilege. Schiff also refused to release vetted transcripts, but finally relented after acting ODNI Director Richard Grenell suggested this month that he would release them himself.

Several transcripts, including the interviews of former CIA Director John Brennan and Comey, remain unreleased. And in light of the newly disclosed Crowdstrike testimony, another secret document from the House proceedings takes on urgency for public viewing. According to Henry, Crowdstrike also provided the House Intelligence Committee with a copy of its report on the DNC email theft.

[soonernvolved]

Harvard Attorney Alan Dershowitz was on Hannity where he shared the following regarding the judge in the General Flynn case:

If this judge has the GALL to not throw this out, he ought to be impeached. Remember that judges only have jurisdiction for cases and controversies. There’s no controversy here. Both sides agree this case should be dismissed. This judge has no power to do anything else. And if he asserts that power, he has violated the Constitution.”

[soonernvolved]

www.foxnews.com/opinion/adam-schiff-transcripts-russia-trump-collusion-wsj

WSJ Editorial Board: All the Adam Schiff transcripts – Chair knew there was no proof of Russia-Trump collusion

Americans expect that politicians will lie, but sometimes the examples are so brazen that they deserve special notice. Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.


The House Intelligence Committee last week released 57 transcripts of interviews it conducted in its investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. The committee probe started in January 2017 under then-Chair Devin Nunes and concluded in March 2018 with a report finding no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin. Most of the transcripts were ready for release long ago, but Mr. Schiff oddly refused to release them after he became chairman in 2019. He only released them last week when the White House threatened to do it first.

Rep. Lee Zeldin: Schiff should resign, record should be corrected on Russia probeVideo
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

Now we know why. From the earliest days of the collusion narrative, Mr. Schiff insisted that he had evidence proving the plot. In March 2017 on MSNBC, Mr. Schiff teased that he couldn’t “go into particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP


In December 2017 he told CNN that collusion was a fact: “The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help and the President made full use of that help.” In April 2018, Mr. Schiff released his response to Mr. Nunes’s report, stating that its finding of no collusion “was unsupported by the facts and the investigative record.”

www.wsj.com/articles/all-the-adam-schiff-transcripts-11589326164?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

Just yesterday, Biden claimed he knew “nothing” about the plot to target General Flynn during his appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Now we find out Biden sought to unmask Flynn 7 days after his January 5, 2017 secret Oval Office meeting discussing General Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak with Obama, Yates, Comey, Rice and Brennan.

“I just got the [unmasking] list — and who could believe a thing like this? And I watched Biden yesterday on Good Morning America being interviewed by one of your colleagues, George Stephanopoulos and he said he knew nothing about anything…and then it gets released today that he was a big unmasker,” said Trump to reporters.

[soonernvolved]

Judge Sullivan today appointed appointed retired judge John Gleeson to argue against the government’s motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn!
This is unheard of!

First the attorneys for the Mueller team withheld Brady evidence from General Flynn for over a year and now this crooked judge won’t acquit!

Also Sullivan asked the retired judge to look at whether Flynn could be held in criminal contempt for perjury.
**** This is exactly what Obama said — even though Flynn DID NOT commit perjury!

Here is Judge Sullivan with James Boasberg & Rosemary Collyer who both signed the FISA warrant. Judge Contreras Flynn’s first Judge had to be removed from the case because of his personal relationship with Strzok. And the corrupt Amy Berman Jackson.

[redrex]

Showboat Judge looking for his 15 minutes of fame

[soonernvolved]

Former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power lied under oath to Congress about unmasking General Flynn.

CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge on Wednesday obtained the list of Obama operatives who unmasked General Flynn and released it to the public.

Names included former VP Joe Biden, former CIA Director John Brennan, Samantha Power, former DNI chief James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey and others.

According to the new documents released, Samantha Power sought to unmask General Flynn SEVEN TIMES.

Power’s first request was dated November 30, 2016 and her last unmasking request related to Flynn was dated January 11, 2017.



Power, however, previously testified to the House Intelligence Committee that she has “no recollection of making a request related to General Flynn” when asked by Adam Schiff if she made such requests.

Power also told Schiff she had nothing to do with leaking Flynn’s name or calls with Kislyak to the media.

According to previous reports by John Solomon, Samantha Power unmasked hundreds of Americans in Obama’s last year in office.

In fact, Samantha Power sought to unmask Americans on a near daily basis.

When pressed about this, Power testified to Rep. Trey Gowdy that not all of the unmasking requests made in her name were directed by her.

Will she use this excuse again now that she was caught making seven unmasking requests related to General Flynn?

Will Biden also use this excuse after he was caught unmasking General Flynn?

[soonernvolved]

Spin Cycle commenced:

www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/05/13/dnc-spox-flynn-unmasking-story-will-backfire-shows-how-serious-flynn-was-in-talks-with-russia/

DNC Spox: Flynn Unmasking Story Will ‘Backfire’ – Shows ‘How Serious Flynn Was’ in Talks with Russia

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Bill Hemmer Reports,” DNC Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa reacted to the reports that 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden asked for the identity of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn by stating that there isn’t anything “scandalous” about unmasking and that the story will “backfire on Republicans. Because it just showed how serious Flynn was in his conversations with the Russians.”

Hinojosa said, “First of all, this is a distraction. All you’re having Republicans do right now is distract from the fact that they’ve continued to politicize the Justice Department. I’m someone who worked there, and I understand the independence of the Justice Department.”




She added that unmasking “is nothing that is scandalous in any way. But frankly, this is going to backfire on Republicans. Because it just showed how serious Flynn was in his conversations with the Russians. So, Republicans can try to use this to play political football. But, in reality, this is going to backfire with them.”

[soonernvolved]

www.nationalreview.com/corner/cooking-up-a-criminal-investigation-the-obama-way/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=first

Cooking Up a Criminal Investigation, the Obama Way
By DAVID HARSANYI
May 13, 2020 7:09 PM

According to the standards now set by Obama-administration defenders, it would be no big deal if Donald Trump’s Department of Justice opened criminal investigations into high-profile Democrats such as John Kerry (now a member of Joe Biden’s campaign) who met with Iranians officials over the past four years in an effort to undermine the foreign-policy goals of the duly elected government of the United States. These are potential Logan Act violations, after all.




TOP ARTICLES
5/5
READ MORE
Germany’s Constitutional Court
Accelerates the Euro Zone’s Slide toward Crisis


It would be no big deal, either, if Trump’s DOJ opened up investigations into Democrats who have ever taken any money from foreign powers, because these are potential FARA violations. Sure, only six such convictions have been pursued by the DOJ since 1966, but no one says your pretext has to be solid.

It would also fine if, three weeks before Election Day, the DOJ filled out surveillance warrant applications — applications that excluded vital exculpatory evidence — to spy on the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign.

If Joe Biden were to win the presidency, it would be no big deal if Trump’s DOJ snooped on the incoming national-security adviser John Kerry, taped his completely legal calls with foreign dignitaries, simply because Trump suspected that Kerry would disagree with his administration’s stance on Iran, a nation that threatens the sanctity of our democracy and murders hundreds of soldiers.

Then, once Kerry was spied on by the NSA, and unmasked by dozens of high-ranking partisan Trump officials — one of them a future presidential candidate — it would be no big deal if any of them illegally leaked Kerry’s name to the press. They would do this in an effort to smear Kerry and railroad him into a plea — not over any risible FARA or Logan Act abuses, but over an innocuous lie about a lawful call told during an ostensibly friendly conversation — so that the Trump administration could fortify a waning investigation into the Democratic Party.

It would be no big deal if that waning investigation itself was predominately based on a fictitious document paid for by the Republican National Committee. It would be no big deal we if we found out that Trump allies within multiple law-enforcement agencies had referred to the investigation — an investigation based on fictitious evidence paid for by the RNC — as an “insurance policy” against the incoming president. It would be a no-big-deal investigation if the entire thing was propelled by fabricated evidence in FISA warrant applications — and if nearly all FISA warrant applications contained serious errors.


For four years, Trump allies within the Biden administration would illegally leak misleading bits and pieces of their investigation to a compliant media, which then would dutifully smear Kerry and the Democratic Party as seditious operatives, fueling a massive faux scandal and creating enough pressure for an independent investigation that would paralyze the Biden presidency and convince half the nation that the election was stolen.

And when all the skullduggery is finally exposed, and prosecutors have not found enough evidence to indict a single person in the Biden campaign for any wrongdoing that’s related to the stated reason for the investigation, Republicans can demand that everyone just move on. No big deal.

[soonernvolved]

Tonight Judge Jeanine Pirro weighed in on Sullivan’s actions.

Judge Jeanine: Tucker from the time I was sitting on a bench, and it was not a federal bench but it was a trial bench as this one is. It is absolutely foreign to any judge to even consider bringing in another judge to co-pilot a case.

Via Tucker Carlson Tonight:

[soonernvolved]

Earlier this week — On May 11, 2020, John Gleeson penned a Washington post article titled, “The Flynn case isn’t over until the judge says it’s over“.

AGAIN— This was published in the Washington Post — ON MONDAY!
This is from Gleeson’s opinion piece — He is OPENLY a Trump and Flynn hater!

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/11/flynn-case-isnt-over-until-judge-says-its-over/

Fortunately, the court has many tools to vindicate the public interest. It can require the career prosecutor to explain why he stepped off the case, as another federal judge recently did when the Trump administration attempted to replace a trial team litigating the politicization of the census. It can appoint an independent attorney to act as a “friend of the court,” ensuring a full, adversarial inquiry, as the judge in the Flynn case has done in other situations where the department abdicated its prosecutorial role. If necessary, the court can hold hearings to resolve factual discrepancies.

And the court could compel the department to reveal the one thing it has thus far refused to show — the actual evidence underlying the prosecution. To help Flynn, the department has made public documents it jealously guards in almost every other case, including confidential memos and internal deliberations. But it has balked at disclosing the transcripts of the very conversations with the Russian ambassador that Flynn admitted he lied about when the FBI interviewed him.

And this is the retired judge Sullivan appointed to look over the Flynn case?
What the hell is this?

[soonernvolved]

Jonathan Turley came out against Judge Sullivan’s dirty political move on Wednesday evening.

“Consider the implications for many cases where defendants seek to withdraw pleas due to prosecutorial abuse. It would create a threat of a judicial charge even when prosecutors agree with defendants,” Turley said.

“These extraordinary moves by the court are increasingly discomforting. This is a single charge where significant jail time was neither warranted nor expected,” he said.

The Court appears too invested in the punishment of the defendant.

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/05/13/judge-who-will-argue-against-michael-flynn-said-case-reeks-of-improper-political-influence/

Retired Judge Who Will Argue Against Michael Flynn Said Case ‘Reeks of Improper Political Influence’

The retired federal judge who was appointed Wednesday to argue that Michael Flynn should be held in criminal contempt of court for changing his guilty plea published an op-ed in the Washington Post Monday criticizing the Trump administration.

Retired Judge John Gleeson was appointed by Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is presiding over the Flynn case, both to oppose the Department of Justice motion to drop the case and to argue Sullivan should begin proceedings to hold Flynn in contempt.




In an op-ed titled “The Flynn case isn’t over until the judge says it’s over,” Gleeson and two co-authors wrote (original links and emphasis):

There has been nothing regular about the department’s effort to dismiss the Flynn case. The record reeks of improper political influence. Hours after the career prosecutor abruptly withdrew, the department moved to dismiss the indictment in a filing signed only by an interim U.S. attorney, a former aide to Attorney General William P. Barr whom Barr had installed in the position months before.

The department now says it cannot prove its case. But Flynn had already admitted his guilt to lying to the FBI, and the court had accepted his plea. The purported reasons for the dismissal clash not only with the department’s previous arguments in Flynn’s case — where it assured the court of an important federal interest in punishing Flynn’s dishonesty, an interest it now dismisses as insubstantial — but also with arguments it has routinely made for years in similar cases not involving defendants close to the president. And all of this followed a similarly troubling reversal, also preceded by the withdrawal of career prosecutors, in the sentencing of Roger Stone.

The Washington Post played a role in Flynn’s prosecution when columnist David Ignatius reported in January 2017 that Flynn, as incoming National Security Advisor, had spoken to the Russian ambassador. (The leak of Flynn’s name was likely a felony.)

Flynn was later accused of lying about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to Vice President Mike Pence and to the FBI. The DOJ now says that those lies were not “material” because Flynn was not under investigation.

Both Gleeson and Sullivan were appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton.

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/13/sen-ron-johnson-to-request-biden-other-obama-era-officials-testify-on-unmasking/

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) signaled Wednesday that he will request Obama administration officials, including former Vice President Joe Biden, to testify in the wake of revelations that they may have sought to “unmask” communications by retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.

“Right now we’re in the information-gathering phase of this and this obviously, from my standpoint, raises a lot more questions than it actually answers,” Johnson told reporters, according to The Hill. “We will start requesting interviews with those individuals.”




“I want to find out what you were looking at, why you unmasked an American’s identity and how you used that,” the Wisconsin Republican added, before noting that he will seek interviews with former Director of National Intelligence Clapper, former CIA Director Brennan, Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and “possibly the vice president.”

Johnson’s remarks come after acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell submitted a declassified list to the Wisconsin Republican and Sen. Chuck Grassley (I-IA) of Obama administration officials who had requested names to be “unmasked” between November 8, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017.

SCOOP @cbsnews obtains @richardgrenell notification to congress declassified “unmasking list” Flynn between late 2016 and January 2017 pic.twitter.com/axc8MHvYYd

— Catherine Herridge (@cbs_Herridge) May 13, 2020

The list of Obama administration officials who made unmasking requests are in chronological order:

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samatha Power
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
Deputy Chief of Mission to Italy and Republic of San Marino Kelly Degnan (now Ambassador to Georgia)
U.S. Ambassador to Italy and the Republic of San Marino, John R. Phillips
CIA director John Brennan
U.S. Treasury Office of Intelligence and Analysis Patrick Conlon
Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew
Acting Assistant Treasury Secretary Arthur “Danny” McGlynn
Acting Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mike Neufeld
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Raskin
Under Secretary Treasury Nathan Sheets
Acting Under Secretary Treasury Adam Szubin
U.S. NATO Advisor Robert Bell
U.S. Representative to the NATO Military Committee Vice Admiral John Christenson
FBI Director James Comey
U.S. NATO Office of the Defense Advisor Policy Advisor for Russia Lt. Col. Paul Geehreng
U.S. NATO Defense Advisor James Hursh
U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission to NATO Lee Litzenberger (now Ambassador to Azerbaijan)
U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Ambassador Douglas Lute
U.S. NATO Political Office Scott Parrish
Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall
U.S. NATO Political Advisor Tamir Waser
U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough
Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Integration Michael Dempsey
Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stephanie O’Sullivan
Vice President Joe Biden
Breitbart News reported:

Those who requested “unmasking” on or after Dec. 29, 2016 include: Power, Clapper, Lew, McDonough, Dempsey, O’Sullivan, Biden, and an unnamed person. McDonough is the only person who made an unmasking request between Dec. 29, 2017 and Jan. 5, 2017.

That was the date of a key Oval Office meeting at which President Barack Obama met with several senior officials and informed Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations. At that meeting, the president also discussed Comey’s plan to approach President-elect Donald Trump to inform him about salacious (and unverified) information from the “Steele dossier” at Trump Tower the next day, Jan. 6.



On Tuesday, in an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America, Biden, who had been at the Jan. 5 meeting, initially denied knowing about the plan to investigate Flynn, then admitted that he had known that “they had asked for an investigation.”

This development comes after the Department of Justice dropped its criminal case against Flynn, who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding his contacts with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak during President Trump’s transition period. The move came after revelations showing that handwritten notes compiled by FBI officials questioned whether the “goal” was “to get [Flynn] to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”

In a Wednesday press conference, Sen. Rand Paul said the published list shows Biden was “caught red-handed” using U.S. spy powers to “go after a political opponent.”

“I think it is a very serious offense and should be investigated — and the fact that Vice President Biden is directly involved with unmasking a political opponent. Think about it. Remember we went through this thing called impeachment? They said President Trump was using the government to go after a political opponent?” the senator said. “This is Vice President Biden using the spying powers of the United States to go after a political opponent. He’s caught red-handed here.”

[soonernvolved]

The FBI seized Senator Richard Burr’s (R-NC) phone Wednesday evening in connection with the federal probe into his stock trades.

www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-13/fbi-serves-warrant-on-senator-stock-investigation

Federal agents seized a cellphone belonging to a prominent Republican senator on Wednesday night as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into controversial stock trades he made as the novel coronavirus first struck the U.S., a law enforcement official said.

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, turned over his phone to agents after they served a search warrant on the lawmaker at his residence in the Washington area, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a law enforcement action.

To obtain a search warrant, federal agents and prosecutors must persuade a judge they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. The law enforcement official said the Justice Department is examining Burr’s communications with his broker.

[soonernvolved]

Attorney Sol Wisenberg shared with Laura Ingraham on the Ingraham Angle tonight that the actions of Judge Sullivan go against the results of a recent case on the matter in the DC Circuit. If the DOJ or government wants to dismiss a case they proposed, a judge cannot refuse the government’s right to do so.

The judge overseeing the General Flynn case, Judge Sullivan, has shown his disdain for the rule of law. He accused General Flynn of treason during one court hearing. He is clearly a Deep State hack. Now he wants to bring another judge into the case to determine if it is right for the DOJ to dismiss the case against Flynn.

Sullivan’s court is rumored to also want to indict Flynn for lying to the court when he pleaded guilty to a crime he didn’t commit after being coerced into it by the Mueller gang. The Mueller gang threatened to indict the General’s son if he didn’t plead guilty. The entire disgusting case against Flynn is the most corrupt in our lifetime, yet judge Sullivan won’t let it end.

Tonight Sol Weisenberg shared why Sullivan’s actions are against current law:

Under the Fokker Case that just came out 2 years ago, the DC Circuit which governs Judge Sullivan made it very clear if the government wants to dismiss a case you cannot, the District Court cannot refuse to do so because he doesn’t like the government’s theory. Because he thinks the government should continue the case. And it doesn’t matter if the defendant has pled or not.

Via The Ingraham Angle:



The Fokker case referred to by Weisenberg is discussed in the Harvard Law Review:

harvardlawreview.org/2017/01/united-states-v-fokker-services-b-v/

Since the Arthur Andersen prosecution in which thousands of innocent workers lost their jobs, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has increasingly turned to deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) to avoid the collateral consequences of a corporate criminal conviction.1.SeeBrandon L. Garrett, Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations 41, 44, 55 (2014). In a DPA, the government agrees to dismiss filed charges if a corporation complies with negotiated conditions that are aimed at punishing the misconduct and allowing the corporation to demonstrate rehabilitation. Traditionally, judicial scrutiny over the DPA’s terms has been “essentially nonexistent.”2. Mike Koehler, Measuring the Impact of Non-Prosecution and Deferred Prosecution Agreements on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement, 49 UC Davis L. Rev. 497, 505 (2015) (citing U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-10-110, Corporate Crime 8, 25 (2009)); see also U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, supra, at 25 (reporting, based on a survey of twelve U.S. district and magistrate judges who handled cases involving a DPA, that judges “were generally not involved in the DPA process”). However, three recent district court decisions have attempted to assert a more substantive role for the court — declaring that an Article III judge is not a “potted plant”3. United States v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., No. 12-CR-763, 2013 WL 3306161, at *5 (E.D.N.Y. July 1, 2013); see also United States v. Saena Tech Corp., 140 F. Supp. 3d 11, 33 (D.D.C. 2015) (quoting HSBC Bank, 2013 WL 3306161, at *5). or “rubber stamp”4. United States v. Fokker Servs. B.V., 79 F. Supp. 3d 160, 164 (D.D.C. 2015). when reviewing DPAs. The D.C. Circuit subsequently curtailed these efforts in United States v. Fokker Services B.V.,5. 818 F.3d 733 (D.C. Cir. 2016). in which it held that to preserve “the Executive’s long-settled primacy over charging,”6.Id. at 743. a court is not authorized to reject a DPA based on a finding that the “charging decisions” and “conditions agreed to in the DPA” are inadequate.7.Id. at 747. By ostensibly precluding judicial review of a DPA’s negotiated terms, the D.C. Circuit overcorrected and reinforced the executive branch’s unchecked discretion over DPAs by reassuring prosecutors that future courts will rubber stamp such agreements.

The Harvard article continues noting the Judge in the Fokker case stated that:

…as a matter of established law, the judiciary is not to second-guess the Executive’s decisions of “whether to initiate charges, whom to prosecute, which charges to bring, and whether to dismiss charges.”

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/schumer-hyperventilates-about-obamagate-cruz-gives-him-one-word-to-live-by

Schumer Hyperventilates About Obamagate. Cruz Gives Him One Word To Live By.

Speaking rapidly, New York senator Chuck Schumer started ranting about the GOP’s focus on the recent revelations about the Flynn investigation, saying, “These ridiculous conspiracy theories, on Obama — Chairman Johnson wants to go after Biden and this Hunter Biden conspiracy theory, which came from the Russians, of all people. This is amazing to me. What alternative universe do they live in? Spending their time on discredited conspiracy theories, against Obama, against Biden …

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) noted the frantic nature of Schumer’s rant, then tweeted a deathless reply consisting of one word of advice:

Schumer has been mocking Cruz for years; in November 2013, Schumer urged Hillary Clinton to runfor president, saying, “With a strong platform and with Hillary leading the charge, we will vanquish the Ted Cruz, tea party Republicans in 2016. And create a generation of Democrats who will make sure the middle class gets what it needs, our country advances and the torch held by that beautiful lady in New York’s harbor burns more brightly than ever.”

It’s time to stay home
Our beaches aren’t going anywhere and neither should you. See you when the coast is clear.
Ad By Fort Myers & Sanibel
See More
In July 2017, Schumer attacked Cruz’s amendment to the GOP healthcare bill, calling it a “hoax” as he stated:

Make no mistake, the Cruz amendment is a hoax.Under the guise of lowering premiums, it makes healthcare more expensive because deductibles and copayments would be so onerous that many Americans would pay much more out of their pockets than they pay today. It’s a foolhardy trade to exchange lower premiums for far more expensive deductibles and copayments. In addition, Americans with pre-existing conditions will almost certainly be left without access to affordable and quality healthcare, making this even worse than the House bill on this issue.


But recently, Cruz sent a message Schumer’s way; in March, Schumer attacked two conservative justices of the Supreme Court, ranting, “Republican legislatures are waging a war on women, all women, and they’re taking away fundamental rights. I want to tell you Gorsuch; I want to tell you Kavanaugh; you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Cruz hammered Schumer on Twitter, writing, “Disgraceful political attack on the Supreme Court & the rule of law. This attempt at judicial intimidation is not OK. [Sen. Schumer] should be ashamed. He should retract. And he should apologize.”


Cruz quoted left-leaning law professor Laurence Tribe, who stated, “These remarks by [Sen. Schumer] were inexcusable. Chief Justice Roberts was right to call him on his comments. I hope the Senator, whom I’ve long admired and consider a friend, apologizes and takes back his implicit threat. It’s beneath him and his office.”

Cruz commented, “@tribelaw is exactly right. (!!) The attempt by [Sen. Schumer] at judicial intimidation—a threat of political retaliation, or worse—is wrong & profoundly dangerous. Politics are one thing; trying to politicize & destroy the Supreme Court is altogether different.”

[soonernvolved]

Look at who is upset because they were revealed to be one of the unmaskers:

Funny coming from one who committed perjury & suppressed evidence that Russia favored Hillary instead.

[soonernvolved]

First Burr & now Feinstein:

[soonernvolved]

General Flynn related:

Conflict of Interest much?

[soonernvolved]