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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 14, 2020 11:02:59 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/08/14/kevin-clinesmith-fbi-durham-carter-page/A former FBI attorney will plead guilty to making false statements in documents used to obtain a surveillance warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page, his lawyer told the Associated Press Friday. The guilty plea from Kevin Clinesmith is the first legal action taken in an investigation led by John Durham, a U.S. attorney looking into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe and other intelligence-gathering activities related to the Trump campaign. Clinesmith’s lawyer, Justin Shur, told the Associated Press that his client will plead guilty to a single false statements charge as part of a cooperation agreement with the government. The New York Times first reported that Clinesmith was entering the plea deal and would be charged in federal court. Attorney General William Barr hinted Thursday that the indictment was coming in the Durham probe, though he said it was not “earth-shattering.” He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that other “significant” developments will happen in the Durham probe closer to the election. A Justice Department inspector general’s report said that an FBI attorney identified as Clinesmith altered an email in June 2017 to downplay Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA. Page had served as an “operational contact” for the spy agency through at least 2013, but Clinesmith altered an email to say that he was “not a source” for the spy agency. U.S. Attorney General William Barr is escorted to the Rose Garden for an event on “Safe Policing for Safe Communities”, at the White House June 16, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) U.S. Attorney General William Barr is escorted to the Rose Garden for an event on “Safe Policing for Safe Communities”, at the White House June 16, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Clinesmith took part in other aspects of Crossfire Hurricane, and later joined the special counsel’s team. He took part in the decision to send an FBI special agent into a counterintelligence briefing with Donald Trump and Michael Flynn in August 2016. The agent, Joe Pientka, was tasked with collecting evidence on Flynn to use as part of Crossfire Hurricane. (RELATED: FBI Failed To Disclose Carter Page Was ‘Operational Contact’ For CIA) Clinesmith also exchanged anti-Trump text messages with another FBI lawyer after the November 2016 election, according to a Justice Department inspector general’s report released on June 14, 2018. In a Nov. 22, 2016 text message discussion about Trump, Clinesmith wrote: “Viva le Resistance!” Clinesmith also sent text messages expressing concern over his role in investigating the Trump campaign, the inspector general’s report said. “I am so stressed about what I could have done differently,” Clinesmith wrote. “Plus, my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff.” Clinesmith was one of the FBI lawyers who took part in interviews with George Papadopoulos in February 2017. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 14, 2020 17:55:01 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 26, 2020 11:51:21 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/08/26/key-russian-collusion-hoaxer-and-dossier-peddler-at-obamas-state-dept-worked-for-sanctioned-russian-oligarch/Key Russian Collusion Hoaxer And Dossier Peddler At Obama’s State Dept. Worked For Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Jonathan Winer used his position at the State Department to distribute the Steele dossier, but that wasn't the first questionable product Winer pushed to policymakers. He had been passing Steele-produced briefs to senior colleagues for years. By Eric Felten AUGUST 26, 2020 Jonathan Winer, a former top aide to Secretary of State John Kerry who was a key conduit for disseminating the discredited Steele dossier in the U.S. government, worked as a lobbyist for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in years preceding the Russiagate affair. This revelation raises new questions about Russian efforts to influence American foreign policy — far afield from any Kremlin efforts to favor Donald Trump. Winer’s connection to Deripaska came to light through last week’s release of the fifth and final volume of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. The Senate report also found that at different times ex-British spy Christopher Steele had worked for the powerful oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin, and sent scores of reports from his intelligence firm on to Winer, who admitted to the panel destroying many of them before leaving the State Department. Further, the Senate developed evidence that Glenn Simpson — whose company Fusion GPS contracted with Steele for the dossier — also did work for Deripaska. Simpson denied that, telling senators, “I don’t think I’ve knowingly had any contact with his organization.” In his initial interview with the Senate committee, Winer claimed never to have met the oligarch. In a second interview, Winer revised this answer. He conceded that, beginning in 2003, Deripaska had hired the law firm Alston & Bird, where Winer was a partner. He worked on the Deripaska account but, asserting attorney-client privilege, refused to say what exactly he had done on Deripaska’s behalf. RealClearInvestigations sent questions to Alston & Bird’s spokesman but received no reply. RealClearInvestigations has found that as an employee of the government affairs and public relations firm APCO Worldwide, Winer also worked on behalf of the Russian government’s nuclear agency in 2010 and 2011. Winer also drummed up business for Steele among lobbyists he knew from his work promoting Russia’s nuclear interests. RealClearInvestigations contacted both Winer and APCO; neither responded. Winer Used His Position at the Department of State Winer used his position as a top State Department official to distribute the lurid dossier prepared by Steele, which accused Donald Trump of conspiring with Russia to steal the 2016 election. But the dossier was not the first questionable Steele product Winer put in the hands of policymakers. He had been passing Steele-produced briefs to senior State Department colleagues for years. The memos were “free” for the government because the department didn’t pay for them. But that doesn’t mean Steele wasn’t getting paid. While at the State Department during President Barack Obama’s second term, Winer disseminated to his colleagues more than 100 memos written by Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence. Among them were memos apparently intended to help influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Steele’s Russian client, billionaire Putin loyalist Deripaska. The Senate revelations establish that Winer was a key but little-known figure in Russiagate. He, along with former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr — whose wife worked for Fusion GPS — have emerged as prime vehicles for the dissemination of the Steele dossier to the highest reaches of the U.S. government. Winer was for a decade an aide to Sen. John Kerry. From 1994 to 1999, he was a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of State. From the government, he went to the international lobby and law firm Alston & Bird. Winer moved to APCO Worldwide in 2008, about the time he met Steele, who had just left British intelligence and was setting up his own shop. Winer told the Senate that in his private-sector jobs, he “was still engaged in various types of Russian representation all over the map.” Pro-Putin, anti-Putin — Winer didn’t care. He told senators, “It was any work that was consistent with their needs and my values.” When Kerry became secretary of state, he named his old Senate aide to a top position at the department — special envoy to Libya. Winer seems to have used that position in ways that promoted Steele’s business. Winer’s efforts on his friend’s behalf included sending policymakers memos on Ukraine and Russia produced by Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence. They were frequent enough to be called by a shorthand — “O Reports.” From the time he rejoined the State Department in 2013, through 2015, Winer distributed more than 100 of Steele’s memos. In an email obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request, Winer promoted Steele’s reports to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and her deputy, Paul W. Jones (now the chargé d’affaires to Pakistan). “Toria and Paul, Three reports from Orbis,” Winer wrote the afternoon of Nov. 19, 2014. He added, “The man behind them and Orbis, Chris Steele (as previously mentioned, former MI6 Russia expert, and a trusted friend of mine) is in DC next couple of days. If you’d like to meet with him, let me know and I can put it together.” Once Steele’s “O Reports” had become routine, Winer relied on Nuland’s assistant, Nina Miller, to circulate his friend’s reports. For example, on Feb. 12, 2015, Winer sent an “O Report” to Miller “concerning company said to be secretly owned by Putin, Putin’s Mistress and Friends.” It was sent with these instructions: “Nina please send high side to three usual persons.” The State Department did not respond to questions about the memos. Through Winer, Steele Influenced U.S. Policy Winer testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Steele’s memos had no purpose other than to provide the State Department with helpful information on Russian and Ukrainian affairs. But that’s not how Steele viewed his State Department connection. He made it clear that his “reports” were intended to shape U.S. policy. For example, Steele used his in at Foggy Bottom to try to improve diplomatic attitudes toward Deripaska, whom the Senate Intelligence Committee describes as “a key implementer of Russian influence operations around the globe.” The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has accused Deripaska of “holding assets and laundering funds on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Deripaska has dismissed the accusations as “guesses, rumors and balderdash.” Early in 2016 — not long before Steele began creating opposition research on Trump for Fusion GPS — Steele reached out to his friend at the Justice Department, Bruce Ohr. Page 883 of the Senate report states that Steele emailed Ohr to say he had heard from Deripaska’s lawyers, Paul H[auser] and Adam W[aldman], that the oligarch had been “granted an official visa to visit the US this week.” Steele urged Ohr to promote Deripaska’s trip to the States: “[Y]ou should be pushing at an open door,” Steele wrote. There was a problem, though: Steele anticipated “counter squalls from State.” It was a problem that had a two-part solution. The first involved Ohr. Steele encouraged his friend to take advantage of “an inter-agency meeting on him [Deripaska] this week which I guess you will be attending.” The second part of Steele’s strategy involved putting his memos to work. We “are circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting on the RF [Russian Federation] leadership’s targeting of certain business figures.” The reports, Steele told Ohr, would suggest that Deripaska “is not the leadership tool some have alleged.” Winer’s distribution of “O Reports” enabled Steele to influence U.S. policy for clients such as Deripaska. That may explain why, at Steele’s direction, Winer collected and destroyed as many copies of Steele’s reports as he could before leaving his job. “So I destroyed them,” Winer admitted to the intelligence committee. “I basically destroyed all the correspondence I had with him.” RealClearInvestigations contacted Orbis with questions for Steele. There was no response. Who is Ariuna Namsrai? Winer’s promotion of Steele and his business extended beyond the government. For example, when the London-based Steele visited Washington in November 2014, Winer pitched him to Nelson Cunningham, president of the Clinton-connected lobbying firm McLarty Associates. The email, almost otherwise completely redacted, can be found in the State Department archive of responses to Freedom of Information Act requests. After describing Steele as “an old friend,” Winer told Cunningham that Steele was in town for a few days. “He was in my office catching up and it occurred to me there might be value for McClarty Global knowing him and his capabilities in terms of real time and longer term analysis of developments” in the former Soviet Union. In another message sent from his State Department email account, Winer also touted Steele to an executive at APCO Worldwide, Ariuna Namsrai. “Ariuna, my friend Chris Steele from London is in town and working on Russian matters as always,” Winer emailed Namsrai on Nov. 20, 2014. “I thought it might make sense for the two of you to get together if you had any time tomorrow.” “Great to hear from you!” she enthused in reply. “I met Chris before so it’s nice to hear that he is in DC.” In the same email, Namsrai asks, “Chris — what time is convenient for you?” The arrangements having been made for Namsrai to meet with Steele, she closed by saying, “Miss you Jonathan, and hope to see you soon! Hugs, Ariuna.” As one lawyer who specializes in federal employment law told RealClearInvestigations, it is “wildly inappropriate” for a State Department official to be recommending contractors to lobbyists with business before the department. But there’s more to it. Who, after all, is Ariuna Namsrai, with whom Winer is on a “hugs” basis? She is APCO’s managing director for Russia. Born in Mongolia, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Winer Was ‘Senior Counselor’ for APCO APCO is of particular interest because Winer was a senior director and “business diplomacy consultant” for the firm from May 2008 to August 2013. After he left the State Department in 2017, Winer returned to APCO as a “senior counselor.” During his first stint, Winer worked with Namsrai representing a Russian nuclear power company called Techsnabexport. Or at least they did their best to make it appear they were primarily working for that company when they were actually working for the Russian government. APCO’s 2011 Foreign Agents Registration Act filing names Techsnabexport as the “foreign principal” for which it was working. The firm described their client as “an open joint stock company wholly owned by the JSC Atomenergoprom.” In the fine print, one discovers that company in turn is “wholly owned by State corporation for Atomic Energy, ‘Rosatom,’ which is wholly owned by the Russian government.” A “Contract for Lobbying Services and Consulting Services” was drawn up by APCO in April 2010, a copy of which was attached as a secondary appendix to the FARA filing. The “Scope of Work” includes “Creating and promoting a new image of State Atomic Energy corporation ‘Rosatom,’” supporting “the interests of Rosatom in the USA,” and overcoming “existing political and trade barriers.” In October 2010, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved Rosatom’s controversial acquisition of Uranium One, a Canadian company with extensive mining projects in the U.S. Namsrai did not respond to emails from RealClearInvestigations asking why APCO listed Techsnabexport as its “foreign principal” client and not the official Russian state nuclear power enterprise, Rosatom, and whether Steele performed any work for the company. Homeland Security Committee Republicans Try to Investigate As Winer’s connections with Russia and the Steele dossier emerge, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson says he wants to hear more from him. But, Johnson said, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, Gary Peters, is trying to derail his efforts to enforce the committee’s subpoena and interview Winer under oath. Peters’ spokesman did not respond to questions from RealClearInvestigations. “Among other issues, Mr. Winer’s admitted destruction of his records related to his contacts with Christopher Steele is concerning and deserves an explanation,” Johnson said. “I am looking forward to learning more from Mr. Winer in spite of Democrat attempts to further delay our investigation.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 28, 2020 8:16:48 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 28, 2020 8:17:52 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 28, 2020 8:20:58 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/08/28/christopher-steele-dossier-david-ignatius-michael-flynn/Steele Associate Offered To ‘Feed’ Michael Flynn Story To WaPo Columnist, Ex-Spy Testified David Kramer, who was BuzzFeed’s source for the Steele dossier, offered to “feed” stories about Trump associates to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, according to text messages read at a defamation trial against Christopher Steele. Kramer served as a key conduit between reporters and Steele and updated the former spy on news outlets’ progress investigating aspects of the dossier. Steele testified at the trial that he believed that the story that Kramer wanted to give to Ignatius was about Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. A former associate of Sen. John McCain served as a key conduit between journalists and dossier author Christopher Steele in early 2017, going so far as offering to “feed” stories about Trump associates to a Washington Post columnist, according to documents from a British court proceeding. David Kramer, a former State Department official who worked at the McCain Institute, kept Steele apprised of his contacts in January 2017 with journalists from BuzzFeed News, CNN, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post regarding aspects of the dossier. Kramer relayed information he learned from reporters at ABC News and the Journal regarding the dossier’s allegation that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague, according to text messages read at a defamation trial against Steele in London last month. The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained a transcript of the closed-door court proceedings, which were held in London from July 20-24. Steele, a former MI6 officer, is being sued by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian businessman who Steele’s dossier accuses of hacking Democrats’ computer systems in 2016. Kramer was already known to have met with reporters to discuss the dossier. He has acknowledged providing the dossier to a reporter for BuzzFeed News, which published the salacious document on Jan. 10, 2017. But the Steele messages suggest Kramer played a more proactive role in trying to put negative stories in the media about Trump associates. Kramer’s most eye-catching references are to David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist who writes about national security issues. “The Flynn calls story is picking up legs,” Kramer wrote to Steele, seemingly referring to a Jan. 12, 2017, column by Ignatius that revealed that Flynn spoke by phone weeks earlier with Sergey Kislyak. According to text messages read at the trial, Kramer suggested to Steele that he would provide dirt on Trump associates to Ignatius. “I think it’s time to get that other [Manafort] story out there,” Kramer wrote in a message to Steele, referring to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. “And Ignatius is the one I’ll feed it to,” he also wrote. Steele insisted during his testimony that Kramer was suggesting feeding a story to Ignatius about Flynn rather than Manafort. “It’s a Michael Flynn story, isn’t it?” Steele asked during the cross-examination. He went on to say that the information regarding Flynn he discussed with Kramer was not found in the dossier. “Any story here about Michael Flynn is completely independent of anything in the dossier,” said Steele. The former spy did not describe the Flynn story, but Kramer told the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that Steele told him that he believed that Flynn had an affair with a Russian-British researcher in the United Kingdom. (RELATED: Dossier Author Told John McCain Aide Of Unfounded Rumor Of Michael Flynn Affair) The unverified allegation matches closely with stories that appeared in the media in March 2017 that alleged that Flynn had improper contacts with former Cambridge researcher Svetlana Lokhova in 2014, when Flynn visited the historic university as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Ignatius contacted Lokhova on March 1, 2017, seeking a meeting to discuss Flynn, according to an email that Lokhova provided the DCNF. He did not write a story about Lokhova and Flynn. The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian published stories later in March 2017 that said that American intelligence officers were concerned about Flynn’s interactions with Lokhova at the Cambridge event. An FBI document dated Jan. 4, 2017, showed that a confidential human source (CHS) told investigators that they were aware of an allegation that Flynn had improper contacts with a Russian woman during a visit to the United Kingdom. The FBI source is not identified, though Steele at the time served as a CHS. FBI agents offered to pay Steele during a meeting in Oct. 3, 2016, to dig up dirt on several Trump aides, including Flynn, according to a Justice Department inspector general’s report. Despite the innuendo about Flynn and Lokhova, no evidence has emerged suggesting that they had anything more than a brief conversation at Cambridge. Lawyers for Gubarev, the Russian businessman, quizzed Steele at the trial last month about his interactions with Kramer in hopes of establishing that Steele approved of providing information from the dossier to reporters. Kramer obtained the dossier in late November 2016, after meeting Steele in London. He allowed a BuzzFeed News reporter to photograph the report during a meeting on Dec. 29, 2016. The website published the 35-page report on Jan. 10, 2017, without verifying any of its allegations. Gubarev also sued BuzzFeed in the U.S., but a federal judge ruled that the website did not defame the Russian executive. Steele has denied that he authorized Kramer to provide the dossier to BuzzFeed, but Gubarev’s lawyers cast doubt on the claim. They pointed to Steele’s text messages with Ken Bensinger, the BuzzFeed reporter who published the dossier, discussing a meeting in early January 2017, a week before BuzzFeed published the dossier. Steele disclosed many of his contacts with reporters as part of the discovery process in the Gubarev case, but he withheld information about his contacts with Bensinger until this April. Sir Richard Dearlove (L), Christopher Andrew (center), then-DIA Director Michael Flynn (R), at Cambridge University, Feb. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy Svetlana Lokhova) Sir Richard Dearlove (L), Christopher Andrew (center), then-DIA Director Michael Flynn (R), at Cambridge University, Feb. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy Svetlana Lokhova) The Kramer-Steele text messages show Kramer informed Steele about reporters’ progress on investigating allegations in the dossier. Kramer and the reporters discussed the dossier’s most specific allegation of collusion: that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin insiders. Kramer said in a message to Steele that a Wall Street Journal reporter asked him about potentially meeting with Steele, seemingly to try to verify the Cohen allegation. “He’s tried to run the Prague thing down to no avail,” Kramer wrote of the Journal reporter. “I know you’d rather not but wanted to ask one more time.” Steele said that it was “disappointing they have not corroborated Prague, though perhaps not that surprising.” Reports from the special counsel’s office and Justice Department inspector general debunked the Cohen allegation, saying that the former Trump fixer did not visit the European city. The IG report went further, saying that the FBI received evidence on Jan. 12, 2017, that the Cohen-Prague claim was Russian disinformation. Kramer also relayed that the Journal reporter wrote: “I just talked to the Prague guy. He said the Israeli passport does not check out.” Kramer told Steele that the reporter was “anxious” to advance a story on the dossier allegations. “These are the things that could possibly move the matter forward. He’s anxious to do … if there is anything to give him,” Kramer wrote. The Journal was the first outlet to identify Steele as the author of the dossier in a story on Jan. 12, 2017. Kramer appears to have surprised Steele with one tidbit of information he learned from an ABC News reporter about the Cohen-Prague allegation. “Have you heard anything about an audio recording in Russian that corroborates the Prague meeting?” Kramer asked Steele. “How on earth did they get wind of this I wonder?” Steele asked. “No idea,” Kramer relied. “Just passing along the [question] what should I tell them?” None of the reports that have come out about the alleged Cohen meeting in the past three years have referred to an audio recording. Other texts revealed during the Gubarev trial suggest that reporters kept Kramer updated on their contacts with Cohen, who is serving a three-year prison sentence on charges unrelated to the dossier. “[Washington Post] had long chat with [Michael Cohen] today and he admitted that he was in Italy late August but denied being in Prague. So he’s not far,” Kramer wrote. Kramer also apprised Steele on The Post’s plans to publish Trump-related stories. “Don’t have the sense that the Post is on the verge. Will check again tomorrow,” he wrote. The dossier’s allegations about Cohen and Gubarev originate with the same sub-source, according to Igor Danchenko, a Russia analyst who was Steele’s primary intelligence collector for the dossier. Danchenko told the FBI that a woman he had known since childhood provided the information about Cohen’s visit to Prague, Gubarev’s cyber company and Carter Page. Danchenko’s sources appear to be far removed from the Kremlin, raising questions about the reliability of the rumors he gave Steele. Danchenko told the FBI that Steele embellished much of the information found in the dossier. Kramer and Ignatius did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Steele’s firm, Orbis Business International, also did not respond to a request for comment.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 28, 2020 8:51:47 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/08/28/the-michael-flynn-saga-reveals-democrats-near-coup-use-of-federal-power/The Michael Flynn Saga Reveals Democrats’ Near-Coup Use Of Federal Power Obama administration holdovers and partisan career employees succeeded in causing the ouster of the new administration’s pick for national security advisor. By Margot Cleveland AUGUST 28, 2020 For the last year, the discussion of the Russia collusion hoax as it relates to Michael Flynn has focused on the criminal case against President Trump’s former national security advisor. Now, all eyes remain fixed on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Two weeks ago it heard, en banc, oral argument to decide whether to direct presiding Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. To Flynn and his family, the criminal jeopardy he faced because of the perjury trap set by Obama administration holdovers is the most concerning. Reasonable Americans of goodwill should be horrified by the personal harm inflicted on the retired lieutenant general and his loved ones. However, the criminal case is but half the scandal, and the mostly unexamined portion of the plot to force Flynn’s ouster from the Trump administration threatens a more lasting harm to our constitutional republic and the peaceful transition of power. Political Opposition Sought to Decide a President’s Staff That the Trump Resistance sought Flynn’s firing seems clear from the evidence. The day before then-FBI Agent Peter Strzok and his colleague Joe Pientka questioned Flynn about Flynn’s telephone conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, the Crossfire Hurricane team met to discuss the strategy. On the morning of the interview, on January 24, 2017, Assistant Director of FBI Counterintelligence Bill Priestap apparently had second thoughts. “I believe we should rethink this,” notes from a follow-up meeting read. “What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” It now appears the primary goal was the ouster of the newly appointed national security advisor. What is less clear, however, is who plotted this plan or knowingly participated in its execution. A brief exchange between Attorney General William Barr and Fox News’ Mark Levin three Sundays ago suggested these lines of inquiry. About halfway through the hour-long interview, Levin asked the attorney general about the Flynn case. Barr explained how he had appointed U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen to review the Flynn case after Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, began accusing the Department of Justice of misconduct. “Everyone who knew anything about that case thought it was hinky,” Barr explained. “It didn’t all add up,” he continued, “because the call, on its face”—referring to the late December 2016 call between Flynn and the Russian ambassador—“was a perfectly legitimate call for the incoming national security advisor to make.” Jensen, whom Barr stressed had 10 years as an FBI agent then another ten years as a career prosecutor prior to his appointment as a U.S. attorney, “found a lot of things that had not come to light before.” “For example,” Barr continued, the evidence “showed clearly that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not think he was lying.” Significantly, Barr then added: “Now, this was later minimized in testimony as suggesting ‘Well, they meant he didn’t break out into sweat and his eye pupils didn’t contract, that’s all they were saying.’” “No,” Barr declared emphatically. “They were saying he didn’t believe he thought he was lying at the time.” So, who stated in congressional testimony that the interviewing FBI agents, Pientka and Strzok, merely meant Flynn had not shown any indicia of lying? James Comey. Comey Switches Testimony on Whether Flynn Lied First, just a little more than a month after Pientka and Strzok interviewed Flynn, Comey testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. During his March 2, 2017 testimony, Comey stated, “I talked to them about this,” referring to their interview of Flynn, and “they discerned no physical indications of deception. They didn’t see any change in posture, in tone, in inflection, in eye contact. They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.” Comey added that after the interview, the agents “drafted a 302 and reported to me and the deputy director.” Then on December 7, 2018, Comey testified before the House Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight. During that hearing, Comey was asked whether “either of those agents, or both,” had told him “they did not adduce an intent to deceive from their interview with General Flynn.” Comey said “no.” Rep. Trey Gowdy then asked Comey what Pientka and Strzok had relayed back concerning Flynn’s intent to deceive. “My recollection was,” Comey stated, “the conclusion of the investigators was he was obviously lying, but they saw none of the normal common indicia of deception: that is hesitancy to answer, shifting in seat, sweating, all the things that you might associate with someone who is conscious and manifesting that they are being—they’re telling falsehoods. There’s no doubt he was lying, but that those indicators weren’t there” (emphasis added). Comey added that he recalled telling the House Intelligence Committee earlier “that the agents observed none of the common indicia of lying — physical manifestations, changes in tone, changes in pace — that would indicate the person I’m interviewing knows they’re telling me stuff that ain’t true.” “They didn’t see that here,” Comey explained. Rather, “it was a natural conversation, answered fully their questions, didn’t avoid. That notwithstanding, they concluded he was lying,” Comey unequivocally affirmed. When Comey told Congress that the FBI agents “concluded he was lying,” Flynn was on the cusp of being sentenced for supposedly lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Just three days prior, the special counsel’s office had filed its sentencing memorandum with the court, maintaining that because of Flynn’s “substantial assistance and other considerations set forth below, a sentence at the low end of the guideline range—including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration—is appropriate and warranted.” For all intents and purposes, the Flynn case was over. But when Flynn appeared before Judge Sullivan for sentencing on December 18, 2018, the judge exploded, suggesting the retired lieutenant general had sold out his country and possibly committed treason. Sullivan then suggested Flynn might face jail time if sentencing proceeded. Flynn wisely agreed to delay the sentencing hearing. Then, six months later, Flynn fired the attorneys who had represented him during the Mueller investigation and hired Powell. Evidence Comey Never Thought Would Surface Powell immediately demanded the DOJ provide all material relevant to the case against Flynn. Little of significance was forthcoming, though, until Barr tasked Jensen with reviewing the case. Jensen later released several pieces of exculpatory material that Comey likely never expected would see the light of day when he testified before Congress that the agents concluded Flynn was lying. That evidence included handwritten notes dated January 25, 2017, that stated the FBI assessed that yes, Flynn made false and inaccurate statements, “but believed that Flynn believes that what he said was true,” and that the FBI concluded that Flynn was “largely telling truth as he believed it.” A typed “Draft Work Product” dated January 30, 2017 was even more explicit, stating that on January 25, 2017, the FBI had briefed the National Security Division and Office of Deputy Attorney General staff on their interview.” The “FBI advised that they believed Flynn believed what he was saying was true.” Was Comey present for the debrief at which these notes were taken? Did he receive the Draft Work Product that stated the FBI “believed Flynn believed what he was saying was true?” And what, if anything, did Strzok, Pientka, or others tell Comey? While in his first time testifying on the Hill, Comey noted he had spoken with the agents, during his follow-up testimony, Comey said while that was possible, his recollection was that he had “spoke[n] to people who had spoken to the investigators themselves.” Here, the recently declassified 302 interview summary of the special counsel’s July 19, 2017, interview of Strzok provides some help. According to the 302, Strzok stated that following the interview of Flynn, he and Pientka “both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying.” Significantly, Strzok then told the special counsel’s office that after the interview, they “returned to FBI Headquarters and briefed [Andrew] McCabe and Baker on the interview. McCabe briefed Comey.” So did McCabe mislead Comey, leading Comey to falsely testify that the FBI agents concluded Flynn “was lying?” Or did Comey know the truth based on his conversations with Strzok or Pientka, or reading the reports? Comey and Yates Misinformed or Lying These questions matter, and not merely because an affirmative to any of them would call into question the veracity of Comey’s congressional testimony. Rather, they also matter because someone (or many individuals) similarly misinformed Obama Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates: Yates apparently did not know that the agents who interviewed Flynn believed Flynn thought he was accurately recounting his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Specifically, the 302 interview summary for Yates read: “Yates received a brief readout of the interview the night it happened, and a longer readout the following day. . . . Yates did not speak to the interviewing agents herself but understood from others that their assessment was that Flynn showed no ‘tells’ of lying and it was possible he really did not remember the substance of his calls with Kislyak. On the other hand, the DOJ prosecutors were very skeptical that Flynn would forget the discussion.” The 302 summary of Yates’s interview further noted that Yates reiterated that, in hearing about the interview, “the DOJ prosecutors thought Flynn was lying, but the FBI didn’t say he wasn’t lying, just that he didn’t exhibit any ‘tells’ that he was lying.” Yates’s 302 further noted that McCabe had discussed the FBI’s interview of Flynn with Yates. So, it would seem that McCabe also failed to tell Yates that the FBI agents did not think Flynn was lying. Given that Strzok and Pientka briefed McCabe after interviewing Flynn, it is inconceivable that they did not inform McCabe of their assessment that Flynn was not lying. Did McCabe Lie, Or Did McCord, or Both? But from declassified materials, it appears that it was not merely McCabe who failed to inform Yates of that important fact. Rather, Mary McCord, who served as the head of the DOJ’s National Security Division, appears to have likewise omitted this significant detail in briefing Yates. McCord’s 302 stated that “following the Flynn interview, Priestap, Strzok, [Pientka], and FBI General Counsel went to the DOJ to brief them on the interview.” During this meeting, according to McCord’s 302 summary, “Strzok provided a readout of the Flynn interview, since he and another agent had conducted it.” While McCord’s 302 statement was unclear on what exactly Strzok and Pientka told the DOJ representatives, declassified notes taken by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar reveal that during a read-out on January 25, 2017, Strzok and Pientka told McCord (and others) that the FBI assessed that “Flynn believes that what he said was true,” and was being forthright with the agents. The typed Draft Work Product also confirmed that during the January 25, 2017 briefing, the “FBI advised that they believed Flynn believed what he was saying was true.” Yet it appears that McCord did not inform Yates of this significant fact because, as noted above, Yates’s 302 stated that Yates “did not speak to the interviewing agents herself but understood from others that their assessment was that Flynn showed no ‘tells’ of lying and it was possible he really did not remember the substance of his calls with Kislyak.” Significantly, Yates then said, “the DOJ prosecutors thought Flynn was lying, but the FBI didn’t say he wasn’t lying, just that he didn’t exhibit any ‘tells’ that he was lying.” Not only did McCord apparently mislead Yates concerning the FBI agents’ assessment of Flynn’s veracity, according to Yates, McCord was “effectively ‘cross examining’ the statements Flynn made to the interviewing agents as compared to the transcripts.” But McCord did more than leave Yates uninformed or misled about the FBI agents’ view that Flynn had not lied: McCord inaccurately summarized the transcript of the calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador for Yates. According to McCord’s 302 summary, following Strzok and Pientka’s questioning of Flynn, “McCord reviewed the Flynn transcripts and pulled out excerpts for Yates to reference in the discussion with the White House Counsel’s Office, should they be necessary.” Then, on “January 26, 2017, McCord accompanied Yates to the White House, where they met with White House Counsel Don McGahn and another attorney from his office, James Burham.” Another Lie: That Flynn Discussed Sanctions McCord further stated, as summarized in the 302 summary, that Yates “told them that the conversations made it clear that there were discussions on Russian sanctions in those calls, contrary to what Vice President Pence had said on TV.” But as all Americans (who don’t limit themselves to corporate media reporting) now know with the declassification of the transcripts of Flynn’s calls to Kisylak, Flynn did not discuss Russian sanctions with the Russian ambassador. So Flynn could not possibly have lied to the FBI or to Vice President Mike Pence about discussing sanctions with Kisylak. So why did Yates think otherwise? Did McCord, who “reviewed the Flynn transcripts” and “pulled out excerpts for Yates” in preparation for the meeting, also mislead Yates about Flynn’s conversation with the ambassador? If so, was it intentional, or was McCord merely a victim of her own confirmation bias? There is no doubt McCord held a bias: “When McCord left DOJ she was hired by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, serving ‘front and center’ in the whistleblower fraud run by Schiff that later led to the failed attempt to impeach president Trump.” Intentional or not, Yates regurgitated the false claim to McGahn that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kisylak and then implied that Flynn had lied to Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. President Trump, believing Flynn had lied to the vice president, then fired Flynn, which was clearly the goal. Another Tell in Comey’s Testimony Comey unwittingly gave away the game when he testified before Congress that nothing had happened after President Obama raised Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador during a January 5, 2017 Oval Office meeting also attended by Yates. Comey testified that the following day he had briefed Yates on the calls, and then “nothing, to my mind, happens until the 13th of January, when David Ignatius publishes a column that contains a reference to communications Michael Flynn had with the Russians.” The reason “nothing happened” was because there was nothing wrong with Flynn’s calls. They were “legitimate,” as Comey put it at the time. It was the illegal leak of the classified intel to Ignatius of Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak that threatened Flynn’s position in the White House, and then only because the FBI questioned Flynn instead of asking him about the transcripts, or sharing the transcripts with the White House to allow the Trump administration to broach the issue with Flynn. Flynn’s fate, however, was sealed when Yates conveyed to the White House that Flynn had lied to Pence and had been questioned by the FBI. Even then, had Yates conveyed the truth—that the agents believed Flynn had not lied—the Trump administration might have resolved the situation differently. Instead, though, Obama administration holdovers and partisan career employees succeeded in causing the ouster of the new administration’s pick for national security advisor. And that plot only succeeded because of illegally leaked classified intel. These facts shake the foundation of our constitutional republic and threaten the peaceful transitions of power, and will be a blot on our country’s history long after Flynn obtains some semblance of justice. Further, the targeting of Flynn was but one thread of the Obama-Biden administration’s attempt to interfere with the Trump administration. The spying on the transition team, the failure to provide Trump defensive briefings, the attempt to sidestep Trump’s attorneys general—successful with Jeff Sessions, but not Barr—and the weaponization of whistleblowing laws to impeach the duly elected president represent the most destructive attack on our government ever. Come November 2020, Americans should make clear that such interference in their freely chosen commander-in-chief will not profit. Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 28, 2020 16:23:56 GMT -6
Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained 323 pages of emails between former FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page showing Comey’s FBI was investigating President Trump over his critical tweets of Barack Obama and the FBI. The FBI is purposely slow-rolling its production of emails to Judicial Watch and only processing 500 pages per month in response to a 2017 FOIA lawsuit. Judicial Watch obtained a March 2017 email Peter Strzok sent his boss Bill Priestap and others about probing President Trump’s tweets about being wiretapped by the FBI. Judicial Watch reported: www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/new-strzok-page-emails/On March 18, 2017, Strzok emails his boss, then-Asst. Director for the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, along with colleagues Jon Moffa and Page, about his research into President Trump’s tweets about being wiretapped:
Sending the tweets in question along with posting times. Doing some research, time stamping in Twitter can be glitchy … [T]he tweet times below were all -3 hours from east coast time, which I adjusted (ie, the first listed as 3:35am). I think I recall reporting at the time described the tweets as occurring around 630, not 330.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! – Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) March 4, 2017 6:35 AM
Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! – Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) March 4, 2017 6:52 AM
I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election! – Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) March 4, 2017 6:52 AM
How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! – Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) March 4, 2017 7:02 AM“These astonishing emails, which have been hidden for years, show the Comey FBI was investigating President Trump over his critical tweets of the agency and Obama’s spying abuse and misconduct,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These emails also show that Comey was intimately involved with illegal and dishonest FISA spy op against President Trump. Where is Durham?”
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 29, 2020 5:53:28 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/28/fusion-gps-leader-bragged-in-2019-book-about-planting-false-attacks-against-devin-nunes-in-local-newspaper/Fusion GPS Leader Bragged in 2019 Book About Planting False Attacks Against Devin Nunes in Local Newspaper House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was the target of opposition research hits that a local newspaper, owned by a broader national chain, dutifully reprinted on behalf of Fusion GPS without disclosing to its readers the questionable source of the information. The Fresno Bee published a story in the leadup to the 2018 midterm elections, in late May 2018, that claimed in its salacious headline that Nunes was associated with cocaine and prostitutes at a yacht party. “A yacht, cocaine, prostitutes: Winery partly owned by Nunes sued after fundraiser event,” read the headline from Fresno Bee reporter MacKenzie Mays on the May 23, 2018, article. The article itself, however, does not back up the headline. What happened was that a winery that Nunes has a minority ownership stake in—meaning he has no management decision-making authority, just a minority stake in the firm—held a charity auction for a yacht ride. On the yacht ride, the winners allegedly, per a lawsuit from a winery staffer at the event, had been doing lots of cocaine and had prostitutes on board who engaged in nefarious acts. While that sounds like an awful experience for the staffer who endured it—the lawsuit was settled out of court—the idea this had anything at all to do with Nunes is simply untrue. Kelly Carter, the spokesperson for the winery named Alpha Omega, made that clear in a statement to the newspaper. Rep. Devin Nunes is one of a few friends [Alpha Omega owner Robin Baggett] invited to invest in the winery in 2005. None of the investors has ever been involved with the management of the company. Robin is the sole managing partner and ultimate decision maker at Alpha Omega,” Carter said. While Nunes did not comment for the original story, he did later run a series of advertisements against the newspaper over the salacious article for conduct to which he had no connection—pretty aggressive for a sitting member of Congress to challenge his local newspaper in broadcast advertisements. Nunes says in one of the 2018 ads: Like you, I live in the San Joaquin Valley. My family lives here, my daughters go to public schools here, and I spend most of my time here when I’m not in Washington or visiting United States military and intelligence personnel abroad. Sadly, since the last election, the Fresno Bee has worked closely with radical left wing groups to promote fake news stories about me. Now, I signed up for this job and I find the attacks amusing. I haven’t said much about the Bee’s strange crusade against me even when reporters went creeping around my neighbors’ and relatives’ homes. But the Bee has run multiple articles slandering a California Agri-Business simply because I’m one of its investors. It’s time to set the record straight. For many years, the owner of Alpha Omega, a small, family-owned winery and vineyard, has donated the use of its boat to charities for underprivileged kids. In 2015, one of the purchasers of this auction item abused the use of the boat. The Bee has run numerous false stories about this incident. Nunes then says in the 2018 ad that listeners can “hear the real story” in a statement provided by the winery for broadcast. In that statement, a spokesperson for Alpha Omega says that the Fresno Bee “cited false information stating the people aboard the boat were Alpha Omega investors.” The winery spokesperson statement continues: In fact, as we informed the Bee, those aboard the boat had no personal or business connection to the winery or its owners. Furthermore, a Bee editorial claimed it’s unclear if Mr. Nunes was affiliated with the fundraiser for the boat when in fact we repeatedly told the Bee he had no affiliation with it whatsoever. The Fresno Bee also falsely reported that Alpha Omega sold wine to Russia while Mr. Nunes led an investigation of that country. We would appreciate it if the Fresno Bee would stop regurgitating false stories when it has the facts. Nunes concluded in the ad that he does not mind the criticism of him, but the paper’s attacks on local businesses are a bridge too far: The Bee’s band of creeping correspondents can go after me but for them to drag a family company through the mud and hurt innocent people’s livelihoods to advance their political agenda is wrong. The Fresno Bee and its parent company — McClatchy — should apologize to Alpha Omega, retract their false news stories and stop embarrassing the San Joaquin Valley. The ads prompted the Fresno Bee’s editorial board to write a lengthy piece claiming Nunes’s claims in them were “fake news.” In the editorial, the Bee’s first claim from Nunes that it took issue with was him saying in the ad that the newspaper “has worked closely with radical left wing groups to promote fake news stories about me.” In response, the Bee claimed this was untrue. The newspaper’s editorial board wrote: The Bee has never done any such thing. Does Nunes identify those groups he refers to? No. And he can’t, because such a thing never happened. The Bee’s newsroom follows time-honored ethical standards of journalism, and did for this story. One of the tenets is to let all subjects in a story have their say. But since Nunes refused to be interviewed for this story, his side could not be reported. He made it one-sided by his own choosing. By not talking to The Bee, then claiming the story to be “fake news,” Nunes reveals his strategy for dealing with Bee journalists. He also loves to combine the words ‘radical’ and ‘left wing’ to make a point to his conservative base. The newspaper published this editorial in mid-June 2018, before evidence later emerged in November 2019 that proved Nunes correct—and the Bee incorrect. Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the now-debunked hoax of Russia collusion—which Nunes played a critical role in unraveling—was apparently behind the hit against Nunes, its leaders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch wrote in their book Crime in Progress. Simpson and Fritsch wrote: In the end, Fusion found an obscure bit of litigation that lit up the race. In May, weeks after that discovery, Nunes’s ownership stake in the Napa winery Alpha Omega became national news when The Fresno Bee reported on a lawsuit filed in California state court by a young woman who had worked serving wine at a 2015 tasting event aboard the winery’s sixty-two-foot yacht. In other words, the Fusion GPS leaders Simpson and Fritsch admit—or perhaps, more accurately, brag—in their book about being the ones who dug this up and got the newspaper to run the story. Simpson and Fusion GPS were of course the ones behind the now discredited anti-Trump Christopher Steele dossier that led to the Russia hoax investigation. But when that was unraveling, according to Simpson’s and Fritsch’s book, they were engaged in a smear campaign against the leading Republican in Congress who was unpacking the entire scandal—and getting his local newspaper and the newspaper chain that owns it, McClatchy, to smear him in any way they could. Nunes’s role in unraveling Simpson’s work to spark the now-debunked Russia scandal against Trump is featured in an upcoming film by Amanda Milius, the daughter of legendary screenwriter and director John Milius, titled The Plot Against the President. The documentary is a film version of Lee Smith’s bestselling book with the same title. But the fact that Fusion GPS went to such lengths to try to politically destroy Nunes—and the fact that McClatchy newspapers and the Fresno Bee went along with it—are particularly interesting. Fresno Bee editor Joe Kieta did not reply to Breitbart News’s request for comment about Fusion GPS’s leadership bragging about planting the anti-Nunes hit in his newspaper—something that proves Nunes’s 2018 ad against the paper correct, and the newspaper’s 2018 editorial supposedly rebutting the ad incorrect. What’s even more interesting about this is that the yacht, winery, cocaine, and prostitutes fake news hit is not the only hit piece that McClatchy’s newspapers published on Nunes that Fusion GPS is taking credit for. From McClatchy’s D.C. bureau, reporter Kate Irby bylined two pieces—both in July 2018—that claimed respectively Nunes misused campaign funds for Boston Celtics tickets and a Vegas trip, and for private jet charters. It turns out, according to Simpson’s and Fritsch’s book, both came from Fusion GPS. They wrote in the book regarding the Vegas and Boston trips that “Fusion discovered” the information that would find its way into the McClatchy report, and regarding the private plane report that “Fusion found” the information that would find its way into that followup story. Unsurprisingly, like much of Fusion GPS’s work, neither of these stories has progressed beyond the original McClatchy article–suggesting that the supposed allegations of impropriety against Nunes from 2018 did not rise to the level of something serious enough for any actual action against him. In other words, they were nothing more than another political smear. This hyper-targeted political campaign was so unusual for Fusion GPS, which had its case against Trump crumbling thanks to Nunes’s work unraveling the dossier, that Simpson and Fritsch even admit it in the book. They wrote: Fusion ordinarily didn’t work on congressional races, but as the [2018] election drew closer, the firm began to mull a few ways it could have an impact. Later, it would decide to design and launch a more systematic cyber-monitoring campaign, but first it went small, focusing on a single congressional district in California’s heavily agricultural Central Valley. That solidly red seat happened to have been occupied since 2003 by one Devin Nunes. McClatchy actually had a very close working relationship with Fusion GPS, far beyond its hits on Nunes. The newspaper chain admitted in a July 2017 article that it had obtained the now-infamous and demonstrably false dossier before it was publicly released by BuzzFeed. As far back as January 2017, McClatchy was pushing content from the dossier in the immediate aftermath of its release. Fusion GPS also pushed a false story—that McClatchy published—alleging that conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell was aware of a secret Russian plot to launder money to the Trump campaign through the NRA. McClatchy even falsely reported that ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was in Prague, according to cell phone records, and claimed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had proof of that, even though Mueller’s final report debunked it. Nunes is currently waging a number of different lawsuits against various establishment media outlets, including McClatchy, as well as against Fusion GPS.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 29, 2020 5:54:54 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/08/28/judge-allows-sarah-palins-defamation-lawsuit-against-new-york-times-to-proceed/Judge Allows Sarah Palin’s Defamation Lawsuit Against New York Times to Proceed U.S. Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a Bill Clinton appointee, allowed Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times to proceed, saying that a jury should decide whether editorial page editor James Bennet acted with “actual malice” in writing that Palin was responsible for “political incitement” that led to the mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, in January 2011. The Times published the editorial in the wake of a June 2017 mass shooting by a deranged leftist who targeted Republican members of Congress at their baseball practice. The Tuscon shooter was mentally disturbed; accusations against Palin had long since been disproved. The Times issued a correction, but Palin sued. Rakoff dismissed the lawsuit, but it was reinstated by the Second Circuit. (Ironically, Bennet recently resigned as editorial page editor under pressure from “woke” reporters.) In his ruling Friday, Rakoff rejected efforts by Palin’s legal team to argue that the tough “actual malice” standard for public figures should not apply, or that the Times was liable, regardless of intent, if there was a possibility readers could make a defamatory intepretation. But he said a jury ought to decide whether the Times, through Bennet, acted with actual malice: [T]aken in the light most favorable to plaintiff [Palin], the evidence shows Bennet came up with an angle for the Editorial, ignored the articles brought to his attention that were inconsistent with his angle, disregarded the results … [of] research that he commissioned, and ultimately made the point he set out to make in reckless disregard of the truth[.] There was also evidence to the contrary, he said — that Bennet had drawn an “innocent inference” — but the question was one for the jury to decide, according to the “clear and convincing” evidentiary standard laid down in New York Times v. Sullivan.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 30, 2020 9:39:21 GMT -6
So, the Democrats were the ones leaking? Color me shocked:
DNI John Ratcliffe: Within minutes of one of those briefings ending a number of members of Congress went to a number of publications and leaked classified information again, for political purposes, to create a narrative that simply isn’t true. That somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China. So I’m going to keep the promises I made. I’m going to continue to follow the law. I’m going to continue to keep Congress informed. But we’ve had a pandemic of information being leaked out of the intelligence community and I’m going to take the measures to make sure that that stops.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 31, 2020 12:33:08 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 1, 2020 17:42:02 GMT -6
www.zerohedge.com/political/state-department-illegally-monitored-trump-jr-hannity-ingraham-posobiec-and-others-kievState Department Illegally Monitored Trump Jr., Hannity, Ingraham, Posobiec And Others From Kiev: FOIA The US State Department illegally monitored the social media accounts of 13 conservative Americans, including Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs and Jack Posobiec, according to Just The News, citing memos scheduled to be turned over to Judicial Watch. The surveillance operation, which began in March 2019, was run out of the US Embassy in Kiev while under the command of then-Ambassador (and impeachment witness) Marie Yovanovitch, after journalist John Solomon began publishing stories about the embassy's activities at The Hill and on Fox News, according to Solomon. When the embassy sought help from the State Department in Washington to use a contractor called Crowd Tangle to continue the social media monitoring, it was advised the activities were "barred by federal law," an official familiar with the documents told Just the News. The embassy ceased the activities and asked for training about the issue, the official said.
While the released documents will have some information redacted, they will identify the 13 Americans whose accounts were targeted and confirm that some officials were aware of the monitoring, the officials said.Those monitored also include Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, Sebatstion Gorka, and Fox News personalities Sara Carter and Dan Bongino, according to the report.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 1, 2020 23:03:36 GMT -6
The original Woods file on Trump’s former campaign advisor Carter Page mysteriously disappeared more than two years ago. The “Woods Procedures” were designed to protect American citizens to “ensure accuracy with regard to … the facts supporting probable cause” after recurring abuses where the FBI presented inaccurate information to the FISC. At the time, the Woods procedure was overseen by FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka and former FBI Counter-intel chief Peter Strzok — the same FBI agents who ambushed General Mike Flynn in January of 2017. According to sources who spoke to investigative reporter Sara Carter, the ‘missing’ documents had to be recreated by the FBI and Mueller’s team in 2018. saraacarter.com/breaking-carter-pages-fisa-related-woods-file-docs-disappeared-was-it-malice-or-incompetence/Moreover, during Pientka’s numerous interviews with investigators from the DOJ’s Inspector General’s office, who likely have worked for both Michael Horowitz and Connecticut prosecutor John Durham – the fact that it was a recreated Wood’s file was never disclosed.
In fact, it had been missing for an unknown period of time, possibly up to two years and officials did not become aware it had disappeared until last week during a closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.
Pientka attended the closed-door hearing, along with other FBI officials, according to sources familiar with the proceedings.
“The real story here is how does the FBI, Special Counsel’s Office and Inspector General figure out if the Wood’s file went missing through malice or through incompetence,” said a source with knowledge if the circumstances.
Pientka has so far been cleared by the Justice Department and not charged with any wrongdoing. According to sources, he has been speaking and cooperating with Justice Department officials and members of Congress. He still maintains active employment with the FBI, unlike Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former Assistant Director Bill Priestap, among others.
“The real story here is how does the FBI, Special Counsel’s Office and Inspector General figure out if the Wood’s file went missing through malice or though incompetence,” the source added. “Either answer doesn’t reflect well on this investigation.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 1, 2020 23:05:29 GMT -6
This doesn't appear to be political at all....(sarcasm)
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 1, 2020 23:10:56 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/09/01/d-c-court-endorses-continued-legal-harassment-of-michael-flynn/D.C. Court Endorses Continued Legal Harassment Of Michael Flynn That the majority of the D.C. Circuit cannot see that Judge Sullivan has a vendetta against Michael Flynn makes one wonder if they are blinded to their own bias as well? By Margot Cleveland SEPTEMBER 1, 2020 In an 8–2 decision, the D.C. Circuit yesterday denied Michael Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus that would have ordered district court Judge Emmett Sullivan to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. While the majority’s opinion presented a methodical analysis, devoid of the partisanship Sullivan displayed in handling the case against Trump’s former national security advisor, only politics can explain the D.C. Circuit’s decision. Here’s why. Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, first sought a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit after Judge Sullivan refused to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. The Department of Justice had filed a motion to dismiss the charge that Flynn had lied to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, after U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen conducted an independent review of the Flynn prosecution. Jensen’s investigation uncovered substantial exculpatory evidence that had never been provided to Flynn — evidence indicating Flynn had not lied to the federal agents and that, in any event, any false statement would have been immaterial. In the mandamus petition, Powell argued that the constitutional principle of separation of powers, and under controlling circuit precedent, Judge Sullivan was required to grant the government’s motion to dismiss. A three-judge panel consisting of Judge Neomi Rao (a Trump appointee), Karen Henderson (a George W. Bush appointee), and Robert Wilkins (an Obama appointee), heard the petition. In a 2-1 decision authored by Judge Rao, the D.C. Circuit granted mandamus and ordered Judge Sullivan to dismiss the criminal complaint. Judge Wilkins filed a dissenting opinion. However, rather than dismiss the case, Judge Sullivan filed a petition for rehearing en banc, asking the full D.C. Circuit to rule on the propriety of mandamus. A majority of the active judges voted to rehear the case en banc. That a majority of the active judges on the D.C. Circuit voted to grant rehearing en banc is startling—and inexplicable, absent politics being in play. D.C. Circuit Rules specify that “an en banc hearing or rehearing is not favored and ordinarily will not be ordered unless: (1) en banc consideration is necessary to secure or maintain uniformity of the court’s decisions; or (2) the proceeding involves a question of exceptional importance.” Rather than address “a question of exceptional importance,” the en banc court in the Flynn case addressed a mundane procedural issue concerning the propriety of mandamus. Moreover, consideration by the full court was not necessary to “secure or maintain uniformity of the court’s decisions,” because the Flynn case is truly sui generis — one of a kind. Further, the panel’s analysis was fact-intensive, making the decision to grant mandamus fact-bound. Thus, even if the D.C. Circuit believed the panel had wrongly granted mandamus, en banc review was inappropriate. Under normal circumstances, appellate courts would never take a fact-intensive case, with little precedential impact, en banc. To be sure, this case has little precedential impact. The main question considered on appeal concerned the propriety of mandamus, but petitions for mandamus are rarely sought and even more rarely granted. And since circuit rules provide for the perfunctory denial of petitions for mandamus, with the court denying such petitions “without an answer,” there was no cause for the full court to weigh in on the Flynn case — other than politics. Reading the en banc court’s decision, which Powell told The Federalist was “completely political and result-driven,” really brings this point home. The majority opinion laid out the general principles governing mandamus, stressing it is extraordinary relief and should only issue if the party seeking relief has “no other adequate means to attain the relief”; has a clear and indisputable right to the relief, and the court believes in its discretion relief is merited. Then, after detailing the lengthy procedural background of the Flynn case, the court held that mandamus was unavailable because an “adequate alternative remedy existed,” namely Flynn could seek mandamus again if the district court denies the government’s motion to dismiss. Judges Henderson and Rao dissented, both disagreeing with this analysis and finding that under the circumstances of this case, Flynn (and the government) lacked an adequate alternative remedy. This disagreement — whether an adequate remedy existed for purposes of mandamus — is just not the stuff of en bancs. But there is an even more glaring giveaway to the politicization of the D.C. Circuit’s decision: The refusal of the majority to conclude that Judge Sullivan must now recuse from the case. As Judge Henderson details in her dissent, 28 U.S.C. § 455, requires a judge to recuse when his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. While the panel concluded Sullivan had not yet crossed that line, once Sullivan filed a petition for rehearing en banc—something only a party has the right to do—he clearly had crossed that line. Yet the majority found no problem with Sullivan continuing to preside over the case. Here, Judge Henderson’s dissent eviscerates the majority for its “nonchalant” shrugging at Judge Sullivan’s clear partiality. That the majority of the D.C. Circuit cannot see what is clear to half of America, that Judge Sullivan has a vendetta against General Flynn, makes one wonder if they are blinded to their own bias as well? As if on cue, Judge Thomas Griffith, in his last written words as a federal appellate judge, assures the country in a concurrence that no, this isn’t a political decision. This isn’t about Flynn. This isn’t about U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s decision to dismiss the charges. This storyline won’t sell anymore. We know what the Obama administration did to Flynn. We know what the FBI and CIA did to Flynn. And we know that there was no real reason to go en banc, other than politics and a desire to delay this case until after the November 2020 election. Where things go from here, however, is unclear, and Flynn’s legal team has not yet decided on its course of action. Flynn could seek review by the Supreme Court, but strategically he is likely better off waiting for Sullivan to rule on the motion to dismiss — something the D.C. Circuit said they “trust and expect” will happen with “appropriate dispatch.” Flynn, though, has already waited long enough for justice. And justice delayed is justice denied. Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 2, 2020 4:00:01 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/09/01/peter-strzok-fbi-crossfire-hurricane-judicial-watch/‘That Worries Me’: Peter Strzok Expressed Concern In Email About Scrutiny Of Trump-Russia Probe As a top FBI counterintelligence official in early 2017, Peter Strzok expressed concern over the prospect that details of the Trump-Russia investigation would someday become public and be heavily scrutinized, according to newly released emails. The emails, released by Judicial Watch, provide insight on Strzok and other FBI officials’ thinking during Crossfire Hurricane, the code name given to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. In an email on March 22, 2017, Strzok summarized a CNN segment in which Phil Mudd, a former CIA and FBI official, warned FBI officials that the investigation would come under intense scrutiny. Strzok relayed to FBI official Jonathan Moffa and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that Mudd said the “first thing I tell my counterintelligence guys is, slow down, make sure you do everything right.” “When this eventually becomes public, it will be more picked over than even the Clinton investigation,” Strzok said, paraphrasing Mudd. Mudd also offered advice to FBI officials to “cross every ‘t'” in the investigation. “He’s right,” Strzok wrote to Moffa and another FBI official, adding: “And that worries me.” Strzok forwarded the exchange to Lisa Page. It is not clear why attention on the Crossfire Hurricane probe worried Strzok, who opened the probe on July 31, 2016. Revelations about the investigation that have come to light in the years since Strzok’s email have proved embarrassing for the bureau. The special counsel’s report said prosecutors could not establish that Trump associates conspired with Russia. A Justice Department inspector general’s report said that the FBI committed 17 “significant” errors and omissions in applications to surveil Carter Page. Kevin Clinesmith, who was an FBI lawyer who worked on the investigation, pleaded guilty on Aug. 19 to altering an email regarding Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA. The IG report was highly critical of FBI counterintelligence agent Steven Somma, saying that he was responsible for several failures in the investigation. Strzok is not directly accused of wrongdoing in the IG report, though he had numerous exchanges with Clinesmith and Somma during the probe. In the CNN segment that Strzok referenced, Mudd was commenting on a CNN report that U.S. officials were investigating whether Trump associates coordinated with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. (RELATED: DOJ Watchdog Faults FBI Over ‘Significant’ Inaccuracies In Carter Page FISAs) FBI emails released by Judicial Watch The story cited then-FBI Director James Comey’s testimony days earlier that the bureau had received “a credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.” Unknown to the American public at the time, the FBI was surveilling Carter Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FBI relied heavily on unverified information from Christopher Steele to assert in FISA applications that Page worked as an agent of Russia. Strzok was removed from the special counsel’s investigation in late July 2017 after the IG discovered anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with Lisa Page. He was fired from the FBI in August 2018. Strzok’s attorney did not respond to a request seeking comment.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 2, 2020 11:56:10 GMT -6
Poor Joseph Mifsud is missing. We don’t know why the FBI and the Mueller gang let him go after lying to the FBI. But now we do have an idea why the FBI and Mueller gang withheld providing the 302 document that confirms their discussion with Mifsud.
They were covering up Deep State misdeeds.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 5, 2020 7:01:27 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 7, 2020 6:20:52 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/09/06/peter-strzok-fbi-fisa-carter-page/Peter Strzok Defends FBI Against FISA Abuse Allegations, Says Agents Were ‘Overworked’ Former FBI official Peter Strzok defended the bureau’s surveillance of former Trump aide Carter Page in an interview aired Sunday, attributing failures found in a government watchdog report to agents being “overworked.” “I don’t think at all that it’s anything improper. You get people who are overworked, who make mistakes — and don’t get me wrong, inexcusable mistakes,” Strzok said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning.” Strzok, the former FBI deputy chief of counterintelligence, was asked about a Justice Department inspector general’s report that blasted the FBI for a series of errors and omissions in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Carter Page. The IG found 17 “significant” errors in the FISA applications, including omissions of exculpatory evidence and failure to investigating information in the infamous Steele dossier Strzok oversaw the Trump-Russia investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, and drafted the paperwork that authorized opening the probe on July 31, 2016. He also lobbied aggressively to obtain the initial FISA warrant against Page, which was granted on Oct. 21, 2016. Strzok sent an email on Oct. 14, 2016 entitled “Crossfire FISA” suggesting that then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe needed to contact the Justice Department to help authorize the FISA. At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him,” Strzok wrote in the email. The IG faulted the FBI for relying heavily on the unverified Steele dossier in the FISA application.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 8, 2020 8:52:40 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/09/08/vindman-not-whistleblower-was-driving-force-behind-impeachment/Vindman, Not Whistleblower, Was Driving Force Behind Impeachment New book shows how Lt. Col. Alex Vindman was the real instigator of the Ukraine investigation that formed the pretext for Democrats' impeachment of President Trump. By Mollie Hemingway SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 The most interesting thing about Byron York’s exhaustively reported and richly detailed new impeachment book, “Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment’s Never-Ending War on Trump,” is that the whistleblower who filed the official complaint that got impeachment rolling isn’t ever identified. It turns out that the heated discussion over the whistleblower, who was previously identified by Real Clear Investigations as the CIA’s Eric Ciaramella, was a diversion from allowing the American people to understand who was the actual instigator of the failed effort to oust President Donald Trump from office. Rather than being a witness who independently supported the claims of the whistleblower, the National Security Council’s Lt. Col Alex Vindman was the driving force behind the entire operation, according to the book’s interviews with key figures in the impeachment probe and other evidence. The whistleblower’s information came directly from Vindman, investigators determined. “Vindman was the person on the call who went to the whistleblower after the call, to give the whistleblower the information he needed to file his complaint,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. “For all intents and purposes, Vindman is the whistleblower here, but he was able to get somebody else to do his dirty work for him,” explained one senior congressional aide. Vindman was the only person at the National Security Council (NSC) listening in on the infamous call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to be concerned by it. Vindman immediately began talking to his identical twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who also worked at the NSC. The twins both complained to NSC Counsel John Eisenberg. Alex Vindman talked about it with his direct supervisor Tim Morrison, who was also on the call. He talked about it with another NSC lawyer, Michael Ellis. Vindman testified that he talked to only two people outside the NSC. One was George Kent, a State Department official who dealt with Ukraine. He refused to say who the other person was. Both Vindman and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the impeachment proceedings, strenuously resisted any attempt by investigators to discuss who the other individual was, admitting only that it was a member of the “intelligence community,” the same nebulous descriptor used for the whistleblower. In his complaint, the whistleblower claimed “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call” described to him the contents of the conversation. It is unclear if he was sourcing his knowledge just to multiple Vindmans or any other White House officials. The description of the call appeared to come from the White House’s rough transcript, which Vindman helped prepare. It repeated Vindman’s unique interpretation of the call as seeking foreign interference in a campaign. It mentioned that lawyers had been informed, and Vindman had done just that. The complaint also included information from public news reports. At first Schiff publicly promised that the whistleblower would testify and that any attempt by the White House to thwart that would be fought vigorously. But then news broke that Schiff’s office had worked with the whistleblower prior to him filing his complaint. Schiff switched his stance to refusing to allow the whistleblower to testify. What’s more, he refused to allow any investigation into how the Ukraine investigation began. The real instigator of the Ukraine investigation, Vindman, testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on October 29, 2019, and returned to the House in November for public testimony. York writes that Vindman’s extensive testimony was more complex than news reports suggested. Vindman repeatedly said that he viewed Trump’s phone call with Zelensky as “wrong,” but he was unable to articulate precisely why. He expressed frustration that the elected president was pushing a foreign policy at odds from the “interagency consensus” of the bureaucracy that he felt should control foreign policy. Vindman admitted under questioning that he had thrice been offered the prestigious position of defense minister for the Ukraine government. Despite his focus on Ukraine at the NSC, Vindman did not appear knowledgeable about well-established Ukrainian corruption problems. Vindman is a Ukrainian American. He grew hostile with members who sought to understand exactly to whom he had disclosed the phone call. Using detailed information from interviews with White House officials, members of Congress, and their key staff, York shows how Republicans had to deal with Rep. Adam Schiff’s determination to hide from the American public not just who the whistleblower was but anything about the process that led to the whistleblower complaint. But Schiff’s behavior inadvertently confirmed how the whistleblower found his information. Every time that members asked about the second non-NSC person Vindman disclosed the call to, Schiff and other Democrats would direct the witness to not answer in order to “protect the whistleblower.” York writes: Could that have been any clearer? The Republican line of questioning established that: 1) Vindman told two people outside the NSC. 2) One of them was George Kent. And 3) The other was in the Intelligence Community but could not be revealed because Democrats did not want to identify the whistleblower. It did not take a rocket scientist to conclude that that unidentified other person was the whistleblower. York shows that one of the reasons Republicans stopped pressing the issue was that while they opposed Vindman pushing his own foreign policy goals over the president’s, they respected his military service. “Republicans saw Vindman as a loyal American who had strong and inflexible views on what U.S. policy toward Ukraine should be and who was offended, and spurred to action, when the President of the United States appeared to change them,” York writes. When Vindman retired from the Army in July 2020, media reports claimed he did so because of a hostile work environment. He had been transferred from the NSC in February 2020, following Trump’s acquittal on the charges that Vindman’s complaints instigated. Vindman received no punishment for his insubordination and disobeying of a direct order to not work with Congress on impeachment. “Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment’s Never-Ending War on Trump” was released today. Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 9, 2020 16:31:45 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/09/09/michael-flynn-peter-strzok-svetlana-lokhova/‘This Has Gotten Too Deep’: FBI Emails Show Concerns With Michael Flynn Report FBI emails released by Judicial Watch show that officials had concerns with a story published in March 2017 about former national security adviser Michael Flynn. “This has gotten too deep,” one FBI investigator wrote to Peter Strzok. The investigator was responding to a report from The Guardian that U.S. and British intelligence officials had concerns about Flynn’s interactions with a Russian-British woman in 2014. FBI investigators expressed concern in early 2017 over the publication of a story that suggested Michael Flynn was the target of a Russian honeytrap operation, with one agent saying after the story was published that “this has gotten too deep.” Peter Strzok, the deputy chief of FBI counterintelligence, also weighed in on the story, which appeared in the Guardian on March 31, 2017. “WTF is this,” Strzok wrote after receiving the article, according to emails published by Judicial Watch. “Not great,” he wrote of the story in another email. The Guardian story said that U.S. intelligence officials “had serious concerns” about Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser because of contacts he had with Russians, including Svetlana Lokhova, a Russian-British researcher at the University of Cambridge. Flynn met Lokhova during a visit to the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar in February 2014, when he served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The Guardian also reported, citing anonymous sources, that U.S. and British intelligence officials “discussed Flynn’s ‘worrisome’ behaviour” well before he was appointed national security adviser. The emails released by Judicial Watch show that an investigator in the FBI’s Washington Field Office emailed Strzok with apparent concerns about the story. (RELATED: Secret FBI Source Provided Information On Michael Flynn Visit To UK) “Im [sic] you are tracking, but this has gotten too deep,” the investigator wrote Strzok on April 3, 2017. “I wasn’t. WTF is this,” Strzok replied. He forwarded the exchange to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, writing: “Not great.” FBI emails released by Judicial Watch The emails suggest that FBI agents either doubted the claims in the Guardian report or were worried that the information became public. There is some evidence that the FBI’s Washington Field Office investigated the rumors about Flynn and Lokhova and found nothing to substantiate the claims. A memo from the Washington Field Office dated Jan. 4, 2017, said that an FBI confidential human source claimed they saw Flynn leave an event with a Russian woman when he served as director of DIA. Investigators looked into the allegation, according to the memo, but it appears that they did not find any evidence to corroborate the claim. The memo recommended the FBI close an open counterintelligence investigation that was opened on Flynn in August 2016. Lokhova has vehemently denied having any improper contact with Flynn, writing in her book that she is collateral damage in a smear campaign aimed at the retired Army general. A DIA official who was with Flynn at the Cambridge event has told reporters that he saw nothing that alarmed him during the visit. The Guardian story was not the first to float uncorroborated rumors about Flynn and Lokhova. The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-March 2017 that intelligence officials scrutinized Flynn’s visit to Cambridge. Sir Richard Dearlove (L), Prof. Christopher Andrew (center), and then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn (R), at Cambridge University, Feb. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy Svetlana Lokhova) Unidentified sources shared the rumor with several other high-profile Washington journalists, including at The New York Times and Washington Post. It remains unclear who passed the Flynn-Lokhova rumor to the FBI or to journalists. Stefan Halper, who served as a source for the FBI in the Trump-Russia probe, served as a co-convener of the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. He met with and secretly recorded Carter Page and Trump aide George Papadopoulos. Halper is not believed to have been at the event Flynn attended, though his co-conveners, Sir Richard Dearlove and Christopher Andrew, were photographed with Flynn at the seminar. Christopher Steele, the dossier author, was also aware of rumors regarding Flynn. David Kramer, a former State Department official, told Congress in December 2017 that Steele told him in December 2016 that Flynn had an affair with a Russian-British woman in the U.K. “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 told the House Intelligence Committee on Dec. 17, 2017. The FBI offered to pay Steele during a meeting on Oct. 3, 2016 to dig up dirt on Flynn and other Trump campaign associates. Though FBI investigators appear to have had doubts about the Flynn allegation, the bureau did not intervene to correct the stories that appeared in the media.
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Post by redrex on Sept 9, 2020 17:22:56 GMT -6
Comey has managed to be hated by both parties
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 9, 2020 18:09:19 GMT -6
Here we go again!
House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) crawled out of his hole on Wednesday and said he received a ‘new whistleblower complaint’ alleging Russia is meddling in the election.
Schiff claims the whistleblower complaint alleges serious misconduct by senior Trump Administration officials to politicize, manipulate and censor intelligence to benefit Trump:
Improper Administration of an Intelligence Program and Abuse of Authority regarding Russian Influence Improper Administration of an Intelligence Program with respect to the Homeland Threat Assessment Improper Administration of an Intelligence Program regarding ANTIFA Perjured Testimony and Abuse of Authority
Whistleblower Brian Murphy, who was the principal deputy under secretary in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS before he was demoted, says DHS chief Chad Wolf instructed him to withhold intel notifications on Russian meddling because ‘it made Trump look bad.’
Murphy also claims Wolf instructed him to focus more on efforts by Iran and China, but he refused to comply because “doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.”
Brian Murphy is being represented by swamp lawyer Mark Zaid — the same Mark Zaid who represented Ukraine impeachment whistleblower Eric Ciaramella!
Mark Zaid said in a statement that Brian Murphy had “followed proper lawful whistleblower rules in reporting serious allegations of misconduct against DHS leadership, particularly involving political distortion of intelligence analysis and retaliation.”
“We have alerted both the Executive and Legislative Branches of these allegations and we will appropriately cooperate with oversight investigations, especially in a classified setting,” Zaid said.
The whistleblower reprisal complaint depicts a sustained and disturbing pattern of misconduct by senior Trump Administration officials within the White House and DHS relating to the activities of DHS’s I&A—an element of the U.S. Intelligence Community which Mr. Murphy led from May until August of this year, before he was reassigned to DHS’s Management Directorate, and where he previously served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary beginning in March 2018. The complaint alleges repeated violations of law and regulations, abuses of authority, attempted censorship of intelligence analysis, and improper administration of an intelligence program related to Russian efforts to influence the U.S. election.
“We’ve received a whistleblower complaint alleging DHS suppressed intel reports on Russian election interference, altered intel to match false Trump claims and made false statements to Congress,” Schiff said.
“This puts our national security at risk. We will investigate,'” he added.
Whistleblower Brian Murphy alleges Trump’s DHS attempted to censor intel analysis related to so-called Russian efforts to influence and undermine the US:
The complaint states that Mr. Murphy “made several protected disclosures between March 2018 and August 2020 regarding a repeated pattern of abuse of authority, attempted censorship of intelligence analysis and improper administration of an intelligence program related to Russian efforts to influence and undermine United States interests. The relevant officials at issue were Secretary [Kirstjen] Nielsen and Messrs. [Chad] Wolf, [Kenneth] Cuccinelli, [Miles] Taylor, and Acting Deputy Director for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel.”
The complaint asserts that, in mid-May 2020, and while purporting to serve as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Mr. Chad Wolf “instructed Mr. Murphy to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran. Mr. Wolf stated that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. Mr. Murphy informed Mr. Wolf he would not comply with these instructions, as doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.”
“Mr. Murphy’s allegations are serious — from senior officials suppressing intelligence reports on Russia’s election interference and making false statements to Congress about terrorism threats at our southern border, to modifying intelligence assessments to match the President’s rhetoric on Antifa and minimizing the threat posed by white supremacists. We have requested Mr. Murphy’s testimony before the Committee, pursuant to subpoena if necessary, alongside other already scheduled interviews with other DHS officials.,” Schiff said in a statement.
“We will get to the bottom of this, expose any and all misconduct or corruption to the American people, and put a stop to the politicization of intelligence,” he added.
The DHS denied Murphy’s allegations in a statement to CBS News and said it “looks forward to the results of any resulting investigation and we expect it will conclude that no retaliatory action was taken against Mr. Murphy.”
“As Acting Secretary Wolf outlined in his State of the Homeland Address today, DHS is working to address all threats to the homeland regardless of ideology,” the spokesperson said. “The Acting Secretary is focused on thwarting election interference from any foreign powers and attacks from any extremist group.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 9, 2020 19:15:49 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 10, 2020 13:56:59 GMT -6
Newly released DOJ records show “pitbull” Andrew Weissmann and multiple Mueller henchmen claiming to have “accidentally wiped” at least 31 phones used in the anti-Trump Russia probe.
The documents were uncovered thanks to a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit.
The phones were all conveniently wiped after the DOJ IG asked for the devices to be handed over — some phones wiped themselves, according to the DOJ!
The records show virtually all of Mueller’s lawyers used the same tactic: Put their phones in airplane mode, lock them and then nuke the phones by repeatedly entering the wrong password.
The wrong password must be entered 10 times in a row in order to nuke the phone.
“Employee tried to incorrectly enter password too many times, and the phone was wiped of all data” – one entry shows in the OIG records.
“During out processing conversation… [redacted] indicated she had to wipe her phone because she forgot the password. Her phone had to be wiped to be reset because the passcode provided was inaccurate and the phone was left in airplane mode.” – another entry stated.
Mueller’s “pitbull” Andrew Weissmann wiped two out of three of his Special Counsel phones — he wiped one by ‘accident’ and nuked the other by entering the wrong password too many times.
One phone assigned to James Quarles “wiped itself without intervention from him.”
Attorney Harmeet Dhillon weighed in.
“This is shocking. In private practice, if you had a dozen clients who did this at the same time in response to an internal investigation, you would be preparing for sanctions and hiding under your desk. But these arrogant people think they are above the law. So far, they are,” said Harmeet Dhillon.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 10, 2020 15:55:44 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/09/10/new-doj-documents-show-wholesale-evidence-destruction-by-mueller-team/New DOJ Documents Show Wholesale Evidence Destruction By Mueller Team SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 By Kylee Zempel Newly released records from the Department of Justice reveal that multiple top members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team claim to have “accidentally wiped” data off phones they used during the anti-Trump probe. Many devices were wiped or otherwise disabled before DOJ authorities were able to access and examine them or the records they contained, including that of disgraced former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. According to email correspondence between the Special Counsel’s Office and the DOJ Office of the Inspector General, Page’s phone had been reset to factory settings, “and therefore all data was wiped from the device” before the OIG received it. Destruction of data and communication pervaded the team, with more than 20 instances of Mueller team members wiping their devices, some in seemingly creative ways. While some data was “accidentally wiped,” other inaccessible data was blamed on personnel incorrectly entering passwords too many times, resulting in information being nuked. Other devices were left in airplane mode with either incorrect or no passwords provided, rendering the data inaccessible. One particularly notable name on the list is Andrew Weissmann, the lead Mueller prosecutor the New York Times referred to as the special counsel’s “pit bull.” After working under Mueller at the FBI as general counsel, Weissmann led the government’s case against former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. According to DOJ records, upon a March 2018 review, Weissmann had “entered password too many times and wiped his phone.” On another occasion, by September of that year, Weissmann had again “accidentally wiped cell phone — data lost,” according to the records. Records show prosecutor Kyle Freeny’s phone was “accidentally wiped” prior to records review, and James Quarles’ phone allegedly “wiped itself without intervention from him.” A number of devices cited forgotten passwords as the reason for data destruction, including those of assistant special counsel Greg Andre and deputy Rush Atkinson. It seems unlikely that more than a dozen top Mueller officials all put their phones into airplane mode, locked them, and forgot the passwords or “accidentally” wiped their devices. Considering that the Russian collusion probe has revealed nothing but the depths of bureaucratic corruption and dishonesty and a shamelessly anti-Trump agenda from the start, the odds seem even lower.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 11, 2020 6:42:54 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 11, 2020 10:42:11 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/09/11/chuck-grassley-demands-details-on-doj-efforts-to-recover-lost-records/Chuck Grassley Demands Details On DOJ Efforts To Recover Lost Records SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 By Tristan Justice Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is pressing the Department of Justice for additional details on agency efforts to recover lost records from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, which may shed light on the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation probing Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. “It appears that Special Counsel Mueller’s team may have deleted federal records that could be key to better understanding their decision-making process as they pursued their investigation and wrote their report,” Grassley wrote in a Friday letter to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Indeed, many officials apparently deleted the records after the DOJ Inspector General began his inquiry into how the Department mishandled Crossfire Hurricane. Moreover, based on this new information, the number of times and the stated reasons for the deletions calls into question whether or not it was a widespread intentional effort.” The Iowa Republican’s letter comes a day after documents were released from a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) revealing members of Mueller’s team “accidentally wiped” data from their devices upon the investigation of their work conducting an anti-Trump probe fueled by speculation from Democrats and legacy media. Grassley outlined a catalogue of requests in unredacted, unclassified form, including “all records from the FOIA request” Thursday with a Sept. 25 deadline. Grassley has also demanded text messages from all government phones used by employees on the special counsel’s probe, records related to staff explanations for the lost data, and specifics on agency plans to investigate. Mueller’s office wrapped up its investigation, which took more than two years with unlimited resources. Originally tasked with indicting the president as a Kremlin agent, in the spring of 2019 it ultimately exonerated Trump of the Democratic conspiracy.
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Post by soonernvolved on Sept 12, 2020 13:44:14 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/09/12/adam-schiff-brian-murphy-whistleblower/Schiff Touts Whistleblower Complaint From DHS Official He Previously Accused Of Lying To Congress Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is touting a whistleblower complaint from a Department of Homeland Security official who he accused just last month of potentially lying to Congress about the agency’s intelligence-gathering activities. On Wednesday, Schiff released a whistleblower complaint filed by Brian Murphy, the former acting under secretary for intelligence and analysis, who claimed that senior DHS officials and the White House pressured him to alter intelligence reports regarding Russian interference in the 2020 election as well as about Antifa’s involvement in social justice protests. Murphy claimed in his complaint that he was demoted on Aug. 1 because he questioned DHS leaders’ requests that he alter intelligence reports. Schiff said in a statement on Wednesday that Murphy’s complaint “outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically.” (RELATED: Analysis: Schiff’s Radical Transparency Shift) “This puts our nation and its security at grave risk,” he said. Schiff’s comments mark an about-face for the Democrat. He said in a statement on Aug. 3 that he was “concerned” that Murphy “provided incomplete and potentially misleading information to Committee staff” regarding the DHS intelligence and analysis branch’s intelligence-gathering activities related to protests in Portland and other cities. The Washington Post reported on July 30 that Murphy’s division circulated intelligence reports that cited information about a New York Times journalist and Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. The New York Times reported on Aug. 1 that Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf reassigned Murphy to a management role. Schiff did not address whether he still believes Murphy lied to the committee. His office did not respond to a request for comment. Murphy’s lawyers called the Post story “significantly flawed” in the whistleblower complaint. “To be unequivocally clear, the press reporting was significantly flawed and, in many instances, contained completely erroneous assertions,” the complaint says. The complaint says the intelligence and analysis division “never knowingly or deliberately collected information on journalists, at least as far as Mr. Murphy is aware or ever authorized.” According to Murphy, DHS tracked publicly available media reporting but “did not seek authorization to and was not engaging in surveillance of journalists’ private data.” The complaint also said that any intelligence gathering regarding protesters “was done in strict compliance with existing legal guidance.” Mark Zaid, an attorney for Murphy, said that he was unaware of what Schiff is referring to in suggesting that Murphy misled the intelligence committee. “Regardless of what transpired prior to my involvement in representing Murphy, my focus is on ensuring the allegations being made now are properly, independently and fairly investigated by oversight authorities and that my whistleblower client doesn’t suffer retaliation for making good faith assertions of misconduct,” Zaid told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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