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Strzokgate Bulletin, 2019

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[Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput

Highly recommended!
Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

freedommusic , 23 minutes ago link

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?

FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?

AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.

DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?

AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.

DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where the server was examined?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?

AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.

DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in FBI laboratories?

AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.

(silence)

DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?

AGENT: Uh .. no.

DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?

AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually examined the computer hardware?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?

AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.

DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?

AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?

AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.

DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their servers?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?

AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?

AGENT: I don't know.

DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?

AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.

DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?

AGENT: No, I cannot.

DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?

AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Did you lose it?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?

AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?

AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.

DEF ATT: A draft copy?

AGENT: Yes.

DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why not?

AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.

PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.

( source )

hooligan2009 , 14 minutes ago link

Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).

[Dec 04, 2019] Instructions on the WB info says your disclosure must involve Classified Information, but not about differences of opinions

Dec 04, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

sedge2z , September 28, 2019 at 6:32 pm

Instructions on the WB info says your disclosure must involve Classified Information, but not about differences of opinions, and "please identify the agency wrongdoing".
Then you are faced with who-knows lawyer warnings by numbers/letters like "Section 2302 (a)(2)(A) of Title 5" and "threat prohibited under subsection (g)(3)(B)" .
But here's their HotLine number in case you want to Ask Them any Questions:
ICIG Hotline 855-731-3260 (Intelligence Community Inspector General)

[Dec 04, 2019] Sketchy Inspector General Michael Atkinson Admits 'Whistle-blower' Never Informed Him of Contact With Schiff Committee

Dec 04, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

October 4, 2019 by sundance The inspector general for the Intelligence Community is Michael Atkinson . He is very sketchy. Atkinson was previously legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD during the 'stop-Trump' tenure of John Carlin and Mary McCord. As a result, Atkinson was a participant in the weaponizing of the DOJ-NSD via FISA abuse, along with NSA database exploitation and tenuous FARA legal theories used to target political opposition.

In short, Atkinson seems dirty. At the very least he hangs around dirty characters.

Today, according to Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge , ICIG Michael Atkinson testified the anti-Trump CIA ' whistle-blower' , likely to be Michael Barry, did not inform Atkinson that Barry and his legal team already contacted staff working for HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff when he submitted his complaint. More sketchy .

After he took the complaint, ICIG Michael Atkinson then changed the rules for the ICIG office allowing a second-hand hearsay complaint to be processed. Again, sketchy .

According to New York Times reporting earlier this week, the 'whistle-blower' (likely CIA operative Michael Barry) first tried to push the hearsay claims to CIA management through a colleague. Fearing CIA management would not take the gossip seriously "the officer then approached a democrat House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump." Chairman Schiff never told anyone.

Buckets of sketchy .

Mr. Sketchy – ICIG Michael Atkinson

What is occurring is becoming clear

After the 2018 mid-terms, and in preparation for the House "impeachment" strategy, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler hired Lawfare Group members to become committee staff.

Chairman Schiff hired former SDNY U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman ( link ), and Chairman Nadler hired Obama Administration lawyer Norm Eisen and criminal defense attorney Barry Berke ( link ), all are within the Lawfare network. [You probably saw Berke questioning former Trump campaign chairman Corey Lewandowski.]

It now looks like the Lawfare network constructed the 'whistle-blower' complaint aka a Schiff Dossier, and handed it to allied CIA operative Michael Barry to file as a formal IC complaint. This process is almost identical to the Fusion-GPS/Lawfare network handing the Steele Dossier to the FBI to use as the evidence for the 2016/2017 Russia conspiracy.

This series of events is exactly what former CIA Analyst Fred Fleiz said last week . Fleitz has extensive knowledge of the whistleblower process. Fleitz said last week the Ukraine call whistleblower is likely driven by political motives, and his sources indicate he had help from Congress members while writing it.

Additionally, prior to the "whistleblower complaint" the Intelligence Community Inspector General did not accept whistle-blower claims without first hand knowledge. However, the ICIG revised the protocol to allow this specific complaint to be registered by the CIA whistle-blower .

Now it surfaces that the ICIG Michael Atkinson didn't even review the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call transcript before forwarding the complaint to congress [ SEE HERE ]

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson . ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay ' whistle-blower ' complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was " blowing-the-whistle " based on second hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie ' hearsay '.

The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016 operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901) originated.

Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.

Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA court ( Judge Rosemary Collyer ) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations as tools for political surveillance and political targeting.

Yes, that means Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very epicenter of the political weaponization and FISA abuse.

If the DOJ-NSD exploitation of the NSA database, and/or DOJ-NSD FISA abuse, and/or DOJ-NSD FARA corruption were ever to reach sunlight, current ICIG Atkinson -as the lawyer for the process- would be under a lot of scrutiny for his involvement.

Yes, that gives current ICIG Michael Atkinson a strong and corrupt motive to participate with the Pelosi-Schiff/Lawfare impeachment objective. Sketchy!

[Dec 03, 2019] Outraged By Trump's Fake Orgasm, Lisa Page Gives 'Teen Vogue'-Tier Pre-FISA Interview

Dec 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Speaking with the Daily Beast 's Molly Jong-Fast, who challenged her on exactly nothing (such as whether she altered Mike Flynn's 302 form , or what the ' insurance policy ' was, or if she coordinated with the Washington Post on a "media leak strategy"), Page insists that her hatred of Trump never influenced her work investigating him , and that while she prefers to live in obscurity - she was compelled to tell her side of the story after President Trump mocked her with a fake orgasm routine at a rally last month - and not because of IG Michael Horowitz's FISA report due on December 9th.

Horowitz has circulated the report to key figures for legal review, and is rumored to clear to clear Page and other FBI officials of letting their raging hatred of Trump (and love of Clinton) color their work - hence the 'Teen Vogue' - tier puff piece. We're sure she'll go into greater detail when she writes a book on the whole 'matter.'

NA X-15 , 5 minutes ago link

"It's almost impossible to describe" what it's like, she told me. " It's like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again . The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He's demeaning me and my career. It's sickening."

A normal, decent woman would have retreated from public life and quit her job.... But not this psycho-bitch , she digs in her heels like Kamala Harris and tries to power through the drama of her own doing. President Trump is just calling her out on her ********.

SWRichmond , 5 minutes ago link

Hey Lisa,

Remember, you brought this up. You could have just slunk away, but you chose not to.

We now know your affair with Strzok was r evealed to FBI by his wife, and was not discovered by other means by FBI. That is apparently the only reason we know about your seditious conspiracy and your hatred of us. So for that revelation I am deeply grateful.

The revelation of the undisputed FACTS of the conspiracy to overthrow an election, which I am confident will result in no criminal charges of any significance, is right now convincing even the most clueless Normie that fed dot gov cannot be trusted to investigate and self-clean. So at some point after the IG report and the coming Durham report (which will also charge no one of any significance), CW2 will go hot. Traditional Americans will not stand for this.

Your arrogance in conducting the affair is mirrored in your arrogance in conducting the sedition. IOW, your arrogance will be partly responsible for the deaths which will occur during CW2.

Can you live with that?

847328_3527 , 8 minutes ago link

Yes, yes, ho Page, it's all trump's fault that you betrayed your country, fucked an arrogant fbi prick, and cheated on your husband....you're completely innocent like the virgin snow.

Everyone should call you, "Lisa Snow White Page" from now on, yes?

Too bad the feminists are so screwed up because they should be furious with this tramp. What a disgusting role model for Teen Vogue to place on the pedestal.

Obamaroid Ointment , 9 minutes ago link

Say what you will about FBI skank Lisa, she was employed by a FLEO organization founded by a trannie before we were born

847328_3527 , 17 minutes ago link

I wish i had conducted the interview. Would have asked some questions that people really want to know instead of the softball questions.

BTW, why hasn't the media hounded her husband (the cuck) since they would certainly do that if it were a conservative as the subject?

[Dec 02, 2019] British aerial attacks using poisining gas against Red Army in Russia in August 1919

British elite is capable to commit any crimes imaginable perusing its goals.
Notable quotes:
"... "The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield." ..."
Apr 19, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 3:07:17 AM | 15

OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.

The Guardian has an article today headlined " The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved " which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese, among America's closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.

The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919, scientists at the governmental laboratories at Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device," an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM].

The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised." Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."

A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919 .Bolshevik soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood, then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages. But the weapons proved less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then stopped.

The rest of the article defends Churchill against claims that he wanted to use "poison gas" in India and Iraq against tribesmen by suggesting that he meant tear gas but equally he could have been referring to mustard gas which "only" killed about 2.5% of the 165,000 WW1 soldiers it was used against but that was with a level of medical care I doubt Indian or Iraqi tribesmen could even begin to dream off.

Peter AU 1 , Apr 19, 2018 4:20:05 AM | 23

"The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield."

Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike. Same as I thought the JK build up was the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago. Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.

I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.

[Nov 30, 2019] Eric Ciaramella, Brennan protege, more coup plotter than "whistleblower"

Notable quotes:
"... Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the Obama White House. She also visits the Obama White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama. Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017, " ..."
"... According to Fox News, the complaint alleges that the DNC specifically "tasked Chalupa with obtaining incriminating or derogatory information about Donald Trump [and] Paul Manfort," ..."
"... Remarkably, despite his clear connections to Rice and Brennan, he was brought back into the inner circle of the Trump NSC by HR McMaster. McMaster appointed him to be his personal aide. ..."
"... He was fired in June of 2017 after being directly implicated in a series of serious national security leaks from the White House calculated to be damaging to President Trump. ..."
"... Vindman also leaked the classified information about the President's call with a foreign head of state to a number of other people. These unauthorized leaks are criminal. Both illegal, unethical and unconscionable. ..."
"... Ciaramella worked with both Grace and Misko in the NSC at the Obama White House. Misko and Grace joined Schiff's committee in early August of 2019, just in time to coordinate the "whistleblower" complaint. ..."
"... Both Vindman and Ciaramella do not qualify for "whistleblower" status. They were reporting on a diplomatic conversation, not an intelligence matter. They were not reporting on a member of the Intelligence committee. ..."
"... IC IG Michael Atkinson surreptitiously changed the rules for whistleblower complaints to allow second-hand testimony in September of 2019. He then backdated the changes to allow the Ciaramella complaint, initially filed in early August, to be included under the new "interpretive" guidelines. ..."
"... The playbook is the same as the Mueller Inquisition and the Russia Hoax, the same as the Kavanaugh smear campaign. With the same co-conspirators of the left-wing mainstream media. Not only carrying water for the coup plotters but being actual participants in the scheme. Paid mouthpieces for the Deep State. ..."
"... Sperry's devastating expose makes clear that Ciaramella is another cog in the Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Obama conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. As Chuck Schumer said in January of 2017, ..."
"... Ciaramella helped generate the "Putin fired Comey" narrative. Sperry reports, "In the days after Comey's firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls for the standup of the special counsel to investigate 'Russia collusion.'" ..."
Nov 03, 2019 | www.greanvillepost.com
WASHINGTON, DC : Adam Schiff "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella has been exposed as a John Brennan ally. An ally who actively worked to defame, target, and destroy President Donald Trump during both the Obama and Trump administrations. He was fired from the Trump White House for leaking confidential if not classified information detrimental to the President. ( The Pajama Boy Whistleblower Revealed – Rush Limbaugh )

The 33-year-old Ciaramella, a former Susan Rice protege, currently works for the CIA as an analyst.

Eric Ciaramella: The Deep State non-whistleblower

During his time in the Obama White House, NSC Ciaramella worked under both Vice President Joe Biden and CIA director John Brennan. He reported directly to NSC advisor Susan Rice through his immediate boss, Charles Kupchan. Kupchan had extensive ties with Clinton crony Sydney Blumenthal. Large portions of Blumenthal's disinformation from Ukrainian sources in 2016 was used in the nefarious Steele Dossier.


Eric Ciaramella, Schiff's "whistleblower", has ties to Susan Rice and Joe Biden

Ciaramella also worked extensively with DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa. Chalupa led the effort at the DNC to fabricate a link between the Trump Campaign to Vladimir Putin and Russia. According to Politico, Chalupa "met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia."


The DNC paid Chalupa $412,000 between 2004 and 2016.

DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa: Ciaramella co-conspirator

Chalupa shared her findings with both the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Politico reporting ( Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire – Politico – 01/11/2017)

"Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, 'I felt there was a Russia connection.'"

Apparently without any evidence. So she set out to concoct it.

Chalupa (left) also says that the Ukrainian embassy was working directly with reporters digging for Trump-Russia ties. How convenient, and unethical.

Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the Obama White House. She also visits the Obama White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama. Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017, "

"Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a foreign government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to influence not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials."
The FEC complaint against the DNC and Chalupa

In September 2019 a complaint was filed with the Federal Elections Commission against the DNC naming Alexandra Chalupa. The complaint alleges that Chalupa acted "improperly to gather information on Paul Manafort and Donald Trump in the 2016 election".


Joe Biden's Corruption: Ukraine, bribery, and Burisma Holdings

According to Fox News, the complaint alleges that the DNC specifically "tasked Chalupa with obtaining incriminating or derogatory information about Donald Trump [and] Paul Manfort,"

Fox News reporting, that Chalupa allegedly

"Pushed for Ukrainian officials to publicly mention Manafort's financial and political ties to" Ukraine and "sought to have the Ukrainian government provide her information about Manafort's work in the country."
John Solomon and Wikileaks both expose Chalupa as DNC operative

Wikileaks also exposed Chalupa's role in digging up dirt in Ukraine on Manafort and Trump. One email stated that Chalupa was "digging into Manafort". "A lot more coming down the pipe," the email to then DNC Comms Director Luis Miranda states. ( Former Obama official Luis Miranda is latest casualty of DNC email scandal – Fox News – August 3, 2016 )

John Solomon of The Hill reporting:

"Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort's dealings inside the country. Chalupa later tried to arrange for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to comment on Manafort's Russian ties on a U.S. visit during the 2016 campaign."
Ciaramella's connection with John Brennan and Susan Rice

Eric Ciaramella had been working with John Brennan, Susan Rice, the Obama White House, and Alexandra Chalupa to target and destroy Donald Trump well before he was elected. He was initially brought into the NSC and the White House inner circle by John Brennan himself.


Schiff witness Taylor has ties to Burisma think tank, Soros, McCain leaker

Remarkably, despite his clear connections to Rice and Brennan, he was brought back into the inner circle of the Trump NSC by HR McMaster. McMaster appointed him to be his personal aide.

He was fired in June of 2017 after being directly implicated in a series of serious national security leaks from the White House calculated to be damaging to President Trump.

Ciaramella and Alexander Vindman: the second "whistleblower"

Ciaramella's title at the White House was NSC Director for Ukraine. That position is now held by the newest Schiff star witness and Trump hater Lt. Col Alexander Vindman. Vindman is apparently the "2nd whistleblower" to leak his concerns about the call between Trump and President Zelensky to Ciaramella.

Vindman also leaked the classified information about the President's call with a foreign head of state to a number of other people. These unauthorized leaks are criminal. Both illegal, unethical and unconscionable.

Violating clear national security guidelines for classified information.

Republicans, on cross-examination of Vindman was asked by Republicans cross-examining him during the closed-door secret police hearings conducted by Adam Schiff, asking who Vindman had contact with. Schiff cut off the questioning, coaching the witness while refusing to let him answer the questions.

Schiff coordinated with Ciaramella and Vindman

It is now clear that Ciaramella and Vindman coordinated the entire whistleblower affair with Schiff and his staff in violation of the "whistleblower" statute. That Ciaramella has been coordinating his complaint with Schiff committee staffers Abigail Grace and Sean Misko.


Durham opens criminal probe, IG report due, Brennan, Clapper lawyer up

Ciaramella worked with both Grace and Misko in the NSC at the Obama White House. Misko and Grace joined Schiff's committee in early August of 2019, just in time to coordinate the "whistleblower" complaint.

Both Vindman and Ciaramella do not qualify for "whistleblower" status. They were reporting on a diplomatic conversation, not an intelligence matter. They were not reporting on a member of the Intelligence committee.

The suspicious case of IC IG Michael Atkinson

IC IG Michael Atkinson surreptitiously changed the rules for whistleblower complaints to allow second-hand testimony in September of 2019. He then backdated the changes to allow the Ciaramella complaint, initially filed in early August, to be included under the new "interpretive" guidelines.

The level of subterfuge and coordination between Schiff, Ciaramella, Vindman, Abigail Grace, Sean Misko, and IG Atkinson is more than suspicious. It reeks of yet another episode of a Deep State coordinated coup attempt.


Pelosi Star Chamber impeachment farce blows up in Adam Schiff's face

The whole impeachment affair is a brazen sequel to the Russia Hoax involving many of the same key players. Susan Rice, John Brennan, Adam Schiff. Designed to target, destroy, and in this case, fabricate grounds for the impeachment of the President.

The playbook is the same as the Mueller Inquisition and the Russia Hoax, the same as the Kavanaugh smear campaign. With the same co-conspirators of the left-wing mainstream media. Not only carrying water for the coup plotters but being actual participants in the scheme. Paid mouthpieces for the Deep State.

Paul Sperry and Real Clear Investigations

The most comprehensive expose on Ciaramella, that has forced even the mainstream media to take notice, was the Real Clear Investigations reporting of Paul Sperry. Only Sperry, the Federalist, and CDN have exposed the whistleblowers' identity. But his name and transparent partisan actions are the worst kept secret in Washington.

As CIA analyst Fred Fleitz has said:

"Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is."

Sperry's devastating expose makes clear that Ciaramella is another cog in the Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Obama conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. As Chuck Schumer said in January of 2017,

"If you take on the intelligence community, they have nines ways to Sunday of getting back at you."
The never-ending coup attempt against Trump

The reality is that Trump was targeted by the Obama White House well before he was President. The ongoing coup against him started as soon as he was elected. It morphed into the Mueller Weissman inquisition and the Peter Strzok insurance policy.


Obama WH corruption: Rampant pay to play by Clinton, Kerry, and Biden

When that fizzled into oblivion it was time for plan B, or in this case plan C or D. The Deep State and their paid minions in the left-wing press have been unrelenting in their ongoing anti-constitutional putsch against the President.

The impeachment farce, with its calculated rollout reminiscent of the Kavanaugh smear campaign, is yet another extension of a never-ending East German Stassi coup (sic) attempt against the constitution, the Republic, and the people of the United States.

Sperry lays out the trail of evidence against Ciaramella

Paul Sperry's excellent investigative reporting makes clear that Ciaramella "previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan. (He) left his National Security Council posting in the White House's West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media." As Sperry reports, "He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump," said a former NSC official.

Sperry reports that "a handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on him. A classified version of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill". The dossier documents Ciaramella's bias against Trump. His relationships with Brennan, Rice, the Obama White House, and DNC operative Chalupa. As well as his coordination with Vindman, Schiff and his committee staff.

Chuck Schumer: "Eight ways to Sunday of getting back at you"

It questions both Ciaramella's and Vindman's veracity as a legitimate whistleblower. It makes clear that Ciaramella and his co-conspirators are part of a Deep State coup attempt. A calculated, coordinated, illegal, seditious, and illegitimate putsch.


"Whistleblower" Hoax: Ties to Biden, Deep State ICIG, rogue Ambassador

As CIA analyst Fred Fleitz makes clear, " They're hiding him ." Fleitz was emphatic, " They're hiding him because of his political bias."

Ciaramella helped generate the "Putin fired Comey" narrative. Sperry reports, "In the days after Comey's firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls for the standup of the special counsel to investigate 'Russia collusion.'"

How IC Inspector General Atkinson found the whistleblower complaint "credible" and "urgent" at the same time he was backdating the change in regulations to allow the complaint to be filed is more than highly suspicious. How the 'whistleblower" coordinated with Schiff, Grace, Misko, and Atkinson to stager the start of impeachment farce is criminal.

Adam Schiff: Constantly lying while moving the goalposts

... ... ...

Schiff: Outstanding scoundrel in a cesspit filled to the brim with similar criminals.

Now Eric Ciaramella is apparently backing away from testifying. Schiff says he no longer needs his testimony. But Ciaramella should be subpoenaed and called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He should not be allowed to escape accountability for his role in this calculated charade of a conspiracy.


The Russia Hoax: James Clapper throws Barack Obama under the bus

He would then have to testify to his coordination with Schiff and the committee staff. He would have to expose how Vindmann leaked national security information illegally. How the entire 'whistleblower" farce was a calculated effort to again derail the Trump Presidency.

A lot has come out about Eric Ciaramella, the Adam Schiff 'Whistleblower", in recent days. It is the tip of the iceberg. Any legitimate investigation of the circumstances surrounding the entire Ukraine affair will reveal the extensive criminality of the Obama White House and the coup plotters.

Exposing the dark underbelly of the Obama White House

It stretches back to the Steele Dossier and the clear efforts of the DNC and the Deep State to use to a foreign power to interfere in the 2016 election. He exposes the corruption of Vice President Biden to enrich his family at the expense of the American taxpayer. Details the $6 million dollar bribery scheme of Hunter and Joe Biden by Burisma Holdings.

Lays out the corrupt dealings of Ambassador Yovanovich.

It will lay open the devious underbelly of all the so-called hero witnesses of the Schiff impeachment Star Chamber inquisition. Of the criminal actions of the coup plotters. Of Ambassador Yovanovich, Ambassador Taylor, Alexandra Chalupa, and Alexander Vindman.

As well as the so-called whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella.

Calling the Fourth Estate back

It is the tip of the iceberg that only a truly free and independent press will have to take the reins to fearlessly expose. Like brilliant investigative reporter Paul Sperry at Real Clear Investigations. Like the Federalist, NOQ Report, and here at CommDigiNews, who broke the Ciaramella story a full two days before Real Clear Investigations.

No one else in the corrupt media establishment seems willing to rise to the challenge.

[Nov 30, 2019] CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy by Oleg Atbashian

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom. ..."
"... The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years. ..."
"... And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president. ..."
"... I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. ..."
"... The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target. ..."
"... Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones. ..."
Nov 29, 2019 | www.frontpagemag.com

The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.

Fri Nov 29, 2019 Oleg Atbashian 133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.

A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.

Let's look at the facts:

None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent.

Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that "CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.

But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back Trump every step of the way.

So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled now ?

Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:

  1. Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story with the same names and details as the real one.
  2. Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
  3. Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory. Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for you.
  4. Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let up.

This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story for another day.

For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are

The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history, supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was "socialist realism."

Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.

The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.

The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head, that it's a nonissue.

But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps because it's more important than the story suggests.

Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom.

The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years.

And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.

This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.

If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage, complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.

The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target.

It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't Chris Wallace.


NAHALKIDES a day ago ,

Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate. They didn't - which means they're covering something up.

coolit10 NAHALKIDES a day ago ,

And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?

🕊jr🕊 " Deep State Target " coolit10 13 hours ago ,

Let's be honest, that FBI made no attempt to investigate it in the first place as they were as culpable in this crime as the DNC.

Herman Young 🕊jr🕊 " Deep State Target " 12 hours ago ,

Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.

SteveTn6b NAHALKIDES 16 hours ago ,

They know who breached their security. He'd dead!

Herman Young SteveTn6b 12 hours ago ,

Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE was the only favor Trumps asked for.

Karen Herman Young 9 hours ago ,

We all know it was Seth Rich

Clasvi SteveTn6b 13 hours ago ,

you are spot on. it is amazing how they shut down the Seth Rich murder. The media was all to happy to shut it down.

Karen Clasvi 9 hours ago ,

Fox helped with that cover up

undrprsr Clasvi 6 hours ago ,

Yep, and Donna Brazile wrote in her book she feared for her life after Seth Rich was murdered, why's that if it was just a random attack?

El Cid NAHALKIDES 15 hours ago ,

There are two important facts to glean from this article:

1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.

From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets' technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).

I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?

Joe Clear NAHALKIDES 12 hours ago ,

They sure are, that being the killing of Seth Rich who copied the data to flash drive and gave it to Wikileaks.

stanley castleberry NAHALKIDES 12 hours ago ,

They found out right away. Hence Rich was assassinated.

Herman Young NAHALKIDES 12 hours ago • edited ,

That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.

No Bread or Circuses a day ago ,

The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!

The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the Left down to Justice!

We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation. Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!

We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to undermine our nation.

People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!

God Bless President Trump!
God Bless America!

Anacleto Mitraglia 21 hours ago • edited ,

In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge, ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.

Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?

Herman Young Anacleto Mitraglia 12 hours ago ,

The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.

El Cid Anacleto Mitraglia 15 hours ago • edited ,

don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just office software)

Cynthia Campbell 19 hours ago ,

If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you (Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain, Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and rightly so!

doc_who_cuts 20 hours ago ,

not seizing the DNC and hillary servers is the clearest case of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE I know of in the last few years.

Herman Young doc_who_cuts 12 hours ago ,

Isn't it ironic, the Dems accuse Trump of "obstruction of justice".

FRANCES LOUISE a day ago ,

I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion, treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more! Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed. Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate was the target"

Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place: https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute. MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The most recent was Nov. 20th.

Link will show you how much attention has been given to "debunking" Q - gotta wonder why
https://cdn.qmap.pub/images...

elephant4life FRANCES LOUISE 19 hours ago ,

Perkins-Coie is the real-world Milton, Chadwick & Waters. I'm willing to bet their industrial-sized shredders are working overtime.

Herman Young elephant4life 12 hours ago ,

Unless Bleach-Bit got there first.

Herman Young FRANCES LOUISE 12 hours ago ,

Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action is.

Grant Hodges a day ago ,

The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst. I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.

coolit10 Grant Hodges a day ago ,

Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a thumb drive or external hard drive.

Grant Hodges coolit10 a day ago ,

One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location, say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.

El Cid Grant Hodges 14 hours ago • edited ,

The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes. VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so, did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?

(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would be looking for, but its a start).

[Nov 30, 2019] American Intelligence Media

Nov 30, 2019 | aim4truth.org

In January 2017, after much hullabaloo from the Democrats about Russian hacking of the 2016 election, the Anonymous Patriots set out to get the record straight about who was hacking who. Using basic internet research, along with our ability to separate fake media narrative from actual truth, we posted a citizen intelligence report entitled: Russian Hackers Found

In this article, we disclosed that Dmitri Alperovitch is the Russian DNC hacker . Yet to date, the corporate media remains silent on our report and intelligence agencies have not updated the lame report that they originally provided as evidence of Russian hacking (see PDF link below). While the Deep State operatives in the media and intelligence agencies continue to suppress vital intelligence that the American people need to make America great again , the American Intelligence Media has moved on to disclose more about Alperovitch and the Crowdstrike operations.

As we have discussed in several audios, Barack Obama's favorite cyberwarlord was Dmitri Alperovitch, whose loyalty to the United States is certainly questionable. Is it odd to you that Alperovitch, known as the best criminal Russian hacker in the world, was at one time arrested by the FBI? If James Comey is the "D.C. Fixer" for the political elite, then Dimitri Alperovitch is the "Cyber-Fixer" for the Deep State. Whether it's Russian, Korean, or Chinese "hacking" in American, it is always Dmitri who is the only expert the Deep State calls on to quickly examine the evidence and then hide or destroy it.

Also discussed at length is connection between the Ukrainian Atlantic Council to the DNC, Clintons, NATO, Evelyn Farkas, George Soros, and the globalist gangsters . The anti-Russian propaganda of NATO's Cold War machine (Atlantic Council) used Dmitri Alperovitch's Crowdstrike to disrupt the U. S. Presidential election and Ukrainian/Russian relations. Additional resources to support the audio discussion are:

Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear

.

Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart 2 The DNI Report Faked Sources

.

Ukraine Tried to Tip the Election in Clinton's Favor

.

What is CrowdStrike? Firm Hired by DNC has Ties to Hillary Clinton, a Ukrainian Billionaire and Google

.

The official Director of National Intelligence Agency report on Russian hacking (meddling) in the U. S. presidential election is hyperlinked below – thirteen pages of a big "nothing burger" that does not have a single piece of evidence. This is an embarrassing waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars. .

Note that the entire "evidence" on Russian hacking of the DNC server is one paragraph containing zero evidence.
Background to "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions
in Recent US Elections": The Analytic Process and Cyber
Incident Attribution

Another fake intelligence report claims to describe how Dmitri Alperovitch's Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear work in cyberspace. This report is another sad, expensive report that is nothing more than a disinformation piece produced and published by two U.S. intelligence agencies – the FBI and Department of Homeland Security – to propagandize Americans. What the report actually describes is well-known and freely available Ukrainian malware that is old and has nothing to do with Russia.

GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity

The report does not prove that Russia hacked the 2016 U.S. election, but it does reveal that the PHP malware sample that the government provided from the CrowdStrike report is:

Wordfence (cyber analysis company) analyzed the IP addresses available in the declassified report and demonstrated that they are in 61 countries, belong to over 380 organizations and many of those organizations are well known website hosting providers from where many attacks originate. There is nothing in the IP data that points to Russia specifically.

Furthermore, the report claims to contain technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence services to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities.

If you read this report, remember that it is propaganda, and the authors assume that you know nothing about anything and count on you "believing" multiple U.S. intelligence agencies who really work for the Deep State and not the American people.

[Nov 30, 2019] Fact-Checking the "Fact Checkers" on Ukraine by Levi Mikula

Nov 09, 2019 | mikulawire.com

The mainstream media has woken up just enough to "fact-check" all of the information coming out lately about the Democrats long history of corruption in Ukraine. The only problem is that their "fact-checks" are completely contradictory of the actual facts.

Alexandra Chalupa

We can start off with Alexandra Chalupa. I got into a lot of detail about her and her involvement with the DNC a few weeks ago. (That article, detailing exactly how she was involved with the DNC, is still available at mikulawire.com.) She has even admitted that she did in fact work with the DNC. According to Chalupa herself, "During the 2016 U.S. election, I was a part time consultant for the DNC running an ethnic engagement program." She of course denies that she was an opposition researcher and claimed that she never went to the Ukrainian embassy to collect information, but does admit to being a part time consultant.

We also have the FEC records that show that she did make $71,918 in 2016. Between her own words and the FEC records there's absolutely no denying that she did work for the DNC at least up until May of 2016. With that kind of payment I do suspect that her employment was a little more then as a "part-time consultant".

Now, absolutely everything about this would have been investigated if it was someone with ties to Donald Trump. We would have spent millions of dollars and a several year investigation trying to figure out exactly what she did for the RNC. Every liberal in the media would talk about it non-stop. When it comes to Chalupa? No investigation. No questioning. Nothing. Nothing other then immediately jumping to her defense as soon as the "far-right" started to expose her.

The Washington Post recently published an article titled "The GOP Theory That Ukraine 'Set Up' Trump". According to the Washington Post, "Chalupa may have worked with some embassy officials, but there's no evidence that the DNC used information gathered by Chalupa or that the Ukrainians coordinated opposition research with the DNC." The problem with their "fact-check"? It isn't exactly accurate.

In January 2016, Chalupa reported to the DNC that she just "had a feeling" that there was a Russian connection between Manafort and Trump. We have her to thank for starting this whole collusion claim. That same month the Obama administration held a meeting at the White House. At the meeting, President Obama instructed the Ukrainian prosecutor to look into a case involving Paul Manafort. Coincidence? Maybe but you would think it would be deserving of some questioning at least.

Chalupa continued checking in with the DNC up until at least May 2016. Each time it was the same topic: Paul Manafort. Somehow, the Washington Post is claiming that there is no evidence that the DNC used any information gathered by Chalupa, despite leaked emails confirming that Paul Manafort's name regularly came up between Chalupa and the DNC.

Prosecutor That Was Fired Because of Joe Biden

Next, we have the prosecutor that Vice President Joe Biden got fired. According to the prosecutor, he was fired because he was investigating Burisma and refused to drop the probe into Biden. He even gave a sworn testimony in front of an Ukrainian court.

The left is disputing this. They claim that there was no active investigation into Burisma at that time. According to virtually everyone in the media, that investigation was "dormant" at the time. CNN's Jake Tapper, in an interview with Congressman Jim Jordan, called the investigation dormant. CNN, the Associated Press, Business Insider, have all called the investigation "dormant". Forbes at least used a different word and called it "inactive", but basically claimed the same thing. It's almost like absolutely everyone in the main stream media is reading off of the exact same script.

This entire claimed originated with an article from Bloomberg on May 6th 2019. According to Bloomberg, "what has received less attention is that at the time Biden made his ultimatum, the probe into the company-Burisma holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky-had been long dormant, according to the former official, Vitaliy Kasko." That claim was all it took for everyone in the mainstream media to run with it. There was no investigation. No fact checking. Everyone just ran with it. It turns out, that maybe someone in the media should have fact-checked it before running with the claim.

Kasko, the Ukrainian that told this to Bloomberg, worked for Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor that Joe Biden got fired. Shokin claims that Kasko was working with Biden to undermine him, so that Kasko could get the job as prosecutor. Is it true? I don't know. But shouldn't that at least be enough to be questioned, before everyone in the media runs with the exact same story?

According to Shokin, "I finally crossed the threshold on February 2nd 2016, when we went to the courts with petitions for re-arresting the property of Burisma. I suppose that then the President received another call from Biden, blackmail by non-provision of a loan then Poroshenko (the then President of Ukraine) surrendered." Shokin also said that "we were going to interrogate Biden Jr., Archer, and so on."

The date of February 2nd 2016 is really important. February 2nd was a full month before Biden got Shokin fired. If true, Shokin's claim proves that there was an active investigation into Burisma and that Joe Biden's son, was going to be called in for questioning next. That sounds like something that should deserve at least some questioning. It doesn't look suspicious that Biden gets the Prosecutor fired just before the prosecutor was about to bring his son in for questioning?

According to Ukrainian news sources there was an active investigation into Burisma and that the courts were seizing property. According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the court "satisfied the petition to seize the property of Mykola Zlochevsky" on .February 2nd 2016, the exact same date that Shokin claimed.

New Prosecutor Issues Retraction After Siding With Prosecutor Biden Got Fired

Then the Washington Post attempted to smear John Soloman, who is one of the very few guys that actually does any reporting nowadays. According to the Washington Post, "John Soloman foisted a bogus story on Fox News viewers. His punishment? A contact." In March, John Soloman reported that a "top Ukrainian justice official says US ambassador gave him a do not prosecute list." The claim is that the prosecutor was being told by the US ambassador who he could and could not investigate.

After Biden got Shokin fired, Biden bragged that we finally have a good guy in there, referring to Shokin's replacement, Yuriy Lutsenko. Lutsenko (the good guy) claimed that Shokin (the bad guy) was corrupt, even though a single specific claim was never brought up against Shokin. The problem now is that the good guy was saying the same thing that the bad guy was saying before he was fired. The good guy was now also being told not to investigate the head of Burisma among other things, including Biden's son.

If we had real journalists, the fact that the new prosecutor was saying the exact same thing that the old prosecutor was saying, should have been investigated. Instead of actually investigating, the media started making things up like they always do. They started making the claim that Lutsenko retracted his claim. The only problem is that there is no evidence of him retracting his statement.

The source of this claim appears to have started in an article from UNIAN, which is a Ukrainian site. The headline read "Ukraine Prosecutor General Lutsenko admits U.S. ambassador didn't give him a do not prosecute list". They were referencing an interview that Lutsenko gave to another Ukrainian news site where he gave this "retraction". Lutsenko claimed that he "took a piece of paper, recorded the surnames and said: 'Dictate a list of inviolable persons; She says: 'No you misunderstood me.' I say: such lists were written (in the presidential administration) on Bankova, and you offer new lists from Tankova (the U.S. Embassy)'. The meeting is over. I'm afraid the emotions were not very good." So his "retraction" was clarifying that he wasn't "handed" a list, but that the list was spoken to him, and then he wrote it down.

That's seems like something that should be important enough to report. Everyone who reads articles from the Washington Post and other sites are left to think that Lutsenko gave a retraction and that he isn't a credible witness when no retraction was actually given. I would say this is unbelievable but sadly I expect these kinds of games coming from the main stream media.

Finally we have Lev Leshchenko who told the Financial Times back in August 2016, three months before the election, that he was attacking Trump because "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy He is a pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." This guy was working with the head of the Anti-corruption bureau of Ukraine, that our government insisted they set up with NGO's. They released the dirt on Paul Manafort and then started bragging about it to the press.

The Ukrainian court convicted Leshchenko for 1. Interfering in the 2016 election. 2. Illegally interfering in Ukraine's foreign policy. What Leshchenko was convicted for in Ukraine, the left is accusing Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani of the exact same thing. It seems to be a common pattern among people who have something to hide. Usually if someone accuses you of something, chances are they are themselves are guilty of the exact same thing.

Whenever "news" organizations such as the Washington Post mention this story, they usually make a claim such as "In July, the ruling was overturned by an appeals court". So that means that Leshchenko is not guilty? Not exactly.

According to an Ukrainian News headline: "Appeals Court: Sytnyk and MP Leshchenko Did Not Act Illegally By Disclosing That Manafort's Name Is In Party of Regions' 'Black Ledger'." The problem with that headline is that they were quoting what was said by the guy that was just convicted. They never cared to report why the case was dismissed. The Washington Post then allowed Leschchenko to write an article, debunking Rudy Giuliani's claims. That's what counts as journalism now?

The comical thing is that Leschenko is on tape admitting that he was trying to influence the election .and yet somehow he isn't guilty of interfering with the election?

It turns out that he is still guilty of both charges, but the media won't tell you that. The case was thrown out, not because the charges were dismissed, but because of a technicality. The defense cited 3 reasons why this case was thrown out. 1. The person that made the charges had no right to file the lawsuit because his interests had not been affected. 2. The administrative courts cannot consider lawsuits against Ukrainian members of parliament. 3. The statute of limitations had expired. Innocent? No. Absolutely nothing was disputed.

A majority of those in the mainstream media aren't just clueless but are intentionally lying and trying to manipulate us. They intentionally ignore key details so that they can twist every story into something that fits their agenda. It's up to us to stop falling for their games. Its up to us to stop taking everything they say as gospel and actually start to do the research for ourselves. That is the only way that we can save our Republic. Democracy and Republics really do die in darkness and ours is on the life support.

[Nov 30, 2019] PropOrNot Unmasked ... by George Washington

Notable quotes:
"... Preface by Washington's Blog: A leading cybersecurity expert has publicly said that Mr. Eliason's research as presented in this article does not violate the law. Washington's Blog does not express an opinion about whether or not the claims set forth in this article are accurate or not. Make up your own mind. ..."
"... StopFake- Irena Chalupa- Chalupa is the sister to the same Alexandra Chalupa that brought the term Russian hacking to worldwide attention. Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel Stopfake.org She is a Ukrainian Diaspora leader. The Chalupa's are the 1st family of Ukrainian propaganda. She works with and for Ukrainian Intelligence through the Atlantic Council, Stopfake, and her sisters Andrea (Euromaidanpr) and Alexandra. ..."
Jan 25, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

Originally By George Eliason, an American journalist living in Ukraine.

Preface by Washington's Blog: A leading cybersecurity expert has publicly said that Mr. Eliason's research as presented in this article does not violate the law. Washington's Blog does not express an opinion about whether or not the claims set forth in this article are accurate or not. Make up your own mind.

Note: If any images are hard to see, you can look here . (I'm not sure why, but these images are a tad fuzzier at ZH.)

A little over a year ago, the deep-state graced the world with Propornot . Thanks to them, 2017 became the year of fake news. Every news website and opinion column now had the potential to be linked to the Steele dossier and Trump collusion with Russia. Every journalist was either with us or against us. Every one that was against us became Russia's trolls.

Fortunately for the free world, the anonymous group known as Propornot that tried to "out" every website as a potential Russian colluder, in the end only implicated themselves.

Turnabout is fair play and that's always the fun part, isn't it? With that in mind, I know the dogs are going to howl this evening over this one.

The damage Propornot did to scores of news and opinions websites in late 2016-2017provides the basis of a massive civil suit. I mean huge, as in the potential is there for a tobacco company sized class-action sized lawsuit. I can say that because I know a lot about a number of entities that are involved and the enormous amount of money behind them. How serious is this?

In 2016, a $10,000 reward was put out for the identities of Propornot players. No one has claimed it yet, and now, I guess no one will. There are times in your life that taking a stand has a cost. To make sure the story gets out and is taken seriously, this is one of those times.

If that's what it takes for you to understand the danger Propornot and the groups around them pose to everyone you love, if you understand it, everything will have been well worth it.

In this article, you'll meet some of the people staffing Propornot. You'll meet the people and publications that provide their expenses and cover the logistics. You'll meet a few of the deep state players. We'll deal with them very soon. They need to see this as the warning shot over the bow and start playing nice with regular people. After that, you'll meet the NGO's that are funding and orchestrating all of it. How am I doing so far?

( Larger image )

The image that you see is the clincher or game winner that supplies the necessary proof up front and the direct path to Propornot. This was a passive scan of propornot.com showing the administrative dashboard belongs to the InterpreterMag.com as shown on the left of the image. On the right, it shows that uploads to Propornot.com come from InterpreterMag.com and is a product of that publication.

Now we have the first layer of Propornot, fake news, and our 1st four contestants. We havea slew of new media organizations that are influenced by, or feeding Propornot. Remember, fake news got off the ground and got its wings because of the attention this website received from the Washington Post in Dec. 2016.

At the Interpreter Mag level, here are the people:

With the lengthy CNN cred's, how much involvement does CNN have in fake news? Yes, I know, but we're talking about Propornot.

The Interpreter is a product of the Atlantic Council. The Digital Forensics Research Lab has been carrying the weight in Ukrainian-Russian affairs for the Atlantic Council. Fellows working with the Atlantic Council in this area include:

The strand that ties this crew together is they all work for Ukrainian Intelligence. If you hit the links, the ties are documented very clearly. We'll get to that point again shortly, but let's go further:

Propornot-> Atlantic Council -> Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)

Who are the BBG? According to Wikipedia- "The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is an independent agency of the United States government. According to its website, its mission is to "inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. The BBG supervised Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Television Marti, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcast Networks.

The board of the BBG was eliminated and replaced with a single appointed chief executive officer as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which was passed in December 2016."

[Nov 30, 2019] Who is Alexandra Chalupa by Levi Mikula

Oct 30, 2019 | mikulawire.com

In 2015, just a few months after Donald Trump launched his campaign for President, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hired Alexandria Chalupa to do opposition research on Donald Trump. So who is she? If you read my article from 2 weeks ago, she was the one that said she just "had a feeling" that Trump was somehow connected to Russia.

Chalupa's work didn't just start in 2015. While in college, she interned at the Clinton White House in 1998. Her career as a Democratic operative started in 2002. From 2003-2004. She worked as the Online Constituency Outreach Director for John Kerry's Presidential Campaign.

This is kind of weird because John Kerry's son is involved with Joe Biden's son in Burisma which is the energy company in Ukraine. It was John Kerry's son that was there before Joe Biden's son.

In 2004-2005, she was Executive Director for Democrats Abroad, a DNC organization that mobilizes Democrats living outside of the United States. From 2006-2011, she worked for the DNC. From 2013 to 2016, she was working for the DNC's National Ethnic Council and as a side gig to that, she was also trafficking Ukrainian dirt on Donald Trump.

According to FEC records, the DNC paid her $412,000 between 2004 and 2016. She was also paid separate unknown amounts by Democrats Abroad.

The official story from the DNC is that she left in July 2016. Her claim is that she left in July 2016, but she continued doing her own research on Manafort and that she occasionally shared her findings with the DNC and the Clinton Campaign. The Clinton campaign claims that they never received any information from Chalupa.

According to Chalupa, "I was a part time consultant for the DNC running an ethnic engagement program. I was not an opposition researcher for the DNC and the DNC never asked me to go to the Ukrainian embassy to collect information." Official records show that she was paid $71,918 just in 2016 for what she claims was just a part time job. Even if she wasn't technically a "opposition researcher" she was doing her own investigation into Donald Trump and sharing information with both the Clinton campaign and the DNC, while on the DNC's payroll.

According to Politico, Alexandra Chalupa has "a network of people in Kiev and Washington -- including Ukrainian government officials -- who would pass her information that she would then float as potential research to DNC staffers." Keep in mind that it's not "right-wing" organizations such as Fox news who are making those claims. That claim came from Politico, which is a site that does lean to the left. Chalupa called Politico's story was "nonsense". According to another source, Chalupa "informally" told committee staffers last year that "Ukrainian officials had become concerned about Trump's campaign and his ties to Russia and suggested having the DNC work with the Ukrainian embassy to bring some damning information to light." That claim was reported by CNN, another news network that isn't known to be "far-right."

Alexandria Chalupa could try to act like she's innocent in all of this but it isn't going to work. Not only is she involved in the Democrats corruption in Ukraine and spreading false information about Donald Trump, but so are her two sisters. All three have a long pattern of corruption and trying to cause chaos in Ukraine.

Chalupa's one sister, Andrea, funded something called "DigitalMaidan". Digital Maidan was created to support the removal of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Maidan refers to the name of Independence Square in Kiev. Digital Maidan organized tweet storms to flood twitter with anti-Yanukovych messages. Maidan also did tweet storms aimed at Donald Trump such as #TreasonousTrump, just a few weeks before the 2016 election.

Her other sister, Irene, is also very active in Ukrainian affairs. She has been a journalist in Kiev, and was a long time editor at the "Atlantic Council". Irene was the contributor to a bi-weekly report called "Ukraine Alerts". A senior fellow at the same think tank, Dmitri Aperovitch, was coincidentally also the CEO of Crowdstrike. If that sounds familiar, Crowdstrike was the security firm that the DNC hired to investigate the 2016 hacks, on the DNC. Crowdstrike was also brought up by Donald Trump with his call with the Ukrainian President.

The Atlantic Council receives funding from a Russian Oligarch, named Victor Pinchuck. Pinchuck was a former member of the Ukrainian parliament and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council. Pinchuck is also one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation. Hmmm. In 2013, the Atlantic Council awarded Hillary Clinton with a "Distinguished National Leadership" award.

Irena now works for an organization called "StopFake.org". This is a site that was going to "verify and refute disinformation and propaganda about events in Ukraine." Now they expanded to "fact check, de-bunk, edit, translate, research and disseminate information in 11 languages."

"StopFake.org" receives money from the International Renaissance Foundation which was an organization being investigated by the Prosecutor General. This was the guy that Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian President to fire. Oh, and no Democratic corruption scandal is complete without George Soros. Soros funds the International Renassiance Foundation, along with what seems like absolutely everything else that the left is involved.

So Alexandra Chalupa and her two sisters were all involved in Ukraine and all three were on a mission to stop Donald Trump.

Chalupa, who claims she did nothing wrong, hired Michael Avenatti to represent her. Avenatti tweeted that he was "now representing Alexandra Chalupa in connection with investigating pursing possible legal claims against Manafort, Trump and other affiliated individuals. She was targeted with baseless, bogus, allegations, all designed to distract away from Trump's Russian collusion." When Chalupa was challenged for hiring Michael Avenatti to represent her, she responded with "He's a friend and someone I trust. He's also a fighter and on the right side of history. He's already made a big impact, and now we're about to take it up a notch." Michael Avenatti is the guy who was arrested for stealing $300,000 from Stormy Daniels after using every opportunity to make sure he was seen in front of the camera attacking Donald Trump.

A few weeks after Donald Trump's shocking win, Chalupa wrote an article for the online blog publishing platform, Medium, in which she described what she believed to be was Russia's motivation for hacking the DNC during the 2016 election. "Russia's economy has also suffered due to its reliance on oil and the drop in oil prices. Trump's appointment of an exxon-mobil executive as Secretary of State shows an alignment of Russian and Trump administration interests that is Kleptocratic."

Within a few days of posting this article, she met with 2 men. One of the men were now working with Democrats Abroad, which was the same organization that Chalupa worked for just a few years ago. He was put in touch with Chalupa because he had information that could help her in her investigation into Donald Trump and his connections with Russia.

The other man was a guy who spent 17 years in federal prison for drug conspiracy, impersonating a federal officer and setting off a series of homemade bombs in Indiana in 1978.

These two men met with Chalupa to discuss Russian hacking in the 2016 election. Chalpua paid $9,000 for documents that supposedly linked Exxon mobil, Rex Tillerson and Donald Trump to Russia's hacking on the DNC. Buzzfeed investigated the documents and ran a story titled "How Donald Trump's Enemies Fell For A Billion-Dollar Hoax", in which they debunked the documents and proved they were forged. One of the myths that were debunked was that Rex Tillerson paid the Trump organization $1.4 billion in June 2016, so that he could secure the Secretary of State position. I mean was that something that really needed to be investigated? A claim that Tillerson paid $1.4 billion to Trump so that Trump would hire him for a position making $200,000 per year?

We can thank Alexandra Chalupa for starting this whole collusion delusion nonsense. After over 2 years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent of your money, and they still can't prove that Donald Trump colluded with Russia. Maybe it's time now to investigate Chalupa and those who were responsible for pushing the collusion delusion. There is far more evidence of the corruption in the DNC, then there is today after spending hundreds of millions of dollars looking into Russia. It's time that we hold the DNC accountable and actually investigate them. Everything they accused Donald Trump of doing with Russia, they were doing with Ukraine and it's time we investigate them.
Posted in The Mikula Report Tagged # DNC # Ukraine <img src="https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4c41be0c99f13e0b390701061c93f515?s=96&d=mm&r=g"> Levi Mikula http://mikulawire.com Next Post

Questions That Need to be Asked By Both Sides, Regarding Russia and Ukraine Mon Nov 4 , 2019 There are some questions that each one of us should ask ourselves, regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum. There are times when we need to put aside our differences and put the national interest of the country above what is in the best interest for our political party. There are some questions that both sides should be able to come together on and answer the same way, regardless of who you voted for in the last election and regardless of whether you agree with Donald Trump on anything or not. Should we investigate whether Russia did try to influence the election? Yes! We should! We have solid proof that Russia did try to influence the 2016 election. That shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. We knew that Russia was interested in trying to influence U.S. elections, going back to 2012. Remember when Mitt Romney warned about Russia and was mocked for it? "The 1980's called and they want their foreign policy back" we were told by Barack Obama. Now suddenly the left is concerned with Russia and the right automatically dismisses any talk of Russia trying to influence U.S. elections. Sadly, both sides seem more concerned with party politics then our national security. Not only did Russia try to influence the 2016 election, but they will try it again in 2020 and beyond. This is an issue where both sides should be able to come together, to discuss ways to prevent a foreign power, any foreign power, from interfering with our elections again. Sadly, that doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon, even though that is what we should be focusing on. 2. Should we find out if Donald Trump colluded with Russia to hurt the Democrat candidate? Yes, we should! If Trump did in fact knowingly collude with Russia, he should be impeached and then removed from office. But we can't just remove a President based on accusations from the other side. We need to find the solid evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, before we remove him from office. We have yet to find that concrete evidence, even after an investigation that lasted over two years, and tens of millions of dollars spent. If that concrete evidence were to be discovered, every American should absolutely support removing Donald Trump. 3. Does the fact that the DNC will benefit by a Russia investigation mean we shouldn't pursue the investigation? No! We should absolutely still pursue the investigation, regardless of what it means for the 2020 election. National interest should come before party interests. There is no denying that any talk of Russia will hurt Donald Trump. There is no denying that the media will try to spin absolutely everything into their favor, regardless of what the facts show. But, this is a serious issue involving national security that we need to get to the bottom of. Like I said earlier, if we can prove that Donald Trump did in fact collude with Russia, he should be removed from office. If Russia did in fact try to influence the U.S. election, which in fact they did, they need to be dealt with. Both sides need to be willing to accept what ever the investigations show. If Trump knowingly colluded with Russia, he should absolutely be removed. If there is no evidence of him knowingly colluding with Russia, then the left needs to accept that and move on. But we can't lose site the danger that Russia poses to our country. That is an issue that neither side wants to pay any attention to. This is much bigger then anything Donald Trump may or may not have done. 4. Would Trump benefit from investigations in Ukraine and Burisma? Would he benefit any more then the DNC would benefit with Russia? Yes, Trump would benefit from investigations into Ukraine and Burisma. Does that mean that it's not the right thing for the country? No. The truth is important no matter which side it hurts in the next election. The left should be just as interested in learning the facts about what had happened in Ukraine as they are trying to make it seem like they are with the Russia investigations. Would it benefit him more then it would benefit the DNC though, then it does with the Democrats investigating Russia? No. Unlike the Democrats, Trump doesn't have a majority of the media on his side. A media who tries to spin absolutely every little rumor into a major crisis, that they are sure will take down the President this time. The left is quick to dismiss any talk of Ukraine just like the right is quick to dismiss any talk of Russia. If either, or both, are true, it is a very severe threat to our Republic and needs to be dealt with. 5. Which is more in line with America's national interest? a) Withhold U.S. aid money ($400 billion) until recipient investigates: What happened to $7 billion in U.S aid? Was there any collusion to influence the U.S. election, government corruption involving the State Department, U.S. intelligence, NGO's, U.S. candidates, etc. OR b) A President or Vice President withholding U.S. aid ($1 billion) unless recipient STOPS investigations. The answer to this question is really easy. We should absolutely investigate where the $7 billion went. We need to figure out if there was any influence in the US election. We should investigate Vice President Joe Biden calling for the ambassador to be fired. We know for a fact that there was collusion between the DNC and the Ukraine embassy in D.C., so why is it that nobody cares about that collusion? Why is it a big deal that Trump supposedly withheld aid from Ukraine until they investigated Joe Biden, but no one seems to have a problem with Joe Biden withholding aid to force Ukraine to fire the Ukranian prosecutor so that an investigation would be stopped? That wasn't an impeachable offense, but Donald Trump's phone call with the Ukranian President was? What has Trump done that is any worse then anything the Obama administration did? These 5 questions should be questions that both sides should be able to come together on but sadly both sides are more concerned with party politics, more then they are concerned about the security of our republic. Claiming that Russia is a treat doesn't automatically mean that you believe Trump is an illegitimate President and that he colluded with Russia. Claiming that Ukraine needs to be investigated doesn't mean that you are excusing anything that Donald Trump has done. It simply means that you are more concerned with the national security of our country then you are with party politics. <img width="640" height="360" src="https://mikulawire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Trump-and-Biden-1024x576.jpg" alt="" /> You May Like Follow Subscribe to The Mikula Wire 2019 MikulaWire.com All Rights Reserved. <style>.lazyload{display:none;}</style>

[Nov 30, 2019] Victoria Nuland, Alexandra Chalupa, Ukrainian Ties the Steele Dossier by Jeff Carlson

Notable quotes:
"... Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been another. ..."
"... Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well. ..."
Mar 09, 2018 | themarketswork.com
On February 4, 2018, Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama Administration went on Face the Nation and made the following comment :

During the Ukraine crisis in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them. Chris had a friend [Jonathan Winer] at the State Department and he offered us that reporting free so that we could also benefit from it. It was one of, you know, hundreds of sources that we were using to try to understand what was going on.

Then, in the middle of July, when he was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate.

Nuland said the State Department received the Dossier directly from Steele in mid-July 2016, whereupon the State Department turned it over to the FBI (segmented video here ).

Which is right around the time Susan Rice began showing increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material – including "unmasked" Americans' identities. From a Circa article :

Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice's interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans' identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump's election in November launched a transition that continued through January.

Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been another.

The New York Times had earlier reported that the FBI received the Steele Dossier directly from Christopher Steele on July 5, 2016 – the same day as Comey's infamous exoneration of Hillary Clinton during a news conference:

The reports came from a former British intelligence agent named Christopher Steele, who was working as a private investigator hired by a firm working for a Trump opponent. He provided the documents to an F.B.I. contact in Europe on the same day as Mr. Comey's news conference about Mrs. Clinton. It took weeks for this information to land with Mr. Strzok and his team.

This claim was recently repeated in a lengthy article in the New Yorker . In this version, the Steele Dossier was given to the FBI on July 5, 2016. By ~July 20, 2016, Comey had seen it and Strzok had the Dossier in his possession.

There is a third version of events, provided by Jonathan Winer in a Washington Post Op-Ed :

In 2009, I met and became friends with Steele, after he retired from British government service focusing on Russia. Steele was providing business intelligence on the same kinds of issues I worked on at the time. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it.

I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful.

In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state [John Kerry] needed to be made aware of this material.

In this third version, Nuland and the State Department received the Dossier in September 2016.

Nuland made her comments on February 4, 2018. Winer wrote his Op-Ed on February 8, 2018.

Winer has known Steele since 2009. Nuland has known Steele since 2014 – during the Ukraine crisis.

Victoria Nuland is famous for an interesting conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt on or before February 4, 2014 (transcript here ):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WV9J6sxCs5k?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

During the call, which was intercepted and leaked, the two appear to be discussing replacing Ukrainian President Yanukovych with opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Some excerpts:

PYATT: I think we're in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here.

NULAND: Good. I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a good idea.

PYATT: Yeah. I guess in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together.

NULAND: I think Yats [opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside.

PYATT: The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.

NULAND: Sullivan's come back to me VFR, saying you need [Vice President] Biden and I said probably tomorrow. So Biden's willing.

Here's what actually happened:

On or before February 4 2014 – Call between Pyatt and Nuland.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

That Ukrainian-American was DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.

Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee.

The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

Some actions taken by Chalupa (sources from Politico article unless otherwise linked):

January 3 2014 – Leaders representing more than a dozen Ukrainian-American organizations, including the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, met at the White House with President Obama's senior national security staff to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.

The non-partisan meeting held on January 3 was initiated by the co-chairs of Ukrainian-Americans for Obama, Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky and Ulana Mazurkevich, as well Alexandra Chalupa , co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee.

This was approximately one month prior to Nuland's call with Pyatt regarding the installation of Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister of Ukraine.

2014 (undetermined) -Chalupa begins to investigate Paul Manafort.

Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.

Late 2015 – Chalupa expands her opposition research into Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia.

Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well.

She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign

January 2016 – Chalupa informs a senior DNC official that she feels there is a Russia connection with the Trump Campaign.

Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, "I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. "And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was "Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."

March 25 2016 – Chalupa shared her concerns with the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.

She said she shared her concern with Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn't particularly concerned about the operative's ties to Trump.

March 29 2016 – Chalupa briefs DNC Communication staff.

The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation.

A former DNC staffer and the operative familiar with the situation agreed that with the DNC's encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort's ties to Yanukovych.

While the embassy declined that request, officials there became "helpful" in Chalupa's efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them.

Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions.

April 4 – April 12 2016 – Ukrainian Parliamentarian Olga Bielkov has four meetings – with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Dept) and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

Doug Schoen files FARA documents that show he was paid $40,000 a month by Ukrainian Billionaire Victor Pinchuk (page 5) to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempts to arrange another 72 meetings with Congressmen and media (page 10). It is unknown how many meetings took place.

April 6 2016 – Chalupa holds a meeting with an assistant of Representative Marcy Kaptur.

Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort's hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.

April 26 2016 – Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff publishes story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

April 28 2016 – Chalupa appears on a panel to discuss her research on Manafort with a group of 68 Ukrainian investigative journalists gathered at the Library of Congress for a program sponsored by a U.S. congressional agency called the Open World Leadership Center.

From a Wikileaks email sent by Chalupa to Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC:

I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress – the Open World Society's forum – they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians.

Two points.

Open World is a supposedly non-partisan Congressional agency.

Michael Isikoff is the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016:

The Carter Page FISA application extensively cited a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow. This information was used to corroborate the Steele Dossier.

Steele leaked to Isikoff who wrote the article for Yahoo News. The Isikoff article was then used to help obtain a Title I FISA grant to gather information on Page. This search was then leaked by Steele to David Corn at Mother Jones.

Isikoff accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event.

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May 3 2016 – Chalupa emails Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC (same email referenced above).

A lot more coming down the pipe More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of.

Late July 2016 – Chalupa leaves the DNC to work full-time on her research into Manafort.

Chalupa left the DNC after the Democratic convention in late July to focus full-time on her research into Manafort, Trump and Russia . She said she provided off-the-record information and guidance to "a lot of journalists" working on stories related to Manafort and Trump's Russia connections.

August 4 2016 – Ukrainian ambassador to U.S. writes op-ed against Trump.

August 15 2016 – CNN reports that Manafort is named in a Ukrainian probe over potentially illegal payments received from Ukraine's pro-Russian ruling party.

August 19 2016 – CNN reports the FBI is conducting an inquiry into Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort's payments from pro-Russia interests in Ukraine in 2007 and 2009.

August 19 2016 – Ukrainian parliament member Sergii Leshchenko holds news conference to draw attention to Paul Manafort and Trump's "pro-Russia" ties.

September 19 2016 – At UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Ukrainian President Poroshenko meets with Hillary Clinton.

November 28 2016 – McCain associate David Kramer flies to London to meet Christopher Steele for a briefing on the Dossier. Upon Kramer's return, Fusion GPS provided McCain with a copy of the Dossier.

July 24 2017 – Senator Charles Grassley sends a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein regarding the actions taken by Chalupa.

According to news reports, during the 2016 presidential election, "Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump" and did so by "disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter.

At the center of this plan was Alexandra Chalupa, described by reports as a Ukrainian-American operative "who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee" and reportedly met with Ukrainian officials during the presidential election for the express purpose of exposing alleged ties between then-candidate Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia.

Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a foreign government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to influence not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials.

Aside from the apparent evidence of collusion between the DNC, Clinton campaign, and Ukrainian government, Chalupa's actions implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Chalupa reportedly worked directly with Ukrainian government officials to benefit Ukraine, lobbying Congress on behalf of Ukraine, and worked to undermine the Trump campaign on behalf of Ukraine and the Clinton campaign.

The January 4, 2018 Grassley Memo – made public on February 6, 2018, made clear that both the State Department and the Clinton Campaign directly contributed information used by Steele in the formation of his Dossier.

I'm curious if Chalupa met directly with Christopher Steele. It's clear her research was funneled by the DNC to Steele's Dossier.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland must have known about all of this. People above her had to know as well.

On March 6, 2018, Sara Carter reported that the House Intelligence Committee is now investigating former Secretary of State John Kerry:

The House Select Committee on Intelligence is now investigating former Secretary of State John F. Kerry's possible role into the unverified dossier paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton Campaign.

The climb up the Obama Administration hierarchy appears to have finally begun.

newer post Victor Pinchuk, the Clintons & Endless Connections

older post Tariffs as a Tool Towards Broader Free Trade

[Nov 30, 2019] Ukraine: The Democrats Russia by Levi Mikula

Nov 30, 2019 | mikulawire.com

For the past three years, we have heard nonstop that Donald Trump colluded with Russia and needs to be impeached. After nearly three years, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was against impeachment the whole time we were waiting for the Mueller Report, has suddenly, instantly, changed her position and has now opened an impeachment inquiry. Why? Why the sudden change? After millions of dollars and a two year investigation, she was still against impeachment over Russia, but when it comes to Ukraine, without any of the facts coming out, before the transcript of the phone call was even released, and before she even talked to the whistle blower, she suddenly changed her mind on impeachment?

This sudden change over what amounts to an office rumor, actually makes a lot of sense now. The Democrats desperately need to control the narrative. Everything they accused Trump of with Russia, they were doing with Ukraine, and it could bring down the entire Democrat Party. What Joe and Hunter Biden did really only scratches the surface of a much larger and more corrupt party.

It's possible something else will come out that implicates Trump, but all of the facts right now are pointing to the Democrats and a very long pattern of corruption when it comes to Ukraine.

That should be enough to show you that something doesn't seem right. But that's just the Biden story. That just scratches the surface of corruption between the Democrats and Ukraine and no one in the media wants to talk about it. All everyone wants to talk about is what is really like the front and back cover of a novel. The media seems obsessed with the back cover (Trump's phone call with the President of Ukraine) and care a little about the front cover (Joe and Hunter Biden) but that's about it. What I'm going to explain now is some of what's between those two covers.

Now because of this poor, very corrupt country, Ukraine, President Obama decided to give a massive aid package in May 2014. That aid package included:

After that aid package was given, because they are so corrupt, the United States demanded that Ukraine start a National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. A man named Artem Sytnky is tapped to be the first director of this bureau. Since he is now the director, he has a direct line to President Obama. Back to them in a minute.

The director of Burisma, Ihor Kolomoyski, is so corrupt that he isn't even allowed into the United States. Lucky for him, he owns a bank in Ukraine though. And because the United States was giving $1.8 billion to Ukraine, we needed a bank to deposit the money. So where do we deposit the money? Into PrivatBank, which is owned by Ihor, who just happens to run Burisma.

Now I'm sure that it's just a coincidence that that $1.8 billion in PrivatBank goes missing. I mean it's not like a corrupt oligarch would ever consider stealing $1.8 billion or anything. It also must be a coincidence, that this guy who is so corrupt that he couldn't even come into the United States, is just happened to be given a Visa at the same time that we deposited $1.8 billion into his bank.

By late 2015, we had become Ukraine's piggy bank. Not only are we giving them money but we are also helping them with advisors. Advisors such as:

In June 2015, Donald Trump announces that he is running for President.

In late 2015, the DNC hires Alexandria Chalupa, who is a daughter of an Ukranian immigrant, to do opposition research on Donald Trump. Opensecrets.org has confirmed that she did in fact work for, and was paid $71,918 by the DNC. That was just for her work with the 2016 election, although she's been working with the DNC since 2004.

In January 2016, Chalupa starts to investigate Donald Trump. She approaches an official in the DNC because she "feels like there was a Russia connection." Oh really? She felt like Trump was connected with Russia, before any evidence or allegations? Paul Manafort wasn't working for the campaign at this time. There was no Steele Dossier at this time. George Papadopoulos wasn't on the campaign yet. There was no fISA requests. But somehow she just "felt" that Trump was connected to Russia?

She starts her investigation, focusing on Paul Manafort. Manafort, who I will admit is an extremely corrupt guy, was trying to get the exited President back into power. Now her investigation was only focused on trying to dig up dirt on Manafort. She didn't seem concerned with Tad Devine and Tony Podesta also working on the same thing, with Paul Manafort.

That same month, that Chalupa just had "a feeling" that there was a connection with Trump and Russia, the Obama White House summoned the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. The Obama administration said that we need to begin cooperation with Ukraine. The meeting immediately turned to two main issues: 1) The scandal involving Joe and Hunter Biden. 2) A case tied to Paul Manafort. Obviously, they decided to investigate the case tied to Paul Manafort and was pressured to ignore the scandal involving the Biden's and to not investigate where that $1.8 billion went. You would think we should be more concerned about $1.8 billion in taxpayers money just disappearing.

After the meeting, a prosecutor with the anti-corruption board, who was investigating the Biden's involvement, was fired. This investigator who never had any problems with the Obama administration before was now fired because, according to him, "I was leading a wide ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings ("Burisma") a natural gas firm active in Ukraine, and Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors. I assume Burisma, which was connected with gas extraction, had the support of Vice-President Joe Biden because his son was on the board of Directors."

Following this meeting, The Hill ran a story titled: "How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia Collusion narrative in an early boost." According to the article, the deputy head of the anti-corruption organization claimed that "there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the party of the regions case." Regarding the Manafort case, "there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public." What is this ledger that was mentioned? Back to that in a minute.

In March 2016, out of nowhere, Paul Manafort joins the Trump team. This is definitely exciting news for the Democrats considering they had been setting Manafort up for months. Shortly after that, Chalupa starts working directly with the Ukranian embassy in the United States and starts raising alarm bells on Manafort. According to Chalupa's own words, the embassy "worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort, and Russia to point them in the right directions."

So the Ukranian embassy in the United States worked directly with a DNC operative, to damage the Republican candidate for President, to influence the election. Doesn't that sound exactly like what they accused Trump of doing with Russia?

Remember that Anti-corruption bureau in Ukraine? In June 2016, the FBI decided that they were doing such a good job that the two groups should partner together. Now they could share any information that they couldn't have shared before. It's a lot like the wall that was between the CIA and FBI before 9-11. The two groups couldn't share information with each other, but when that wall was torn down, they were free to share anything they wanted.

So what was the ledger that was discussed in the meeting at the White House? This ledger was released by Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau on Paul Manafort. The black ledger refers to financial records that were kept by the former Ukranian President. Within days of this coming out and Paul Manafort going to jail, Tony Podesta, who was doing the same thing as Manafort, with the exact same people, just decides to suddenly close his political lobbying firm. This is one of the biggest lobbying firms in the United States, and he just suddenly decides to close up shop and retire without any warning. You would think that that would be something that should be investigated, considering it was right after Paul Manafort was arrested.

In June 2017, White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, accused the DNC of colluding with Ukraine and even quoted a New York Times article. If we had anyone in the media who did their jobs, that claim would have been investigated immediately. That is a very serious allegation that was completely ignored by the media. Had I been in the White House press pool, that would be my very first question. I would be demanding an explanation.

I do have to give the New York Times some credit. Despite being a leftist paper, they do occasionally get some things right and when they really want to, they know how to act like journalists.

The media in the United States seems to have forgotten to talk about the two men in Ukraine being arrested because they tried to influence the US election. Seems like kind of a big story that I would have liked to read about. They were found guilty and very interesting evidence was released. The Ukranian prosecutor gave an interview with the Ukranian media where he claims that "I don't know how, but the Americans got an audio recording of Mr. Sytnik's (the head of the corruption bureau in Ukraine) conversation: He is resting with his family and friends and discussing how he would like to help Hillary."

This audio that was released has been reported by Ukranian papers for months, yet somehow the media in the U.S. didn't find it to be a big deal? The audio proved that Ukrainians are in fact guilty of trying to interfere with the 2016 election.

In April 2019, the Mueller Report is released and proves absolutely nothing of what the Democrats have been accusing Trump off for over two years.

11 days after the Mueller Report is released, a new Ukranian President is sworn in. This is a guy who did not do any interviews and didn't explain any of his policies and ended up winning the election. The comedian in the race ended up winning and becoming the Ukranian President.

This new President thinks that everything that is currently happening in Ukraine is insane and that the whole country is corrupt, including his own ambassador. He decides to recall the Ukranian ambassador, not long after Donald Trump also fired his ambassador. That means the pipeline is now clear after corrupt ambassadors for both the Ukraine and the United States are out of the way. That's what led to the phone call between the two Presidents.

Everything I have written here can easily be proven because of documents and audio recordings that have been released. But let's forget all of that. No, the phone call between the two Presidents is what the media thinks is the only important part of this story. They'll throw the Biden's under the bus too since they don't really care about Biden. The solid evidence that Ukranian officials tried to influence the 2016 election apparently isn't news worthy enough.

Sadly, this still only scratches the surface. This is just some of what has been proven so far. You would think that it would be important for someone to actually look into, but the media is too busy focusing on a phone call to actually report any of the facts.

For the past three years, we have been hearing nonstop that Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and yet have heard absolutely nothing about what the Democrats were doing in Ukraine. The Ukranian embassy in the United States worked directly with the DNC to get dirt on a candidate for President and influence the 2016 election, and no one is talking about it.

There is absolutely no reason to push impeachment a year before an election unless you need to change the narrative, and that is exactly what they are trying to do, and what they desperately need to do. The DNC is slowly being exposed and they are terrified that their dirty secrets could take down the entire party. It's up to us to hold them accountable for their corruption.
Posted in The Mikula Report Tagged # Ukraine

[Nov 30, 2019] Chalupa reportedly acknowledged in her 2017 interview with Politico that she worked as a consultant for the DNC during the 2016 campaign with the goal of publicly exposing Trump campaign aide Paul Manafort's links to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Chalupa admitted coordinating with the Ukrainian Embassy, and with Ukrainian and U.S. news reporters.

Nov 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

LEEPERMAX , 51 minutes ago link

Chalupa reportedly acknowledged in her 2017 interview with Politico that she worked as a consultant for the DNC during the 2016 campaign with the goal of publicly exposing Trump campaign aide Paul Manafort 's links to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Chalupa admitted coordinating with the Ukrainian Embassy, and with Ukrainian and U.S. news reporters.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/timeline-of-alleged-ukrainian-democrat-meddling-in-2016-presidential-election_3156376.html

CatInTheHat , 54 minutes ago link

I won't sit here and claim that what I've heard over the last 2 days with family in town, is at all representative of all Americans but it was interesting. I have all kinds of political affiliation in the family: Maga's, Dims and Independents. All are TIRED of both sides antics. No one wanted to discuss it except to say that we are ALL fucked in one way or another. What was lively political debate before was met with a lack of discussion and instead a pervasive frustration and sadness about the system itself how corrupt it all is but not knowing what to do about it.

I just wonder if that's how many Americans feel about all this. At least those sick of all of it.

CatInTheHat , 51 minutes ago link

In case you've not noticed the Democratic party is as Zio-owned as Trump.

Schumer, Schiff, Wasserman Schulz, Feinstein, Sanders, Cardin, Wyden are all dual Israeli's. All are Democrats and there are 82 more.

ShortCommonSense , 50 minutes ago link

Most of us are aware of that. It doesn't mean that he isn't right about some things though, and he's incredibly amusing at times. If there is ever a non zionist candidate, I'd happily vote for them. At least he's not a west hating bolshevik golem.

CatInTheHat , 47 minutes ago link

He is a Zio-imperialist. Who has simultaneous regime change antics going on in various middle and latin American countries.

ShortCommonSense , 41 minutes ago link

As is everyone else in washington. Ron, Rand, and Tulsi, not given a chance. Obama was probably the least zionist president we've had in decades, and he still went along with most of their goals, along with being a fabian socialist.

X30X , 1 hour ago link

"all truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860)

Dexter Morgan , 1 hour ago link

Please wake up soon. Your savior is running $1 trillion annual deficits, has raised the troop numbers in Afghanistan from 8500-14,000, will not leave Syria, bombed Syria twice with zero evidence of gas attacks because there were none. Anybody who thinks there's a dime's worth of difference between the parties comatose, please wake up soon.

Dexter Morgan , 1 hour ago link

Plus he's openly stealing Syria's oil. You're cool with that, too?

[Nov 30, 2019] Former DNC Official Partnered With Convicted Bomb Maker To Investigate Trump

Nov 30, 2019 | dailycaller.com

As for Chalupa, she has served in several roles for the DNC while also working as an pro-Ukraine activist. A former staffer in the Bill Clinton White House, Chalupa worked as executive director for Democrats Abroad in the 2000s and as head of the DNC's national ethnic outreach group during the 2016 campaign.

In her spare time, Chalupa organized social media campaigns against Trump. One of those efforts encouraged activists to share the Twitter hashtag, #TreasonousTrump.

Chalupa, who founded the U.S. United With Ukraine Coalition in 2014, also led the DNC's opposition research into any Trump ties to Russia, according to an essay she recently published at Medium.

Politico reported in January that Chalupa worked with the Ukrainian government to compile and disseminate research on links between Trump, his campaign advisers, and the Russian government.

To help spread that information, Chalupa relied on "a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives," Politico reported.

One of the investigative journalists Chalupa worked with was Yahoo! News' Michael Isikoff.

In a May 3, 2016 email released by WikiLeaks, Chalupa informed Luis Miranda, the DNC's communications director at the time, that she had "been working with" Isikoff on stories involving Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's work in Ukraine. She also said she had invited Isikoff to a conference with dozens of Ukrainian journalists to discuss Manafort, a former consultant to Viktor Yanukovych, a former Ukrainian president allied with Vladimir Putin.

Days before Chalupa's email, Isikoff published an in-depth report on an ill-fated business partnership between Manafort and a Russian oligarch allied with Putin named Oleg Deripaska.

In her email, Chalupa hinted to Miranda of "a big Trump component that will hit in next few weeks." She also claimed that she was being targeted in state-sponsored computer hacking attempts because of her research on Manafort.

According to Politico, Chalupa was paid $412,000 for consulting work from 2004 through June 2016. The last payment was made on June 20 for $25,000, records filed with the Federal Election Commission show.

Ariel first got in touch with Chalupa and Kimberlin after Trump won the election, sometime in mid-November. The Israeli noted that he had written articles asserting that Trump colluded with the Russian government to influence the election.

At the time of his first contact with Chalupa and Kimberlin, Ariel had not seen the documents that would later be debunked by BuzzFeed.

The documents soon ended up in the inboxes of several news outlets, but reporters quickly determined that they were rife with errors. Names were misspelled; dates didn't make sense; the gist of the underlying claim didn't pass the smell test.

Ariel, who says he once worked with the the anti-apartheid African National Congress, disputed some of the BuzzFeed report. He said that the article portrayed him as the party most responsible for pushing the documents. But he told TheDC that he always had at least some doubt about the veracity of the papers. He also says that he did not send them to news outlets.

[Nov 30, 2019] Beyond The DNC - Leaks, Hacks, and Treason by George Eliason George Eliason

Notable quotes:
"... This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to Bill Binney, the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking ridiculous and impossible at best. ..."
Nov 30, 2019 | www.mintpressnews.com

Here's what's different in the information I've compiled.

At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to State Department servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators.

This gives some credence to the Seth Rich leak (DNC leak story) as an act of patriotism. If the leak came through Seth Rich, it may have been because he saw foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential election. No political operative is going to argue with the presumed president-elect over foreign policy. The leaker may have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might have.

The real crime of the DNC hack wasn't the hack.

If only half of the following proved true in context and it's a matter of public record, that makes the argument to stop funding for Ukraine immediately barring an investigation of high crimes by Ukrainian Diaspora, Democrat, and Republican leaders in Congress, private Intel for hire, and Ukrainian Intel's attacks on the US government and political processes.

Perhaps it's time Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump should consider treason investigations across the board. Make America great again by bringing justice and civility back.

DNC Hack – High Crimes or Misdemeanors?

So what went on at the DNC way back in 2016? Do you know? Was it a hack or a leak? Does it matter?

Recently, an investigative journalist who writes under the name Adam Carter was raked over the coals. Carter writes at Disobedient Media and has been providing a lot of evidence supporting the DNC leak story former Ambassador Craig Murray and Wikileaks claim happened.

When the smear article came out and apparently it's blossoming into a campaign, a few people that read both of us wrote to the effect "looks like your work is the only thing left standing." I immediately rebuffed the idea and said Carter's work stands on its own . It has nothing to do with anything I've written, researched, or plan to.

I'd say the same about Scott Humor , Lee Stranahan , Garland Nixon , Petri Krohn , or Steve McIntyre . And there are many others. There has been a lot of good work on the DNC hacks and 2016 election interference. Oftentimes, what looks like contradictory information is complimentary because what each journalist is working on shows the story from a different angle.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/q9W3QsO75mM?rel=0&showinfo=0

There are a lot of moving parts to the story and even a small change in focus brings an entirely new story because it comes from a different direction.

Here's what I mean. If the DNC hack was really a leak, does that kill the "hack" story? No, it doesn't and I blame a lot of activist journalists for making the assumption that it has to work this way. If Seth Rich gave Ambassador Craig Murray a USB stick with all the "hacked info," it doesn't change an iota of what I've written and the evidence you are about to read stands on its own. But, this has divided people into camps before the whole situation could be scrutinized and that's still not done yet.

If for example you have a leak on Jan 5th , can you have "a hack" on Jan 6th , 7th, or 8th? Since there is so much crap surrounding the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks have been a cover-up?

Hang em' High

According to Obama the hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into November.

Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election -- contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC

This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to Bill Binney, the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking ridiculous and impossible at best.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/L3cDZU9Tp7w?rel=0&showinfo=0

The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating. That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.

It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was prosecutable.

Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the spotlight but there are Republicans involved.

Identifying Team Fancy Bear

There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers . The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.

Identifying the hackers as FSB or GRU today is as helpful and has the same validity as identifying Special Prosecutor Mueller as a cashier at McDonalds because he worked there during school. It's insulting and self-defeating, so stop it.

How Mueller is Making a Russian Attribution for the DNC Hackers

If you look at the attribution section for the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber and specifically the section that deals with peacetime attributions of a non-state actor/ hacker we have an answer.

The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc call themselves volunteers to keep safe from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.

They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the threshold of military action. Mueller has a lot of latitude for making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intel. Based on how the rules are written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution. The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to the State which in this case is Russia.

How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.

This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and of course Russia. We'll get to why shortly.

After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for Russia . The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.

From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.

In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged data from the Surkov leak.

But during 2014,2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers.

The First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers

The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.

In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010, Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't we?

"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."

Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo hack.

The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.

So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.

The DNC's Team Fancy Bear

The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their job. Let that concept settle in for a moment.

According to Politico "In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists , government officials and private intelligence operatives . While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well ."

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The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.

All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena Chalupa at the Atlantic Council . Both C halupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian government's Intel and propaganda arms.

Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage, terrorist, counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda, and info war channels officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against Ukraine's criminal activities.

Alexandra Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group called Fancy Bear by Dimitry Alperovich and Crowdstrike at the latest in 2015. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime. It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.

Indict Team Clinton for the DNC Hacks and RNC Hack

Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife Huma Abedin using Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to do opposition research hacked her.

Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate passwords.

The RNC Hack

According to the Washington Post , "Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach."

In January 2017 , criminal proceedings started for Edward Nedelyaev under articles 335 'spying' and 343

'inciting hatred or enmity." He was a member of the Aidar battalion. Aidar members have been cited for torture and murder. Although the translation isn't available on the linked video the MGB (LNR equivalent to the FBI) ask Aidar's Nedelyaev about his relationship with Ukraine's SBU. The SBU asked him to hack US presidential candidate Donald Trump's election headquarters and he refused. Asked if this was through convictions, he says no, explaining that he is not a hacker. The video was published on January 10, 2017 .

Taken at face value it really does show the ineptness of the SBU after 2014. This is why Ukraine relied (s) on the Diaspora financed Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, RUH8, Bellingcat, Webradius, InformNapalm and associated parties.

The Ukrainians were hired to get the goods on Trump. Part of that is knowing where to start isn't it?

Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top Secret Passwords From Team Clinton

How stupid would the Fancy Bear teams of Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and RUH8 be if they had access to the DNC servers which makes it easier to get into the US State servers and not do that if it was their goal?

One very successful method of hacking is called social engineering. You gain access to the office space and any related properties and physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in passwords.

Let's be clear. The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research. On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.

Here is where it goes from bad to outright Fancy Bear ugly. Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former staff for research purposes from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. Were any foreigners part of the opposition research team for Team Hillary in 2014-2015-2016? The Clinton's don't have a history of vetting security issues well.

Let's recap. Clinton keeps 6 top secret passwords for research staff. Alexandra Chalupa is running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives, hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.

Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in 2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington to meet with Chalupa.

Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?

According to the Politico article , Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.

Four Verkhovna Rada deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y. Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh.

According to CNN, DNC sources said Chalupa told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information against Trump's campaign . Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.

Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and Washington.

Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers . She took the Rada members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.

The Podesta Hack – Don't Mess with OUNb Parkhomenko

I have no interest in reviewing his history except for a few points. Adam Parkhomenko, a Diaspora Ukrainian nationalist almost gained a position in the presumed Clinton White House. As a Ukrainian nationalist, his first loyalty, like any other Ukrainian nationalist, is to a fascist model of Ukraine which Stepan Bandera devised but with a win it would be in America.

During the 2016 primaries, it was Parkhomenko who accused Bernie Sanders of working for Vladimir Putin. Parkhomenko has never really had a job outside the Clinton campaign.

Adam Parkhomenko <img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PARKHOMENKO-twitter.com-2018.08.14-04-34-11.png" alt="Adam Parkhomenko" width="355" height="454" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PARKHOMENKO-twitter.com-2018.08.14-04-34-11.png 355w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PARKHOMENKO-twitter.com-2018.08.14-04-34-11-235x300.png 235w" sizes="(max-width: 355px) 100vw, 355px" /> Before Clinton declared her candidacy, Parkhomenko started a PAC for Hillary Clinton with the goal of getting millions of people email lists so the support was ready for a Clinton run. After she declared her candidacy, Robby Mook, Hillary's campaign manager decided to sideline Parkhomenko and didn't take on his full staff as promised. He reduced Parkomenko to a quiet menial position when he was brought onboard.

Ultimately, Podesta became responsible for this because he gave Parkhomenko assurances that his staff would be brought on and there would be no gaps in their paycheck. Many of them including Parkhomenko's family moved to Brooklyn. And of course, that didn't happen. Podesta was hacked in March and the Ukrainian nationalist Adam Parkhomenko was hired April 1st .

Today, Parkhomenko is working as a #DigitalSherlock with the Atlantic Council along with the Fancy Bear hackers and many of the people associated with them. Why could this be a revenge hack?

The Ukrainian Intel hackers are Pravy Sektor Ukrainian nationalists. Alexandra Chalupa is also an OUNb Bandera Ukrainian nationalist. This Ukrainian nationalist was on his way to becoming one of the most powerful people in America. That's why.

The DNC Leak- A Patriotic Act

At the same time her aides were creating "loyalty scores ", Clinton, "instructed a trusted aide to access the campaign's server and download the messages sent and received by top staffers. She believed her campaign had failed her -- not the other way around -- and she wanted 'to see who was talking to who, who was leaking to who.2'" After personally reading the email correspondence of her staffers, she called them into interviews for the 2016 campaign, where she confronted them with some of the revelations."-

Forget about the DNC. The hackers may have spent months surfing the US secret servers downloading and delivering top secret diplomatic files to their own government. The people entrusted with this weren't just sloppy with security, this is beyond treason.

It doesn't matter if it was Seth Rich, though I hope it was ( for identification's sake), who downloaded data from the DNC servers. The reasons supporting a leak are described by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This shows clearly why the leak to Wikileaks is much more plausible than a hack for the files taken in what is commonly called the DNC hack. This leak was one "hack" of many that was going on.

Imagine being this person inside the situations described above with the reality hitting you that things were very wrong. Even if they only saw parts of it, how much is too much? US government secrets were being accessed and we know this because the passwords were given out to the research teams the hackers were on.

It is very possible that giving the files to Wikileaks was the only safe way to be a whistleblower with a Democrat president supporting Team Hillary even as Team Hillary was cannibalizing itself. For detail on how the leak happened, refer to Adam Carter at DisobedientMedia.com and the VIPS themselves.

Today, this isn't a Democrat problem. It could just as easily been an establishment Republican.

Ukraine needs to pay for what their Intel Operators/ hackers have done. Stop funding Ukraine other than verifiable humanitarian aid. Call your Congressional Rep.

Next up – We are going to look at who has oversight over this operation and who's footing the bills.

Over the last 4 years, I've researched and written many stories that are still breaking in media today. Over the past 7 months we:

If you want to support investigative research with a lot of depth, please support my Patreon page. You can also support my work through PayPal as we expand in new directions over the coming year. For the last 4 years, it's been almost entirely self-supportive effort which is something when you consider I live in Donbass.

Top Photo | Former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile holds a copy of her book Hacks, detailing the hacking of the DNC, during a meeting of The Commonwealth Club, Nov. 9, 2017, in San Francisco. Marcio Jose Sanchez | AP

George Eliason is an American journalist that lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT, the BBC, and Press-TV. His articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews, the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson, SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.

Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.

[Nov 30, 2019] Irena Chalupa Archives - The Clinton Foundation Timeline

Notable quotes:
"... "The Blaze has released an audio recording that they recently obtained that appears to show Artem Sytnyk, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, admitting that he tried to boost the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton by sabotaging then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign. ..."
"... The Ukrainian embassy political officer who worked at the embassy at the time, Andrii Telizhenko, stated that the Ukrainians "were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa" and that "the embassy worked very closely with" Chalupa. ..."
Oct 07, 2019 | clintonfoundationtimeline.com

March 20, 2019 – The director of Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau, Artem Sytnyk, admits to helping Clinton's campaign by sabotaging Trump's

"The Blaze has released an audio recording that they recently obtained that appears to show Artem Sytnyk, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, admitting that he tried to boost the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton by sabotaging then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign.

The connection between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Ukrainian government was veteran Democratic operative Alexandra Chalupa, "who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration" and then "went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee," Politico reported.

Chalupa was working directly with the Ukrainian embassy in the United States to raise concerns about Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and, according to Politico , she indicated that the Embassy was working "directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions."

The Ukrainian embassy political officer who worked at the embassy at the time, Andrii Telizhenko, stated that the Ukrainians "were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa" and that "the embassy worked very closely with" Chalupa.

The Blaze highlighted an email from WikiLeaks from Chalupa to Louis Miranda at the DNC:

"Hey, a lot coming down the pipe. I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last night at the Library of Congress, the Open World Society forum. They put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort. I invited Michael Isikoff, who I've been working with for the past few weeks, and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow, since there was a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in the next few weeks. Something I'm working on that you should be aware of."

The Blaze then reported that Sytnyk, who eventually "was tried and convicted in Ukraine for interfering in the U.S. presidential election in 2016 ," released a "black ledger" on Manafort during the 2016 presidential election that eventually led to Manafort's downfall.

(Read more: The Daily Wire, 10/07/2019)

[Nov 30, 2019] Hammer About to Drop on Alexandra Chalupa - Hoaxer Behind Fake Russia Narrative and Key Promoter of DNC 'Resist Trump' Rallies

Nov 30, 2019 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

Alexandra Chalupa was a key player in the Democrat's waste management business (i.e. organizing street resistance against President Trump, keeping the collusion fake news narrative alive, and spreading the evolving anti-Trump rumors). Chalupa also is very well connected (and paid) and regularly hobnobs with Democrat elites. She also is aligned with the early stages of fake Trump-Russia dossier and she hired creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti to represent her in court. Avenatti is now indicted for numerous scams and Chalupa is likely right behind him.

Three months ago creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti announced he was representing an individual accused of being involved in the creation of the fake Russia-Trump dossier against President Trump. His client, Alexandra Chalupa, also attended and no doubt put together a rally for Avenatti outside the White House.

Now, the creepy porn lawyer is facing jail time and Chalupa is likely next!

As we reported in December 2018, Andrii Telizhenko was approached by DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa in early 2016. Chalupa wanted dirt on candidate Trump and his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC worked CLOSELY with the DNC operative Chalupa.

Chalupa told Andrii she wanted Russian "dirt" on the Trump campaign.

The Gateway Pundit spoke with Telizhenko on the DNC Russia-gate Scandal –

https://www.youtube.com/embed/H9ji3aZAjO0?feature=oembed

Alexandra Chalupa was apparently hired by the DNC going as far back as 2013. According to Politico:

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party."

Politico also noted that Chalupa claimed that in October of 2015 she began investigating Trump's ties to Russia. Why she began this investigation is completely unknown. Trump NEVER had any ties with Russians. The only thing of significance that had happened at this point was that Trump announced he was running for office. There was no apparent triggering event. Candidate Trump had very limited contact with Russia or Russia businessmen.

Also, according to Politico, in January of 2016, Chalupa suddenly and out of the blue warned the DNC about Paul Manafort. Manafort's name hadn't even been mentioned at this point in time. Chalupa made a prediction that if Team Trump hired Paul Manafort that it would be clear and convincing evidence that Trump had ties to Russia.

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Manafort worked with Hillary's Campaign Manager John Podesta and his brother Tony in the Ukraine. They worked to bring in US politicians to meet with Ukranian politicians.

It's unknown how much money these individuals received for their visit to the Ukraine or if Chalupa was involved.

Politico continued stating that the DNC had performed Trump – Russia research long before Chalupa came along (i.e. January 2016) –

A DNC official stressed that Chalupa was a consultant paid to do outreach for the party's political department, not a researcher. She undertook her investigations into Trump, Manafort and Russia on her own, and the party did not incorporate her findings in its dossiers on the subjects, the official said, stressing that the DNC had been building robust research books on Trump and his ties to Russia long before Chalupa began sounding alarms."

Chalupa is also connected to Ukrainian by the name of Vasili Filipchuk, who ran the organization labeled ICPS. Filipchuk too is expected of helping to write the phony Trump-Russia dossier. The entity he works for ( ICPS ) stands for the International Center for Policy Studies and it was founded by Open Society.

Open Society is a well known George Soros funded organization that fronts as an entity that works "to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people." In reality it is a far-left organization that works against freedoms embedded in the US Constitution and across Europe.

Along with being connected to the fake Trump – Russia dossier and suspicious individuals in the Ukraine, Chalupa also is involved in the creation of astro-turfed (i.e. created by Democrat leadership) anti – Trump events in Washington D.C.

Chalupa also assisted in a fund raiser for fired and corrupt FBI leader Andrew McCabe –

Chalupa is another typical example of the corrupt leadership in the Democrat Party. She made up fake stories against President Trump and then pushed them at Democrat funded rallies while hiring a creepy porn lawyer to cover her misdeeds. What a nasty piece of work!

Alexandra Chalupa is as slimy as the day is long.

Let's hope the hammer is about to drop on this Soros-linked operative.

[Nov 30, 2019] Victor Pinchuk, the Clintons Endless Connections by Jeff Carlson

Notable quotes:
"... The Atlantic Council, along with the Brookings Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, were the subject of an unflattering portrayal in a New York Times article, Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks : ..."
"... Irena Chalupa's ideological interests in Ukraine are aligned directly with those of Alexandra Chalupa. ..."
Mar 11, 2018 | themarketswork.com

I wrote on the role of Alexandra Chalupa – a Ukrainian-American DNC operative – who appears at the center of the DNC's construction of information used in the Steele Dossier.

The role of former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in disseminating the Dossier – along with her involvement in shaping Ukraine – was also discussed.

The name Victor Pinchuk was mentioned.

Victor Pinchuk is a Ukrainian billionaire. He is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He also owns Credit Dnipro Bank, some ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Pinchuk's been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at severely below-market prices through political favoritism.

Pinchuk used his media empire to deflect blame from his father-in-law, Kuchma, for the September 16, 2000 murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. Kuchma was never charged but is widely believed to have ordered the murder. A series of recordings would seem to back up this assertion.

On April 4 through April 12 2016, Ukrainian Parliamentarian Olga Bielkov had four meetings – with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Dept) and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

Doug Schoen filed FARA documents showing that he was paid $40,000 a month by Victor Pinchuk (page 5) – in part to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with Congressmen and media (page 10). It is unknown how many meetings took place.

Schoen has worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Schoen helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal reported how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Yulia Tymoshenko – a political rival of Yanukovych – from jail.

The relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons continued.

From the Kyiv Post :

In 2013, Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk welcomed current U.S. Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton onto the stage at his Yalta European Strategy, an annual conference he funds to promote Ukraine's European integration and strategy, calling her: "a real megastar."

Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist.

To date, Pinchuk's charitable foundation has given $125 million to various causes, according to his spokespeople.

Although exact numbers are not clear, reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's "charitable donations" went to the Clinton organization.

From a New York Times article :

Victor Pinchuk , a steel magnate whose father-in-law, Leonid Kuchma, was president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2005, has directed between $10 million and $25 million to the foundation. He has lent his private plane to the Clintons and traveled to Los Angeles in 2011 to attend Mr. Clinton's star-studded 65th birthday celebration.

Later, the Clintons would try to distance themselves from Pinchuk.

From a Washington Examiner article :

Emails made public Tuesday show a Ukrainian businessman and major Clinton Foundation donor was invited to Hillary Clinton's home during the final year of her diplomatic tenure, despite her spokesman's insistence in 2014 that the donor never crossed paths with Clinton while she served as secretary of state.

Amid scrutiny of Clinton's ties to Pinchuk in 2014, the Democratic nominee's spokesman, Nick Merrill, said Pinchuk had never met with Clinton during that time. He told the New York Times that, "from Jan. 21, 2009, to Feb. 1, 2013," the Ukrainian businessman "was never on her schedule."

Pinchuk, who has given up to $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, appeared on the guest list that was sent between Dennis Cheng, an executive at the foundation, and Huma Abedin, then Clinton's deputy chief of staff at the State Department, ahead of a June 2012 dinner. Abedin noted in a subsequent email that the gathering would be hosted in Clinton's home.

Pinchuk's dinner invitation was exposed in a series of emails obtained by Citizens United.

There has been a repeated pattern of denial between the Clintons and their major donors. See: A Uranium One Primer – Clinton, Giustra & Kazakhstan's Uranium Assets .

More from the article:

Melanne Verveer, a senior Ukrainian-American official at the State Department, often acted as a go-between for Clinton and Pinchuk. Verveer conveyed Pinchuk's best wishes to the secretary of state in Feb. 2010 after meeting with him in Ukraine.

After speaking with Pinchuk in Sept. 2011, Verveer informed Clinton that the businessman had been asked by Viktor Yanukovych, then the president of Ukraine, to relay to her some of his diplomatic interests in deepening ties to the rest of Europe.

The intersection of Pinchuk's advocacy for Yanukovych with Clinton's State Department is noteworthy because Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, was felled by his connections to Yanukovych. Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign last week.

Hacked Podesta emails released via Wikileaks showed ongoing contact between Pinchuk and the Clintons. From a March 30, 2015 email :

Victor Pinchuk is relentlessly following up (including this morning) about a meeting with WJC in London or anywhere in Europe. Ideally he wants to bring together a few western leaders to show support for Ukraine, with WJC probably their most important participant.

I sense this is so important because Pinchuk is under Putin's heel right now, feeling a great degree of pressure and pain for his many years of nurturing stronger ties with the West.

In addition to being a Clinton Foundation donor, Pinchuk is also on the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Counsel – an NATO-aligned American think tank specializing in the field of international affairs.

Pinchuk's fellow Advisory Board members are industry leaders and former heads of state.

Their Board of Directors list is equally – if not more – impressive.

The Atlantic Counsel has been historically active in Ukraine through their Ukraine in Europe Initiative . More recently, on January 19, 2017, the Atlantic Counsel announced a partnership with Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Group.

Hunter Biden, former VP Joe Biden's son, sits on Burisma's board.

Biden was placed on Burisma's board after Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt held a phone conversation regarding installation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in place of then-President Yanukovych. Need of support from VP Biden was noted (more here ):

On or before February 4 2014 – Call between Pyatt and Nuland discussing removal of Yanukovych and installation of Yatsenyuk.

February 22, 2014 – Yanukovych was removed as President of Ukraine.

February 27 2014 – Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister of Ukraine. Yatsenyuk would resign in April 2016 amidst corruption accusations.

April 18 2014 – Hunter Biden was appointed to the Board of Directors for Burisma – one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine.

April 22 2014 – VP Biden travels to Ukraine and offers support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government.

The Atlantic Council, along with the Brookings Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, were the subject of an unflattering portrayal in a New York Times article, Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks :

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors' priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The think tanks do not disclose the terms of the agreements they have reached with foreign governments. And they have not registered with the United States government as representatives of the donor countries, an omission that appears, in some cases, to be a violation of federal law.

As a result, policy makers who rely on think tanks are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research.

The arrangements involve Washington's most influential think tanks, including the Brookings Institution , the Center for Strategic and International Studies , and the Atlantic Council .

Each is a major recipient of overseas funds, producing policy papers, hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States government officials that typically align with the foreign governments' agendas.

Some interesting connections run through the Atlantic Council.

Dimitry Alperovich – the CEO of Crowdstrike that "investigated" the hacking of the DNC's servers is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic. The FBI was refused access to independently examine the DNC servers. Interestingly, Alperovich's bio appears to have been disabled.

The Crowdstrike findings have been repeatedly called into questioned:

James Clapper – Obama's Director of National Intelligence, serves on the Atlantic Council's International Advisory Board . Clapper was the architect of the report on Russian Election Interference – Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections .

I encourage you to read the report. I think you'll find it surprisingly lacking in detail – highly generalized with very little in the way of substance.

The report was technically created by a joint effort between the CIA ( former Director John Brennan), FBI ( former Director James Comey) and the NSA ( current Director Mike Rogers) – and assembled by the DNI ( former Director James Clapper).

The joint report contains one significant caveat:

CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has only moderate confidence .

Actually, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers stated in Senate hearing testimony that his confidence did not reach even this threshold:

I wouldn't call it a discrepancy, I'd call it an honest difference of opinion between three different organizations and in the end I made that call. It didn't have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources .

In essence, the DNI's report was constructed by just three men – former DNI Director Clapper, former CIA Director Brennan and former FBI Director Comey. This report was then used to push the entire Russian Narrative. It's appearing increasingly likely that Clapper either used or affirmed some data from the Steele Dossier in the IC Assessment Report.

The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence.

Oleg Deripensky, a Russian oligarch once linked to Paul Manafort, published an Op-Ed in which he made the claim that George Soros was helping fund Fusion GPS.

He also highlighted a conversation between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Victoria Nuland at the Munich Security Conference in February 2018.

I highlighted Nuland's role in structuring the Ukrainian government in 2014.

I don't know about the Soros connection but I did find the Whitehouse-Nuland conversation (Video is queued):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MOAIPRy5CkY?start=1590

WHITEHOUSE: Even in an area [Climate Change] where the administration has carved out perhaps the most irresponsible position it could, on an issue of global significance, nevertheless you can't really resist the pressure of fact and science – and I guess what the Breitbart crowd would call the Deep State – but what many of us would call knowledgeable professionals who've given their lives to these things and actually know what they're talking about

So even on that worst of all issues there's still a hope for continuity – at least in the Deep State.

Note John Kerry smiling and applauding in the crowd.

NULAND: Well colleagues, you've now heard our bi-partisan, bicameral panel of Deep State crowd loyalists give broad reassurance about continuity in U.S. leadership and in U.S. policy overall.

For the record, Sheldon Whitehouse is a blithering idiot. Continue watching the video a moment longer to see Ex-Representative Jane Harman pay homage to John McCain:

HARMAN: His voice, his presence, was instrumental in training generations of members of the U.S. Congress on foreign policy issues.

NULAND: And the U.S. State Department

HARMAN: And the U.S. State Department too. He had his favorites, you being one Victoria.

I doubt John McCain has ever been right – in either policy or ideology. But he did leave quite an unfortunate influence. These people all think the same. And they all think they know better than anyone else. Despite a tedious repetition of corruption and policy failures.

newer post An Expected Announcement – Tillerson Out. Pompeo In.

older post Victoria Nuland, Alexandra Chalupa, Ukrainian Ties & the Steele Dossier

[Nov 28, 2019] Who is Mike Kortan ? How is He Connected to ObamaGate ?

Nov 28, 2019 | www.reddit.com

u/CaptainRoyD • Posted by u/CaptainRoyD 1 year ago Who is Mike Kortan ? How is He Connected to ObamaGate ?

Michael Kortan [MK] was the Head of Public Affairs at the FBI. Kortan was the final authority on all media statements. He retired suddenly after 33 years of service and a few mystery clouds remain.

Post Q# 2692 on 2/11/19 (in part):

Michael Kortan, FBI assistant director for public affairs, now retired.

Kortan was connected in July 2016 via Strzok text messages as "Mike" within the 'Small Group'. One overt tactic employed was McCabe sending out a memo stating that HRC will get a FBI 'Headquarters Special'

Post Q# 1316 on 5/4/18 (in part):

Mike Kortan, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs-FIRED [cooperating under 'resigned' title].

Mike Kortan gave his stamp of approval to the final James Comey HRC exoneration memo. It appears that Mike and Strzok helped with critical word 'editing' of James Comey's infamous July 2016 presser.

Post Q# 1986 on 8/29/18 (in part):

Mike Kortan -cooperating under 'resigned' title-TO BE CALLED?

Kortan was part of the FBI's inner circle's or "Secret Society" and part of ObamaGate/SpyGate planning. This small group from with the Justice Department ran Crossfire Hurricane.

Post Q# 1621 on 1/28/18 (in part):

You have more than you know.

Fireworks.

Prior publicly released Strzok/Page text implicit "Mike" being directly in the coup loop. Kortan was jointly talking/leaking on the phone with FBI Lawyer Lisa Page and WSJ reporter Devlin Barrett.

Post Q# 1829 on 8/9/18 (in part):

Lisa Page leaked statements as per McCabe's instructions was one reason for his firing. This leaked false story concerned his wife Dr. Jill McCabe's questionable campaign donations.

Post Q# 3624 on 11/23/19:

It's going to be BIBLICAL!

THE GREAT AWAKENING.

Dr. McCabe had received big league contributions from insider Democratic/Clinton sources. QAnon has Kortan [MK] within this FBI group of 29 past officials on this list of criminals.

Post Q# 953 on 3/17/18 (in part):

How bad is the corruption?

FBI (past/present). + 29 (16).

Everyone is now waiting for POTUS to declassify the FISA applications for Title-1 Surveillance warrants on Carter Page. Have the popcorn ready Patriots as panic breaks out and RATS running!

Post Q# 2692 on 2/11/19 (in part):

BIGGEST COVER UP IN US HISTORY [ATTEMPTED].

WWG1WGA-Thank you Patriot for viewing my article⚓️

Reddit/CaptainRoyD

NOTE BELOW -"Pure_Feature" Extra Answers:

"Mike" is Out – Michael P Kortan Quits FBI | Centinel2012 https://centinel2012.com/.../mike-is-out-michael-p-kortan-quits-fbi ... 8 feb. 2018 - Mike Kortan was previously exposed by FBI Agent FBI Asst. Director Michael Kortan (aka text message "Mike"), the head of the FBI . Boy-o-boy this prior Peter Strzok tweet, as read by Bob Goodlatte on of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning ... all thoughts connected.....

Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump ... https://www.nytimes.com/.../crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia-fbi- ... 16 mei 2018 - But at the time, a small group of F.B.I. officials knew it by its code name: Crossfire Hurricane. ... He has declared that a deeply rooted cabal -- including his own "And they know that, and I've been able to message it.".....

[PDF] A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of . Politico https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000163-ff91-d9aa-af77-ffd162320001 11 jun. 2018 - Trump from being elected), was that Strzok might be willing to take official . An implicit assumption that Clinton would be elected President; .... Mike Kortan, he stated, "I'm thinking it a bit silly to say we 'can't confirm or deny............

Deep state FBI agents plotted "media leak strategy" to overthrow ... https://www.torial.com/en/james.ledbetter/portfolio/360956 Text: A series of text messages has surfaced showing that former FBI . and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, his lover, conspired together to leak anti-Trump stories to . "I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about and written communication from FBI and DOJ officials Stu Evans, Mike Kortan, ...

Andrew McCabe and his close circle of "fighters with organized crime" www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/.../FBI.../andrew_mccabe.shtml McCabe for years worked Russian organized crime in New York for the FBI, previous . as harshly as it treats its friends gently, especially its inner circle friends. . 20180124* Whistleblower Confirms Secret Society Meetings Between FBI And ... of the Office of Public Affairs aka AD/OPA (Michael Kortan) to talk to Barrett..........

Comey wrote draft exoneration of Clinton months before July 2016 ... https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/politics/comey-clinton-investigation/index.html 1 sep. 2017 - Former FBI Director James Comey drafted a statement exonerating former Secretary of . Comey drafted Clinton exoneration before finishing investigation, GOP senators say . Memos add new details to Comey's story ... including all drafts of Comey's final statement on Clinton's emails by September 13..............

Q: Lisa Page and James Baker didn't resign -- they were 'fired ... https://churchmousec.wordpress.com/.../q-lisa-page-and-james-bak ... 11 mei 2018 - In essence, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, despite being removed from investigative authority over their . Likely Baker's cooperation with investigators is the biggest risk to James Comey and Andrew McCabe Mike Kortan, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs – FIRED [cooperating under 'resigned' title]..........

Trump orders feds to declassify key FISA documents, text messages in ... https://www.foxnews.com/.../trump-orders-feds-to-declassify-key-f ... 17 sep. 2018 - President Trump orders declassification of the FISA warrant for Carter Page, FBI The documents to be declassified also include all FBI reports on interviews with . "[Trump] has decided to intervene in a pending law enforcement investigation by . "Enough is enough--the time for full transparency is now............. 5 comments 100% Upvoted This thread is archived New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast Sort by level 1


SNG007 2 points · 1 year ago

Captain Roy can you clarify the McCabe leak/false story? We know McCabe's wife Jill DID receive DNC funding for her campaign (via Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe). But I gather that wasn't the story he wanted leaked (or was it? I can't imagine why he'd want that information to be outed, especially because it was true and reinforced the McCabes' bias). So was the leaked false story in the other direction? That she contributed TO the DNC (not that she took FROM the DNC)? level 2

CaptainRoyD 2 points · 1 year ago

Andy was originally fired (lying to Horowitz) for leaking classified information via Lisa Page to reporter Barrett. Somehow the leak was to mitigate the damaging details about Jill's campaign contributions but I have always felt it did no good as the damage had already been done via the $1 million McAuliffe earmarked donations. I agree with you it was crazy to try to spin his wife's financial problems.

Since I'm getting up my older deleted posts, I didn't highlight in this story the most recent McCabe "leaked" issue. McCabe was central to the [RR] wearing a wire/25th attempt. Baker outing that the memos used in the MSM story were from McCabe outlines the plot hatched by [RR]. Baker additionally testified that is was a real/credible plot against POTUS.

I hope that helped & I will be freshening up all of my articles once I get them all back up again. Also note I'm putting all of my new articles up first at Dustin Nemos's website then I will put them here at Reddit.

Please pass along my link page-thx ⚓️ level 3

SNG007 2 points · 1 year ago

Many thanks. So McCabe's leaking of his wife's incoming donations was an attempt to head off trouble at the pass? Trying to be proactive and steer the narrative. (All it succeeded in doing was firmly focusing attention on it!).

Continue to look forward to your articles Capt. Roy and appreciate your hard work. level 4

CaptainRoyD 1 point · 1 year ago

Mahalo fellow Patriot :) level 2

CaptainRoyD 2 points · 1 year ago

https://www.reddit.com/user/CaptainRoyD

That should help :)

Roy Davis
u/CaptainRoyD U.S. Merchant Marine Officer/Master Captain
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[Nov 28, 2019] WSJ story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be part of the upcoming Horowitz report? ..."
Nov 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Factotum , 27 November 2019 at 11:57 AM

WSJ columnist today raises an old obscure issue today about the Clinton emails and Comey's calculated exoneration of Clinton's culpability.

This story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Comey claimed when confronted with this memo, Lynch merely smiled like the Cheshire cat and nothing more was done.

This memo was later discredited as an alleged planted Russian hoax. Yet the memo story is again put in lead position on the opinion pages of the WSJ this very morning. Why was that? Not clear, but does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be part of the upcoming Horowitz report?

(WSJ: 11/27/19 - Holman Jenkins, Jr. - "Who will turn over the 2016 rocks")

[Nov 28, 2019] Browder insinuates that Fusion GPS was agent for Russia

That's the same bottomfeeder and tax fraud Browder, who most probably killed Magnitsky. and who abruptly changed his citizenship from the USA to British after his adventures in Russia. What a Chutzpah on the part of a person involved in fleecing Russia after dissolution of the USSR, the activity supported by MI6 and CIA.
Nov 28, 2019 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

Businessman Bill Browder alleged Fusion GPS acted as an agent for Russian interests in 2016, when the country was trying to combat the Magnitsky Act and its sanctions on Russian officials.

[Nov 27, 2019] Chalupa's Mission to Take Down Candidate and President Donald Trump by Penny Starr

Notable quotes:
"... Chalupa, founder of the political consulting firm Chalupa & Associates, LLC, and a co-chair of the Democratic National Committee's Ethnic Council, has been at the heart of efforts by allies of President Donald Trump to draw an equivalence between Russia's large-scale hacking and propaganda operation to interfere in the 2016 election with the actions of a small cadre of Ukrainian bureaucrats who allegedly worked with Chalupa to research former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's Russia ties. ..."
"... Her LinkedIn profile includes a work history: "Online Constituency Outreach Director" for John Kerry's presidential campaign; executive director for Democrats Abroad and five years as the director of the Office of Party Leaders for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). ..."
"... A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party. ..."
"... "The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation," Politico reported and that "officials [at the embassy] became 'helpful' in Chalupa's efforts explaining that she traded information and leads with them. ..."
"... Politico also reported the Ukraine Embassy worked "directly" with reporters researching Trump's alleged Russia ties -- a claim Shulyar denied. ..."
"... "But Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia," Politico reported. ..."
"... "Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa," Telizhenko said. "They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa." ..."
"... "In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet's ongoing investigation into Manafort," Politico reported. ..."
"... "For the record: I have never worked for a foreign government," Chalupa tweeted during the hearings. "I have never been to Ukraine. I was not an opposition researcher. In 2008, I knew Manafort worked for Putin's interests in Ukraine. I reported my concerns about him to the NSC in 2014 & sounded the alarm bells in 2016." ..."
"... In a profile of Chalupa in October 2018 in the Kyiv Post , she said her interest in Ukraine grew after the unrest and violence on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square in November 2013. ..."
"... "I have a diverse network of Ukrainian-American and Ukrainian friends on social media who were reporting real-time developments taking place in Kyiv that the western media was not covering," Chalupa said in the profile. "I wanted to do my part to be helpful to draw attention to the events on the Maidan, so I pulled together the heads of Ukrainian-American organizations and connected them with the White House." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

During the recent public impeachment hearings aimed at President Donald Trump, Republicans repeatedly mentioned one woman's name: Alexandra Chalupa.

Chalupa may not be a household name, but if the impeachment effort against the president advances to the Senate she might take center stage as an anti-Trump activist who could be credited with launching Russian collusion and Ukraine bribery conspiracies.

If Democrats had not rejected almost all of the witnesses Republicans wanted to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, Chalupa's role in the 2016 election may have been highlighted, including actions that led to the demise of Paul Manafort, the man who was briefly Trump's presidential campaign manager and who is now serving a prison sentence for financial fraud and conspiracy.

And despite the Democrats reluctance to have her at the witness table, Chalupa told Politico she wanted to testify.

Eager Impeachment Witness

The Politico report cited Chalupa's willingness to be in the spotlight:

A longtime Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist says she's itching to testify in the House's public impeachment hearings to beat back Republican assertions that Ukrainian officials used her as a conduit for information in 2016 to damage Donald Trump.

"I'm on a mission to testify," said Alexandra Chalupa, who Republicans identified as one of nine witnesses they would like to testify publicly when the House begins public impeachment proceedings this week.

Chalupa, founder of the political consulting firm Chalupa & Associates, LLC, and a co-chair of the Democratic National Committee's Ethnic Council, has been at the heart of efforts by allies of President Donald Trump to draw an equivalence between Russia's large-scale hacking and propaganda operation to interfere in the 2016 election with the actions of a small cadre of Ukrainian bureaucrats who allegedly worked with Chalupa to research former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's Russia ties.

Chalupa'a Twitter account says she is a "human rights hobbyist, political strategist, connector, mom of 3 strong girls. Lives in D.C., from California. On Putin & Trump's bad list," but her resume shows more about where her loyalties lie.

Her LinkedIn profile includes a work history: "Online Constituency Outreach Director" for John Kerry's presidential campaign; executive director for Democrats Abroad and five years as the director of the Office of Party Leaders for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

But it is in another Politico investigative piece in January 2017 that reveals -- despite media and Democrat denials -- Ukraine's efforts to influence the 2016 election and that Chalupa lent them a hand.

In the report, entitled "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire, Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton" details of Chalupa's "mission" is outlined.

Longtime Activism Record

The story begins with Chalupa learning that lawyer and lobbyist Paul Manafort had been an adviser to Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych before the latter fled the country under Putin's protection:

Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.

In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well.

The Politico report also said Chalupa shared her research with the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign, including the narrative about Russia/Trump collusion.

"I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa said. "And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election."

Chalupa described Manafort as "Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."

She also shared her research with then-Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and his aide, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy.

Those officials said that they knew about Manafort but were not worried because they believed Trump had little chance of being the Republican nominee let alone winning the presidency.

And then Trump hired Manafort.

"The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation," Politico reported and that "officials [at the embassy] became 'helpful' in Chalupa's efforts explaining that she traded information and leads with them.

Politico also reported the Ukraine Embassy worked "directly" with reporters researching Trump's alleged Russia ties -- a claim Shulyar denied.

"But Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia," Politico reported.

"Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa," Telizhenko said. "They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa."

"Oksana was keeping it all quiet," but "the embassy worked very closely with Chalupa," Telizhenko said.

"In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet's ongoing investigation into Manafort," Politico reported.

Telizhenko also said in the Politico report: "If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump's involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September."

In a tweet she posted during the hearings, Chalupa defended notifying the Obama administration about Manafort.

She also defended her work with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 campaign by claiming she never visited the country and was not employed by its government.

"For the record: I have never worked for a foreign government," Chalupa tweeted during the hearings. "I have never been to Ukraine. I was not an opposition researcher. In 2008, I knew Manafort worked for Putin's interests in Ukraine. I reported my concerns about him to the NSC in 2014 & sounded the alarm bells in 2016."

2016 Election Influencer

In a Yahoo News story investigative reporter Michael Isikoff named Chalupa as one of 16 "ordinary people" who "shaped the 2016 election."

"Chalupa this month told Politico that, as her research and role in the election started becoming more public, she began receiving death threats, along with continued alerts of state-sponsored hacking. But she said, 'None of this has scared me off.'"

In a profile of Chalupa in October 2018 in the Kyiv Post , she said her interest in Ukraine grew after the unrest and violence on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square in November 2013.

"I have a diverse network of Ukrainian-American and Ukrainian friends on social media who were reporting real-time developments taking place in Kyiv that the western media was not covering," Chalupa said in the profile. "I wanted to do my part to be helpful to draw attention to the events on the Maidan, so I pulled together the heads of Ukrainian-American organizations and connected them with the White House."

"This was the first of a handful of other meetings related to Ukraine she helped organize for Obama's National Security Council," the Post reported.

The November 2019 Politico piece explains why she is back in the spotlight:

Chalupa It's not only GOP House members who are interested in Chalupa, however. The right-wing activist group Judicial Watch recently obtained visitor logs placing Chalupa at the White House several times in 2015, where she attended meetings related to countering disinformation with other Ukrainian-Americans and sometimes worked with the White House's Office of Public Liaison to organize ethnic engagement events, she said.

A photo of her at one of those meetings -- standing next to a man that conservative news outlets have identified as the official who blew the whistle on Trump's interactions with Zelensky -- has again placed Chalupa at the center of controversy.

She mused in an interview about how Republicans would be reacting now if she'd actually taken a job in Ukraine that required her to shuttle back and forth from Kyiv to D.C. during the 2016 campaign. A position as an "embedded consultant" in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was offered to her the day WikiLeaks began publishing stolen DNC documents in July 2016, according to an email reviewed by Politico.

"I never responded to it," Chalupa said. "Felt it was a trap."

To date, it looks like Chalupa won't testify unless the impeachment effort advances to a Senate trial where Republicans might have some tough questions for her.

Chalupa, for her part, thinks she can help the Democrats efforts to remove a duly elected president from office.

"As an expert on political hybrid warfare, including from first-hand experience being targeted by the Kremlin for the past four years, I'm confident there's a lot I can contribute to the hearings," Chalupa said. "For now, it seems the focus is exactly where it needs to be -- on Donald Trump and his accomplices trying to extort Ukraine, a U.S. ally defending itself from Russia's ongoing military and hybrid warfare."

[Nov 27, 2019] The influence of some Eastern European émigrés on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious

Notable quotes:
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Nov 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) , 06 November 2019 at 04:07 PM

Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.

Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.

Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.

English Outsider -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 09:19 AM
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.

"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."

Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.

Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.

Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious. And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.

It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with neighbors.

That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe.

In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive freight.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David Habakkuk -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:15 PM
Andrei and EO,

I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.

When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.

As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.

Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'

(See https://www.ft.com/content/5ac2df1e-6103-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0 .)

Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become a quiescent satellite of the West.

An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined 'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'

Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website, clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.

(See http://karaganov.ru/en/news/534 )

There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.

It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.

So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be put as follows:

'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people" means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"

'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes" running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski clearly always wanted us to be.

'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian": a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.

'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'

At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:

'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.

'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".

'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times" back in June.

(This is also behind a subscription wall, but is available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60836 . It is well worth reading in full.)

An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.

Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.

But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office, back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:33 PM
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and Russia had it with the West.
Vig -> David Habakkuk ... , 08 November 2019 at 08:45 AM
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.

Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)

Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?

Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.

That said, would you please explain why

Petrel -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 11:03 AM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:06 PM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia

Well, that explains a lot. Not all of it, but a lot.

David Habakkuk -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:25 PM
Petrel,

I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.

What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?

And, if they do, what are these?

I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.

But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?

It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire he was creating.

Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg -- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.

Petrel -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 05:50 PM
Andrei Martyanov & David Habakuk:

I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies " -- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.

[Nov 27, 2019] Obama-Holdover Heading Russia-Probe Office Under Investigation For Illegally Leaked Classified Document by Christopher Hull

Notable quotes:
"... According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... In addition, however, a court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post. ..."
"... The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent)." ..."
"... The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.'" ..."
"... The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations." ..."
"... Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged "rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another $11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which is run by a schoolmate of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend." ..."
"... The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen witnesses -- concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates. ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Christopher Hull via The Epoch Times,

The Obama holdover heading the Pentagon office reportedly under investigation by the U.S. attorney who is conducting the criminal probe of the Trump -- Russia investigation was accused of leaking a classified document, in a recent court filing for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

The connection hasn't been previously reported.

According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

In addition, however, a court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post. Specifically, the filing states, "ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius."

The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent)."

Baker didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.

The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.'"

Clapper didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.

The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations."

Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged "rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another $11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which is run by a schoolmate of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend."

According to the whistleblower's attorney, "Baker's interest was his awareness of the LTSG-Clinton connection; his presumptive desire to exploit that to his advantage in the event of a Clinton election win; and the fact that contractors like LTSG served as a lucrative landing pad for ONA retirees."

The attorney charged that Baker's claims about the whistleblower were "demonstrably false," calling Baker "partisan and highly vindictive."

At the time, Richard Perle, Ronald Reagan's former Assistant Secretary of Defense, called Baker "a shallow and manipulative character that should have gone with the change in administration." Perle further charged that the whistleblower "clearly was the target, for political reasons, of an effort to push him out of government," saying "he's a Trump loyalist, and it was launched and sustained by an Obama holdover."

That inquiry is being carried out by the inspector general's Investigations of Senior Officials Directorate.

Raising additional questions, a 2016 report further revealed that the ONA had failed to produce the top-secret net assessments the office was established to conduct for more than 10 years, even with a yearly budget approaching $20 million.

Baker was named as ONA director on May 14, 2015, during the Obama administration. A contemporaneous report called his appointment "part of a wave of new Pentagon personnel moves in recent days, senior-level officials who will outlast President Obama's final term in office." Baker replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed "Yoda" for his "wizened appearance, fanatical following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature." Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in selecting Baker, "passed over several of Marshall's acolytes who were in the running for the position."

The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen witnesses -- concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates.

Jacqueline Deal, president of LTSG, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times: "My colleagues and I began performing work in support of the Office of Net Assessment during the George W. Bush administration, over a decade before the office's current director was appointed. None of the awards received by LTSG from the Department of Defense resulted directly or indirectly from the actions or influence of Secretary [Hillary] Clinton. Any statement or implication otherwise is false."


my new username , 2 minutes ago link

The Bush and Clinton families are joined at their corrupt hips.

The ONA is a CIA slush fund.

KuriousKat , 1 hour ago link

Baker replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed “Yoda” for his “wizened appearance, fanatical following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature.” Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in selecting Baker, “passed over several of Marshall’s acolytes who were in the running for the position.”

Holy ****...The replacement head of the Highlands Group..he may as well be that white bearded guy in the matrix.. Hes the director of the MIC CIA NSA. ..the whole ball of wax..puts it all together...only he is not Yoda like before him..like putting a restaurant fast food manager in charge of the manhattan project. I know those acolytes must be really pissed..and probably a potential source of leaks.

http://www.clearnfo.com/cia-nsa-google/

steelframe7 , 1 hour ago link

Investigations my eye! This has been going on since Moby **** was a minnow.

McCabe has been out there making money while under criminal referral.. That investigation is DONE and still nothing happens.

The public information available on at least 50 of these double dealers is enough to send them all up the river as of a few YEARS ago...but we have to have more investigations...that's so they can figure out how to cover it all up.

Fire these creeps. Hire Sidney Powell.. They'll be swinging inside of six months.

[Nov 23, 2019] Durham Probe Expands To Pentagon Office That Contracted FBI Spy Stephan Halper

Nov 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

Justice Department prosecutor U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel connected to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, which awarded multiple contracts to FBI informant Stephan Halper. Halper, who was informing the bureau on Trump campaign advisors, is a central figure in the FBI's original investigation into President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, SaraACarter.com has learned.

These latest developments reveal the expansive nature of what is now a Justice Department criminal probe into the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign. The revelation also comes on the heels of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report regarding the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, announced to Fox News' Sean Hannity Wednesday night the lengthy investigative report will be released to the public on Dec., 9.

DOJ Attorney General William Barr, who appointed Durham, is conducting a separate investigation alongside Horowitz's probe. Both investigations are examining how U.S. intelligence agencies began investigating now debunked ties between Russia and Trump campaign personnel in the 2016 presidential election.

Multiple sources confirmed to this news site that Durham has spoken extensively with sources working in the Office of Net Assessment, as well as outside contractors, that were paid through Pentagon office.

Department of Justice officials declined to comment on Durham's probe.

In 2016, Halper was an integral part of the FBI's investigation into short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page and George Papadopolous . Halper first made contact with Page at his seminar in July 2016. Page, who was already on the FBI's radar, was accused at the time of being sympathetic to Russia. Halper stayed in contact with Page until September 2017.

During that time, the FBI sought and obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to spy on Page and used Halper to collect information on him, according to sources. It is further alleged that Halper may have secretly recorded his conversations with Page and Papadopolous. Some congressional officials believe that if recordings exist they were kept from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and would be exculpatory evidence that would've exonerated Page from the FISA warrant and allegations that Papadopolous was attempting to seek any help from the Russians with regard to Hillary Clinton's emails.

In an interview with Papadopolous earlier this year, he told this reporter that he was shocked when Halper insinuated to him that Russia was helping the Trump campaign. Papadopolous said that he told him, "he didn't have any idea what the hell he was talking about that would be treason and I have nothing to do with that."

Grassley's Office Gets Pentagon Docs

Moreover, this news site has learned that the Pentagon has finally sent Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's committee the information it requested in July, regarding Halper's contracts and the Office of Net Assessment. Grassley sent the request in a letter to Department of Defense Acting Secretary Mark Esper, after a Pentagon Inspector General investigation discovered that the office failed to conduct appropriate oversight of the contracts. Grassley urged Esper for the information.

According to the DoD Inspector General's report the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) Contracting Officer's Representatives (CORs) "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper; therefore, ONA CORs could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We determined that while the ONA CORs established a file to maintain documents, they did not maintain sufficient documentation to comply with all the FAR requirements related to having a complete COR."

Although, Grassley stated that he wanted the information no later than July 25, the Pentagon delivered the information only last week.

Grassley's office didn't elaborate on what information was given to the committee but confirmed that it was in the process of reviewing hundreds of pages of documents.

"The committee is currently reviewing information received recently from the Pentagon, in response to Grassley's request," said Taylor Foy, a spokesman for the committee. Foy confirmed Grassley is continuing to investigate the matter.

Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to calls and emails. ( SaraACarter.com will update this story if they so chose to respond. )

The Pentagon Audit

Grassley's July letter stated that "shockingly, the audit found that these types of discrepancies were not unique to contracts with Professor Halper, which indicates ONA must take immediate steps to shore up its management and oversight of the contracting process."

"Accordingly, no later than July 25, 2019, please explain to the Committee the steps DoD has taken to address the recommendations that DoD IG made with respect to ONA's contracting procedures and produce to the Committee all records related to Professor Halper's contracts with DoD," Grassley's letter stated. "In addition, I request that ONA provide a briefing to my Committee staff regarding the Halper contracts."

The 74-year old professor, has rarely spoken out publicly since being outed by The Washington Post, and other news organizations, as one of the informants for the bureau who spied on the Trump campaign. He spent a career developing top-level government connections–not just through academia, as he did in Great Britain through the Cambridge Security Initiative, but through his connections in both the CIA and British MI-6. He is expected to be speaking this month at the seminar, he helped found, according to The Daily Caller.

"The results of this audit are disappointing and illustrate a systemic failure to manage and oversee the contracting process," stated the Senator in the letter sent July, 12 to the DOD. "Time and again, DoD's challenges with contract management and oversight are put on display. It is far past time the largest, most critical agency in this country steps up and takes immediate action to increase its efforts to stop waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars."

The Office of Net Assessment came under fire in 2016, when Bill Gertz, a columnist for The Washington Times, revealed that it failed to produce the top-secret net assessments the office was established to do for more than a decade, despite its then nearly $20 million annual budget.

In August, a Pentagon Inspector General report revealed that the office failed to document the research Halper had conducted for the Pentagon in four separate studies worth roughly $1 million. The inspector general's report revealed that loose contracting practices at the office and failed oversight was to blame.

[Nov 23, 2019] Soros and Clinton Connections of Extreme Neocon Globalist Fascist Fiona Hill who committed Perjury at the Ukrainegate Impeachment

Notable quotes:
"... Fiona Hill committed perjury by deliberately lying under oath to Congress that there was no Ukraine interference in the 2016 election, when this is a documented fact with multiple sources and witnesses. ..."
"... DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa went to Ukraine's Embassy in Washington DC in early 2016 asking them to find dirt on Paul Manafort and Trump. ..."
"... Poroshenko's regime in Ukraine complied with the request and sent whatever information they could find. These included the payments made to Manafort by the previous President Yanukovych for Manafort's lobbying work to improve Ukraine's relations with the EU between circa 2006 and February 2014. (Both the Podesta's also worked on this same lobbying contract to improve EU relations, but for some reason this hasn't been widely reported!) ..."
"... Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire. Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton. ..."
Nov 23, 2019 | www.investmentwatchblog.com

Fiona Hill committed perjury by deliberately lying under oath to Congress that there was no Ukraine interference in the 2016 election, when this is a documented fact with multiple sources and witnesses.

She should be immediately prosecuted for perjury and sentenced to the maximum sentence of 5 years in jail.

She should also be prosecuted for failing to uphold her Oath of Office to protect the U.S. from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, of which she is undoubtedly one along with all of her close associates.

Bribery by Foreign Despots such as the Saudis would certainly come under "working for a Foreign Power". And so would working on behalf of international banking cartels.

Ideally she should be prosecuted for Treason and spend the rest of her life in jail, but this would be harder to prove. I am sure lots of other crimes could be found to keep her in jail for a VERY long time if a suitable patriotic and honest investigator and prosecutor, working in the interests of ordinary Americans were to be found to pursue the cases against her.

Ukraine Interference in the 2016 election for the benefit of Hillary Clinton

DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa went to Ukraine's Embassy in Washington DC in early 2016 asking them to find dirt on Paul Manafort and Trump.

Poroshenko's regime in Ukraine complied with the request and sent whatever information they could find. These included the payments made to Manafort by the previous President Yanukovych for Manafort's lobbying work to improve Ukraine's relations with the EU between circa 2006 and February 2014. (Both the Podesta's also worked on this same lobbying contract to improve EU relations, but for some reason this hasn't been widely reported!)

This information resulted in the firing of Paul Manafort soon after the Republican Convention in 2016.

This has been confirmed by multiple members of Poroshenko's regime, Ukraine MPs and other witnesses, and was fairly widely reported in the mainstream media in late 2016 and 2017.

Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire. Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton. www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

[Nov 22, 2019] CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward because, it is not going away.

Highly recommended!
Nov 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Factotum , 17 November 2019 at 05:40 PM

Just as important, where is the proof the Russians hacked the DNC computers (hat tip always to LJ) - since Roger Stone was banned from getting this information by the judge who just sent him away for life.

CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward because, it is not going away. Democrats refusal to even mention it, let alone their obsession trying to relentless label nameless CROWDSTRIKE as a loony, right wing conspiracy theory simply does not pass the smell test.

Particularly since Schiff does his very best to deep six even mention of Trump's requested Ukraine CROWDSTRIKE investigation. https://illicitinfo.com/?p=13576

Deep state CROWDSTRIKE collusion is starting to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and look like a duck.

[Nov 22, 2019] Will IG Horowitz Drop the Hammer on the FBI For FISA Abuse by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Nov 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Will IG Horowitz Drop the Hammer on the FBI For FISA Abuse? by Larry C Johnson Larry Johnson-5x7

There is great impatience, even frustration, over the slow roll out of the results of Inspector General Horowitz's investigation of the FBI's use of FISA. From what we already know from the public record, there was clear abuse and even criminal conduct by former FBI Director Jim Comey and his Deputy, Andy McCabe. They claimed in a filing with the FISA court that the Steele Dossier was verified. Yet, Jim Comey subsequently testified under oath before Congress that the so-called Dossier was "unverified." Okay Jimmy, which is it?

We have some clues that Horowitz is not doing a whitewash. Reports last week, based in part on the whining of people reportedly linked to Comey and McCabe and others at the FBI and DOJ, stated that persons substantively discussed in the report were given the chance to review their portion of the report but they had to do so after signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and were not permitted to submit written responses.

Then we have Attorney General Barr's speech last Friday to the Federalist Society. You can read the full transcript at The Conservative Treehouse . It is magnificent. Barr understands that there has been an attempted coup against the Presidency of Donald Trump. Here are some key excerpts:

As I have said, the Framers fully expected intense pulling and hauling between the Congress and the President. Unfortunately, just in the past few years, we have seen these conflicts take on an entirely new character.

Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.

A prime example of this is the Senate's unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process. The Senate is free to exercise that power to reject unqualified nominees, but that power was never intended to allow the Senate to systematically oppose and draw out the approval process for every appointee so as to prevent the President from building a functional government.

Yet that is precisely what the Senate minority has done from his very first days in office. As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to invoke cloture on 236 Trump nominees -- each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time meant only to delay an inevitable confirmation. How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama's first term? 17 times. The Second President Bush's first term? Four times. It is reasonable to wonder whether a future President will actually be able to form a functioning administration if his or her party does not hold the Senate. . . .

The costs of this constant harassment are real. For example, we all understand that confidential communications and a private, internal deliberative process are essential for all of our branches of government to properly function. Congress and the Judiciary know this well, as both have taken great pains to shield their own internal communications from public inspection. There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the Executive's internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public, nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people. . . .

One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this President constantly accuse this Administration of "shredding" constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law. When I ask my friends on the other side, what exactly are you referring to? I get vacuous stares, followed by sputtering about the Travel Ban or some such thing. While the President has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook, he was upfront about that beforehand, and the people voted for him. What I am talking about today are fundamental constitutional precepts. The fact is that this Administration's policy initiatives and proposed rules, including the Travel Ban, have transgressed neither constitutional, nor traditional, norms, and have been amply supported by the law and patiently litigated through the Court system to vindication.

Indeed, measures undertaken by this Administration seem a bit tame when compared to some of the unprecedented steps taken by the Obama Administration's aggressive exercises of Executive power – such as, under its DACA program, refusing to enforce broad swathes of immigration law.

The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of "Resistance" against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law. This highlights a basic disadvantage that conservatives have always had in contesting the political issues of the day. It was adverted to by the old, curmudgeonly Federalist, Fisher Ames, in an essay during the early years of the Republic.

Bill Barr's speech is a reminder that we still have men and women of integrity and wisdom battling in the public sphere to uphold the essence of our Republic. Barr's speech laid down a very clear marker of how he sees this battle for the soul of America. He is a man grounded in the law and committed to upholding it. He understands that justice must be blind and applied without bias if the fabric of this country is to remain intact.

We will know in the coming weeks if Barr delivers. I think he will. I have bet a bottle of fine bourbon with a wise hero of our Republic that high level people will be indicted. I hope for the sake of our country I am right. And if I am right, I am still going to buy that hero a bottle of fine bourbon.

Posted at 09:03 AM | Permalink

Reblog (0) Comments


Diana C , 19 November 2019 at 09:28 AM

Barr gives me hope that my grandchildren may grow up in a country that is still founded on the Constitution.
Barbara Ann , 19 November 2019 at 09:56 AM
Heroes of the Republic should drink together, come what may. I pray you are right LJ.
Bill H , 19 November 2019 at 09:56 AM
It was a fine speech, but it was made to a private audience and not reported to any significant degree by the media. I saw nothing in it to give me any hope that actual action will be taken against those who are participating in the coup against the properly elected president of this nation.
Cortes said in reply to Bill H ... , 19 November 2019 at 06:03 PM
The size of the forum seems less important to me than the quality of audience members.

Were the founders of the US Republic many? Were they insignificant people? Were they ignorant of their own faults and the likely faults of their interlocutors?

The reaction to Barr's comments will be telling in real time. Not TV or internet instant demand reaction time. Cattle are not the only creatures which have to ruminate, I think. The implications of Barr's remarks have to be digested by folks accustomed to being surrounded by lackeys.

h , 19 November 2019 at 10:08 AM
AG Barr's speech is definitely worth one's time to watch/listen or read. It's an excellent history lesson not to mention a kick in the radical Left's derriere.

It seems many in the alt news arena are placing bets on the IG's Report as well but I haven't seen a fine bottle of bourbon as the prize...very classy. If I were to place a bet my money would be on the IG fully exposing the entirety of this coup cooked up by Brennan (approved by Obama), simmered by Comey and team then carried out by the Resistance cadre.

It's unimaginable to believe Horowitz, let alone Barr, would whitewash or go half way when detailing such an extremely significant political event in our countries history. It's also impossible to right any of this mess without full disclosure which then must lead to holding accountable those who deliberately intended to harm this country and The President.

Here's to hoping Barr/Horowitz and team adhere to the DOJ/FBI's motto - Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity...

JerseyJeffersonian , 19 November 2019 at 11:04 AM
It was an impressive address. Hard to work up hope when so many parts of government that should ne helping are corrupted, though.
notlurking , 19 November 2019 at 12:38 PM
Hey Larry what fine bourbon do you recommend...
Larry Johnson -> notlurking... , 19 November 2019 at 12:48 PM
Pappy Van Winkle.
Jack said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 19 November 2019 at 01:35 PM
An excellent choice, if you can get it.
Tidewater said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 19 November 2019 at 02:25 PM
Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old 2016 750 ml $3,899.99

Wow! You guys are definitely playing hardball.

Barbara Ann said in reply to Tidewater... , 19 November 2019 at 03:43 PM
For what this bet represents - hopefully a first step towards saving the Republic, the stake seems wholly appropriate.
Tidewater said in reply to Barbara Ann... , 20 November 2019 at 04:56 PM
Yes, you are quite right. And very nicely put. I have had a grubby kind of adult life keeping one eye out for cheap, acceptable booze. So I emitted a kind of inadvertent Rorshach. Besides, I think the fiery, precious Kaintuck will be shared among a group of very smart, worldly wise, and hard old spooky guv'mint guys, sometime after Thanksgiving. Like a meeting of the Norwegian Resistance. To be a fly on the wall as to the toasts...
turcopolier -> Tidewater... , 19 November 2019 at 08:57 PM
tidewater
Why do you think the bet is with LJ?
Terry said in reply to turcopolier ... , 20 November 2019 at 06:41 AM
Altho multiple bets are possible, I agree with tidewater -

"I have a side bet with a friend. I no longer believe that the duopoly of parties in the US will indict anyone over the matter of this article.

I hope I lose the bet." pl (Nov 17 2019)

"I have bet a bottle of fine bourbon with a wise hero of our Republic that high level people will be indicted. " - LJ (Nov 19 2019)

I will be 78 on the 31st. I attribute my longevity to; the right genes. a robust outdoor life in youth, and a steady regime of cigars, bourbon and red meat. pl (May 25 2018)

However a commenter named Jack did once mention getting Pappy's for his birthday.


:-)


Jack said in reply to Terry... , 20 November 2019 at 12:20 PM
Terry,

I'm not a party to this bet.

However, your memory is correct, I did receive a bottle of Pappy's for my birthday some moons ago before it went cult. SWMBO paid $95 for it then. As you can see from Tidewater's comment the price has escalated significantly if you can even snag one from a retailer that can get an allocation from the wholesaler. It sure is a fine bourbon. Craft spirits have definitely pushed the envelope on quality and there are now many fine spirits available.

Tidewater said in reply to Terry... , 20 November 2019 at 04:59 PM
You 'multiple' covers you, but not me, and thanks for the comment. But it was a trap. Interesting, too.
Tidewater said in reply to turcopolier ... , 20 November 2019 at 04:32 PM
Sir,

Ah so!, as Mr. Moto would say. I see. "How do you know that?" A question oft asked in one of the past vocations, as I recall. Well, I didn't know, actually. Careless. (Was this a little lesson in close reading?) And there was one glitch in the profile that did puzzle me and should have been a caution. Though I was bedazzled by a lot of surprising insights into the amber which I knew as Rebel Yell or Virginia Gentleman (from A. Smith Bowman who I just found out had the first name of Abram) from the time that I never had hangovers, till the time that I did, when I had to give bourbon up, switch to Scotch, and then had to give that up too, move on to the grape, where I should have been to begin with. (Though it always took me three glasses of jug wine and a little gagging before I got right with it. And then one day the wine in the groceries, like the peanuts, and the cheese, got a lot better.)

It was the Kaintuck angle that I should have noticed. That was not in the profile as developed. Still the glitch could be overlooked as a kind of grunt-ish foible, maybe. Or would have to do with the more er rambunctious LJ than his SST pix indicates, or perhaps the old stomping grounds. Appropriately symbolic, too. Camp on the Watauga, Hannah's Cowpens, King's Mountain, the Presbyterian invention of the pew (to slide out of in a hurry), the origin of the Rangers, the steady Overhill militia at Guilford Court House with homemade rifles lined up on the lowest rail of the split rail fence. And bourbon went there with them, I think that is certain enough.

Still, what the profile suggested to me was that it should have been a bet about something, say, from the Haut Medoc, perhaps a bottle of Chateau Petrus from Pomerol (Bordeux) maybe about 2012, and not the 1945 (a new Mercedes), just something more reasonable I see knocked down at $2499.99 at one loci. Or a Domaine Leroy Chambertin Grand Cru Cote de Nuits (Burgundy) for $1400.00. That could be considered gruntish, too. Napoleon is said to have drunk Chambertin every day. If he wasn't allowed to get it shipped in to him on St. Helena it wasn't the intense humidity of the rainy island climate on the arsenic in the wallpaper that did for him. And that would be really perfidious. Though thinking about it, I can see his jailors finding the steady predictable arrival of the Chambertin by mail packet like from Chewy.com a good thing for one and all...

Maybe I am right about this one, though: Someone here has a bet with Mr. William Binney.

Could it be a bottle of wine?

English Outsider -> Tidewater... , 20 November 2019 at 08:06 PM

Napoleon either did a lot of entertaining on St Helena or he hit the bottle seriously hard. He had hogsheads of Constantia wine delivered from nearby Groot Constantia to the amount of thirty bottles a month. Other sources say two or three bottles a day. "A floral desert wine that, 200 years ago, was one of the most sought after of its day. Crates were shipped to the royal courts of Europe". (Alex Perry, "The Rift".)

They still make it -

https://www.kleinconstantia.com/our-wines/vin-de-constance

The sales pitch quotes Jane Austen as warranting its "healing powers on a disappointed heart" but I reckon those healing powers would have to be quite something to make up for that final cry of "La Garde Recule!"

I liked your alcoholic Odyssey above. May it long continue.

Tidewater said in reply to English Outsider ... , 21 November 2019 at 12:35 AM
For a bit there I thought Groot Constantia was an island near St. Helena that I had never heard of! I looked up Cape Town--Constantia on Wiki and got the picture. So the Dutch were making a good wine in Constantia by the mid-seventeenth century. Nineteen hundred miles seems to me not nearby, though I admit it is a routine passage for a sailing ship. Lot of sugar in a dessert wine. Thank you for your comments.

Did you ever hear the story that the Napoleon at St. Helena out there in the Atlantic off the Namibia coast was a double? The real Napoleon made his escape to the other St. Helena Island, in Beaufort County, South Carolina, according to Gullah legend.

English Outsider -> Tidewater... , 21 November 2019 at 12:36 PM

I doubt that on the grounds that if he'd made it to the States the US would now stretch from Siberia to Tierra del Fuego. A great captain, Napoleon, and had rotten luck at Waterloo. A damn close run thing indeed.

Trouble is he was also a complete bastard and very light on the touchy-feely stuff. You get that sort on the Continent every now and again so we have to go over regularly and sort them out. Gets to be a bore but Noblesse Oblige and all that.

Put that last in in case Vig, who may just possibly be LeaNder though the style's slightly different, wants some English Exceptionalism to knock.

On the drinks front I have to confess to being a complete fraud, from the viewpoint of the average SSTer with his or her well stocked cellar. At present I'm occupied with palming off some decidedly weird home brewed cider on unsuspecting guests. Not always successfully. My home brewed beer's OK though. Compares well with German beer, which is for me the Gold Standard. A decent Single Malt every now and again and that's about it.

So I can admire your Odyssey, and the recollections that go with it, but not emulate it.

JMH said in reply to Tidewater... , 20 November 2019 at 07:04 AM
Buffalo Trace is the poor man's Pappy's.

https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/
https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/brands/buffalo-trace
https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/brands/van-winkle

Jack , 19 November 2019 at 12:41 PM
Larry

The proof will be in the pudding. It seems the IG report will be released after Thanksgiving. Considering the previous report that Horowitz issued where the executive summary said something similar to Comey's exoneration of Hillary, it will be interesting to see the tone of this report.

Barr made a fine speech but talk is cheap. What has he done to clean up his own department? Roger Stone was arrested by a SWAT team in a dramatic made for TV show and has now been convicted of lying. Why hasn't the same standard been applied to all the muckety mucks in DC?

Sbin , 19 November 2019 at 12:57 PM
All useless noise without real action.
Doubt Barr will do anything of substance.
English Outsider , 19 November 2019 at 02:47 PM
I don't think I've ever seen such an impressive overview of the constitutional background before. It applies to both sides of the Atlantic but more chance of it resulting in something concrete on yours. The video contains some interesting asides that are not in the printed transcript, in particular a reference to Trump's style of leadership and a dig at the convoluted legislation that sometimes emerges from Congress.


I was more interested in the constitutional implications of the lecture, but your article above poses the urgent question arising from it. AG Barr has nailed his colours to the mast and cleared the decks for action. Is that all, or will action follow?

Factotum , 19 November 2019 at 06:30 PM
Obama perfected Cloward-Pivens strategies to get what he wanted starting back in 2008.

Obama storm-troopers would over-whelm local elections offices flooding them the voter registration requests they knew included fake registrations, just in order to prevent proper vetting of each registrant which allowed a lot of fraudulent voters to get a free pass.

Cloward-Pivens is intended to overwhelm a system "legally" to render it ineffectual. They are doing the same now with "expanded" voting rights like vote-harvesting and same day registration.

Just one more part of the Democrats use of Saul Alinksy Rules for Radicals. Glad Barr pointed all of this intentionally obstructionist out in such direct and data backed terms. We indeed are a fragile republic - losing a shared ethical common denominator every day - diversity is not our strength - in fact, it exposes our endemic weaknesses the more we move from the Founders values into third world values.

edding , 19 November 2019 at 07:57 PM
Am guessing that win or lose a bottle of Jefferson's bourbon is destined for Col. Lang, correct?
turcopolier -> edding... , 19 November 2019 at 08:56 PM
edding

Why do you think that?

English Outsider -> turcopolier ... , 20 November 2019 at 09:12 AM

Probably. Colonel, that guess results from putting two and two together about a bet you also made a little while ago, the one you are hoping to lose. I wouldn't say that constitutes proof but there's definitely a smoking gun there.
J , 19 November 2019 at 08:39 PM
'If' the 'Establishment' [aka Deep state] decided to prosecute its own, it would have been setting a dangerous precedence for themselves, and I fear that is the reason for the slow, s-l-o-w roll out, instead of prompt arrest, jail, prosecute, and upon conviction they become Bubb'a shower soap.

I hate to say it, but I fear that the Colonel is right, nothing will be done with all this. It's all circus meant to distract us and get our hopes up.

akaPatience , 19 November 2019 at 09:42 PM
I hope you win your bet Larry. Without enforcement, what good are laws?

And I swear, if the malefactors get away with what they've done, at the very least I'll join others to march on Washington in protest. Wars aside, this is THE worst political scandal of my lifetime - a nightmare come true of the US government at its most corrupt and tyrannical.

[Nov 13, 2019] Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite these people at best only having advisory roles. The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits and are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

Notable quotes:
"... So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it). ..."
"... Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"). ..."
Nov 13, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

michael , November 13, 2019 at 10:50

"to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they set U.S. foreign policy and resent the president for intruding upon them. It is increasingly evident that Trump's true offense is proposing to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or less untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation)."

This may be even worse than Lawrence depicts. It is clear that Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite constitutionally these people at best only having advisory roles to the President (and constitutionally the President can ask for their opinions in writing; CYA even back then!) The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup (national security from Vindman's perspective) are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits with no interference from Trump. And the Democrats/ Ukraine-Americans "running the show" are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

I have started Oliver Bullough's "Money Land" and was aghast at the luxury items Yanukovich had stolen through corruption and accumulated at his many properties. Surely with so much money going to corrupt Yanukovich and his henchmen, the coup would have been a blessing for the Ukrainian people! Right? I was shocked to find that after the overthrow of Yanukovich in 2014, the median per capita household income in Ukraine, which had risen steadily from $2032 in 2010 to $2601 in 2013, had dropped over 50% to $1110 to $1135 in 2015 and 2016, and has only risen to $1694 in 2018 (ceicdata.com).

So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it).

Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman").

[Nov 11, 2019] I Caught The Swamp - CrowdStrike Server, DNC-NATO Blackberries, OCONUS Lures

An interesting video. Was Crowdstrike server in Ukraine used to perform false flag attack on DNC which they later attributed to Russia ?
Nov 11, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Someone Unknown , 27 minutes ago

Think Adam Schiff will have the courage to hang himself?

Davida G , 24 minutes ago

Thank you George , may the right ears be listening to your very informed words. Blessings from Europe 🙏🙏🙏

Madam Mortified , 25 minutes ago

I am so glad you came up on my feed...it's been a few years. Thanks for the findings.

Eli Redshirt , 8 minutes ago

Thank you sir!

Sharon Seal , 17 minutes ago (edited) div tabindex="0" role="

article"> Ellen Ratner (sister of Bruce) was allegedly involved in some of this. Here is what I have, mostly from the Butowsky lawsuit that was filed. Most interesting in this data is the fact that Ellen Ratner met with Assange for 6 hours after a return flight from Berlin. May 11 Wikileaks lawyer Michael Ratner died of cancer He had a sister Ellen Ratner, a news analyst for Fox News and the White House correspondent for Talk Media News. Aug 26 2016 Ellen Ratner interview on Tom Hartmann. During their discussion Ellen shares news she has heard regarding Julian Assange and his threats of releasing hacked data that will send Hillary Clinton to prison (data that was either obtained by Russian hacker groups or DNC staffer Seth Rich - who HRC had murdered for his betrayal). "Julian Assange is saying he's going to do a new leak from WikiLeaks. Now, I have to tell you something, my brother Michael was Julian Assange's attorney before he died (that's before Michael died, Julian Assange is still alive)... and a lot of people think that what Julian Assange is actually doing is, he has made a bet that he's going to do better under Trump than Hillary Clinton, so he's going after Hillary Clinton." Nov 5 2016 Butowsky Lawsuit: "Mr. Butowsky stumbled into the RCH crosshairs after Ellen Ratner, a news analyst for Fox News and the White House correspondent for Talk Media News, contacted him in the Fall of 2016 about a meeting she had with Mr. Assange. Ms. Ratner's brother, the late Michael Ratner, was an attorney who had represented Mr. Assange. According to Ms. Ratner, she made a stop in London during a return flight from Berlin, and she met with Mr. Assange for approximately six hours in the Ecuadorean embassy. Ms. Ratner said Mr. Assange told her that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron, were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Ms. Ratner said Mr. Assange wanted the information relayed to Seth's parents, as it might explain the motive for Seth's murder." Dec 17 2016 Butowsky Lawsuit: "On December 17, 2016, at the instigation of Ms. Ratner, Mr. Butowsky finally contacted Joel and Mary Rich, the parents of Seth, and he relayed the information about Ms. Ratner's meeting with Mr. Assange. During that conversation, Mr. Rich told Mr. Butowsky that he already knew that his sons were involved in the DNC email leak, but he and his wife just wanted to know who murdered Seth. Mr. Rich said he was reluctant to go public with Seth's and Aaron's role in leaking the emails because "we don't want anyone to think our sons were responsible for getting Trump elected." Mr. Rich said he did not have enough money to hire a private investigator, so Mr. Butowsky offered to pay for one. Mr. Rich accepted the offer and thanked Mr. Butowsky in an email. Dec 29 2016 Butowsky Lawsuit: On December 29, 2016 at 1:51 p.m., Mr. Butowsky sent an email to Ms. Ratner from his iPad: "If the person you met with truly said what he did, is their [sic] a reason you we aren't reporting it ?" At 3:48 p.m. that afternoon, Ms. Ratner responded as follows: "because--- it was a family meeting---- I would have to get his permission-- will ask his new lawyer, my sister-in-law."

JustAnotherPaddy , 1 minute ago div tabindex="0" role="articl

e"> Go to Quantico and learn how to glow. And this term 'OCONUS lures'...that just burns me. These terms they use to attempt to sterilize and normalize something that is absolutely Pimping and trafficking by design. How can this legitimately be FBI and DoJ policy? You're bringing women into the country to sex up and spy on schmucks for blackmail, profit and control. Words mean things. It's like government 'Authorities' at all levels of gov calling us 'civilians'? Think about that. A local cop, who is a citizen, calling you a civilian. Like you are collateral meat in a war zone. You and the officer - are citizens of this country. That word was inserted to separate you from your rights here. It changes the thought and perspective of you...and the officer. And they are not the nebulous 'Authorities'! They are public servants lent certain limited powers and all the responsibility that comes with it. Rant off, but it just bothers me...this double speak. Words mean things and using woman for 'operations' isn't ok at all. The people that fall for them? Just amazing dumb. As an adult, you should have formed so idea of the people you can reasonably attract. If some 11 rated super model rolls up to you in a bar and you've been mostly dating 5-7 range people, know that there's a reason your punching above your weight class. Your a target. If it's too good to be true, it absolutely is. Lures are drawing a check from our government for sex. What do we call that downtown? This should be prosecuted...and stopped.

Jean Burk , 16 minutes ago (edited)

Seth Rich was the source of the thumb drive(s). So I guess we have to disagree. Otherwise why was he killed? WHY would Podesta say to make an example of whoever got into the emails? Maybe Seth complained, went to (Donna? Debbie W-S?) about the cheating of Bernie Sanders. I don't believe a thing Mueller says. Kamphuis would know. Why was he killed?

[Nov 09, 2019] Visitor Logs Reveal Whistleblower And DNC Contractor Visited Obama White House Multiple Times

Nov 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Visitor Logs Reveal 'Whistleblower' And DNC Contractor Visited Obama White House Multiple Times by Tyler Durden Sat, 11/09/2019 - 13:30 0 SHARES

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

A controversial whistleblower who allegedly reported second-hand on President Donald Trump's private conversation with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Obama White House on numerous occasions, according to Obama era visitor logs obtained by Judicial Watch.

Last week Real Clear Investigation's first reported the whistleblower's name. It is allegedly CIA officer Eric Ciaramella. His name, however, has been floating around Washington D.C. since the leak of Trump's phone call. It was considered an 'open secret' until reporter Paul Sperry published his article. Ciaramella has never openly stated that he is the whistleblower and most news outlets are not reporting his name publicly.

He was detailed to the National Security Counsel during the Obama Administration in 2015 and was allegedly sent back to the CIA in 2017, after a number of people within the Trump White House suspected him of leaking information to the press, according to several sources that spoke with SaraACarter.com .

Further, the detailed visitor logs reveal that a Ukrainian expert Alexandra Chalupa , a contractor that was hired by the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election, visited the White House 27 times.

Chalupa allegedly coordinated with the Ukrainians to investigate then candidate Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Manafort was forced out of his short tenure as campaign manager for Trump when stories circulated regarding business dealings with Ukrainian officials. Manafort was later investigated and convicted by a jury on much lesser charges then originally set forth by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. He was given 47 months in prison for basically failing to pay appropriate taxes and committing bank fraud.

Both Ciaramella and Chalupa are of interest to Republican's investigating the what some conservatives have described as the second Trump 'witch-hunt.' And many have called for the whistleblower to testify to Congress.

They are absolutely correct and within the law. There is so much information and evidence that reveals that this was no ordinary whistleblower complaint but one that may have been based on highly partisan actions targeting Trump.

Here's just one example : Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes said its impossible to have a fair impeachment inquiry without the testimony of the alleged whistleblower because he is a 'fact foundational witness' who had met with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-CA, previously. Schiff had originally denied that he had any contact with his committee and then had to walk back his statements when it was revealed that the whistleblower had met with the Democrats prior to filing his complaint to the Intelligence Inspector General about the President.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, said the visitor logs reveal that there is much lawmakers or the American public don't know about what happened during the 2016 presidential elections and moreover it raises very significant questions about the apparent partisan nature of the whistleblower.

"Judicial Watch's analysis of Obama White House visitor logs raises additional questions about the Obama administration, Ukraine and the related impeachment scheme targeting President Trump," said Fitton, in a press release Friday.

"Both Mr. Ciaramella and Ms. Chalupa should be questioned about the meetings documented in these visitor logs."

Read Below From Judicial Watch

The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Eric Ciaramella while he was detailed to the Obama White House:

The Hill reported that in April 2016, during the U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Embassy under Obama in Kiev, "took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and (AntAC)."

On March 7, 2019, The Associated Press reported that the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.

On June 29, 2018, Foreign Policy reported that Melville resigned in protest of Trump.

(Judicial Watch has previously uncovered documents revealing Nuland had an extensive involvement with Clinton-funded dossier . Judicial Watch also released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department's "urgent" gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Trump taking office.)

On October 7, 2019, the Daily Wire reported leaked tapes show Sytnyk confirming that the Ukrainians helped the Clinton campaign.

The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Alexandra Chalupa, then a DNC contractor:

Mayerson was previously an intern at the Center for American Progress. After leaving the Obama administration, he went to work for the City of Chicago Treasurer's office.

Mayerson met with Chalupa and Amanda Stone, who was the White House deputy director of technology, on January 11, 2016.

On May 4, 2016, Chalupa emailed DNC official Luis Miranda to inform him that she had spoken to investigative journalists about Paul Manafort in Ukraine.

[Nov 09, 2019] The Media's Obsession With Personalities Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... Earlier in Stone's legal process his lawyers filed a motion to try to prove that Russia did not hack the DNC and Podesta emails. The motion revealed that CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign, never completed its report, and only gave a redacted draft to the FBI blaming Russia. The FBI was never allowed to examine the DNC server itself. ..."
"... Faced now with a criminal investigation into how the Russiagate conspiracy theory originated intelligence officers and their accomplices in the media and in the Democratic Party are mounting a defense by launching an offensive in the form of impeachment proceedings against Trump that is based on an allegation of conducting routine, corrupt U.S. foreign policy. ..."
"... Consortium News ..."
Nov 09, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Earlier in Stone's legal process his lawyers filed a motion to try to prove that Russia did not hack the DNC and Podesta emails. The motion revealed that CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign, never completed its report, and only gave a redacted draft to the FBI blaming Russia. The FBI was never allowed to examine the DNC server itself.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter if it were a hack or a leak by an insider. That's because the emails WikiLeaks released were accurate. When documents check out it is irrelevant who the source is. That's why WikiLeaks set up an anonymous drop box, copied by big media like The Wall Street Journal and others . Had the emails been counterfeit and disinformation was inserted into a U.S. election by a foreign power that would be sabotage. But that is not what happened.

The attempt to stir up the thoroughly discredited charge of collusion appears to be part of the defense strategy of those whose reputations were thoroughly discredited by maniacally pushing that false charge for more than two years. This includes legions of journalists. But principal among them are intelligence agency officials who laundered this "collusion" disinformation campaign through the mainstream media.

Faced now with a criminal investigation into how the Russiagate conspiracy theory originated intelligence officers and their accomplices in the media and in the Democratic Party are mounting a defense by launching an offensive in the form of impeachment proceedings against Trump that is based on an allegation of conducting routine, corrupt U.S. foreign policy.

Stone may be just a footnote to this historic partisan battle that may scar the nation for a generation. But he has the personality to be the poster boy for the Democrats' lost cause.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .

[Nov 06, 2019] More Evidence that The Comey FBI was a Malevolent Clown Show by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... If Flynn actually had lied to Strzok and Pientka that fact would have been reflected in the notes and the original 302. But that did not happen. A normal routine would be to write up the 302 and put it into final within five days. That did not happen. The original 302 still has not been produced. However, Ms. Powell has presented exhibits showing that there were other versions of the 302 generated and that substantive, unsupportable changes were made. The "final" 302 essentially made the case that Flynn lied. ..."
"... But Sidney Powell has produced documentary evidence showing that Strzok stated he did not believe that Flynn lied. And there was more FBI misconduct. General Flynn, for example, was not advised of the need to have a lawyer present nor was he shown the transcript of the call that was illegally recorded by the NSA. At no point was he given a chance to correct the record. It was a total setup and designed to paint Flynn as a liar and a collaborator with the Russians. This is malevolently diabolical conduct by law enforcement officers. ..."
Nov 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I believe in repentance and redemption. But the FBI remains an unrepentant, vile sinner. Yesterday, Tuesday, the FBI and the Department of Justice made a stunning admission in the Michael Flynn case--they mislabeled evidence. DOJ sheepishly admitted that the notes of the interview of Michael Flynn taken by Agent Pientka actually belonged to Agent Strzok and that the notes attributed to Strzok actually belonged to Pientka. Holy Guacamole, Batman. It is still not clear that the FBI is freely confessing its sin and is committed to turning its bureaucratic life around.

There is no good news in this for the government's case. At a minimum it exposes the FBI as incompetent clowns. At worse, it may be evidence of a deliberate effort to deceive the defense and the judge. It has been exposed because of the insistent demands of the principled Sidney Powell, a relentless Honey Badger. That woman will not quit in demanding that General Flynn be treated fairly. She knows right from wrong. Cannot say the same for the FBI. The Bureau is a disgrace.

Now that we know that the FBI mislabeled the notes taken by the FBI agents during their interview of General Flynn, it would appear the entire case is in jeopardy. The foundation of the charge that Flynn lied about his conversation with the Russian Ambassador is predicated on the notes the FBI agents took and then turned into a 302 report. I asked one of my retired FBI buddies (he served as a Special Agent in Charge of a large US city) if the agents were required to date and sign their notes. He replied: No, we did not sign and date notes. They were placed in a 1-A (evidence) Envelope which had our name and the date collected along with the file number and, I believe, the case title. The 1-As were kept as part of the original case file. They were not entered into evidence like other things we collected.

Those notes should have been placed in an "evidence" envelope with the appropriate name and date on the envelope. How could so-called professionals screw up something this basic?

There was something more nefarious afoot. Let's put this into the broader context. If Flynn actually had lied to Strzok and Pientka that fact would have been reflected in the notes and the original 302. But that did not happen. A normal routine would be to write up the 302 and put it into final within five days. That did not happen. The original 302 still has not been produced. However, Ms. Powell has presented exhibits showing that there were other versions of the 302 generated and that substantive, unsupportable changes were made. The "final" 302 essentially made the case that Flynn lied.

But Sidney Powell has produced documentary evidence showing that Strzok stated he did not believe that Flynn lied. And there was more FBI misconduct. General Flynn, for example, was not advised of the need to have a lawyer present nor was he shown the transcript of the call that was illegally recorded by the NSA. At no point was he given a chance to correct the record. It was a total setup and designed to paint Flynn as a liar and a collaborator with the Russians. This is malevolently diabolical conduct by law enforcement officers.

Honey Badger Powell's terrific lawyering and insistence on getting her hands on the evidence the US Government is withholding has now backed the Mueller team into a corner. Sidney Powell has exposed staggering misconduct and malfeasance. Michael Flynn will be exonerated. The only real question is whether or not the prosecutors will be held in contempt and tried.


Jack , 06 November 2019 at 11:55 AM

Larry

Why doesn't the FBI, just record an interview? It's not that video cameras and tape recorders are a new invention. Is the objective to manipulate using written interpretations of conversations?

Mr Zarate , 06 November 2019 at 12:16 PM
I'm worried there won't be any popcorn left by the time we get to the end of this sorry saga. It would be nice to think that success by Sidney Powell might be the start of the finale in this duplicitous story but I doubt it. The world is upside down and to many this is now a matter of belief not evidence, something that has been largely caused be an entirely partisan mainstream media (interested only in improving its revenue stream) and what can only be described as a totally gullible section of the voting public.
Upstate NY'er , 06 November 2019 at 01:14 PM
One thing, Flynn has one hell of a lawsuit against his prior lawyers - a well known swamp law firm. Egregious malpractice if not outright conspiring with the prosecutors.

LA Sox Fan -> Jack... , 06 November 2019 at 06:16 PM

FBI interviews are not recorded because if they were, then the interview subject could not be falsely charged with the felony of lying to a federal investigator.
Coleen Rowley -> Jack... , 06 November 2019 at 10:32 PM
I need to write about the long history of the FBI honoring J. Edgar Hoover's policy, even countering former Director Louis Freeh, after a meeting in mid 1990's with a federal judge who had same suggestion, ORDERED the FBI to begin tape recording confessions and even after many states like Minnesota, began to find their own constitutions required tape-recording (at least of custodial confessions). After Freeh ordered the FBI to begin tape-recording, a number of SACs argued the advantages for prosecutorial purposes of sticking with the old policy of allowing Agents to write up, from memory and notes, what subjects and witnesses said. The SACs made the point that juries would always tend to believe agents over the word of defendants. So Freeh backed down. Flynn's attorney ought to request these memos documenting how FBI policy was deliberately kept antiquated because it was advantageous.
artemesia said in reply to Upstate NY'er... , 06 November 2019 at 06:12 PM
Perhaps Larry Johnson knows -- Does Michael Flynn have some form of redress agains the government, some established protocol for compensation for the misery and expense he's been put through? Or are lawsuits against former lawyers his only option to try to recoup legal expenses?

Strozk's caree/life is over. An interesting meditation: is he an evil man, or did he get caught up in something larger than he could handle? (He thought he had what it took to swim with the sharks, but he was just a barnacle. Or steelhead trout.)

The "unidentified" supposed whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, is young - early 30s. Age of consent, for sure, but very young, the "age of youthful ambition," a different category from Strozk, the age of damn well should have known better. I would judge Eric -- whom I suspect was at very least put up to carrying out dirty deeds for Biden and careerism -- less harshly than Strozk.

Factotum , 06 November 2019 at 02:58 PM
How did Sidney Powell become involved in this long, on-going case? She can't ethically "solicit" the business, but someone must have put Flynn in touch with her -- at what point. What made Flynn seek legal advice elsewhere.

Flynn seemed so passive about facing these drummed up charges earlier in the case - what exactly was he trying to protect his son about that allegedly caused this legal passivity about his own case.

Love watching this unfold and the lessons in " big government" that come with it. But Flynn having to live out a modern day Greek tragedy is a very high price to pay for our civics lesson.

Factotum said in reply to Factotum... , 06 November 2019 at 07:46 PM
Asked and answered: Powell tussled dramatically in the past with Andrew Weissman over his role in the government's prosecution of Enron steam roller cases. She finally got court vindication for her clients 9 years later.

Why does Andrew Weissman's name keep popping up just about everywhere now, when one is looking in pari delitci (including our now famous Pierre Delecto)?

Brent , 06 November 2019 at 03:04 PM
From what I have read, I gather that the FBI in the Mueller / Comey era has made extensive use of "perjury traps". They then threaten charges to get someone to "flip" on someone bigger, in this case Trump. Flynn wouldn't flip even when they threatened to go after Flynn's son. So they decided to "F" him, as stated by Andrew McCabe.

The FBI has been thoroughly disgraced, and Wray is incapable of cleaning it up. He just wants to keep the dirt under the rug. It is too late for that, it is all coming out. US citizens deserve to know how dirty our FBI and CIA are - they are criminal organizations.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) , 06 November 2019 at 04:07 PM
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable--those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort. Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.

[Nov 04, 2019] From Russiagate to Ukrainegate An Impeachment Inquiry by Renée Parsons

Notable quotes:
"... NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis " while the NY Times continues to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with: ..."
"... There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. ..."
"... Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release. ..."
"... As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media. ..."
"... As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision (real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it. ..."
"... Adds realist Dr.Assad: "I said before whatever the Americans say has no credibility, whether they say it to an enemy or a friend, the result is the same – it is unreliable. That is why we do not waste our time on things like this. " ..."
"... I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything. ..."
"... Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office of the President. ..."
"... The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps. ..."
"... Interesting updates, Joerg: however, it was obvious from the beginning that the interference in the US 2016 elections were Deep State gamers, from GCHQ-Ukro-Italian secret services, which was why they manufactured the Skripal Affair as Russians, Warning & Distraction, to cover their own backsides in the media: the same Skripal that worked on the Bum Steele Dossier, writing complete & utter fiction about Trump, that Comey then used as basis for his attempt with McCabe to enact Treason U$A, on wholly false trumped up charges, which were then transposed to the Russiagate-Hoax, Mueller &&& (yawn), . Still, it's good that Sid Powell has confirmed that they have Mifsud's phone . . . Get Mifsud, Now !? Strange how such USUK Agents become untraceable, when we simple folk would be harangued to hell, even with the odd ex-judicial killing, if we prove inconvenient to their narrative. ..."
"... "American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors. ..."
"... Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States." ..."
Oct 30, 2019 | OffGuardian

As the Quantum field oversees the disintegration of institutions no longer in service to the public, the Democratic party continues to lose their marbles, perpetuating their own simulated bubble as if they alone are the nation's most trusted purveyors of truth.

Since the Mueller Report failed to deliver on the dubious Russiagate accusations, the party of Thomas Jefferson continues to remain in search of another ethical pretense to justify continued partisan turmoil. In an effort to discredit and/or distract attention from the Barr-Durham and IG investigations, the Dems have come up with an implausible piece of political theatre known as Ukrainegate which has morphed into an impeachment inquiry.

The Inspector General's Report, which may soon be ready for release, will address the presentation of fabricated FBI evidence to the FISA Court for permission to initiate a surveillance campaign on Trump Administration personnel. In addition, the Department of Justice has confirmed that Special Investigator John Durham's probe into the origin of the FBI's counter intelligence investigation during the 2016 election has moved from an administrative review into the criminal prosecution realm. Durham will now be able to actively pursue candidates for possible prosecution.

The defensive assault from the Democrat hierarchy and its corporate media cohorts can be expected to reach a fevered pitch of manic proportions as both investigations threatened not only their political future in 2020 but perhaps their very existence.

NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis " while the NY Times continues to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with:

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it."

when in fact, it was the Russiagate collusion allegations that Trump referred to as a hoax, rather than the Mueller investigation per se.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va), minority leader of the Senate Intel Committee suggested that Attorney General William Barr " owes the Committee an explanation " since the committee is completing a " three-year bipartisan investigation " that has " found nothing to justify " Barr's expanded effort.

The Senator's gauntlet will be ever so fascinating as the public reads exactly how the Intel Committee spent three years and came up with " nothing " as compared to what Durham and the IG reports have to say.

On the House side, prime-time whiners Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) commented that news of the Durham investigation moving towards criminal liability " raised profound concerns that Barr has lost his independence and become a vehicle for political revenge " and that " the Rule of Law will suffer irreparable damage ."

Since Barr has issued no determination of blame other than to assure a full, fair and rigorous investigation, it is curious that the Dems are in premature meltdown as if they expect indictments even though the investigations are not yet complete.

There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release.

As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media.

As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision (real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it.

His 'cooperation' can be generally attributed to being more concerned with saving his own butt rather than the Constitution.

In any case, the information he is able to provide will be key for getting to the true origins of Russiagate and the FISA scandal. Baker's collaboration may augur others facing possible prosecution to step up since 'cooperation' usually comes with the gift of a lesser charge.

With a special focus on senior Obama era intel officials Durham has reportedly already interviewed up to two dozen former and current FBI employees as well as officials in the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

From the number of interviews conducted to date it can be surmised that Durham has been accumulating all the necessary facts and evidence as he works his way up the chain of command, prior to concentrating on top officials who may be central to the investigation.

It has also been reported that Durham expects to interview current and former intelligence officials including CIA analysts, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.

In a recent CNN interview , when asked if he was concerned about any wrongdoing on the part of intel officials, Clapper nervously responded:

I don't know. I don't think there was any wrongdoing. It is disconcerting to know that we are being investigated for having done our duty and done what we were told to do by the President."

One wonders if Clapper might be a candidate for 'cooperating' along with Baker.

As CIA Director, Brennan made no secret of his efforts to nail the Trump Administration. In the summer of 2016, he formed an inter-agency taskforce to investigate what was being reported as Russian collusion within the Trump campaign. He boasted to Rachel Maddow that he brought NSA and FBI officials together with the CIA to ' connect the dots ."

With the addition of James Clapper's DNI, three reports were released: October, 2016, December, 2016 and January, 2017 all disseminating the Russian-Trump collusion theory which the Mueller Report later found to be unproven.

Since 1947 when the CIA was first authorized by President Harry Truman who belatedly regretted his approval, the agency has been operating as if they report to no one and that they never owe the public or Congress any explanation of their behaviour or activity or how they spend the money.

Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31


vexarb

From a realist who deals with the real world, Syrian President Dr.Assad on why Trump is the best POTU$A:

"As for Trump, you might ask me a question and I give you an answer that might sound strange. I say that he is the best American President, not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president. All American presidents perpetrate all kinds of political atrocities and all crimes and yet still win the Nobel Prize and project themselves as defenders of human rights and noble and unique American values, or Western values in general. The reality is that they are a group of criminals who represent the interests of American lobbies, i.e. the large oil and arms companies, and others. Trump talks transparently, saying that what we want is oil. We want money. This is the reality of American policy. What more do we need than a transparent opponent?"

vexarb
Adds realist Dr.Assad: "I said before whatever the Americans say has no credibility, whether they say it to an enemy or a friend, the result is the same – it is unreliable. That is why we do not waste our time on things like this. "

[Note: by "the Americans" Dr.Assad means the United $tates. A figure of speech, taking the whole to denote the part.]

Martin Usher
I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything.

Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office of the President. He also refuses to distinguish between private interests and public service. His cabinet, a rag tag body of industry insiders and special interests, are busy trying to ride roughshod over opposition, established policy and even public opinion to grab as much as possible before the whole house of cards collapses. Its a mess, and its a mess that's quite obviously damaging US interests. Many constituency groups will have gone along with the program because they thought they could control things or benefit from them but as its become increasingly obvious Trump's unable to deliver they've been systematically alienated.

The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps.

( and as for Trump/collusion we've spent the last three years confusing money with nation states. Trump's a businessman in a business that's notorious for laundering money from dubious sources (this doesn't mean he's involved, of course)(legal disclaimer!). I daresay that if Russia really wanted to sink Trump they could easily do so but why would they bother when he's doing such a great job unaided?)

Joerg
Please make sure You see the Interview-Video "MICHAEL FLYNN CASE UNRAVELS. US-UK DEEP STATE ENTRAPMENT PLAN" on https://youtube.com/channel/UCdeMVChrumySxV9N1w0Au-w – it's a must-see!
Tim Jenkins
Interesting updates, Joerg: however, it was obvious from the beginning that the interference in the US 2016 elections were Deep State gamers, from GCHQ-Ukro-Italian secret services, which was why they manufactured the Skripal Affair as Russians, Warning & Distraction, to cover their own backsides in the media: the same Skripal that worked on the Bum Steele Dossier, writing complete & utter fiction about Trump, that Comey then used as basis for his attempt with McCabe to enact Treason U$A, on wholly false trumped up charges, which were then transposed to the Russiagate-Hoax, Mueller &&& (yawn), . Still, it's good that Sid Powell has confirmed that they have Mifsud's phone . . . Get Mifsud, Now !? Strange how such USUK Agents become untraceable, when we simple folk would be harangued to hell, even with the odd ex-judicial killing, if we prove inconvenient to their narrative.

More importantly for me was the "Putin sends a clear Message to Macron and the EU" TDC, (Top dead centre) in your link: it was a (month old) pretty good longterm objective analysis of how the alliance between Russia & China was designed to be and has become truly rock-solid, moving forwards: and it's well discussed & documented what a moron ManuMacroni has been on the world stage >>> great translation of Putin's statement of intent and clear talk to Macron, who is exposed for the meaningless Deep State puppet he is >>> even, Putin had no need to mention the Gilets Jaunes, representing a degree of vision, trust & commitment far beyond that of the failing FUKUS empires: a vision that FUKUS cannot even financially entertain, in their present economic state of financial & moral depravity & bankruptcy.

Austerity my ass, let's keep raising national debt and keep funding bum wars & terrorism, for the MIC & National Security State, until society burns. How utterly shameful

It should be now very clear to all that the Russian-Chinese alliance is far more than just military, in every sense: together, the world's largest economy will plough on regardless of what Macron or any other arrogant manipulative untrustworthy Westerner has to say! And frankly, after NATZO's broken promises in Eastern Europe, (which I have personally observed here in Bulgaria since 2004, fully expected & awaited, I might add) and the events in the Ukraine and the self-destructive EU sanctions based on media lies & manipulations & omissions, I really do believe Putin has handled this all extremely wisely & astutely playing the long game, like the Chinese & avoiding incredible provocation, media wise. One day, however long it takes, the average ignorant Westerner will come to understand that they have been deceived & lied to, from the beginning, especially by their secret services; & have been lapdogs in the arms of US Deep State Corporate Fascist NATZO CIA & GCHQ morons, in "The History of the National Security State" and, that Julian Assange needs to be set FREE asap : and given the Seth Rich murder, which kinda' benefited Trump and his Fake News declarations, my guess is that Trump will not want Assange charged, in the end: but, we'll see ! ? Because first the British have to sort out the arrogant bastards in GCHQ, also in the Media and their own new 'attorney general' who will investigate secret services role in Deep State Corporate Deeds & prosecute people like Judge Arbuthnot, for not recusing herself >>> BoJo's job, actually, but who cares ? >>> drain UK Swampland. ? Myopic Corbyn seems to have missed the bus & significance on the Affair Assange, completely, which is somewhat inexplicable, given the Guardian Moderators infiltration by the British Military 77th Brigade, and their bias against Corbyn. At least, that appears to be Trump's agenda and the longer Assange remains 'Censored', the worse that societies throughout Europe will become, until we all address Communications & Media Law, with wholly wise, tech. savvy intelligent and independent JUDGES, not compromised by the HillBilly Clinton/Epstein Clan of NATZO CIA/GCHQ operatives. (maybe I'm not clarifying in the best way, but hopefully you get the drift?). Only a week or so ago, the Bulgarian President was complaining about appalling standards of journalism, too, with an obvious agenda from abroad, also in terms of ownership. (Not widely reported!) And, I'm sure you are aware of the incredible bias & censorship in the German MSM, just like Professor Dan Ganser & myself. 😉 R.i.P Udo Ulfkotte >>> when Secret Services dictate the News, not much point in listening to a word they have to say >>> HANG 'EM HIGH ! out to dry, in Public Eye ! They are FASCISTS ! The worst kind !
I don't say this lightly . . . after over 40 years studying their collective behaviours, in relation to the reality on the ground.

Joerg
@Tim Jenkins
Yes, You are right.
But let's look at the bigger picture.
23 Trillions(!) of $$ are missing in the Pentagon.
To that see the great James Corbett's video "Fitt's Trillions" – https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=fitts-trillions .

So 23 trillion $ are missing – and the congress decided not to follow that up.
Before that on 911 already 3 trillion $ (if I remember this right) were missing in the Pentagon. And surprise, surprise: On 911 the Pentagon building exploded exactly there where those accountants were placed, who tried to find out where all that money (3 trillion $) went. All accountants died. After that no one started again to find out where the money went.
Where did the stolen gold from under the Twin Towers go to? Mueller (than state attorney of NY) obviously did want to research that.

The US is already ruled by a mighty super-syndicate – or possibly by two or three of them. So mighty they could put the classical Mafia directly into kindergarten.
And with that much money stolen they can buy in the USA but also in Europe (and, yes, Germany) all politicians, judges and journalists. And those who don't comply, get fired by their (also bought) boss. Or they get murdered ("suicide"), or their career gets destroyed.

There are no classical politics anymore like, let's say, 50 years ago. Here in the west it is only the super-syndicates' power that rules.
By the way: In the end-time of the Roman Empire there were also no more free judges. They had to follow the orders of the local criminal gang – or they got killed. And I also believe that the fall of this impressive "Indus Valley Civilisation" (2000 B.C.) was caused by overwhelming and destructive power of Mafia/Syndicates. In the end the citizens of the Indus Valley civilisation simply fled the area – obviously to south India. So the Tamils may very well be the descendants of the old Indus people.

Joerg
Sorry, I meant this Corbett video: https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=Pentagon+trillions+skidmore
Tim Jenkins
With you all the way, Joerg: ironic you should mention the Tamils. I spent time alone in Jaffna, in the aftermath of genocide.

I'd better not start here & now on Sin-dication and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Suffice to say, if one wishes to speculate on the weather & commodities, with insider knowledge of what the D.o.D. did/do with electronics like HAARP, one would not be a particularly intelligent or moral person, scientifically speaking. And said person, would never wish to discuss the contents of WTC 7 and that Pentagon Wing. 😉

Ta, for the linkS :). Look forward to hearing more from you.
Viele Grüsse,
Tim

Simon Hodges
Sorry post below was posted to wrong article.
Jonathan Jarvis
Something much deeper going on?

http://thesaker.is/the-terrorists-among-us11-azov-battalion-and-american-congressional-support/

Latest in series of articles by the author re USA – Ukraine connections

"American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors.

Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States."

Simon Hodges
"My thoughts on all this are that many of us have become distracted and failed to examine the timeline of events since 9/11. We look at news and conflict in isolation and move on to the next without seeing what is now a clear pattern."

In terms of the Middle East you need to go back further than the fortuitous event of 9/11 – at least to 1997 and the founding of the Project for the New American Century which was essentially the first explicit formalisation of the agenda for an imperialist Neoliberal and Neoconservative globalist new world order deployed through the media constructed conflicts of 'good' and 'evil' around the world and with it the call for the 'democratisation' of the Middle East under the alibi of humanitarian interventionism against broadly socialist governments, which since the fall of communism were constructed by Neoliberal fundamentalists as being patently heretical and ideologically illegitimate forms of government. If it is economically illogical to elect a socialist failed form of government then one can only assume that the election must have been rigged.

I started looking at this all a few years ago when I asked myself the question 14 years after the invasion of Iraq: where was the liberal outrage at what had subsequently taken place in the ME? The answer was that from the Invasion of Iraq onward in addition to fully embracing the economics of Neoliberalism as the end of economic history, the progressive 'left' quietly assimilated and reduplicated the fundamentalist illiberal political philosophy of the Neocons. The progressive 'left' both in the UK and US have subsequently become the far Neocon 'right' in all but name and their party hosts of Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the US remain blissfully unaware of all of this. How else can we explain why they would welcome 'Woke' Bill Kristol into their ranks? Once one accepts this hypothesis, then an awful lot falls into place in order to explain the 'Progressive' open support for regime change and the almost total lack of any properly liberal objections to what has taken place ever since.

One key point here is that the Neocons have nothing to do with conservatism or the right. What is striking and most informative about the history of Neo-conservatism is that it does not have its roots in conservatism at all, but grew out of disillusioned US left wing intellectuals who were Marxist, anti-Stalinist Trotskyites. This is important because at the heart of Neo-conservatism is something that appeals strongly to the die hard revolutionaries of the left who hold a strong proclivity for violence, conflict and struggle. If one looks at the type of people in the Labour party who gravitated to the 'progressive' Neoliberal imperialist camp they all exhibit similar personality traits of sociopathic control freaks with sanctimonious Messiah complexes such as Blair. These extremist, illiberal fundamentalists love violence and revolution and the bloodier the better. In Libya or Syria is did not matter that Gadaffi or Assad headed socialist governments, the Neo-colonised progressives would back any form of apparent conflict and bloody revolution in any notional struggle between any identifiable form of 'authority' or 'oppression' with any identifiable form of 'resistance' even if those leading the 'resistance' were head chopping, misogynist, jihadist terrorists. It makes no difference to the fundamentalist revolutionary mindset.

The original left wing who gradually morphed in the Neoconservatives took 30-40 years to make the transition for the 1960s to 1990s. The Labour party Blairites made the same journey from 1990 to 2003. Christopher Hitchens made the same journey in his own personal microcosm.

Gezzah Potts
When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end? Does anyone else think that Adam Schiff has a screw or three loose, and should be residing in an institution? And imagine if somehow Mike Pence became Prez. Now that would be something to scare the bejesus out of you.
Tim Jenkins
Adam Schiff should be shot for Treason, of the highest order, along with many others, including HRC, Brennan & Clapper ; and it should be a public execution, like in Saudi Arabia. This is war on the minds of the masses, that Schiff for brains cares nothing for.
As for Chuck Schumer, he can have a life sentence, as long as he manages to shut his utterly unfunny dumb vulgar cousin Amy up & keep her out of the public eye, forever 🙂
Gezzah, life may seem bad right now: but imagine if,
you were Amy Schumer's Husband and father of her child 😉
Talk about obnoxious and utterly nauseating 🙂 , with you Gezzah, all the way.

"When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end?"

Gezzah Potts
I'm almost seriously thinking of buying a one way ticket to the Marquesas Islands Right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, nowhere near anywhere; such is the mad bad state of the World.
Need to start up a Go Fund Me page tho!
As I almost (94.6% of the time) boycott the presstitute filth masquerading as journalists (cough) so, I 99% of the time boycott anything coming out of Hollywood, including alleged 'comedians'.
How are things in Bulgaria? What are the Fascist Stormtroopers up to, aka NATZO who all those you named have intimate connections with.
Listening to a gorgeous Russian band called: iamthemorning. Check them out – food for the soul. Enjoy your arvo..
vexarb
Pepe sends more news from the real world:

https://thesaker.is/the-age-of-anger-exploding-in-serial-geysers/

"The presidential election in Argentina was a game-changer and a graphic lesson. It pitted the people versus neoliberalism. The people won – with new President Alberto Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) as his VP.

Neoliberalism was represented by a PR marketing product, Mauricio Macri [a Micron look-alike]: former millionaire playboy, president of football legends Boca Juniors, obsessed with spending cuts, who was unanimously sold by Western MSM as a New Age paradigm.

Well, the paradigm will soon be ejected, leaving behind the usual New Age wasteland: $250 billion in foreign debt, less than $50 billion in reserves; inflation at 55 percent; 35.4 percent of Argentine homes can't make it); and (incredible as it may seem in an agriculturally self-sufficient nation) a food emergency."

vexarb
And from Yemen:

https://southfront.org/10000-sudanese-troops-to-potentially-withdraw-from-yemen-leaving-saudi-arabia-to-dry/

vexarb
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Denmark's Ukronazi-friendly regime has been brought to heel by Germany's common sense:

Some big natural gas news very significant for Russia, Germany and the Ukraine. The Danish pipeline sector has been stalled for a while now by anti-Russia, pro-Ukrainian forces within the Scandiwegian NATZO-friendly regimes. But it appears that Nordstream 2 _will_ get completed and that Ukraine's gas transit chokehold on the EU will come to an end when Russia's Nordstream 2 comes online for Europe.
-- -- -- -

Permit for the Nord Stream 2 project is reluctantly granted by the Danish Energy Agency. Nord Stream 2 AG has been granted a permit to construct natural gas pipelines on the Danish continental shelf.

The permit is granted pursuant to the Continental Shelf Act and in accordance with Denmark's obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Denmark has been put under obligation to allow the construction of transit pipelines with respect to resources and the environment.

https://en-press.ens.dk/pressreleases/permit-for-the-nord-stream-2-project-is-granted-by-the-danish-energy-agency-2937696

Antonym
Gas is the second most firm green energy source after nuclear. Denmark manages only due to their undersea cables to Norway's hydro mountains.

In another field has far more common sense than neighbors Germany or Sweden: immigration / integration.

RobG
In my humble opinion, the Trump stuff is all total nonsense.

Donald Trump was a property speculator in New York (amongst other places) and was heavily involved with the Mafia. Likewise, Trump was heavily involved with Jeffery Epstein.

There's so much dirt on Trump that they could get him with the snap of fingers; but of course that's not what they really want. Trump is pure theatre; a ploy to divert the masses. 'RussiaGate', 'UkraineGate' are all utter rollocks.

Trump and Obama, and all the rest going back to the assassination of Kennedy, are just puppets.

American/ deep state policy doesn't change a jot with any of them.

Wilmers31
America is always presentation over substance, wrapper over content, and shoot the messenger if you don't like the message.
In the meantime the adults in this world outside the US have to hold it all together.
Why was for instance Hillary Clinton not in the dock for saying 'Assad must go'?? It was meddling in the highest order.
Antonym
Pretty humble for an opinion 😀
phree
I guess this just goes to show you that a person can be a member of the ACLU, even a leader apparently, and still be highly biased in favor of Trump.

Just because a witness is "cooperating" with an investigation does not entail that the witnesses testimony or evidence will favor any particular side.

And implying that Clapper's comments somehow shows guilt when he clearly says he knows of no wrongdoing is pretty over the top.

I've read a lot of what's out there about the start of the initial Russia investigation, and it does seem that some of the FBI personnel leading it (McCabe particularly) were anti-Trump.

Isn't the bigger question whether the investigation was justified based on the reports from the Australians that Trump was getting political dirt on Hillary from Russia? Is the FBI just supposed to ignore those reports? Really?

George Cornell
Love the Clapper claim (the same Clapper who lied to Congress) says he was just doing his duty in Russiagate. As GBS said, " when a scoundrel is doing something of which he is ashamed, he always says he is doing his duty".
mark
The Spook Organisations and the Dirty Cops are a greater threat to our way of life than any foreign army or terrorist group (most of which they created in the first place and which they directly control.)
They are a law unto themselves and completely free of any genuine oversight or control.
This applies equally to the US and UK.
"We lie, we cheat, we steal", as Pompeo helpfully explains.
They also murder people, at home and abroad. JFK, David Kelly, Diana, Epstein.
They plant bombs and blow people up.
Many of the "terrorist atrocities" from Northern Ireland to the present day, were false flag spook operations. The same applies with Gladio on the continent and the plethora of recent false flags.
There is also a long and inglorious history of interference in domestic politics from the Zinoviev Letter onwards. Plots to stage a military coup against the Wilson government of the 60s and 70s, with Mountbatten as its figurehead.
The more recent Skripal Hoax.
The contrived Syrian Gas Attack Hoaxes and the White Helmets.
They would not hesitate to do the same to Corbyn if they deemed it necessary.
The CIA and FBI conspired with the UK and Ukrainian governments to prevent the election of Trump, and then to sabotage and smear his administration once he had been elected. The UK played a major part in this through MI6 and Steele.
This is highly dangerous for this country, irrespective of your view of Trump.
Trump has repaid the favour by meddling in Brexit and interfering in UK politics. It is not in his nature to turn the other cheek.
We have spook organisations claiming for themselves a right of veto over election results and foreign policy. These people are poor servants and terrible masters.
We see Schumer warning against crossing the spook organisations, begging the obvious question – who runs this country, you or the spooks?
The Democrats, the Deep State, the MSM, and the Deranged Left were willing to support these conspiracies and hoaxes, and even suspend disbelief, for the greater good. The ends justify the means. All that matters is getting rid of Trump. Anything goes.
The corrosive erosion of trust, credibility and integrity in all the institutions of the state is probably irreparable. The legislature and the political process in general. The judiciary. The spooks and police. About 9% of Americans now believe the MSM.

The irony in all this is that it very much serves Trump's interests.
He is extremely vulnerable, having failed to keep any of his promises.
Building The Wall, Draining The Swamp, Bringing The Troops Home. Sorting out health care. Building "incredible, fantastic" infrastructure.
All the Democrats had to do was highlight these failures, find a suitable candidate, and put forward some sensible policies, and they were home and dry.
Instead, they provided an endless series of diversions and distractions from Trump's failures by charging down every rabbit hole they could find, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, Impeachment. It couldn't work out better for Trump if he was paying them.

Expect to see the Orange Man in the White House for another 4 years.
And another even more virulent outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Tim Jenkins
Enigmatic and brilliant synopsis, m8, lol: & surely BigB could only agree 🙂
and you never even mentioned HQ.Intel.inside.Israel, today & their illegal trespass of WhatsApp, via corporate 'subsidiaries' with 'plausible' denial of liability of spying on
everything-everything & any body, that could possibly threaten corporate fascist computerised dictatorship: distributing backdoors, like Promis & Prism, liberally & worldwide, the Maxwells legacy . . . (yet) 🙂

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/29/whatsapp-sues-israeli-firm-accusing-it-of-hacking-activists-phones

No need to even discuss, until Western societies ALL get a grip on the depths of depravity that lie within the actions and "The History of the National Security State" you have to admit, that Julian Assange could not have picked a better book to firmly grip and signal with, than GORE Vidal's, when being manhandled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy, by Spooks who would sell their own mother, let alone nation, in their utter technological ignorance and adherence to anachronistic doctrines & mentality !

Glad you mentioned 'good ole' cousin ChuckS.' >>> Lol, just for a laugh and a sense of perspective: yes, he is related to Amy Queen of Vulgarity & hideous societal distraction.
What a family of wimps & morons: the 'Schumers' being perfect fodder for ridicule & intelligent humour, naturally . . . on a positive note, mark, think yourself lucky that you are not married to or the father of Amy Schumer's child 🙂

mark
I think I'd prefer the female rhinoceros in Moscow Zoo, even if Putin has been blackmailing me with the photos ever since.
Tim Jenkins
Well, (ahem), you certainly got me all thorny & horny, more than AmyS. ever could, in her wildest dreams, or Chucks, (shucks) 🙂 talk about suckers . . . now, do tell, what was the female Rhino's name ? ! 🙂

Who cares about some BlackRhinoMail, today ?

They'll be dead and extinct, in no time with a legacy 😉
for passionate lovers of Black holes & eternal energy 🙂

Antonym
Is that the best money can buy these days in the US? I guess most of the 1% reside in the Caribbean these days, while Washington D.C. is stuffed with semi-stiffs.
Dungroanin
Catching up Off-G. Excellent.

Larry C Johnson is at the vanguard on the debacle and is miles ahead on it.
Check his output at sst. Here is a short speech outlining the conspiracy.
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/10/my-speech-on-the-deep-state-plot-by-larry-c-johnson.html

Two more pieces there – it is moving fast now.

The most important thing for us and deliciously so now the election is happening is the BLOWBACK. Our DS lying murdering arses are going to get new ones drilled by Trump and BoBos bromance exploding in full technicolor.

Think May's dementia tax and Strong and Stable were bad?

Lol. This is going to be a FUN month of early xmases.

Chris Rogers
Dungroanin,
SST is essential reading for anyone concerned with US overseas policy and the corruption of the USA itself in the service of the security state, so, many thanks for posting this link.
Dungroanin
By sharing we disrupt the msm messages.
Bernard at MoonofAlabama is also worth a daily visitation – priceless analysis on multiple subjects.
lundiel

Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.

Pretty much a carbon copy of our own oversight. We hear even less about our security services than Americans do of theirs. I'd have thought that events like the spy in the holdall, the spies caught by farmers in Libya, the Skripal's, and the whole over-the-top reaction to the domestic terrorism threat and consequent successful pleas for extra funding, the obvious danger of creating terrorists by security services, the policy of giving asylum to foreign terrorists of countries we don't like and the whole concept of the 5 eyes and GCHQ needs more than ministerial oversight, a committee of yes men/women and an intelligence services commissioner.

[Nov 04, 2019] Was MI6 aware of Steele's work investigating Trump's Russian connections from the start of the time Steele was doing that work?

Nov 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

English Outsider , 03 November 2019 at 04:05 PM

Mr Johnson - an amateur's question but it's a question that was relevant as soon as Mr Steele's work became public knowledge. Was MI6 aware of Steele's work investigating Trump's Russian connections from the start of the time Steele was doing that work?

The Washington Post article contains these assertions -

"In 2009, after more than two decades in public service, Steele turned to the private sector and founded a London-based consulting firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, drawing on the reputation and network he developed doing intelligence work."

"Steele brought far more: He was able to tap a network of human sources cultivated over decades of Russia work. He moved quickly, reaching out to Russian contacts and others he referred to as "collectors" who had other sources -- some of whom had no idea their comments would be passed along to Steele."

Earlier on SST the question was raised of whether Steele had used contacts made earlier during his official work. The view was that he could not do that as a retired Intelligence Officer - else any such retired Officer could launch into private business using MI6 networks freely for their own profit and possibly putting those networks at risk.

The Washington Post article is carefully written. Possibly to lend credibility to Steele's work it claims MI6 networks were used in assembling that work. That claim may not be true but if it is not true it throws into doubt the veracity of other claims in the article. If it is true it casts into doubt the veracity of the account of the meeting with Sir Richard Dearlove.

In any case, whether it's true that Steele used official networks or not, Steele's former employers must have kept a close eye on what Steele was doing collecting his information. They would not want a former Intelligence Officer working in much the same field without knowing what he was doing. There must therefore have been liaison with UK Intelligence from the start of Steele's investigation. There was in any case a good deal of contact between Steele and his former colleagues -

"In an interview, Dearlove said Steele became the "go-to person on Russia in the commercial sector" following his retirement from the Secret Intelligence Service."

Steele was therefore not a private enquiry agent retiring into business on retirement and seeing nothing of his former colleagues. He remained in close contact with them. Very close, one would imagine, if he was still using official networks as the article claims. Close in any case because he was a "go-to person."

So this section is bogus - "In the early fall, he and Burrows turned to Dearlove, their former MI6 boss, for advice. Sitting in winged chairs at the Garrick Club, one of London's most venerable private establishments, under oil paintings of famed British playwrights, the two men shared their worries about what was happening in the United States. They asked for his guidance about how to handle their obligations to their client and the public, Dearlove recalled."

Nonsense. Steele had been liaising with, or at least being supervised by, his former employers as soon as he started this assignment. Any problems or moral issues and those former employers would have been aware of it. To suggest that the meeting with Dearlove was the first time MI6 had heard of the affair is clearly misleading.

So this question - "Was MI6 aware of Steele's work investigating Trump's Russian connections from the start of the time Steele was doing that work?" must be answered with a "yes".

That work was extremely sensitive. It was nothing less than investigating an American Presidential candidate. Therefore some official in MI6 authorised that work from the start. Which leads to the question, at what level would that authorisation have been given?

blue peacock , 03 November 2019 at 05:58 PM
"Which leads to the question, at what level would that authorisation have been given?"

EO

If the scheme in the US was run by Brennan, Clapper & Comey, possibly with the knowledge and even at the instruction of Obama, then it would lead to a presumption that it was authorized at the highest level. Of course to also keep it under wraps, Brennan would have been in communication with his counterpart in the UK and maybe even enlisted him in his Trump Task Force.

Factotum , 03 November 2019 at 06:32 PM
Did Mueller find "nothing" on Trump and Russia because Mueller and friends did not want anyone else snooping into what had already been going on with the IC and Trump?

[Nov 03, 2019] Little mentioned is the server in Ukraine which was brought up in the phone call. Barr's investigation has become a criminal investigation and interested in a server in Ukraine. The impeachment farce is trying to put the focus on Biden, but the server may be what they are trying to protect

Nov 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter AU 1 , Nov 2 2019 1:00 utc | 82

Petri Krohn's comment @37 "ERIC CIARAMELLA IS NOT A WHISTLEBLOWER - HE IS A SUSPECT"

Little mentioned is the server in Ukraine which was brought up in the phone call. Barr's investigation has become a criminal investigation and interested in a server in Ukraine.

The impeachment farce is trying to put the focus on Biden, but the server may be what they are trying to protect.

This impeachment show looks to be a rearguard or defensive action to try and stop the Barr criminal investigation into russiagate.

[Nov 03, 2019] Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force. ..."
Nov 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson Larry Johnson-5x7

The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump.

This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.

A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA. Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.

A Task Force operates independent of the CIA " Mission Centers " (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).

So what did John Brennan do? I am told by an knowledgeable source that Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. It was an invitation only Task Force. Specific case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.

This was not a CIA only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task Force. We have some clues that Christopher Steele's FBi handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been detailed to the Trump Task Force ( see here ).

So what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on identifying intelligence collection priorities. Task Force members could task NSA to do targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in covert action, such as targeting George Papadopoulos. Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who met with him, briefed on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange monitored meetings. I think it is highly likely that the honey pot that met with George Papadopoulos, a woman named Azra Turk, was part of the CIA Trump Task Force.

The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force.

In light of what we have learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, there should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum, reporting to them.

When I described this to one friend, a retired CIA Chief of Station, his first response was, "My God, that's illegal." We then reminisced about another illegal operation carried out under the auspices of the CIA Central American Task Force back in the 1980s. That became known to Americans as the Iran Contra scandal.

I sure hope that John Durham and his team are looking at this angle. If true it marks a new and damning indictment of the corruption of the CIA. Rather than spying on genuine foreign threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of Putin.

[Nov 03, 2019] The "Deep State" Has Been Redefined as Career Bureaucrats Doing Their Patriotic Duty by Edward Curtin

Notable quotes:
"... It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of "conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with a twisted twist. ..."
"... The Council on Foreign Relations ..."
"... Foreign Affairs, ..."
"... Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations. ..."
"... To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is plain idiocy and plainer propaganda. ..."
Nov 01, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

By Edward Curtin Global Research, November 01, 2019 Region: USA Theme: Intelligence

It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of "conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with a twisted twist.

The corporate mass-media has recently discovered a "deep state" that they claim to be not some evil group of assassins who work for the super-rich owners of the country and murder their own president (JFK) and other unpatriotic dissidents (Malcom X, MLK, RK, among others) and undermine democracy home and abroad, but are now said to be just fine upstanding American citizens who work within the government bureaucracies and are patriotic believers in democracy intent on doing the right thing.

This redefinition has been in the works for a few years, and it shouldn't be a surprise that this tricky treat was being prepared for our consumption a few years ago by The Council on Foreign Relations . In its September/October 2017 edition of its journal Foreign Affairs, Jon D. Michaels, in "Trump and the Deep State: The Government Strikes Back," writes:

Furious at what they consider treachery by internal saboteurs, the president and his surrogates have responded by borrowing a bit of political science jargon, claiming to be victims of the " deep state ," a conspiracy of powerful, unelected bureaucrats secretly pursuing their own agenda. The concept of a deep state is valuable in its original context, the study of developing countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, where shadowy elites in the military and government ministries have been known to countermand or simply defy democratic directives. Yet it has little relevance to the United States, where governmental power structures are almost entirely transparent, egalitarian, and rule-bound.

The White House is correct to perceive widespread resistance inside the government to many of its endeavors. But the same way the administration's media problems come not from "fake news" but simply from news, so its bureaucratic problems come not from an insidious, undemocratic "deep state" but simply from the state -- the large, complex hive of people and procedures that constitute the U.S. federal government.

Notice how in these comical passages about U.S. government transparency and egalitarianism, Michaels slyly and falsely attributes to Trump the very definition – "unelected bureaucrats" – that in the next paragraph he claims to be the real deep state, which is just the state power structures. Pseudo-innocence conquers all here as there is no mention of the Democratic party, Russiagate, etc., and all the machinations led by the intelligence services and Democratic forces to oust Trump from the day he was elected. State power structures just move so quickly, as anyone knows who has studied the speed with which bureaucracies operate. Ask Max Weber.

The Deep State Goes Shallow. "Reality-TV Coup d'etat in Prime Time"

Drip by drip over the past few years, this "state bureaucracy" meme has been introduced by the mainstream media propagandists as they have gradually revealed that the government deep-staters are just doing their patriotic duty in trying openly to oust an elected president.

Many writers have commented on the recent New York Times article, Trump's War on the 'Deep State' Turns Against Him" asserting that the Times has finally admitted to the existence of the deep state, which is true as far as it goes, which is not too far. But in this game of deceptive revelations – going shallower to go deeper – what is missing is a focus on the linguistic mind control involved in the changed definition.

In a recent article by Robert W. Merry, whose intentions I am not questioning – "New York Times Confirms: It's Trump Versus the Deep State" – originally published at The American Conservative and widely reprinted , the lead-in to the article proper reads: "Even the Gray Lady admits the president is up against a powerful bureaucracy that wants him sunk." So the "powerful bureaucracy" redefinition, this immovable force of government bureaucrats, is slipped into public consciousness as what the deep state supposedly is. Gone are CIA conspirators and evil doers. In their place we find career civil servants doing their patriotic duty.

Then there is The New York Times' columnist James Stewart who, appearing on the Today Show recently, where he was promoting his new book, told Savannah Guthrie that:

Well, you meet these characters in my book, and the fact is, in a sense, he's [Trump] right. There is a deep state there is a bureaucracy in our country who has pledged to respect the Constitution, respect the rule of law. They do not work for the President. They work for the American people. And, as Comey told me in my book, 'thank goodness for that,' because they are protecting the Constitution and the people when individuals – we don't have a monarch, we don't have a dictator – they restrain them from crossing the boundaries of law. What Trump calls the deep state in the United States is protecting the American people and protecting the Constitution. It's a positive thing in this sense.

So again we are told that the deep-state bureaucracy is defending the Constitution and protecting the American people, as James Comey told Stewart, "in my book, 'thank goodness for that,'" as he put it so eloquently. These guys talk in books, of course, not person to person, but that is the level not just of English grammar and general stupidity, but of the brazen bullshit these guys are capable of.

This new and shallow deep state definition has buried the old meaning of the deep state as evil conspirators carrying out coup d'états, assassinations, and massive media propaganda campaigns at home and abroad, and who, by implication and direct declaration, never existed in the good old U.S.A. but only in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan where shadowy elites killed and deposed leaders and opponents in an endless series of coup d'états. No mention in Foreign Affairs , of course, of the American support for the ruthless leaders of these countries who have always been our dear allies when they obey our every order and serve as our servile proxies in murder and mayhem.

Even Edward Snowden , the courageous whistleblower in exile in Russia, in a recent interview with Joe Rogan , repeats this nonsense when he says the deep state is just "career government officials" who want to keep their jobs and who outlast presidents. From his own experience, he should know better. Much better. Interestingly, he suggests that he does when he tells Rogan that "every president since Kennedy" has been successfully "feared up" by the intelligence agencies so they will do their bidding. He doesn't need to add that JFK, for fearlessly refusing the bait, was shot in the head in broad daylight to send a message to those who would follow.

Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations.

To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is plain idiocy and plainer propaganda.

It is a trick, not the treat it is made to seem.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author's website here .

[Nov 02, 2019] CIA Circles Wagons Dispatches Media Narrative Engineers to Defend Interests

Nov 02, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

October 22, 2019 by sundance

After the DOJ/FBI advanced their defensive efforts last weekend via the New York Times and NBC, now the CIA/ODNI faction step forth with the same intents and purposes.

CIA defending journalist Natasha Bertrand has been participating in the multi-year PR effort which helped frame the CIA/ODNI talking points against President Trump, and she is deployed again in the latest effort within Politico . The timing here is predictable.

( Via Politico ) President Donald Trump's obsession with former CIA director John Brennan could be on a collision course with an ongoing Justice Department probe as Attorney General Bill Barr takes a more hands-on approach to examining the intelligence community's actions in 2016.

[ ] Durham's report is likely to land well after the results of an inquiry by the Justice Department's Inspector General, who is examining the FBI's applications to a secret court in 2016 and 2017 to obtain surveillance warrants on a Trump campaign aide.

[ ] "Is the IG report going to say we made mistakes? Yes," said one of the former officials. "But it won't say we did so for some nefarious purpose. So the report will be a dry hole for Trump and his supporters. Which is why [Barr and Durham] have now gone to this other theory, positing that the CIA was engaged in some rogue operation to overthrow Trump and therefore feeding the FBI bullshit," he said. "It's complete nonsense."

"Haven't you heard?" said another former FBI official, sarcastically. "Brennan was a puppet-master and we were just his puppets."

Unfortunately, Ms. Bertrand gets too far over her defensive skis when she scribes defense and obfuscation that is laughable to anyone who followed the activity of CIA Director John Brennan when she writes:

[ ] Asked for comment, White House deputy press Secretary Hogan Gidley said: " John Brennan lied before Congress when he got caught spying on American citizens and lied about having Russian collusion evidence that never existed. The only way I've ever heard anyone in the White House mention him is as a punchline."

It's not clear what Gidley was referring to -- Brennan has not been accused of lying to Congress. ( read full article )

Obviously Ms. Bertrand is counting on people not knowing that John Brennan was caught lying about his instructions to CIA operatives to spy on the networks of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Brennan later apologized to the Senate for that effort; but hey, what's a little forgetfulness amid professional narrative engineering.

Additionally, in directly related matters; while remembering the 'gossip-blower' stems from the same CIA institution headed by Brennan while a member of the National Security Council; and while remembering the Washington Post is the primary outlet for the PR efforts of the CIA resistance du jour; the mysterious "white house insider" who penned an op-ed in the New York Times last year has now signed an anonymous book deal expand on the anti-Trump intelligence community narrative.

( WaPo ) The author of an anonymous column in the New York Times in 2018, who was identified as a senior Trump administration official acting as part of the "resistance" inside the government, has written a tell-all book to be published next month.

The book, titled "A Warning," is being promoted as "an unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency" that expands upon the Times column, which ricocheted around the world and stoked the president's rage because of its devastating portrayal of Trump in office. ( read more )

When CTH originally penned the term "The Big Ugly" we were directly describing a looming confrontation that would happen between President Donald Trump and the aligned interests of the deepest part of the Deep State. Those interests are not along party lines, they are ideological interests directly related to the construct of the institutions of government and how those interests tied financially back to the Administrative State.

The DOJ, FBI, CIA, ODNI and State Department do not oppose the deconstruction efforts of Donald Trump as an outcome of bland institutional opposition. Rather the institutions themselves are subsidiaries of a larger network that exists for the purposes of Washington DC as a business and financial enterprise.

The reason the DC system -writ large- is going bananas is because selling the influence of political office for financial gain is the custom and currency of DC affluence.

Selling influence and manipulating government action – both foreign and domestic – to enhance the financial interests of other participants, is a purposeful part of DC as a way to gain financial affluence. In essence the U.S. government is used as a tool to accumulate wealth. This process is at the heart of all Trump's opposition.

Confronting this process is "The Big Ugly".

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[Nov 02, 2019] The Last Refuge

Nov 02, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

Durham Looking At Brennan – A Reminder of "The Crown Material" Conflict Posted on October 22, 2019 by sundance

The Christopher Steele dossier was called " Crown Material " by FBI agents within the small group during their 2016 political surveillance operation. The "Crown" description reflects the unofficial British intelligence aspect to the dossier as provided by Steele.

In May 2019 former House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy stated there are emails from former FBI Director James Comey that outline instructions from CIA Director John Brennan to include the "Crown Material" within the highly political Intelligence Community Assessment .

Specifically outlined by Gowdy, the wording of the Comey email is reported to say :

"Brennan is insisting the Crown Material be included in the intel assessment."

However, on May 23rd, 2017, in testimony -under oath- to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) John Brennan stated [ @01:54:28 ]:

GOWDY: Director Brennan, do you know who commissioned the Steele dossier?

BRENNAN: I don't.

GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau [FBI] ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filing, applications?

BRENNAN: I have no awareness.

GOWDY: Did the CIA rely on it?

BRENNAN: No.

GOWDY: Why not?

BRENNAN: Because we didn't. It wasn't part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done. Uh it was not.

.

Video of the exchange [ prompted 01:54:28 just hit play ]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sGg8gpGqr-w?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&start=6868&wmode=transparent

.

As Victor Davis Hanson wrote at the time :

[ ] James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey are now all accusing one another of being culpable for inserting the unverified dossier, the font of the effort to destroy Trump, into a presidential intelligence assessment -- as if suddenly and mysteriously the prior seeding of the Steele dossier is now seen as a bad thing. And how did the dossier transmogrify from being passed around the Obama Administration as a supposedly top-secret and devastating condemnation of candidate and then president-elect Trump to a rank embarrassment of ridiculous stories and fibs?

Given the narratives of the last three years, and the protestations that the dossier was accurate or at least was not proven to be unproven, why are these former officials arguing at all? Did not implanting the dossier into the presidential briefing give it the necessary imprimatur that allowed the serial leaks to the press at least to be passed on to the public and thereby apprise the people of the existential danger that they faced? ( read more )

Fox News Maria Bartiromo has more knowledge of the details within the 2016 political surveillance scandal than any other MSM host. Bartiromo has followed the events very closely and now she is the go-to person for those who are trying to bring the truth behind the scandal to light.

On the morning of May 20th, 2019, on her Fox Business Network show Ms. Bartiromo outlined the current issues between Comey and Brennan. WATCH:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PQLweblVdoo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

.

It certainly looks like former CIA Director John Brennan has exposed himself to perjury. However, beyond that and even more disturbing, what does this say about the political intents of a weaponized intelligence apparatus?

CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.

The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment . The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.

The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. While the majority of content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique "insurance policy" interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017. NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the "high confidence" claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.

( JUNE 2019 – New York Times ) [ ] Mr. Barr wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign, an official has said. He also wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.

During the final weeks of the Obama administration, the intelligence community released a declassified assessment that concluded that Mr. Putin ordered an influence campaign that "aspired to help" Mr. Trump's electoral chances by damaging Mrs. Clinton's. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported they had high confidence in the conclusion. The National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance, had a moderate degree of confidence. ( read more )

Questioning the construct of the ICA is a smart direction to take for a review or investigation. By looking at the intelligence community work-product, it's likely Durham will cut through a lot of the chatter and get to the heart of the intelligence motives.

Apparently John Durham is looking into just this aspect: Was the ICA document a politically engineered report stemming from within a corrupt intelligence network?

The importance of that question is rather large. All of the downstream claims about Russian activity, including the Russian indictments promoted by Rosenstein and the Mueller team, are centered around origination claims of illicit Russian activity outlined in the ICA .

If the ICA is a false political document . then guess what?

Yep, the entire narrative from the JAR and ICA is part of a big fraud. [Which it is]

[Nov 02, 2019] Maria Bartiromo Outlines The Architect of "Spygate" and "Crossfire Hurricane", CIA Director John Brennan

Nov 02, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

August 18, 2019 by sundance

Among all media personalities Maria Bartiromo easily has the most comprehensive grasp of the 2016 operation against President Trump. During two interviews today Bartiromo outlines the evidence that leads directly to the person at the origination point, former CIA Director John Brennan.

First, here's a mash-up of the two interviews (Senator Graham and John Solomon) where Bartiromo asks the same question. [ hat tip Michael Sheridan for the video]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A2woaIAGZ4s?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

.

Former CIA Director John Brennan lies at the heart of the intelligence community decision to weaponize against Donald Trump. In this outline I will provide supporting evidence for Bartiromo's assertion, which I suspect has already led to a criminal referral to U.S. Attorney John Durham by HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes.

Suspicious Cat ate canary

The FBI's formal origination of the counterintelligence investigation into candidate Donald Trump known as "Operation Crossfire Hurricane", begins with a two-page memo submitted by former CIA Director John Brennan to former FBI Director James Comey.

The two page origination memo is known as an "EC" or "electronic communication". This classified origination memo is one of the key documents requested by congress for declassification by President Trump, to be shared with the American people.

According to House Intelligence Committee member Devin Nunes; who is also a member of the intelligence oversight 'Gang-of-Eight'; that EC contains intelligence material that did not come through "official intelligence channels" into the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

On April 22nd, 2018, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the origin of the July 2016 counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.

WATCH the first two minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/W54KbYPfkcw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

.

The origin of the 2016 counterintelligence operation was the Electronic Communication document, a 'raw intelligence product' delivered by CIA Director John Brennan to the FBI.

The EC was not an official product of the U.S. intelligence community. Additionally, Brennan was NOT using official partnerships with intelligence agencies of our Five-Eyes partner nations; and he did not provide raw intelligence – as an outcome of those relationships – to the FBI.

When we first watched this interview the initial questions were: if the EC is not based on official intelligence from U.S. intelligence apparatus or any of the 'five-eyes' partners, then what is the origin, source and purpose therein, of the unofficial raw intelligence? Who created it? And why?

Now we know many of the answers to those questions.

All research indicates CIA Director John Brennan enlisted the help of U.S. and foreign intelligence assets to run operations against the Trump campaign early in 2016. The objective was to give the false and manufactured appearance of compromise. Once the CIA established the possibility of compromise, that activity created the EC which opened the door for an FBI investigation.

The operation run by Brennan targeting Papadopoulos is at the center of the two-page "EC" ( electronic communication ); given to FBI Director James Comey to start the counterintelligence operation (Crossfire Hurricane) against the Trump campaign.

Two of the intelligence assets Brennan organized were Joseph Mifsud and Stefan Halper .

Yes, the primary intelligence sources of John Brennan's "EC" is were operations run by FBI and CIA operative Stefan Halper, and western intelligence asset Joseph Mifsud. A great background on Halper is HERE .

In March 2018 Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller took a deep dive on how Stefan Halper interacted with George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Halper is sketchy, and he was trying to initiate contacts with low-level Trump campaign aides. [ SEE HERE ]

DAILY CALLER – Two months before the 2016 election, George Papadopoulos received a strange request for a meeting in London, one of several the young Trump adviser would be offered -- and he would accept -- during the presidential campaign.

The meeting request, which has not been reported until now, came from Stefan Halper, a foreign policy expert and Cambridge professor with connections to the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6.

Halper's September 2016 outreach to Papadopoulos wasn't his only contact with Trump campaign members. The 73-year-old professor, a veteran of three Republican administrations, met with two other campaign advisers, The Daily Caller News Foundation learned. ( Please Keep Reading )

We now know Brennan's originating structure involved Stefan Halper the foreign policy expert and Cambridge professor deeply connected to the CIA and willing to run the operation to benefit the political objective for CIA Director Brennan. This is how John Brennan originates the "EC" through non-traditional intelligence channels. The EC is then given to James Comey, who starts Operation Crossfire Hurricane on July 31st, 2016.

[ NOTE : •On July 31st, 2016 the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign. They did not inform congress until March 2017. •At the beginning of August (1st-3rd) 2016 FBI Agent Peter Strzok traveled to London, England for interviews with UK intelligence officials. •On August 15th , 2016 Peter Strzok sends a text message to DOJ Lawyer Lisa Page describing the " insurance policy ", needed in case Hillary Clinton were to lose the election. That's where Carter Page comes in.]

However, CIA Director John Brennan didn't stop with simply originating the FBI investigation, he went on to promote additional material from his knowledge of the Christopher Steele Dossier.

This is the part that John Brennan has denied ; however, the evidence proving his lies is overwhelming.

We start by remembering the sworn testimony of John Brennan to congress on May 23rd, 2017. Listen carefully to the opening statement from former CIA Director John Brennan and pay close attention to the segment at 13:35 of this video [transcribed below]:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdJ3OZS928Q?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Brennan: [13:35] "Third, through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept congress apprised of these issues as we identified them."

"Again, in consultation with the White House , I PERSONALLY briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in the election to congressional leadership; specifically: Senators Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr; and to representatives Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff between 11th August and 6th September [2016], I provided the same briefing to each of the gang of eight members."

"Given the highly sensitive nature of what was an active counter-intelligence case [that means the FBI], involving an ongoing Russian effort, to interfere in our presidential election, the full details of what we knew at the time were shared only with those members of congress; each of whom was accompanied by one senior staff member."

Notice a few things from this testimony. First, where Brennan says " in consultation with the White House ". This is a direct connection between Brennan's activity and President Obama, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Chief-of-Staff Denis McDonough, each of whom would have held knowledge of what Brennan was briefing to the Go8.

Secondly, Brennan is describing raw intelligence (obviously gathered prior to the Carter Page FISA Application/Warrant – October 21st, 2016) that he went on to brief the Gang-of-Eight (pictured below). Notice Brennan said he did briefings "individually".

Brennan also says in his testimony that he began the briefings on August 11th, 2016. This is a key point because former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to James Comey on August 27th, 2016, as an outcome of his briefing by John Brennan. But it is the content of Reid's letter that really matters.

In the last paragraph of Reid's letter to Comey he notes something that is only cited within the Christopher Steele Dossier [ full letter pdf here ]:

This letter is August 27th, 2016. The Trump advisor in the letter is Carter Page. The source of the information is Christopher Steele in his dossier. Two months later (October 21st, 2016) the FBI filed a FISA application against Carter Page using the Steele Dossier.

So what we are seeing here is CIA Director John Brennan briefing Harry Reid on the Steele dossier in August 2016, even before the dossier reached the FBI. However, John Brennan has denied seeing the dossier until December of 2016. A transparent lie.

Brennan goes on to testify the main substance of those 2016 Go8 briefings was the same as the main judgements of the January 2017 classified and unclassified intelligence assessments published by the CIA, FBI, DNI and NSA, ie. "The Intelligence Community Assessment" (ICA).

However, we know Brennan put material from the Dossier into the ICA.

We also know from Paul Sperry: "[ ] A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok . "Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and [former FBI Director James] Comey, and he was one of the authors of the ICA," according to the source." (link)

♦ Summary so far : During a period early in 2016 CIA Director John Brennan manufactured the material needed to start the FBI investigation on July 31st, 2016. John Brennan also received information from within the Steele Dossier which he put into President Obama's Daily Briefing and shared with the Gang of Eight.

Here's where it gets even more interesting .

On December 15, 2016, Strzok and Page texted each other about a sister organization leaking to the mainstream media . The next day, December 16, Strzok texted Page again , this time to discuss an article in The Washington Post : "FBI in agreement with CIA that Russia aimed to help Trump win White House" , where Strzok argued that the Central Intelligence Agency is more capable of manipulating the press and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had the initial position, not the Central Intelligence Agency

So it would seem that Brennan was leaking to the media and pushing hard on this same Russia narrative during the transition period. It's almost bizarre to see Brennan now saying "perhaps he had bad information" BRENNAN IS THE INFORMATION !!

Fucking Brennan.

Additionally, if you want to throw on an even more stunning layer upon this manipulation matrix, consider that Nellie Ohr was likely working for the CIA.

"I read an article in the paper that mentioned Glenn Simpson. And I remembered because he had been a Wall Street Journal reporter working on things like Russian crime and corruption, so I recognized the name. I was underemployed at that time and I was looking for opportunities. "

~ Nellie Ohr via congressional testimony

If Nellie Ohr, a known CIA open source contractor, sought out Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS for the job in 2015, not vice-versa, then it would appear a sting operation from within the CIA (John Brennan) was underway and long planned. The evidence of this likelihood surfaces later from Brennan's knowledge of the specific intelligence within the Steele Dossier as shared with Obama and briefed to Harry Reid in August 2016.

So let us recap:

♦In the first phase of this operation the CIA, likely Brennan, seeded Fusion GPS with information via Nellie Ohr. After it became clear that Donald Trump would be the 2016 GOP candidate, that information was then piped-into another Fusion GPS contractor and former FBI Source, Chris Steele. Steele then "laundered", and returned the Ohr research material into an official intelligence product to the FBI. [The tool was Carter Page.]

♦Concurrently timed with the start of this first phase, Brennan was running an operation using Stephan Halper and Joseph Mifsud to generate the "EC" and initiate the FBI to begin a counterintelligence operation named Crossfire Hurricane. [The tool was George Papadopoulos]

This is why the media got/get somewhat confused with the origins of everything: Papadopoulous (Crossfire Hurricane) -vs- Carter Page (dossier into FISA); an origination confusion which still exists through today.

In essence we can see that John Brennan was the initiator manipulating everything, somewhat behind the scenes, for all of the activity (tangentially noted by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in their text messages about the CIA leaks). After the 2016 election, Brennan continued pushing the Steele Dossier into the media bloodstream as it carried the Russian Conspiracy virus he created.

During the time James Comey's FBI was running operation Crossfire Hurricane, Comey admitted he intentionally never informed congressional oversight: " because of the sensitivity of the matter ". I suspect he knew there was manipulation behind the events that initiated the construct; he was, however, willfully blind to it.

When Brennan now says in hindsight he might have received " bad information ", it's laughable – because the information is his creation.

Now with all of that hindsight in mind, watch the first four minutes of this interview and pay attention to the duping delight:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/45IEzp2uTCo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

.

Lastly, unlike other DOJ and FBI officials connected to the fraudulent exploitation of the FISA court, John Brennan is not attached to the ongoing DOJ Inspector General investigation being conducted by IG Horowitz.

Presumably Inspector General Michael Horowitz is only looking at the process, procedures and people who were involved in submitting an unverified and likely fraudulent FISA application. Though his investigation would mean reviewing the underlying evidence for the FISA warrant, ie. the Steele Dossier, the list of IG targets does not necessarily include anyone outside the DOJ and FBI process.

This could mean former CIA Director John Brennan, or any other Obama-era official outside the DOJ and FBI, could be referred for criminal investigation to John Durham; and investigation or review of that referral should not impede any ongoing investigation by IG Michael Horowitz.

That's why it is possible for Devin Nunes to have submitted a ¹criminal referral for John Brennan; which would be one of the primary aspects of review by Durham (noted by Solomon), and only tangentially connected to the IG Horowitz investigation.

¹Or, NSA Advisor Susan Rice, ODNI James Clapper, or former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power (unmasking); or any other administration official who may have engaged in leaking and/or disseminating classified intelligence information.

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[Oct 31, 2019] Seditious Conspiracy / Sketchy Witness Schiff Blocks Questioning of NSC Staffer Alexander Vindman to Protect Him from Legal Exposure

Oct 31, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

Holy smokes, this Alexander Vindman witness is very sketchy. Generally suspected of being "whistle-blower #2", records show Vindman had numerous contacts with registered foreign agents, while a member of the National Security Council. [ FARA link – pg 4 ]

Additionally, it is highly likely Vindman leaked the content of presidential phone calls illegally while he was a member of the National Security Council; which explains why Adam Schiff would not permit Vindman to answer questions about who he talked to.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_WBpt8OdnJU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

.

The New York Times is reporting that sketchy Vindman attempted to manipulate the CIA transcripts of President Trump's call with Ukraine President Zelenskyy to meet Vindman's ideological interpretations. [Vindman had a hidden agenda "spying" while inside the NSC]

In an effort to bolster his very sketchy credibility; and likely in an effort to avoid the appearance of sedition; Schiff's Lawfare staff recommended Vindman wear his military uniform to the hearing today, though Vindman never wore the uniform for his NSC job.

[ Link to FARA document – Page 4 ]

( Open Secrets ) – sA little known U.S.-based attorney quietly poured six figures into foreign influence operations for President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, hoping to be rewarded with a job in his administration, foreign agent records identified by OpenSecrets show.

The new Foreign Agent Registration Act records reveal previously unreported meetings with Trump administration officials and details of a six-figure lobbying campaign promoting Zelensky's interests in the U.S. during the leadup to his election and now-infamous phone call with President Donald Trump .

[ ] Notable among the Trump officials contacted was Alexander Vindman , who oversees European affairs at the National Security Council. Vindman was one of five Trump administration officials chosen for a delegation to Zelensky's inauguration featured in the whistleblower complaint alongside Kurt Volker , the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine who resigned after fallout from the whistleblower's allegations. ( read more )

President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska with U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and the U.S. delegation attending the inauguration, which included U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon D. Sondland, the National Security Council's Director for European Affairs Alexander Vindman and Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine Joseph Pennington. ( Source )


We the people know , October 30, 2019 at 10:03 am

I believe I've found some video with Vindman with John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Amy Klobuchar in Ukraine on 12/29/16. You can see him on the left @ the :18 mark and again @ the end starting at the 1:38.
AP
(29 Dec 2016) US senators visiting eastern European allies to discuss security issues called for sanctions against Russia for interfering in the presidential election by hacking American political sites and email accounts.

Their demands came amid ongoing discussions among US officials on an imminent response to alleged Russian meddling that would ensure the US takes action before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

"We will be urging increases in sanctions on Russia for what they just attempted to do in the United States election which they have attempted to do in other parts of the world," said US senator John McCain during his visit to Lithuania on Thursday.

Russian officials have denied the Obama administration's accusation that the highest-levels of the Russian government were involved in trying to influence the US presidential election.

Speaking after talks with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite in Vilnius, the US lawmakers reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the Baltics.

McCain is accompanied by US Senators Amy Klobuchar and Lindsey Graham in their visits to Russian neighbours, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Georgia as well as Montenegro.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gnyjdrP91yA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Compare to this photo, he's got a bad toupee and a much enhanced uniform and he's lost some weight.
https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-alexander-vindman-army-nsc-veteran-trump-ukraine-2019-10/
Here's Vindman walking and smiling:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_fWOPjZJyEA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

I guess we've got some questions for Lindsey.

Like Liked by 1 person

DeWalt , October 30, 2019 at 10:19 am
That is a poster perfect picture of a Ticket Puncher. This is an ideal Leftist Military Commander. What a joke.

Like Liked by 5 people

Jederman , October 30, 2019 at 4:47 pm
What I find odd is this guy is an 05 (errand boy) on the NSC. How out of control is the NSC when an 05, is editing official transcripts of presidential conversations? Who told him to do it? To whom did he express his concern before he was told to edit them?

Like Like

Gort , October 30, 2019 at 3:23 am
On Laura Ingram's show the other night, former Deputy Assistant Attorney Genera John Yoo observed that Alexander Vindman may have committed espionage.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." -- Samuel Johnson

That would explain the uniform.

Like Liked by 12 people

LivLovely101 , October 30, 2019 at 10:14 am
My thoughts exactly. If you need to SHOW how patriotic you are by wearing your uniform, then it is no more than a costume.
He has that look; 100% Grade A USA inspected A**h**e!

Like Liked by 7 people

LivLovely101 , October 30, 2019 at 10:14 am
My thoughts exactly. If you need to SHOW how patriotic you are by wearing your uniform, then it is no more than a costume.
He has that look; 100% Grade A USA inspected A**h**e!
Blind no longer , October 30, 2019 at 10:01 am
I believe he is too! I thought I heard Jim Jordan refer to him as the whistleblower but I may not have been listening closely enough.
He sure fits the profile.

I think they thought President Trump would never release the transcript and planned to set the narrative with the schiff remarks at that hearing. President Trump blew it up with the release. This champion of Ukraine thought he'd never have to be seen or heard of and could continue spying and leaking, imho.
Hope he is exposed along with schiff and goes down hard without all those badges on his uniform.

Like Liked by 2 people

dayallaxeded , October 30, 2019 at 12:39 pm
I didn't make it clear above, but I'm hoping this sh-tbag is determined to be fraudulently wearing some of those badges and tabs. He dishonors every dayum one of them.

Like Liked by 3 people

Mike Robinson , October 30, 2019 at 7:43 am
You aren't a "witness" when you're lying, even when you're saying what somebody else prefers to hear. You're just committing perjury.

The House is not crafting "articles of impeachment," but an unconstitutional "writ of attainder." Most absurdly, they are trying to do it based on false representations about a conversation, the true content of which has been declassified and affirmed by the other party to the call.

These people are carving a place of infamy in US history far worse than that of Joseph McCarthy.

FilthySanchez0302 , October 30, 2019 at 8:08 am
UCMJ article 94: (2) with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition
(b) A person who is found guilty of attempted mutiny, mutiny, sedition, or failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct."
Make an example out of this a-hole. Traitor.
Bluto , October 30, 2019 at 1:45 pm
His twin brother (likely the official he supposedly complained twice to) is a White House lawyer. His older brother is an investment banker doing business in Eastern Europe, Asia, Russia, and the Middle East.

I wonder who would stand to lose money if corruption were to be investigated in Ukraine?

mylabs5 , October 30, 2019 at 9:55 am
So a while back I posted that the DoE (Dept. of Energy) was involved. To keep your eyes on the DoE. Now you know. And parts of this runs through their email system just like at State except Perry is not involved like Hillary was. But he may have found something that made him want to leave the post.

POTUS needs to have the new Sec Engery audit the system. There's gold there. Trust me on this too.

Don't know if it's been posted yet, but Vindman tried to change the draft of the call. The WH uses voice recognition software for the calls so that there is a record of who said what. He tried to infer that the software was wrong and that Trump had said the word "Burisma" (which doesn't matter). He also tried to get the agents who transcribed to change the draft of the call citing the error. He as denied.
That's solid evidence for tampering with evidence along with violation of the espionage act. Now since he is part of the this scam he's also guilty of obstruction. Add 5 yrs to his Leavenworth stay.

Here's POTUS problem with all of this. The corruption goes so far and so deep in all these agencies, Congress, Senate, military that if he goes scorched earth the gov may just fall if. That's how pervasive it is. He's going to have to be a neurosurgeon operating with a scalpel to carve out the cancer and it's going to take timing, precision, quiet and patience. After all that's been done to him I'm not sure he'll be able to hold back when the Durham reports comes out (which I believe will be the public predicate for his actions to clean up the mess).
I'm praying for him.

Mike Robinson , October 30, 2019 at 10:33 am
There is not just "voice recognition software," but several human stenographers who compare their notes and ensure that the transcription is correct. It is a binding official record of the exchange, and routinely classified. Naturally, the many people who are right now lying to their teeth about what actually happened want to dispute and to change that record to suit their purposes.

But you really can see right through this whole thing. Until she realized that Ukraine had resumed investigating, and that they were talking with our DOJ, Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, Obama, Biden, and many others really weren't all that concerned. But now they know that they've been talking to Durham and that his investigation has turned criminal. They know that they've all individually been hip-waders-deep in corruption in Ukraine, but now there is no American official to "give them six hours." They suddenly became desperate to throw out this President because he has both the willingness and the determination to put them all in jail. As do the Ukranians.

Like Liked by 3 people

Mike Robinson , October 30, 2019 at 10:38 am
P.S.: You definitely see the "Swamp business-as-usual reflexes" at work here. None of them perceive that Joe Biden (and by direct implication, Barak Obama) actually did anything wrong. They watch "Biden's boast" and shrug and say, "so what?" 🤷‍♂️ 😇

They gather around and protect him as though strong-arming another nation to drop a criminal investigation (a.k.a. "obstruction of justice") was the most ordinary thing for the VPOTUS to do. When the President asks another President to cooperate in law enforcement, as we have a treaty that calls for both countries to do, they see it as "smearing." Because, in their accustomed-to-corruption eyes, what Biden did is perfectly normal. Unfortunately for them, in the eyes of the law, it is not. Biden confessed on camera to a clearly impeachable offense, and implicated his boss while doing so.

Cynthia , October 30, 2019 at 11:13 am
Of interest, the Ukraine "quid pro quo" phone call took place THE DAY AFTER Mueller's testimony blew up . . . The actors were in place and they planned this to a T.
Concernedcitizen , October 30, 2019 at 11:27 am
With the unveiling of Whistleblower #2 (Vindman), Schiff and his Lawfare staff are trying to rescue their flagging "whistleblower" impeachment scam. Essentially, Vindman is claiming that President Trump released a false transcript of his conversation with Ukraine President Zelensky. The NYT article is an attempt to help Vindman and his co-conspirators get out in front of allegations that Vindman attempted to manipulate the wording of the transcript to create an impeachable offense.
2Alpha , October 30, 2019 at 3:52 pm
Additional Ukraine info From American Spectator interesting details

An Impeachment Defense: It Most Justifiably Means Going on Offense
https://spectator.org/an-impeachment-defense-it-most-justifiably-means-going-on-offense/

ShainS , October 29, 2019 at 11:09 pm
This all reads like a bad "Fusion GPS" Glenn Simpson novel from a year ago. Oh, wait

Like Liked by 19 people

GB Bari , October 29, 2019 at 11:42 pm
So now the sleazy Lawfare / Deep State plot is to build a narrative around the dropped words in the phone call that are represented by ellipses in the transcript.

Great. When nothing exists in a spot in the conversation they can fabricate & claim whatever they want because, if a recording doesn't exist, no one can refute the fabricated words besides other first hand witnesses who were listening on the phone call. So it boils down to hearsay: He said vs. He said.

That's all they have.

Unless Pelousy & Co's trip to Ukraine included a fishing expedition for a potential Ukrainian Gov't. recording of the phone call.

Like Liked by 6 people

TheHumanCondition , October 30, 2019 at 1:25 am
It's the continuation of absolute PHALE! From pee pee tapes that don't exist to the "imcoupment", nothing. Nothing but phale.
Marc , October 30, 2019 at 1:42 am
It's past time for the US to stop this dual citizenship nonsense along with birth-rite citizenship. At the very least, force dual citizens to renounce their other country's citizenship if they want to run for office, serve in the military, or lobby foreign governments.
California Joe , October 29, 2019 at 11:18 pm
Vindman testified today that he was listening to President Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian President and there was no quid pro quo shakedown by President Trump. In fact, he said that the transcript of the call that President Trump made public was, in fact, accurate. Doesn't this invalidate and show the initial whistle-blower complaint to the IC OIG was a lie?
BlackKnightRides , October 29, 2019 at 11:18 pm
I repeat my earlier suspicions regarding the potential sketchiness of Rick Perry's resignation just after the Ukrainian allegations began to break particularly given the snake pit of Obama Holdovers er EMBEDS operating in Ukrainian-affiliated circles.
Sentient , October 29, 2019 at 11:21 pm
Yeah, Alexander Vindman was "concerned" about the president asking Ukraine to look into Crowdstrike and the Bidens. So Alexander felt compelled to talk with the attorney for the National Security Council assigned to ethics affairs his brother, Yevgeny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Vindman
BlackKnightRides , October 29, 2019 at 11:28 pm
How to THWART the House's SHAMpeachment fraud.
[updated from yesterday]

AG BARR must GO on OFFENSE by SEIZING the INITIATIVE on multiple fronts!

1. AG Barr immediately APPEALS Judge Howell's ruling directly to SCOTUS.

• The House has unconstitutionally tried to intimidate testimony from the Executive Branch.

• The House has NO authority to Subpoena in search of crimes without an Impeachment Inquiry.

• The House has NOT launched an Impeachment Inquiry with vote of its entire membership.

• House actions constitute a SHAMpeachment fraud.

• District Judges have no Constitutional authority to approve a Congressional SHAMpeachment.

• Given that the Constitution directs that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court preside over any Senate Trial following an Impeachment by the House, ONLY SCOTUS can rule on the DUE PROCESS requirements for a Constitutional Impeachment according to the Rule of Law.

2. AG Barr announces he has launched three CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS that involve the Majority Caucus of the House of Representatives including their members on the Judiciary, Intelligence and Ways & Means Committees:

• POLITICAL RACKETEERING $50 Million funneled through Feinstein's former Chief of Staff

• SEDITION Pelosi, Schiff, Vindman et al

• TREASON Vindman

3. AG Barr forwards SUBPOENAS from his designated investigators to the Speaker, Majority Leader and Committee Chairmen requiring that they immediately surrender all records of related testimony and investigations, and that they preserve all historical records until the investigations and any prosecutions have been completed.

4. NOTIFY Demo☭rat House Leadership that they are Criminal Investigation TARGETS for OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE (familiar theme for them), including

• Colluding in a fraudulent SHAMpeachment that fabricated Evidence

• Rigging Witness Testimony

• Threatening and intimidating Witnesses

• Doctoring and withholding or concealing Evidence

• Using a SCIF in a cover-up of their Obstruction of Justice

5. INDICT Pelosi and her Committee Chairmen NOW.

• The Gang of Eight became willing Accomplices.

• Start with the Demo☭rat House Leadership leaves the Senate off the hook, but exposed to being taken out, in case they want to raise their heads from their foxholes.
=====
All 3 Investigations must tap all NSA and Federal Surveillance powers
with ALACRITY.

Like Liked by 21 people

Jan , October 30, 2019 at 1:34 am
Fingers crossed, I hope this happens BUT the DOJ is also mostly comprised of never-Trumpers and career lawyers/staff who agree with the Deep State that does not want anything changed and disagree with the policies of this President, i.e., mini-Yates.

Hopefully, Trump's legal team is more brilliant than we know, as is White House legal counsel.

nobodyspecial1958 , October 29, 2019 at 11:47 pm
This is a little off topic but I read an article today titled, "Mittens, the Deep State and the on going Coup against Potus" on Red State. Original article was by a Polish writer, and I found it be an amazing article if true. It details how the Russian collusion narrative originated in 2014 and was to be used against whoever ran in 2016. They didn't know trump would be the nominee. It was for whoever won the nomination.
It talks a lot about John Brennan and a guy named Joseph Cofer Black and their involvement in the 911 attacks. Both these guy have ties to burisma but the point about mittens is that Black was his foreign policy adviser and mitt wants Trump shut down before it gets him too. It is a long article that covers a lot of territory and has several places you can click to read even more about it. I think the red state article has a good commentary on the original article and helps tie it together with what's going on. This post doesn't even scratch the surface of it but the article clears up a lot of thing even if you already understand what's going on. Well worth the read.

[Oct 31, 2019] The Failed FBI Plot to Paint Trump Doing Deals with Putin by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia ..."
"... Honestly, the more that emerges, the more I wonder under what inducements Mueller consented to figurehead this steaming heap of offal. (The rest of the gang at least had the excuse of assuming Clinton would win, but Mueller agrees to step into it, through the tainted subterfuge of Comey's no less, once Trump was already elected.) ..."
"... And then there's Ukraine. I know PL has just stressed the impropriety of a uniformed officer detailed to the NSC doing what he's done -- because he disagrees with the President's policy on Eastern Europe, by his own admission, which includes urging Zelensky to investigate those allied with the Borg in Ukraine for attempting to influence the outcome of the election in favour of Clinton. ..."
"... A shame Trump couldn't just leave the Biden investigation to the professionals, but then maybe he's having trouble trusting his subordinates. Wonder why. ..."
"... Fred -> indus56... , 30 October 2019 at 03:19 PM ..."
"... The "professionals" ensured the Burisma investigation was closed by the prior Ukraine government. By all means cover up corruption at the top of the Obama administration. Kompromat would never happen there. BTW I wonder if Pussy Riot will be joining the band of the same name at their next concert? https://www.infoconcert.com/artiste/kompromat-175468/concerts.html ..."
"... catherine said in reply to indus56... , 30 October 2019 at 04:54 PM ..."
"... Is it normal procedure to edit phone call memos? ..."
"... National security official tells Congress he tried to add edits to White House memo about Trump Ukraine call ..."
"... The proposed edits of the call were to include Trump mentioning possible recordings of Joe Biden discussing corruption in Ukraine and Ukraine's president mentioning the Burisma gas company specifically. ..."
"... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/national-security-official-tells-congress-he-tried-add-edits-white-n1073726 ..."
"... Flavius , 30 October 2019 at 02:31 PM ..."
"... Shame on the FBI for many failings in their handling of the Steele report. Of course the Agents responsible for evaluating the report knew that Sater was an informant or asset; but the report reeks of bullshit anyway. ..."
"... "Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively,.." "Trusted compatriot... sources A and B... senior...figure... former...(but) still active..." what does this nonsense even mean? Specifics? To use the word specifics to describe what is being put on offer is a joke. Those specifics wouldn't serve to predicate a FISC wire on Joe Shit the Ragman let alone a candidate for President of the United States. ..."
"... There should have been no action taken on Steele's offerings absent Steele's fully identifying every source cited in his document, the precise circumstances surrounding their receipt of the information, the precise circumstances of Steele's receipt of the information from the so called sources, and either access to the sources themselves or. damn good reason why not. ..."
"... The Agents not pinning this guy down knowing that he was a paid political operative doing Oppo research makes the whole thing truly shocking. It's going to be very telling if and when the files come out that were used to administer the handling not only of Sater but also Steele. ..."
"... ex PFC Chuck , 30 October 2019 at 03:44 PM ..."
"... Although he may be a pariah to some who hang out here, during a recent interview with Joe Rogan Edward Snowden offered some intriguing views of the Borg/Deep State from his experience and perspective. He sees it as a conglomeration of interest groups inside and outside of the government who have interests that sometimes compete and sometimes cooperate. The video is over 2 hours long, and it's almost all Snowden talking and very little of Rogan. ..."
Oct 31, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

To appreciate the lies and corruption that are the foundation of the conspiracy to destroy the Presidency of Donald Trump by the FBI, the CIA and the DNI, one need only look at how Robert Mueller lied about FBI informants who were targeting the Trump team.

Let us look specifically at Felix Sater. Felix Sater has been a fully signed up Confidential Human Source for the FBI since 1998. His original plea deal was signed off on by Mueller's deputy, Andrew Weismann. But you would not know any of this if you relied solely on the Mueller Report.

Here is how Mueller portrays Sater:

In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater, a New York based real estate advisor, contacted Michael Cohen, then-executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald J. Trump. Sater had previously worked with the Trump Organization and advised it on a number of domestic and international projects. Sater had explored the possibility of a Trump Tower project in Moscow while working with the Trump Organization and therefore knew of the organization's general interest in completing a deal there.

This is fundamentally dishonest. Sater was more than a mere "real estate advisor" who had previously worked with Trump. He was and is a fully signed up FBI Confidential Human Source. Not my opinion. It is a fact. An excellent article by Newsweek reporter Bill Powell, Donald Trump Associate Felix Sater Is Linked to the Mob and the CIA -- What's His Role in the Russia Investigation? , provides an excellent review of Sater's history and involvement with the FBI. One of the surprising revelations from Powell is that Felix Sater was a childhood friend of Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer. Let that sink in for a moment. The FBI informant, Felix Sater, was a long time friend of Cohen.

Sater was playing a role scripted by the FBI and deliberately designed to feed the meme that Trump was dealing with the Russians.

The covert op to paint Trump as a Russian stooge was not left to Sater alone. Christopher Steele, a British spy who was hired by Fusion GPS, conveniently produced a report insisting that the Russians were working overtime to get Trump in bed with them on "lucrative real estate deals." The Steele report dated 20 June 2016 makes the following claims:

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP for at least 5 years. . . .

In terms of specifics, Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years (see more below). . . .

The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia , especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.

Pay attention. Who offered Trump the deal in Moscow? FELIX SATER. Was he a Russian agent? No. He was the FBI's Joe.

If the Steele Dossier was true, Trump should have had multiple offers for projects on in Russia, especially Moscow. Steele claims Putin's people were feeding Trump information and opportunity. So where is the evidence of such activity? There is none. Just Felix Sater, FBI snitch.

Robert Mueller tried in vain to advance the lie that Trump was doing deals in Moscow. His report states:

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

Who was pushing the project in Moscow? FELIX SATER. Not Michael Cohen and certainly not Donald Trump. Sater was the instigator. At no time did he testify that he was directed by Trump or anyone else in the Trump organization to reachout to the Russians. And don't forget what Christopher Steele claimed -- the Russians were in a frenzy supposedly to offer Trump lucrative deals. That was and is a monumental lie.

Sater was and is an FBI informant. Sater was not just a private entrepreneur looking to make some coin. We know without a doubt that Sater was a fully signed up FBI informant. Sater's status as an FBI snitch was first exposed in 2012 (you can read the letter confirming Sater's status as an FBI snitch here ). Another inconvenient fact excluded from the Mueller report is that one of Mueller's Chief Prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, signed the deal with Felix Sater in December 1998 that put Sater into the FBI Informant business . Sater was used multiple times in the next decade by the FBI to make cases against Russian spies and mobsters.

How could Robert Mueller neglect to mention this critical fact? This was not the oversight of a senile old man. It was deliberate obfuscation.

The question that prosecutor Robert Durham needs to ask is who directed Sater to pitch the Trump team in September 2015 to pursue a deal in Moscow? The answer probably lies in Sater's FD-1023s. A 1023 is a report that an FBI agent must file every time he meets with a Confidential Human Source. This was an orchestrated attempt to set up Donald Trump as a Russian stooge. But it did not start in July 2016 as the FBI falsely claims. It started in September 2015. Who authorized this?

Posted at 10:20 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink

Reblog (0) Comments


Factotum , 30 October 2019 at 12:12 PM

Add to the curious terminology used by the guy setting up the Trump Tower meeting with the female lawyer who promised dirt on Clinton - he described her as the "Crown Prosecutor" for Russia (no such thing)- more likely also on M16's payroll working in cahoots with Brennan and the CIA?
indus56 , 30 October 2019 at 12:49 PM
I'm not sure if LJ is presenting anything new here on Sater, though it's damning enough to merit a refresh. I suppose many reading this for the second time will, as I do, feel impatient that this has been out there for some time, and nothing official has yet come of it, from Horowitz or Durham. Perhaps that impatience is fuelled by what appears to be a repeat performance using the same comic-opera playbill, this time with Ukraine. I recognize that the wheels of justice grind slowly; the Borg can manufacture these colour-tempests much more quickly, and so continue to control the news cycles (in addition to controlling the news).

Honestly, the more that emerges, the more I wonder under what inducements Mueller consented to figurehead this steaming heap of offal. (The rest of the gang at least had the excuse of assuming Clinton would win, but Mueller agrees to step into it, through the tainted subterfuge of Comey's no less, once Trump was already elected.)

Nor is it easy to maintain confidence in Barr through the rumbling over his role in Iran Contra, the family connections with the CIA, with its attendant opportunities to develop kompromat to hold over the family. Then there's Horowitz's reputation for playing softball...

And then there's Ukraine. I know PL has just stressed the impropriety of a uniformed officer detailed to the NSC doing what he's done -- because he disagrees with the President's policy on Eastern Europe, by his own admission, which includes urging Zelensky to investigate those allied with the Borg in Ukraine for attempting to influence the outcome of the election in favour of Clinton.

A shame Trump couldn't just leave the Biden investigation to the professionals, but then maybe he's having trouble trusting his subordinates. Wonder why.

Fred -> indus56... , 30 October 2019 at 03:19 PM
Indus56,

The "professionals" ensured the Burisma investigation was closed by the prior Ukraine government. By all means cover up corruption at the top of the Obama administration. Kompromat would never happen there. BTW I wonder if Pussy Riot will be joining the band of the same name at their next concert?
https://www.infoconcert.com/artiste/kompromat-175468/concerts.html

catherine said in reply to indus56... , 30 October 2019 at 04:54 PM
Is it normal procedure to edit phone call memos?

National security official tells Congress he tried to add edits to White House memo about Trump Ukraine call

The proposed edits of the call were to include Trump mentioning possible recordings of Joe Biden discussing corruption in Ukraine and Ukraine's president mentioning the Burisma gas company specifically.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/national-security-official-tells-congress-he-tried-add-edits-white-n1073726

Flavius , 30 October 2019 at 02:31 PM
Shame on the FBI for many failings in their handling of the Steele report. Of course the Agents responsible for evaluating the report knew that Sater was an informant or asset; but the report reeks of bullshit anyway.

"Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively,.." "Trusted compatriot... sources A and B... senior...figure... former...(but) still active..." what does this nonsense even mean? Specifics? To use the word specifics to describe what is being put on offer is a joke. Those specifics wouldn't serve to predicate a FISC wire on Joe Shit the Ragman let alone a candidate for President of the United States.

There should have been no action taken on Steele's offerings absent Steele's fully identifying every source cited in his document, the precise circumstances surrounding their receipt of the information, the precise circumstances of Steele's receipt of the information from the so called sources, and either access to the sources themselves or. damn good reason why not.

The Agents not pinning this guy down knowing that he was a paid political operative doing Oppo research makes the whole thing truly shocking. It's going to be very telling if and when the files come out that were used to administer the handling not only of Sater but also Steele.

ex PFC Chuck , 30 October 2019 at 03:44 PM
Although he may be a pariah to some who hang out here, during a recent interview with Joe Rogan Edward Snowden offered some intriguing views of the Borg/Deep State from his experience and perspective. He sees it as a conglomeration of interest groups inside and outside of the government who have interests that sometimes compete and sometimes cooperate. The video is over 2 hours long, and it's almost all Snowden talking and very little of Rogan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efs3QRr8LWw

[Oct 28, 2019] My Speech on the Deep State Plot by Larry C Johnson

Regardless of what do you think about Donald Trump, what intelligence community did was a plain vanilla coup d'état approved by Obama and coordinated by run by Brennan faction in CIA. With active participation of factions of FBI (Counterintelligence department), Department of Justice (several highly placed officials) and State Department (which is a real neocon vipers nest so the majority of high level officials, especially connected with the Ukrainian color revolution participated) eagerly participated in the coup.
They left too many fingerprints in this and now Barr hopefully will brings some individuals to justice for this coup.
Notable quotes:
"... I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community. ..."
Oct 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GgRJ6UuPWM0

Posted at 12:00 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink

Turcopolier , 28 October 2019 at 01:00 PM

All

I was invited to this meeting and regret now that I did not attend.

[Oct 27, 2019] Biden's Intervention In Ukraine And Ukraine's 2016 Election Meddling Are Matters of Fact

Notable quotes:
"... On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired. ..."
"... Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out. ..."
"... Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky. ..."
"... Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. ..."
"... In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych. ..."
"... Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact: ..."
"... insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. ..."
"... That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is. ..."
"... Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt.... ..."
"... If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting. ..."
"... Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance. ..."
"... Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump ..."
"... Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. ..."
"... Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began. ..."
"... I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump ..."
"... Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out. ..."
"... It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-order ..."
"... The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States." ..."
"... Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV." ..."
"... The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner." ..."
"... Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors. ..."
"... Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation. ..."
"... It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. ..."
"... The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101. ..."
"... Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony. ..."
"... Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory". ..."
"... Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists". ..."
"... This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles. ..."
"... They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. ..."
"... If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge. ..."
"... as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind... ..."
"... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc. ..."
"... i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager.. ..."
Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Several mainstream media have made claims that Joe Biden's intervention in the Ukraine and the Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election are "conspiracy theories" and "debunked". The public record proves them wrong. By ignoring or even contradicting the facts the media create an opening for Trump to rightfully accuse them of providing "fake news".

On October 04 a New Yorker piece, headlined The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine , asserted:

[In late 2018], Giuliani began speaking to current and former Ukrainian officials about the Biden conspiracy theory, and meeting with them repeatedly in New York and Europe. Among those officials was Viktor Shokin, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who was sacked in March, 2016, after European and U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, complained that he was lax in curbing corruption. Shokin claimed that he had lost his powerful post not because of his poor performance but rather because Biden wanted to stop his investigation of Burisma, in order to protect his son. The facts didn't back this up. The Burisma investigation had been dormant under Shokin.

Several other media outlets also made the highlighted claim to debunk the "conspiracy theory". But is it correct?

We have looked into the claim that Shorkin's investigation against Burisma owner Zlochevsky was dormant, as the New Yorker says, and found it to be false :

The above accounts are incorrect. Shokin did go after Zlochevsky. He opened two cases against him in 2015. After he did that Biden and his crew started to lobby for his firing. Shokin was aggressively pursuing the case. He did so just before Biden's campaign against him went into a frenzy.
...
On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired.
...
Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.

Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.

It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a report by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.


bigger


On Thursday Buzzfeed News wrote about a different Ukrainian prosecutor who in early 2019 was approached to set up meetings with President Donald Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani:

[Gyunduz] Mamedov's role was key. He was an intermediary in Giuliani's efforts to press Ukraine to open investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and the debunked conspiracy theory about the country's interference in the 2016 presidential election , a collaboration between BuzzFeed News, NBC News, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) can reveal.

The OCCRP is funded by the UK Foreign Office, the US State Dept, USAID, Omidyar Network, Soros' Open Society, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others. Most of these entities were involved in the 2014 coup against the elected government of the Ukraine.

Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials.

As Politico reported shortly after Trump had won the election, it was the Democratic Party organization, the DNC, which had asked the Ukrainians for dirt that could be used against the campaign on Donald Trump:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia.

The Ukrainian-American who was the go between the DNC and the government of Ukraine had earlier worked for the Clinton administration:

Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych.

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

"Paul Manafort is among those names on the list of so-called 'black accounts of the Party of Regions,' which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are investigating," the statement said. "We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort's name in the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in the column of recipients could belong to other people."

The provenance of the ledger is highly dubious. It was allegedly found in a burned out office of Yanukovych's old party:

The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev.
...
The accounting records surfaced this year, when Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament who said he had received a partial copy from a source he did not identify, published line items covering six months of outlays in 2012 totaling $66 million. In an interview, Mr. Leshchenko said another source had provided the entire multiyear ledger to Viktor M. Trepak, a former deputy director of the domestic intelligence agency of Ukraine, the S.B.U., who passed it to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Anti-corruption groups in Ukraine said the black ledger detailing payments was probably seized when protesters ransacked the Party of Regions headquarters in February 2014.

The pages from the ledger, which had come from anonymous sources probably supported by John Brennan's CIA , were never proven to be genuine. But the claims were strong enough to get Manafort fired as campaign manager for Donald Trump. He was later sentenced for unrelated cases of tax evasion.

Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact:

Ukraine's leaders campaign against 'pro-Putin' Trump ( screenshots ):

The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
...
Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power.

"A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy," Mr Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, told the Financial Times. "For me it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world."
...
If the Republican candidate loses in November, some observers suggest Kiev's action may have played at least a small role.

A Democratic Party operative asked the Ukrainian ambassador to find dirt on Trump's campaign manger Paul Manafort. A few month later a secret "black ledger" emerges from nowhere into the hands of dubious Ukrainian actors including a 'former' domestic intelligence director.

The ledger may or may not show that Manafort received money from Yanukovych's party. It was never verified. But it left Trump no choice but to fire Manafort. Ukrainian figures who were involved in the stunt openly admitted that they had meddled in the U.S. election, promised to do more of it and probably did.

The Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election is well documented. How the Buzzfeed News author can claim that it is a "debunked conspiracy theory" is beyond me.

In 1998 the U.S. and the Ukraine signed a Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (pdf). I came into force in February 2001. Article I defines the wide scope of assistance:

1. The Contracting States shall provide mutual assistance, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, in connection with the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of offenses, and in proceedings related to criminal matters.

2. Assistance shall include: (a) taking the testimony or statements of persons; (b) providing documents, records, and other items; (c) locating or identifying persons or items; (d) serving documents; (e) transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; (f) executing searches and seizures; (g) assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and (h) any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State.

3. Assistance shall be provided without regard to whether the conduct that is the subject of the investigation, prosecution, or proceeding in the Requesting State would constitute an offense under the laws of the Requested State.

When Trump asked the current Ukrainian President Zelensky to help with an investigation into the above matters he acted well within the law and within the framework of the treaty. It was certainly not illegitimate to do that.

But when mainstream media deny that Biden's interference in Ukraine's prosecutor office is suspect, or claim that the Ukraine did not interfere in the U.S. elections, they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. To use it a basis of an 'impeachment inquiry' is political bullshit.

Making these false claims will come back to haunt those media outlets. Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the media even more.

Posted by b on October 26, 2019 at 17:51 UTC | Permalink


Piotr Berman , Oct 26 2019 18:16 utc | 1

"Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the media even more."

More precisely, there exit Trump-friendly media with millions of followers, so insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. Not to mention leftist media reminiscing how Senator Biden championed the cause of MBNA (credit cart giant) when it was also a generous employer of his dear son. Of course, given the size of Delaware, it could be just a coincidence.

corkie , Oct 26 2019 18:27 utc | 3
Thanks b for providing the nitty gritty details of this sorry saga. That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is.
Maracatu , Oct 26 2019 18:30 utc | 4
What is certain is that if Biden is selected as the Dem candidate and ends up as President, the GOP (if it retains influence in Congress) will open an investigation into his actions on behalf of his son. Russia-gate is the gift that keeps on giving!
ben , Oct 26 2019 18:34 utc | 5
Thanks b, for the reality check. Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt....
ben , Oct 26 2019 18:39 utc | 6
P. S. DJT, IMO, is ALSO in the same category with Biden, HRC and other scum-bags that need to "go away", if not imprisoned..
Ort , Oct 26 2019 18:56 utc | 8
Thanks for another informative and insightful commentary, B. It's like a drink of cool, clean water after staggering through a volcanic landscape full of fumaroles belching sulfurous plumes of superheated gas.

Sometimes my hobby horses merrily hop along under me without any effort on my part. I just hang onto the reins and howl. So: it's bad enough that the US mass-media consent-manufacturers, aka the CIA/Deep State's "Mighty Wurlitzer", gin up endless propaganda to discredit the facts you mention; their mission is to fool enough of the public that there's no "there" there, and prop up Biden's presidential campaign in the bargain.

But what increasingly bugs me is so-called "alternative" news outlets and independent journalists buying into the spin that Trump and his associates are using the pretext of investigating corruption as a means to illegally and illicitly "dig up dirt on political rivals". Put the other way around, they concede that Biden and other Team Obama honchos are indeed "dirty", and that their Ukraine adventure was reprehensibly illicit or illegal and self-serving-- but they return to faulting Trump for impermissibly exploiting these circumstances in order to gain political advantage.

It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful to affirm that Trump et al 's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power. But, sadly, even journalists like Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Michael Tracey have echoed this rote condemnation.

My guess is that this arises from two acronyms: incipient TDS, which compels even "alternative" US journalists to regard Trump as the "heel" in the staged "professional"-wrestling scam of US electoral politics. Also, CYA; I suspect that these relatively young, professionally vulnerable journalists are terrified of coming off as "defending" or "excusing" Trump, lest they trigger wrathful excoriation from their peers and the hordes of social-media users whose custom they cultivate.

This is why I appreciate your clarity and forthrightness on this fraught topic.

Paul Damascene , Oct 26 2019 19:26 utc | 10
Ort @ 8 --

Rereading your post, and agreeing with some it, I find I disagree less with its conclusions than on first reading.

If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting.

But where I would disagree is if you were suggesting that Taibbi, Mate and Blumenthal are making obligatory objections to Trump more generally, in order to curry favour with their peers. I think each of them would readily reel off lists of things (more substantive than Ukrainegate -- and probably not including Russia collusion) that they think Trump should be castigated, impeached and perhaps prosecuted for.

karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 19:32 utc | 11
Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance.
Peter AU 1 , Oct 26 2019 19:39 utc | 12
Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump. He definitely is more than the twitter reality TV persona that he puts up as a public face.

With the Barr investigation, it looks like the non Trump section of the swamp will be drained in the near future.

jasmin , Oct 26 2019 19:43 utc | 13
Possibly an irrelevant point, but Shokin's replacement Lutsenko was the prosecutor who resurrected the "deceased", self declared journalist, Arkady Babchenko. The story was full of plot twists, involving a Boris German/Herman, who was Russian. B kept Us regaled with events. I'd post a link, but have witnessed too many thread expansions too risk it.
dh , Oct 26 2019 19:45 utc | 14
I think a lot of people give the MSM too much credit. Of course editorials etc. can influence people's thinking but the media, and journalists in general, are loathed by the people who voted for Trump. It's a big reason he was elected.
ben , Oct 26 2019 19:45 utc | 15
Ort @ 8 said;"It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful to affirm that Trump et al's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power."

Co-Opted, or truthful, depending on what you believe. You, have every right to your opinion, but, when push comes to shove, think I'll give my opinion being swayed or not, by giving more credibility to the five names you've decided to "shade".

DJT has a record of behavior, and so do the five you've mentioned. My choice is clear, I'll believe the five..

Jen , Oct 26 2019 19:56 utc | 16
Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began.

I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump, Manafort or anyone Manafort supposedly had connections with who is also mentioned in the "black ledger" but maybe that's because with the garbage that Bellingcat has so delivered, Eliot Higgins and company can't be trusted any more. Their masters should have known though, that when you give your subordinates base material to work with, they can only come up with base results: garbage in, garbage out.

psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 19:57 utc | 17
Thanks for your ongoing documentation of the political criminality in the US b. The recent events are playing out like a two-bit soap opera rerun in a nursing home for America's brainwashed. Maybe Trump could start a new TV game show called Apprentice Corruption and instead of saying "Your Fired!" it could be "Your Guilty!"

As an American it is difficult to watch the country that I was taught such good things about in school be exposed as a criminal enterprise running cover for the elite cult that owns global private finance and manipulates Western not-so-civilized culture.

I hope all this BS we are going through wakes up enough of the semi-literate public to overthrow the criminal sect and restore the Founding Fathers motto and concept of E Pluribus Unum.

lysias , Oct 26 2019 20:09 utc | 18
Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out.
karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 20:35 utc | 19
Given the fact that she got a first hand look at the Outlaw US Empire's injustice system and its tie-in with BigLie Media, the comments by the now back in Russia Maria Butina carry some legitimate weight that're worth reading: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but they have lost their legal system,' Butina said. 'What is more, they are routinely losing their country. They will lose it unless they do something'.... "'I am very proud of my country, of my origin,' Butina stressed. 'And I come to realize it more and more.'"

Should I bold the following, maybe make the lettering red, and put it in all caps:

"They are routinely losing their country."

I know this is an international bar, but the general focus has long been on the Outlaw US Empire. IMO, Maria Butina is 100% correct. The topic of this thread is just further proof of that fact. As I tirelessly point out, the federal government has routinely violated its own fundamental law daily since October 1945. The media goes along with it robotically. And aside from myself, I know of no other US citizen that's raised the issue--not Chomsky, not Zinn, not anyone with more credentials and public accessibility than I. I sorta feel like Winston Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?! Well, I've shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is it satisfactory.

psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 21:00 utc | 22
It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-order

The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States."
"

karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 21:00 utc | 23
Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV."

Sure, he sees it, many of us barflies see it, but it's the public within the Outlaw US Empire that must see and understand this dynamic. If they don't or won't, then Butina's words are even more correct--They are losing their country.

Brian_J , Oct 26 2019 21:07 utc | 24
Here are some more Biden & Biden lobbying revelations going back to 2008 from the Washington Examiner from before Biden became VP: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firm
psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 21:08 utc | 25
Below is another ZH link (still can't do HTML....sigh) about more Biden perfidy re his son Hunter: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/busted-joe-biden-intervened-help-hunters-lobbying-efforts-multiple-occasions

The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner."

uncle tungsten , Oct 26 2019 21:10 utc | 26
steven t johnson #20

Excuses from the Trump lovers should be dismissed out of hand.

They usually are dismissed around this bar stj. As are the excuses from the Dem lovers.

How do you excuse this ?

MadMax2 , Oct 26 2019 21:27 utc | 28
maracatu 4

The merry-go-round scenario you post would indicate a broken state. Biden's been in office for 43 years, Trump 3 yrs... the potential for dirt is large, mix it with even larger GOP vengeance should that scenario arise and this will drag on through the decades.

'A republic, if you can keep it.' ~Franklin

paul , Oct 26 2019 21:35 utc | 29
What Trump did was corrupt. Normal corruption. What Biden did was corrupt. A lot more corrupt. And rather brazen.
Peter AU 1 , Oct 26 2019 21:46 utc | 30
"They are routinely losing their country."

Part and parcel of democracy. Western style democracy at least. Perhaps others can set theirs up better, though allways, the achilles heel of democracy is information, or media. Who oversees ensuring voters recieve accurate information.

The oz state of NSW had something that broke through this for a bit. ICAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Commission_Against_Corruption_(New_South_Wales)

It took complaints from the public and investigated them. They did not have power to bring charges, but for a time findings were made public. Once it got onto a money trail it would keep following and that would lead to other money trails. It was a state agency and had to stop at state borders but most money trails led to federal politics. It was defanged when they came too close to federal politics.

Something like this in a countries constitution could work though it could be corrupted the same as anything else.

MadMax2 , Oct 26 2019 21:49 utc | 31
@karlof 23

Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors.

It wasn't so long ago these deep state types would rather steer clear of the media. Now they are out there earning bread driving the narrative. Are these deep state media faces a tactical last resort...?

jadan , Oct 26 2019 22:13 utc | 32
Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation.

It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. Putin and other Russian kleptocrats saved Trump boy's bacon. So it's very confusing when bed actors do good things.

Biden is no doubt quite corrupt. But that's got little to do with Trumps quid pro quo with Ukraine. You say that Ukrainian interference in US elections is well documented. You don't offer any documents, b. Anti-Putin Ukrainians were naturally anti-Trump. So what? Where's the beef? Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills and gave the world Chernobyl, interfered in US elections.

Your defense of Trump is getting tiresome. He's a criminal with no respect for the US Constitution and he deserves to be impeached. This is not to say that Joe Biden or his drug addict son are not also shit stains. I am just dismayed that you, an ostensibly intelligent independent commentator would go to bat for an ignoramus like Trump.

Don Bacon , Oct 26 2019 22:16 utc | 33
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.

President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did, especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.

What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."

That's what Trump is doing and will probably continue to do with fake news. (And he coined the phrase.)

vk , Oct 26 2019 22:19 utc | 34
I'll repeat what I posted here some days ago: this is not a battle between truth vs lies, but between which is the truth that will guide the USA for the forseeable future.

Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony.

It's not that the liberals deny Biden did what he did, but that they disagree with Trump's interpretation over what he did. This is what the doctrine of the vital center is all about: some facts are more facts than others, prevailing the one which maintains the cohesion of the empire.

There's a battle for America's soul; the American elite is in flux: Russia or China?

vk , Oct 26 2019 22:25 utc | 35
It seems Jeff Bezos is angry he didn't get that USD 10 billion cloud contract from the Pentagon: Company with ties to Trump's brother Robert awarded $33 million government contract
karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 22:26 utc | 36
MadMax2 @31--

In 1984 , the narrative was now 100% in your face and everything had to be manipulated to match it, which apparently hadn't been needed previously. But we aren't told if that was done as a "last resort." I would think not given continuing polls showing ongoing distrust of media, thus the difficulty of manufacturing consent. Look at the great popularity enjoyed by Sanders amongst 18-30 year-olds who get most of their information online or via social media and the measures being taken to try and manipulate those realms. Then there're efforts to counter the misinformation and manipulation by numerous activists, many of which get cited here.

Another thought: They're out front now because the Establishment's deemed the fight to control the narrative's being lost, and they've been drafted to rectify the situation. If correct, they ought to keep failing.

uncle tungsten , Oct 26 2019 22:27 utc | 37
karlof1 #19

The international nature of this bar and its many flies is that mostly (from what I read) they have an immense respect for the rule of law. It is this singular concept that we trust will transcend religion and the quasi religiosity of political allegiances.

The rule of law is a deity-like singularity that embraces all beings equally, or should. Assaulting that legitimate expectation of the law applying equally is what confronts us daily in so many ways and when it is observed being assaulted by the highest office bearers in political and corporate life that we barflies get mighty annoyed. The gross vista of assumed immunity demonstrated by Nixon is equaled by the antics of the Clinton foundation and its Directors. Each and every one of them.

But it is far worse than that as the assault on the rule of law is daily carried out by the mafias that infest our societies, the corrupt and violent police that cant/wont protect our citizens, the international warmongering criminal classes that propagandise us to accept warring as a legitimate exercise of power even though we recognise it as a crime against humanity.

So when we see the deplorable state of media and jurisprudence and fairness we can only think as Maria Butina does "that we are routinely losing our countries" and I would add our civil societies. The latter is vastly more concerning than the former IMO.

alaff , Oct 26 2019 22:47 utc | 38
Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory".

Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists".

When I see words like "conspiracy theory" in the headlines and see what media use them, then, you know, it's all clear. No chance for such articles/media to be taken seriously.

james , Oct 26 2019 22:59 utc | 39
@32 jadan quote "Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills...." are you familiar with the name porkoshenko, or any other one of the numbers of kleptomaniacs in positions of power in the ukraine? how do you think they got their, if ''that little piss ant country' can't even pay it's bills? i am sure you are capable of adding 2 + 2...

b isn't defending trump here.. he's highlighting how corrupt the msm is! it looks like you missed that.. check the headline..

Peter Charles , Oct 26 2019 23:02 utc | 40
This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles.

They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. If you look for it you can find it applying in almost every bit of 'news', if it is in any way controversial, whether it is partisan politics, Climate Change or Brexit to give examples.

Jackrabbit , Oct 26 2019 23:51 utc | 41
jadan @32:
As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge.
Jackrabbit , Oct 26 2019 23:51 utc | 42
uncle tungsten @37: rule of law

If the people get the government they deserve then they also get the laws/order they deserve. Voting alone is unlikely to fix that. We need Movements.

Michael Droyd , Oct 27 2019 0:12 utc | 43
Ukraine was just one hell of a honey pot that too many couldn't resist visiting. Kind of like Russia (Uranium One and HRC) or China (Biden for a start). Giulani is going to be very busy - he still hasn't produced anything that wasn't already published, but I bet he has much more.

And then there is this: https://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-plundering-of-ukraine/

ben , Oct 27 2019 0:47 utc | 48
DB @ 33 said; Trump coined the phrase "fake news".

Horse puckey DB, check this out: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-in-the-cloud/201611/brief-history-fake-news

ben , Oct 27 2019 0:54 utc | 49
And this; https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-true-history-of-fake-news
evilempire , Oct 27 2019 0:56 utc | 50
Burisma investigated by SFO for money laundering: https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/the-hunt-for-burisma-pt-1/
Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 1:12 utc | 51
Glenn Brown @46:
... smart enough to understand and agree that they needed someone like Trump?
Yes, I do think they are smart enough and agreed to act in their collective best interest. Kissinger first wrote of MAGA in a WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014. Trump entered the race in June 2015, IIRC.

Do you think that Trump - who failed at multiple businesses - just woke up one day and became a political and geopolitical genius? As a candidate he said he'd "take the oil" and now, more than 3 years later, he has! LOL.

And JUST AFTER the Mueller investigation formally ends, Trump ONCE AGAIN solicits a foreign power to interfere in a US election. The biggest beneficiary? Deep State BIDEN! Who now gets all the media attention.

FYI Wm Gruff makes your same point often: that Deep State mistakes demonstrate that they couldn't possible pull of a Trump win (if that's what they wanted). I disagree.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

I very much doubt that anyone will go to jail - or serve any meaningful jail time if they do - over the Deep State shenanigans. Nor will people 'wake up' and see how they've been played anytime soon. Even the smarter, more savvy denizens of the moa bar have much difficulty connecting dots. Dots that they don't want to see.

Jackrabbit !!

Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 2:14 utc | 55
The Deep State at work:

But they would NEVER interfere in a Presidential election.

LOL

Jackrabbit !!

jadan , Oct 27 2019 2:44 utc | 56
@41 Jackrabbit

If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge

Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.

What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.

Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 2:45 utc | 57
Oh, but Deep State DID interfere. FACT: Deep Stater Hillary colluded with DNC against Sanders. ( But she would NEVER participate in collusion that caused her to lose an election./sarc LOL)

And now pro-Trump people say Clapper, Brennan, and Comey interfered in the 2016 election OR committed treason by trying to unseat the President!

So we can talk about Deep State interference . . . as long as it follows the partisan narrative that's been established for us.

Jackrabbit !!

uncle tungsten , Oct 27 2019 3:26 utc | 58
jadan #54

I have news for you. USA Presidents use strong coercive persuasive arguments or means of speech ALL THE TIME. And always have. Sometimes they can be subtle and allude to an action that might make them happy and sometimes they can be blunt. Its a presidential thing. It is what statespeople do when they 'negotiate' for their desired outcome.

It is not illegal or corrupt. It is power nakedly exercised. Just because Biden is a candidate for the same presidential role does not confer immunity for Biden's graft in favor of his son a few years back. You make a mockery of your position.

One USA President visited Australia once and when confronted with a roadblock of demonstrators seeking peace in Vietnam demanded of the Australian Premier to "drive over the bastards". That didn't happen but the President continued to drive all over the Vietnamese innocents.

Trump may be a grifter and a scumbag but there are warmongers well ahead of him in the cue for justice. Take Hillary Clinton for example. She is a ruthless killer and the greatest breach of USA national Security ever with her Secretary of State emails held on an unsecured server in her closet.

ben , Oct 27 2019 3:30 utc | 59
The same powers some call "deep state," are the same powers that have given us ALL modern day presidents, probably from FDR on. IMO, they are nothing more, nothing less than the "captains of commerce", who, through the vast accumulation of wealth by monopoly, buy our "representatives" to legislate rules and regulations to benefit themselves.

Our so-called "leaders" work for them, with very few exceptions, and transcends all political parties, and now also the Supreme Court.

$ has been ruled speech, unlimited $ is allowed to be given to politicians for elections. How could anything but massive corruption take place under this kind of system?

restlelss94110 , Oct 27 2019 3:34 utc | 60
they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. You suffer from TDS. What on Earth are you talking about here? Plenty of that? Say what? Why do you undercut your entire point in your article with this little piece of utter nonsense?

Name one thing that Trump that has done that is illegal. Name one thing that is crazy. Stop apologizing to the crazies by denigrating Trump. Your entire article was all about how none of the bs is true. And then you put your own brand of bs in there at the end. Cut it out.

james , Oct 27 2019 3:44 utc | 61
@ 54 jadan... thanks for your comments... i am feeling more philosophical tonight, as i don't have a gig and have some time to express myself a bit more here.. first off, i don't like any of these characters - trump, biden, and etc. etc.. i have no horse in the game here, and it sounds like you don't either.. your comment- "The issue is Trump's extortion of Ukraine, not Biden's extortion of Ukraine." i can go along with that until i reflect back onto what increasingly looks like an agenda to get trump even prior to when he was elected, at which point i want to say why are we only examining trump in all of this? who gets to decide what the issue is, or as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind...

let me back up... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc..

so, i don't think it is fair to only consider the latest boneheaded thing trump did when i consider the bigger picture unfolding here.. now, maybe you think i am a trump apologist... i am just saying what the backdrop looks like to me here.. i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager..

i suppose it depends on the time frame one wants to take.. my time frame will be considered an evasion of the moment to some, but it is how i see it.. sure, trump is scum, but the bigger issue to me is the usa's foreign policy agenda.. anything that can pull back the covers on that would be an extremely good thing... now, perhaps this is the straw that broke trumps back and the deep state will not tolerate being scrutinized.. that i could understand, but i am not going to be putting it all on trump as the reason the covers have to remain on all the shit the usa has been responsible for on the world stage to date and especially the past 10 years.. i am not able to blame trump for all of that.. and as you can see, i would prefer to get down to the nitty gritty of who is zooming who here... the msm for all intensive purposes is complicit in duping the american public.. that to me is the gist of b's comment here, not that he is cheer-leading for trump.. i just don't see it that way...i'm definitely not!

[Oct 26, 2019] FBI Entrapped Flynn With Manipulated Evidence As Clapper Allegedly Issued Kill Shot Order Court Docs

Flynn's story became a classic story of FBI entrapment...
Notable quotes:
"... The Federalist ..."
"... According to the 37-page motion , a team of " high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president's National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity -- they already had tapes of all the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn -- but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they could allege as false ." ..."
"... Notably, Lisa Page lied to the DOJ, saying that she didn't recall whether she took part in editing Flynn's 302 form . ..."
"... Then, quoting from a sealed statement by Strzok, Powell reveals that over next two weeks, there were "many meetings" between Strzok and [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe to discuss "whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and if so, what interview strategies to use." ..."
"... Another startling claim in Powell's filing references a purported conversation between former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, which claims Clapper told the reporter "words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn,' after Ignatius reportedly obtained the transcript of Flynn's phone calls. ..."
"... Lastly, Powell's filing also notes that US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself after accepting Flynn's guilty plea, had a personal relationship with Peter Strzok , according to text messages. ..."
Oct 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

FBI Entrapped Flynn With Manipulated Evidence As Clapper Allegedly Issued 'Kill Shot' Order: Court Docs by Tyler Durden Sat, 10/26/2019 - 11:30 0 SHARES

A bombshell court filing from Michael Flynn's new legal team alleges that FBI agents altered a '302' form - the official record of the former national security adviser's interview - that resulted in the DOJ charging him with lying to investigators.

Early last week Flynn attorney Sidney Powell filed a sealed reply to federal prosecutors' claims that they have satisfied their requirements for turning over evidence in the case. A minimally redacted copy of the reply brief was made public late last week, revealing the plot to destroy Flynn , as reported by The Federalist 's Margot Cleveland.

According to the 37-page motion , a team of " high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president's National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity -- they already had tapes of all the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn -- but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they could allege as false ."

At the heart of the matter is the 302 form 'documenting' an FBI interview in which Flynn was asked about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Powell alleges that FBI lawyer Lisa Page edited her lover Peter Strzok's account of the interview - texting him, "I made your edits."

The edits explained via The Federalist :

"On February 10, 2017, the news broke -- attributed to 'senior intelligence officials' -- that Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions with Ambassador Kislyak, contrary to what Vice President Pence had said on television previously." Following this leak, "overnight," Flynn's 302 was changed -- and substantively so. " Those changes added an unequivocal statement that 'FLYNN stated he did not' -- in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote."

" This is a deceptive manipulation " Powell highlighted, " because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on this issue . He had talked to dozens of countries." The overnight changes to the 302 also included the addition of a line, indicating Flynn had been question on whether "KISLYAK described any Russian response to a request by FLYNN."

But the agent's notes do not include that question or answer, Powell stressed, yet it was later made into the criminal offense charges against Flynn . And "the draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question it was not ," Powell added.

Here's Powell describing how they know the 302 form was altered:

Notably, Lisa Page lied to the DOJ, saying that she didn't recall whether she took part in editing Flynn's 302 form .

Laying the groundwork

Leading up to the interview with Flynn, the text messages reveal that the FBI wanted to capitalize on news of the 'salacious and unverified' Steele dossier - and whether they "can use it as a pretext to go interview some people," Strzok texted Page.

Then, quoting from a sealed statement by Strzok, Powell reveals that over next two weeks, there were "many meetings" between Strzok and [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe to discuss "whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and if so, what interview strategies to use." And "on January 23, the day before the interview, the upper echelon of the FBI met to orchestrate it all . Deputy Director McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, Lisa Page, Strzok, David Bowdich, Trish Anderson, and Jen Boone strategized to talk with Mr. Flynn in such a way as to keep from alerting him from understanding that he was being interviewed in a criminal investigation of which he was the target."

Next came "Comey's direction to 'screw it' in contravention of longstanding DOJ protocols," leading McCabe to personally call Flynn to schedule the interview . Yet none of Comey's notes on the decision to interview Flynn were turned over to defense. Even Obama-holdover "Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates candidly opined that the interview 'was problematic' and ' it was not always clear what the FBI was doing to investigate Flynn ," Powell stressed. Yet again, the prosecution did not turn over Yates' notes, but only "disclosed a seven-line summary of Ms. Yates statement six months after Mr. Flynn's plea." -The Federalist

'Kill Shot'

Another startling claim in Powell's filing references a purported conversation between former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, which claims Clapper told the reporter "words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn,' after Ignatius reportedly obtained the transcript of Flynn's phone calls.

Clapper's spokesman told Fox News that he "absolutely did not say those words to David Ignatius," adding "It's absolutely false" and "absurd."

Powell claims that Ignatius was given the Flynn-Kislyak call transcripts by a Pentagon official who was also Stefan Halper's "handler." Halper - who was paid over $1 million by the Obama administration - was one of many spies the FBI sent to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

Halper, in 2016, contacted several members of the Trump campaign including former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former aides Carter Page and Sam Clovis.

"The evidence the defense requests will eviscerate any factual basis for the plea and reveal the conduct so outrageous -- if there is not enough already -- to mandate dismissal of this prosecution for egregious government misconduct ," Powell wrote. - Fox News

Lastly, Powell's filing also notes that US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself after accepting Flynn's guilty plea, had a personal relationship with Peter Strzok , according to text messages.

"The government knew that well in advance of Mr. Flynn's plea that Judge Contreras was a friend of Peter Strzok and his recusal was even discussed in an exchange of multiple texts," writes Powell, referencing Strzok-Page texts discussing Strzok and Contreras speaking "in detail" about anything "meaningful enough to warrant recusal."

"The government knew that well in advance of Mr. Flynn's plea that Judge Contreras was a friend of Peter Strzok and his recusal was even discussed in an exchange of multiple texts."

Meanwhile, Clapper - who is now under criminal investigation - is getting nervous...

Perhaps Obama should be too? Law Crime

[Oct 19, 2019] Trump seemed far more determined in that conversation to find out what happened in the Ukraine that caused the 2016/17/18 Russia hoax.

Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

anastasia , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT

Yeah, but look what happened to JFK. And we are pretty well know who did it.

Looks like they are going to try to put Trump out of commission too, one way or the other.

anastasia , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
Biden did not figure "prominently" in the transcript of the conversation. He figured "prominently" only in the minds of the people trying to impeach Trump. . Trump seemed far more determined in that conversation to find out what happened in the Ukraine that caused the 2016/17/18 Russia hoax.
anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT
@anastasia Right, and Biden figured prominantly in what happened in the Ukraine that caused the 2016/17/18 Russia hoax.
Michael888 , says: October 14, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMT
@Ozymandias A dictator arising in the banana republic that is the US would most likely be from an Intelligence Agency, such as Brennan. The MSM clearly worships such authority, which is why we have had an evidence-free coup in motion since 2016. Elections no longer are even pretended to matter.
Michael888 , says: October 14, 2019 at 5:28 pm GMT
@TellTheTruth-2 The bigger issue which no one in the MSM wants to touch is Crowdstrike. Supposedly Crowdstrike "made its reputation' by showing that the Russians hacked the Ukraine artillery, then later found the same type of evidence that the Russians hacked the DNC. Although it turned out that there was no Russian hack of the Ukrainian artillery, and likely no Russian hack of the DNC. There is a reason the 17 Intelligence Agencies have never showed any evidence; Crowdstrike and New Knowledge seem to be "the Russians".

[Oct 15, 2019] The incredible luck of Comey is he was not arraigned after the IG report.

Oct 15, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Fred C. Dobbs , October 12, 2019 at 03:49 AM

James Comey Would Like to Help
https://nyti.ms/3298iut
NYT - Matt Flegenheimer - October 12

James Comey slumps strategically in restaurants -- all 6-foot-8 of him, drooping faux-furtively with his back to the room -- and daydreams about deleting the civic-minded Twitter feed where a bipartisan coalition pronounces him a national disgrace.

He sleeps soundly -- nine hours a night, he ballparks -- and organizes the self-described "unemployed celebrity" chapter of his life around a series of workaday goals. "One of my goals has been to get to 10 consecutive pull-ups," Mr. Comey said in an interview, legs crossed on the back porch of his stately Virginia home. "I'm at nine now. So, I've been doing a lot of pull-ups."

He writes and thinks and reads and worries from a tidy downstairs office surrounded by the trinkets of his past: the White House place card from the night President Trump asked for his "loyalty" as F.B.I. director; a book by Nate Silver, the political data whiz who believes Mr. Comey's explosively ambiguous letter in October 2016 about the Hillary Clinton email investigation probably handed Mr. Trump the election; a page from a quote-of-the-day calendar, saved for its resonance: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

"It reminds me so much of the F.B.I.," Mr. Comey said.

But then, a lot of things have lately. Another Trump-branded election interference scandal is upon us. Institutions are wobbling. And Mr. Comey, as ever, cannot fight a nagging conviction about it all: James Comey can help. He must help.

"I feel stuck," he said. "Like I can't do something else. And I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I went and did something easy."

What he is doing, exactly, is not entirely clear even to him. Rather than proceed with the standard arc of an erstwhile intelligence leader -- think tanks, corporate boards, studied political silence -- Mr. Comey has pledged to spend the next 13 months working to drive Mr. Trump from power.

The former F.B.I. director, a lover of order, sees little of it in a norm-smashing president spiraling toward impeachment, riffing on "sick and deranged" Democrats at a recent rally and playacting the dialogue of F.B.I. officials like an insult comic. In this concern, Mr. Comey has ample company. In this company, he carries a kind of customized psychic baggage.

Who can know how it feels to wonder, to have everyone you meet wonder, if the president is standing behind that seal because of you?

"Thanks for giving us Donald Trump," an older woman heckled recently, adding an expletive as Mr. Comey strolled through a Yale Law School building, where he had come for a talk that focused largely on his fateful 2016 decisions and attendant personal anguish.

"Thank you for the feedback," he told her.

Divorced from its singular context, Mr. Comey's condition is somewhat typical of the wandering urgency with which many presidential critics are approaching the 2020 election. Last year's season of midterm activism has given way to a long electoral winter of Democratic primary skirmishes and an emphasis on just a few early-voting states, leaving Trump opponents to wrestle with how to contribute amid a gush of executive outrages they feel powerless to counteract.

Lawmakers can impeach. Whistle-blowers whistle-blow. What of the private citizen, determined to live publicly?

"It's hard for people who've had a lot of power to come to terms with the fact that there's actually very little you can do when you're not a candidate," said Jennifer Palmieri, a former top aide to Mrs. Clinton. "Or the F.B.I. director."

While short on formal authority, Mr. Comey has suffered no deficiency of platforms. He says he has signed a contract to write opinion pieces for The Washington Post. He is the subject of an upcoming mini-series, starring Jeff Daniels as Mr. Comey, based on his best-selling memoir. He travels the country giving speeches on ethical leadership, mixing pro bono appearances on college campuses with paid bookings that command a six-figure fee. ("It's a lot!" Mr. Comey enthused, while declining to name his precise rate. "Seriously, it's crazy.")

Over nearly two hours last month at his Northern Virginia home, whose coordinates he prefers not to publicize given the president's affection for lathering up supporters with tales of "Leakin' Lyin' James Comey," the former F.B.I. director could register as a spindly contradiction. He is at once a just-the-facts lawman and a prodigious feeler of feelings, introspective about the size of his ego and incapable of suppressing it entirely.

He says he is "not that important in the great sweep of American history" but believes his firsthand view into the president's psyche can offer uncommon value to the anti-Trump movement. He can hold forth in one breath on the humbling task of bird-feeder maintenance and in another invoke the teachings of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He says "dude" a lot.

At times, Mr. Comey can sound as if he is suggesting that the Twitter account from which he slings grave warnings and measured hope ("This country is so much better than this president") is yoked to the health of the nation.

"I have a fantasy about on January 21, 2021, deleting my Twitter and moving on to something else," he said. "But until then, I can't."

Closure has eluded some of his audiences, too. They lard Mr. Comey's public events with skeptical questions about his choices in 2016. The Justice Department's inspector general has lashed Mr. Comey for "insubordinate" conduct during that period, accusing him of breaking with longstanding policy by publicly discussing an investigation into Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server, including in a letter to Congress less than two weeks before the election.

Mr. Comey has conceded that he may have allowed himself to be influenced subconsciously by the political consensus that Mrs. Clinton would win. But he has betrayed no major regrets, defending his chosen course as the best among bad options. "I wish like hell we hadn't been involved," he said. He predicted that history would judge him kindly for prizing disclosure over concealment (not, as some Clinton allies see it, opting for spectacle over discretion).

Asked if he cared about how he would be remembered for the ages, Mr. Comey, 58, said, "I was going to say I don't care. I'm sure I care a little," adding, "It frustrates me in general that millions of people have a false impression of me. I wish they knew I was funnier." ...

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , October 12, 2019 at 07:01 AM
The incredible feature of Comey is he was not arraigned after the IG report.

Maybe he goes down with the Mueller fish Durham fries!

How does Comey not go all in with the next phase of the coup?

[Oct 09, 2019] As long as a majority of the House is willing to vote for a special rule, there is little that the Rules Committee cannot do

Oct 09, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

Lburg , October 8, 2019 at 6:09 pm

This may be a LollaPalosi wrap-up smear tactic.

Called the House Rules Committee office this morning. In order for House Rules to change after they pass at the start of the session – in this case January 2019 – there would have to be a vote taken. In looking at the House Resolution ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/6/all-actions ) all actions occurred in Jan. this year so no vote to amend has been taken. That doesn't mean that Nan won't use this wonk's paper to bolster her position OR that a particular committee didn't change their rules. But according to the person I spoke with, the standing House Rules can not be changed without a vote.

The gentleman also said that Congressional Research Service papers are just that – interpretations/research on a particular subject that do not hold any legislative weight. They are requested anonymously so there probably isn't a way to trace who requested this particular paper or how it ended up being authored by Rybicki (one of seven she's written this year). Additional little tidbit is that the papers can be requested by members of Congress or their staff members.

While trying to figure it out on my own found this chilling little factoid from the Rules Committee page re: bills considered under a "special rules" scenerio ( https://rules.house.gov/about archived here: http://archive.fo/VIK1C ):
"The Committee has the authority to do virtually anything during the course of consideration of a measure, including deeming it passed. The Committee can also include a self-executed amendment which could rewrite just parts of a bill, or the entire measure. In essence, so long as a majority of the House is willing to vote for a special rule, there is little that the Rules Committee cannot do. " (emphasis mine)

That makes the House Rules Committee more powerful that the full house voting on "special rules" bills. Well doesn't that just sound .wrong.

[Oct 03, 2019] Judicial Watch: DOJ Docs Show Rosenstein Advising Mueller 'the Boss' Doesn't Know About Their Communications.

Oct 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

milo_hoffman , 1 hour ago link

BREAKING: Judicial Watch: DOJ Docs Show Rosenstein Advising Mueller 'the Boss' Doesn't Know About Their Communications. Shows massive collusion and plotting by Rosenstein and Muller, behind administrations back, and collusion with democrats and press.

"These astonishing emails further confirm the dishonest corruption behind Rosenstein's appointment of Robert Mueller," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The emails also show a shockingly cozy relationship between Mr. Rosenstein and anti-Trump media reporters."

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/judicial-watch-doj-docs-show-rosenstein-advising-mueller-the-boss-doesnt-know-about-their-communications/

[Oct 01, 2019] IG Horowitz - A Democrat Donor - Feared Pulling Punches To Protect Establishment Operatives

Notable quotes:
"... During his 17-month probe into the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails, which he touted as "thorough" and "comprehensive," Horowitz repeatedly declined to use his subpoena power - allowing key players to provide their own evidence. ..."
"... He also allowed two lead FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page , to sort through which of their electronic communications were "personal" vs. "work related" ..."
"... Horowitz subsequently learned through interviews that Strzok drafted classified investigative documents and communicated with Page about them on their private email in violation of department rules, which require officials to communicate through government channels -- the same basis for the Clinton email probe. Yet neither was compelled to turn over the emails . ..."
"... Horowitz never referred Strzok for criminal sanctions for maintaining court-sealed documents on an unsecure computer. Strzok was nonetheless fired last year by the bureau for misconduct. He is now suing the department for unlawful termination. ..."
"... The IG also failed to demand access to Comey's private Gmail account , even though he, too, used it for official FBI business. - RealClear Investigations ..."
"... "Undeniably, there was bias against Trump [at headquarters]," according to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, adding "Clinton was not going to be charged no matter how much evidence there was." ..."
Oct 01, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

... ... ...

Horowitz gave former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe special treatment - accepting his explanation for why he failed to recuse himself from the Clinton email case until November 2016, while also accepting McCabe's claim that he had nothing to do with his wife's Senate campaign, even though he:

As Sperry notes, " Were such actions violations of the Hatch Act , a federal law that prohibits federal employees from engaging "in political activity in an official capacity at any time"? If so, the topic didn't interest Horowitz, who accepted on face value the FBI's argument in a letter to the Senate that he played no formal role in his wife's campaign and that his activities were permissible under the law."

Former inspectors general found this questionable, especially in the wake of a Justice Department memo issued in 2014, and again in early 2016, warning department and FBI employees to "be particularly mindful of these rules in an election year." - RealClear Investigations

" Everybody and their mother knew he was engaged in political activities, " said former Pentagon IG General Joseph E. Schmitz. "Horowitz could have easily seen to it that he was branded unfit for office and banned from the federal payroll for up to five years."

Protecting Clinton, Strzok and Page

During his 17-month probe into the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails, which he touted as "thorough" and "comprehensive," Horowitz repeatedly declined to use his subpoena power - allowing key players to provide their own evidence.

He also allowed two lead FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page , to sort through which of their electronic communications were "personal" vs. "work related" according to the report.

Horowitz subsequently learned through interviews that Strzok drafted classified investigative documents and communicated with Page about them on their private email in violation of department rules, which require officials to communicate through government channels -- the same basis for the Clinton email probe. Yet neither was compelled to turn over the emails .

"The inspector general and I arranged an agreement where I would go through my personal accounts and identify any material that was relevant to FBI business and turn it over," Strzok said in testifying before Congress. "It was reviewed. There was none. My understanding is the inspector general was satisfied with that action. "

Horowitz never referred Strzok for criminal sanctions for maintaining court-sealed documents on an unsecure computer. Strzok was nonetheless fired last year by the bureau for misconduct. He is now suing the department for unlawful termination.

The IG also failed to demand access to Comey's private Gmail account , even though he, too, used it for official FBI business. - RealClear Investigations

And while Horowitz is widely credited with having uncovered anti-Trump / pro-Clinton text messages between Strzok and Page while they were in the middle of investigating Trump and Clinton, he only 'found' them after pressure from congressional Republicans - and has apparently given up trying to find still-missing text messages blamed on a tech error.

Horowitz did admonish Strzok and Page for their obvious "political bias," however he concluded that their clear preference for Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump did not influence their investigations, and that they only exercised "extremely poor judgement" despite the fact that an August 2016 text from Strzok to Page strongly suggests they were actively working against Trump.

"[Trump's] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" Page asked Strzok, to which he replied "No. No he won't. We'll stop it ."

In a report echoing the FBI's determination that Hillary Clinton had been "extremely careless" but not "grossly negligent" in her use of email, Horowitz essentially cleared the FBI agents of fixing the case for Clinton while still acknowledging several irregularities in the email probe. For example, the FBI did not push for a grand jury to compel testimony and obtain the vast majority of evidence, choosing instead to offer unusually generous immunity deals to Clinton aides. Comey drafted a statement exonerating Clinton months before agents interviewed her. - RealClear Investigations

"Undeniably, there was bias against Trump [at headquarters]," according to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, adding "Clinton was not going to be charged no matter how much evidence there was."

"The inspector general was wrong to conclude that this bias could not be deemed causative of any particular investigative decision in the Clinton emails case," added McCarthy.

Read the rest of the report here .

Then read Sperry's report on how Horowitz cut the Clintons some major slack over the infamous 'tarmac' meeting here .

[Sep 28, 2019] In his phone call with Zelensky, President Trump mentioned two subjects in particular which are Kryptonite to the Democrats: Crowdstrike and "the server," meaning the DNC server which was never forensically examined by the FBI.

Sep 28, 2019 | www.unz.com

Buck Ransom , says: September 27, 2019 at 12:51 am GMT

In his phone call with Zelensky, President Trump mentioned two subjects in particular which are Kryptonite to the Democrats: Crowdstrike and "the server," meaning the DNC server which was never forensically examined by the FBI. Pulling on these two threads may be even more interesting than the stuff about the big-bucks shakedowns of foreign governments by Joe Biden & Son, Inc. Just for starters: what the fcuk is the DNC server doing in Ukraine?

[Sep 28, 2019] Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine

Sep 28, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 01:02 PM

Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine:

"During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/04/former_assistant_secretary_of_state_victoria_nuland_christopher_steele_also_shared_information_with_state_department.html

By commercial clients, you should read oligarchs who were still in business because they had sworn fealty to the US owned regime.

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 07:09 PM
More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI.

Immediately after the coup, Hunter was appointed to the board of the strategically critical Burisma energy company, Ukraine's largest producer of natural gas. From what I have seen, the US likes to have its assets sit on the Board of strategically critically energy companies.

And is Ukraine ever strategically important!!! Apart from the fact the Russian pipelines pass through the country, "Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), ranking its deposits as the fourth largest in Europe."
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ukraine_and_fracking

Again, Hunter Biden's appointment would not have been by chance. He would have been put there to once again to be Joe Biden's eyes, ears, and gopher.

As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans.

So are we about to witness the first color revolution on US soil? Could be

[Sep 27, 2019] Did Crowdstrite transrefered DNC disk images to Ukraine for the analysys?

Sep 27, 2019 | southfront.org

Another point was CrowdStrike, hired by Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the last election to analyze an infiltration of DNC email networks. He asked if the CrowdStrike servers are in Ukraine.

"Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation."

"Zelenskiy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government You are a great teacher for us and in that."

"Zelenskiy: Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also want to assure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation."

Zelensky was applying the tried and true formula of flattering Trump until he agrees to fulfill a request. The summary of the conversation is quite limited, and US Congress asked for the whistleblower complaint to also be unclassified.

[Sep 27, 2019] Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine

Notable quotes:
"... "During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI. ..."
"... As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans. ..."
Sep 27, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 01:02 PM

Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine:

"During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/04/former_assistant_secretary_of_state_victoria_nuland_christopher_steele_also_shared_information_with_state_department.html

By commercial clients, you should read oligarchs who were still in business because they had sworn fealty to the US owned regime.

JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 07:09 PM
More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI.

Immediately after the coup, Hunter was appointed to the board of the strategically critical Burisma energy company, Ukraine's largest producer of natural gas. From what I have seen, the US likes to have its assets sit on the Board of strategically critically energy companies.

And is Ukraine ever strategically important!!! Apart from the fact the Russian pipelines pass through the country, "Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), ranking its deposits as the fourth largest in Europe."
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ukraine_and_fracking

Again, Hunter Biden's appointment would not have been by chance. He would have been put there to once again to be Joe Biden's eyes, ears, and gopher.

As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans.

So are we about to witness the first color revolution on US soil? Could be

[Sep 24, 2019] The Plan to Trip Up Trump Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Papadopoulos replied according to his recent book , "Deep State Target." But what if he had instead chuckled or said something stupid in order to puff himself up? Based on previous FBI entrapment cases , the answer seems clear: after threatening him with prosecution, the bureau would have outfitted him with a wire so that he could bring down other campaign officials. It wouldn't have stopped until it snared the ultimate prize –Trump himself. ..."
"... Trump told reporters in May he wanted Australia's role to be investigated by the Justice Department. Comey's Trump Tower meeting was important because it led directly to the publication of the notorious dossier that would generate endless headlines and cripple the incoming Trump administration even though it was full of baloney. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit them to the FBI for review. ..."
"... With the Electoral College and the Supreme Court already overturning the popular vote in two of the last five presidential elections, voters would have a fourth branch to contend with – the intelligence community. ..."
"... As Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told MSNBC'S Rachel Maddow at the height of the Russiagate madness: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community – they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." Had Comey succeeded in bringing down Trump, they may have had a seventh. ..."
"... Le Monde Diplomatique ..."
Sep 24, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Before the Trump Tower visit, Comey sat down with top FBI brass – Chief of Staff James Rybicki, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, and others involved with the Russiagate investigation – to strategize about the upcoming meeting.

Page 17 of the OIG report tells of what they were up to:

"Baker and McCabe said that they agreed that the briefing needed to be one-on-one, so that Comey could present the 'salacious' information in the most discreet and least embarrassing way. At the same time, we were told, they did not want the President-elect to perceive the one-on-one briefing as an effort to hold information over him like a 'Hoover-esque type of plot.' Witnesses interviewed by the OIG also said that they discussed Trump's potential responses to being told about the 'salacious' information, including that Trump might make statements about, or provide information of value to, the pending Russian interference investigation."

As the final sentence shows, Comey's job was to confront Trump about the alleged 2013 Moscow incident and see whether he would give the FBI reason to advance its Russiagate investigation to a whole new level, that of the presidency itself.

This was the same approach the FBI would employ a couple of weeks later after listening in on a telephone conversation between Mike Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and not liking what it heard about plans to bolster U.S.-Russian relations. The solution was to send a couple of agents to quiz the newly-appointed national security adviser and see how he would respond. After telling Flynn not to bother bringing along a lawyer because it was just a friendly chat and "they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport" – as a follow-up memo noted – the agents caught the ever-voluble Flynn fudging various details. Three weeks later, he found himself out of office and in disgrace. Ten months after that, he was in federal court pleading guilty to making false and misleading statements.

Another Set-Up

Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general. (Wikimedia Commons)

Now we know from the OIG report that this was apparently the goal with regard to Trump.

Russiagate began nine months earlier with a smallarmy of intelligence agents buzzing around a naïve young Trump adviser named George Papadopoulos. [See " Spooks Spooking Themselves ," May 31, 2018.] An Anglo-Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud, an individual with strong Anglo-American intelligence connections, wined and dined him and told him that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."

An Australian diplomat, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer , who was similarly connected, invited him out for drinks and then passed along the fruits of the conversation to Canberra, which related them to Washington. A Belorussian-American businessman who worked for Steele offered Papadopoulos $30,000 a month under the table. A U.S. intelligence asset named Charles Tawil presented him with $10,000 in cash. A long-time CIA informant named Stefan Halper flew Papadopoulos to London and barraged him with questions:

"It's great that Russia is helping you and the campaign, right, George? George, you and your campaign are involved in hacking and working with Russia, right? It seems like you are a middleman for Trump and Russia, right? I know you know about the emails."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Papadopoulos replied according to his recent book , "Deep State Target." But what if he had instead chuckled or said something stupid in order to puff himself up? Based on previous FBI entrapment cases , the answer seems clear: after threatening him with prosecution, the bureau would have outfitted him with a wire so that he could bring down other campaign officials. It wouldn't have stopped until it snared the ultimate prize –Trump himself.

Trump told reporters in May he wanted Australia's role to be investigated by the Justice Department. Comey's Trump Tower meeting was important because it led directly to the publication of the notorious dossier that would generate endless headlines and cripple the incoming Trump administration even though it was full of baloney.

Most of what we know about that meeting in the early days of the Trump administration comes from a memo that Comeydashed off minutes later and then lightly revised the next morning.

According to his memo, Comey met one-on-one with Trump to tell him about the Steele dossier because

"the content [was] known at IC [intelligence community] senior level and I didn't want him caught cold by some of the detail . I said I wasn't saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material and that we were keeping it very close-hold."

But Comey's memo was disingenuous, starting with his line about not wanting to give the media "the excuse to write that the FBI has the material." Leaks are an integral part of Washington, as an insider and a leaker like Comey knows.

As Comey must have also known, his very decision to brief Trump on the dossier wound up triggering press attention to it.

Four days later, Buzzfeed posted the dossier on its website. The source remains anonymous but it's easy to imagine that either Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or CIA Director John Brennan spilled the beans. They both accompanied Comey to the meeting and were appalled by Trump's call for a rapprochement with Russia.

Comey's memo also rings false where it says he "wasn't saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands."

Glenn Simpson, the ex- Wall Street Journal reporter whose private Washington intelligence firm, Fusion GPS, commissioned the dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, told the House intelligence committee that Steele began sharing his findings with the FBI "in July or late June" of 2016. (See p. 60 of testimony transcript ).

That means that the bureau had the Moscow Ritz-Carlton report in hand six months prior to the Trump Tower meeting. Surely, this is enough time to reach some conclusion as to its veracity.

'Might Make Statements'

Had Trump fallen into Comey's trap, millions of Americans would no doubt have cheered – and given Trump's dismal record in office, who can blame them? But the implications are chilling, and not just for rightwing dissidents. Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit them to the FBI for review.

With the Electoral College and the Supreme Court already overturning the popular vote in two of the last five presidential elections, voters would have a fourth branch to contend with – the intelligence community.

As Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told MSNBC'S Rachel Maddow at the height of the Russiagate madness: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community – they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." Had Comey succeeded in bringing down Trump, they may have had a seventh.

Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique and blogs about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com .


Richard A. , September 24, 2019 at 15:13

I think Russiagate is more than just smearing Trump, it's also about smearing Russia. The war lobby here in the US and the UK are trying to manipulate public opinion in to hating Russia.

R Zarate , September 24, 2019 at 05:02

And now there are calls to impeach Trump for asking for an investigation into Biden! It speaks volumes about the MSM that there was no uproar when H.B. took the job at Bursima, I remember the White House putting out a release at the time saying they could see no conflict of interest, I guess the lack of conflict was it was par for the course to enrich family members.

By the bye. So Trump gets impeached, then what? Didn't do Clinton any harm.

CitizenOne , September 23, 2019 at 23:26

It is an interesting history filled with plots within plots to destroy Trump for the audacity to win the presidential election. True he won the election with a lot of help from Cambridge Analytica and his election team which included Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos (the nube) Paul Manafort (the former partner in the Black, Stone, Manafort and Kelly lobby firm) , Rick Gates and Michael Flynn.

All these people were indicted under the Mueller probe but yet Trump escaped without a scratch on his record. To pull this off Trump abandoned all of them in turn claiming he hardly knew them and had no involvement. How Trump escaped from the Mueller investigation has nothing to do with his innocence and everything to do with the lack of evidence tying him to the crimes his associates admitted to under intense scrutiny by the Mueller Special Council Investigation into the alleged Russian Hacks which supposedly threw the election toward Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump's long time lawyer was also convicted of paying off two women that alleged Trump arranged for sex with the women and later paid them off handsomely allegedly by orders from Trump.

It is like Trump won his freedom because there was no evidence to convict him despite the many people who were closely associated with himwho fell as victims to the special prosecutors zeal for indictments of Trump's inner guard.

In the end the Mueller report all but exonerated Trump with Mueller claiming Trump had committed impeachable evidence but that Mueller could do nothing about that leaving his conclusions up to the court of popular appeal as to whether or not Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice in the entire Russia Gate story.

Trump accurately called out the testimony of Comey before Congress into what he knew about the Russian attempt to hack the election as fake news. Trump banked on what the intelligence community would share about the election result and he won big time when the Mueller investigation into Russian hacking of the election produced no tangible connection between Trump and the alleged hackers. The Steel dossier was also l shown to be just more fake news paid for by the democrats.

The longer Trump remains in charge the less likely that he will be implicated in a scandal although the new allegations that he attempted to get the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden has the potential to raise a new round of fake news decrying that the president has engaged in yet more impeachable offenses.

robert e williamson jr , September 23, 2019 at 21:23

Beware of the Department of Justice, mad dogs and dogs of war.

Appears to be FBI disruption of the domestic governmental tranquility for the unique purpose of disrupting a duly elected president.

I mean the FBI bill themselves as the domestic counter intelligence apparatus and CIA apparently agrees. Maybe CIA is actually running another of their counter intelligence covert mission that involves the undoing of Ole Donny J. .

No I didn't say it, no mention of the dreaded "executive action" my me.

My assumption is that this may be simply collateral damage from the investigation into the Russia meddling in the 2016 elec . . . . .

. . . and the beat goes on, la da da dee . . . !

That far away look in the eyes of the old democratic leaders is the look of "the fear" (H.S.T.). They watch as the repugs, their partners in crime get skewered , by the same DOJ that will skewer them in a New York second given a chance.

DOJ and the USAG leading the shock troops of the National Socialists take over.

Sandra Thompson , September 23, 2019 at 20:58

One of your best lines: "Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit them to the FBI for review." Liked last couple of paragraphs too. Thank you

Abby , September 23, 2019 at 19:43

So Comey knowingly and blatantly lied to the incoming president and it was that incoming president that got investigated? How the hell does that make sense to the Russia Gaters? And then they elevated Comey after he got fired? This makes as much sense as people thinking that Robert Mueller was going to save the country.

After reading Parry's essay on Joe ByeDone from 2014 after the Obama coup in Ukraine that showed how corrupt the powerful people in our government are I don't even know why people bother to vote anymore. The country is run by people behind the scenes who use congress critters to do their dirty work and give them cover. And with our corrupt military industrial complex setting the world on fire I think it's time for the empire to burn.

Ray McGovern , September 23, 2019 at 18:46

VERY GOOD PIECE, DAN. THANKS. Ray McGovern

Martin , September 23, 2019 at 15:27

I read somewhere early on that someone was peddling the steele-dossier to many different outlets weeks or even months before trump's briefing, but they wouldn't bite (too fantastic) until the feds legitimized it. The people should be informed about these mechanics.

Dan Anderson , September 23, 2019 at 15:09

Here's the warning before being sworn in:
January 3, 2017 – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being really dumb to do this."
Rachel Maddow: "What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?"
Schumer: "I don't know, but from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them," -- The Rachel Maddow Show Jan 3, 2017

[Sep 18, 2019] DOJ Sued For Records Of FBI Agent Who Helped Circulate Steele Dossier

Looks like Cheney protégé Victoria Nuland played an important role in Steele dossier saga.
I wonder why female neocons are so nasty. Is this this suppressed "Inferiority complex" or what ?
Notable quotes:
"... A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on Wednesday by legal watchdog group Judicial Watch , ..."
"... According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition research to Gaeta. ..."
"... According to the Epoch Times ..."
"... For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. ..."
"... Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess. Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on Wednesday by legal watchdog group Judicial Watch , seeking records concerning FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta - an agency Legal Attaché in Rome who helped circulate the infamous Steele Dossier.

George Papadopoulos @GeorgePapa19

Expect the name Michael Gaeta to become a household name very soon regarding spygate.

The JW lawsuit seeks:

According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition research to Gaeta.

In the July 30 meeting, Chris Steele also mentioned something about the doping -- you know, one of the doping scandals. And he also mentioned, I believe -- and, again, this is based on my review of my notes -- that he had provided Mr. Gaeta with two reports "

The only thing I recall him mentioning is that he had provided two of his reports to Special Agent Gaeta.

According to the Epoch Times , Gaeta was authorized by former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to meet with Steele at his London office in order to obtain dossier materials.

The purpose of the London visit was clear. Steele was personally handing the first memo in his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.

For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis.

The FBI's scramble to vet the dossier's claims are well known. According to an April, 2017 NYT report , the FBI agreed to pay Steele $50,000 for "solid corroboration" of his claims . Steele was apparently unable to produce satisfactory evidence - and was not paid for his efforts :

Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October, bringing a stack of new intelligence reports. One, dated Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing "fallout" over his apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was receiving "conflicting advice" on what to do.

The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid . - NYT

Still, the FBI used the dossier to obtain the FISA warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page - while the document itself was heavily shopped around to various media outlets . The late Sen. John McCain provided a copy to Former FBI Director James Comey, who already had a version, and briefed President Trump on the salacious document. Comey's briefing to Trump was then used by CNN and BuzzFeed to justify reporting on and publishing the dossier following the election.

" The FBI is covering up its role in the Russiagate hoax ," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Judicial Watch has had to fight the FBI 'tooth and nail' for every scrap of information about the illicit targeting of President Trump."


Herp and Derp , 1 minute ago link

Great news that Ted is finally (after 30+ years of discussion) introducing a term limits amendment.

Along with term limits for legislature, we need to kill the deep state as well. The government needs to be reduced significantly. I say we go back to spoils. If a federal role is needed, then it must be hired/re-hired by the whitehouse. Every FBI agent, etc. Trump has proven that most current direct appointments are waste of money and unnecessary.

Limits restricting ex-politicians and military from lobbying, but also partners and nepotism need to be codified and restricted for politician families.

LEEPERMAX , 2 minutes ago link

Whether it's MARK MEADOWS, DOUG COLLINS, JIM JORDAN, LINDSEY GRAHAM or any of the others, I've come to the conclusion that the ONLY PERSON seriously taking on those who were involved in THE ATTEMPTED COUP TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP is TOM FITTON of JUDICIAL WATCH.

The U.S. is a Captured Operation

tunetopper , 5 minutes ago link

Misfud was in Rome too. The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital St John - present sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. Was he a bailiff or a knight, question...?

Swamidon , 8 minutes ago link

Talk talk talk, its cheap, and boring with the same criminals appearing over and over, but no action ever taken and the Traitors don't look very nervous. Why doesn't Trump issue an Executive Order to direct employees of the DOJ and the FBI etc., to fully cooperate with investigators?

I am Groot , 15 minutes ago link

Time to fire Director Deep State Wray and dismantle the FBI, President Trump ! They are 100% corrupt !

CheapBastard , 13 minutes ago link

He's a huge disappointment.

NoDebt , 6 minutes ago link

Agreed. This guy Wray has been slow-walking and standing in the way of anything happening at every turn. I am convinced he is absolutely there to protect the FBI and nothing else. He is definitely acting like a "company man".

And, I'm not gonna give Trump any more free passes for what seems to be a lot of BAD picks in his appointments. In this respect I think it's where Trump has been the most disappointing.

White Nat , 21 minutes ago link

Hope Judicial Watch files a FOIA request for weiner's laptop.

gilhgvc , 23 minutes ago link

correction: BARR,TRUMP and the REPUBLICANS are ALLOWING the FBI to cover up

New_Meat , 24 minutes ago link

Nuland?

Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess. Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit.

but who is Evelyn Farkas? Gotta' think on that one.

f'noldbastard , 43 minutes ago link

They may respond sometime in 2025

Gringo Viejo , 44 minutes ago link

The FBI was founded by a cross dressing, closet homosexual with a gambling "jones" who was blackmailed by the Mafia.

And it was expected to improve with age?

JoeTurner , 45 minutes ago link

Is Steele still alive? He seems like a major liability

chunga , 33 minutes ago link

Christopher Wray is another beauty right up there with Stiff Sessions.

Secret Weapon , 46 minutes ago link

The FBI has become America's Gestapo.

chunga , 43 minutes ago link

Their top experts have been studying the malfunctioning Epstein cameras for about three weeks now.

Demologos , 26 minutes ago link

The FBI has their TOP men studying it, TOP men!

chunga , 10 minutes ago link

When NYPD busted Weiner Comey sent his black hats to seize the laptop.

While under an international spotlight Barr recused himself from the Epstein matter and Wray did nothing.

[Sep 15, 2019] How the UK Security Services neutralised the country s leading liberal newspaper by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis

Highly recommended!
Essentially neoliberal MSM were hijacked. Which was easy to do. The current anti-Russian campaign is conducted under the direct guidance of MI6 and similar agencies
Notable quotes:
"... committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it." ..."
"... These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media". ..."
"... "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story." ..."
"... The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies. ..."
"... The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen". ..."
"... But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member". ..."
"... The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing. ..."
"... In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article. ..."
"... The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files." ..."
"... Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004". ..."
"... The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again. ..."
"... The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law." ..."
"... A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian." ..."
"... The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM ..."
Jan 01, 2019 | dailymaverick.co.za

The Guardian, Britain's leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the 'security state', according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.

The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.

Snowden's bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of mass surveillance operated by both agencies.

According to minutes of meetings of the UK's Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.

" This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the first tranche of information," state minutes of a 7 November 2013 meeting at the MOD.

The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its stated purpose is to "prevent inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations". It can issue "notices" to the media to encourage them not to publish certain information.

The committee is currently chaired by the MOD's director-general of security policy Dominic Wilson, who was previously director of security and intelligence in the British Cabinet Office. Its secretary is Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds OBE, who describes himself as an "accomplished, senior ex-military commander with extensive experience of operational level leadership".

The D-Notice system describes itself as voluntary , placing no obligations on the media to comply with any notice issued. This means there should have been no need for the Guardian to consult the MOD before publishing the Snowden documents.

Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it."

' Considerable efforts'

These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media".

Clearly the committee did not want its issuing of the notice to be publicised, and it was nearly successful. Only the right-wing blog Guido Fawkes made it public.

At the time, according to the committee minutes , the "intelligence agencies in particular had continued to ask for more advisories [i.e. D-Notices] to be sent out". Such D-Notices were clearly seen by the intelligence services not so much as a tool to advise the media but rather a way to threaten it not to publish further Snowden revelations.

One night, amidst the first Snowden stories being published, the D-Notice Committee's then-secretary Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance personally called Alan Rusbridger, then editor of The Guardian. Vallance "made clear his concern that The Guardian had failed to consult him in advance before telling the world", according to a Guardian journalist who interviewed Rusbridger.

Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.

" I don't want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures," he said in a statement to MPs. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."

The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported at the time that "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story."

The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.

According to the committee minutes , the fact The Guardian would not stop publishing "undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness". If the D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ's most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?

It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.

GCHQ and laptops

The security services ratcheted up their "considerable efforts" to deal with the exposures. On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials entered The Guardian's offices at King's Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published. At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.

The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper's reporters, brought "angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks". The reporter added, "The spy agency provided one piece of hi-tech equipment, a 'degausser', which destroys magnetic fields and erases data."

Johnson claims that the destruction of the computers was "purely a symbolic act", adding that "the government and GCHQ knew, because we had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode hadn't changed anything."

Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee minutes for November 2013 outlined: "Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving."

The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.

The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen".

Moreover, he added , there were now "regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists". Rusbridger later testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself "collaborated" in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even "been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters".

But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member".

At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper's computers under the watchful gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in May 2014 and was to remain on it until October 2018 .

The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing.

A new editor

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued to publish some stories critical of the security services.

But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner, who had less experience than Rusbridger of dealing with the security services. Viner had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. According to insiders, she showed much less leadership during the Snowden affair than Janine Gibson in the US (Gibson was another candidate to be Rusbridger's successor).

Viner was then editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, which was launched just two weeks before the first Snowden revelations were published. Australia and New Zealand comprise two-fifths of the so-called "Five Eyes" surveillance alliance exposed by Snowden.

This was an opportunity for the security services. It appears that their seduction began the following year.

In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article.

The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files."

Parker told the two reporters, "We recognise that in a changing world we have to change too. We have a responsibility to talk about our work and explain it."

Four months after the MI5 interview, in March 2017, the Guardian published another unprecedented "exclusive", this time with Alex Younger, the sitting chief of MI6, Britain's external intelligence agency. This exclusive was awarded by the Secret Intelligence Service to The Guardian's investigations editor, Nick Hopkins, who had been appointed 14 months previously.

The interview was the first Younger had given to a national newspaper and was again softball. Titled "MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in an effort to recruit black and Asian officers", it focused almost entirely on the intelligence service's stated desire to recruit from ethnic minority communities.

" Simply, we have to attract the best of modern Britain," Younger told Hopkins. "Every community from every part of Britain should feel they have what it takes, no matter what their background or status."

Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004".

None of this featured in The Guardian article, which did, however, cover discussions of whether the James Bond actor Daniel Craig would qualify for the intelligence service. "He would not get into MI6," Younger told Hopkins.

More recently, in August 2019, The Guardian was awarded yet another exclusive, this time with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer. This was Basu's " first major interview since taking up his post" the previous year and resulted in a three-part series of articles, one of which was entitled "Met police examine Vladimir Putin's role in Salisbury attack".

The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again.

What, if any, private conversations have taken place between Viner and the security services during her tenure as editor are not known. But in 2018, when Paul Johnson eventually left the D-Notice Committee, its chair, the MOD's Dominic Wilson, praised Johnson who, he said, had been "instrumental in re-establishing links with The Guardian".

Decline in critical reporting

Amidst these spoon-fed intelligence exclusives, Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian's celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations.

One well-placed source told the Press Gazette at the time that journalists on the investigations team "have not felt backed by senior editors over the last year", and that "some also feel the company has become more risk-averse in the same period".

In the period since Snowden, The Guardian has lost many of its top investigative reporters who had covered national security issues, notably Shiv Malik, Nick Davies, David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain. The few journalists who were replaced were succeeded by less experienced reporters with apparently less commitment to exposing the security state. The current defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, started at The Guardian as head of media and technology and has no history of covering national security.

" It seems they've got rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way," one current Guardian journalist told us.

Indeed, during the last two years of Rusbridger's editorship, The Guardian published about 110 articles per year tagged as MI6 on its website. Since Viner took over, the average per year has halved and is decreasing year by year.

" Effective scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies -- epitomised by the Snowden scoops but also many other stories -- appears to have been abandoned," a former Guardian journalist told us. The former reporter added that, in recent years, it "sometimes seems The Guardian is worried about upsetting the spooks."

A second former Guardian journalist added: "The Guardian no longer seems to have such a challenging relationship with the intelligence services, and is perhaps seeking to mend fences since Snowden. This is concerning, because spooks are always manipulative and not always to be trusted."

While some articles critical of the security services still do appear in the paper, its "scoops" increasingly focus on issues more acceptable to them. Since the Snowden affair, The Guardian does not appear to have published any articles based on an intelligence or security services source that was not officially sanctioned to speak.

The Guardian has, by contrast, published a steady stream of exclusives on the major official enemy of the security services, Russia, exposing Putin, his friends and the work of its intelligence services and military.

In the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, which revealed how companies and individuals around the world were using an offshore law firm to avoid paying tax, The Guardian's front-page launch scoop was authored by Luke Harding, who has received many security service tips focused on the "Russia threat", and was titled "Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin".

Three sentences into the piece, however, Harding notes that "the president's name does not appear in any of the records" although he insists that "the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage".

There was a much bigger story in the Panama Papers which The Guardian chose to downplay by leaving it to the following day. This concerned the father of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who "ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork".

We understand there was some argument between journalists about not leading with the Cameron story as the launch splash. Putin's friends were eventually deemed more important than the Prime Minister of the country where the paper published.

Getting Julian Assange

The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.

One 2017 story came from investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who writes for The Guardian's sister paper The Observer, titled "When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange". This concerned the visit of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to the Ecuadorian embassy in March 2017, organised by the radio station LBC, for whom Farage worked as a presenter. Farage's producer at LBC accompanied Farage at the meeting, but this was not mentioned by Cadwalladr.

Rather, she posited that this meeting was "potentially a channel of communication" between WikiLeaks, Farage and Donald Trump, who were all said to be closely linked to Russia, adding that these actors were in a "political alignment" and that " WikiLeaks is, in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything".

Yet Cadwalladr's one official on-the-record source for this speculation was a "highly placed contact with links to US intelligence", who told her, "When the heat is turned up and all electronic communication, you have to assume, is being intensely monitored, then those are the times when intelligence communication falls back on human couriers. Where you have individuals passing information in ways and places that cannot be monitored."

It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to undermine Assange.

In 2018, however, The Guardian's attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began on 18 May 2018 with one alleging Assange's "long-standing relationship with RT", the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been closely documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.

One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding, claimed that "Russian diplomats held secret talks in London with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned". The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such "escape plot" involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.

This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page splash , based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

This "scoop" failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was manufactured and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian, however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.

The "exclusive" appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for "re-establishing links" between The Guardian and the security services.

The string of Guardian articles, along with the vilification and smear stories about Assange elsewhere in the British media, helped create the conditions for a deal between Ecuador, the UK and the US to expel Assange from the embassy in April. Assange now sits in Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he faces extradition to the US, and life in prison there, on charges under the Espionage Act.

Acting for the establishment

Another major focus of The Guardian's energies under Viner's editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected Labour leader, the Sunday Times reported a serving general warning that "there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister". The source told the newspaper: "The Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that."

On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was fed the story that "MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA". It formed part of a Telegraph investigation claiming to reveal "Mr Corbyn's full links to the IRA" and was sourced to an individual "close to" the MI5 investigation, who said "a file had been opened on him by the early nineties".

The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.

Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: "Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation. At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn't clear the security vetting."

Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources told The Times that Corbyn had been "summoned" for a "'facts of life' talk on terror" by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.

Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail reported another leak, this time revealing that "Jeremy Corbyn's most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin's 'global propaganda network'."

The article concerned Andrew Murray, who had been working in Corbyn's office for a year but had still not received a security pass to enter the UK parliament. The Mail reported, based on what it called "a senior parliamentary source", that Murray's application had encountered "vetting problems".

Murray later heavily suggested that the security services had leaked the story to the Mail. "Call me sceptical if you must, but I do not see journalistic enterprise behind the Mail's sudden capacity to tease obscure information out of the [Ukrainian security service]," he wrote in the New Statesman. He added, "Someone else is doing the hard work – possibly someone being paid by the taxpayer. I doubt if their job description is preventing the election of a Corbyn government, but who knows?"

Murray told us he was approached by the New Statesman after the story about him being banned from Ukraine was leaked. "However," he added, "I wouldn't dream of suggesting anything like that to The Guardian, since I do not know any journalists still working there who I could trust."

The Guardian itself has run a remarkable number of news and comment articles criticising Corbyn since he was elected in 2015 and the paper's clearly hostile stance has been widely noted .

Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular, its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears carried in the media.

The Guardian and The Observer have published hundreds of articles on "Labour anti-Semitism" and, since the beginning of this year, carried over 50 such articles with headlines clearly negative to Corbyn. Typical headlines have included " The Observer view: Labour leadership is complicit in anti-Semitism ", " Jeremy Corbyn is either blind to anti-Semitism – or he just doesn't care ", and " Labour's anti-Semitism problem is institutional. It needs investigation ".

The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law."

Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017, shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn's tenure and that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.

Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism, an average of around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. In the same period, The Guardian published just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party's much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example, found that nearly half of the Tory Party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.

At the same time, some stories which paint Corbyn's critics in a negative light have been suppressed by The Guardian. According to someone with knowledge of the matter, The Guardian declined to publish the results of a months-long critical investigation by one of its reporters into a prominent anti-Corbyn Labour MP, citing only vague legal issues.

In July 2016, one of this article's authors emailed a Guardian editor asking if he could pitch an investigation about the first attempt by the right-wing of the Labour Party to remove Corbyn, informing The Guardian of very good inside sources on those behind the attempt and their real plans. The approach was rejected as being of no interest before a pitch was even sent.

A reliable publication?

On 20 May 2019, The Times newspaper reported on a Freedom of Information request made by the Rendition Project, a group of academic experts working on torture and rendition issues, which showed that the MOD had been "developing a secret policy on torture that allows ministers to sign off intelligence-sharing that could lead to the abuse of detainees".

This might traditionally have been a Guardian story, not something for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. According to one civil society source, however, many groups working in this field no longer trust The Guardian.

A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian."

The Times published its scoop under a strong headline , "Torture: Britain breaks law in Ministry of Defence secret policy". However, before the article was published, the MOD fed The Guardian the same documents The Times were about to splash with, believing it could soften the impact of the revelations by telling its side of the story.

The Guardian posted its own article just before The Times, with a headline that would have pleased the government: "MoD says revised torture guidance does not lower standards".

Its lead paragraph was a simple summary of the MOD's position: "The Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." However, an inspection of the documents showed this was clearly disinformation.

The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM

The Guardian did not respond to a request for comment.

Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article – in November 2019.

Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified . He was previously director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and before that a reporter for the Financial Times in the US and UK. He is the author of two books, Irregular Army and The Racket .

Mark Curtis is a leading UK foreign policy analyst, journalist and the author of six books including Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World and Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam .

[Sep 11, 2019] John Brennan's and Jim Clappers' Last Gasp by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
The fact that Smolenkov purchased house on his name excludes his "extraction" to the USA. He probably legally emigrated amazing some serious money in Russia
Notable quotes:
"... [Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments, which he turns over to the CIA. ..."
"... The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny he is being paid by US taxpayers. ..."
"... The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed. ..."
"... This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov. ..."
"... The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.' ..."
"... Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that much to the dossier. ..."
"... His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists. ..."
"... Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind 'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics' produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations. ..."
"... Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his 'anti-Borgist' agenda. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A flood of news in the last 24 hours regarding Russiagate. I am referring specifically to reports that the CIA ex-filtrated Oleg Smolenkov, a mid-level Russian Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who reportedly hooked himself on the coat-tails of Yuri Ushakov, who was Ambassador to the US from 1999 through 2008. He was recruited by the CIA (i.e., asked to collect information and pass it to the U.S. Government via his or her case officer) at sometime during this period. Smolenkov is being portrayed as a supposedly "sensitive" source. But if you read either the Washington Post or New York Times accounts of this event there is not a lot of meat on this hamburger.

Regardless of the quality of his reporting, Smolenkov is the kind of recruited source that looks good on paper and helps a CIA case officer get promoted but adds little to actual U.S. intelligence on Russia. If you understood the CIA culture you would immediately recognize that a case officer (CIA terminology for the operations officer tasked with identifying and recruiting human sources) gets rewarded by recruiting persons who ostensibly will have access to information the CIA has identified as a priority target. In this case, we're talking about possible access to Vladimir Putin.

If you take time to read both articles you will quickly see that the real purpose of this "information operation" is to paint Donald Trump as a security threat that must be stopped. This is conveniently timed to assist Jerry Nadler's mission impossible to secure Trump's impeachment. But I think there is another dynamic at play--these competing explanations for what prompted the exfiltration of this CIA asset say more about the incompetence of Barack Obama and his intel chiefs. John Brennan and Jim Clapper in particular.

A former intelligence officer and friend summarized the various press accounts as the follows and offered his own insights in a note I received this morning:

[Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments, which he turns over to the CIA.

The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny he is being paid by US taxpayers.

The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed.

This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov.

There is public evidence that Brennan not only cooked the books but that the leaks of this supposedly "sensitive" intelligence occurred when he was Director and lying Jim Clapper was Director of National Intelligence. If Oleg Smolenkov was really such a terrific source of intel, then where are the reports? It is one thing to keep such reports close hold when the source is still in place. But he has been out of danger for more than two years. Those reports should have been shared with the Senate and House Intelligence committees. If there was actual solid intelligence in those reports that corroborated the Steele Dossier, then that information would have been leaked and widely circulated. This is Sherlock Holmes dog that did not bark.Then we have the odd fact that this guy's name is all over the press and he is buying real estate in true name. What the hell!! If the CIA genuinely believed that Mr. Smolenkov was in danger he would not be walking around doing real estate deals in true name. In fact, the sources for both the Washington Post and NY Times pieces push the propaganda that Smolenkov is a sure fire target for a Russian retaliatory hit. Really? Then why publish his name and confirm his location.

That leaves me with the alternative explanation--Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign.

I want you to take a close look at the two pieces on this exfiltration (i.e., Washington Post and NY Times) and note the significant differences

REASON FOR THE EXFILTRATION :

Let's start with the Washington Post:

The exfiltration took place sometime after an Oval Office meeting in May 2017, when President Trump revealed highly classified counterterrorism information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, said the current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.

What was the information that Trump revealed? He was discussing intel that Israel passed regarding ISIS in Syria. (See the Washington Post story here .) Why would he talk to the Russians about that? Because every day, at least once a day, U.S. and Russian military authorities are sharing intelligence with one another in a phone call that originates from the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center (aka CAOC) at the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar. Trump's conversation not only was appropriate but fully within his right to do so as Commander-in-Chief.

What the hell does this have to do with a sensitive source in Moscow? NOTHING!! Red Herring.

The NY Times account is more detailed and damning of Obama instead of Trump:

But when intelligence officials revealed the severity of Russia's election interference with unusual detail later that year, the news media picked up on details about the C.I.A.'s Kremlin sources.

C.I.A. officials worried about safety made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia. The situation grew more tense when the informant at first refused, citing family concerns -- prompting consternation at C.I.A. headquarters and sowing doubts among some American counterintelligence officials about the informant's trustworthiness. But the C.I.A. pressed again months later after more media inquiries. This time, the informant agreed. . . .

The decision to extract the informant was driven "in part" because of concerns that Mr. Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency's sources alone was the impetus for the extraction. . . .

But the government had indicated that the source existed long before Mr. Trump took office, first in formally accusing Russia of interference in October 2016 and then when intelligence officials declassified parts of their assessment about the interference campaign for public release in January 2017. News agencies, including NBC, began reporting around that time about Mr. Putin's involvement in the election sabotage and on the C.I.A.'s possible sources for the assessment.

Trump played no role whatsoever in releasing information that allegedly compromised this so-called "golden boy" of Russian intelligence. The NY Times account makes it very clear that the release of information while Obama was President, not Trump, is what put the source in danger. Who leaked that information?

WHAT DID THE SOURCE KNOW AND WHAT DID HE TELL US?

But how valuable was this source really? What did he provide that was so enlightening? On this point the New York Times and Washington Post are more in sync.

First the NY Times:

The Moscow informant was instrumental to the C.I.A.'s most explosive conclusion about Russia's interference campaign: that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered and orchestrated it himself . As the American government's best insight into the thinking of and orders from Mr. Putin, the source was also key to the C.I.A.'s assessment that he affirmatively favored Donald J. Trump's election and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee .

The Washington Post provides a more fulsome account:

U.S. officials had been concerned that Russian sources could be at risk of exposure as early as the fall of 2016, when the Obama administration first confirmed that Russia had stolen and publicly disclosed emails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.

In October 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement that intelligence agencies were "confident that the Russian Government directed" the hacking campaign. . . .

In January 2017, the Obama administration published a detailed assessment that unambiguously laid the blame on the Kremlin, concluding that "Putin ordered an influence campaign" and that Russia's goal was to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and harm Clinton's chances of winning.

"That's a pretty remarkable intelligence community product -- much more specific than what you normally see," one U.S. official said. "It's very expected that potential U.S. intelligence assets in Russia would be under a higher level of scrutiny by their own intelligence services."

Sounds official. But there is no actual forensic or documentary evidence (by that I mean actual corroborating intelligence reports) to back up these claims by our oxymoronically christened intelligence community.

Vladimir Putin ordered the hack? Where is the report? It is either in a piece of intercepted electronics communication and/or in a report derived from information provided by Mr. Smolenkov. Where is it? Why has that not been shared in public? Don't have to worry about exposing the source now. He is already in the open. What did he report? Answer--no direct evidence.

Then there is the lie that the Russians hacked the DNC. They did not. Bill Binney, a former Technical Director of the NSA, and I have written on this subject previously ( see here ) and there is no truth to this claim. Let me put it simply--if the DNC had been hacked by the Russians using spearphising (this is claimed in the Robert Mueller report) then the NSA would have collected those messages and would be able to show they were transferred to the Russians. That did not happen.

This kind of chaotic leaking about an old intel op is symptomatic of panic. CIA is already officially denying key parts of the story. My money is on John Brennan and Jim Clapper as the likely impetus for these reports. They are hoping to paint Trump as a national security threat and distract from the upcoming revelations from the DOJ Inspector General report on the FISA warrants and, more threatening, the decisions that Prosecutor John Durham will take in deciding to indict those who attempted to launch a coup against Donald Trump, a legitimately elected President of the United States.


blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 02:34 PM

I'm always skeptical of NY Times and WaPo and CNN reporting on anything national security related. It seems there is always an axe to grind.

I don't know why folks believe these media outlets have any credibility.

Larry Johnson -> blue peacock... , 10 September 2019 at 03:16 PM
Important to focus on the fact they are telling different and even contradictory stories. That's confusion on the part of the deep state.
Ana said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 11 September 2019 at 10:00 AM
... And what helps us to decode the plot!
turcopolier -> blue peacock... , 11 September 2019 at 09:47 AM
BP

As I told LJ yesterday while he was writing this piece I have a slightly different theory of this matter. It is true that CIA suffered for a long time from a dearth of talent in the business of recruiting and running foreign clandestine HUMINT assets. This was caused by a focus by several CIA Directors on technical collection means rather than espionage. This policy drove many skilled case officers into retirement but the situation has much improved in the last decade and it must be remembered that an agency only needs a few skilled case officers with the right access to human targets to acquire some very fine and useful well placed foreign agents (spies). IMO it is likely that CIA has/had several well placed Russian assets in Moscow of whom Smolenkov was probably the least useful and the most expendable. It may well be that Brennan was using the chicken feed provided by Smolenkov to fuel the conspiracy run by him and Clapper against Trump's campaign and presidency, but Brennan left office and then the CIA under other management was faced with the problem of a Russian government which was told in the US press by implication that either the US had deep penetrations of Russian diplomatic and intelligence communications or that there were deep penetration moles in Moscow. that being the case it seems likely to me that the Russians would have been beating the bushes looking for the moles. In that situation the CIA may have decided to exfiltrate Smolenkov and his wife while leaving enough clues along the way that would have indicated that he might have been THE MOLE. People do not need a lot of encouragement to accept thoughts that they want to believe. A point in favor of this theory is that once CIA had him in the States they quickly lost interest in him, terminated their relationship with him and paid him his back pay and showed him the door. No new identity, no resettlement, he was given none of that. Finding himself alone in a strange land, Smolenkov then bought a house in the suburbs of Washington in HIS OWN NAME. Say what? That would not have happened if CIA had maintained some sort of relationship with him. And then... someone in CIA leaked the story of the exfiltration as movie plot to "a former senior intelligence officer" who gives sit to Sciutto at CNN. Why would they do that? IMO they would have though that having the story appear in the media would reinfocer Smolenkov's importance in Russian minds. Well, pilgrims, Clapper fits the bill as the "former blah, blah". He is an employee of CNN. CNN hates Trump and they quickly broadcast the story far and away. Unfortunately for CNN the story immediately began to disintegrate even in the eyes of the NY Times. The Smolenkov/Brennan affair will undoubtedly be part of the road that leads to doom for Brennan and Clapper but the possible CIA story is equally interesting.

ambrit , 10 September 2019 at 03:51 PM
Sir;
The fact that Mr. Smolenkov is out and about in his new home in the West shows that he is a small fish. As you say, if he was really in danger, he would be living somewhere in the West now under a new name and maybe a new face. The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is. Unless, my inner cynic prompts, he is destined to become one of the "honoured dead," perhaps by a false flag 'liquidation.'
How low will Clapper and Brennan et. al. go?
Thanks for keeping this matter front and centre.
Fred , 10 September 2019 at 04:22 PM
So the son of Our Man in Havana went to Moscow. It would make a decent movies if it weren't for the damage Brennan and company have done to us. Obama, of course, knew nothing......
Diana C , 10 September 2019 at 04:49 PM
I have lost hope that anyone--especially Brennan and Clapper--will be held accountable for their attempt to "launch a coup" (as you put it).

Since their coup attempt ultimately failed, most people will be wanting just to move on.

As an unimportant citizen liveing in a fly-over state, I feel very angry that my tax dollars were wasted on these many government hearings and enormously expensive investigations rather than on actually on governing and improving the governing of our country.

The least we should be able to expect is that people who live off our tax dollars should be held accountable for all that wasted expense and for the lack of actual governing going on in The House and The Senate. So many problems that need the attention of our elected representative and Senators were ignored while elected representatives and representatives got to capture the spotlight and try to become "media stars" while accomplishing nothing.

I also feel terrible that men have been sent to prison for seemingly nothing and have their lives ruined for nothing but the chance of some to grand stand and claim they are really doing the jobs they were sent to do. So many people with no real sense of honor or of what is right and what is wrong.

Thanks, Larry. You have been consistently one of the good guys. (And I bet you are happy now that Yosemite Sam Bolton is no longer advising the POTUS.)

fredw , 10 September 2019 at 06:09 PM
"The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is."

It indicates to me that he and any handlers believe that the Russians are OK with it. That could be for various reasons. But relying on Russian tolerance because he is a "small fish" seems incredibly trusting. Neither fled agents nor their handlers are known for their trusting natures. They have had some reasons stronger than that for their unconcern. Whether those reasons will survive publicity remains to be seen.

Oscar , 10 September 2019 at 06:31 PM
Are those CIA agents as stupid, naive & incompetent as you paint them to be?
If that's the case our country is in real danger! You are. Pro Trump
and, you are basically defending him, but Putin do own Donald Trump,whether you like it or not!
turcopolier -> Oscar ... , 11 September 2019 at 08:56 AM
Oscar
What is the evidence for "Putin do own Trump?"Is it Trump's attempts to conduct foreign policy relationships with Russia? That is his job.
JohnH , 10 September 2019 at 08:16 PM
My question is: why did they push this report now? Any way you cut it, the Times and Post are just providing some trivia and drivel. Without substance, they can accomplish nothing and substance has been what's been missing all along.

I doubt that Democrats, having been burned once, are eager to explore Brennan's smoke and mirrors again. It's never been a big concern to voters. And unless Brennan & Co. can do better than this superficial stuff, voters are never going to be concerned.

Maybe the Times and Post just felt sorry for Brennan, who's been off barking at the moon for years now.

Factotum , 10 September 2019 at 08:40 PM
Have a cup of Ovomaltine.
Rhondda , 10 September 2019 at 08:48 PM
...Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign...

Well said. Thank you for following this closely and shining the light! You are an amazing American patriot, Mr. Larry C. Johnson. A glass in your honor!

plantman , 10 September 2019 at 09:13 PM
I think AG Barr might have cut these guys (Brennan and Clapper) some slack and let them off the hook, but NOW, what can he do but prosecute??

Brennan has shown that he is going to persevere with his fallacious attacks on Trump come hell or high water.

He needs to be stopped and brought to justice...

[email protected] -> plantman... , 11 September 2019 at 08:51 AM
Haha! Dream on. Barr IS CIA...remember his role back in the Slick WIlly days in Mena Arkansas?
Roy G , 10 September 2019 at 11:27 PM
IMO this scenario is the most plausible, Thanks for the sanity check. That said, given the desperation by these Sorcerer's Apprentices, I would be on the lookout for Mr. Smolenkov lest he be 'Skirpal-ed' in the coming weeks.
anon , 10 September 2019 at 11:36 PM
This whole story convinces now more than ever before that there is a high level spy/mole in the us administration and intelligence community.The only question is it spying for russia or china or both.Just a beautiful thing to watch.Those knickers,must surely be in a knot by now.
Even rocketman had a giggle.
Jim Ticehurst , 10 September 2019 at 11:52 PM
How many CIA Assets have been exposed..Tortured and Murdered During The Barrack Obama Reign...In May..2014 HE Paid a Surprise Visit to Afghanastan..His White House Bureau Chief Sent out an email to Reporters with a List of Who would meet With President Obama..It Contained the NAME of the CIA...Chief of Station in Kabul...Now that is REAL MESSY..
turcopolier , 11 September 2019 at 08:59 AM
[email protected]

Is there any basis for any of your assertions or are you just running your mouth?

David Habakkuk , 11 September 2019 at 10:37 AM
Larry,

Having been away from base, I have not been able to comment on some very fascinating recent posts.

Both your recent pieces, and Robert Willman's most helpful update on the state of play relating to the unraveling of the frame-up against Michael Flynn, have provided a lot to chew over.

Among other things, they have made me think further about the 302s recording the interviews with Bruce Ohr produced by Joseph Pientka – a character about whom I think we need to know more.

On reflection, I think that the picture that emerges of Ohr as an incurious and gullible nitwit, swallowing whole bucket loads of 'horse manure' fed him by Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, may be a carefully – indeed maybe cunningly – crafted fiction.

The interpretation your former intelligence officer friend puts on the Smolenkov affair, and also some of what Sidney Powell has to say in the ''Motion to Compel' on behalf of Flynn, both 'mesh' with what I have long suspected.

The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.'

Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that much to the dossier.

His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists.

Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind 'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics' produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations.

They are likely to have been responses, first, to the realisation that material leaked from the DNC was going to be published by WikiLeaks, and then the discovery, probably significantly later, that the source was Seth Rich, and his subsequent murder.

Although the operation to divert responsibility to the Russians which then became necessary was strikingly successful, it did not have the expected result of saving Hillary Clinton from defeat.

What I then think may have emerged was a two-pronged strategy.

Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his 'anti-Borgist' agenda.

In different ways, both the framing of Flynn, and the final memorandum in the dossier, dated 13 December 2016, were part of this strategy.

Also required however was another 'insurance policy' – which was what the Bruce Ohr 302s were intended to provide.

The purpose of this was to have 'evidence' in place, should the first prong of the strategy run into problems, to sustain the case that people in the FBI and DOJ, and Bruce and Nellie Ohr in particular, were not co-conspirators with Steele and Simpson, but their gullible dupes.

This brings me to an irony. Some people have tried to replace the 'narrative' in which Steele was an heroic exposer of a Russian plot to destroy American democracy by an alternative in which he was the gullible 'patsy' of just such a plot.

In fact there is one strand, and one strand only, in the dossier which smells strongly to me of FSB-orchestrated disinformation.

Some of the material on Russian cyber operations, including critically the suggestions about the involvement of Aleksej Gubarev and his company XBT which provoked legal action by these against BuzzFeed and Steele, look to me as though they could come from sources in the FSB.

But, if this is so, the likely conduit is not through Steele, but from FSB to FBI cyber people.

How precisely this worked is unclear, but I cannot quite get rid of the suspicion that Major Dmitri Dokuchaev just might be serving out his sentence for treason in a comfortable flat somewhere above the Black Sea. Indeed, I can imagine a lecture to FSB trainees on how to make 'patsies' of people like the Ohrs.

If this is so, however, it mat also be the case that these are attempting to make 'patsies' of Steele and Simpson.

[Sep 11, 2019] There is the possibility that CIA extracted a minor source to divert attention from someone or someones who remain(s) in place.

Notable quotes:
"... So, this fully-spun story, apparently a mix of fact and fiction, arises at this moment to prop up the Russia-leaked-email hoax? ..."
"... If that's the case, does that mean this story's "authors" release it now to keep at least part of the Russia hoax alive as the Flynn case plods toward charges being dropped or because the Concord case is turning into a cluster f*k? Maybe someone is worried about the DNC-insider-leaked-email story breaking out? We need to talk about Rich? ..."
"... if I am wrong in supposing that a senior Chekist would never, as a question of policy, have been allowed a passport for foreign travel for him and his family. ..."
"... If Oleg Smolenkov reported allegedly "valuable" insider information about Russia's interference in US elections, as they say first hand, then why did Mueller's investigation fail? ..."
"... The New York Times story resurrects the Russia collusion hoax. This time the proof comes from Oleg Smolenkov. The story is identical to what the Steele dossier claimed: Putin personally directed a campaign to interfere in the US presidential elections. ..."
"... Every part of Steele narrative has already been shown to be a hoax and a fabrication. What proves that the Steele dossier is a work of fiction is that it is written from a fly-on-the-wall point of view. Only a person who was sitting in the same room with Putin when he had secret meetings could have written it. So how many moles did the West have sitting on Putin's desk? It seems like the CIA mole and Steele's secret source are one and the same source. But if Oleg Smolenkov was CIA's most tightly guarded secret, how did the information end up in Steele's dossier? ..."
"... Larry Johnson just posted about this on SST, and his take seems much more plausible: Desperation on the part of Clapper and his cabal as the chickens are coming home to roost. This story is chock full of holes, and the media hackery is disintegrating under its own weight. ..."
"... Perhaps someone should advise Smolenskov to stay away from park benches after eating seafood and to not touch doorknob's etc. ..."
"... "For those curious about what's going on with this bizarre Russia 'spy' story: Burr/Durham know Steele was fed obvious disinformation, they know who originated it, they know who peddled it, and it's just a matter of rounding up the whole network." ..."
"... In his third entry, he poses the following question: "So the only two unanswered questions about this particular pre-emptive leak campaign from the usual Russia hoax suspects are 1) why now, and 2) what specific event or official revelation are they trying to get ahead of?" ..."
"... Why the CIA would allow such a spy, once extradited, to live under his real name is beyond me. ..."
"... Because this man has nothing to do with "spies", "secrets" and "special services". He is an ordinary civilian, a former official from Russia. Many Russian ex- lives in abroad, including high-ranking persons. Smolenkov of course had no access to any "secrets", and had no access to entourage of the Russian president. ..."
"... That's the end of Smolenkov's anonymous quiet comfortable lifesyle. It doesn't send out a very reassuring message - that the CIA can publicly expose someone it considers a very useful asset. There must be a good reason why they threw Smolenkov under the bus in that way. ..."
"... It must be a very nice house. A 3-ish acre lot in that neighborhood has an assessment of $140k for the land. But the assessment for improvements for this house is over $900k while others in the neighborhood are more in the $600k range. I was looking at the aerial photos and trying to pick out what seem to be other nice houses, including ones with swimming pools which this one lacks, and which also have big garages (this one has 4 car garage apparently), but couldn't find a neighbor above an assessment in the $600k's. ..."
"... The only way that he's the 'source' of the Steele fiction is if the whole thing was in the style of LeCarre's "The Tailor of Panama" where everyone is lying and inflating what they know and people at the top are paying out good money for this because it suits their little power games. But any Moscow tailor with a couple of important customers would be positioned to run that scam as well as an aide to an aide to a foreign minister. ..."
"... My personal guess, he made his money by the more typical corruption in Russia, which means he was working for an oligarch. He lost his job, possibly during one of Putin's anti-corruption cleanup campaigns. He decided to move to DC with his oligarch money because he'd served 10 years in the embassy there and he liked the area. He is buying property in his own name because he's not part of any sort of witness/spy protection program and nobody in the USG is setting him up with a fake identity. ..."
"... Sergei Skripal was not just an turncoat for UK he also worked for Estonian intelligence. It seems to me the poisoning fits better as an Estonian job, to keep relations in Europe with Russia in very bad shape. It's easy to say that the Russians wouldn't be so incompetent, also goes for the UK, which could have come up with something more compelling if they pre planned it as false flag. ..."
"... Joe Mifsud and Claire Smith of MI6, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, especially FBI special agent Joseph Pientka plus that BIG shot FBI agent (who's name I forget) are the names to remember. Why aren't Misud and Smith extradited to face inquiry? ..."
"... So what is emerging? is Mueller due in court to prosecute the Russian ad agency that has fully shirt fronted him? Is Flynn business about to upend a steaming pot of turds over Mueller and other heads. Is Seth Rich about to be posthumously knighted by some New York monarch for his role in smashing the HRC cart in public? Or is Julian Assange about to be put through more torture for being a journalist and publisher? ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

b , Sep 10 2019 18:01 utc | 2

Pat Lang has this interesting take :
All

And then there is the possibility that CIA extracted a minor source to divert attention from someone or someones who remain(s) in place. The open purchase of a house in the outer suburbs of Washington by the extracted would seem to support the possibility that this is all a diversion. The narrative continues that "a former senior intelligence official" told Sciutto, an Obama man, at CNN of all this. Clapper is "a former senior intelligence official" and a CNN "contributor" (employee) is he not? He is dumb enough to have had this story planted on him.

Double games, triple games ... Spies are so confusing ...

james , Sep 10 2019 18:14 utc | 3

thanks b... i agree about your comment on pls comment - double / triple and etc games can be played with spies... what seems clear to me is that some in the cia-msm want to frame trump.. this one feel apart fairly quickly... the frame up of russia over skripal has never been addressed by the usa.. in fact, most folks - using ew as an example - are still drinking the russia done it koolaid 24/7..
james , Sep 10 2019 18:14 utc | 3 casey , Sep 10 2019 18:18 utc | 4
So, this fully-spun story, apparently a mix of fact and fiction, arises at this moment to prop up the Russia-leaked-email hoax?

If that's the case, does that mean this story's "authors" release it now to keep at least part of the Russia hoax alive as the Flynn case plods toward charges being dropped or because the Concord case is turning into a cluster f*k? Maybe someone is worried about the DNC-insider-leaked-email story breaking out? We need to talk about Rich?

Funny about Lang and his crew. So much practical experience and yet they would make an interesting case study of extreme psychological compartmentalization as a means of denial.

Hoarsewhisperer , Sep 10 2019 18:19 utc | 5
Lucky Oleg & Antonina. In Oz a 760 square metre house used be known as having an area of 81 squares (8,172 square feet. In well-maintained condition such a 3-storey house anywhere in Oz would cost between A$2.5 million and A$3.5 million. Being in AmeriKKA Oleg's house probably has a basement too. That's another $150,000 minimum if it's damp-proof and ventilated.
karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 18:24 utc | 6
Nice networking by 4 BigLie Media outlets to make certain Russia knows where this man and his family reside. Maybe it's for an Outlaw US Empire sequel to MI-6's Novochock BigLie to be sprung as the election heats up. If I were the Smolenskovs, I'd demand an immediate identity change, sell ASAP and move to Idaho.
Michael Droy , Sep 10 2019 18:31 utc | 7
If Skripal could live safely under his own name I guess this guy could too. It just makes it easier for the US to get him in their own time. I don't really see this guy served any purpose until he was outed. Just a late effort to pretend that Russiagate had any credibility.
Montreal , Sep 10 2019 18:32 utc | 8
I wish that there was a resident Russian on this site, as there is on Craig Murray's.

That person could then tell me if I am wrong in supposing that a senior Chekist would never, as a question of policy, have been allowed a passport for foreign travel for him and his family.

Sergei , Sep 10 2019 18:33 utc | 9
If Oleg Smolenkov reported allegedly "valuable" insider information about Russia's interference in US elections, as they say first hand, then why did Mueller's investigation fail?
Petri Krohn , Sep 10 2019 18:57 utc | 10
WAS SMOLENKOV A SOURCE FOR THE STEELE DOSSIER?

The New York Times story resurrects the Russia collusion hoax. This time the proof comes from Oleg Smolenkov. The story is identical to what the Steele dossier claimed: Putin personally directed a campaign to interfere in the US presidential elections.

Every part of Steele narrative has already been shown to be a hoax and a fabrication. What proves that the Steele dossier is a work of fiction is that it is written from a fly-on-the-wall point of view. Only a person who was sitting in the same room with Putin when he had secret meetings could have written it. So how many moles did the West have sitting on Putin's desk? It seems like the CIA mole and Steele's secret source are one and the same source. But if Oleg Smolenkov was CIA's most tightly guarded secret, how did the information end up in Steele's dossier?

Roy G , Sep 10 2019 19:10 utc | 11
Larry Johnson just posted about this on SST, and his take seems much more plausible: Desperation on the part of Clapper and his cabal as the chickens are coming home to roost. This story is chock full of holes, and the media hackery is disintegrating under its own weight.
Arioch , Sep 10 2019 19:19 utc | 12
> Obama administration .... Russia had stolen .... Democratic National Committee and ..... John Podesta.

So we have to allege that Podesta's laptop between naked underage girls photos had list of CIA secret agents in Russian government? What else rid it contain and where did Podesta stole those lists?

Same question about Paki-managed DNC server. Was managing CIA agents in foreign governments outsourced to DNC or what?

"Once in the lifetime of yer townfolk! F..en circus! Imbecile clowns! Degenerate tamers! Deformed strongmen! Dysfunctional acrobats! Don't miss out!"

Qua , Sep 10 2019 19:21 utc | 13
Perhaps someone should advise Smolenskov to stay away from park benches after eating seafood and to not touch doorknob's etc.
Uncle $cam , Sep 10 2019 19:24 utc | 14
Speaking of outed Spy's..."Undercover" -- Valerie Plame for Congress "When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers"
Gigi , Sep 10 2019 19:26 utc | 15
@2
Diversion is one of the three possibilities that I can think of:

1) clan wars within US special services, particularly in view of the 2020 elections.

2) diversion (as suggested by col. Pat Lang)

3) preparation of the ground to make this guy a "sacrificial lamb" like Scripal, to avoid any new rapprochement between the US and Russia after the end of the Muller report.

(comment originally posted at http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/09/he-was-never-qualified-to-start-with.html#disqus_thread )

james , Sep 10 2019 19:35 utc | 16
@11 roy g.. this is what i said @3 "what seems clear to me is that some in the cia-msm want to frame trump.. this one feel apart fairly quickly..." for others who want to read larry johnsons latest at sst here...

@4 casey - last line.. ditto my thoughts..

karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 19:39 utc | 17
Interesting Tweet thread by a Sean M Davis has 5 entries and almost 1000 retweets beginning with this:

"For those curious about what's going on with this bizarre Russia 'spy' story: Burr/Durham know Steele was fed obvious disinformation, they know who originated it, they know who peddled it, and it's just a matter of rounding up the whole network."

In his third entry, he poses the following question: "So the only two unanswered questions about this particular pre-emptive leak campaign from the usual Russia hoax suspects are 1) why now, and 2) what specific event or official revelation are they trying to get ahead of?"

The easy answer is the story itself is enough of a distraction as the 1000 retweets show.

Clueless Joe , Sep 10 2019 19:44 utc | 18
I tend to agree with Larry Johnson (at Pat Lang's) that this guy wasn't that useful back then. He might have become more useful, had he stayed at the Kremlin and rose further up the ladder, granted; or Obama's top guys assumed he wouldn't and it wasn't an issue to risk to burn him.
Clueless Joe , Sep 10 2019 19:44 utc | 18
I tend to agree with Larry Johnson (at Pat Lang's) that this guy wasn't that useful back then. He might have become more useful, had he stayed at the Kremlin and rose further up the ladder, granted; or Obama's top guys assumed he wouldn't and it wasn't an issue to risk to burn him.
librul , Sep 10 2019 19:54 utc | 19
Is someone brewing up some fresh Novichok nerve agent as we speak?

Don't touch those doorknobs, Oleg!

for future reference: this post was for amusement purposes only

alaff , Sep 10 2019 19:57 utc | 20
This whole story is entirely in the spirit of Hollywood comics. I had a good laugh when I saw the news about the "valuable spy successfully extracted from Russia".

Here are some reasons why this is fake/disinformation:

1) The news was published by CNN. I think there's no need to explain whether it is worth taking seriously the "sensations" published by news outlets with a reputation like CNN.

2) Sorry, but you must be a complete idiot (in the medical sense) to openly declare in the media that you had a "very valuable spy" in the immediate circle of the president of the Russian Federation (or any other country). Just because in this way you, by your own hands, are giving your opponent the reason to "strengthen control", conduct checks and identify those [other] people who might be able to work for you for a long time and be useful. When this really takes place in real life (the presence of a spy of the highest rank, close to the head of state), then this becomes public only after many years/decades, when the 'Top Secret' stamp is removed from the documents, you know.

3) V.Putin is a former intelligence officer. To put it mildly, it is very naive to assume that the presence of an "American spy" (close to Putin) would not be known to a person with Putin's experience/knowledge/capacity.

4) To be a spy, a member of the inner circle of the President of Russia (or any other country) and not to be exposed, one need to have extraordinary abilities and competencies. This is the highest class. In recent years, it seems only the lazy one did not notice and did not note the monstrous degradation of the American political class. These people do not know how to behave in a civilized society, do not have the traditions and culture of diplomacy and communication. The situation is similar in the American defense industry. With this level of decline in the competence of the American elite (political, military, etc.), to assume that they have such a ultra-high-class spy is at least very strange.

5) The fact that the "valuable spy" in the inner circle of the Russian president is pure CNN fiction is confirmed in practice. What I mean:

6) Serious Russian experts unequivocally spoke out that all this was fake and that Smolenkov certainly could not be a spy. In particular, Armen Gasparyan, one of the leading Russian political scientists, historian, writer (incidentally, who wrote several books on intelligence), spoke quite fully about this in his recent commentary .

Why the CIA would allow such a spy, once extradited, to live under his real name is beyond me.

Because this man has nothing to do with "spies", "secrets" and "special services". He is an ordinary civilian, a former official from Russia. Many Russian ex- lives in abroad, including high-ranking persons. Smolenkov of course had no access to any "secrets", and had no access to entourage of the Russian president.

An attempt to present Smolenkov as a "valuable spy" from exactly the same series as the clumsy attempt by the British government to introduce two Russian civilians (Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov) as "GRU agents". It is hardly reasonable to take this seriously.

However, all this is just my personal opinion.

Brendan , Sep 10 2019 20:05 utc | 21
That's the end of Smolenkov's anonymous quiet comfortable lifesyle. It doesn't send out a very reassuring message - that the CIA can publicly expose someone it considers a very useful asset. There must be a good reason why they threw Smolenkov under the bus in that way.
Mao Cheng Ji , Sep 10 2019 20:33 utc | 22
$925K for a 8k sqft house on 1.2 hectares? Sounds like a bargain. Not a very nice neighborhood, perhaps?
Sorghum , Sep 10 2019 20:52 utc | 23
This guy could not possibly be what the CIS and media are presenting to be. Living under his own name in Virginia? Could it be any simpler to find him? The Russians do have search engines, too.

B may be right that this is a double or triple play, but find it hard to see the benefits to pretending to have had a deep mole in the Kremlin. I also find it implausible that any Russsian diplomat who has been stationed in DC would not be viewed as potentially compromised. It would be relatively simple to feed him bullshit and see what filters into DC.

Margaret , Sep 10 2019 20:59 utc | 24
Many thoughtful comments here. My take, as a fan of Le Carre and Mad Magazine's Spy vs Spy cartoon, is that USA's spy was discovered and turned. He was dismissed, employed somewhere close by, and fed chicken feed for his CIA masters. When they realized he was a failure, the CIA got him and his family out with the possible object of turning him into a propaganda subject. Of course he would have to die first, but CIA could make it look like the Russians did it.
Smiley , Sep 10 2019 21:05 utc | 25
I'm generally interested in how spies are referred to in corporate media stories.

For instance, we were told constantly that Skirpal was a 'Russian Spy'. This ran contrary to the normal usage, which would have referred to a British Spy within the Russian government as a 'British Spy'. If that signaled a general change in language, then Solemenkov, would also be referred to as a Russian Spy and not as an American Spy. He shares with Skirpal having a Russian nationality, while he was spying for the Americans. Of course, when the propagandists are going for an emotional reaction, they can be relied on to use whichever helps tilt the story in their direction.

Smiley , Sep 10 2019 21:07 utc | 26
Historically, spy agencies aren't really known for their great humanity in pulling out a spy who is in a useful position just because they fear for that spy's safety. The more common course of action for Spy Bosses is to keep the spy in place, keep pushing for more, more, more information from the spy, before perhaps holding a brief moment of silence over their spy ending up in prison.
S , Sep 10 2019 21:18 utc | 27
@karlof1 #6:
Maybe it's for an Outlaw US Empire sequel to MI-6's Novochock BigLie to be sprung as the election heats up.

That's what I thought as well. Why would the MSM hype a spy other than establishing his persona in the public eye, to be followed by some event later? Either he's a double agent and they will kill him and blame it on Russia, or he is not a double agent and they will use him to announce some "strong evidence" of Trump–Russia connection.

Sabine , Sep 10 2019 21:57 utc | 28
so when can we expect the US / Russia to finally save us all from ourselfs?

fuck are you guys not tired of this bullshit kabuki theatre that you get fed daily in order to keep you amused and busy?

William Gruff , Sep 10 2019 22:09 utc | 29
Part of the intention of this farce is to give the CIA and the CIA News Network (CNN) the opportunity to pretend that they are not knotted together like mating dogs (I leave it up to the reader to guess which one is the bitch).
Madeira , Sep 10 2019 22:11 utc | 30
A theory:

1. Smolenkov was the source of the Steele Report, in other words he received a substantial payment to come up with fictional "dirt" on Trump.

2. With all the publicity about the Steele report, Brennan/Obama/etc. were scared (and with good reason) that the Russians would figure out that Smolenkov was the source and would then make a grand show of his confessing to how he had made everything up at the request of US/UK intelligence agencies.

3. Therefore he was extricated for a very good reason (if you are Obama/Brennan, that is).

4. His extrication is now being used as an anti-Trump weapon, but also as a pre-emptive measure to reduce the fallout if (or when) reports emerge that Smolenkov was the source for Steele.

Peter AU 1 , Sep 10 2019 22:33 utc | 31
Be interesting to know what was occurring if Smolenkov was the source for the Steele report. Whatever information he was sending, that he just left on holidays makes me think Russian intel were on the ball and had started feeding him a bit of disinformation.
karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 22:35 utc | 32
Sabine @28--

I don't expect the US--and by US I mean the Current Oligarchy--to save anyone, while Russia is very busy trying to save its current and future populace--the differences being quite extreme. Since the US isn't intent on saving anyone, it wants to ensure its populace thinks other governments act the same way toward their populaces so the US populace doesn't get any ideas about saving itself from its own viscous government. Busting that narrative is what keeps us busy--There IS an alternative.

Smiley , Sep 10 2019 22:41 utc | 33
From digging around on the property site (from the link).

It must be a very nice house. A 3-ish acre lot in that neighborhood has an assessment of $140k for the land. But the assessment for improvements for this house is over $900k while others in the neighborhood are more in the $600k range. I was looking at the aerial photos and trying to pick out what seem to be other nice houses, including ones with swimming pools which this one lacks, and which also have big garages (this one has 4 car garage apparently), but couldn't find a neighbor above an assessment in the $600k's.

The neighborhood as a whole has had its valuations decline in the 2018 biannual assessment. Not sure why, but maybe the neighborhood of 20 year old mansions isn't as hot as some newer developments. The last previous lowering of assessment values occurred during the Great-Not-A-Depression in the 2008 revaluations. Note, the land is not considered to have lower values, but all of the homes on the street have had the assessments of the improvements on the property lowered in the last reassessments.

Hard to tell much about the selling price from neighboring properties. Many of the neighbors bought their homes direct from the construction company back in the early years of the century. So not too many direct compares for homes bought in 2018.

Smiley , Sep 10 2019 22:54 utc | 34
A point that appears to have missed by several is that an aide to an aide to the foreign minister is not likely to have access to Putin's super-top-secret plans to use a few thousand dollars worth of utube and twit ads to change the course of multi-billion dollar American election, nor would he have access to information that might be used to blackmail a potential foreign leader. Both would be closely held secrets and apparently way above his pay grade. Often the FM wouldn't know of either, and both operations would be compartmentalized into a close team Putin can trust.

The only way that he's the 'source' of the Steele fiction is if the whole thing was in the style of LeCarre's "The Tailor of Panama" where everyone is lying and inflating what they know and people at the top are paying out good money for this because it suits their little power games. But any Moscow tailor with a couple of important customers would be positioned to run that scam as well as an aide to an aide to a foreign minister.

My personal guess, he made his money by the more typical corruption in Russia, which means he was working for an oligarch. He lost his job, possibly during one of Putin's anti-corruption cleanup campaigns. He decided to move to DC with his oligarch money because he'd served 10 years in the embassy there and he liked the area. He is buying property in his own name because he's not part of any sort of witness/spy protection program and nobody in the USG is setting him up with a fake identity.

Turner , Sep 10 2019 23:02 utc | 35
Does anyone really believe that the Kremlin takes as the truth what they hear on CNN?
karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 23:11 utc | 36
Smiley @33&34--

House likely bought by CIA and annual upkeep--taxes etc.--also paid by them.

MoA's investigators have fairly well established that Skripal was the most likely contributor to the Steele Dossier given the overall web of established connections--that was most certainly an MI-6 operation in league with DNC/HRC officials, not CIA, although CIA was involved in Russiagate Cover-up.

In examining Russia's foreign policy, where were the compromises generated by this alleged spy? Aside from the UNSC vote debacle on Libya, I see nothing but a string of successes, although the Ukraine Coup wasn't debauched. IMO, Outlaw US Empire policy toward Russia has failed spectacularly, and it is within the US government where I'd expect to find well placed spies.

james , Sep 10 2019 23:15 utc | 37
@35 turner.. no.. and no one here at moa believes anything out of the western msm either... see @ 29 william gruff comment for more meaningful lingo on the set up..
Uncle $cam , Sep 10 2019 23:21 utc | 38
Does anyone really believe that the Kremlin takes as the truth what they hear on CNN?

ha! Emphatically, Yes, most Mericans, think they think that.. Because most Mericans think everyone but Merican's are stupid.

Smiley , Sep 10 2019 23:21 utc | 39
Here's a tough problem for a counter-intelligence agent. Find the source of info for a fictional report.

Normally, after a link, one avenue of investigation would be to check who had access to the leaked information. But, if the report is completely fictional, then there is no list of people who had access to information that didn't exist. Everyone or no one had equal access to the non-existent information. The Tailor of Moscow had the same access to the non-existent information as did Putin's closest personal aide. Who done it?

willie , Sep 10 2019 23:30 utc | 40
Headline in le Figaro:

Ingérence russe :la CIA disposait d'une source haut-placée au Kremlin.
Russian collusion: CIA had high placed source at the Kremlin.

A lot of commentators see the incongruence of this title and make jokes about it. Really, when a superpower becomes a source of jokes and ridicule, than the end might be nigh.

Jackrabbit , Sep 11 2019 0:30 utc | 41
Evidence-free accusations of Russian meddling. Now with extra sauce.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

We don't really know WHY this spy was extracted. Anyone that believes that Russiagate was deliberately planned as part of the new Cold War is not surprised at yet another attempt to strengthen the nonexistent case for Russian meddling.

JasonT , Sep 11 2019 0:44 utc | 42
smiley @34 seems to have the most logical take on this.
GoldmanKropotkin , Sep 11 2019 0:47 utc | 43
The first report in US Press about Putin personally involved was on Dec 14 2016.
Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

Putin's objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a "vendetta" against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to "split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn't depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore," the official said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146

Notice the source is spies working for US Allies. Remember that the NSA did not sign off on the Russian interference/hacking because they were concerned that too much critical info rested on intelligence from a single foreign country.

Sergei Skripal was not just an turncoat for UK he also worked for Estonian intelligence. It seems to me the poisoning fits better as an Estonian job, to keep relations in Europe with Russia in very bad shape. It's easy to say that the Russians wouldn't be so incompetent, also goes for the UK, which could have come up with something more compelling if they pre planned it as false flag.

Notice how we have some sources saying concern grew after the Trump Putin meeting, where supposedly Trump gave Israeli intelligence to Putin on Syria, I think they were concerned Trump would have no problem revealing a spy for another government, much like he was free with foreign intelligence.

I don't think the exfiltration was the real source but someone to sacrifice, to protect the real source, who is working for Estonian intelligence. To me this seems like it is possibly Anton Vaino, Chief of Staff of the Kremlin since August 2016, Deputy Chief of Staff of Kremlin before that. This is not to say his info is accurate, but is in line with the foreign policy of Estonia to alienate everyone with Russia.

Yeah, Right , Sep 11 2019 0:57 utc | 44
Just out of curiousity, if what has been reported is true then what reason would Mueller have to exclude this from his report? The dude is proof of the Russia-did-it!! narrative. Check.The dude has already been extracted. Check. The Russians must have already noticed that he has done a runner. Check.

What would stop Mueller from producing a one-paragraph report that starts with: "we know the following to be true because for the last decade everything that Putin did was being relayed to us by an aide to the foreign policy advisor to the Kremlin, since extracted and now living in the USA".

I mean, bit of a slam-dunk, don't you think?

uncle tungsten , Sep 11 2019 3:00 utc | 45
I call it a red herring, and I bet this sucker has been fully set up. Publicly listed address and all the indicators are that he is held in reserve to throw to the dogs whenever the action gets too close to the mongrel perpetrators.

Joe Mifsud and Claire Smith of MI6, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, especially FBI special agent Joseph Pientka plus that BIG shot FBI agent (who's name I forget) are the names to remember. Why aren't Misud and Smith extradited to face inquiry?

So what is emerging? is Mueller due in court to prosecute the Russian ad agency that has fully shirt fronted him? Is Flynn business about to upend a steaming pot of turds over Mueller and other heads. Is Seth Rich about to be posthumously knighted by some New York monarch for his role in smashing the HRC cart in public? Or is Julian Assange about to be put through more torture for being a journalist and publisher?

This poor Russian sod is a patsy for the vicious deep state game that now needs to prey on him and deliver his carcass to the howling mob and so distract them again. This Friday's quiet press releases might hold a clue.

snake , Sep 11 2019 3:47 utc | 46
plausible

maybe

where is the diversion.. lots of activity in Afghanistan and Golan today.. Turkey is moving into N. Syria.. Venezuela.. where is the diversion/

dltravers , Sep 11 2019 3:51 utc | 47
This guy will probably be making the rounds on CNN and cable news promoting the Steele dossier and the Russian collusion hoax as its complete disintegration is now fully evident. Offer up some turds on a plate, dress it up with a pinch a parsley and the truth will be avoided.

The whole 2 year media storm of lies on Russian collusion will be avoided by offering up another turd on a plate. This guy will pull down a few million and the media will never admit their false reporting.

Jen , Sep 11 2019 4:54 utc | 48
It would seem that a great deal has certainly changed at the CIA since 2003 when Valerie Plame was revealed as a spy by a newspaper journalist who was given the information about her during a phone conversation with someone close to the White House at the time, apparently to punish her ambassador husband Joseph Wilson for going to Niger to verify if that country had exported uranium to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Then there was shock and anger at the time that the cover of a CIA operative had been blown.

Now the CIA doesn't even bother to give Smolenkov and his family new identities and biographies to explain their living in Washington DC, and even co-operates with the outgoing Obama administration in 2016 in risking the exposure of one of its own to try to stop Donald Trump from ensconcing himself in the White House.

Something certainly has changed in the culture of the CIA: while it was always a political animal, it is becoming an extremely ideological one as well.

Sunny Runny Burger , Sep 11 2019 5:40 utc | 49
The idea that this could be a fake spy is interesting.

Sabine wrote:

fuck are you guys not tired of this bullshit kabuki theatre that you get fed daily in order to keep you amused and busy?

Only speaking for myself I ignore almost all of it (and actively treat it as propaganda, deception, and manipulation) and take a lot of breaks. I test the waters (or sewage) from time to time but I don't expect much and have no right to expect anything either.

However despite such sentiments the last decade seems like it has been an improvement although too many people (and probably me as well) are searching for "replacements" to failures when maybe there shouldn't be any: any false choice requires at least two wrong answers but there could be any number .

az , Sep 11 2019 9:16 utc | 51
In Bulgaria is a spy scandal too.
Reschetnikov is banned for ten years to visit Bulgaria. A reporter from NYT has tried to interview him before steps are take in Bulgaria to investigate the case. The officials say the Russians wanted to divert Bulgaria to the asia-project and that money-laundering was used to finance subversive activities. The case started on 9.09 2019. Today the parliament heard the statements of the agencies. Nothing new they sayed
az , Sep 11 2019 9:20 utc | 52
I think the Nato-gang want to have a military war in the black sea. Turkey did not close the Bosporus for the Russians, so they lost the war in Syria.
Josh , Sep 11 2019 10:53 utc | 53
Sounds fishy, the whole thing. Of course, when everyone is lying about everything while they are pretending to fight with each other, it may well get a bit convoluted. CIA outing thrir own dude on their own propaganda outlet is quite strange though. Also, their dude just trotting about using his real name (in a publicly listed mansion no less),... ehh... Who knows...
Josh , Sep 11 2019 11:05 utc | 54
Of course, they could be trying to 'put him on the spot' to use him for yet another propaganda push (whether he wants to play along, or not). But, again, the whole thing seems a bit strange.
milomilo , Sep 11 2019 11:30 utc | 55
i would caution people here on patrick lang's views on this issue. remember he is an existensialist american "patriot" who stop at nothing and will approve of any warcrime to held up the mighty american empire. Look at patrick lang's history , he is ex intelligence and thus never left the "services" even when he is "retired".

Pat lang's hate toward those who criticize american empire is legendary.. just look at his own comments on SST.

another one to watch is patrick lang's friend called TTG which also US intelligence and it is not unknown for this guy to post or inject nonsense narrative on SST especially on intelligence matters concerning russia.

The posts that seems clean of US narrative lies seem to come from Publius Tacitus and Walrus. But then again never take off your mandatory antipropaganda shield especially on SST owned by ex spook who love the american empire and military trashing of the world

Sunny Runny Burger , Sep 11 2019 12:34 utc | 56
The following rumor (through sputniknews.com) is sort of educational even if it should turn out to not be true (its Boolean value is essentially irrelevant which is interesting as a separate matter as well): Trump mistrusts spies etc .
donkeytale , Sep 11 2019 12:41 utc | 57
Sabine - are you guys not tired of this bullshit kabuli theatre

No, we are tirelessly...chasing our own tails...endlessly drinking one exclusive flavour of koolaid...The Infotainment Sickness Unto Death...

cirsium , Sep 11 2019 14:25 utc | 58
@Jen, 48

It wasn't just shock. Scooter Libby, Cheney's (?) Chief of Staff, broke a federal law when he exposed Valerie Palme as a CIA operative. He served part of a prison sentence for this. Joseph Wilson verified that Saddam Hussein did not buy yellow cake. After his report was ignored, he wrote an article about his findings. I remember reading it in the International Herald Tribune. It put the WMD narrative in doubt.

[Sep 11, 2019] We don't really know WHY this spy was extracted. Anyone that believes that Russiagate was deliberately planned as part of the new Cold War is not surprised at yet another attempt to strengthen the nonexistent case for Russian meddling.

OK, lets' assume that neoliberal MSM are not lying. Then why Mueller did not include him in his report? He was already in the USA since June 2017. It is unclear when he was fired by russians.
Also as Smolenkov for a long time lived in the USA he knew very well what the USA wants and could lie with impunity trying to earn more money. In a way similar personality as Skripal.
Is the idea to create the second Skripals-style false poisoning hysteria to help to sustain RussiaGate?
Notable quotes:
"... The only way that he's the 'source' of the Steele fiction is if the whole thing was in the style of LeCarre's "The Tailor of Panama" where everyone is lying and inflating what they know and people at the top are paying out good money for this because it suits their little power games. But any Moscow tailor with a couple of important customers would be positioned to run that scam as well as an aide to an aide to a foreign minister. ..."
"... My personal guess, he made his money by the more typical corruption in Russia, which means he was working for an oligarch. He lost his job, possibly during one of Putin's anti-corruption cleanup campaigns. He decided to move to DC with his oligarch money because he'd served 10 years in the embassy there and he liked the area. He is buying property in his own name because he's not part of any sort of witness/spy protection program and nobody in the USG is setting him up with a fake identity. ..."
"... MoA's investigators have fairly well established that Skripal was the most likely contributor to the Steele Dossier given the overall web of established connections--that was most certainly an MI-6 operation in league with DNC/HRC officials, not CIA, although CIA was involved in Russiagate Cover-up. ..."
"... In examining Russia's foreign policy, where were the compromises generated by this alleged spy? Aside from the UNSC vote debacle on Libya ..."
"... A lot of commentators see the incongruence of this title and make jokes about it. Really,when a superpower becomes a source of jokes and ridicule, than the end might be nigh. ..."
"... We don't really know WHY this spy was extracted. Anyone that believes that Russiagate was deliberately planned as part of the new Cold War is not surprised at yet another attempt to strengthen the nonexistent case for Russian meddling. ..."
"... The first report in US Press about Putin personally involved was on Dec 14 2016 ..."
"... I don't think the exfiltration was the real source but someone to sacrifice, to protect the real source, who is working for Estonian intelligence. To me this seems like it is possibly Anton Vaino, Chief of Staff of the Kremlin since August 2016, Deputy Chief of Staff of Kremlin before that. This is not to say his info is accurate, but is in line with the foreign policy of Estonia to alienate everyone with Russia. ..."
"... Just out of curiosity, if what has been reported is true then what reason would Mueller have to exclude this from his report? The dude is proof of the Russia-did-it!! narrative. Check. The dude has already been extracted. Check. The Russians must have already noticed that he has done a runner. Check. ..."
"... What would stop Mueller from producing a one-paragraph report that starts with: "we know the following to be true because for the last decade everything that Putin did was being relayed to us by an aide to the foreign policy advisor to the Kremlin, since extracted and now living in the USA". ..."
"... Well, I just think Putin had more important things to think about than the charade that is now the US electoral process. Probably he felt (I'm guessing of course) that the whole Russiagate scenario was a desperate move to throw a curtain over the demise of American democracy that served his, Putin's, purposes very well because it kept the idiots busy while he shored up the badly leaking ship of his own state. ..."
"... And I go with Smiley@34 - no spy of even mediocre caliber would agree to being placed in such an exposed position under his own name, for crying out loud! ..."
"... It doesn't make sense that he would leave himself exposed if either in Russia or in the US he had undercover connections of this sort. Just doesn't make sense. But that he was the best the US operatives could come up with right now simply speaks to further deterioration of US ability to field persuasive stories. ..."
"... Putin hasn't had to worry about vendettas or showing corruption in American politics. Take a reliable poll. Who in the US thinks our politics ISN'T corrupt? ..."
"... We didn't need Putin, mastermind though he is, to 'create an image' of American unreliability. Was it Putin who reneged on so many treaties? Was it Putin who antagonized the Koreas? Was it Putin who set up the trade war with China? Was it Putin who threatened and sanctioned Russia, Iran, Venezuela? ..."
"... What can the Russians do to get ahead of the narrative on the likely impending demise of Smolenkov by novichok or polonium poisoning? ..."
"... The concern is about the three hundred million other Americans who are at least partially captured by the false narratives pumped out non-stop from their Plato's Cave displays. Is there anything that the Russians can do now to inoculate some Americans against the hard sell they will be facing when the corporate mass media ( Mighty Wurlitzer ) cranks up the multi-channel marketing campaign for the United States' own Skripal farce? ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Smiley , Sep 10 2019 22:54 utc | 34

A point that appears to have missed by several is that an aide to an aide to the foreign minister is not likely to have access to Putin's super-top-secret plans to use a few thousand dollars worth of utube and twit ads to change the course of multi-billion dollar American election, nor would he have access to information that might be used to blackmail a potential foreign leader.

Both would be closely held secrets and apparently way above his pay grade. Often the FM wouldn't know of either, and both operations would be compartmentalized into a close team Putin can trust.

The only way that he's the 'source' of the Steele fiction is if the whole thing was in the style of LeCarre's "The Tailor of Panama" where everyone is lying and inflating what they know and people at the top are paying out good money for this because it suits their little power games. But any Moscow tailor with a couple of important customers would be positioned to run that scam as well as an aide to an aide to a foreign minister.

My personal guess, he made his money by the more typical corruption in Russia, which means he was working for an oligarch. He lost his job, possibly during one of Putin's anti-corruption cleanup campaigns. He decided to move to DC with his oligarch money because he'd served 10 years in the embassy there and he liked the area. He is buying property in his own name because he's not part of any sort of witness/spy protection program and nobody in the USG is setting him up with a fake identity.


karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 23:11 utc | 36

Smiley @33&34--

House likely bought by CIA and annual upkeep--taxes etc.--also paid by them.

MoA's investigators have fairly well established that Skripal was the most likely contributor to the Steele Dossier given the overall web of established connections--that was most certainly an MI-6 operation in league with DNC/HRC officials, not CIA, although CIA was involved in Russiagate Cover-up.

In examining Russia's foreign policy, where were the compromises generated by this alleged spy? Aside from the UNSC vote debacle on Libya, I see nothing but a string of successes, although the Ukraine Coup wasn't debauched. IMO, Outlaw US Empire policy toward Russia has failed spectacularly, and it is within the US government where I'd expect to find well placed spies.

Smiley , Sep 10 2019 23:21 utc | 39
Here's a tough problem for a counter-intelligence agent. Find the source of info for a fictional report.

Normally, after a link, one avenue of investigation would be to check who had access to the leaked information. But, if the report is completely fictional, then there is no list of people who had access to information that didn't exist. Everyone or no one had equal access to the non-existent information.

The Tailor of Moscow had the same access to the non-existent information as did Putin's closest personal aide. Who done it?

willie , Sep 10 2019 23:30 utc | 40
Headline in le Figaro: Ingérence russe :la CIA disposait d'une source haut-placée au Kremlin (Russian collusion: CIA had high placed source at the Kremlin.)

A lot of commentators see the incongruence of this title and make jokes about it. Really,when a superpower becomes a source of jokes and ridicule, than the end might be nigh.

Jackrabbit , Sep 11 2019 0:30 utc | 41
Evidence-free accusations of Russian meddling. Now with extra sauce.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

We don't really know WHY this spy was extracted. Anyone that believes that Russiagate was deliberately planned as part of the new Cold War is not surprised at yet another attempt to strengthen the nonexistent case for Russian meddling.

GoldmanKropotkin , Sep 11 2019 0:47 utc | 43
The first report in US Press about Putin personally involved was on Dec 14 2016.
Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

Putin's objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a "vendetta" against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to "split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn't depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore," the official said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146

Notice the source is spies working for US Allies. Remember that the NSA did not sign off on the Russian interference/hacking because they were concerned that too much critical info rested on intelligence from a single foreign country.

Sergei Skripal was not just an turncoat for UK he also worked for Estonian intelligence. It seems to me the poisoning fits better as an Estonian job, to keep relations in Europe with Russia in very bad shape. It's easy to say that the Russians wouldn't be so incompetent, also goes for the UK, which could have come up with something more compelling if they pre planned it as false flag.

Notice how we have some sources saying concern grew after the Trump Putin meeting, where supposedly Trump gave Isreali intelligence to Putin on Syria, I think they were concerned Trump would have no problem revealing a spy for another government, much like he was free with foreign intelligence.

I don't think the exfiltration was the real source but someone to sacrifice, to protect the real source, who is working for Estonian intelligence. To me this seems like it is possibly Anton Vaino, Chief of Staff of the Kremlin since August 2016, Deputy Chief of Staff of Kremlin before that. This is not to say his info is accurate, but is in line with the foreign policy of Estonia to alienate everyone with Russia.

Yeah, Right , Sep 11 2019 0:57 utc | 44
Just out of curiosity, if what has been reported is true then what reason would Mueller have to exclude this from his report? The dude is proof of the Russia-did-it!! narrative. Check. The dude has already been extracted. Check. The Russians must have already noticed that he has done a runner. Check.

What would stop Mueller from producing a one-paragraph report that starts with: "we know the following to be true because for the last decade everything that Putin did was being relayed to us by an aide to the foreign policy advisor to the Kremlin, since extracted and now living in the USA".

I mean, bit of a slam-dunk, don't you think?

juliania , Sep 11 2019 14:57 utc | 58

Well, I just think Putin had more important things to think about than the charade that is now the US electoral process. Probably he felt (I'm guessing of course) that the whole Russiagate scenario was a desperate move to throw a curtain over the demise of American democracy that served his, Putin's, purposes very well because it kept the idiots busy while he shored up the badly leaking ship of his own state.

And I go with Smiley@34 - no spy of even mediocre caliber would agree to being placed in such an exposed position under his own name, for crying out loud!

This was a guy who had big money stashed away, wanted to be in a place where rich guys are held in high esteem, planned his exit from a no-longer-friendly-to-rich-folk environment (if you had money in Russia these days, you should use it for the good of the country).

It doesn't make sense that he would leave himself exposed if either in Russia or in the US he had undercover connections of this sort. Just doesn't make sense. But that he was the best the US operatives could come up with right now simply speaks to further deterioration of US ability to field persuasive stories.

And this gave me some amusement:

Putin's objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a "vendetta" against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to "split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn't depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore," the official said. [Quote from Goldman Kropotkin@43]

Putin hasn't had to worry about vendettas or showing corruption in American politics. Take a reliable poll. Who in the US thinks our politics ISN'T corrupt?

juliania , Sep 11 2019 15:11 utc | 59
We didn't need Putin, mastermind though he is, to 'create an image' of American unreliability. Was it Putin who reneged on so many treaties? Was it Putin who antagonized the Koreas? Was it Putin who set up the trade war with China? Was it Putin who threatened and sanctioned Russia, Iran, Venezuela?

We, our leaders, masterminded it all. Sorry, Mr. Putin - you lose that enviable title. We own it.

William Gruff , Sep 11 2019 15:50 utc | 60

What can the Russians do to get ahead of the narrative on the likely impending demise of Smolenkov by novichok or polonium poisoning?

I know some here might say "Everyone would know it is a false flag if Smolenkov gets assassinated!" and that is certainly true if by "everyone" one means the regular readers here and at a few other analysis sites that are not controlled by the empire.

The concern is about the three hundred million other Americans who are at least partially captured by the false narratives pumped out non-stop from their Plato's Cave displays. Is there anything that the Russians can do now to inoculate some Americans against the hard sell they will be facing when the corporate mass media ( Mighty Wurlitzer ) cranks up the multi-channel marketing campaign for the United States' own Skripal farce?

[Sep 11, 2019] On possible Oleg Smolenkov connection to Steele dossier

Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

librul , Sep 10 2019 19:54 utc | 19

Is someone brewing up some fresh Novichok nerve agent as we speak?

Don't touch those doorknobs, Oleg!

for future reference: this post was for amusement purposes only

[Sep 11, 2019] DOJ Inspector General Expected To Conclude Carter Page FISA Warrants Illegally Obtained Jim Jordan

Notable quotes:
"... Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will likely find that all four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page were obtained illegally , according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee. ..."
"... " I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016, " said Barr. ..."
"... Jordan also noted that he wants Horowitz to testify about his reports on former FBI Director James Comey, and asked "When is somebody going to jail for wrongdoing that took place in the Trump-Russia investigation or even the Clinton investigation?" ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will likely find that all four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page were obtained illegally , according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

" I think he will ," said Jordan during an discussion with Fox News 's Sean Hannity and Gregg Jarrett Monday night. In April , Attorney General William Barr assembled a team of DOJ investigators to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by DOJ and FBI officials made during the 2016 US election.

" I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016, " said Barr.

"That's great news he's looking into how this whole thing started back in 2016," said Rep. Jordan at the time. " That's something that has been really important to us. It's what we've been calling for. "

The investigation into alleged FISA abuse against the Trump campaign by DOJ and FBI officials has reportedly been completed. After a declassification period, the report could be released sometime in September. The contents of the report have not been confirmed.

Attorney General William Barr, who is overseeing U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, said he is working closely with Horowitz, and they will take up any criminal referrals Horowitz might make.

Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova said he has heard the initial FISA warrant against Page and the three renewals at three-month intervals were illegally obtained . He told the Washington Examiner 's Examining Politics podcast late last month that he got his insider information because the report is "being circulated inside and outside of the department for comment by interested parties." - Washington Examiner

Jordan also noted that he wants Horowitz to testify about his reports on former FBI Director James Comey, and asked "When is somebody going to jail for wrongdoing that took place in the Trump-Russia investigation or even the Clinton investigation?"


New_Meat , 7 minutes ago link

The FISA Court is under the supervision of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Does John Roberts have zero resources to figure out what happened internally? Is there no Judicial oversight for this Star Chamber?

Or is his "judicial temperament" so calm that he can't see how his Branch has been corrupted?

847328_3527 , 6 minutes ago link

((( Roberts )))

Probably an accomplice to the entire RussiaGate Hoax.

TruthAbsolute , 9 minutes ago link

is there any doubt that the USA has a two tiered justice sytem...people in the Washinton swamp are all covered if they capitulate to the Deep State! Comey is nothing but a Traitor but the left wing party do not care cause he is just like them they hate... Trump! And the Patriot all just stand down!

Ruler , 14 minutes ago link

The Clintons and Bush's have been the worst things to ever have happened to this country.

booboo , 13 minutes ago link

and the kardashians

e-man , 12 minutes ago link

...and Obama. All the espionage and Deep State manipulation (that we know of) were done under his watch.

NukeChinaNow , 6 minutes ago link

What did you expect... when you let one of the monkeys try to turn America into a zoo?

romanmoment , 15 minutes ago link

This is all a ****-show of theater. Nobody is going to be held accountable for anything and, if by chance, some low level schlep gets thrown in the clink he'll hang himself with one-ply toilet paper and nobody will have seen a thing....

[Sep 10, 2019] Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein by Larry C Johnsons

Highly recommended!
Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Diana C ,

"Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein."

As usual, your analogy here is spot on. I'm still giggling.

[Sep 10, 2019] Justice declined to pursue Comey leaks as a criminal case

Notable quotes:
"... The most alarming aspect of the Trump–Russia investigation, and of the stark difference between the aggression with which it was pursued and the see-no-evil passivity of the Clinton emails caper, is the way the investigative process was used to influence political outcomes. ..."
"... Ardent Trump supporters are growling over news that the FBI's former director, James Comey, will not be prosecuted by the Justice Department for the mishandling of memoranda he wrote about his contacts with the president. The news has been reported by The Hill 's John Solomon and the Washington Post 's Devlin Barrett , among others. ..."
"... Indications are that Horowitz referred the memos issue to the Justice Department for possible prosecution and that, after reviewing the IG's findings, Justice declined to pursue the matter as a criminal case. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.nationalreview.com

A free society cannot stay free for long if the criminal-justice system becomes a political weapon, if that becomes our norm.

The most alarming aspect of the Trump–Russia investigation, and of the stark difference between the aggression with which it was pursued and the see-no-evil passivity of the Clinton emails caper, is the way the investigative process was used to influence political outcomes.

The way to right that wrong is to prevent it from becoming the new normal, not to turn the tables of abuse when power shifts from one side to the other. We can only make things worse by losing the distinction between rebuking errors in judgment and criminalizing them.

Ardent Trump supporters are growling over news that the FBI's former director, James Comey, will not be prosecuted by the Justice Department for the mishandling of memoranda he wrote about his contacts with the president. The news has been reported by The Hill 's John Solomon and the Washington Post 's Devlin Barrett , among others.

Comey's handling of his memos is one aspect of probes related to investigations attendant to the 2016 election, which are being conducted by Justice Department independent counsel Michael Horowitz. Indications are that Horowitz referred the memos issue to the Justice Department for possible prosecution and that, after reviewing the IG's findings, Justice declined to pursue the matter as a criminal case.

[Sep 09, 2019] Robert Mueller was "special counsel" in name only. The real boss was Andrew Weissman

Notable quotes:
"... The "report" was his work. Mueller never looked for anything, never found anything and never wrote anything. ..."
"... The entire charade was part of the "resistance" to straight jacket Trump until the mid term elections, a strategy put in motion by Comey and Brennan, which achieved the desired result: Republicans lost the House. ..."
"... Of course there was "little Russia in Russiagate." The narrative was all disinformation set loose by Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS, paid for by Hillary and the DNC with the blessing of President Obama. Welcome to the tin foil hat brigade as contributor. ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This too is not believable, as I pointed out previously . Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being another.)

But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive, advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.

So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not.

... ... ...

It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable, and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.

There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.

Anon [421] • Disclaimer says:

September 9, 2019 at 5:24 pm GMT • 100 Words

"former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion."

Let me unpack that for you, esteemed professor: RM was "special counsel" in name only. The real boss was Andrew Weissman. The "report" was his work. Mueller never looked for anything, never found anything and never wrote anything.

The entire charade was part of the "resistance" to straight jacket Trump until the mid term elections, a strategy put in motion by Comey and Brennan, which achieved the desired result: Republicans lost the House.

Of course there was "little Russia in Russiagate." The narrative was all disinformation set loose by Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS, paid for by Hillary and the DNC with the blessing of President Obama. Welcome to the tin foil hat brigade as contributor.

Kolya Krassotkin , says: September 9, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT

Given the impunity with which Israel nakedly interferes in American elections, worrying about Russian interference is laugh-out-loud funny.

But I forgot. Israel is our best "friend."

[Sep 07, 2019] Mueller Helped Saudis Cover Up Involvement In 9-11 Attacks Lawsuit

Sep 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Robert Mueller - pitched as an incorruptible beacon of justice when he was tasked with (unsuccessfully) hunting down ties between Donald Trump and Russia - was nothing more than a hatchet man for the deep state , who participated in a coverup of Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11 according to a new report by the New York Post 's Paul Sperry - citing former FBI investigators and a new lawsuit by 9/11 victims.

According to Sperry, Mueller stonewalled after FBI agents discovered evidence of "multiple, systemic efforts by the Saudi government to assist the hijackers in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks, " while the former FBI director allegedly "covered up evidence pointing back to the Saudi Embassy and Riyadh -- and may have even misled Congress about what he knew. "

" He was the master when it came to covering up the kingdom's role in 9/11 ," said Sharon Premoli, a September 11th survivor who was pulled out of the rubble of the World Trade Center, and is now suing Saudi Arabia as a plaintiff in a new lawsuit .

"In October of 2001, Mueller shut down the government's investigation after only three weeks , and then took part in the Bush [administration's] campaign to block, obfuscate and generally stop anything about Saudi Arabia from being released," she added.

" Any letting the Saudis off the hook came from the White House ," said former Agent Mark Rossini, adding "I can still see that photo of Bandar and Bush enjoying cigars on the balcony of the White House two days after 9/11."

Speaking with multiple FBI case agents, Sperry lists a series of incidents describing Mueller 'throwing up roadblocks' in front of his own investigators - "making it easier for Saudi suspects to escape questioning." And according to the lawsuit, Mueller "deep-sixed what evidence his agents did manage to uncover."

Via the NY Post :

***

"He's a villain, and an arrogant one to boot," said former FBI agent Mark Wauck, who called Mueller a "servant of the deep state."


Tunga , 12 minutes ago link

Oh those securities!

"

"Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have 'conspired' with key unknown figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence. These securities, originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and settled in the aftermath of September 11th

through the BoNY. The $100 billion account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street Journalas being experienced in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these securities were moved from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet.

LEEPERMAX , 13 minutes ago link

A FUMBLING two-faced WEAK, FRAIL man with NO MORALS or INTEGRITY was what we saw that day in front of the committee.

Conscious Reviver , 19 minutes ago link

Mueller's a real criminal, but it is not the Saudis who is helped cover up for, it's the Evil Entity Israel that did 9/11. Everyone with two working brain cells knows that, except the Zionist shill that wrote this crap article.

mrjinx007 , 20 minutes ago link

911 is just four days away. Let's listen to them read 3000 names on that day and feel warm and cozys so we remember one more time what president **** Cheney and Vice President Donald Rumsfeld brought upon this country with the help of Susan Rice and the general's speech about mushroom clouds.

warpigs , 33 minutes ago link

Is this 9-11 stuff still considered a real foreign attack by anyone?

What the actual ****?

Of course ir was an internal hit job by our own and other govies.

19 dirtball inbred retards circumvent the most advanced nation's entire security apparatus to kill 3-4k people? Really?

I have to, at this point, assume good people are simply too scared to say out loud over Thanksgiving sinner table that they believe their gov is evil.

Fantasy Free Economics , 41 minutes ago link

Coverups and conspiracies are a way of life in Washington. Coverups are discovered after it is too late to do anything. There is a huge coverup going on right now to prevent anointed members of the power structure of the world from being exposed. http://quillian.net/blog/the-importance-of-covering-up-the-epstein-affair/

robertsgt40 , 1 hour ago link

How about the FBI cover-up of the "five dancing Israelis" that confirmed on Israeli TV, they were there to "document the event" by video and were allowed to leave the country without further ado.

And then there's Lucky Larry Silverstein who collected handsomely from insurances on the collapse of bldgs 1,2 and my favorite bldg7.

DutchTaco , 1 hour ago link

9/11 was just operation Northwood in action. Same goes for MH17, also an operation Northwood to make people hate each other

[Sep 06, 2019] The CIA Bull in Glenn Simpson's Russia Shop naked capitalism

Notable quotes:
"... Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I’m wondering why it’s that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. ..."
Sep 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

https://eus.rubiconproject.com/usync.html

https://acdn.adnxs.com/ib/static/usersync/v3/async_usersync.html

https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2343&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2018%2F01%2Fcia-bull-glenn-simpsons-russia-shop.html <img src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=16807273&cv=2.0&cj=1" /> The CIA Bull in Glenn Simpson's Russia Shop Posted on January 22, 2018 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield By John Helmer , the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

In criminal trials the rule for prosecuting and defending lawyers is the same. Never ask a witness a question unless you already know the answer. The corollary rule for defending lawyers is – if the answer to your question will incriminate your client, don't ask it, and hope the prosecutor fails to do his job.

Glenn Simpson, a former employee of the Wall Street Journal in New York, is currently on trial in the US for having fabricated a dossier of allegations of Russian misconduct (bribes, sex, blackmail, hacking) involving President Donald Trump and circulating them to the press; the objective was to damage Trump's candidacy before the election of November 8, 2016. Simpson was called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22, 2017; then the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on November 8 and again on November 14, 2017. So far, Simpson's veracity and business conduct face nothing more than the court of public opinion. He has not yet been charged with criminal or civil offences. That will happen if the evidence materializes that Simpson has been lying.

Simpson's collaborator in the dossier and his business partner, Christopher Steele, is facing trial in the London High Court, charged with libels he and Simpson published in their dossier. Together, they are material witnesses in two federal US court trials for defamation, one in Miami and one in New York. If they perjure themselves giving evidence in those cases, they are likely to face criminal indictments. If they tell the truth, they are likely to face fresh defamation proceedings; perhaps a civil racketeering suit for fraud; maybe a false statement prosecution under the US criminal code.

One question for them is as obvious as its answer. Who do an American ex-journalist on US national security and an ex-British intelligence agent go to for sources on Russian undercover operations outside Russia in general, the US in particular? Answer -- first, their friends and contacts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); second, their friends and contacts from the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6, as the UK counterpart is known.

Why then did the twenty-two congressmen, the members of the House Intelligence Committee who subpoenaed Simpson for interview, fail to pursue what information he and Steele received either directly from the CIA or indirectly through British intelligence?

The answer noone in the US wants to say aloud is the possibility that it was the CIA which provided Simpson and Steele with names and source materials for their dossier, creating the evidence of a Russian plot against the US election, and generating evidence of Russian operations. If that is what happened, then Simpson and Steele were participants in a false-flag CIA operation in US politics.

This isn't idle speculation. It has been under investigation at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since Simpson and Steele decided in mid-2016 to go to the FBI to request an investigation, and then told American press to get the FBI to confirm it was investigating. At the fresh request this month from the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI is still investigating .

Simpson's appearance at the House Intelligence Committee was the sequel to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee; for that story, read this .

Simpson's three lawyers from the Washington, DC, firm of Cunningham Levy Muse, who appeared with him at the Senate and House committee hearings. From left to right, Robert Muse; Joshua Levy, and Rachel Clattenburg.  
The firm's other name partner, Bryan Cunningham, was a CIA officer specializingin cyber operations.

The transcripts of the House Intelligence Committee were released last Thursday. Simpson's first appearance was on November 8, and can be read in full here .

Simpson's lawyers did all the talking; Simpson said nothing, pleading the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.

Although his lawyers repeatedly claimed during the earlier Senate Committee hearing that Simpson was testifying voluntarily, the House Committee recorded that Simpson was compelled to testify. "Our record today," the November 8 transcript begins, "will reflect that you have been compelled to appear today pursuant to a subpoena issued on October 4th, 2017." Simpson then told the Committee through his lawyers that he would plead the Fifth Amendment and not answer any questions. The first transcript is a record of debate between Republican and Democratic members of the Committee.

This resulted in an agreement for Simpson to testify under the subpoena but on terms his lawyers said would limit the scope of the questions which he would agree to answer.

Steele, according to the November 8 transcript, was also summoned to testify. A British citizen with home in Berkshire and office in London, he refused and the Committee recorded his "noncooperation and nontestimony."

Republicans outnumber Democrats on the House Committee, 13 to 9. Just 5 Republican members were at Simpson's November 14 appearance; 7 Democrats. The Republican committee chairman, Devin Nunes, was absent. Release of Simpson's transcript was an initiative of the Democrats. In a statement by their leader on the committee, Adam Schiff, the Democrats claimed last week "thus far, Committee Republicans have refused to look into this key area and we hope the release of this transcript will reinforce the importance of these critical questions to our investigation."

Read the November 14 testimony here .

Members of the House Intelligence Committee on the podium at an open hearing inNovember 2017.    From left to right: Adam Schiff (D), Michael Conaway (R),and Thomas Rooney (R).

Search the 165 pages of the transcript for the CIA, and you will find many references to the letters, C, I and A – spe cia lize, so cia l, commer cia l, espe cia lly, asso cia tion, finan cia l and politi cia n. There were 44 mentions of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI); 4 mentions of "British Intelligence" – the spy agency to which Steele belonged ten years ago – one mention each of the Israeli Mossad, the Chinese and Indian intelligence services.

According to Simpson, "foreign intelligence services hacking American political operations is not that unusual, actually, and there's a lot of foreign intelligence services that play in American elections." He mentioned the Chinese and the Indians, not the Israelis. The Mossad, Simpson did tell the Committee, was his source for his belief that Russian intelligence has been operating through the Jewish Orthodox Chabad movement, and the Russian Orthodox Church. "The Orthodox church is also an arm of the Russian State now the Mossad guys used to tell me about how the Russians were laundering money through the Orthodox church in Israel, and that it was intelligence operations."

There are just two references in the Committee transcript to the CIA. One was a passing remark to imply the Russians cannot "break[ing] into the CIA, [so instead] you are breaking into, you know, places where, you know, an open society leaves open."

The second was a bombshell. It dropped during questioning by Congressman Thomas Rooney (right),
a 3-term Republican representative from Florida with a career as an army lawyer. Rooney asked Simpson: "Do you or anyone else independently verify or corroborate any information in the dossier?"

Simpson replied by saying, "Yes. Well, numerous things in the dossier have been verified. You know, I don't have access to the intelligence or law enforcement information that I see made reference to, but, you know, things like, you know, the Russian Government has been investigating Hillary Clinton and has a lot of information about her."

Then Simpson contradicted himself, disclosing what he had just denied. "When the original memos came in saying that the Kremlin was mounting a specific operation to get Donald Trump elected President , that was not what the Intelligence Community was saying. The Intelligence Community was saying they are just seeking to disrupt our election and our political process, and that this is sort of kind of just a generally nihilistic, you know, trouble-making operation. And, you know, Chris turned out to be right, it was specifically designed to elect Donald Trump President."

How did Simpson know with such confidence what the "Intelligence Community" was "saying", and who were Simpson's and Steele's sources in the "Intelligence Community"? Rooney failed to inquire. Instead, he and Simpson exchanged question and answer regarding the approach Simpson and Steele made to the FBI when they delivered their dossier. In the details of that, Simpson repeated what he had already told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Rooney then asked what contact had been made with the CIA or "any other intelligence officials". Simpson claimed he didn't understand the question at first, then he stumbled.

Source: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-20180118-SD002.pdf -- page 61 .

What Simpson was concealing in the two pauses, reported in the transcript as hyphens, Rooney did not realize. Simpson was implying that noone from Fusion GPS, his consulting company, had been in contact with the CIA, nor him personally. But Simpson left open that Steele had been in contact with the CIA. Rooney followed with a question about "anyone", but that was so imprecise, Simpson recovered his confidence to say "No". That was a cover-up – and the House Intelligence Committee let it drop noiselessly.

Intelligence community sources and colleagues who know Simpson and Steele say Simpson was notorious at the Wall Street Journal for coming up with conspiracy theories for which the evidence was missing or unreliable. He told the Committee that disbelief on the part of his editors and management had been one of his reasons for leaving the newspaper. "One of the reasons why I left the Wall Street Journal was because I wanted to write more stories about Russian influence in Washington, D.C., on both the Democrats and the Republicans eventually the Journal lost interest in that subject. And I was frustrated that was where I left my journalism career."

Left: Glenn Simpson reporter for the Wall Street Journal in 1996, promoting his book, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics.  Right: Simpson in Washington in August 2017.

When Simpson was asked "do you – did you find anything to -- that you verified as false in the dossier, since or during?" Simpson replied: "I have not seen anything – ". Note the hypthen, the stenographer's signal that Simpson was pausing.

"[Question]. So everything in that dossier, as far as you're concerned, is true or could be true?"

"MR. SIMPSON: I didn't say that. What I said was it was credible at the time it came in. We were able to corroborate various things that supported its credibility."

Sources in London are divided on the question of where Steele's sources came from – CIA, MI6, or elsewhere. What has been clear for the year in which the dossier's contents have been in public circulation is that the sources the dossier referred to as "Russian" were not. For details of the sourcing . The subsequent identification of the Maltese source Joseph Mifsud, and the Greek-American George Papadopoulos, corroborates their lack of direct Russian sources. Instead, the sources identified in the dossier were either Americans, Americans of Russian ethnic origin, or Russians with no direct knowledge repeating hearsay three or four times removed from source.

So were the allegations of the dossier manufactured by a CIA disinformation unit, and fed back to the US through the British agent, Steele? Or were they a Simpson conspiracy theory of the type that failed to pass veracity testing when Simpson was at the Wall Street Journal? The House Intelligence Committee failed to inquire.

One independent clue is what financial and other links Simpson and Steele and their consulting firms, Fusion GPS and Orbis Business Intelligence, have had with US Government agencies other than the FBI, and what US Government contracts they were paid for, before the Republican and Democratic Party organizations commissioned the anti-Trump job?

The House Committee has subpoenaed business records from Fusion, but Simpson's lawyers say they will refuse to hand them over. The financial records of Steele's firm are openly accessible through the UK government company registry, Companies House. Click to read here .

Because the Trump dossier work ran from the second half of 2015 to November 2016, the financial reports of Orbis for the financial years ending March 31, 2016, and March 31, 2017, are the primary sources. For FY 2016 and FY 2017, open this link to read.

The papers reveal that Orbis was a small firm with no more than 7 employees. Steele's business partner and co-shareholder, Christopher Burrows, is another former MI6 spy. They had been hoping for MI6 support of their private business, but it failed to materialize, says an London intelligence source. "Chris Burrows is another from the same background. They all hope to be Hakluyt [a leading commercial intelligence operation in London] but didn't get the nod on departure."

Left: Christopher Steele; right, Christopher Burrows.

They do not report the Orbis income. Instead, for 2016 the company filings indicate £155,171 in cash at the bank, and income of £245,017 owed by clients and contractors. Offsetting that figure, Orbis owed £317,848 – to whom and for what purposes is not reported. The unaudited accounts show Orbis's profit jumped from £121,046 in 2015 to £199,223 in 2016, and £441,089 in 2017.

The financial data are complicated by the operation by Steele and Burrows of a second company, Orbis Business Intelligence International, a subsidiary they created in 2010, a year after the parent company was formed. Follow its affairs here .

According to British press reports , Orbis and Steele were paid £200,000 for the dossier. Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee the sum was much less -- $160,000 (about £114,000). Simpson's firm, he also testified, was being paid at a rate of about $50,000 per month for a total of about $320,000. If the British sources are more accurate than Simpson's testimony, Steele's takings from the dossier represented roughly half the profit on the Orbis balance-sheet.

British sources also report that a US Government agency paid for Orbis to work on evidence and allegations of corruption at the world soccer federation, Fédération Internationale de Football (FIFA). Indictments in this case were issued by the US Department of Justice in May 2015 , and the following December . What role the two-partner British consultancy played in the complex investigations by teams from the Justice Department, the FBI and also the Internal Revenue Service is unclear. That Steele, Burrows and Orbis depended on US government sources for their financial well-being appears to be certain.

Another reported version of the FIFA contract is that Steele, Burrows and Orbis were hired by the British Football Association to collect materials on FIFA corruption, and provide them to the FBI and other US investigators, and then to the press. The scheme's objective was reportedly to advance the British bidding for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 by discrediting the rival bids from Russia and Qatar. Click to read . Were MI6 and CIA sources mobilized by Orbis to feed the FBI with evidence the US investigators were unable to turn up, or was Orbis the conduit through which disinformation targeting Russia was fed to make it appear more credible to the FBI, and to the media?

US Congressional investigators have so far failed to notice the similarities between the FIFA and the Trump dossier operations. Early this month two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they have called for a Justice Department and FBI investigation of Steele for providing false information to the FBI. The provision of the US code making lying a federal crime requires the falsehoods occur "within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States." Simpson has testified that when Steele briefed the FBI on the dossier, he did so at meetings in Rome, Italy.

Now then, Part I and this sequel of the Simpson-Steele story having been read and thoroughly mulled over, what can the meaning be?

In the short run, this case was a black job assigned by Republican Party candidates for president, then the Democratic National Committee, for the purpose of discrediting Trump in favour of Hillary Clinton. It failed on Election Day in 2016; the Democrats are still trying.

In the long run, the case is a measurement of the life, or the half-life, of truth. Giuseppe di Lampedusa wrote once that nowhere has truth so short a life as in Sicily. On his clock, that was five minutes. He didn't know the United States, or shall we say the stretch from Washington through New York to the North End of Boston. There, truth has an even shorter life. Scarcely a second.

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Rhondda , January 22, 2018 at 3:57 pm

I pay pretty close attention to this topic and I must say I sometimes wonder if the Russians haven’t sold the rope to the American political elite. I read all 311 pages of Simpson’s testimony. I was struck that much of what he was “fed” by Steele confirmed his “OMG Russia corruption” biases.

And I say “fed to him” when I’m in a generous mood, giving him the benefit of the doubt, because usually I am of the opinion that he’s either a really crappy CIA agent posing as a journalist or just a garden variety rat f*!@er. A black job political operative, stitching together a few almost-believable “facts” and out-and-out fabrications with squishy words like “collusion” and “ties.”

From the embedded link in Helmer’s text above:
http://johnhelmer.net/glenn-simpson-chases-his-shadow-into-a-black-hole/

London due diligence firms say the record of Simpson’s firm Fusion GPS and Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence operations in the US has discredited them in the due diligence market. The London experts believe the Senate Committee transcript shows Simpson and Steele were hired for the black job of discrediting the target of their research, Trump; did a poor job; failed in 2016; and now are engaged in bitter recriminations against each other to avoid multi-million dollar court penalties.

A source at a London firm which is larger and better known than Steele’s Orbis says “standard due diligence means getting to the truth. It’s confidential to the client, and not leaked. There are also black jobs, white jobs, and red jobs. Black means the client wants you to dig up dirt on the target, and make it look credible for publishing in the press. White means the client wants you to clear him of the wrongdoing which he’s being accused of in the media or the marketplace; it’s also leaked to the press. A red job is where the client pays the due diligence firm to hire a journalist to find out what he knows and what he’s likely to publish, in order to bribe or stop him. The Steele dossier on Trump is an obvious black job. Too obvious.”

Emphasis mine.

3.14e-9 , January 22, 2018 at 6:49 pm

Rhondaa writes:

I read all 311 pages of Simpson’s testimony. I was struck that much of what he was “fed” by Steele confirmed his “OMG Russia corruption” biases.

Same here, but not just about what he was fed by Steele. Simpson claimed to have done some of his own research and said it was consistent with what he got from Steele.

I’m about three-quarters of the way through the transcript of Simpson’s interrogation by the House Intelligence Committee, and I’ve read all 312 pages of the Senate Judiciary Committee transcript, which bears little resemblance to what was reported in the major media – shocking, I know.

Among the “bombshells” the mainstream reported was “proof” that it wasn’t the dossier that launched the FBI’s investigation of Trump, and therefore the dossier couldn’t have been used as justification for a FISA warrant. A bigger bombshell, which of course none of them mentioned, is that Simpson, with his client’s consent, was secretly briefing Clinton-friendly reporters on information from Steele’s memos, and they used it to write stories based on “unnamed sources.” He even admitted that he didn’t verify the information before feeding it to the media, said he didn’t feel he needed to, because it came from a trustworthy source. Where have we heard that before?

Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I’m wondering why it’s that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. It’s well-established that the State Department often acts as a cover for the CIA, and the agency under Secretary Clinton had a strong anti-Russia faction that’s on the record as meddling in Ukraine’s presidential election. And how much doubt could there be that both Clintons kept the CIA connections they made while in office?

Then there was the whole “Grizzly Steppe” report just before Trump’s inauguration, presented as a consensus among “17 intelligence agencies” that the Russians “hacked the election” to help Trump win.

I’m not 100-percent convinced that U.S. intelligence was behind the dossier, but it’s enough of a possibility that I’m not writing it off as some nutty “conspiracy theory.”

integer , January 23, 2018 at 4:16 am

Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I’m wondering why it’s that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing.

FWIW this NC commenter has never had any problem believing that this may be the case. In fact I am fairly certain that it is the case, although from what I understand the FBI and MI6 were also involved.

Adding: Heh. I posted this before looking at Rev Kev’s link to the Raimondo article, which comes to the same conclusions. Interesting times!

Scott1 , January 22, 2018 at 4:37 pm

I believe that Seth Abramson or someone put photographs to the Steele dossier showing people in the places & at the times delineated in the Steele dossier.
From the very first Steele said he would not & could not reveal his sources. It was from the first indicated that it would be to the FBI & CIA to discover.
He said he believed that his sources were credible.
When I was studying Intelligence services the CIA was said to be the private army of the CIA. These days I don’t know exactly who the CIA works for, or answers to.
I certainly don’t think well of the CIA believing they are wrapped up working for their Front businesses more than focusing on the mission of spying in the interests of the American people.
Of private intelligence companies I get what I can from IHS Jane’s.
That the CIA lost 20 assets, human beings, in China for incompetent secret communications methods would lead professionals to withhold as much of identities as possible.
For awhile there I believe Steele was worried about his own health.
David Corn at Mother Jones was reticent to break the story.
So now what I see to look for is what Steele said needed to be done, & that being what Mueller is doing at the behest of the DOJ.
The US has been at war, albeit Hybrid war since the imposition of sanctions for their violations of international law as regarded the annexation of Crimea & the attack on the Ukraine.
Sanctions are Economic Warfare.
That the US feels the right to engage in warfare of any kind Economic or Hot over violations of International Law leads me to believe that the UN will fail to prevent the apocalyptic riot.
But that as regards Trump becomes neither here nor there, correct?

The Rev Kev , January 23, 2018 at 12:29 am

Justin Raimondo has weighed in on this story at https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/01/22/russsia-gate-implodes/ and he does not sound like a happy camper.

John Gilberts , January 24, 2018 at 12:25 am

William Binney, former NSA technical official and whistleblower, comments on the FISA memo, that has apparently just been released. Obviously, a major development in ‘Russia-gate’.

William Binney Exposes Secret FISA Memo
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48650.htm

[Sep 04, 2019] Jim Comey, Have the Grace to Shut Up!! by Larry C Johnson

Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

You think that a guy who has been repeatedly rebuked by the Department of Justice Inspector General for violating DOJ and FBI policies and procedures would have the grace to be silent. You would be wrong. Jim Comey has anointed himself as the Jesus Christ of America. Only Jim is wise and good. Only Jimmy can save us from that anti-Christ, Donald Trump.

And Comey's latest? Trump's a narcissist. Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein. Jim Comey tweeted out the following today (Sunday):

James Comey ‏ Verified account @ Comey 4h 4 hours ago

It's Sunday morning. A devastating hurricane is approaching. A gunman just slaughtered innocents in Texas. But the President of the United States is wasting time airing personal grievances and live-Tweeting Fox. Narcissism is not leadership. America deserves better. Could not agree more. Except the narcissist in Chief is not Trump. It is you, Jimmy Comey. It was not Donald Trump who overstepped his authority and read out a detailed list of charges against Hillary Clinton. It was not Donald Trump that sat on the news that Anthony "Little Dick" Weiner's laptop contained more classified Hillary emails. It was not Donald Trump who then belatedly announced the discovery of said emails.

Jimmy Comey has achieved new lows in smug sanctimony. His self-righteous bullshit has passed the point of tiresome. It is just annoying. I spoke with a retired FBI buddy today. He was one of the first ones detailed to CIA Headquarters in the late 1990s in an effort to improve inter-agency coordination (and that mission failed in large measure because of the behavior of another narcissist, the CIA Chief of Alec Station). He was beyond sad and embarrassed at the spectacle and conduct of Jim Comey. My friend told me that he used to happily introduce himself as a "retired FBI agent." No longer. He simply says that he worked for the Government and tries to avoid saying anything about having served with the FBI. The big hammer is still to drop and Comey is not likely to walk away a free man. He lied to a Federal Court. He needs to be held accountable.

Posted at 08:52 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink


Factotum , 03 September 2019 at 11:22 AM

Trey Gowdy also long warned us about the self-annointed Saint James Comey. I sense a trend among knowledgable pundits.
Rob Naardin , 04 September 2019 at 11:00 AM
I can't wait to see the dark forces of the deep state in bright orange prison jumpsuits.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kudos-andy-for-ball-of-collusion/

Diana C , 04 September 2019 at 11:40 AM
"Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein."

As usual, your analogy here is spot on. I'm still giggling.

My literary analogy would have been that Comey is the very inept Walter Mitty of today's America. He does imagine himself as the "voice crying in the wilderness."

It sounds, however like a braying donkey wanting some attention. He was one of the Democrats' "useful idiots." Too bad they didn't realize that they might actually get a certified idiot.

[Sep 04, 2019] Are General Flynn s Prosecutors Panicking by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... Last Friday, August 30th, Sidney Powell filed a brief with the District Court in the District of Columbia laying out in exquisite detail the misconduct of the Mueller prosecutors, who have withheld exculpatory evidence. The document is still behind a pay wall (Pacer). But let me share with you some of the salient points of this filing: ..."
"... Likewise, the prosecutors did not produce evidence of Weissmann's and Ahmad's relationship and work with Bruce Ohr on transmitting the corrupt information to the FBI, and the numerous 302s resulting from the interviews of Bruce Ohr by the second agent. ..."
"... This case, involving Adam Lovinger, is related to issues involving Mr. Flynn, as Mr. Lovinger was wrongly charged (and secretly cleared) after blowing the whistle on the fraudulent payments to FBI/CIA/DOD operative Stefan Halper -- a central figure in the government's targeting and intelligence abuses of the last several years -- including against Mr. Flynn. ..."
"... Got that? The Mueller prosecutors lied about what the investigation of Mr. Lovinger concluded. He did NOT, repeat NOT, "yield any classified or sensitive information. " But Mueller's team of hacks, disgraceful pieces of excrement, took out the word, "NOT". ..."
"... How in the hell does Goldman know what is in those "transcripts"? He was told. ..."
"... But there is a broader, more important point--Michael Flynn's conversation with the Russian Ambassador was not illegal. It was not improper. He could discuss whatever he wanted to discuss as the incoming National Security Advisor for Donald Trump. This was a false claim by the Mueller Prosecutors. ..."
"... If the Mueller team, what is left of it, was confident of their position, they would not have leaked this story to the New York Times hack, Goldman. This is a sign of desperation and panic. ..."
"... Knowing what we know about Judge Sullivan, who is in charge of the Michael Flynn case, he is likely to be furious by this bald lying by Mueller's hacks. ..."
"... On another front of the Russiagate affair, per a Monsieur America Twitter thread, Loretta Lynch in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee has absolved herself of any involvement in the FISA warrant on Carter Page. https://twitter.com/MonsieurAmerica/status/1168885394269564928 ..."
"... Now the rats are throwing their subordinates under the sinking ship. Good to know the grandma AG had time to meet Hillary's husband on the tarmac but no time to be briefed about "foreign interference" in our election. I can't wait to hear Obama's excuse. ..."
"... Flynn may have been set up and lied to right and left, BUT... how did he get three stars? He comes across in this as a victim and a dummy. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The short answer to the title of this article--YES!!

Michael Flynn's new lawyer, Sidney Powell, is a honey badger. If you do not know anything about honey badgers I encourage you to watch the documentary, Honey Badgers, Master's of Mayhem . They tear the testicles off of lions. And it sure looks like Ms. Powell is emasculating prosecutor Andrew Weisman.

Last Friday, August 30th, Sidney Powell filed a brief with the District Court in the District of Columbia laying out in exquisite detail the misconduct of the Mueller prosecutors, who have withheld exculpatory evidence. The document is still behind a pay wall (Pacer). But let me share with you some of the salient points of this filing:

The government's most stunning suppression of evidence is perhaps the text messages of Peter Srzok and Lisa Page. In July of 2017, (now over two years ago), the Inspector General of the Department of Justice advised Special Counsel of the extreme bias in the now infamous text messages of these two FBI employees. Mr. Van Grack did not produce a single text messages to the defense until March 13, 2018, when he gave them a link to then-publicly available messages.14

Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Ahmad, among other things, did not disclose that FBI Agent Strzok had been fired from the Special Counsel team as its lead agent almost six months earlier because of his relationship with Deputy Director McCabe's Counsel -- who had also been on the Special Counsel team -- and because of their text messages and conduct. One would think that more than a significant subset of those messages had to have been shared by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice with Special Counsel to warrant such a high-level and immediate personnel change.

Indeed, Ms. Page left the Department of Justice because of her conduct, and Agent Strzok was terminated from the FBI because of it.

Likewise, the prosecutors did not produce evidence of Weissmann's and Ahmad's relationship and work with Bruce Ohr on transmitting the corrupt information to the FBI, and the numerous 302s resulting from the interviews of Bruce Ohr by the second agent.

The Government's misconduct was not limited to General Flynn. Ms. Powell describes in detail how the Government lied in another case related to General Flynn:

In yet another recent demonstration of egregious government misconduct, the government completely changed the meaning of exculpatory information in a declassified version of a report -- by omitting the word "not." This case, involving Adam Lovinger, is related to issues involving Mr. Flynn, as Mr. Lovinger was wrongly charged (and secretly cleared) after blowing the whistle on the fraudulent payments to FBI/CIA/DOD operative Stefan Halper -- a central figure in the government's targeting and intelligence abuses of the last several years -- including against Mr. Flynn.

Mr. Lovinger had been an analyst at the Pentagon for more than ten years when he was detailed to the White House at then-National Security Advisor Flynn's request. Mr. Lovinger voiced concerns internally regarding the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment for prioritizing academic reports (one of which was written by Stefan Halper) at the expense of real threat assessments. He was recalled to the Pentagon, accused of mishandling sensitive information, stripped of his security clearance, and suspended. As it turned out, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted a thorough examination of his electronic devices, but "[a]gents found no evidence he leaked to the press, as charged, or that he was a counterintelligence risk.

Even though the investigation exonerated Mr. Lovinger of these charges a full month before Mr. Lovinger's hearing, the government did not reveal to Mr. Lovinger's attorneys that this investigation occurred.17 Even worse, the declassified version of the NCIS left out a crucial "not". It read that the investigation "did yield any classified or sensitive information,"18 when the truth was the investigation "did not yield any classified or sensitive information."19 The declassified version omitted the word "not."

Got that? The Mueller prosecutors lied about what the investigation of Mr. Lovinger concluded. He did NOT, repeat NOT, "yield any classified or sensitive information. " But Mueller's team of hacks, disgraceful pieces of excrement, took out the word, "NOT".

Now here is where it gets interesting. Sidney Powell filed her document on Friday night (30 August). She also submitted a sealed portion detailing how the Mueller team has lied about the evidence. I have seen one of the affidavits she filed. I will not say who or what it contained other than to expose specific details how Michael Flynn's Fourth Amendment rights were violated. But the prosecutors ran immediately to Adam Goldman of the New York Times as leaked this sealed information.

Adam wrote an article the same day and "reported" the following:

Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, the president's first national security adviser, escalated their attacks on prosecutors on Friday, recycling unfounded conspiratorial accusations in a last-ditch bid to delay his sentencing in a case in which he has twice admitted guilt.

The move could anger Emmet G. Sullivan, the federal judge who will sentence Mr. Flynn. The filings could magnify any doubts by Judge Sullivan about whether Mr. Flynn truly accepts responsibility for his crime of lying to the F.B.I. and whether he fulfilled his cooperation agreement with the government in one of the lingering cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

In a pair of filings, Mr. Flynn's lawyers made clear that they view him as a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, amplifying right-wing theories about a so-called deep state of government bureaucrats working to undermine President Trump. The defense lawyers accused prosecutors of engaging in "pernicious" conduct in Mr. Flynn's case, saying they had been "manipulating or controlling the press to their advantage to extort that plea."

Yet, when you read the full filing by Ms. Powell, not a single "unfounded conspiratorial accusation" is discussed. The prosecutors gave that protected information to Goldman.

Worse, the prosecutors gave Goldman information from the NSA intercepts of Michael Flynn's conversation with the Russian Ambassador. So far, the Mueller team of miscreants have refused to turn over this material to Michael Flynn's lawyer. But they shared it with Goldman, who wrote:

"We must have access to that information to represent our client consistently with his constitutional rights and our ethical obligations," Mr. Flynn's lawyers wrote.

The classified transcripts of the calls make clear that the two men discussed sanctions at length and that Mr. Flynn was highly unlikely to have forgotten those details when questioned by the F.B.I., several former United States officials familiar with the documents have said. It was clear, the officials said, that sanctions were the only thing Mr. Flynn wanted to talk about with Mr. Kislyak.

Mr. Flynn's lawyers also suggested in the filing that the government had exculpatory material, but it is not clear if they consider the transcripts to be that material. Some conservatives have embraced a theory that Mr. Flynn's nonchalance in the F.B.I. interview, which agents documented because it seemed at odds with how blatantly he was lying, was exonerating.

How in the hell does Goldman know what is in those "transcripts"? He was told.

But there is a broader, more important point--Michael Flynn's conversation with the Russian Ambassador was not illegal. It was not improper. He could discuss whatever he wanted to discuss as the incoming National Security Advisor for Donald Trump. This was a false claim by the Mueller Prosecutors.

If the Mueller team, what is left of it, was confident of their position, they would not have leaked this story to the New York Times hack, Goldman. This is a sign of desperation and panic.

Knowing what we know about Judge Sullivan, who is in charge of the Michael Flynn case, he is likely to be furious by this bald lying by Mueller's hacks.

Should be an interesting week ahead. Sidney Powell will probably be feasting on a heaping plate of prosecutor balls. Like the Honey Badger, she is ripping them a new one.

Posted at 10:27 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink


Factotum , 03 September 2019 at 11:24 AM

Year of the Woman finally finds the right woman. I'm with her.
Jack , 03 September 2019 at 12:05 PM
What were Flynn's previous attorneys doing? They got him to cop the plea deal.
Larry Johnson -> Jack... , 03 September 2019 at 12:34 PM
They were incompetents. They should be sued for malpractice and disbarred. They helped serve up General Flynn and he trusted them. That's now water under the bridge. Sidney Powell is a force to be reckoned with.
Don Schmeling said in reply to Jack... , 03 September 2019 at 06:40 PM
They might have been too scared of what Mueller would do to them if they put up a good case for Flynn.

I think the same thing happened to George Popadopoulos who had his lawyers roll over and play dead before Mueller.
You need to find Lawyers who are not afraid of the system, or are in bed with the system.

Factotum said in reply to Don Schmeling... , 03 September 2019 at 09:22 PM
The "confession" they got Papadopolus to sign made no sense and almost looked like it had been altered after Papadopolus had already signed his name. There were a series of very disjointed and irrelevant statements of facts, to which Papadopolus agreed they were factual.

Then pow at the very end was basically a confession he had violated the Logan Act.

None of the prior statements supported this conclusion, but as the cherry on top of his "confession" was the claim he engaged in policy level discussions with the very highest Russian higher ups while Obama was still President. (Was he ever in this role - hard to remember?).

That always struck me as a very weird "confession - but there is was with Papadolopus's signature on it, and accepted by the deep state investigating authorities.

This "confession" deserves a re-read in light of what we are learning now about the set-up and ambush mentality of the deep state "investigators.

jd hawkins said in reply to Factotum... , 04 September 2019 at 04:15 AM
I'm in your 'Amen' corner on this.
ex PFC Chuck , 03 September 2019 at 05:38 PM
On another front of the Russiagate affair, per a Monsieur America Twitter thread, Loretta Lynch in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee has absolved herself of any involvement in the FISA warrant on Carter Page. https://twitter.com/MonsieurAmerica/status/1168885394269564928
Fred -> ex PFC Chuck ... , 03 September 2019 at 06:54 PM
Now the rats are throwing their subordinates under the sinking ship. Good to know the grandma AG had time to meet Hillary's husband on the tarmac but no time to be briefed about "foreign interference" in our election. I can't wait to hear Obama's excuse.
Ghost Ship , 03 September 2019 at 07:30 PM
did yield any classified or sensitive information
Logically just doesn't make sense - it's almost as if the person editing the NCIS report decided he didn't like doing what he asked to do and produced a piece of text that only really made sense with a "not" in it. Either that, or he was actually an idiot.
JamesT -> Ghost Ship... , 04 September 2019 at 12:35 AM
Or the mangled language was used to let them claim it was accidental ... "gosh, we just made an honest mistake".
MP98 , 04 September 2019 at 12:01 AM
Flynn may have been set up and lied to right and left, BUT... how did he get three stars? He comes across in this as a victim and a dummy.

He should have known that the FBI NEVER interviews people honestly. The agents told him that he didn't need a lawyer so he didn't call one. That's just massive stupid.

Cops I know have told me to NEVER talk to police without a lawyer present. How come the former head of the DIA didn't know that?

[Sep 04, 2019] What We Still Do Not Know About Russiagate by Stephen F. Cohen's

Notable quotes:
"... It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation. ..."
"... Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? ..."
"... Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. ..."
"... Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why. ..."
"... Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? ..."
"... the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits. ..."
"... First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) ..."
"... At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy. ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.thenation.com

It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation.

Even leaving aside the misperception that Russia is the primary threat to America in world affairs, no aspect of this allegation has turned out to be true, as should have been evident from the outset. Major aspects of the now infamous Steele Dossier, on which much of the allegation was based, were themselves not merely "unverified" but plainly implausible.

Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? Nonetheless, the American mainstream media and other important elements of the US political establishment relied on Steele's allegations for nearly three years, even heroizing him -- and some still do, explicitly or implicitly.

Not surprisingly, former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. No credible evidence has been produced that Russia's "interference" affected the result of the 2016 presidential election in any significant way. Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996.

Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why.

Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This too is not believable, as I pointed out previously . Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being another.)

But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive, advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.

So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not. Barr has already leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits.

The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate, as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.

Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate? And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama's presidency and its would-be heirs?

Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly -- and with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue intelligence agencies -- will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?

It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable, and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.

There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.)

At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .

[Aug 31, 2019] No sympathy for McCabe or the other law breaking FBI apparatchiks. Looks like Lady Justice is a pervert

Aug 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

play_arrow Reply Report


Pro_sanity , 24 minutes ago link

Cogent people know they'll be no justice for McCabe. While I'm at, has anybody heard anything further on Epstein aftermath? Haven't heard a peep myself. Comey? Oh yeah, he's cleared. Brennan, Clapper, Strozk? Hmm. Let's go down the food chain a little, anybody follow up on the college admission scandal? News was that people were going to get fucked bad on that. Dead calm now. What's up with Lori Loughlin? Anything come of that? Hmm ...

Well one thing's for sure, if I jaywalk, I'm fucked.

newworldorder , 27 minutes ago link

No sympathy for McCabe or the other law breaking FBI apparatchiks.

They knew their jobs, they were highly educated and knew the complexity of US criminal laws. They should rot in jail, doing the maximum penalties under US laws. Bread and water is all he deserves.

THEY and thousands like them throughout history have put the average citizen of their countries through hell and in many cases war and human destruction.

Bounder , 1 hour ago link

This whole issue of the FBI and AG using the phrase "they didn't intend to cause harm, or there was no intent to break the law" Is the most atrocious thing I have ever heard - until Hillary that was NEVER used to let someone go - Now they use the same phrase with Comey - He didn't "intend" to violate protocol. What a load of crap.

Try that defense the next time your pulled over "officer I didn't intend to speed" Im sure it will work.

The charge of Manslaughter is when some unintentionally kills some one - I guess this is no longer a crime now?

The very fact that the elites can be judged and let loose because of their "intent", and the rest of us are jailed and fined regardless of our intent, pretty much tells you all you need to know. And the fact that the MSM openly glorify's in this disparity of treatment makes it that much worse.

DirtySanchez , 1 hour ago link

The fbi comes for some political foes in the middle of the night, dressed in SWAT gear, armed with automatic weapons, kicking down doors, alerting fake news to set up cameras for impending raid, and takes 70+ year old non violent offenders into custody with handcuffs.

Other times, the fbi decides that any reasonable prosecutor would never take a particular case.....

But one never ever sees the fbi investigate and arrest one of their own.

The complicit and dirty cousin, the doj, is equally corrupt, criminal in nature, and should no longer be seen as credible.

The judiciary is a collection of corrupt, compromised, politicized, and untrustworthy tyrants.

Equal Justice Under Law is a great line, a nice story, so to speak.

Lady Justice is weeping at what the fbi, doj, and the entirety of the jewdiciary did to her reputation.

FUBAR

Harry Lightning , 45 minutes ago link

"Jewdiciary"

hahahahaha...whether its true or not, its still a good laugh !

ComeAndTakeIt , 2 hours ago link

I don't pretend to be a McCabe fan. Nevertheless, I have sympathy for him. The 2016 election will define his career, but it does not fairly reflect his long years of service defending the rule of law and American national security.

Is that some kind of joke?

You think this guy was on the straight and narrow his whole career, and then in 2016 all of the sudden for some strange reason does a complete 180 and participates in a presidential coup, and a whole bunch of other extremely dirty stuff?

Harry Lightning , 1 hour ago link

You're exactly right. No reason to believe that this was a patriot who made an error. No way. This is the pinnacle of a corrupt career characterized by a desire for advancement and power regardless of what he had to do. Even entrapping people he knew to be innocent in false testimony traps just to increase his arrest record.

Zebras don't change their stripes and neither did this pig. He tried to implement a coup against the rightfully elected President of the United States, there is no question about what he did, its on the pages of the text transcripts written by the two whores, Stzrock and Page.

This sunuvabitch needs to be punished, or everyone sitting in a Federal prison now for fraud or forgery needs to be released, and the charges against anyone accused of making false statements to the FBI have to be dropped. Your move Mr. Attorney General, a whole nation and world is watching. Is the American government ready to prosecute one of its own, or will they allow the hypocrisy of two sets of laws - one for the insiders and the other for the rest of us - to continue corrupting the alleged "nation of laws" ?

Anunnaki , 2 hours ago link

I think many on Zerohedge need an intervention. No indictment for Comey on leaking is also going to mean no indictment on FISA. Many of you keep backing up and surrendering ground expecting justice "next time".

Comey is a Brahmin, he won't be indicted. None of them will be: Obama, The Clinton's, Rice, Jarrett, Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr

they murdered or evacuated Epstein in plain daylight. They have all the power. Trump knows this too. All he can do is bitch Tweet.

it's not ever going to happen. These people are all friends with each other. You don't send your friends to jail

Dont live in denial like the Dems and Russia. There is no Q

ConanTheContrarian1 , 2 hours ago link

Good analysis, EXCEPT for referring to "his long years of service defending the rule of law and American national security". Let's not be naive. If he did what he did, it was because of longstanding habit of doing whatever dirty tricks were requested by his controllers, and his service was a fraud the whole time. He was a Deep State operative who worked in the FBI.

[Aug 31, 2019] What Is Justice For McCabe

Aug 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Andrew McCarthy via NationalReview.com,

The former deputy director's FBI coddled Clinton and addled Trump. Now he seeks clemency... even as he sues the Justice Department...

Hillary Clinton checked every box for a violation of the Espionage Act. So much so that, in giving her a pass, the FBI figured it better couch her conduct as "extremely careless," rather than "grossly negligent." The latter description was stricken from an earlier draft of then-director James Comey's remarks because it is, verbatim, the mental state the statute requires for a felony conviction. It wouldn't do to have an "exoneration" statement read like a felony indictment.

In point of fact, the careless/negligent semantic game was a sideshow. Mrs. Clinton's unlawful storage and transmission of classified information had been patently willful. In contemptuous violation of government standards, which she was bound not only to honor but to enforce as secretary of state, she systematically conducted her government business by private email, via a laughably unsecure homebrew server set-up. Her Obama administration allies stress that it was not her purpose to harm national security, but that was beside the point. The crime was mishandling classified information, and she committed it. And even if motive had mattered (it didn't), her purpose was to conceal the interplay between her State Department and the Clinton Foundation, and to avoid generating a paper trail as she prepared to run for president. No, that's not as bad as trying to do national-security harm, but it's condemnable all the same.

While Clinton's mishandling of classified information got all the attention, it was just the tip of the felony iceberg. Thousands of the 33,000 emails she withheld and undertook to "bleach bit" into oblivion related to State Department business. It is a felony to misappropriate even a single government record. The destruction of the emails, moreover, occurred after a House Committee investigating the Benghazi massacre issued subpoenas and preservation directives to Clinton's State Department and Clinton herself. If Andrew Weissmann and the rest of the Mueller probe pit-bulls had half as solid an obstruction case against Donald Trump, the president would by now have been impeached, removed, and indicted.

And that dichotomy is the point, isn't it?

In the Obama Justice Department -- as extended by the Mueller investigation, staffed by Obama Justice Department officials and other Clinton-friendly Democrats -- justice was dispensed with a partisan eye. If you were Hillary Clinton, you skated. If you were Donald Trump, they were determined to dig until they found something -- and, even when they failed to make a case, the digging never stopped . . . it just shifted to Capitol Hill.

No one knows the skewed lay of the land better than Andrew McCabe.

The FBI's former deputy director is in the Justice Department's crosshairs. His lawyers are reportedly pleading with top officials not to indict him for lying to FBI agents who were probing a leak of investigative information, orchestrated by none other than McCabe.

McCabe is feeling the heat because the evidence that he made false statements is daunting. So daunting, in fact, that even he concedes he did not tell the truth to investigators. Listen carefully to what he says about the case -- there being no shortage of public commentary on it from the newly minted CNN analyst. He never "deliberately misled anyone," he insists. Sure, he grudgingly admits, some of his statements "were not fully accurate," or perhaps were "misunderstood" by his interrogators. But "at worst," you see, "I was not clear in my responses, and because of what was going on around me may well have been confused and distracted."

Uh-huh.

Seems to me that General Michael Flynn "may well have been confused and distracted," too. After all, it was on Flynn's insanely busy first full day on the job as the new president's national-security adviser that McCabe and Comey dispatched two agents -- Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka -- to brace him for an interview.

As our Rich Lowry recounts, Comey later bragged to an audience of like-minded anti-Trumpers at the 92nd Street Y that he knew this was a breach of protocol. Because seeking to interview a member of the president's staff in a criminal investigation is a big deal, the Bureau is supposed to go through the attorney general, who alerts the White House counsel. That ensures that the administration is aware of the situation, and that the suspected staffer is advised of the reason for the interview and given an opportunity to consult with a lawyer.

Of course, if protocol had been followed, McCabe would not have been able to have Flynn grilled without preparation and without counsel. That put Flynn in a very different posture from Hillary Clinton.

She got every courtesy. The FBI not only scheduled her interview well in advance; before she showed up, before they asked her a single question, they had already finished drafting Comey's statement exonerating her. Not just that. Clinton was permitted to bring along -- among her phalanx of lawyers -- her State Department aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, key witnesses who had gotten immunity from prosecution. (In a real investigation, they'd have been considered subjects, not witnesses.) Allowing witnesses to sit in as lawyers was not just a violation of Justice Department practice (to say nothing of common sense). Federal criminal law prohibits former officials from lobbying the government on behalf of another person in a matter in which the former official was heavily involved while working for the government.

Recall that when he decided against an indictment of Clinton, Comey famously pronounced that "no reasonable prosecutor" would charge her. Even though Clinton's conduct technically transgressed the law, the then-director rationalized that he could find no prior Espionage Act prosecution for gross negligence on facts analogous to Clinton's case.

Where exactly would we expect find analogous facts? Not much precedent about secretaries of state sedulously setting up non-government communications systems for years of correspondence involving thousands of classified communications. But let's put this historical anomaly aside. Let's even ignore that military officials have been prosecuted for less-egregious classified-information violations. Here's the point: In giving Clinton a pass, Comey explained that "responsible" prosecutorial decisions "consider the context of a person's actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past."

Okay . . . then how is it that General Flynn gets investigated and charged?

Flynn, as a member of Trump's transition team and incoming national-security adviser, had been consulting with the Russian ambassador, among other foreign counterparts. Context? There was nothing illegal or illegitimate about such communications. And even if it had been appropriate for the FBI and the Justice Department to inquire into the foreign policy of the incoming president elected by the American people, the Bureau did not need to interview Flynn. They had recordings of the conversations. What reason could there have been to question Flynn about them -- without playing the recordings for him -- except to lay the groundwork for a false-statements prosecution?

Moreover, how have similar situations been handled in the past? In investigating Flynn, the Obama Justice Department and the FBI theorized that he might have violated the Logan Act, a dubious law that purports to criminalize foreign policy freelancing by private citizens. Despite being on the books for over two centuries, the Logan Act has never resulted in a successful prosecution. Not once. In fact, it has not even been used to indict anyone in the last 170 years. Indeed, but for its desuetude, the Logan Act would certainly have been held unconstitutional; because the Justice Department never invokes it, no one has had the opportunity to challenge it. Yet, the Logan Act was used to justify investigating Flynn -- a transition official whose very job entailed consultation with foreign officials.

As we noted a few days ago , the FBI and Mueller's investigators prosecuted George Papadopoulos for lying about the date of a meeting. Though the lie was inconsequential to the probe, they made the then-28-year-old eat a felony charge. And while they could easily have had his lawyer surrender him for processing on the charge and quick release on bail, they instead choreographed an utterly unnecessary nighttime arrest that forced him to spend a night in jail.

Suffice it to say that Paul Combetta did not get the Papadopoulos brass-knuckles treatment.

Combetta was not prosecuted even though he brazenly lied to the FBI about the circumstances of his destruction of Clinton's private emails. He was the key witness who had been in communication with Clinton confederates before and after his bleach-bit blitz through Clinton's emails. In a normal case, prosecutors would charge him with obstruction and false statements to pressure him into cooperating. In the Clinton caper, though, he was given immunity . . . and duly clammed up.

No false-statements charges against Combetta. No false-statements charges against Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, intimate Clinton aides who claimed not to know about Clinton's private server while they worked for her at the State Department -- even though emails show them involved in discussions about the server.

In the Clinton investigation, if you were a lawyer, such as Mills and Samuelson, the Obama Justice Department said "pretty please" and gave you immunity -- rather than a subpoena -- to induce you to surrender private laptop computers containing classified Clinton emails. And then the Justice Department, in consultation with the Clinton camp's lawyers, imposed restrictions on what the FBI could look at and what its agents could ask. After all, we wouldn't want to imperil the attorney-client privilege, right?

Well, at least as long as you were not a lawyer in the Trump-Russia investigation. If you were, as was Melissa Laurenza, an attorney who worked for Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, prosecutors and the FBI compelled you to testify about client communications. If you were Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the FBI executed search warrants at your home and office, and you were prosecuted. So was Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney who worked with Manafort and Gates in representing Ukrainian interests. He was induced to plead guilty to a false-statements charge in the Mueller probe.

And needless to say, if you were Manafort, there was no act-of-production immunity for you. And no one asked "pretty please" for you to turn over evidence. Under the Mueller team's direction, the FBI got search warrants allowing them to break into Manafort's home before dawn and at gunpoint to seize documents. Of course, this seems like kid-gloves treatment compared to what was done to Manafort's friend and fellow Trump adviser, Roger Stone. The S.W.A.T.-style raid on Stone's home included helicopter surveillance, an amphibious team (apparently to guard against escape by sea), and so many FBI vehicles that the CNN crew that just happened to be on scene almost couldn't find a parking space! Was that show of force really necessary for a 66-year-old man charged with nonviolent process crimes whom the court released on bail a few hours later?

Mueller spent nearly two years trying to make an obstruction case against Trump for endeavoring to influence the Russia investigation. Congressional Democrats are still trying to breathe impeachment life into this effort. By contrast, the media-Democrat complex was unperturbed when Obama publicly announced in April 2016 that he did not think Clinton should be indicted. Far from accusing the 44th president of endeavoring to influence an investigation, the prosecutors and the press amplified Obama's narrative that Clinton had not intended to harm the country -- and dutifully looked the other way when the FBI airbrushed Obama's name out of Comey's Clinton exoneration speech (the president having knowingly communicated with Clinton through her unsecure server when she emailed him from a hostile foreign country).

The goal was to make Clinton's crimes disappear, while suspicions about Trump were was blazoned on the public consciousness. Even though the Trump-Russia probe was a counterintelligence investigation, then-director Comey went public about it in March 2017 congressional testimony.

That was stunning. It is not enough to say that the Justice Department and the FBI customarily neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation, no matter how comparatively trivial. Counterintelligence investigations are classified. They are never spoken of. Yet, Comey both revealed the investigation and identified the Trump campaign as a subject, suspected of "coordinating" in Russia's cyberespionage. For good measure, he gratuitously added that an assessment would be made about whether crimes had been committed. As any sensible person would have foreseen, the FBI director's proclamation was taken by the media and the public as a signal that President Trump was the prime suspect in one of the most heinous crimes in American history.

To say the least, a different tune was sung in the Clinton emails probe. There, Comey acceded to the instructions of Obama's attorney general, Loretta Lynch, that he not publicly speak of it as an investigation. Just call it "a matter," he was told. Funny thing about that: it sounded exactly like what the Clinton campaign was saying at the time.

I don't pretend to be a McCabe fan. Nevertheless, I have sympathy for him. The 2016 election will define his career, but it does not fairly reflect his long years of service defending the rule of law and American national security. If we could consider his case in a vacuum, and I had my druthers, I would not want to charge him. He was fired for cause in disgrace and is slated to lose at least some of his pension. These are significant penalties. I'd like to be able to say, "Enough is enough, no need to pile on with an indictment."

But there's more to it than that. A lot more.

For one thing, McCabe is suing the government for wrongful termination, arguing that he was fired due to a political vendetta carried on by President Trump. I certainly agree that the president should not have commented on McCabe's case or status. As I've repeatedly argued, the president's often-unhinged commentary makes investigations and prosecutions much more difficult to execute. It has already resulted in slap-on-the-wrist treatment for deserter Bowe Bergdahl, who should have received a stiff sentence.

That said, though, it is an audacious strategy on McCabe's part to (a) ask the Justice Department to exercise clemency by declining to charge an eminently prosecutable false-statements case against him, while (b) simultaneously hauling the Justice Department into court on an accusation of bad faith in a case in which McCabe leaked and then provided explanations that weren't true. If I were the attorney general, my inclination would be to say, "If he's going to make us go to war, let's go to war on offense -- indict him."

More significantly, we are now living in a law-enforcement world of McCabe's making.

Again, in a better world, I'd prefer to take account of the considerable positive side of McCabe's ledger and what he's already suffered, especially if he exhibited some contrition. That is, I'd ordinarily be open to declining prosecution. But then, how about the positive side of General Flynn's ledger? And why, if it would be overkill to charge McCabe was it not overkill to charge Papadopoulos? Why do Clinton, Mills, Abedin, and Combetta get a pass in a criminal investigation triggered by actual crimes, but Flynn, Papadopoulos, van der Zwaan, and Stone get hammered in an investigation predicated by no crime -- just a fever dream of Trump-Russia cyberespionage conspiracy?

FBI and Justice Department officials keep telling us they grasp that there must be one standard of justice applicable to everyone, not a two-tiered system. So, here's the question: If Andrew McCabe's name were Michael Flynn, how much mercy could he expect from, say, Andrew Weissmann?

[Aug 29, 2019] Comey Is A Proven Liar And Leaker White House Slams Former FBI Director After IG Report Zero Hedge

Aug 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Update (1455ET) : The White House has issued an extremely strong statement on the Inspector General's report:

Statement from the Press Secretory

James Comey is a proven liar and leaker. The Inspector General's report shows Comey violated the most basic obligations of confidentiality that he owed to the United States Government and to the American people, "in order to achieve a personally desired outcome."

Because Comey shamefully leaked information to the press - in blatant violation of FBI policies - the Nation was forced to endure the baseless politically-motivated, two-year witch hunt.

Comey disgraced himself and his office to further a personal political agenda, and this report further confirms that fact.

* * *

Update (1405ET) : President Trump has taken a momentary break from helping Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis batten down the hatches ahead of Hurricane Dorian's weekend landfall - and from doing everything he can to pump the market - by taking a shot at disgraced former FBI director James Comey following the Thursday publication of the DoJ's IG report, which confirmed that Comey violated both DoJ policy and the law, by leaking the contents of his memos to the press.

"Perhaps never in the history of our Country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and excoriated than James Comey in the just-released Inspector General's Report," Trump tweeted. "He should be ashamed of himself!"

me title=

Of course, as we mentioned below, Comey doesn't see it that way. But maybe, someday, he'll at least acknowledge that he acted rashly - and put his subordinates in a very awkward position - by deciding to leak the memos as an unabashed strategy to try and undermine the newly inaugurated president of the country he claims to love so dearly.

* * *

In a long-awaited report released Thursday morning, the DOJ's inspector general revealed that former FBI Director James Comey's handling of the memos he took from meetings with President Trump before he was unceremoniously fired in early 2017 violated department policy and the law when he shared them with a longtime confidant, who then leaked their contents to the press.

"We conclude that Comey's retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement," the Justice Department inspector general report states.

Fox News Host Sean Hannity warned that Comey should be worried about facing the repercussions for his decision to leak the contents of the memos.

"Without a doubt... [Comey] should be sweating a lot tonight about what might be in those reports. This report is expected to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Jim Comey."

The IG's office had referred Comey for potential prosecution earlier this summer based on his handling of the memos, CNN reported. But the DoJ declined to bring a case, in part because prosecutors didn't believe there was evidence to show Comey knew and intended to violate laws pertaining to the handling of classified information.

Still, as Hannity said, things are "not looking good...for Mr. Super Patriot , a guy that knows better than us...we are told that the report will strongly rebuke the disgraced former FBI director, document his utter lack of candor. That means lying, " Hannity said.

As an earlier media report reminded us, the Comey report is separate from a larger report about how the DoJ handled the Russia investigation, though it's still not clear why the separate report is needed.

Comey infamously took created the memos after meetings with President Trump where Trump purportedly asked him to go easy on former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Comey then leaked the contents of these memos to a friend through a trusted confidant, helping to spur the launch of the Russia probe.

In a series of tweets replying to the report, Comey tried to spin the report's findings, highlighting a section of the report that was favorable to his narrative.

Here are some highlights from the report, starting with the conclusion:

Congress has provided the FBI with substantial powers and authorities to gather evidence as part of the FBI's criminal and counterintelligence mission. The FBI uses these authorities every day in its many investigations into allegations of drug trafficking, terrorism, fraud, organized crime, public corruption, espionage, and a host of other threats to national security and public safety. In the process, the FBI lawfully gains access to a significant amount of sensitive information about individuals, many of whom have not been charged, may never be charged, or may not even be a subject of the investigation. For this reason, the civil liberties of every individual who may fall within the scope of the FBI's investigative authorities depend on the FBI's ability to protect sensitive information from unauthorized disclosure.

As Comey himself explained in his March 20, 2017 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he was unable to provide details about the nature or scope of the FBI's ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election because the FBI is very careful in how we handle information about our cases and about the people we are investigating . Our ability to share details with the Congress and the American people is limited when those investigations are still open, which I hope makes sense. We need to protect people's privacy . We just cannot do our work well or fairly if we start talking about it while we're doing it.

However, after his removal as FBI Director two months later, Comey provided a copy of Memo 4, which Comey had kept without authorization, to Richman with instructions to share the contents with a reporter for The New York Times. Memo 4 included information that was related to both the FBI's ongoing investigation of Flynn and, by Comey's own account, information that he believed and alleged constituted evidence of an attempt to obstruct the ongoing Flynn investigation; later that same day, The New York Times published an article about Memo 4 entitled, "Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation."

The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties. On occasion, some of these employees may disagree with decisions by prosecutors, judges, or higher ranking FBI and Department officials about the actions to take or not take in criminal and counterintelligence matters. They may even, in some situations, distrust the legitimacy of those supervisory, prosecutorial, or judicial decisions. But even when these employees believe that their most strongly-held personal convictions might be served by an unauthorized disclosure, the FBI depends on them not to disclose sensitive information.

Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees -- and the many thousands more former FBI employees -- who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information. Comey said he was compelled to take these actions "if I love this country and I love the Department of Justice, and I love the FBI." However, were current or former FBI employees to follow the former Director's example and disclose sensitive information in service of their own strongly held personal convictions, the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly, as Comey himself noted in his March 20, 2017 congressional testimony. Comey expressed a similar concern to President Trump, according to Memo 4, in discussing leaks of FBI information, telling Trump that the FBI's ability to conduct its work is compromised "if people run around telling the press what we do." This is no doubt part of the reason why Comey's closest advisors used the words "surprised," "stunned," "shocked," and "disappointment" to describe their reactions to learning what Comey had done.

We have previously faulted Comey for acting unilaterally and inconsistent with Department policy.103 Comey's unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement information about the Flynn investigation merits similar criticism. In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when confronted by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions. Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.

* * *

If he wanted to force the appointment of a special counsel, the report found that Comey had other lawful options besides leaking to the press, yet, he chose to ignore them.

Comey's unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement information about the Flynn investigation merits similar criticism. In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when confronted by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions. Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome. The OIG has provided this report to the FBI and to the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility for action they deem appropriate.

Even members of Comey's leadership team were "shocked" by the then-director's actions.

IG: Members of Comey's senior leadership team used the adjectives "surprised," "stunned," "shocked," and "disappointment" to describe their reactions to learning that Comey acted on his own to provide the contents of Memo 4, through Richman, to a reporter

As Ryan Saavedra pointed out, the IG found that Comey set a "dangerous example" for the tens of thousands of FBI employees working under him...

...And the "bottom line", as one reporter put it:

Even CNN conceded that the report was "damning" for Comey.

Several Twitter wits sifted through the reports findings pertaining to Comey memos 1 through 7.

Read the full report released on Thursday morning bellow.

o1902 by Zerohedge on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/423675889/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-uDafDhGIwmWhJXW0r6gm&show_recommendations=true


Questan1913 , 10 minutes ago link

Toothless Trump. Pity him. THEY let him play deal maker.......and nothing more. From a citizens point of view this is a lawless, unconstitutional, rogue government. The assassination of Epstein by this criminal government while incarcerated in the most hi-tech federal prison in NYC which incidentally is ATTACHED to the New York office of the Justice Department speaks for itself.

Lord Raglan , 3 minutes ago link

and the video cameras being "under repair"............what a crock............that's a nice touch........

Aubiekong , 13 minutes ago link

Comey was directed by president Obama to obstruct justice and destroy evidence all to protect Hillary Clinton.

hooligan2009 , 10 minutes ago link

bingo! so was brennan, yates, lynch, rice, mills, samuelson etc etc

navy62802 , 15 minutes ago link

Without an indictment, this is all meaningless. Nothing more than sound and fury.

Indelible Scars , 36 minutes ago link

If this doesn't tell you that our intelligence services are politically biased from the top down, nothing will. It is disgusting that a person like him and frankly, most FBI/CIA tops, can make it into such a dangerous and powerful positions.

Lord Raglan , 36 minutes ago link

Comey and McCabe have such big balls and feel so protected by the Deep State that I wouldn't be surprised if they both run for President on the Dem ticket when a few more of them get washed out.

Lord Raglan , 5 minutes ago link

Oligarchs = Deep State ..............semantics...............

lakecity55 , 37 minutes ago link

I'll bet this ********** is never prosecuted; in fact, the (((people))) he works for will likely enrich him with even more cash. He will live out his life untouched with every convenience money can buy in a huge home within a wealthy enclave.

The US is finished. People like Cummie helped kill the United States. I hope this ******* **** is happy with his money.

Real Estate Guru , 55 minutes ago link
Giant Meteor , 55 minutes ago link

Look you mugs, no prosecution of high level players post " global financial crisis" ever occurred. As the official story went, sure, there was some perhaps bad, tsk, tsk, judgement by high level players, and corrupt revolving door " government enforcers", but no crimes were ever committed, the verdict.

Except some very smart folks, that most citizens never heard of, and never will hear of, whom received absolutely zero play in the mainstream, whom diligentlly, methodically, laid out their ironclad case for prosecution, law, and procedure, on a variety of ummm, inconsistencies, and existing law, pointing to this thing known as control fraud, top among the provable crimes of the nations top men,

Clear as a ******* bell ..

Then there was John Corzine. Anyone remember him?

Nope, the departnent of just us, under the Obama regime simply wouldn't hear of such heresy .. nor his own justice head, Eric the place holder, and thus, systemically important, to big too fail " entities" , their execs, and a bevy of non prosecution agreement, no admissions of guilt, were born again .. free to continue hold on to their assets, free to continue new crime waves ..

The point is .. this matter before you now, being another scale, another aspect, but drawing water from the same poisoned chalice if government service , is how should one say, business as usual. Now tell me again about all those differences, between red team and blue team.

Follow the fiat, the bribes, the control fraud, the control files, which of course all draws ALL power through, and from the money changers, and their system.

Roger Rabbit , 34 minutes ago link

Because, if you actually read the ******* article, the memos weren't classified. So there's not much to go after him with. HOWEVER, he signed off on a FISA warrant which Horowitz determined was illegal. He will be in trouble further down the line..

Real Estate Guru , 59 minutes ago link

DOJ declines to prosecute James Comey on inspector general referral for leaking classified info

by Daniel Chaitin

& Jerry Dunleavy

| July 31, 2019 09:33 PM

The Justice Department declined to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey following a criminal referral from the agency's independent watchdog, which concluded that Comey had leaked classified information and showed a lack of candor with investigators.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz reached out to prosecutors about one of the memos Comey leaked to a friend, which detailed a conversation he had with President Trump, after he was fired by President Trump in May 2017.

Although prosecutors found the watchdog's findings compelling, they decided against prosecution under classified information protection laws because of there being too much uncertainty surrounding Comey's intent, according to the Hill . A month after he was fired, Comey testified to Congress he had leaked his notes to a friend to give to the media, hoping that it would spark a special counsel investigation.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel the day after the New York Times first reported on details from one of Comey's leaked memos, which claimed Trump pressed his FBI director to drop an investigation into his national security adviser Michael Flynn. That memo was classified as "confidential" -- the lowest classification level -- after Comey sent the information.

With other investigations focused on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation underway, one source said the DOJ did not want to "make its first case against the Russia investigators with such thin margins and look petty and vindictive."

Comey's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the DOJ and its inspector general also did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner's request for comment.

The news comes hours after conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch announced it had obtained an FBI log about special agents arriving at Comey's home in June 2017 to retrieve his memos. The notes show Comey handed over four of them to the FBI agents, and he said to the best of his recollection two might be missing.

Although the DOJ declined to prosecute in this case, Comey, who has become a vocal critic of the president since his ouster, is not yet in the clear.

Comey is also a possible target of Horowitz's separate investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. He signed three of the four FISA applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page before being fired by Trump. Horowitz's report is expected to be released after Labor Day.

It is also likely that Comey's actions as FBI director will be scrutinized during the "investigation of the investigators," a review of the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, being led by Attorney General William Barr and the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, John Durham.

SHsparx , 47 minutes ago link

To what end though? There's a point where it veers from just delusion and starts looking like intentional disinfo.

freedommusic , 1 hour ago link

Their business model is STRESS... https://youtu.be/8Py2XuPTOQI?t=1042

puckles , 57 minutes ago link

OIG has no authority to indict (although their law enforcement arms can and do recommend for prosecution, which would not be produced here), but in most .GOV agencies their word is feared like that of almighty God. This report is utterly damning. If nothing results from it, it would be truly remarkable.

Anunnaki , 54 minutes ago link

Watch the pretzel logic for when the prosecutors decline to indict. It's a country club. They are all friends outside of work. Comey and Mueller took vacations together with their families for Chrissakes

Darracq , 1 hour ago link

Trump appointed deep state POS to key positions: Sessions then Barr, Wray at the FBI, Rosenshits gets to sneak away, Dan Coats gets to obstruct. Where are all the buckets of FISA documents that Trump ordered Barr to declassify? And tough guy "Mad Dog" Mattis is a ****** and sells out to Amazon. We are being had.

Anunnaki , 54 minutes ago link

Apparently the coup is ongoing

[Aug 29, 2019] First McCabe, then; Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Strzok, the Ohrs, Steele (in absentia) Clinton Campaign people, etc. - Sic Sempe

Notable quotes:
"... "Who will watch the watchers?" Well, if Barr and company are not going to indict these characters, the answer is NOBODY! ..."
"... If you read the long litany of articles on SST by David Habakkuk and Larry Johnson, the pattern of a soft coup conspiracy against the possibility of HC's defeat is quite clear. ..."
Aug 29, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Federal prosecutors have been weighing for well over a year whether to charge McCabe, after the Justice Department's inspector general alleged that McCabe had misled investigators several times about a media disclosure regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton's family foundation.

By the inspector general's telling, McCabe approved the disclosure and later -- when asked about the matter by investigators with the FBI's inspection division and inspector general's office -- denied having done so. McCabe's attorney has said previously that his statements "are more properly understood as the result of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and honest failures of recollection based on the swirl of events around him." Lying to investigators is a federal crime."

Washpost

-------------

This whole thing has the odor of something by Dostoevsky, C&P maybe?

"Who will watch the watchers?" Well, if Barr and company are not going to indict these characters, the answer is NOBODY!

If you read the long litany of articles on SST by David Habakkuk and Larry Johnson, the pattern of a soft coup conspiracy against the possibility of HC's defeat is quite clear.

And then following her loss, largely brought on IMO, by her unwillingness to cultivate the Deplorables, the semi-Deplorables and the Irredeemable Deplorables, this disdain on her part for ordinary people was further displayed in her offhand dismissal of coal miners as future wards of the state.

Once she had lost, the plot rolled on in an effort to make the ultimate Deplorable a failure in office.

It is de rigeur to write that both parties should feel equally wounded by the plot but they do not. pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-could-be-nearing-decision-on-whether-to-charge-andrew-mccabe/2019/08/26/0e1a636c-c840-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html

turcopolier ,

PRC90
We have to make it clear that fidelity to the constitution is not a pretense. IMO HRC and Obama are at the heart of this matter, but better to scourge them and let them go.

[Aug 25, 2019] The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Donald Trump Using his Business Associate, Felix Sater by Larry C Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... Let me cut to the chase--Felix Sater was an FBI informant since 1998. He was originally signed on as a "cooperator" in December 1998 by Robert Mueller's number two guy, Andrew Weissman. Robert Mueller and his team used Felix Sater as a "lure" or "bait" to tempt Trump and his team, Michael Cohen in particular, to work with Russia. Trump did not bite. ..."
"... Sater, as we now know, played a central role in the FBI plot to destroy Donald Trump by proposing a Trump Tower in Moscow. ..."
"... One of the very first reports provided by Christopher Steele insists that the Russians were working overtime to get Trump in bed with them on "lucrative real estate deals." The Steele report dated 20 June 2016 makes the following claims: ..."
"... Steele's claim that the "Kremlin," as part of a broader scheme to recruit Trump as a Russian asset, was "offering him various lucrative real development" deals in Russia, is refuted by the article by Newsweek's Bill Powell and by Robert Mueller's report ..."
"... Felix Sater was the ones telling Trump to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Sater, according to Newsweek's Powell, was not a close confidant of Trump: ..."
"... Powell's account is consistent with the information present by Robert Mueller in the Charging Indictment of Michael Cohen. While the Steele Dossier makes the claim that the Russian Government was offering up "lucrative projects" to the Trump organization, Michael Cohen never made such a claim. The details in the charging document show otherwise; i.e., that Felix Sater was pushing the projects : ..."
"... Notwithstanding these communications, the Moscow project was terminated in June 2016. And it was Felix Sater aka "Individual 2", not the Russians, pushing for going to Russia and making a deal. No evidence of Russians offering up "lucrative deals." ..."
"... If the Steele Dossier was true, Trump should have had multiple project going on in Russia, especially Moscow. Steele paints a picture of Putin's people feeding Trump information and opportunity. So where is the evidence of such activity? There is none. ..."
Aug 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I am revisiting a story I did nine months ago about Felix Sater and the Steele Dossier ( you can read it here ). Let me cut to the chase--Felix Sater was an FBI informant since 1998. He was originally signed on as a "cooperator" in December 1998 by Robert Mueller's number two guy, Andrew Weissman. Robert Mueller and his team used Felix Sater as a "lure" or "bait" to tempt Trump and his team, Michael Cohen in particular, to work with Russia. Trump did not bite.

Robert Mueller did not disclose that Sater was an FBI Informant. Mueller did not disclose that Sater was deliberately used starting in September 2015 to entrap Donald Trump. I am revisiting this issue because a Sater's work for the Feds was unsealed last Friday by Judge Glasser in New York. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Felix Sater, a former business associate of President Trump, began working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1998, after he was caught in a stock-fraud scheme. As he pleaded guilty, Mr. Sater turned on his co-conspirators, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn wrote in an Aug. 27, 2009, letter , unsealed Friday, to U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser, who was overseeing the case. He had gone on to assist various agencies in different areas of law enforcement for years, they wrote.

"Sater went above and beyond what is expected of most cooperators and placed himself in great jeopardy in doing so," the prosecutors wrote in pushing for him to get a lighter sentence. On the strength of his continuing cooperation, they had put off his sentencing for more than a decade, an unusually long period for such arrangements.

As I tried to unpeel the onion that is the layered life of Felix Sater, I came across an excellent article by Newsweek reporter Bill Powell, Donald Trump Associate Felix Sater Is Linked to the Mob and the CIA -- What's His Role in the Russia Investigation? . It is worth your time. One of the surprising revelations from Powell is that Felix Sater was a childhood friend of Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer. Let that sink in for a moment. The FBI informant, Felix Sater, was a long time friend of Cohen. This now provides another explanation for how Michael Cohen became part of the Trump orbit. Did Felix Sater, while an active FBI informant, introduce Cohen to Trump? (Sater and his company, Bayrock, started working with Trump in 2003 while Cohen did not start working for Trump until 2006).

Sater, as we now know, played a central role in the FBI plot to destroy Donald Trump by proposing a Trump Tower in Moscow. Trump did not take the bait. No Trump Tower in Moscow deal was ever done. Sater also provides, unwittingly, direct evidence that part of the Christopher Steele Dossier is a fraud and a fabrication.

One of the very first reports provided by Christopher Steele insists that the Russians were working overtime to get Trump in bed with them on "lucrative real estate deals." The Steele report dated 20 June 2016 makes the following claims:

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP for at least 5 years. . . .

In terms of specifics, Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years (see more below). . . .

The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia , especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.

Steele's claim that the "Kremlin," as part of a broader scheme to recruit Trump as a Russian asset, was "offering him various lucrative real development" deals in Russia, is refuted by the article by Newsweek's Bill Powell and by Robert Mueller's report

Bill Powell reported the following in Newsweek:

[Felix Sater] and his childhood friend, Michael Cohen -- then a lawyer and dealmaker for the Trump Organization -- had been working for more than a decade, on and off, to build a Trump Tower in Moscow . The New York real estate mogul had long wanted to see his name on a glitzy building in the Russian capital, but the project had never materialized.

Where are all of those "lucrative deals" the Kremlin was supposedly offering up? Nowhere. It was a lie.

Felix Sater was the ones telling Trump to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Sater, according to Newsweek's Powell, was not a close confidant of Trump:

In [2003], Sater says he met Trump, thanks to his work for Bayrock, the real estate company. . . Sater raised money for Bayrock from, among others, a wealthy businessman from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, and he persuaded people in Trump's orbit -- including Cohen, his old friend -- to bring his deals before the boss. Two of the ideas worked out. Sater and the New York real estate mogul eventually worked on the Trump SoHo in Manhattan and a hotel and condo project in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which failed after the 2008 economic crisis. He and Trump, Sater claims, were friendly but not particularly close.

Powell does not report the Russians offering up any "lucrative" real estate deal.

Powell's account is consistent with the information present by Robert Mueller in the Charging Indictment of Michael Cohen. While the Steele Dossier makes the claim that the Russian Government was offering up "lucrative projects" to the Trump organization, Michael Cohen never made such a claim. The details in the charging document show otherwise; i.e., that Felix Sater was pushing the projects :

The Moscow Project was discussed multiple times within the Company and did not end in January 2016. Instead, as late as approximately June 2016, COHEN and Individual 2 discussed efforts to obtain Russian governmental approval for the Moscow Project.

Why does the Trump organization need to "obtain Russian governmental approval" if, per the Steele Dossier, the Russians are offering up a slew of "lucrative" deals?

The charging document provides further detail on Cohen and Sater's interaction with Russian officials. In early January 2016, Michael Cohen sent an email to Vladimir Putin's Press Secretary. The Secretary responded:

On or about January 14, 2016, COHEN emailed Russian Official 1's office asking for assistance in connection with the Moscow Project.

On or about January 20, 2016, COHEN received an email from the personal assistant to Russian Official 1 ("Assistant 1"), stating that she had been trying to reach COHEN and requesting that he call her using a Moscow-based phone number she provided.

Shortly after receiving the email, COHEN called Assistant 1 and spoke to her for approximately 20 minutes. On that call, COHEN described his position at the Company and outlined the proposed Moscow Project, including the Russian development company with which the Company had partnered. COHEN requested assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the proposed tower and financing the construction. Assistant 1 asked detailed questions and took notes, stating that she would follow up with others in Russia.

Notwithstanding these communications, the Moscow project was terminated in June 2016. And it was Felix Sater aka "Individual 2", not the Russians, pushing for going to Russia and making a deal. No evidence of Russians offering up "lucrative deals."

From on or about June 9 to June 14, 2016, Individual 2 sent numerous messages to COHEN about the travel, including forms for COHEN to complete. However, on or about June 14, 2016, COHEN met Individual 2 in the lobby of the Company's headquarters to inform Individual 2 he would not be traveling at that time.

If the Steele Dossier was true, Trump should have had multiple project going on in Russia, especially Moscow. Steele paints a picture of Putin's people feeding Trump information and opportunity. So where is the evidence of such activity? There is none.

The Mueller report reinforces the fact that Felix Sater was the one proposing doing the deal in Moscow and talking to the Russians. THE PROPOSED TRUMP TOWER PROJECT IN MOSCOW, according to Mueller's report, originated with an FBI Informant--Felix Sater. Here's what the Mueller Report states:

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

Mueller, as I have noted previously , is downright dishonest in failing to identify Sater as an FBI informant. Sater was not just a private entrepreneur looking to make some coin. We now know without a doubt that Sater was a fully signed up FBI informant. Sater's status as an FBI snitch was first exposed in 2012 (you can read the letter confirming Sater's status as an FBI snitch here ). Another inconvenient fact excluded from the Mueller report is that one of Mueller's Chief Prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, signed the deal with Felix Sater in December 1998 that put Sater into the FBI Informant business .

All suggestions for meeting with the Russian Government, including Putin, originated with Felix Sater. The use of Sater on this particular project started in September 2015.

All of this raises very troubling issues about FBI misconduct. Under what authority did The FBI initiate the "Moscow Tower" play in September 2015. We are supposed to believe that the FBI counter intelligence investigation, aka Crossfire Hurricane, only began the end of July 2016 because of an alarming report from an Australian diplomat. We now know that is a lie.

The revelations about Sater add to the urgency to expose the FBI's criminality and malevolence.

[For more on Sater please see my previous posts, Felix Sater--The Rosetta Stone for the FBI/CIA Conspiracy Against Trump? , Felix Sater and the Steele Dossier .]


exiled off mainstreet , 25 August 2019 at 06:46 PM

Mr.Johnson has done good work on these issues throughout the whole time this initiative has gone on. It reveals the level of rot in the structure of the secret police operation carried on by the US government and shows that it probably cannot be reformed from within but that the only solution which might work is the dissolution of the existing institutions and some form of starting over, something which is, of course, highly unlikely to be achieved.
Factotum , 25 August 2019 at 06:50 PM
Thank you for tying so many of these loose ends together, these past few years. It is quacking like a duck to me.
Fred , 25 August 2019 at 07:51 PM
How many other people were successfully railroaded by the FBI and was Barack the only president they were doing this under?
blue peacock , 25 August 2019 at 08:46 PM
Something just doesn't add up for me when Trump who was the target of these spying and information operations doesn't use the power and authority of POTUS to expose all the communications and actions of these people. Why? What is he hiding or what is he afraid of?
Larry Johnson -> blue peacock... , 25 August 2019 at 09:54 PM
It is very simple. Trump is relying on the judicial process out of fear that if he did unilaterally release this info he could be accused of "obstructing justice."
akaPatience , 25 August 2019 at 09:54 PM
Trump announced his candidacy June 16, 2015. SO, by September the FBI had begun its operation against him. It seems like a fairly quick mobilization.

Were Obama and Clinton so insecure that they felt they needed to resort to this, or are they both so corrupt that this was business as usual?

Christopher Steele, Felix Sater, Josef Mifsud, Stephan Halper, Alexander Downer -- so far there are at least 5 known to have connections to the IC who tried to entrap Trump. We need a summary with an index since there's so much corruption to keep straight -- Hillary's Vast Left-wing Conspiracy.

[Aug 24, 2019] Joseph Mifsud, British Joe, Not Russia's Boy by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... George Papadopoulos was nothing more than a naive, eager patsy. A young guy who wanted to be important to the Trump campaign got played. ..."
"... Here are salient sections of the Mueller Report. Read them for yourself and you will see that Mifsud was never fingered as a Russian intelligence asset. You were just asked to believe this nonsense. Sadly, many seemingly smart people have bought into this lie. ..."
"... According to Papadopoulos , Mifsud at first seemed uninterested in Papadopoulos when they met in Rome. After Papadopoulos informed Mifsud about his role in the Trump Campaign, however, Mifsud appeared to take greater interest in Papadopoulos. ..."
"... On March 24, 2016, Papadopoulos met with Mifsud in London. 422 Mifsud was accompanied by a Russian female named Olga Polonskaya. Mifsud introduced Polonskaya as a former student of his who had connections to Vladimir Putin. (p. 84) ..."
"... During the meeting, Polonskaya offered to help Papadopoulos establish contacts in Russia and stated that the Russian ambassador in London was a friend of hers .425 Based on this interaction, Papadopoulos expected Mifsud and Polonskaya to introduce him to the Russian ambassador in London, but that did not occur. (p. 84) ..."
"... Throughout April 2016, Papadopoulos continued to correspond with , meet with, and seek Russia contacts through Mifsud and , at times , Polonskaya. For example, within a week of her initial March 24 meeting with him, Polonskaya attempted to send Papadopoulos a text messagewhich email exchanges show to have been drafted or edited by Mifsud-addressing Papadopoulos 's "wish to engage with the Russian Federation." When Papadopoulos learned from Mifsud that Polonskaya had tried to message him , he sent her an email seeking another meeting. (p. 87) ..."
"... Following the meeting, Mifsud traveled as planned to Moscow.455 On April 18, 2016, while in Russia, Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos over email to Ivan Timofeev, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).456 Mifsud had described Timofeev as having connections with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA),457 the executive entity in Russia responsible for Russian foreign relations. (p. 88) ..."
"... After a stop in Rome, Mifsud returned to England on April 25, 2016.462 The next day, Papadopoulos met Mifsud for breakfast at the Andaz Hotel (the same location as their last meeting). 463 During that meeting, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow . Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on candidate Hillary Clinton. As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the "dirt" was in the form of " emails of Clinton," and that they "have thousands of emails." (pp. 88-89) ..."
"... I believe that the term that you are looking for is "entrapment" or something very close. ..."
"... you're being far too kind to Papadop, who, while "naive" and "eager", was also a serial liar and fantasist, whose lies, amplified by unethical Mueller thugs, have caused a lot of trouble. He's made matters worse by spreading new fantasies, which have been uncritically believed by far too many. ..."
"... is CNN really a CIA run disinformation site? They have no viewers, credibility, revenues or business plan. Yet they persist in airports world wide. And now this odd CNN relationship to the very same Link Campus that included "visiting professor" Mifsud. ..."
Aug 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese Diplomat who reportedly told George Papadopoulos that Russia had Hillary's emails, was a British intelligence asset (known as a "Joe" among British spies). But the Brits did not keep Mifsud for themselves. They offered him to the CIA and the FBI, and those two US agencies, in a coordinated effort, relied on Mifsud to entrap Papadopoulos and to manufacture a Russian collusion case against the Trump Campaign.

Mifsud's job was simple--dangle the possibility of getting Hillary's emails from the Russians, offer up meetings with Russian Government officials and introduce Papadopoulos to another Western intelligence operative who pretended to be the niece of Vladimir Putin (Putin does not have a niece). These communications were recorded and then used against Papadopoulos.

The FBI falsely claims that they learned of the Papadopoulos "meeting" with Mifsud two months after it happened from an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, who also was tied closely to British intelligence and the Clintons. But this story does not hold water. Take a look at the criminal complaint filed against Papadopoulos ( see here ).

The complaint recounts meetings, emails and conversations that George Papadopoulos had with Professor Mifsud and people Mifsud introduced to Papadopoulos.Where the hell did the FBI get that information? Remember, they charged George with lying to the FBI because of discrepancies between what he told Agents and what Agents claimed was actually said and written.

The meaning of this leaves only two possibilities--the FBI secured a FISA warrant against Papadopoulos sometime in March or April of 2016 or the Brits and American intelligence intercepted the communications between Papadopoulos and the Mifsud crew.

We already know that there is a recording--an exculpatory recording--of Papadopoulos rebuffing the offer to collaborate with the Russians. There was no legal reason to get a FISA warrant against Papadopoulos. And anything collected by British intelligence and passed to the CIA or NSA could not be used as evidence. There is much more to this story to unravel.

What should shock all civil libertarians and Americans of good will is that the public has been bamboozled into believing that Joseph Mifsud was a Russian intelligence operative. But there is no evidence whatsoever for that claim. Please look at the Mueller Report (I have copied key sections and inserted below, at the end of this article). Mueller only claims that, "Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016." If that is the standard, then Bill Clinton is a Russian intelligence asset--Clinton has connections to Russia (he got paid a lot of money by the Russians) and he traveled to Moscow.

If you want to get the full picture of Mifsud's ties to British intelligence, the CIA and the FBI, I encourage you to read, The Death of Russiagate?, Mueller team tied to Mifsud network, a tangled web . This article provides actual evidence about the intelligence pedigree of Joseph Mifsud. Robert Mueller, by contrast, provides not one single piece of actual evidence. Mueller and his team of clown lawyers relied on innuendo and guilt by association.

If this had been a genuine counter-intelligence investigation, then the FBI should have asked one fundamental question--"Who is Joseph Mifsud working for?" They did not need to ask The FBI knew the answer. Joseph Mifsud was working for the CIA and the FBI with the permission of the British MI-6.

I hope the full dimensions of this hoax will be exposed. George Papadopoulos was nothing more than a naive, eager patsy. A young guy who wanted to be important to the Trump campaign got played.

Here are salient sections of the Mueller Report. Read them for yourself and you will see that Mifsud was never fingered as a Russian intelligence asset. You were just asked to believe this nonsense. Sadly, many seemingly smart people have bought into this lie.

Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign? through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place. . . .

George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period , pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton .in the form of thousands of emails. . . .

In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud 's return from a trip to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. . . .Throughout the relevant period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. That meeting never came to pass. (p. 81)

The purpose of the trip was to meet officials affiliated with Link Campus University, a for-profit institution headed by a former Italian government official.412 During the visit , Papadopoulos was introduced to Joseph Mifsud. (p. 83)

Mifsud is a Maltese national who worked as a professor at the London Academy of Diplomacy in London, England. 413 Although Mifsud worked out of London and was also affiliated with LCILP, the encounter in Rome was the first time that Papadopoulos met him.414 Mifsud maintained various Russian contacts while living in London, as described further below. Among his contacts was ,XXXX a one-time employee of the IRA,. . . In January and February 2016, Mifsud and - discussed possibly meeting in Russia. (p. 83)

According to Papadopoulos , Mifsud at first seemed uninterested in Papadopoulos when they met in Rome. After Papadopoulos informed Mifsud about his role in the Trump Campaign, however, Mifsud appeared to take greater interest in Papadopoulos. The two discussed Mifsud 's European and Russian contacts and had a general discussion about Russia; Mifsud also offered to introduce Papadopoulos to European leaders and others with contacts to the Russian government. Papadopoulos told the Office that Mifsud 's claim of substantial connections with Russian government officials interested Papadopoulos, who thought that such connections could increase his importance as a policy advisor to the Trump Campaign. (p. 83)

On March 24, 2016, Papadopoulos met with Mifsud in London. 422 Mifsud was accompanied by a Russian female named Olga Polonskaya. Mifsud introduced Polonskaya as a former student of his who had connections to Vladimir Putin. (p. 84)

During the meeting, Polonskaya offered to help Papadopoulos establish contacts in Russia and stated that the Russian ambassador in London was a friend of hers .425 Based on this interaction, Papadopoulos expected Mifsud and Polonskaya to introduce him to the Russian ambassador in London, but that did not occur. (p. 84)

Throughout April 2016, Papadopoulos continued to correspond with , meet with, and seek Russia contacts through Mifsud and , at times , Polonskaya. For example, within a week of her initial March 24 meeting with him, Polonskaya attempted to send Papadopoulos a text messagewhich email exchanges show to have been drafted or edited by Mifsud-addressing Papadopoulos 's "wish to engage with the Russian Federation." When Papadopoulos learned from Mifsud that Polonskaya had tried to message him , he sent her an email seeking another meeting. (p. 87)

Mifsud , who had been copied on the email exchanges, replied on the morning of April 11, 2016. He wrote, "This is already been agreed. I am flying to Moscow on the 18th for a Valdai meeting, plus other meetings at the Duma. We will talk tomorrow." 448 The two bodies referenced by Mifsud are part of or associated with the Russian government: the Duma is a Russian legislative assembly, 449 while "Valdai" refers to the Valdai Discussion Club, a Moscow-based group that "is close to Russia's foreign-policy establishment." 450 Papadopoulos thanked Mifsud and said that he would see him "tomorrow." 451 (p. 87)

Following the meeting, Mifsud traveled as planned to Moscow.455 On April 18, 2016, while in Russia, Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos over email to Ivan Timofeev, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).456 Mifsud had described Timofeev as having connections with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA),457 the executive entity in Russia responsible for Russian foreign relations. (p. 88)

After a stop in Rome, Mifsud returned to England on April 25, 2016.462 The next day, Papadopoulos met Mifsud for breakfast at the Andaz Hotel (the same location as their last meeting). 463 During that meeting, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow . Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on candidate Hillary Clinton. As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the "dirt" was in the form of " emails of Clinton," and that they "have thousands of emails." (pp. 88-89)


prawnik , 21 August 2019 at 10:33 AM

I believe that the term that you are looking for is "entrapment" or something very close.
Jack , 21 August 2019 at 05:36 PM
Larry

Appreciate your efforts in peeling the onion on the shenanigans of our intel and law enforcement agencies. This Russia Collusion/SpyGate story was a regular topic at our monthly "guys night out" gathering at a local watering hole. However at our last gathering the general consensus was "who cares" if Trump the butt of these machinations is unwilling to Drain the Swamp by declassifying. Why do you think Trump is not aggressively going after Brennan, Comey, Clapper, et al?

Jim Ticehurst , 21 August 2019 at 05:39 PM
Larry..Fits The Timeline of for Operations that already been planned in Advance.while watching the Election Result for Trump and Hillary..in 2016..By March 2016 the States were making their choices... 2016..s clear..Long before May. ,,,.Using Its Profile Data n obtained By Fusion GPS..since October 2015..AND..??????.What sources were they Using..Why...and were they actually being Given MISINFORMATION.??.then through It. all these Events.Happened..This,,.Operation you write of.....in May to June...The Steele Dossier Operation was Conducted..The Muller Team..And Case Built..An Extra Ordinary SUPER PACK..and Illegal..(THE REAL COLLUSION).. Operation..So Now...Its Time for the TRUTH..
Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... , 21 August 2019 at 07:23 PM
also..to me...The..."Mystery Woman " in this Spy story...would be Nellie Ohr..especially the European Operations...and That to Me..Has Brennen Finger Prints..on The "Dossier"...So..Background..an d Fine Tuning...
Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... , 21 August 2019 at 11:36 PM
Why Nellie Ohr..Because She her time line go's from The Steel Dossier and Fusion GPS meetings With Obama..Clinton connected People like Attorney Edwin Lieberman..Husband of Hillary Clintons Chief of Staff..To Ukrainetothe" Black Ledger.also a HOAX..To.."Joe.Bidens Connections to the Ukraine..and back to herto work at CIA Open Source Operations..All done Under the time Period when John Brennen was Director ..DCI..of the CIA...Appointed by President OBAMA..To Replace General Petraeus..who looks like He may have been another.PAWN ..and Put into the DCI position on Purpose by Obama..Way back in September 2011..

Someone advised DCI Petraeus..to use the same TRANSITIONAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS..

That Petraeus had Used in the Field During Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.Believing They were SECURE Systems..

Apparently those Systems had already been Hacked By IRAN and China..Long before Obama ...

Made his deals with Iran..Petraeus got into a Affair tht Compromised Him..(Setup),,?? and The FBI..Under Director Muller to General Petraus Out..Shame him..Brought Charges...and Petraeus was Replaced with John Brennen as DCI..in On..Nov...2012...Then Bob Muller was replaced at the FBI,,was replaced By James Comey..In September 2013...ALL Events Occurred during The time Barrack Obama was President..Jan 20...2009 to Jan 20th,,2017...and...Brennen and Nellie Ohr were in the Middle of everything that happened..All Operations..ALL Information gathering..

And ALL Intended to Blame The Russians..and Protect all other Poker Game High Rollers..Including The "Ukraine Train..' Thi is just a Theory..Based on "Open Information...

Stephen McIntyre , 21 August 2019 at 07:54 PM
you're being far too kind to Papadop, who, while "naive" and "eager", was also a serial liar and fantasist, whose lies, amplified by unethical Mueller thugs, have caused a lot of trouble. He's made matters worse by spreading new fantasies, which have been uncritically believed by far too many.
Larry Johnson -> Stephen McIntyre... , 21 August 2019 at 08:15 PM
George proved to be an easy mark. I don't beat up on "nobodies." Papadopoulos qualifies as such in my book. He had done nothing to distinguish himself and suddenly had the world thrust on him. I do feel sorry for hm. This is akin to raping a retarded girl.
h -> Larry Johnson ... , 23 August 2019 at 10:25 AM
This response is spot on, Larry. Excellent comment.
akaPatience , 21 August 2019 at 09:45 PM
AND YET the MSM largely remain AWOL on this and related subjects. They must figure if they continue to hear, see and speak no evil the voting public will be deaf, dumb and blind to such widespread corruption. It's not encouraging that the FBI and DOJ continue to be intractable when it comes to attempts by Judicial Watch to gain transparency and clarity. Unless something like optimal political timing is a big factor, it's also not encouraging that AG Barr and even the POTUS are still keeping a lid on all of this.

It's going to be very interesting to see if the truth can break through the stonewalling especially when it comes to the 2020 elections. Thanks to this site and a few others, there's still hope. Thank you Larry and Col. Lang.

William Chan , 22 August 2019 at 06:33 AM
A BIASED FBI means ALL FBI sworn testimony is questionable and unreliable.
A BIASED FBI means every court case outcome in which the FBI has been involved is untrustworthy.
A BIASED FBI means that everything from WACO to Oklahoma Bomb to 9/11 must be reexamined.
The Feds/FBI did a criminally irresponsible job of investigating the Oklahoma Bomb and Sanilac county, with the Militia Culture permeating it. There were TWO militias up there. (1) The CITIZENS Militia, with 85 year old Hattie Farley, which OPPOSED the Sheriff and the "Good Old Boys" and (2) The violence prone, RACIST, PRO-sheriff "element".

Sanilac county Sheriff Virgil Strickler was BFF and business partner with David Rydel, "commandant" of the "united States Theatre Command" militia which is named in the FBI "Project Megiddo" report for Y2K. Strickler let the Rydel militia use the department's shooting range. LOUD explosions on the Nichols farm were repeatedly reported to Strickler, So what do you know! when the Feds raided the farm the evidence was cleaned up. James Nichols stated in his speech at the Dearborn Centennial Library that the FIRST person he wanted to talk to was Strickler, which he did BEFORE talking to the FEDS. James was welcomed home as a HERO when he was released from Federal custody. All described in Nichols' book "Freedom's End"

The "support network" for the bomb extended to the very top of Sanilac County. Worth Township in Sanilac county, had a Supervisor, James Payne, who flew Confederate flags on his property for decades. He drove around with a Confederate license plate, and had a Black Lawn Jockey holding a Confederate flag standing right at his door. Sheriff Strickler and Judge Donald Teeple redularly passed that lawn jockey and saw the flags as they entered Payne's home to socialize. Payne bragged about "using" his Public Office to direct the State Police Weighmaster to harrass Minority truckers coming through Worth township, and how he did not want "dirty niggers" in His township. This got recorded and all came out in a township meeting. Eric Levine, owner/editor of "The Sanilac County News" never once printed a negative word about the Racism and Confederate flags, rendering support via his silence. Levine never printed a word about Janice Putz, the Township Clerk, and Payne's successor in office, publicly defending Payne's racism in a township meeting. Levine also "ignored" a letter that was mailed to EVERY Worth township resident exposing Payne's racism . .... NOT ONE WORD. Eric Levine supports racism by failing to expose it even when it is major news in his reporting area. Nothing printed beyond the "obligatory" columns denouncing the bombers.

James Nichols gave a talk at the Dearborn Centennial Library promoting his book/conspiracy theory blaming the Government for the Oklahoma bomb. I walked up to him afterward and offered him documentation about judge Donald Teeple's campaign financing. Nichols did not want to hear anything negative about THAT "Government Operative" ...... very ODD to say the least. Why would he decline documentation on someone supposedly his enemy ..... unless ....... Teeple was a real "hero"when it came to looting elderly Citizen's property like ordering the "cleanup" of a fortune in antiques from Hattie Farley, but Teeple was gentle as a lamb with the Nichols boys.

Fred -> William Chan... , 22 August 2019 at 09:05 AM
A BIASED FBI means ALL FBI ....

Binary choices are the only choices, its the way we're programed! BTW you left out Ruby Ridge.

Bill H -> William Chan... , 22 August 2019 at 10:25 AM
The FBI lost all credibility with me back when they trotted out their parade of "domestic terrorists" who they themselves were selling Play-Doh to, but who had only asked for combat boots so that they could practice close order drill in Miami, or a guy who turned out to be bootlegging cell phones in Michigan.

Now they're at it again, patting themselves on the back and making press conferences about no fewer than five mass shooters apprehended this week, among them "saving dozens of lives" by arresting a hotel cook who told a coworker he was planning on coming back to the hotel in a few days to "shoot everyone he saw."

Sure, he was nuts, but even so if he was actually planning to do that would he announce it to someone two days in advance? In any case, the FBI didn't find him, a coworker turned him in when he was not on the FBI's radar.

Factotum , 23 August 2019 at 01:43 AM
Linked article raises the question again: is CNN really a CIA run disinformation site? They have no viewers, credibility, revenues or business plan. Yet they persist in airports world wide. And now this odd CNN relationship to the very same Link Campus that included "visiting professor" Mifsud.

To wit: ......"tried to get him a cushy job working with CNN's Freedom Project at Link Campus in Rome."

The more we learn, the more questions arise. No wonder no one is ready to go public with the final Russia-gate analysis yet.

[Aug 23, 2019] Spygate The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
Images removed. See the original for full version.
Much more plausible explanation of Russiagate then Mueller report that cost probably 1000 times less. Mueller and his team should commit hara-kiri in shame.
It contains more valuable information about Russiagate and color revolution against Trump initiatesd by Obama and Brennan. And what is important it is much shorter and up to the point. In other words, Jeff Carlson beat the whole Mueller team to the punch.
An excellent reporting by Jeff Carlson !!! Bravo!!!
Notable quotes:
"... Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016, Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law. ..."
"... The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims that there was no classified information present on her server. ..."
"... On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began. ..."
"... Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters. ..."
"... On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey appointed McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having held the No. 3 position for just six months. ..."
"... By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place at the FBI. ..."
"... Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. ..."
"... It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?" ..."
"... Peter and Jon, yeah." ..."
"... Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?" ..."
"... My understanding was that he was aware." ..."
"... Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa. ..."
"... While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious -- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so. ..."
"... As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. ..."
"... The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The first, titled the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the intelligence community assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017. ..."
"... On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry. ..."
"... Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014. ..."
"... Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia -- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie. ..."
"... In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media, government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia." ..."
"... Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day. One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI. ..."
"... The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight was done in consultation with the Obama administration: ..."
"... Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. ..."
"... Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a statement on the same day that touted Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached. ..."
"... Winer had received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier. ..."
"... Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to UK Court documents , Steele testified that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person." ..."
"... Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession. ..."
"... Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration. ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted. ..."
"... Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702-compliance review. ..."
Mar 28, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Updated: July 7, 2019

Efforts by high-ranking officials in the CIA , FBI , Department of Justice ( DOJ ), and State Department to portray President Donald Trump as having colluded with Russia were the culmination of years of bias and politicization under the Obama administration.

<img class="size-large wp-image-2855920" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/27/DOJ-FBI_infographic_3_Epoch-Times-1200x630.png" alt="" width="640" height="336" /> Click on image to enlarge.

The weaponization of the intelligence community and other government agencies created an environment that allowed for obstruction in the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the relentless pursuit of a manufactured collusion narrative against Trump.

A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative.

The Spygate scandal also raises a bigger question: Was the 2016 election a one-time aberration, or was it symptomatic of decades of institutional political corruption?

This article builds on dozens of congressional testimonies, court documents, and other research to provide an inside look at the actions of Obama administration officials in the scandal that's become known as Spygate.

<img class=" wp-image-2833768" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Michael-Horowitz-1200x1239.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="165" /> Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz . (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

To understand this abuse of power, it helps to go back to July 2011, when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed.

From the very start, Horowitz found his duties throttled by Attorney General Eric Holder, who placed limitations on the inspector general's right to have unobstructed access to information. Holder used this tactic to delay Horowitz's investigation of the failed sting operation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information," Horowitz told members of Congress in February 2015.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general had sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum, titled " Memorandum for Sally Quillian Yates Deputy Attorney General ," written by Karl R. Thompson, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

<img class=" wp-image-2833772" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/sally-yates-1200x1188.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="159" /> Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The July 20, 2015, opinion was widely criticized . But it accomplished what it was intended to do. The opinion limited IG Horowitz's oversight from extending to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters. (Notably, The New York Times disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.)

In response, on Aug. 3, 2015, IG Horowitz sent a blistering letter to Congress. The letter was signed not only by Horowitz but by all other acting inspectors general as well:

"The OLC opinion's restrictive reading of the IG Act represents a potentially serious challenge to the authority of every Inspector General and our collective ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner. Our concern is that, as a result of the OLC opinion, agencies other than DOJ may likewise withhold crucial records from their Inspectors General, adversely impacting their work.

Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016, Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law.

It is against this backdrop of minimal oversight that Spygate took place.

Ironically, the Clinton email server investigation, known as the "Mid-Year Exam," originated from a disclosure contained in a June 29, 2015, memo sent by the inspectors general for both the State Department and the Intelligence Community to Patrick F. Kennedy, then-undersecretary of state for management.

The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims that there was no classified information present on her server.

On July 6, 2015, the IG for the Intelligence Community made a referral to the FBI, which resulted in the official opening of an investigation into the Clinton email server by FBI officials Randall Coleman and Charles Kable on July 10, 2015.

<img class="size-large wp-image-2833204" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Andrew-McCabe-Lisa-Page-Peter-Strzok-1200x720.jpg" alt="peter strzok andrew mccabe and lisa page" width="640" height="384" /> (L-R) FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe , and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Getty Images/Epoch Times)

A Hand-Picked Team

At this time, Peter Strzok was an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Washington Field Office. The assistant director in charge at the Washington Field Office during this period was Andrew McCabe, a position he assumed on Sept. 14, 2014.

On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began.

Strzok would follow shortly. Less than a month after McCabe was transferred, FBI headquarters reached out to the Washington Field Office, saying it needed greater staffing and resources "based on what they were looking at, based on some of the investigative steps that were under consideration," Strzok told congressional investigators in a closed-door hearing on June 27, 2018.

Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters.

Starting in October 2015 and continuing into early 2016, FBI Director James Comey made a series of high-profile reassignments that resulted in the complete turnover of the upper-echelon of the FBI team working on the Clinton email investigation:

Comey is the only known senior FBI leadership official who remained involved throughout the entire Clinton email investigation. McCabe had the second-longest tenure.

On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey appointed McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having held the No. 3 position for just six months.

It was at this point that FBI lawyer Lisa Page was assigned to McCabe as his special counsel. This was not the first time that Page worked directly for McCabe. James Baker, the FBI's former general counsel, told congressional investigators that Page had worked for McCabe at various times during McCabe's career, going back as far as 2013.

By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place at the FBI.

In January 2016, Bill Priestap was named as head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, replacing Coleman and inheriting the Clinton email investigation in the process.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2857145" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/28/Spygate_Epoch-TImes.jpg" alt="" width="676" height="1280" />

According to Priestap, Coleman had "set up a reporting mechanism that leaders of that team would report directly to him, not through the customary other chain of command" in the Clinton email investigation. Priestap, who said he didn't know why Coleman had "set it up," kept the chain of command in place when he assumed Coleman's position in January 2016.

This new structure resulted in some unusual reporting lines that went outside normal chains of command. Strzok, who would not normally fall under Priestap's oversight, was now reporting directly to him.

As Priestap described it, the team involved in the Clinton investigation comprised three different but intertwined elements: the primary team, the filter team, and the senior leadership team.

While the elements of the day-to-day investigative team differed for the Clinton email investigation and the Trump–Russia investigation, the primary team remained the same throughout both cases -- as did the lines of communication between the FBI and the DOJ. According to testimony by Page, John Carlin, who ran the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD), was receiving briefings on both investigations directly from McCabe.

Priestap Left in the Dark

Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. Priestap was asked about this by congressional investigators during a June 5, 2018, testimony:

Rep. Meadows: " It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?"

Mr. Priestap: " Peter and Jon, yeah."

<img class=" wp-image-2833249" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Priestap-1200x1548.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="205" /> Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times)

Additionally, Page often circumvented the established chain of command, not only with McCabe, for whom she reportedly served as a conduit for Strzok, but also with Baker. Additionally, there were concerns that Page bypassed both the executive assistant director for the National Security Branch -- first Giacalone, then Steinbach -- and Priestap, the head of counterintelligence. Anderson, the No. 2 lawyer, admitted in her testimony to congressional investigators that she had been aware of these concerns, saying, "Neither of them personally complained to me, but I was aware of their concerns."

A report published by IG Horowitz in June 2018, which reviewed the FBI's investigation of the Clinton email case, included the notable statement that several witnesses had informed the IG that Page "circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap's or Steinbach's knowledge." Steinbach, who was the executive assistant director and Priestap's direct supervisor, left the FBI in early 2017.

According to Anderson, McCabe was aware of the ongoing concerns regarding Page's circumventions, but it appears that nothing was done to address them:

Mr. Baker: " Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?"

Ms. Anderson: " My understanding was that he was aware."

DOJ Prevents 'Gross Negligence' Charges

By the spring of 2016, the Clinton email investigation was already winding down. This was due in large part to the fact that the DOJ, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch , had decided to set an unusually high threshold for the prosecution of Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she would not be charged.

In order for Clinton to be prosecuted, the DOJ required the FBI to establish evidence of intent -- even though the gross negligence statute explicitly does not require this.

This meant that the FBI would have needed to find a smoking gun, such as an email or an admission made during FBI questioning, revealing that Clinton or her aides knowingly set up the private email server to send classified information.

According to Page, the DOJ played a far larger role in the Clinton investigation than previously had been known:

"Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step, other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction of the Justice Department," Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.

<img class=" wp-image-2833254" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-545524880-1200x1441.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="193" /> Attorney General Loretta Lynch. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Comey also had hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation, at a July 5, 2016, press conference , in which he recommended that Clinton not be charged, stating that "there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent."

Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa.

CIA Director Instigates Trump Investigation

As the Clinton investigation wound down, interest from the intelligence community in the Trump campaign was ramping up. Sometime in 2015, it appears former CIA Director John Brennan established himself as the point man to push for an investigation into the Trump campaign. Using a combination of unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates -- primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia -- Brennan then fed this information to the FBI. Brennan stated this fact repeatedly during a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :

"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."

<img class=" wp-image-2833258" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-687314312-1200x1279.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="171" /> CIA Director John Brennan. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Brennan also admitted that it was his intelligence that helped establish the FBI investigation:

"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."

In late 2015, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. The GCHQ is the UK equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

<img class=" wp-image-2833230" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/George-Papadopoulos.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="192" /> Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious -- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

<img class=" wp-image-2833234" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Alexander-Downer-1200x1391.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="186" /> Australian high commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer. (GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Downer's conversation with Papadopoulos was reportedly disclosed to the FBI on July 22, 2016, through Australian government channels, although it may have come directly from Downer himself.

Details from the conversation between Downer and Papadopoulos were then used by the FBI to open its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016.

In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of the UK's GCHQ, traveled to Washington to meet with Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Around the same time, Brennan formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the NSA handled foreign and intelligence aspects.

During this time, Brennan appeared to have employed the use of reverse targeting , which refers to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.

Mr. Brennan:

" We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA's foreign intelligence collection authorities. Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI because they have the legal authority to do it. We would not pursue that type of investigative, you know, sort of leads. We would give it to the FBI. So, we were picking things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there -- so they could piece it together with whatever they were collecting domestically here."

As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation.

The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The first, titled the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the intelligence community assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017.

This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump. Notably, Adm. Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning it only a moderate confidence level.

Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier

Meanwhile, another less official effort began. Information paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign targeting Trump made its way to the highest levels of the FBI and the State Department, with a sophisticated strategy relying on the personal connections of hired operatives.

<img class=" wp-image-2833265" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-621958726-1200x1324.jpg" alt="" width="159" height="176" /> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

At the center of the multi-pronged strategy to disseminate the information were Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and former British spy Steele.

In early March 2016, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie -- the law firm used by the Clinton campaign and the DNC -- expressing interest in an "engagement," according to an Oct. 24, 2017, response letter by Perkins Coie. The firm hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to "perform a variety of research services during the 2016 election cycle."

Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, was retained by Fusion GPS during the period between June and November 2016. During this time, Steele produced 16 memos, with the last memo dated Oct. 20, 2016. There is one final memo that Steele wrote on Dec. 13 at the request of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

<img class=" wp-image-2833240" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-634408242-1200x1349.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="180" /> Sen. John McCain commissioned one of Steele's memos. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Steele provided Fusion GPS with something that Simpson's firm was lacking: access to individuals within the FBI and the State Department. These contacts could be traced back to at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance in the FBI's investigation into FIFA over concerns that Russia might have been engaging in bribery to host the 2018 World Cup.

Sometime in the latter half of 2014, Steele began to informally provide reports he had prepared for a private client to the State Department. One of the recipients of the reports was Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

After Steele's company was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016, he began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Rome who Steele had worked with on the FIFA case. Gaeta also headed up the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, which specializes in investigating criminal groups from Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine.

Gaeta was later identified as Steele's FBI handler, in a July 16, 2018, congressional testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees by Page.

<img class=" wp-image-2833242" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/victoria-nuland-1200x1373.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="183" /> Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

Exactly what happened with the reports that Gaeta brought back from London, and precisely who he gave them to within the FBI, remains unknown, although some media reports have indicated they might have been sent to the FBI's New York Field Office. During the period following Steele's initial contact with the FBI, there appears to have been no further FBI interaction or contact with Steele.

Former CIA Contractor Worked for Fusion GPS

Notably, eight months before Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, Simpson had hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, to work for his firm as a researcher in October 2015. It was at this time that Fusion GPS was retained by the Washington Free Beacon to engage in research on the Trump campaign.

Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014.

Nellie told congressional investigators, in her Oct. 19, 2018, closed-door testimony, that part of her work for Fusion GPS was to research the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, including campaign associate Carter Page, early campaign supporter Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Trump's family members, including some of his children.

Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia -- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie.

In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media, government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia."

The work Nellie conducted for Fusion GPS matches the same skill set used when she worked for Open Source Works, which is a division within the CIA that uses open-source information to produce intelligence products.

When asked how she came to be hired by Fusion GPS and who had approached her, Nellie responded, "Nobody approached me," telling investigators that it was she who had initiated contact and approached Fusion GPS after reading an article on Simpson.

Nellie would continue to work for Fusion GPS until September 2016. By this time, Simpson and Steele already had started working on pushing the Steele dossier into the FBI.

Following the end of her employment with Fusion GPS, Nellie provided Bruce with a memory stick that contained all of the research she had compiled during her time at the firm. Bruce then gave the memory stick to the FBI, through his handler, Joe Pientka.

Bruce Ohr Becomes a Conduit

Nearly a month after Gaeta brought back the reports that Steele provided in London, Simpson and Steele decided to pursue a new channel into the FBI through Bruce Ohr. Bruce had known Steele since at least 2007, when they met during an "official meeting" while Steele was still employed by the British government as an MI6 agent. Steele had already been in contact with Bruce via email in early 2016. Notably, most of these prior communications appeared to discuss Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his ongoing efforts to obtain a U.S. visa.

<img class=" wp-image-2833270" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Bruce-ohr.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="191" /> Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

On July 29, 2016, Steele wrote to Bruce, saying that he would "be in DC at short notice on business," and asked to meet with both Bruce and his wife. On July 30, 2016, the Ohrs met Steele for breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel. Also present at the breakfast meeting was a fourth individual, described by Bruce as "an associate of Mr. Steele's, another gentleman, younger fellow. I didn't catch his name." Nellie testified that Steele's associate had a British accent.

The timing of the July 30 breakfast meeting is of particular note, as the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, "Crossfire Hurricane," was formally opened the following day, on July 31, 2016, by FBI agent Peter Strzok.

<img class=" wp-image-2833272" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Nellie-Ohr.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="183" /> Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

According to a transcript of Bruce's testimony before Congress, Steele relayed information from his dossier at this meeting and claimed that "a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, had stated to someone that they had Donald Trump over a barrel."

Steele also referenced Deripaska's business dealings with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and foreign policy adviser Carter Page's meetings in Moscow.

Lastly, Bruce noted that Steele told him he had been in contact with the FBI but now had additional reports. "Chris Steele had provided some reports to the FBI, I think two, but that Glenn Simpson had more," he said.

Immediately following the Ohrs' breakfast meeting with Steele, Bruce Ohr reached out to FBI Deputy Director McCabe and the two met in McCabe's office -- sometime between July 30 and the first days of August. Also present at this meeting was FBI lawyer Page, who had previously worked for Bruce Ohr at the DOJ, where he was her direct supervisor for five to six years.

Bruce Ohr would later testify that during the July/August meeting, he told McCabe that his wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion, noting, "I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias." FBI General Counsel Baker, who reviewed a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page -- which relied in part on the information from Steele -- told congressional investigators that he was never told of Ohr's concerns regarding possible bias and conflicts of interest.

On Aug. 15, 2016, a week or two following Bruce Ohr's meeting with McCabe, Strzok would send the now-infamous "insurance policy" text referencing McCabe to Lisa Page:

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office – that there's no way he gets elected – but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

On Aug. 22, Bruce Ohr had a meeting with Simpson. Ohr would later discuss that meeting during his testimony:

"I don't know exactly what Chris Steele was thinking, of course, but I knew that Chris Steele was working for Glenn Simpson, and that Glenn might have additional information that Chris either didn't have or was not authorized to prevent [present], give me, or whatever."

It was at this meeting that Simpson first mentioned Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Brennan's Briefings to the Gang of Eight <img class=" wp-image-2833280" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-103218413-1200x1585.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="211" /> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

During this same period in late August 2016, Brennan began briefing members of the Gang of Eight on the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, through a series of meetings in August and September 2016. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts by Democrats to block the release of transcripts from each meeting are ongoing. Comey, however, did not notify Congress of the FBI investigation until early March 2017, and it's entirely possible he was unaware of Brennan's private briefings during the summer of 2016.

During her testimony, FBI lawyer Lisa Page was questioned by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text message that read, "What are you doing after the CH brief?" CH almost certainly referred to Crossfire Hurricane.

Lisa Page then was asked about an event that took place on the same day as the "CH brief" -- a briefing provided by Brennan to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:

"You give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan is giving a brief. It's not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on-one, from what we can tell, a one-on-one briefing with Harry Reid at that point."

According to Meadows, Brennan briefed Reid on the Steele dossier:

"We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then obviously we're going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]?"

Lisa Page appeared genuinely surprised that Brennan would have been aware of the dossier's existence at this early point, telling Meadows: "The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did."

She elaborated further: "As of August of 2016, I don't know who Christopher Steele is. I don't know that he's an FBI source. I don't know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life."

This claim by Page seems incongruous when viewed against Bruce Ohr's testimony that he met with Page and McCabe in the first days of August following his July 30, 2016, breakfast with Steele:

"My initial meeting was with Mr. McCabe and with Lisa Page.

"I was telling them about what I was hearing from Chris Steele."

Meanwhile, Brennan's briefing prompted Reid to write not one but two letters to Comey. Both demanded that Comey commence an investigation, with the details to be made public.

Reid's first letter , which touched on Carter Page, was sent on Aug. 27, 2016. Reid's second letter , far angrier and declaring Comey to be in possession of material information, was sent on Oct. 30, 2016.

There had been reports that Comey had been considering closing the FBI investigation of Trump, something Brennan strongly opposed. Now, with Reid's letters sent, that avenue was effectively closed. The termination of the FBI's Trump–Russia investigation would be all but impossible in the face of Reid's public demands.

Perhaps it was in response to Reid's Aug. 27 letter that the FBI suddenly reached out to Steele in September 2016, asking him for all the information in his possession. The team working on Crossfire Hurricane received documents and a briefing from Steele in mid-September, reportedly at a meeting in Rome, where Gaeta also was present.

During Lisa Page's testimony, she appeared to corroborate this account, noting that the team received the "reports that are known as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele's handler in September of 2016." She would later clarify the timing, noting "we received the reporting from Steele in mid-September." A text sent to her by FBI agent Peter Strzok on Oct. 12, 2016, may provide us with the actual date:

"We got the reporting on Sept 19. Looks like [redacted] got it early August."

Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day. One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI.

The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight was done in consultation with the Obama administration:

"Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept Congress apprised of these issues as we identified them. Again, in consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in the election to congressional leadership.

"Given the highly sensitive nature of what was an active counter-intelligence case, involving an ongoing Russian effort, to interfere in our presidential election, the full details of what we knew at the time were shared only with those members of Congress."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PseDla0l9xE?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque The Carter Page FISA Warrant <img class=" wp-image-2833286" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Carter-Page.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="207" /> Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

As the dossier was making its way into the FBI, the agency began its preparations to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was surveilled under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

According to Baker's testimony, it appears that the FBI began to set its sights on Carter Page in the summer of 2016. When asked how he had first gained knowledge of the FBI's intention to pursue a FISA warrant on Carter Page, Baker testified that it came through his familiarity with the FBI's investigation:

Mr. Baker: " I learned of -- so I was aware when the FBI first started to focus on Carter Page, I was aware of that because it was part of the broader investigation that we were conducting. So I was aware that we were investigating him. And then at some point in time –"

Rep. Meadows: "But that was many years ago. That was in 2014. Or are you talking about 2016?"

Mr. Baker: " I am talking about 2016 in the summer."

Rep. Meadows: "Okay."

Mr. Baker: " Yeah. And so I was aware of the investigation, and then at some point in time, as part of the regular briefings on the case, the briefers mentioned that they were going to pursue a FISA."

It appears the FBI, and possibly the CIA, began to focus on Carter Page earlier than Baker was aware. Carter Page had been invited some months prior to a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election. The speaker list was notable:

Carter Page attended the event just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip, and it was during this time in the UK that he first encountered Stefan Halper. Page's Moscow trip would later figure prominently in the Steele dossier.

Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired.

Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau's National Security and Cyber Law Branch, approved the application for a warrant to spy on Carter Page before it went to FBI Director James Comey.

According to Anderson, pre-approvals for the Carter Page FISA warrant were provided by both McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, before the FISA application was ever presented to Anderson for review.

"[M]y boss and my boss' boss had already reviewed and approved this application. And, in fact, the Deputy Attorney General, who had the authority to sign the application, to be the substantive approver on the FISA application itself, had approved the application. And that typically would not have been the case before I did that," said Anderson.

The unusual preliminary reviews and approvals from both McCabe and Yates appear to have had a substantial impact on the normal review process, leading other individuals like Anderson to believe that the warrant application was more vetted than it really was.

Anderson also testified that she had not read the Carter Page FISA application prior to signing off on it and passing it along to Comey for the final FBI signature. According to FBI lawyer Sally Moyer, the underlying Woods file (a document that provides facts supporting the allegations made in a FISA application) was only read by the originating agent and the supervisory special agent in the field. Moyer also noted that the Woods file relating to the Page FISA had not been reviewed or audited by anyone.

The Carter Page FISA application was largely reliant on the Steele dossier, which was unverified at the time of its submission to the FISA court and remains unverified by the FBI to this day. Circular reporting, provided by Steele himself, was used as corroboration of the dossier. Additionally, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whose conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was used to open the FBI's July 31, 2016, counterintelligence investigation, is referenced in the FISA, yet there "is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos," according to a House Intelligence Committee memo.

Moyer testified that without the Steele dossier, the Carter Page application would have had a "50/50" chance of achieving the probable cause standard before the FISA court. Notably, the Steele dossier is generally considered to have been largely discredited.

A Perkins Coie Partner and Alfa Bank Allegations

<img class=" wp-image-2679668" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/05/Michael-Sussmann-Perkins-Coie.jpg" alt="Michael Sussmann Lawyer Perkins Coie" width="160" height="194" /> Michael Sussmann, partner at Perkins Coie. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)

On Sept. 19, shortly after Steele completed his latest three memos, FBI General Counsel James Baker met with Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann, the lawyer the DNC turned to on April 28, 2016, after discovering the alleged hacking of their servers.

Sussman, who sought out the meeting, presented Baker with documents that Baker described as "a stack of material I don't know maybe a quarter inch half inch thick something like that clipped together, and then I believe there was some type of electronic media, as well, a disk or something."

The information that Sussmann gave to Baker was related to what Baker described as "a surreptitious channel of communications" between the Trump Organization and "a Russian organization associated with the Russian Government."

Baker was describing alleged communications between Alfa Bank and a server in the Trump Tower. The allegations, which were investigated by the FBI and proven to be false, were widely covered in the media.

Just four days earlier, on Sept. 14, Steele mentioned Alfa Bank (misspelled as Alpha bank) in one of his memos.

According to Baker's testimony, there appears to have been at least three meetings with Sussmann -- the first in person and at least two subsequent meetings by phone. In either the second or third conversation, Baker came to understand The New York Times was also in possession of Sussmann's information. As would become clear later, other members of the media also had this same information.

As Baker was meeting with Sussmann, Steele was back in Washington for a series of meetings that included his DOJ contact, Bruce Ohr.

On Sept. 23, 2016, Bruce Ohr again met with Steele for breakfast, telling lawmakers during testimony, "Steele was in Washington, D.C., again, and he reached out to me, and, again, we met for breakfast, and he provided some additional information." Ohr said this meeting concerned similar topics that were discussed at the July 30, 2016, meeting but did not provide further details.

Bruce Ohr would also meet either that same month or in early October with FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and DOJ career officials from the criminal division, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman (Ohr testified that he was unsure whether Weismann was at this or a later meeting). Both Weissman and Ahmad would later become part of the team assembled by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Steele's Meetings With the Media

On the same day that Bruce Ohr met with Christopher Steele for breakfast, on Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff published an article about Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The article, headlined " U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin ," was based on an interview with Steele. Isikoff's article would later be used by the FBI in the FISA spy warrant application on Carter Page as corroborating information.

Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a statement on the same day that touted Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached.

A second lengthy article was published on Sept. 23, by Politico: " Who Is Carter Page? The Mystery of Trump's Man in Moscow ," by Julia Ioffe. This article was particularly interesting as it appeared to highlight media efforts by Fusion GPS:

"As I started looking into Page, I began getting calls from two separate 'corporate investigators' digging into what they claim are all kinds of shady connections Page has to all kinds of shady Russians. One is working on behalf of various unnamed Democratic donors; the other won't say who turned him on to Page's scent. Both claimed to me that the FBI was investigating Page for allegedly meeting with Igor Sechin and Sergei Ivanov, who was until recently Putin's chief of staff -- both of whom are on the sanctions list -- when Page was in Moscow in July for that speech."

Ioffe noted that "seemingly everyone I talked to had also talked to the Washington Post, and then there were these corporate investigators who drew a dark and complex web of Page's connections."

Her article also mentioned rumors regarding Alfa Bank:

"In the interest of due diligence, I also tried to run down the rumors being handed me by the corporate investigators: that Russia's Alfa Bank paid for the trip as a favor to the Kremlin; that Page met with Sechin and Ivanov in Moscow; that he is now being investigated by the FBI for those meetings because Sechin and Ivanov were both sanctioned for Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

It was probably during this same trip to Washington that Steele met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya, whom Steele had known since at least 2010.

Winer had received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier.

Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to UK Court documents , Steele testified that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person."

Alfa Bank Media Leaks

<img class=" wp-image-2679669" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/05/james-baker.jpg" alt="James Baker FBi Special Counsel" width="160" height="203" /> Former FBI General Counsel James Baker.

As Steele's media meetings were going on, FBI General Counsel James Baker learned that Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann was also speaking with reporters from The New York Times regarding the Alfa Bank information that Sussmann had provided to the FBI. After some internal discussion, the FBI approached both Sussmann and The New York Times, asking that any story be held until the FBI had time to complete an investigation into the documents provided by Sussmann. It appears that an agreement was reached, and the FBI began to look into the claims regarding Alfa Bank and the server at Trump Tower.

But Sussman wasn't the only one that Baker, currently the subject of an ongoing criminal leak investigation, was speaking with. According to congressional investigators, beginning sometime in September 2016 -- before the presidential election -- Baker began having conversations with his old friend and journalist, David Corn of Mother Jones.

According to Baker, these conversations were in relation to ongoing FBI matters:

Rep. Jordan: " Did you talk to Mr. Corn prior to the election about anything, anything related to FBI matters? Not -- so we're not going to ask about the Steele dossier. Anything about FBI business, FBI matters?"

Mr. Baker: " Yes."

Rep. Jordan: " Yes. And do you know -- can you give me some dates or the number of times that you talked to Mr. Corn about FBI matters leading up to the 2016 Presidential election?"

Mr. Baker: " I don't remember, Congressman."

By Oct. 31, 2016, the FBI had apparently wrapped up their investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations, finding no evidence of anything untoward in the process. It was on this day that three separate articles on Alfa Bank would be published.

The first, " Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia " by The New York Times, appeared to be an updated version of the article they had intended to publish before the FBI asked them to delay their reporting. It stated the following:

"In classified sessions in August and September, intelligence officials also briefed congressional leaders on the possibility of financial ties between Russians and people connected to Mr. Trump. They focused particular attention on what cyberexperts said appeared to be a mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank, which is one of Russia's biggest banks and whose owners have longstanding ties to Mr. Putin."

The reference to "classified sessions in August and September" is likely in relation to the series of Gang of Eight briefings that former CIA Director John Brennan engaged in at that time -- including his briefing to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The article continued:

"F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa Bank. Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 'look-up' messages -- a first step for one system's computers to talk to another -- to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I. ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts."

The second article, "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?" by Slate Magazine, was solely focused on the allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower that had allegedly been communicating with a server at Alfa Bank in Russia.

Immediately following the publication of the Slate article, Clinton posted a tweet that included a statement from Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser:

"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

Sullivan's statement referenced the Slate article and included the following:

"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

The Alfa Bank story took off -- despite the same-day story from The New York Times that specifically noted the FBI had investigated that matter and found nothing untoward.

The final article published on Oct. 31, " A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump " by Mother Jones reporter -- and Baker's friend -- David Corn, also mentioned Alfa Bank:

"In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. On Monday, a Slate investigation detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, 'We don't yet know what this [Trump] server was for, but it deserves further explanation.' In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, 'The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.'"

More notably, Corn's article also provided the first public reporting on the existence of the Steele dossier:

"A former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more information from him."

As it turns out, Corn had detailed, first-hand knowledge of the dossier. According to testimony from Baker, Corn had been provided with parts of the dossier by Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson. Baker knew of this fact, because within a week of publishing his article, Corn passed these dossier parts on to Baker personally:

Rep. Jordan: " Prior to the election Mr. Corn had a copy of the dossier and was talking to you about giving that to you so the FBI would have it. Is that all right? I mean all accurate."

Mr. Baker: " My recollection is that he had part of the dossier, that we had other parts already, and that we got still other parts from other people, and that -- and nevertheless some of the parts that David Corn gave us were parts that we did not have from another source?"

Steele had written four memos after the FBI team received his information in mid-September. All of the memos were written in October -- on the 12th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th. It is possible that these were the memos passed along to Baker by Corn.

Baker testified that he received elements of the dossier from Corn that were not in the FBI's possession at the time. He said that he immediately turned this information over to leadership within the FBI, noting, "I think it was Bill Priestap," the head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.

The use of personal relationships as a mechanism to transmit outside information to the FBI was actually noted by Baker, who said of Corn: "Even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands of the FBI."

Bruce Ohr's FBI Handler

Christopher Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media. Despite this, DOJ official Bruce Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017.

On Nov. 21, 2016, Ohr had a meeting with FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and was introduced to FBI agent Joe Pientka, who became Ohr's FBI handler. Pientka was also present with Strzok during the Jan. 24, 2017, interview of Trump's national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn .

The next day, Nov. 22, 2016, Ohr met alone with Pientka. Ohr would continue to relay his communications with Steele to the FBI through Pientka, who then recorded them in FD-302 forms. What Ohr didn't know was that Pientka was transmitting all the information directly to Strzok.

Ohr, in his testimony, detailed his interactions with Steele and Glenn Simpson, as well as his communications with officials at the FBI and DOJ. Notably, Ohr repeatedly stated that he never vetted any of the information provided by either Steele or Simpson. He simply turned it over or relayed it to the FBI -- usually to Pientka -- but Ohr also testified that "at least on two occasions I was handed onto a new agent."

Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession.

On Dec. 10, 2016, Bruce Ohr met with Simpson, who gave him a memory stick that Ohr believed contained a copy of the Steele dossier. Ohr also passed this second memory stick along to Pientka.

On Jan. 20, 2017, Ohr had one final communication with Simpson, a phone call that took place on the same day as Trump's inauguration. Ohr testified that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was concerned that one of Steele's sources was about to be exposed through the pending publication of an article:

Mr. Ohr: " He says something along the lines of, I -- there's going to be some reporting in the next few days that's going to -- could expose the source, and the source could be in personal danger."

Rep. Meadows: " And why was he concerned about that source being exposed?"

Mr. Ohr: " I think he was aware of some kind of article that was likely to come out in the next, you know, few days or something."

Apparently, Simpson's information was at least partly accurate. On Jan. 24, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sergei Millian, a Belarusan-American businessman and onetime Russian government translator, was both "Source D" and "Source E" in the dossier. It remains unknown exactly how Simpson knew in advance that Millian would be outed as a source.

But there are some questions as to the accuracy of the Journal's reporting. The dossier appears to conflict with the newspaper's article in at least one aspect. According to the dossier, Source E was used as confirmation for Source D -- meaning they can't be the same person.

McCain, the Dossier, and a UK Connection

Simpson and Steele were carefully thorough in their dissemination efforts. The dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources.

One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood may have previously worked on behalf of Steele's company, Orbis Business Intelligence; he was referenced in a UK court filing as an associate of Orbis. Wood was also referred to as an adviser to Orbis in a deposition by an associate of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), David Kramer.

Kramer knew Wood previously from their mutual expertise on Russia. Kramer said in his deposition, which was part of a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News, that Wood told him that "he was aware of information that he thought I should be aware of and that Senator McCain might be interested in."

<img class=" wp-image-2833323" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/kramer-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="173" /> McCain associate David Kramer. (Courtesy McCain Institute)

McCain, Wood, and Kramer would meet later that afternoon, on Nov. 19, 2016, in a private meeting room at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Wood told both Kramer and McCain that "he was aware of this information that had been gathered that raised the possibility of collusion and compromising material on the president-elect. And he explained that he knew the person who gathered the information and felt that the person was of the utmost credibility," Kramer said.

Kramer ascribed the word "collusion" three times to Wood in his deposition. He also said that Wood mentioned the possible existence of a video "of a sexual nature" that might have "shown the president-elect in a compromising situation." According to Kramer, Wood said that "if it existed, that it was from a hotel in Moscow when president-elect, before he was president-elect, had been in Moscow."

No such video was ever uncovered or given to Kramer.

Kramer testified that following the description of the video, "the senator turned to me and asked if I would go to London to meet with what turned out to be Mr. Steele."

Kramer traveled to London to meet with Steele on Nov. 28, 2016. Kramer reviewed all the memos during his meeting with Steele but wasn't provided with a physical copy of the dossier.

When Kramer returned to Washington, he was provided with a copy of the dossier -- which, at that point, consisted of 16 memos -- during a meeting with Simpson on Nov. 29, 2016. Kramer also testified that there was another individual, "a male," present at the meeting.

<img class=" wp-image-2849229" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/John-McCain-1200x1530.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="204" /> Late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Interestingly, Kramer testified that Simpson gave him two copies of the dossier, noting that Simpson told him that "one had more things blacked out than the other." Kramer said, "It wasn't entirely clear to me why there were two versions of this, so but I took both versions."

Kramer noted that Simpson, who was aware the dossier was being given to McCain, said the dossier "was a very sensitive document and needed to be handled very carefully."

Despite that warning, Kramer showed the dossier to a number of journalists and had discussions with at least 14 members of the media, along with some individuals in the U.S. government.

Kramer testified that he gave a physical copy of the dossier to reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon of McClatchy; to Fred Hiatt, the editor of the Washington Post editorial page; Alan Cullison of The Wall Street Journal; Bob Little at NPR; Carl Bernstein at CNN; and Ken Bensinger at BuzzFeed. It's possible that Kramer gave copies to other reporters as well.

Kramer said that Simpson and Steele were aware of most of these contacts, but that Kramer hadn't told either of them that he gave the dossier to NPR. He also noted that Steele had been in contact with Bernstein at CNN and that the CNN and BuzzFeed meetings occurred at Steele's request. Steele told Kramer that he and Bensinger "had been in touch during the FIFA investigation; they got to know each other that way."

According to Kramer, he didn't believe that Fusion GPS and Simpson were aware of these two meetings with CNN and BuzzFeed.

Kramer testified that he, McCain, and McCain's chief of staff, Christopher Brose, met to review the dossier on Nov. 30, 2016. Kramer suggested that McCain "provide a copy of [the dossier] to the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA." McCain later passed a copy of the dossier to James Comey on Dec. 9, 2016. It isn't known whether McCain also provided a copy to then-CIA Director John Brennan. Notably, Brennan did attach a two-page summary of the dossier to the intelligence community assessment that he delivered to outgoing President Barack Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.

Kramer said that he wasn't aware of the content of McCain's Dec. 9 discussion with Comey, noting that he "did not get any readout from the senator on the meeting, but just that it had happened."

Kramer did, however, provide updates to both Steele and Simpson regarding the status of McCain's meeting with Comey, in subsequent discussions with Simpson and Steele:

"It was mostly just to inform him about whether or not the senator had transfer -- transmitted the document to the FBI. Both he and Mr. Steele were -- I kept them apprised of whether the senator was -- where the senator was in terms of his contact with the FBI."

The implications of this statement are significant. Kramer, a private citizen, was providing updates to a former British spy as to what a sitting senator, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, was saying to the director of the FBI.

Other members of the media also had advance knowledge of McCain's intention to meet with Comey. Kramer testified that both Mother Jones reporter David Corn and Guardian reporter Julian Borger came to meet with him. According to Kramer, "They were mostly interested in Senator McCain and his, whether he had given it to Director Comey or not."

Several days after McCain, Brose, and Kramer met to discuss the dossier, Kramer said that McCain instructed him to meet with Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, and Celeste Wallander, the senior director for Russia and Central Asia on the National Security Council.

The purpose of the meeting was to verify whether the dossier "was being taken seriously." Both Nuland and Wallander were previously aware of the dossier's existence, and both officials previously knew Steele, whom "they believed to be credible." Kramer said he didn't physically share the dossier with them at this point, but met again with Wallander "around New Years" and "gave her a copy of the document"

Nuland had actually received a copy of the earlier Steele memos back in July 2016.

Steele produced a final memo dated Dec. 13, 2016. According to UK court documents , Kramer, on behalf of McCain, had asked Steele to provide any further intelligence that he had gathered relating to "alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election." Notably, it appears it was this request from McCain that led Steele to produce his Dec. 13 memo.

Although Kramer didn't provide a date, he said he received the final Steele memo sometime after "Senator McCain had provided the copy to Director Comey." We know that Kramer received the final memo prior to Dec. 29 -- when Kramer met with BuzzFeed's Bensinger.

Kramer testified that Bensinger "said he wanted to read them, he asked me if he could take photos of them on his -- I assume it was an iPhone. I asked him not to. He said he was a slow reader, he wanted to read it. And so I said, you know, I got a phone call to make, and I had to go to the bathroom " Kramer said that he "left him to read it for 20, 30 minutes."

Kramer also testified that besides the reporters, he gave a final copy of the dossier to two other people in early January 2017: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan's chief of staff, Jonathan Burks.

James Clapper Leaks Details of Obama–Trump Briefings

The ICA on alleged Russian hacking was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, outgoing president Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the assessment -- and the attached summation of the dossier -- with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the ICA and the Steele dossier.

<img class=" wp-image-2833293" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/James-Clapper-1200x1296.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="173" /> Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview that he had done so at the request of Clapper and Brennan, "because that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo :

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump on it that CNN reported on the dossier. The House Intelligence Committee report on Russian election interference confirmed that Clapper personally leaked confirmation of the dossier, along with Comey's meeting with Trump, to CNN:

"The Committee's investigation revealed that President-elect Trump was indeed briefed on the contents of the Steele dossier and when questioned by the Committee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that he confirmed the existence of the dossier to the media."

Additionally, the House intelligence report shows Clapper appears to have been the direct source for CNN's Jake Tapper and his Jan. 10 story that disclosed the existence of the dossier:

"When initially asked about leaks related to the ICA in July 2017, former DNI Clapper flatly denied 'discuss[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists.' Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the 'dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,' and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic.

"Clapper's discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017, around the time IC leaders briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump, on 'the Christopher Steele information,' a two-page summary of which was 'enclosed in' the highly-classified version of the ICA."

On Jan. 10, 2017, CNN published the article "Intel Chiefs Presented Trump With Claims of Russian Efforts to Compromise Him " by Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper, and Carl Bernstein. (The article would later be updated and have a Jan. 12, 2017, date.)

The allegations within the dossier were made public, and with reporting of the briefings by intelligence community leaders, instant credibility was given to the dossier's assertions.

Immediately following the CNN story, BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier, and the Trump–Russia conspiracy was pushed into the mainstream.

David Kramer was asked about his reaction when CNN broke the story on the dossier. According to his deposition, Kramer stated, "I believe my words were 'Holy [expletive].'"

Kramer, who was actually meeting with The Guardian's Julian Borger when CNN reported on the dossier, said that he quickly spoke with Steele, who "was shocked."

On the following day, Jan. 11, 2017, Clapper issued a statement condemning the leaks -- without revealing the fact that he was the source of the leak.

On Nov. 17, 2016, Clapper submitted his resignation as director of national intelligence; his resignation became effective on Jan. 20, 2017. Later that year, CNN hired Clapper as its national security analyst.

The Effort to Remove General Flynn

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then-national security adviser to President Donald Trump, was interviewed on Jan. 24, 2017, by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka about two December 2016 conversations that Flynn had had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

<img class=" wp-image-2833340" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Michael-Flynn-1200x1469.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="197" /> National security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. (Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

Details of the phone conversation had leaked to the media. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding his conversations with Kislyak. It remains unknown to this day who leaked Flynn's classified call -- a far more serious felony violation.

The Washington Post reported in January 2017 that the FBI had found no evidence of wrongdoing in Flynn's actual call with the Russian ambassador. The call, and the matters discussed in it, broke no laws.

Flynn has been portrayed in the media as being suspiciously close to Russia; a dinner in Moscow that occurred in late 2015 is frequently cited as evidence of this.

On Dec. 10, 2015, Flynn attended an event in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russian television network RT. Flynn, who was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the culminating dinner, was also interviewed on national security matters by an RT correspondent. Flynn's speaker's bureau, Leading Authorities Inc., was paid $45,000 for the event and Flynn received $33,000 of the total amount.

Seated at the same table with Flynn was Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in the 2016 election. By all accounts, including Stein's , Flynn and Putin didn't engage in any real conversation. At the time, Flynn's trip didn't garner significant attention. But it would later be used by the media and the Clinton campaign to push the Russia-collusion narrative.

Notably, as stated by lawyer Robert Kelner, Flynn disclosed his Moscow trip to the Defense Intelligence Agency before he traveled there and provided a full briefing upon his return:

"As has previously been reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of the DoD, extensively regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by the DIA concerning the trip during those briefings."

Flynn's trip to Russia was first brought to broader attention on July 18, 2016, during a live interview at the Republican National Convention with Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vjvvtuDEQJY?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

The Isikoff interview took place on July 18, 2016. Unknown at the time, the matter had also captured the attention of Christopher Steele, who had begun publishing his dossier memos on June 20, 2016.

Contained within an Aug. 10, 2016, memo was this initial reference to Flynn:

"Kremlin engaging with several high profile US players, including STEIN, PAGE and (former DIA Director Michael Flynn) and funding their recent visits to Moscow."

In addition to the obvious questions raised by the timing of Flynn's name appearing in Steele's Aug. 10 memo, is the manner in which Flynn is denoted. All other names are capitalized, in the manner of intelligence briefings. Flynn's name isn't capitalized and, in one case, appears within parentheses.

Steele met with Yahoo News' Isikoff in September 2016 and gave him information from the dossier. The resulting Sept. 23, 2016, article from Isikoff was then cited by the FBI as validating Steele's claims and was featured in the original FISA application , and its three subsequent renewals , for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

Steele wasn't the only person Isikoff was working with. On April 26, 2016, Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leaked by Wikileaks that Isikoff had been working with Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American operative who was doing consulting work for the DNC. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose alleged ties between Trump, Manafort, and Russia.

The obvious question remains: How did the information on Flynn make its way into the dossier at the time it did, and who provided the information to Steele?

Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration.

A Jan. 10, 2017, article in The New York Times, " Trump's National Security Pick Sees Ally in Fight Against Islamists: Russia ," highlighted the efforts:

"In an extraordinary report released last week, the agencies bluntly accused the Russian government of having worked to undermine American democracy and promote the candidacy of Mr. Trump. The report is likely to renew questions about Mr. Flynn's avowed eagerness to work with Russia, and his dismissal of concerns about President Vladimir V. Putin."

Flynn would resign from his position as national security adviser in February 2017. The sequence of events leading to his resignation were both coordinated and orchestrated, with acting Attorney General Sally Yates playing a leading role.

On Jan. 12, 2017, Flynn's Dec. 29, 2016, call with Kislyak was leaked to The Washington Post. The article portrayed Flynn as undermining Obama's Russia sanctions that had been imposed on the same day as Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador.

On Jan. 15, five days before Trump's inauguration, Vice President Mike Pence appeared on "Face the Nation" to defend Flynn's calls.

A few days later, on Jan. 19, Obama officials -- Yates, Clapper, Brennan and Comey -- met to discuss Flynn's situation. The concern they reportedly discussed was that Flynn might have misled Trump administration officials regarding the nature of his call with Kislyak.

<img class="wp-image-2852644 size-full" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/25/spygate-small.jpg" alt="" width="592" height="724" /> Click on the infographic to enlarge

Yates, Clapper, and Brennan supported informing the Trump administration of their concerns. Comey took a dissenting view. On Jan 23, Yates again pressured Comey, telling the FBI director that she believed Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail. At this point, according to media reports, Comey relented, despite the FBI finding nothing unlawful in the content of Flynn's calls.

Strzok and Pientka, at the instruction of McCabe, interviewed Flynn the following day. According to court documents, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed." It was during this interview that Flynn reportedly lied to the FBI.

The DOJ was provided with a detailed briefing of the Flynn interview on the following day. On Jan. 26, Yates contacted White House counsel Don McGahn, who agreed to meet to discuss the matter. Yates arrived at McGahn's office, bringing Mary McCord, John Carlin's acting replacement as head of the DOJ's National Security Division.

Yates later testified before Congress that the meeting surrounded Flynn's phone calls and his FBI interview. She also testified that Flynn's call and subsequent interview "was a topic of a whole lot of discussion in DOJ and with other members of the intel community." McGahn reportedly asked Yates, "Why does it matter to the DOJ if one White House official lies to another official?"

McGahn called Yates the following day and asked her to return for a second meeting. Yates returned to the White House without McCord. McGahn asked to examine the FBI's evidence on Flynn. Yates said she would respond by the following Monday.

Yates failed to provide McGahn with the FBI's evidence on Flynn. From that point, the pressure on Flynn and the Trump administration escalated -- with help from media reporting.

Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, after it was reported that he had misled Pence about phone conversations he'd had with Kislyak.

The following day, The New York Times reported that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials."

With Flynn gone and the Russian narrative firmly established, the conspirators then turned their attention to Trump's newly confirmed attorney general, Jeff Sessions . On March 1, 2017, The Washington Post reported that Sessions had twice had contact with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak. The following day, March 2, Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation.

On the same day that Sessions recused himself, Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, detailed efforts at hampering the newly installed Trump administration, during a March 2, 2017, interview with MSNBC , in which she described how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Note that Farkas said "how we knew," not just "what we knew."

Obama Officials Used Unmasking to Target the Trump Campaign

On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), met a classified source who showed him "dozens" of intelligence reports. Contained within these reports was evidence of surveillance on the Trump campaign. Nunes held a press conference on March 22 highlighting what he had found:

<img class=" wp-image-2849235" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Devin-Nunes-1200x1522.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="203" /> Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

"I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting."

In a series of rapid-fire questions and answers, Nunes attempted to elaborate on what he had been shown:

"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying to get to the bottom of it I think the NSA's going to comply. I am concerned – we don't know whether or not the FBI is going to comply. I have placed a call, I'm waiting to talk to Director Comey, hopefully later today.

"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the President-elect and his team were at least monitored and disseminated out in intelligence, in what appears to be raw -- well I shouldn't say raw -- but intelligence reporting channels.

"It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the President-elect and his transition team and what they were doing."

The documents Nunes had been shown highlighted the unmasking activities of the FBI, the Obama administration, and CIA Director Brennan in relation to the Trump campaign. Although March 2017 would prove chaotic, the Trump administration had survived the first crucial months, and would now begin to slowly assert its administrative authority.

Comey Testifies No Obstruction by Trump Administration

On May 3, 2017, James Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under oath, Comey stated that his agency -- and the FBI's investigation -- had not been pressured by the Trump administration:

Sen. Hirono: " So if the attorney general or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation, can they halt that FBI investigation?"

Mr. Comey: " In theory, yes."

Sen. Hirono: " Has it happened?"

Mr. Comey: " Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that – without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason. That would be a very big deal. It's not happened in my experience."

<img class="wp-image-2849240" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Former-FBI-Director-James-Comey-.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="199" /> FBI Director James Comey. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Less than a week later, on May 9, Trump fired Comey based on a May 8 recommendation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein .

Rosenstein would later tell members of Congress: "In one of my first meetings with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions last winter, we discussed the need for new leadership at the FBI. Among the concerns that I recall were to restore the credibility of the FBI, respect the established authority of the Department of Justice, limit public statements and eliminate leaks."

Regarding the recommendation, Rosenstein said: "I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it."

McCabe's FBI Reaches Out Again to Steele

Within days of Trump's firing of Comey, the FBI, now under the leadership of acting-FBI Director Andrew McCabe, suddenly decided to reestablish direct contact with Christopher Steele through DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

The re-engagement attempt came six months after Steele had been formally terminated by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016.

The FBI's re-engagement of Ohr was highlighted during a congressional review of some text messages between Ohr and Steele:

Mr. Ohr: " The FBI had asked me a few days before, when I reported to them my latest conversation with Chris Steele, they had had would he -- next time you talk with him, could you ask him if he would be willing to meet again."

Rep. Jordan: " So this is the re-engagement?"

Mr. Ohr: " Yes."

The texts being referenced were sent on May 15, 2017, and refer to a request that Ohr received from the FBI to ask Steele to re-engage with the FBI in the days after Comey had been fired on May 9.

This was the only time the FBI used Ohr to reach out to Steele.

The Battle Between McCabe and Rosenstein

Two days after Comey was fired, on May 11, 2017, McCabe testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the hearing's original intent had been to focus on national security threats, Trump's firing of Comey completely altered the topic of the hearing.

McCabe, who agreed that he would notify the committee "of any effort to interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign," told members of Congress that there had been "no effort to impede our investigation to date." In other words, McCabe testified that he was unaware of any evidence of obstruction from Trump or his administration. Notably, Comey's May 3 testimony may have left McCabe with little choice other than to confirm there had been no obstruction.

<img class="wp-image-2849245 " src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/McCabe-1200x1290.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="173" /> Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

McCabe, however, failed to inform the committee that he was actively considering opening an obstruction-of-justice probe of Trump -- a path he would initiate in a meeting with Rosenstein just five days later.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein allegedly suggested to McCabe that he could secretly record Trump. It was at this meeting that McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president," according to witness accounts reported by The Washington Post.

In addition to McCabe, Rosenstein, and McCabe's special counsel, Lisa Page, there were one or two others present, including Rosenstein's chief of staff , James Crowley, and possibly Scott Schools, the senior-most career attorney at the DOJ and a top aide to Rosenstein.

An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation between McCabe and Rosenstein in an entirely different light, noting that Rosenstein had responded with angry sarcasm to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

This was just five days after McCabe had publicly testified that there was no obstruction on the part of the Trump administration.

<img class="wp-image-2849247 " src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Rod-Rosenstein-1200x1404.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="187" /> Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Sometime later that same day, both Rosenstein and Trump met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller in the Oval Office. The meeting was reported as being for the FBI director position, but the idea that Mueller would be considered for the FBI director role seems highly unlikely.

Mueller had previously served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013 -- two years beyond the normal 10-year tenure for an FBI director. In 2011, Obama requested that Mueller stay on as FBI director for an additional two years, which required special congressional approval .

Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel the following day, on May 17, 2017, and in doing so, Rosenstein removed control of the Trump–Russia investigation from McCabe and put it in the hands of Mueller.

This was confirmed in a recent statement by a DOJ spokesperson, who said, "The deputy attorney general in fact appointed special counsel Robert Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation."

Following the appointment of Mueller as special counsel, it also appears the FBI's efforts to re-engage with Steele abruptly ended.

'There's No Big There There'

We know the FBI hadn't found any evidence of collusion in the May 2017 timeframe. While McCabe was attempting to open an obstruction investigation, Peter Strzok -- who played a key role in the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign -- texted Lisa Page about lacking evidence of collusion:

"You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there, no question. I hesitate, in part, because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."

Page, who was asked about this text during her July 2018 testimony, said, "So I think this represents that even as far as May of 2017, we still couldn't answer the question."

James Baker, who was questioned about the Strzok text, was then asked if he'd seen any evidence to the contrary. He stumbled a bit in his reply:

Rep. Meadows: " Do you have any evidence to the contrary that you observed personally in your official capacity?"

Mr. Baker: " So the difficulty I'm having with your question is, what does 'collusion' mean, and what does 'prove' mean? And so I don't know how to respond to that."

FBI Leadership Speculates on New Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative

In his testimony, Baker disclosed the actual substance of discussions taking place at the upper echelons of the FBI immediately following Comey's firing -- that Vladimir Putin had ordered Trump to fire Comey:

Mr. Baker: " We discussed, so to the best of my recollection, with the same people I described earlier: Mr. McCabe, possibly Mr. Gattis [Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the National Security Branch], Mr. Priestap, possibly Lisa Page, possibly Pete Strzok. I don't remember that specifically."

Rep. Ratcliffe: " So there was -- there was a discussion between those folks, possibly all of the folks that you've identified, about whether or not President Trump had been ordered to fire Jim Comey by the Russian Government?"

Mr. Baker: " I wouldn't say ordered. I guess I would say the words I sort of used earlier, acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will, whether -- and so literally an order or not, I don't know. But -- "

Rep. Ratcliffe: " And so -- "

Mr. Baker: " As a -- it was discussed as a theoretical possibility."

Rep. Ratcliffe: " When was it discussed?"

Mr. Baker: "After the firing, like in the aftermath of the firing."

The FBI, with no actual evidence of collusion after 10 months of investigating, began discussing a complete hypothetical at the highest levels of leadership as a means to possibly open an obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president of the United States.

During his testimony, Baker told lawmakers: "I had a jaundiced eye about everything, yes. I had skepticism about all this stuff. I was concerned about all of this. This whole situation was horrible, and it was novel and we were trying to figure out what to do, and it was highly unusual."

McCabe was later fired for lying to the DOJ inspector general and is currently the subject of a criminal grand jury investigation.

The Fixer

Despite the ongoing assault from the intelligence community and holdovers from the Obama administration, Trump was not entirely without allies.

Dana Boente, one of the nation's highest-profile federal prosecutors, served in a series of critical shifting roles within the Trump administration. Boente, who remained the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia until early 2018, concurrently became the acting attorney general following the firing of Sally Yates. Boente, who was specifically appointed by Trump, was not directly in the line of succession that had been previously laid out under an unusual executive order from the Obama administration.

<img class=" wp-image-2849248" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Dana-Boente.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="213" /> FBI General Counsel Dana Boente. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Upon the confirmation of Sessions as attorney general, Boente next served as acting deputy attorney general until the confirmation of Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general on April 25, 2017. Boente then became the acting head of the DOJ's National Security Division on April 28, 2017, following the sudden resignation of Mary McCord.

Boente was appointed as FBI general counsel on Jan. 23, 2018, replacing Baker, who was demoted and reassigned. Baker is currently the subject of a criminal leak investigation. Boente remains in his position as FBI general counsel.

On March 31, 2017, the Trump administration asked for the resignations all 46 holdover U.S. attorneys from the Obama administration. Trump refused to accept the resignations of just three of them -- Boente, Rosenstein, and John Huber.

As Sessions noted in a March 29, 2018, letter to congressional chairmen Chuck Grassley, Bob Goodlatte, and Trey Gowdy, Huber was assigned by Sessions to lead a prosecution team and is currently working with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz:

"I already have directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues previously raised by the Committee. Specifically, I asked United States Attorney John W. Huber to lead this effort."

John Carlin's Race With Admiral Rogers

<img class=" wp-image-2833317" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Mike-Rogers-1200x1435.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="191" /> Director of the National Security Agency Admiral Mike Rogers. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

The Carter Page FISA application has been the subject of significant media attention, but there's another element to the story that, although largely ignored, is equally important. It involved what amounted to a surreptitious race between then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin.

Following a March 9, 2016, discovery that outside contractors for the FBI had been accessing raw FISA data since at least 2015, Rogers directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702" at some point in early April 2016 ( Senate testimony & pages 83–84 of court ruling).

On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted.

The DOJ's NSD maintains oversight of the intelligence agencies' use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies' Section 702 activities every 60 days. The NSD -- with notice to the ODNI -- is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the FISA court.

Instead of issuing individual court orders, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence (DNI) are required by Section 702 to provide the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) with annual certifications that specify categories of foreign intelligence information the government is authorized to acquire, pursuant to Section 702.

The attorney general and the DNI also must certify that Intelligence Community agencies will follow targeting procedures and minimization procedures that are approved by the FISC as part of the certification.

Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702-compliance review.

On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his resignation , which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016.

<img class=" wp-image-2849255" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/John-Carlin-FBI.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="192" /> John Carlin, DOJ's National Security Division. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On Oct. 4, 2016, a standard follow-up court hearing was held ( Page 19 ), with Carlin present. Again, he made no disclosure of FISA abuse or other related issues. This lack of disclosure would be noted by the court later in the April 2017 ruling:

"The government's failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [was ascribed] to an institutional 'lack of candor.'"

Rogers appeared formally before the FISA court on Oct. 26, 2016, and presented the written findings of his audit:

"Two days later, on the day the Court otherwise would have had to complete its review of the certifications and procedures, the government made a written submission regarding those compliance problems and the Court held a hearing to address them.

"The government reported that the NSA IG and OCO were conducting other reviews covering different time periods, with preliminary results suggesting that the problem was widespread during all periods under review."

The FISA court was unaware of the FISA "query" violations until they were presented to the court by then-NSA Director Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications, apparently in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA court ahead of receiving the Carter Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. FISA Abuse & the FISC

Rogers presented his findings directly to the FISA court's presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer. Collyer and Rogers would work together for the next six months, addressing the issues that Rogers had uncovered.

It was Collyer who wrote the April 26, 2017, FISA court ruling on the entire episode. It also was Collyer who signed the original FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016, before being apprised of the many issues by Rogers.

The litany of abuses described in the April 26, 2017, ruling was shocking and detailed the use of private contractors by the FBI in relation to Section 702 data. Collyer referred to it as "a very serious Fourth Amendment issue." The FBI was specifically singled out by the court numerous times in the ruling:

"The improper access previously afforded the contractors has been discontinued. The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

Rogers informed Collyer of the ongoing FISA abuses by the FBI and NSD just three days after she personally signed the Carter Page FISA warrant.

Virtually every FBI and NSD official with material involvement in the original Carter Page FISA application would later be removed -- either through firing or resignation.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated the wrong month for Christopher Steele's 2016 meeting with the FBI in Rome. The meeting took place in September 2016.

[Aug 22, 2019] FBI Informant Fed Media Lies to Smear Flynn, Defamation Lawsuit Alleges

Aug 22, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Halper

Halper has links to the CIA and MI6. He also served in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations.

Halper met with Carter Page, a volunteer adviser to the Trump campaign, at a Cambridge symposium held on July 11 and 12, 2016. Page had just returned from a trip to Russia a few days prior and said he remained in contact with Halper for a number of months after that.

Page's trip became the core subject of the Steele dossier -- a collection of unsubstantiated claims about Trump-Russia collusion put together by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele that was paid for by Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier was used by the FBI as the core evidence to obtain from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court a warrant to spy on Page several weeks before the presidential election

On Sept. 2, 2016, Halper also contacted George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide, and offered $3,000 and a paid trip to London to write a paper about a gas field in the Mediterranean Sea. Papadopoulos accepted the offer and flew to London, where he met Halper and his assistant.

On Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, 2016, Halper also met with Trump campaign co-Chairman Sam Clovis in Northern Virginia and offered help to the Trump campaign with foreign policy, The Washington Post reported .

Halper's concern about Lokhova is portrayed as feigned in her complaint, since he seemed to have shown no concern for about two years after the 2014 Flynn meeting, only showing concern after Flynn started to aid Trump.

In fact, Halper appears himself to be rather close to Russian intelligence, having invited Vladimir Trubnikov, former director of Russian intelligence, to teach at CIS at least twice -- in 2012 and in 2015 -- according to the complaint. Trubnikov obliged him both times.

Between 2012 and 2017, Halper was paid more than a $1 million by the Office of Net Assessment, a strategy think tank that falls directly under the U.S. secretary of defense.

Adam Lovinger, an analyst at the think tank, raised alarm about the contracts to Halper, but was punished for it , according to his lawyer.

Flynn

Flynn was one of the most consequential post-9/11 intelligence officials in the world.

"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person as his energy and skill at harnessing the Intelligence Community into a focused effort was literally historic," wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's 2007 performance review.

At the time, Flynn headed intelligence at the Joint Special Operations Command.

Mulholland, himself a former special forces officer, called Flynn "easily the best intelligence professional of any service serving today."

In 2014, however, he was forced into retirement over disagreements with the Obama administration.

More than a year ago, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to two FBI agents about conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place when former President Barack Obama imposed additional sanctions on Russia in December 2016.

He also pleaded guilty to lying about asking Russia to vote against or delay the vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Finally, he pleaded guilty to lying about his foreign lobbying disclosures regarding the extent to which his work benefiting the Turkish government was overseen by that government. Foreign lobbying paperwork violations are seldom prosecuted. Flynn said the work started in August 2016; he shut down his lobbying firm in November 2016.

In March, Flynn asked a federal judge to delay his sentencing to give him more time to continue in his cooperation with a case in Virginia against two of his former associates, who face charges for concealing that they lobbied in the United States on behalf of Turkey.

Flynn has extensively cooperated with government prosecutors on multiple investigations and further cooperation will give him yet more grounds to ask for a lenient sentence. Even before the delay, the prosecutors were asking for a lenient sentence, including no prison time, while the defense wanted no more than a year of probation and community service.

[Aug 21, 2019] Solomon If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed

Highly recommended!
They are afraid to admin that a color revolution was launched to depose Trump after the elections of 2016. Essentially a coup d'état by intelligence agencies and Clinton wing of Democratic Party.
Notable quotes:
"... The 53 House Intel interviews. House Intelligence interviewed many key players in the Russia probe and asked the DNI to declassify those interviews nearly a year ago, after sending the transcripts for review last November. There are several big reveals, I'm told, including the first evidence that a lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee had Russia-related contacts at the CIA. ..."
"... The Stefan Halper documents. It has been widely reported that European-based American academic Stefan Halper and a young assistant, Azra Turk, worked as FBI sources . ..."
"... Page/Papadopoulos exculpatory statements. Another of Nunes' five buckets, these documents purport to show what the two Trump aides were recorded telling undercover assets or captured in intercepts insisting on their innocence. Papadopoulos told me he told an FBI undercover source in September 2016 that the Trump campaign was not trying to obtain hacked Clinton documents from Russia and considered doing so to be treason. ..."
"... The 'Gang of Eight' briefing materials. These were a series of classified briefings and briefing books the FBI and DOJ provided key leaders in Congress in the summer of 2018 that identify shortcomings in the Russia collusion narrative. ..."
"... The Steele spreadsheet. I wrote recently that the FBI kept a spreadsheet on the accuracy and reliability of every claim in the Steele dossier. According to my sources, it showed as much as 90 percent of the claims could not be corroborated, were debunked or turned out to be open-source internet rumors. ..."
"... The Steele interview. It has been reported, and confirmed, that the DOJ's inspector general (IG) interviewed the former British intelligence operative for as long as 16 hours about his contacts with the FBI while working with Clinton's opposition research firm, Fusion GPS. It is clear from documents already forced into the public view by lawsuits that Steele admitted in the fall of 2016 that he was desperate to defeat Trump ..."
"... The redacted sections of the third FISA renewal application. This was the last of four FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign; it was renewed in June 2017 after special counsel Robert Mueller 's probe had started, and signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . It is the one FISA application that House Republicans have repeatedly asked to be released, and I'm told the big reveal in the currently redacted sections of the application is that it contained both misleading information and evidence of intrusive tactics used by the U.S. government to infiltrate Trump's orbit. ..."
"... Records of allies' assistance. Multiple sources have said a handful of U.S. allies overseas – possibly Great Britain, Australia and Italy – were asked to assist FBI efforts to check on Trump connections to Russia. ..."
"... Attorney General Bill Barr's recent comments that "the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign, to me, is unprecedented and it's a serious red line that's been crossed." ..."
Aug 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

As the Russiagate circus attempts to quietly disappear over the horizon, with Democrats preferring to shift the anti-Trump narrative back to "racist", "white supremacist", "xenophobe", and the mainstream media ready to squawk "recession"; the Trump administration may have a few more cards up its sleeve before anyone claims the higher ground in this farce we call an election campaign.

As The Hill's John Solomon details, in September 2018 that President Trump told my Hill.TV colleague Buck Sexton and me that he would order the release of all classified documents showing what the FBI, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other U.S. intelligence agencies may have done wrong in the Russia probe.

And while it's been almost a year since then, of feet-dragging and cajoling and deep-state-fighting, we wonder, given Solomon's revelations below, if the president is getting ready to play his 'Trump' card.

Here are the documents that Solomon believes have the greatest chance of rocking Washington, if declassified:

1.) Christopher Steele 's confidential human source reports at the FBI. These documents, known in bureau parlance as 1023 reports, show exactly what transpired each time Steele and his FBI handlers met in the summer and fall of 2016 to discuss his anti-Trump dossier. The big reveal, my sources say, could be the first evidence that the FBI shared sensitive information with Steele, such as the existence of the classified Crossfire Hurricane operation targeting the Trump campaign. It would be a huge discovery if the FBI fed Trump-Russia intel to Steele in the midst of an election, especially when his ultimate opposition-research client was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The FBI has released only one or two of these reports under FOIA lawsuits and they were 100 percent redacted. The American public deserves better.

2.) The 53 House Intel interviews. House Intelligence interviewed many key players in the Russia probe and asked the DNI to declassify those interviews nearly a year ago, after sending the transcripts for review last November. There are several big reveals, I'm told, including the first evidence that a lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee had Russia-related contacts at the CIA.

3.) The Stefan Halper documents. It has been widely reported that European-based American academic Stefan Halper and a young assistant, Azra Turk, worked as FBI sources . We know for sure that one or both had contact with targeted Trump aides like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos at the end of the election. My sources tell me there may be other documents showing Halper continued working his way to the top of Trump's transition and administration, eventually reaching senior advisers like Peter Navarro inside the White House in summer 2017. These documents would show what intelligence agencies worked with Halper, who directed his activity, how much he was paid and how long his contacts with Trump officials were directed by the U.S. government's Russia probe.

4.) The October 2016 FBI email chain. This is a key document identified by Rep. Nunes and his investigators. My sources say it will show exactly what concerns the FBI knew about and discussed with DOJ about using Steele's dossier and other evidence to support a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in October 2016. If those concerns weren't shared with FISA judges who approved the warrant, there could be major repercussions.

5.) Page/Papadopoulos exculpatory statements. Another of Nunes' five buckets, these documents purport to show what the two Trump aides were recorded telling undercover assets or captured in intercepts insisting on their innocence. Papadopoulos told me he told an FBI undercover source in September 2016 that the Trump campaign was not trying to obtain hacked Clinton documents from Russia and considered doing so to be treason. If he made that statement with the FBI monitoring, and it was not disclosed to the FISA court, it could be another case of FBI or DOJ misconduct.

6.) The 'Gang of Eight' briefing materials. These were a series of classified briefings and briefing books the FBI and DOJ provided key leaders in Congress in the summer of 2018 that identify shortcomings in the Russia collusion narrative. Of all the documents congressional leaders were shown, this is most frequently cited to me in private as having changed the minds of lawmakers who weren't initially convinced of FISA abuses or FBI irregularities.

7.) The Steele spreadsheet. I wrote recently that the FBI kept a spreadsheet on the accuracy and reliability of every claim in the Steele dossier. According to my sources, it showed as much as 90 percent of the claims could not be corroborated, were debunked or turned out to be open-source internet rumors. Given Steele's own effort to leak intel in his dossier to the media before Election Day, the public deserves to see the FBI's final analysis of his credibility. A document I reviewed recently showed the FBI described Steele's information as only "minimally corroborated" and the bureau's confidence in him as "medium."

8.) The Steele interview. It has been reported, and confirmed, that the DOJ's inspector general (IG) interviewed the former British intelligence operative for as long as 16 hours about his contacts with the FBI while working with Clinton's opposition research firm, Fusion GPS. It is clear from documents already forced into the public view by lawsuits that Steele admitted in the fall of 2016 that he was desperate to defeat Trump , had a political deadline to make his dirt public, was working for the DNC/Clinton campaign and was leaking to the news media. If he told that to the FBI and it wasn't disclosed to the FISA court, there could be serious repercussions.

9.) The redacted sections of the third FISA renewal application. This was the last of four FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign; it was renewed in June 2017 after special counsel Robert Mueller 's probe had started, and signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . It is the one FISA application that House Republicans have repeatedly asked to be released, and I'm told the big reveal in the currently redacted sections of the application is that it contained both misleading information and evidence of intrusive tactics used by the U.S. government to infiltrate Trump's orbit.

10.) Records of allies' assistance. Multiple sources have said a handful of U.S. allies overseas – possibly Great Britain, Australia and Italy – were asked to assist FBI efforts to check on Trump connections to Russia. Members of Congress have searched recently for some key contact documents with British intelligence . My sources say these documents might help explain Attorney General Bill Barr's recent comments that "the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign, to me, is unprecedented and it's a serious red line that's been crossed."

These documents, when declassified, would show more completely how a routine counterintelligence probe was hijacked to turn the most awesome spy powers in America against a presidential nominee in what was essentially a political dirty trick orchestrated by Democrats.


rahrog , 2 minutes ago link

America's Ruling Class is laughing at all you fools still falling for the Rs v Ds scam.

Stupid people lose.

LibertyVibe , 3 minutes ago link

I disagree with Solomon. Nothing will "doom" the swamp unless the righteous few are willing to indict, prosecute and carry out sentencing for the guilty. Exposing the guilty accomplishes nothing, because anyone paying attention already knows of their crimes. Those who want to believe lies will still believe them after the truth comes out.
It's ALL A WASTE OF TIME unless we follow through.

#TheDailyNews #DrainTheSwamp

Lord Raglan , 5 minutes ago link

Where's all the other, earlier docs Trump was going to declassify? Just wondering..............

TheFQ , 16 minutes ago link

Does anyone see a pattern here after the 2009 Tea Party movement began?

2009 - Republicans: "If we win back the House, we can accomplish our agenda."

2011 - Republicans: "If we win back the Senate, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House)

2012 - Republicans: "If we win back the Senate, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 2 YEARS After winning back the House)

2013 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 1 YEAR after winning back the House and the Senate)

2014 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 2 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)

2015 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 3 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)

2016 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 4 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)

2017 - Republicans: "Now that we've won back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House 6 YEARS AGO and the Senate 4 YEARS AGO)

2018 - Republicans: "Now that we've won back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House 7 YEARS AGO and the Senate 5 YEARS AGO)

2019 - John Solomon - "If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed"

I hate to say it, but I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, JOHN.

ALL WE HAVE HEARD OVER THE COURSE OF THIS DECADE IS "IF THIS HAPPENS...THEN THEY ARE DOOMED / WE CAN ACCOMPLISH OUR AGENDA / YADDA YADDA YADDA.

WHEN THE FOLLOWING ARE FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON, THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL I BELIEVE YOU:

WHY ARE THESE TREASONOUS, VILE, CORRUPT CRIMINALS NOT INDICTED FOR TREASON?

WTF?

FFS...

benb , 12 minutes ago link

WHY ARE THESE TREASONOUS, VILE, CORRUPT CRIMINALS NOT INDICTED FOR TREASON?

Because the people doing the indicting are in on it.

enfield0916 , 36 minutes ago link

As if there's any major philosophical difference between the Librtads and Zionist Cocksuckvatives.

Both sides use the .gov agencies to subvert and ignore the Constitution whenever possible. Best example is WikiLeaks and how each party wished Assange would just go away when he revealed damaging information about both sides on multiple occasions.

[Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.

I want to bring you back to Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all, was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.

Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages to wade thru (you can see them here ). There is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:

On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.

The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant. We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.

One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.

Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/quirky-angle-overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-2016-fbi-activity-was-political-espionage/#more-168122 https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/federal-judge-completely-rejects-doj-argument-orders-archey-declarations-descriptions-of-comey-memosreleased/ The first piece focuses on CEO Patrick Byrne and the role he played in trying to entrap and portray Marina Butina as a Russian agent.

What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.

You can find this information in the Bruce Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence agent. It was a damn lie.

I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and unfairly prosecuted in Russia.

We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.

The second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.

He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something right).

The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.

It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse by the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.

Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today ( see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.

It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.

Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."

I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.

But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.


Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,

Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...

So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..

creating Phase 2..Operations..

"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..

Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..

By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..

Jack , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Larry

Do you believe the current DOJ under Barr will really investigate and convene a grand jury to hear testimony from Comey, Brennan and Clapper?

And what do you make of the fact that Epstein who was on suicide watch either was murdered or killed himself while in custody?

akaPatience , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations?

The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.

Fred , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
plantman , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."

This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment.

They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.

Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???

Keith Harbaugh , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Let me just add this piece by John Solomon: "New evidence shows why Steele, the Ohrs and TSA workers never should have become DOJ sources" by John Solomon, 2019-08-15
...
Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.

Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.

So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:

The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.

That's a problem sorely in need of fixing.

oldman22 said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... 17 August 2019 at 01:16 AM

The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.

quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko, promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote

There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/john-helmer-the-political-motivation-of-chancellor-merkels-embrace-of-yulia-tymoshenko-and-war.html

(republished from John Helmer's website, includes a great cartoon worth viewing)

If you want more sources for this story,google
"Merkel, Tymoshenko, prison"

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Highly recommended!
That suggest that FBI actions were influenced by Obama administration and CIA to much greater expent thatn we assuned.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

In reviewing these 302s there are some salient points I want to bring to your attention.

First, Christopher Steele was terminated as an FBI Confidential Human Source at the end of September 2016 for leaking to the press. That should have put an end to the relationship. Instead, the FBI starts using Bruce Ohr, the number four guy at the Department of Justice, as a cutout. Absolutely no justification for this kind of behavior by the FBI. It is, at a minimum, unethical and creates a real problem if any of the info collected from Ohr was to be used in a court proceeding. Something known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" would kick in and the so-called evidence proffered by Ohr would be inadmissible or unusable because of Steele's previous lies to the FBI.

Second, Glenn Simpson played a huge role in helping spread anti-Trump propaganda generated by Steele. In fact, it was Simpson's insistence on Steele speaking with the press that got Steele terminated as an FBI source.

Third, the FBI knew by mid-December 2016 that Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, was working with Simpson and Steele. This too should have set off alarm bells about the potential conflicts of interest and unethical conduct.

Fourth, evidence used ultimately against Paul Manafort came from Nellie Ohr. If this was not disclosed to Manafort's attorney's there is a likely Brady violation, which bolster's Manafort's prospects for an appeal.

Fifth, Steele and Simpson made several claims of fact about Russia ties to the Trump campaign that were later proven to be false. For example, stating that Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting the Russians. Important to note that Christopher Steele produced the final report of the so-called dossier bearing his name on 13 December 2016 yet this information was "passed" to Ohr one day prior to the date on the report.

Sixth, the "debriefing" of Ohr on 12 December 2016 also provided the foundation for going after Marina Butina. (See Sara Carter's excellent update on this case here ). The false information from Steele/Simpson via Bruce Ohr became the pretext for launching an investigation of Butina, who was working for a wealthy Russian banker, Alexander Torshin. This too turns out to have been a fabrication. I believe this provides Butina's attorneys more ammunition for arguing prosecutorial misconduct and failure to provide critical Brady material.

Seventh, Ohr's report that Simpson and Steele were communicating with the State Department, including Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Kathleen Kavalec makes it clear that State Department was used as a front to pass on info from the questionable Steele Dossier. This information was used in the FISA warrant and provided a seemingly reliable justification for spying on Carter Page (see the Page FISA warrant here .)

And finally, Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, was regularly communicating and coordinating with Obama's Department of Justice and Department of State. This was a complete abuse of power.

Now, here is the summary of the 302s:

11/22/2016 (entered on 12/19/2006)

Ohr met with Steele in 2007 (not sure of date) at a conference.

July 30, 2016 Steele met Ohr for breakfast. Steele claimed Carter Page had met with Russian Sechin at a conference.

States that Glenn Simpson hired Steele and Ohr's wife to dig up dirt on Trump's connections to Russia.

Noted that reporting was going to the Clinton Campaign, Jonathan Winer and the FBI.

Ohr met with Steele in late September and was told about Alfa Bank ties to Trump and the Sergei Millian organization.

Noted that Steele was desperate to stop Trump and to thwart the Kremlin.

Ohr knew that Glenn Simpson and "others" were meeting with Victoria Nuland.

12/05/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (drafted on 12/12/2016)

Glenn Simpson directed Christopher Steele to speak to the press, including David Corn at Mother Jones.

Ohr provided FBI info on Manafort Chronology prepared by his wife.

12/12/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (Drafted on 12/14/2016)

Ohr states, per Simpson, that Cohen replaced Manafort and Page as the contact with the Russians.

Says that Cohen met with Russians in Prague.

Claims that Torshin is a Russian mobster and is trying to infiltrate the NRA and was pushing money to Trump.

Simpson opined that Sergei Millian was an SVR officer and a link to Trump.

12/20/2016 (entered on 12/27/2016)

Thumb drive with Nelly Ohr's research passed to FBI.

1/23/2017 (entered on 1/31/2017) (drafted on 1/25/2017)

Simpson tells Ohr a source will be outed in the coming days.

Steele claims he met with a McCain staffer prior to October 2016

1/25/017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Ohr spoke with Steele on 25 January 2017.

1/27/2017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Steele told Ohr he wanted to keep lines of communication open.

02/06/2017 (entered on 02/08/2017)

Ohr contacted by Steele via What'sApp on 31 January 2017. Was reacting to firing of Sally Yates. Worried that if Ohr got fired he would have no one to talk to.

"Interviewing agents asked Ohr to ask Steele if he would be comfortable getting the name of an FBI agent."

Ohr reminded agents that Steele had spoken several times prior to 2016 Presidential election with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. Ohr identified one of the sources for Steele's report as a Ukranian.

02/14/2017 (entered on 02/15/2017)

Ohr tells FBI about Steele's concerns about his business. Identifies other lawyer (name blacked out) he is working with. Steele is preparing a proposal to re-establish his business releationship with the FBI.

05/08/2017 (entered on 05/10/2017)

Steele tells Ohr that he is worried about Comey's upcoming testimony. Ohr tells Steele what Comey will say and Steele is "happy."

Ohr said that Glenn Simpson would be visiting Steele soon.

Jonathan Winer was bringing a letter to Steele.


walrus , 11 August 2019 at 04:43 PM

this is treason.
PRC90 , 11 August 2019 at 08:24 PM
As an aside, note the similarities between Steele and Downer. Both carried some imprimatur of credibility based on prior government service, and popped up from no where and returned to relative obscurity after producing a document that was able to be immediately misused by others for the same purpose.

I'd wondered why anyone would want to involve Downer in these events, the man is a moron. However, one of his greatest strengths is producing wonderful well written reports, and to that extent would appear to have been chosen well.

confusedponderer , 12 August 2019 at 05:52 AM
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience aquired in the Ukraine.

I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?

https://orf.at/static/images/site/news/20131250/ukraine_klitschko_usa_body_a.4532409.jpg

As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+ billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper - i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.

That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent observer.

Thanks for sharing and elaborating.

Patrick Armstrong , 12 August 2019 at 08:48 AM
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from beginning to end?

The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.

Any ideas?
One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.

My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.

But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that they're not exploded.

turcopolier , 12 August 2019 at 09:02 AM
PA

Unless there are a lot of indictments none of this will matter.

plantman , 12 August 2019 at 11:39 AM
So, state department honchos--Victoria Nuland, Kavalec and Sally Yates (DOJ)--all had some knowledge of what was going on, right? And so did national security advisor Susan Rice.

Doesn't that prove that Obama must have been in the loop?

I think it does.

Second, how much of Nellie Ohr's russia research actually ended up in the steele dossier? I think that it is very unlikely that Chris Steele maintained his sketchy connections in Russia after the seismic political changes in the early 2000s. It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives.

notamusedobserver -> plantman... , 12 August 2019 at 04:42 PM
The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used..

[Aug 12, 2019] Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Mark Thomason , August 12, 2019 at 10:34

Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters.

[Aug 08, 2019] The Mainstream Media Wants The Mifsud Story To Just Go Away

Notable quotes:
"... "I can report absolutely that the Durham investigators have now obtained an audiotape deposition of Joseph Mifsud, where he describes his work, why he targeted George Papadopoulos , who directed him to do that, what directions he was given, and why he set that entire process of introducing Papadopoulos to Russia in motion in March of 2016, which is really the flashpoint the starting point of this whole Russia collusion narrative," Solomon told Fox News' Sean Hannity. ..."
"... You can't save the Russian collusion narrative, if you can't find any real Russians anywhere in the story. The FBI under James Comey will then be seen as having engaged in an operation to entrap people, and "Russian agents" turn out to be fakes working for the FBI and who were making fake offers of Russian help to the Trump campaign. ..."
"... Mifsud turning out to be a fake Russian agent working for the FBI ..."
"... To have to admit that the story was actually right, while they themselves were still peddling the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, would be a most bitter pill for many of these 'legitimate' news outlets to swallow. ..."
"... And yet when it comes to recent developments about Mifsud, a key player in this Trump-Russia collusion narrative, many mainstream reporters appear indifferent at best, or outrightly hostile at worst to these latest developments. ..."
"... While many of these mainstream media reporters have been desperately trying to find some way to save the Trump/Russian collusion narrative, the last thing they want to have to report is that the supposed key Russian agent that started this whole Spygate thing wasn't really a Russian agent, but was instead an FBI asset pretending to be a Russian agent. ..."
Aug 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Mainstream Media Wants The Mifsud Story To Just Go Away

by Tyler Durden Wed, 08/07/2019 - 22:35 0 SHARES

Authored by Brian Cates via The Epoch Times,

While many mainstream media journalists have been spinning fantasies for more than two years, based on Russian collusion stories being handed to them by anonymous sources, crack reporter John Solomon of The Hill has been pursuing real leads and uncovering actual evidence.

Now, Solomon is reporting that an audiotape containing professor Joseph Mifsud's deposition has been given to both U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigators and to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I can report absolutely that the Durham investigators have now obtained an audiotape deposition of Joseph Mifsud, where he describes his work, why he targeted George Papadopoulos , who directed him to do that, what directions he was given, and why he set that entire process of introducing Papadopoulos to Russia in motion in March of 2016, which is really the flashpoint the starting point of this whole Russia collusion narrative," Solomon told Fox News' Sean Hannity.

"I can also confirm that the Senate Judiciary Committee has also obtained the same deposition," he said.

Mifsud , who I have written about extensively in previous columns , is the key that turns the lock to the lid of this Pandora's box that we refer to as "Spygate."

So I'm wondering why Solomon appears to be the only mainstream reporter pursuing this Mifsud story.

I suspect it's because many DNC Media outlets, after having fallen deeply and passionately in love with the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, are reluctant to call attention to something that would be the final nail in its coffin.

The last thing the mainstream media wants right now would be for Mifsud to go on the record with both Durham's investigative team and with Congress to say he was working for the FBI and was only pretending to be a Russian agent.

If Mifsud was an FBI asset sent to entrap Papadopoulos, then there are no real Russian agents anywhere in this entire Trump-Russia collusion story.

Foreign policy advisor to US President Donald Trump's election campaign, George Papadopoulos goes through security at the US District Court for his sentencing in Washington, DC on Sept. 7, 2018. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

Ponder what that means for a minute.

You can't save the Russian collusion narrative, if you can't find any real Russians anywhere in the story. The FBI under James Comey will then be seen as having engaged in an operation to entrap people, and "Russian agents" turn out to be fakes working for the FBI and who were making fake offers of Russian help to the Trump campaign.

Some of these news media outlets are still - at this late date - claiming there's some life left in the Russian collusion narrative. Mifsud is literally the last dying hope for these people that somewhere in all of this there is a real Russian asset and real collusion. They literally need Mifsud to be a real asset of the Putin government. And if Mifsud goes on the record to officially affirm he was working for the FBI, then the media's last dying hope is gone forever.

To hear the mainstream media tell it, Mifsud turning out to be a fake Russian agent working for the FBI is a "conspiracy theory" created by "right-wing zealots" such as Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

To have to admit that the story was actually right, while they themselves were still peddling the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, would be a most bitter pill for many of these 'legitimate' news outlets to swallow.

Which likely explains why Solomon appears to be just about the only mainstream reporter pursuing the Mifsud story. If there are any other major news outlet reporters out there avidly pursuing the facts about Mifsud and his reported contacts and testimony to Justice Department investigators, they're being pretty quiet about it.

What are the mainstream news reporters who are ignoring the Mifsud story telling themselves, anyway?

"I can't pursue this new information on Mifsud, because it's taking the story where I don't want it to go!"?

That's a thought process that happens only to a political activist disguised as a reporter. No real reporter would ever think that way.

And yet when it comes to recent developments about Mifsud, a key player in this Trump-Russia collusion narrative, many mainstream reporters appear indifferent at best, or outrightly hostile at worst to these latest developments.

While many of these mainstream media reporters have been desperately trying to find some way to save the Trump/Russian collusion narrative, the last thing they want to have to report is that the supposed key Russian agent that started this whole Spygate thing wasn't really a Russian agent, but was instead an FBI asset pretending to be a Russian agent.

These selfsame media reporters have spent more than two years mocking the idea that Mifsud is an FBI asset as something straight out of the right-wing fever swamp of convoluted nonsense conspiracy theories. This is why so many political activists masquerading as journalists are desperately hoping that somehow the Mifsud story will just go away and die on its own.

My instinct says they're going to be massively disappointed soon.


leodogma1 , 17 minutes ago link

The only one's ever colluding with the Russians was Hillary the "******* Rotten" Clinton, Obongo "the One" and the usual suspects (Comey,Clapper,Brennan,Lynch,) et.al .. FBI/DOJ/CIA Rats, British UN-intelligence,Australian & Ukraine interference. The DNC server was never hacked by Russians but copied, the Steele/Fusion GPS dossier was a work of worn out fiction that was originally put together in 2007 and used against McCain.

Nelbev , 28 minutes ago link

Worth a read,

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/05/nunes_mueller_report_cherry-picked_information_to_portray_mifsud_as_russian_agent_he_was_really_a_western_agent.html# !

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/05/05/maria-bartiromo-and-devin-nunes-discuss-predicate-of-spygate-and-mueller-dossier/

Russian agent Mifsud working with Papadopoulos to get Hillary emails claimed by DNC/Crowdstrike/Perkins Coie hacked by Russians before destroyed by Hillary under subpoena, just a FBI paid actor to keep the narrative going and covering up illegal spying on Trump, NSA 702 "about" querries by private contractors ang gov. violating FISA which happened much earlier.

greenskeeper carl , 28 seconds ago link

Conservative treehouse does a better job than just about anywhere else I've seen of tying that all together. But, if they are correct about this, as they've been correct about a lot of things, it won't change anything or matter at all. None of these people will ever be indicted, much less spend a single day in jail. Sad, but true. In a year and a half trump will most likely be gone, and all of this will be memory holed.

TrustbutVerify , 55 minutes ago link

Most Democrats still adhere to the Trump - Russia collusion narrative. And they wonder why some Leftists like Roseanne Barr admit 'Democrats have gone insane.' An opinion shared by most of the rest of the country. And yet public speeches by Trump are enthusiastically attended by thousands - a story very much minimized by these same "news" outlets.

Those Democrats exist within a media bubble (95% of press outlets - online, too) working for the Deep State (99% are Democrats) that misinforms them. Perhaps they are intentionally self-duped. Though it remains shocking how deeply deluded they are.

Justapleb , 30 minutes ago link

They adhere to the hoax because they knew it was a hoax to begin with.

The dems have never been sincere calling people racist, sexist, Hitler, then Russian or Assad stooges, etc.

Their Saul Alinsky tactic is to shriek incessantly, always accuse, never take the defensive because your position is indefensible. You can't argue why offering open borders and free health care to 7 billion people is rational.

That is why the violence is so important to them, and so important to keep concealing the deep state/democratic crime syndicate.

Charlie_Martel , 59 minutes ago link

The main stream media is the mouth piece of the intelligence community.

Walking Turtle , 54 minutes ago link

The main stream media is the mouth piece of the intelligence community.

The main stream media is [ currently ] the mouth piece of the [ criminal Deep State ] intelligence community.

There; fify. The "Intelligence Community" in its entirety is hardly any monolith of pure evil. There are cadres and factions within every agency, including Old-School Patriot.

MUST be said now and then lest others lose perspective. And that is all. 0{:-\o[

Oldwood , 1 hour ago link

None of it matters.

The progressives will happily embrace the worst criminal behavior by our government as JUSTIFIED to depose the devil incarnate Trump.

There is only one principle...winning. The law is THEIR weapon devised to punish their enemies and control their minions. All means are justifiable to the ends, and the vast majority of those "serving" in government have no hesitancy in abusing their power to fulfill the larger agenda.

They will have proof and undeniable facts...to no avail because those charged with the prosecution of their own, will NOT.

DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago link

I have spoken with my crystal ball, and it told me something rather unintelligible about Mifsud, MI-6, Seth Rich and Vince Foster.

Does anyone have any idea what my crystal ball was talking about?

Demologos , 34 minutes ago link

When I asked my magic 8-ball if Mifsud was See Aye Ehh, it answered "very likely"

DEDA CVETKO , 20 minutes ago link

Smart balls you got there!

fezline , 1 hour ago link

More sensationalism... how many articles are you going to post saying the spygate situation is about to blow up? I would love for it to happen but unlike the libtards hanging on Rachel Maddow's every word... when I hear the walls are closing in for over 2 or 3 months straight... I start to call ********... Give up the sensationalism Tyler... it's straight up MSM flavor ********.

[Aug 07, 2019] Taibbi via Antiwar.com: The rise and fall of superhero Robert Mueller

Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

et Al August 2, 2019 at 5:31 am

Taibbi via Antiwar.com: The rise and fall of superhero Robert Mueller
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-superhero-robert

The testimony of Robert Mueller should have marked the end of a national nightmare. Instead, a new legend was born

This myth died on television .

Mueller on the stand was a potted plant. Reporters saw Moses and Jesus. If you need evidence we're in a religious mania, look no further. This was a pure exercise in restoring an idol for worship

In mid-March, just before Mueller's probe wrapped up, CNN found a whopping zero percent of Americans identified "Russian investigation" as their primary concern heading into 2020. The network wrote (emphasis mine):..,

ussiagate should be dead. Instead, it's gaining new life, with impeachment looking like the New Testament phase of the religion
####

Much, much more at the link.

Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 5:11 pm
Every time I read a piece by Matt Taibbi, I ask myself, "Why don't you read Matt Taibbi more often?" By God, he can write – I nearly horked up a lung when he described John Brennan as a 'paranoid outpatient'. His descriptions of the frantic dissembling amongst the Democrats create passages in which you can actually smell the despair and incoherent rage, like burnt hair.

The whole Mueller testimonial dirge will turn out to have only divided Americans further. Republicans will chuckle with satisfaction at watching Mueller fly into a window like a careless jackdaw, while Democrats will sense that something crazy happened but that this is a time for blind loyalty. And never the twain shall meet. The fact that that was supposed to be East and West makes the irony but more pronounced.

[Aug 01, 2019] Comey Avoids DOJ Prosecution On Memo Leak; FISA Abuse Still On The Table

Aug 01, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Former FBI Director James Comey will avoid prosecution after illegally leaking personal memos in the hopes of instigating the special counsel's investigation into the 2016 US election, as reported yesterday by The Hill 's John Solomon and confirmed today by Fox News .

According to Solomon, DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz referred Comey for possible prosecution under laws governing the handling of classified information, however Attorney General William Barr has declined to prosecute - as the DOJ does not believe they have enough evidence of Comey's intent to violate the law.

"Everyone at the DOJ involved in the decision said it wasn't a close call," an official told Fox News . "They all thought this could not be prosecuted."

That said, it's important to note that this decision was the result of a 'carve-out' investigation separate of the IG probe on FISA abuse .

The Conservative Treehouse lays out the situation:

This is NOT the Inspector General Michael Horowitz report on DOJ and FBI FISA abuse.

This is a carve-out.

...

From the outset it was reported and confirmed that U.S. Attorney John Huber was assigned to assist Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Huber's job was to stand-by in case the IG carved out a particular concern, discovered during his investigation, that might involve criminal conduct.

Earlier this week Matt Whitaker said : "John Huber is reviewing anything related to Comey's memos and the like. "

Put the two data points together and what you realize is that during the OIG review of potential DOJ and FBI FISA abuse IG Horowitz investigated the Comey Memo's and then passed that specific issue along to John Huber for DOJ review.

The IG criminal referral for the James Comey memo leaking was a carve-out sent to U.S. Attorney John Huber.

...

This is not the inspector general report on DOJ and FBI FISA abuse. This is an IG report carved out of the larger investigation. - Conservative Treehouse

In short, we will first see an IG report just covering Comey, with a more comprehensive report to follow on FISA abuse. _arrow 1


chunga , 2 minutes ago

Every day this gets a little more humiliating.

libertysghost , 2 minutes ago

So it has to be proven that the head of the FBI knew what the frikin laws were that he was violating?

Knowing the laws were not in his job description?

Aside from that not being a standard for determining prosecution for anyone else aside from Deep Staters, the claim is laughable on its face. Did Comey's office (or Comey himself) ever provide evidence for the prosecution of ANY individual for ANYTHING where they argued "intent" didn't matter? I'm 100% sure he did. So why is this hard to point out in showing that "intent" doesn't matter?

FFS...this is a scam. I was leery as soon as Trump handing over declassification to Barr. We will know who is involved in the cover up by their response to this...in particular those claiming to be at the front lines of demanding consequences for the spying/coup.


Bavarian , 3 minutes ago

This was always small potatoes. FISA and the involvement in setting up the coup will involve the meat of his convictions anyway. Anyone thinking he's walking isn't paying attention.

I am Groot , 5 minutes ago

Comey: Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to help throw a coup.

Barr: Ok, no problem, we won't charge you. We know it was just an accident. You're all good. You can go on CNN and rub everybody's nose in it now

Real Estate Guru , 14 minutes ago

What makes you think that Comey didn't cut a deal with Barr to get the others, folks? Stay tuned!

You do the math.

I am Groot , 12 minutes ago

WHY THE **** WOULD BARR CUT A DEAL WITH ANY OF THOSE TREASONOUS ***** !

THEY ARE ALL GUILTY AS HELL ! ! !

Real Estate Guru , 11 minutes ago

I agree. But this fool might be naming Obama for all we know. That would be worth it, or Hillary.

Either way, he is going down on the FISA warrants. He signed off on them.

I am Groot , 8 minutes ago

Obama is fucked six ways to Sunday. They have the FBI text messages that prove he was directing all of this and was neck deep in it.

spyware-free , 12 minutes ago

Then why not state that as the reason? There is enough evidence to prosecute. They could have at the least waited and added the charge to future indictments instead of dismissing right away.

buckboy , 13 minutes ago

Prosecuting Comey by DOJ risks DOJ involvement and alike................just too many to protect.

TruthAbsolute , 13 minutes ago

haha the USA has a two tier justice system...You poor sick Patriots!

libertysghost , 21 minutes ago

Comey will walk and Trump will be impeached for "obstructing" an investigation into a non-existent crime, because he tried to defend himself against the coup proclaiming his innocents.

If this happens...

Cabreado , 22 minutes ago

Maintaining some sense of optimism just got a little harder...

enough of this , 23 minutes ago

All those dire pronouncements by conservative pundits that Comey would be nailed for taking classified information home from his office and releasing it to his friend, who in turn leaked it to the press was all ********. It turns out Comey could do it with impunity and he knew he would skate because his deep-state pals at the DOJ would never indict him for doing so. Rigged justice system = Rigged outcome.

SRV , 25 minutes ago

Flynn is facing 5 years for a clear FBI trap, after spying on everything he said in the WH... not a good start for Barr... and if he's a plant, it's over.

Real Estate Guru , 20 minutes ago

Flynn is a Patriot. He is not going down. He has not even been sent anywhere. Relax. if they had him, he would be in jail by now. He is like the invisible russians that Mueller convicted of nothing. They showed up by the way, and wanted to see the evidence...Mueller just blew them off. Mueller is a shill for Weissmann, he is clueless, feeble, and doesnt know one damn thing. No sentencing of anybody. Flynn is a hero, not a criminal. That tells you everything you need to know.

Real Estate Guru , 27 minutes ago

They have something far larger than this, and they don't want to lose the first case on him. Don't worry, the stuff that is coming out on this guy will easily convict him within weeks. It will involve the FISA warrants.

- Hannity, Soloman

Stay tuned...much more to come Patriots!

LookAtMeme.com , 14 minutes ago

Who said that they have to charge Comey piecemeal starting with smaller charges and therefore it's best to let him skate on those smaller charges? Prosecutors regularly load up charges against defendants.

RagaMuffin , 28 minutes ago

Unless he can be nailed on a larger charge, this is how the Swamp protects its own, particularly since intent is not the basis of whether the law was broken?

Roger Rabbit , 23 minutes ago

He IS going to be nailed on a much bigger charge: FISA abuse. It's already well established he lied to the FISA court. Too bad they are all Jesuit graduates though, hence why they've taken no corrective action, and never objected to what was obviously FISA fraud.

LookAtMeme.com , 16 minutes ago

It's already well established by Comey's own congressional testimony that he purposely leaked FBI documents in order to prompt an investigation of the President.

LookAtMeme.com , 5 minutes ago

If they intend to prosecute Comey for other crimes later then they don't have to "waste time" exonerating him now. They can throw the entire ball of wax at him at a later date. The man admitted to congress that he leaked FBI documents in order to prompt an investigation of the President. We all know this.

Ergo I.C. , 31 minutes ago

"... however Attorney General William Barr has declined to prosecute - as the DOJ does not believe they have enough evidence of Comey's intent to violate the law."

WTH! FBI agents went to Comey's house a month after he was fired to pick up documents he was not suppose to have. Not enough evidence to show intent my ***!

[Jul 31, 2019] Secret McCabe Texts With MI-5 Counterpart Emerge, Spotlighting UK s Early Role In Russiagate

Notable quotes:
"... In 2017, The Guardian reported that Britain's spy agencies had played a key role in alerting their American counterparts of communications between members of the Trump campaign and "suspected Russian agents," which was passed along to the US in what was characterized as a "routine exchange of information." ..."
"... "For over a year, people have asked me to declassify. What I've done is declassified everything," said Trump, adding "He can look and I hope he looks at the UK and I hope he looks at Australia and I hope he looks at Ukraine ." ..."
"... "It's the greatest hoax probably in the history of our country and somebody has to get to the bottom of it. We'll see. For a long period of time, they wanted me to declassify and I did." ..."
"... in May, Fox News reported that the discredited "Steele Dossier" - assembled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele - was referred to as "crown material" in an email exchange suggesting that former FBI Director James Comey insisted that CIA Director John Brennan pushed for the inclusion of the dossier in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference. ..."
"... Moreover, much of "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" - the FBI's official investigation into the Trump campaign - occurred on UK soil , which is perhaps why the New York Times reported last September that the UK begged Trump not to declassify 'Russiagate' documents 'without redaction.' ..."
"... Maltese professor and self-described Clinton foundation member Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. ..."
Jul 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Newly surfaced text messages between Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and his counterpart at MI-5, the UK's domestic security service, have cast new light on Britain's role in the FBI's 2016 'Russiagate' investigation, according to The Guardian .

Two of the most senior intelligence officials in the US and UK privately shared concerns about " our strange situation " as the FBI launched its 2016 investigation into whether Donald Trump's campaign was colluding with Russia , the Guardian has learned.

Text messages between Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI at the time, and Jeremy Fleming , his then counterpart at MI5, now the head of GCHQ , also reveal their mutual surprise at the result of the EU referendum, which some US officials regarded as a "wake-up call", according to a person familiar with the matter. - The Guardian

McCabe and Flemming's texts were "infrequent and cryptic," but "occurred with some regularity" after the June 2016 Brexit referendum.

In his text message about the August 2016 meeting, Fleming appeared to be making a reference to Peter Strzok , a senior FBI official who travelled to London that month to meet the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer . Downer had agreed to speak with the FBI about a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, who had told him that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the race. - The Guardian

In 2017, The Guardian reported that Britain's spy agencies had played a key role in alerting their American counterparts of communications between members of the Trump campaign and "suspected Russian agents," which was passed along to the US in what was characterized as a "routine exchange of information."

UK begged Trump not to declassify

In May, President Trump issued a sweeping declassification order on materials related to the DOJ/FBI Russia investigation - leaving it in the hands of Attorney General William Barr to determine exactly what happened to Trump and his campaign before and after the 2016 US election.

"For over a year, people have asked me to declassify. What I've done is declassified everything," said Trump, adding "He can look and I hope he looks at the UK and I hope he looks at Australia and I hope he looks at Ukraine ."

"It's the greatest hoax probably in the history of our country and somebody has to get to the bottom of it. We'll see. For a long period of time, they wanted me to declassify and I did."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OqTdwruOJJo?start=150

Meanwhile, also in May, Fox News reported that the discredited "Steele Dossier" - assembled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele - was referred to as "crown material" in an email exchange suggesting that former FBI Director James Comey insisted that CIA Director John Brennan pushed for the inclusion of the dossier in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference.

Moreover, much of "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" - the FBI's official investigation into the Trump campaign - occurred on UK soil , which is perhaps why the New York Times reported last September that the UK begged Trump not to declassify 'Russiagate' documents 'without redaction.'

Let's also not forget that shortly after Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos announced his intention to work for the campaign, he was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor and self-described Clinton foundation member Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer.

We wonder what else McCabe's texts with his MI-5 counterpart will reveal?

[Jul 29, 2019] CrowdStrikeOut Mueller's Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims by Aaron Maté

Notable quotes:
"... The US elite jump up and down with moral indignation about an evidence-free allegation of foreign interference in its domestic politics, whilst ignoring actual evidenced foreign interference in its domestic affairs, and all the while constantly interfering in the domestic affairs of foreign countries and boasting about it. ..."
"... The Mueller Report is proof positive that the US is equally adept as Blair and Campbell in producing Dodgy Dossiers. ..."
"... It was a novel idea to outsource the investigation to Crowdstrike. There's a lot to be said for privatisation. Most commendable. Maybe the next time there's a high profile criminal investigation the FBI will outsource the murder investigation to Sam Spade, Ace Gumshoe. ..."
"... The fundamental flaw in the whole "Russiagate" thing is the failure to differentiate between Russia, the state and its government, and Russians, individuals who are Russian nationals. This failure is a direct result of an inability to recognize that the Cold War finished 30 years ago, a failure highlighted by the breathless Tom Clancy style of reporting and reinforced by a huge military/industrial complex that recognizes that in the absence of war or threats or war their business is a bust. ..."
Jul 25, 2019 | off-guardian.org
Vaska
Originally by Aaron Maté, July 5, 2019 First published by RealClearInvestigations .

At a May press conference capping his tenure as special counsel, Robert Mueller emphasized what he called "the central allegation" of the two-year Russia probe. The Russian government, Mueller sternly declared, engaged in "multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election, and that allegation deserves the attention of every American." Mueller's comments echoed a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) asserting with "high confidence" that Russia conducted a sweeping 2016 election influence campaign. "I don't think we've ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process," then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate hearing.

While the 448-page Mueller report found no conspiracy between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, it offered voluminous details to support the sweeping conclusion that the Kremlin worked to secure Trump's victory. The report claims that the interference operation occurred "principally" on two fronts: Russian military intelligence officers hacked and leaked embarrassing Democratic Party documents, and a government-linked troll farm orchestrated a sophisticated and far-reaching social media campaign that denigrated Hillary Clinton and promoted Trump.

But a close examination of the report shows that none of those headline assertions are supported by the report's evidence or other publicly available sources. They are further undercut by investigative shortcomings and the conflicts of interest of key players involved:

The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to WikiLeaks. The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that provided them. There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange. Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions. U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele, also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller ignores. Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking. Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA). Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity. John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.

None of this means that the Mueller report's core finding of "sweeping and systematic" Russian government election interference is necessarily false. But his report does not present sufficient evidence to substantiate it. This shortcoming has gone overlooked in the partisan battle over two more highly charged aspects of Mueller's report: potential Trump-Russia collusion and Trump's potential obstruction of the resulting investigation. As Mueller prepares to testify before House committees later this month, the questions surrounding his claims of a far-reaching Russian influence campaign are no less important. They raise doubts about the genesis and perpetuation of Russiagate and the performance of those tasked with investigating it.

Uncertainty Over Who Stole the Emails

The Mueller report's narrative of Russian hacking and leaking was initially laid out in a July 2018 indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers and is detailed further in the report. According to Mueller, operatives at Russia's main intelligence agency, the GRU, broke into Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta's emails in March 2016. The hackers infiltrated Podesta's account with a common tactic called spear-phishing, duping him with a phony security alert that led him to enter his password. The GRU then used stolen Democratic Party credentials to hack into the DNC and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) servers beginning in April 2016. Beginning in June 2016, the report claims, the GRU created two online personas, "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0," to begin releasing the stolen material. After making contact later that month, Guccifer 2.0 apparently transferred the DNC emails to the whistleblowing, anti-secrecy publisher WikiLeaks, which released the first batch on July 22 ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

The report presents this narrative with remarkable specificity: It describes in detail how GRU officers installed malware, leased U.S.-based computers, and used cryptocurrencies to carry out their hacking operation. The intelligence that caught the GRU hackers is portrayed as so invasive and precise that it even captured the keystrokes of individual Russian officers, including their use of search engines.

In fact, the report contains crucial gaps in the evidence that might support that authoritative account. Here is how it describes the core crime under investigation, the alleged GRU theft of DNC emails:

Between approximately May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, GRU officers accessed the DNC's mail server from a GRU-controlled computer leased inside the United States. During these connections, Unit 26165 officers appear to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments, which were later released by WikiLeaks in July 2016. [ Italics added for emphasis.]

The report's use of that one word, "appear," undercuts its suggestions that Mueller possesses convincing evidence that GRU officers stole "thousands of emails and attachments" from DNC servers. It is a departure from the language used in his July 2018 indictment , which contained no such qualifier:

"It's certainly curious as to why this discrepancy exists between the language of Mueller's indictment and the extra wiggle room inserted into his report a year later," says former FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley. "It may be an example of this and other existing gaps that are inherent with the use of circumstantial information. With Mueller's exercise of quite unprecedented (but politically expedient) extraterritorial jurisdiction to indict foreign intelligence operatives who were never expected to contest his conclusing assertions in court, he didn't have to worry about precision. I would guess, however, that even though NSA may be able to track some hacking operations, it would be inherently difficult, if not impossible, to connect specific individuals to the computer transfer operations in question."

The report also concedes that Mueller's team did not determine another critical component of the crime it alleges: how the stolen Democratic material was transferred to WikiLeaks. The July 2018 indictment of GRU officers suggested – without stating outright – that WikiLeaks published the Democratic Party emails after receiving them from Guccifer 2.0 in a file named "wk dnc linkI .txt.gpg" on or around July 14, 2016. But now the report acknowledges that Mueller has not actually established how WikiLeaks acquired the stolen information: "The Office cannot rule out that stolen documents were transferred to WikiLeaks through intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016."

Another partially redacted passage also suggests that Mueller cannot trace exactly how WikiLeaks received the stolen emails. Given how the sentence is formulated, the redacted portion could reflect Mueller's uncertainty:

Contrary to Mueller's sweeping conclusions, the report itself is, at best, suggesting that the GRU, via its purported cutout Guccifer 2.0, may have transferred the stolen emails to WikiLeaks.

A Questionable Timeline

Mueller's uncertainty over the theft and transfer of Democratic Party emails isn't the only gap in his case. Another is his timeline of events – a critical component of any criminal investigation. The report's timeline defies logic: According to its account, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of the emails not only before he received the documents, but before he even communicated with the source that provided them.

As the Mueller report confirms, on June 12, 2016, Assange told an interviewer, "We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton, which is great." But Mueller reports that "WikiLeaks's First Contact With Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks" comes two days after that announcement:

If Assange's "First Contact" with DC Leaks came on June 14, and with Guccifer 2.0 on June 22, then what was Assange talking about on June 12? It is possible that Assange heard from another supposed Russian source before then; but if so, Mueller doesn't know it. Instead the report offers the implausible scenario that their first contact came after Assange's announcement.

There is another issue with the report's Guccifer 2.0-WikiLeaks timeline. Assange would have been announcing the pending release of stolen emails not just before he heard from the source , but also before he received the stolen emails . As noted earlier, Mueller suggested that WikiLeaks received the stolen material from Guccifer 2.0 "on or around" July 14 – a full month after Assange publicly announced that he had them.

In yet one more significant inconsistency, Mueller asserts that the two Russian outfits running the Kremlin-backed operation -- Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks – communicated about their covert activities over Twitter. Mueller reports that on Sept. 15, 2016:

The Twitter account@guccifer_2 sent @dcleaks_ a direct message, which is the first known contact between the personas. During subsequent communications, the Guccifer 2.0 persona informed DCLeaks that WikiLeaks was trying to contact DCLeaks and arrange for a way to speak through encrypted emails.

Why would Russian intelligence cutouts running a sophisticated interference campaign communicate over an easily monitored social media platform? In one of many such instances throughout the report, Mueller shows no curiosity in pursuing this obvious question.

For his part, Assange has repeatedly claimed that Russia was not his source and that the U.S. government does not know who was. "The U.S. intelligence community is not aware of when WikiLeaks obtained its material or when the sequencing of our material was done or how we obtained our material directly," Assange said in January 2017. "WikiLeaks sources in relation to the Podesta emails and the DNC leak are not members of any government. They are not state parties. They do not come from the Russian government."

Guccifer 2.0: A Sketchy Source

While Mueller admits he does not know for certain how the DNC emails were stolen or how they were transmitted to WikiLeaks, the report creates the impression that Russian intelligence cutout Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen material to Assange.

In fact, there are strong grounds for doubt. To begin with, Guccifer 2.0 – who was unknown until June 2016 – burst onto the scene to demand credit as WikiLeaks' source. This publicity-seeking is not standard spycraft.

More important, as Raffi Khatchadourian has reported for The New Yorker, the documents Guccifer 2.0 released directly were nowhere near the quality of the material published by WikiLeaks. For example, on June 18, Guccifer 2.0 released documents that it claimed were from the DNC, "but which were almost surely not," Khatchadourian notes. Neither was the material Guccifer 2.0 teased as a "dossier on Hillary Clinton from DNC." The material Guccifer 2.0 initially promoted in June also contained easily discoverable Russian metadata. The computer that created it was configured for the Russian language, and the username was "Felix Dzerzhinsky," the Bolshevik-era founder of the first Soviet secret police.

WikiLeaks only made contact with Guccifer 2.0 after the latter publicly invited journalists "to send me their questions via Twitter Direct Messages." And, more problematic given the central role the report assigned to Guccifer 2.0, there is no direct evidence that WikiLeaks actually released anything that Guccifer 2.0 provided. In a 2017 interview, Assange said he "didn't publish" any material from that source because much of it had been published elsewhere and because "we didn't have the resources to independently verify."

Mueller Didn't Speak With Assange

Some of these issues might have been resolved had Mueller not declined to interview Assange, despite Assange's multiple efforts.

According to a 2018 report by John Solomon in The Hill, Assange told the Justice Department the previous year that he "was willing to discuss technical evidence ruling out certain parties" in the leaking of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks. Given Assange's previous denials of Russia's involvement, that seems to indicate he was willing to provide evidence that Moscow was not his source. But he never got the chance. According to Solomon, FBI Director James Comey personally intervened with an order that U.S. officials "stand down," setting off a chain of events that scuttled the talks.

Assange also made public offers to testify before Congress. The Mueller report makes no mention of these overtures, though it does cite and dismiss "media reports" that "Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an 'inside job,' and purported to have 'physical proof' that Russians did not give materials to Assange."

Mueller does not explain why he included Assange's comments as reported by media outlets in his report but decided not to speak with Assange directly, or ask to see his "physical proof," during a two-year investigation.

No Server Inspection, Reliance on CrowdStrike

Before he nixed U.S. government contacts with Assange, Comey was implicated in another key investigative lapse – the FBI's failure to conduct its own investigation of the DNC's servers, which housed the record of alleged intrusions and malware used to steal information. As Comey told Congress in March 2017, the FBI "never got direct access to the machines themselves." Instead, he explained, the bureau relied on CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC, which "shared with us their forensics from their review of the system."

While acknowledging that the FBI would "always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves, if that's possible," Comey emphasized his confidence in the information provided by CrowdStrike, which he called "a highly respected private company" and "a high-class entity."

CrowdStrike's accuracy is far from a given. Days after Comey's testimony, CrowdStrike was forced to retract its claim that Russian software was used to hack Ukrainian military hardware. CrowdStrike's error is especially relevant because it had accused the GRU of using that same software in hacking the DNC.

There is also reason to question CrowdStrike's impartiality. Its co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the preeminent Washington think tank that aggressively promotes a hawkish posture towards Russia. CrowdStrike executive Shawn Henry, who led the forensics team that ultimately blamed Russia for the DNC breach, previously served as assistant director at the FBI under Mueller.

And CrowdStrike was hired to perform the analysis of the DNC servers by Perkins Coie – the law firm that also was responsible for contracting Fusion GPS, the Washington, D.C.-based opposition research firm that produced the now discredited Steele dossier alleging salacious misconduct by Trump in Russia and his susceptibility to blackmail.

A CrowdStrike spokesperson declined a request for comment on its role in the Russia investigation.

The picture is further clouded by the conflicting accounts regarding the servers. A DNC spokesperson told BuzzFeed in early January 2017 that "the FBI never requested access to the DNC's computer servers." But Comey told the Senate Select Intelligence Committee days later that the FBI made "multiple requests at different levels," but for unknown reasons, he explained, those requests were denied.

While failing to identify the "different levels" he consulted, Comey never explained why the FBI took no for an answer. As part of a criminal investigation, the FBI could have seized the servers to ensure a proper chain of evidentiary custody. In investigating a crime, alleged victims do not get to dictate to law enforcement how they can inspect the crime scene.

The report fails to address any of this, suggesting a lack of interest in even fundamental questions if they might reflect poorly on the FBI.

The Mueller report states that "as part of its investigation, the FBI later received images of DNC servers and copies of relevant traffic logs." But it does not specify how much "later" it received those server images or who provided them. Based on the statements of Comey and other U.S. officials, it is quite likely that they came from CrowdStrike, though the company gets only passing mention in the redacted report.

Asked for comment, Special Counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined to answer whether the Mueller team relied on CrowdStrike for its allegations against the GRU. Carr referred queries to the Justice Department's National Security Division, which declined to comment, and to the U.S. Western District of Pennsylvania, which did not respond.

If CrowdStrike's role in the investigation raises a red flag, the potential exclusion of another entity raises an equally glaring one. According to former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney, the NSA is the only U.S. agency that could conclusively determine the source of the alleged DNC email hacks. "If this was really an internet hack, the NSA could easily tell us when the information was taken and the route it took after being removed from the [DNC] server," Binney says. But given Mueller's qualified language and his repeated use of "in or around" rather than outlining specific, down-to-the-second timestamps – which the NSA could provide -- Binney is skeptical that NSA intelligence was included in the GRU indictment and the report.

There has been no public confirmation that intelligence acquired by the NSA was used in the Mueller probe. Asked whether any of its information had been used in the allegations against the GRU, or had been declassified for public release in Mueller's investigation, a spokesperson for the National Security Agency declined to comment.

Redacted CrowdStrike Reports

While the extent of the FBI's reliance on CrowdStrike remains unclear, critical details are beginning to emerge via an unlikely source: the legal case of Roger Stone – the Trump adviser Mueller indicted for, among other things, allegedly lying to Congress about his failed efforts to learn about WikiLeaks' plans regarding Clinton's emails.

Lawyers for Stone discovered that CrowdStrike submitted three forensic reports to the FBI that were redacted and in draft form. When Stone asked to see CrowdStrike's un-redacted versions, prosecutors made the explosive admission that the U.S. government does not have them. "The government does not possess the information the defendant seeks," prosecutor Jessie Liu wrote. This is because, Liu explained , CrowdStrike itself redacted the reports that it provided to the government:

At the direction of the DNC and DCCC's legal counsel, CrowdStrike prepared three draft reports. Copies of these reports were subsequently produced voluntarily to the government by counsel for the DNC and DCCC. At the time of the voluntary production, counsel for the DNC told the government that the redacted material concerned steps taken to remediate the attack and to harden the DNC and DCCC systems against future attack. According to counsel, no redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors.

In other words, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to decide what it could and could not see in reports on Russian hacking, thereby surrendering the ability to independently vet their claims. The government also took CrowdStrike's word that "no redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors."

According to an affidavit filed for Stone's defense by Binney, the speed transfer rate and the file formatting of the DNC data indicate that they were moved on to a storage device, not hacked over the Internet. In a rebuttal, Stone's prosecutors said that the file information flagged by Binney "would be equally consistent with Russia intelligence officers using a thumb drive to transfer hacked materials among themselves after the hack took place." In an interview with RealClearInvestigations, Binney could not rule out that possibility. But conversely, the evidence laid out by Mueller is so incomplete and uncertain that Binney's theory cannot be ruled out either. The very fact that DoJ prosecutors, in their response to Binney, do not rule out his theory that a thumb drive was used to transfer the material is an acknowledgment in that direction.

The lack of clarity around Mueller's intelligence community sourcing might appear inconsequential given the level of detail in his account of alleged Russian hacking. But in light of the presence of potentially biased and politically conflicted sources like CrowdStrike, and the absence of certainty revealed in Mueller's lengthy account, the fact that his sourcing remains an open question makes it difficult to accept that he has delivered definitive answers. If Mueller had the invasive window into Russian intelligence that he claims to, it seems incongruous that he would temper his purported descriptions of their actions with tentative, qualified language. Mueller's hedging suggests a broader conclusion at odds with the report's own findings: that the U.S. government does not have ironclad proof about who hacked the DNC.

Social Media Campaign

Mueller's other "central allegation" regards a "Russian 'Active Measures' Social Media Campaign" with the aim of "sowing discord" and helping to elect Trump.

In fact, Mueller does not directly attribute that campaign to the Russian government, and makes only the barest attempt to imply a Kremlin connection. According to Mueller, the social media "form of Russian election influence came principally from the Internet Research Agency, LLC (IRA), a Russian organization funded by Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and companies he controlled."

After two years and $35 million, Mueller apparently failed to uncover any direct evidence linking the Prigozhin-controlled IRA's activities to the Kremlin. His best evidence is that "[n]umerous media sources have reported on Prigozhin's ties to Putin, and the two have appeared together in public photographs." The footnote for this references a lone article in the New York Times. (Both the Times and the Washington Post are cited frequently throughout the report. The two outlets received and published intelligence community leaks throughout the Russia probe.)

Further, in a newly unsealed July 1 ruling , a federal judge rebuked Mueller and the Justice Department for having "improperly suggested a link" between the IRA and the Russian government. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Mueller's February 2018 indictment "does not link the [IRA] to the Russian government" and alleges "only private conduct by private actors." The judge added the government's statements violate a prohibiting lawyers from making claims that would prejudice a case.

Even putting aside the complete absence of a Kremlin role, the case that the Russian government sought to influence the U.S. election via a social media campaign is hard to grasp given how minuscule it was. Mueller says the IRA spent $100,000 between 2015 and 2017. Of that, just $46,000 was spent on Russian-linked Facebook ads before the 2016 election. That amounts to about 0.05% of the $81 million spent on Facebook ads by the Clinton and Trump campaigns combined -- which is itself a tiny fraction of the estimated $2 billion spent by the candidates and their supporting PACS.

Then there is the fact that so little of this supposed election interference campaign content actually concerned the election. Mueller himself cites a review by Twitter of tweets from "accounts associated with the IRA" in the 10 weeks before the 2016 election, which found that "approximately 8.4% were election-related." This tracks with a report commissioned by the U.S. Senate that found that "explicitly political content was a small percentage" of the content attributed to the IRA. The IRA's posts "were minimally about the candidates," with "roughly 6% of tweets, 18% of Instagram posts, and 7% of Facebook posts" having "mentioned Trump or Clinton by name."

Yet Mueller circumvents this with what sound like impressive figures:

IRA-controlled Twitter accounts separately had tens of thousands of followers, including multiple U.S. political figures who retweeted IRA-created content. In November 2017, a Facebook representative testified that Facebook had identified 470 IRA-controlled Facebook accounts that collectively made 80,000 posts between January 2015 and August 2017. Facebook estimated the IRA reached as many as 126 million persons through its Facebook accounts. In January 2018, Twitter announced that it had identified 3,814 IRA-controlled Twitter accounts and notified approximately 1.4 million people Twitter believed may have been in contact with an IRA-controlled account.

Upon scrutiny, Mueller's figures are exaggerated, to say the least. Take Mueller's claim that Russian posts reached "as many as 126 million" Facebook users. That figure is in fact a spin on Facebook's own guess, as articulated by Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch's congressional testimony in October 2017. "Our best estimate ," Stretch told lawmakers, "is that approximately 126 million people may have been served content from a page associated with the IRA at some point during the two-year period ." And the "two-year period" extends far beyond the 2016 election, to August 2017. Overall, Stretch added, posts from suspected Russian accounts showing up in Facebook's News Feed comprised "approximately 1 out of [every] 23,000 pieces of content."

Yet another reason to question the Russian operation's sophistication is the quality of its content. The IRA's most shared pre-election Facebook post was a cartoon of a gun-wielding Yosemite Sam . On Instagram, the best-received image urged users to give it a "Like" if they believe in Jesus. The top IRA post on Facebook before the election that mentioned Hillary Clinton was a conspiratorial screed about voter fraud . Another ad featured Jesus consoling a dejected young man by telling him: "Struggling with the addiction to masturbation? Reach out to me and we will beat it together."

Mueller also reports that the IRA successfully organized "dozens" of rallies "while posing as U.S. grassroots activists." Sounds impressive, but the most successful effort appears to have been in Houston, where Russian trolls allegedly organized dueling rallies pitting a dozen white supremacists against several dozen counter-protesters outside an Islamic center. Elsewhere, the IRA had underwhelming results, according to media reports: At several rallies in Florida " it's unclear if anyone attended ," the Daily Beast later noted; "no people showed up to at least one," and "ragtag groups" showed up at others , the Washington Post reported, including one where video footage captured a crowd of eight people .

Far from exposing a sophisticated propaganda campaign, the reports suggest that Russian troll farm workers engaged in futile efforts to spark contentious rallies in a handful of states. When it comes to the ads, they may have been engaging in clickbait capitalism: targeting unique demographics like African Americans or evangelicals in a bid to attract large audiences for commercial purposes. Reporters who have profiled the IRA have commonly described it as " a social media marketing campaign ." Mueller's February 2018 indictment of the IRA disclosed that it sold "promotions and advertisements" on its pages that generally sold in the $25-$50 range. "This strategy," a Senate report from Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project observes, "is not an invention for politics and foreign intrigue, it is consistent with techniques used in digital marketing."

That, in fact, was Facebook's initial conclusion. As the Washington Post first reported , Facebook's initial review of Russian social media activity in late 2016 and early 2017 found that the troll farm's pages "had clear financial motives, which suggested that they weren't working for a foreign government." That view only changed, the Post added, after "aides to Hillary Clinton and Obama" developed "theories" to help them "explain what they saw as an unnatural turn of events" in their loss of the 2016 election. Among these theories: "Russian operatives who were directed by the Kremlin to support Trump may have taken advantage of Facebook and other social media platforms to direct their messages to American voters in key demographic areas." Despite the fact that "these former advisers didn't have hard evidence," the Democratic aides found a receptive audience in both congressional intelligence committees. Democrat Mark Warner, the Senate intel vice chairman, personally flew out to Facebook headquarters in California to press the case. Not long after, in the summer of 2017, Facebook went public with its new "findings" about Russian trolls. Mueller has followed their lead – just as the FBI followed the leads of other Democratic sources in pursuing both the collusion (Fusion GPS) and Russian hacking (CrowdStrike) allegations.

John Brennan and the ICA

As it falls short of proving its case for a "sweeping and systematic" Russian interference campaign, the Mueller report also fails to support its claim regarding the motive behind such efforts. In the introduction to Volume I, Mueller states that "the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome." But nowhere in the ensuing 440 pages does Mueller produce any evidence to substantiate that central claim.

Instead Mueller appears to be relying on the intelligence community assessment (ICA) released in January 2017 – four months before his appointment – that accused the Russian government of running an "influence campaign" that aimed "to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process," and hurt Hillary Clinton's "electability and potential presidency" as part of what it called Russia's "clear preference for President-elect Trump."

But the ICA itself produced no evidence for any of these assertions. Its equivocation is even more blunt than Mueller's: The ICA report's conclusions, it states, are "not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact."

On the core conclusion that Russia aimed to help Trump, there is not even uniformity: While the FBI and CIA claim to have "high confidence" in that judgment, the NSA makes a conspicuous deviation in expressing that it has only "moderate confidence."

As it casts doubt on a core allegation of Russia's alleged motives, the NSA's dissent debunks the oft-repeated claim that the ICA represented the consensus view of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Moreover, it would even be misleading to portray the ICA as the product of the three agencies that produced it – the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Instead, there are multiple indications that the ICA is primarily the work of one person, who would spend the next two years accusing Trump of treason: then-CIA Director John Brennan.

A March 2018 report from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee says that Brennan personally oversaw the entire ICA process from start to finish. In December 2016, the GOP report recounts, President Obama "directed Brennan to conduct a review of all intelligence relating to Russian involvement in the 2016 elections." The resulting ICA "was drafted by CIA analysts" and merely " coordinated with the NSA and the FBI." The GOP report observes that Brennan's CIA analysts were "subjected to an unusually constrained review and coordination process, which deviated from established CIA practice ."[ Italics added for emphasis.] A lengthy Democratic rebuttal to the GOP members' report does not refute any of these findings.

Echoing the NSA's dissent, the House GOP questions the ICA's conclusion that Putin interfered to secure Trump's victory. The committee, they write, "identified significant intelligence tradecraft failings that undermine confidence in the ICA judgments regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategic objectives for disrupting the U.S. election." [ Italics added for emphasis.]

The Brennan-run process may have also excluded dissenting views from other agencies. Jack Matlock, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, has claimed that a "senior official" from the State Department's intelligence wing, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), informed him that it had reached a different conclusion about alleged Russian meddling, "but was not allowed to express it." An INR spokesperson declined a request for comment.

The ICA's production schedule also raises a red flag: The outgoing Obama administration tasked Brennan with churning it out in seemingly unprecedented time. "Ordinarily, the kind of assessment that you're talking about, there would be something that would take well over a year to do, certainly many months to do," former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy told the House Intelligence Committee in June. " [S]eems to me, in this instance, there was a rush to get that out within a matter of days."

But even if Brennan had been given all the time in the world, the very fact that he was placed in charge of the intelligence assessment was a massive conflict of interest. Brennan was handed the opportunity to validate, without independent scrutiny or oversight from unbiased sources, serious allegations that he himself helped generate.

Efforts to reach Brennan through MSNBC, where he is a commentator, were unsuccessful.

Months before he oversaw the intelligence assessment, Brennan played a critical role in the FBI's decision to open the probe of Trump-Russia collusion. "I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion," Brennan told Congress in March 2017, "and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion-cooperation occurred."

On top of his self-described role in generating the investigation of possible Trump-Russia collusion, Brennan also played a critical role in generating the claim that the Russian government was waging an influence campaign. According to the book "The Apprentice" by the Washington Post's Greg Miller, the CIA unit known as "Russia House" was "the point of origin" for the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion during the presidential campaign that "the Kremlin was actively seeking to elect Trump." Brennan sequestered himself in his office to pore over the CIA's material , "staying so late that the glow through his office windows remained visible deep into the night." Brennan "ordered up," not just vetted, "'finished' assessments – analytic reports that had gone through layers of review and revision," Miller adds, but also "what agency veterans call the 'raw stuff' – the unprocessed underlying material."

Anyone familiar with how cherry-picked, false intelligence made the case for the Iraq War will recognize "raw material" as a red flag. Here's another: According to Miller, one piece of intelligence that was "a particular source of alarm to Brennan," was the "bombshell" from "sourcing deep inside the Kremlin" that Putin himself had "authorized a covert operation" in order to, "in his own words damage Clinton and help elect Trump" via "a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race." A former CIA operative described that sourcing as "the espionage equivalent of 'the Holy Grail.'"

Undoubtedly, a mole within Putin's inner circle – able to capture his exact orders – would indeed fit that description. But that raises the obvious question: If such a crown jewel of espionage exists, why would anyone in U.S. intelligence allow it to be revealed? And why hadn't that "Holy Grail" source been able to forewarn its American intelligence handlers of any number of Putin's actions that have caught the U.S. off-guard, from the annexation of Crimea to the Russian intervention in Syria?

Brennan was the first to alert President Obama of a Russian interference campaign, and subsequently oversaw the U.S. intelligence response.

Since leaving office, Brennan has laid bare his personal animus towards Trump, going so far as to call him "treasonous" – an unprecedented charge for a former top intelligence official to make about a sitting president. In the weeks before Mueller issued his final report, Brennan was still predicting that members of Trump's inner circle, including family members, would be indicted. Given Brennan's bias and consistent patterns of errors, Mueller's unquestioning, apparent reliance on a Brennan-run process is suspect.

Although Mueller seemed to accept the ICA's explosive claims at face value, Brennan's work product is now facing Justice Department scrutiny. The New York Times reported on June 12 that Attorney General William Barr is "interested in how the C.I.A. drew its conclusions about Russia's election sabotage, particularly the judgment that Mr. Putin ordered that operatives help Mr. Trump." In what is most likely a direct reference to Brennan, the Times adds that Barr "wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign," as well as about "the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016."

Until Barr completes his review of the Russia probe, the April 2018 report from GOP members of the House Intelligence Committee remains the only publicly available assessment of the Brennan-controlled ICA's methodology. One reason for this is the fact that President Obama personally quashed a proposed bipartisan commission of inquiry into alleged Russian interference that would have inevitably subjected Brennan and other top intelligence officials to scrutiny. According to the Washington Post, in the aftermath of the November election, Obama administration officials discussed forming such a commission to conduct a sweeping probe of the alleged Russian interference effort and the U.S. response. But after Obama's then chief-of-staff, Denis McDonough, introduced the proposal, he:

began criticizing it, arguing that it would be perceived as partisan and almost certainly blocked by Congress. Obama then echoed McDonough's critique, effectively killing any chance that a Russia commission would be formed.

With Obama having killed "any chance that a Russia commission would be formed," there has been no thorough, independent oversight of the intelligence process that alleged an interference campaign by Russia and triggered an all-consuming investigation of the Trump campaign's potential complicity.

New Opportunities to Answer Unresolved Questions

Barr's ongoing review, and Mueller's pending appearance before Congress, offer fresh opportunities to re-examine the affair's fundamental inconsistencies. Authorized by the president to declassify documents, Barr could shed light on the role that CrowdStrike and other sources played in informing Mueller and the Brennan-directed ICA's claims of a Russian interference campaign. When he appears before lawmakers, Mueller will likely face questions on other matters: from Democrats, his decision to punt on obstruction; from Republicans, his decision to carry out a prolonged investigation of Trump-Russia collusion despite likely knowing quite early on that there was no such case to make.

If the U.S. government does not have a solid case to make against Russia, then the origins of Russiagate, and its subsequent predominance of U.S. political and media focus, are potentially even more suspect. Given that allegation's importance, and Mueller's own uncertainty and inconsistencies, the special counsel and his aides deserve scrutiny for making a "central allegation" that they have yet to substantiate.

Correction:


Steve Hayes

The US elite jump up and down with moral indignation about an evidence-free allegation of foreign interference in its domestic politics, whilst ignoring actual evidenced foreign interference in its domestic affairs, and all the while constantly interfering in the domestic affairs of foreign countries and boasting about it.
Tim Jenkins
That's an excellent brief summary description of events ongoing, Steve & very telling. I have the feeling that most of the moral indignation is from those with most to hide !
Roberto
The takeaway of 2 1/2 years of nonsense, succinct version:

The congressman asks:
"When you talk about the firm that produced the Steele reporting, the name of the firm that produced that was Fusion GPS. Is that correct?"
"I am not familiar with – with that," Mueller replied.
"It was. It's not a trick question. It was Fusion GPS," Chabot retorted.
The Congressman then asked whether Mueller was familiar with the owner of Fusion GPS.
"That's outside my purview," Mueller replied."

Tim Jenkins
It seems likely, that Trump planned to discredit Robert Mueller's integrity, from the very beginning. Think about it: Robert (d'Mule) Mueller and his history:-

1) Heavy involvement in Uranium One deal, with the Russians.

2) Cover up of all investigations 9/11, as FBI Boss.

3) Clean up of Epstein's abhorrent dealings, last time around.

4) The Great Russia-Hoax, by Magic Mueller & Co.

For my mind, I can imagine BTO -"You ain't seen nothin', yet "

GRAFT
But the lunatics still believe millions upon millions of people believe it still
Cesca
This is just one of the events where the psychopathic scum show how divorced they are from humane consciousness.

They are thick as sh.t when it comes to hiding what they do, have the power to make it hard to find the truth tho.

Tim Jenkins
Coulter was calling for him to be in solitary in a 'SuperMax', as if that would protect him. Meanwhile, Priti Patel wants to bring back the death sentence
(stoooopid woman, not interested in learning, better said, in others learning) 😉

Off with their heads: Final Solutions ? Judge Priti Patel ?

Personally, i'd love to see Epstein in a safe cell, in between Cardinal sinner George d'Pedo Pell & Harvey Weinstein: all with webcams & wifi LIVE & pay per view:-

VIP Big Bro. Chokey & the Bandits, (online Live 🙂 )

I would actually pay to view that, even if only briefly on the BBC, though I've never given a penny to the BBC, since 1979 I swear m8 🙂

mark
The Mueller Report is proof positive that the US is equally adept as Blair and Campbell in producing Dodgy Dossiers.

The poor chap is obviously suffering from advanced Alzheimer's. You'd think they could come up with a better front man for their conspiracy theory.

It was a novel idea to outsource the investigation to Crowdstrike. There's a lot to be said for privatisation. Most commendable. Maybe the next time there's a high profile criminal investigation the FBI will outsource the murder investigation to Sam Spade, Ace Gumshoe.

Roberto
It wasn't [the dreaded, one-day] Alzheimer's. It's a Modified Limited Hangout version of 'I don't recall', 'What page is that on?', 'What page?', 'Oh I see it now', 'Can you repeat the question?', and 'It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is' (well, OK, everything except that – it's copyrighted).
Add dozens of 'That's not my purview' or some variation of it, and 5 hours magically shrinks.
Question This
Why not write an article why so much time, effort & money has been wasted on this subject. Is it a surprise to anyone that competing super powers (I use the term loosely) attempt to interfere in election results? Frankly i take it as given that Russia, USA & US of Europe do so at any & all possible opportunity.

And asking if politicians are corrupt is like asking what colors the sky, we all know the answer.

binra
The lie accuses its own sin in the other – as intent at sustainability of power by deceit. Unravelling to source is the nature of a true harvest.
Each unto its own.
UreKismet
Well IMO you'd be wrong. English elites have been saying "the evil russian other" for at least 200 years. Even in the islands no one sees as a good earner, Aotearoa, has an 'anti russian fort" It was built in the 1880's when some pommie pols beat up a "Russia is trying to steal our empire" scare.
Tim Jenkins
Get Mifsud, Now !
****************

"Mueller does not explain why he included Assange's comments as reported by media outlets in his report but decided not to speak with Assange directly, or ask to see his "physical proof," during a two-year investigation." with an unlimited budget to investigate !

What more than that did you need to know ? Alles Klar and if you are still unsure, then just ask yourself why Bill Binney & Kurt Weibe, ex NSA programmers of "Parallel Platforms", have NOT been called to testify, either ! The technical end 'stuff' proves that Mueller has been lying all along on his 'Witch Hunt' & Russia-Hoax and has NOT been addressing any one of the most important questions & problems that lead to further investigations & indictments of many key figures: which include potentially prosecuting the murderer of Seth Rich and why Mueller charged all others for lying to him during his pathetic investigation, but NOT Jo' MIFSUD ! Mueller himself should be prosecuted for his omissions & failure to prosecute Mifsud & question Richard Dearlove more intensively !

Get Mifsud under Oath immediately: he started all this who the hell is MIFSUD? Why is MIFSUD being protected? What the Fuck were Steele & Mifsud & Dearlove thinking to conspire & concoct on behalf of Deep State Governors & Operatives, who transcend both the USUK Governments combined ! ? !

This is an old article that helps you comprehend something of the background of the lies & deceptions of Mueller's pathetic efforts, & yesterday's statements confirm that he never intended to reveal anything at all, including yesterday, but why do we not have some brief qualification of Mueller's Testimony just yesterday, as an addendum here @OffG ?

How does OffG expect the Brits. to keep up to speed ? Especially, what will happen next with Boris Johnson and his dilemmas @home with GCHQ ? Coz' GCHQ were wholly involved in this TREASON USA attempt & Russia-Hoax, as were Italian Secret Services and the Ukrainian S.S. !

These matters can no longer be resolved behind closed doors, unless you wish to live continuously & forever onwards, under a corporate Fascist Dictatorship of "Parallel Platforms" & Pedophile Politicians ! it's that simple, so take 5 minutes and listen to Jim Jordan cross question Mueller, just yesterday, and you'll begin to see that Mifsud is being protected and we need to know WHY? HOW? & What from ? & by whom Logic, the wholly zionist owned & controlled mainstream media, surely! Coz' the ball is still rolling and it will not stop @Mifsud's desk, nor the boss of GCHQ's desk heads are gonna' roll, when this ball gets finally kicked into the annals of a very pissy secret service "History of the National Security State" and BoJo has some serious thinking to do about how he deals with the nameless cnuts in the British not so civil service, who used orphans kids in Ireland to entrap politicians and leverage any future political discussions with British Pedophile Politicians fully controlled !!!
E.G. GARY HOY !

It should be noted that yesterday, before Bill Barr stepped into his bullet proof vehicle, after answering a few questions to journalists, he beamed the biggest smile I ever saw on his public face and uttered the words "it goes with the territory". Bill Barr has clearly grown more comfortable with where he stands, today and he has no intention of kicking this can of worms down the road, including Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell, charges will be brought, thankfully finally and Boris Johnson will be forced to reveal much more than he would likely wish regarding "The History of the National Security State" and it will help mask his inevitable blunders, down the road.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KNIipT35Eh4

You should have, after watching Mueller !

I have pasted three links deliberately so that Admin must read this 😉

DunGroanin
Superb post Tim and a great catch! I missed David Nunes bit yesterday. The PM of GB and Mifsud in full colour! Lol

The Guardian live reporting missed every mention of Steele, Dearlove, a 'Russian' how very suspicious! Lol

I do believe the Russian State is capable of hacking – as is every such capable state in the world. I surmise they did hack – that is the most likely source of the Integrity Initiative / Institute of Statecraft material.

We will see how many independent news sites and bloggers actually exist by their journalism and blogging on this revealed conspiracy.

Tim Jenkins
My pleasure, thanks DG & I honestly 'almost choked' early morning, when sifting through the guardian script writers & their video editing efforts for today's 'damage limitation': (no doubt, on command of GCHQ), just how much key info. was truly omitted, scandalous clearly, 'The Lobby' is working hard on distractions, for not just all the government politicians, but also all journalists & editors: and therefore, Operation Charlemagne never gets mentioned, so that the 'Mifsud confusion' prevails and a disconnect is established from GCHQ, Steele & Treason USA & Epstein Island & Ghislaine Maxwell's historic sexual endeavours to control key political figures' future decision making: which includes Judges, down the line, as well as key figures working on "Parallel Platforms" of computing, within the National Security State throughout NATO nations !
And this all presents a prime opportunity for OffGuardian. 🙂
It will be a tough ole' cookie for Kit to crack: maybe in bite sized pieces, step by step

It's a very real tangled web that transcends borders of governance and forces one to not shy away from the words Corporate Fascist Dictatorship, with zero privacy & total control of all flows of Knowledge,

Not just Scientific . . .
Mercer & Cambridge Analytica ? the tip of the iceberg,
as UreKismet rightly points out below, Carole d'Cad certainly has much to answer for, in the biggest internet Psyop sting & string of distractions from the Key issues of programming our futures, collectively.

UreKismet
AFAIK there is zero evidence that the russian state was involved in the pathetic beauty contest which the US elites use to distract the more credulous citizens every 4 years. Why would they? They know damn well this quadrennial farce is a crooked game from start to finish. A game that only allows the same two contestants, the republican tweedledee and the democrat tweedledum to compete – both sides cheat like f++k on a massive scale so whatever skullduggery the Russian state could insert into that rigged crapshoot would have two chances of success, Buckley's and none.

But more important than even that is, even if the Russian State – oops sorry. . . "Putin" {said quickly with all emphasis on vowels none on consonants so it sounds more like a hoick & spit than a word} by some miracle did succeed so what? You cannot push a decent spliff skin between the dems & rethugs on the stuff which really matters.

Disagree? Check out the Tufts alumni diary entry for yesterday . The article tells us how the Senate Foreign Relations committee, who are the mob allegedly responsible for devising and implementing amerika's foreign policy, actually had a falling out on monday, a disagreement between a dem senator and a rethug member of the old boys steamroom and bar club.

This was the first public contretemps in decades. Wow I bet that was over something vital!

Nah, the dispute was over the murder of that Kashoggi creep, they reckon the dems wanted to slap Saudi with a wet bus ticket, whereas the rethugs preferred a damp feather as the instrument of corporal punishment.

Why on earth would anyone who hadn't bought a seat at the table e.g. the invaders of occupied Palestine waste energy, let alone the $30,000 that crowdstrike claimed Russia had spent on a forlorn hope of trying to get something up like sanctions relief, when everyone knows the correct way to do it is to bribe both sides with tens of millions?

Now "tens of millions" may seem a lot until you understand you will get it all back plus a lot extra for the hassle. Yep the amerikan pols become dependent on your 'donation' real quick. So from then on out, they find a way to give you money for some nonsense program which you then give back to 'em all as donations – less about 95% for expenses natch – but everyone is cool with that, they know there are considerable overheads in the lobbying biz.

That is why just about all of them plan on getting into lobbying themselves – just as soon as their little black books are chocka with the foibles of all the other congress-creeps and senate-slugs.

I watched the netflix doco "The Great Hack" which tries a camera eye view of the Cambridge Analytica investigation. IMO It reveals graun contractor Carole Cadwalladr to be the sort of deeply dedicated journo not too proud to let the facts stand in the way of a good beat up/fit up.

Shockingly for the graun, the target of this character assassination is a 'sister', yep another member of the victimised by patriarchy club.

A young woman by the name of Brittany Kaiser whose parents were financially destroyed by the cfc. After the family home was seized in 2014 she had to quit being an unpaid worker for the dems in DC & took an extremely well paid gig (VP) with CA. Apparently her conscience got the better of her so when the stories about what they and facebook had been doing came out she whistle blew in the US inquiry and the english parliament enquiry.

Too bad Cadwalladr decided she (Kaiser) would be useful in yet another graun attack on Julian Assange.

Kaiser had sent Wikileaks a couple bit coins back in the noughties when she was an idealistic Obama intern and bit coins weren't worth much. Years later she visited Julian at the Ecuador embassy on CA business and she insists that neither Russia or H Clinton's email were discussed, but Cadwalladr ran this article claiming she did both, without a scintalla of watchamacallit – evidence, proof whatsoever.

Of course in reality Kaiser may be nothing like the possum trapped in the headlights she presents as; this is a TV show (all over the torrent and usenet sites if like me, people prefer not to pay for the fibs they are told) in which both Cadwalladr & Kaiser get lots of time. For me Kaiser came across as someone acting more like a human than, the bigger the front, the smaller the back, Cadwalladr did.

None of us can ever know for sure who did what to whom during prez 2016, so we are left with considering the mountains of bulldust using our sense of humanity mixed with the few facts we can be sure of. In that light IMO, it makes zero sense for the Russian state to try on something that is so obviously doomed to fail, so they didn't.

Antonym
Good to see a factually well informed author here ATL void of ideology or theory. Mueller has bended truth when ordered since decades while looking like Eliot Ness. A good fella.
Martin Usher
The fundamental flaw in the whole "Russiagate" thing is the failure to differentiate between Russia, the state and its government, and Russians, individuals who are Russian nationals. This failure is a direct result of an inability to recognize that the Cold War finished 30 years ago, a failure highlighted by the breathless Tom Clancy style of reporting and reinforced by a huge military/industrial complex that recognizes that in the absence of war or threats or war their business is a bust.

I've always maintained that any connections Trump has with Russia are going to be based on money. As in "there are people who have lots of money who need some kind of investment vehicle to launder it" and "a tangled web of casinos and real estate holdings is a perfect laundromat for money of dubious origins". This doesn't automatically suggest that Trump's a money launderer for the Russian mob but rather there's no clear cut line between what's clearly criminal and what's clearly totally legal and a lot of businesses operate in the gray between the two.

(Politically, though, the last word on Trump support was spoken to me by a Hungarian/American colleague who intended to vote for him. He lived in Budapest and his interest wasn't in US domestic politics so much as not being caught in WW3. He thought Hilary was going to start a war, Trump would keep us out. I thought he was being a bit naive (and have been proven right) but you couldn't blame him for exercising an abundance of caution.)

[Jul 29, 2019] Looks like Epstein turned informant for Mueller s FBI in 2008. Likely earlier

Highly recommended!
Did Mueller done this at the request of Clintons?
Notable quotes:
"... That was while Robert Mueller ran the Bureau, which means everything about Epstein's blackmail and kompromat operation has been tucked safely away out of sight in FBI files for at least a decade. Much longer, new evidence shows. ..."
"... *CIA Acknowledged in 2003, It Knew that Ghislaine Maxwell's Late Father was a Major Foreign Intelligence Agent Operating Inside the U.S. ..."
"... That Robert Maxwell was a ruthless, corrupt, tax-dodging international businessman who served as an Israeli agent is highly probable. ..."
"... For the first time, Maxwell had failed to get his own way. He started to threaten and bluster. He then demanded that, for past services, he should receive immediately a quick fix of £400million to bale him out of his financial difficulties. ..."
"... Instead of providing the money, a small group of Mossad officers set about planning his murder. They feared that he was going to publicly expose all Mossad had done in the time he worked for them. They knew that he was gradually becoming mentally unstable and paranoid. He was taking a cocktail of drugs - Halcion and Zanax - which had serious side effects. ..."
"... Then Maxwell was contacted. He was told to fly to Gibraltar, go aboard the Lady Ghislaine and sail to the Canary Islands. There at sea he would receive his £400million quick fix in the form of a banker's draft. Maxwell did as he was told. ..."
"... As Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent told us: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over." ..."
"... The incontrovertible facts about his murder are contained in a previously-unseen autopsy report by Britain's then-leading forensic pathologist Dr Iain West and Israel State Pathologist Dr Yehuda Hiss. Of all the documents in our possession, these reports confirm the truth about Maxwell's death. ..."
"... Boy that Mueller has had a busy career hasn't he? Didn't he start out in Chicago where he gave Whitey Bulgar cover for being a mob boss? Then there's his cover up before and after 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction that he said Saddam had. The anthrax prosecution, Epstein's pedophilia cover up, HSBC and now he is trying to cover Hillary's buttocks. And maybe Obama's? I'm sure I've missed a few things that he did or didn't do. ..."
"... Acosta was told to stand down by someone at the top of the food chain. Mueller. Ugh what a slimy piece of work he is. But not to the Russia Gaters. Oh no. "He is a highly decorated marine who takes no guff from anyone. ..."
"... In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and to the corridors of power throughout Europe. ..."
"... Inquiring minds want to know did Maxwell have access to Margaret and Ron because they liked him or because he had something on them? ..."
"... Epstein is the destruction of the Deep State. ..."
"... That pedophelia and politics scandal, better known as the Franklin Coverup, made the papers for a few months, too, before it was made to go away. Similarly, a couple of the operators served some time on reduced charges after that one. ..."
"... The two main suspects in the Bush, Sr. White House child ring were Craig Spence and Lawrence E. King Jr. King sang the National anthem at two GOP national conventions. He served time in jail for bank fraud. Spence was a Republican lobbyist before he committed suicide. Several of his partners went to jail for being involved in the adult part of the homosexual prostitution ring. ..."
"... Mueller's scrupulous avoidance of the CIA link in his prosecution of Manuel Noriega and his diversion of the PanAm 103 bombing and framing of two Libyans. Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation. ..."
"... Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation. ..."
"... The anthrax investigation is the most serious of his crimes. Mueller is being sued by his lead investigator in that case. ..."
"... Every now and then, here and there the curtain lifts for a moment and the political elite of a country, the business elite, the spy services, the military, and organized crime are revealed to be all working together, indeed practically joined at the hip ..."
"... partnership started during the early Cold War with US intelligence officers facilitating the drug trade out of Turkey and Burma through Europe. That soon spread to the Americas and globally. Covert operations such as Gladio, Condor, and the Safari Club, and associated banks (Franklin National Bank, BCCI, Riggs Bank, HSBC, etc.) produced massive human rights violations, transnational terrorism and governmental corruption. The CIA's secret wars provided funds and official cover for private-public sector alliance of criminals, bankers and spooks around the world. ..."
"... The CIA, MI6 and Mossad ran overlapping coordinated operations using privateers, paramilitaries and organized crime networks that consumed vast amounts of cash generated by money laundering mechanisms. Enriched by the looting of the former Soviet Union, along with the infusion of Arab oil money (the Saudi Yamamah slush fund), the "Octopus" became the instrument of Oligarchs that have thoroughly corrupted western governments and secret services. ..."
"... The Snowden release included a number of documents that illustrate the on-line entrapment and political disruption activities run by the two main communications intelligence agencies. ..."
"... Epstein recruits young girls, throws parties where he invites potential hedge fund clients, lets nature take its course and films the proceedings, extracts blackmail in the form of investments to his (largely fake) hedge fund, which actually just buys an index fund (no actual fund management required). He takes a percentage from the coerced investments. Nobody talks because they have too much to lose. No suspicious payments to raise eyebrows at the IRS. ..."
"... Epstein brought in the clients. The CIA/MI-6/Mossad provided necessary cover from the FBI and local cops - then, three or four agencies shared the intelligence take, as they had for decades from Robert Maxwell's operations. ..."
"... For Ghislaine, it was simply carrying on the family business for fun and profit. For the spooks, it was business as usual going back to the Green House, the Berlin bordello founded in the the 1870s by Wilhelm Steiber, a Prussian Police section chief, to provide useful intelligence to Bismarck's Military Intelligence, which he reorganized. ..."
"... Epstein is also well acquainted with University President Lawrence H. Summers. The two serve together on the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two elite international relations organizations. ..."
"... Epstein's relationships within the academy are remarkable since the tycoon, who has amassed his fortune by managing the wealth of billionaires from his private Caribbean island, does not hold a bachelor's degree. ..."
"... There's a rocky road ahead for Larry Summers. Summers introduces Epstein into the Harvard fold, but becomes reckless with his newly-refined Neoliberalism and his opinions concerning "lady scholars." ..."
Jul 11, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

leveymg on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 11:30am

That was while Robert Mueller ran the Bureau, which means everything about Epstein's blackmail and kompromat operation has been tucked safely away out of sight in FBI files for at least a decade. Much longer, new evidence shows.

For those who may have wondered why Epstein was given such an incredible deal in sentencing, that explains it. Epstein was an extraordinary value informant, and he leveraged it. https://truepundit.com/fbi-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein-was-informant-for-m...

A figure who often gets overlooked in this is Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's chief procurer of underage girls. Ghislaine, the daughter of publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was granted immunity and never charged in exchange for her own cooperation in the 2008 pseudo-prosecution. https://heavy.com/news/2019/03/ghislaine-maxwell/ ; https://pagesix.com/2016/03/17/alleged-epstein-madam-forced-to-hand-over...

The real question is, why did the FBI wait for more than a decade to bust Epstein and Maxwell?

Epstein and Maxwell came to the attention of the FBI in 1996, when, curiously, the Bureau never acted on an accusation that they had together sexually abused a 15 year old girl in a bedroom inside Epstein's Manhattan townhouse. Documents in a recent law suit filed by an alleged victim, Maria Farmer, show that the FBI had been aware of Epstein and Maxwell's child abuse activities in New York for at least a dozen years before Epstein was finally charged in 2008 with much-reduced Florida state offenses. https://www.yourtango.com/2019323698/who-maria-farmer-latest-woman-accus...

Farmer claims she reported her sexual assault to New York police and the FBI in 1996. "To my knowledge, I was the first person to report Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI," she wrote in her affidavit."

*CIA Acknowledged in 2003, It Knew that Ghislaine Maxwell's Late Father was a Major Foreign Intelligence Agent Operating Inside the U.S.

Previously, Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine's father, had for many years been known to have been involved in high-level espionage in the United States, as detailed in a 2003 publication of the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf . Therein, the CIA reviewer of a biography by British author Gordon Thomas acknowledged about Maxwell: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-pub...

That Robert Maxwell was a ruthless, corrupt, tax-dodging international businessman who served as an Israeli agent is highly probable.

For the deeper background to the Epstein-Maxwell multinational blackmail, coverup and kompromat operation, we have to look at the events that led up to the 1991 death of Robert Maxwell. A summary of the Maxwell bio by its authors recounts:

British Publisher Robert Maxwell
Was Mossad Spy
By Gordon Thomas And Martin Dillon
The Mirror - UK
12-6-2002
[ . . .]
Eleven years after former Daily Mirror owner Robert Maxwell plunged from his luxury yacht to a watery grave, his death still arouses intense interest.

Many different theories have circulated about what really happened on board the Lady Ghislaine that night in May 1991.

[ . . . ]

The Jewish millionaire and former Labour MP [born Ludvik Hoch
in Czechoslovakia] died the way he had lived - threatening.

He had threatened his wife. Threatened his children. Threatened the staff of this newspaper.

But finally he issued one threat too many - he threatened Mossad.

He told them that unless they gave him £400million to save his crumbling empire, he would expose all he had done for them.

In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and to the corridors of power throughout Europe.

On top of that he had built himself a position of power within the crime families of eastern Europe, teaching them how to funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around the globe.

Maxwell passed on all the secrets he learned to Mossad in Tel Aviv. In turn, they tolerated his excesses, vanities and insatiable appetite for a luxurious lifestyle and women.

He told his controllers who they should target and how they should do it. He appointed himself as Israel's unofficial ambassador to the Soviet Bloc. Mossad saw the advantage in that.

[ . . . ]

The more successful Maxwell became the more risks he took and the more dangerous he was to Mossad. At the same time, the very public side of Maxwell, who then owned 400 companies, began to unwind.

He spent lavishly and lost money on deals. The more he lost, the more he tried to claw money from the banks. Then he saw a way out of his problems.

He was approached by Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB. Spymaster and tycoon met in the utmost secrecy in the Kremlin.

Kryuchkov had an extraordinary proposal. He wanted Maxwell to help orchestrate the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Soviet leader. That would bring to an end a fledgling democracy and a return to the Cold War days.

In return, Maxwell's massive debts would be wiped out by a grateful Kryuchkov, who planned to replace Gorbachev. The KGB chief wanted Maxwell to use the Lady Ghislaine, named after Maxwell's daughter, as a meeting place between the Russian plotters, Mossad chiefs and Israel's top politicians.

The plan was for the Israelis to go to Washington and say that democracy could not work in Russia and that it was better to allow the country to return to a modified form of communism, which America could help to control. In return, Kryuchkov would guarantee to free hundreds of thousands of Jews and dissidents in the Soviet republics.

Kryuchkov told Maxwell that he would be seen as a saviour of all those Jews. It was a proposal he could not refuse. But when he put it to his Mossad controllers they were horrified. They said Israel would have no part in such a madcap plan.

For the first time, Maxwell had failed to get his own way. He started to threaten and bluster. He then demanded that, for past services, he should receive immediately a quick fix of £400million to bale him out of his financial difficulties.

Instead of providing the money, a small group of Mossad officers set about planning his murder. They feared that he was going to publicly expose all Mossad had done in the time he worked for them. They knew that he was gradually becoming mentally unstable and paranoid. He was taking a cocktail of drugs - Halcion and Zanax - which had serious side effects.

The group of Mossad plotters sensed, like Solomon, he could bring their temple tumbling down and cause incalculable harm to Israel. The plan to kill him was prepared in the utmost secrecy. A four-man squad was briefed.

Then Maxwell was contacted. He was told to fly to Gibraltar, go aboard the Lady Ghislaine and sail to the Canary Islands. There at sea he would receive his £400million quick fix in the form of a banker's draft. Maxwell did as he was told.

On the night of November 4, 1991, the Lady Ghislaine, one of the world's biggest yachts, was at sea.

[ . . . ]

As Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent told us: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over."

The incontrovertible facts about his murder are contained in a previously-unseen autopsy report by Britain's then-leading forensic pathologist Dr Iain West and Israel State Pathologist Dr Yehuda Hiss. Of all the documents in our possession, these reports confirm the truth about Maxwell's death.

Gordon Thomas & Martin Dillon are authors of The Assassination of Robert Maxwell: Israel's Super Spy, published by Robson Books.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12419168&method=f...

The obvious question, why did the U.S. government let these intelligence crimes continue for decades, isn't being asked. The answer is almost self-evident. Information and leverage obtained by Maxwell-Epstein and Co. was far too valuable to its several operators to let it all end too soon.

###

Linda Wood on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 12:45pm
Two parts of your reporting

leap out at me as suggesting how Epstein connects to much bigger subjects. First is the assertion that Maxwell was

... teaching them how to funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around the globe.

This area of trafficking and money laundering directly connects to Mueller and his essential exoneration of HSBC .

The other quotation that suggests the importance of money laundering is here:

The plan was for the Israelis to go to Washington and say that democracy could not work in Russia and that it was better to allow the country to return to a modified form of communism, which America could help to control.

The life's work of Antony Sutton at Stanford's Hoover Institution shows that American industry was ALWAYS controlling communism as well as Soviet industrial development, and that a trend toward social democracy, represented by Gorbachev, would have put an end to that control.

leveymg on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 4:29pm
Curiously, the CIA review of the Maxwell bio doesn't touch on

@Linda Wood his money laundering and blackmailing activities. While the review confirms that Robert Maxwell was for decades a major Mossad agent actively setting up operations and cover in the United States and the UK, I can only surmise that the spreading political influence of Eastern European organized crime networks and child honey traps are things that the Agency didn't want to discuss publicly in 2003.

As for Mueller, let's not forget that he was FBI Director and before that the head of the Criminal Division at Main Justice at the time that global "black finance" grew along with the catastrophic spread of multinational crime and terrorism. BCCI, Iran-Contra, 9/11, and the rise of transnational Oligarchs happened on his watch. As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the United States at the time, it is hard to imagine anyone more responsibility for the ultimate consequences than Robert Mueller. There is perhaps someone who bears ultimate responsibility, the President who appointed Mueller: George Herbert Walker Bush and his lesser son, Shrub, who promoted him.

Pluto's Republic on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 5:21pm
From your own research

@leveymg

... wouldn't you assume that this entire affair is an ongoing Mossad operation, which may or may not have concluded? The US IC is just another operative inside the envelope, but Mossad owns the assets and the intellectual property. I think we could assume that some of this is automated and Mossad has ongoing leverage still in play.

The obvious question, why did the U.S. government let these intelligence crimes continue for decades, isn't being asked. The answer is almost self-evident. Information and leverage obtained by Maxwell-Epstein and Co. was far too valuable to its several operators to let it all end too soon.

.

Mossad's legendary blackmail traps ensnared even high-level deep state authorities and made them pliable. The recent history of United States foreign policy is an enigma that can only be solved when that assumption is inserted. Once the assumption is in place, it opens like a Pandora's box. Don't you find that to be the case?

Thanks for compiling this revealing argument.

Deja on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 11:03pm
HSBC?

@Linda Wood
From your link:

In a recent investigation I presented the case that British banking and financial giant HSBC conspired with banking institutions with documented links to terrorist financing, including those responsible for helping bankroll the 9/11 attacks.

Thank you for the link!

Linda Wood on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 1:11pm
HSBC article

linked here does not mention Mueller but does outline the crimes Mueller worked so hard not to solve:

http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2012/07/black-dossier-hsbc-terro...

SUNDAY, JULY 29, 2012
Black Dossier: HSBC & Terrorist Finance

Moral equivalencies abound. After all, when American secret state agencies manage drug flows or direct terrorist proxies to attack official enemies it's not quite the same as battling terror or crime.

Pounding home that point, a new report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused HSBC of exposing "the U.S. financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money laundering (AML) controls."

That 335-page report, "U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History," (large pdf file available here ) was issued after a year-long Senate investigation zeroed-in on the bank's U.S. affiliate, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., better known as HBUS.

Drilling down, we learned that amongst the "services" offered by HSBC subsidiaries and correspondent banks were sweet deals with financial entities with terrorist ties; the transportation of billions of dollars in cash by plane and armored car through their London Banknotes division; the clearing of sequentially-numbered travelers checks through dodgy Cayman Islands accounts for Mexican drug lords and Russian mafiosi.

From richly-appointed suites at Canary Wharf, London, the bank's "smartest guys in the room" handed some of the most violent gangsters on earth the financial wherewithal to organize their respective industries: global crime.

A case in point. In 2008 alone the Senate revealed that the bank's Cayman Islands branch handled some 50,000 client accounts (all without benefit of offices or staff on Grand Cayman, mind you), yet still managed to ship some $7 billion (£10.9bn) in cash from Mexico into the U.S. Now that's creative accounting!...

Alligator Ed on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 10:49pm
Thank you, Linda

@Linda Wood HSBC, huh--there must be some clever name for it, which deserves no research.
what an eloquent article you presented. Brief but right on target. It isn't just sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now it is drugs - money -sexual perversion--and perhaps worse? Rumors are flying about what video on the Weiner laptop showed. It is strictly heresay, but a core of folks seem to believe the suspicions are possible.

snoopydawg on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 8:48pm
Boy that Mueller has had a busy career hasn't he? Didn't he start out in Chicago where he gave Whitey Bulgar cover for being a mob boss? Then there's his cover up before and after 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction that he said Saddam had. The anthrax prosecution, Epstein's pedophilia cover up, HSBC and now he is trying to cover Hillary's buttocks. And maybe Obama's? I'm sure I've missed a few things that he did or didn't do.

Acosta is saying that if he hadn't made the plea deal then Epstein would never have served any time in prison. Well he actually only slept there since he got to leave every day for work and then there's the massages he got after his busy day at work. But there were more than 80 pages that the Feds wrote on his escapades so I think that story he told congress is true. Acosta was told to stand down by someone at the top of the food chain. Mueller. Ugh what a slimy piece of work he is. But not to the Russia Gaters. Oh no. "He is a highly decorated marine who takes no guff from anyone.

In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and to the corridors of power throughout Europe.

Inquiring minds want to know did Maxwell have access to Margaret and Ron because they liked him or because he had something on them?

Great information! The more I learn the more I need a shower.

Linda Wood on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 9:11pm
That needing a shower thing

@snoopydawg

is how I've been feeling all week from reading about this, just more and more demoralized when I think about the depravation of our so-called "leadership." What is it that we're supposed to think of as the new normal after this behavior?

Alligator Ed on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 10:53pm
Linda, you could shower in my extra long tub

@Linda Wood No problem--but, seriously, yecch! Epstein is the destruction of the Deep State.

leveymg on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 1:02pm
Remember Craig Spence and the 1989 Whitehouse Call Boy Ring?

@snoopydawg

That pedophelia and politics scandal, better known as the Franklin Coverup, made the papers for a few months, too, before it was made to go away. Similarly, a couple of the operators served some time on reduced charges after that one.

The two main suspects in the Bush, Sr. White House child ring were Craig Spence and Lawrence E. King Jr. King sang the National anthem at two GOP national conventions. He served time in jail for bank fraud. Spence was a Republican lobbyist before he committed suicide. Several of his partners went to jail for being involved in the adult part of the homosexual prostitution ring.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/Franklin/FranklinCoverup/l...

Roy Blakeley on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 12:29pm
And let's not forget

@snoopydawg

Mueller's scrupulous avoidance of the CIA link in his prosecution of Manuel Noriega and his diversion of the PanAm 103 bombing and framing of two Libyans. Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation.

Linda Wood on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 1:09pm
Absolutely.

@Roy Blakeley

You sum it up perfectly:

Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation.

The anthrax investigation is the most serious of his crimes. Mueller is being sued by his lead investigator in that case.

Because researchers in our biological weapons labs went public with what they were doing, and where such research was being done in the U.S., we learned the CIA was one of several outfits doing biological weapons research.

But Mueller exonerated all of them, including the CIA, with no explanation and only focused on a lone vaccine researcher at the Army lab when journalists began to ask why no one had been indicted after seven years of investigation, at which point the FBI attempted to harass the suspect into committing suicide.

lotlizard on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 1:44am
Comparable to "Deep State" scandals in Turkey?

Every now and then, here and there the curtain lifts for a moment and the political elite of a country, the business elite, the spy services, the military, and organized crime are revealed to be all working together, indeed practically joined at the hip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susurluk_scandal

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/ergenekon-plot-massive-trial-...

leveymg on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 11:08am
Read "Politics of Heroin in SE Asia". The CIA-Mafia-warlord

@lotlizard @lotlizard

partnership started during the early Cold War with US intelligence officers facilitating the drug trade out of Turkey and Burma through Europe. That soon spread to the Americas and globally. Covert operations such as Gladio, Condor, and the Safari Club, and associated banks (Franklin National Bank, BCCI, Riggs Bank, HSBC, etc.) produced massive human rights violations, transnational terrorism and governmental corruption. The CIA's secret wars provided funds and official cover for private-public sector alliance of criminals, bankers and spooks around the world.

This "dark alliance" assumed a political and economic life of its own beyond its original intent to counter communist movements. By the Vietnam War, Agency operators were running most of the heroin trade in the world through proprietary airlines, banks and logistics companies. In the mid-1970s, CIA Director Bush expanded privatization with Saudi funding in his Safari Club deal that eventually morphed into Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The CIA, MI6 and Mossad ran overlapping coordinated operations using privateers, paramilitaries and organized crime networks that consumed vast amounts of cash generated by money laundering mechanisms. Enriched by the looting of the former Soviet Union, along with the infusion of Arab oil money (the Saudi Yamamah slush fund), the "Octopus" became the instrument of Oligarchs that have thoroughly corrupted western governments and secret services.

Multinational honey trap operations such as Maxwell-Epstein & Co. are an inevitable and continuing part of this privatization and criminalization of intelligence that stretches back to the days of Tom Braden and Cord Meyer handing out stacks of greenbacks to Mafiosi on the Corsican Docks.

leveymg on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 11:31am
NSA and GCHQ have gotten into the honeytrap and influence game

@leveymg

The Snowden release included a number of documents that illustrate the on-line entrapment and political disruption activities run by the two main communications intelligence agencies.

"Honey-trap; a great option. Very successful, when it works" (GCHQ, UK training program slide)

https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2014/05/lots-of-secret-nsa-documents-plu...

The "Information Ops" category is of particular interest to me...

Does this really seem like the sort of thing that would be done only to a jihadist...?

WoodsDweller on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 1:48pm
Here's an interesting take

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/epstein-was-running-a-blackmail-scheme-...

Without quoting the whole thing (which is worth a read):

Epstein recruits young girls, throws parties where he invites potential hedge fund clients, lets nature take its course and films the proceedings, extracts blackmail in the form of investments to his (largely fake) hedge fund, which actually just buys an index fund (no actual fund management required). He takes a percentage from the coerced investments. Nobody talks because they have too much to lose. No suspicious payments to raise eyebrows at the IRS.

There's no need to invoke the Mafia/Russia/Mossad/CIA/etc, that's just needlessly overfitting.

Except such an operation would be quite attractive to intelligence services. Maybe they were in on the ground floor, maybe they made Epstein an offer he couldn't refuse once they heard about it.

leveymg on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 10:28am
My gut tells me that G. Maxwell provided the Know-how, and

@WoodsDweller

Epstein brought in the clients. The CIA/MI-6/Mossad provided necessary cover from the FBI and local cops - then, three or four agencies shared the intelligence take, as they had for decades from Robert Maxwell's operations.

For Ghislaine, it was simply carrying on the family business for fun and profit. For the spooks, it was business as usual going back to the Green House, the Berlin bordello founded in the the 1870s by Wilhelm Steiber, a Prussian Police section chief, to provide useful intelligence to Bismarck's Military Intelligence, which he reorganized.

Steiber is considered the father of modern espionage. His methods were vastly influential, and he attracted students from London, St. Petersburg to Tokyo. Each put their own national spin on the science of sexual blackmail. As for the Japanese, they are among the most interesting and innovative in their use of a parallel network of privatized intelligence services incorporating underworld Yakuzi groups alongside conventional military intelligence units. Using compromise, they gained and maintained control over Imperial Japan and its Colonies: https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/03/15/eastern-peril/

To realize these divinely inspired ambitions, Japan needed a modern espionage system. Adopting the German model, Japanese officials were sent to study under Wilhelm Stieber in the mid-1870s. Over the next decade Japan built up separate army and naval intelligence services, each with an accompanying branch of secret military police (Kempeitai for the army and Tokeitai for the navy). These latter organizations also provided an excellent counter-espionage service. However, where the Japanese were unique was in the use of spies belonging to unofficial secret societies working alongside or independently of the official intelligence agencies. These shadowy institutions were ultra-nationalist by nature, drawing their membership from a cross-section of Japanese society, including the military, politics, industry and Yakuza underworld. Under ruthless leadership, their henchmen would spy on, subvert and corrupt Japan's Far East neighbours.

For more on Steiber and his superior, von Hinckeldey, methods of international counter-insurgency, espionage, and political policing included deception and a forerunner of today's internet surveillance: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/11/29/275653/-

While armies are essential to the maintenance of autocracy, the preservation of dynastic rule and the prevention of democracy requires an effective secret police. The suppression of its middle-class constitutionalists [during the 1840s] was followed by the expansion of the Prussian political police under Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey.

Appointed police president of Berlin in late 1848, Hinckeldey was an innovator of many of the features of modern systematic political policing. Among the tactics that he introduced with his new police system in Berlin was the "Litfass columns". Named for Ernst Litfass, Frederick William's court printer, he had dozens of these large poles erected in strategic spots around Berlin. The public posting of political notices was then banned. By application to a state office for a waiver, however, the columns could be used to display messages. The police dutifully recorded the names of all who had applied. A. Richie, Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998 at p.134.

LEGACY OF THE LITFASS COLUMNS: A similar ploy was later adopted by the People's Republic of China. In the mid-1980s, the Communist authorities at first appear to tolerate the operation of a so-called Democracy Wall, where "dissidents" in Beijing could post political writings, initially, without being arrested. Similar walls then sprung up under the noses of the authorities in other Chinese cities. For this apparent opening to democracy, the Deng regime much applauded, particularly by some in the Reagan-Bush Administration, eager to legitimize the regime and its growing commercial ties with U.S. corporations. Eventually, many of those who had availed themselves of the wall to post political messages were, of course, arrested in the roundup of hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters that followed the Tienamen Square massacre. The impression of anonymity and "freedom" conveyed by the Internet, of course, presents a similar opportunity for police to cast a wide net for identifying persons and organizations who may not hold favor for the regime in power, or may not in the future.

Hinckeldey also founded the Police Union, the first recorded international network of counterrevolutionary police spies in modern times. Primarily made up of police officers from Prussia and the German states, the Union operated throughout Europe, Britain and in the United States. The Union was run by his deputy, the notorious police provocateur, Wilhelm Steiber, who would later reorganize the Okhrana along similar lines. Internationally active from 1851-1866, the Police Union, according to Mathieu Deflem, was "one of the first formal initiatives in industrial society to establish an organized police system across national borders."13

I disagree with the Alternet view on this. See, this is the norm. A purely private sexual blackmail ring of any scale would be the historical exception. It certainly wouldn't survive very long.

Pluto's Republic on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 5:45pm
This is a chilling thought I try to avoid.

@leveymg

...authorities at first appear to tolerate the operation of a so-called Democracy Wall, where "dissidents" in Beijing could post political writings.... Similar walls then sprung up under the noses of the authorities in other Chinese cities. Eventually, many of those who had availed themselves of the wall to post political messages were, of course, arrested in the roundup of hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters....

The impression of anonymity and "freedom" conveyed by the Internet, of course, presents a similar opportunity for police to cast a wide net for identifying persons and organizations who may not hold favor for the regime in power, or may not in the future.

But why should one avoid the thought? If the situation looks like the people are going to lose the war for their minds, and are unwilling to back a publisher like Assange who has given his all to try to empower them, why should anyone put themselves at risk by expressing their opinions? It's a honeypot of our own making, just as Facebook is where people go to write their own dossiers for the Authorities.

leveymg on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 10:36am
Every time you entrap yourself as

@Pluto's Republic an enemy of the status quo, you raise the calculated costs of the eventual crackdown, pushing back the day of reckoning. Keep it up! Visible rebellion is the only defense of the people.

Pluto's Republic on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 5:54pm
Background: If someone were to choose the ideal node

...from which to leverage access to the elite, Harvard University would be a top choice.

Jeffery Epstein actually entered the social salons of the elite through many doors. He was, of course, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. One would have to be to rub shoulders with the political elite. From there he matriculated to the Trilateral Commission becoming friendly with Harvard President, Larry Summers. **

Becoming a surprise mystery philanthropist at Harvard, with Summers help, was a booster rocket for Epstein. In the Havard Crimson , in June 2003, Epstein's involvement with Harvard was celebrated.

People in the News: Jeffrey E. Epstein

Elusive financier Jeffrey E. Epstein donated $30 million this year to Harvard for the founding of a mathematical biology and evolutionary dynamics program.

While the mathematics teacher turned magnate remained unknown to most people until he flew President Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa to explore the problems of AIDS and economic development facing the region, Epstein has been a familiar face to many at Harvard for years.

Networking with the University's leading intellectuals, Epstein has spurred research through both discussions with and dollars contributed to various faculty members.

Lindsley Professor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, former Dean of the Faculty Henry A. Rosovsky and Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz are among Epstein's bevy of eminent friends that includes princes, presidents and Nobel Prize winners.

Epstein is also well acquainted with University President Lawrence H. Summers. The two serve together on the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two elite international relations organizations.

Epstein's collection of high-profile friends also includes newly-recruited professor Martin A. Nowak, who will run Harvard's mathematical biology and evolutionary dynamics program.

Like Kosslyn, Rosovsky and Dershowitz, Nowak praises Epstein's numerous relationships within the scientific community.

"I am amazed by the connections he has in the scientific world," Nowak says. "He knows an amazing number of scientists. He knows everyone you can imagine."

Epstein's relationships within the academy are remarkable since the tycoon, who has amassed his fortune by managing the wealth of billionaires from his private Caribbean island, does not hold a bachelor's degree.

Yet, friends and beneficiaries say they do not see Epstein merely as a man with deep pockets, but as an intellectual equal.

Dershowitz says Epstein is "brilliant" and Kosslyn calls Epstein "one of the brightest people I've ever known."

Epstein's beneficiaries say they are particularly appreciative of the no-strings-attached approach Epstein takes with his donations.

"He is one of the most pleasant philanthropists," Nowak says. "Unlike many people who support science, he supports science without any conditions. There are not any disadvantages to associating with him."

Friends and associates say Harvard stands to benefit from its evolving relationship with Epstein.

"I hope that he will, over time, become one of the leading supporters of science at Harvard," Rosovsky writes in an e-mail.

__________________________________________
** A footnote on Larry Summers seems important here: Harvard-trained economists have been running the US economy for a very long time, and continue to do so. Summers began his ascent as a professor of economics at Harvard University, leaving shortly before Bill Clinton won the Presidency. He was clearly the Neoliberal seed planted for the New American Century.

In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury.

While working for the Clinton administration Summers played a leading role in the American response to the 1994 economic crisis in Mexico, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the Russian financial crisis. He was also influential in the Harvard Institute for International Development and American-advised privatization of the economies of the post-Soviet states, and in the deregulation of the U.S financial system, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

At This Point the Ball is Passed to the Bush Team Republicans, while the Democrats Sit Back and Wait for 2008.

There's now a Treasury surplus to transfer to the wealthy, and the necessary deregulation for Wall Street empowerment is in place. The Soviet era had ended and Russia is ended forever. The world is finally primed to be seized by the One Exceptional Power. It's 2001, and we are standing on the threshold of the New American Century . Time to throw a flash-bang of chaos onto the world stage and trigger the booming War Economy that will carry us directly to global control.

There's a rocky road ahead for Larry Summers. Summers introduces Epstein into the Harvard fold, but becomes reckless with his newly-refined Neoliberalism and his opinions concerning "lady scholars."

Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end", and less to patterns of discrimination and socialization. Remarking upon political correctness in institutions of higher education, Summers said in 2016:

Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering

There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I'm somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that's unjust in American society that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses.

After his departure from Harvard, Summers cooled his jets on Wall Street, positioning himself to be called back into the game when it was Team Democrat's turn in 2008.

Summers worked as a managing partner at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co., and as a freelance speaker at other financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. Summers rejoined public service during the Obama administration, serving as the Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration's response to the Great Recession.

Jeffery Epstein continued to weave himself into the fabric of government like a good psychopath would. He was by no means the only one.

[Jul 28, 2019] Washington's Blog, 13 Shocking Facts about Robert Mueller

Jul 28, 2019 | washingtonsblog.com
  1. Paul Merrell July 25, 2019 at 21:10 Washington's Blog, 13 Shocking Facts about Robert Mueller: https://washingtonsblog.com/2017/11/10-shocking-facts-special-prosecutor-robert-mueller.html

[Jul 28, 2019] Dementia or very skillful, convincing acting: Mueller would have looked a lot better if he had only taken the time to read... the Mueller report.

Mueller came across as an old man.... muddling.... confused.... He was out of his depth. One would have to conclude that he is not remotely credible based on his inability to answer questions and apparent ignorance of a report he is supposed to have authored. Embarrassingly inept!
Jul 28, 2019 | www.youtube.com


Hangfire-13 , 2 days ago

Mueller would have looked a lot better if he had only taken the time to read... the Mueller report.

William Jones , 2 days ago

Better to be thought a fool than recognized as an accomplice.

Solgato Blogopogo , 1 day ago

Mueller sold America on the existence of WMDs in Iraq too.

BigWater59 , 1 day ago

This was a dog and pony show with the main act being a dementia patient in poor health. SAD

Steven Trekking , 2 days ago

FFS, I live in the UK and even I have heard the link between Fusion GPS and the dodgy dossier. Has Mueller been working alone in a cave or something? Has he tried Wikipedia?

Ivana Seymore , 2 days ago

I think we should bring Mueller to the stand as a witness for his investigation of nineleven...

George Christiansen , 2 days ago div tabindex="0" role="artic

le"> The had the lesson taught to them, but I seriously doubt that they learned anything. I also think that Mueller was largely playing dumb. His job is to continue to raise doubt, not to bring clarity. He is till doing a great job in that regards. I hope it leads to jail time.

Ron Preece , 3 days ago

$30,000,000 down the toilet. Mueller deserves the Roger Stone Treatment !

Amani jm , 3 days ago

div> Collussion and Obstruction are synonymus? Muller: NO But Your report said so. Muller: I stick with the report. Hahahahaah

Steve Lee , 2 days ago

In all honesty either Muller was lying, unbelievably incompetent or genuinely has some form of dementia and that is meant in a true honest opinion..

dotatough , 1 day ago

"They do not deserve to rule, that much is clear." Love ya Tucc

Eric Sanders , 3 days ago

Did anyone ask Mueller if he actually wrote the report?

Elizabeth Maldonado , 2 days ago (edited)

Mueller's playing dum to cover his own hide and the democraps should be ashamed wasting tax payers money & that bringing the only work they done in 2 years corrupt sorry individuals

Bleyluige , 1 day ago

Like someboday said, the person who learned most about the Mueller report during the hearing was Robert Mueller!

balsawerkz , 2 days ago

When are leaders going to call out Adam Schiff on his extremely obvious cocaine eyes?

Carlos Matos , 1 day ago (edited)

Tucker spitting some hard truth there at 7:30

Edmund007013 , 1 day ago

Mueller obviously has deep dementia and should be in a nursing home. Great Summary Tucker ! Well done !

Chris Wriight , 1 day ago

"Daft old man blinking in the sunlight after his curtain was torn away" hit the nail on the head😂

Ken H , 3 days ago

Recall Nadler and Schiff. Those stuffed, spineless suits.

Joel Martin , 1 day ago

So basically the whole "Russia" investigation was complete sham!

Tad Ulrich , 14 hours ago

Well worth watching this just for Tucker's superb commentary alone! With this Mueller fiasco, a stake has been driven deep into the Deep State's heart.

Jennie Gall , 2 days ago

OR it's a BRILLIANT RUSE in this Political Theater. He was ACTING. This isn't the real Robert Mueller.

Robert Boothby , 3 days ago

Tucker, that was another fine job. "The ruling class did this to us". Well said and spot on! Keep it up for as long as they allow it. Thank you.

[Jul 27, 2019] Mueller Magoo by W. James Antle III

Notable quotes:
"... He demonstrated a thin grasp of his own report's findings, even as he implored lawmakers in both parties to read it. He asked members of Congress to repeat their questions 48 times . ..."
"... That's not to say Mueller did nothing for Democrats. He said President Trump was not "exculpated" by his report. He raised the specter of falsified documents and all but said that he punted on obstruction of justice only because a sitting president cannot be indicted under existing Justice Department guidelines. He gamely testified his investigation was no "witch hunt." And some of his seeming confusion was likely strategic: he was trying to avoid giving partisans easy footage confirming their talking points. ..."
"... While Democrats have not totally given up on "collusion," moving the goalposts away from Hillary Clinton's detailed explanation of how the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to fix the election toward vaguer references to "contacts" and "foreign help," obstruction of justice was the name of the game. Mueller acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Trump campaign with collusion-related crimes, even if he stopped short of calling that an exoneration of the president. Paul Manafort, George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Roger Stone -- these were not criminal masterminds. In fact, they were all incredibly sloppy. If they had colluded, they all could easily have been charged. ..."
"... No one who could be indicted was charged with aiding the president in obstructing the investigation either. ..."
"... The real answer Mueller declined to give appears to be that his obstruction allegations would have hinged heavily on Trump's use presidential powers under Article II of the Constitution. The Justice Department under Barr's leadership does not believe this amounted to obstruction in theory or practice. Thus the self-evidently never-fired Mueller was reduced to dropping breadcrumbs and hoping congressional Democrats would find them. ..."
"... Mueller's seeming lack of familiarity with his own investigation lessened the GOP's problem because it helps shift the focus to the "angry Democrats" in the special counsel's office -- people like Andrew Weissman, who attended Hillary's election night party -- rather than Mueller himself. The Democrats are still at square one, trying to dial back Manchurian candidate expectations among the base and shift the impeachment rationale to Trump's passive willingness to benefit from Russian interference without expressing a modicum of outrage. ..."
"... With 95 Democrats willing to impeach Trump over mean tweets, anything is possible. But it's going to take a lot more than Mueller to move House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into that camp. ..."
"... The Steele dossier, whether a truthful compilation or a complete fabrication, is itself an attempt by foreign spies to influence our election. "Collusion" staring us in the face right here. ..."
"... The public spectacle was heart-breaking. It was obvious that Mueller had lost some mental faculties. Surely his special investigative team had to know that, having worked with him for 2+ years, and so the Democrat leadership had to know that as well. And yet they insisted he testify, even though he basically begged to not testify and let him just go off into the twilight of retirement. But no, they threatened to subpoena him. ..."
"... Actually, Trump committed a lot of unforced errors, as well as being generally lazy, stupid and unprepared. ..."
"... With this in mind, to believe the RussiaGate conspiracy theories, one must simultaneously believe that the Russians have abilities that border on psychic mind control superpowers, but at the same time, these same evil geniuses cannot be bothered to plan what to do if their nefarious schemes actually worked out. ..."
"... One can easily accept that Trump is a roaring moron, but one also has to believe that his alleged puppetmaster cannot take the time to consult an attorney or a peruse a copy of the United States Code, available for free on the internet to anyone who bothers to take a peek. And that's just the legal requirements. I won't even go into the clownshow that was Trump's appointments and staffing. ..."
"... The testimony was a complete success because it maintained the status quo. Trump is not going anywhere, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Russia tampered with the election rendering even more sanctions and increasing cold war tensions, and the only ones indicted were accused of process crimes. Meanwhile, the business of Goldman Sachs gets done in the halls of power. ..."
"... Robert "Saddam has WMD of Mass Destruction" Mueller has been the bag man for the establishment for a long time. Even his dotage, he still managed to perform his job flawlessly. ..."
"... 12 indictments against often former employees of a Russian clickbait farm for spectacularly laughable memes that will never amount to anything because there will never be a trial. One of the parties showed up in court and demanded actual evidence as part of discovery, causing Mueller to desperately ask for a continuance. The judge called Mueller out by denying it. The judge also called Mueller out by showing that he had no evidence that the defendant at issue had any ties tot he Russian government. ..."
"... A paltry $150k was spent for online ads over two years, by Russians, they tell you. They also tell you that about half those ads didn't run until after the election was over and that most of the ads didn't endorse a specific candidate or policy. Yet, you insist this Russian social media blitz altered the outcome of your election somehow. With well north of $3 billion spent on traditional advertising, leave it to MSM to float a turd of such odious girth. ..."
"... Next, Mueller indicts 13 Russian intelligence journeymen and it will never amount to anything. None of them will ever be extradited. There will never be a trial. Never a legal discovery process. No burden of proof that they actually hacked or colluded. No US intelligence agency has ever examined the servers in question. ..."
"... An impeachment is another word for "indictment", and as the saying goes you can indict a ham sandwich. Or impeach a baloney sandwich. If Trump were to wind up in the dock it would be "anything goes", including subpoenas being issued to Madame Hillary. There won't be any impeachment. Too much of a danger of overflowing sewage. ..."
"... Seth Rich could rise up from the dead and show us all, live on CNN, how he leaked the DNC emails, right after DWS confessed on MSNBC to ordering Seth Rich's murder and HRC admitted under oath that she invented russiagate on a bet with Podesta to see whether people really are that stupid and gullible, and CNN, MSNBC and the entire DNC and their cultists would keep pushing the conspiracy theory, never even missing a beat. ..."
"... I'm glad Mr. Mueller finally admitted publicly that he held the President to an Orwellian standard of "probably guilty, which we can't prove, until proven innocent, which we never do" that no American has ever been held to by law enforcement. ..."
Jul 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before the House Intelligence Committee about his report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in the Rayburn House Office Building July 24, 2019(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) The late Sen. Arlen Specter ended the drive to impeach Bill Clinton by invoking Scottish law and voting "not proven" in the 42rd president's Senate trial. Democrats hope to begin the drive to impeach Donald Trump with a finding by special counsel Robert Mueller that the worst allegations against the 45th president are not proven.

Even this task was made more difficult by the former FBI director and Trump-Russia investigator's unimpressive public congressional testimony. Mueller had trouble identifying questioners. He demonstrated a thin grasp of his own report's findings, even as he implored lawmakers in both parties to read it. He asked members of Congress to repeat their questions 48 times .

The uber-competent G-man about whom liberals sang Christmas carols was not on display Wednesday. "Mueller Time" gave way to Mr. Magoo.

A cursory glance at Politico 's homepage revealed the damage. "'Euphoria': White House, GOP exult after a flat Mueller performance," blared the top headline. Another reads, "Bob Mueller is struggling." And another: "Impeachment drive slowed by Mueller's troubles." Even the New York Times could only manage: "Mueller sticks to script but shows flashes of indignation."

"This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years," fretted Barack Obama's man David Axelrod. "And he does not appear as sharp as he was then."

That's not to say Mueller did nothing for Democrats. He said President Trump was not "exculpated" by his report. He raised the specter of falsified documents and all but said that he punted on obstruction of justice only because a sitting president cannot be indicted under existing Justice Department guidelines. He gamely testified his investigation was no "witch hunt." And some of his seeming confusion was likely strategic: he was trying to avoid giving partisans easy footage confirming their talking points.

But Democrats wanted much more. Ever since Attorney General William Barr released his summary, they have wanted to challenge his framing of the report. His testimony, like that 448-page document, contained plenty of damning information. The bottom line -- that Mueller could not prove a Trump-Russia conspiracy to swing the 2016 presidential election and lacks a convincing explanation for his obstruction equivocation -- remains unchanged.

While Democrats have not totally given up on "collusion," moving the goalposts away from Hillary Clinton's detailed explanation of how the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to fix the election toward vaguer references to "contacts" and "foreign help," obstruction of justice was the name of the game. Mueller acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Trump campaign with collusion-related crimes, even if he stopped short of calling that an exoneration of the president. Paul Manafort, George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Roger Stone -- these were not criminal masterminds. In fact, they were all incredibly sloppy. If they had colluded, they all could easily have been charged.

If Justice Department regulations on presidential indictments did not prevent a finding of insufficient evidence to charge conspiracy, why did these guidelines require Congress to make the final determination on obstruction? No one who could be indicted was charged with aiding the president in obstructing the investigation either.

The real answer Mueller declined to give appears to be that his obstruction allegations would have hinged heavily on Trump's use presidential powers under Article II of the Constitution. The Justice Department under Barr's leadership does not believe this amounted to obstruction in theory or practice. Thus the self-evidently never-fired Mueller was reduced to dropping breadcrumbs and hoping congressional Democrats would find them.

Both parties entered the hearings with a fundamental problem. For Republicans, how do you discredit Mueller for his negative findings about the president while also affirming his failure to prove an election-related conspiracy as definitive? The Democrats' dilemma was that they knew Trump had behaved badly in response to Russian election interference and the subsequent investigation, but hoped Mueller would discover something worse. When he merely supplied color and a reliable narrator for what we largely already knew, many Democrats wanted to pivot back to impeaching Trump over that unseemly behavior.

Mueller's seeming lack of familiarity with his own investigation lessened the GOP's problem because it helps shift the focus to the "angry Democrats" in the special counsel's office -- people like Andrew Weissman, who attended Hillary's election night party -- rather than Mueller himself. The Democrats are still at square one, trying to dial back Manchurian candidate expectations among the base and shift the impeachment rationale to Trump's passive willingness to benefit from Russian interference without expressing a modicum of outrage.

You can argue that we should expect more from a president than to simply have refrained from directly conspiring with a hostile foreign power to reach the White House. Yet that case becomes harder to make when that is precisely what you have conditioned rank-and-file Democrats to expect from the Mueller report. No dramatic reading of that report, least of all by a 74-year-old clearly no longer accustomed to congressional testimony, will deliver on those expectations.

With 95 Democrats willing to impeach Trump over mean tweets, anything is possible. But it's going to take a lot more than Mueller to move House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into that camp.


stevek9 3 days ago

I would say this is by far the most charitable interpretation of Mueller's testimony I've seen. He didn't want to talk about the 'Steele Dossier' ... the whole basis for the Russiagate farce, and then claimed he didn't know who GPS Fusion was ... the outfit hired by Clinton to write the dossier in the first place. That this whole pile of rubbish was not laughed out of existence is a tribute to the ability of the media (who hated Trump), to convince a large number of people of a preposterous fantasy.

He reminds me a little bit of my dad, and a little bit of Cato the Younger. But to his fellow Republicans--he's Mr. Magoo.

Wilfred 3 days ago
The Steele dossier, whether a truthful compilation or a complete fabrication, is itself an attempt by foreign spies to influence our election. "Collusion" staring us in the face right here.

Why haven't the Democrats been investigated for it?

rick allen Wilfred 2 days ago
Maybe because there's a little difference between hiring a private firm to do opposition research, and Russian military intelligence stealing and releasing tens of thousands of private documents from one political party to help the other win the Presidency?
Fabian Wilfred a day ago
The dossier is not an attempt by foreign spies. It's an attempt by the Democrats to use foreign spies.
WorkingClass 3 days ago
The majority of House Democrats voted against impeachment. I would say this was a good day for Democrats.
KevinS 3 days ago
"You can argue that we should expect more from a president than to simply have refrained from directly conspiring with a hostile foreign power to reach the White House."

Ya think?

tweets21 2 days ago
Even after the spectacle, and the grueling two years of media hype, nothing has moved the dial from those who hate Trump, and those who are Trump supporters. The 2020 election may again come down to the electoral college system. We already know where voters on the upper east coast and California stand. Major populations.
gdpbull 2 days ago
The public spectacle was heart-breaking. It was obvious that Mueller had lost some mental faculties. Surely his special investigative team had to know that, having worked with him for 2+ years, and so the Democrat leadership had to know that as well. And yet they insisted he testify, even though he basically begged to not testify and let him just go off into the twilight of retirement. But no, they threatened to subpoena him.

By all accounts, Mueller had a long a admirable career. Its disgusting that most people's memory of him and his legacy will be of this last public embarrassing spectacle.

The Democratic Party has shown its complete lack of moral compass. When it comes to politics, anything goes, including the destruction of people's lives. They even eat their own when its considered politically expedient. The Anita Hill hearings, Kavannah hearings, me too movement, show me the man and the people around him, we'll find the crimes mentality. What's next? Murder? It would not surprise me in the least.

Its clear now that the entire Russian collusion narrative was a set-up by the Democratic party. It was all about entrapment, perjury traps, and selective media leaking.

Connecticut Farmer gdpbull 2 days ago
The bottom line was, is, and always will be as follows: The Democrat Party expected their candidate to win in a cakewalk over Trump. If she won we wouldn't have heard one word about these Russians (Oh, and by the way, do these "Russians" have names?). It was Clinton's election to lose and she promptly went out and lost it! Period! End of story! In their eyes the candidate of "The Deplorables" won and the Democrats are enraged--so enraged that since Election Day 2016 they have been doing all they can do to delegitimize the election and Trump's status as POTUS. And all the while-- thanks to BOTH parties--the nation's infrastructure steadily crumbles and the immigration crisis remains unresolved (to cite just two examples).
interguru 2 days ago
On impeachment: Just imagine that Barak Obama had illegally spent $120,000 of his campaign cash for hush money to his prostitute. What would happen?
Micha_Elyi interguru 2 days ago • edited
"On impeachment: Just imagine that Barak Obama had illegally spent $120,000 of his campaign cash for hush money to his prostitute. What would happen?"--interguru

Democrats would rise in unison and begin shouting "It's only about sex!" And that time, they'd be correct.

Admit it, interguru, all the covering for Clinton that the Democrats conducted in order to yank his lying-under-oath balls out of the fire rendered impotent their usual tactics of denigrate and defame.

JeffK from PA interguru a day ago
Then Republicans might actually like him. Hold him up as a 'real man'.
Sid Finster interguru a day ago
Fine, but that has nothing to do with the russiagate conspiracy theory.

In fact, if Trump were really a puppet of Russia, they'd never let him commit an unforced error that pointless. Some money could be funneled from any of a million sources, and nobody would be any the wiser.

Actually, Trump committed a lot of unforced errors, as well as being generally lazy, stupid and unprepared.

https://www.theguardian.com...

With this in mind, to believe the RussiaGate conspiracy theories, one must simultaneously believe that the Russians have abilities that border on psychic mind control superpowers, but at the same time, these same evil geniuses cannot be bothered to plan what to do if their nefarious schemes actually worked out.

Orwell wept.

One can easily accept that Trump is a roaring moron, but one also has to believe that his alleged puppetmaster cannot take the time to consult an attorney or a peruse a copy of the United States Code, available for free on the internet to anyone who bothers to take a peek. And that's just the legal requirements. I won't even go into the clownshow that was Trump's appointments and staffing.

Salt Lick 2 days ago
The testimony was a complete success because it maintained the status quo. Trump is not going anywhere, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Russia tampered with the election rendering even more sanctions and increasing cold war tensions, and the only ones indicted were accused of process crimes. Meanwhile, the business of Goldman Sachs gets done in the halls of power.

Robert "Saddam has WMD of Mass Destruction" Mueller has been the bag man for the establishment for a long time. Even his dotage, he still managed to perform his job flawlessly.

Paddywagon 2 days ago
*42nd president's Senate trial
Sid Finster jimrussell 2 days ago
What utter nonsense, unless you believe that "Russia" wrote the DNC emails, or that a clickbait troll farm (see paragraph 95 of the IRA indictment if you don't believe me) that has no discernable connection tot he Russian government has some amazing influence over gullible American voters.
Sid Finster jimrussell a day ago
12 indictments against often former employees of a Russian clickbait farm for spectacularly laughable memes that will never amount to anything because there will never be a trial. One of the parties showed up in court and demanded actual evidence as part of discovery, causing Mueller to desperately ask for a continuance. The judge called Mueller out by denying it. The judge also called Mueller out by showing that he had no evidence that the defendant at issue had any ties tot he Russian government.

https://www.courthousenews....

A paltry $150k was spent for online ads over two years, by Russians, they tell you. They also tell you that about half those ads didn't run until after the election was over and that most of the ads didn't endorse a specific candidate or policy. Yet, you insist this Russian social media blitz altered the outcome of your election somehow. With well north of $3 billion spent on traditional advertising, leave it to MSM to float a turd of such odious girth.

Next, Mueller indicts 13 Russian intelligence journeymen and it will never amount to anything. None of them will ever be extradited. There will never be a trial. Never a legal discovery process. No burden of proof that they actually hacked or colluded. No US intelligence agency has ever examined the servers in question.

Russians didn't write the emails and Julian Assange is emphatic that Russia had nothing to do with them. Yet, no one in our vast and vaunted intelligence community has bothered to interview him. As they say, a smart lawyer never asks a question if he might not want to hear the answer.

Everything, all of it, is based on intel supplied by a cyber security firm on the DNC payroll. You can't make this shit up.

The other indictments are thoroughly unrelated to hacking or collusion by anybody, much less Russia.

W Porter 2 days ago • edited
Sen Specter did NOT "end the drive to impeach Bill Clinton", as the opening sentence of this article declares. The drive to impeach Bill Clinton ended when the House passed articles of impeachment. That's right: Bill Clinton was actually impeached. No, he wasn't "convicted" in his senate trial (thanks to Specter) and so wasn't removed from office. But he was, actually, impeached.

Good question for trivia buffs: Only one of these presidents was impeached: Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Which one was it? (Hint: Nixon resigned before the House impeached him.)

Connecticut Farmer W Porter 2 days ago
An impeachment is another word for "indictment", and as the saying goes you can indict a ham sandwich. Or impeach a baloney sandwich. If Trump were to wind up in the dock it would be "anything goes", including subpoenas being issued to Madame Hillary. There won't be any impeachment. Too much of a danger of overflowing sewage.
Sid Finster 2 days ago
Seth Rich could rise up from the dead and show us all, live on CNN, how he leaked the DNC emails, right after DWS confessed on MSNBC to ordering Seth Rich's murder and HRC admitted under oath that she invented russiagate on a bet with Podesta to see whether people really are that stupid and gullible, and CNN, MSNBC and the entire DNC and their cultists would keep pushing the conspiracy theory, never even missing a beat.
Amanda Powell Sid Finster 2 days ago
I see the fever swamp is well represented today.
𝙆𝙧𝙖𝙯𝙮 𝙐𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙚 2 days ago
I'm thinking the Democrats just wanted Mueller to give them the go ahead on impeachment... that way they could always blame it on him if the ploy failed... Too bad they are such cowards that none of the want to sign their name to impeachment proceedings...
MM 2 days ago
I'm glad Mr. Mueller finally admitted publicly that he held the President to an Orwellian standard of "probably guilty, which we can't prove, until proven innocent, which we never do" that no American has ever been held to by law enforcement.

I'll illustrate:

Can anybody tell me the legal difference between those two statements? I really don't see any. Also, what was fascinating about Mr. Mueller's press conference was when he said this:

He actually paid indicted Russian nationals who will never stand trial in this country more constitutional lip service than Trump. Absolutely gorgeous...

Bag Man 2 days ago
If the Democrats were using Mueller as their smoking gun to nail Trump it failed miserably. If they still want to impeach go ahead. It guarantees Trump's reelection.
Rossbach a day ago
Mueller's investigation ended after all the subpoenas had been served, all the witnesses had been deposed, and all the evidence analyzed. If, after that, he could not determine that the president had committed a crime, then, according to established jurisprudential practice, the decision is that he is not guilty. It is singular that the 2 accusations, collusion and obstruction, were evaluated differently.

In the case of conspiracy ("collusion") the final report says, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." In the case of obstruction of justice, the final report says, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment."

So, in the case of conspiracy, the prosecutor had to prove that the President was guilty ("did not establish" conspiracy); in the case of obstruction, they had to prove that he was innocent ("did not commit obstruction"). Why did different standards apply to the two accusations?

Mueller said he didn't recommend that the grand jury indict the President for obstruction because one cannot indict a sitting President. But the President either obstructed justice or he didn't. If he did, why didn't Mueller say so? He didn't have to recommend as indictment in order to state a conclusion based on facts revealed in the investigation. What he appears to be saying is that because he couldn't prove that the President did not commit obstruction, he would recommend that congress play impeachment politics with the issue.

So, instead of a resolution of this matter, Mueller decided to bequeath to the nation a festering sore that, with that aid of congressional Democrats, would continue to undermine the President's administration.

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.

As I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about election meddling :

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.

"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."

It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :

Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer, "well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .

Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.

The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents.

There are only two possibilities:

  1. Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project to take out Trump, or
  2. Obama was kept in the dark.

Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?

On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump?


turcopolier , 26 July 2019 at 04:19 PM

All

My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision. As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.

Bill H , 26 July 2019 at 04:51 PM
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?" causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
Alexandria , 26 July 2019 at 07:02 PM
Bill H,

When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by the Internet Research Agency.

Jack said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:41 AM
TTG

You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?

What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?

Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe the Russians did?

uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have no idea what China did or is doing.

Larry Johnson -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 11:36 AM
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.

The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS. Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.

The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign. Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.

blue peacock said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:29 PM
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."

I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous accounts.

The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow journalism is as American as apple pie.

The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms of financing and dubiousness.

It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.

The Twisted Genius -> blue peacock... , 27 July 2019 at 01:42 PM
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations, misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
Fred -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 09:23 AM
TTG,

You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right? It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.

"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false. Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?

catherine , 27 July 2019 at 12:20 AM
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate. We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..

Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.

LondonBob , 27 July 2019 at 06:57 AM
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
J , 27 July 2019 at 12:27 PM
This has shown two things IMO

1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and

2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.

Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their jobs upholding our Constitution!

Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!

Mark Logan said in reply to J... , 27 July 2019 at 02:14 PM
J,

I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO, wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

rg , 27 July 2019 at 01:46 PM
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence, where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if it means "Trump's error".

And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".

Keep up your great work for this excellent website.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

How do you know "they lied their asses off?" Mueller's report stated that no American had conspired with the Russians,

[Jul 26, 2019] Barr's Russiagate Origin Probe Pivots To 'Smoking Gun' Tapes With Exculpatory Evidence

Notable quotes:
"... Mueller is not currently mentally capable of programming his microwave, never mind author a report or conduct an investigation. ..."
"... I think if Barr digs deep enough he is going to see a foreign country was In control of Hillary during her state department days, and potentially Bubba during his presidency, remember how those secrets got leaked to China during Bill's Presidency? The preceding would also implicate that inner circle assisting Hill Dog, ie Comey, Clapper, MCabe, Brennan and the rest of those rat bastards BTW where is the computer guy that they were all using who got nabbed just before fleeing on a jet out of the country, What about Huma? ..."
"... Mueller was the token 'R'/Marine Vet/Never Trumper hired to give this corruption an air of 'fairness'. He was a tool, and has been for decades. Special place for him somewhere. ..."
"... Unfortunately the DNC clowns have discovered how to use Hillary's projection techniques and they are using them more and more. No matter what they do or what we discover they do they project it back on us. ..."
Jul 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Barr's Russiagate Origin Probe Pivots To 'Smoking Gun' Tapes With Exculpatory Evidence

by Tyler Durden Fri, 07/26/2019 - 17:05 0 SHARES

A DOJ internal review of the Russia investigation is now focusing on transcripts of (not-so) covertly recorded conversations between former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos and 'at least one government source' during an overseas conversation in 2016.

In particular, DOJ investigators are focusing on why certain exculpatory (or exonerating) evidence from the transcripts was not included in subsequent FBI surveillance warrant applications , according to Fox News , citing two sources familiar with the review.

"A source told Fox News that the "exculpatory evidence" included in the transcripts is Papadopoulos denying having any contact with the Russians to obtain the supposed "dirt" on Clinton," according to the report.

And while Fox doesn't name the 'government source,' it's undoubtedly Australian diplomat and Clinton ally Alexander Downer, who was "idiotic enough" to spy on Papadopoulos with his phone, according to the former Trump aide.

But Papadopoulos did not only meet with Mifsud and Downer while overseas. He met with Cambridge professor and longtime FBI informant Stefan Halper and his female associate, who went under the alias Azra Turk. Papadopoulos told Fox News that he saw Turk three times in London: once over drinks, once over dinner and once with Halper. He also told Fox News back in May that he always suspected he was being recorded . Further, he tweeted during the Mueller testimony about "recordings" of his meeting with Downer . - Fox News

"These recordings have exculpatory evidence," one source told Fox , adding " It is standard tradecraft to record conversations with someone like Papadopoulos -- especially when they are overseas and there are no restrictions. "

The recordings in question pertain to conversations between government sources and Papadopoulos, which were memorialized in transcripts. One source told Fox News that Barr and Durham are reviewing why the material was left out of applications to surveil another former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page.

" I think it's the smoking gun ," the source said. - Fox News

Also under review by AG Barr and US Attorney John Durham of Connecticut is the actual start date of the original FBI investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the US election.

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) first revealed the existence of transcripts documenting the secretly recorded conversations earlier this year.

"If the bureau's going to send in an informant, the informant's going to be wired, and if the bureau is monitoring telephone calls, there's going to be a transcript of that," Gowdy said on Fox News in May.

"Some of us have been fortunate enough to know whether or not those transcripts exist. But they haven't been made public, and I think one, in particular ... has the potential to actually persuade people," he continued, adding "Very little in this Russia probe I'm afraid is going to persuade people who hate Trump or love Trump. But there is some information in these transcripts that has the potential to be a game-changer if it's ever made public. "

According to the report, the transcripts are currently classified - however President Trump's May order to approve declassification at AG Barr's discretion means they may see the light of day. And even if not, the declassification allowed Barr to barge in on DNI Director Dan Coats' office and demand the files .

A source told Fox News that without the declassification order signed by Trump, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was not going to give anyone access to the files -- over concerns for protecting sources and methods. But another source told Fox News in May that Coats, along with CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Chris Wray, are all working "collaboratively" with Barr and Durham on the review.

Barr and Durham are also trying to pinpoint the actual "start date" of the investigation, according to a source. - Fox News

As passionately laid out by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) during this week's Mueller testimony, the FBI officially opened the Russia investigation after Papadopoulos told Downer about a rumor (told to him by Clinton Foundation member Joseph Mifsud) that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QC529hakU6U

That said, some have suggested that the FBI probe began long before Downer's report to intelligence agencies .

On Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., challenged former Special Counsel Mueller over when the investigation started.

"The FBI claims the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began on July 31, 2016, but in fact, it began before that," Nunes said. "In June 2016, before the investigation was officially opened, Trump campaign associates Carter Page and Stephen Miller were invited to attend a symposium at Cambridge University in July 2016. Your office, however, did not investigate who was responsible for inviting these Trump associates to the symposium." - Fox News

"Maybe a better course of action is to figure out how the false accusations started," said Jordan on Wednesday, adding "Here's the good news -- that's exactly what Bill Barr is doing and thank goodness for that."


Ida_Noe , 2 minutes ago link

For what it's worth, I think the whole thing started w/Her campaign, in particular: Podesta (means, motive and opportunity). I think it began as a cheating strategy and snowballed into a coup; many ppl involved... Trump won (Thank G--!) and they've been trying to cover their tracks ever since

Anunnaki , 27 minutes ago link

They used Mueller's stellar reputation to unleash a Clinton/FBI witch hunt behind the scenes.

so obvious Mueller had nothing to do with the report with his name n it.

now his reputation is dog ****

SHADEWELL , 22 minutes ago link

Mueller is not currently mentally capable of programming his microwave, never mind author a report or conduct an investigation.

We are seeing a spectacular display of an ill advised poorly thought out conspiracy to take Trump down...

No one is really looking at why the desperation to get Hillary in, remember Cuntlery herself stated that if Trump were to be elected "we will all hang"

I think if Barr digs deep enough he is going to see a foreign country was In control of Hillary during her state department days, and potentially Bubba during his presidency, remember how those secrets got leaked to China during Bill's Presidency? The preceding would also implicate that inner circle assisting Hill Dog, ie Comey, Clapper, MCabe, Brennan and the rest of those rat bastards BTW where is the computer guy that they were all using who got nabbed just before fleeing on a jet out of the country, What about Huma?

Why the desperation to obliterate the server with bleach bit, and hammer pound the phones?

And what about the infamous Clinton Body Count...

Just sayin

whatafmess , 39 minutes ago link

Suddenly "enhanced interrogation" makes a whole lot more sense... Lets see how the tough marine remembers his training. As for Mifsud, he will likely instantly remember his past life as a canary the moment he's shown a fuckin phone book...

Fuckin traitors, no mercy

Nunny , 45 minutes ago link

Mueller was the token 'R'/Marine Vet/Never Trumper hired to give this corruption an air of 'fairness'. He was a tool, and has been for decades. Special place for him somewhere.

SHADEWELL , 57 minutes ago link

Becoming pretty clear at this point that the ***** that perpetrated this treason have pretty much already played out every option

Yes that's right Cuntlery...your time is coming Bitch. At what point do they just punt for the good of the country and accept guilt quietly. Nadler and Schiff keep pushing it, will go very badly after Horowitz report

rodguy911 , 15 minutes ago link

Unfortunately the DNC clowns have discovered how to use Hillary's projection techniques and they are using them more and more. No matter what they do or what we discover they do they project it back on us. With unending driveby complicity it always buys at least a few weeks or gets them to the next news cycle where they feel safe again. Complex criminality wreaks of the company.

moobra , 1 hour ago link

Alexander Downer is a the classic groomed fwit who was given a path to power so he could be controlled. He was the national leader of the opposition but was such a *** he was unelectable and dumped. Most cartoonists in Australia depict him in fishnet stockings. The usual *** of his generation who could never come out (like Mcron). Quite effeminate and in *** terms would be the bottom.

What a stumbling clown trying to play James Bond.

JBLight , 1 hour ago link

"That said, some have suggested that the FBI probe began long before Downer's report to intelligence agencies ."

The patriots already know that the entire Russia/Trump probe was just cover for illegal spying that they were doing WITHOUT FISA approval. The Russia/Trump probe was going to be their excuse.

LEEPERMAX , 1 hour ago link

The president was framed by the following BRITISH operatives:

Respect_The_Cock , 1 hour ago link

Mueller was a figurehead. In doing more reading and talking to some folks - I wonder how much he is to blame.

Hear me out: I don't think Mueller had his fastball when they installed him as Weismann's American Hero Gentile Beard - and they knew it.

so, who wanted Mueller so bad?

#GetWeissman

jeff montanye , 1 hour ago link

it's fortuitous in any case as the great first cause of the last generation of government malfeasance, 9-11, was investigated by mueller as head of the fbi for the bush administration. it keeps that more in the public eye and mind. it let's people see that the deep state is bipartisan: helps republican bush and democrat clinton. just as long as they both help the likud mossad.

fitZHugh , 38 minutes ago link

There's a LOT for which to blame Mueller. Whitey Bulger, Ruby Ridge, Pan Am flight 103 come immediately to mind. As for who wanted him so bad, I would hazard a guess it was all the democrats on his "staff" who needed the cover of a "conservative republican". I know, hard to say that with a straight face.

[Jul 22, 2019] Comey Under DOJ Investigation For Misleading Trump While Targeting Him In FBI Probe

Notable quotes:
"... Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while refusing to admit to this in public. ..."
"... Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the president during their January 2017 meeting in New York. ..."
"... What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. " They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said, adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing." ..."
"... According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop" Trump's presidency for political reasons. ..."
"... "You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview. ..."
"... Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench to be FBI director. ..."
"... The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis, it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at the name on the address. ..."
"... This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. ..."
"... Does the DOJ investigate British agents? Serious question. ..."
Jul 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while refusing to admit to this in public.

According to RealClearInvestigations ' Paul Sperry, "Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will file a report in September which contains evidence that Comey was misleading the president " while conducting an active investigation against him.

Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an investigative agent . - RCI

According to two US officials familiar with Horowitz's upcoming report on FBI misconduct, Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the president during their January 2017 meeting in New York.

What's more, Comey had an FBI agent in the White House who reported the activities of Trump and his aides, according to 'other officials familiar with the matter.'

The agent, Anthony Ferrante, who specialized in cyber crime, left the White House around the same time Comey was fired and soon joined a security consulting firm, where he contracted with BuzzFeed to lead the news site's efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection with a defamation lawsuit. -RCI

According to the report, Horowitz and his team have examined over 1 million documents and conducted over 100 interviews - including sit-downs with Comey and other current and former FBI and DOJ employees. "The period covering Comey's activities is believed to run from early January 2017 to early May 2017, when Comey was fired and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as the acting FBI director, formally opened full counterintelligence and obstruction investigations of the president."

McCabe's deputy, Lisa Page, appeared to dissemble last year when asked in closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee if Comey and other FBI brass discussed opening an obstruction case against Trump prior to his firing in May 2017. Initially, she flatly denied it , swearing: "Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the time frame you have described." But then, after conferring with her FBI-assigned lawyer, she announced: " I need to take back my prior statement ." Page later conceded that there could have been at least "discussions about potential criminal activity" involving the president . -RCI

Comey coordination

Sperry notes that Comey wasn't working in isolation on the Trump effort. In particular, Horowitz has looked at the January 6, 2017 briefing on the infamous 'Steele Dossier' - a meeting which was used by BuzzFeed, CNN and others to legitimize reporting on the dossier's salacious and unsubstantiated claims .

Comey's meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump -- a meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN. -RCI

While Comey claims in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" that he didn't have "a counterintelligence case file open on [Trump]," former federal prosecutor and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy notes that just because Trump's name wasn't on a formal file or surveillance warrant doesn't mean that he wasn't under investigation.

"They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him," said McCarthy. " The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading . The FBI strung Trump along, telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the reality that Trump was the main subject ."

What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. " They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said, adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing."

What remains unclear is why Comey would take such extraordinary steps against a sitting president . The Mueller report concluded there was no basis for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theories. Comey himself was an early skeptic of the Steele dossier -- the opposition research memos paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign that were the road map of collusion theories -- which he dismissed as "salacious and unverified." -RCI

According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop" Trump's presidency for political reasons.

"You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview.

Read the rest of Sperry's report here .


AI Agent , 4 minutes ago link

They will whitewash Comey. The deep state is alive and well, the DoJ and the FBI are as corrupt as they were the day before Trump took office.

Why do I say this? Well, the canary hasn't fallen off her perch yet. Hillary Clinton is still singing her song, and even making noises like she's going to run again, and she's not in prison. They have her solid on over a hundred felony counts of mishandling classified documents and they've not touched her. Proof of life that the Deep State is still in power.

MoreFreedom , 8 minutes ago link

So, was the Steele dossier the ex post facto excuse for illegally spying on Trump, or was it the ex post facto diversion for ALL of Obama's spying on politically powerful people, which we know included spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, spying on reporters, and spying on Trump. I'll bet Obama hopes the investigation doesn't get into all of his spying activities, and I wouldn't be surprised government officials in charge of the spying equipment are keeping it covered up because they don't want to lose their jobs (for either allowing such to happen, or because they fear the spying apparatus will be eliminated).

Did Obama also spy on SCOTUS justices, Congressmen, other Senators and other rich and powerful people? I'll bet he did, because we haven't seen all the unmasking documentation, and Obama took it to his library so no one can see it (at least so he thinks). Further, look at the way Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Rice are disparaging Trump (they protest too much). And look at how all the allegations about Trump are blowing right back into the faces of the Democrats who've shown their MO is to accuse their political opponents, of the illegal activity in which the Democrats are engaged.

They need to go to jail, for a long time, if not be executed for treason.

SgtShaftoe , 4 minutes ago link

Did Obama spy on SCOTUS justices, et al? - Yes. Look up project HAMR or "Hammer". MI5/6 was spying on all Americans comms to circumvent legal frameworks (5 eyes). Google is now fully Chinese intelligence - TREASON. It's coming and it's gonna blow most people's minds.

dcmbuffy , 10 minutes ago link

Just the minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo.

J. Edgar Hoover

i at least agree with him on this one thought.

peippe , 9 minutes ago link

you realize J.Edgar probably said the above with a smile on his face.

Playtime's Over , 8 minutes ago link

been going on for longer than Obongo, but he put an inner cooled turbo on it.

radar99 , 13 minutes ago link

it all started with Obama. Time to investigate him and hang him for treason

SgtShaftoe , 8 minutes ago link

It started a very long time ago. 1913 was a notable date, so was JFK's assassination. So was 9/11. So was Operation Paperclip. These monsters have been slithering around a while. Now it's time for them to go bye-bye. Dark to Light. Execute.

Indelible Scars , 13 minutes ago link

B-B-But Nadler said...

JaxPavan , 14 minutes ago link

This goes back to Obama asking MI6 to surveil Trump and his campaign, and to continue it past the inauguration.

JaxPavan , 13 minutes ago link

correction: GCHQ

JaxPavan , 6 minutes ago link

Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench to be FBI director.

The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis, it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at the name on the address.

That our broken secrecy system effectively legalized Watergate under Obama and the "five eyes" is the real problem that needs fixing.

Stainless Steel Rat , 1 hour ago link

Three Things We Know For Sure

1. Trump did not collude with Russia

2. Mueller was sent on a witch hunt

3. Somebody's going under the bus

If not Comey, then who?

StiffLittleFinger , 39 minutes ago link

“I executed the session exactly as planned,”* Comey reported back to his “sensitive matter team.”

*in the meeting with Obama the day before

Equinox7 , 45 minutes ago link

This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. The end of the Deep State is starting.

valerie24 , 21 minutes ago link

Let’s hope so. The clock is ticking and this needs to happen by early 2020 or it won’t happen at all.

carbonmutant , 1 hour ago link

Are Comey's phones being bugged?

punchasocialist , 43 minutes ago link

Does the DOJ investigate British agents? Serious question.

[Jul 22, 2019] Report on evidence of felonies violating Civil Rights, and bribery by foreign agents, implicating United States Special Counsel Robert S Mueller III as a criminally-tainted agent of foreign racketeering interests

Notable quotes:
"... File talks about Mueller indulging big crimes as FBI director, helping Mueller's own eventual law firm to defraud millions out of a Hillary donor, with bribery of two USA federal judges, & threats to kill an ex-DOJ employee, with Mueller getting a big payday after he indulged it all as FBI chief, Mueller getting funds channeled from a criminal outfit based in the UK. ..."
Jul 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Brabantian says: May 6, 2019 at 2:39 am

Another item here, is the file which the US Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz acknowledged receiving a few months back, a file detailing alleged criminal acts of Robert Mueller himself.

The file was referenced in President Trump's tweets, a photo meme of Mueller in jail, and the President saying, "Heroes will come of this, and it won't be Mueller"

File talks about Mueller indulging big crimes as FBI director, helping Mueller's own eventual law firm to defraud millions out of a Hillary donor, with bribery of two USA federal judges, & threats to kill an ex-DOJ employee, with Mueller getting a big payday after he indulged it all as FBI chief, Mueller getting funds channeled from a criminal outfit based in the UK.

'Report on evidence of felonies violating Civil Rights, and bribery by foreign agents, implicating United States Special Counsel Robert S Mueller III as a criminally-tainted agent of foreign & racketeering interests'

https://www.docdroid.net/eVAAjIq/doj-ig-memo-mueller-bribery-extortion.pdf

[Jul 20, 2019] FBI's spreadsheet puts a stake through the heart of Steele's dossier

Jul 20, 2019 | thehill.com

But lest anyone be tempted to think Steele's 2016 dossier is about to be mysteriously revived as credible, consider this: Over months of work, FBI agents painstakingly researched every claim Steele made about Trump's possible collusion with Russia, and assembled their findings into a spreadsheet-like document.

The over-under isn't flattering to Steele.

Multiple sources familiar with the FBI spreadsheet tell me the vast majority of Steele's claims were deemed to be wrong, or could not be corroborated even with the most awesome tools available to the U.S. intelligence community. One source estimated the spreadsheet found upward of 90 percent of the dossier's claims to be either wrong, nonverifiable or open-source intelligence found with a Google search.

In other words, it was mostly useless.

"The spreadsheet was a sea of blanks, meaning most claims couldn't be corroborated, and those things that were found in classified intelligence suggested Steele's intelligence was partly or totally inaccurate on several claims," one source told me.

The FBI declined comment when asked about the spreadsheet.

The FBI's final assessment was driven by many findings contained in classified footnotes at the bottom of the spreadsheet. But it was also informed by an agent's interview, in early 2017, with a Russian that Steele claimed was one of his main providers of intelligence, according to my sources.

The FBI came to suspect that the Russian misled Steele, either intentionally or through exaggeration, the sources said.

The spreadsheet and a subsequent report by special prosecutor Robert Mueller show just how far off the seminal claims in the Steele dossier turned out to be.

For example, U.S. intelligence found no evidence that Carter Page, during a trip to Moscow in July 2016, secretly met with two associates of Vladimir Putin Igor Sechin and senior government official Igor Divyekin -- as part of the effort to collude with the Trump campaign, as Steele reported.

Page did meet with a lower-level Rosneft official, and shook hands with a Russian deputy prime minister, the FBI found, but it was a far cry from the tale that Steele's dossier spun.

Likewise, Steele claimed that Sechin had offered Page a hefty finder's fee if he could get Trump to help lift sanctions on Moscow: "a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return."

That offer, worth billions of dollars, was never substantiated and was deemed by some in U.S. intelligence to be preposterous.

The inaccuracy of Steele's intelligence on Page is at the heart of the inspector general investigation specifically because the FBI represented to the FISA court that the intelligence on Page was verified and strong enough to support the FISA warrant. It was, in the end, not verified.

Another knockdown of the dossier occurred when U.S. intelligence determined former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was not in Prague in the summer of 2016 when Steele claimed he was meeting with Russians to coordinate a hijacking of the election, the sources said.

Steele's theory about who in the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia kept evolving from Page to Cohen to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. None of those theories checked out in the end, as the Mueller report showed.

Again, Steele's intelligence was wrong or unverifiable.

The salacious, headline-grabbing claim that Russians had incriminating sex tapes showing Trump engaged in depraved acts with prostitutes also met a factual dead end when the FBI interviewed the Georgian-American businessman who claimed to know about them. Giorgi Rtskhiladze told investigators "he was told the tapes were fake," according to a footnote in the Mueller report. Rtskhiladze's lawyer subsequently issued a letter taking issue with some of Mueller's characterizations.

Steele had some general things right, of course, including that the Russians were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails. Of course, there were public reports saying so when Steele reported this.

But even then, his dossier's theory of how the hackers worked, who paid them and how they communicated with Trump was determined in the FBI spreadsheet and subsequent Mueller investigation to be far from accurate.

Even State officials, who listened to Steele's theories in October 2016 -- less than two weeks before his dossier was used to support the FISA request -- instantly determined he was grossly wrong on some points.

Any effort to use Steele's belated cooperation with the inspector general's investigation to prop up the credibility of his 2016 anti-Trump dossier or the FBI's reliance on it for the FISA warrant is deeply misguided.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a key defender of Trump, said he talked with DOJ officials after the most recent stories surfaced about Steele and was told the reporting is wrong. "Based on my conversations with DOJ officials, recent reports which suggest Christopher Steele's dossier and allegations are somehow deemed credible by DOJ, are simply false and not based on any confirmation from sources with direct knowledge of ongoing investigations," Meadows told me.

The FBI's own spreadsheet was so conclusive that it prompted then-FBI Director James Comey (no fan of Trump, mind you) to dismiss the document as " salacious and unverified " and for lead FBI agent Peter Strzok to text, " There's no big there there ." FBI lawyer Lisa Page testified that nine months into reviewing Steele's dossier they had not found evidence of the collusion that Steele alleged.

Two years later, Mueller came to the same conclusion: Steele's intelligence alleging a conspiracy was never verified.

The next time you hear a pundit suggesting Steele's dossier is credible or that the FBI's reliance on it as FISA evidence was justified, just picture all those blanks in that FBI spreadsheet.

They speak volumes as to what went wrong in the Russia investigation.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .

[Jul 18, 2019] Brennan used using Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' as a tool to corrupt the processes of investigation of DNC leaks.

Notable quotes:
"... Moreover, if, as the memorandum asserted, 'British officials' were also aware that the 'most reliable intelligence' exonerated the Syrian government, rather fundamental questions arose as to how the JIC had felt able to claim precisely the reverse in support of David Cameron's unsuccessful attempt on 29 August to win Commons' support for British participation in air strikes. ..."
"... At the time, the Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the FCO was one Robert Hannigan, who in April 2014 would be appointed as Director of GCHQ. The National Security Adviser was a certain Sir Kim Darroch, whose appointment as Ambassador to the U.S. would be announced in August 2015. Both have been in the news, in relation to 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Obviously, the same question arises about both of them as about Brennan: are they 'Gleiwitz types', who were actively complicit in preparing a murderous 'false flag', or were they simply part of a rather stupid Anglo-American 'dog', whom the 'tail', in the shape of the jihadists and their Turkish, Saudi and Qatari backers, could 'wag', as they chose? ..."
"... From the articles which Seymour Hersh published in the 'London Review of Books', and other materials, it became evident that the Defense Intelligence Agency, then headed by General Flynn, had been aware of the likelihood of fresh 'false flags' -- after the small scale incidents in spring 2013. ..."
"... An argument that 'Sundance' has repeatedly made is that a lot of what was happening in mid-2016, including the dossier attributed to Steele, had to do with the need to find justifications for these questionable surveillance operations. ..."
"... While I think there is something in this, I have long thought that the discovery that a mass of material exfiltrated from the DNC, and was going to be published by 'WikiLeaks', and the subsequent murder of Seth Rich, are likely to have been critically important triggers. ..."
"... panic-stricken improvisation found alike in the dossier, and the claims about the 'digital forensics' made by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'CrowdStrike', and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait. ..."
"... A week later, Butowsky filed a new action, in which the suggestion of a very-wide ranging conspiracy to suppress the truth about both the DNC leaks and Rich's murder was turned into a catalogue of defamation claims against a long list of people, including, as well as a variety of lawyers involved, CNN, the'Nw York Times', Vox, and the DNC. ..."
"... 'That Seth Rich was wacked because he stole the DNC emails and transferred them to Wikileaks is a conspiracy theory. It is possible and even plausible, but there is no evidence to confirm it. Many people seem to believe it because it makes more sense than the competing conspiracy theory, that Russia hacked the DNC and handed the emails to Wikileaks. Isikoff's claim, that Russia planted the Rich conspiracy theory, has no sound base. That theory existed before anything "Russian" mentioned it.' ..."
"... Reading the full text of Ms. Craven's report, I can see quite how well justified was Larry's suggestion in his post that Folkenflik and NPR were on a very sticky wicket indeed (as we say in England.) ..."
"... However, 'fools rush in', as the saying goes, so Isikoff decided to conspire with Deborah Sines, apparently the former U.S. assistant attorney in charge of investigating Seth Rich's murder, to suggest that suggestions that the victim had been the source of the material from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' originated as just another Russian plot. ..."
"... It appears that prior to the publication of his 'report', Isikoff talked to Butowsky, who in his efforts to dissuade him explained that his involvement in the whole affair began when Ellen Ratner, a news analyst with Fox, and sister of the late Michael Ratner, who had been an attorney for Assange, contacted him in Fall 2016 about a meeting she had with her that figure. ..."
"... And then, not particularly surprisingly, Butowsky and Clevenger abandoned their inhibitions about identifying Ellen Ratner as a source, and filled in a lot of 'blanks' in their 'narrative' about how Seth Rich lived and died. ..."
"... Among the many problems for Brennan and his co-conspirators -- among whom, on the British side, Hannigan and Darroch, and also Sedwill, are very important -- one relates to the way that the capabilities of 'scientific forensics', in all kinds of areas, have increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. ..."
"... This has meant that they have had little option but to corrupt the processes of investigation. The ludicrous claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait, which nobody but a fool -- congenital 'useful idiot' one might say -- or a knave would dare to defend in public, are only one of many cases in point. ..."
Jul 18, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

David Habakkuk , 16 July 2019 at 01:14 PM

Larry,

One does not like to admit to having been one of John Brennan's 'useful idiots' -- I had thought I could see through any of the 'active measures' which he and his co-conspirators, on both sides of the Atlantic, could dream up. But I had swallowed whole the notion that Michael Flynn had been stupid enough knowingly to get involved in Erdoğan's feud with Gülen.

In fairness, however, I do think that when dealing with spiders like the former head of the CIA, a prudent fly needs to be sure he, or she, gets competent legal advice at the outset.

It may perhaps be interesting to put your account together with a post by 'Sundance' on the 'Conservative Treehouse' site on 14 July, headlined 'Devin Nunes Discusses Upcoming Mueller Testimony '

This takes up the issue, on which its author has commented extensively, of illegitimate access by contractors to the databases of NSA intercepts -- an issue which is clearly bound up with that of the use of such material to create the 'web' in which Flynn found himself hopelessly entangled.

The post by 'Sundance' suggests, just as you do, that the driving force behind what has happened was actually John Brennan. The April 2017 ruling by FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer does not definitely establish that the illegitimate access of contractors started in 2012, but it definitely strongly suggests that it did.

Reading the 6 September 'Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity' memorandum to Obama, entitled 'Is Syria a Trap?', whose signatories included both you and Colonel Lang, it seemed overwhelmingly likely to some of us who were familiar with both your writings that Brennan had to have been involved in a conspiracy with the Turks, Saudis, and Qataris.

(To my surprise, this can no longer be accessed at the 'Consortium News' site. However, it is still available at http://www.shoah.org.uk/2013/09/10/page/2/ .)

One relevant question related to whether the role of the Americans involved in this conspiracy was simply 'ex post facto' exploitation of the patent 'false flag' sarin atrocity at Ghouta the previous 21 August to attempt to inveigle the United States into toppling Assad, or whether there was 'ex ante' complicity.

Moreover, if, as the memorandum asserted, 'British officials' were also aware that the 'most reliable intelligence' exonerated the Syrian government, rather fundamental questions arose as to how the JIC had felt able to claim precisely the reverse in support of David Cameron's unsuccessful attempt on 29 August to win Commons' support for British participation in air strikes.

At the time, the Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the FCO was one Robert Hannigan, who in April 2014 would be appointed as Director of GCHQ. The National Security Adviser was a certain Sir Kim Darroch, whose appointment as Ambassador to the U.S. would be announced in August 2015. Both have been in the news, in relation to 'Russiagate.'

Obviously, the same question arises about both of them as about Brennan: are they 'Gleiwitz types', who were actively complicit in preparing a murderous 'false flag', or were they simply part of a rather stupid Anglo-American 'dog', whom the 'tail', in the shape of the jihadists and their Turkish, Saudi and Qatari backers, could 'wag', as they chose?

From the articles which Seymour Hersh published in the 'London Review of Books', and other materials, it became evident that the Defense Intelligence Agency, then headed by General Flynn, had been aware of the likelihood of fresh 'false flags' -- after the small scale incidents in spring 2013.

And it was clear enough, if one bothered to study the 'open source' material at all carefully, that the DIA had been a key locus of opposition to the strategies being pursued by Brennan, together with his British co-conspirators.

Accordingly, the fact that an 'interagency memorandum of understanding', which according to Collyer's judgement looks as though it may well date from 2012 -- the year Brennan was appointed to head the CIA -- appears to have led, in that year, to the granting of access to the material, through the FBI, to outside contractors, looks somewhat interesting. (This is well covered by 'Sundance'.)

So, I find myself asking whether in fact this gross abuse of the role of the NSA was not linked at the outset to the divisions within the American intelligence apparatus and military about policy towards the Middle East, and also whether this may not be relevant to assessing the role of Robert Mueller, who was FBI Director through until September 2013.

An argument that 'Sundance' has repeatedly made is that a lot of what was happening in mid-2016, including the dossier attributed to Steele, had to do with the need to find justifications for these questionable surveillance operations.

While I think there is something in this, I have long thought that the discovery that a mass of material exfiltrated from the DNC, and was going to be published by 'WikiLeaks', and the subsequent murder of Seth Rich, are likely to have been critically important triggers.

Among other things, I do not think that the version given by 'Sundance' can explain the air of panic-stricken improvisation found alike in the dossier, and the claims about the 'digital forensics' made by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'CrowdStrike', and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait.

I see that there has now been a dramatic escalation in the legal battles which began when Ed Butowsky bought his initial action against David Folkenflik and his 'NPR' colleagues in June 2018. The discovery process in that action was followed by an 'Amended Complaint' on 5 March this year.

A week later, Butowsky filed a new action, in which the suggestion of a very-wide ranging conspiracy to suppress the truth about both the DNC leaks and Rich's murder was turned into a catalogue of defamation claims against a long list of people, including, as well as a variety of lawyers involved, CNN, the'Nw York Times', Vox, and the DNC.

On 9 July, Michael Isikoff published a story alleging that the claims about Rich and his murder were the result of a Russian 'active measures' operation -- to use a favourite phrase of TTG's.

A useful account, with links, is provided by our colleague 'b', at 'Moon of Alabama', at https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/07/isikoff-who-first-peddled-the-fake-steele-dossier-invents-new-russian-influence-story.html .

Concluding his piece, 'b' wrote:

'That Seth Rich was wacked because he stole the DNC emails and transferred them to Wikileaks is a conspiracy theory. It is possible and even plausible, but there is no evidence to confirm it. Many people seem to believe it because it makes more sense than the competing conspiracy theory, that Russia hacked the DNC and handed the emails to Wikileaks. Isikoff's claim, that Russia planted the Rich conspiracy theory, has no sound base. That theory existed before anything "Russian" mentioned it.'

As it happens, Butowsky and his lawyer, Ty Clevenger, obviously decided it was time to, as it were, 'unmask their batteries', and provide some of the evidence they have been accumulating.

There is another useful post by 'Sundance', which in turn links to a very interesting post on the Gateway Pundit' site. From there, you can access both Clevenger's blog post, and the text of the 'Amended Complaint.'

(See https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/07/15/lawsuit-claims-julian-assange-confirmed-dnc-emails-received-from-seth-rich-not-a-russian-hack/ .)

It seems likely that Butowsky and Clevenger were pushed into acting a bit sooner than they had intended. The fact that the name of Ellen Ratner, clearly a pivotal participant, was misspellled 'Rattner' in the 'Amended Complaint', is likely to be an indication of this.

However, I also think that Clevenger, who seems to me a first-class 'ferret', could do with the services of an old-style secretary, who checked his productions before they went out.

turcopolier , 16 July 2019 at 02:34 PM
As I have previously mentioned, I testified several times in Collyer's Washington district court on non-FISA matters. My impression was that she is a very ambitious woman who wishes always to do DoJ's bidding.

David Habakkuk -> turcopolier ... , 18 July 2019 at 01:28 PM

Pat,

Your recollections of Collyer had, unfortunately, slipped my mind when I posted my comment above. So, unfortunately, had Larry's post on Judge Caroline M. Craven's denial in her report dated 17 April 2019 of the Motion to Dismiss filed by David Folkenflik and his NPR colleagues in the defamation case brought against them by Ed Butowsky.

At the time of his post, the full text of the judgement was only available on PACER, which requires a subscription. However, looking at the 'Court Listener' site, I now see that both it and some other key documents in the case are freely available.

(See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7244731/butowsky-v-folkenflik/ .)

Reading the full text of Ms. Craven's report, I can see quite how well justified was Larry's suggestion in his post that Folkenflik and NPR were on a very sticky wicket indeed (as we say in England.)

And I can also see more clearly why, following the judgement, Butowsky and Ty Clevenger felt they were in a position to launch an action both against some of the major legal players in the cover-up of the fact that the materials published by the DNC were leaked by Seth Rich, not hacked by the Russians, and also key disseminators of the cover-up, CNN, the NYT, and Vox.

The most important documents in that case are also now free available on 'Court Listener', at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14681570/butowsky-v-gottlieb/ .

What looks to have happened subsequently is a natural enough process of escalation.

Among those who rather actively promoted the hogwash attributed to Christopher Steele was Michael Isikoff, who is, apparently, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News. In April, he was reported in 'Vanity Fair' conceding that 'I think it's fair to say that all of us should have approached this, in retrospect, with more skepticism'.

(See https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/the-steele-dossiers-moment-of-truth-arrives-journalists-argue-its-impact .)

Any 'investigative reporter' worth his or her salt would have done elementary checks on the dossier immediately, and not touched it with a bargepole -- again, as we used to say in England. Also, even among the incompetent and corrupt, common prudence might have suggested caution.

However, 'fools rush in', as the saying goes, so Isikoff decided to conspire with Deborah Sines, apparently the former U.S. assistant attorney in charge of investigating Seth Rich's murder, to suggest that suggestions that the victim had been the source of the material from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' originated as just another Russian plot.

(See https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-the-true-origins-of-the-seth-rich-conspiracy-a-yahoo-news-investigation-100000831.html .)

It appears that prior to the publication of his 'report', Isikoff talked to Butowsky, who in his efforts to dissuade him explained that his involvement in the whole affair began when Ellen Ratner, a news analyst with Fox, and sister of the late Michael Ratner, who had been an attorney for Assange, contacted him in Fall 2016 about a meeting she had with her that figure.

Although Butowsky intended the conversation to be 'off the record', and the idea was emphatically not that Isikoff would contact Ellen Ratner, he did. It seems that -- not particularly surprisingly, in the current climate -- she lied to him, and he was stupid enough to think that this meant he could get away with publishing his story.

(See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/07/breaking-lawsuit-outs-reporter-ellen-ratner-as-source-for-seth-rich-information/ .)

And then, not particularly surprisingly, Butowsky and Clevenger abandoned their inhibitions about identifying Ellen Ratner as a source, and filled in a lot of 'blanks' in their 'narrative' about how Seth Rich lived and died.

I am still in the process of digesting the new information. However, a couple of preliminary observations about the implications may be worth making.

Among the many problems for Brennan and his co-conspirators -- among whom, on the British side, Hannigan and Darroch, and also Sedwill, are very important -- one relates to the way that the capabilities of 'scientific forensics', in all kinds of areas, have increased by leaps and bounds in recent years.

This has meant that they have had little option but to corrupt the processes of investigation. The ludicrous claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait, which nobody but a fool -- congenital 'useful idiot' one might say -- or a knave would dare to defend in public, are only one of many cases in point.

What is really dangerous for the conspirators, however, is when the problems they have in contesting rational arguments about the 'scientific forensics' come together with problems relating to more 'old-fashioned' kinds of evidence: crucially, 'witness testimony'.

This, I think, may now be happening.

It also seems to me quite likely that some of those 'in the know' -- including perhaps Rosemary Collyer -- had seen what was liable to happen a good while ago, and decided that a prudent 'rat' keeps its options open.

[Jul 09, 2019] Crowdstrike - Cashing in on a scam

Notable quotes:
"... Maybe you saw this recent headline. The Democratic National Committee famously "rebuffed" a request from the FBI to examine its email server after it was allegedly hacked by Russia during the 2016 election. You probably remember that, but you've probably forgotten this ..."
"... Do private companies normally withhold access from the FBI to a crime scene, when that company already contracts with the FBI? What would be their motivation? ..."
"... Ignoring that for a moment, look at how competent Crowdstrike is since the DNC hack ..."
"... So in the past three years Crowdstrike: ..."
"... a) detected the DNC server hack, but failed to stop it b) falsely accused the Russians of hacking Ukrainian artillery c) failed to prevent the NRCC from being hacked, even though that was why they were hired ..."
"... In other words, Crowdstrike is really bad at their job. In addition, Crowdstrike is really bad at business too. CrowdStrike recorded a net loss last year of $140 million on revenue of $249.8 million, and negative free cash flow of roughly $59 million. ..."
"... CS denied the FBI access to their DNC paid for "analysis" without redaction. Why redact their own document? I cannot conceive of even a stupid reason to do this, let alone a plausible one ..."
"... Wonder if they were worried they would have to explain and testify under oath for or be asked if they could actually prove something ..."
"... It just goes to show that "getting it right" is not the same thing as "doing a good job." ..."
"... If you tell the right people what they want to hear, the money will take care of itself. ..."
Jul 09, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

gjohnsit on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 12:09am

Maybe you saw this recent headline. The Democratic National Committee famously "rebuffed" a request from the FBI to examine its email server after it was allegedly hacked by Russia during the 2016 election. You probably remember that, but you've probably forgotten this .

TYT can report that at the same time CrowdStrike was working on behalf of the DNC, the company was also under contract with the FBI for unspecified technical services. According to a US federal government spending database, CrowdStrike's "period of performance" on behalf of the FBI was between July 2015 and July 2016. CrowdStrike's findings regarding the DNC server breach -- which continue to this day to be cited as authoritative by everyone from former FBI Director James Comey, to NBC anchor Megyn Kelly -- were issued in June 2016, when the contract was still active.

OK. Nothing suspicious here. Just a harmless coincidence. NOT! Do private companies normally withhold access from the FBI to a crime scene, when that company already contracts with the FBI? What would be their motivation?

Ignoring that for a moment, look at how competent Crowdstrike is since the DNC hack.

The National Republican Congressional Committee was hacked during the 2018 election after hiring CrowdStrike, the cyber-firm that the Democratic National Committee employed that allowed DNC emails to be stolen even after the 2016 hack was detected.

The emails of four top NRCC officials were stolen in a major hack that was detected in April -- eight months ago, Politico reported Tuesday.

So in the past three years Crowdstrike:

a) detected the DNC server hack, but failed to stop it
b) falsely accused the Russians of hacking Ukrainian artillery
c) failed to prevent the NRCC from being hacked, even though that was why they were hired

In other words, Crowdstrike is really bad at their job. In addition, Crowdstrike is really bad at business too. CrowdStrike recorded a net loss last year of $140 million on revenue of $249.8 million, and negative free cash flow of roughly $59 million.

So what does a cybersecurity company that is hemorrhaging money and can't protect it's clients do? It does an IPO .

It just goes to show that "getting it right" is not the same thing as "doing a good job." If you tell the right people what they want to hear, the money will take care of itself.

Alligator Ed on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 2:23am
CS neither got it right nor did a good job

CS denied the FBI access to their DNC paid for "analysis" without redaction. Why redact their own document? I cannot conceive of even a stupid reason to do this, let alone a plausible one.

gj, with your trove of sources, why do you think CS redacted their own report--it's all fiction anyway?

Inquiring gators want to know.

Dalum Woulu on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 2:47am
Wonder if they were worried they would have to explain and testify under oath for or be asked if they could actually prove something.
Alligator Ed on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 2:49am
Good point

@Dalum Woulu Now if only Adam Schiff would subpoena CS and make them testify as to this...and then unicorns will graze on the grass in my back lawn.

Dr. John Carpenter on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 7:06am
I think this is most of the IT biz right here

It just goes to show that "getting it right" is not the same thing as "doing a good job."

If you tell the right people what they want to hear, the money will take care of itself.

It's all about making the people at the top feel smart for having hired you and assuring them they don't need to waste their beautiful minds trying to understand what it is you do.

Whoops, you got hacked? Gee, nothing we could have done. More money please!

[Jul 09, 2019] So what does a cybersecurity company that is hemorrhaging money and can't protect it's clients do? It does an IPO

Notable quotes:
"... So in the past three years Crowdstrike: ..."
"... a) detected the DNC server hack, but failed to stop it b) falsely accused the Russians of hacking Ukrainian artillery c) failed to prevent the NRCC from being hacked, even though that was why they were hired ..."
"... In other words, Crowdstrike is really bad at their job. In addition, Crowdstrike is really bad at business too. CrowdStrike recorded a net loss last year of $140 million on revenue of $249.8 million, and negative free cash flow of roughly $59 million. ..."
Jul 09, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

So in the past three years Crowdstrike:

a) detected the DNC server hack, but failed to stop it
b) falsely accused the Russians of hacking Ukrainian artillery
c) failed to prevent the NRCC from being hacked, even though that was why they were hired

In other words, Crowdstrike is really bad at their job. In addition, Crowdstrike is really bad at business too. CrowdStrike recorded a net loss last year of $140 million on revenue of $249.8 million, and negative free cash flow of roughly $59 million.

So what does a cybersecurity company that is hemorrhaging money and can't protect it's clients do? It does an IPO .

It just goes to show that "getting it right" is not the same thing as "doing a good job." If you tell the right people what they want to hear, the money will take care of itself.

[Jul 09, 2019] Crowdstrike mode of operation:

Jul 09, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

Whoops, you got hacked? Gee, nothing we could have done. More money please!

I think this is most of the IT biz right here

It just goes to show that "getting it right" is not the same thing as "doing a good job."

If you tell the right people what they want to hear, the money will take care of itself.

It's all about making the people at the top feel smart for having hired you and assuring them they don't need to waste their beautiful minds trying to understand what it is you do.

Whoops, you got hacked? Gee, nothing we could have done. More money please!

[Jul 09, 2019] Halper, such as he could be called a source at all, appears to have been, has to have been, working in the UK with Agency people and almost certainly with MI6 as well.

Notable quotes:
"... Halper, such as he could be called a source at all, appears to have been, has to have been, working in the UK with Agency people and almost certainly with MI6 as well. ..."
"... If John Brennan was not there at the genesis of this fiasco, I will eat my hat; and I cannot see how there weren't high level officials at MI6 engaged as well ..."
"... Similarly, Steele is dredging for Russian dirt wherever he can get it and he's sealed himself off from his former employer? Not likely. ..."
"... The one thing which overwhelms all else is the actual nature of the material that came from the DNC servers and appeared on Wikileaks. A great deal of noise is made about that information's journey, who stole (hacked or copied) it, how it was done, who transmitted it, etc. But no noise whatever is made about the information itself, or at least when an attempt is made it is buried by the "Russia meddled" noise. ..."
"... The information itself is that the DNC is a bad actor, that it rigged the primary election for Hillary Clinton. No one, no one , denies the truth of the information itself. When what the DNC did is mentioned the conversation instantly changes to the Russians having "meddled in our election." ..."
"... Buried in the noise is that the DNC meddled in the electoral process far more destructively and far more directly than the Rusians did, if the Russians did so at all, which I perceive as highly doubtful. ..."
Jul 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Flavius -> Turcopolier... ,

I would guess that the Bureau Agents had to be read in on what the Agency people had been doing with Halper and possibly Mifsud,; that, and to bring their purported counter-intelligence expertise to bear. Active investigation in the UK with respect to Papadopolis was in prospect, probably to include tech surveillance, and the Bureau has no authority to conduct active independent investigation overseas.

Halper, such as he could be called a source at all, appears to have been, has to have been, working in the UK with Agency people and almost certainly with MI6 as well.

If NSA was there in the UK, it was with a view to coordinating tech; but with that said, it would be highly irregular for our people to be conducting active investigation, especially if it included physical and technical surveillance, without coordinating at some level with MI6 and 5 as well.

If John Brennan was not there at the genesis of this fiasco, I will eat my hat; and I cannot see how there weren't high level officials at MI6 engaged as well .

Halper is working in the UK with the Agency in re Russia and not working with the Russia obsessed MI6? Similarly, Steele is dredging for Russian dirt wherever he can get it and he's sealed himself off from his former employer? Not likely.

Bill H , 08 July 2019 at 10:08 AM

The one thing which overwhelms all else is the actual nature of the material that came from the DNC servers and appeared on Wikileaks. A great deal of noise is made about that information's journey, who stole (hacked or copied) it, how it was done, who transmitted it, etc. But no noise whatever is made about the information itself, or at least when an attempt is made it is buried by the "Russia meddled" noise.

The information itself is that the DNC is a bad actor, that it rigged the primary election for Hillary Clinton. No one, no one , denies the truth of the information itself. When what the DNC did is mentioned the conversation instantly changes to the Russians having "meddled in our election."

Buried in the noise is that the DNC meddled in the electoral process far more destructively and far more directly than the Rusians did, if the Russians did so at all, which I perceive as highly doubtful.

JamesT -> Bill H ... , 08 July 2019 at 03:05 PM

Bill H - I could not agree with you more.

pretzelattack , 08 July 2019 at 02:00 PM

i'm not familiar with all the intricate details of the "investigation" (i just detect a strong smell of bs coming from mueller), and I found this piece hard to follow on the page-strzok texts and their significance.

Barbara Ann , 08 July 2019 at 02:00 PM

Thanks Larry.

This from the Fox article: "Fox News has learned some of the words and names that were redacted in the string of Strzok-Page messages" prompts a (maybe dumb) question:

Do we know/can we infer how Fox managed to fill in just some of the redacted info? It seems odd to me that only a few of the blanks have been filled in, as if Fox had access to the original FBI phone records they'd have all of it. Also, the new handwritten parts seem to contain information which could not possibly have been gathered from any other source outside of this private 2 way conversation - e.g. "Just you two? Was DCM present for the interview?" and the reply "No, two of them, two of us".

Do Fox have it all and are they then just teasing us, or is perhaps one of the two star-crossed lovers singing?

[Jul 09, 2019] Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge. ..."
"... Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 , prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information). ..."
"... Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president "wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire to provide him with "plausible denial." ..."
"... It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him. ..."
"... "That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)." ..."
"... It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. ..."
"... The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly sell out the middle class in broad daylight. ..."
"... The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful. ..."
"... Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would. ..."
"... I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even before they made it legal. ..."
"... Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television. ..."
"... This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused. ..."
"... I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is lawless. It is a disaster. ..."
"... Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior, and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc. recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders". ..."
"... This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more. ..."
"... there have always been nefarious agents in one government or another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct interest of the American people ..."
"... It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just it will to power. ..."
"... So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold War. A stark education has just played out to this point. ..."
Jul 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on Trump to unfetter investigators, all hell may break lose, says Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News

A s Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.

King told a radio audience: "There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.

King, a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence Committee.

He asserted:

"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign – and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders It's just wrong."

The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today: "The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia against his own country."

King: Lashes out.

According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William Barr, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation led by John Durham, U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to complete his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the experience of waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about now?

So Where is the IG Report on FISA?

That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).

The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process. (Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)

The Washington Examiner reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The report continued:

"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview, Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz 'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,' Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"

Horowitz: Still waiting for his report

Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may, in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the 11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the Justice Department and FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was assigned to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.

Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 , prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).

It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end, even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?

What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?

Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president "wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire to provide him with "plausible denial."

It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.

Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it" defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang. Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that -- or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.

Reining in Devin Nunes

That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA). On April 5, 2019, in the apparent belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."

On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.

Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the criminal referrals?

There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.


Joe T Wallace , July 8, 2019 at 20:24

I'm a great admirer of Ray McGovern's reporting. He exposes much that is never revealed by the mainstream media. That said, I do have one quibble about this article. In the seventh paragraph, just below the heading "So Where is the IG Report on FISA?" he writes:

"That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)."

My immediate reaction was: Who is Horowitz? It was confusing not to know. Further down in the article, I learned that Ray was referring to Michael Horowitz, a DOJ watchdog who is preparing an IG report about FISA abuse, but readers should have been informed who he was earlier in the article.

John , July 8, 2019 at 17:10

Peter King? Devin Nunes?

At one point the article says little effort was made to cover tracks because of certainty that HRC would win but later that the FBI et al were planting land mines to either defeat Trump or blow up his presidency. Seemed contradictory to me.

Perhaps you have the skinny on these machinations, if indeed there were machinations by one person or group or another for this purpose or that.

But Peter King and Devin Nunes? If either ever was credible, their track record condemns them to be received, if at all, with extreme skepticism.

Realist , July 8, 2019 at 16:59

It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. Or will she be expected to repudiate the Hitlery-run DNC? Where does the money and the ground game originate if the latter?

The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly sell out the middle class in broad daylight. I won't like it, but I can see Trump Derangement Syndrome pulling out the chestnuts for the Dems, what with all their celebrity spokespeople constantly running and ranting like their hair is on fire underneath those pussy hats. My poor gullible sister from Cali embraces that whole ball of wax as revealed truth holier than the total dry weight of all the Abrahamic scriptures rolled into one big bale for the recycling center. Kamala Harris seems to be emerging as the new messiah anointed to lead this country back to Obamian gridlock and more prestidigitation like mandated insurance to ensure the health of the insurance companies. Again, it will only be the illusion of "free stuff."

The only way such a scenario won't cause four more years of turmoil for this country (rinse and repeat in 2024) is if the victor is Gabbard and she ends all the illegal and unconstitutional wars by edict, telling all the sure-to-be pissing and moaning Deep State functionaries to pick up their severance pay and go pound sand. Then shut the world-wide spider web of military bases and bring home the troops while we can still afford the carfare. That would be "morning in America," and Gabbard would be the most heroic chief exec since Lincoln and FDR made their marks in the history books, though such fantasies never play out in the real world. More likely all the criminal evidence of treason remains classified, most Americans pop the blue pill, the actual rabbit hole continues to grow ever deeper but the masses are contentedly oblivious to it all, satisfied to blame select scapegoats from Russia, China and other "malign" countries for our viewing entertainment.

Deniz , July 8, 2019 at 17:50

The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful.

ML , July 8, 2019 at 20:12

You are really something, Realist. I love the way you flourish that pen of yours. Thank you.

Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:13

Realist, well said, per usual. To add a bit the Dems probably gave Trump the gift of a lifetime the next election. Wasting three years on Russiagate instead of hammering out a decent platform for the party was beyond dumb. That reminds me. the Dems's next dumbest idea choosing Joe Biden as their next candidate. Just like Hillary, he can't beat Trump. The duopoly is dead, they just don't know it.

As for Tulsi, she's got my vote.

John Earls , July 8, 2019 at 16:55

Looks like Barry Eisler's John Rain (expert in "death by natural causes") will have a lot of work in front of him if the investigation builds and a whole lot of "material witnesses" begin to testify.

ricardo2000 , July 8, 2019 at 16:33

I'm supposed to feel sorry for the surveillance of a right-wing creep? OH PLEASE.
No one in government, or the right wing ReThugs, has ever suffered the intrusive, lying, speculative 'investigations' that social justice, environmental, or human rights activists have over the past 70 years.

When these buttheads suffer what MLK and Malcolm X have suffered then I might just wipe away a few tears, after I stop roaring with laughter and get off the floor.

Realist , July 8, 2019 at 17:08

You prefer a race to the bottom of the cesspool?

You never win when you adopt the methods you claim to revile. The opponent who introduced the tactics you condemn wins if you embrace them as your own. You didn't beat him, you joined him.

LibertyBonBon , July 8, 2019 at 18:12

Must be nice to think the justice system should revolve around your particular emotions, rather than equality and objectivity. Safe and easy.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:41

ricardo2000, nothing personal, I get the revulsion to Trump and entourage not to mention a large portion of the Maga crowd but this right and left thing is really just an illusion, the people doing the persecuting here regardless of how disgusting Trump is are the same ones doing the persecuting to a large degree of everyone else from Assange to the Iranians, that is this government deep state in combination with all of the various American alphabet soup agencies as well as foreign deep states have cornered the market in State power, hate Trump but don't confuse this with a good thing.

O Society , July 8, 2019 at 16:18

Thank you, Ray McGovern. You are a good man, Charlie Brown!

Thing is, all of this was predictable from the beginning. Many of us saw it coming.

No one really wanted an incompetent baboon running things – the song about Monkey and the Engineer comes to mind – so Obama tried to hamstring Trump with this investigation. I mean, Obama couldn't very well have not completed the transfer of power because it is the most valuable thing about democracy. There is no ten year bloody hellified civil war every time the crown changes hands from one inbred to the next.

So Obama did the next best thing on his way out the Oval Office doors, he put Brennan and the boys on it. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I'm sure. But it backfired because he couldn't call the dogs off once he was no longer president. Not Brennan, not anyone could call them off after the snowball really got rolling because the spooks believed their own story and the media made too much money off selling the mythology:

https://osociety.org/2019/07/06/spooks-spooking-themselves/

Only question left to answer now is whether or not Trump the carnival barker can milk his opportunist Armageddon into a second term of fleecing the rubes.

http://osociety.org/2019/07/08/can-donald-trump-delay-an-economic-crash-until-2020

karlof1 , July 8, 2019 at 15:00

This is a very serious Constitutional Law issue and MUST be pursued–and it makes no difference the political party denomination of those breaking the law! The Current Oligarchy–Deep State–is the adversary of the vast majority of US citizens and humanity. With Epstein's arrest and the developments McGovern relates, some progress appears to be happening.

Lydia , July 8, 2019 at 14:51

You summed it up perfectly, Jill.

Pablo Diablo , July 8, 2019 at 14:42

"the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him." says it all. Trump is a loose cannon. The so called "Deep State" has been "controlling" our Presidents since at least the Dulles Brothers. Truman even admitted giving them power was a BIG mistake. Still question the Kennedy Assassination.
In the 70's, the FBI mailed me a box of drugs, which I refused to take from a very incompetent fake Mail Man, and three minutes later they showed up with a search warrant for my house that listed all the drugs in the failed mailed box signed by a Federal Judge. So much for FISA. The bullshit continues. I could reveal more if necessary.

robert e williamson jr , July 8, 2019 at 14:32

Sam F. whether you realize it or not you got it pretty much on the nose. Except for this.

The judiciary has been compromised by the congresses refusal to hold CIA et. al. accountable for their actions. Why? Those in congress remember what happened to JFK.

The number one reason is because the deep state ensures that if anyone goes after CIA officials or designees that the persons career and life are ruined. Which is something else that needs to be investigated. Something that if explored may very well put a stop to CIA's B.S. of lying about everything and getting away with it.

Currently no deterrent exists. None.

Anytime some one or entity gets close the Deep State ends up with their guy as AG. See the Bill Barr story.

Barr may get his chance to prove me right and at the same time prove "Lady Justice" has little to do with the DOJ! I think he is a cowardly blowhard. Justice would be Trump and Barr going to jail .

Justice in this country for the true scoundrels in government or billionaires is non- existent at this point in time. Putting Epstein in prison for life is called for and if he is threatened with that maybe his jaw will loosen up.

Until DOJ can become a deterrent to bad actors in government, all government the country will be controlled by the Deep State. The SWETS, super wealthy elitists.

Keep your eyes on George Soro and the Kochs.

Paul Merrell , July 8, 2019 at 17:28

@ "Justice would be Trump and Barr going to jail ."

Are you suggesting that *any* of their living predecessors don't deserve the same? If so, which do not and why?

Jay , July 8, 2019 at 14:18

Bif:

I agree something very suspect occurred.

And it's very likely the Obama White House knew that either the NSA or the FBI was tapping into the communications of some of Trump's campaign team BEFORE Hillary lost in Nov. 2016.

However the xenophobic, lying, terrorist (IRA) supporting, Peter King is not a credible messenger. (Right, Rep Steve King of Iowa is even worse than King of Long Island.)

Peter Dyer , July 8, 2019 at 14:09

Thanks, Ray.

DH Fabian , July 8, 2019 at 13:59

Actually, that deep split among the masses, and certainly within the Dem voting base, was achieved in the 1990s -- middle class vs. poor, workers vs. those left jobless, further split by race. The Obama years confirmed that this split is permanent. Russia had nothing to do with the Democrats' 2016 defeat, nor will it be the reason for their 2020 defeat. Democrats maintain their resistance against acknowledging the consequences of dividing and conquering their own voting base.

EuGene Miller , July 9, 2019 at 00:24

DH, that's an interesting assessment. However, I doubt that any House or Senate Democrat sought an advantage by "splitting their base". The elected Dems do not control the narrative. So, who benefits by splitting the masses into rival factions?

Perhaps the narrative of social and political discourse is defined by the owners, boards, and foundations that control the main-stream media and pop-culture.

Robert Reich wrote that an oligarchy divides-and-conquers the rest of us. I suspect that controlling the narrative is not simply a propaganda tool; it is the basis of divide-and-conquer strategy.

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/57499-there-is-no-right-v-left-it-is-trump-and-the-oligarchs-against-the-rest

robert e williamson jr , July 8, 2019 at 13:56

Is it possible that the DOJ, see the Sec. of Labor's problems developing with the Espstein case, is about to have it's gloriously corrupt underbelly rolled over into the sunlight? (you must roll the snake over to see its belly)

Please Ray tell me this is where we might be heading or instead will we end up with the courts truncating investigation because they say it will be best for the country not to have all this filthy laundry dragged out into the sunlight or someones bull shit sources and methods might be exposed. The DOJ has become a really bad joke!

I'm hoping you know something I don't because Barr's past history pretty much speaks for itself I'd say after be made sure he pardoned all of Bush 41 henchmen!

At this point I certainly do not have much faith in the DOJ doing the right thing. What Acosta did in Florida with Epstein was hardly the right thing to do.

They all need to be locked up.

Eric32 , July 8, 2019 at 13:33

Very little "punishment" will occur, and no deep change cleanup will occur.
The US govt. is controlled by money and blackmail – not "voting" or public outrage.

So many high level people have so much dirt on other high level people that nothing major will be done.
A series of very big events, including the JFK murder and the 9/11 charade went unexposed and undealt with – there is no reason to think that this medium size event will wind up making a big difference.

What will happen is that US "democracy" will continue on its downward course, but maybe with a better facade.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:59

I personally believe that the empire will crash when it hits maximum overreach it will also simultaneously go broke at the same time, as the money interests at that point Will probably move east, this will partially be due to both the feds tendency to over inflate in order to cover military acquisitions as well as the decline of swift and the ascendancy of China in the rest. I actually think that this is what some American factions desire, it is potentially good for all of us if we can regain a republic but it will mean the end of American hegemony.

Gary Weglarz , July 8, 2019 at 13:22

This is the same "deep state" that assassinated a sitting president, then proceeded to assassinate the next three most important and influential progressive leaders in the country all over a five year period. Problem solved. And just when you thought Allen Dulles didn't know what to do with all those oh so experienced Nazi war criminals he'd recruited to the CIA.

When Congress investigated the CIA in the mid-1970's (before Congress became completely "owned" by the deep state) right on cue witnesses began to "commit suicide" just before they would be scheduled to testify. Problem solved. Hardly a raised eyebrow from the always complicit MSM through all of this. Expecting anything more than a massive coverup of this latest deep state corruption and abuse is beyond my abilities to even effectively fantasize about.

herbert davis , July 8, 2019 at 14:12

Justice in the USA?

John Drake , July 8, 2019 at 13:20

The corporate Democrats strike out again. They run a corrupt, violent(war monger) candidate, who loses to a buffoon-an election which was hers to lose. Meanwhile trying to hedge their bets they play sleazeball with the investigative arm's authority in order to sabotage said buffoon; which as it is revealed gives ammunition and the advantage to their target. i.e. "They were illegally picking on me"
If Trump is smart-a very long stretch, but some advisor might suggest this- he will expose all this slime closer to the election for maximum effect. What a distressing thought. All the more reason to run a progressive Presidential candidate that can disavow the DNC clowns and their corruption.

geeyp , July 8, 2019 at 12:37

It's past time for the Deep State to come up from the deep state of hell in which they reside. At least to purgatory for some fresh air and a wee ray of light. I couldn't let the Schumer warning keep me from giving the go ahead on this. If my coconut is shattered, someone somewhere (not our current media) would have a clue as to what happened to me. Sic 'em, President Trump and A.G. and Devin Nunes!

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 12:14

The US needs to solve the underlying problem of corruption of secret agencies and judiciary, otherwise the political wrongdoing of one faction will only be matched by that of its opponents, regardless of a few prosecutions. I know from experience the extreme corruption of the Repubs, and little doubt that the Dems do such things at least when desperate.

The solution includes:
1. All secrets meaningfully shared among multiparty committees;
2. All politicians and top officials monitored for corrupt influence;
3. Entire federal judiciary fired, replaced, and monitored like the politicians; and
4. Amendments to protect elections and mass media from control by money power.
Until then all government acts are tribal gangsterism and little more.

Guy , July 8, 2019 at 13:50

You forgot about dual citizenship members of the senate and congress . Elected as a representative for the country of the US should mean just that and not another country . And while we are at it , major reform on monetary contributions to candidates running for re-election . There is something terribly wrong with needing millions if not billions of dollars to run the electoral races.There is much more that needs to be done but this would be a good start .

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:32

Yes, the proposed Amendments would restrict funding of mass media and elections to registered individual contributions (some prefer government funding) limited to the average day's pay annually (for example), with full reporting by candidates and all intermediaries. We all can see the destruction of democracy that was caused by economic power controlling elections, mass media, the judiciary, etc.

But of course we cannot get those amendments because those tools of democracy now belong to the rich, etc. History suggests that we are in for generations of severe decline before the people are hurting enough to turn off the tube and do something, and generations more before they can re-establish democracy.

Herman , July 8, 2019 at 15:20

Ray McGovern writes:"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge"

On the matter of government reform classification there is a great need of public discussion and radical reform. Why? Because the government is playing with an essential right, the right to know. All the red herrings needed to be thrown in the trash and the burden placed on the classifiers to justify why the public does not have a right to know.

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:24

Yes, the facts and their significance (especially about false flags and scandals) need to be publicly debated, as well as policy goals, and the policies derived from facts and goals. We have far too many government secrets to sustain a democracy.

I suggest limiting secrets to ongoing investigations (with a time limit), defensive military plans and operations (not alleged provocations or aggressive war schemes), and personal IDs of those at risk. Beyond that secrets disguise tyranny.

Ida G Millman , July 8, 2019 at 16:02

Another path towards a solution to government corruption could be term limits for all federal representatives. Limiting the number of terms would curtail the opportunities for forming the uninterrupted years of long coalitions between public servants and government officials that result in the abuses of power that have damaged the interests of ordinary less wealthy citizens, in favor of corporate and military interests.

In the matter of the original intentions of the men who wrote our founding documents, we should consider one of the enormous differences that technology has made between us: that our representatives can travel between DC and their homes with enough ease that they can continue reasonably, or nearly reasonably, satisfactory family lives – something that could not be done in the 18th century. The forefathers did not foresee that being a member of government would become a career for a lifetime. They assumed, I believe, that members of government would always be citizens who would give our country a few years of their lives and then return to private life to share their experience and knowledge with their neighbors.

Such a change would not magically reform government corruption. There will always be those who will find a way – but it could slow things down and it would certainly engage an increasing number of citizens who would participate in governing, as well as the circles of people surrounding each of them whose interest in and understanding of government would increase because everyone would know more of their representatives. Got that, kids? L&B&L

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:37

Term limits are useful and we should enact more. There seems to be a sufficient supply of puppets for the rich/WallSt/Mic/zionists to ensure that all new candidates represent only those interests, unless we go further and control funding of mass media and elections, monitoring of politicians and judges for life, etc.

Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:28

Ida,
Term limits wouldn't be necessary if money were out of elections and all elections were publicly funded. Next, a law should be passed to prevent retired congress people from lobbying for any private company of any kind. Then people wouldn't have to spend all their time in congress lining up money for the next election, nor would they owe favors to anyone.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:19

Sam F, all of those goals seem very nice but it would probably be better if we just dissolved back into 50 states save for an interstate system and a very small navy for common defense, maybe four nuclear submarines total, the American people will be best off without a government completely working it out for themselves, if some of them work it out in completely different ways without hurting each other so be it. Besides even a libertarians would have to acknowledge democracy best works for smaller populations. We may never be able to curb the will to power of evil men but we can diminish their abilities to fleece the public if we are not subject to them.

Jay , July 8, 2019 at 11:42

Peter King?

Really now.

Not a credible source, no matter how invention filled Russia-gate is. And no matter how clear it is that in 2016 the FBI was poking around campaign Trump and likely telling the White House what it found.

Bif Webster , July 8, 2019 at 13:28

I agree that King isn't the best of messengers, but we can also go to others who are not right-wing to see something fishy went on.

Those text messages convinced me something was going on. And that was before all the other stuff came to light.

I think this will be about who has more dirt on the other side you know, leverage?

Jeff Harrison , July 8, 2019 at 11:41

Thank you, Ray. Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would.

I don't see that as necessarily much of a plus.

Steven Berge , July 8, 2019 at 11:40

I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even before they made it legal.

Drew Hunkins , July 8, 2019 at 11:32

Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television.

Jill , July 8, 2019 at 11:15

This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused.

I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is lawless. It is a disaster.

Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior, and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc. recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders".

People won't speak to one another because of this division, all based on lies. Democrats want Assange put to death because he exposed truthful information about Clinton. Neighbor has turned against neighbor over this. We have stopped talking and stopped thinking about whether claims make sense or have evidence behind them. Political parties have become cults with cult leaders. Meanwhile, many who think it was wrong to use surveillance against Trump, accept mass surveillance against everyone else, including themselves.

This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more.

I cannot believe what Russiagate has done to our own people. I am terrified at the wars it has/may yet cause and the cruelty against others, both foreign and domestic, which it has wrought.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:51

What else would you call it, there have always been nefarious agents in one government or another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct interest of the American people, I'm not trying to be you over the head with this but Mr. McGovern was once upon a Time swimming in the same waters and he knows what he is talking about. The deep state maybe several different factions but all of it at least so far is fairly I'm Accountable, this thing must be named.

AnneR , July 8, 2019 at 14:18

First the Disclaimer: I'm not a supporter of either side of the one party two headed monster political machine, not of either HRC or DT, both, and their "parties," making me want to puke.

I am curious about the following: "He [DT] has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused."

While I have no doubt that DT has been responsible for civilian deaths (I am far less concerned about military deaths – join the military and you cannot expect not to have to chance it, particularly in a warmongering nation state; if the recruit doesn't recognize this reality, then they need to do some reading), *most* such deaths in those countries we (the US and its vassal states and proxies) have been happily bombing, shelling, destroying one way or another, even since the late 1980s (not therefore including the appalling and illegal warring on Vietnam et al) are down, not to DT, but rather to presidents: BC, GHB, GWB, BO. Pretty evenly divided betwixt the two heads, wouldn't you say?

That's not to excuse DT (and I wouldn't excuse HRC either – think Libya; as bad as MA, if with different forms of warfare; but then they're buddies, like attracting like).

We – the US – need to stop killing other peoples (let's cry for the war-making profiteers), stop destroying other countries (and for our corporate-capitalists who plunder them); need to mind our own "shop" and business. And stop pretending that we're such a wonderful, white-hatted, "good" nation.

Jill , July 8, 2019 at 15:15

AnneR,

We have had war criminal presidents from the legacy parties, period. Barr is a party to war crimes so I share other's doubts that he will do anything about actual justice. He may be in on the current winning side of the IC and they may be purging some enemies at this time. That is the only thing I see Barr being involved in.

Speaking as someone who has done counter-recruitment in schools, I will just give you my experience. Students are tracked from grade school. A file is kept on them with over a thousand data points. These files are taken by recruiters and used to "pitch" the military to young people. I don't know if you were sophisticated at 16. I was a little bit but not much. So here's an example–they told one young woman who had a single mother that if she went in the military she would not be a burden on her mother any longer. They understood the family had few resources and they played on this young woman's "guilt" over being a financial "drain" on her mother. No, recruiters do not tell the truth to those they meet. They lie and they lie very well because they have excellent information to help them tell the correct lies. That girl is dead and I mourn her death.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:05

AnneR, you have so much anger, I understand, it is terrible what our nation has done and is continuing to do, it has gone on so long that many of the people currently perpetrating the crimes against foreign populations are themselves of descendents of peoples the US has victimized. It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just it will to power.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:09

Jill that was an incredibly cogent description of the mess we are currently in, congratulations on such clarity, peace out.

David Otness , July 9, 2019 at 00:18

With you on all that you state, Jill. It's really exposed the U.S. population for what we unfortunately are, if not what we've become. So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold War. A stark education has just played out to this point. I wonder how many have learned anything at all from it?

[Jun 30, 2019] USG's Bizarre Change of Position in the Roger Stone Case by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Given these facts you would think it would be easy for Robert Mueller to explain how the Russians got their hands on the DNC emails and then passed them on to Wikileaks. But it is not easy because the foundation of the case against the Russians rests on assumptions and beliefs. No solid facts. ..."
"... To reiterate a point I have raised in previous posts, the only entity to have forensic access to the DNC computers, i.e. CrowdStrike, is on the record in the person of the CrowdStrike CEO, Dimitri Alperovitch admitting they don't know how the Russians got access. ..."
"... CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence ," Alperovitch said. ..."
"... If CrowdStrike actually had conducted a legitimate forensic examination of the DNC server/servers then they absolutely would have had "hard evidence." ..."
"... The government produced the CrowdStrike reports because the Indictment in this case referenced, as background, CrowdStrike's statements about the DNC hack. Stone's statement that the government has no other evidence is not only irrelevant to this proceeding but is also mistaken. ..."
"... It is a horrible irony that Stone is being persecuted with prosecution based on an even bigger lie -- i.e., the Russians hacked the DNC. Russia did not hack the DNC. Let's hope that Stone's lawyers get a chance to demand the US Government put up the evidence or shut up. ..."
Jun 30, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

There is zero forensic evidence in the public arena that supports the US Government's assertion that the Russian Government hacked the DNC. In fact, the forensic computer evidence that is available indicates that the emails from the DNC were downloaded onto something like a thumb drive.

There also is zero forensic evidence in the public arena that the Russians passed/delivered the DNC emails to Julian Assange/Wikileaks. There are only two ways to get DNC emails into the hands of Wiki people--an electronic transfer or a physical/human transfer. That's it.

And here is what we know for certain. First, since Edward Snowden absconded with the NSA's family jewels with the help of Wikileaks, U.S. and British intelligence assets have been monitoring every single electronic communication to and from Wikileaks/Julian Assange. They also have been conducting surveillance on all personal contacts with Assange and other key members of the Wikileaks staff.

Given these facts you would think it would be easy for Robert Mueller to explain how the Russians got their hands on the DNC emails and then passed them on to Wikileaks. But it is not easy because the foundation of the case against the Russians rests on assumptions and beliefs. No solid facts.

To reiterate a point I have raised in previous posts, the only entity to have forensic access to the DNC computers, i.e. CrowdStrike, is on the record in the person of the CrowdStrike CEO, Dimitri Alperovitch admitting they don't know how the Russians got access. Alperovitch told Washington Post Reporter Ellen Nakashima on June 14, 2016 the following :

CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence ," Alperovitch said.

If CrowdStrike actually had conducted a legitimate forensic examination of the DNC server/servers then they absolutely would have had "hard evidence."

Then, 13 months later, we have FBI Director Jim Comey admitting that the FBI relied on CrowdStrike for its "evidence." Jim Comey testified to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017 and stated the following :

"we never got direct access to the machines themselves. The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system."

Now take a look at a very significant reversal of the US Government's position in the case against Roger Stone. On 20 June 2019, US Attorney Jessie Liu filed a motion attempting to rebut the argument presented by Stone's attorneys that there was no supporting evidence for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC. Here are the key snippets from her filing:

As the government has argued (Doc. 122, at 6, 9, 14), Russia's role in the DNC hack is not material to the eighteen findings of probable cause that Stone appears to be challenging. . . . The government produced the CrowdStrike reports because the Indictment in this case referenced, as background, CrowdStrike's statements about the DNC hack. Stone's statement that the government has no other evidence is not only irrelevant to this proceeding but is also mistaken.

Yet, when you read the original indictment, Roger Stone was put in the cross hairs because he was allegedly communicating with Wikileaks/Julian Assange about the DNC emails. And those emails are identified in the indictment as "stolen." The Government is hoping to nail Stone on the charge of "lying" to Congress. Good luck with that.

It is a horrible irony that Stone is being persecuted with prosecution based on an even bigger lie -- i.e., the Russians hacked the DNC. Russia did not hack the DNC. Let's hope that Stone's lawyers get a chance to demand the US Government put up the evidence or shut up.

[Jun 28, 2019] Joining Some Dots on the Skripal Case Part 6

It is possible that Skripal was a source of some information in Steele dossier
Notable quotes:
"... Another corroboration was the Trump Tower meeting: ostensibly set up by Trump linked Araz Agalarov could verify the piss taking allegations. It's well worth revisiting the Elizabeth Vos Disobedient Media article for background on this meeting set up Mifsud et al: who are linked to London – not Moscow. ..."
"... "Genuine" in the sense that it was really written by a KGB insider (which Skripal was), NOT in the sense that what he alleged was true. The point is that the source of the Steele-Clinton dossier would have been revealed and, of course, the source would have been a proven consummate liar and traitor. This would blow Mueller's "investigation" out of the water. ..."
"... As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference. The report includes Putin's inner circle – Peskov, Ivanov, Sechin, Lavrov. The anonymous author claims to have "trusted compatriots" who knew the roles that each Kremlin insider, including Putin himself, played in the Trump election saga and were prepared to tell him. ..."
"... Sergei Skripal could fit the description of the "Russian" referred to in the third paragraph. ..."
Jul 11, 2018 | off-guardian.org

BigB

The main corroboration for the Steele Dossier was Christopher Steele: briefing the press at the Tabard Inn, Washington – to set up a collaboration loop. Julian Assange tweeted that one of the journalists was Paul Wood who looks like a spook or an asset himself.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/976943588394323973

Another journalists was Michael Isikoff. His planted story war used to collaborate the Dossier as the basis of the FBI's FISA warrant to surveill Carter Page.

The Nunes Memo also states that Steele back-chanelled additional allegations into the DOJ via Bruce Ohr.

Another corroboration was the Trump Tower meeting: ostensibly set up by Trump linked Araz Agalarov could verify the piss taking allegations. It's well worth revisiting the Elizabeth Vos Disobedient Media article for background on this meeting set up Mifsud et al: who are linked to London – not Moscow.

https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/04/all-russiagate-roads-lead-to-london-as-evidence-emerges-of-joseph-mifsuds-links-to-uk-intelligence/

Anyway, all these "experts" – and Wikipedia – seem to have got their information from one source – Steele: who both wrote and then corroborated his own dossier. With a little help from his intel friends

Einstein
"Genuine" in the sense that it was really written by a KGB insider (which Skripal was), NOT in the sense that what he alleged was true. The point is that the source of the Steele-Clinton dossier would have been revealed and, of course, the source would have been a proven consummate liar and traitor. This would blow Mueller's "investigation" out of the water.

But I'll not engage with you any further on this, since there's none so blind as those who will not see.

Thomas Peterson
why exactly does it seem likely Skripal was one of Steele's sources? did Steele even need any sources to write his ludicrous 'dossier'?
Jen
Paul Roderick Gregory who has followed Soviet and Russian politics professionally for several decades has this to say about the Steele dossier:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/#5a2c34e06867

The Orbis report makes as if it knows all the ins-and-outs and comings-and-goings within Putin's impenetrable Kremlin. It reports information from anonymous "trusted compatriots," "knowledgeable sources," "former intelligence officers," and "ministry of foreign affairs officials." The report gives a fly-on-the-wall account of just about every conceivable event associated with Donald Trump's Russian connections. It claims to know more than is knowable as it recounts sordid tales of prostitutes, "golden showers," bribes, squabbles in Putin's inner circle, and who controls the dossiers of kompromat (compromising information).

There are two possible explanations for the fly-on-the-wall claims of the Orbis report: Either its author (who is not Mr. Steele) decided to write fiction, or collected enough gossip to fill a 30-page report, or a combination of the two. The author of the Orbis report has one more advantage: He knew that what he was writing was unverifiable. He advertises himself as the only Kremlin outsider with enough "reliable" contacts to explain what is really going within Putin's office.

As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference. The report includes Putin's inner circle – Peskov, Ivanov, Sechin, Lavrov. The anonymous author claims to have "trusted compatriots" who knew the roles that each Kremlin insider, including Putin himself, played in the Trump election saga and were prepared to tell him.

The Orbis report spins the tale of Putin insiders, spurred on by Putin himself, engaging in a five-year courtship of Donald Trump in which they offer him lucrative real estate deals that he rejects but leaves himself open to blackmail as a result of sexual escapades with prostitutes in St. Petersburg and Moscow (the famous "golden shower" incident). Despite his reluctance to enter into lucrative business deals, Trump "and his inner circle have accepted regular intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals," according to the Orbis report.

This story makes no sense. In 2011, when the courtship purportedly begins, Trump was a TV personality and beauty pageant impresario. Neither in the U.S. or Russia would anyone of authority anticipate that Trump would one day become the presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, making him the target of Russian intelligence.

Sergei Skripal could fit the description of the "Russian" referred to in the third paragraph.

[Jun 26, 2019] Guardian Working for UK Intel Services MI6 Tool Publishes Black Propaganda

Notable quotes:
"... Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. ..."
Jun 24, 2018 | sputniknews.com

On September 21, The Guardian ran an absolutely sensational exclusive, based on disclosures made by "multiple" anonymous sources to Luke Harding, one of the paper's leading journalists - in 2017, Russian diplomats allegedly held secret talks in London with associates of Assange, in an attempt to assist in the Wikileaks founder's escape from the UK.

The dastardly conspiracy would've entailed Assange being smuggled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge under cover of Christmas Eve in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to Russia, where he'd be safe from extradition to the US, ending his eight-years of effective arbitrary detention in the process.

In any event, the audacious plot was eventually aborted after being deemed "too risky" -- even for the reckless daredevils of Moscow -- mere days before its planned execution date.

Rommy Vallejo, head of Ecuador's intelligence agency, is said to have travelled to the UK around December 15 to supervise the operation, and left when it was called off.

'Extraordinary, Deliberate Lies'

The Russian Embassy in London was quick to condemn the article on Twitter, calling the claims "another example of disinformation and fake news" in the UK mainstream media, and noting the paper violated national media standards by failing to ask the Russian side for a comment prior to the report's release. "This publication has nothing to do with the reality. The Embassy has never engaged with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions of any kind on Russia's participation in ending Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador.

We're puzzled by the sensational attitude of the authors. As recently as September 18, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright called for increased efforts to combat media and online disinformation. [The] Guardian piece is a brilliant example of the kind of journalism British reader should be protected from," a spokesperson added in an official statement. In a subsequent statement , the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the article for containing a "whole series of similar anti-Russia innuendos, and once again made clear Russian diplomats did not contact staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London or Assange's associates in order to assist in his escape from the UK.

However, a far more damning indictment of the article's extraordinary, evidence-free claims was provided by Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who denounced the "quite extraordinary set of deliberate lies" in a September 23 blog post. In doing so, he revealed he and Fidel Narvaez -- a close confidant of Assange fingered as the key point of contact between the Ecuadorian embassy and Moscow in the article -- had engaged in discussions with Assange in 2017 regarding a possible departure from the UK capital, and debated possible future destinations for the embattled Wikileaks founder.

As of today -- start of the 73rd UN General Assembly -- 957 days have passed since the UN ruled Julian Assange is unlawfully & arbitrarily detained by the UK authorities and must be released & compensated. https://t.co/zZGUOhNDvH #FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/i08Ji9WF1g -- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 18, 2018
​"It's not only the case Russia didn't figure in those plans, Julian directly ruled out the possibility of going to Russia. I know 100% for certain the entire story is a complete and utter fabrication. I cannot find words enough to express the depth of my contempt for Harding and [Editor] Katherine Viner, who've betrayed completely the values of journalism. The aim of the piece is evidently to add a further layer to the fake news of Wikileaks' non-existent relationship to Russia as part of the "Hillary didn't really lose" narrative. I am, frankly, rather shocked," Murray wrote .

Friends in Spooky Places

The identities of Harding's alleged anonymous sources aren't even hinted at in the article, but Murray made a striking suggestion -- he "strongly suspect[ed]" that "MI6 tool" Harding's informants were the UK security services. If true, this would make the article "entirely black propaganda" produced by British spies. Whether MI6 agents are the source of the story or not, it's certainly true Harding enjoys a very close relationship indeed with British intelligence services -- a bond he has frequently, openly and proudly advertised in articles and books.

For instance, in his highly controversial 2017 book Collusion, Harding argued Donald Trump had a relationship with the Russian 'deep state' dating back to the 1980s, and colluded with the Kremlin to subvert US democracy. To support this conclusion, he frequently cited claims fed to him directly by Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 spy turned 'business intelligence' professional, who authored the utterly discredited 'Trump-Russia' dossier for Fusion GPS.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Ikf1uZli4g

When challenged to provide any evidence whatsoever for his book's assertions by Aaron Mate of The Real News, Harding was left mumbling and stuttering -- he was also unable to defend his claim that an individual's use of an emoji was proof they were working for Russian intelligence, and terminated the interview prematurely.

Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. Individuals who conducted internet searches for Miller afterwards quickly found his LinkedIn profile, which identified him as a 'Senior Analyst' at Orbis Intelligence -- Steele's corporate espionage company.-

It is true, or was. As I say, this 2017 forum thread, which links to Pablo Miller's LinkedIn profile, states Orbis is listed on Miller's CV -- https://t.co/Fx0vu1qorJ . Stop regurgitating anonymous claims by your spook pals and do some research, Luke -- Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg) March 12, 2018
​Miller's page was quickly deleted though, and Harding took to Twitter to issue firm denials of a connection between Miller and the firm, going so far as to suggest "someone" was using search engine optimization techniques to dishonestly associate Miller and Orbis. However, enterprising Sputnik journalist Kit Klarenberg quickly and easily found an online forum thread dating from 2017 clearly identifying Miller as an Orbis employee -- as of September, Harding is yet to respond, or retract his claims.
Related:
Freudian Slip: Did Guardian Urge Two Tech Giants to 'Promote Hate and Division'?
Russian Embassy on The Guardian Article: 'Great Foreign Policy Planning'
The Guardian's Attempt to Save the White Helmets
UK Broadcasters to Be Urged to Face Up to 'Russian Propaganda' - Reports

[Jun 24, 2019] It would all be very funny if it weren't so depressing. I can understand Hollywood actors doing this -- after all, these people excel at reading from a script for money. But Stephen King? I thought he was somewhat of an intellectual. Apparently not. Or perhaps he's buddies with CIA shill Reiner. Who knows.

Notable quotes:
"... Rob Reiner (backed by David Frum, Max Boot, James Clapper and their absolutely-not-xenophobic-sounding "Committee to Investigate Russia") continues to use Hollywood celebrities to spread the Trump Derangement Syndrome. First it was Morgan Freeman. Didn't go over too well. Even the "liberals" hated it. Now it's Robert De Niro, Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Stephen King, George Takei, and a few lesser known actors. ..."
"... Woah! Stop right there! The "Trump adviser" is George Papadopoulos -- that is clear from the video sequence. So the "Russian operative" they're talking about is none other than Joseph Mifsud. ..."
"... So how can it be that Joseph Mifsud is now a "Russian operative"? Well, look no further than his Wikipedia page. You see, he visited Valdai Discussion Club annual conference once or twice. Apparently, that's all it takes nowadays to become a Russian-linked Russian operative with close connections to Russia. ..."
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

S , Jun 23, 2019 10:12:29 PM | 167

Rob Reiner (backed by David Frum, Max Boot, James Clapper and their absolutely-not-xenophobic-sounding "Committee to Investigate Russia") continues to use Hollywood celebrities to spread the Trump Derangement Syndrome. First it was Morgan Freeman. Didn't go over too well. Even the "liberals" hated it. Now it's Robert De Niro, Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Stephen King, George Takei, and a few lesser known actors. Here's an excerpt:
Stephen King: Here are some other specific examples from the Mueller report.

Sophia Bush: One: in the Spring of 2016, a Russian operative told a Trump adviser that the Russian government had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.

Jonathan Van Ness: The adviser then worked to arrange a meeting between the campaign and the Russian government.

Laurence Fishburne: That's collusion.

Woah! Stop right there! The "Trump adviser" is George Papadopoulos -- that is clear from the video sequence. So the "Russian operative" they're talking about is none other than Joseph Mifsud. Here's Papadopoulos himself talking about Mifsud in an April 16, 2019 interview with Michael Tracey:

George Papadopoulos: He remains an enigma to this day and no one could track him down, but I've been told recently he's not dead, so there's some improvements.

Michael Tracey: Right, we should say I mean, he was rumored to have been deceased at a certain point, right?

George Papadopoulos: That's right.

Michael Tracey: And now it appears he might be living under an assumed name [?] but nobody's heard from him quite a while.

George Papadopoulos: Well, the only in-public statements that he's made were two. One, he gave an interview -- a bizarre interview -- to the Italian media the day my name was released and he said he's never heard of "Putin's niece" and "George is probably talking about some girl that he was trying to have a romantic relationship with" (and we could get into that aspect of my relationship with Joseph Mifsud). And also he his lawyer, this man named Stephan Roh, who's a prominent Swiss attorney, has gone public numerous times and stated that Joseph Mifsud was no Russian asset, but he was a Western intelligence operative, and he was working under the guidance of the FBI when he was interacting with Papadopoulos. He said this on CNN during a one-hour short documentary that CNN had about my life, and he's given interviews subsequently to The Daily Caller , where he suggested the same exact thing.

Now, anybody who's been following my case and who could just simply google Joseph Mifsud can also see that: Joseph Mifsud, of course, was dealing with MI6 figures at the highest level; three months after I notified the FBI that he could be potentially a Russian asset, he was in Saudi Arabia on a panel with Ash Carter, who was the former defense secretary under Obama; and around the time [?] my name was released in October of 2017, he was photographed in The Guardian attending private parties with Boris Johnson, who just happened to be the Secretary of State of the UK. So, unless the Russians, basically, infiltrated the upper echelons of the U.S. and UK security establishment, then Mifsud was no Russian agent, and he's, in my opinion, and what everybody now who is objective believes is that he was actually an operative working on behalf of the West to, basically, entrap me with this unsolicited information regarding Hillary Clinton and her emails, and that's why he's gone underground, and he's living somewhere in Italy, I've been told, and he's actually on the payroll of Italian intelligence -- that's what I've been told recently. So, it's a very bizarre story, but I can try and go step-by-step and explain my entire encounters with him, and what we know now about him.

And he does indeed go step-by-step and describe his encounters with Mifsud in the full two-hour interview (continue from 15:14). And of course after Mifsud told Papadopoulos during their last meeting that "the Russians have Hillary Clinton's emails", no attempt was made by Papadopoulos to "arrange a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government". In fact, Papadopoulos was scared and confused as it was right after that meeting that his life went very bizarre.

So how can it be that Joseph Mifsud is now a "Russian operative"? Well, look no further than his Wikipedia page. You see, he visited Valdai Discussion Club annual conference once or twice. Apparently, that's all it takes nowadays to become a Russian-linked Russian operative with close connections to Russia.

It would all be very funny if it weren't so depressing. I can understand Hollywood actors doing this -- after all, these people excel at reading from a script for money. But Stephen King? I thought he was somewhat of an intellectual. Apparently not. Or perhaps he's buddies with CIA shill Reiner. Who knows.

[Jun 20, 2019] FBI Never Saw CrowdStrike Unredacted or Final Report on Alleged Russian Hacking Because None was Produced – Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... Yes, but in this particular witch hunt there were no "blind assumptions", as the process was agenda driven from the get-go. The task: Keep/Get Trump out of the White House by any means possible, blame the Russians, divert attention away from the leaked documents, and while you're at it, bury all the crime scene evidence we left lying around because we were so sure Hillary was going to be president. ..."
"... "In total, the amount of new controversies specifically exposed by Guccifer2.0's actions – was very little. The documents he posted online were a mixture of some from the public domain (eg. already been published by OpenSecrets.org in 2009), were manipulated copies of research documents originally created by Lauren Dillon (see attachments) and others or were legitimate, unique documents that were of little significant damage to the DNC. (Such as the DCCC documents) ..."
"... Of particular importance in this regard are the Forensicator's brilliant deductions that G2.0 has at various times been working in time zones corresponding to the US East Coast, West Coast, and Central Zone. (I note that Crowdstrike has facilities in Sunnyvale, CA, St.Louis and Minneapolis – and that the DNC servers are of course on the East Coast.) These findings are complementary to – and in my judgment, more compellingly definitive in dismissing the notion that G2.0 is Russian – than the discoveries highlighted by Bill Binney pointing to transferals by G2.0 and the source of the DNC Wikileaks emails passing through thumbdrives. ..."
"... You emphasize the important fact that G2.0 himself – supposedly a Russian hacker bent on destroying Hillary – posted nothing truly harmful to Hillary's campaign. ..."
"... Adam's linguistic analyses – endorsed by a professor who is expert in this regard – indicate that G2.0 has done a very poor and inconsistent job of mimicking the grammatical errors one would expect from a native Russian speaker communicating in English. ..."
Jun 20, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Eric32 , June 19, 2019 at 16:04

I don't think this all that hard to understand.

1) The available metadata on the email files showing Hillary/Democrat election corruption that Wikileaks received indicates an in-office leak (maybe copying to a USB thumb drive drive), not an internet hack. That's what Binney is talking about, and he points out that as such, there is no EVIDENCE of Russian intelligence passing the email files showing Hillary/Demo party election corruption to Wikileaks.
Therefore, there is no EVIDENCE of Russia and evil Putin doing this "act of war on the US", as numerous media and politicized fools have claimed.
In normal human dealings, EVIDENCE, not just an accusation, is required before making judgments of guilt and invoking punishments.

2) If that metadata on the subject email files was faked to make it look like an in-office leak (by the Russians), then the FBI could request that NSA make available its data on hacked internet trace routes of packets of data from DNC servers to Russia, then show internet trace routes of packets of data from Russia to Wikileaks.
But apparently, Comey's FBI "investigation" didn't want to do that.

3) The subject DNC computer(s) were never turned over to the FBI. The first thing done in most investigations nowadays by local police, Federal authorities etc., is to seize relevant computers or any other comm. devices for forensic analysis.
No valid FBI investigation dealing with matters of national security, election hacking, validity of the election of a President, would hand off the computer forensics analysis to a company paid by and subject to retaliation by an entity (the Clinton machine, Democrat party) with a huge political stake in the results of the investigation, as was done in this "investigation".

4) The FBI wants leverage over the people they interview in criminal investigations – they have had enormous leverage over Assange, but they never interviewed Assange, who knew how the emails came into Wikileak's hands. They never interviewed Craig Murray, who says he knows a lot of what went on in the matter.

5) Hillary Clinton, the Democrat party, the FBI, the CIA had roles in paying British intelligence agent Steele (and others?), generate a fake dossier about Trump having Russian prostitues urinate on a bed the Obamas had used during a visit Russia, and depravely rolling around in it.
Top level FBI people used that fake dossier to get a FISA court judge to issue surrveilance warrants on Trump campaign/administration personnel in order to spy on them in hope of getting incriminating evidence. Among other things, that's a felony – that is, unless we live in a degenerated police state. That dossier was also leaked to the information media, which then widely gave it wide airing.

6) The attempted destruction of George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, by assorted intelligence operatives and the FBI, brings things down to an individual level.
Papadopoulos has been doing some interesting interviews. Here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggNWpNZJjNg

hetro , June 19, 2019 at 20:21

Thank you for this:

We have Comey, close to the Crowdstrike chief forensics man (ex-FBI), we have Brennan pushing the Steele Dossier as THE evidence. And we have Mueller using these as main sources while being highly selective with witnesses. And we have FBI agents with Russian origin/double agents working people like Papadoupolis. Given Mueller must have known it was all going nowhere two years ago why the delay? Well, for one thing that delay certainly assisted brainwashing the American public into this hoax.

Bill , June 19, 2019 at 02:59

It looks like Mueller used the Crowdstrike report and just assumed it to be true.

John , June 19, 2019 at 14:57

The crowdstrike report was reviewer and verified by many IT security firms, and their conclusions were collaborated by the CIA, NSA, and every other national security agency in the country. What reason would he have had to doubt it?

Skip Scott , June 20, 2019 at 08:30

You're still trying to sell the "17 agencies" lie too? Unbelievable.

CitizenOne , June 19, 2019 at 01:11

Yup. In the game of disinformation what single characteristic of electronic documents would purveyors of disinformation make sure they did? Would it be to make sure they spell checked the document? Perhaps but more importantly they would be concerned about the ability to test the document by exploring the metadata. In fact since metadata is seldom questioned and is used as evidence for a documents origin it would naturally be a chief concern of the purveyors of disinformation. To not care about it would be the same possible misstep of a person that used a gun in some capacity which required forensic analysis of the weapon to determine who fired it.

Since everybody and their grandma knows that law enforcement looks for fingerprints on the recovered weapon there is generally not anybody who commits an illegal act with a gun who also does not scrupulously wipe down the weapon so it is sure to be free of any fingerprints. The actual occurrence of finding fingerprints on a weapon used in a crime is extremely low approaching zero.

The reason is everybody knows they have to wipe off the gun after firing it to remove their fingerprints. It is the same with metadata which are the electronic fingerprints on a document. Before publishing a document to be attributed to another party everybody knows that the metadata must be dealt with to pull off the con job. To leave this step out is the same thing as leaving ones fingerprints all over the document. Thus it would be a priority in any protocol to deal with this problem and I am sure there are folks in the government intelligence agencies that are skilled at manipulating the metadata on a bit by bit level to wipe off the real origin and to place fake electronic "fingerprints" on the document in order to attribute it to some other author or source.

Any investigation that concludes that a document comes from one source versus another based on metadata overlooks the similar capacity of a man with a gun that shoots another man killing him and then wipes off his fingerprints from the weapon, places the gun in the hands of the victim and claims after a "careful investigation" that the death was a suicide based on the fingerprints found on the gun.

Knowing this is possible the conclusions based on the metadata either assume that the author was an ignorant idiot lacking even the most basic understanding of criminal investigations not even knowing that the electronic fingerprints would get them in trouble or vastly more likely would have known such basic information about how electronic documents are tagged and would do their best to hide the truth by messing with the little ones and zeroes in the document to hide their involvement. They would even likely try to frame the victim as the perpetrator.

We call these situations kangaroo trials or witch hunts. They ignore the plausible reasons for the observed facts and just railroad the process with blind assumptions that the evidence presented is factual like believing a child that accuses the defendant "the bad witch" who cast a spell on her instead of looking at the possible ability and motives of the child to lie and then place appropriate weight on what are essentially unprovable accusations for what they are; impossible to prove.

Maxwell Quest , June 19, 2019 at 13:28

Yes, but in this particular witch hunt there were no "blind assumptions", as the process was agenda driven from the get-go. The task: Keep/Get Trump out of the White House by any means possible, blame the Russians, divert attention away from the leaked documents, and while you're at it, bury all the crime scene evidence we left lying around because we were so sure Hillary was going to be president.

Just like the evening news, this requires the expertise of keeping any facts which do not support your goals safely locked away, while others are manipulated or created out of thin air.

Curious , June 19, 2019 at 00:38

I am no fan of Mr Stone, but I wonder if his attorneys have the authority as a defense, to bring in Crowdstrike personnel and talk about their funding (I can hear the judge say 'inadmissible) and their full unredacted report. To whom did they give their research? Are the FBI that stupid or are they part of the plan?

While they are at it, bring in William Binney as a witness to talk about hacking in general, and the DNC servers in specific. Bring in Guccifer 2.0 himself as a witness, what the heck. Have a witness clarify on the record the very people Mueller never interviewed and make some very valid points as to why he didn't.

If Mr Stone wanted to spend some of his ill-gotten gains by blowing this ruse wide open I'm for it. He would probably recoup a lot of his money on a GoFundMe account if he did it correctly.

Of course he is against a corrupt judge who probably will not let it get that far, but why not try?

hetro , June 18, 2019 at 15:36

Many thanks to Ray's persistence; plus to Norumbega and Mark McCarty in comments below.

Particularly important (updated June 9, 2019), thanks for this link Mark McCarty!

http://g-2.space/

As to the puzzle of Guccifer 2.0 as false GRU hacker revealing damaging info on Clinton (a seeming inconsistency) I found the following (from the link just sited) helpful:

"In total, the amount of new controversies specifically exposed by Guccifer2.0's actions – was very little.
The documents he posted online were a mixture of some from the public domain (eg. already been published by OpenSecrets.org in 2009), were manipulated copies of research documents originally created by Lauren Dillon (see attachments) and others or were legitimate, unique documents that were of little significant damage to the DNC. (Such as the DCCC documents)

"The DCCC documents didn't reveal anything particularly damaging. It did include a list of fundraisers/bundlers but that wasn't likely to cause controversy (the fundraising totals, etc. are likely to end up on sites like OpenSecrets, etc within a year anyway). – It did however trigger 4chan to investigate and a correlation was found between the DNC's best performing bundlers and ambassadorships. – This revelation though, is to be credited to 4chan. – The leaked financial data wasn't, in itself, damaging – and some of the key data will be disclosed publicly in future anyway.

"All of his 'leaks' have been over-hyped non-controversies or were already in the public domain – the only exception being the apparent leaking of personal contact numbers and email addresses of 200 Democrats – and really that was more damaging to the reputation of Wikileaks than causing any real problems for Democrats. – Ultimately, it only really served to give the mainstream press the opportunity to announce that 'leaked emails include personal details of 200 Democrats', again, seemingly an effort to undermine other leaks being released at the same time by legitimate leak publishers."

Mark McCarty , June 18, 2019 at 18:32

Thanks for drawing further attention to Adam Carter's work and wonderful website – he has done a really heroic job of cataloging multiple lines of evidence pointing to Guccifer 2.0 being the furthest thing from a GRU hacker.

Of particular importance in this regard are the Forensicator's brilliant deductions that G2.0 has at various times been working in time zones corresponding to the US East Coast, West Coast, and Central Zone. (I note that Crowdstrike has facilities in Sunnyvale, CA, St.Louis and Minneapolis – and that the DNC servers are of course on the East Coast.) These findings are complementary to – and in my judgment, more compellingly definitive in dismissing the notion that G2.0 is Russian – than the discoveries highlighted by Bill Binney pointing to transferals by G2.0 and the source of the DNC Wikileaks emails passing through thumbdrives.

You emphasize the important fact that G2.0 himself – supposedly a Russian hacker bent on destroying Hillary – posted nothing truly harmful to Hillary's campaign.

Adam's linguistic analyses – endorsed by a professor who is expert in this regard – indicate that G2.0 has done a very poor and inconsistent job of mimicking the grammatical errors one would expect from a native Russian speaker communicating in English.

Adams' website also includes the Forensicator's discoveries showing that G2.0 intentionally placed "Russian fingerprints" in the meta-data of some of his postings. Beyond all this, if a GRU hacker were responsible for the Wikileaks releases, why on earth would he emerge publicly to brag about his exploit while intentionally leaving clues of his Russian origin? Would the GRU employ total nutcases?! Whereas G2.0's behavior makes perfect sense if his intention was to falsely incriminate Russia as the source of the Wikileaks releases.

I have to confess that I have little expertise in computer science, and hence would be susceptible to being bamboozled in this regard by propagandists. It's therefore important to note that I have gained the impression that both Adam Carter and Forensicator are functioning as honest scientific analysts, ready and indeed eager to disavow any of their previous conclusions when they realize they have erred. Intellectual integrity is a very valuable commodity, and my sad observation over the last several years is that it is far, far rarer than intelligence. So I commend Adam's website to those who seek an in-depth understanding on these matters, and are willing to cope with a measure of technical complexity.

John , June 19, 2019 at 00:42

Adam Carter and Foresnicator are frauds.
– "Forensicator" and Adam carter are both fake ID's created by created by a right-wing activist named Tim Leonard with a long history of working on disinformation campaigns.
– The "analysis" he did was gobbledygook to any seasoned IT engineer: Presumption of use of methods, tools and techniques nobody actually uses; essential variables glossed over, etc.
– The data file he "analyzed" was fabricated after the fact
– its creator also posted instructions on how to use it to "prove it wasn't a hack".
– The website where Leonard got the file from was managed by the GRU.

hetro , June 19, 2019 at 12:32

I would be very interested in following you information on this matter, so no need to hesitate longer on presenting whatever it is you have with the details we need to evaluate what you're saying, including links to authoritative sources. And–just a suggestion–leaving off the name-calling and overall emotional presentation you're offering would be a tad more persuasive. At this point, sorry to say, your arguments are thin and unconvincing.

Adam Carter , June 20, 2019 at 08:04

You're citing debunked bullshit invented by Duncan Campbell.

1. I'm left-libertarian, not right-wing.
2. Foreniscator is an American, I am a Brit. Although I write for a US audience, British spellings do sometimes slip into my articles. This doesn't happen in Foreniscator's work. An objective analysis of corpuses of both our work will make clear we're separate people.
3. Campbell is yet to actually debunk Forensicator's work as where Forensicator has debunked Campbell's "Forensicator Fraud" conspiracy theory and just recently dismantled Campbell's "Timestamp Tampering" technical theory too.
4. The NGP-VAN archive has long been available as a torrent (since the time the files were announced/released at a security conference in London), you're reference to "fabricated" here can only relate to Guccifer 2.0's releasing that evidence (though Campbell does try to engage in wordplay to mislead readers into thinking Forensicator or I may have fabricated something and even distorts Binney's testimony to try to make it look like Binney was accusing me of that – it's not true and, thankfully, Binney has cleared this up in an interview for anyone interested in reality.)
5. I got my copy of the NGP-VAN archive from a torrent posted to PirateBay, I don't think the GRU operate TPB.

For full details on how Campbell's nonsense has fallen to pieces, see: http://d3f.uk/duncan-campbell.html

hetro , June 19, 2019 at 15:39

Yes, it is saddening to see the intellectual integrity you speak of disappearing. In this respect I would like to acknowledge one more commenter below, deep in this thread–Eric32.

Seems to me Eric's statement here pierces the façade we've been discussing very well:

"No valid FBI investigation dealing with matters of national security, election hacking, validity of election of a President, would hand off the computer forensics analysis to a company paid by and subject to retaliation by the entity (the Democrat party) with a huge political stake in the results of the investigation."

geeyp , June 18, 2019 at 19:36

hetro – I just got to this material. Does any of it mention what happened to the man who was originally arrested as Guccifer 1.0?

hetro , June 19, 2019 at 12:33

It's my understanding that the original "Guccifer"–at just that, Guccifer, there is no 1.0 on it–, a Romanian, has been in jail for several years and is about to be released, or perhaps has been released. Someone may know.

As an aside (for some amusement only) I can't help noticing in studying this site indications the impersonator G2 was behaving a lot like David Atlee Philips, for those of you who have been looking into the JFK murder, and realize the significance of that name. Philips was fond of theatrics, as was G2 here according to the info on the site. This might suggest CIA creativity in play for this persona.

Again the site is:

http://g-2.space/

geeyp , June 20, 2019 at 00:15

hetro – Yes, I know there is no 1.0 on the original Guccifer's name. I only put it that way to make clear the individual I was timelining (look, I also just made up a new word).

geeyp , June 20, 2019 at 00:19

And ahh, yes. David Atlee Philips. A name that I recall quite well. I started my research into the JFK assassination in 1966.

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 15:15

The many excellent, informed and very educational, comments on this thread are much appreciated.

Reasoned, comprehensive, and thorough comments, fashioned by articulate, considerate commenters are stellar hallmarks of this site.

My deepest respect to all who contribute to maintaining such standards.

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 16:15

Especially, I thank, Adam Carter, Mark McCarty, and Norumbega for the education and insights you have provided on this thread and through other links.

Ray McGovern , June 18, 2019 at 21:06

Thanks, DW Bartoo.

And I add my thanks to what you have just expressed for the excellent, data-filled comments appearing under my article. I find the comments rich and instructive and, not for the first time, have learned a lot from them. Even most of the technical info comes through loud and clear to what Bill Binney calls, with sympathy, a "history major."

Dare I express -- again -- my frustration that we cannot get this story into any media that most folks access for their "news" about what's going on. Clearly, there are a lot of smart, knowledgeable people commenting here. Are none of us smart enough to figure out a way to get this story up and out?

I mean, DOJ, in an official Court filing, has just soaked James Comey in deep kimchi; THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THE RUSSIANS HACKED THE DNC. And we can't get that info out? Forgive me, but I fear the fault may not be so much in the stars, as in ourselves.

Let's address this key challenge like right here.

Ray

DW Bartoo , June 19, 2019 at 08:03

Ray, I read your response to my comment rather late last evening, well after eleven, and decided that although I quite agree with you, that the fault may very well be in ourselves and not our stars, that I ought sleep on it.

Odd as this may seem, for well over a decade, I have been chastising myself for having failed in the task I set for myself some sixty years ago.

I have long held it my responsibility to encourage people to think, not what to think or even how, but why, as human beings, living a finite life, on a planet that, for our purposes is paradise, we must engage in thought and consideration, not occasionally, not simply while in school or at work, but as our fundamental expression of consciousness.

Many of us, of a certain age have witnessed the harm our species may inflict upon the air, the water, the very soil around us.

Yet many are unable or unwilling to consider the the inner terrain may be as readily savaged, as callously ignored, as superficially dismissed as extraneous, as some internal "externality", if the thrust of society is dominance, unfettered acquisition, and narcissistic egoism.

Yes, you are absolutely correct, the current "narrative" that Russian hordes, genetically warped and mindlessly indifferent to all that is good, noble, and exceptional, have wrest "control" away from our natural betters, have infiltrated the empty minds of the deplorable, susceptible many, and hijacked the throne away from the anointed one, has led to a plethora of outrageous consequences.

Clearly, to some of us, this is obviously absurdity, but to those whose paychecks depend upon maintaining the tottering status quo, of Full Spectrum Dominance, over all aspects of life and especially over the thought processes of the many, this canard is as necessary as breathing if they are to go on with the comforts and perks of life they have come to depend upon, not merely for bodily well-being, but as proof that they are special, that they deserve to rule and lord it over the many.

So pervasive is this "sensibility", so deliberately inculcated is this sense of righteousness, this "right" to dominate and control,that it is nothing less than pathological.

That means that the larger narratives are shaped by a media owned by a handful of corporations, not just in the U$, but over much of the world, even as corporations, again a small and shrinking number, "own" and control governments, including the legal systems of those governments, readily control institutions of higher learning and so on.

Corporations control the voting systems of our pretend democracy making mock of the very notion of democracy itself, permitting a rising chorus to sing that the very idea of democracy is foolish.

In other words, our culture, our very language is being used to circumscribe thought, to delimit imagination and the formation of new, different, or alternative narratives of how to construct and maintain a sane, humane, and sustainable human future.

Frankly, in the U$, we have no longer even the pretense of an intellectual heritage, of any true openness to new thoughts or perspectives, and those who would dare expose the larger, more pervasive corruption that permits and sustains false narratives such as "Russia did it!", such as Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and others, not least the members of VIPS and the commenters here are, at worst, hounded, threatened, imprisioned, at best ignored, maligned, and dismissed as "too negative", or "conspiracy theorists".

Nonetheless.

I see few give up or knuckle under.

I have known more than a few who have died, while still trying.

Yet we still are, overall, a few.

So, what shall we do?

Realizing that our task is neither financially nor socially rewarding, how shall we become more effective at getting some necessary messages across or through walls of fear, indifference and, frankly, induced ignorance?

What, specifically, is our goal?

Is it "simply" to find some way past Mark Twain's observation that it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled, about some specific narrative?

Or does it require some broader examination of the means by which such narratives are induced, promulgated, and enforced?

Is it both these things and more?

If the inner terrain of consciousness is exploited, savaged, and ravaged, then how shall there be healing sufficient to combat the "learned helplessness" which is the overall intent of those who seek to control, generally not with outward brutality, but with subtle psychological coercion, the many?

It would seem, it would appear, that what we face, the manipulation of consciousness, the internalization of submission, dressed up to appear like patriotism or "common sense" that cannot, rationally, be argued with, an inculcated mesmerization of compliance and diminished curiosity, these things require far more than simply pointing out fallacious narratives to a society convinced that it is so special that it is beyond question of any sort, no matter what might be done in the name of the many.

What do we do?

Perhaps we should try to actually get together, meet each other, sit down and talk to one another.

For are we not vulnerable if we use an electronic, digital media subject to the control of those who may "ban" us, "de-platform" us, determine that we are unworthy of even having a voice, especially as larger "authority" moves to undercut the rule of law to such a degree as to render "law" into an empty form with which it may bludgeon any or all of us into silence whenever it feels like doing so?

Further, if we debunk narratives that need such debunking, what narratives of a better future have we prepared, have we honed, that might inspire a willingness to explore the possibilities of meaningful and vitally necessary change?

Who has coherent ideas about creating a more healthy and rewarding society based on something more like common empathy and mutual support?

Who is articulating visions that might encourage the young to feel that this world that we bequeath them is not royally fucked for the dubious benefit of a mere handful of individuals who care about nothing but themselves.

Certainly it must be appallingly obvious that those who seek dominance and wealth at the expense of others are not the best and brightest, that they are among the least able and least compassionate, in fact, the very ones whose pathology is detrimental to the continued existence of the human species, and that of many other species, as well.

How do we undo the madness, disarm the learned hostility and violence?

Do we simply TALK LOUDER?

Do we simply TOOT OUR OWN HORNS or BEAT OUR OWN DRUMS more obnoxiously?

Or, do we dare continue on, seeking ever more effective connection, ever more opportunities of one to one conversations, where we not only talk, but also, listen?

I agree, let us not curse our stars.

Let us not blame fickle fate, as so often do those who lead the many into war or privation, into precarity, or famine.

Let us not claim that the deteriorating environment is caused by Sun Spots or desperate peoples driven to the brink by exploitation and avarice.

However, let us not imagine that the many who still are comfortable, who still believe the nonsense, may not yet succumb to the siren calls for war, for punishment, however brutal, of those who would expose the secrets of power while exposing the comfortable to their own complicity – which might well be what the still-comfortable might consider to be the greater "crime".

Do I have answers?

No. However I do have questions that might suggest some ideas.

I am very certain that the same is true for most every one of us.

Let us share these ideas, even as we seek to debunk the deceits, as we provide the elite with opportunities to expose and reveal their lies and corruption.

No single one of us will solve much of anything. No one has all the answers.

Those who await saviors, wait in vain.

Our future is very iffy.

If someone has a theory or a plan, beyond keeping on, then please share it.

Do not prattle on about "hope".

Do not say, "Well, we have always muddled through before, and shall do so again."

For we are in territory, outwardly, because of our "abilities" to destroy ourselves unlike anything our species has confronted heretofore.

Yes, "Russiagate" must be debunked before it leads to war.

Yes, humanity is fast approaching a place where it can take no more ..,
for granted and without thought, from a finite world.

Neither can our species long endure further empires of brute power or subtle manipulation.

Do not say, "Well, that is just human nature", for it is learned attitude and prejudice to claim so.

To continue such excuse, for that is what it is, ensures extinction, even for the idiots who "get off" the First Strike.

Now, my intent is not to depress, nor to impress, merely to suggest that such future as we might have is up to us.

So, it might be of worth to not spend too much time cursing ourselves for failing to make much headway.

It might take calamity to shake the complacent from their happy stupor, it may well require catastrophe.

Perhaps, just perhaps, patient reason might prepare the way for changing minds.

It is the internal terrain that must be pondered, quite as much as the outer manifestations of behavioral absurdity.

Why do so many believe absolute nonsense?

Perhaps they simply cannot access enough imagination to consider anything else, especially if the external mythologies bolster their internal emptiness?

What do you think?

Pissedoffalese , June 20, 2019 at 03:01

You write well. A rarity.

Mark McCarty , June 19, 2019 at 17:20

The challenge we face, Ray, is that most MSM simply will refuse to report FACTS that contradict the official Russophobic Deep State-driven narrative. Note, for example, that the recent revelation that the OPCW censored its own technical experts in preparing its politically-biased conclusions on the Douma "gassing" incident, simply isn't being reported in MSM. Our MSM are now practicing a type of criminality that one would have expected from the "journalists" in Nazi Germany.

There may be one small ray of hope. Tucker Carlson at Fox has been notably contrarian on some issues, and has featured such luminaries as Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald, Michael Tracey, and Tulsi Gabbard. Tucker is definitely skeptical about arguments driving us into needless wars and conflicts – he got Iraq wrong, and, unlike most of the journalists who did, he is sincerely penitent – and just a couple of nights ago he actually dared to question whether there is real evidence supporting the "Russian meddling" claim, reporting the essence of THIS ESSAY of YOURS! It is not inconceivable to me that you or Bill Binney might be able to get onto his show. And this might become more likely if prosecutor John Durham begins to look seriously at the "evidence" which Brennan, Clapper, and Comey used to justify their fraudulent ICA.

Tucker's show has the highest ratings on Fox, and he is very skeptical of the rampant Russophobia of our day – he views China as a truer rival. I have no idea how you might get through to him, but perhaps Mate, Greenwald, or Tracey – all major Russiagate skeptics – might have some insights.

And let me take his opportunity to offer my heartfelt thanks for your wonderful essays and your political activism over the years. I've been following your work diligently ever since VIPS emerged in the run up to the Iraq catastrophe.

Fazsha , June 18, 2019 at 13:54

The corruption is well documented on the internet- Comey is immoral.

Carolyn , June 18, 2019 at 09:24

Guccifer 2.0 was another trick of the Dems, created to provide substantiation of Russian hacking of DNC computers. It was the Democrats who produced Guccifer 2.0.

John , June 18, 2019 at 09:51

By that logic, it was the Democrats who sabotaged Hillary Clinton's Convention by releasing supposedly anti-Clinton documents on Wikileaks a day before. That makes no sense.

Skip Scott , June 18, 2019 at 12:41

It makes complete sense, and is the origin of "RussiaGate". They knew Wikileaks was going to release the data they got from a LEAK, so they made up G2 to shift the story and blame it on Russia. With their MSM lackeys playing along it worked like a charm. No MSM ever mentions the damning CONTENTS of the DNC and Podesta emails, just RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA! Only I think it was Brennan's baby, with DNC complicity.

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 16:50

Guccifer 2.0 may well have been Brennan's baby, Skip Scott, although I am more inclined to consider 'twas Crowdstrike which hatched the wee tyke, though Brennan could well have been Godfather.

John , June 19, 2019 at 00:22

Does anyone here have any evidence that Crowdstrike or Brennan created G2?

Stygg , June 19, 2019 at 15:15

Does anyone have any evidence that they didn't? If he's real, surely his existence rests on solid ground.

Adam Carter , June 20, 2019 at 08:20

CrowdStrike claimed Russians hacked in and grabbed opposition research from DNC. Next day Guccifer 2.0 turns up with the opposition research (with files apparently tainted by Russian metadata).

However we learned that the research (and the other document it was mangled with) really came from Podesta's attachments rather than the DNC and we know the Cyrillic metadata/stylesheet entries/etc were introduced through a process that was deliberate and not the result of simply mishandling the files.

So we know Guccifer 2.0 was fabricating evidence and doing so in accordance with the claims CrowdStrike had made the previous day.

Not hard proof but certainly a strange symbiosis. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8343f58fddad1153baafd2f05fa5c098?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8343f58fddad1153baafd2f05fa5c098?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Fazsha , June 18, 2019 at 13:56

Two words: Seth Rich.

Bob Van Noy , June 18, 2019 at 11:08

You're right Carolyn, and Bill Binney can prove it. See video in previous post

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 16:40

Clearly, Carolyn, Guccifer 2.0 was a confection. If not of the DNC, then, most likely, of CrowdStrike.

Just as clearly, Guccifer 2.0's announcement of being the "hacker" would be mightily useful for those claiming Russia did it, especially if incriminating little identity clues pointing toward unprofessional clumsiness, "Oh my Gawd! The Russians are hacking!", could be strewn about.

Determining such things, seizing upon contrived "sloppiness" and such things, is well beyond my knowledge base. However, imagining the means, the subterfuge that would be used to psychologically manipulate the many, especially considering both "manufactured consent" and "learned helplessness" are both part of the "methodology", we have all long observed, comes far more readily to mind.

Bob Van Noy , June 18, 2019 at 08:34

This article is also available at information clearinghouse and accompanied by a valuable video presentation and exchange that further clarifies what has happened. It also includes yet more insight by William Binney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51776.htm

Bob Van Noy , June 18, 2019 at 08:48

Bill Binney, in that video, makes two very important points 1) That it's important to realize that when this began the opposition research assembled by the Hillary team was being assembled against all possible opposition including the Democrats own Bernie Sanders. And 2) Bill Binney extends the ultimate blame way back to President Ford pardoning Richard Nixon for his Crimes, thus creating the concept of pardoning all previous administrations of guilt. Keep in mind that Cheney and Rumsfeld were on that staff

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 13:24

Thank you for the link to that Bill Binney – Larry Johnson interview, Bob Van Noy.

It is absolutely a must-view history of what occurred around the Russiagate idiocy that was intentionally contrived to mislead, not only US citizens, but also British subjects and Europeans generally, with the deliberate intention of rekindling the Cold War and building a lock-step willingness among the people to engage in official hostile behavior by the governments involved toward Russia, specifically, but China as well, from the imposition of sanctions and tariffs, to the claims of the "necessity" of First Strike "options", all the way to nuclear warfare.

Beyond that, there are substantive questions that raise issues of criminal behavior, on the part of US intelligence officers, and others, ranging from the sedition of an attempted coup to outright treason.

Yes, it is that serious.

The CIA, the FBI, Brit intelligence, and possibly other "friendly" foreign intelligence agencies, "very likely", conspired to undermine the US election process of 2016 to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton, which many of the actors obviously considered would be a "slam dunk". Meaning simply that their illegal and unConstitutional activities would never be discovered or held to account.

My continuing appreciation to the members of VIPS, to Consortium News, and to other sites that have consistently dared examine, consider, and seek to hold to account those, including members of the political class, who have sought to undermine truth, justice, democracy, and trust for political power and financial gain. The degree of corruption, which must be exposed, held to account, AND punished, is of such a level and destructiveness that, were our society to fail to do these things, we would guarantee the likelihood of our future being nasty, brutish, and short.

OlyaPola , June 18, 2019 at 01:24

" the unintended consequence of poorly executed foreign policy could be the potential end of the U.S. dollar as the world's currency of choice in international trade as nations around the world attempt to minimize the impact of Washington's sanctions."

Unintended consequences are functions of both formulation and implementation both of which do not necessarily restrict the unintended consequences to the " the potential end of the U.S. dollar as the world's currency of choice", a component part of formulation being predicated on notions that " the U.S. dollar (was/is) as the world's currency of choice (rather than a function of coercion in myriad forms).

"Unintended consequences" are consequently functions of intended consequences – an example of the mantra that "The United States sometimes does bad things, but always with good intentions".

John Drake , June 17, 2019 at 21:03

Good follow up on your previous revelations Ray.
"I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president."(Comey) Certainly demonstrates the FBI director's lack of integrity and objectivity. A ladder climber not a real cop, only interested in his career trajectory; willing to fix the intelligence to get along.
So much for serving his country; but it speaks also to the incredible negative influence the Clintons have had on our nation.

David G , June 17, 2019 at 20:51

Has anyone ever asked Comey whether he sought, or why he didn't seek, a court order to seize the DNC server and other relevant hardware? Even the members of Congress who seem inclined to interrogate him a little on this subject are content to let him act like some helpless guy who would've liked to have gotten the computers, but aw shucks, he just couldn't swing it.

(I'm not sure a court order would even have been necessary: cops and the FBI take custody of evidence at crime scenes all the time on their own authority.)

jeffmontanye , June 17, 2019 at 22:46

the fbi also claims, to this day, that it never looked at seth rich's phone or computer.

John , June 18, 2019 at 09:16

You mean, "Why didn't the FBI try to cripple the DNC, but not the RNC, several weeks before a Presidential election, by seizing all the computer systems the national party uses to coordinate political activity and communicate with state party workers?"

Or do you mean seize them after the election, when the systems were already cleaned and/or wiped and rebuilt, all viable evidence long gone?

David G , June 18, 2019 at 12:06

I mean what I asked: why has no one ever put the question directly to Comey?

I'm not sure if your answers to the question I would like to see put to Comey make sense, but they're not an explanation of why he has been spared the effort of supplying such rationales (or possibly better ones) on his own.

David G , June 18, 2019 at 12:42

While you evaded the question I actually asked, your answers might be something like what Comey would say if he were ever confronted on the subject. Of course the only way to find out for sure

In any case, while they're not ridiculous answers, especially compared to what Russia-gate has accustomed us, I'm not ready to buy them either.

The Clinton campaign in its final weeks wasn't being run out of the DNC HQ in DC. It was being run from – brace yourself – the Clinton campaign HQ in Brooklyn (albeit dysfunctionally). The DNC fulfilled its key role months earlier when they rigged the race against Sanders. If you think some disruption at the DNC in the final weeks of the race would have unfairly crippled Hillary's campaign, you should explain exactly how.

For your second point, part of what one might ask Comey is why he didn't get a court order forbidding the DNC from having their systems "cleaned and/or wiped and rebuilt" before the FBI could get a look at them. I don't suppose any operation wants to keep malware (assuming such actually was present) on the premises, but law enforcement isn't known for being super solicitous about such inconveniences when conducting investigations, and the DNC are big boys and girls with more resources than most would have had to draw on to keep the lights on in a pinch – especially if it was for the *patriotic* cause of gathering evidence of the dastardly attack on Democracy Itself by the nefarious, onion-domed, Muscovite menace bearing down on every apple pie and baseball game in the land!

John , June 18, 2019 at 23:46

I didn't evade squat. I answered your implied comment, because your explicit "why didn't Comey" question had no explicit answer.
– No third-party can realistically know "why" anyone does anything, unless that person tells you. Comey didn't. And you asked the question at US, not him.
– Since the explicit question was unanswerable, that meant your question only had implicit answers.

When you asked why didn't Comey try to get a court order to seize the DNC computers, you implied he SHOULD HAVE attempted to seize them, (with a lesser implication that only some guilt or nefarious purpose was behind Comey's decision not to.)
– I simply provided some of the very realistic reasons why the FBI should NOT have atttempted the acts you implied Comey should have done.

John , June 19, 2019 at 00:00

And let me remind you – the DNC was not just assisting with the Clinton campaign.
– They were supporting Congressional, State and even local elections up-and-down the ticket.
– They were coordinating canvasing groups, running polls and supplying resources to all sorts of down-ticket efforts.

So your FBI seizing the DNC computers would have hamstrung EVERY Democratic candidate, not just Clinton.

And all your "big boys and girls" comments disregards the big problem – the DNC would have be DOWN. For a while.

DW Bartoo , June 19, 2019 at 11:40

Interesting assertion, John, that Hillary and the DNC were supporting local and state committees and candidates.

Likely you have neither seen nor heard of FEC (Federal Election Commission) records which paint a rather different picture?

The "Hillary Victory Fund" claimed that Clinton raised big "bundled" checks of $350,000.00, and more, some $84 million in total, of which the states got to keep 1% (such an elite number), according to the FEC, which regarded this money as "laundered" through "legal loopholes", using the state committees to pass the cash on to the Clinton Campaign.

Further, the FEC, revealed that the DNC has paid Clinton $1.65 million to rent access to her email list, voter data, and software produced by "Hillary For America" during her 2016 presidential campaign.

Now, you can argue an number of things.

You can just say, "It ain't so!", offering nothing to support your contentions, thus implying that the Legacy Political Parties AND the status quo are simply above question or reproach. That such parties are not only above the law, but owe no allegiance, in any way, to the many, that these two parties are Private Clubs, not public institutions, and can do, or not do, anything that they wish.

Or, you could say that the DNC owes Hillary because she financed the DNC, in 2016, and that the "Victory" funds and the "rental fee" are merely her due.

Of course, were you to claim the latter, then you would have to make clear that such financing involved neither control nor guid pro quo, that it was simple generosity in theone instance and merely "business", in the other.

Following on with quo, do you imagine, "looking forward", that Biden will win in 2020?

Should the Dems seriously fight for medical care (not insurance) for all?

Should the Dems call for an end to endless war, or go all in for drone, AI, and robots to further "humanitarian interevention" (of course, we have to kill some folks, how else to ensure peace)?

Should the Dems have interest in preserving the environment (you know, for the kids)?

Should the Dems be for an actual, functioning rule of law (not lip service; think Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, are the receiving justice)?

Or, should the Dems just run on, "We ain't him!"

I realize that you would likely not wish to presume what the Dems should or should not do, that being speculative and not "normal"
procedure.

Having said all that, John, and realizing that your perspective differs greatly from the perspectives of many, here, I appreciate the civility of your comments. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/41a9461a080acb5ce5be55f471100a9e?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/41a9461a080acb5ce5be55f471100a9e?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

John , June 19, 2019 at 12:49

Nice cherry picking and misrepresentation, DW Bartoo.

The DNC did a whole bunch of other fundrasing besides the "Hillary Victory Fund".
– The "Hillary Victory Fund" was setup to take money excplicitly just for Clinton, and raise ~$85 million.
– However the DNC in total raised about $350 million for the 2016 campaign. The rest of the money went elsewhere.
– You cherry-picked the "Hillary Victory Fund" spending and made it look like it represented the entire DNC spending, when it didn't.

Misrepresnetations like this do nothing to boost your credibility. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/73f13f648f68941a417b4ff445d911ec?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/73f13f648f68941a417b4ff445d911ec?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

DW Bartoo , June 19, 2019 at 14:01

So, John, you are going with, "It just ain't so!".

Yet you have nothing to say about the Democrats being a Private Club which has no allegiance, of any sort, to the many?

That is the essential aspect which 2016 revealed.

2020 presents a perfect vision of total failure for the Di$mal Dollar Dem$.

A rallying cry of, "We ain't Trump, we Biden!",
will take you, all, down and out.

The Dustbin of History awaits, truly s most well-deserved, well-earned fate.

BTW, your accusatory comment, some distance up-thread, reveals not skill in honest debate, the factual refutation of or challenge to the perspective of others, but the slander of
ad-hominem assault. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b6aff30e494a12fc94f4a2e6847c27b0?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b6aff30e494a12fc94f4a2e6847c27b0?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Skip Scott , June 19, 2019 at 14:24

With the resources the DNC had at its disposal, the down time could have been minimal. Your telling me they couldn't afford to replace the equipment and have it set up and keep the down time to a matter of hours or less? <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/113284c81cd9a82e0d194ce5f7039233?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/113284c81cd9a82e0d194ce5f7039233?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

philnc , June 19, 2019 at 18:31

" the DNC would have been DOWN. FOr a while." Doubtful. Any enterprise of the DNC's size, whatever e-mail service it uses, should maintain (or contract for) regular backups of their data and have a DR (Disaster Recovery) plan to restore service in the event the existing servers go offline without warning. If they failed to take those measures then it should raise questions about whether there was anything "big" about the people running that operation. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e4ddc63bb6791a32d847a14c7f904a41?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e4ddc63bb6791a32d847a14c7f904a41?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Pissedoffalese , June 20, 2019 at 03:35

I love you, the way you write anyway. Yer probably a one-toothed old shit living out in the middle of Kentucky, but you turn a nice phrase.

tom , June 19, 2019 at 16:24

Wasnt that a crime scene?

Mark McCarty , June 17, 2019 at 17:28

With respect to the creation of the Marble Framework program, I would like to ask: What can be the legal or ethical basis of creation of a tool that enables hacks to be falsely attributable to others? Such an action, even if used against a foe, would be intolerably vile. I suggest that anyone who engaged in the creation of this program should be fired, stripped of all pensions, indicted, tried, and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Indeed, anyone in our government who would tolerate such conduct should be finding another line of work.

jeffmontanye , June 17, 2019 at 22:48

i'm willing to wait on that trial if we can expedite the mass murder trials of 9-11. trump has said it was bombs not planes that destroyed the wtc.

geeyp , June 18, 2019 at 19:43

Good one, Jeff. We should start where this all started.

Norumbega , June 18, 2019 at 06:08

To my understanding Marble Framework was a subset of tools within the what has been called Vault 7. One of the tools within that subset, I forget what its name actually is, is the language "obfuscation" tool that everybody talks about.

I would say "it just goes with the territory". Hacking as such is illegal by definition and it stands to reason that hackers will take what steps they can to disguise their own identity. Conversely, solid attribution to particular actors is said to be generally very difficult.

But see my reply to John, below, reporting a new discovery of fraud in the malware samples CrowdStrike put in its report. If confirmed, that would indeed be vile and shocking conduct. We're talking about ratcheting up tensions toward war as a result of this, and fundamentally deceiving the American people.

And see my reply to John A giving my opinion that the focus on Vault 7 misdirects attention that would better be directed toward the actual steps that were used to put those "Russian fingerprints" into some Guccifer 2.0 metadata, as already fairly well understood by analysts like Adam Carter.

Pissedoffalese , June 20, 2019 at 03:44

FIRED???

Firing SQUAD more like.

That'd be MY pleasure, but I'm kinda warped.

Jim Glover , June 17, 2019 at 16:54

Well this helps explain why Pelosi knows that Impeachment of Trump will not only fail but blow up in their face.

Andrew Thomas , June 17, 2019 at 18:53

Only because of their utterly imbecilic reliance on this made-up scenario. The Dems are obviously convinced that the made up crap about Muslims that has led to the outrage of the Muslim ban, the lies about the border emergency, the savaging of all of our laws by ICE on the border, the self-dealing, etc. etc. ad infinitum, though obviously impeachable offenses, wouldn't play well among soccer moms or hockey dads or whatever group it is counting on in 2020.

jeffmontanye , June 17, 2019 at 22:50

donald trump is a lucky man, but perhaps his greatest good fortune is history's choice of his opponents.

Eric32 , June 17, 2019 at 16:29

The Federal "justice" system can create crimes that never happened, avoid collecting evidence that would prove these crimes didn't happen, issue subpoenas and warrants, force people into bankruptcy hiring lawyers, interrogate people until they can entrap them in statements and actions that they can pretend are lies or obstructions to "justice", put innocent people in lockups with violent street criminals, into solitary confinement to debilitate them mentally and physically.

And why not? If you can publicly murder a President and then obviously cover it up and pin it on a patsy, with no consequences, then the Clinton coverups and political destruction operations are a small thing.

Washington networks have long deep histories.
Or is it just a coincidence that Mueller's wife is from the Cabell family – one of whom was the assistant CIA director who John Kennedy fired after the failed Bay of Pigs operation, and whose brother was mayor of Dallas when Kennedy was ambushed in rifle attacks, and was revealed in FOIA document releases to have been a CIA associate.

jaycee , June 17, 2019 at 16:26

From manufacturing consent to manufacturing reality There's been a determined effort to use portions of the Mueller Report to not just buttress the notion that an official Russian government operation indeed "hacked" the DNC to support the opposition candidate, but to assume this information as Established Fact. The revelation that the US government investigators relied entirely on a redacted draft from a private firm with huge conflicts of interest severely challenges this concept, and this obvious weak link now joins the sad list of unprofessional conduct including use of the Steele dossier to establish surveillance on a political campaign, and the description of a State Dept informant as a GRU agent even though Mueller's office had the proper information.

As exhibited in comments below, the partisan divide in America is as wide as it has ever been, with two camps hurling insults while believing only what they want to believe irregardless of factual evidence, and a third camp just trying to navigate through what can be objectively determined. In my observation, commentary over the past three years on this story by groups like VIPS have held up pretty well, while most of the legacy media and partisan bloggers such as empty wheel have embarrassed themselves.

Abby , June 18, 2019 at 01:53

The funny thing is that people who buy into this Russian propaganda nonsense is that they excuse Hillary for actually working with people from foreign countries. Steele who wrote the dossier is from the U.K.. He worked with people in Russia and elsewhere to create it. Hillary paid for him to get 'dirt' on her opponent which is against the law. Taking information or anything from a foreign country to advance her campaign. But the biggest stink here is that she used her party's intelligence agencies to spy on her opponent. This sure seems like shades of what Nixon did

But her supporters don't have any problem with that

Abe , June 17, 2019 at 16:18

Google has a cozy $100 million "shared kindred spirit" with "best in class" Crowdstrike.

In this video, Google Capital's Gene Frantz and Dmitri Alperovitch's buddy George Kurtz discuss what led to Google's decision to back Alperovitch and the Keystone Cops at Crowdstrike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRMPZp70WVI

CrowdStrike received funding of $156 million from Google Capital, Accel Partners, and private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

According to the company, CrowdStrike customers include three of the 10 largest global companies by revenue, five of the 10 largest financial institutions, three of the top 10 health care providers, and three of the top 10 energy companies. CrowdStrike also keeps "Partners" like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform out of the clutches of invisible bears.

CrowdStrike still "stands fully by its analysis and findings" (aka evidence-free allegations) of "Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries present in the DNC network" in 2016.

Crowdstrike and Bellingcat benefactor Google, the company that runs the most visited website in the world, the company that owns YouTube, is very snugly in bed with the US military-industrial-surveillance complex.

In fact, Google was seed funded by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The company now enjoys lavish "partnerships" with military contractors like SAIC, Northrop Grumman and Blackbird.

Meanwhile, Crowdstrike is growing very fast. It achieved $250 million in revenue in fiscal year 2019 compared to $119 million in fiscal year 2018, 110% year-over-year growth.

In May 2019, Crowdstrike, filed a SEC Form S-1 to raise $100 million for their initial public offering. It is the first American cybersecurity company to file and IPO in 2019 and second overall after the Israeli company Tufin.

Crowdstrike believes it is creating a new category called the "security cloud."

Given the enormous cloud of smoke blown by Alperovitch and Crowdstrike, there definitely is truth in advertising.

David Otness , June 17, 2019 at 23:53

Thanks, Abe. Keep the truth coming -- while we are yet able.

"The funding of "The Trust Project" -- coming largely from big tech companies like Google; government-connected tech oligarchs like Pierre Omidyar; and the Knight Foundation, a key Newsguard investor -- suggests that an ulterior motive in its tireless promotion of "traditional" mainstream media outlets is to limit the success of dissenting alternatives.
Of particular importance is the fact that the Trust Project's "trust indicators" are already being used to control what news is promoted and suppressed by top search engines like Google and Bing and massive social-media networks like Facebook. Though the descriptions of these "trust indicators" -- eight of which are currently in use -- are publicly available, the way they are being used by major tech and social media companies is not."
" .Even if its effort to promote "trust" in establishment media fail, its embedded-code hidden within participating news sites allow those establishment outlets to skirt the same algorithms currently targeting their independent competition, making such issues of "trust" largely irrelevant as it moves to homogenize the online media landscape in favor of mainstream media."
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trust-project-big-media-and-silicon-valleys-weaponized-algorithms-silence-dissent/259030/?fbclid=IwAR26cfboaHlUptEt4Lnt4NToqFRRLfmC5xzqqJx6DAAgZTqZD8PDSJADwvQ

michael , June 18, 2019 at 07:17

Their more competent (and dangerous) partner:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/business/media/democrats-disinformation-election-interference.html

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/28/new-knowledge-just-raised-11-million-more-to-flag-and-fight-social-media-disinformation-meant-to-bring-down-companies/

hetro , June 17, 2019 at 15:58

The trolls/propagandists are arriving again with their silly BS about being patriots and not "communists" etc. plus assuming they're in a nest of Trump supporters and Putin lovers. Their ignorance of CN, and the pathetic, childlike quality of these comments, resembles the five year old disappointed with his birthday party.

I'm looking forward to a complete narrative of details on what has been revealed, piece by piece, going back to at least when Assange announced he had a leak on the Podesta emails and the DNC.

The case, in general, and putting it mildly, indicates Official Bias to discredit Trump–clung to, expanded, drummed home in the daily news, and given the semblance of seriousness by an already compromised Mueller investigation.

I realize that to want this case detailed, as part of the question what US official credibility is left, if any? is to be a horrible commie freak SOB supporter of Putin, when I should be saluting the flag and genuflecting toward Washington.

Abe , June 17, 2019 at 15:50

Actual espionage and infiltration of election systems by Israeli intelligence, not to mention direct interference in US electoral politics by the pro-Israel Lobby organizations backed by the Israeli government is being assiduously ignored by most mainstream and independent journalists, as well as veteran intelligence professionals.

Not a peep, nary a whisper from our vaunted VIPS about such matters as this:

"Following the 2016 election and the heavily promoted concerns about 'Russian hackers' infiltrating election systems, federal agencies like the NSA have used that threat to lobby for greater control over American democracy. For instance, during a 2017 hearing then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers stated:

"'If we define election infrastructure as critical to the nation and we are directed by the president or the secretary, I can apply our capabilities in partnership with others – because we won't be the only ones, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI – I can apply those capabilities proactively with some of the owners of those systems.'

"With Rogers – who is now employed by the Microsoft-funded and Israeli military intelligence-connected company Team8 – having lobbied for the direct involvement of U.S. government agencies, including the NSA and DHS, in supervising elections, it seems likely that ElectionGuard will help enable those agencies to surveill U.S. elections with particular ease, especially given Microsoft's past of behind-the-scenes collaboration with the NSA.

"Given that ElectionGuard's system as currently described is neither as 'secure' nor as 'verifiable' as Microsoft is claiming, it seems clear that the conflicts of interests of its developers, particularly their connections to the U.S. and Israeli militaries, are a recipe for disaster and tantamount to a takeover of the American election system by the military-industrial complex."

Microsoft's ElectionGuard a Trojan Horse for a Military-Industrial Takeover of US Elections
By Whitney Webb
https://www.mintpressnews.com/microsoft-electionguard-a-trojan-horse-for-a-military-industrial-takeover-of-us-elections/258732/

Skip Scott , June 18, 2019 at 07:29

Remember when Karl Rove (aka turd blossom) had his meltdown on fox news over the Ohio vote count. He just knew Romney was going to win that state, but somehow his fix got "unfixed" by the counter hacking group "anonymous". Well, now our so-called "Intelligence" agencies and their corporate sidekicks are going to make sure there are no more surprises. Elections are going to be even more of a useless show than they already are. Zappa was truly prescient when he said "politics is the entertainment division of the Military Industrial Complex."

Here's a good story on Rove in 2012:
https://truthout.org/articles/anonymous-karl-rove-and-2012-election-fix/

Realist , June 18, 2019 at 16:25

Good recollection, Skip. I had completely forgotten that little nugget, as probably did most other people. Our brains are so slipshod, we create our own memory holes big enough for the villains to drive a dumptruck through.

I can also appreciate your caution about all further elections. Will they be entirely orchestrated by the string pullers who make the final choice by simply creating the numbers out of thin air? If so, will the candidates themselves also be clued in to prevent a meltdown like Hillary Clinton's never-ending tirade?

John Hawk , June 17, 2019 at 15:06

Comey: lying through his butthole!, longtime bagman for the Demorat elites and a traitor to boot!

Abe , June 17, 2019 at 15:02

"Thousands of emails from the DNC server were published by WikiLeaks in July 2016 revealing that the DNC interfered in the Democratic primary process to favor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders for the party's presidential nomination" notes veteran intelligence professional Ray McGovern.

Can't Say Why:

Two weeks ahead of the Democratic National Convention, celebrating a "revolution" worthy of the CIA, sheepdog Bernie pledged his fealty to Hillary: "I intend to do everything I can to make certain she will be the next president of the United States."

Hillary crowed, "Senator Sanders has brought people off the sidelines and into the political process. He has energized and inspired a generation of young people who care deeply about our country."

She imperiously declared, "To everyone here and everyone cross the country who poured your heart and soul into Senator Sanders' campaign: Thank you."

Bernie had performed his sheepdog function by exciting the Democratic Party's liberal base and winning young voters by large margins during the primary.

The Sanders campaign won primaries and caucuses in 22 states.

But Bernie spat in the face of his "revolution" by not energetically fighting efforts at black voter suppression, and not effectively contesting the votes in states like California and Arizona, as was his campaign's right by law.

Long after Hillary clinched the nomination with California, sheepdog Bernie continued to hold rallies and advocate for his "revolution", which not only served the interests of the Trump campaign, but very effectively delayed incensed Sanders supporters from migrating to third party tickets.

Green Party leader Jill Stein correctly remarked: "A revolution that goes back under Hillary Clinton's wing is not a revolution."

Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford described the debacle:

"Bernie Sanders did not lie to his followers; they deceived themselves, just as most of them – the ones that were old enough – had fooled themselves into believing that Barack Obama was a peace candidate and a political progressive back in 2008, although Obama's actual record and policy pronouncements showed him clearly to be a corporate imperialist warmonger – a political twin of his principal primary election opponent, Hillary Clinton and her philandering, huckster husband.

"Back then, phony leftists like Bill Fletcher and Tom Hayden swore on their mothers' honor that Obama's campaign was really a people's movement, a prelude to revolution – as if the Democrats, a militarist corporate political party, could give birth to an anti-corporate, anti-militarist people's revolution.

"Real Fascist vs. Trump Cartoon Version

"Bernie Sanders threw around the word 'revolution' quite a bit. He was still using it in his surrender speech on Tuesday [July 12, 2016], assuring his flock that the revolution would continue as he marched arm in arm with the most dangerous person in the world, today – far more dangerous than Donald Trump [ ] Sanders' job is to shepherd his flock into a little leftwing corner of Hillary's Big Tent, right next to the latrine and alongside her loyal Black Democrats, who are so meek in the presence of power that they won't even complain about the smell."

https://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie_endorses_greatest_evil

Bernie's own behavior during and after the "revolution" belies this prattle about CIA "derailment" of a "Sanders insurgency".

A guy who once urged once urged abolishing CIA, Bernie now can't get enough of fact-free claims by "intelligence agencies".

Bloviating with Wolf Blitzer in CNN's Situation Room on 10 May 2017, Bernie declared: "Our intelligence agencies all agree that [Russia] interfered significantly in the American election."

"This is an investigation that has to go forward," he said.

Bernie wasn't so keen on investigation when American votes were at stake during the "revolution" in 2016.

To summarize:

What better way for the CIA to thwart a "revolution" against "intelligence agencies" than to have the Dems front an "insurgent" sheepdog candidate who would not only throw the "fight" at critical moments, but turn around and praise the BS produced by the very "intelligence agencies" he previously sought to abolish.

Put that in your vape and smoke it, kids.

And why is it that all these "intelligence agencies" have nothing whatsoever to say about Israeli intelligence operatives and Israeli interference in the US electoral process?

Let's hear our vaunted veteran intelligence professionals 'splain' that.

David Otness , June 18, 2019 at 00:01

Again, Abe -- Keep bringing it while we still can.
Thanks for your courage and honesty.

Abby , June 18, 2019 at 02:14

Outstanding comment, Abe! This is exactly who and what Bernie is and here he is doing it again. People who were upset with him doing that last time are once again getting ready to back his candidacy and when he betrays them again they will wonder why.

Bernie has signed on to the Russian interference nonsense and tells people that Vlad is controlling Trump and he also says that Madura must step down. He was asked after the election if Hillary had won it fair and square and he said yes knowing damn well that she rigged it against him.

As for the big elephant in the room no one ever talks about how Israel has congress in its pocket.

Maxwell Quest , June 18, 2019 at 23:03

Abe, thanks so much for ripping off Bernie's little revolutionary fig leaf and stomping it into the dirt. It really made my day.

EchoDelta , June 17, 2019 at 14:55

Garbage, embarrassing garbage and magical thinking from an Ahab with a fan club.

Address why Roger Stone is now claiming Russians did hack the DNC? And https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/05/15/cloud-computing-and-the-single-server/ splain this?

Otherwise admit you're a red hat brownshirt or profiteering like Alex Jones from gullible chuckleheads.

well oh boy , June 17, 2019 at 15:22

Emptywheel? Isn't this the same person who still thinks Russia elected Trump..? The one who revealed her source to the FBI? Doesn't seem like a journalist at all. What are her credentials?

certainquirk , June 17, 2019 at 15:28

Troll. Starve.

nwwoods , June 17, 2019 at 17:32

Indisputable fact:
Comey has committed purgery under oath
Clapper has commited purgery under oath
Brennan has commited purgery under oath
This is a matter of public record that is beyond dispute.
Your faith-based belief in the Russiagate conspiracy theory is entirely grounded in the baseless assertions of three confirmed liars who have provided precisely zero evidence in support of their claims.

Andrew Thomas , June 17, 2019 at 18:34

That is a completely inappropriate comment. Stone's lawyers filed a discovery request for the documents. That is not the same thing as expecting to believe their contents.

Anne Jaclard , June 17, 2019 at 18:58

This is a garbage comment. @EmptyWheel is just another blue-check pseudo-left journalist who outright promoted the idea that Trump is Putin's puppet before the Mueller Report revealed that to be untrue https://mobile.twitter.com/emptywheel/status/821348649108205569 . I don't know how much CN pays but I'm sure Ray isn't making the big bucks of conspiracy theorist Jones, let alone conspiracy theorists David Corn and Rachel Maddow.

Even the Democratic Party is focusing on propping up their neoliberal leader, Biden, and is not wishing to defend a failed theory exploited by the DNC as an excuse for why they failed to defeat Donald Trump. Their rigging of the primaries, detailed in the WikiLeaks documents, ensured a Trump victory which has seen massive ecological devistation, right-wing ghouls appointed to the Supreme Court, and multiple wars or war scares. I get that they want to hide their and Hillary's personal responsibility, and that the elite as a whole wants to cover up the failed system they have established, but we should be focused on the Sanders campaign and beating Trump in 2020, or grassroots work on saving the environment and helping organize working people.

I thought RussiaGate was false from the moment Hillary blamed Putin for the leaks this time three years ago. It's good to be vindicated, but I'm not really interested in the Trump-Barr counterinvestigation, either, I, like probably most other people, just want the whole thing to be over with.

But the fact that this fake narrative continues to be perpetuated makes me have second thoughts, sometimes.

Robbin Milne , June 17, 2019 at 19:37

Empty wheel Marcy wheeler isn't a credible source.

Michael Keenan , June 17, 2019 at 19:46

She forgot to keep her chastity belt on when she went to Mueller. Still not sure why.

Michael Keenan , June 17, 2019 at 19:39

No such claim dimwit.

Abby , June 18, 2019 at 02:17

lol! You're quoting emptywheel? Oh boy she is so far out there on this Russian propaganda nonsense I don't recognize her from when she was sane back on daily kos. But then they have bought into too.

I think that you are the one who needs to wake up. Tell us what evidence Mueller or anyone has shown us that proves Russia did the deed? I'll wait

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 18:14

Actually, Echo Delta, according to a link Realist has provided on the thread of a later article, here at CN, Stone and his attorneys are insisting that the government must provide actual proof that Russia hacked the DNC, and the government is claiming, apparently, that it is not subject to any such burden as providing actual proof.

This will be very interesting to observe.

Either the rule of law demands actual proof, or the "rule" has become so very bent that it has broken and disappeared entirely, leaving behind merely an empty nothing that may be shaped, twisted, or sculpted into whatever "authority" may wish, to whatever ends power desires or insists upon.

Vera Gottlieb , June 17, 2019 at 14:28

Oh, enough of this already. Keep distracting people so as not to pay attention to more important matters. Enough!

jmg , June 17, 2019 at 17:07

Vera, "this" is what started the "Russia has attacked us!" hysteria, the new McCarthyist xenophobia, the new Cold War, the new arms race, the Doomsday Clock's current "two minutes to midnight" (first time since 1953), etc. So, if in fact Russia didn't attack, it has some importance.

David G , June 17, 2019 at 20:21

Ikr? And this when people have already stopped arguing about the Game of Thrones finale. Get your priorities straight, everybody talking about things corporate media isn't instructing you to!

bjd , June 18, 2019 at 06:33

Go away and be an obedient believer then.

jb , June 17, 2019 at 13:33

Has VIPS said anything about the possibility of a hack first, followed by a leak? (The Nation?)

Michael Keenan , June 17, 2019 at 19:23

Password was used to enter DCCC and then DNC. George Webbs theory. So that would put us somewhere in between a hack and leak?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFbCiVzbVYE&t=426s

John , June 17, 2019 at 22:30

In fact, VIPS had some evidence (since discredited as falsified) of a possible leak. They hyped it as "disproving" any hack. If you want nuanced analysis, don't go to VIPS.

David Otness , June 18, 2019 at 00:06

"YOU" say–without any backup to your assertion.
Nice.
New around here, aincha?
I wonder why

Adam Carter , June 18, 2019 at 13:05

Some parties did make broad and sweeping assertions on evidence that really only related to Guccifer 2.0's releases and they probably should have been more cautious.

However, the underlying research (showing that Guccifer 2.0 moved files around via thumbdrive and then archived them almost 2 months later with Eastern timezone settings in effect) has not been discredited as falsified.

Someone did cook up a highly speculative conspiracy theory and a flawed technical theory to try to support the premise that there was a conspiracy and that files were tampered with but it didn't work out too well for them. (Forensicator debunked their primary conspiratorial claims within a month and just recently dismantled their timestamp tampering theory too.) :)

John , June 19, 2019 at 01:04

Tim Leonard (real name for Adam Carter): The "research" was gobbledygook.
– Even if someone believed every word of your "analysis", it still disregards many variables about how data is handle, and presumes that people used tools, methods and communication techniques no one actually uses in real life, making it stink to high heaven.
– And,of course, nothing can be realistically "proven" from a data file whose source cannot be verified.

And stop referring to yourself as "forensicator" in the third person. It's embarrassing.

Adam Carter , June 20, 2019 at 08:32

As my other response to your defamation here made clear. Forensicator and I are separate people and even a basic corpus analysis of our work outputs would make that clear.

Also, where have I (or Forensicator) "presumed that people used tools, methods and communication techniques no one actually uses in real life" specifically? <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/60bc797ed7bf0b955e33c4c30a8cd58d?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/60bc797ed7bf0b955e33c4c30a8cd58d?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Eric32 , June 18, 2019 at 13:53

You're not very good at this.

The NSA probably has the greatest computer forensics capability in the world – Comey's FBI investigation never asked them to analyze these leaks?/hacks? by internet tracking and hard drive analysis.

No real investigation would depend on consultants paid by interested parties when it could do it itself or through the NSA.

As for hard drive forensic analysis, people who actually know about computer forensics say that the way to make hard disk data irretrievable is to PHYSICALLY destroy the HD plates. Drilling multiple holes through the HD including all the plates is what most of them do. "Cleaning"? No.

John , June 19, 2019 at 01:22

Actually A LOT of investigations rely heavily on computer security consultants and non-FBI security staff. It happen every day. Banks hand off forensic data collected by consultants all the time to the FBI. The word for it in court is "expert witness".

And while the only surefire way to destroy data is to destroy the HD, simply deleting and overwriting it would mangle the **** out of it, making it hard to determine what file the scraps of data are from, when they were written, and if they were ever executed. Basically making it useless to anyone wanting to build a case with it.

Eric32 , June 19, 2019 at 12:51

No, what you're saying does not hold up to analysis or common sense.
There's no big mystery about this – Binney and his retired intelligence associates figured it out early on.

No valid FBI investigation dealing with matters of national security, election hacking, validity of election of a President, would hand off the computer forensics analysis to a company paid by and subject to retaliation by the entity (the Democrat party) with a huge political stake in the results of the investigation.

The Clinton / Democrat party story line was Russian hacking, Russian influenced President Trump, poor victim Hillary.

Private businesses often do leak/hack investigations through private consultants because they fear the (business) consequences of the investigative information becoming public or into criminal prosecution, just like the people controlling the Democrat party feared having the actual method of the email data showing Clinton corruption and Democrat party corruption becoming public was due to an internal leak, not an over the internet hack.

The FBI wants leverage over the people they interview for info – they had enormous leverage over Assange, but they never interviewed Assange, who knew how the emails came into Wikileak's hands. They never interviewed Craig Murray, who says he knows lot of what went on in the matter.

There's no big mystery about this – Binney and his retired intelligence associates figured it out early on. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/fc8854fd58bb283290bad6a933dca5bd?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/fc8854fd58bb283290bad6a933dca5bd?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Curious , June 19, 2019 at 00:48

If it was a hack, or even a partial hack the NSA would have the forensics and the copies. Please explain why they have not released this information to anyone in authority.

Pancho Vanilla , June 17, 2019 at 13:20

Seth Rich

Lorri Strawser , June 17, 2019 at 13:18

If I hide someone who is being sought for murder, I will still be charged with harboring a fugitive, even if they later decide that the person Ic was hiding, didn't do it.
And instruction is Justice, is obstruction of Justice, no matter how the lawyers and politicians try to spin it.

LJ , June 17, 2019 at 19:22

Bill Walton, NBA Hall of Fame, sports announcer, dad and all that was once heard to utter on National Television, shortly after winning an NBA Title with the Portland Trailblazers, regarding possible guests of an A-Frame he owned out in the sticks somewhere (As I recall regarding SLA alums Jake and Emily Harris >), " I would never Co-operate with a Fascistic Organization like the CIA". Oh the Times they are a Changin' and have been for what 45 years now.

Pablo Diablo , June 17, 2019 at 11:45

All of this has been an effective distraction to WHAT was in those emails. Far worse than WHO hacked/leaked them.

AnneR , June 17, 2019 at 12:34

So very true, Pablo. And distraction from the content – so well managed by the MSM – was the intent behind this whole lying farrago.

Pancho Vanilla , June 17, 2019 at 13:21

Amen!

Ruth , June 17, 2019 at 14:04

That is so true.

David G , June 17, 2019 at 20:16

Can't be said too often. And the media misdirection began immediately after the DNC docs were published, largely crowding out coverage of the substance from then until today. Among other things, this is why it's so wrong to even credit/blame Wikileaks for Trump's victory.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile took one for the team, but the big story of DNC dishonesty was relegated to the vast sea of true things that, as Harold Pinter put it, "never happened".

John , June 18, 2019 at 09:56

WHAT was in those emails was basically nothing. No coordination with Clinton, no orders or actions to deliberately sabotage Sanders. Just a handful of snarky comments by a few staffers.

Linda Wood , June 18, 2019 at 13:52

No. DNC emails evidence crimes of money laundering and entering into agreements with state officials to close polling places in order to disadvantage Sanders voters.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/24/bombshell-fec-records-indicate-hillary-campaign-illegally-laundered-84-million

https://www.mockingbirdpaper.com/content/leaked-emails-prove-dnc-suppressed-voters-favor-clinton-rhode-island

http://linkis.com/wikileaks.org/dnc-em/zxSHn

Sent: Monday, April 25, 2016 6:30 PM To: CaucusGroup; Wilson, Erin; Wei, Shu-Yen; Miranda, Luis; Pratt Wiley; Jefferson, Deshundra Subject: Problem brewing in Rhode Island New report shows RI gov't opening only a fraction of polling locations: http://www.bustle.com/articles/156771-why-is-rhode-island-closing-its-primary-polls-voters-need-to-check-their-polling-locations Bernie leads Hillary by 4 in the latest poll: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/04/clinton-sanders-close-in-ctpari-trump-headed-for-big-wins.html If she outperforms this polling, the Bernie camp will go nuts and allege misconduct. They'll probably complain regardless, actually. We might want to get out in front of this one with an inquiry to the RI Gov, even though she's one of ours.

Linda Wood , June 18, 2019 at 15:03

The DNC emails include evidence of crimes of money laundering and of entering into agreements with state officials to close polling places in order to disadvantage Sanders voters.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/24/bombshell-fec-records-indicate-hillary-campaign-illegally-laundered-84-million

http://linkis.com/wikileaks.org/dnc-em/zxSHn

Skip Scott , June 19, 2019 at 06:55

John-

This comment, more than any other, exposes your goal to obfuscate the truth and further a propaganda narrative. They were not "basically nothing". They showed that Clinton holds "private" positions separate from her "public" positions, and is therefore a self-confessed liar. They showed that she used her position as SoS to get large donations from foreigners for the Clinton Foundation. They showed she was involved in cheating and given debate questions ahead of the actual debates. They showed coordination with the DNC to sabotage the Sanders campaign. They showed she had inside connections to quash the investigation into the use of her private server and mishandling of classified information as SoS. They showed her own staff was worried about her health and found her "often confused". I could go on. Here is a link with some of the more serious findings thanks to Wikileaks.

http://www.trueactivist.com/the-20-most-damning-revelations-from-wikileaks/2/

Skip Scott , June 20, 2019 at 05:38

HEY JOHN .. HEY JOHN .. Crickets.

John , June 17, 2019 at 11:06

Did anyone here actually read Crowdstrike's publicly issued report? The traffic patterns, malware examples and code samples were MORE than enough to conclude Russia did the hacking.

I doubt Crowdstrike even MADE a "unredacted" report everyone here is asking for.

Some data may have been excluded, like sniffed usernames and passwords, but a good security company never publishes use4rnames and passwords of their clients.

Ruth the Truth , June 17, 2019 at 12:58

RE: your question, "Did anyone read Crowdstrike's report?" Ray McGovern read it and so did the rest of VIPS, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. I read parts of it, but don't know anything about computer hacking, so I have to depend on what experts say about it. You say you've seen enough evidence, can you help me understand how you know that Crowdstrike did not plant that evidence? I'm skeptical. Doesn't it bother you that the FBI did not do their own investigation? Why not? It seems to me that it's like me telling the police, "My house was robbed, and I know the Russian guys who live next door did it" "My evidence? Well, I destroyed the actual evidence, but I do have this report from my own private security company and they are really reliable. The best people." I'm sure in that instance, you would not accept my word for it- how is this situation different? I don't understand how a private security firms report is evidence. Why weren't the servers examined by law enforcement, which the FBI admits would have been best? Why wasn't Assange interviewed? There was not a thorough investigation-why not? I still need more evidence to draw a conclusion-Can you answer my questions?

michael , June 17, 2019 at 13:43

Essentially the DNC destroyed any evidence of a crime. As Hillary herself has said "No evidence, no crime". As federal judge Zloch noted, the DNC is not a government agency, it is not a public company, it is essentially like a yacht club or country club (that can do whatever it wants as far as backstabbing members and determining candidates). It follows that any crime against such a club is inconsequential, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation would have been all over it. Since it was trivial, why bother?
And Crowdstrike may not have had the skills to mimic Russian hacking, they sound like total incompetents (perfect for muddying the water).
But New Knowledge, which was reported by the New York Times to have interfered in the Alabama Senate Election by pretending to be Russian hackers, DID have the skills, as well as having former NSA employees familiar with Vault 7 tools. They're likely Guccifer 2.o and possibly the "only Russians" involved.

Ruth the Truth , June 17, 2019 at 14:08

Thank you. I'll google more about "New Knowledge" and Alabama Senate Election.

Skip Scott , June 17, 2019 at 14:37

Notice how John ignores questions he has no answer for. Typical acute TDS. Also examine who Crowdstrike is and ask yourself how they could ever be trusted.

John , June 17, 2019 at 14:12

I am exactly ZERO surprised the servers were not sent to the FBI.
– In 25 years of IT security and many virus/hack cleanups, I have NEVER NEVER NEVER seen servers shipped to the FBI for investigation.
– IN ALL CASES the hacked equipment was cleaned and reused. Even at Microsoft. THIS IS THE NORM.

I can't imaging the DNC shutting down all their systems, spending piles of money on new duplicate hardware, and terminating all campaign operations for a week while they recover on new hardware, weeks before a Presidential election.
– Especially since the systems were ALREADY CLEANED, and there was essentially nothing new for the FBI to learn from them.

Eric32 , June 17, 2019 at 17:11

LOL. From the FBI's site:

Computer Forensic Science

Computer forensic science was created to address the specific and articulated needs of law enforcement to make the most of this new form of electronic evidence. Computer forensic science is the science of acquiring, preserving, retrieving, and presenting data that has been processed electronically and stored on computer media. As a forensic discipline, nothing since DNA technology has had such a large potential effect on specific types of investigations and prosecutions as computer forensic science.

Computer forensic science is, at its core, different from most traditional forensic disciplines. The computer material that is examined and the techniques available to the examiner are products of a market-driven private sector. Furthermore, in contrast to traditional forensic analyses, there commonly is a requirement to perform computer examinations at virtually any physical location, not only in a controlled laboratory setting. Rather than producing interpretative conclusions, as in many forensic disciplines, computer forensic science produces direct information and data that may have significance in a case. This type of direct data collection has wide-ranging implications for both the relationship between the investigator and the forensic scientist and the work product of the forensic computer examination

Piotr Berman , June 17, 2019 at 17:23

If the virus/hack cleanups you have witnessed lead to indictments. then I imagine it would be imperative to establish a custody chain for evidence. As a semi-layman, I imagine that it would suffice if FBI made copies of the content of the storage, confirmed that it has "hack signature" described by the private experts and made their own determination if this signature does constitute a proof. However, tracing a hacker is usually pointless and fruitless, so the systems are cleaned and that is that. NEVERTHELESS, Mueller made indictments based on the evidence that had no chain of custody but rather was "hearsay".

At least some elements of the "signature" were very suspicious to me. For example, using name Felix which is not a Russian name, but which belongs to Feliks Dzier?y?ski, a Pole who was the first head of a Soviet internal security and who died in 1926. Far a young Russian hacker it would be somewhat improbable, but to a foreigner who knows very few facts about Russia, Felix is easy to remember. Same with Bear. It was totally a trademark how a Western foreigner images Russians to behave. Same with switching from Latin to Cyrillic keyboard mode in the middle of coding to type a single Russian word.

Anne Jaclard , June 17, 2019 at 19:00

Hell, Felix's name is probably known among many hardcore Sanders supporters as a key Soviet socialist figure. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/41a9461a080acb5ce5be55f471100a9e?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/41a9461a080acb5ce5be55f471100a9e?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

John , June 17, 2019 at 23:01

Crowdstrike's technology for tracking hackers is impressive.
– They can follow every single command and data flow between hackers' command systems and the hacking victim's systems and security log it with timestamps in audited and access-controlled systems.
– Those logs follow chain-of-custody rules, and constitute some of the most powerful evidence a hacking victim can bring to court. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/11a4450c3a58a847d47fe0242886a044?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/11a4450c3a58a847d47fe0242886a044?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

David G , June 17, 2019 at 19:57

Those may be reasons the DNC wouldn't have wanted to give their hardware to the FBI, but they aren't reasons for the FBI not to have sought a court order and seized it.

John , June 18, 2019 at 09:21

So, if the FBI had crippled the DNC a few weeks before the election by seizing all the computers running their email systems, calendars, contacts, planning and legal documents, group schedules and coordination plans with state and local party workers, you would have happier? <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/76bb487d22067fb08deace74db4f7c27?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/76bb487d22067fb08deace74db4f7c27?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Will , June 17, 2019 at 20:47

stop making sense John.

Andy W , June 17, 2019 at 21:10

You're missing the point, John. This has been portrayed as "an act of war against the United States of America" on par with the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The normal procedures for virus/hack cleanups don't apply because this isn't a normal event.

This isn't about some clown planting malware to mine bitcoins. This is supposed to be a dire threat to our national security, and it calls for a different response.

This isn't about normal IT work like removing malware and patching vulnerabilities so everybody can get back to work. This is about attribution and accurately identifying the hackers -- and since a nuclear superpower is the suspected culprit it's especially important that we get this right.

The investigation should have been led by the FBI, not by CrowdStrike. The FBI should have been the one sharing images of the DNC's servers with CrowdStrike, not the other way around. The FBI should have been the one sharing it's redacted findings with CrowdStrike, not the other way around.

John , June 17, 2019 at 22:40

Wrong – the behaviour of the DNC, Crowdstrike, and the FBI was completely about "normal IT work" for several quite a while.

It was not until WEEKS later, when Wikileaks began publishing internal DNC documents the day before the Convention that this became an issue.

HINDSITE IS 20/20. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/73f13f648f68941a417b4ff445d911ec?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/73f13f648f68941a417b4ff445d911ec?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 14:49

On April 11, 2019, NPR,
Nation Public Radio, carried story about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange by David Welna.

"12 Years of Disruption:
A WikiLeaks Timeline".

I am curious about your perspective about Jillian Assange, primarily because you said this.

"It was not until WEEKS later, when WikiLeaks began publishing internal DNC documents the day before the convention that this became an issue."

Would "this" be what you consider to be "normal IT work", John?

Essentially that any rigorous examination of the claim of "Russian hacking", BY the FBI, would have hindered what might be termed, based on your assertion, "business as usual"?

Especially, if the computers were to be considered evidence, as that, if I understand your grave concern, would have cost Crowdstrike too much time and money and would have harmed Hillary and the DNC, is that the gist of it?

Frankly, that seems quite akin to notion of "too big", too important, to be treated to an actual rule of law, reminiscent of "too big to fail, too big to jail".

Of course, as soon as the claim was made, not by WikiLeaks, but by politicians, that Russia had "hacked" those computers, some later even called the alleged "hack" an "act of war", then, at the moment of the assertion, the comfortable (and convenient) "normal IT work" perspective has, and had, no validity.

Under a functioning rule of law, a chain of evidence, not hearsay, is required.

Unless we accept either an empty form of law or a multi-tiered legal system, both of which make mock of rule of law, then evidence, genuine and actual, must take precedence over comfort, convenience, or convention.

The lack of substantive evidence regarding the "hack" is quite as destructive to the whole Russia did it BS as is the use of the Steele Dossier to establish "collusion".

For both taint the two cases, long held to be so related as to be conjoined.

The lack of evidence of hacking, cannot be made something by mere assertion, and the Dossier is evidence of what is known as a "poison tree" and all things growing from are known as "fruits of the poison tree.

So, John, my question for you is this.

Should Jullian Assange be locked up, not merely for offending official authority, but also for causing so much embarrassment for "normal IT work"? <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/73f13f648f68941a417b4ff445d911ec?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/73f13f648f68941a417b4ff445d911ec?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

DW Bartoo , June 18, 2019 at 14:51

The comment above is addressed to, John. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b9764e24a3ebbd21a94e2ab7bdb4ff3b?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b9764e24a3ebbd21a94e2ab7bdb4ff3b?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Andy W , June 18, 2019 at 17:32

@John – No hindsight was needed. The DNC should have brought in the FBI the second they realized their internal files and communications had been compromised regardless of who did it or why. The theft of this data is the digital equivalent of Watergate, and the Democrats should have turned the matter over to the FBI to figure out who was responsible, not to some private IT company that they paid for themselves.

What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if internal documents from the Trump Organization had shown-up on Wikileaks. Suppose Donald Trump said the Democrats stole the documents and used that accusation to justify punitive measures against them. Then suppose Trump wiped his servers so the only evidence anyone had to go on was what a private cyber security company that he was paying provided. And suppose the co-founder of Trump's private cyber security company also happened to be a senior member of the Heritage Foundation. Would any of that arouse your suspicion, because that's basically what we're looking at here.

CrowdStrike's co-founder is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which has a long standing animus towards Russia. CrowdStrike's findings are being used to justify sanctions and other punitive measures against Russia and nobody can independently corroborate CrowdStrike's findings because the servers have been wiped.

The Democratic party is a political organization with a political agenda, and so is the Atlantic Council. You can't just take them or their surrogates at their word. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9950659fea3b1c6f3208f41c8cf53d42?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9950659fea3b1c6f3208f41c8cf53d42?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

bjd , June 18, 2019 at 06:41

If you clean and reuse, you lose the license to make statements and allegations based on what you just bleachbitted.
Nice try to shift focus.
You're a believer and are out of line here on VIPS.
You're not even a competent IT professional, with your 'clean' and 'reuse'-mantra.

John , June 18, 2019 at 10:59

Actually, just telling you what I see. Nobody spends the money to buy new hardware after a hack attack.
– To my knowledge, only a handful of multi-billion dollar banks and defense contractors have ever preserved hardware after an attack, and only in exceptionally rare cases.
– Even when I have recommended full rebuild on new hardware, I was overridden by the customer or management.

Seeing something nefarious in the DNC having acted just like any other organization of its size in a similar situation is a sign you don't understand the subject. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/91a95ef8eb08348e0e20b1824a4f4a42?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/91a95ef8eb08348e0e20b1824a4f4a42?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

LJ , June 18, 2019 at 15:53

Oh brother? Are you a clown? Don't be silly. That is a leap of faith when Bill and Hillary were meeting publicly on a plane on a tarmac with Attorney General Lynch after an investigation was in progress. The reason there was an immediate investigation going on and Comey was compelled to intervene and whitewash the situation was to try and save the validity of the electoral process , the credibity of the Department of Justice and the credibility and objectivity of investigations by the FBI. And just what of the precedence of using an absurd and obviously phony and unverifiable dossier attributed to a BRIT Clown from MI6, hired by the Clinton Campaign, to secure a FISA warrant to investigate and hopefully discredit the campaign of the presumptive, no the actual nominee of the opposition party? Let's just forget all that. Your point is ridiculous and your experience is of no value in the real world that we all witnessed in real time. No doubt, the people and corporations that paid for your services and expertise knew what they were getting when they hired you and I have no doubt you did a bang up job. Keep it in your own lane. It's safe there. We don't want none of that Seth Rich business unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

Deniz , June 18, 2019 at 19:19

My guess is that John is here to protect the value of his stock options. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/00d3a299e0c6a14584450a161456a6e8?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/00d3a299e0c6a14584450a161456a6e8?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

David Otness , June 17, 2019 at 18:43

Bravo, Ruth. (I got a good chuckle from your straight-ahead, quite civil rebuke of what *John* posits.)
Now will he respond at all, let alone without deflection and/or obfuscation?
Yer move, Johnny

John , June 19, 2019 at 14:51

I am fairly confident Crowdstrike did NOT falsify claims or evidence based on a combination of the following reasons:
– Their reports, analysis and conclusions were made public, and were reviewed by several competing security firms. No firm with experience in IT forensics disagreed.
– Their report on tools and files found, infection and control methods and pwershell coding were technically viable and reasonable for a hacking attack. No "Where did they get this" moments you find in flimsier analyses.
– The reports were fat with background and supporting info to read as a "evidence leads to conclusions" report instead "conclusions lead to evidence" reports which tend to be fat with conclusions and skimpy on background info.
– There have been no murmurs or leaks of "they faked this" from inside Crowdstrike. All the "faking" claims are coming from people far outside the company with no security expertise.
– IT Security people tend to be pretty libertarian, so I doubt Crowdstrike could have actually "faked" anything without generating a mini-revolt by the people involved.
– Crowdstrike has MASSIVE incentives to deal honestly in the IT Security field. They do criminal and fraud investigation work for banks, and anything that risks that would be very stupid. (Note: motive evidence tends to be weak, but I included it anyway.)

Now if someone can present evidence that DID fake it, beyond association or speculation about motive, I'm willing to listen.

John A , June 17, 2019 at 14:08

Traffic patterns as in how Wikileaks has already shown the CIA can create false trails?

Norumbega , June 17, 2019 at 16:48

The CIA's ability to "create false trails" maybe somewhat interesting in itself, but I would urge caution in drawing a connection, even just a speculative one, between this capability and the "Russian fingerprints" in the metadata of some of the files released by Guccifer 2.0. As far as I can see, the two situations are completely different. This is a point on which I disagree with Ray McGovern, insofar as his repeated emphasis on the point has the effect of misleading many into looking in a direction which is very unlikely to be related to the actual solution of the Guccifer 2.0 "Russian fingerprints" issue. Most of the rest of his excellent article I agree with.

The CIA clearly has computer hacking capabilities. And one of the tools in its Marble Framework toolbox is software specifically engineered to _disguise its own hacking activities_ by leaving accompanying "clues" in several foreign languages (namely, ones spoken in so-considered adversary states).

With the G-2 materials, are we then possibly presented with something that was actually hacked by the CIA, the said hack having been disguised as the work of Russia by means of "Russian fingerprints" added by means of the automated software program revealed in Vault 7?

I cannot see how this could be so, given that I don't believe that the G-2 materials were obtained by means of a remote hack (even though Guccifer 2.0 did _claim_ to be a "lone hacker" and to have obtained his materials by that means). And if the G-2 materials were not obtained by a hack at all, then ipso facto they were not obtained by a CIA hack. Furthermore, although I am not an expert, it seems to me that researchers like Adam Carter have analyzed the series of steps that were actually taken to produce the "Russian fingerprints" in the metadata of the documents that G-2 released, and produced a plausible account of how this was done. This account does not include anything that relates to Vault 7 software. In my opinion, Ray McGovern would do well to direct people toward Adam Carter's work instead of misdirecting them toward Vault 7.

Norumbega , June 17, 2019 at 16:12

Are you aware that Bruce Leidl has claimed in the last few days to have discovered clear evidence that the malware samples CrowdStrike produced were fraudulently recycled from an earlier hack of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

He wrote on Twitter, June 12: "There was no APT29 hack of the DNC at all. I know this because crowdstrike produced fraudulent malware samples, you know, like they always do."

"The seaduke samples are recycled from the joint chiefs incident. I (and others) know bc they dun goofed stripping the relevant metadata."

And (June 12): "I'll be deleting this tweet and the prior one soon due to suspected lurks on my TL. It's too late in the game for me to sock up."

"The samples were compiled (by cozybear) on 7/30/15 and 8/4/15"

"JCS email hack was 7/25/15 – 8/6/15"

"Not much room for plausible deniability there."

There followed some exchanges with Stephen McIntyre and Larry Beech, which may be of interest to people with technical backgrounds.

There are many other public reasons to suspect that something is amiss in the official version of the timeline, notably the highly implausible claim that WikiLeaks only received the supposedly hacked emails from Guccifer 2.0 during July 14 -18, 2016, leaving far too little time for WikiLeaks to review them for authenticity and publication value before they actually did release them on July 22, and after Julian Assange had already announced more than a month earlier that WikiLeaks already at that time possessed "leaks" related to Hillary Clinton, in the form of "emails" which it planned to publish.

Mark McCarty , June 17, 2019 at 18:45

For those who are technically proficient, this essay by Adam Carter provides evidence that 2/3 of the "Fancy Bear (APT28)" malware which Crowdstrike claimed had been implanted in the DNC in spring of 2016 had in fact been compiled AFTER the date on which Crowdstrike was brought into the DNC servers in early May 2016. In other words, this suggests that Crowdstrike may have created this supposed hack.

https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/12/fancy-frauds-bogus-bears-malware-mimicry/

Crowdstrike's claims also appear absurd in light of the fact that the latest DNC email published by Wikileaks was written on April 25 – three weeks AFTER Crowdstrike installed its Falcon anti-hacking program on the DNC computers.

I reason as follows: Adam Carter, Forensicator, and VIPS have provided a range of compelling evidence that, far from being a GRU hacker, Guccifer 2.0 was a construct, operating within US time zones and most likely controlled by Crowdstrike, intended to falsely incriminate Russian hackers as the source of the DNC emails subsequently released by Wikileaks.

http://g-2.space/

As Norumbega indicates, Mueller's tale of how G2.0 allegedly transferred the DNC emails to Wikileaks is absurd on its face.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/mueller%E2%80%99s-new-indictment%E2%80%8A%E2%80%94%E2%80%8Ado-feds-take-us-idiots

But there is a conundrum – Assange stated on June 12 that Wikileaks would soon be releasing "material related to Hillary" . But he did not indicate that this material was DNC emails (indeed, many may have thought he was referring to Hillary's erased SOS private server emails). It is clear that, when Crowdstrike and G2.0 made claims in the next 2-3 days that the DNC server had been hacked and that G2.0 had provided the hacked emails to Wikileaks (note the inconsistency with Mueller's claims!), that they had GUESSED that Assange had been referring to DNC emails. I propose that this was a very educated guess, and that our intelligence agencies had tipped the DNC off to the fact that someone at the DNC was proposing to send leaked emails to Wikileaks. This indeed seems likely if Sy Hersh's informant inside the FBI is correct, and Seth Rich had offered sample emails to Wikileaks, asking for payment for a subsequent large trove. It's reasonable to suspect that the NSA had been attempting to capture all communications to and from Wikileaks, and thus could have intercepted this communication. They could then have informed the DNC that someone on their staff was planning to leak to Wikileaks. That's when Crowdstrike was brought in, and the strategem hatched to fake a GRU hack and attribute the subsequent Wikileaks release to the Russian state.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/how-did-crowdstrikeguccifer-20-know-wikileaks-was-planning-release-dnc-emails

This scenario makes sense only if the DNC was not initially informed that Seth Rich was the source of the impending leak, presumably because he had not been legally unmasked at the time. Otherwise, Seth would have been summarily fired.

The creators of the G2.0 farce were betting Hillary's campaign on it. Which means that the real source of the leak would have to be silenced to prevent unmasking of their hoax. If the perpetrators of the hoax subsequently learned that Seth was the source, eliminating him would have been a high priority.

If someone has an alternative explanation of these facts, of equal or greater plausibility, I would be pleased to read it.

Skip Scott , June 18, 2019 at 08:06

Norumbega and Mark-

Thank you for your comments. I have seen this "John" around here before, and he always tries to make the case for Crowdstrike. I also notice that whenever there is something he can't account for he goes silent, or just goes back to regurgitating the same garbage.

One of the underlying themes of RussiaGate is that those evil Ruskies made Trump president, and that he is somehow beholden to them. This is an obvious psy-op with the purpose of distracting from the CONTENTS of the emails, which are mind blowing for their exposure of the shameless duplicity of the Hillary campaign and the DNC. And of course the secondary purpose is to prevent Trump from seeking detente with Russia. In my opinion, even if the Russians were the source, we'd owe them a big THANK YOU.

I believe in freedom of speech, and I think I should be free to speak my mind to anyone on any subject. I also believe that even the Russians have the same right. There is no way that freedom of speech can subvert democracy. In fact, it is essential.

The MSM's job is to control the narrative, and the internet is giving them fits. Sites like CN are a big thorn in their side. Thanks for being part of it. Your comments are invaluable.

Mark F. McCarty , June 18, 2019 at 11:21

Many thanks Skip. You make a point that I've also raised.

As you can imagine, I've quite a number of times been labeled a "Putin puppet" or "Russian troll" while trying to shed some light on the Russiagate hoax on social media. My response is that, if in fact I were in thrall to "the Russians", then I would be eager to give them CREDIT for doing the job that our MSM failed to do, revealing the crass bias of the DNC against Bernie. But I only give credit where credit is due! I suspect our thanks are due to poor Seth Rich.

As to all the "progressives" who are so enraged about the DNC/Podesta Wikileaks releases, may they rot in Hell. The REAL reason that Trump was elected was not the journalism of Wikileaks – revealing TRUTH that the public was entitled to – but to the DNC's efforts to ram Hillary – the most blood-drenched woman in history, a mega-grifter lacking in any intellectual integrity whatever, reviled by a high proportion of the American public – down the throats of the Democratic Party and the American people <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8f568de5ac740a16f5812668b8c4be09?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8f568de5ac740a16f5812668b8c4be09?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Norumbega , June 18, 2019 at 21:46

These are interesting speculations, worth thinking about.

Two quick thoughts:

Bruce Leidl and Larry Beech are working on the hypothesis that the people behind G-2 didn't actually know (or have) what was in WikiLeaks' possession, until just prior to July 14, when the FBI reported results of its examination of SR's computer.

About possible NSA involvement and possible use of "masked" records. I would consider what we are now hearing regarding NSA database abuses by private FBI contractors, and their use in "unmaskings" of US citizens. I have even read one claim that CrowdStrike was among those private FBI contractors. The names are redacted in Judge Rosemary Collyer's April 26, 2017 FISA court opinion.

Skip Scott , June 20, 2019 at 05:47

I think this is a very important point, and explains motive for SR's murder, and for the timing of the creation of the G-2 propaganda ploy. If Barr really does pursue all possible leads, I think it will end up tying into SR's murder. However, I've seen this type of play before, and I expect more theater and very little truth from Barr. I pray I'm wrong. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a0f545087d25ad6fe70115f62665de86?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a0f545087d25ad6fe70115f62665de86?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Adam Carter , June 20, 2019 at 08:48

The first shift to using attachments that were later found in WikiLeaks' DNC emails observed in Guccifer 2.0's releases came at the very end of June 2016.

A few days later (July 6, 2016) he published a batch that was entirely DNC email attachments (including a document that revealed it had been edited using LibreOffice 6 by someone with Eastern timezone settings in effect). ;)

Source attribution and leak attachment correlation information is available at: https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2s-russian-breadcrumbs/ <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a0f545087d25ad6fe70115f62665de86?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a0f545087d25ad6fe70115f62665de86?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Adam Carter , June 18, 2019 at 13:52

There were a bunch of out-of-context IOCs produced by CrowdStrike and when researching the malware samples, we learned most of the APT28 malware was compiled while CrowdStrike were installing Falcon at the DNC.

Putting questions that raises aside, the existence of the Marble framework shows us that relying on code and malware samples for attribution alone isn't entirely reliable.

More significant than all the above, though, is that we saw no incident specific evidence (evidence relating to email exfiltration events) or even had confirmation of the dates on which exfiltration of the DNC's emails occurred and these are things that CS, with Falcon installed across the network, should have recorded and been able to accurately report on.

The report lacked critical information regarding events and any observed/recorded malware activity (not much beyond identifying presence/discovery and what the malware was theoretically capable of).

Brian James , June 17, 2019 at 10:49

May 26, 2019 Trump Scares Swamp with Declassification Move

Ohr-Fusion GPS caught deleting emails; and yet ANOTHER Clinton email cover-up .Latest Judicial Watch Update

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/trump-scares-swamp-with-declassification-move-ohr-fusion-gps-caught-deleting-emails-and-yet-another-clinton-email-cover-up-latest-judicial-watch-update/

Jeff Harrison , June 17, 2019 at 10:12

So much for the so-called "rule of law". The government has been playing Calvinball for some time now. Making up the rules as they went to make sure that they win and you lose.

dag , June 17, 2019 at 09:45

Regardless what people might think about Russia, Vladimir Putin, WikiLeaks, Donald Trump, Roger Stone or anyone else, it should be a major cause of concern that the FBI's "investigation" relied completely on the incomplete findings of a private tech company contracted by the DNC.

Had anyone even heard of CrowdStrike before Election 2016? It's absurd that some unknown IT company would be trusted to do forensic analysis of an alleged crime of any sort, much less one that has been described as an "act of war" by a "foreign adversary" and has sent the US political system into a perpetual state of crisis.

James Comey testified that "best practices" would have dictated that the FBI actually physically access the computers. That's the understatement of the century. In fact I would call it gross misconduct and malpractice for the FBI to outsource this responsibility to a private contractor paid for by the DNC. It calls the entire premise of Russiagate into question and anyone who can't see that is being willfully obtuse.

Thanks Ray McGovern for this report and keeping this fundamental issue in the spotlight.

worldblee , June 17, 2019 at 13:22

Like Bellingcat, the genius of CrowdStrike is that they can instantly confirm the results their paymasters have requested. It's so much more efficient than, you know, actually investigating evidence and following the information to an unbiased conclusion.

Noncomunist American Patriot , June 17, 2019 at 13:28

That doesn't change the fact that the Internet Research Agency (kept closely inline with Putin's wishes) interfered with the election, to help Trump and hurt Clinton, as well as the fact that Trumps campaign welcomed the help and had more secretive encounters with Russian agents than all other campaigns combined.
I remember when the Republicans DIDN'T like Russian meddling, and deeply distrusted Russian intentions. Yet less than a year after Russia HELPED Trump get elected – president Trump announces his great new epiphany to put Russia incharge of American cyber security?
Come on, let's elect a president who promises to brown nose our greatest enemy and hand them all of our greatest Intel!
Vote Trump/Putin for 2020!!

John A , June 17, 2019 at 14:11

You call yourself a noncomunist. What is a comunist?

AnneR , June 17, 2019 at 15:52

I think he/she cannot spell. But he/she clearly is Russophobic as well as being ahistorical, not seeming to be aware that Russia is no longer communist, no longer the USSR. But in that he/she hardly differs from the rest of the neo-liberal, Demrat/Republirat crowd.

Ruth the Truth , June 17, 2019 at 15:01

I don't see Russia as "our greatest enemy" and this Russia hysteria is a kind of resurgence of neo-McCarthyism. I think "Russian meddling" was a very minor issue compared to problems that exist within our own system. I'm more worried about voter suppression via "Cross Check", gerrymandering, etc. I'm more worried about campaign financing, and the fact that our elections are controlled by two political parties that apparently are under no obligation to hold fair and open primary elections. I think the Russian threat has been exaggerated and it distracts us from other issues with our election process. I couldn't find anything when I googled "Trump puts Russia in charge of American cyber security" Can you tell me more about this?

AnneR , June 17, 2019 at 16:14

Absolutely, Ruth the Truth. And that's even assuming that Russia did meddle (Russia, of course, seeming to "mean" the Kremlin always).

Yes, voter suppression, especially in the usual southern states is appallingly undemocratic (even assuming that what exists in the western world is, in fact democracy, which is questionable); gerrymandering, too.

And the corporate-capitalists together with two other nations, well, three, in fact: SA, IS and the UK, have far too much sway, one way or another the former two via money the latter via the cozy relationship between the secret services in our politics (and those of other nations).

The money should be stripped away – no lobbying, no donations, none of that. Simply a certain and small sum of money per candidate from the taxes and an electioneering period that is short. And candidates picked by the people, *not* by the party insiders.

David Otness , June 18, 2019 at 21:12

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/the-grand-illusion-of-imperial-power/ <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ddfc8fe9d7877c2e0343c8f07d16df5f?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ddfc8fe9d7877c2e0343c8f07d16df5f?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

AnneR , June 17, 2019 at 16:04

Your proof that the "IRA" interfered with the election in the Strumpet's favor?

Clearly you would seem to think that dearest Killary would have won but for the Russians – never mind that she ignored the three crucial swing states that determined the Electoral College outcome which in its turn decided which candidate won. The problem lies in both Killary's court and in the existence of the Electoral College – a deliberate stumbling block, erected by those much fawned over FFs to ensure that the great bewildered herd would *not* be the ones to decide, ultimately, who won the presidency.

Your proof that Russia is "our greatest enemy"?

Oh – they're Russian and they won't allow us, god's gift to humanity, to plunder and pillage their natural resources for our benefit not theirs. They want a multi-polar world in which every nation state is sovereign and not at under the hegemonic boot of the Anglo-Americans. Of course, they're our enemy, silly me for thinking that they have sensible people in their government and we have bloodthirsty, hypocritical psychopaths who are all linked arm in arm with the corporate-capitalist elites in ours.

And – talking about interfering in our election??? The sheer hypocrisy of menacing Russia over something that this country has done on a regular basis to other nations is, well, bloody mind-blowing.

Paul Merrell , June 17, 2019 at 17:54

@ "That doesn't change the fact that the Internet Research Agency (kept closely inline with Putin's wishes) interfered with the election, to help Trump and hurt Clinton "

Why so? Robert Mueller has a huge credibility problem and particularly so in his Internet Research Agency ("IRA") indictment, from the day of its announcement. See e.g., https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/mueller-indictement-the-russian-influence-is-a-commercial-marketing-scheme.html

It was downhill from there. Mueller apparently assumed he would never have to prove his case since the U.S. has no extradition treaty with Russia and the indictment charged only 13 Russians and 3 Russian corporations. But surprise for him! One of the Russian corporations (Concord Management and Consulting ("Concord") showed up in court and asked to plead not guilty. Mueller immediately began backspinning, arguing that the court could not accept the plea because Concord had not been served with the indictment. The Court had no difficulty shutting down that spurious argument, properly ruling that it could attain jurisdiction over the defendant by accepting its not guilty plea.

Then Mueller began trying to avoid providing mandatory discovery allegedly because of an alleged threat to national security and because counsel for Concord might show the documents to other defendants who had not been served (more likely because he could not prove his case). That effort to deny discovery is still continuing. See e.g., government's June 12 motion. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.193580/gov.uscourts.dcd.193580.24.0.pdf

Then it turned out that another of the charged corporations did not even exist. Mueller had indicted the proverbial ham sandwich.

No one yet knows how that case will turn out, but I would certainly not bet that Mueller got it right, particularly in a case he never thought he would have to prosecute.

@ "Come on, let's elect a president who promises to brown nose our greatest enemy and hand them all of our greatest Intel!"

Has it ever occurred to you that Russia is only our "greatest enemy" because our government has made it so? The fact that the Democratic Party has teamed with the Deep State and military/industrial complex in a glaringly obvious propaganda campaign against Russia counsels restraint and suspicion in regarding Russia as an enemy, unless, of course, you're an unwitting target of the propaganda.

Or didn't you get the memo from Mueller about no collusion with the Russians?

Michael Keenan , June 17, 2019 at 19:30

Not to mention that those charged Russians showed up in court to the surprise of Mueller.

Matt , June 17, 2019 at 23:40

Yes, the IRA agency ran the Face Book Ads that did encourage Democrats to "stay home." But this is not an election "hack," it is a very successful influence campaign. I find it incredulous that Mueller failed to follow the money to the most obvious entity that purchased the services of IRA in the first place- maybe the guy that bought the firm that created the FB targeting algorithm . used to select very specifically the right voters in the right states?

Cambridge Analytica Bannon Mercer

It might be uncomfortable to admit that American Oligarchs and their henchmen exerted the lions share of election "influence."

David G , June 17, 2019 at 19:46

Indeed! When will the free peoples be rid of Putin and the plague of cute puppy pictures he loosed on the poor, helpless U.S.?

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/04/the-mystery-of-the-russia-gate-puppies/

bjd , June 18, 2019 at 06:49

In case you hadn't noticed, this isn't exactly the place for dimwits.

David Otness , June 17, 2019 at 19:50

So much of Comey's schtick is predicated on his Boy Scout image that he has cultivated in his many years as an insider Beltway creature and the same goes for Mueller. At least insofar as Mueller can pull off the choirboy effect with his own physical countenance.
As both are former Fibbie Directors (and significantly, buddies,) just think of what kind of dirt they likely hold over so many D.C. pols in their toolkits. J. Edgar Hoover showed the way for his successors and in incestuous D.C. its top sharks always win. Between them they likely have a threatening wherewithal that many careerists in Foggy Bottom fear. And in that incestuous temple we have Comey's brother employed as an attorney with the firm that's keeping financial score for Clinton Inc -- a "charitable" swamp of its own that has broken virtually every rule on what constitutes a legal U.S. non-profit.

It is patently absurd that an FBI Director would allow an outside entity to substitute for the Bureau's criminal investigation authority and its unparalleled means to attain "honest" and complete answers. If it were indeed 'justice' being sought.
Comey's time at the ultra-crooked HSBC bank must have yielded an interesting harvest of favors owed as well, let alone his $ six million dollar salary for his one year working for Lockheed-Martin.

Both of these guys are cover-up artists, 'fixers' frequently in demand, and for good reason, so the powerful can continue their systematic, multi-generational pillage of not only the U.S., but the world as well.
I think this is one of the largest scandals ever in the history of the United States, along with the Kennedy brothers' assassinations, and that of Martin Luther King. The knaves of both parties with their asses hanging out are going all-out to keep the lid on it. Because what's at stake here is the sanctity of the Empire's Matrix of Woo. Our perception of "exceptionalism" and all that rah-rah jazz. For if the believers that glue this country together get wind of the magnitude of its interior rot and far-advanced decline
A lot of people are doing anything and everything (inventing and exacerbating, inviting and callously so) even potential nuclear destruction in a craven attempt to salvage their dubious-already reputations and their place in their lifespan's pecking order. It's screw us and screw the country; and while they're at it: screw the world too.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/08/comey-and-mueller-russiagates-mythical-heroes/

https://digwithin.net/2018/04/08/muellers-history/

hetro , June 17, 2019 at 09:18

Also take a look at:

"And as the Conservative Treehouse notes: 'This means the FBI and DOJ, and all of the downstream claims by the intelligence apparatus; including the December 2016 Joint Analysis Report and January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, all the way to the Weissmann/Mueller report and the continued claims therein; were based on the official intelligence agencies of the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of Justice taking the word of a hired contractor for the Democrat party .. despite their inability to examine the server and/or actually see an unredacted technical forensic report from the investigating contractor'."

And:

"Meanwhile, the Crowdstrike analyst who led forensics on the DNC servers is a former FBI employee who Robert Mueller promoted while head of the agency. It should also be noted that the government of Ukraine admonished Crowdstrike for a report they later retracted and amended, claiming that Russia hacked Ukrainian military."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-16/us-governments-entire-russia-dnc-hacking-narrative-based-redacted-draft-crowdstrike

Skip Scott , June 17, 2019 at 09:01

I am trying to figure out how Julian Assange could prove that it was not Russia without revealing Wikileaks' source for the DNC emails. It is simple enough to prove that it was a leak instead of a hack, but how do you prove the person wasn't a Russian agent without disclosing their identity?

If they could prove that Guccifer 2's stuff was an intelligence agency "vault 7" ploy, it would lend a lot of credibility to the real leak being a disgruntled DNC employee, probably Seth Rich.

Ron , June 17, 2019 at 10:33

Silly. It was Seth Rich who leaked -- the LATE Seth Rich, killed as he recovered from Clinton/Podesta's assassin in an ICU unit that was invaded by a suspicious SWAT team. Craig Murray has broadly hinted so; so has Kim Dotcom.

Skip Scott , June 17, 2019 at 11:44

I am not saying that I believe it was a Russian spy, I am asking how anyone would prove it without divulging the actual leaker, which Wikileaks has claimed they will never do. How do you prove a negative?

Norumbega , June 18, 2019 at 06:39

Skip: Julian Assange could provide evidence that WikiLeaks possessed the DNC emails it published already early June 2016, i.e. by the time he announced that WikiLeaks would soon be publishing leaked emails related to Hillary Clinton.

He could provide internal WikiLeaks communications documenting that work was being done to review these materials for publication between early June and the July 22 release (and specifically prior to their alleged transfer by G-2 on July 14).

These could be done even if the lawyers for Seth's brother Aaron Rich refuse to release Assange from confidentiality obligations, as requested by Ed Butowski's attorney Ty Clevenger.

And, yes, exposure of the persons behind G-2 would certainly help, though I doubt WL will be the one to do that. But people need to stop thinking of "Vault 7 ploys" in this connection, and look instead at the actual work on G-2. My reasons are elaborated in a previous response to John A, above.

Skip Scott , June 18, 2019 at 12:52

I understand that revealing the timing would undercut the G2 story, but without identifying the source how could they prove that the leaker wasn't a Russian spy who infiltrated the DNC staff? I haven't heard them try to sell that one yet, but they might try it when the G2 story and the hacking story falls apart.

Norumbega , June 19, 2019 at 07:22

Comey has already testified that they "think" the "Russians" used a "cut-out". The Mueller report admits in passing that emails (in that context the Podesta emails or the second batch of DNC emails) may have been passed to WikiLeaks by an intermediary in the late summer of 2016. So some, at least may be contemplating such an allegation as a way out. Nevertheless, further information that underlined the falsity of the official timeline would be significant, I think.

Sally Snyder , June 17, 2019 at 07:44

As shown in this article, the entire anti-Russia narrative was built on a lie:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/06/washingtons-duplicitous-approach-to.html

Here are, however, serious repercussions that are a result of this lie; the unintended consequence of poorly executed foreign policy could be the potential end of the U.S. dollar as the world's currency of choice in international trade as nations around the world attempt to minimize the impact of Washington's sanctions.

[Jun 19, 2019] Mueller and Russiagate story: The Eternal Witch-hunt

Apr 12, 2019 | counterpunch.org

Mueller looks more and more like a man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.

[Jun 19, 2019] Investigation Nation Mueller, Russiagate, and Fake Politics by Jim Kavanagh

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... You might think the Democratic Party would be horrified at this result, which one conservative analyst calls: "one of the greatest self-defeating acts in history." You might think Democrats would now move quickly and decisively toward a strategy of offering a substantive political alternative, and abandon this awful own-goal Mueller/Russiagate tack that has already helped Trump immensely (and which they are not going to turn their way). That is obviously what would happen if the Democrats' main goal was to defeat Trump. But it isn't. ..."
"... As discussed above, the Democratic establishment's' main goal throughout this was not to "get" Trump, but to channel its own voters' disgust with him into support for some halcyon, liberal, status quo ante-Trump, and away from left demands for a radical change to the social, economic, and political conditions that produced him and his clueless establishment opponent in 2016. The Democrats' goal was, and is, not to defeat Trump, but to stave off the left. ..."
"... The Democrats' main goal in all this is not to impeach, or stop the re-election of, Donald Trump; it's to prevent the nomination and election of Bernie Sanders, or anyone like him. ..."
"... You mean the five million people who voted for Obama in 2012, in the 90% of counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012, but would not vote for Hillary in 2019, aren’t streaming back into—are indeed still streaming out of—the Democratic Party, despite all the Mueller investigation has done for them? Imagine that. ..."
"... What has Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation wrought? It’s either a shrewd political gambit sure to take down Trump, or it’s ridiculous political theater leading Democrats, and the country, over another cliff. Double-down or leave that table? ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
So the Mueller investigation is over. The official "Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election" has been written, and is in the hands of Attorney General William Barr, who has issued a summary of its findings. On the core mandate of the investigation, given to Special Counsel Mueller by Rod Rosenstein as Acting Attorney General in May of 2017 -- to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" -- the takeaway conclusion stated in the Mueller report, as quoted in the Barr summary, is that "[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.1"

In the footnote indicated at the end of that sentence, Barr further clarifies the comprehensive meaning of that conclusion, again quoting the Report's own words: "In assessing potential conspiracy charges, the Special Counsel also considered whether members of the Trump campaign 'coordinated' with Russian election interference activities. The Special Counsel defined 'coordination' as an 'agreement -- tacit or express -- between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference'."

Barr restates the point of the cited conclusion from the Mueller Report a number of times: "The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA [Internet Research Agency, the indicted Russian clickbait operation] in its efforts."

Thus, the Mueller investigation found no "conspiracy," no "coordination," -- i.e., no "collusion" -- "tacit or express" between the Trump campaign or any U.S. person and the Russian government. The Mueller investigation did not make, seal, or recommend any indictment for any U.S. person for any such crime.

This is as clear and forceful a repudiation as one can get of the "collusion" narrative that has been insistently shoved down our throats by the Democratic Party, its McResistance, its allied media, and its allied intelligence and national security agencies and officials. Whatever one wants to say about any other aspect of this investigation -- campaign finance violations, obstruction of justice, etc. -- they were not the main saga for the past two+ years as spun by the Russiagaters. The core narrative was that Donald Trump was some kind of Russian agent or asset, arguably guilty of treason and taking orders from his handler/blackmailer Vladimir Putin, who conspired with him to steal the 2016 election, and, furthermore, that Saint Mueller and his investigation team of patriotic FBI/CIA agents were going to find the goods that would have the Donald taken out of the White House in handcuffs for that.

Keith Olbermann's spectacular rant in January 2017 defined the core narrative and exemplified the Trump Derangement Syndrome that powered it: an emotional, visceral hatred of Donald Trump wrapped in the fantasy -- insisted upon as "elemental, existential fact" -- that he was "put in power by Vladimir Putin." A projection and deflection, I would say, of liberals' self-hatred for creating the conditions -- eight years of war and wealth transfer capped off by a despised and entitled candidate -- that allowed a vapid clown like Trump to be elected. It couldn't be our fault! It must have been Putin who arranged it!

Here's a highlight of Keith's delusional discourse. But, please watch the whole six-minute video below. They may have been a bit calmer, but this is the fundamental lunacy that was exuding from the rhetorical pores of Rachel, Chris, and Co. day after day for two+ years:

The military apparatus of this country is about to be handed over to scum, who are beholden to scum, Russian scum! As things are today January 20th will not be an inauguration but rather the end of the United States as an independent country. Donald John Trump is not a president; he is a puppet, put in power by Vladimir Putin. Those who ignore these elemental, existential facts -- Democrats or Republicans -- are traitors to this country. [Emphases in original. Really, watch it.]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/IAFxPXGDH4E

This -- Trump's secret, treasonous collusion with Putin, and not hush money or campaign finance violations or "obstruction of justice" or his obvious overall sleaziness -- was Russiagate.

Russiagate is Dead! Long Live Russiagate!

And it still is. Here's the demonstration in New York last Thursday, convened by the MoveOn/Maddow #Resistance, singing from "the hymnal" about how Trump is a "Russian whore" who is "busy blowing Vladimir":

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9YZ9kiJ88LM

This is delusional lunacy.

Here are the three lines of excuse and denial currently being fired off by diehard Russiagaters in their fighting retreat, and my responses to them.

1. The Mueller Report is irrelevant, anyhow. 'Cause either A) Per Congressional blowhard Adam Schiff: There already "is direct evidence" proving Trump-Russia collusion, dating from before the Mueller Investigation, so who cares what that doesn't find; or B) (My personal favorite) Per former prosecutor and CNN legal expert Renato Mariotti: Of course there is no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and it's "your fault" for letting Trump fool you into thinking Mueller's job was to find it. (The Mueller "collusion" investigation was a red herring orchestrated/promoted by Trump! I cannot make this up.)

Mueller's report will almost certainly disappoint you, and it's not his fault. It's your fault for buying into Trump's false narrative that it is Mueller's' job to prove "collusion," a nearly impossible bar for any prosecutor to clear.

My piece in @TIME : https://t.co/VQ2WhhC996

-- Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) March 1, 2019

This is, of course, the weakest volley. It's absurd, patent bad faith, for Russiagaters to pretend that they knew, thought, or suggested the Mueller investigation was irrelevant. It is they who have been insisting that the integrity and super-sleuthiness of the "revered" Robert Mueller himself was the thing that would nail Donald Trump for Russian collusion. To now deny that any of that was important only acknowledges how thoroughly they have been fooling the American people and/or themselves for two years. Either Adam Schiff had the goods on Trump's traitorous Russian collusion two years ago, in which case he's got a lot of explaining to do about why he's been stringing us along with Mueller, or Schiff is just bluffing. Place your bets.

Russiagaters in 2017: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MUELLER KNOWS
Russiagaters in 2018: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MUELLER KNOWS
Russiagaters in 2019: Shut up Mueller, what would you know.

-- Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) March 22, 2019

2. The Mueller Report didn't exonerate Trump entirely. It was agnostic about whether Trump was guilty of "obstruction of justice," and there are probably many nasty things in the report that may not be provably criminal, but nonetheless demonstrate what a slimeball Trump is.

No, Russiagaters will not get away with denying that the core purpose of the Mueller investigation was to prove Trump's traitorous relation to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, which helped him win the 2016 election. They will not get away with denying that, if the Mueller investigation failed to prove that, it failed in its main purpose, as they constantly defined and reinforced it, with table-pounding, hyperventilating, and -- a few days ago! -- disco-dancing to "the hymnal."

They will not get away with trying to appropriate, as if it were their point all along, what the left critics of Russiagate have been saying for two+ years -- that Donald Trump is a slimeball grifter whose culpability for politically substantive and probably legally actionable crimes and misdemeanors should not be hard to establish, without reverting to the absurd accusation that he's a Russian agent.

These are the left critics of Russiagate and Trump, whom Russiagaters deliberately excluded from all their media platforms, in order to make it seem that only right-wing Trump supporters could be skeptical of Russiagate -- the left critics Russiagaters then excoriated as "Trump enablers" and "Putin apologists" for speaking on the only media platforms that would host them. Among them, Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who just deservedly won the I.F. Stone prize for his Russiagate coverage) were the most prominent, but many others, including me, made this point week after week (Brian Becker, Dave Lindorff, Dan Kovalik, Daniel Lazare, Ted Rall, to name a few). As I put it in an essay last year: "There are a thousand reasons to criticize Donald Trump That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. There are a number of very good justifications for seeking his impeachment That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them."

So, it's a particularly slimy for Russiagaters to slip into the position that we Russiagate skeptics have been enunciating, and they have been excluding, for two years, without acknowledging that we were right and they were wrong and accounting for their effort to edit us out.

3. But we haven't seen the whole Mueller Report! Barr may be fooling us! Mueller's own team says so! You are now doing what you accused us of doing for two years -- abandoning proper skepticism about Republicans like Barr and even Mueller (Yup. He's a suspicious Republican now!), and assuming a final result we have not yet seen.

This is the one the Russiagaters like the most. Gotcha with your own logic!

Well, let's first of all thank those who are saying this for, again, recognizing that we Russiagate critics had the right attitude toward such an investigation: cautious skepticism as opposed to false certainty. And let's linger for a moment or more on how belated that recognition is and what its delay cost.

But let's also recognize that what's being expressed here is the last-minute hope on the part of the Russiagaters that the Mueller report actually does contain dispositive evidence of Trump's treasonous Russian collusion. Because, again, that is the core accusation that hopeful Russiagaters are still singing about, and nobody ever argued that evidence of other hijinks was unlikely.

Well, that hope can only be realized if one or both of the following are true: 1) Barr's quotes from the report exonerating Trump of collusion are complete fabrications, or 2) Mueller both wrote those words even though they contradict the substance of his own report and declined to indict a single U.S. person for such "collusion" even though he could have.

Sure, in the abstract, one or both of those conditions could be true. But there is no evidence, none, that either is. The New York Times (NYT) report that set everyone aflutter about the "concern" from "some members of Mr. Mueller's team" is anonymous, unspecified, and second-hand. Read it carefully: The NYT did not report what any member of Mueller's team said, but what "government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations" said. Those "officials and others interviewed [not members of the Mueller team itself] declined to flesh out" to the NYT what "some of the special counsel's investigators" were unhappy about. To that empty hearsay, the NYT appends the phrase "although the report is believed to examine Mr. Trump's efforts to thwart the investigation" -- suggesting, but not stating, that obstruction of justice issues are the reasons for the investigators' "vexation." The NYT cannot state, because it does not know, anything. It is reporting empty hearsay that is evidence of nothing, but is meant to keep hope alive.

"[T]he report is believed to examine" is a particularly strange locution. Is the NYT suggesting that the Mueller report might not have examined obstruction of justice possibilities? Or is it just getting tangled up in its attempt to suggest this or that? Hey, it could just as well be true that Barr's characterization of what the Mueller Report says about "obstruction of justice" is a misleading fabrication. Maybe Mueller actually exonerated Trump of that. If you mistrust Barr's version of what the Mueller Report says about collusion, why not equally mistrust what it says about obstruction of justice?

There is no evidence that Barr's summary is radically misleading about the core collusion conclusion of the Mueller Report. The walls are closing in, alright, on that story. The I'm just being as cautious now as you were before! line is the opposite of the reasonable skepticism is claims to be; it's Russiagaters clinging to a wish and a belief that something they want to be true is, despite the determinate lack of any evidence.

It's not just the words; it's the melody, and the desperation in the voices. The core Trump-blowing-Vladimir collusion song that #Resisters are still singing is a fantastical fiction and the people still singing it are the pathetic choir on the Russiagate Titanic. And while they're singing as they sink, Trump is escaping in the lifeboat they have provided him. The single most definite and undeniable effect of the Mueller investigation on American politics has been to hand Donald Trump a potent political weapon for his 2020 re-election campaign. A real bombshell.

It would be funny, if it weren't so funny:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qjUvfZj-Fm0

But it's worse than that. The falsity of the Trump-as-a-Russian-agent narrative does not depend on any confidence in Mueller and his report or Barr and his summary. The truth is there was no Russiagate investigation, in the sense of a serious attempt to find out whether Donald Trump was taking orders from, or "coordinating" with, Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

No person in their right mind could believe that. Robert Mueller doesn't believe it. Nancy Pelosi doesn't believe it. Adam Schiff doesn't believe it. John Brennan, James Clapper, and the heads of intelligence agencies do not believe it. Not for a second. No knowledgeable international affairs journalist or academic who thinks about it for two minutes believes it. Sure, some politicians and media pundits did work themselves up into a state where they internalized and projected a belief in the narrative, but few of them really believed it. They were serving the Kool-Aid. Only the most gullible sectors of their target audience drank it.

With some exceptions, to be sure (Donald Trump among them), the people in the highest echelons of the state-media-academic apparatus are just not that stupid. And, most obvious and important, Vladimir Putin is not that stupid, and they know he is not. Vladimir Putin would never rely on Donald Trump to be his operative in a complex operation that required shrewdly playing and evading the US intelligence and media apparatuses. Nobody is that stupid. Thinking about it that way for a second dissipates the entire ridiculous idea. (Not to mention that Trump ended up enacting a number of policies -- many more than Obama! -- contrary to Russian interests.)

The obvious, which many people in the independent media and none in the mainstream media (because it is so obvious, and would have blown their game) have pointed out, is that any real investigation of Russiagate would have sought to talk with the principals who had direct knowledge of who is responsible for leaking the infamous DNC documents: Julian Assange and former British ambassador Craig Murray ("I know who leaked them. I've met the person who leaked them."). They were essentially two undisputed eyewitnesses to the crime Mueller was supposed to be investigating, and he made no effort to talk to either of them. Ipso facto, it was not really an investigation, not a project whole purpose was to find the truth about whatever the thing called "Russiagate" is supposed to be.

The Eternal Witch-hunt

It was a theater of discipline. Its purpose, which it achieved, was to discipline Trump, the Democratic electorate, and the media. Its method was fishing around in the muck of Washington consultants, lobbyists, and influence peddlers to generate indictments and plea bargains for crimes irrelevant to the core mandate. Not hard, in a carceral state where prosecutors can pin three felonies a day on anyone.

The US establishment, especially its national security arm, was genuinely shocked that their anointed candidate, Hillary, who was, as Glen Ford puts it "'all in' with the global military offensive" that Obama had run through Libya, Syria, and the coup in Ukraine, was defeated by a nitwit candidate who was making impermissibly non-aggressive noises about things like Russia and NATO, and who actually wanted to lose. For their part, the Democrats were horrified, and did not want to face the necessary reckoning about the complete failure of their candidate, and the best-of-all-possible-liberaloid-worlds strategy she personified.

So, "within 24 hours of her concession speech" Hillary's campaign team (Robby Mook and John Podesta) created a "script they would pitch to the press and the public" to explain why she lost. "Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument." A few months later, a coalition of congressional Democrats,, establishment Republicans, and intelligence/natsec professionals pressured Trump (who, we can now see clearly, is putty in the hands of the latter) to initiate a Special Counsel investigation. Its ostensible goal was to investigate Russian collusion, but its real goals were:

1) To discipline Trump, preventing any backpedaling on NATO/imperialist war-mongering against Russia or any other target. Frankly, I think this was unnecessary. Trump never had any depth of principle in his remarks about de-escalating with Russia and Syria. He was always a staunch American exceptionalist and Zionist. Nobody has forced him (that's a right-wing fantasy) to attack Syria, appoint John Bolton, recognize Israeli authority over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, or threaten Iran and Venezuela. But the natsec deep state actors did (and do) not trust Trump's impulsiveness. They probably also thought it would be useful to "send a message" to Russia, which, in their arrogance, they think they can, but they cannot, "discipline," as I've discussed in a previous essay.

2) To discipline the media, making "Russian collusion," as Off-Guardian journalist Kit Knightly says, "a concept that keeps everyone in check." Thus, a Russophobia-related McCarthyite hysteria was engendered that defined any strong anti-interventionist or anti-establishment sentiment as Russian-sown "divisiveness" and "Putin apologetics." This discipline was eagerly accepted by the mainstream media, which joined in the related drive to demand new forms of censorship for independent and internet media. The epitome of this is the mainstream media's execrable, tacit and sometimes explicit acceptance of the US government's campaign to prosecute Julian Assange.

3) To discipline and corral the Democratic constituency. Establishment Dems riled up outraged progressives with deceptive implied promises to take Trump down based on the collusion fiction, which excused Hillary and diverted their attention from the real egregious failures and crimes that led their party to political ruin, and culminated in the election of Trump in the first place. This discipline also instituted a #Resistance to Trump that involved the party doing nothing substantively progressive in policy -- indeed, it allowed embracing Trump's most egregious militarism and promoting an alliance with, a positive reverence for, the most deceptive and reactionary institutions of the state.

Finally, incorporating point 2, perhaps the main point of this discipline -- indeed of the whole Mueller enterprise -- was to stigmatize the leftists and socialists in and around the party, who were questioning the collusion fiction and calling critical attention to the party's failures, as crypto-fascist "Trump enablers" or "Putin's useful idiots." It's all about fencing out the left and corralling the base.

Note the point regarding the deceptive implications about taking down Trump. Though they gave the opposite impression to rile up their constituents, Democratic Congressional leaders, for the reasons given above and others I laid out in a previous essay, did not think for a second they were going to impeach Trump. They were never really after impeaching Trump; they were and are after stringing along their dissatisfied progressive-minded voters. They, not Trump, were and are the target of the foolery.

We should recognize that Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation achieved all of these goals, and was therefore a great success. That's the case whatever part of the Mueller Report is summarized and released, and whoever interprets it. The whole report with all of the underlying evidence cannot legally be released to the public, and the Democrats know that. So, even if the House gets it, the public will only ever see portions doled out by various interested parties.

Thus, it will continue to be a great success. There will be endless leaks, and interpretations of leaks, and arguments about the interpretations of leaks based on speculation about what's still hidden. The Mueller Investigation has morphed into the Mueller Report, a hermeneutical exercise that will go on forever.
The Mueller Investigation never happened and will never end.

It wasn't an investigation. It was/is an act of political theater, staged in an ongoing dramatic festival where, increasingly, litigation substitutes for politics. Neither party has anything of real, lasting, positive political substance to offer, and each finds itself in power only because it conned the electorate into thinking it offered something new. That results in every politician being vulnerable, but to a politically vacuous opposition that can only mount its attacks on largely politically irrelevant, often impossible to adjudicate, legalistic or moralistic grounds. Prosecutorial inquiry becomes a substitute for substantive political challenge.

It's the template that was established by the Republicans against Bill Clinton, has been adapted by the Democrats for Trump and Russiagate, and will be ceaselessly repeated. What's coming next, already hinted at in William Barr's congressional testimony, will be an investigation of FISAGate -- an inquiry into whether the FISA warrants for spying on the Trump campaign and administration were obtained legally ("adequately predicated"). And/or UkraineGate, about the evidence "Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes," involving Tony Podesta (who worked right alongside Paul Manafort in Ukraine), Hillary Clinton's campaign, Joe Biden and his son, et. al. And/or CampaignGate, the lawsuit claiming that Hillary's national campaign illegally took $84 million of "straw man" contributions made to state Democratic campaigns. And/or CraigGate, involving powerful Democratic fixer and Obama White House Counsel, Gregory Craig, who has already been referred to federal prosecutors by Mueller, and whose law firm has already paid a $4.6 million-dollar fine for making false statement and failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act -- for work he did in Ukraine with -- who else? -- Paul Manafort.

There are Gates galore. If you haven't heard about any of these simmering scandals in the way you've heard incessantly about, you know, Paul Manafort, perhaps that's because they didn't fit into the "get Trump" theme of the Mueller Investigation/Russiagate political theater. Rest assured the Republicans have, and will likely make sure that you do. If you think the Republicans do not have at least as much of a chance to make a serious case with some of these as Mueller did with Trump, you are wrong. If you think the Republicans will pursue any of these investigations because they have the same principled concern as the Democrats about foreign collusion in US elections, or the legality of campaign contributions or surveillance warrants, you are right. They have none. Like the Democrats, they have zero concern for the ostensible issues of principle, and infinite enthusiasm for mounting "gotcha" political theater.

Neither party really wants, or knows how, to engage in a sustained, principled debate on substantive political issues -- things like universal-coverage, single-payer health insurance, a job guarantee, a radical reduction of the military budget, an end to imperialist intervention, increasing taxes on the wealthy and lowering them for working people, a break from the "overwhelming" and destructive influence of Zionism, to name a few of the policies the Democratic congressional leadership could have insisted on "investigating" over the last two years..

Instead, both parties' political campaigns rely on otherizing appeals based on superficial identity politics (white-affirmative on the one hand, POC-affirmative on the other) and, mainly, on bashing the other party for all the problems it ignored or exacerbated, and all the terrible policies it enacted, when it was in power -- and for the version of superficial, otherizing identity politics it supposedly based those policies on (the real determinants of class power remaining invisible). What both parties know how and will continue to do is mount hypocritical legalistic and moralistic "investigations" of illegal campaign contributions, support from foreign governments, teenage make-out sessions, personal-space violations, et. al., that they are just "shocked, shocked" about.

It's Investigation Nation. Fake politics in the simulacrum of a democratic polity. Indeed, someone, of some political perspicuity, might just notice, if only for a flash, that the people who do pretty well politically are often the ones who frankly don't give a crap about all that. Maybe because they're talking to people who don't give a crap about all that. But we wouldn't want to confuse ourselves thinking on that for too long.

Which brings us to the last point about Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation mentioned above. It may not (or may!) have been an intended goal, but it has been its most definite political effect: The Mueller Investigation has been a great political gift to Donald Trump. #Resisters and Russiagaters can wriggle around that all they want. They can insist that, once we get the whole Report, we'll turn the corner, the bombshell will explode, the walls will close in -- for real, this time. Sure.

But even they can't deny that's the case right now. Trump is saying the Mueller investigation was a political counterattack against the result of the election, masquerading as a disinterested judicial investigation; that it was based on a flimsy fiction and designed to dig around in every corner of his closets to find nasty and incriminating things that were entirely irrelevant to the ostensible mandate of the investigation and to any substantive, upfront political critique -- a "witchhunt," a "fishing expedition." And he is right. And too many people in the country know he's right. At this point, even most Russiagaters themselves know it -- though they don't care, and will never admit it.

So now Trump, who could have been attacked for two years politically on substance for betraying most of the promises that got him elected -- more aggressive war, more tax cuts for the wealthy, threatening Medicare and Social Security -- has instead been handed, by the Democrats, the strongest arrow he now has in his political quiver. As Matt Taibbi says: "Trump couldn't have asked for a juicier campaign issue, and an easier way to argue that 'elites' don't respect the democratic choices of flyover voters. It's hard to imagine what could look worse."

You might think the Democratic Party would be horrified at this result, which one conservative analyst calls: "one of the greatest self-defeating acts in history." You might think Democrats would now move quickly and decisively toward a strategy of offering a substantive political alternative, and abandon this awful own-goal Mueller/Russiagate tack that has already helped Trump immensely (and which they are not going to turn their way). That is obviously what would happen if the Democrats' main goal was to defeat Trump. But it isn't.

As discussed above, the Democratic establishment's' main goal throughout this was not to "get" Trump, but to channel its own voters' disgust with him into support for some halcyon, liberal, status quo ante-Trump, and away from left demands for a radical change to the social, economic, and political conditions that produced him and his clueless establishment opponent in 2016. The Democrats' goal was, and is, not to defeat Trump, but to stave off the left.

What they are doing with the Mueller Investigation/Russiagate is what they did in the primaries in 2016: Then, they deliberately promoted Trump as an opponent, while working assiduously to cheat their own leftist candidate; now, they gin up a fictional spy story whose inevitable collapse helps Trump, but on which they will double down, in order to continue branding "divisive" leftists who challenge any return to their version of status-quo normalcy as the Kremlin's "useful idiots."

The Democrats' main goal in all this is not to impeach, or stop the re-election of, Donald Trump; it's to prevent the nomination and election of Bernie Sanders, or anyone like him.

Russiagate Forever

Here's Tim Ryan's presidential campaign kickoff speech in Youngstown, Ohio, a poster city of late American capitalist deindustrialization, explaining to the voters what is causing the destruction of their lives and towns. After complaining that "We have politicians and leaders today that want to divide us. They want to put us in one box or the other. You know, you can't be for business and for labor," he elaborates:

Yup, it’s those Russians, you see, sowing division through certain “politicians and leaders,” who are preventing us from fixing our healthcare, education, economic and government systems. This—doubling down on Russiagate—is the centrist Democrats’ idea of a winning political appeal. I consider it utterly delusional.

I heard last week from a friend in Western Pennsylvania, not too far from Youngstown. She’s a good person who is trying to organize Democrats in the area to beat Trump in 2020, and, pleading for advice, she expressed her exasperation: “They’re leaving the party!”

You mean the five million people who voted for Obama in 2012, in the 90% of counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012, but would not vote for Hillary in 2019, aren’t streaming back into—are indeed still streaming out of—the Democratic Party, despite all the Mueller investigation has done for them? Imagine that.

What has Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation wrought? It’s either a shrewd political gambit sure to take down Trump, or it’s ridiculous political theater leading Democrats, and the country, over another cliff. Double-down or leave that table?

Place your bets.

[Jun 18, 2019] Crowdstrike Never Produced Final Report on Alleged Russian Hacking by Ray McGovern

Jun 18, 2019
Notable quotes:
"... In other words CrowdStrike, upon which the FBI relied to conclude that Russia hacked the DNC, never completed a final report and only turned over three redacted drafts to the government. ..."
"... In Stone's motion his lawyers argued: "If the Russian state did not hack the DNC, DCCC, or [Clinton campaign chairman John] Podesta's servers, then Roger Stone was prosecuted for obstructing a congressional investigation into an unproven Russian state hacking conspiracy The issue of whether or not the DNC was hacked is central to the Defendant's defense." ..."
"... Suspicions grew as Comey started referring to CrowdStrike as the "pros that they hired." Doubts became more intense when he referred to CrowdStrike as "a high-class entity." In fact the company had a tarnished reputation for reliability and objectivity well before it was hired by the DNC. ..."
"... Dimitri Alperovitch, a CrowdStrike co-founder, is an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a senior fellow at the anti-Russian Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. CrowdStrike said it determined that Russia had hacked the DNC server because it found Cyrillic letters in the metadata, as well as the name of the first Soviet intelligence chief – clues an amateur might leave. ..."
"... But the software CrowdStrike used to blame Russia for hacking the DNC server was later revealed to be so faulty it had to be rewritten . ..."
"... VIPS does not believe the June 12, 14, & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather, it suggests the start of a preemptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack. ..."
"... Why did FBI Director James Comey not simply insist on access to the DNC computers? Surely he could have gotten the appropriate authorization. In early January 2017, reacting to media reports that the FBI never asked for access, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee there were "multiple requests at different levels" for access to the DNC servers. "Ultimately what was agreed to is the private company would share with us what they saw," he said. Comey described CrowdStrike as a "highly respected" cybersecurity company. ..."
"... More telling was earlier questioning by House Intelligence Committee member, Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), who had been a CIA officer for a decade. On March 20, 2017 while he was still FBI director, Comey evidenced some considerable discomfort as he tried to explain to the committee why the FBI did not insist on getting physical access to the DNC computers and do its own forensics: ..."
"... On March 31, 2017 WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that point from what it called "Vault 7" – a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA files. This disclosure featured the tool "Marble Framework," which enabled the CIA to hack into computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving so-called telltale signs – like Cyrillic, for example. ..."
"... The CIA documents also showed that the "Marble" tool had been employed in 2016. ..."
"... As Russia-gate transmogrifies into Deep State-gate, the DOJ is launching a probe into the origins of Russia-gate and the intelligence agencies alleged role in it. It remains to be seen whether US Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham, who is leading the probe, will interview Assange, unlike Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who did not. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | original.antiwar.com

The revelation came in a court filing by the government in the pretrial phase of Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative who had an unofficial role in the campaign of candidate Donald Trump. Stone has been charged with misleading Congress, obstructing justice and intimidating a witness.

The filing was in response to a motion by Stone's lawyers asking for "unredacted reports" from CrowdStrike in an effort to get the government to prove that Russia hacked the DNC server. "The government does not possess the information the defendant seeks," the filing says.

In his motion, Stone's lawyers said he had only been given three redacted drafts. In a startling footnote in the government's response, the DOJ admits the drafts are all that exist. "Although the reports produced to the defendant are marked 'draft,' counsel for the DNC and DCCC informed the government that they are the last version of the report produced," the footnote says.

In other words CrowdStrike, upon which the FBI relied to conclude that Russia hacked the DNC, never completed a final report and only turned over three redacted drafts to the government.

These drafts were "voluntarily" given to the FBI by DNC lawyers, the filing says. "No redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors," the filing quotes DNC lawyers as saying.

In Stone's motion his lawyers argued: "If the Russian state did not hack the DNC, DCCC, or [Clinton campaign chairman John] Podesta's servers, then Roger Stone was prosecuted for obstructing a congressional investigation into an unproven Russian state hacking conspiracy The issue of whether or not the DNC was hacked is central to the Defendant's defense."

The DOJ responded: "The government does not need to prove at the defendant's trial that the Russians hacked the DNC in order to prove the defendant made false statements, tampered with a witness, and obstructed justice into a congressional investigation regarding election interference."

Thousands of emails from the DNC server were published by WikiLeaks in July 2016 revealing that the DNC interfered in the Democratic primary process to favor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders for the party's presidential nomination. The U.S. indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agents in 2018 for allegedly hacking the DNC server and giving the emails to WikiLeaks.

Comey Can't Say Why

At a time of high tension in the 2016 presidential campaign, when the late Sen. John McCain and others were calling Russian "hacking" an "act of war," the FBI settled for three redacted "draft reports" from CrowdStrike rather than investigate the alleged hacking itself, the court document shows.

Then FBI Director James Comey admitted in congressional testimony that he chose not to take control of the DNC's "hacked" computers, and did not dispatch FBI computer experts to inspect them, but has had trouble explaining why.

In his testimony, he conceded that "best practices" would have dictated that forensic experts gain physical access to the computers. Nevertheless, the FBI decided to rely on forensics performed by a firm being paid for by the DNC.

Suspicions grew as Comey started referring to CrowdStrike as the "pros that they hired." Doubts became more intense when he referred to CrowdStrike as "a high-class entity." In fact the company had a tarnished reputation for reliability and objectivity well before it was hired by the DNC.

Dimitri Alperovitch, a CrowdStrike co-founder, is an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a senior fellow at the anti-Russian Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. CrowdStrike said it determined that Russia had hacked the DNC server because it found Cyrillic letters in the metadata, as well as the name of the first Soviet intelligence chief – clues an amateur might leave.

But the software CrowdStrike used to blame Russia for hacking the DNC server was later revealed to be so faulty it had to be rewritten .

CrowdStrike's Early Role

In a Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity referred prominently to this instructive time sequence:

VIPS does not believe the June 12, 14, & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather, it suggests the start of a preemptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack.

Bill Binney, a former NSA technical director and a VIPs member, filed an affidavit in Stone's case. Binney said: "WikiLeaks did not receive stolen data from the Russian government. Intrinsic metadata in the publicly available files on WikiLeaks demonstrates that the files acquired by WikiLeaks were delivered in a medium such as a thumb drive."

Preferring CrowdStrike; ' Splaining to Congress

Why did FBI Director James Comey not simply insist on access to the DNC computers? Surely he could have gotten the appropriate authorization. In early January 2017, reacting to media reports that the FBI never asked for access, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee there were "multiple requests at different levels" for access to the DNC servers. "Ultimately what was agreed to is the private company would share with us what they saw," he said. Comey described CrowdStrike as a "highly respected" cybersecurity company.

Asked by committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) whether direct access to the servers and devices would have helped the FBI in their investigation, Comey said it would have. "Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that's involved, so it's the best evidence," he said.

Five months later, after Comey had been fired, Burr gave him a Mulligan in the form of a few kid-gloves, clearly well-rehearsed, questions:

BURR: And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate – did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?

COMEY: In the case of the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access.

BURR: But no content?

COMEY: Correct.

BURR: Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?

COMEY: It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks – the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.

More telling was earlier questioning by House Intelligence Committee member, Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), who had been a CIA officer for a decade. On March 20, 2017 while he was still FBI director, Comey evidenced some considerable discomfort as he tried to explain to the committee why the FBI did not insist on getting physical access to the DNC computers and do its own forensics:

HURD: So there was about a year between the FBI's first notification of some potential problems with the DNC network and then that information getting on – getting on WikiLeaks.

COMEY: Yes, sir.

HURD: when did the DNC provide access for – to the FBI for your technical folks to review what happened?

COMEY: Well we never got direct access to the machines themselves. The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system.

HURD: So, Director FBI notified the DNC early, before any information was put on WikiLeaks and when – you have still been – never been given access to any of the technical or the physical machines that were – that were hacked by the Russians.

COMEY: That's correct although we got the forensics from the pros that they hired which – again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this – my folks tell me was an appropriate substitute.

Comey Spikes Deal With Assange

Director Comey's March 20, 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee came at the same time he was scuttling months-long negotiations between Assange and lawyers representing the DOJ and CIA to grant some limited immunity for the WikiLeaks founder. In return, Assange offered to: (1) redact "some classified CIA information he might release in the future," and (2) "provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did not engage in the DNC releases."

Investigative journalist John Solomon, quoting WikiLeaks ' intermediary with the government, broke this story, based on "interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators. It would be a safe assumption that Assange was offering to prove that Russia was not WikiLeaks ' source of the DNC emails, something Assange has repeatedly said.

That, of course, would have been the last thing Comey would have wanted.

On March 31, 2017 WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that point from what it called "Vault 7" – a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA files. This disclosure featured the tool "Marble Framework," which enabled the CIA to hack into computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving so-called telltale signs – like Cyrillic, for example.

The CIA documents also showed that the "Marble" tool had been employed in 2016.

Two weeks later, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo branded WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service," and the U.S. put pressure on Ecuador, which had given Assange asylum, to expel him from its London embassy. He was on April 11 when British police arrested him. On the same day he was convicted of skipping bail on a Swedish investigation that had since been dropped. Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in London's max-security Belmarsh prison.

Comey, it seems a safe bet, still worries that Assange or one of his associates, will provide "technical evidence" enough to prove "who did not engage in the DNC releases."

What Were They Thinking?

At the March 20, 2017 House Intelligence Committee hearing, Congressman Trey Gowdy heaped effusive praise on then-FBI Director Comey, calling him "incredibly respected." At that early stage, no doubt Gowdy meant no double entendre . He might now.

As Russia-gate transmogrifies into Deep State-gate, the DOJ is launching a probe into the origins of Russia-gate and the intelligence agencies alleged role in it. It remains to be seen whether US Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham, who is leading the probe, will interview Assange, unlike Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who did not.

It is proving very difficult for some of my old FBI friends and others to believe that Comey and other justice, intelligence, and security officials at the very top could have played fast and loose with the Constitution and the law and lived a lie over the past few years.

"How did they ever think they could get away with it?" they ask. The answer is deceivingly simple. Comey himself has explained it in a moment of seemingly unintentional candor in his pretentious book, "A Higher Loyalty." He wrote, "I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president."

There would be no problem, of course, if Mrs. Clinton had won the election. That's what they all thought; and that probably explains their lack of care in keeping their activities off the written record and out of computers. Elementary tradecraft goes out the window with these upper-echelon, "high-class-entity" officials, when they are sure that she, and they, are going to be the inevitable winners – with promotions, not indictments in store for them.

Additional reporting by Joe Lauria

Background Reading on Deep State-Gate

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President's Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News .

Author: Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. In the Sixties he served as an infantry/intelligence officer and then became a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). View all posts by Ray McGovern

[Jun 16, 2019] US Govt's Entire Russia-DNC Hacking Narrative Based On Redacted Draft Of Crowdstrike Report

Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

It's been known for some time that the US Government based its conclusion that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on a report by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, which the DNC paid over a million dollars to conduct forensic analysis and other work on servers they refused to hand over to the FBI.

CrowdStrike's report made its way into a joint FBI/DHS report on an Russia's " Grizzly Steppe ", which concluded Russia hacked the DNC's servers. At the time, Crowdstrike's claim drew much scrutiny from cybersecurity experts according to former Breitbart reporter Lee Stranahan.

Now, thanks to a new court filing by longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone requesting the full Crowdstrike analysis, we find out that the US government was given a redacted version of the report marked "Draft, " as reported by the Conservative Treehouse .

What makes the whole thing even more hokey is a footnote admitting that "counsel for the DNC and DCCC informed the government that they are the last version of the report produced. "

So to be clear - the entire narrative that Russia hacked the DNC is based on a redacted draft of a report which Crowdstrike appears not to have even finalized.

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And as the Conservative Treehouse notes: "This means the FBI and DOJ, and all of the downstream claims by the intelligence apparatus; including the December 2016 Joint Analysis Report and January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, all the way to the Weissmann/Mueller report and the continued claims therein; were based on the official intelligence agencies of the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of Justice taking the word of a hired contractor for the Democrat party .. despite their inability to examine the server and/or actually see an unredacted technical forensic report from the investigating contractor."

The entire apparatus of the U.S. government just took their word for it

and used the claim therein as an official position .

which led to a subsequent government claim, in court, of absolute certainty that Russia hacked the DNC.

Think about that for a few minutes. - Conservative Treehouse

Meanwhile, the Crowdstrike analyst who led forensics on the DNC servers is a former FBI employee who Robert Mueller promoted while head of the agency. It should also be noted that the government of Ukraine admonished Crowdstrike for a report they later retracted and amended , claiming that Russia hacked Ukrainian military.

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General Titus , 10 seconds ago link

Remember when Fugly Debbie " I Know Nothing" Sgt Shultz Washerwoman threatened that Chief of Police?

4medicinalpurposesonly , 17 seconds ago link

Amazing how the Dems are able to commit cyber spying yet Hillary and Lois Lerner lose all of their emails including back ups

Helg Saracen , 1 minute ago link

Oy wey! Do not make my **** laugh (I myself have long been unable to laugh from all this circus). Guys - not tired yet?

:)

Catullus , 5 minutes ago link

Remember that one time Hillary Clinton said on national television during a presidential debate that Russia needed to be held accountable for this? That 17 intelligence agreed they did it. And that we should take action to provoke a nuclear power. On TV.

All because we got to see how corrupt the DNC nomination process is.

brokebackbuck , 23 seconds ago link

its a very simple scheme. its what any child would do hide that they cheated and get out of trouble:

1) stop trumpo
2) fabricate the foreign meddling narrative to implicate trump as LONG as possible, so long it makes people sick to hear foreign meddling, even though it was the DNC that actually paid british people to fabricate compromat.
3) blame russia for everything

Mike Rotsch , 8 minutes ago link

Anyone remember that very brief news story about a California Senator returning from London with "bombshell" information that he had to get to the POTUS immediately? I waited to see if anything would ever come of that. Instead . . .

. . . scrubbed from the internet.

pHObuk0wrEHob71Suwr2 , 10 minutes ago link

Hooty Hoo

https://twitter.com/JakeWharton/status/1092425961361022976

MrBoompi , 12 minutes ago link

If it says Factual Background, it must be true. We are dealing with super trustworthy folks here, remember. How many more "factual reports" will we see that don't mention Seth Rich? The murderers are still running free.

yerfej , 13 minutes ago link

The bureaucracy owns the media, courts, and academia so naturally they can shape the law to meet their personal needs. The average taxpayer is just a tool to allow the bureaucrats to consolidate and maintain their ownership of everyone and everything.

RussianSniper , 13 minutes ago link

Trump enjoys drama and treats this entire treasonous coup as a television drama.

The issue is that ordinary American citizens are sick and tired of the powerful and wealthy having two sets of rules, theirs and those for everyone else.

I stopped watching television except for local sports and NHL.

I rarely look at ZH anymore.

Never watch Fox anymore

Would not consider any paper

My point is that the people who once were concerned, are losing interest.

Those who treat politics as religion will continue to treat those who disagree as criminals and cast offs.

What used to be a great country that a availed opportunity to all who tried, is now a kleptocracy and a club for leftist religious fanatics.

lisa.roy39 , 14 minutes ago link

𝐈'𝐦 ­­­­­­­­­ 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 ­­­­­­­­­𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫­­­­­­­­­ $𝟏𝟑𝐤­­­­­­­­­ 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡­­­­­­­­­ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠­­­­­­­­­ 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 ­­­­­­­­­𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. 𝐈 ­­­­­­­­­𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭 ­­­­­­­­­𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ­­­­­­­­­𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 ­­­­­­­­­𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 ­­­­­­­­­𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 ­­­­­­­­­𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 ­­­­­­­­­𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 ­­­­­­­­­𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 ­­­­­­­­­𝐜𝐚𝐧 ­­­­­­­­­𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 ­­­­­­­­­𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐈 ­­­­­­­­­𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤­­­­­­­­­ 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐭. ­­­­­­­­­𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬­­­­­­­­­ 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞­­­­­­­­­ 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 ­­­­­­­­­𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 ­­­­­­­­­𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.­­­­­­­­­𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡­­­­­­­­­ 𝐦𝐲 ­­­­­­­­­𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐜­­­­­­­­­𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐚𝐬 ­­­­­­­­­$𝟏𝟐𝟕𝟏𝟐 ­­­­­­­­­𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 ­­­­­­­­­𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 ­­­­­­­­­𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐫­­­­­­­­­ 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬.𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐲 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤.....

click this link════►►► http://www.todaysfox.com

Bricker , 18 minutes ago link

#Resist will guarantee Trumps re-election, unless the 15 states who are going to use their pact to send their votes towards popular vote.

The United States of America is turning into a shithole Banana Republic with the ******* democrats.

This should be headline news on conservative stations, not including the new liberal news station, Fox News.

glenlloyd , 6 minutes ago link

I don't think states can arbitrarily decide to ignore the electoral college if they want to. Something tells me federal law governs national elections and they can whine and cry and act like triggered embiciles all they want but it doesn't change the law.

The Carbonator , 3 minutes ago link

It would end up going to SCOTUS. Lets hope that Trump gets the honor of replacing that treasonous bitch with a real constitutional judge. Lets keep hope alive!

Pussy Biscuit , 19 minutes ago link

That disgusting *** should be liquidated.

scaleindependent , 21 minutes ago link

Whatever we blame Russia for doing, we are in fact doing.

For example, we blame them for hacking our electrical grid. No proof was given, yet this morning we have evidence we have been messing and hacking Russia's electrical grid.

We blame them for interfering in our elections, when in fact we have been interfering in the world's elections and sovereign governments.


The ultimate hypocrites.

freedommusic , 21 minutes ago link

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?

FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?

AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.

DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?

AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.

DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where the server was examined?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratries?

AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.

DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in FBI laboratories?

AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.

(silence)

DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?

AGENT: Uh .. no.

DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?

AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually examined the computer hardware?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?

AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.

DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?

AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?

AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.

DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their servers?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?

AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?

AGENT: I don't know.

DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?

AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.

DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?

AGENT: No, I cannot.

DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?

AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Did you lose it?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?

AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?

AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.

DEF ATT: A draft copy?

AGENT: Yes.

DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why not?

AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.

PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.

( source )

hooligan2009 , 14 minutes ago link

Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).

GALLGE , 1 minute ago link

There's no way to sweep it under the official rug at this point. Even kicking off WWIII as a distraction will flop.

Thebighouse , 22 minutes ago link

Lying demon-rats........liars liars liars.........just like cnn, and their affiliates...nbc, cbs abc msnbc...........all weaponized propaganda outlets........should lose fcc licenses and HANG THEIR LYING COLLUDING ANCHORS....hang 'em high........liars

DEDA CVETKO , 23 minutes ago link

As the ring of known Russiagate conspirators gets narrower and narrower, this anti-russian (which also happens to be anti-american and anti-world) clique's collective characteristics and traits are getting easier and easier to discern and quantify because their contours - previously carefully concealed by multiple layers of opaque veils and drapes - are now fully visible.

These people are all (A) privileged elites and dynastic social castes (B) share, more or less, the same social and divine cosmology (no, not Buddhist) (C) do not recognize ethics and morals as having any meaning or significance except on a purely nominal and declarative level, which - of course - applies to others, but not to themselves (D) firmly believe in survival of the fittest, law of the jungle and might-makes-right (E) are all members of the secret frats (F) performed important state functions and aspire to perform some more because, after all, greed is good and so is unlimited ambition (they also seem to enjoy very much their hard-earned social status and prominence) (G) belong to the same "liberal interventionist" war club (H) believe in Keynesian economics, but - absurdly, and in the same breath - in Ayn Rand's right-wing ideological nonsense, depending on what suits them the best at any given moment, (I) typically have background in banking or finance, corporate management or government lobbying (J) prefer to remain anonymous at any cost (K) have a very fluid and elastic perception of human sexuality and libidinal urges (L) Own Panama-or Cayman Islands- chartered tax havens (M) do not mingle with the non-elites or unwashed masses (N) firmly believe in their divine chosenness and messianic role (O) show pronounced, sustained propensity to Groupthink and consistent absence of any creative and constructive thought; (P) are always "centrists", "middle of the road" and "bipartisan" and never tend to stick out in any social milieu, preferring instead to dictate from the opaque deep end, (Q) maintain extremely high fake media visibility (R) do not believe in forgiveness, penitence or remorse - only in never-ending, bloody revenge.

This profile of humans cannot be properly socialized or resocialized, because the social ethos that created them made amply sure that they cannot be adjusted, bettered, improved or otherwise socially tweaked at any point in their lives: in essence, their characters and personalities are cast in stone, cemented unto all eternity and permanently immutable.. The best that we, the normal people, can do is kindly and gently quarantine them to a place where they can't inflict any significant damage and prevent them from rising to the top, which may turn out to be very different because they control (and have every intention of controlling in the future) every road that leads to the top.

hooligan2009 , 11 minutes ago link

well put sir/madam/it!!!

Amy G. Dala , 23 minutes ago link

So, the FBI "asked" the DNC for the servers, and the DNC said they never heard from the FBI.

Guess James Comey musta got Seth Rich on the line.

charliebrown , 24 minutes ago link

Treason including a coup against democracy

ATM , 22 minutes ago link

against the Republic.

Democracy is pure evil.

Government needs you to pay taxes , 24 minutes ago link

Rule of law in Murrika is kaput.

DirtySanchez , 26 minutes ago link

The entirety of the USA government, including the intel agencies, the judiciary, state dept, justice dept, congress, and the growing bureaucracy has been hijacked by a treacherous tribe of people, intent on destroying the nation from within.

Kill the tyrants before they kill you!

Thebighouse , 20 minutes ago link

Punish the tyrants and look at that well organized community...........if you don't think leggo-obummer didn't have a huge hand in this, you are very mis-informed.

ACMeCorporations , 27 minutes ago link

Perkins Coie, Perkins Coie, Perkins Coie. Follow the money. Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS and CrowdStrike. Raid them like Michael Cohen was raided.

hooligan2009 , 26 minutes ago link

bang on!

SummerSausage , 20 minutes ago link

Raid them like Roger Stone was raided!

BIWEEE , 28 minutes ago link

Wasserman-Schultz = Khazar!!!

hooligan2009 , 25 minutes ago link

= futt bugly mowler honkey

Black Dog 32 , 30 minutes ago link

Crowdstrike just ipo'd this week. Cashing in. I think it was up 100% first day.

natxlaw , 30 minutes ago link

I'm bored, when is someone going to jail. I won't be sharing this information with blue pill normies they would not get it. Trump, you listening?

Joebloinvestor , 32 minutes ago link

The FBI was so "in the bag" with the DNC it is laughable.

Now you know why they wanted the Smollet investigation handed off to the FBI.

Bunch of ******* dirty corrupt cops.

hooligan2009 , 34 minutes ago link

just remember that, aside from the weaponization of federal agencies for political purposes by obama, biden and clinton (which merits waterboarding in guantanamo) - there are hundreds if not thousands of INNOCENTS who have been prosecuted and GUILTY still walking the streets.

the prosecution of the innocent and the releaseof the guilty may have been going on for decades, but, but now, it should be apparet, that in true KGB style, it ballooned to extreme proportions under Obama/Biden and Clinton.

and this is what the howler moneys in the clown car want to inflict on the US in 2020. after all, it's their turn right?

honk honk.

schroedingersrat , 32 minutes ago link

And it got much worse under Trump hiring all the war criminals form yesteryears back into office.

hooligan2009 , 23 minutes ago link

truth is a good way of triggering howler monkeys

Creative_Destruct , 35 minutes ago link

"....based on the official intelligence agencies of the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of Justice taking the word of a hired contractor for the Democrat party"

Hey, when you (the FBI, the entire executive branch) are partisan Never Trumpers and it's your party what else should we expect? After all, gotta concoct all the propaganda possible under the guise of an "objective" investigation for that "insurance policy."

novictim , 37 minutes ago link

Totally believable. The corruption is just as bad as the most pessimistic analysis has suggested.

We live in a time of universal lies and a press that supports illegal activities by treasonous elements of the US Government.

How do we turn this around without an honest Press rallying the public?

Amy G. Dala , 27 minutes ago link

Easy. Apply responsibilities that are commensurate with their constitutional right to publish. It's been three years of ******** and unsourced stories.

At a minimum, when a confidential source provides information that is demonstrated to be false, then that reporter is legally bound to identify them. Fuckers should be in jail.

Look at Assange. He publishes truth, and he's in jail. Tapper/Seltzer/et. al. are millionaire celebrities.

Thordoom , 38 minutes ago link

Why Russians who were sanctioned by US over this hoax are not suing US and asking for huge reparations is beyond me.

schroedingersrat , 37 minutes ago link

Most Russian sanctions are based on lies. Have a look at the Magnitsky Act :)

Thordoom , 36 minutes ago link

I know i follow Lee Stranahan's work about that hoax too for years.

Bill Browder blocked me on twater.

Ruff_Roll , 18 minutes ago link

Maybe they're blocked by sovereign immunity.

pparalegal , 39 minutes ago link

Another day another Hillary crowd-strikes.

[Jun 14, 2019] Our old acquaintance Crowdstrike has gone public, and in its IPO debut, the stock surged to a market cap of over $12 Billion

Notable quotes:
"... Surprisingly, Crowdstrike's CEO – George Kurtz – does not have a background in the national intelligence services, or none that is immediately apparent. He seems to have worked mostly in private security, having gotten into it fairly early on, and is an accountant by trade; he seems to be the public face of the firm, and to be mostly involved in marketing. ..."
"... However, their president of services, Shawn Henry, is a former executive assistant director of the FBI, and I imagine its employees include quite a few former government spooks and ideologues. ..."
"... The other co-founder, though, is Dmitry Alperovitch. ..."
"... He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, a direct adviser to the US Department of Defense, connected to Hillary Clinton and runs a new corporation whose startup cash came from Google. There's something even bigger than Google – corporations now seem more and more to be merging into what are essentially mini-states within the state itself – and it is called Alphabet Capital, Google's parent company. The Chairman of Alphabet Capital is Eric Schmidt, and he was actively working for Hillary Clinton during the last election when she spectacularly failed to make the cut. ..."
"... Google, allegedly, is becoming more and more an arm of the Democratic Party in the USA. ..."
"... Wheels within wheels, and connections seen and unseen. Several security professionals and software developers have alluded to Crowdstrike's reports on international hacking as being full of shit – but the American enforcement and intelligence services seem content to outsource their cyber work more or less exclusively to Crowdstrike. And the results of its IPO suggest high confidence on the part of investors that it is going to become ever-more-closely allied to the US government, font of government grants and funding which can be hard to trace. ..."
"... For what it's worth, the Crowdstrike story that Russian cyber-meddling had knocked out 80% of Ukrainian artillery systems was deemed bogus by several other sources, including the Ukrainian Army. At its most basic, artillery systems are large ballistic rifles that drop artillery shells on a predetermined position by looking the reference up on a gridded map and inputting corrections for elevation and azimuth; there is nothing computer-connected about them. Somewhere near the nearest elevated position in relation to the target there is a spotter, who notes the fall of shot and calls the corrections; "left two, up fifty", or "in line, on for range; fire for effect". The latter would be followed by a barrage on what the spotter had identified as a direct hit by the spotting rounds. ..."
Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman June 12, 2019 at 10:31 am

Well, well; look at that. Our old acquaintance Crowdstrike has gone public, and in its IPO debut, the stock surged to a market cap of over $12 Billion – worth nearly as much as Symantec, which has been around for nearly 40 years. Up 83% in a single day. Gee; I wonder who's buying in? I guess we can look forward to more whispering about Russian cybercrime and internet invasion in the days to come. Stealing elections, even, maybe, hmmm?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/12/crowdstrike-ipo-stock-starts-trading-on-the-nasdaq.html

Surprisingly, Crowdstrike's CEO – George Kurtz – does not have a background in the national intelligence services, or none that is immediately apparent. He seems to have worked mostly in private security, having gotten into it fairly early on, and is an accountant by trade; he seems to be the public face of the firm, and to be mostly involved in marketing.

However, their president of services, Shawn Henry, is a former executive assistant director of the FBI, and I imagine its employees include quite a few former government spooks and ideologues.

https://www.crowdstrike.com/about-crowdstrike/executive-team/george-kurtz/

The other co-founder, though, is Dmitry Alperovitch.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/01/06/dnc-russian-hacking-conclusion-comes-google-linked-firm/

He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, a direct adviser to the US Department of Defense, connected to Hillary Clinton and runs a new corporation whose startup cash came from Google. There's something even bigger than Google – corporations now seem more and more to be merging into what are essentially mini-states within the state itself – and it is called Alphabet Capital, Google's parent company. The Chairman of Alphabet Capital is Eric Schmidt, and he was actively working for Hillary Clinton during the last election when she spectacularly failed to make the cut.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-24/what-crowdstrike-firm-hired-dnc-has-ties-hillary-clinton-ukrainian-billionaire-and-g

Google, allegedly, is becoming more and more an arm of the Democratic Party in the USA.

There is also another gap in play: The shrinking distance between Google and the Democratic Party. Former Google executive Stephanie Hannon is the Clinton campaign's chief technology officer, and a host of ex-Googlers are currently employed as high-ranking technical staff at the Obama White House. Schmidt, for his part, is one of the most powerful donors in the Democratic Party -- and his influence does not stem only from his wealth, estimated by Forbes at more than $10 billion.

Wheels within wheels, and connections seen and unseen. Several security professionals and software developers have alluded to Crowdstrike's reports on international hacking as being full of shit – but the American enforcement and intelligence services seem content to outsource their cyber work more or less exclusively to Crowdstrike. And the results of its IPO suggest high confidence on the part of investors that it is going to become ever-more-closely allied to the US government, font of government grants and funding which can be hard to trace.

Mark Chapman June 12, 2019 at 4:25 pm
Here's a colorful account of Crowdstrike's exploits and their alleged track record of coming up with convenient narratives on demand.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-russian-collusion-delusion-in-a-nutshell/

For what it's worth, the Crowdstrike story that Russian cyber-meddling had knocked out 80% of Ukrainian artillery systems was deemed bogus by several other sources, including the Ukrainian Army. At its most basic, artillery systems are large ballistic rifles that drop artillery shells on a predetermined position by looking the reference up on a gridded map and inputting corrections for elevation and azimuth; there is nothing computer-connected about them. Somewhere near the nearest elevated position in relation to the target there is a spotter, who notes the fall of shot and calls the corrections; "left two, up fifty", or "in line, on for range; fire for effect". The latter would be followed by a barrage on what the spotter had identified as a direct hit by the spotting rounds.

Kaspersky Labs also took Crowdstrike apart,

https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/kasperskys-war-on-crowdstrike-evangelist-dmitri-alperovitch/

and mention of Kaspersky reminded me the US government had used 'advice' from its security experts to determine Kaspersky products constituted a threat to US national security just like Huawei, a connection I have not seen made yet elsewhere.

Mmmm .I wonder if Crowdstrike is not being set up specifically to provide the US government with substantiation for banning technical products which have the potential to achieve dominant market share, but cannot be manipulated by Washington because they are owned by non-aligned countries?

[Jun 13, 2019] A loyal servant of empire -- Crowdstrike CEO -- is well-rewarded for his role in creating Russiagate hysteria by Caitlin Johnstone

Notable quotes:
"... Never mind that to this day the DNC servers have not been examined by the FBI, nor indeed were they examined by the Special Counsel of Robert " Iraq has WMD " Mueller, preferring instead to go with the analyses of this extremely shady outfit with extensive and well-documented ties with the oligarchic leaders of the US-centralized empire. ..."
"... When the Romanian REAL Guccifer got Podesta password (password) by phishing, exposing his pizza and walnut sauce perversions, the US had him jailed. When WikiLeaks made a DNC dump, CrowdStrike concocted Guccifer 2.0, then more leaks Fancy Bear, and more leaks Cozy Bear. All these CrowdStrike fabrications used CIA Vault 7 fingerprints to frame Russia. It is time to execute our ruling demonic warlords. ..."
Jun 13, 2019 | caitlinjohnstone.com

A new article by Forbes reports that the CEO of Crowdstrike, the extremely shady cybersecurity corporation which was foundational in the construction of the official CIA/CNN Russian hacking narrative, is now a billionaire. George Kurtz ascended to the billionaire rankings on the back of soaring stocks immediately after the company went public, carried no doubt on the winds of the international fame it gained from its central protagonistic role in the most well-known hacking news story of all time.

A loyal servant of empire well-rewarded. Never mind that US government insiders like Hillary Clinton had been prepping for escalations against Russia well in advance of the 2016 elections, and that their preexisting agendas to shove a geostrategic obstacle off the world stage benefitted from the hacking narrative as much as George Kurtz did.

Never mind that Crowdstrike is tied to the NATO narrative management firm known as the Atlantic Council, which receives funding from the US government, the EU, NATO, Gulf states and powerful international oligarchs. Never mind either that Crowdstrike was financed with a whopping $100 million from Google , which has had a cozy relationship with US intelligence agencies since its very inception .

Never mind that to this day the DNC servers have not been examined by the FBI, nor indeed were they examined by the Special Counsel of Robert " Iraq has WMD " Mueller, preferring instead to go with the analyses of this extremely shady outfit with extensive and well-documented ties with the oligarchic leaders of the US-centralized empire.

Also never mind that the Crowdstrike analyst who led forensics on those DNC servers had in fact worked for and was promoted by Robert Mueller while the two were in the FBI.

The CEO of the Atlantic Council-tied Crowdstrike, which formed the foundation of the official CIA/CNN Russian hacking narrative, is now a billionaire. I'm telling you, the real underlying currency of this world is narrative and the ability to control it. https://t.co/XsBCvkIDzJ -- Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) June 12, 2019
As I never tire of saying, the real underlying currency in our world is not gold, nor bureaucratic fiat, nor even raw military might.

The real underlying currency of our world is narrative, and the ability to control it.

As soon as you really grok this dynamic, you start noticing it everywhere.

George Kurtz is one clear example today of narrative control's central role in the maintenance and expansion of existing power structures, as well as an illustration of how the empire is wired to reward those who advance pro-empire narratives and punish those who damage them...

... ... ...

Joseph Olson / June 13, 2019
When the Romanian REAL Guccifer got Podesta password (password) by phishing, exposing his pizza and walnut sauce perversions, the US had him jailed. When WikiLeaks made a DNC dump, CrowdStrike concocted Guccifer 2.0, then more leaks Fancy Bear, and more leaks Cozy Bear. All these CrowdStrike fabrications used CIA Vault 7 fingerprints to frame Russia. It is time to execute our ruling demonic warlords.

[Jun 12, 2019] Steele's Shoddy Dossier by Andrew C. McCarthy

Notable quotes:
"... Steele had been Litvinenko's handler when he was poisoned in 2006 ..."
"... In the late Nineties, through no fault of his own, his cover in Moscow, along with that of scores of other spies, had been blown. When he was retained to pen the dossier reports, he hadn't been to Russia in nearly 20 years. ..."
"... Steele told Bruce Ohr he was desperate that Trump not get elected. ..."
"... Steele told State Department official Kathleen Kavalec that he hoped his dirt on Trump would become public before Election Day and that he was cultivating relationships with various major press outlets. Kavalec passed this information along to the bureau. ..."
"... The FBI has never accused Steele of lying about media contacts; there were so many such contacts that it would have been foolish of Steele to deny them; Steele freely discussed them with the State Department's Kavalec, and Justice's Bruce Ohr knew that Fusion GPS was trying to push anti-Trump information into the press. ..."
"... As mentioned earlier, Steele maintained that a "former top Russian intelligence officer" was one of his principal sources -- in particular, for the allegation that Russia had amassed enough kompromat on Trump to blackmail him at a time of Putin's choosing. ..."
"... We're supposed to believe that when Steele was not slumming with the wannabe likes of Sergei Millian, he was plugged in to the crème de la Kremlin? ..."
Jun 06, 2019 | www.nationalreview.com

Its claims were absurd, its evidence unconvincing -- why did government officials ignore so many red flags?

Could former Obama-administration intelligence chiefs run any faster from the Steele dossier? "Pseudo-intelligence," scoffs former national intelligence director James Clapper in his new memoir -- after having arranged for the dossier to be included in a briefing of then-president-elect Trump, ensuring it would be published by the media. John Brennan, the former CIA director, belittles the dossier as uncorroborated reporting never refined into an authentic intelligence-agency product -- and hopes we don't notice his behind-the-scenes stoking of the dossier's explosive allegations during the 2016 campaign. "Salacious and unverified," sniffs former FBI director James Comey -- after his bureau repeatedly relied on the dossier to obtain surveillance warrants from a federal court.

Even the principal author himself, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, no longer stands behind his work. He touted it plenty ahead of the election he told colleagues he desperately wanted Trump to lose. Later, though, when he was sued for libel in Britain and had to answer questions under oath, the dossier disintegrated into "unverified" bits of "raw intelligence" that he had passed along because they "warranted further investigation" -- not because they were, you know, true.

By any objective measure, Steele's dossier is a shoddy piece of work. Its stories are preposterous -- the "pee tape," the grandiose Trump–Russia espionage conspiracy, the closely coordinating Trump emissaries who turn out not even to know each other, the trips and meetings that never happened, the hub of conspiratorial activity that did not actually exist. Steele gets basic facts wrong. There are undated and misdated reports. The putative Russia expert repeatedly misspells the name of Alfa Bank ("Alpha"), which is among the country's most important financial institutions. In the antithesis of good spycraft, Steele tried (unsuccessfully) to corroborate his sensational claims by using dodgy information pulled off the Internet, including posts by "random individuals" who were as unknown to Steele as most of Steele's vaunted sources are unknown to everyone else. No wonder Steele's former MI6 superior, Sir John Scarlett, scathingly assessed the dossier as falling woefully short of professional intelligence standards: The reports were "visibly" part of a "commercial" venture, unlikely ever to be corroborated, and patently suspect due to questions about who commissioned them and why they were generated.

Yet the Obama administration made the dossier the centerpiece of its Russia investigation.

The FBI eventually tried to corroborate Steele's claims. The effort was ramped up only after the Obama administration -- through the Justice Department and the bureau -- peddled the dossier to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret tribunal established by Congress in the wake of the 1970s spy scandals to give Americans a modicum of due-process protection against national-security monitoring. Months after the FISA warrants were issued, enabling the bureau to monitor former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page, then-director Comey sheepishly conceded to Judiciary Committee senators that investigators had not verified the allegations; they had relied on them because they had believed Steele. This despite the fact that Steele had not even pretended to be the actual source of the allegations. Essentially, he was an aggregator, a collector of rank rumor.

Proceeding in this manner flouted an elementary principle. All warrants require the government to make a probable-cause showing about the target. In criminal law, it must illustrate that a crime has been committed; in counterintelligence law, that the proposed surveillance target is acting as an agent of a foreign power. Regardless of what must be proved, though, the showing must be based on information from the sources who made the relevant observations , whom the judge is given reasons to credit. The credibility of the person who assembles the source information (usually, the case agent) is largely beside the point.

Nevertheless, it's worth asking: Just how reliable was Christopher Steele?

Steele was a virulently anti-Trump partisan. The media-Democrat encomia therefore hail him as a meticulous former British intelligence officer with a formidable record. So highly regarded was he that MI6 put him in charge of the investigation of the Putin regime's brazen murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian-intelligence operative who had defected to Britain. Less often mentioned is that Steele had been Litvinenko's handler when he was poisoned in 2006. Steele, we're further told, was so well connected that he was chosen to run MI6's all-important Russia desk. Well, yes . . . but he ran it from London.

In the late Nineties, through no fault of his own, his cover in Moscow, along with that of scores of other spies, had been blown. When he was retained to pen the dossier reports, he hadn't been to Russia in nearly 20 years.

His recruiter and collaborator was the self-professed "journalist for rent" Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter. Simpson had co-founded a so-called intelligence firm, Fusion GPS, which had been contracted to do anti-Trump research for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee by Perkins Coie, their law firm.

By that point in the spring of 2016, Steele was a sleuth for hire who had done the bidding of such fine, upstanding clients as Oleg Deripaska, known as "Putin's oligarch," who had cornered the Russian aluminum market during the post-Soviet era of "gangster capitalism" and labors under U.S. sanctions imposed due to the regime's malign policies. And why shouldn't Steele work for Deripaska?

... ... ...

In the media coverage of Russiagate, Steele's intelligence-officer background has been a deceptive distraction. In drafting the dossier, he was not a detached intelligence agent whose training in the separation of fact from fiction was critical to his country's security and prosperity. That was the Steele of years ago. Arguably it was the Steele of 2010, fresh out of MI6, who had worked with the Obama Justice Department on the heralded FIFA soccer-corruption investigation. The Steele of 2016, however, was a private eye, marshaling (or inflating) information in the light most favorable to his clients. During the Trump–Clinton contest, he was a well-paid and quite willing political hack.

Both the FBI and the Justice Department were well aware of that. Another Fusion GPS collaborator on the dossier was Nellie Ohr, a former CIA open-source researcher married to Bruce Ohr, a high-ranking Justice Department official. Nearly three months before the Obama administration used the dossier in court, Bruce Ohr told top bureau officials -- including his longtime colleagues, deputy director Andrew McCabe and McCabe's counselor, Lisa Page -- that Steele was working with Nellie Ohr on anti-Trump research that was connected to the Clinton campaign. Steele told Bruce Ohr he was desperate that Trump not get elected. Ten days before the court issued FISA warrants based on the dossier, Steele told State Department official Kathleen Kavalec that he hoped his dirt on Trump would become public before Election Day and that he was cultivating relationships with various major press outlets. Kavalec passed this information along to the bureau.

Yet the Justice Department and the FBI withheld from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the dossier's connection to the Clinton campaign, as well as Steele's avowed commitment to defeat Trump. The FISA-warrant application not only concealed indications that Steele was leaking his unverified allegations to the media; the FBI told the court that Steele was not the "direct" source for a press story (written by Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News ) for which Steele appeared to be the obvious source, and for which he was, in fact, the source.

Again, this is something the FBI could have figured out with minimal effort -- such as by pointedly interviewing Steele. For reasons that are still unclear, he had become a paid FBI informant in February 2016, months before his anti-Trump work started. He was obliged to answer the bureau's questions. There is no reason to believe Steele would have held back: The FBI has never accused Steele of lying about media contacts; there were so many such contacts that it would have been foolish of Steele to deny them; Steele freely discussed them with the State Department's Kavalec, and Justice's Bruce Ohr knew that Fusion GPS was trying to push anti-Trump information into the press.

Steele began generating his reports in mid June. There are 17 in all, cumulating to 35 pages, most crafted before the election. The dossier spells out the essential collusion narrative that has been mass-marketed by Trump detractors since the 2016 election.

The first report, dated June 20, is what grabbed the attention of the FBI and the State Department. It is entitled "U.S. Presidential Election: Republican Candidate Donald Trump's Activities in Russia and Compromising Relationship with the Kremlin." Steele claimed that Putin's regime had been "cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump" for five years, providing the candidate "and his inner circle" with "a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." According to Steele's star witness, described as a "former top Russian intelligence officer," the Kremlin was able to control the New York real-estate tycoon because it possessed kompromat -- blackmail material involving "perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB" (successor to the KGB). This was said to include the so-called pee tape, a 2013 video of Trump in a luxury suite at Moscow's Ritz-Carlton Hotel, cavorting with prostitutes as they performed a "golden showers (urination) show" on a bed in which President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were said to have slept.

Steele was confident in the lurid story because of his sources. Most important was a "close associate of Trump who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow" and who had been heard to say "this Russian intelligence had been 'very helpful.'" This source, with whom Steele was not in direct contact (i.e., it's double-hearsay), was said to have been overheard claiming on-scene knowledge of Trump's lewd romp -- though Steele's rambling, imprecise writing style makes it unclear whether the source had supposedly placed himself in the room or merely at the hotel.

One is left to wonder: Did it not occur to the FBI that Trump had not made any "recent trips to Moscow"? There is no record of his having been in Moscow after a brief weekend trip for a beauty pageant in 2013. Trump is a very public person, so that should not have been difficult to figure out. In 2018, the Washington Post 's Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger pulled together and published a comprehensive account of Trump's travel to and business dealings in Russia, going back over 30 years. Why not the world's premier investigative agency, which had, by mid 2016, been scrutinizing Trump–Russia contacts for months, in conjunction with the rest of the government's $50 billion–per–annum "community" of intelligence agencies? What "recent trips to Moscow" and "very helpful" Russian intelligence could Steele have been talking about?

Steele's work is slapdash: His source for the pee tape is referred to as "Source D" in the first report but becomes "Source E" in later ones. Upon request, Steele would have been obliged to disclose his sources to the bureau (and he is known to have identified at least some of them). Regardless, these were supposedly Trump associates with Russian backgrounds; for the FBI, finding them should have been a layup. (Indeed, it is publicly rumored, though unconfirmed, that Steele's sources included Russian-born Felix Sater, a fraudster and longtime FBI informant who was a close friend and high-school classmate of Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen and who partnered with Trump in real-estate ventures, including the mogul's failed efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.)

Both the Wall Street Journal and ABC News identified Steele's main pee-tape source as Sergei Millian. At the time, he was a 38-year-old native of Belarus who had immigrated to America in his early twenties. To be blunt, you would not trust him as far as you could throw him. Upon arriving, he worked as a translator and used the (apparently true) name "Siarhei Kukuts." In 2006, to raise his profile, he started an outfit called "the Russian–American Chamber of Commerce." Sounds impressive, but it was basically a Potemkin platform with little in the way of assets or activities -- just the sort of entity Russian intelligence would typically use as a front for recruitment operations, which is how the FBI is said to have suspected that Millian's "chamber" was occasionally used.

Even Simpson confided to friends that he worried Millian was an unreliable "big talker." No wonder. Millian has claimed in Russian and American media appearances to have a close relationship with Trump and to have marketed Trump Organization properties as a real-estate broker. In reality, he barely knows Trump and cannot keep straight the story of when they met. Originally, he said it was in 2007 in Moscow. When it was suggested to him that Trump had not been in Russia that year, he revised the tale, claiming to have met the mogul in Florida at a 2008 marketing meeting.

According to Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, there was just one meeting, a photo op of the kind Trump, a global celebrity, had done thousands of times. Cohen denied Millian's claims of a personal and professional relationship with Trump as well as a working relationship with him. (Cohen says he never met Millian but did email him warnings to stop exaggerating his ties to the Trump Organization.) No, Cohen is not the world's most reliable source, convicted as he is of fraud and false statements. But he was right to contend that no publicly known evidence supports Millian's claims of close Trump ties. Further, Millian's representations have been contradictory. When challenged on his purported work as a Trump real-estate agent, he admitted to never actually having represented Trump. Significantly, Millian acknowledges that he was not with Trump during the 2013 Moscow trip. And upon being exposed as an indirect Steele source, Millian dismissed the dossier as "fake news (created by sick minds)."

So Millian denies the pee-tape story, and it seems evident that he was not a "close associate" of Trump's. No investigator who had interviewed Millian, or who had even questioned Steele in any depth about him, would have dared to rely on information Steele had sourced to him. And the night-and-day difference between Steele's description of Millian's connection to Trump and the reality of it would have induced any qualified FBI agent to pause until all of Steele's allegations -- not just the ones about Millian -- could be carefully investigated. But it gets worse -- much worse. Millian was not just a key source on the pee tape. He appears to be the source of Steele's core claim:

There was a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [Trump] and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the Trump side by the Republican candidate's manager, Paul Manafort, who was using foreign policy advisor Carter Page and others as intermediaries.

Mind you, it's not just that Steele was not in direct contact with Millian, or that Millian lacked the kind of relationship with Trump that would have enabled him to know of such a conspiratorial arrangement. Both Manafort and Page were available for interview by the FBI. In fact, they had both been interviewed on a number of occasions -- Manafort in connection with his work for a Ukrainian political party; Page when he cooperated with the government's prosecution of Russian spies (and while Manafort has now been convicted of fraud, the FBI has never accused Page of lying). Upon questioning them, an agent could easily have learned that they say they do not know each other, and that there was no evidence to the contrary. They were both on Trump's campaign, but their roles did not intersect: Manafort, the chairman, focused on GOP convention delegates; Page was a tangential, low-level foreign-policy adviser.

But even that is not the half of it. The dossier attributes to the source identified as Millian the claim that the "Trump campaign/Kremlin co-operation" against Hillary Clinton entailed the exchange of intelligence and money at key hubs, including the Russian consulate in Miami. Except there is no Russian consulate in Miami . When Steele told this part of his story to the State Department's Kavalec, she was able in nothing flat to confirm that it could not be true. And she immediately forwarded that information to the FBI, which was then working on the first FISA surveillance application. Yet the Obama Justice Department and the bureau represented to the court that they were aware of no derogatory information regarding Steele -- in addition to concealing the dossier's connection to the Clinton campaign, as well as Steele's bias and media contacts.

The dossier allegation that catalyzed the surveillance of Page involved the claim that, in his purported role as Trump-campaign intermediary to the Putin regime, Page had met with two operatives close to Putin during a July 2016 trip to Moscow: Igor Sechin, head of the Kremlin-controlled energy conglomerate Rosneft; and Igor Diveykin, an influential member of Putin's presidential administration. Sechin, under U.S. economic sanctions due to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, is claimed to have said that, if Trump were elected president and lifted the sanctions, Russia would pay Page and Trump the brokerage fee from the sale of a 19 percent stake in Rosneft -- a bribe that would have amounted to tens of millions of dollars. Diveykin also supposedly told Page that Russia had a kompromat file on Mrs. Clinton that it might be willing to share with the Trump campaign -- while warning that there was also a file on Trump, which the tycoon should bear in mind when dealing with Russia. And the dossier had Trump lawyer Cohen in a role similar to Page's -- dispatched by Trump on a secret trip to Prague to meet with Putin's operatives for dark discussions about (a) damage control after public revelations of Manafort and Page ties to Russia and (b) "deniable cash payments" for "hackers in Europe who had worked under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign."

Two things are especially worth noting about these claims, which have been convincingly denied by Page and Cohen. First, Steele's vaunted sources never predicted clandestine treachery. Rather, Steele and Simpson fashioned a narrative framework of Trump–Russia collusion and then folded into the story each new publicly reported development -- Page's well-publicized trip to Russia, the hacked DNC emails, and so on. Indeed, Steele's reports (including one written just three days before WikiLeaks began publishing the DNC emails on July 22) never said a word about the emails, even though WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had begun speaking publicly about a coming release of Clinton-related material over a month earlier. When Steele finally wrote about the emails, he echoed what the Clinton campaign was already saying publicly.

Second, there is the matter of the Kremlin sources to whom Steele attributed his information. As mentioned earlier, Steele maintained that a "former top Russian intelligence officer" was one of his principal sources -- in particular, for the allegation that Russia had amassed enough kompromat on Trump to blackmail him at a time of Putin's choosing.

Steele also purported to derive insider intelligence from what were variously described as a "senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure," a "senior Kremlin official," an official close to the head of Putin's presidential administration, and/or "two well-placed and established Kremlin sources." Information was said to be forwarded to Steele through an unidentified person sometimes described as the "trusted compatriot" of these sources. And for all we know, there may have been yet more intermediaries in the telephone game between the sources, the "compatriot," and Steele.

When he was interviewed by the State Department's Kathleen Kavalec in October 2016, Steele claimed his sources included Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Vladislov Surkov. A regime eminence, Trubnikov ran Russia's SVR (the external intelligence service, analogous to our CIA) before Putin came to power. Thereafter, he served in other key posts: first deputy for foreign affairs, ambassador to India, and omnipresent counselor. Surkov, who has been Russia's deputy prime minister, may now be Putin's top adviser -- referred to as the "Kremlin demiurge" and "Putin's Rasputin."

Comments

Really? We're supposed to believe that when Steele was not slumming with the wannabe likes of Sergei Millian, he was plugged in to the crème de la Kremlin? Count me skeptical. As Daniel Hoffman, the CIA's former station chief in Moscow, told the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross, trusted figures in Russia's national-security bureaucracy "never stop" working for the Kremlin. In Trubnikov's case, "there's no such thing as a former intelligence officer." And Surkov might as well be Putin's right hand. If these characters were Steele's sources, they were not spying on the Kremlin but getting the West believe what the Kremlin wanted to West to believe.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report found no conspiracy between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. What remain to be investigated are the neon-flashing indications that we've been had.

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review . @AndrewCMcCarthy

[Jun 11, 2019] Where exactly Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed

It is not even clear the Mr.Strok is an employee of FBI. He might well be employee of CIA working at FBI. If so what is so suprizing that he pursued Mr.Brannan policy with the usual zeal ?
Notable quotes:
"... And why would an Andrew McCabe (over 21 years in the FBI) think he had the duty to formulate an "insurance policy" to take out a presidential candidate? Or why would he even consider overseeing an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's improper use of emails when his wife had been a recent recipient of Clinton-related PAC money? ..."
"... In sum, why did so many top FBI officials, some with long experience in the FBI, exhibit such bad judgment and display such unethical behavior, characterized by arrogance, a sense of entitlement, and a belief that they were above both the law and the Constitution itself? Were they really just rogue agents, lawyers, and administrators, or are they emblematic of an FBI culture sorely gone wrong? ..."
"... The FBI culture of corruption was started by Mueller when he ran the place for many years and continued by Comey. These dirty agents grew up in the culture they created. ..."
"... Having watched the Comey testimony, I can only surmise that he is a certified psychopath, who could lie through his teeth, AND pass a polygraph test without registering a single "blip". ..."
Jun 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The FBI Tragedy: Elites Above The Law

by Tyler Durden Tue, 06/11/2019 - 22:25 0 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via NationalReview.com,

After decades in the FBI, the top brass came to believe they could flout the law and pursue their own political agendas.

One of the media and beltway orthodoxies we constantly hear is that just a few bad apples under James Comey at the FBI explain why so many FBI elites have been fired, resigned, reassigned, demoted, or retired -- o r just left for unexplained reasons. The list is long and includes director James Comey himself, deputy director Andrew McCabe, counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, attorney Lisa Page, chief of staff James Rybicki, general counsel James Baker, assistant director for public affairs Mike Kortan, Comey's special assistant Josh Campbell, executive assistant director James Turgal, assistant director for office of congressional affairs Greg Bower, executive assistant director Michael Steinbach, and executive assistant director John Giacalone . In short, in about every growing scandal of the past two years -- FISA, illegal leaking, spying on a presidential candidate, lying under oath, obstructing justice -- someone in the FBI is involved.

We are told, however, that the FBI's culture and institutions are exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top. Such caution is a fine and fitting thing, given the FBI's more than a century of public service. Nonetheless, many of those caught up in the controversies over the Russian-collusion hoax were not recent career appointees. Rather, many came up through the ranks of the FBI. And that raises the question, for example, of where exactly Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed.

And why would an Andrew McCabe (over 21 years in the FBI) think he had the duty to formulate an "insurance policy" to take out a presidential candidate? Or why would he even consider overseeing an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's improper use of emails when his wife had been a recent recipient of Clinton-related PAC money?

And why would McCabe contemplate leaking confidential FBI information to the press or even dream of setting up some sort of operation to remove a sitting president under the 25th Amendment? And how did someone like the old FBI vet Peter Strozk ever end up at the center of the entire mess -- opening up the snooping on the Trump campaign while hiding that fact and while briefing the candidate on Russian interference in the election, interviewing Michael Flynn, preening as a top FBI investigator for Robert Mueller's dream team, right-hand man of "Andy" McCabe, convincing Comey to change the wording of his writ in the Clinton-email-scandal investigation, softball coddling of Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, instrumental in the Papadopoulos investigation con -- all the while conducting an affair with fellow FBI investigator and attorney Lisa Page and bragging about his assurance that the supposedly odious Trump would be prevented from being elected. If a group of Trump zealots were to call up the FBI tomorrow and allege that a member of Joe Biden's family has had unethical ties with the Ukrainian or Chinese government, would that gambit "alarm" the FBI enough to prompt an investigation of Biden and his campaign? How many career-professional Peter Strozks are still at the agency?

In sum, why did so many top FBI officials, some with long experience in the FBI, exhibit such bad judgment and display such unethical behavior, characterized by arrogance, a sense of entitlement, and a belief that they were above both the law and the Constitution itself? Were they really just rogue agents, lawyers, and administrators, or are they emblematic of an FBI culture sorely gone wrong?

How and why would James Comey believe that as a private citizen he had the right to leak classified memos of presidential conversations that he had recorded on FBI time and on FBI machines?

Does the FBI inculcate behavior that prompts its officials to repeatedly testify under oath that they either don't know or can't remember - in a fashion that would earn an indictment for most similarly interrogated private citizens? Was Strozk's testimony to the Congress emblematic of a career FBI agent in his full? Was Comey's? Was McCabe's?

To answer those questions, perhaps we can turn to an analogous example of special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller. We are always advised something to the effect that the admirable Vietnam War veteran and career DOJ and FBI administrator Bob Mueller has a sterling reputation, and thus we were to assume that his special-counsel investigation would be free from political bias. To suggest otherwise was to be slapped down as a rank demagogue of the worse kind.

But how true were those beltway narratives? Mueller himself had a long checkered prosecutorial and investigative career, involving questionable decisions about the use of FBI informants in Boston, and overseeing absolutely false FBI accusations against an innocent suspect in the sensationalized anthrax case that began shortly after 9/11.

The entire Mueller investigation did not reflect highly either on Mueller or the number of former and current DOJ and FBI personnel he brought on to his team. In a politically charged climate, Mueller foolishly hired an inordinate number of political partisans, some of whom had donated to the Clinton campaign, while others had legally defended the Clinton Foundation or various Clinton and Obama aides. Mueller's point-man Andrew Weissman was a known Clinton zealot with his own past record of suspect prosecutorial overreach.

Mueller did not initially disclose why FBI employees Lisa Page and Peter Strozk were taken off his investigative team, and he staggered their departures to suggest that their reassignments were normal rather than a consequence of the couple's unprofessional personal behavior and their textual record of rank Trump hatred. Mueller's very appointment was finessed by former FBI director and Mueller friend James Comey and was largely due to the hysteria caused by Comey's likely felonious leaks of confidential and classified FBI memos -- a fact of no interest to Mueller's soon-to-be-expanded investigation.

During the investigation, Mueller was quite willing to examine peripheral issues such as the scoundrelly behavior of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the inside lobbying of Paul Manafort for foreign governments. Fine. But Mueller was curiously more discriminating in his non-interest in crimes far closer to the allegations of Russian collusion. That is, he was certainly uninterested about how and when the basis for his entire investigation arose -- the unverified and fallacious Steele dossier that had been deliberately seeded among the FBI, CIA, and DOJ to achieve official imprimaturs so it could then be leaked to the press to ruin the campaign, transition, and presidency of Donald Trump.

Mueller's team also deliberately edited a phone message from Trump counsel John Dowd to Robert Kelner, General Michael Flynn's lawyer, to make it appear incriminating and possibly unethical or illegal. Only after a federal judge ordered the full release of the transcript did the public learn the extent of Mueller's selective and misleading cut-and-paste of Dowd's message.

Mueller's own explanations about the extent to which he was guided by the precedent of presidential exemption from indictment are at odds with his own prior statements and in conflict with what Attorney General Barr has reported from a meeting with Mueller and others. In those meetings, Mueller assured that he was after the truth and did not regard prior legal opinions about the illegality of indicting a sitting president as relevant to his own investigations. But when he essentially discovered he had no finding of collusion, he then mysteriously retreated to the previously rejected notion that he was powerless to indict Trump on a possible obstruction charge.

Mueller displayed further contortions when he recited a number of alleged Trump wrongdoings but then backed off by concluding that, while such evidence for a variety of different reasons did not justify an indictment of Trump, nonetheless Trump should not be exonerated of obstruction of justice.

Mueller thereby established a new but lunatic precedent in American jurisprudence in which a prosecutor who fails to find sufficient cause to indict a suspect nonetheless releases supposedly incriminating evidence, with a wink that the now-besmirched suspect cannot be exonerated of the alleged crimes. Think what Mueller's precedent of not-not-guilty would do to the American criminal-justice system, as zealous prosecutors might fish for just enough dirt on a suspect to ruin his reputation, but not find enough for an indictment, thereby exonerating their own prosecutorial failure by defaming a "guilty until proven innocent" suspect.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Mueller's team knew early on in their investigation that his lead investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had been correct in their belief that there was "no there there" in the charges of collusion -- again the raison d'être of their entire investigation.

Yet Mueller's team continued the investigation, aggregating more than 200 pages of unverified or uncorroborated news accounts, online essays, and testimonies describing all sorts of alleged unethical behavior and infelicities by Trump and his associates, apparently in hopes of compiling their own version of something like the Steele dossier. Mueller sought to publish a compendium of Trump bad behavior that fell below the standard of criminal offense but that would nonetheless provide useful fodder for media sensationalism and congressional partisan efforts to impeach the now supposedly not-not guilty president.

Note again, at no time did Muller ever investigate the Steele dossier that had helped to create his existence as special counsel, much less whether members of the FBI and DOJ had misled a FISA court by hiding critical information about the dossier to obtain wiretaps of American citizens, texts that Mueller himself would then use in his effort to find criminal culpability.

We were told throughout the 22-month investigation that "Bob Mueller does not leak." But almost on a weekly schedule, left-wing cable news serially announced in formulaic fashion that "the walls were closing in on" and the "noose was tightening around" Trump as another "bombshell" disclosure was anticipated, according to "sources close to the Mueller investigation," "unnamed sources," and "sources who chose to remain unidentified." On one occasion, CNN reporters mysteriously showed up in advance at the home of a Mueller target, to capture on camera the arrival of paramilitary-like arresting officers.

When it is established beyond a doubt that foreign surveillance of and contact with George Papadopoulos was used to entrap a minor Trump aide as a means of providing an ex post facto justification for the earlier illegal FBI and CIA surveillance of the Trump campaign, and when it is shown without doubt that Steele had little if any corroborating evidence for his dirty dossier, Mueller's reputation unfortunately will be further eroded.

Yet the question is not merely whether a Comey, McCabe, or Mueller is atypical of the FBI. Rather, where in the world, if not from the culture of the FBI, did these elite legal investigators absorb the dangerous idea that FBI lawyers and investigators could flout the law and in such arrogant fashion use their vast powers of the government to pursue their own political agendas? And why was there no internal pushback at a supercilious leadership that demonstrably had gone rogue? Certainly, the vast corpus of the Strzok-Page correspondence does reflect a unprofessional, out-of-control culture at the FBI.

Just imagine: If an agent Peter Strozk interviewed you and overstepped his purview, would you, the aggrieved, then appeal to his boss, Andrew McCabe? And if Andrew McCabe ignored your complaint, would you, the wronged, then seek higher justice from a James Comey, who in turn might rely on a legal opinion from a Lisa Page or a brief from a James Baker? And failing that, might a Robert Mueller as an outside auditor rectify prior FBI misconduct?

Fairly or not, the current FBI tragedy is that an American citizen should be duly worried about his constitutional rights any time he is approached by such senior FBI officials. That is not a slur on the rank and file, but the legacy of the supposed best and brightest of the agency and their distortions of the bureau's once professional creed.

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More-Cowbell , 2 minutes ago link

As if this is something new. J Edgar held incriminating files on anyone of importance in DC and used them to get what he wanted from CONgress.

He virtually owned and ran the politihos like a pimp runs his stable.

Reaper , 3 minutes ago link

The rot is institutional. It starts with the Form 302 interviews, where the content is not recorded, but remembered days or months later in its written form. Any intelligent person knows humans cannot remember exact spoken words in an extensive interview. Plus, the incentive for moving up in the FBI provides an incentive for fabrications.

wee-weed up , 8 minutes ago link

"Why did so many top FBI officials exhibit such bad judgment, unethical behavior, and belief they were above both the law itself? Were they really just rogue agents, or are they emblematic of an FBI gone wrong?"

Simple answer...

They were working for the lawless Admin of Obozo... The most corrupt president in American history! And trying to see that it would continue under... The even more lawless... Hitlery Clinton!

lulu34 , 13 minutes ago link

What a ******** "question". FBI , rotten to the core. as has always been the case. I speak with first hand knowledge.

Teeter , 13 minutes ago link

The FBI culture of corruption was started by Mueller when he ran the place for many years and continued by Comey. These dirty agents grew up in the culture they created.

Mike Rotsch , 15 minutes ago link

Remember how they tried to get the Jessie Smollett case transferred to the FBI? It was supposed to be behind the curtain, but then someone leaked that effort, and it was all over the press.

For 1 or 2 days. Then you never heard about it again. And the effort was spoiled and stopped dead in its tracks. And the case continued as normal.

So how else can you get that case over to the FBI anyway, even after you've been caught? Easy. Just let him walk in a show of such blatant bias, that it forces the FBI to involve itself . In the end, the case went to the FBI, and placed in one of its deepest, darkest holes, never to be heard about again.

Every leftist freak who wants to get off scott-free, wants the FBI to handle their case.

skippy9 , 19 minutes ago link

Great article. But why keep exonerating the 99% who kept a closed eye to what their superiors were doing? The FBI is kaput. No one will believe anything they bring forth. The agency needs to be abolishedd and a new national police force established under close scrutiny.

I am Groot , 12 minutes ago link

Why do we need a national police force ? No we don't. Why can't the resources they consume just be divided up to the states themselves. Feds always come in to takeover investigations from local police and they don't ever have a clue what's going on.

The concept of the FBI has been replaced by having a centralized law enforcement database of information that can be shared at all level of law enforcement. There is no legitimate reason for the FBI.

We have so many known and unknown 3 letter agencies now all doing god knows what, and totally unchecked, with totally black budgets and classified missions. there is virtually no way to have accountability for these agencies. If they are incorporated into the states, budgets would become a lot more transparent.

Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 19 minutes ago link

Where.. "did these elite legal investigators absorb the dangerous idea that FBI lawyers and investigators could flout the law and in such arrogant fashion use their vast powers of the government to pursue their own political agendas? "

a) The Clinton Crime family

b) Globalist traitors

c) Deep State Obama carryovers

d) Lack of prosecution of similar illegal actions since Nov 1963

fersur , 20 minutes ago link

The end result is No matter how much 'Damage Control' Begged for the last 30 months, it did Not work, No One Trusts the FBI, C_A and the like, or' at least Not until the first Arrest, followed by many, then follow-up punishment must be of the upmost severity allowed ( Times Square Hangings, preferably ) or the mistrust will trickle down to a War on authority !

I love your wife , 21 minutes ago link

They all think so highly of themselves. We should have never seen Comey on TV. Your job never required a direct audience with the American people, unless you thought a face to face would make it easier for us to swallow the lie.

end times prophet , 5 minutes ago link

" the current FBI tragedy is that an American citizen should be duly worried about his constitutional rights any time he is approached by such senior FBI officials. That is not a slur on the rank and file"

The rank and file enabled this just as much as the leaders. They prepared the reports, filed the paperwork and took notes at the meetings. The whole thing is corrupt...let it burn

bilbert , 7 minutes ago link

Having watched the Comey testimony, I can only surmise that he is a certified psychopath, who could lie through his teeth, AND pass a polygraph test without registering a single "blip".

The man is without ethics, whatsoever, and if Comey doesn't see FIVE years in jail, I fear the worst for the USA.

I am Groot , 22 minutes ago link

I keep saying that we need a million man armed march on D.C. If Black men can do it, We The People can do it to take our nation back.

We remove and suspend the FBI, the CIA, the FED, the SES and Congress. We also need to remove and suspend all local politicians guilty of treason and sedition. Any resistance to removal will be met with deadly force.

Every able Patriot should muster with arms, a first aid kit and 3-5 days of field rations.

Gen. Ripper's Ghost , 25 minutes ago link

Both the executive and legislative branchs of the federal government should be pared down to no more than 10,000 employees.

gpeter , 26 minutes ago link

Federal Bureau of Idiots. Power hungry, fascist, corrupt, loser idiots. Disband the fuckery of the FBI and the Central Lack of Intelligence immediately.

Passes to Gitmo for everyone. No exceptions.

2banana , 33 minutes ago link

Why isn't Jon Corzine in jail? Why isn't Hillary Clinton in jail? Why isn't Eric Holder in jail? Seems to be a pattern...

Sphira , 33 minutes ago link

Here is American Justus . Intelligence Assessment with Kevin Shipp Whistleblowers Roundtable with Bill Binney & John Kiriakou

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ_XSd1SXXk

Chupacabra-322 , 37 minutes ago link

It's absolute, complete, open in our Faces Tyrannical Lawlessness and absolutely NO ONE of highly compartmentalized levels of the FBI, DOJ, CIA Clinton, Obama, Clapper, Brennan & others will be Indicted.

EVER.

Only low hanging fruit will be Indicted to give the Slaves the illusion of a Justice System.

TBT or not TBT , 24 minutes ago link

Mueller was playing God decades before his recent foray to make his own justice, for example letting 4 men die in prison for crimes.he knew they were framed for, to protect an FBI "source" who was playing both ends and making fools of the FBI.

[Jun 11, 2019] Hillary Clinton's Russia collusion IOU The answers she owes America

I think it is oversimplification. It was the intelligence agencies that controlled Hillary, not vise versa. The interests of intelligence agencies and Hillary campaign coincided, that's why she got as much support form CIA and FBI: Trump represented a central danger to flow of funds to "national security parasites" so their reaction was predictable reaction of any large bureaucracy of the possibility of losing power -- they circle the wagons.
Notable quotes:
"... But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr -- whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion -- to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI. ..."
"... Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the FBI, too. ..."
"... In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure -- and bad intel -- until an investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. ..."
"... The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit job on Trump. ..."
"... After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it's time for the house to call in its IOU. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton owes us answers -- lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing many high-profile media interviews. ..."
"... Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew it. ..."
"... John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports . ..."
Jun 11, 2019 | thehill.com

During the combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State, Hillary Clinton 's patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had official business pending before America's most powerful political woman.

The pattern of political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the State Department even tried to execute a special agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of "pay-to-play" policy.

Still, the money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and Americans alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in need of its help.

It's time for the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.

The reason? Never before -- until 2016 -- had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival nominee during an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated political opposition research document.

But Clinton's campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law firm, funded Christopher Steele's unverified dossier which, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with Russian President Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.

Steele went to the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump's presidential aspirations.

On its face, it is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and one of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.

It appears the Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That's why it did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in its Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.

Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson's research firm, Fusion GPS, which then hired Steele -- several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the operation off the campaign's public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible deniability.

But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr -- whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion -- to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI.

Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the FBI, too.

Then Steele and, separately, longtime Clinton protégé Cody Shearer went to the State Department to get the story out, increasing pressure on the FBI.

In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure -- and bad intel -- until an investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

To finish the mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even called the leaks a "hail Mary" that failed.

Trump won, however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus. But not before the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get a total of four warrants to spy on the Trump campaign , transition and presidency from October 2016 through the following autumn.

The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit job on Trump.

After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it's time for the house to call in its IOU.

Hillary Clinton owes us answers -- lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing many high-profile media interviews.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew it.

Here are 10 essential questions:

Please identify each person in your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were aware that Steele provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned it.

Describe any information you and your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before Election Day that was derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or Perkins Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with Russia.

Please describe all contacts your campaign had before Election Day with or about the following individuals: Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, former foreign policy scholar Stefan Halper and Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud.

Did you or any senior members of your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael Sussmann, have any contact with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director Gina Haspel, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe?

Describe all contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump, Russia and Ukraine.

Describe all contacts you and your campaign had with DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the United States or the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Why did your campaign and the Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as a Russian asset?

Given that investigations by a House committee, a Senate committee and a special prosecutor all have concluded there isn't evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret the actions by your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?

Hillary Clinton owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk. It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.

German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time for CIA instead of Abwehr.

The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine. They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.

Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty to his country and its constitution.

Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.

It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.

Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.

Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.

Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost, Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew of to the FBI hands.

In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.

They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.

The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.

Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The head of FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested as the search of their premises revealed immense amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.

In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.

In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.

You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.

Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics, also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver. But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.

In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies; apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.

When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in, among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.

During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director, to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid contacts altogether.

Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further", a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.

While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.

In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over Europe. Another tool is The Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is blurred . And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.

In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them.

If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party, the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.

People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place.


Sean McBride , says: May 21, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT

Side note:

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.

These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.

Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.

Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.

Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.

Ding ding ding , says: May 21, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:

It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.

It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control.

– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world. That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing" treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article 46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation stipulating otherwise.

Endgame Napoleon , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:14 pm GMT
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on. The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.

The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at least, to understand how it works.

In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.

Digital Samizdat , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:40 pm GMT

In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.

FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.

Cyrano , says: May 21, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.

If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.

It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case.

And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.

The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.

Kirt , says: May 21, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.

An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture. This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock stars.

israel shamir , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:06 am GMT
@Kirt

Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA

Good explanation of freemasonry's decline, Kirt! As for popular culture – almost all latest cinema characters are spies – like Avengers))

anno nimus , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto them! they will have no place to hide or run to.

Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."

5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. 6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.

8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"

9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."

11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded me."

Antares , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:01 am GMT
Espionage depends on contra-espionage. We will never get that hold on Jewish spies as they can have on our spies.
Paul Bennett , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
Great article.

E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz. https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272

Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants.

John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.

Yarkob , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:52 am GMT
@Antares that's because the Mossad isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
MarkU , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.

Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3 of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?

I am open to any sensible alternative hypothesis.

Realist , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:48 am GMT
@Sean McBride

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Shit floats.

Sally , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:06 am GMT
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror.

Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.

Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed, distorted or destroyed.

Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/ <i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.

Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.

I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical, human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support of robin -hood terror.

Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained, certified mental case terrorist.

Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:08 am GMT
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent because the agent merely enables action.

The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.

Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says, "print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.

While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html

http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm

joeshittheragman , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
Do Spies Run the World?
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
If they're Jewish spies – then yes.
Vojkan , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT
Not usually a big fan of Israel Shamir's pieces but this one on spooks is truly excellent. The article is spot on.
9/11 Inside job , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:37 am GMT
Spies do not run the world , they are merely agents of the "families" who use them to retain and increase their control ,power and wealth .
cowherd , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:46 am GMT
@Sean McBride And now Trump should have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
atlantis_dweller , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:26 am GMT
Don't agree.

[Should don't agree, agree, troll, and lol "buttons" for columns be added? I think it would be a nice extra].

mike k , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately need to find out ..
Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:41 pm GMT
@Sean McBride

Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint those three.

Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."

[Jun 05, 2019] Christopher Steele after he produced his totally falsified dossier on Trump now is afraid of repercussions

What a despicable coward. He played a very dirty game and lost. Now he should pay the price and fall on the sword. Trump is very vindictive person ;-)
Jun 05, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
RussiaGate

"NYT's Matthew Rosenberg: Christopher Steele Concerned He Will Be Thrown Under The Bus" [ RealClearPolitics ]. "'He is incredibly concerned and obsessed this investigation is going to throw him under the bus. And his view, at least from the people close to him, is, 'Look, I was working on this dossier that people were paying for. I saw things that the Democrats were paying for. I saw things that seemed frightening to me and alarming. I went to old contacts of the FBI to tell them. I wasn't a paid source in this case.' That's his view of it,' Rosenberg reported on Tuesday's 'CNN Tonight' with host Don Lemon. ' He was simply helping them out . And what they did with it, if they used -- misused it in a FISA, whatever they did, he had nothing to do with that. Which is to a degree true. He's not part of that process. He was simply a source of information. And I think he's acutely concerned he's going to be thrown under the bus here,' Rosenberg said." • Simply helping them out. Because that's what spooks do. It is known.

polecat , June 5, 2019 at 3:34 pm

Re. Our current favorite ex-working working British spy .. I hope that Mr. 'no-holds' Barr haz a chance to try out that newly acquired Steele Belted Radial the one with those 'Don't Tread on Me' nobbies worn off. He better secure it fast, before it rolls away into a frigid IC ditch somewhere.

[Jun 04, 2019] Steele Cuts Deal; Will Discuss Trump Sex Dossier With DOJ Inspector General

Jun 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele has finally agreed to meet with US officials to discuss his relationship with the FBI, and the now-infamous dossier of unfounded claims against Donald Trump which he assembled on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The 54-year-old Steele has agreed to meet with investigators from the US Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), according to The Times of London , after a former US official told Politico that the OIG report would "try to deeply undermine" Steele.

The news marks a 180-shift in Steele's past refusals to engage with US authorities. In April, Politico reported that Steele would not meet with the OIG to assist them with their investigation, while just last week , Reuters reported that he wouldn't meet with US attorney John Durham, who was handpicked by AG William Barr to review the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

Steele, a MI6 Russia specialist for more than two-decades, has worked with the FBI as a confidential source since 2010. According to the report, he will retain the services of a top American attorney if the interview goes ahead , and is only willing to discuss the narrow scope of his dealings with US intelligence. Steele also wanted US officials to seek the approval of the British government.

Of note, the Steele dossier was referred to as " Crown material " in emails between US intelligence officials.

That said, a senior source told The Times : "As far as we are aware, no request has been made to HMG [Her Majesty's government] on this matter. Any decision to co-operate would be a matter for Mr Steele as this relates to issues arising many years after he left government employment."

Last year Mr Steele, who runs a corporate intelligence company, was named as the author of memos containing unsubstantiated allegations that the Kremlin held sexually lurid information about Mr Trump .

Mr Steele's dossier led to an FBI inquiry, which became a two-year investigation presided over by the special counsel Robert Mueller. That found that figures in the Trump campaign team expected to benefit from Kremlin activities but cleared Mr Trump of liaising with Russia. - Times of London

In his dodgy dossier - a collection of 17 memos, some of which used Kremlin sources - Steele claimed that the Trump campaign was part of a "well-developed conspiracy of co-operation" with the Russian government in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 US election. Steele claimed that the Kremlin was blackmailing Trump with a video of him encouraging prostitutes to urinate on a bed once used by former President Obama.

Steele's work was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was in turn paid by lawyers for the Clinton campaign and the DNC.


Librarian , 35 minutes ago link

Well, it was fairly obvious that Trump wasn't going out to meet the UK PM as she was quitting at the end of the same week.

What was really done? That also is fairly obvious.

Official assurances were made to the Crown that Steele wouldn't be subject to capital punishment. Also we probably had to promise that we wouldn't make him drink tea prepared from an industrial sized tea bag that fits oh-so perfectly into a prison coffee machine drip basket.

What with the UK being strong-armed by the EU technocrats into a no-deal Brexit, trading with the USA is the only path forward that will keep the markets and the pound steady.

The EU will begin a 20-30 year slide into economic irrelevance as unpopular concessions start to be made to appease EU member countries to remain in the Union.

Juncker will retire from the EU Commission and will become a tax avoidance consultant in Luxembourg. He will do well until he is reported lost at sea during a suspicious yachting trip.

A_Huxley , 39 minutes ago link

Discuss the role of Australia and the UK too.

fleur de lis , 57 minutes ago link

Wadda maroon.

That's the best M16 can do?

They should be renamed Mzero.

At least Langley comes up with better lies that take somewhat longer to unravel.

Steele is a patsy who only went out on a limb because the Clintons, Langley, Quantico, et. al. got to his ego, schmoozed and flattered him about his intelligence, then waved their law enforcement badges and guaranteed that everything would be fine.

Probably set up a nice fat bank account somewhere too, along with other very nice benefits.

Steele never thought to plan for insurance just in case the scam got busted.

But he had better take out some form of insurance now, because crossing the Clintons will prove fatal.

He can work out a deal with the DoJ but the Clintons don't like loose ends.

chicago76 , 1 hour ago link

It seems that Horowitz got the jump on Barr. Horowitz's job is to cover up crimes by the government with official sounding nonsense. So, what, Horowitz just offered Steele immunity for his testimony. You can't make this stuff up. All the criminals get offered immunity. In some circles this might be considered obstruction of justice to offer immunity to those who should be criminally indicted. I still say the President needs to call out the military and arrest them all, start waterboarding and find out where it leads. If a judge gets in the way arrest him too. There is more than enough treason involved here to go around.

Posa , 1 hour ago link

"Steele also wanted US officials to seek the approval of the British government.

Of note, the Steele dossier was referred to as " Crown material " in emails between US intelligence officials."

This pretty much proves that Steele was working for Her Majesty's Government all along... unlike claims about Putin, here is a direct link to a foreign government conspiring with IC traitors to effectively launch a Cold Coup in the US... the way any decent Banana Republic gets bitch-slapped by the Colonial Office.

Push , 2 hours ago link

Yeah well Horowitz is protecting the deep state. He's a shill, so don't expect anything to come of it. That's why Steele will meet with him and not Barr.

falconflight , 2 hours ago link

Sorry, but if the level of DoJ investigation is their Office of Inspector General, don't hold you breath for justice. The IG can't even file charges.

chicago76 , 1 hour ago link

The IG's job is to cover up crimes by the government not find them.

[Jun 02, 2019] GOP Targets Comey And Brennan As Investigations Heat Up

Looks like ZH commenters audience wants heads on Comey and Brennan on the plate. That's a bad sign for Dems chances in 2020 elections: the loger Russiagate is in the center of attention the lesser are their chances to win elections and Dems top brass is closely linked with Russiagate color revolution plotters in intelligence agencies and as such clearly can be charged with sedution.
Notable quotes:
"... In May, a dispute erupted over whether Comey or Brennan pushed to include the Steele Dossier in the US intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference. According to Fox News , an email chain exists indicating that Comey told his subordinates that Brennan insisted on the dossier's inclusion, while a former CIA official " put the blame squarely on Comey ," according to the report. ..."
"... "Comey and Brennan have made a lot of statements, some under oath, about the origins of the Trump Russia investigation, the timing and role of the Steele dossier and reasons for surveillance of Trump campaign officials. As I've been saying for awhile now, some of that is inconsistent with the contents of classified documents and the sworn testimony of other witnesses," Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Hill. ..."
"... "And more recently, some of what Brennan and Comey have been saying is now inconsistent with one another. As Attorney General Barr said this morning, it just doesn't jive. Someone isn't telling the truth," he continued. - The Hill ..."
"... Perhaps Congressional Republicans will focus next on Joseph Mifsud - the Maltese professor and Clinton ally who 'seeded' the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton ..."
"... The CIA needs to be broken into intelligence and information collection and reporting and Covert operations needs to go to the military. ..."
"... The FBI needs to be broken into criminal and CI organizations. Give CI to DIS ..."
"... This is rather stunning. In letters from Representative Doug Collins to Inspector General Horowitz and AG Bill Barr, Collins identifies Deputy Asst. Director Peter Strzok as the official who leaked grand jury information to the media and yet the DOJ refused to prosecute. Incredible." ..."
Jun 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Congressional Republicans have set their sights on former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan for their roles in the Trump-Russia 'witch hunt' that may have been conducted illegally using flimsy evidence.

In particular, GOP lawmakers along with President Trump are looking to blame the two former intelligence chiefs over the use of the highly controversial Steele report - created by former UK spy Christopher Steele .

The dossier, a shadowy document that makes a series of salacious allegations about Trump, has long been a flashpoint for Republicans.

Some Republicans allege that FBI investigators relied too heavily on it to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Some of the allegations in the dossier have been verified, while others were proven false or remain unsubstantiated. - The Hill

In May, a dispute erupted over whether Comey or Brennan pushed to include the Steele Dossier in the US intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference. According to Fox News , an email chain exists indicating that Comey told his subordinates that Brennan insisted on the dossier's inclusion, while a former CIA official " put the blame squarely on Comey ," according to the report.

According to former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), communications between Comey and Brennan are the key to unlocking the decisions behind the dossier .

"Whoever is investigating this, tell them to look for emails between Brennan and Comey in December of 2016 ," Gowdy told Fox News 's Sean Hannity last month.

Republican lawmakers took Gowdy's cue.

"Comey and Brennan have made a lot of statements, some under oath, about the origins of the Trump Russia investigation, the timing and role of the Steele dossier and reasons for surveillance of Trump campaign officials. As I've been saying for awhile now, some of that is inconsistent with the contents of classified documents and the sworn testimony of other witnesses," Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Hill.

"And more recently, some of what Brennan and Comey have been saying is now inconsistent with one another. As Attorney General Barr said this morning, it just doesn't jive. Someone isn't telling the truth," he continued. - The Hill

Attorney General William Barr has placed Connecticut US attorney John Duham in charge of reviewing the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, while President Trump gave Barr complete power to declassify information linked to the investigation - leading Democrats to suggest that Trump would 'pursue a political agenda' while investigating the politicized 'witch hunt' against him.

"Selectively declassifying sources and methods in order to serve a political agenda will make it harder for the intelligence community to do their jobs protecting this country from those who wish to do us harm," said Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA).

Perhaps Congressional Republicans will focus next on Joseph Mifsud - the Maltese professor and Clinton ally who 'seeded' the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton .


joego1 , 6 minutes ago

They want to protect their "sources and methods" for treason- **** their secret elite society

boattrash , 10 minutes ago

" "Whoever is investigating this, tell them to look for emails between Brennan and Comey in December of 2016... " "

Does this imply that we're just now considering looking into their emails mid-way through 2019? For. ****'s. Sake.

Python1342 , 8 minutes ago

What makes you think they don't have it , remember during discovery, you never know when, how, who where the evidence come from...

boattrash , 5 minutes ago

'What makes you think they don't have it "

Well, they're still walking around, stirring ****, instead of twitching at the end of a ******* rope. That was my first clue.

Shift For Brains , 12 minutes ago

Something that is often overlooked despite the absolutely surreal nature of the fact: Both FBI director Comey and CIA chief Brennan were overt communists (if voting for communists qualifies you as a communist) as recently as the 70s and 80s.

Does anyone have an idea how you rise to the top of two of the most sensitive intelligence positions in the USA with a background like that? Do you think they maybe got a little help from folks who wanted them there?

Only in what was formerly known as The United states of America could those who supported communism rise to those positions.

This is NEVER going to end with voting out the incumbents or re-organizing government, i.e. shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It will end either with the total enslavement of America as we have seen in other totalitarian states or those who are orchestrating this will be brought to swift, and final, judgement by ordinary Americans.

PerilouseTimes , 13 minutes ago

Sure, the GOP is going to make everything all right. You would be better off voting for goop than GOP.

Gold Banit , 18 minutes ago

Wow! How did America get so dumb?

Wake up and bend over you American sheep (people) and smile as your Masters (politicians) are going to **** you up the *** again...Fact

Welcome to America, the home of the dumb naive brainwashed and just ******* stupid....Fact

pelican , 20 minutes ago

The CIA needs to be broken into intelligence and information collection and reporting and Covert operations needs to go to the military.

The FBI needs to be broken into criminal and CI organizations. Give CI to DIS.

This attitude which clearly exists that they are above the white house and congress needs to dealt with.

hoytmonger , 27 minutes ago

This is just more distraction from the actual corruption to fill the endless hours of cable news shows and keep the sheep at each other's throats.

Joebloinvestor , 29 minutes ago

Wray should be at a podium daily expressing his contempt for FBI agents that ruined the agency.

Instead, he proves he is as worthless as Danny Werfel was at the IRS.

enough of this , 29 minutes ago

The walls are closing in on the sneaky Praetorians, who thought they could pull off their half-*** scheme unscathed. But daylight has a way of shining through the sand they attempted to throw in our face.

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-fbi-and-doj-praetorian-guard-the-beginning-of-the-end/

Abaco , 30 minutes ago

Those two traitors are only the start. If the list of those sent to prison or executed does not include many more than Comey and Brennan then you know those two are ust the sacrifices the Deep State offers up to keep doing business as usual.

iSage , 30 minutes ago

Bring them into a room, read them their rights and try them for Treason, it is time!

VWAndy , 30 minutes ago

Its the DC two step folks. We seen this before. They all talk about justice with a tear in the eye like it was some kinda wonderful thing. And yet the crooks are still running the show.

If Trump wanted to win he woulda been declassifying stuff on a daily basis from day one. Its not like he could run out of dirt to bury the corrupt with.

muhfugger , 40 minutes ago

All investigations of anybody except the lowest deep state sewer rat ends up as "crimes noted... decline to prosecute". So why would I expect anything different from these 2 clowns.

Karl Marxist , 40 minutes ago

Because if this **** were thoroughly investigated, the Clintons would be a huge target but also Teresa May and the Queen of Pirates herself. Wow! I mean, wouldn't FASAB 56 enter into all this? And the missing $21 trillion from the federal budget?

VWAndy , 44 minutes ago

Its not about politics folks. Its just plain old corruption of every level of government. Same as it ever was.

Let me know when they start locking them all up.

muhfugger , 43 minutes ago

You and I in a concentration camp is more likely.

DingleBarryObummer , 39 minutes ago

the screwing around will continue until morale improves

VWAndy , 43 minutes ago

Really none of the crooks look worried about going to jail. They laugh at the very idea.

MadelynMarie , 40 minutes ago

So far, it's not looking like anyone is going to jail. If the DOJ refuses to prosecute smaller fish like Strozk and McCabe, then what's the likelihood of Comey and Brennan going to prison??

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/05/31/rep-collins-identifies-peter-strzok-as-likely-fbi-official-who-leaked-grand-jury-information-and-prosecution-declined/

"This is rather stunning. In letters from Representative Doug Collins to Inspector General Horowitz and AG Bill Barr, Collins identifies Deputy Asst. Director Peter Strzok as the official who leaked grand jury information to the media and yet the DOJ refused to prosecute. Incredible."

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/05/29/too-deep-to-drain-oig-finds-preponderance-of-evidence-against-fbi-deputy-asst-director-doj-refuses-to-prosecute/

"Citing the ongoing internal investigation of FBI leaks to media, from the 2018 OIG report on FBI conduct , today the Office of Inspector General outlined a preponderance of evidence against a corrupt FBI Deputy Asst. Director. However, the DOJ is refusing to prosecute"

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/05/29/two-tiered-justice-and-professional-escape-artists-prior-ig-conclusions-impede-current-ag-barr/

"The 568-pages contained a multitude of examples of FBI misconduct (media leaks etc.), but the same IG report summary said "no illegal activity was discovered." In the Sessions/Rosenstein led DOJ there was a disconnect between the summary/conclusions and the body of evidence.

With that in mind, how could the Bill Barr DOJ prosecute on evidence of behavior from within a report where the Rod Rosenstein DOJ conclusion was no evidence of "intentional wrongdoing"?

In short, he can't."

Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 49 minutes ago

Make them pay the American taxpayers back for the money wasted on the phone Russia investigation.

Oldwood , 54 minutes ago

"Selectively declassifying sources and methods in order to serve a political agenda will make it harder for the intelligence community to do their jobs protecting (THEMSELVES) from those who wish to do (THEM) harm," said Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA).

muhfugger , 44 minutes ago

Warner is treasonous DEEP STATE and needs to be dealt with accordingly.

Consuelo , 56 minutes ago

"GOP Targets Comey And Brennan As Investigations Heat Up"

That's right. Keep the plebes entertained with palace intrigue while the architects and perpetrators of this Treasonous Criminality sail off into the calm sunset of $600k speaking engagements and feminist book tours with their daughter-by-another-man...

Everybodys All American , 49 minutes ago

Comey and Brennan will either sing or face the consequences of this hoax themselves. It will be their choice and if they want to bring down Obama this is the best way to go about doing it.

yerfej , 59 minutes ago

Two sets of laws, one for academia, courts, media, and bureaucracy who are all progressive leftists. If the moron people don't wake up right now we will be living under state elites who HATE us.

Bernard_2011 , 1 hour ago

Bring on the declassifications! We're waiting!

[May 30, 2019] Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't understand what you're looking at." ..."
May 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ben , May 29, 2019 10:45:47 PM | 2

SteveK9 , May 29, 2019 6:54:20 PM | 0

Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth. I recommend listening to the two-part interview of George Papadopoulos with Mark Steyn, where he describes the convoluted plot to use him to bring down Trump.

What they did to this guy is truly disgusting. Brennan belongs in a prison cell, and he should be sharing it with Mueller. Papadopoulos also has written a book about his experiences called 'Deep State Target, How I got caught in the crosshairs of the plot to bring down President Trump.

And, a final comment. Hillary Clinton proved beyond all doubt that she and not Trump was not fit to be President. To engage in this scheme and then to raise tensions through the roof with a nuclear superpower, which can destroy this country, is about as low and selfish as it is possible to be.

As I stated on the open thread, to paraphrase Muller;

I don't give a s###. figure it out yourself, Im f***ing outta' here.

The whole point of impeachment, is to have a show trial, not actually impeach. If the thing is on TV, the American people may watch it, and that would be interesting.

Not to worry though, Pelosi and Schumer won't let that happen. Appeasing their donors,is all they care about.

psycho @ 2 quoting C. Johnston stated;

"All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't understand what you're looking at."

That, my friends, is the clearest truth of all..

[May 30, 2019] >The Real Bob Mueller

Notable quotes:
"... Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence. ..."
"... Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post 9/11 period of obfuscation to "roll out" their misbegotten "war on terror," which only served to exponentially increase worldwide terrorism . ..."
"... A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney's ginning up intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took Mueller up on his offer, emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Vice President Dick Cheney's claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He also never responded to my email. ..."
"... Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mueller directed the " post 9/11 round-up " of about 1,000 immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (the New York City area) at the wrong time. FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially P.R. purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI "progress" in fighting terrorism. Consequently, some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that none turned out to be terrorists . ..."
"... Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller's role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI's illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other "top echelon" informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang. ..."
"... Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders , which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfil l) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller's FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of "national security letters" to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating "terrorism." ..."
"... Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room, both Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo's singular theories of absolute "imperial" or "war presidency" powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a "state of emergency." ..."
"... Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all" surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities. ..."
"... Neither Comey nor Mueller -- who are reported to be " joined at the hip " -- deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like "G-men" with reputations for principled integrity, the two close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence. ..."
"... It seems clear that based on his history and close "partnership" with Comey, called "one of the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen," Mueller was chosen as Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want him to do. ..."
"... Mueller didn't speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn't speak out against torture. He didn't speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn't tell the truth about 9/11. He is just "their man." ..."
"... The anthrax attacks of 2001 were the double-tap to follow the events of 9/11, and were crucial to the successful passage of the Patriot Act. ..."
"... Some history: Robert Swan Mueller III married his childhood sweetheart Ann Cabell Standish in 1966, three years after the JFK assassination. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, was second in command at the CIA during the Bay of Pigs failure and was fired, along with Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, for lying to him about the mission, which had been doomed to failure before its start. Her great uncle, Earle Cabell Jr. was the mayor of Dallas when it hosted the JFK assassination in 1963. Documents declassified in the last few years revealed that Earle Cabell was himself a "CIA asset" as well. Before anyone thinks that Mueller married into the CIA, his own great uncle was the aforementioned Richard Bissell. ..."
"... A closer review, here, shows Mueller's career covering up CIA criminal activities, to include Pan Am 103, the prosecution of Manuel Noriega, BCCI, 9/11 et al. He was promoted to handle those cases by former CIA Director GHW Bush. A week before 9/11 he took over as Director of the FBI, appointed by the son of the CIA Director, George W Bush. ..."
"... Joseph Misfud, a former ambassador for Malta, has been identified in Mueller's report as a Russian agent without proof. In fact, Misfud's career and allegiance has been to western intelligence. Mueller offers no proof to the contrary. But if in fact Misfud is an agent of Russia shouldn't he have made an attempt to interview him. Or interview Assange, who actually received the information? Or interview Craig Murray who claims to know about how the information was transferred from the DNC to Wikileaks? Or to William Binney? ..."
"... Robert Mueller is just doing what he's always done: cover up for the CIA. ..."
May 29, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Special Counsel Robert Mueller Wednesday implied that he would have indicted Donald Trump if he could have, resurrecting his saint-like status among Democrats who will now likely go for impeachment. But who is the real Bob Mueller?, asked ex-FBI official Coleen Rowley on June 6, 2017.

By Coleen Rowley
Special to Consortium News
June 6, 2017

Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.

Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.

TIME Magazine would probably have not called my own disclosures a " bombshell memo " to the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry in May 2002 if it had not been for Mueller's having so misled everyone after 9/11. Although he bore no personal responsibility for intelligence failures before the attack, since he only became FBI Director a week before, Mueller denied or downplayed the significance of warnings that had poured in yet were all ignored or mishandled during the Spring and Summer of 2001.

Bush Administration officials had circled the wagons and refused to publicly own up to what the 9/11 Commission eventually concluded, "that the system had been blinking red ." Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed " criminal negligence " in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.)

Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post 9/11 period of obfuscation to "roll out" their misbegotten "war on terror," which only served to exponentially increase worldwide terrorism .

Unfulfilled Promise

I wanted to believe Director Mueller when he expressed some regret in our personal meeting the night before we both testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He told me he was seeking improvements and that I should not hesitate to contact him if I ever witnessed a similar situation to what was behind the FBI's pre 9/11 failures.

Some of the original detainees jailed at the Guantanamo Bay prison, as put on display by the U.S. military.

A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney's ginning up intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took Mueller up on his offer, emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Vice President Dick Cheney's claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He also never responded to my email.

Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mueller directed the " post 9/11 round-up " of about 1,000 immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (the New York City area) at the wrong time. FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially P.R. purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI "progress" in fighting terrorism. Consequently, some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that none turned out to be terrorists .

A History of Failure

Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller's role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI's illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other "top echelon" informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang.

Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders , which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfil l) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller's FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of "national security letters" to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating "terrorism."

For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey , too, went along with the abuses of Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives . Comey also defended the Bush Administration's three-year-long detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.

Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room, both Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo's singular theories of absolute "imperial" or "war presidency" powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a "state of emergency."

The Comey/Mueller Myth

What's not well understood is that Comey's and Mueller's joint intervention to stop Bush's men from forcing the sick Attorney General to sign the certification that night was a short-lived moment. A few days later, they all simply went back to the drawing board to draft new legal loopholes to continue the same (unconstitutional) surveillance of Americans.

The mythology of this episode, repeated endlessly throughout the press, is that Comey and Mueller did something significant and lasting in that hospital room. They didn't. Only the legal rationale for their unconstitutional actions was tweaked.

Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all" surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities.

Neither Comey nor Mueller -- who are reported to be " joined at the hip " -- deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like "G-men" with reputations for principled integrity, the two close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence.

It seems clear that based on his history and close "partnership" with Comey, called "one of the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen," Mueller was chosen as Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want him to do.

Mueller didn't speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn't speak out against torture. He didn't speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn't tell the truth about 9/11. He is just "their man."

Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI's pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled " Questions for the FBI Nominee " was published on the day of James Comey's confirmation hearing. This piece will also be cross-posted on Rowley's Huffington Post page.)

Relevant links:


jaycee , May 30, 2019 at 21:10

The anthrax attacks of 2001 were the double-tap to follow the events of 9/11, and were crucial to the successful passage of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act effectively cancelled the privacy protections of the U.S. Constitution, and reversed the onus of a presumption of innocence in U.S. legal practice. The failure of the FBI, under the leadership of Mueller, to provide or uncover an adequate explanation for the anthrax attacks is a signature black mark in the FBI's history, if not the history of the republic.

Raymond Comeau , May 30, 2019 at 14:14

Mueller is another spook dredged up from the bowels of Hell, in order to fool the honest citizens and ensure Deep State and its useful idiots continue on their way to Oblivion.

Bob In Portland , May 30, 2019 at 12:40

Some history: Robert Swan Mueller III married his childhood sweetheart Ann Cabell Standish in 1966, three years after the JFK assassination. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, was second in command at the CIA during the Bay of Pigs failure and was fired, along with Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, for lying to him about the mission, which had been doomed to failure before its start. Her great uncle, Earle Cabell Jr. was the mayor of Dallas when it hosted the JFK assassination in 1963. Documents declassified in the last few years revealed that Earle Cabell was himself a "CIA asset" as well. Before anyone thinks that Mueller married into the CIA, his own great uncle was the aforementioned Richard Bissell.

A closer review, here, shows Mueller's career covering up CIA criminal activities, to include Pan Am 103, the prosecution of Manuel Noriega, BCCI, 9/11 et al. He was promoted to handle those cases by former CIA Director GHW Bush. A week before 9/11 he took over as Director of the FBI, appointed by the son of the CIA Director, George W Bush.

Another key player in our current political show is William Barr. While Barr was getting his law degree he was employed by the CIA. Surprise surprise. One of the main figures in Russiagate is Paul Manafort, whose career consists of him working with world leaders who were either put into power by the CIA, kept in power by the CIA, removed from power by the CIA or murdered by the CIA. It should not be surprising to anyone willing to look that the current maneuvering appears to many to be an attempt to remove Trump from office.

Joseph Misfud, a former ambassador for Malta, has been identified in Mueller's report as a Russian agent without proof. In fact, Misfud's career and allegiance has been to western intelligence. Mueller offers no proof to the contrary. But if in fact Misfud is an agent of Russia shouldn't he have made an attempt to interview him. Or interview Assange, who actually received the information? Or interview Craig Murray who claims to know about how the information was transferred from the DNC to Wikileaks? Or to William Binney?

Robert Mueller is just doing what he's always done: cover up for the CIA.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/what-mueller-wont-find

Bob Van Noy , May 30, 2019 at 21:26

Many Thanks Bob In Portland. I was an 18 year old soldier in the 101st. Airborne on alert for the invasion of Cuba so I share you lifetime of frustration.

To the extent that there is "Continuity In Government", this is it. Great research and information

Drew Hunkins , May 30, 2019 at 10:15

Mueller's proven himself to be just another mouthpiece for power and the "respected" establishment. He's been championing the very dangerous lie that the Kremlin interfered in the '16 election, even though there has never been one piece of credible evidence proving that Moscow did any such thing.

As this canard gets repeated over and over it's sinking in to the public consciousness that the Putin administration is something to be feared.

exiled off mainstreet , May 30, 2019 at 00:00

This reveals the deplorable record of Mueller and Comey as lackeys for a corrupt authoritarian regime.

Doggrotter , May 29, 2019 at 23:50

Can I share this article I just found. I typed into google "is Mueller a psychopath?" and up popped this. I know next to nothing about the site or author. Will explore a bit.

https://nationalvanguard.org/2018/12/robert-mueller-the-quintessential-psychopath/

Doggrotter , May 29, 2019 at 23:02

Coleen. I can't thank you enough for the article. So many abuses to the system. Yet" St Muller this and Saint Muller that". They are the kind of people that nobody with a right would approach with barge pole. Muller and Comie are the rabid rottweilers of the State, just hidden away behind expensive suits and effected gravitas. They need to be chained up in their cages to keep the world safe.
Treatment of Julian Assange.
Entrapment of hapless young men in terrorist stings and their incarceration.
The malicious and failed prosecution of Nor Salman.
Taking illegally obtained surveillance
To Crown it all "Parallel Construction" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Andrew Nichols , May 29, 2019 at 22:47

Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed "criminal negligence" in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.) Deliberate failures

Scott , May 29, 2019 at 21:56

In a few weeks, there could be a very Special hearing, and Mr. Comey will be on the block, but yet he is or was very comfortable during the questioning on the other day.
In short:
Bob Mueller should be sent to maximum security prisons like:
https://theinmatesearch.org/prison-facility/Arkansas-DOC-(ADC) -- Maximum-Security-Unit/413/

Going back, to the other guy, again would you trust him knowing that he is and has been so close to Comey as it's being tolk and as it's coming out, be it EVER so slow, but as we go deeper into this mess, ALL of these "OUTSTANDING Federal Law Officers", their histories WILL, or at the very least START to show!"

Tom , May 29, 2019 at 21:20

Isn't this the same Robert Mueller who prosecuted Lyndon LaRouche in the late eighties?

robert , June 19, 2017 at 20:43

Colleen's article or op ed here seems to be a straight forward, fact based account that the mainstream media would do well to study and consider [of course they generally wouldnt]. I wonder what all the links she has posted in support show?

I am glad to say I voted for Jill Stein last Nov. She has proven to be too decent for America, I suppose.

If Americans expected or wanted something better, why did 40% or so last Nov. sit back and refuse to vote, and those that did vote vote for obvious bums like Trump and Hilary? ?

Rob Roy , May 30, 2019 at 14:41

Thanks, robert, your letter says exactly what I would write. It's not that good people don't run for office, but the Powers That Be will not allow them to get air time and the MSM goes along with the exclusion, in fact, strongly supports it. War is the business of the USA and must not be stopped. Tulsi Gabbard is the one candidate that opposes war she will be shoved aside, destroyed by lies and ignored by the MSM. I have come to realize Americans are stupid politically and it's not going to stop. It's not just Americans people in Europe have good candidates, but, like here, those good candidates will not be allowed to win important positions. Corbyn comes to mind.

juventus drakt , June 12, 2017 at 08:43

juventus drakt

I used to be suggested this website by means of my cousin.
I am not certain whether this post is written through him as no one else realize such designated about my trouble.
You are wonderful! Thanks!

Vincent Marcantelli , June 9, 2017 at 17:15

Well, Mr. Comey, should be felling rather safe about now. Why, [you ask] well he is in GOOD hands, his old friend is going to be working the case. they both were Big Shots in the FBI and in the Justice Department. And, just like in any other "secret" unit or outfit, those who are or were in will ALL-WAYS be IN! Mr. Comey, came off as being VERY confident in his questioning, what is it that he is so confident about?

In a few weeks their could be a very Special hearing, and Mr. Comey will be on the block, but yet he is or was very comfortable during the questioning on the other day. I, do think, that this is going to be another "white wash" of the facts, and the Left, then walks away saying ."See, we knew that the GOP was doing this and or that". Mr. Comey and his old time friend need to be watched!

Vincent Marcantelli , June 9, 2017 at 17:01

Hate to say such a thing ..Both of these men, as [honest as they have been portrayed to be], getting them both together, one "against" the other, all that means is "look, were BROTHERS together, were both Good Guys, were both former FBI, were of that brotherhood". Folk's that's something, that is just about as thick as Blood, visa Water. If, someone is NOT watching, President Trump, will be in some serious crap. Would you, want to talk to Comey about ANYTHING, knowing that he is so political, and can "turn on a dime"?. Going back, to the other guy, again would you trust him knowing that he is and has been so close to Comey as it's being tolk and as it's coming out, be it EVER so slow, but as we go deeper into this mess, ALL of these "OUTSTANDING Federal Law Officers", their histories WILL, or at the very least START to show!"

rm , June 8, 2017 at 05:24

Mueller was 911 'speed of deceit' cover-up man. All he had to do was follow the forensics. A safe pair of hands,

mike k , June 8, 2017 at 12:25

Voting in the US is a scam to keep people under control, and stupid. People who have an addiction to voting remind of the old joke about the guy who was informed that the wheel of fortune game he was losing his money on was rigged.

Asked why he continued to play the crooked wheel, he replied, :Because it's the only game in town." <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2dc772f58128a9b167ed2c99e9913eb1?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2dc772f58128a9b167ed2c99e9913eb1?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Michael Morrissey , June 7, 2017 at 12:51

Mythical heroes and real criminals. I know that Coleen was much more the hero herself in trying to do her job at the FBI (see her Wiki) and now -- much more so -- as an activist and member (along with Ray McGovern et al.) of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, but

Well, I respect her a lot, and I would not like to offend her, but I would love to see how she would react in a detailed discussion of what is actually known about 9/11 (which for me is collected in the work of David Ray Griffin). Ditto for Ray McGovern, though I believe he is somewhat more receptive to what let's call for lack of a better term the "inside job" theory. (I hope we are past the notion that the govt's laughable conspiracy theory is in any respect less "speculative" than the solid presentation of facts and argumentation by David Griffin -- whose work is of course based on that of many others.)

It won't happen, I know. We will all go to our graves, and maybe our children and grandchildren will too, before the NYT or its equivalent says, "Yes, the US govt perpetrated 9/11 in order to scare the crap out of us and make us do everything we have done since."

Still, Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern and a few more are way, way ahead of the NYT, their former employers, and I suppose the majority of the US population, and I am glad to be counted as among their supporters and admirers.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell , June 7, 2017 at 10:17

It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders. ( https://mythfighter.com/2017/06/05/here-we-go-again-more-privatization-scam/ )

Tomk , June 7, 2017 at 21:49

I think he will, I am not kidding . I really believe we are going to see some unbelievably nasty, nasty knives out full out war ., go back to that speech he gave on the Inauguration Day and HOW VERY INAPPROPRIATE it was viewed by all the "in" crowd sitting there, all the "in" group, all the Bohemian Grovers like Obama was (an attendee he was, already groomed to be President years before, so says Zachary King the ex-high Satanist priest who was there yearly and ran into him and was told his future .) and so many of the others CFR, Trilateral Commission etc. part of the Luciferian loony globalist creeps who truly believe they run the show and watch out if you are not on their "team" and don't tell me when you watched that -- that there was no doubt Trump knew he was throwing it right at them, he knows who and what they are–many on here do too from the comments I have seen –I just don't think Trump got the fact then of how well they have the corporate media totally in the bag and how even with a blatant lie like "Russia did it", that any idiot knows is bs, they will keep on going and going, I think that threw him a good bit but if that Inauguration speech is not enough of a signal that he will go to war here shortly–How about this? -- Secretary of State Tillerson in the last day or so saying he is going forward with making things better with Russia? If Trump was on board now believing he could make peace with the Deep Staters –No way that statement is made by Tillerson, that is a statement of "back at ya" No, Trump is a guy who "gets even" and he is not going to roll for them, he may head fake that way, but he doesn't roll that way, he gets even .and why? Just because LOL, because literally his Father growing up you to say "You're the King" and he is that guy lol this is going to go nuclear between him and the Obama/Bush/Deep Staters .He is still getting a feel for what is up 6 months in, I think he now basically has the picture that regardless of what he does they, the Deep State and the corporate media and the loony left that is clueless but buys into what they are fed, plan to skin him alive, pour salt on him, and hang him out as a trophy -- warning any future non-insider to get their message THIS IS WHAT WE DO TO OUTSIDERS! -- much like all future insiders got their message when JFK was shot down by them like a dog in the street and a "lone nut" was the laughable patsy, no one believes that err except the NYTs lol .Trump now knows there is NO MERCY coming his way, none nada, that this is bloodsport, why do you think he is yelling at Sessions? Sessions–what a horrible choice that was and Trump knows it now decided to recuse himself out of the war lol the "ethics" don't you know and brought in the guy as number 2 who put a hatchet in Trump's back bringing in the cleaner -- Mueller -- Mueller the professional hatchet man who had no problem screwing the country as to 911, "joined at the hip" to Comey the Deep State stooge, intends to seek out anything possible to gut and clean Trump for dinner (check out the "team" Mueller has in place–as if going after Al Capone in a case where everyone knows there is nothing "there" as to Russian "collusion" by Trump -- they are planning to roll Trump so incredibly badly–no way Trump doesn't know this now thus the screaming at Sessions who now, having rolled over with his "recusal" LOL , offers to resign like that will reverse the damage he's done .) and destroy him completely, taxes, investments, businesses–Trump's entire life will be microscoped for anything, ANYTHING, they can hang on him and every lying disgruntled ex-employee and adversary will be heard from, amplified, and leaked to the globalist corporate media that loathes him–all of which will have nothing to do with the "Russia" collusion lie that Podesta's 2015 emails show he came up with to attack Trump bc he was sanely suggesting that not having a war with Russia was a good idea .If you look at Trump's history, again, he IS NOT, definitely NOT, a nice guy and he has played in the nasty, nasty league of the big money chase almost all his life and he is, do not forget, a billionaire several times over who has his own private security force around him at all times and, despite what the media portrays, he has many, many allies .The country will never be the same again by the time this is "over"–if it ever really ends fireworks are coming beyond our imagination Trump is not going to limp off into the night and they are not going to let him even if he wanted to he is a cornered Wolverine get some popcorn this is going to be a wild ride .

Dave P. , June 8, 2017 at 12:31

Tomk: Well done, your analysis is breathtaking. I had flashes in my mind of some of these things coming. I hope this dirty business of Clinton/Bush/Obama also gets aired out in Public View, and the Whole World to look at. It blows my mind watching how "The Deep State" is going after Trump – for almost a year now – who was duly elected President by the U.S. Citizens. Their only vendetta against him is that he wanted to get along with Russia. A child can tell that this whole "Russia Gate" is utterly a Fabrication by the Ruling Establishment. Going on for a year now, these Evil Forces have turned the Country into almost a Lunatic Asylum.

Obama is all over hatching new plots. He was with Merkel, and a few days back seen with Justin Trudeau. What a useful tool of the Ruling Establishment Obama is. I bet Trump is watching all this. He is not that naive as some people think of him . It seems like, either he is going to submit and leave the scene with guarantees of not bothering him afterwards. or He is going to fight a fight not seen before in U.S. History. It is hard to tell how it will end.

Sleepless In Mars , June 7, 2017 at 07:31

"Let me come back again to the waking state. I have no choice but to consider it a phenomenon of interference. Not only does the mind display, in this state, a strange tendency to lose its bearings (as evidenced by the slips and mistakes the secrets of which are just beginning to be revealed to us), but, what is more, it does not appear that, when the mind is functioning normally, it really responds to anything but the suggestions which come to it from the depths of that dark night to which I commend it." Agent Breton

The White House wants to silence the media and press. They've lost their bearings. The OCB case is expanding. McPike won't let go. We won't be fooled again.

Pft , June 7, 2017 at 01:03

Baghdad Bob was more credible and believable than anyone in the MSM today. Its loony tunes. Maybe that Anthrax did the trick and scares them into submission.

Drew Hunkins , June 6, 2017 at 23:20

Beyond absurdity that an ostensible hustler who ran cover for years for Boston's ultra-violent Winter Hill Gang now has the authority to overturn the election of the president of the United States. (Albeit a president as flawed as he is, and NOT due to anything involving "RUSSIA!")

Tomk , June 6, 2017 at 21:51

Mueller the hatchet man for the Deep State (911 was ok by him it seems, no need to investigate .) has one purpose and that is to take out Trump as his favorable statements as to ending the new Cold War with Russia made him an enemy of those who believe they run the country and who look to profit incredibly by the money they can make from an "enemy" like Russia–much better than the "terrorism" one they created for us .Appointing Sessions AG was a really terrible mistake by Trump given his foreseeable recusal on the most important issue facing Trump (the phony "Russia did it" Trojan Horse to get a Mueller to go fishing to find, or create, ANYTHING to get rid of him .) Sessions is a loser all around igniting a new war on drugs – an incredibly unpopular issue Trump did not even run on and although the cries of "Racist" might be unfair Sessions said some stupid "jokes" that also should have sidelined him given all the enemies Trump knew he had coming in and what he needed at AG–an unimpeachable ally .Trump has to know what is up and it is not his nature to sit back and be harpooned, which is what his enemies do plan ., so this will be a fascinating year to see what he does to stop them from doing him Don't forget Trump is not a particularly nice guy and given he is getting some feel for what he is dealing with, and the incredible gravity of what he is up against, I guarantee we will see some moves coming in response to his enemies that we have never seen, or had anyone even consider, before .

Stephen J, , June 6, 2017 at 17:02

I believe this is what happens:

When gangsters are in control, endless wars slaughter millions of souls
And countries are destroyed by the hit men of the gangster ghouls
The unethical money changers finance their dirty depredations
And corporate cannibals profit from the bloody confrontations

Government by gangsters is now "the rule of law"
And "justice" is in the hands of criminals and outlaws
The language is twisted and debased
To suit these evil demons of the "human race"

Fancy titles and Houses of ill repute
Is where these villains consort and debut
Making "laws" to screw the masses
Yet, people continue to vote for these asses

If there really was "law and order"
These gangsters would be charged with genocide and murder
Instead these war criminals parade on the world stage
When they should be in a big enormous prison cage
[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/01/when-gangsters-are-in-control.html

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 16:14

And President Woodrow Wilson being blackmailed to the tune of $40,000.00 over some love letters he had sent to a colleague's wife. Mr. Samuel Untermeyer agreed to pay the blackmail money in return for Wilson appointing Judge Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, which he did.

"Justice Brandeis volunteered his opinion to President Wilson that the sinking of the S.S. Sussex by a German submarine in the English Channel with the loss of lives of United States citizens justified the declaration of war against Germany by the United States. Relying to a great extent upon the legal opinion of Justice Brandeis, President Wilson addressed both houses of Congress on April 2, 1917. He appealed to Congress to declare war against Germany and they did on April 7, 1917."

Blackmail and threats still work. Comey always strikes me as being very matter-of-fact and cavalier in his answers, as if nothing could ever touch him. I mean, even I would have known not to let Clinton off. He acts as if a mafia-type organization has got his back and he doesn't have to worry, which is probably the case.

mike k , June 6, 2017 at 17:50

Yes. The chance of the lying, corrupt cowards "representing" us really calling Comey out on his record are nil. And Trump started a fight with the "intelligence" guys that he now knows he can't finish, so his lawyers will treat Comey very carefully. (In my fantasy Trump's lawyers tear Comey apart, and bring up all his rotten record, reducing him to a blubbering mess ..) Yes I have a fantasy life, but I try not to get it mixed up too much with our so-called reality.

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 20:22

mike k – an interesting thing about that Woodrow Wilson blackmailing (in my above post) is that these guys, with the blackmail knowledge in hand, bankrolled and helped Wilson get into the White House, and then they blackmailed him AFTER he got there. Of course, this way they ensured that they had their man all sewn up. They got him there, he owed them, and they had the damning information. They and they alone end up owning you.

Trump was bankrolled by a few powerful people. I just wonder if the same thing isn't happening with Trump, some old pictures. Whatever it is, I'm quite sure something happened.

Joe Tedesky , June 6, 2017 at 22:57

In our family we have a lawyer (now retired) who once worked under Peter Rodino during the Watergate Hearings. I'll never forget how when I asked my cousin if Nixon would serve time, she said never, because all the politicians who stood in judgement of Nixon had their own skeletons in the closet to hide. D.C. is a nest of degenerates, and charlatan fraudsters, but history proves that this is nothing original. The best 'we the people' can hope for, is when these masters and mistresses of ours decide it is time to feed us, because maybe they need our votes. Who knows? Yes blackmail will insure a trustworthy employee every time. John Lennon had it right, everybody's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey.

evelync , June 6, 2017 at 16:13

sorry, May 2002 not 2001 (above)

evelync , June 6, 2017 at 14:44

I am so grateful to Colleen Rowley who has been my heroine, too, since 2001 when she publicly felt, thank goodness, that she must speak out. Rowley stood up with courage, spunk, honor, strength of character, respect for the truth, fearless determination to stand alone, if necessary, in defiance of corruption and lies. Her loyalty was to truth, the constitution and the people of this country, most of whom toil under challenging circumstances, get sent to trumped up wars, get ripped off by big banks and after a lifetime of work are still struggling. Rowley gives us strength and hope that there's something better.

I suspect Colleen Rowley unlike some of the show boaters is herself a modest person and is just doing what's "necessary" and it's part of who she is.

Thank you, Colleen. I hate being confused by these people who lie to us and serve their own self interests instead of the public interest.
And how else would we know?
Some of them are pretty good at taking credit and are not as obviously horrific to us as, say, a Dick Cheney or a Donald Rumsfeld who seem to be more cartoonish characters than people.
Thank you.

Oz , June 6, 2017 at 14:39

It should also be noted that Mueller was a key figure during the 1980s in the government's campaign to frame and silence Lyndon LaRouche and his movement, a campaign which former AG Ramsey Clark described as the most appalling campaign of its sort that he had seen (and combatting such campaigns is his specialty.)

F. G. Sanford , June 6, 2017 at 14:00

Jedgar, as comedienne Lily Tomlin called him, was a career blackmailer, eavesdropper, extortionist and enabler of organized crime dynasties. It's not a coincidence that, in her comedic vehicle as a telephone operator, her routine suggested "listening in" as an extracurricular activity perhaps not disdained by Jedgar himself. Sure, a warrant was needed to use evidence gained by wiretapping in a court of law. But if the motive was blackmail, who needs a warrant? Apparently, this reality is lost on the American public. We should certainly realize that every phone conversation is now retrievable by electronic means. All the FISA Court mumbo jumbo and its purported "checks and balances" is a farce designed to create a veneer of legitimacy. What does anybody think Jedgar bothered getting a warrant to bug Martin Luther King – then subsequently revealed the playbacks and suggested that King commit suicide? Anyone who has spent even a modicum of time looking onto the fraudulent Warren Commission Report must realize that Jedgar was completely complicit. On the ballistics evidence alone, he could have blown the case wide open. At best, he was a criminal coconspirator in a massive coverup. At worst, he ranks among the most vile traitors in our nation's history. This, then, is the legacy of the organization to which the two coconspirators in the present article appertain. On November 22, 1963, our government was hijacked by "deep state" militarists, and a system of permanent war economy was installed. We have descended deeper into that abyss with each passing year. The elected government now serves as a mere facade. I'd suggest that doubters read Vince Salandria's book, especially the recently added chapter on Ruth and Michael Paine at the end. Check the contents – you'll find it. It's free online, and can be accessed from several internet addresses. Unless this sentinel crime is addressed, there is no hope for American democracy. We're done.
ratical . org/FalseMystery
ratical . org/falsemystery
ratical . org/FM
ratical . org/fm
Take out the spaces on either side of the dots to use the links. And, I'd advise, don't be fooled by "leaks" which bolster the "deep state" agenda, even if they arrest the leaker.

BannanaBoat , June 6, 2017 at 14:33

The Postal service states it photographs every piece of mail.

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 15:26

F.G. Sanford – thank you for the links. This is going to be excellent reading. That Vince Salandria is quite the guy:

"Only by the war production of World War II were we brought out of the great depression. It was not difficult to discern that we were artfully thrust into the war. I can recall that at the time of Pearl Harbor I was in the 8th grade of Vare Junior High School in Philadelphia. On December 8, 1941, in my math class, our teacher, Miss Wogan, suggested that rather than do our math we should discuss current events.

I went to the front of the classroom and informed my classmates that I could not accept as plausible President Roosevelt's assertion that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, sneak attack. I pointed out that all of us had known for months about the tension between the U.S. and Japan. I asked how, in light of those months of crisis and tautly strained relations between the two countries, could the battleships at Pearl Harbor have been lined up so closely together, presenting perfect targets for the Japanese? How could the planes I saw in the newspapers burning on our airfields have been positioned wing-tip to wing-tip?

I reminded the class that President Roosevelt had promised that he would not send our troops into a foreign war. I then offered my conclusion that inviting the Pearl Harbor attack was President Roosevelt's duplicitous device to eliminate the powerful neutralist sentiment in our country while thrusting us into the war."

Very smart for Grade 8!

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 15:41

"On November 23, 1963 I discussed the assassination with my then brother-in-law, Harold Feldman. I told him that we should keep our eyes focused on what if anything would happen to the suspected assassin that weekend. I said that if the suspect was killed during the weekend, then we would have to consider Oswald's role to be that of a possible intelligence agent and patsy. I told him if such happened, the assassination would have to be considered as the work of the very center of U.S. power. [ ]

When Oswald was served up on camera as disposable Dealey Plaza flotsam and jetsam and was killed by Jack Ruby I saw a subtle signal of a high level conspiracy. There is every reason to think that intelligence agencies, when they choose a killer to dispose of a patsy, make that choice by exercising the same degree of care that they employ in selecting the patsy. Their choice of Jack Ruby much later would – by providing a fall-back position for the government – serve the interests of the assassins. As the Warren Report would unravel, a deceased Ruby's past connections to the Mafia produced a false candidate for governmental apologists to designate as the power behind the killing.

Immediately following the assassination I began to collect news items about Lee Harvey Oswald. A pattern began to emerge. Oswald's alleged defection to the Soviets, his alleged Castro leanings as the sole member of a Fair Play for Cuba chapter in New Orleans, his posing with a rifle and a Trotskyist newspaper, his writings to the Communist Party USA, his study of the Russian language while in the Marine Corps, told me that he was not a genuine leftist, but rather was a U.S. intelligence agent."

Oswald was set up from the get-go. Poor kid, he didn't realize he was playing with fire.

The Kennedy assassination, 9/11, the other false flags, color revolutions, coups are all the work of those who possess a psychopathic mind.

Abe , June 6, 2017 at 17:03

"Yes, it does sound rather un-American, doesn't it?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0l9fE2RAj8
[Video minutes 3:15-6:25]

mike k , June 6, 2017 at 13:16

Until one understands that the US government is a criminal enterprise, and that everyone involved in it is a criminal, with extremely few exceptions – you will not understand what goes on there. The same holds true for the main stream media, these are criminal, lying propaganda outlets for the rich and powerful who own them. Also the US Military is a vicious criminal enterprise pure and simple.

If you are inclined to cut any of these actors any slack whatever, and forget who they really are, you will simply become a victim of their lies and criminal activities. Regardless of the unceasing barrage of positive images and ideas we are soaked in from childhood, we need to constantly remind ourselves of who these evil people really are, and the horrendous crimes they are responsible for. The idea that James Comey, the head of the secret police is some kind of role model is outrageous. This man deserves to be imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 13:57

mike K : Excellent. Complete rendering of Truth.

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 14:00

mike k – yep, it truly is a den of vipers and thieves, a well-oiled machine at this point. Many are ignorant of this fact, and many are willing to turn a blind eye so long as they get what they want.

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 15:50

The irony of all this is that America could be a great positive force for good and beneficial change on the planet. It's location, between two great Oceans, it's physical beauty, and it's resources – America has it all. There is nothing like America on this Planet. [It makes me feel sad about American Indians, who lost it all during the last three or four centuries]. And now, for the last five decades or so, all the best and the brightest from top schools in India, now China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere (and Iran too !) come to U.S. Universities, and work here. One of the major engines of our high tech sector boom – and leadership in the World – has been due to this foreign born talent. And this talent has contributed a lot in other sectors as well.

And from all what I have read, after the collapse of Communism, the World was and is willing to accept American leadership. If you watch Putin's speeches at Valdai International Discussion Club, he acknowledges America's leadership, but not complete subservience to U.S.

Would big countries and ancient civilizations like China and India, or big countries like Brazil, South Africa agree to be completely subservient to U.S.? Should these countries (and the other countries of the World) become U.S.'s vassal states. It is preposterous to think of it. What happened to this idea of Freedom, which is drilled into masses here 24/7 by the Media and the Ruling Establishment. As we want to live free, don't these countries would like to live free.

And we are waging wars on the Nations to bring freedom and democracy – and American values. What a hypocrisy?

And we are discussing about Comey and Mueller here! It is hard to comprehend to what lower depths the country has sunk to.
Trump was not wrong when he was saying during the campaign that the whole place ( Washington) is a swamp. The country was ready for a Populist. Unfortunately, Trump was not the right one.

I do not have much hope that the upper echelons in this country will learn some wisdom to change their course.

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 17:18

Dave P. – good points. I don't think Trump was the "perfect" one, but I think he could have been the "right" one, had they laid off him, but he's had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him (the pussy hats, the Berkeley rioters, the media, the Democrats, his own Republican Party). The Deep State has gone after him like crazy because they're fighting for their very survival, and Trump was going to end it.

I think he WOULD have ended the wars, cut back on NATO, brought affordable healthcare, enforced the border laws (without which you don't have a country, at least not for long), brought jobs back from China/Asia, rebuilt infrastructure, and protected the citizens.

It appears people don't want that. Go figure.

Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 17:40

backwardsevolution, I agree with you. I think Trump meant to do all these things you mentioned. What I meant to say was that, he did not have any clue of what was to come. Trump does not have any communication skills like Obama, and Clinton, and is not well read or any thing like that. And I think that they – the Deep State – have a very thick dossier on his business deals, and all that. I sometimes feel sorry for him – the guy is caught in the nest of scorpions. When I watch him on TV sometimes, he seems like he is scared, and will do any thing they will ask him to do. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4ac6f9611bbc79c79ee101b1a19b95ed?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4ac6f9611bbc79c79ee101b1a19b95ed?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 19:41

Dave P. – re your "nest of scorpions" comment. Yes, I agree that Trump had no idea what he'd be stepping into. We probably don't know the half of it. Could be death threats against himself (or maybe his family) or blackmail. Something happened because all of a sudden Trump and Tillerson both changed, seemingly overnight, and you're right, Trump has a scared look in his eyes.

If a thick-skinned braggart like Trump can't go up against these guys, then who can? <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e8c9fa7352dc19c959f94ff2df0e0d95?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e8c9fa7352dc19c959f94ff2df0e0d95?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

Stephen J, , June 6, 2017 at 12:58

I believe the "system" is totally corrupted. We are prisoners in a so-called "democracy."

The Prisoners of the System
By Stephen J. Gray

The prisoners of the system thought they were free
After all, they lived in a "democracy?"
Every few years they were allowed to vote
Then they got punished by the winning lot

Oh well, at least the masses are allowed to go on holiday
At the airports they are patted down and groped in the name of security
Still, their governments were keeping them all safe
As they spy on them and all the human race.

Big Brother and Big Sister are now in charge
And Orwell's "1984" is now here and at large
Computers are monitored and cell phones too
Fridges are bugged and smart meters knew

[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2012/05/prisoners-of-system.html

mike k , June 6, 2017 at 17:16

Good one Stephen. Keep 'em coming ..

Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:52

I will very likely go to my grave with the strong suspicion that the alleged Christmas Bomber (2010) in Portland, Oregon was a case of entrapment. Assuming that kid really did have intentions of setting off a bomb, the FBI agents should have educated him as to why setting off a bomb as a Christmas tree lighting ceremony was a very bad thing to do instead of going through some ritual of simulations. Of course, the FBI agents claim they gave him chances to back out, but I suspect he was like most teenagers who didn't want to be considered as "chicken." – http://theweek.com/articles/488966/portland-bomb-plot-entrapment

backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 13:41

Bill – using entrapment in order to move public opinion in a certain direction, steer the herd, influence their thinking, allowing them then to engage in what they want carried out. Sickening. Heat coming down on Israel a little too much? Just create an incident, elicit sympathy, and the whole thing blows over.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html

Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:26

To paraphrase Shakespeare: Age has not withered Coleen Rowley nor custom faded her infinite courage.

Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:22

Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures.

Bending to political and other pressures is one of the rules for "success" in Washington and Wall Street. There must be very few people who have made it to the upper echelons butting heads with the oligarchs running the show. Lewis Lapham, a national treasure of an essayist and author, frequently skewered the "rules of success" and those who played by them.

D5-5 , June 6, 2017 at 12:13

Mike Whitney chimes in here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47117.htm

[May 28, 2019] Comey Slams Trump's FBI Probe 'There Was No Coup, These Are Lies, Dumb Lies'

May 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Comey Slams Trump's FBI Probe: 'There Was No Coup, These Are Lies, Dumb Lies'

by Tyler Durden Tue, 05/28/2019 - 19:25 3 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print While Trump's Attorney General William Barr oversees a probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, in which the Obama-era intelligence community has been accused of gross violations of the law - including spying and possible entrapment , fired FBI Director James Comey has been on the defensive, claiming to have "no idea what the heck" people like Barr are talking about in regards to allegations of malfeasance.

Comey's latest attempt to untarnish his image comes in the form of a Tuesday afternoon op-ed in the Washington Post , responding to Thursday allegations by the President that Comey, former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI agent Peter Strock had "unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person."

"That's treason, Trump said at a White House event. "They couldn't win the election, and that's what happened."

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Trump's comments were backed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who said on Sunday that statements by FBI agents investigating Trump sounded "an awful lot like a coup, and it could well be treason."

Nonsense, insists Comey - who writes of Trump in his op-ed: " We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason , that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts."

Comey continues: " We investigated . We didn't gather information about the campaign's strategy. We didn't "spy" on anyone's campaign . We investigated to see whether it was true that Americans associated with the campaign had taken the Russians up on any offer of help."

The 'investigating' - as we now know, included the FBI sending in longtime spook Stefan Halper and an FBI agent posing as Halper's assistant, who gained the trust of Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos under false pretenses. Months earlier, Papadopoulos had been seeded with the rumor that Russia had negative information on Hillary Clinton by a self-described member of the Clinton Foundation.

In the words of the CIA's former counterintelligence chief James Olson " I'd call that spying. "

In the words of former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, " It was entrapment. "

Comey continues in his op-ed:

By late October, the investigators thought they had probable cause to get a federal court order to conduct electronic surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser named Carter Page . Page was no longer with the campaign, but there was reason to believe he was acting as an agent of the Russian government. We asked a federal judge for permission to surveil him and then we did it, all without revealing our work, despite the fact that it was late October and a leak would have been very harmful to candidate Trump. Worst deep-state conspiracy ever .

But wait, the conspiracy idea gets dumber. On Oct. 28 , after agonizing deliberation over two terrible options, I concluded I had no choice but to inform Congress that we had reopened the Clinton email investigation . I judged that hiding that fact -- after having told Congress repeatedly and under oath that the case was finished -- would be worse than telling Congress the truth. It was a decision William Barr praised and Hillary Clinton blamed for her loss 11 days later. Strzok, alleged architect of the treasonous plot to stop Trump, drafted the letter I sent Congress.

And there's still more to the dumbness of the conspiracy allegation. At the center of the alleged FBI "corruption" we hear so much about was the conclusion that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lied to internal investigators about a disclosure to the press in late October 2016. McCabe was fired over it . And what was that disclosure? Some stop-Trump election-eve screed? No. McCabe authorized a disclosure that revealed the FBI was actively investigating the Clinton Foundation , a disclosure that was harmful to Clinton. -James Comey

Of course, McCabe reportedly authorized the self-serving leak in response to media pressure that he had gone easy on Clinton - not to harm her campaign. Meanwhile according to McCabe, a senior Obama DOJ official called him and was "very pissed off" that the FBI was still pursuing the Clinton Foundation when the DOJ had considered the case dormant.

https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-33/html/container.html

In closing, Comey writes: "But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must. When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances. "


migra , 3 minutes ago link

Funny how he never addresses the fact that candidate Trump was never informed of the investigation the way Senator Feinstein was informed that she had a spy working for her. But then again, that wouldn't support his fabrication.

San Pedro , 4 minutes ago link

The Election of Trump has pulled the curtain back on The Administrative State (deep state) ...Greatly points to the fact the we don't have a "Justice" system. We have a "Just Us" system. I no longer trust any of the alphabet Law Enforcement Agencies including the IRS or the Courts. The whole thing is rigged and corrupt beyond repair. Everybody knows this.Democrats are now a adversary of the U.S. and like any enemy of the U.S. they care nothing about National Security and Public Safety..

dogbert8 , 4 minutes ago link

Sure sounds like desperation to me. Good thing he made a few million on his book deal; he may need it (though I continue to maintain the NO ONE involved in illegal spying, whether or not evidence supports this conclusion, will EVER be held accountable - look at Hillary-clearly a Federal criminal walking free).

Captain Nemo de Erehwon , 9 minutes ago link

But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must. When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances. "

And then Comey would be charged with obstruction for trying to put pressure on the investigators and discourage them via public statements?

hooligan2009 , 20 minutes ago link

oh look... comey doesn't like reciprocation...let's recast the headline

Trump Slams Comey's FBI Probe: 'There Was No Russian Collusion, These Are Lies, Dumb Lies'

SirBarksAlot , 22 minutes ago link

We "investigated," based on a "dossier" that Hillary Clinton paid for.

We "investigated," based on information we knew was fabricated.

Joiningupthedots , 22 minutes ago link

" The lady doth protest too much, methinks " : William Shakespeare

I bet Comey never saw this coming LOL

GunnyG , 25 minutes ago link

In the end I'm betting that Comey dimes out everyone that he can in order to get a better deal. If I were him I'd RUN to the U.S. Marshals and beg for WitSec in return for my testimony.

alamac , 25 minutes ago link

"Comey Slams Trump's FBI Probe: 'There Was No Coup, These Are Lies, Dumb Lies'" No.

"Comey Slams Trump's FBI Probe: 'Please, No, I'd Look Terrible in an Orange Jumpsuit'" There. FIFY

silverwolf888 , 25 minutes ago link

This Comey, he was at the center of the FBI coverup of 9-11, and the subsequent anthrax mailings. Comey very likely was involved in the anthrax mailings, which went out to various people in Washington who were privately questioning the official narrative.

IRC162 , 51 minutes ago link

The language employed in Comey's op-ed suggest the lawyer wrote this for low-IQ am talk show crowd. Food

[May 28, 2019] Fake Dossier -Creator Steele Refuses To Cooperate With AG Barr s Probe

May 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Having been practically a recluse since since the 'fake dossier' alleging links between Donald Trump and Russia that he produced was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017, Christophe Steele has reportedly refused to cooperate with AG Barr's probes

Reuters reports that , according to a source with knowledge of the situation, Steele, a former Russia expert for the British spy agency MI6, will not answer questions from prosecutor John Durham , named by Barr to examine the origins of the investigations into Trump and his campaign team.

However, buried deep in Reuters story is the same source claiming that Steele might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department's Inspector General into how U.S. law enforcement agencies handled pre-election investigations into both Trump and Clinton.

me width=

In the past Steele has cooperated, willingly being interviewed twice in the special counsel's investigation, and submitting answers in writing to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but apparently this time he is not willing.

With Steel refusing to cooperate, Joe DiGenova, former U.S. Attorney warned Monday on WMAL radio's Mornings on the Mall radio show,

"this is full scale war," adding that "we are heading toward a gigantic, gigantic fight...

The intelligence community, which includes the FBI, is in full resistance to disclosing what they did during the presidential campaign ."

Sara Carter reports that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on the FBI's handling of the investigation into Trump within weeks.

These investigation will hold those in the intelligence and law enforcement community accountable, depending on what evidence is discovered. This reporter is hearing from sources that it will be scathing. Those who abused their power and weaponized the tools meant to target America's enemies against a political opponents should be held accountable . Tags Politics Law Crime


Joiningupthedots , just now link

It seems reasonable to demand Steele's extradition to America to explain his part in the conspiracy.

I mean is being a party to the conspiracy, attempted treason and sedition of the attempted overthrow of an elected President not at least as important as Julian Assange who only made public some documents that someone else removed?

Whats the phrase again.........SLAM DUNK?

ufos8mycow , 2 minutes ago link

Steele might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department's Inspector General

Because the IG doesn't have prosecutorial power.

takeaction , 4 minutes ago link

Oh these fuckers are scared to death. Comey lashing out at Trump...on and on. This is going to be great...and Trump will play it perfect right into the election. And BIDEN was part of all of it. What a great next 6 years.

...never forget SETH.

Finally...is Ruth Ginsburg still alive?

Meat Hammer , 4 minutes ago link

If you haz nussing to hide you haz nussing to feah.

LordMaster , 7 minutes ago link

Funny, I was recently de-platformed on Twitter for tweeting to GCHQ (British Intelligence) that the UK's sordid involvement in spying on the Trump campaign would be exposed and "no amount of British bluster could refute it...".

JCW Industries , 7 minutes ago link

He'll talk to (((Horowitz))), but not Barr. Another reason not to trust the IG whitewash. Sure seems like Obstruction of Justice to me.

Fedaykinx , 7 minutes ago link

Wait, wasn't he willing to cooperate with a different investigation? I wonder what's changed, Mr. Steele?

Cman5000 , 9 minutes ago link

Poster boy for rendition!

DarkPurpleHaze , 5 minutes ago link

He's lucky to still be walking around given his extensive knowledge of how this went down.

Maybe he'll cooperate and go into a witness protection program of sorts or simply just disappear.

[May 27, 2019] A Russian-born British scholar [Svetlana Lokhova] is suing an alleged FBI informant [Halper] and four news outlets for allegedly defaming her by linking her to Russian efforts to influence President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign

May 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Keith Harbaugh , 24 May 2019 at 02:53 PM

Here's an interesting sidelight:

"Intelligence scholar sues Cambridge academic, U.S. news outlets over reports on Flynn links" , Politico , 201905-24

A Russian-born British scholar [Svetlana Lokhova] is suing an alleged FBI informant [Halper] and four news outlets for allegedly defaming her by linking her to Russian efforts to influence President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign .
...
Lokhova alleges that Halper and the news outlets conspired to spread a false narrative that she approached then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn on behalf of Russian intelligence at a seminar dinner in England in 2014 and that Flynn and Lokhova had an intimate relationship.

Over time, as public attention focused on links between the Trump campaign and Russia -- and after Flynn was fired from his role as national security adviser by Trump in February 2017, individuals hostile to Trump and Flynn seized on the alleged connection to Lokhova as evidence that Flynn had been compromised by Russia, she alleges in the suit.
...
"Stefan Halper is a rat ----- and a spy, who embroiled an innocent woman in a conspiracy to undo the 2016 Presidential election and topple the President of the United States of America," Lokhova alleges in the 66-page complaint .

[May 27, 2019] The Campaign to Paint Trump as a Russian Stooge Started on May 4, 2016 by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Clinton campaign and the DNC retained the law firm of Perkins Coie; in turn, one of its partners, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion GPS. We don't know how much Fusion GPS was paid, but the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid $9.1 million to Perkins Coie during the 2016 campaign (i.e., between mid-2015 and late 2016). ..."
"... Fusion GPS then "hired" FBI Informant Christopher Steele in May 2016. More about that later. ..."
"... As Lisa Page and Peter Strzok noted in their text exchange, Ted Cruz dropping out of the race in early May was the catalyst for focusing all resources on Donald Trump. This effort, which I label, the Trump Russia covert action, involved the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and British Intelligence ..."
"... May 4, 2016, George Papadopolous forwarded to Corey Lewandowski an email from Timofeev [who was introduced to Papadopolous by Joseph Mifsud] raising the possibility of a meeting in Moscow ..."
"... May 4, 2016, FBI Informant Felix Sater followed up with Michael Cohen re Trump Tower Moscow Project: ..."
"... John Brennan convened a secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI. ..."
"... The unit functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the intelligence community. Those brought in signed new non-disclosure agreements to be granted access to intelligence from all three participating agencies ..."
"... It was manufactured as part of a broader plan to paint Trump as a tool of Putin and a servant of Russia ..."
"... We must take a new look at the story told about the so-called Russian hack of the DNC. I believe that Crowd Strike is lying about its role and the timeline. Here is the "official" story ..."
"... We are asked to believe that the Russians were in the DNC network on the 6 th of May and that Crowd Strike knew it. But what steps did Crowd Strike take to shut down the "Russians." Short answer -- nothing until June 10 th ..."
"... The DNC emails were taken on the 25 th of May 2016. That is the last date for the DNC emails posted on Wikileaks ..."
"... CrowdStrike effort did not shut down the DNC network until 10 June. If you know on May 6 th that the "Russians" are in the network, why does any credible, competent cyber security company wait until the 10 th of June to shut the system down? ..."
"... Seth Rich, a DNC employee and Bernie Sanders supporter, downloaded the emails and then gave them to Wikileaks. Rich was in contact with Wikileaks. That is not my opinion. We know that courtesy of a FOIA request by lawyer Ty Clevenger to the NSA filed in November 2017, who requested any information regarding Seth Rich and Julian Assange. ..."
"... NSA has records of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange. ..."
"... the CIA had a task force set up. I believe this intelligence was communicated to the Clinton campaign and that a bogus story, with Crowd Strike in a starring role, was cooked up. Implausible? ..."
"... It was Crowd Strike with the help of the Washington Post that went public and pinned the blame on the Russians ..."
"... But that was not the only active measure in place. Christopher Steele, a fully signed up FBI informant, was hired by Fusion GPS and produced his first block buster report on June 20 th claiming Trump was under the thumb of Vladimir Putin ..."
"... Things should get very interesting with the declassification in force. Can you see the NSA/Seth Rich/Wikileaks material being made declassified as well (albeit redacted for methods, etc of course)? ..."
"... Can Barr declassify the Rich/Assange material? Also, was Skripal one of Steele's "sources"? ..."
"... Joseph Mifsud is missing in this time line. He always appeared to be the most curious player. Any reason he is left out? ..."
"... This is the second time in the past few weeks I've read about surveillance on Sanders. Is there a link to a reliable source? ..."
"... I believe it's established that a guy from the UK worked in his campaign, and is now on the Integrity Initiative payroll. And the investigation into his wife's role in the financial affairs of the college she works for seems mysteriously to have run into the sands ..."
"... Before joining Manafort in Kiev, Kliminik worked for almost a decade in Moscow for the International Republican Institute, effectively running that office for some of those years. The IRI is part of the NED/USAID network. There is no way an identified "GRU agent" would be permitted as a long time employee of such an organization. ..."
"... To avoid the conflict [of interest] President Trump designates the U.S. Attorney General as arbiter and decision-maker for the purposes of declassifying evidence within the investigation ..."
"... I realize Larry Johnson's already alluded to the existence of NSA files about communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange, but the implications are finally sinking in as to how evil this whole mess is. ..."
"... I've always been dismissive of those who've made comments about "Arkancide" in connection with the Clintons, but I may have to revise my POV. I wonder who was involved in the process of getting rid of Mr. Rich? ..."
"... Declassify the list of persons "Samantha Powers" asked FISA courts to unmask during the 11th hours of the Obama administration. Or learn who signed her name to these requests, if in fact she did not as she claimed. ..."
"... Redstate reports the 260 FISA unmasking requests in 2016 in Samantha Power name were perhaps for an Israel Settlesment-gate; not Russiagate? https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/05/25/samantha-powers-unmasked-260-americans-2016-soon-well-learn/ ..."
May 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Forget July 31, 2016 as the alleged start date for the full blown Trump counter intelligence investigation. That day is a sham. The actual campaign to paint Trump as a full fledged stooge of Russia started in early May 2016. We now know the start date thanks to the text messages between star-crossed lovers Strzok and Page and the timeline buried in the Mueller Report:

It is important to understand that the collection of intelligence on U.S. Presidential candidates was not limited to Donald Trump. The collection effort started in the summer of 2015 and included the main Republican candidates and, according to a knowledgeable source, also targeted Bernie Sanders.

Also remember that the Presidential campaign is a dynamic event that changes over time. In the summer of 2015, the conventional wisdom touted Jeb Bush as the likely nominee. But as the months passed the field narrowed. By March of 2016, Donald Trump was the leader and appeared likely to garner the nomination.

April was the turning point where the foundation for attacking Trump was being laid. The law firm, Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign . Andy McMarthy reported on the details of this arrangement in October 2017:

The Clinton campaign and the DNC retained the law firm of Perkins Coie; in turn, one of its partners, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion GPS. We don't know how much Fusion GPS was paid, but the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid $9.1 million to Perkins Coie during the 2016 campaign (i.e., between mid-2015 and late 2016).

Fusion GPS then "hired" FBI Informant Christopher Steele in May 2016. More about that later.

As Lisa Page and Peter Strzok noted in their text exchange, Ted Cruz dropping out of the race in early May was the catalyst for focusing all resources on Donald Trump. This effort, which I label, the Trump Russia covert action, involved the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and British Intelligence. How do we know? Just look at the Robert Mueller Report:

Then we have this little tidbit courtesy of the Washington Post that the CIA acted, perhaps as early as June 2016 :

John Brennan convened a secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.

The unit functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the intelligence community. Those brought in signed new non-disclosure agreements to be granted access to intelligence from all three participating agencies.

They worked exclusively for two groups of "customers," officials said. The first was Obama and fewer than 14 senior officials in government. The second was a team of operations specialists at the CIA, NSA and FBI who took direction from the task force on where to aim their subsequent efforts to collect more intelligence on Russia.

Investigators must get the date that this CIA task force was established. They also need to identify and interview the people who participated and were cleared to work on this task force. President Trump must understand that this was not a legitimate intelligence operation. It was weaponizing the intel community to act against a Presidential candidate. It was manufactured as part of a broader plan to paint Trump as a tool of Putin and a servant of Russia.

We must take a new look at the story told about the so-called Russian hack of the DNC. I believe that Crowd Strike is lying about its role and the timeline. Here is the "official" story

May 6, 2016, Dmitri Alperovitch woke up in a Los Angeles hotel to an alarming email. Alperovitch is the thirty-six-year-old cofounder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, and late the previous night, his company had been asked by the Democratic National Committee to investigate a possible breach of its network. A CrowdStrike security expert had sent the DNC a proprietary software package, called Falcon, that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. Falcon "lit up," the email said, within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC: Russia was in the network. (From Esquire-- Esquire Magazine offers a different timeline)

We are asked to believe that the Russians were in the DNC network on the 6 th of May and that Crowd Strike knew it. But what steps did Crowd Strike take to shut down the "Russians." Short answer -- nothing until June 10 th .

The DNC emails were taken on the 25 th of May 2016. That is the last date for the DNC emails posted on Wikileaks.

Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima and Esquire magazine each reported that that the CrowdStrike effort did not shut down the DNC network until 10 June. If you know on May 6 th that the "Russians" are in the network, why does any credible, competent cyber security company wait until the 10 th of June to shut the system down?

I believe this is a cover story. Here is what I think really happened.

Seth Rich, a DNC employee and Bernie Sanders supporter, downloaded the emails and then gave them to Wikileaks. Rich was in contact with Wikileaks. That is not my opinion. We know that courtesy of a FOIA request by lawyer Ty Clevenger to the NSA filed in November 2017, who requested any information regarding Seth Rich and Julian Assange. The NSA informed Clevenger in a letter dated 4 October 2018 that:

Your request has been processed under the provisions of the FOIA. Fifteen documents (32 pages) responsive to your request have been reviewed by this Agency as required by the FOIA and have found to be currently and properly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526. These documents meet the criteria for classification as set forth in Subparagraph © of Section 1.4 and remains classified TOP SECRET and SECRET."

Former NSA Technical Director, William Binney commented on this revelation:

Ty Clevenger has FOIAed information from NSA asking for any data that involved both Seth Rich and also Julian Assange. And they responded by saying we've got 15 files, 32 pages, but they're all classified in accordance with executive order 13526 covering classification, and therefore you can't have them.

That says that NSA has records of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange. I mean, that's the only business that NSA is in  --  copying communications between people and devices.

We already know, as noted above, that the CIA had a task force set up. I believe this intelligence was communicated to the Clinton campaign and that a bogus story, with Crowd Strike in a starring role, was cooked up. Implausible? Not as implausible as a supposed cracker jack cyber security company waiting almost six weeks before taking common sense steps to shut down and clean the DNC servers.

It was Crowd Strike with the help of the Washington Post that went public and pinned the blame on the Russians.

But that was not the only active measure in place. Christopher Steele, a fully signed up FBI informant, was hired by Fusion GPS and produced his first block buster report on June 20 th claiming Trump was under the thumb of Vladimir Putin.

This is not a complete timeline. More remains to be discovered. But there are key facts that most of the media and punditry have ignored. Donald Trump's announcement tonight (Thursday, 23 May 2019) to start declassifying documents on the Trump counter intelligence investigation and directing the intelligence agencies to cooperate may be the final straw that ends the conspiracy of ignorance.

Posted at 07:53 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink


Eric Newhill , 24 May 2019 at 10:42 AM

Larry,

Once again, thank you for the good work on this important topic. Looking forward to your future installments.

Things should get very interesting with the declassification in force. Can you see the NSA/Seth Rich/Wikileaks material being made declassified as well (albeit redacted for methods, etc of course)?

O'Shawnessey , 24 May 2019 at 11:22 AM

Can Barr declassify the Rich/Assange material? Also, was Skripal one of Steele's "sources"?

The Twisted Genius -> O'Shawnessey... , 24 May 2019 at 09:49 PM

O'Shawnessey, if the Rich/Assange material establishes communication between the two, I would expect it to be declassified to bolster the "Russia didn't do it" narrative. Even if that communication was't specifically about transferring DNC files or the actual transference of DNC files, it would be useful to Russia and/or Trump supporters.

If, OTOH, the file NSA files consist of Assange discussing the use of Rich as a useful scapegoat, the files will never see the light of day. According to what Larry has written, Clevenger asked for files with information involving Rich and Assange and did not specify communications between Assange and Rich.

Clevenger should have at least specified a cut off date. If the NSA files were produced before Rich's death, it would be a gold mine for Barr and Trump. If the documents covered the time after Rich's death, not so much.

My theory is that the Rich as leaker story is similar to the whole G2 story. They muddy the water and create chaos. Classic maskirovka.

Factotum , 24 May 2019 at 12:14 PM

Joseph Mifsud is missing in this time line. He always appeared to be the most curious player. Any reason he is left out?

Larry Johnson -> Factotum... , 24 May 2019 at 12:47 PM

If you re-read closely I reference Timofeev who was introduced to Papadopolous by MIFSUD. He's there.
Thanks for asking

Doggrotter , 24 May 2019 at 12:44 PM

Siht, I hadn't even thought about classified info on SR. I had thought about how it would be interesting if it turned out Sanders had been spied on. Seriously explosive stuff. Something about Robert Duvall using the other N word, quote from Apocalypse Now.

begob -> Doggrotter... , 25 May 2019 at 02:03 AM

This is the second time in the past few weeks I've read about surveillance on Sanders. Is there a link to a reliable source?

I believe it's established that a guy from the UK worked in his campaign, and is now on the Integrity Initiative payroll. And the investigation into his wife's role in the financial affairs of the college she works for seems mysteriously to have run into the sands.

jjc , 24 May 2019 at 02:41 PM

Before joining Manafort in Kiev, Kliminik worked for almost a decade in Moscow for the International Republican Institute, effectively running that office for some of those years. The IRI is part of the NED/USAID network. There is no way an identified "GRU agent" would be permitted as a long time employee of such an organization.

The Mueller team deliberately seeded the suspicion, and credulous journalists speculated on polling data without pause. Kliminik was, in effect, Manafort's deputy in Kiev, working very closely with him - so again for the Mueller team to suggest there was anything at all sinister in the two men holding meetings, whether tied to campaign events or not, is unfounded speculation, which should have been obvious to all.

Tidewater -> Keith Harbaugh... , 24 May 2019 at 04:32 PM

I've been waiting for that one. Next comes Papadopoulos. I think the British Fraud Act of 2006 is quite relevant to what Halper was doing. Cambridge University, Magdalene College, even Pembroke College would seem to me to be at risk for lawsuits. Fraud Act 2006 Wikipedia explains why litigation is now appropriate.

Please see: Fraud Act 2006 Wikipedia

begob -> Keith Harbaugh... , 25 May 2019 at 02:05 AM

I believe Glenn Greenwald has weighed in on this one. You should be able to find his views in an online search.

Keith Harbaugh , 24 May 2019 at 03:14 PM

Sundance provides quite a bit of information regarding Trump's declassification memorandum:

"President Trump's Declassification Directive Outlines Specific Process and Direction ." , by sundance, 2019-05-24

To avoid the conflict [of interest] President Trump designates the U.S. Attorney General as arbiter and decision-maker for the purposes of declassifying evidence within the investigation
...
[etc.]
akaPatience , 24 May 2019 at 06:41 PM

I realize Larry Johnson's already alluded to the existence of NSA files about communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange, but the implications are finally sinking in as to how evil this whole mess is.

I've always been dismissive of those who've made comments about "Arkancide" in connection with the Clintons, but I may have to revise my POV. I wonder who was involved in the process of getting rid of Mr. Rich?

It's horrible to even ponder...

joanna -> akaPatience ... , 25 May 2019 at 12:43 PM

Wasn't there a "murder case" in DC itself? In other words do you really need to lead us down to Arkansas, murky real estate deals, drugs, extramarital relationships bordering on rapes and other shady associate networks? But I agree, suicided may not fit all too well.

ex-PFC Chuck , 24 May 2019 at 09:41 PM

I am struck by the irony of the Trump administration is prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for actions that are common journalistic practices, while simultaneously conducting an investigation that is closing in on malefactors of high position for probable actions that threaten the very core of our democracy and which in all likelihood would still be unknown to the public were it not for the work of that same heterodox journalist.

Ghost Ship -> ex-PFC Chuck... , 26 May 2019 at 05:56 AM

I suspect that the Trump government really doesn't want Assange extradited but feels it has to be seen to have gone through the motions. 17+ indictments might be effective in the American judicial system but here in good old Blighty it's way too many and they might all be thrown out as being oppressive.
But then again the Conservative government after Brexit will be a bunch of craven shits desperate for a trade deal from Trump and will reply "how high" when he says jump.

Factotum , 24 May 2019 at 10:53 PM

Declassify the list of persons "Samantha Powers" asked FISA courts to unmask during the 11th hours of the Obama administration. Or learn who signed her name to these requests, if in fact she did not as she claimed.

walrus , 25 May 2019 at 07:53 PM

I'm concerned that Assange may not live long enough to stand trial because he is capable of closing too many open investigations.

Factotum , 25 May 2019 at 11:56 PM

Redstate reports the 260 FISA unmasking requests in 2016 in Samantha Power name were perhaps for an Israel Settlesment-gate; not Russiagate? https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/05/25/samantha-powers-unmasked-260-americans-2016-soon-well-learn/

[May 26, 2019] Trump Targets UK, Australia And Ukraine Over 'Greatest Hoax In The History Of Our Country'

Notable quotes:
"... As for Ukraine, a Ukrainian court ruled in December that the country meddled in the US election when they revealed details of suspected illegal payments to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. ..."
"... Chaly confirmed that DNC insider of Ukrainian heritage, Alexandra Chalupa , approached Ukraine seeking information on Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's dealings inside the country, in the hopes of exposing them to Congress. ..."
"... Chalupa, who told Politico in 2017 that she had "developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives ," said she "occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign. ..."
"... In short, a DNC operative of Ukrainian heritage, who shared information with the Clinton campaign and worked with a convicted terrorist to spread misinformation to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election, approached the government of Ukraine in the hopes of obtaining "dirt" that would hurt the Trump campaign. ..."
May 26, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Speaking with reporters at the White House on Friday before his trip to Japan, Trump discussed his decision this week to issue a sweeping declassification order - leaving it in the hands of Barr to determine exactly what happened to Trump and his campaign before and after the 2016 US election.

"For over a year, people have asked me to declassify. What I've done is declassified everything," said Trump, adding "He can look and I hope he looks at the UK and I hope he looks at Australia and I hope he looks at Ukraine ."

"It's the greatest hoax probably in the history of our country and somebody has to get to the bottom of it. We'll see. For a long period of time, they wanted me to declassify and I did."

(UK, Australia, Ukraine comment at 2:30) "This is about finding out what happened," said Trump. "What happened and when did it happen, because this was an attempted takedown of the president of the United States, and we have to find out why."

"We're exposing everything. We're being a word that you like, transparent. We're being, ultimately we're being transparent. That's what it's about. Again, this should never ever happen in our country again."

After the Mueller report made clear that Trump and his campaign had in no way conspired with Russia during the 2016 election, Democrats immediately pivoted to whether Trump obstructed the investigation. Trump and his supporters, however, immediately pivoted to the conduct of the US intelligence community , including the involvement of foreign actors and possibly their governments. According to a report last week , the discredited "Steele Dossier" - assembled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele - was referred to as "crown material" in an email exchange suggesting that former FBI Director James Comey insisted that CIA Director John Brennan pushed for the inclusion of the dossier in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference.

Moreover, much of "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" - the FBI's official investigation into the Trump campaign - occurred on UK soil , which is perhaps why the New York Times reported last September that the UK begged Trump not to declassify 'Russiagate' documents 'without redaction.'

Shortly after he announced his involvement with the Trump campaign, aide George Papadopoulos was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor and self-described Clinton foundation member Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who FBI agent Peter Strzok flew to London to meet with the day after Crossfire Hurricane was launched).

Two weeks later , Papadopoulos would be bilked for information by Australian diplomat (another Clinton ally ) Alexander Downer at a London bar, who relayed the Russia rumor to Australian authorities, which alerted the FBI (as the story goes), which 'officially' kicked off the US intelligence investigation.

George Papadopoulos ‏ @ GeorgePapa19 Apr 20

We have now pinned Peter Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap, in London the week of May 6th, 2016 and on the 9th. The day before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and record our meeting. Congress must release the transcripts and embarrass the deep state.

Replying to @ GeorgePapa19

US officials meeting with MI6, a foreign intelligence agency, to overthrow a sitting President should be treason.

Reach4Stars ‏ @ StarsReachNow Apr 20

Yes, it is Treason. America wants hardcore a go-for-it investigation. AG Barr please unleash the hounds on these vermin. Our very democracy is on the line. Let the chips fall!

As for Ukraine, a Ukrainian court ruled in December that the country meddled in the US election when they revealed details of suspected illegal payments to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

In 2016, while Mr. Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign, anti-corruption prosecutors in Ukraine disclosed that a pro-Russian political party had earmarked payments for Mr. Manafort from an illegal slush fund. Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign a week later. - New York Times

Last week, President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani met with a former Ukrainian diplomat, Andril Telizhenko, who has previously suggested that the DNC worked with the Kiev government in 2016 to dig up 'dirt' on then-candidate Donald Trump. Giuliani told the Washington Post in a Friday interview that Telizhenko "was in Washington and he came up to New York, and we spent most of the afternoon together," adding "When I have something to say, I'll say it."

This comes on the heels of Giuliani canceling a trip to Ukraine to meet with President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the Manafort situation.

According to The Hill 's John Solomon,

A former DNC operative steeped in Trump-Russia research approached the Ukrainian government looking for 'dirt' on then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 US election, citing written answers to questions submitted to Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office.

Chaly confirmed that DNC insider of Ukrainian heritage, Alexandra Chalupa , approached Ukraine seeking information on Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's dealings inside the country, in the hopes of exposing them to Congress.

Chalupa, who told Politico in 2017 that she had "developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives ," said she "occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign.

In short, a DNC operative of Ukrainian heritage, who shared information with the Clinton campaign and worked with a convicted terrorist to spread misinformation to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election, approached the government of Ukraine in the hopes of obtaining "dirt" that would hurt the Trump campaign.

And Trump wants AG Barr to look at it all . He'll be visiting the UK next month, meanwhile, where he can ask outgoing PM Theresa May, or the Queen, all about it.


pmc , 1 hour ago link

I think the question everyone should be asking themselves is... How many "deep state" people has Trump's administration prosecuted in the 2 years he's been in office. The answer to that question is ZERO! The charade is over dude!

hooligan2009 , 1 hour ago link

the arab spring, begun in 2010 one year after obama was elected destroyed libya, syria, egypt and a bunch of other countries.

consider that the same tactics used in those countries by a democrat president using the same indoctrinated howler monkey people in the same weaponized alphabet soup intel agencies - were used against trump

the US got off lightly, this was an attempted coup by libtard howler monkeys.

think of the upside if they are locked up.

the world will truly be a safer place and people will be happier and more secure.

hooligan2009 , 2 hours ago link

interesting table comparing the clinton cabal coup attempt with watergate

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e42b60c1b3d06ce86a224770349cb0d368dc10b821ba7f1d557b884c5709b615.jpg

commiebastid , 3 hours ago link

the greatest hoax is that your democracy exists at all http://www.awdnews.com/political/assange-forget-russia-,-the-real-threat-to-america-comes-from-israel-and-the-israel-lobby

Bricker , 3 hours ago link

The deep state under Obama spied on any adversary they deemed a threat to the DNC. Obama weaponized the DNC with the CIA/FBI/and NSA. They spied on every GOP candidate. THATS A FACT

They gave Hillary the debate questions and now that crook Donna Brazile is a paid contributor on FOX.

The media in this country is full of **** and shysters

[May 23, 2019] Look at their prime creation of the new millennium: Barack Obama.

May 23, 2019 | www.unz.com

Olorin , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT

@Sean McBride

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Because they serve those who dispense such power. That is their job.

And those whom they serve make sure that checky/balancey oversight–say in the form of chief executive of the United States of America, or an honest Congressman or journalist–is destroyed if it threatens not to align with those masters or even questions/reveals these individuals or these structures.

Look at how they've reacted to Donald Trump's trolling both before and while in office.

They make sure that "the intelligence bureaucracy" reifies that exclusionary principle in every hire, every action, every policy. Like many bureaucracies and institutions it becomes a factory for its own viral replication rather than anything that is traditionally considered "intelligence."

Look at their prime creation of the new millennium: Barack Obama.

[May 21, 2019] Why does Barsoomian, possibly a CIA operative, merit any mention? BECAUSE She is Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's WIFE! "

May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 10:13 pm GMT

M. Whitney says: " .That's the question that will throw open the curtains and shed light on the suspicious ties between the DNC, the CIA, the FBI and the media, .."

SWAMPgate: You won't believe how ALL the perps are connected as in joined at the hip!

Excerpt: " ..someone out there cares so much that they've "purged" all Barsoomian court documents for her Clinton representation in Hamburg vs. Clinton in 1998 and its appeal in 1999 from the DC District and Appeals Court dockets. Someone out there cares so much that the internet has been "purged" of all information pertaining to Barsoomian. Historically, this indicates that the individual is a protected CIA operative. Additionally, Lisa Barsoomian has specialized in opposing Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the intelligence community.

And, although Barsoomian has been involved in hundreds of cases representing the DC Office of the US Attorney, her email address is Lisa Barsoomian at NIH gov. The NIH stands for National Institutes of Health. This is a tactic routinely used by the CIA to protect an operative by using another government organization to shield their activities.

It's a cover, so big deal, right? I mean what does one more attorney with ties to the US intelligence community really matter?

It deals with Trump and his recent tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, the border wall, DACA, everything coming out of California, the Uni-party unrelenting opposition to President Trump, the Clapper leaks, the Comey leaks, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusal and subsequent 14 month nap with occasional forays into the marijuana legalization mix.

And last but not least Mueller's never-ending investigation into collusion between the Trump team and the Russians.

Why does Barsoomian, CIA operative, merit any mention? BECAUSE She is Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's WIFE! " :

"SWAMPgate: You won't believe how ALL the perps are connected as in joined at the hip!":

http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=122755#more-122755

Regards, onebornfree

[May 20, 2019] The dirty art of politicians entrapment: Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers, gay sex, pedophilia, or what-have-you, all or in combination

Highly recommended!
That remind me how old Kushner tried to smear his relative...
Notable quotes:
"... They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts. ..."
"... The "Russian" female is notably very attractive with a slender build. There is a honey-trap angle here as well. This would likely inspire the boasting (in order to impress her) on the part of the wingnut politician. ..."
"... The far-right is the Troy Horse of transnational corporations and capital and already discredited neoliberal stablishment which comes now disguised under the softening label of "populists". Beware, there seems to be a coordinated effort at several blogs in the ten previous days of the European elections to whitewash the far-right. ..."
"... So this very much hints something more. Right now there is a debate of cocain being visible on the table but this accusation points more towards schnickle with a babe imho. The babe to his right is not that ugly, admittely. ..."
"... As expected the hysteria of "russian" meddling have now publicized to weaken FPÖ in the EU election. Winners? NATO/US parties. ..."
"... Seems indeed to be a honeypot aspect to the entrapment, and it's quite possible Strache stepped down at once to avoid that part to come to light, so that the public revelations would be limited to the economic shenanigans and influence-peddling level. ..."
"... Also, this goes to show that the bulk of our Western politicians, across all the political spectrum, are a bunch of mediocre and quite corrupt fools. For him not to smell that this was a setup from the very first minute, it must be that such proposals are common place all across the board - which will only reinforce my suspicion that our societies, peoples and mankind as a whole would only benefit if we fully wiped out our economic, financial and political establishment and started from scratches. ..."
"... Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers and blow, gay sex, paedofilia, or what-have-you, - all or in combination. Politicians are "all" compromised in these ways. Buck the system or threaten the status quo - whereby it gets somebody's serious attention and the shite hits the fan. ..."
"... The savages in this neoliberal order use the secret services to subvert democracy. Deception and manipulation are the means used to corrupt the public domain. They would push the most pliable and ruthless leaders into office. Catastrophe and violence and disinformation are their most powerful weapons. But I still think that political processes and elections do matter; and what counts is a struggle to improve and reform the system of government. Doing our best to protect and maintain the integrity of electoral processes is something that requires both protests and political campaigns. ..."
"... The very strong implication certainly seems to be that there may be further video of Strache sleeping with the honey pot. He obviously knows what happened that night. If there were video cameras hidden everywhere, that was obviously one of the intentions behind the sting from the outset. ..."
"... B, please do an article on the Nazi penetration of the German security services, Interior Ministry, Army, CDU etc, and links to the NSU affair, shredding of millions of documents by the Interior Ministry when demanded by the courts as evidence, links with the Board members and advisory board members of German big business especially Siemens and Deutche Bank and Bayer, etc. ..."
"... It is a wonder Strache's remark "Journalists are the biggest whores on the planet" and how he says he can subvert an entire media outlet to his political agenda by even firing the few remaining fringe elements. ..."
"... I don't think Strache is as harmless as you portray him, B. You fall for his defence strategy if you attribute all his statements to the influence of alcohol. At that time, the man was very confident that he would soon be at the levers of power, which then materialized. It remains to be proven whether he did not put into practice anything of what he talked about at that house in Ibiza. After all, he was talking about the by far most influential newspaper in Austria. ..."
"... Of course it is true that it is the neoliberal globalisers who have brought us to where we stand today. But that doesn' make people like Strache and Salvini any less dangerous. If they rise to total power, the result will be a naked dictatorship. Strache was beaten with his own weapons, you don't have to be under any illusions. ..."
"... Who could have ordered such an elaborate sting operation? ..."
"... The sophisticated operation using actors and a villa prepared with hidden cameras and microphones shows that this is hardly a normal case of dirty campaigning by political opponents. Most likely, either it was an action by a secret service or someone with deep pockets hired former secret agents. ..."
"... If it was an action by secret services, the most plausible explanation seems to be that Western secret services targeted Strache because FPÖ is one of the parties who is in favor of restoring normal relations with Russia ..."
"... François Fillon comes to mind, a French conservative candidate who also had a quite a friendly attitude towards Russia - shortly before the elections, it was revealed (at least claimed) that Fillon had given his wife ficticious employment, and Fillon lost popularity, which helped Macron enormously. ..."
"... Probably, some of the things Strache said during this sting operation were inacceptable, and Fillon may also not be innocent, but if there is a systematic selective targeting of European politicians who want to normalize relations with Russia by secret services, that would be a huge problem for democracy. ..."
"... In 2016, Joseph Mifsud invited George Papadopoulos to Rome and introduced him to "Putin's niece" with the intent of smearing Trump as "Russian puppet" and destroying his election chances. In 2017, someone (who?) invited Heinz-Christian Strache to Ibiza and introduced him to "Russian billionaire's niece" with the intent of smearing Strache as "Russian puppet" and destroying his party's election chances. Notice a pattern? ..."
"... This is a clear case of Germany interfering in Austrian elections. Austria should deport 60 German diplomats, shut down German embassy in Vienna, and impose sanctions on Germany. Also put a German girl interested in Austrian politics in jail for 18 months. ..."
"... Thinking about it, after revealing e-mail of HRC, Podesta etc. were published, their core supporters were enraged about the dirty trick and did not pay attention to the disclosed content, while for the core opponents of HRC she was already sufficiently vilified so the net change in voting intentions that can be attributed to that incident was modest. ..."
"... Anyone who does not directly have his or her family's nose in the EU trough at this point knows that the policies espoused by transatlantic puppets like Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron push our countries and our continent towards self-destruction. Life in Europe, post-1968 and pre-2013, has been pretty damn good. There's absolutely no good reason for us to rip up our traditions or turn into a continent of immigrants and mobile job seekers. ..."
"... As Strache explains in the video, Austrian dirty tricks are done "via another country". ..."
"... To those who fill that politics of Strache are obnoxious and that justifies entrapment, remembers that methods of that type are not improvised, and that means that there is an apparatus that does it. We noted similarities with provocations against George Papadopoulos. In the latter case the target was cautious, after all, we had to be well aware of such methods. But anyone who is despised by NATO establishment are similar group can be on the receiving end, think about Assange. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel published (German) reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.

The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal circles.

In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.

Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.


A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid, German)

During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them. He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws. They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.

The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.

Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair. Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.

At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter. Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.

Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.

Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive reports about the video.

After the reports appeared Strache immediately stepped down and the conservatives ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.

On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky opines on the case:

Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.

I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view. The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian" puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.

Bershidsky continues:

Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election. Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...

This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.

Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now.

But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new far-right block Natteo Salvini will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.

Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:

In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.

The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of real left alternatives.

Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray put his finger on the wound:

The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions.
...
The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties – and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.

If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people, especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money.

While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new 'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.

In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions, he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes, we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.

Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM | Permalink


james , May 19, 2019 1:40:31 PM | 1

b - thanks .. i agree "elaborate sting" and "the video was held back until the right moment"... clearly this was a set up.. strache says he is going to pursue this legally..

"working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust." injustices are being done on a constant basis now and being justified by the msm regularly.. i think this is part of the reason people are seeking alternatives - whatever they might be... power to the people..screw the neoliberal agenda and blackmail artists that are so rampant at present...

Bratislav Metulski , May 19, 2019 1:40:51 PM | 2
Funny thing is e.g.- a German comedian Jan Böhmerman knew before. Already in April he said in a Video call live in Austian television duringthe TV-prize-giving of the trophy "Romy" that he couldn´t attend personally to receive the price because right know he was sitting together with some FPÖ-buddies in a Russian oligarch-villa on Ibiza, sniffing cocain, drinking and negotiating the takeover of the "Krone-Zeitung" (the biggest rag in Austira, smth like the "Bild" in Germany or "The sun" in Britain).

Böhmers management released a statement yesterday that Böhermann did know before but didn´t name the source he knew it from.
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article193725535/FPOE-Vize-Strache-Was-Boehmermann-mit-dem-Video-zu-tun-hat.html

Cui bono?

Paul Damascene , May 19, 2019 1:43:18 PM | 3
Your article here raises a number of important issues. More or less at random:

* If I understand your characterization of your political leanings, based on this and on the perspectives MoA offers, I share many of your views. And whereas there may be a certain Schadenfreude at seeing a right-wing, B-team operator reveal himself, I agree that the forces behind the sting itself are of potentially far greater interest (and danger)..

* For every sting and smear such as this that we see, how many others take place sub rosa, corrupting our political and social landscapes, leaving no evidence that might trigger criticism or resistance?

* I'm not sure of how this plays out legally, but this seems not just to have been a sting, but entrapment, in which (if these were law enforcement agents) we could protest that the only illegal activity being proposed, was by those conducting the sting.

* If this was, as you suggest, authored by the BND, then this would be a clear instance of election "meddling" -- though not of the sort that our shining democracies are now being warned against. (At least President Putin will not be accused of conducting it, for once. That oligarch's daughter could have come from anywhere, but of course Russia.) Russia gets smeared is probably the larger aim, rather than this particularly Austrian politician.

hallelujah hinton , May 19, 2019 1:55:07 PM | 4
The "Russian" female is notably very attractive with a slender build. There is a honey-trap angle here as well. This would likely inspire the boasting (in order to impress her) on the part of the wingnut politician.
somebody , May 19, 2019 1:56:55 PM | 5
I think the word is protofascist. b. you have got a blind spot seeing geopolitics everywhere. Truth is most of this is simply a battle of billionaires. The key to understand the Ibiza video is the product placement. Everybody there drinks Red Bull plus alcohol (I am not sure about the alcohol the loss of control of the politicians who are present suggests cocaine).

The owner of Red Bull is an Austrian billionaire called Dietrich Mateschitz. Mateschitz is a right wing crank building a media empire in Austria including an "investigative platform" called addendum that is something like the Austrian version of Breitbart.

For some reason "addendum" began to shoot against Rene Benzko, an Austrian real estate billionaire, who intends to take over Kronenzeitung.

And guess what, Rene Benzko was mentioned in the video "as a friend", and a large part of the conversation centered on taking over Kronenzeitung something Rene Benzko is involved in.

Strache, Vice Chancellor of Austria, explained in the video for every Austrian to understand, that his party's scheme is based on accepting illegal contributions via a ngo, and lowering taxes in return. According to what he says in the video he also intends to charge for water by selling the right to the Latvian/Russien "niece of a Russian oligarch" or someone else prepared to pay to his party's ngo.

Anybody who is not a billionaire voting for FPÖ after this must be braindead.

Arioch , May 19, 2019 1:58:49 PM | 6
> with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin

Putin himself though stresses his non involvement in that party, he also tried to bootstrap organizations that could supplant or even challenge U.R. at least in some niches.

While U.R. probably is party of Russian ruling elites, it is hardly one-man-show of LDPR/Zhirinovsky kind and whether Putin is "gray cardinal" of U.R. is very questionable.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 2:05:52 PM | 7
It is said that children and drunk people always say the truth... Why is it not to be taken into account what he said once drunk enough?

For to be a strong leftist, b, you spend a great effort in discharging this man, while whitewashing the far-right saying they are no danger for our societies and assuring that they are clean, when that is a thing you do not know since they have not had yet the possibility to rule.

They are neither cleaner nor inocuous for our societies. For starters they have chosen as scapegoat the migrants when who is to blame for the wave of migration is the US, NATO and their imperial ambitions, so as to throw poor against poor and that way the elites could continue quietly looting us, while we fight each other. You will never heard anything agsint banks ans elites from anybody in the far-right.

FYI, it is not Matteo Salvini who is forming a coalition of the far-right to conflude to European elections, but it is Bannon from his HQ in a Cisterciense monastery in Italy who is commanding this operation. Salvini is really a piece, having supported Guiado and the Venezuelan coup intend, and said what he would do with the Yellow Vests , "I don't go to the Yellow Vests with Molotov cocktails, if anything, I put them in prison" ...

Then it is AfD, who goes also in the block, whose members have claimed the Germans should be proud of the performance of the German Army during both WW....

Then Vox, financed by MEK and Israeli lobby and promoted by Bannon and the WH, who only wear clear neoliberal economic policies in their, for the rest, confusing program.

The best to test what the far-right will do in Europe is taking a look at what is happening in Brazil during these last days, an attack on education and research as if it was a military target ...This, after the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem and wide support to coup d´etat in Venezuela...He is also widely supported and financed by the US and Zionists.

The far-right is the Troy Horse of transnational corporations and capital and already discredited neoliberal stablishment which comes now disguised under the softening label of "populists". Beware, there seems to be a coordinated effort at several blogs in the ten previous days of the European elections to whitewash the far-right.

Bratislav Metulski , May 19, 2019 2:20:38 PM | 8
@4 hallelujah hinton
https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Neuwahlen-Der-gefeierte-Stratege-Kurz-hatte-keine-Optionen-mehr-4425362.html
Telepolis one of the oldest and biggest non-commercial online news and discussion platforms in Germany states in the following article, commenting on his statement at his resignation declaration:

"Glaubt er, man wäre bei Alkohol nachsichtiger? Offenbar schien er sich betrunken kaum mehr im Griff zu haben - und dies ist wohlgemerkt seine Erklärung für die Äußerungen im Video. Erst gegen Ende beginnt er eigenes Fehlverhalten einzuräumen und bittet insbesondere seine Frau um Verzeihung, mit der er ein wenige Monate altes Kind hat. Kenner Straches ahnten an dieser Stelle bereits, dass dieser sich bereits für Dinge entschuldigt, die zu diesem Zeitpunkt der Öffentlichkeit noch gar nicht bekannt sind."

Does he (Strache) really assume he would get more indulgence by blaming it on the alcolhol? Obviously when being drunken he wasn´t in control of himself anymore - and this is actually his explanation for his statements in the video. Somehow at the end he finally begins admitting own misconduct and especially asks his wife for forgiveness, with which he has a few months old child. Experts on Strache suspected from this moment on, that he apologized for things which at this moment are not known to the public, yet"

So this very much hints something more. Right now there is a debate of cocain being visible on the table but this accusation points more towards schnickle with a babe imho. The babe to his right is not that ugly, admittely.

Jackrabbit , May 19, 2019 2:26:38 PM | 9
somebody @5:
battle of billionaires.... Anybody who is not a billionaire voting for FPÖ after this must be braindead.
Anyone who believes voting will change anything is braindead. Only supporting protest Movements (like Gillet Jeune) and free press/citizen journalism (Wikileaks/Assange) will have any real effect.
Zanon , May 19, 2019 2:30:32 PM | 0
Great piece - I dont see how Strache actually made anything wrong or atleast nothing not normal to politicians that constantly seek out support by big, powerful people. Most likely the deep state in Austria struck FPÖ just like FBI struck Trump.

As expected the hysteria of "russian" meddling have now publicized to weaken FPÖ in the EU election. Winners? NATO/US parties.

Arioch , May 19, 2019 2:36:33 PM | 1
@hallelujah hinton #4

Also notice how she pretended to be a niece.

Not some very close relative like daughter or sister, which may be fearsome, as "russian mafia" oligarch could be expected to "protect" her of ladykillers viciously. But also not some far relative who would be seen alien and have no financial support.

Just enough distance to be safe to hit on and try to share the oligarch's money. It was both honey&gold trap.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 2:38:57 PM | 2
Anyone who believes voting will change anything is braindead.

@Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 19, 2019 2:26:38 PM | 9

If voting would be such a waste, why would had taken so hard and long to achieve voting for minorities and women? Why the parties go to such efforts to campaign and disguise themselves as wolves with sheepskin like the far-right?

Why would certain forces need to go to such editorial coordinated efforts through their several blogs out there to give an impression of certain candidates which is opposite to what they really are? Wikilieaks/Assange are part of this efforts, btw

Clueless Joe , May 19, 2019 2:44:05 PM | 4
Metulski:

Seems indeed to be a honeypot aspect to the entrapment, and it's quite possible Strache stepped down at once to avoid that part to come to light, so that the public revelations would be limited to the economic shenanigans and influence-peddling level.

Also, this goes to show that the bulk of our Western politicians, across all the political spectrum, are a bunch of mediocre and quite corrupt fools. For him not to smell that this was a setup from the very first minute, it must be that such proposals are common place all across the board - which will only reinforce my suspicion that our societies, peoples and mankind as a whole would only benefit if we fully wiped out our economic, financial and political establishment and started from scratches.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 2:44:10 PM | 5
Spanish Colonel ( ret.) Pedro Baños, who was postulated for head of the CNI by the Socialist government of Pedro Sanchez, was object of slander campiagn as "pro-Russian" by the Spanish cluster of Integrity Initiative, only for declarations on the prejudice of sanctions for Spain, and nobody made such noise....
hallelujah hinton , May 19, 2019 3:03:31 PM | 6
Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers and blow, gay sex, paedofilia, or what-have-you, - all or in combination. Politicians are "all" compromised in these ways. Buck the system or threaten the status quo - whereby it gets somebody's serious attention and the shite hits the fan.

Enforcement and and penalties are selective. Selective enforcement. It's how "The Law" operates. Not defending the wingnut pig in the article. I appreciate Sasha's Trojan Horse allegory above.

the pair , May 19, 2019 3:16:52 PM | 7
wow...a bunch of elitist neoliberals with contempt for anyone lacking 10 zeroes on their paychecks and zero useful policies use "russian collusion" to entrap and embarrass a pseudo-right wing politician. who could ever imagine such a scenario? and why learn from the masses you represent when james o'keefe gives you all the inspiration you need?

but at least they blocked the ascension of someone who would trade political favors for money. that kind of nonsense simply won't do in western society.

karlof1 , May 19, 2019 3:24:47 PM | 8
Thanks for this explanation, b! I first saw this reported at Geroman's Twitter and used machine translation of the article he linked, but it lacked the context which you provided. This incident is subsumed within the larger conflict that's trying to keep EU from combining with BRI/EAEU, which means its roots/culprits are NATO/Outlaw US Empire--it points to desperation on their part.
Jackrabbit , May 19, 2019 3:25:34 PM | 9
the pair @17

Some will fail to see the sarcasm. Best to use the /sarc tag.

somebody , May 19, 2019 3:34:51 PM | 0
Posted by: hallelujah hinton | May 19, 2019 1:55:07 PM | 4

Sorry, you don't see the Latvian/Russian woman. You see Gudenus' wife who is from Serbia. Whatever the publishing papers got, it was a copy. More will come out.

Copeland , May 19, 2019 4:01:44 PM | 1
The savages in this neoliberal order use the secret services to subvert democracy. Deception and manipulation are the means used to corrupt the public domain. They would push the most pliable and ruthless leaders into office. Catastrophe and violence and disinformation are their most powerful weapons. But I still think that political processes and elections do matter; and what counts is a struggle to improve and reform the system of government. Doing our best to protect and maintain the integrity of electoral processes is something that requires both protests and political campaigns.
BM , May 19, 2019 4:14:36 PM | 2
So this very much hints something more. Right now there is a debate of cocain being visible on the table but this accusation points more towards schnickle with a babe imho. The babe to his right is not that ugly, admittely.
Posted by: Bratislav Metulski | May 19, 2019 2:20:38 PM | 8

The very strong implication certainly seems to be that there may be further video of Strache sleeping with the honey pot. He obviously knows what happened that night. If there were video cameras hidden everywhere, that was obviously one of the intentions behind the sting from the outset.

---

On the issue of "populism" and right-wing parties I confess I have a problem. I certainly want to see the Establishment thrashed, and especially in next week's EU elections, and there is no question that at the moment the right-wing parties have far more potential to upset the establishment than the left. If "Populist" parties are able to radically upset the EU Parliament, that should bring a much-needed hammer and axe to the anti-populist activities of the EU, and hopefully lead to the breakup of the EU.

On the other hand, unlike B, I do have extremely strong worries about the rising power of the far right and their connections to Nazis and neo-Nazis. I am concerned - even without the involvement of Bannon, but far more so with - that the rise of "populism" is a calculated policy of a Nazi segment of the Establishment that is designed specifically to usher in an international Nazi movement across Europe and Latin America under the leadership of and proxies of the - ever more and more Nazi behaving - US (which itself is in so many very real ways descended from Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party and the Japanese war criminals including Bush's family, tight connections with Nazi war criminals in the CIA, and historical leadership figures in the CIA). The large scale and extremely high level infiltration of hardcore Nazis in the German security services, Interior Ministry, Army, and CDU politics is a ticking timebomb waiting for its moment. There seems to be similar high level Nazi infiltration in many other countries.

We have to be careful what we wish for!

B, please do an article on the Nazi penetration of the German security services, Interior Ministry, Army, CDU etc, and links to the NSU affair, shredding of millions of documents by the Interior Ministry when demanded by the courts as evidence, links with the Board members and advisory board members of German big business especially Siemens and Deutche Bank and Bayer, etc.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 4:21:50 PM | 3
On how there is real danger with these wolves on sheepskin who only try to divide and conquer the working masses of the world, this old article by Ho Chi Minh on the importance of class conscience and the great labor of the University of the East in the former USSR to get workers of the world conscous and united in the common struggle. Also on the importance of having the right to vote:
Colonialism is a leech with two suckers, one of which sucks the metropolitan proletariat and the other that of the colonies. If we want to kill this monster, we must cut off both suckers at the same time. If only one is cut off, the other will continue to suck the blood of the proletariat, the animal will continue to live, and the cut–off sucker will grow again. The Russian Revolution has grasped this truth clearly. That is why it is not satisfied with making fine platonic speeches and drafting "humanitarian" resolutions in favor of oppressed peoples, but it teaches them to struggle; and helps them spiritually, as proclaimed by Lenin in his theses on the colonial question. To the Baku Congress, twenty–one Eastern nations sent delegates. Representatives of Western workers' parties also participated in the work of this congress. For the first time, the proletariat of the conquering Western States and that of the subject Eastern countries fraternally joined hands and deliberated in common on the best means to defeat their common enemy, imperialism .

Following this historic congress, despite internal and external difficulties, revolutionary Russia has never hesitated to come to the help of peoples awakened by its heroic and victorious revolution. One of its first important acts was the founding of the University of the East.(...)

The sixty–two nationalities represented at the University form a "Commune." Its chairman and functionaries are elected every three months by all the students.

A student delegate takes part in the economic and administrative management of the University. All must regularly and in turn work in the kitchen, the library, the club, etc. All "misdemeanors" and disputes are judged and settled by an elected tribunal in the presence of all comrades. Once a week, the "Commune" holds a meeting to discuss the international political and economic situation. From time to time, meetings and evening parties are organized where the amateur artists introduce the art and culture of their country.

The fact that the Communists not only treat the "inferior natives of the colonies" like brothers, but that they get them to participate in the political life of the country, is highly characteristic of the "barbarity" of the Bolsheviks. Treated in their native country as "submissive subjects" or "protéges," having no other right but that to pay taxes, the Eastern students, who are neither electors nor eligible for election in their own country, from whom the right to express their political opinion is withdrawn, in the Soviet Union take part in the election of the Soviets and have the right to send their representatives to the Soviets. Let our brothers of the colonies who vainly seek a change of nationality make a comparison between bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy.

These students have suffered themselves and have witnessed the sufferings of others. All have lived under the yoke of "high civilization," all have been victims of exploitation and oppression by foreign capitalists . Moreover, they passionately long to acquire knowledge and to study. They are serious and full of enthusiasm. They are entirely different from the frequenters of the boulevards of the Latin Quarter, the Eastern students in Paris, Oxford, and Berlin. It can be said without exaggeration that under the roof of this University is the future of the colonial peoples.

The colonial countries of the Near and Far East, stretching from Syria to Korea, cover an extent of more than 15 million square kilometers and have more than 1,200 million inhabitants. All these immense countries are now under the yoke of capitalism and imperialism. Although their considerable numbers should be their strength, these submissive peoples have never yet made any serious attempts to free themselves from this yoke. Not yet having realized the value of international solidarity, they have not known how to unite for the struggle. Relationships between their countries are not yet established as they are among the peoples of Europe and America. They possess gigantic strength and do not yet realize it. The University of the East, assembling all the young, active, and intelligent leaders of the colonized countries, has fulfilled a great task, namely:

-It teaches to the future vanguard militants the principles of class struggle, confused in their minds by race conflicts and patriarchal customs.
-It establishes between the proletarian vanguard of the colonies a close contact with the Western proletariat, thus preparing the way for the close and effective cooperation which will alone ensure the final victory of the international working class.
-It teaches the colonized people, hitherto separated from one another, to know one another and to unite, by creating the bases of a future union of Eastern countries, one of the wings of the proletarian revolution.
-It sets the proletariat of colonialist countries and example of what they can and must do in favor of their oppressed brothers
.

This is why it is needed to throw the workers from the West against the migrants from the East and South, to avoid the invincible force they would constitute together. This dirty work is made by the far-right in the name of corporate liberal elites. They can play that they fight each other, but as soon as they get seats at the European Parliament, you will find the previous allegedly opponents all together aligned in the same Eurogroup. Time to time.

Bacchante , May 19, 2019 4:38:44 PM | 4
It is a wonder Strache's remark "Journalists are the biggest whores on the planet" and how he says he can subvert an entire media outlet to his political agenda by even firing the few remaining fringe elements. Yet here we can still talk about he was drunk, how his being set up was unjust, and how the poor guy will have to miss his lovers' right cause in Italy. Those vulgar masses are at it again! There can be no justification about the masses' support of far-right causes and the clowns like him. If you think otherwise it is the likes of moonofalabama next in line to be "fired", or eliminated. Legitimize their causes and it is Germany in 1920s all over again.

Two wrongs do not make a right, unfortunately.

Walter , May 19, 2019 4:56:04 PM | 5
"Left/right", I agree, is nearly without semantic value. Nevertheless class interests remain...how is it that this is so? Think about that, comrades.

And then consider wsws report about "At the annual meeting of the Bundeswehr reserve in autumn 2016, Veith announced: "I dream that in 2026 there will be a provincial regiment in each state with a charismatic commander, a troop flag and an organization of between 800 and 2,000 reservists to support the police and the Bundeswehr in emergency situations." " see> "German government prepares troops for domestic missions" @ wsws.org

Considering the overall aspects, it's rational to expect all parties in Europe to make plans, is it not? Of course the working class is not permitted to make such plans...is it?

Pnyx , May 19, 2019 5:04:18 PM | 6
I don't think Strache is as harmless as you portray him, B. You fall for his defence strategy if you attribute all his statements to the influence of alcohol. At that time, the man was very confident that he would soon be at the levers of power, which then materialized. It remains to be proven whether he did not put into practice anything of what he talked about at that house in Ibiza. After all, he was talking about the by far most influential newspaper in Austria.

Of course it is true that it is the neoliberal globalisers who have brought us to where we stand today. But that doesn' make people like Strache and Salvini any less dangerous. If they rise to total power, the result will be a naked dictatorship. Strache was beaten with his own weapons, you don't have to be under any illusions.

I agree with you that this is not the big setback for the right the mainstream parties dream of. But it won't help the fascists in spe in the future either.

Adrian E. , May 19, 2019 5:25:25 PM | 7
Who could have ordered such an elaborate sting operation?

A first association might be the dirty, deceptive campaigning SPÖ used against Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) - the Silberstein affair -, but I think the methods that were chosen are too different to make a common source likely, Strache was targeted in a much more sophisticated way. The Silberstein affair may, however, be the reason why the tapes have partially been published now rather than before the last Austrian elections - at that time, dirty campaigning might have been discredited too much for the tape to have the desired effect,

The sophisticated operation using actors and a villa prepared with hidden cameras and microphones shows that this is hardly a normal case of dirty campaigning by political opponents. Most likely, either it was an action by a secret service or someone with deep pockets hired former secret agents.

If it was an action by secret services, the most plausible explanation seems to be that Western secret services targeted Strache because FPÖ is one of the parties who is in favor of restoring normal relations with Russia.

François Fillon comes to mind, a French conservative candidate who also had a quite a friendly attitude towards Russia - shortly before the elections, it was revealed (at least claimed) that Fillon had given his wife ficticious employment, and Fillon lost popularity, which helped Macron enormously.

Probably, some of the things Strache said during this sting operation were inacceptable, and Fillon may also not be innocent, but if there is a systematic selective targeting of European politicians who want to normalize relations with Russia by secret services, that would be a huge problem for democracy.

In the case of Strache and FPÖ, a different motive may also be plausible. There are connections between FPÖ and neonazis, and there are, in my view, legitimate concerns that Strache is too close to such far-right networks. I don't think it is good when right-wing populists whose rise is mainly due to the unpopularity of the neoliberal elites are equated with Nazis too quickly.

But in the case of FPÖ, this is less far-fetched than in the case of other European right-wing parties - historically, Nazis played an important role in FPÖ in post-war Austria, and it is one of the current right-wing parties that probably has more connections to the extreme right (e.g. via Burschenschaften) than others. I could imagine that someone might have ordered and financed the sting operation out of antifascist principles. While I may recognize the motivation as ethical and even partially agree with it, I don't think the right means were chosen, and such dirty methods can backfire.

Michael Droy , May 19, 2019 5:33:51 PM | 8
"While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote for Strache's FBOe and similar parties"

Quite. It seems to me that only the Right and the Left have a clue right now, because they have an instinctive mistrust of what they are told in the media.
People like "b" and Craig Murray are to be thanked for explaining that to us middling voters.

You miss the most glaring "injustice". That which shows that GDP in most western countries had doubled in the last 30 odd years, that earnings for the top quartile have gone up by factors of 3 or 4. But that median earnings in US are unchanged, and in say UK are only up 10% or so (unless one is seeking to buy one's own house or flat).

All the improvements in inequality from 1930s to 1980s have been reversed in full. "Populists" (or better "anti-elitists") are driven mostly by sheer anger at how a small group had taken all the Economic gains of the last 35 years.

somebody , May 19, 2019 5:35:30 PM | 9
Posted by: Pnyx | May 19, 2019 5:04:18 PM | 26

I don't know what b. saw in the video what I saw was a discussion of an Orban like take over of Austria by FPÖ.

In other news people are arguing the following
- who will profit most - ÖVP
- why was the video not published after it was produced in 2017 - because ÖVP wanted a coalition with FPÖ
- why was it published now - ÖVP has been renting advertising space for weeks for an election in September (renting before the video came out), Sebastian Kurz will be the saviour who will get the disappointed FPÖ vote
add
- why the emphasis on Kronenzeitung,
who were the people producing the video
why Red Bull everywhere - Red Bull media empire billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz publicly announced that he would back Sebastian Kurz in 2017

ÖVP/Kurz/Mateschitz have moved so far to the right that there is not much space for FPÖ anyway. His problems will return when he needs another coalition.

brian , May 19, 2019 5:37:28 PM | 0
'The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in east Europe'

other?

Erelis , May 19, 2019 6:09:06 PM | 1
While the right wing parties in Europe don't have a problem with Putin, it does seem that much of the Western European establish has gone full McCarthyite hysterical where they see any contact for any reason with a Russian is automatically criminal. Aside from being a setup it relied the underlying false flag of presenting the woman as a Russian (and hence guility of some crime against the Austrians).

In fact, a suggestion for a column--personal impressions on whether everyday Europeans are falling for anti-Russian propaganda. Polls in the US indicate that Americans simply do not care (they could believe it, but not effecting their daily lives).

S , May 19, 2019 6:36:42 PM | 2
1. The ER (United Russia) party was founded by Sergey Shoygu, Yuriy Luzhkov, and Mintimer Shaymiev. Its chairman is Dmitriy Medvedev, not Vladimir Putin. Putin is not even a member of ER. Putin is the leader of ONF (All-Russia People's Front), which is a nation-wide discussion platform for politicians, professionals, and NGOs.

2. Russian billionaire Igor Makarov denies having a niece: "I was the only child in the family." ( Forbes.ru , in Russian).

3. In 2016, Joseph Mifsud invited George Papadopoulos to Rome and introduced him to "Putin's niece" with the intent of smearing Trump as "Russian puppet" and destroying his election chances. In 2017, someone (who?) invited Heinz-Christian Strache to Ibiza and introduced him to "Russian billionaire's niece" with the intent of smearing Strache as "Russian puppet" and destroying his party's election chances. Notice a pattern?

4. This is a clear case of Germany interfering in Austrian elections. Austria should deport 60 German diplomats, shut down German embassy in Vienna, and impose sanctions on Germany. Also put a German girl interested in Austrian politics in jail for 18 months.

Piotr Berman , May 19, 2019 6:37:32 PM | 3
Thinking about it, after revealing e-mail of HRC, Podesta etc. were published, their core supporters were enraged about the dirty trick and did not pay attention to the disclosed content, while for the core opponents of HRC she was already sufficiently vilified so the net change in voting intentions that can be attributed to that incident was modest.

Leaving aside the discussion of of various factors in that election, this public reaction is typical. Actually, in both cases the core supporters may be energized by the suspicion that this trick was performed by a foreign government. I do not think that there is a particular hostility toward Germany in Felix Austria, but the to the right wing Merkel government is like red cape for a bull. The women who unleashed a wave of refugees. On top of that, traditionally major parties of Austria gained reputation of dirty patronage, so the voters who care about that issue probably do not vote for them.

I do not expect Austrians to demand expulsions of German diplomats -- interference in our democracy -- or other sanctions, but nevertheless it stinks. Making sting operations on politicians has corrupt potential even if it is done by domestic law enforcement, but foreign intelligence services really do not have any excuse.

Thinking about it, the stings against George Papadopoulos described in his book were remarkably similar.

Piotr Berman , May 19, 2019 6:45:53 PM | 4
Great minds think alike, S!

That said, Austrians have a reputation of good manners etc., they will not unload their frustration on a girl. BTW, why there are suspicions of Germany being involved? Again, even extremist Austrians probably would like to have some proof before doing anything. I guess, America is indeed exceptional.

Uncoy , May 19, 2019 6:49:33 PM | 5
For all those of you whining about the corruption of Strache, this is how business and politics is done in Austria. Strache was just talking about the FPÖ's fair share after an election which they would win.

This all starts with Austrian's Presidential Election of 2016. The FPÖ won the presidential election a couple of years ago in May 2016. After the bell, postal votes overturned it! – postal votes more than 90% in favour of the establishment candidate Van der Bellen. Some constituencies full of Van der Bellen votes turned out to have 148% turn out. There was a court case by the FPÖ about procedure and hinting at ballot falsification. The case was judged by a (non-corrupt but under serious pressure) judge to have enough merit that the elections had to be annulled and the election rerun six months later . Austria went without a president at all for six months!

For six months the mainstream Austrian media campaigned non-stop against the FPÖ and Norbert Hofer. Huge efforts were made for voter turnout (it included huge bussing of potential anti-FPÖ constituencies and bribing pensioners to vote against the FPÖ via parties and cakes). With all of that, Van der Bellen scraped in on 4 December 2016, by 348,231 votes. Despite the non-stop anti-FPÖ propaganda and banging on drums, votes for Hofer's fell by less than 100,000 (95,993 votes to be exact). It's just that with six months to prepare the establishment had found enough "dead souls" to win the second round.

In the parliamentary elections of 15 October 2017, the FPÖ were set to win a strong majority in parliament. To defeat the FPÖ and Strache, the conservatives (Völkspartei) were forced to elect a male model non-university graduate 30 year old sex symbol with no work experience outside of politics as party leader. Of course Sebastian Kurz was mainly a figurehead for establishment figures in the venerable Völkspartei. Kurz does have a mind of his own though (I had the opportunity to interact with him personally at a local political discussion group in 2015) and it's hard to know exactly how much of his policy is dictated to him and how much is off his own bat.

Going back to Austrian corruption, there are enormous sums at stake. There is a long entrenched system of corruption in the establishment parties, the Völkspartei and the SPÖ. Strabag does win most of the government contracts. Favour is regularly granted on quid pro basis. The media landscape is very partisan and mostly for sale. Kurz's spiritual predecessor as a powerful head of the Völkspartei if not direct predecessor Wolfgang Schüssel was forced to retire from politics in 2011 due to never-ending corruption scandals. Schüssel's longstanding finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser was caught carrying bags of cash to Lichtenstein and is still under investigation. If his mother-in-law were not the richest woman in Austria (Swarovski Crystal) and devoted to her daughter (Grasser's wife), he would long ago have been in jail.

Politically, Grasser knows where a lot of the bodies are buried from the Schlüssel political machine so either he has to be kept out of jail or he may take others down with him. In elite Austrian circles turning informant would be considered unsportsmanlike so there's an uneasy truce still fought to this day in the courts where Grasser is kept out of jail via procedural methods (detect a pattern) and Grasser doesn't rat out the others.

Strache's sin is not planning to use the advantages which accrue to the governing Austrian party but getting caught out talking about it. Strache is something of a lout, not terribly loyal (he was the Brutus who threw Jörg Haider under the bus in 2005 in a palace putsch). He's a smoker in power who used his power to overturn some very positive anti-smoking laws. But he's less corrupt than any of his equivalents in the Völkspartei and is only a nose ahead of the his equivalents in the SPÖ. His politics and policies of Austria for Austrians are pretty simple. Hence people vote for these policies.

Here's a sample of the SPÖ's wares in the 2010 Vienna elections:

The FPÖ has historically been weakest in Vienna but in 2010 they took 27% of the vote in this SPÖ stronghold, their first step in what has been a steady march to power.

Anyone who does not directly have his or her family's nose in the EU trough at this point knows that the policies espoused by transatlantic puppets like Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron push our countries and our continent towards self-destruction. Life in Europe, post-1968 and pre-2013, has been pretty damn good. There's absolutely no good reason for us to rip up our traditions or turn into a continent of immigrants and mobile job seekers. We instinctively abhor what is happening to our nations. By nature Strache is inclined this way himself (he's no great thinker) and has the good sense to ride the wave.

somebody , May 19, 2019 7:11:44 PM | 6
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 19, 2019 6:45:53 PM | 34

As Strache explains in the video, Austrian dirty tricks are done "via another country".

somebody , May 19, 2019 7:21:16 PM | 7
For all those of you whining about the corruption of Strache, this is how business and politics is done in Austria. Strache was just talking about the FPÖ's fair share after an election which they would win.

So why did he step down?

Here's a sample of the SPÖ's wares in the 2010 Vienna elections:

You mean FPÖ wares .

Hoarsewhisperer , May 19, 2019 7:29:57 PM | 8
...
"This stand-offish sentence in the Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:"

In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.

"The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly snobbish but utterly false..."

I can't agree that Spiegel's attitude to Strache's party is condescending toward the working class. Right-wing parties tend to spout a lot of aggressively authoritarian spin tank bullshit to encourage voters to tune out when a R-w politician is telling them what to think. If Strache is adept at separating fact from fiction and superfluous verbiage, then people would appreciate his candor.

In a Democracy, and in theory at least, politicians are supposed to represent and defend the views of the people who voted for them, not vested intere$t$. Or so we've been led to believe...

I'll always remember Spiegel as the folks whose photo-journalists torpedoed Crooked Hillary's feeble-minded Cheonan (NK-SK) bullshit. That story vanished overnight. It's not even referred to in NK smear campaigns. Dead & buried.

somebody , May 19, 2019 8:15:54 PM | 9
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 19, 2019 7:29:57 PM | 38

In a Democracy, and in theory at least, politicians are supposed to represent and defend the views of the people who voted for them, not vested intere$t$. Or so we've been led to believe...

You are making this theory up.

Let's take the American constitution .

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

That's it.

The German constitution is absolutely clear that members of parliament represent all of the people (ie different views and interests) and are bound by their own judgement and conscience only.

As we are discussing Austria, lets see what the Austrian constitution says. Austria has "linguistic and cultural diversity" and the protection of its grown native peoples in its constitution, this means Slovenian, Croatian, Czech, Slovakian, Roma and Hungarian. So the Austrian constitution has a concept of a multinational state where different peoples grow and are protected even if the Viennese "Stammtisch" does not like them.

There is no "democratic theory" that suggests representatives should follow the uninformed and prejudiced views of their electorate against their better judgement.

Strache seems to have specialized in "fake news" - ie mostly invented stuff claiming Muslims, immigrants or whoever were treated in a better way than native Austrians or threatened native Austrians.

It is a very convenient technique when you plan to cut social services, you have someone to blame.

Piotr Berman , May 19, 2019 9:05:45 PM | 0
To those who fill that politics of Strache are obnoxious and that justifies entrapment, remembers that methods of that type are not improvised, and that means that there is an apparatus that does it. We noted similarities with provocations against George Papadopoulos. In the latter case the target was cautious, after all, we had to be well aware of such methods. But anyone who is despised by NATO establishment are similar group can be on the receiving end, think about Assange.

[May 19, 2019] Obama s Top FBI Lawyer Distances Himself From Steele Dossier As DOJ Investigation Looms

Notable quotes:
"... James Baker, meanwhile, told Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes last week that he's 'nervous' about the DOJ Inspector General's ongoing investigation into FBI/DOJ conduct surrounding the 2016 election. ..."
"... The Steele Dossier is the most amateurish piece of garbage they could think of. It was born out of some comments made by Trump during the debates when both he and his opponents started talking about hand size. ..."
"... When and if Barr and Horowitz get the information compiled, this is going to look worse than a school election of a class president for the 9th grade. Mostly testosterone and no where to put it. ..."
"... Ultimate CYA swamp creature. What ever happened to the "Comey Memo"? Has anybody actually seen it? Was it written on Windows? Can we see the metadata to prove when it was written? or was it penned on a bar napkin, and can be edited at any time. ..."
"... This guy is a lawyer. He owed a duty to inform the judge that his bosses were lying about the warrant. He owed a duty to counsel his bosses to make them stop what they were doing and consider if it was a violation. ..."
"... Unless he did those two things, he should go to jail and also be disbarred and also be subject to civil suits for those who had to pay attorney fees during the investigation. ..."
"... Why are they bending over backwards to protect the British, who were the real interferers in the American election. Clinton mob-CIA-MI6-Steele-Pablo Miller-Skripal-Steele-Clinton mob. ..."
"... Recall the Podesta email, re: DNC "hack": We're gonna make an example of this guy. So, they seem to know who it is that stole the emails, and they are going to "make an example" of him. And do recall the statement of Donna Brazile, who expressed fear for her own safety in the wake of the Seth Rich murder: "you don't know what these people are capable of". ..."
"... When listening to an account of an event on TV or written in a blurb on the internet, always ask, why do they want us to know this stuff? The answer is usually so they can hide what they are really doing. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Obama's Top FBI Lawyer Distances Himself From Steele Dossier As DOJ Investigation Looms

by Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2019 - 13:11 759 SHARES

James Baker - the Obama FBI's top attorney (general counsel) said on Friday that he was skeptical about the Steele dossier, and "concerned" about its veracity when the agency received it prior to the 2016 US election, according to the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.

" It was more information that we viewed, that I viewed, skeptically from the outset , and I was concerned about it and had a jaundiced eye, or looked at it with a jaundiced eye right from the outset," Baker told MSNBC 's Chuck Todd, adding "Steele was and had been a source that we thought was reliable. He's reporting all this information. It looks alarming. We took it seriously, but we tried to vet it. "

The dossier - a collection of memos compiled by an ex-British spy funded by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the DNC - was used by the FBI to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Steele alleged that Page provided the Trump campaign a Kremlin backchannel during the election.

Baker also told Todd that he thinks the FISA warrants against Page would have been granted without the dossier, and took a pregnant pause when asked if the dossier was used to obtain FISA warrants on other people - saying "I don't think I should comment on that, I'm not sure what else the government has confirmed," and adding " I don't want to confirm or deny anything about other potential FISA applications. "

Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ckBuIN5kz1w

Meanwhile, Obama's former intel chiefs are at odds over who exactly pushed the dossier .

According to Fox News , an email chain exists which indicates that Comey told bureau subordinates that Brennan insisted on the dossier's inclusion in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference . Also interesting is that the dossier was referred to as "crown material" in the emails - a possible reference to the fact that Steele is a former British spy.

In a statement to Fox, however, a former CIA official "put the blame squarely on Comey ."

Comey, meanwhile, has attacked Attorney General William Barr for investigating him, tweeting on Friday "The AG should stop sliming his own Department. If there are bad facts, show us, or search for them professionally and then tell us what you found."

Barr, has launched a wide-ranging investigation into FBI conduct during the 2016 election, making him public enemy #1 to the left . In a Friday interview with Fox News , Barr said that the use of the Steele Dossier in the FISA warrant was a "very unusual situation," especially one "that on its face had a number of clear mistakes and a somewhat jejue analysis. And to use that to conduct counterintelligence against the American political campaign would be a strange development."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sZBb8uMoqdI?start=268

James Baker, meanwhile, told Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes last week that he's 'nervous' about the DOJ Inspector General's ongoing investigation into FBI/DOJ conduct surrounding the 2016 election.

Baker made clear that he wanted to speak "as openly as I possibly can" about the origin of the FBI's investigation into Donald Trump - " to reassure the American people that it was done for lawful, legitimate reasons, and was apolitical, " according to the Washington Examiner 's Jerry Dunleavy.

Things are getting hot in DC and it's only May...


youshallnotkill , 56 minutes ago link

Things you will never read here, but hey, this is from the "failing" NYT so clearly fake news ...

Anti-money laundering investigators at Deutsche Bank flagged to bank executives multiple suspicious transactions on President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner's accounts in 2016 and 2017.

Five current and former Deutsche Bank employees told the New York Times that after computer alerts flagged suspicious activity, the specialists would put together recommendations urging bank executives to report the activity to the Treasury Department.

However, executives refused to act on the recommendations and kept the reports from the Department.

Tammy McFadden, an ex-Deutsche Bank employee who reviewed such alerts, said she found that money had been moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals.

Amanita Virosa , 1 hour ago link

Was it Trump who joked that Gitmo will renamed Comey Island? Like Coney Island with the fun house replaced with the big house.

John_Coltrane , 3 hours ago link

Breaking: We now know positively that there was Russian collusion. But it was via Obama, the Demonrats and their lapdog propaganda apparatus the MSM, Trump was completely innocent. (Saul Alinsky-Always accuse your opponents of that for which you are guilty. Your students, Obuttboy and Killiary studied you well, sensei)

They used a CIA spy asset, Stephen Halper, to feed Russian disinformation via the commie traitor Brennan head of Obuttboy's CIA into their Demonrat Senate traitors who asked for an FBI investigation and that lying sack-0-**** Comey, head of the FBI, complied using the so-called Steele "dossier" to obtain an illegal FISA warrant(s) to spy on members of the Trump team such as Carter Page. Comey knew the dossier and the parallel constructed Brennan pack of lies were fiction yet put his signature on the FISA application anyway blinded by his hatred of Trump and his girly-man nature. They used parallel construction to give an air of credibility to the fictional script written by Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, employer of "hit by an ugly" stick Nellie Ohr and paid to Hilliary and the DNC to smear Trump. The script was written in 2007.

Want more details? Please listen to Dan Bongino's Friday show and laugh your ******* head off at these spygate idiots now caught naked as the tide recedes.

As Dan puts it so pithily, it's not James Bond, it's Bond, James. Its Gitmo for you morons and a Pulitzer to Dan Bongino. And yet the MSM seems not to be aware of this? How can that be? Perhaps, as the commies like to say the MSM needs to be deconstructed, literally!

Josef Stalin , 3 hours ago link

never trust ANYTHING amerikans say ... I am the default example after we saved the World from Nazism - something the amerikan rats are now funding and supporting - they betrayed me in 1945 and that traitor Gorby in 1986 with the NATO scam... and these parameters will ALWAYS into the future determine our level of trust with America ..... it will be ZERO

cryptohalo , 3 hours ago link

It's not Barr's FBI that would be slimed...it's Comey's FBI. But nice try, James.

RKae , 3 hours ago link

This is like watching a movie director, producers and actors blame each other for a flop. They all thought it was a great idea during pre-production, but after the critics take it apart and the public ignores it, they all turn on each other and say, "I knew this was a piece of **** from the start!"

oldanalyst , 3 hours ago link

Baker is lying. He should go to Leavenworth with the rest of the seditious conspirators.

AKKadian , 3 hours ago link

What gutless POS in DC! They don't mind leaking BS lies to the MSMutt's and taking bribes. DC is the biggest enemy the U.S. has in the entire world. Scam Lie Cheat Steal and are total nerd pussies.

ZD1 , 3 hours ago link

Arrest Obama, Hillary and all Democrat socialist traitors for their attempted coup.

TheCentralScrutinizer , 3 hours ago link

Yep.. Carter Page was such a "bad guy" that the FBI permitted him (and continues to do so) to walk around American and NEVER be arrested.. Yep.. that was a pretty strong amount of evidence you guys had there for that FISA warrant.. And you never told Trump either about this "Russian Mole" in his campaign as you're required to do (and as you did for the Chinese mole in Feinstein's office)..

Scrutinizer

OCnStiggs , 4 hours ago link

Bongino has the goods on them, in minute detail. https://bongino.com/ep-979-they-cant-keep-track-of-their-own-lies/

Glenn Simpson wrote the dossier with input from a Putin operative. They ran it through Steele simply to give it "credibility." Wheel out the guillotine and get it lubed up. This is gonna be a busy summer. NOTHING can stop what is coming. Nothing.

MrBoompi , 4 hours ago link

Dear Mr. Comey, there are numerous "bad facts" already out in public, many of them involving you, and many seem worthy of prison.

ducksinarow , 4 hours ago link

I have read many articles from many sources including reading the Mueller Report as it was released to the public and tedious it was.

I have come to the conclusions at this point that:

A. Many amateur actors not familiar with how to do counter intelligence were brought in by the Clinton campaign largely because no expert would have touched what she was trying to do.

B: No one can explain from the very beginning what happened, who knew what when, nor how they were going to answer for it when they got caught, if they got caught.

C. The Steele Dossier is the most amateurish piece of garbage they could think of. It was born out of some comments made by Trump during the debates when both he and his opponents started talking about hand size.

D. When and if Barr and Horowitz get the information compiled, this is going to look worse than a school election of a class president for the 9th grade. Mostly testosterone and no where to put it.

Mimir , 4 hours ago link

And yet FBI has said, that they took the Steele Report seriously because it confirmed a series of information, that FBi already had, but check every line of the report. What was the result of that FBI examination we don't know.

Amy G. Dala , 5 hours ago link

Yeah, right. Comey will email SUBORDINATES to go on record that it's not HIS idea . . .but we'll go with the dossier anyway. If you got a problem with Brennan, why not memorialize that in an email to Brennan?

Ultimate CYA swamp creature. What ever happened to the "Comey Memo"? Has anybody actually seen it? Was it written on Windows? Can we see the metadata to prove when it was written? or was it penned on a bar napkin, and can be edited at any time.

In an alternate universe, we would have Comey, Clapper and Brennan in adjacent rooms, two chairs a table and harsh lighting.

Ace006 , 5 hours ago link

Pretty rich for Comey to call for searching for facts professionally, like the clown car investigation under him was professional. Unh huh. Surrrre.

This Baker *** hat and Obongo and crew looovved the "dossier" and thought it was just the ticket to be used against Trump and his people. Just the most natural thing there was and oh so useful for their purposes. So WHAAAAT if the "dossier" stank like dead cow. Surrre. What Democrat DOESN'T want to pursue a decapitation strategy? And surrre the basis for one was right there in that socialist scumbag's "dossier." And, surrre, i believe Steele is no long were MI-6. Fisking Theresa May.

Surrre this *** hat was just brimming with effing skepticism and I'm surrre there are emails and memos expressing just that, his skepticism.

St. TwinkleToes , 5 hours ago link

I see parallels from the twenties with what's happening today. For example, Prohibition was meant to outlaw drinking. Instead, it made drinkers into outlaws. Breaking the law became commonplace. New York closed 15,000 legal saloons when prohibition began. Some 32,000 illegal speakeasy's replaced them. Upstanding citizens and mobsters became partners in crime, allied against federal agents in the battle for booze.

Today, that battle is against feds for truth and justice.

truthalwayswinsout , 5 hours ago link

This guy is a lawyer. He owed a duty to inform the judge that his bosses were lying about the warrant. He owed a duty to counsel his bosses to make them stop what they were doing and consider if it was a violation.

Unless he did those two things, he should go to jail and also be disbarred and also be subject to civil suits for those who had to pay attorney fees during the investigation.

jmNZ , 5 hours ago link

Why are they bending over backwards to protect the British, who were the real interferers in the American election. Clinton mob-CIA-MI6-Steele-Pablo Miller-Skripal-Steele-Clinton mob.

Had to be "buried" when Trump won, so MI6 took out Skripal and CIA took out Seth Rich.

Amy G. Dala , 5 hours ago link

Seth Rich and CIA? Don't think so. DNC has an army of lawyers, the kind that aren't in the phone book. They know lots of people who are willing to do things for a price.

Recall the Podesta email, re: DNC "hack": We're gonna make an example of this guy. So, they seem to know who it is that stole the emails, and they are going to "make an example" of him. And do recall the statement of Donna Brazile, who expressed fear for her own safety in the wake of the Seth Rich murder: "you don't know what these people are capable of".

CIA would involve too many people.

ducksinarow , 4 hours ago link

If this had not been an amateur job, we would still not know anything. There would be no investigation because the players would never have been identified like 95% of all counter intelligence work. Seth Rich was killed in plain sight as a message to some one else. He was probably the only innocent person involved at such a deep level.

When listening to an account of an event on TV or written in a blurb on the internet, always ask, why do they want us to know this stuff? The answer is usually so they can hide what they are really doing.

[May 19, 2019] Intel agencies of the UK and US are guilty of fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing fake analysis and operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers. ..."
"... the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Couple of factors not mentioned. one is Israel and the other is more sinister still and tied to the conclusions to be drawn from the Mueller report.

it may be true that Skripal helped Steele with some elements of the dossier compiled by Steele, via SKripals handler Pablo Miller. It may be true that Skripal went "stir crazy" and an attempt was made to silence him and his daughter - permanently, because they simply cold not be trusted. a similar motivation could be drawn up against Russia - with the two Russians visiting Salisbury used as diversionary "stool pigeons". It may be true that the "poisoning" was self inflicted and was in fact a murder/suicide attempt as a result of depression along the ines "what's the point of it all".

what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers.

what ought to be apparent is

- the same tactics used by the special prosecutor to investigate the "Russia collusion" smoke screen erected by the howler monkeys in the US intel agencies (aided and abetter by howler monkeys in UK intel agencies) to stymie the US executive branch (Trump) are likely to be used by the the UK government and some more as well - in true Le Carre fashion, but with much dumber and less principled actors than Smiley's people.

these tactics prevented (and continue to prevent) investigation and prosecution of heinous corruption within the obama administration of the previous 8 years - these howler monkey intelligence agency tactics include(d) entrapment, honeypots, racketeering, blackmail, de facto kidnapping (in the case of Skripals), bribery, wire fraud, unauthorized wire-tapping, breach of authorized intel agency activities (like the FBI operating overseas and the CIA operating domestically in the US, false and unverified claims in FISA warrants, NSA providing unauthorized information to the CIA and FBI etc)

- given the howler monkey activities of the alphabet soup, it is not beyond the imagination to draw parallels with the CIA's reporting and analysis of situations on the ground wherever they operate to provide intel ahead of military activity. the DOD has already proved complicit by hiring Halper (for hundreds of thousands of dollars) to assist with the entrapment of Trump operative Papadopoulos. Mifsud is likely a CIA, not a Russian, asset.

- given that we have ample evidence of the howler monkeys in the alphabet soup seeking to facilitate a coup against a sitting US president, it is certainly plausible that - as with the US goverment sponsoring the mujaheedin, isis and al qaeda in afghanistan to fight the russians in late 80's early 90's, Iraq yellow cake and WMD - that the howler monkeys paid the white helmets to ovethrow assad and foment civil war in Syria - thus causing the migration of some 5 million syrians into europe, iraq, turkey, jordan, turkey and lebanon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Helmets_(Syrian_Civil_War)

so , the case is that howler monkey activity in intel agencies of the UK and US (add (F)rance to get FUKUS) are guilty of the manufacture of human conflict by fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing shitty analysis (howler monkeys are only good at swinging in trees and flinging ****) and generally operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity.

this can only be brought into sharp relief if howler monkey activities were instead shown to be powers for good rather than the geo-political risks that persist in Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and so on and so forth.

Never mind how much past conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and so on relied on evidence and analysis thrown at us by the howler monkeys in the tree tops, how much of what we we are doing now is a fabrication causing needless suffering by civilian (not politicians or military engaged in conflict) populations?

the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people.

there are equivalents of strzok, page, ohr right throughout the US and UK government "machines" operating overseas. think about that. crimes exposed by Barr et al in the US - against a sitting president - are replicated wherever howler monkeys operate overseas as well.

[May 17, 2019] Texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page AG Lynch knew how the Clinton email case would end

Jan 21, 2018 | hotair.com
The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of a technical glitch .

See Also: Gillibrand: We need to "take action" against Gorsuch and Kavanaugh if they go back on their word and strike down Roe

New text messages highlighted in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray by Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, are from the spring and summer of 2016 and involve discussion of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. They reference Attorney General Loretta Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in that case and a draft statement that former FBI Director James Comey had prepared in anticipation of closing out the Clinton investigation without criminal charges

In addition to the communications already made public, the Justice Department on Friday provided Johnson's committee with 384 pages of text messages, according to a letter from the Wisconsin lawmaker that was obtained by The Associated Press.

But, according to the letter, the FBI told the department that its system for retaining text messages sent and received on bureau phones had failed to preserve communications between Strzok and Page over a five-month period between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 7, 2017. The explanation for the gap was "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities."

Technical glitches obviously do happen but I can't help getting a bit of a Lois Lerner flashback upon hearing that five months of messages are missing from the time right after Trump was elected until 10 days before Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel. So if you were hoping for any follow up on that comment about an insurance policy, it looks like you can forget it. That's a well-timed glitch.

Gillibrand: We need to "take action" against Gorsuch and Kavanaugh if they go back on their word and strike down Roe

But it seems the DOJ did turn over some additional texts that are worth considering. One involves an early draft of the Comey memo clearing Hillary Clinton. Originally the draft pointed out that Clinton had exchanged emails with President Obama while she was "on the territory" of a hostile power. Eventually, Obama's name was scrubbed from the document and finally all reference to the incident was removed. So that's one more example of the statement being watered down over time. And finally there is this :

In another exchange, the two express displeasure about the timing of Lynch's announcement that she would defer to the FBI's judgment on the Clinton investigation. That announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix, though both sides said the email investigation was never discussed.

Strzok said in a July 1 text message that the timing of Lynch's announcement "looks like hell." And Page appears to mockingly refer to Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in the case as a "real profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought."

Lynch never did recuse herself from the investigation, but because of the tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton, she did announce on July 1st that she would accept the decision of the FBI. Comey would make his statement clearing Hillary of any criminal wrongdoing on July 5th. But based on this text, it sounds as if Lynch was already aware what the FBI Director's conclusion was going to be. Comey himself had suggested Lynch appeared biased in the email probe and that he felt the need to act independently from her. From the NY Times :

"The Clinton campaign, at the time, was using all kind of euphemisms -- security review, matters, things like that, for what was going on," Mr. Comey said on Thursday. "We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both going to have to testify and talk publicly about. And I wanted to know, was she going to authorize us to confirm we had an investigation?

"And she said, 'Yes, but don't call it that, call it a matter,'" Mr. Comey continued. "And I said, 'Why would I do that?' And she said, 'Just call it a matter.'"

Mr. Comey said the "conclusive" episode that persuaded him to make his own announcement in the Clinton investigation rather than leave it to Ms. Lynch came last June, when former President Bill Clinton spontaneously boarded her plane on a tarmac and sat down to talk with her.

"That was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the F.B.I. and the Justice Department," Mr. Comey said.

So the story was that Lynch was biased (she was) but that Comey acted to protect the independence of the investigation. In fact, Lynch knew what Comey was going to say days before he said it. So what was the point of her offer to respect his decision, an offer that seems designed to make it appear she had no idea what he might decide? There might be some innocent explanation of all this but the whole story features a lot of die-hard Clinton cronies who seem to be doing their best to protect Hillary beneath a thin veneer of impartiality. In fact, what happened at the FBI looks more and more like what happened at the DNC.

Paul F Jordan technical glitch? the lying never stops Like · Reply ·

33 · 1y

Kent Walker Webb This is rather damning stuff. Its too bad the media is so focused on the shut down and DACA and whatever weekly crisis of the century that they will never get around to covering it until they can claim its "old news".. Like · Reply ·

3 · 1y

Kathy Ozanne Psst....the codeword for the sham Hillary Clinton investigation was MYE, or mid year exam. Was referred to in the texts. Finishing the MYE meant get Hillary cleared before the elections. Text sent right around the time Cruz dropped out.

You can see the text here:
https://twitter.com/DaveNYviii/status/955194797991563264 Like · Reply ·

14 · 1y · Edited

Kevin Burke Technical glitch? Really?

One question: Why, at this point, should we believe ANYTHING at all that these people say?

Given everything that we know so far, it appears entirely possible that not only did these people - at DOJ and FBI - attempted to influence a US election (far more than the Russians could ever hope to), but that they also attempted to implement a "Plan B" post-election in order to overturn the results. And all we're getting from them is lies, stonewalling, and half-baked excuses when asked to supply information that should be readily available.

These people have flushed the credibility of their Department and agency down the toiled - credibility which took decades to carefully craft, and one election cycle to destroy.

If these people don't end up fired and in handcuffs at the end of this then they need to rename their Department. Like · Reply ·

32 · 1y · Edited

Michael Woiwood Because AP will accuse you of attacking the FBI and DOJ if you say anything about Strzok, Page, Ohr, Baker, McCabe, Comey...... Like · Reply ·

8 · 1y

Jerry Wright AP has made it perfectly clear where his loyalties lie. He will not forgive President Trump and a great many others for making him look like a fool. Like · Reply ·

7 · 1y

James Myers Jerry Wright The other fools are the people like me that defended the POS Allahpundit when everyone else already was what a traitor he was. There's a ton of people with every right to tell me I told you so.

But once you see the idiot for what he is, it makes you wonder why anyone ever thought he was a conservative. Like · Reply ·

3 · 1y Show 1 more reply in this thread

Scott Phillips No honest investigation has a determination of guilt or innocence prior to it's completion.
This was all Comey/Lynch kabuki from day one.

[May 17, 2019] Judicial Watch Nellie Ohr Deleted Emails Exchanged with DOJ Husband Bruce Ohr - Judicial Watch

May 16, 2019 | www.judicialwatch.org

http://jwatch.us/qqkyvU

'I'm deleting these emails now'

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released an email revealing that Nellie Ohr, wife of former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, informed him that she was deleting emails sent from Bruce Ohr's DOJ email account.

From: Nellie Ohr

Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 12:49 PM

To: Ohr, Bruce (ODAG)

Subject: Re: Analyst Russian Organized Crime – April 2016

Thanks! I'm deleting these emails now

The full email exchange is between Bruce Ohr, Lisa Holtyn, Nellie Ohr, and Stefan Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy, and is part of 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a March 2018 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond a December 2017 request ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00490)).

Nellie Ohr's email has the same subject line as an email exchange with the subject line "Analyst Russian Organized Crime – April 2016" in which Bress initiates a discussion with Bruce Ohr and his top aide, Lisa Holtyn, proffering some "Russian analysts" to discuss a variety of topics with Ohr, Holtyn, and other DOJ officials. Among those topics to be discussed is "Impact of Russian influence operations in Europe ('PsyOps/InfoWar')."

Holtyn responds with, "I haven't had a chance to confer with Bruce yet, but would certainly love to meet with the 'A Team'!" Bruce Ohr then says, "That time works for me as well." Bress then provides the personal details/passport numbers of the German analysts who will be meeting with Holtyn and Ohr. Holtyn tells Bress that the Ohr's would like to host the German delegation for dinner and notes that Joe Wheatley and Ivana Nizich (a husband/wife team of DOJ Organized Crime prosecutors and friends of the Ohr's) would join them as well.

Until he was demoted for his connection to the anti-Trump dossier, Bruce Ohr was a top official at DOJ. A House Intelligence Committee memo released by Chairman Devin Nunes said that Nellie Ohr was "employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump" and that Bruce Ohr passed the results of that research, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI. The " salacious and unverified " Dossier was used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance warrant to spy on Carter Page.

These documents are part of Nellie Ohr's and the DOJ's communications about Russia. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) recently wrote up a criminal referral concerning her testimony before Congress that she had no knowledge of what was going on during the Russia investigation at DOJ.

"This email is disturbing and suggests documents relevant to the improper targeting of President Trump were destroyed," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

This production of documents also revealed that Bruce Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant.

[May 16, 2019] FBI-CIA Dispute Erupts Over Whether Comey Or Brennan Pushed Steele Dossier

Notable quotes:
"... BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP. ..."
"... As one example, in its FISA application, the bureau repeatedly and incorrectly assured the court in a footnote that it "does not believe" British ex-spy Christopher Steele was the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion, and instead asserted that the Yahoo article provided an independent basis to believe Steele. - Fox News ..."
"... Graham noted a report by The Hill 's John Solomon that the FBI was specifically told that Steele was "keen" to leak his salacious dossier for the purpose of influencing the 2016 US election . The agency also knew that the document's claims were either unverified or disproven , yet it was used anyway against Trump and his campaign. ..."
"... Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are now blaming Loretta Lynch for the botched Hillary/email investigation. ..."
May 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

FBI-CIA Dispute Erupts Over Whether Comey Or Brennan Pushed Steele Dossier

by Tyler Durden Thu, 05/16/2019 - 10:25 0 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print A dispute has erupted over whether former FBI Director James Comey or his CIA counterpart, John Brennan, promoted the unverified Steele dossier as the Obama-era intelligence community targeted the Trump campaign.

According to Fox News , an email chain exists which indicates that Comey told bureau subordinates that Brennan insisted on the dossier's inclusion in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference . Also interesting is that the dossier was referred to as "crown material" in the emails - a possible reference to the fact that Steele is a former British spy.

In a statement to Fox, however, a former CIA official "put the blame squarely on Comey ."

"Former Director Brennan, along with former [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper, are the ones who opposed James Comey's recommendation that the Steele Dossier be included in the intelligence report," said the official.

"They opposed this because the dossier was in no way used to develop the ICA," the official continued. "The intelligence analysts didn't include it when they were doing their work because it wasn't corroborated intelligence, therefore it wasn't used and it wasn't included. Brennan and Clapper prevented it from being added into the official assessment. James Comey then decided on his own to brief Trump about the document. "

James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan are starting to publicly argue who was pushing the dossier that ended up in the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference. The RATS are beginning to turn on each other.

I'm sure AG Barr is taking notes!

-- thebradfordfile™ (@thebradfordfile) May 15, 2019

Former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy - a longtime defender of the FBI - told Fox News ' Martha MacCallum on Tuesday night that "Comey has a better argument than Brennan, based on what I've seen."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A9lI-lUyjlc

In March, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) suggested over Twitter that Brennan had "insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier" be included in the January 2017 ICA .

BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP.

-- Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 27, 2019

The dossier was ultimately not included in the ICA according to previous testimony by Clapper. Meanwhile, word that Comey had briefed President Trump personally on the dossier - "because he understood reporters already had that information and it could become public soon if journalists had a "news hook," according to the Associated Press . And as it so happens - the fact that Comey briefed Trump is what CNN and Buzzfeed caim legitimized their decision to publicly release the salacious and unverified dossier.

Whether the FBI acted appropriately in obtaining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to Trump campaign aide Carter Page is now the subject not only of U.S. Attorney John Durham's new probe, but also the ongoing review by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber has been conducting his own investigation separately, although details of his progress were unclear.

As one example, in its FISA application, the bureau repeatedly and incorrectly assured the court in a footnote that it "does not believe" British ex-spy Christopher Steele was the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion, and instead asserted that the Yahoo article provided an independent basis to believe Steele. - Fox News

On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News that he was pushing to declassify documents which would expose the FBI's dismal efforts to verify the claims within the dossier.

"There's a document that's classified that I'm gonna try to get unclassified that takes the dossier -- all the pages of it -- and it has verification to one side," said Graham. "There really is no verification, other than media reports that were generated by reporters that received the dossier."

Graham noted a report by The Hill 's John Solomon that the FBI was specifically told that Steele was "keen" to leak his salacious dossier for the purpose of influencing the 2016 US election . The agency also knew that the document's claims were either unverified or disproven , yet it was used anyway against Trump and his campaign.


LEEPERMAX , 26 seconds ago link

Whoa Nellie!!!

"I'm deleting these emails now"

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-nellie-ohr-deleted-emails-exchanged-with-doj-husband-bruce-ohr/

LEEPERMAX , 8 minutes ago link

"SPYGATE" FALLOUT? – ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER GIUSEPPE CONTÉ REQUESTS RESIGNATION OF INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS

https://aim4truth.org/2019/05/16/cat-report-32/

847328_3527 , 11 minutes ago link

Ben Shapiro tears a new one for far left BBC's leftie Andrew Neil - BBC News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VixqvOcK8E

Ben makes a fool of the BBC and their pawn.

LEEPERMAX , 13 minutes ago link

As Rosenstein Departs, the Battlefield Is Now Ready: https://youtu.be/rhQhfmXLrl4

Teamtc321 , 21 minutes ago link

Italy has flipped on Brennan, turning over Joseph Mifsud

George Papadopoulos@GeorgePapa19

The Italian prime minister has suddenly requested resignations from 6 deputy directors of Italian intelligence agencies: DIS, AISI and AISE. This was all after I outed Mifsud in Rome and the president called the Italian prime minister. Italy has flipped and are giving up Brennan.

2:03 PM - May 16, 2019

The Italian prime minister has suddenly requested resignations from 6 deputy directors of Italian intelligence agencies: DIS, AISI and AISE. This was all after I outed Mifsud in Rome and the president called the Italian prime minister. Italy has flipped and are giving up Brennan.

https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/italy-has-flipped-on-brennan-turning-over-joseph-mifsusd/

deus ex machina , 22 minutes ago link

Hang. Then draw and quarter all three POFS. Problem solved.

LEEPERMAX , 30 minutes ago link

What Was Obama's Roll in the Attempted Coup Of Donald Trump ???

https://youtu.be/yUT9Vb6Hc8c

Baron von Bud , 33 minutes ago link

These agency heads are all underlings. The directive came from above. This dossier job was approved by Obama and Hillary ran the plan. It's obvious.

Giant Meteor , 26 minutes ago link

But they are always insulated, protected, no? They know, and we know, that they know .. Everybody knows .,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8IfmiKnZi3E

Koba the Dread , 43 minutes ago link

U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber has been on the job for some months yet narry a peep out of him. There's not even any indication that he gets out of bed in the morning.

He's a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, I imagine that should he ever get out of bed, he will whitewash whichever agency has the most Mormons who might be affected by this scandal.

Back in the sixties, Jack Anderson, a serious investigative journalist and Mormon, noted that to Mormons the US Constitution is a sacred document given to the founding fathers by God himself. Let's hope Huber honors this Mormon tradition.

I love your wife , 57 minutes ago link

Comey was going to blackmail Trump and be the white knight he thinks he is. Even if it were true (which it isn't) Trump didn't give a ****. Especially after all the lies after lies of trash the Dems have sunk to (like with Kavanaugh). Never be ashamed of **** you do, and you will be blackmail proof....except for the pedophiles in DC. We know they are there, and when we find out who they are we will kill them. Comey's a douche.

Koba the Dread , 12 minutes ago link

If you kill all the pedophile in and associated with Washington, the streets will run with blood.

Imagine you or me. If we have a little sexual kink--even a little one--there is little we can do about it but fantasize or find an occasional person/animal/or vegetable to accommodate us. But if you hold great power or are super-rich, you don't need to fantasize. You can act out your little kink with impunity. If you hold great power or are super-rich and you have a very, very evil kink, you can exercise it with impunity. I often thought of that looking at **** Cheney's eyes. They're the eyes of a madman. He could have sliced and diced a man, woman, child or beast a day and gotten away with it. President Trump can grab them by the ***** (adult women) and why not. It's just a very personal way of shaking hands. But I see no insanity in his eyes at all. Hillary's eyes remind me of Norman Bates on a bad day. And Biden. . . . Wow! A pervert of the first water but also a complete coward. Thank God! One less sex monster in action.

Ban KKiller , 1 hour ago link

Sly **** show! Spy vs. Spy! Who done it?

Everyone knows that FBI, CIA, NSA etc., are all in the business of being in business. Helps that insider trading is not illegal for Congress. Corporate America directs intelligence outfits. My opinion...well, ok, my chickens told me.

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 1 hour ago link

Trump is NOT Putin's Puppet

https://seriousguy.donclasen.com/trump-is-not-putins-puppet/

JBLight , 1 hour ago link

The hits just keep coming. It's not just Comey vs. Brennan. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are now blaming Loretta Lynch for the botched Hillary/email investigation. Bruce Ohr is blaming DOJ and FBI officials for ignoring his "warnings" about Christopher Steele and the dossier.

Comey is bashing Strzok, Page, and now Rosenstein. Rosenstein is firing back at Comey. Andrew McCabe is attacking anyone pretty much with a pulse.

Popcorn is sold out!

JBLight , 1 hour ago link

She's trying to protect herself. She already testified and spilled the beans about herself and her husband. And they threw a criminal referral at her anyway. MARK MEADOWS REFERS NELLIE OHR TO DOJ FOR INVESTIGATION

https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/02/mark-meadows-nellie-ohr-doj/

On top of all that, this came out today:

Nellie Ohr deleted emails sent from husband's DOJ account

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nellie-ohr-deleted-emails-sent-from-husbands-doj-account

JBLight , 1 hour ago link

This just gets juicier and juicier. Adm. Rogers of the NSA had found that FBI contractors were overusing the NSA database to run searches/spying so he shut them down. In April 2016! Friends, Fusion GPS wasn't hired just to fabricate dirt on Trump, they were hired to create cover for the spying that was already happening when they knew they got caught by Rogers. They were terrified of what Rogers would do. Enter Fusion/Steele/dossier/European & Australian intelligence. The cover-up will be the death of them. Wait until we find out who else they were spying on during this time.

Admiral Michael S. Rogers is a hero. He has everything. He knows exactly who was being spied on and when.

EDIT: So who the hell approved the original spying? We know Brennan pushed the dossier but who pushed Brennan? I smell Barry.

[May 15, 2019] Barr s Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller In A Shocking Case

Highly recommended!
So Strzok worked with Mueller in Boston. Really close circle of friends.
Notable quotes:
"... In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of "four other FBI informants because they'd been framed by Robert Mueller's FBI. ..."
"... "In 2007," to help protect Whitey Bulger (that's what all those people were held in jail for) "the documents helped Salvati, Limone, and the families of the two other men who had died in prison to win a US $101.7 million civil judgment against the government." ..."
"... Durham got the two surviving framed men released from prison. Robert Mueller was knee-deep in this scandal, along with Andrew Weissman and the agent sent to prison, but because Reno gave him very limited authority, Durham was not able to prosecute Mueller, who was not in the FBI at the time. ..."
"... Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, calling Mueller a "zealot," he reminded Mueller supporters about the former FBI director's role in protecting "notorious mass murderer" Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant. ..."
"... There is also the fact that Rod Rosenstein seems to think well of him. ..."
"... You can be sure there are a lot of people losing sleep knowing Durham is on the case. You might have noticed Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General, is out trashing Jim Comey. ..."
"... Strzok was in the Boston FBI office at the same time. ..."
"... Mueller was the perfect choice for special prosecutor because they have so much dirt on him he'll do whatever they tell him to do. Modus Operandi in DC for many many decades. ..."
May 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Barr's Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller In A Shocking Case

by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/15/2019 - 15:30 0 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print Authored by S.Noble via IndependentSentinel.com,

Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham was appointed to investigate the origins of the Russia-Trump probe. Apparently, he has been on the job for weeks.

Durham is the perfect investigator for the job by all accounts and he had experience with Robert Mueller in the Whitey Bulger case. He did not side with Mueller and Mueller's agents suffered the consequences of Mueller's, some would say, corrupt leadership.

THE WHITEY BULGER CASE

Back in the late 1990s, there were "allegations that FBI informants James 'Whitey' Bulger and Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi had corrupted their handlers. So, in 1999, Janet Reno appointed John Durham as Special Prosecutor and charged him with investigating FBI corruption in Boston. As it turned out, FBI agents aided mass murderer, Whitey Bulger and hid his crimes. Bulger was a protected informant. Durham sent one agent involved to prison for 10 years.

Then-US Attorney, Robert Mueller is probably the one who should have landed in the pen. He allowed four innocent men to be sent to prison for a murder he knew they didn't commit. He did it to protect Bulger. One of the four men was in Florida at the time of the murder and could not have committed the murder.

When Durham went through the documents. He found that the four men, Enrico Tameleo , Joseph Salvati , Peter J. Limone , and Louis Greco, had actually been framed. Four people who were innocent were kept in jail for years in order to protect the status of Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.

The Boston Globe wrote:

"[Mike] Albano [former Parole Board Member who was threatened by two F.B.I. agents for considering parole for the men imprisoned for a crime they did not commit] was appalled that, later that same year, Mueller was appointed FBI director, because it was Mueller, first as an assistant US attorney then as the acting U.S. attorney in Boston, who wrote letters to the parole and pardons board throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset "

In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of "four other FBI informants because they'd been framed by Robert Mueller's FBI.

"In 2007," to help protect Whitey Bulger (that's what all those people were held in jail for) "the documents helped Salvati, Limone, and the families of the two other men who had died in prison to win a US $101.7 million civil judgment against the government."

Durham got the two surviving framed men released from prison. Robert Mueller was knee-deep in this scandal, along with Andrew Weissman and the agent sent to prison, but because Reno gave him very limited authority, Durham was not able to prosecute Mueller, who was not in the FBI at the time.

Mueller kept four innocent people in jail for years to protect the informant status of Whitey Bulger, a mass-murdering Boston mobster who ended up dying in California, and it ended up costing the government $100 million plus in civil judgments.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ CALLED MUELLER A "ZEALOT"

Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, calling Mueller a "zealot," he reminded Mueller supporters about the former FBI director's role in protecting "notorious mass murderer" Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.

"I think Mueller is a zealot," Dershowitz told "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y. ". . . I don't think he cares whether he hurts Democrats or Republicans, but he's a partisan and zealot.

"He's the guy who kept four innocent people in prison for many years in order to protect the cover of Whitey Bulger as an FBI informer. Those of us in Boston don't have such high regard for Mueller because we remember this story. The government had to pay out tens of millions of dollars because Whitey Bulger, a notorious mass murderer, became a government informer against the mafia . . .

"And that's regarded in Boston of one of the great scandals of modern judicial history . And Mueller was right at the center of it. So, he is not without criticism by people who know him in Boston."

HOW DID MUELLER BECOME THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR?

There were other cases in which Mueller behaved scandalously, here and here . Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Sydney Powell tells the same story. She calls them creeps on a mission and has a website of the same name detailing the offenses of Mueller and Weissman.

How did Robert Mueller end up as the Special Prosecutor? Thank a Democrat. The Democrats insisted he was a great man of inviolable character. They said he was the impeccable man and investigator.

There is also the fact that Rod Rosenstein seems to think well of him.

You can be sure there are a lot of people losing sleep knowing Durham is on the case. You might have noticed Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General, is out trashing Jim Comey.

For his part, Jim Comey hasn't written anything inspirational or anti-Trump on Twitter for four days. He has been giving a lot of public speeches lately. Maybe he should shut up.


DoctorFix , 7 minutes ago link

Weren't Comey and Mueller involved in other scandal with Comeys brother?

insanelysane , 1 hour ago link

Strzok was in the Boston FBI office at the same time. The entire FBI is crooked. They supposedly couldn't find Bulger for years. Then the case was going to be turned over to the US Marshal Service. And what do you know, someone in Greenland or Iceland called the FBI with a tip that Bulger was in California. And just like that the FBI goes and picks him up with less force than they used to pick up Roger Stone. The FBI is dirty. Every single one of them.

MrBoompi , 1 hour ago link

Mueller was the perfect choice for special prosecutor because they have so much dirt on him he'll do whatever they tell him to do. Modus Operandi in DC for many many decades.

MushroomCloud2020 , 1 hour ago link

John Durham Once Probed Mueller

Yeah, but did he do an investigation afterwards or did he just have a smoke and fall asleep?

Truthistheagenda , 2 hours ago link

The Rats can't abandon ship fast enough so they are starting to eat their own... more popcorn this movie is getting good.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/05/comey-turns-on-brennan-fired-fbi-chief-claims-brennan-pushed-junk-dossier-in-ic-report-video/

jaxville , 2 hours ago link

What about the frame up of Edgar J Steele ? Another victim of a corrupt FBI investigation and a corrupt jewdiciary.

I used to find Edgar's "nickle rants" entertaining. What happened to him gave me the biggest red pill of my life.

"Whenever you find something foul, when you peel back the layers; more often than not you find the same maggots underneath it all." Please forgive my quote may not be precise as I don't have my copy of Song of the Reich handy. I think you get the point though.

Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago link

Not for me. I simply assume government is corrupt beyond our wildest dreams. Remember the story of the Dutch banker who escaped the Illuminati and his story of laundering proceeds from Iranian oil sales when Iran was, once again, under sanctions in former years? That trucks and trucks pulled up to these German banks loaded with USD. His job was to make sure that money continued its journey...but not in a truck.

But I'm with Team. What the **** did I just read? This is like being in a small town and learning yet another tidbit in a scandelous affair. Soap opera-ville. Like, dude! What's goin' happen next?

misterlee , 2 hours ago link

Mueller appears to have been dirty for some time now. This speaks to the extent of the swamp more than anything else. Mueller is careful enough to not break criminal law so all he'll ever suffer is criticism for loading up his team with Trump haters. None of these people will go down for anything unless Weissman is tagged with withholding exculpatory evidence, again.

Zero Schmeero , 3 hours ago link

If convicted of sedition Mueller and Weissman can serve in the same prison they sent Bulger. Seems they have a lot of friends there.

TGDavis , 3 hours ago link

How do you cost your employer 100 million and still have a job? This is why I don't believe anything. If this true, then our country is really in bad shape. No American would do this.

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

I tell you the Democrats are a cult not a representative party of ANY PEOPLE except the i(legal) mob.

Truthistheagenda , 2 hours ago link

Unfortunately it is not just Dems, it is the whole damn swamp except a few.

they want everyone divided because divided the people are weak, wake up and smell the Covfefe

lowscorewins , 3 hours ago link

Sadly Comey is not smart enough to shut up...

Sparehead , 3 hours ago link

There were so many "real dirty birds", but I'd add Hilliary, Holder, Lynch, and Clapper to round out the high-profile list. As an ex-President and the first "magic" one I expect Obama to get a pass.

LEEPERMAX , 3 hours ago link

CIA DESTROYS AMERICA FROM THE UK: https://aim4truth.org/2019/05/15/cia-destroys-america-from-the-uk/

The Herdsman , 3 hours ago link

Hey fellas, gee wiz. Turns out those guys we gave special rights, special power, specials guns, and special equipment too actually hurt people with them. Who'd'a thunk?

atlasRocked , 4 hours ago link

ERROR in the article? "... the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton , near Bruceton Mills , West Virginia . [22] Bulger, who was in a wheelchair, was found dead on October 30, 2018, at the age of 89. He was killed by inmates within hours of his arrival at Hazelton. "

Muddy1 , 4 hours ago link

"As it turned out, FBI agents aided mass murderer, Whitey Bulger and hid his crimes"

Over the past two years, I have heard Sean Hannity bad mouth the upper echelons of the FBI. He consistently goes on to grovel and talk about the thousands of agents in local offices who are hard working agents doing a great job. I always though his *** kissing was to good to be true. Now I read just how corrupt local agents are, willing to send innocent people to jail to protect some dirt bag.

I've come to the conclusion that the FBI is full of dirty agents from top to bottom. Time to abolish the FBI.

The Herdsman , 4 hours ago link

Every government agency is. Thats the nature of it. Power corrupts. You think you can create an agency of human beings, give them special powers, special rights, special guns, special equipment, turn them loose on society and think they are not going to dry **** everybody who gets in their way?

Koba the Dread , 3 hours ago link

The FBI (originally the BI) was first headed by Napoleon Bonaparte's grand nephew, a family not noted for republican sentiments. It was set up as a political police to persecute communists. Fair enough! But as Ward Churchill in his book by the same name calls the FBI, they are Agents of Repression . It could be communists one decade, conservatives the next, libertarians after that.

The FBI's reputation as an investigative body is very poor. Its crime lab has made hideous blunders. Its fingerprint section accused a man in Spain of finding his fingerprints on a bomb until other international fingerprint experts proved that the fingerprints definitely were not those of the man the FBI accused. Local and state police throughout the US universally loathe FBI interference with their cases because all the FBI does is interfere with their investigations and do it only so it (the FBI) can grandstand. It's investigation of the false flag 9-11event was a cover-up, as was its investigation of the false flag Boston Marathon "bombing". Two of the three "suspects" were shot to death by the FBI and the third is in prison for life for something he didn't even do.

shankster , 4 hours ago link

see the film 'Black Mass'

SRV , 4 hours ago link

The Bulger thing is peanuts... Mueller comes from a long line of Deep State criminals going back decades

shankster , 4 hours ago link

Don't forget that Mueller was also the 'clean-up' guy for Bush after 9II.

Joebloinvestor , 5 hours ago link

They are turning on each other. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7032973/Obamas-intel-chiefs-claim-told-Comey-NOT-use-golden-showers-dossier-warrant.html I can't wait till the "five eye" co-conspirators get it in their heads that Brennan or Clapper are going to rat them out.

Imagine That , 5 hours ago link

How much did Whitey Bulger give Mueller to earn protection? Therein lies the most critical issue of all. 'How much' could be how many mafia members the FBI brought down because of Bulger. It could also be how much Mueller benefited in other ways. Payoffs, anyone?

However, there may be another benefit. What did Bulger know about Mueller? To be black-mailable over many years, and to be truly effective, it must be devastating and run both ways--let's call it mutually assured blackmail.

It purports to be fiction, but DC, the Dark City is the inside story of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's a horror story and an eye-opener, politics viewed from inside the establishment.

insanelysane

The Bulger thing gets really interesting because Bulger's brother was the President of the Massachusetts Senate during the same time. Billy Bulger was a big time Democrat in Massachusetts, shocking of course. So you have 1 brother running the mob and the other brother, well, running a mob at the State House.

One story, link below, has an honest State Trooper try to search Whitey's bags at Logan Airport. Whitey throws a bag to a lackey and the lackey disappears. Trooper reports the incident and guess what happens. Trooper is reassigned to hell for interfering with the Brothers Bulger and the FBI.

https://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/19980929/news/309299966

[May 13, 2019] Alexander Downer funnelled millions in Australian tax dollars to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's election campaign

May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

IvannaHumpalot , 8 minutes ago link

INVESTIGATE AUSTRALIA

Alexander Downer former foreign minister is the one who was meddling - Australia's high commissioner to the UK in 2016

Started whole Russiagate investigation against Trump's campaign by telling the FBI that a drunken George Papadopoulos had said Russia had dirt on Hillary. Because of his diplomatic standing the FBI took Downer seriously and it was a major factor in their decision to investigate.

Alexander Downer also funnelled millions in Australian tax dollars to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's election campaign

https://thepoliticalinsider.com/alexander-downer-clinton-foundation/

"Downer is suspected of helping to "dishonestly" obtain $25 million from the Australian government for the Clinton Foundation's Clinton HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI). Michael Smith (former Australian police detective) says that he gave materials to the FBI containing evidence that shows "corrupt October 2006 backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability of a $15 million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian government after an agreement was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or associates."

Smith also found evidence of a "$10 million financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception between April 1, 2008, and Sept. 25, 2008, at Washington, D.C., New York, New York, and Canberra Australia involving an MOU between the Australian government, the 'Clinton Climate Initiative,' and the purported 'Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute Inc.'"

[May 13, 2019] Barr Appoints US Attorney To Investigate FBI-DOJ Spying On Trump; Has Investigated FBI Before

Notable quotes:
"... According to Fox , Barr is "serious" and has assembled a team from the DOJ to participate in the probe, adding that Durham is known as a "hard-charging, bulldog" prosecutor according to their source. ..."
"... Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period -- prior to Nov. 7, 2016 - - including the use and initiation of informants , as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses. ..."
"... An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser, it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to "seduce" him as part of the "bizarre" episode. ..."
"... Durham has a history of serving as a special prosecutor, investigating wrongdoing among national security officials - including the FBI's ties to a Boston crime boss, as well as accusations of CIA detainee abuse. ..."
"... According to the report, Durham's review would run in parallel with the ongoing DOJ probe by Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. Meanwhile, Republicans have been seeking answers from US Attorney for Utah, John Huber, who was appointed by former AG Jeff Sessions to review FBI and DOJ surveillance abuses, as well as authorities' handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation . ..."
"... As part of the FBI's FISA application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the FBI cut-and-pasted from a disputed Washington Post article which suggested that the Trump campaign may have been compromised. The agency also repeatedly told the FISA court that it "did not believe" UK ex-spy Christopher Steele was the source of a Yahoo News article written by Michael Isikoff which implicated Page in Russian collusion. ..."
"... London court records , however, reveal that contrary to the FBI's statements, Steele had briefed Yahoo News and other media outlets in the fall of 2016 at the urging of his employer Fusion GPS - which the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had paid for anti-Trump opposition research. This information was withheld from FISA judges during the application to surveil Page. ..."
"... Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami." ..."
"... Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami. " ..."
"... Could it be that Mueller was in charge of the Boston mobster thing, and he ended up with a giant promotion to head of the agency? So what exactly happened as a result of that "investigation"? ..."
"... So, Huber was Sessions' special stooge put in place to help smother the truth? ..."
"... Catch 22. They all have the same paymaster. Kinda like asking whores to testify against their pimps. ..."
"... Alexander Downer also funnelled millions in Australian tax dollars to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's election campaign ..."
May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Attorney General William Barr has appointed US Attorney John H. Durham of Connecticut to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation to determine if the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign was "lawful and appropriate," according to Fox News .

The move comes as the Trump administration has demanded answers over the use of "informants" on his 2016 campaign.

According to Fox , Barr is "serious" and has assembled a team from the DOJ to participate in the probe, adding that Durham is known as a "hard-charging, bulldog" prosecutor according to their source.

Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period -- prior to Nov. 7, 2016 - - including the use and initiation of informants , as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.

An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser, it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to "seduce" him as part of the "bizarre" episode.

Durham previously has investigated law enforcement corruption, the destruction of CIA videotapes and the Boston FBI office's relationship with mobsters. He is set to continue to serve as the chief federal prosecutor in Connecticut. - Fox News

Of note - in January House Republicans Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows wrote to Durham , saying that they had "discovered" he was "investigating former FBI General Counsel James Baker" over unauthorized leaks to the media, adding "We know the DOJ and FBI departed from traditional investigative and prosecutorial practices, and insufficiently adhered to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Durham has a history of serving as a special prosecutor, investigating wrongdoing among national security officials - including the FBI's ties to a Boston crime boss, as well as accusations of CIA detainee abuse.

According to the report, Durham's review would run in parallel with the ongoing DOJ probe by Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. Meanwhile, Republicans have been seeking answers from US Attorney for Utah, John Huber, who was appointed by former AG Jeff Sessions to review FBI and DOJ surveillance abuses, as well as authorities' handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation .

Not much has come of Huber's investigation, while Republicans have cautioned that he has spoken with few key witnesses and whistleblowers.

Durham's appointment comes about a month after Barr told members of Congress he believed "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign in 2016. He later said he didn't mean anything pejorative and was gathering a team to look into the origins of the special counsel's investigation.

Democrats have pummeled Barr in frustration following revelations in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russian actors , despite numerous offers by Russians to assist the campaign. Mueller's final report has led to a bitter D.C. battle over the limited number of redactions in the report, which the DOJ says are legally necessary because they pertain to grand jury matters. - Fox News

As part of the FBI's FISA application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the FBI cut-and-pasted from a disputed Washington Post article which suggested that the Trump campaign may have been compromised. The agency also repeatedly told the FISA court that it "did not believe" UK ex-spy Christopher Steele was the source of a Yahoo News article written by Michael Isikoff which implicated Page in Russian collusion.

London court records , however, reveal that contrary to the FBI's statements, Steele had briefed Yahoo News and other media outlets in the fall of 2016 at the urging of his employer Fusion GPS - which the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had paid for anti-Trump opposition research. This information was withheld from FISA judges during the application to surveil Page.

What's more, the FBI could not verify the dodgy dossier Steele assembled . Speaking Fox on 'Sunday Morning Futures,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said "There's a document that's classified that I'm gonna try to get unclassified that takes the dossier -- all the pages of it -- and it has verification to one side," adding "There really is no verification, other than media reports that were generated by reporters that received the dossier."

Graham cited a recent report from The Hill 's John Solomon which reveals that the FBI was specifically informed that Steele had admitted he was "keen" to influence the 2016 election with his document.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec's written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline . - The Hill

Solomon also reported last week that a high-ranking government official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that information in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate , and likely leaked to the media.

Ten days before the FBI used the now-discredited dossier to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who took handwritten notes of the encounter.

Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami."

Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami. "

What makes this particularly damning is that the FBI swore on October 21, 2016 to the FISA judges that Steele's "reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings," and that the FBI deemed him to be "reliable" and was "unaware of any derogatory information pertaining" to the former British spy who was working for Fusion GPS - the firm paid by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to come up with dirt on Donald Trump.

And now U.S. Attorney John Durham will sort out exactly what happened, we can only hope.


sgorem , 2 minutes ago link

that rank stench hitting your nostrils is the clinton criminal syndicate. they have, from their beginning days in arkansas, killed, bribed, extorted, blackmailed, stole, and fucked their way through the political system. if you wonder why they aren't in Leavenworth, think of ALL the "government employees, i.e., representatives, diplomats, congressmen/women, etc., protecting these vermin from the light of the truth. they have found "the way" to find and keep friends in the deep state. they make you an offer you can't refuse............

deFLorable hillbilly , 4 minutes ago link

Something doesn't smell right on this one. Could it be that Mueller was in charge of the Boston mobster thing, and he ended up with a giant promotion to head of the agency? So what exactly happened as a result of that "investigation"?

This guy Durham has a very suspicious looking mustache. Comey may end up as Biden's VP. Just sayin'.

LEEPERMAX , 5 minutes ago link

As the sun sinks on the horizon . . .

PANIC MODE settles in across the Washington Swamp !!!

Chuck Walla , 5 minutes ago link

So, Huber was Sessions' special stooge put in place to help smother the truth?

VWAndy , 6 minutes ago link

Catch 22. They all have the same paymaster. Kinda like asking whores to testify against their pimps.

DeepThoughts , 7 minutes ago link

As a 45-year old man, I hope that they get to the bottom of this by the time my unborn grandkids grow old.

Md4 , 7 minutes ago link

"Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami."

Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami. "

Russian hacking...

...still no presented, credible evidence...

Herp and Derp , 7 minutes ago link

Great. Who is prosecuting Hillary? Who is going after Schiff for brains and the dozen other democrat congressional leakers?

Teamtc321 , 8 minutes ago link

Mueller Time is Over ... It's time to pay the BARR tab...............

IvannaHumpalot , 8 minutes ago link

INVESTIGATE AUSTRALIA

Alexander Downer former foreign minister is the one who was meddling - Australia's high commissioner to the UK in 2016

Started whole Russiagate investigation against Trump's campaign by telling the FBI that a drunken George Papadopoulos had said Russia had dirt on Hillary. Because of his diplomatic standing the FBI took Downer seriously and it was a major factor in their decision to investigate.

Alexander Downer also funnelled millions in Australian tax dollars to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's election campaign

https://thepoliticalinsider.com/alexander-downer-clinton-foundation/

"Downer is suspected of helping to "dishonestly" obtain $25 million from the Australian government for the Clinton Foundation's Clinton HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI). Michael Smith (former Australian police detective) says that he gave materials to the FBI containing evidence that shows "corrupt October 2006 backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability of a $15 million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian government after an agreement was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or associates."

Smith also found evidence of a "$10 million financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception between April 1, 2008, and Sept. 25, 2008, at Washington, D.C., New York, New York, and Canberra Australia involving an MOU between the Australian government, the 'Clinton Climate Initiative,' and the purported 'Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute Inc.'"

Lord Raglan , 3 minutes ago link

I agree with you. It is about branding. Coke versus Pepsi but more committed. I don't think that way but Democrats seem to. The ones I know are filled with hate. The real paradigm is World Government v. Nation States, not Dem v. Repub.

hxc , 1 minute ago link

The real fight is world government vs self-government.

Tapeworm , 13 minutes ago link

Congreff could have done some little thing about the DS aholes that lied in testimony, but a fat zero. Clapper was a slam dunk as they say at this time of year in bubble bouncing. Come to thing of it, and sing along with the bouncing ball----"I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"......

Where is fabulous Q?

Md4 , 13 minutes ago link

They say the wheels of justice grind slowly.

Fine.

As long as they do so in the direction of truth...and consequences.

Proceed...

frankthecrank , 3 minutes ago link

if you have the guts and the stamina and push long enough and hard enough, you can make it happen.

DEDA CVETKO , 17 minutes ago link

Hillary will plea not guilty on account of having to escape nonexistent Sarajevo snipers.

Seal Team 6 , 16 minutes ago link

Barring (no pun intended) the images of Hillary and Obama being lead in cuffs into a black Tahoe on the 6 oclock news, I don't think it will go anywhere as the MSM won't report it.

steverino999 , 20 minutes ago link

Don't make me say it, Willie!

Willie the Pimp , 18 minutes ago link

Oh you will because you are a bitch. Go for it bitch. This is your life's work right here loser! HAHAHAA! Dumbass.

Tapeworm , 4 minutes ago link

steverino666 has it right. The likelihood of anything exhumed out of the slime in DC is a fat zero...

Blue Boat , 24 minutes ago link

All you people who recently said, "Nothing will happen. Wake me if anyone gets indicted." SEE? We told you the tide had turned with a new sheriff, Russia hoax investigation over. Now, the gauntlet drops. Talk about needing to buy some popcorn!

Blue Boat , 20 minutes ago link

Boston FBI .... https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/us/trial-ending-for-boston-fbi-agent-accused-of-mob-ties.html

Mike Rotsch , 11 minutes ago link

Hey - the world is a giant toilet. And the laws of probability favor pessimism.

847328_3527 , 27 minutes ago link

Feinstein is looking for Durham's high school yearbook as we speak....

SenatorBlutarsky , 10 minutes ago link

+1!

[May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Looks like Robert Mueller was a dirty cop hired to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton wing of Dems (DemoRats) sing Trump. And he enjoyed the full support of several intelligence agencies brass (especially FBI brass; initially Stzkok was one of his investigators) ..."
"... Before that Mueller was in charge of 9/11 and Anthrax scare investigations. So he is a card caring member of the neoliberal elite which converted the USA into what can be called the "National Security State" ..."
"... In order for a person to obstruct justice, there must be some justice to obstruct. Hence, if the alleged obstructer did not commit the underlying crime being investigated, then his so-called obstruction did not impair justice; it just impaired a fruitless investigation ..."
"... the USA squabble over Parteigenosse Mueller Final Report between two factions of neoliberal elite makes the USA a joke in the eyes of the whole world ..."
"... Hopefully, a more sound part of the USA elite, which Barr represents, will put some sand into those wheels. His decision to investigate the origin of Russiagate produced almost a heart attack for Pelosi. And the fact that he decided to skip his auto-da-fé at the House adds insult to injury. Poor Pelosi almost lost her mind. ..."
"... Out of democratic challengers IMHO only Tulsi Gabbard can probably attract a sizable faction of former Trump supporters and she is the most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike candidate. ..."
"... The truth is that the color revolution against Donald Trump (a soft coup if you wish) failed. Now he badly needs to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. It is just a matter of survival for him. ..."
"... Neoliberal Democrats will help him by putting their weakest pro-war candidate like the aged, apparently slightly demented neocon Joe Biden. With his rabid neoliberal past, neocon foreign policy past, Ukrainian skeletons in the closet and probably participation in the Obama administration dirty and criminal attempt to derail Trump using intelligence agencies as the leverage. ..."
"... Just like is the case with Boeing the situation for neoliberal democrats does not look promising. The world is starting to crash all around them. ..."
May 04, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

likbez, May 4, 2019 8:24 pm

The F.B.I. surveillance didn't come out until after the election. Therefore it couldn't impact the election. McConnell threatened to shriek "partisan politics!" if Obama said anything publicly about the Russian issue. Obama didn't. Claims of partisan behavior? Bullshit.

What about proven attempts of entrapments and inserting spies into Trump campaign?

Mifsud and Halper's stories come to mind (Halper's story has an interesting "seduction" subplot with undercover FBI informant Azra Turk). FBI and Justice Department brass acted as dirty mafia style politicians. McCabe and Brennan are two shining examples here. Probably guided personally by Obama, who being grown in a family of CIA operatives probably know this color revolutions "kitchen" all too well.

BTW Hillary did destroy evidence from her "bathroom server" while under subpoena.

Looks like Robert Mueller was a dirty cop hired to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton wing of Dems (DemoRats) sing Trump. And he enjoyed the full support of several intelligence agencies brass (especially FBI brass; initially Stzkok was one of his investigators)

Before that Mueller was in charge of 9/11 and Anthrax scare investigations. So he is a card caring member of the neoliberal elite which converted the USA into what can be called the "National Security State"

Which looks like classic Mussolini Italy with two guiding principles of jurisprudence applied to political enemies:

(1) To my friends, everything; to my enemies, the law (originated in 1933) .
(2) Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime (that actually comes from Stalinism period of the USSR, but the spirit is the same) .

It was actually Barr who saved Trump from obstruction of justice charge. He based his defense on the interpretation of the statuses the following (actually very elegant) way:

In order for a person to obstruct justice, there must be some justice to obstruct. Hence, if the alleged obstructer did not commit the underlying crime being investigated, then his so-called obstruction did not impair justice; it just impaired a fruitless investigation

Of course, that upset DemoRats who want President Pence to speed up the destruction of the USA and adding a couple of new wars to list the USA is involved.

Mueller was extremely sloppy and one-sided in writing his final report. Which is given taking into account his real task: to sink Trump. As Nunes aptly observed about his treatment of Mifsud as a Russian agent :

"If he is, in fact, a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals for not only the United States, but also our allies like the Italians and the Brits and others. Because if Mifsud is a Russian agent, he would know all kinds of our intelligence agents throughout the globe

likbez , May 4, 2019 10:11 pm

run75441,

Yes, of course, in the current neo-McCarthyism atmosphere merely passing the salt to a Russian guest at a dinner party makes you "an unregistered foreign agent" of Russia bent on implementing Putin's evil plans and colliding with Russian government ;-).

It looks like you are unable/unwilling to understand the logic behind my post. With all due respect, the situation is very dangerous -- when the neoliberal elite relies on lies almost exclusively as a matter of policy (look at Kamala Harris questioning Barr -- she is not stupid, she is an evil, almost taken from Orwell 1984, character), IMHO the neoliberal society is doomed. Sooner or later.

Currently, the USA squabble over Parteigenosse Mueller Final Report between two factions of neoliberal elite makes the USA a joke in the eyes of the whole world and Democrats look like Italian Fascists in 30th: a party hell-bent of dominance which does not care about laws or legitimacy one bit and can use entrapment and other dirty methods to achieve its goals.

Hopefully, a more sound part of the USA elite, which Barr represents, will put some sand into those wheels. His decision to investigate the origin of Russiagate produced almost a heart attack for Pelosi. And the fact that he decided to skip his auto-da-fé at the House adds insult to injury. Poor Pelosi almost lost her mind.

Neoliberals and neoconservatives joined ranks behind Russiagate and continue to push it because otherwise they need to be held accountable for all the related neoliberal disasters in the USA since 1980th including sliding standard of living, disappearance of "good" jobs, sky-high cost of university education and medical insurance, and the last but not least, Hillary fiasco.

Trump ran to the left of Clinton in foreign policy and used disillusionment of working close with neoliberal Democratic Party to his advantage promising jobs, end of outsourcing, end of uncontrolled immigration, and increased standard of living. He betrayed all those promises, but, still, that's why he won.

And that why the neoliberal establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan consensus around both financialization driven economics (casino capitalism) and imperial, war on terror based interventionism that are the foundation of the USA neoliberal elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all political persuasions.

Out of democratic challengers IMHO only Tulsi Gabbard can probably attract a sizable faction of former Trump supporters and she is the most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike candidate.

The truth is that the color revolution against Donald Trump (a soft coup if you wish) failed. Now he badly needs to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. It is just a matter of survival for him.

Neoliberal Democrats will help him by putting their weakest pro-war candidate like the aged, apparently slightly demented neocon Joe Biden. With his rabid neoliberal past, neocon foreign policy past, Ukrainian skeletons in the closet and probably participation in the Obama administration dirty and criminal attempt to derail Trump using intelligence agencies as the leverage.

Just like is the case with Boeing the situation for neoliberal democrats does not look promising. The world is starting to crash all around them.

[May 13, 2019] How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election by Larry C. Johnson

Notable quotes:
"... The entire Mueller investigation is a smoke screen for the crimes of a cabal of people (of which Clinton, Biden and even possibly Obama by association are a part) that engaged in "pay to play" over many, many years. The Mueller report could have been completed in 6 months, instead it took 22 months and was released, after Barr's appointment and AFTER the mid-terms, when its conclusions would have supported the Republican vote. This is not a coincidence, the report is a political document that walked the tightrope between DNC interests and those of "fair play" to the POTUS. ..."
May 07, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Deniz, May 10, 2019 at 09:13

I highly recommend this interview by former Intel Officer Tony Shaffer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITvnDtuRIgM

Bob Van Noy, May 10, 2019 at 08:11

This discussion wouldn't be complete without a Craig Murray link and his commentary is as excellent as it is here.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/05/the-real-muellergate-scandal/

Anon, May 10, 2019 at 05:52

Papadopoulos was first targeted when he worked for the Carson campaign. The spying was obviously much broader. Bongino is killing it on his podcast.

Paul Surovell, May 10, 2019 at 01:08

Two corrections:

Carter Page in his testimony before the House Intelligence committee said he had never met Igor Sechin. He said that he saw Dmitry Peskov in an RT studio and "nodded" at him, but never spoke or otherwise interacted with him.

Regula, May 9, 2019 at 21:09

Great reporting, thank you.

There is one facet in this entire dirty scheme that gets overlooked: a number of the actions by the Dems and the FBI served for the exclusive purpose to force Trump to fire his best campaign managers and secretary of defense and other persons in his campaign and presidency:

The Dems were afraid Trump would win with Manafort as his campaign manager, and acted to force Trump to fire him just as earlier, one of his managers who turned out to be effective, was besmeared by a reporter of having forced her to fall when she clearly didn't, just to besmear Trump as being a mysogenist.

The same was done to Flynn, who was in favor of good relations with Russia. Flynn really didn't do anything wrong other than to endanger the Dem's agenda to topple Putin. In the same vein, Bannon and two other of the more populist advisors who wanted a more peaceful conduct for the US, got eliminated by the earlier chief of staff Kelly until he got fired himself.

The same repeated with AG Barr, who is clearly a threat to the entire Dem cabal, but hasn't been successfully far despite shameful congressional inquiries during Barr's testimony.

Looked at in tandem with the Russiagate accusations and Mueller's investigations, it is obvious that this entire web of lies and repeated attempts at entrapment of Trump employees was constructed by Clinton in complicity with not just the FBI and CIA, but with the DNC and the entire deep state, to either oust, impeach or incarcerate Trump and, if that didn't work, to force him and corner him into continuing Obama/Bush's agenda against Russia.

Sadly, Trump fell for it and the US policies which he pursues are the same now as always: hegemony with regime change wars to keep the MIC in control of the entire US economy.

O Society, May 8, 2019 at 18:48

Excellent interview here with Aaron Mate and his father Gabor on the psychology of the mass hallucination we call Russiagate. Same as Consortium News, Aaron was out in front of the propaganda snow machine calling the hoax like it is from its inception.

http://opensociet.org/2019/05/08/america-in-denial-aaron-and-gabor-mate-on-the-psychology-of-russiagate/

Eileen Kuch, May 8, 2019 at 15:47

The truth about American and foreign Intelligence agencies did, indeed, interfere in both the 2016 Presidential election and the Mid-term Congressional elections just last November. Russia's Intelligence agencies never interfered, but Britain's did.

Fortunately, MI5 and MI6 failed to get Hillary Clinton into the White House in the 2016 elections. Had Hillary won, the world would've been totally destroyed in a 3rd World War with China, Russia, and Iran.

Both of these British Intelligence agencies are hostile to POTUS Donald J. Trump, and they don't hide it. They can't control him like they could his predecessors going back to LBJ.

Peter Halligan, May 8, 2019 at 15:06

The entire Mueller investigation is a smoke screen for the crimes of a cabal of people (of which Clinton, Biden and even possibly Obama by association are a part) that engaged in "pay to play" over many, many years. The Mueller report could have been completed in 6 months, instead it took 22 months and was released, after Barr's appointment and AFTER the mid-terms, when its conclusions would have supported the Republican vote. This is not a coincidence, the report is a political document that walked the tightrope between DNC interests and those of "fair play" to the POTUS.

The "smoke screen" has diverted attention from the criminality of the cabal that engaged in all sorts of nefarious activity during the DNC infiltration of important federal agencies, from State, through Justice and housing etc. You need only to think about why Clinton instructed Bleachbit to violate a subpoena instructing the the persevration of all State emails by using "a cloth", to now that soemthing is seriously wrong. Factor in the activities of Wasserman-Schuz and the Awan brothers ad then factor in ACTUAL collusion with Russia by Obama and Clinton and the DNC cabal is guilty of collusion and obstruction of justice (remember also how Bill got half a million for a short speect in an event in Moscow sponsored by a Kremlin owned bank and, of course, his tarmac antics). The smoke screen consisted of the classic tactic of "projection" of a criminals crimes onto his rival. Hopefully, those guilty of starting the smoke screen are not the last to face the consequences of breaing the law and the activities of the crime cabal over the prior 10-15 years are also investigated, before we all get bored with the confirmation of political criminality. Just because a poltical party has control of the DoJ and DoS, does not mean that these agencies become the tools for organized crime.

Pablo Diablo, May 8, 2019 at 15:03

Trump is a "loose cannon". This whole Mueller investigation was an attempt to "control" him. It worked. Got the Neocons back in power and fed The War Machine very well.

[May 13, 2019] FBI Used False Premise to Open Trump-Russia Investigation by Andrew C. McCarthy

Notable quotes:
"... If Mifsud is the asset of any foreign intelligence service, it is Britain's -- but that is a story for another day. ..."
"... We learn from the Mueller report (Volume I, p. 193) that Mifsud was interviewed by the FBI on February 10, 2017, a couple of weeks after the bureau started interviewing Papadopoulos. Mifsud denied that, when he met Papadopoulos in London on April 26, 2016, he either knew about or said anything about Russia's possession of Clinton-related emails. ..."
"... The Trump-Russia investigation continued for over two years after the FBI's interview of Mifsud. Mueller took over the probe in May 2017. During his 22 months running the investigation, Mueller charged many people (including Papadopoulos) with lying to the FBI. But he never charged Mifsud. The government has never alleged that Mifsud's denial was false. ..."
"... First, there is no evidence in Mueller's report that Mifsud had any reason to know the operations of Russia's intelligence services. ..."
"... Downer's flawed assumption that Papadopoulos must have been referring to the hacked DNC emails was then inflated into a Trump–Russia conspiracy theory by Clinton partisans in the Obama administration -- first at the State Department, and then in the Justice Department, the FBI, and the broader intelligence community -- all agencies in which animus against Donald Trump ran deep. ..."
"... Although Papadopoulos is extensively quoted in the Mueller report, the prosecutors avoid any quote from Downer regarding what Papadopoulos told him at the meeting. This is consistent with Mueller's false-statements charge against Papadopoulos, which includes the aforementioned 14-page "Statement of the Offense" that studiously omits any reference to Papadopoulos's May meeting with Downer, notwithstanding that it was the most consequential event in Papadopoulos's case. (See pp. 7–8, in which the chronology skips from May 4 to May 13 as if nothing significant happened in between.) ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.nationalreview.com
George Papadopoulos leaves after his sentencing hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., September 7, 2018. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
The State Department and an Australian diplomat grossly exaggerated Papadopoulos's claims -- which were probably false anyway.

C hicanery was the force behind the formal opening of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation. There was a false premise, namely: The Trump campaign must have known that Russia possessed emails related to Hillary Clinton. From there, through either intentional deception or incompetence, the foreign ministries of Australia and the United States erected a fraudulent story tying the Trump campaign's purported knowledge to the publication of hacked Democratic National Committee emails.

That is what we learn from the saga of George Papadopoulos, as fleshed out by the Mueller report .

The investigative theory on which the FBI formally opened the foreign-counterintelligence probe code-named "Crossfire Hurricane" on July 31, 2016, held that the Trump campaign knew about, and was potentially complicit in, Russia's possession of hacked emails that would compromise Hillary Clinton; and that, in order to help Donald Trump, the Kremlin planned to disseminate these emails anonymously (through a third party) at a time maximally damaging to Clinton's campaign.

There are thus two components to this theory: the emails and Russia's intentions.

I. Papadopoulos Knew Nothing about the DNC Emails -- and Probably Nothing about Any Emails

The one and only source for the email component of the story is George Papadopoulos. He, of course, is a convicted liar -- convicted, in fact, of lying to the FBI during the very same interviews in which he related the detail about emails. Moreover, the Mueller report confirms that he is simply unreliable: To inflate his importance, he overhyped his credentials and repeatedly misled his Trump-campaign superiors regarding his discussions with people be believed had connections to the Russian regime -- who they were and what they were in a position to promise.

Other than Papadopoulos's own word, there is no evidence -- none -- that he was told about emails by Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic whom the FBI and the Mueller investigation deceptively portrayed as a Russian agent. As I've previously detailed , because the investigation could not establish that Mifsud was a Russian agent, Mueller's charge against Papadopoulos is artfully framed to obscure this weakness. Carefully parsed, Mueller allegation is that Papadopoulos had reason to believe Mifsud was a Russian agent -- not that Mifsud actually was one.

If Mifsud is the asset of any foreign intelligence service, it is Britain's -- but that is a story for another day.

We learn from the Mueller report (Volume I, p. 193) that Mifsud was interviewed by the FBI on February 10, 2017, a couple of weeks after the bureau started interviewing Papadopoulos. Mifsud denied that, when he met Papadopoulos in London on April 26, 2016, he either knew about or said anything about Russia's possession of Clinton-related emails.

The Trump-Russia investigation continued for over two years after the FBI's interview of Mifsud. Mueller took over the probe in May 2017. During his 22 months running the investigation, Mueller charged many people (including Papadopoulos) with lying to the FBI. But he never charged Mifsud. The government has never alleged that Mifsud's denial was false.

There appear to be very good reasons for that.

First, there is no evidence in Mueller's report that Mifsud had any reason to know the operations of Russia's intelligence services.

Second, prior to being interviewed by the FBI in January 2017, Papadopoulos never reported anything about Russia having emails -- neither to his Trump-campaign superiors, to whom he was constantly reporting on his conversations with Mifsud; nor to Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat whose conversation with Papadopoulos was the proximate cause for the formal opening of the FBI probe. (As further detailed below, Papadopoulos told Downer the Russians had damaging information; he did not say emails .)

It was only when he was interviewed by the FBI in late January 2017, nine months after his conversation with Mifsud, that Papadopoulos is alleged to have claimed that Mifsud said the Russians had "thousands" of "emails of Clinton." There is no known recording of this FBI interview, so there is no way of knowing whether (a) Papadopoulos volunteered this claim that Mifsud mentioned emails or (b) this claim was suggested to Papadopoulos by his interrogators' questions. We have no way of knowing whether Papadopoulos is telling the truth (which, for no good reason, he kept hidden from his Trump-campaign superiors) or if he was telling the FBI agents what he thought they wanted to hear (which is what he often did when reporting to the Trump campaign).

But the email component is only half the concocted story.

II. Papadopoulos Had No Knowledge of Russia's Intentions

There is no evidence whatsoever, including in the 448-page Mueller report, that Papadopoulos was ever told that Russia intended, through an intermediary, to disseminate damaging information about Clinton in a manner designed to hurt Clinton's candidacy and help Trump's. There is, furthermore, no evidence that Papadopoulos ever said such a thing to anyone else -- including Downer, whom he famously met at the Kensington Wine Rooms in London in early May 2016 (the record is not clear on whether it was May 6 or May 10).

The claim that Papadopoulos made such a statement is a fabrication, initially founded on what, at best, was a deeply flawed assumption by Downer, the Australian diplomat.

On July 22, 2016, the eve of the Democratic National Convention and two months after Downer met with Papadopoulos, WikiLeaks began disseminating to the press the hacked DNC emails. From this fact, Downer drew the unfounded inference that the hacked emails must have been what Papadopoulos was talking about when he said Russia had damaging information about Clinton.

Downer's assumption was specious, for at least four reasons.

1) In speaking with Downer, Papadopoulos never mentioned emails. Neither Downer nor Papadopoulos has ever claimed that Papadopoulos spoke of emails.

2) Papadopoulos did not tell Downer that Russia was planning to publish damaging information about Clinton through an intermediary. There is no allegation in the Mueller report that Mifsud ever told Papadopoulos any such thing, much less that Papadopoulos relayed it to Downer. Mueller's report says:

Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow. Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on candidate Hillary Clinton. As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the "dirt" was in the form of "emails of Clinton," and that they "have thousands of emails."

(Vol. I, p. 89 & n. 464). In neither the Mueller report nor the " Statement of the Offense " that Mueller filed in connection with Papadopoulos's plea (pp. 6–7) have prosecutors claimed that Mifsud told Papadopoulos what Russia was planning to do with the "dirt," much less why. And, to repeat, Mifsud denied telling Papadopoulos anything about emails; Mueller never alleged that Mifsud's denial was false.

3) Papadopoulos says the emails he claims Mifsud referred to were not the DNC emails ; they were Clinton's own emails . That is, when Papadopoulos claims that Mifsud told him that Russia had "dirt" in the form of "thousands" of "emails of Clinton," he understood Mifsud to be alluding to the thousands of State Department and Clinton Foundation emails that Clinton had stored on a private server. These, of course, were the emails that were being intensively covered in the media (including speculation that they might have been hacked by hostile foreign intelligence services) at the time Mifsud and Papadopoulos spoke – i.e., April 2016, when neither Mifsud nor Papadopoulos had any basis to know anything about hacked DNC emails.

4) The DNC emails did not damage Clinton in any material way, and it would have been ridiculous to imagine that they would. They were not Clinton's emails and she was not a correspondent in them. The emails embarrassed the DNC by showing that the national party favored Clinton over Bernie Sanders. But Clinton was already the certain nominee; nothing in the emails threatened that outcome or set her back in the race against Donald Trump.

The State Department and the FBI Distort What Papadopoulos 'Suggested'

Downer's flawed assumption that Papadopoulos must have been referring to the hacked DNC emails was then inflated into a Trump–Russia conspiracy theory by Clinton partisans in the Obama administration -- first at the State Department, and then in the Justice Department, the FBI, and the broader intelligence community -- all agencies in which animus against Donald Trump ran deep.

To recap, though Downer initially dismissed his conversation with Papadopoulos as trite gossip, he suddenly decided their discussion was significant after the hacked DNC emails were published. In late July, he personally went to the American embassy in London to report the two-month-old conversation to Elizabeth Dibble, the chargé d'affaires (i.e., the deputy chief of mission, who was running the embassy because Matthew Barzun, the U.S. ambassador and heavyweight Democratic-party fundraiser, was on vacation).

Although Papadopoulos is extensively quoted in the Mueller report, the prosecutors avoid any quote from Downer regarding what Papadopoulos told him at the meeting. This is consistent with Mueller's false-statements charge against Papadopoulos, which includes the aforementioned 14-page "Statement of the Offense" that studiously omits any reference to Papadopoulos's May meeting with Downer, notwithstanding that it was the most consequential event in Papadopoulos's case. (See pp. 7–8, in which the chronology skips from May 4 to May 13 as if nothing significant happened in between.)

Instead, Mueller carefully describes not what Papadopoulos said to Downer, but what Downer understood Papadopoulos had "suggested," namely that

the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton.

The "Trump Campaign" here is Papadopoulos; the "Russian government" is Mifsud. But Papadopoulos was as low-ranking as it got in the Trump campaign, and Mifsud -- the source of the "indications" -- was not part of the Russian government at all.

More to the point, even if it were mistakenly assumed that Mifsud was a Russian-government operative (notwithstanding that the FBI could easily have established that he was not), there is no evidence that Mifsud ever told Papadopoulos that the Russian government was planning to assist the Trump campaign by anonymously releasing information damaging to Clinton.

In his February 2017 FBI interview, Mifsud denied saying anything to Papadopoulos about Clinton-related emails in the possession of the Kremlin. Of course, Mifsud could be lying. But there is no evidence that he would have been in a position to know. As we've noted, Mueller never charged Mifsud with lying to the FBI. Interestingly, prosecutors allege that Mifsud "falsely" recounted the last time he had seen Papadopoulos; but prosecutors do not allege that Mifsud's denial of knowledge about Russia's possession of emails is false (Vol. I, p. 193).

Moreover, the Mueller report does not allege that Papadopoulos ever claimed Mifsud told him the Russians would try to help Trump by anonymously releasing information damaging to Clinton. Again, instead of quoting Papadopoulos, prosecutors repeatedly and disingenuously stress the "suggestion" that Papadopoulos purportedly made -- as if the relevant thing were the operation of Downer's mind rather than the words that Papadopoulos actually used.

Prosecutors acknowledge that Papadopoulos's conversation with Downer is "contained in the FBI case-opening document and related materials" (Vol. I, p. 89, n. 465). But Mueller's report does not quote these materials, even though it extensively quotes other investigative documents. Mueller does not tell us what Papadopoulos said.

Here is how the report puts it (Vol. I, p. 192) in explaining why Papadopoulos was interviewed in late January 2017 (my italics):

Investigators approached Papadopoulos for an interview based on his role as a foreign policy advisor to the Trump Campaign and his suggestion to a foreign government representative that Russia had indicated it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.

The "suggestion" that Papadopoulos said such a thing is sheer invention. Plainly, it is based on the wayward deduction by Downer and the State Department that Russia's anonymous publication (via WikiLeaks) of the hacked DNC emails must have been what Papadopoulos was talking about. But that is not what Papadopoulos was talking about.

Distorting Papadopoulos's Role to Obscure Reliance on the Steele Dossier

This deduction was not just unfounded but self-interested. The State Department (very much including the American embassy in London) was deeply in the tank for Clinton. Downer has a history with the Clintons that includes arranging a $25 million donation to the Clinton Foundation in 2006, when he was Australia's foreign minister and then-senator Hillary Clinton was the favorite to become U.S. president in 2008. For years, furthermore, Downer has been closely tied to British intelligence, which, like the British government broadly, was anti-Trump. (More on that in the future.)

The State Department's Dibble immediately sent Downer's information though government channels to the FBI.

About three weeks earlier, Victoria Nuland, the Obama administration's top State Department official for European and Eurasian affairs, had supported the FBI's request to meet former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele in London. Steele was the principal author of the Clinton-campaign-sponsored faux intelligence reports (the unverified "Steele dossier"), which claimed -- based on anonymous sources and multiple layers of hearsay -- that Russia was plotting to help Trump win the election, and that it had been holding compromising information about Hillary Clinton.

On July 5, agent Michael Gaeta, the FBI's legal attaché in Rome (who had worked with Steele on the FIFA soccer investigation when Steele was still with British intelligence), met with Steele at the latter's London office. Steele permitted him to read the first of the reports that, over time, would be compiled into the so-called dossier. An alarmed Gaeta is said to have told Steele, "I have to report this to headquarters."

It is inconceivable that Gaeta would have gone to the trouble of clearing his visit to London with the State Department and getting FBI headquarters to approve his trip, but then neglected to report to his headquarters what the source had told him -- to wit, that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to undermine the 2016 election.

As I have previously detailed , after the hacked DNC emails were published, Steele (whose sources had not foretold the hacking by Russia or publication by WikiLeaks) simply folded this event into his preexisting narrative of a Trump–Russia conspiracy.

Prior to early July, when the FBI began receiving Steele-dossier reports (which the State Department would also soon receive), the intelligence community -- particularly the CIA, under the direction of its hyperpolitical director, John Brennan -- had been theorizing that the Trump campaign was in a corrupt relationship with Russia. Thanks to the Steele dossier, even before Downer reported his conversation with Papadopoulos to the State Department, the Obama administration had already been operating on the theory that Russia was planning to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Clinton. They had already conveniently fit the hacked DNC emails into this theory.

Downer's report enabled the Obama administration to cover an investigative theory it was already pursuing with a report from a friendly foreign government, as if that report had triggered the Trump-Russia investigation . In order to pull that off, however, it was necessary to distort what Papadopoulos had told Downer.

To repeat, Papadopoulos never told Downer anything about emails . Moreover, the Mueller report provides no basis for Papadopoulos to have known that Russia was planning the anonymous release of information damaging to Clinton in order to help Trump; nor does the Mueller report allege that Papadopoulos actually told Downer such a thing.

The State Department's report to the FBI claiming that Papadopoulos had "suggested" these things to Downer was manufactured to portray a false connection between (a) what Papadopoulos told Downer and (b) the hacking and publication of the DNC emails. That false connection then became the rationale for formally opening the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation -- paper cover for an investigation of the Trump campaign that was already under way.

Editor's Note: This column has been amended to reflect that it is unclear whether the meeting between Papadopoulos and Downer occurred on May 6, 2016, or on May 10, 2016.

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review . @AndrewCMcCarthy

[May 13, 2019] EXPLOSIVE FOIA Documents Show Evidence of Weissmann/Mueller Entrapment Scheme

Notable quotes:
"... Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by the special counsel ; this is not prior to the 2016 election. The detail surrounds a series of events previously discussed { Go Deep } where George Papadopoulos was approached by a known CIA operative named Charles Tawil. ..."
"... In interviews Papadopoulos said he was uncomfortable with the way the encounters had taken place. He became suspect of Tawil's motives; something didn't feel right. Instead of keeping the cash, Papadopoulos gave the money to an attorney in Greece before traveling back to the U.S. on July 27th, 2017. ..."
"... Upon arrival at Dulles airport on July 27th, 2017, Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting. Papadopoulos was stopped and his bags were searched; however, he did not have the cash because he smartly left it in Greece with his lawyer. Papadopoulos was detained overnight by FBI agents, and questioned. ..."
"... [W]hen he was arrested [detained] at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from Munich, prosecutors had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint . The complaint would be filed the following morning and approved by Howell in Washington. ..."
"... All of it suggests something of a scramble, rather than a carefully prepared plan to take Papadopoulos into custody. ( more ) ..."
"... Papadopoulos has stated the special counsel threatened him with charges of acting as a unregistered agent for Israel. There's a clear picture here . ..."
"... #1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges. ..."
"... Andrew Weissmann was conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation; (2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering . All it needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S. ..."
"... Lastly, to repeat, this entire scenario was constructed by the DOJ/FBI team operation in 2017. The members of the Special Counsel were running the entrapment operation; the FBI agents were participating in the operation. This is not *investigating* criminal conduct; this is manufacturing criminal conduct. ..."
"... Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was in charge of the Mueller Special Counsel. ..."
"... The only way DAG Rosenstein and Robert Mueller didn't know about the operation is if they both claim that Andrew Weissmann was completely rogue and in control over the FBI agents. ..."
May 11, 2019 | theconservativetreehouse.com

Recently release FOIA documents into the special counsel team of Robert Mueller reveal the remarkable trail of a 2017 entrapment scheme conducted by Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to target George Papadopoulos.

[Hat Tip to Undercover Huber and Rosie Memos who have been reviewing documents .]

Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by the special counsel ; this is not prior to the 2016 election. The detail surrounds a series of events previously discussed { Go Deep } where George Papadopoulos was approached by a known CIA operative named Charles Tawil.

In 2017 George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona were approached in Greece by a known CIA/FBI operative , Charles Tawil. Mr. Tawil enlisted George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and invited him to Israel.

On June 8th, 2017, in Israel under very suspicious circumstances, where Papadopoulos felt very unnerved, Mr. Tawil hands him $10,000 in cash for future consultancy based on a $10k/month retainer .

On June 9th, 2017, according to his book, Papadopoulos and Tawil fly back to Cyprus.

... ... ...

In interviews Papadopoulos said he was uncomfortable with the way the encounters had taken place. He became suspect of Tawil's motives; something didn't feel right. Instead of keeping the cash, Papadopoulos gave the money to an attorney in Greece before traveling back to the U.S. on July 27th, 2017.

Upon arrival at Dulles airport on July 27th, 2017, Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting. Papadopoulos was stopped and his bags were searched; however, he did not have the cash because he smartly left it in Greece with his lawyer. Papadopoulos was detained overnight by FBI agents, and questioned.

[ ] Stanley said Papadopoulos arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Munich that touched down at about 7 p.m . on July 27, and the FBI intercepted him as soon as he got off the plane.

"He was arrested [detained] before he got to Customs and he was then held at the airport before being brought to a law enforcement office," Stanley recalled. ( link )

According to Politico :

[W]hen he was arrested [detained] at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from Munich, prosecutors had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint . The complaint would be filed the following morning and approved by Howell in Washington.

And when prosecutors filed the complaint the next day they got a spoken order from Howell to seal it, but followed up with a written request that they could take to the magistrate in Alexandria, where they showed up almost an hour later than she expected.

All of it suggests something of a scramble, rather than a carefully prepared plan to take Papadopoulos into custody. ( more )

Here's where the recent revelations come in. According to Andrew Weissmann's schedule on June 13th, 2017, he was in conversations surrounding the basis of a Cyprus Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT):

(Page #5 of FOIA pdf)

So overlaying the timeline:

6/8/17 US intelligence asset Charles Tawil gives George $10K cash in Israel 6/9/17 George Papadopoulos flies to Cyprus w $10K 6/13/17 Andrew Weissmann starts series of "Cyprus MLAT" meetings with FBI 6/13/17 Andrew Weissmann phone call w/ FBI Money Laundering and Asset Recovery "MLARS" section of FBI.

It would appear Weissmann was well aware of the Cyprus "Tawil operation" and engaged in communication regarding Cyprus. Additionally, he was discussing "Money Laundering and Asset Recovery" w/ FBI. [MLARS Link ]

Taken in combination with hindsight of the search for the cash, and lack of a pre-existing warrant at the airport, this is clear evidence of a coordinated operation to entrap Papadopoulos.

Remember, the preferred approach toward targeting Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos surrounded FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) lobbying violations. Papadopoulos has stated the special counsel threatened him with charges of acting as a unregistered agent for Israel. There's a clear picture here .

#1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges.

[A "laundering" charge applies if the money is illegally obtained. The FARA violation would be the *illegal* aspect making the treasury charges heavier. Note: the use of the airport baggage-check avoids the need for a search warrant.]

Andrew Weissmann was conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation; (2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering . All it needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S.

However, because Papadopoulos suspected something, and left the money in Greece with his lawyers, upon arrival at the airport the operation collapsed in reverse . No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy agreement (which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil who would have become a confidential informant and witness).

That operational collapse is why the FBI agents were "scrambling" at the airport and why they had no pre-existing criminal complaint. The entrapment's success was contingent upon the cash.

Lastly, to repeat, this entire scenario was constructed by the DOJ/FBI team operation in 2017. The members of the Special Counsel were running the entrapment operation; the FBI agents were participating in the operation. This is not *investigating* criminal conduct; this is manufacturing criminal conduct.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was in charge of the Mueller Special Counsel.

The only way DAG Rosenstein and Robert Mueller didn't know about the operation is if they both claim that Andrew Weissmann was completely rogue and in control over the FBI agents.

Oh, wait, what does the Mueller report say about the FBI agents and their chain-of-legal guidance and command?

... ... ...

With events happening in June/July 2017 Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, former FBI legal counsel Jim Baker, former Deputy FBI Director McCabe, together with current FBI legal counsel Dana Boente and current FBI Director Wray were what? Hoodwinked?

Yeah, ok. Sure.

I digress.

[May 13, 2019] Did Mueller Tap Fusion GPS And Steele To Assist His Anti-Trump Probe by Paul Sperry

Notable quotes:
"... They suspect the dossier creators may have been involved in Mueller's operation, and even had a hand in his final report, because the special counsel sent his team to London to meet with Steele within a few months of taking over the Russia collusion investigation in 2017. Also, Mueller's lead prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, had shared information he received from Fusion with the media. ..."
"... Mueller's reliance on the Steele dossier is raising questions because it occurred long after FBI Director James B. Comey described the dossier as "salacious and unverified." U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the report should be renamed "The Mueller Dossier," because he says it contains a lot of similar innuendo. ..."
"... Steele's 17-memo dossier alleged that the Trump campaign was involved in "a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation" with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor. It claimed this conspiracy "was managed on the Trump side by Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who was using foreign policy adviser Carter Page and others as intermediaries." ..."
"... Specifically, the dossier accused Page of secretly meeting with Kremlin officials in July 2016 to hatch a plot to release dirt on Hillary Clinton. And it accused Manafort of being corrupted by Russian President Vladimir Putin through his puppets in the Ukraine. ..."
May 09, 2019 | thefederalist.com
Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent more than $732,000 on outside contractors, including private investigators and researchers, records show, but his office refuses to say who they were. While it's not unusual for special government offices to outsource for services such as computer support, Mueller also hired contractors to compile "investigative reports" and other "information."

The arrangement has led congressional investigators, government watchdog groups and others to speculate that the private investigators and researchers who worked for the special counsel's office might have included Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, the private research firm that hired Steele to produce the Russia collusion dossier for the Clinton campaign.

They suspect the dossier creators may have been involved in Mueller's operation, and even had a hand in his final report, because the special counsel sent his team to London to meet with Steele within a few months of taking over the Russia collusion investigation in 2017. Also, Mueller's lead prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, had shared information he received from Fusion with the media.

Raising additional suspicions, Mueller's report recycles the general allegations leveled in the dossier. And taking a page from earlier surveillance-warrant applications in the Russia investigation, it cites as supporting evidence several articles -- including one by Yahoo! News -- that used Steele and Fusion as sources.

Mueller even kept alive one of the dossier's most obscene accusations -- that Moscow had "compromising tapes" of Trump with Russian hookers -- by slipping into a footnote an October 2016 text Trump lawyer Michael Cohen received from a "Russian businessman," who cryptically intimated, "Stopped flow of tapes from Russia."

Lawyers for the businessman, Giorgi Rtskhiladze (who is actually a Georgian American), are demanding a retraction of the footnote, arguing Mueller omitted the part of his text where he said he did not believe the rumor about the tapes, for which no evidence has ever surfaced.

Mueller's reliance on the Steele dossier is raising questions because it occurred long after FBI Director James B. Comey described the dossier as "salacious and unverified." U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the report should be renamed "The Mueller Dossier," because he says it contains a lot of similar innuendo.

Even though Mueller failed to corroborate key allegations leveled in the dossier, Nunes said his report twists key facts to put a collusion gloss on events. He also asserted that it selectively quotes from Trump campaign emails and omits exculpatory information in ways that cast the campaign's activities in the most sinister light.

Steele's 17-memo dossier alleged that the Trump campaign was involved in "a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation" with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor. It claimed this conspiracy "was managed on the Trump side by Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who was using foreign policy adviser Carter Page and others as intermediaries."

Specifically, the dossier accused Page of secretly meeting with Kremlin officials in July 2016 to hatch a plot to release dirt on Hillary Clinton. And it accused Manafort of being corrupted by Russian President Vladimir Putin through his puppets in the Ukraine.

Likewise, Mueller's report focuses on Manafort and Page and whether they "committed crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election." Though the investigation did not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government, the Mueller report implies there may be a kernel of truth to the dossier's charges.

"In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School," according to the section on him. "Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia."

"Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention," Mueller's narrative continued. "July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU [Russian intelligence] from the DNC." "Page acknowledged that he understood that the individuals he has associated with were members of the Russian intelligence services," the report added, implying that Page in the 2015 case (referenced above) knowingly cavorted with Russian spies, which echoes charges Steele made in his dossier.

But federal court records make it clear that Page did not know that those men were Russian agents. Mueller also left out of his report a detail RealClearInvestigations has previously reported: that Page was a cooperating witness in the case in question, helping the FBI eventually put a Russian agent behind bars in 2016.

Nor did Mueller see fit to include in his report another exculpatory detail revealed in agent Gregory Mohaghan's complaint and reported earlier by RCI -- namely, that the Russians privately referred to Page as "an idiot" who was unworthy of recruitment. Excluding such details is curious, given that the Mueller report quotes from the same FBI complaint and cites it in its footnotes. Similarly, in its section dealing with Manafort, the Mueller report echoes the dossier's claims that the Trump campaign chairman was in cahoots with the Kremlin, even though Mueller never charged him with conspiring to collude with Russia

The special prosecutor's report indicated that one of Manafort's Kremlin handlers was Konstantin Kilimnik. "Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's plan to win the election," it said. "That briefing encompassed the Campaign's messaging and its internal polling data. It also included discussion of 'battleground' states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota."

Except that this wouldn't have been an unusual conversation: Kilimnik was a longtime Manafort employee who ran the Ukraine office of his lobbying firm. Footnotes in Mueller's report show that Manafort shared campaign information to impress a former business partner, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who was suing him over financial losses. Mueller failed to tie the information exchange to Russian espionage. He also failed to mention that Deripaska is an FBI informant.

Mueller's team worked closely with dossier author Steele, a long-retired British intelligence officer who worked for the Clinton campaign. Mueller's investigators went to London to consult with Steele for at least two days in September 2017 while apparently using his dossier as an investigative road map and central theory to his collusion case. Steele now runs a private research and consulting firm in London, Orbis Business Intelligence.

It's not clear if Mueller's office paid Steele, but recently released FBI records show the bureau previously made a number of payments to him, and at one point during the 2016 campaign offered him $50,000 to continue his dossier research. Steele was also paid through the Clinton campaign, earning $168,000 for his work on the dossier.

Expenditure statements show that the Special Counsel's Office outsourced "investigative reports" and "information" to third-party contractors during Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian "collusion" during the 2016 presidential election. Over the past few months, Mueller's office has rejected several formal requests from RealClearInvestigations for contract details, including who was hired and how much they were paid.

Washington-based Judicial Watch suspects Mueller's office may have farmed out work to the private Washington research firm Fusion GPS or its subcontractor Steele, both of whom were paid by the Clinton camp during the 2016 presidential election. Several law enforcement and Hill sources who spoke with RCI also believe Steele and Fusion GPS were deputized in the investigation.

The government watchdog group has requested that the Justice Department turn over the contracting records, along with all budget requests Mueller submitted to the attorney general during his nearly two-year investigation. It's also requested all communications between the Special Counsel's Office and the private contractors it used. A Judicial Watch spokesman said its Freedom of Information Act request is pending.

Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined comment when asked specifically if Mueller's team hired or collaborated with Fusion GPS or any of its subcontractors. Mueller took over the FBI's Russia probe in May 2017, whereupon he hired many of the agents who handled Steele and pored over his dossier.

For the first reporting period ending Sept. 30, 2017, and covering just four months, the Special Counsel's Office reported paying $867 to unnamed contractors for "investigative reports/information," along with $3,554 in "miscellaneous" payments to contractors. In the next reporting period ending March 31, 2018, the office stopped breaking out investigative reports and information as a separate line item, lumping such contractual services under the category "Other," which accounted for a total of $10,812, or more than 4% of the total spending on outside contracts.

For the six months ending Sept. 30, 2018 -- the latest reporting period for which there is data -- Mueller's office showed a total of $310,732 in payments to outside contractors. For the first time, it did not break out such expenses into subcategories, though it noted that the lion's share of the $310,000 was spent on "IT services."

Mueller concluded his investigation and delivered his final report in March. The next expenditure report, for the period October 2018-March 2019, will cover contract work directly tied to compiling the report. Asked if the contracting details were classified, Carr demurred. If the information is not deemed classified, it must be made public, Judicial Watch maintains.

Republican critics on the Hill say Mueller's written narrative was slanted to give the impression there still might be something to the dossier's most salacious allegations, even though Mueller found no evidence corroborating them or establishing that Trump or his campaign coordinated or cooperated with Russian meddling in the election.

"Whoever wrote the report leaves you with the idea there's still something to all the allegations of collusion that were first promoted by the dossier," said a witness who was interviewed by Mueller's investigators late in the probe and is referenced in the report.

In a section on Donald Trump Jr., moreover, the report gives the misimpression that the president's oldest son was collaborating with WikiLeaks on the release of the Clinton campaign emails. "Donald Trump Jr. had direct electronic communications with WikiLeaks during the campaign period," it stated.

In fact, Trump got an unsolicited message through his Twitter account from WikiLeaks. He described the outreach as "weird" in an email to senior Trump campaign staff at the time. Other contemporaneous messages make it clear he had no advance knowledge about any Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks.

The FBI first began receiving memos from Steele's dossier in early July 2016 and used the documents as the foundation for its October 2016 application for a warrant to wiretap the private communications of Page. These milestones are missing from the Mueller report's chronology of events. In fact, neither Steele nor his dossier is mentioned by name anywhere in the first half of the report dealing with collusion, though their allegations are hashed out.

Some Mueller critics are focused on the role played by his top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, a Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter with longstanding ties to Steele and Fusion GPS.

"Weissman had a lot to do with the way the report was written," said author Jerome Corsi, who, as a friend of Trump confidant Roger Stone, was targeted by Mueller. "That's why it's basically a political document." Corsi said he spent more than 40 hours with Mueller's prosecutors and investigators, who grilled him about possible ties to WikiLeaks but never charged him with a crime.

Formerly a top Justice Department official under Obama, Weissmann not only donated to Clinton's presidential campaign but also attended her election-night party in New York City in November 2016. Three months earlier, he was briefed on Steele's dossier and other dirt provided by the Clinton contractor and paid FBI informant.

In early 2017, Weissmann helped advance the Russia collusion narrative by personally sharing Steele's and Fusion's dirt on Trump and his advisers with Washington reporters. In an April 2017 meeting he arranged at his office, Weissmann gave guidance to four Associated Press reporters who were investigating Manafort, according to internal FBI documents.

Among other things, they discussed rumors that Manafort used "some of the money from shell companies to buy expensive suits." A month later, Weissmann became the lead prosecutor handling the Manafort case for Mueller. His February 2018 indictment of Manafort highlights, among other things, the Trump adviser's taste for expensive suits. Attempts to reach Weissmann for comment were unsuccessful.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said there are signs Mueller may have hired "researchers" like Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who worked with Steele on the dossier, along with Edward Baumgartner and Nellie Ohr, who have worked for Fusion GPS, which originally hired Steele in June 2016 after contracting with the Clinton campaign.

"I ran into Glenn at the 2017 Aspen Security [Forum], and I distinctly remember him leaning in and claiming he was working for the government," said one associate, who wished to remain anonymous. Congressional investigators say Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, has been feeding Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate investigative tips regarding Trump and his associates, including Manafort. In 2017, for instance, he urged Democrats specifically to look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank, which has financed some of Trump's businesses, because he suspected some of the funding may have been laundered through Russia.

Around the time Simpson began coordinating with Democratic investigators looking into Trump's bank records, Mueller subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for financial records for Manafort and other individuals affiliated with Trump. Simpson did not return calls and emails seeking comment.

Founded by the journalist-turned-opposition researcher, Fusion has rehired Steele to continue his anti-Trump work with millions of dollars in left-wing funding from The Democracy Integrity Project, a Washington-based nonprofit started in 2017 by former FBI analyst Daniel Jones, who also worked for Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In March 2017, Jones met with FBI agents to provide them data he collected from IT specialists he hired to analyze web traffic between servers maintained by the Trump Organization and a Russian bank mentioned in the dossier. The traffic turned out to be innocuous marketing emails, or spam.

This article originally appeared on RealClearInvestigations , and is reprinted with permission.

Investigative journalist Paul Sperry is a regular contributor to RealClearInvestigations and has written news or op-ed pieces for the New York Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal. His books include 'The Great American Bank Robbery' (2011), and 'Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism' (2003).

[May 13, 2019] Russiagate Zealotry Continues To Endanger Western National Security

It is true that "Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political scandal in modern American history."
Notable quotes:
"... But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. ..."
"... A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war. ..."
"... To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. ..."
"... Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.) ..."
"... Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper. ..."
"... Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul." ..."
"... It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security. ..."
"... That, doc, is the raison d'etre of Russiagate. That's how far this coup d'etat in Washington has gotten. The showrunners/secret coupsters finally going public with the previously surmised fact that they, not Trump, are running the show and that DJT is just their official tweetsman. ..."
"... So fake news and fake collusion now rule the country? NOT! The President has more power now then he had prior to the Mueller Report being released, the report shows clear obstruction from the Mueller team as they failed to do the basics in investigation, ..."
"... the Mainstream Media has become a threat to democracy and the number one enemy of the American People while "endangering national security" for us all. ..."
"... The mainstream media is a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Military-Industrial complex, via secret government programs such as Operation Mockingbird and doubtless several others. ..."
May 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Russiagate Zealotry Continues To Endanger Western National Security

by Tyler Durden Sun, 05/12/2019 - 23:30 3 SHARES Authored by Stephen Cohen via The Nation,

If Venezuela becomes a Cuban Missile–like Crisis, will Trump be free to resolve it peacefully?

Now in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at TheNation.com and my recent book War With Russia? -- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.

Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of journalistic malpractice in modern times .

But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example in July 2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president had done since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy, Trump was widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another alarming example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of Russiagate zealots.

On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report. (As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of its members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.)

A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.

To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. To take some random examples:

None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military confrontation over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War. Indeed, retired admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and formerly associated with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyberattacks.

Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper.

Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."

It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.


Real Estate Guru , 16 minutes ago link

President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: "the director is protecting the coup gang"
Posted on May 12, 2019 by sundance
This is good to see. Finally President Trump indicates he is well aware of the intents and motives of FBI Director Christopher Wray covering for the illegal coup effort:

President Trump may have been aware of Chris Wray's corrupt disposition prior to today; however, this is the first visible indication he understands the internecine organization of it. Hopefully we can start the countdown clock to Wray's exit.

Next up, Chris Wray's #1 strategic hire, current FBI Legal Counsel Dana Boente.

Real Estate Guru , 20 minutes ago link

President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: 'The FBI Has No Leadership; The Director is Protecting the Same Gang That Tried to Overthrow the President Through an Illegal Coup'....

He will be fired soon.

francis scott falseflag , 25 minutes ago link

Russiagate deprives ... a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis

That, doc, is the raison d'etre of Russiagate. That's how far this coup d'etat in Washington has gotten. The showrunners/secret coupsters finally going public with the previously surmised fact that they, not Trump, are running the show and that DJT is just their official tweetsman.

Sounds right to me.

would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962?

But Trump wouldn't be the one peacefully resolving anything. He was deprived of it by more important powers that be. So he'll only get an award from the MSM for his portrayal/impression of a 21st Century American statesman/politician.

Which will set the bar quite high for future Trumps-to-come.

VWAndy , 1 hour ago link

Corruption is the biggest threat to mankind. All this other stuff is just for show.

TeethVillage88s , 51 minutes ago link

GWB seized all kinds of power after 911, Bill Clinton got big power for Fast Track of WTO & NAFTA, Presidential Signing Orders or Executive Powers become Increased as I remember under GWB then expanded under Obama, Bill Clinton took extended time in bombing campaign in Balkans above congressional war powers act, but GWB seemed to have complete war powers in his admin, Dirty War Powers included,... Point is that Democrats & Republicans, the Money Party, the One Party conveniently forget that powers granted to Dems or GOP... are then available in corrupt universe of USSA...

Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk

How will Dims feel when the Next Obama get in and people want to witch hunt all his first phone calls for foreign leaders?

HopefulJoe , 1 hour ago link

So fake news and fake collusion now rule the country? NOT! The President has more power now then he had prior to the Mueller Report being released, the report shows clear obstruction from the Mueller team as they failed to do the basics in investigation, they also purposefully ignored the obvious to continue with the fake investigation in order to impede the President. The President is now more powerful as ever as the slow and methodical take down of the left deep state continues. In the coming weeks it will become more and more evident to the masses that the President was clearly correct and the attempted coupe of the President was real and has failed. The mainstream media will become even less relevant despite all of their efforts.

Congress will soon have no choice but to act in protecting free speech and the hand of all the CIA controlled media will be tied and bound for generations to come...

libtears , 1 hour ago link

The real Russia Gate is the Russians got all the classified emails from Hillarys server

VWAndy , 1 hour ago link

Everyone saw them except the US genpop. Russia,China,Israeli, UK everyone. Thats what she was selling is my guess. Prolly had the whole fn country up for sale. Like a ebay for selling off everything. Cops, judges, senators and congress people. Who is to say they were not just selling it off by the slice like pizza?

CaptainObvious , 1 hour ago link

And the Chinese, and the Koreans. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to find the Nigerian scammers got a piece of that action.

LEEPERMAX , 2 hours ago link

THE RUSSIAGATE SCAM has shown us . . .

the Mainstream Media has become a threat to democracy and the number one enemy of the American People while "endangering national security" for us all.

IntercoursetheEU , 1 hour ago link

Christoper Steele is still at work: https://twitter.com/PoliPsyche/status/1127015531654070277

r0mulus , 1 hour ago link

The mainstream media is a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Military-Industrial complex, via secret government programs such as Operation Mockingbird and doubtless several others.

It is likely that the MIC, long puppeteered by shadowy financial forces through the Federal Reserve and Bank of England, is doing everything it can to prevent Trump from disturbing it's long running plans to encircle and subdue Russia via Mackinder's "Heartland" theory. Preventing Trump from reaching across the divide to constructively engage with Putin and Russia to break the economic stranglehold on their country is paramount to their strategy.

One would be right to wonder why the British government is so intimately engaged in all of these provocations. Could it be that they fear a loss of power and influence that could result from a continental Europe more closely aligned with Russian interests? This question is central to our current dilemma here in the states, unfortunately.

It's absolutely vital that the American people learn of the treachery of the British elites before it is too late. Perfidious Albion, indeed...

Real Estate Guru , 2 hours ago link

Compared to Nadler, Pelosi, Schiff, Waters, Comey, Hillary, Obama, Mueller, the MSM, CNN, PMSNBC, and all the rest of the loonatic left, Uncle Vladmmir Putin looks pretty good!

Dasvadaniya comrades!! (of course I am kidding you schmucks!)

LMAO!! what a joke these people are.

Do the declass Trump! And the IG Report!!! NOW!!!

[May 12, 2019] The Mother Conspiracy -- Who Launched the Russia Hoax

Notable quotes:
"... Comey letting Hillary and her emails skate were clue number one someone was colluding, and it wasn't Trump. I really think this whole mess belongs to the Clintons and Barack Obama. Stealing the primary from Bernie was just the warm up. It would explain why he is so pissed at her for losing. With her in office, none of this would be a topic let alone a threat. With Trump and the GOP at the helm, the digging isn't going to stop. ..."
"... Comey will claim that everything he did in the FBI was by the book. But after the investigations by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney John Huber, along with Barr's promised examination, are completed, Comey's mishandling of the FBI and legal processes likely will be fully exposed. ..."
"... Obama knew that Trump's son-in-law Jared was close to Netanyahu. It would surprise me if Jared and Ivanka were spied upon long before 2016. The FISA debacle revelations may yet disclose that BHO was spying on Jared long before 2016. ..."
"... If I recall correctly, Obama's stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was close to General Suharto, who overthrew Sukarno, a long-time thorn in the CIA's paw. Following the coup there were mass slaughters of Indonesians hinted to be communist. The murderous rage became in a very large part racial, targeting ethnic Chinese. The coup consolidated the CIA's power there, which helped to protect US investments. ..."
"... The point being that the CIA has long used women agents overseas for various purposes. Obama is not a Muslim. In fact, most world leaders who are identified by their religions aren't most aligned to religions but to the ruling class. ..."
"... Would you define Mafia godfathers from their Catholic faith? Would Dubya be best defined as a Methodist? I'd suggest that George W's father's and grandfather's connections to secret societies, treasonous Wall Streeters and eventually the CIA all are the more important ways of examining the motives in his mind, in their minds. ..."
"... In fact, Obama by his actions fanned the flames of jihadist hatred by his illegal regime change wars. He knew what he was doing (or not doing) but only cared about legacy and money. Please show me my errors in this comment. ..."
"... They are outer-directed, uncritically reactive, and conforming. They trample the boundaries of their own morality, cheering on wars and war criminals in their midst. It's been a sorry thing to watch. ..."
"... I know Huma and Hillary go together like a horse and carriage, but how her husband got trusted with that data is beyond me. It shows a carelessness that kind of astounds me, though, after Clinton left that server of hers without a password for six weeks, nothing should astound me. ..."
May 12, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

Pluto's Republic on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 3:38pm

In recent months, a number of Inspectors have been quietly deployed to look into such matters as the abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was fraudulently used against a presidential candidate in order to sabotage his campaign and/or presidency. The findings on this are expected sometime next month.

To discover how how the Russia Hoax was initially launched, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, has been looking into spying reports centered on Donald Trump that began in early 2016, long before FISA warrants were acquired in September of that year.

The investigation looks at spying that was done by foreign intelligence services, including the UK, to skirt laws that bar US intelligence from spying on American citizens. Of particular interest are the damaging and manipulative intelligence leaks made to the media by US intelligence services, including the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA.

dkmich on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 5:06pm
Where is Strzok now?

Comey letting Hillary and her emails skate were clue number one someone was colluding, and it wasn't Trump. I really think this whole mess belongs to the Clintons and Barack Obama. Stealing the primary from Bernie was just the warm up. It would explain why he is so pissed at her for losing. With her in office, none of this would be a topic let alone a threat. With Trump and the GOP at the helm, the digging isn't going to stop.

Pluto's Republic on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 8:06pm
The man in the hot seat is James Comey.

@dkmich

...if anyone takes the fall, it will be Comey.

The FBI's former Assistant Director of Intelligence - Kevin R. Brock - wrote an Op-Ed today titled "James Comey is in trouble and he knows it."

James Comey's planet is getting noticeably warmer. Attorney General William Barr's emissions are the suspected cause.

Barr has made plain that he intends to examine carefully how and why Comey, as FBI director, decided that the bureau should investigate two presidential campaigns and if, in so doing, any rules or laws were broken.

Oh, right. Comey was investigating both presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. That is a problem, right there. Comey would be picking a winner for the nation.

Comey will claim that everything he did in the FBI was by the book. But after the investigations by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney John Huber, along with Barr's promised examination, are completed, Comey's mishandling of the FBI and legal processes likely will be fully exposed.

Ideally, Barr's examination will aggregate information that addresses three primary streams.

  1. The first will be whether the investigations into both presidential nominees and the Trump campaign were adequately, in Barr's words, "predicated." This means he will examine whether there was sufficient justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place.
  2. The second will be whether Comey's team obeyed long-established investigative guidelines while conducting the investigations and, specifically, if there was sufficient, truthful justification to lawfully conduct electronic surveillance of an American citizen.
  3. The third will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree head spins.

There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA director.

So, who is he talking about? He is referring to James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, and most particularly James Brennan, the former CIA Director. A motley crew of Obama Administration miscreants if ever there was one..

Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 05/11/2019 - 6:14pm
I don't know if Comey's dirtier than Mueller--

@Pluto's Republic

and I'm sure he's not dirtier than Brennan. But Brennan gets away with everything.

Alligator Ed on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 5:42pm
George Papadopolous thinks Obama's team

began spying on him long before 2016, even 2015. This he has recently stated was because of GP's working relationship with Israel. His expertise is in energy development and he has worked on a deal with Israel and Cypress to develop Cypriot oil development and associated pipelines. Obama had no love for Israel and the Republican-controlled Congress at the time had Netanyahu address them without notifying the Empty Suit in advance.

Warning: conspiracy theory ahead.

It seems entirely reasonable to believe BHO is a muslim:
1. His father was muslim
2. His stepfather was muslim
3. W. bin Talal paid for his American education.
4. His CIA director is muslim

I know, guilt by association is a possible logical fallacy--but sometimes true. Although forensic analyses of his Hawaiian birth certificate have shown overwrites and inconsistencies, does not prove he is a muslim. And what Church did he belong to in Chicago--one headed by Rev. Goddam America Wright, an "ex-muslim". Pictures show him next to Louis Farrakhan. Circumstantial. Yet how many coincidences does one need to make the case?

Obama famously derided the terrorist organization he helped create, ISIS, as "the J.V." enemy, which for some reason always escaped decimation in Syria while B. Hussein micromanaged the war. And this is the guy who never could bring himself to say "Radical Islamists".

Obama knew that Trump's son-in-law Jared was close to Netanyahu. It would surprise me if Jared and Ivanka were spied upon long before 2016. The FISA debacle revelations may yet disclose that BHO was spying on Jared long before 2016.

on the cusp on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 7:06pm
They probably did start the spying early on.

@Alligator Ed As for ct, I read somewhere within the past few weeks that the term "conspiracy theory" is a term coined by the CIA to discredit and shame skeptics of the official story. I doubt I could trace back to the source. Whereas I once thought of it in the realm of right wing nut jobs, I think it is high time lefties risk the criticism, question, look at the facts, come up with their theories.

I was unaware of (2), (3), or (4) on your list. I want to say, hmm.... makes you wonder, doesn't it.

The Voice In th... on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 9:40pm
I was unaware about (3) and (4)

@on the cusp
(4) in particular makes me think that the Mideast wars were about using the US military as cat's paws in internal Muslim power struggles.

The Liberal Moonbat on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 6:18am
You're kidding, right?

@Alligator Ed First of all, your 'evidence' is flimsier than Marylin Monroe's skirt. You can connect me to numerous Catholics in many ways and on many levels, none of that makes me one (as my repeat rejection from the Jesuit high school I wanted to go to because I had friends who were would demonstrate).

Second, as Colin Powell (the one and only member of the Bush Regime I'd remotely consider forgiving) so succinctly put it, so what if he were?

How could ibn Saud and Yunus both be Muslims?
How could Hitler and Tolkien both be Catholics?
How could Bush and King both be Protestants?
How could Mao and Camus both be Communists?
How could Steinem and Paglia both be feminists?
How could Foucault and Chomsky both be leftists?
How could Trump and Lincoln both be Republicans?

Because the whole concept of marching under banners is a deception-weaving crock of shit, that's why - and deriving meaning from pointing at those banners might be the only thing that's even worse.

Bob In Portland on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 10:54am
There are clues in Obama's background, but they aren't

@The Liberal Moonbat religious.

If I recall correctly, Obama's stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was close to General Suharto, who overthrew Sukarno, a long-time thorn in the CIA's paw. Following the coup there were mass slaughters of Indonesians hinted to be communist. The murderous rage became in a very large part racial, targeting ethnic Chinese. The coup consolidated the CIA's power there, which helped to protect US investments.

Despite Obama's description of what a nice guy his step-father was, being a part of a murderous genocidal administration seems to offer an alternate view. Sort of like saying that being on Allende's staff could be excused because your step-father had nice table manners.

If we could step back, there were other interesting cases of the CIA sending female agents overseas in the fifties and sixties. Lee Harvey Oswald's aunt, ostensibly a school teacher, did a lot of world traveling. Long before she became a feminist Gloria Steinem traveled overseas, observing. After that Steinem worked for the CIA running a propaganda shop at an International Students Festival and additionally sent reports back to what I would describe as Deep State figures.

A few years later, after Steinem wrote about being a Playboy bunny memos started circulating in the FBI and CIA about using the feminist movement to divide the Black power and anti-war movements.

The point being that the CIA has long used women agents overseas for various purposes. Obama is not a Muslim. In fact, most world leaders who are identified by their religions aren't most aligned to religions but to the ruling class. And the ruling class has always used religion to control the masses. Pharaohs were gods, European kings and emperors started wars justified by God. Even presidents throw in a line about the "grace of God" before bombing the crap out of somewhere. It's a thing. Even the House of Saud, supposedly the most devout group of Salafists in the world, actually weren't particularly happy housing numbers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia proper, but found them useful as terrorist bombers, soldiers of fortune as the Mujahadeen, al Qaeda, ISIS and numerous other uses.

Would you define Mafia godfathers from their Catholic faith? Would Dubya be best defined as a Methodist? I'd suggest that George W's father's and grandfather's connections to secret societies, treasonous Wall Streeters and eventually the CIA all are the more important ways of examining the motives in his mind, in their minds.

Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 05/11/2019 - 6:13pm
Is it credible to think that religious faith plays much of a

@Alligator Ed

role in Obama's thinking or decisions? I know none of us knows what goes on in his head, but he seems like a realpolitik sort to me.

Alligator Ed on Sat, 05/11/2019 - 7:09pm
Although tenuous the Muslim connection is not religious per se

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal but he mentally/ideologically aligned with the jihadist mindset. Obama did not advance real American interests at home. Name one. Where was his condemnation of police violence against unarmed, mostly minority citizens? Where was his dedication to social welfare when he invented his phony "grand bargain"? Where was his concern for healthcare reform as opposed to promoting insurance company welfare enacted into the ACA? Where was his peaceful transition of power when Trump won? Where was his "compassionate foreign policy, consisting of initiating a totally disreputable war in Syria? Where was his morality and ethics when he abetted Killary in destroying Libya?

In fact, Obama by his actions fanned the flames of jihadist hatred by his illegal regime change wars. He knew what he was doing (or not doing) but only cared about legacy and money. Please show me my errors in this comment.

#2

role in Obama's thinking or decisions?

I know none of us knows what goes on in his head, but he seems like a realpolitik sort to me.

snoopydawg on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 7:16pm
Direct ties of the Obama administration to Steele

Both articles are worth reading. I was going to essay them, but I don't have the energy. But it sure seems that the truth is coming out about how the Obama administration along with Hillary's campaign and with full blessings from the democrats tried to entrap people from Trump's campaign and say that he was a Russian asset. If they lied about that then what else did they lie about? That Russia interfered with the election so much that it cost Hillary the win? How? Mostly we here that some company with close ties to Vlad placed some ads on Facebook and after 12 Russian generals hacked the DNC they sent them to Assange who then released them. If this is all it takes to upset an election Israel should take notes. No more spending millions on the candidates of their choice.

Steele's stunning pre-FISA confession: Informant needed to air Trump dirt before election

This article also shows how the US and British intelligence agencies tried to entrap Trump and members of his team as an agent of Russia.

How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election

The preponderance of evidence makes this very simple–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia.

How so many people can believe that Trump is doing Vlad's bidding is just beyond my comprehension. That the republicans or the democrats would just sit back while Mueller took his time investigating it is beyond stupid,

Pluto's Republic on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 7:01am
Until they drop the dangerous Russian delusion

@snoopydawg

...and stop pandering to the Neocon's obsession with Empire, they cannot get rid of Trump. Their plans continuously fall apart because they are not rooted in reality. They've been misguided by the lies of intelligence community. Misinformed by the media. For two years they've been distracted and betrayed by Mueller's empty investigation. They've been weakened and confused by conforming to the corrupt elements in their Party. They are now convinced that AG Barr is their enemy, but watch this fall apart. By the end of May, Barr will own the narrative.

Clutching this cold-war phantom (that haunts their minds) and refusing to see the world as it is, blinds them to the real crimes and compromises the nation is engaged in. They are unconsciously collaborating with decadence and evil. They have done nothing to reform the corruption in the Party. They are outer-directed, uncritically reactive, and conforming. They trample the boundaries of their own morality, cheering on wars and war criminals in their midst. It's been a sorry thing to watch.

If the Democrats can impeach the President for a real crime -- one that was actually committed -- they should probably act before the election. This long, slow, false-flag catastrophe we've endured since 2016 bodes poorly for the Party. The Left and the Centrists can no longer share one Party and they will never come together or unify around a platform. The Left -- the People, Populists, Laborers, and Workers -- need to occupy their own political space, where they can negotiate as a coalition on behalf of a better society. The urgency of Big Change is already upon us; in ten years the political landscape will be transformed.

Because we are lagging behind where we should be, and competing politically where we shouldn't be, the Republicans may win another term in 2020. The Left cannot come together behind a Neoliberal candidate and the Party bosses willl not permit a Left or Socialist candidate. Hatred toward Trump is not enough to unite us, and that kind of thinking returns us to "more of the same" and continued "social decay." Time spent uncommitted to building the New People's Party is time wasted. Things are pretty clear when you are this close to the finish line.

Alligator Ed on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 12:17pm
Wonderful, succinct description of the Demonrats

@Pluto's Republic

They are outer-directed, uncritically reactive, and conforming. They trample the boundaries of their own morality, cheering on wars and war criminals in their midst. It's been a sorry thing to watch.

This also applies to most Republicans, with possible exception of Libertarians like Rand Paul.

There is no doubt in my mind that the inherent schism between the left of the left-center Dims will split away from the existing party establishment. This will especially prove true when the Clintonites steal another primary from Bernie. Absent that, the already visible dichotomy in the two Dim factions cannot but speed this disintegration of their party. Time waits for no one, including politicians. The
Dems failed to perform a long overdue political autopsy to their now-evident peril. The forthcoming
Trump landslide will immolate the sick beast known as the Democrat party. No residue will remain
upon which to perform an autopsy.

P.S. Joe Biden? Seriously. Not only is this conniving bastard a sniff-and-touch creep, but also an admittedly corrupt one. He threatened Ukraine with blocking a $1B loan guarantee unless the Hunter Biden/Borisma investigation was stopped. And Biden boasted about doing so.

The Voice In th... on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 3:51pm
That will be a Good Thing

@Alligator Ed

Trump landslide will immolate the sick beast known as the Democrat party. No residue will remain upon which to perform an autopsy.

Like the Whig Party. I only hope the DSA doesn't go away like the Free Silver Party or the People's Party.

Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 05/11/2019 - 6:11pm
His actions in Venezuela should have put that idea

@snoopydawg

to rest long since. To say nothing of the Trump administration's attitude toward Iran.

Putin puppet? While he attacks Russia's client states?

wendy davis on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 9:50pm
even scanning your OP

and some of the comments cause me to wonder whether these tweets from judicial watch have any current value to your discussion. but, here they are in any event; maybe the dates signify that they're just history or worthless.

Judicial Watch announced it received 756 pages of newly uncovered emails that were among the materials former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to delete or destroy, several of which were classified.
https://t.co/INxKem5PLX

-- Judicial Watch (@JudicialWatch) May 5, 2019

JW announced that a senior FBI official admitted, in writing and under oath, that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President. https://t.co/W0YV9yQhYZ

-- Judicial Watch (@JudicialWatch) May 5, 2019

Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 05/11/2019 - 6:07pm
I've always felt it was really weird that those emails were

@wendy davis

on Weiner's laptop--after the first Weiner scandal!

I know Huma and Hillary go together like a horse and carriage, but how her husband got trusted with that data is beyond me. It shows a carelessness that kind of astounds me, though, after Clinton left that server of hers without a password for six weeks, nothing should astound me.

and some of the comments cause me to wonder whether these tweets from judicial watch have any current value to your discussion. but, here they are in any event; maybe the dates signify that they're just history or worthless.

Judicial Watch announced it received 756 pages of newly uncovered emails that were among the materials former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to delete or destroy, several of which were classified.
https://t.co/INxKem5PLX

-- Judicial Watch (@JudicialWatch) May 5, 2019

JW announced that a senior FBI official admitted, in writing and under oath, that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President. https://t.co/W0YV9yQhYZ

-- Judicial Watch (@JudicialWatch) May 5, 2019

gjohnsit on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 11:09pm
Early Russophobia

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WBPBdW2wXpc

TheOtherMaven on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 12:37pm
But Zombie Lies *never* die!

@mimi

that this mother of conspiracy will be a thing of the past and buried on nice graveyard stone:
Here lies the mother of all conspiracies.

Right or wrong?

Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 05/11/2019 - 6:04pm
John Brennan is a poisonous cockatrice

I always assume that those close to, or holding, actual power tend to be out of the public eye more than in. Like George H. W. Bush, Brennan is one of the public figures who resides pretty close to actual power. That's just my conclusion, based on the places he turns up, the jobs he holds, when he exercises his influence and how.

Nasty fellow. Right up there with Stanley McChrystal.

[May 11, 2019] Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire by KENNETH P. VOGEL and DAVID STERN

Notable quotes:
"... In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well. ..."
"... Both Shulyar and Chalupa said the purpose of their initial meeting was to organize a June reception at the embassy to promote Ukraine. According to the embassy's website, the event highlighted female Ukrainian leaders, featuring speeches by Ukrainian parliamentarian Hanna Hopko, who discussed "Ukraine's fight against the Russian aggression in Donbas," and longtime Hillary Clinton confidante Melanne Verveer, who worked for Clinton in the State Department and was a vocal surrogate during the presidential campaign. ..."
"... Almost as quickly as Chalupa's efforts attracted the attention of the Ukrainian Embassy and Democrats, she also found herself the subject of some unwanted attention from overseas. ..."
"... Chalupa, though, indicated in an email that was later hacked and released by WikiLeaks that the Open World Leadership Center "put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort." ..."
"... In the email, which was sent in early May to then-DNC communications director Luis Miranda, Chalupa noted that she had extended an invitation to the Library of Congress forum to veteran Washington investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. Two days before the event, he had published a story for Yahoo News revealing the unraveling of a $26 million deal between Manafort and a Russian oligarch related to a telecommunications venture in Ukraine. And Chalupa wrote in the email she'd been "working with for the past few weeks" with Isikoff "and connected him to the Ukrainians" at the event. ..."
"... A DNC official stressed that Chalupa was a consultant paid to do outreach for the party's political department, not a researcher. She undertook her investigations into Trump, Manafort and Russia on her own, and the party did not incorporate her findings in its dossiers on the subjects, the official said, stressing that the DNC had been building robust research books on Trump and his ties to Russia long before Chalupa began sounding alarms. ..."
"... Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a Ukrainian former diplomat who served as the country's head of security under Poroshenko but is now affiliated with a leading opponent of Poroshenko, said it was fishy that "only one part of the black ledger appeared." He asked, "Where is the handwriting analysis?" and said it was "crazy" to announce an investigation based on the ledgers. He met last month in Washington with Trump allies, and said, "of course they all recognize that our [anti-corruption bureau] intervened in the presidential campaign." ..."
"... Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, Arsen Avakov, piled on, trashing Trump on Twitter in July as a "clown" and asserting that Trump is "an even bigger danger to the US than terrorism." ..."
"... Avakov, in a Facebook post, lashed out at Trump for his confusing Crimea comments, calling the assessment the "diagnosis of a dangerous misfit," according to a translated screenshot featured in one media report, though he later deleted the post. He called Trump "dangerous for Ukraine and the US" and noted that Manafort worked with Yanukovych when the former Ukrainian leader "fled to Russia through Crimea. Where would Manafort lead Trump?" ..."
Jan 11, 2017 | www.politico.com

Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.

In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well.

She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Chalupa said. In January 2016 -- months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump's campaign -- Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, "I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. "And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was "Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."

he said she shared her concern with Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn't particularly concerned about the operative's ties to Trump since he didn't believe Trump stood much of a chance of winning the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency.

That was not an uncommon view at the time, and, perhaps as a result, Trump's ties to Russia -- let alone Manafort's -- were not the subject of much attention.
That all started to change just four days after Chalupa's meeting at the embassy, when it was reported that Trump had in fact hired Manafort, suggesting that Chalupa may have been on to something. She quickly found herself in high demand. The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation.

A former DNC staffer described the exchange as an "informal conversation," saying "'briefing' makes it sound way too formal," and adding, "We were not directing or driving her work on this." Yet, the former DNC staffer and the operative familiar with the situation agreed that with the DNC's encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort's ties to Yanukovych.

While the embassy declined that request, officials there became "helpful" in Chalupa's efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them. "If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with." But she stressed, "There were no documents given, nothing like that."

Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions. She added, though, "they were being very protective and not speaking to the press as much as they should have. I think they were being careful because their situation was that they had to be very, very careful because they could not pick sides. It's a political issue, and they didn't want to get involved politically because they couldn't."

Shulyar vehemently denied working with reporters or with Chalupa on anything related to Trump or Manafort, explaining "we were stormed by many reporters to comment on this subject, but our clear and adamant position was not to give any comment [and] not to interfere into the campaign affairs."

Both Shulyar and Chalupa said the purpose of their initial meeting was to organize a June reception at the embassy to promote Ukraine. According to the embassy's website, the event highlighted female Ukrainian leaders, featuring speeches by Ukrainian parliamentarian Hanna Hopko, who discussed "Ukraine's fight against the Russian aggression in Donbas," and longtime Hillary Clinton confidante Melanne Verveer, who worked for Clinton in the State Department and was a vocal surrogate during the presidential campaign.

Shulyar said her work with Chalupa "didn't involve the campaign," and she specifically stressed that "We have never worked to research and disseminate damaging information about Donald Trump and Paul Manafort."

But Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. "Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa," recalled Telizhenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev. "They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa," he said, adding "Oksana was keeping it all quiet," but "the embassy worked very closely with" Chalupa.

In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet's ongoing investigation into Manafort.

Telizhenko recalled that Chalupa told him and Shulyar that, "If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump's involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September."

Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort's hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. But, Chalupa said, "It didn't go anywhere."

Asked about the effort, the Kaptur legislative assistant called it a "touchy subject" in an internal email to colleagues that was accidentally forwarded to Politico.

Kaptur's office later emailed an official statement explaining that the lawmaker is backing a bill to create an independent commission to investigate "possible outside interference in our elections." The office added "at this time, the evidence related to this matter points to Russia, but Congresswoman Kaptur is concerned with any evidence of foreign entities interfering in our elections."

•••

Almost as quickly as Chalupa's efforts attracted the attention of the Ukrainian Embassy and Democrats, she also found herself the subject of some unwanted attention from overseas.

Within a few weeks of her initial meeting at the embassy with Shulyar and Chaly, Chalupa on April 20 received the first of what became a series of messages from the administrators of her private Yahoo email account, warning her that "state-sponsored actors" were trying to hack into her emails.

She kept up her crusade, appearing on a panel a week after the initial hacking message to discuss her research on Manafort with a group of Ukrainian investigative journalists gathered at the Library of Congress for a program sponsored by a U.S. congressional agency called the Open World Leadership Center.

Center spokeswoman Maura Shelden stressed that her group is nonpartisan and ensures "that our delegations hear from both sides of the aisle, receiving bipartisan information." She said the Ukrainian journalists in subsequent days met with Republican officials in North Carolina and elsewhere. And she said that, before the Library of Congress event, "Open World's program manager for Ukraine did contact Chalupa to advise her that Open World is a nonpartisan agency of the Congress."

Chalupa, though, indicated in an email that was later hacked and released by WikiLeaks that the Open World Leadership Center "put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort."

In the email, which was sent in early May to then-DNC communications director Luis Miranda, Chalupa noted that she had extended an invitation to the Library of Congress forum to veteran Washington investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. Two days before the event, he had published a story for Yahoo News revealing the unraveling of a $26 million deal between Manafort and a Russian oligarch related to a telecommunications venture in Ukraine. And Chalupa wrote in the email she'd been "working with for the past few weeks" with Isikoff "and connected him to the Ukrainians" at the event.

Isikoff, who accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event, declined to comment.

Chalupa further indicated in her hacked May email to the DNC that she had additional sensitive information about Manafort that she intended to share "offline" with Miranda and DNC research director Lauren Dillon, including "a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of." Explaining that she didn't feel comfortable sharing the intel over email, Chalupa attached a screenshot of a warning from Yahoo administrators about "state-sponsored" hacking on her account, explaining, "Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often."

Dillon and Miranda declined to comment.

A DNC official stressed that Chalupa was a consultant paid to do outreach for the party's political department, not a researcher. She undertook her investigations into Trump, Manafort and Russia on her own, and the party did not incorporate her findings in its dossiers on the subjects, the official said, stressing that the DNC had been building robust research books on Trump and his ties to Russia long before Chalupa began sounding alarms.

Nonetheless, Chalupa's hacked email reportedly escalated concerns among top party officials, hardening their conclusion that Russia likely was behind the cyber intrusions with which the party was only then beginning to grapple.

Chalupa left the DNC after the Democratic convention in late July to focus fulltime on her research into Manafort, Trump and Russia . She said she provided off-the-record information and guidance to "a lot of journalists" working on stories related to Manafort and Trump's Russia connections, despite what she described as escalating harassment.

... ... ...

•••

While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign -- and certainly for Manafort -- can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government.

Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency -- and publicized by a parliamentarian -- appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych.

The New York Times, in the August story revealing the ledgers' existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were "a focus" of an investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.

Clinton's campaign seized on the story to advance Democrats' argument that Trump's campaign was closely linked to Russia. The ledger represented "more troubling connections between Donald Trump's team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine," Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, said in a statement. He demanded that Trump "disclose campaign chair Paul Manafort's and all other campaign employees' and advisers' ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities, including whether any of Trump's employees or advisers are currently representing and or being paid by them."

A former Ukrainian investigative journalist and current parliamentarian named Serhiy Leshchenko, who was elected in 2014 as part of Poroshenko's party, held a news conference to highlight the ledgers, and to urge Ukrainian and American law enforcement to aggressively investigate Manafort.

"I believe and understand the basis of these payments are totally against the law -- we have the proof from these books," Leshchenko said during the news conference, which attracted international media coverage. "If Mr. Manafort denies any allegations, I think he has to be interrogated into this case and prove his position that he was not involved in any misconduct on the territory of Ukraine," Leshchenko added.

Manafort denied receiving any off-books cash from Yanukovych's Party of Regions, and said that he had never been contacted about the ledger by Ukrainian or American investigators, later telling POLITICO "I was just caught in the crossfire."

According to a series of memos reportedly compiled for Trump's opponents by a former British intelligence agent, Yanukovych, in a secret meeting with Putin on the day after the Times published its report, admitted that he had authorized "substantial kickback payments to Manafort." But according to the report, which was published Tuesday by BuzzFeed but remains unverified. Yanukovych assured Putin "that there was no documentary trail left behind which could provide clear evidence of this" -- an alleged statement that seemed to implicitly question the authenticity of the ledger.

The scrutiny around the ledgers -- combined with that from other stories about his Ukraine work -- proved too much, and he stepped down from the Trump campaign less than a week after the Times story.

At the time, Leshchenko suggested that his motivation was partly to undermine Trump. "For me, it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world," Leshchenko told the Financial Times about two weeks after his news conference. The newspaper noted that Trump's candidacy had spurred "Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election," and the story quoted Leshchenko asserting that the majority of Ukraine's politicians are "on Hillary Clinton's side."

But by this month, Leshchenko was seeking to recast his motivation, telling Politico, "I didn't care who won the U.S. elections. This was a decision for the American voters to decide." His goal in highlighting the ledgers, he said was "to raise these issues on a political level and emphasize the importance of the investigation."

In a series of answers provided to Politico, a spokesman for Poroshenko distanced his administration from both Leshchenko's efforts and those of the agency that reLeshchenko Leshchenko leased the ledgers, The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. It was created in 2014 as a condition for Ukraine to receive aid from the U.S. and the European Union, and it signed an evidence-sharing agreement with the FBI in late June -- less than a month and a half before it released the ledgers.

The bureau is "fully independent," the Poroshenko spokesman said, adding that when it came to the presidential administration there was "no targeted action against Manafort." He added "as to Serhiy Leshchenko, he positions himself as a representative of internal opposition in the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko's faction, despite [the fact that] he belongs to the faction," the spokesman said, adding, "it was about him personally who pushed [the anti-corruption bureau] to proceed with investigation on Manafort."

But an operative who has worked extensively in Ukraine, including as an adviser to Poroshenko, said it was highly unlikely that either Leshchenko or the anti-corruption bureau would have pushed the issue without at least tacit approval from Poroshenko or his closest allies.

"It was something that Poroshenko was probably aware of and could have stopped if he wanted to," said the operative.

And, almost immediately after Trump's stunning victory over Clinton, questions began mounting about the investigations into the ledgers -- and the ledgers themselves.

An official with the anti-corruption bureau told a Ukrainian newspaper, "Mr. Manafort does not have a role in this case."

And, while the anti-corruption bureau told Politico late last month that a "general investigation [is] still ongoing" of the ledger, it said Manafort is not a target of the investigation. "As he is not the Ukrainian citizen, [the anti-corruption bureau] by the law couldn't investigate him personally," the bureau said in a statement.

Some Poroshenko critics have gone further, suggesting that the bureau is backing away from investigating because the ledgers might have been doctored or even forged.

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a Ukrainian former diplomat who served as the country's head of security under Poroshenko but is now affiliated with a leading opponent of Poroshenko, said it was fishy that "only one part of the black ledger appeared." He asked, "Where is the handwriting analysis?" and said it was "crazy" to announce an investigation based on the ledgers. He met last month in Washington with Trump allies, and said, "of course they all recognize that our [anti-corruption bureau] intervened in the presidential campaign."

And in an interview this week, Manafort, who re-emerged as an informal advisor to Trump after Election Day, suggested that the ledgers were inauthentic and called their publication "a politically motivated false attack on me. My role as a paid consultant was public. There was nothing off the books, but the way that this was presented tried to make it look shady."

He added that he felt particularly wronged by efforts to cast his work in Ukraine as pro-Russian, arguing "all my efforts were focused on helping Ukraine move into Europe and the West." He specifically cited his work on denuclearizing the country and on the European Union trade and political pact that Yanukovych spurned before fleeing to Russia. "In no case was I ever involved in anything that would be contrary to U.S. interests," Manafort said.

Yet Russia seemed to come to the defense of Manafort and Trump last month, when a spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry charged that the Ukrainian government used the ledgers as a political weapon.

"Ukraine seriously complicated the work of Trump's election campaign headquarters by planting information according to which Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman, allegedly accepted money from Ukrainian oligarchs," Maria Zakharova said at a news briefing, according to a transcript of her remarks posted on the Foreign Ministry's website. "All of you have heard this remarkable story," she told assembled reporters.

•••

Beyond any efforts to sabotage Trump, Ukrainian officials didn't exactly extend a hand of friendship to the GOP nominee during the campaign.

The ambassador, Chaly, penned an op-ed for The Hill, in which he chastised Trump for a confusing series of statements in which the GOP candidate at one point expressed a willingness to consider recognizing Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea as legitimate. The op-ed made some in the embassy uneasy, sources said.

"That was like too close for comfort, even for them," said Chalupa. "That was something that was as risky as they were going to be."

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk warned on Facebook that Trump had "challenged the very values of the free world."

Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, Arsen Avakov, piled on, trashing Trump on Twitter in July as a "clown" and asserting that Trump is "an even bigger danger to the US than terrorism."

Avakov, in a Facebook post, lashed out at Trump for his confusing Crimea comments, calling the assessment the "diagnosis of a dangerous misfit," according to a translated screenshot featured in one media report, though he later deleted the post. He called Trump "dangerous for Ukraine and the US" and noted that Manafort worked with Yanukovych when the former Ukrainian leader "fled to Russia through Crimea. Where would Manafort lead Trump?"

The Trump-Ukraine relationship grew even more fraught in September with reports that the GOP nominee had snubbed Poroshenko on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where the Ukrainian president tried to meet both major party candidates, but scored only a meeting with Clinton.

Telizhenko, the former embassy staffer, said that, during the primaries, Chaly, the country's ambassador in Washington, had actually instructed the embassy not to reach out to Trump's campaign, even as it was engaging with those of Clinton and Trump's leading GOP rival, Ted Cruz.

"We had an order not to talk to the Trump team, because he was critical of Ukraine and the government and his critical position on Crimea and the conflict," said Telizhenko. "I was yelled at when I proposed to talk to Trump," he said, adding, "The ambassador said not to get involved -- Hillary is going to win."

This account was confirmed by Nalyvaichenko, the former diplomat and security chief now affiliated with a Poroshenko opponent, who said, "The Ukrainian authorities closed all doors and windows -- this is from the Ukrainian side." He called the strategy "bad and short-sighted."

Andriy Artemenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian associated with a conservative opposition party, did meet with Trump's team during the campaign and said he personally offered to set up similar meetings for Chaly but was rebuffed.

"It was clear that they were supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy," Artemenko said. "They did everything from organizing meetings with the Clinton team, to publicly supporting her, to criticizing Trump. I think that they simply didn't meet because they thought that Hillary would win."

Shulyar rejected the characterizations that the embassy had a ban on interacting with Trump, instead explaining that it "had different diplomats assigned for dealing with different teams tailoring the content and messaging. So it was not an instruction to abstain from the engagement but rather an internal discipline for diplomats not to get involved into a field she or he was not assigned to, but where another colleague was involved."

And she pointed out that Chaly traveled to the GOP convention in Cleveland in late July and met with members of Trump's foreign policy team "to highlight the importance of Ukraine and the support of it by the U.S."

Despite the outreach, Trump's campaign in Cleveland gutted a proposed amendment to the Republican Party platform that called for the U.S. to provide "lethal defensive weapons" for Ukraine to defend itself against Russian incursion, backers of the measure charged.

The outreach ramped up after Trump's victory. Shulyar pointed out that Poroshenko was among the first foreign leaders to call to congratulate Trump. And she said that, since Election Day, Chaly has met with close Trump allies, including Sens. Jeff Sessions, Trump's nominee for attorney general, and Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, while the ambassador accompanied Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine's vice prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, to a round of Washington meetings with Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), an early Trump backer, and Jim DeMint, president of The Heritage Foundation, which played a prominent role in Trump's transition.

•••

Many Ukrainian officials and operatives and their American allies see Trump's inauguration this month as an existential threat to the country, made worse, they admit, by the dissemination of the secret ledger, the antagonistic social media posts and the perception that the embassy meddled against -- or at least shut out -- Trump.

"It's really bad. The [Poroshenko] administration right now is trying to re-coordinate communications," said Telizhenko, adding, "The Trump organization doesn't want to talk to our administration at all."

During Nalyvaichenko's trip to Washington last month, he detected lingering ill will toward Ukraine from some, and lack of interest from others, he recalled. "Ukraine is not on the top of the list, not even the middle," he said.

Poroshenko's allies are scrambling to figure out how to build a relationship with Trump, who is known for harboring and prosecuting grudges for years.

A delegation of Ukrainian parliamentarians allied with Poroshenko last month traveled to Washington partly to try to make inroads with the Trump transition team, but they were unable to secure a meeting, according to a Washington foreign policy operative familiar with the trip. And operatives in Washington and Kiev say that after the election, Poroshenko met in Kiev with top executives from the Washington lobbying firm BGR -- including Ed Rogers and Lester Munson -- about how to navigate the Trump regime.

Weeks later, BGR reported to the Department of Justice that the government of Ukraine would pay the firm $50,000 a month to "provide strategic public relations and government affairs counsel," including "outreach to U.S. government officials, non-government organizations, members of the media and other individuals."

Firm spokesman Jeffrey Birnbaum suggested that "pro-Putin oligarchs" were already trying to sow doubts about BGR's work with Poroshenko. While the firm maintains close relationships with GOP congressional leaders, several of its principals were dismissive or sharply critical of Trump during the GOP primary, which could limit their effectiveness lobbying the new administration.

The Poroshenko regime's standing with Trump is considered so dire that the president's allies after the election actually reached out to make amends with -- and even seek assistance from -- Manafort, according to two operatives familiar with Ukraine's efforts to make inroads with Trump.

Meanwhile, Poroshenko's rivals are seeking to capitalize on his dicey relationship with Trump's team. Some are pressuring him to replace Chaly, a close ally of Poroshenko's who is being blamed by critics in Kiev and Washington for implementing -- if not engineering -- the country's anti-Trump efforts, according to Ukrainian and U.S. politicians and operatives interviewed for this story. They say that several potential Poroshenko opponents have been through Washington since the election seeking audiences of their own with Trump allies, though most have failed to do do so.

"None of the Ukrainians have any access to Trump -- they are all desperate to get it, and are willing to pay big for it," said one American consultant whose company recently met in Washington with Yuriy Boyko, a former vice prime minister under Yanukovych. Boyko, who like Yanukovych has a pro-Russian worldview, is considering a presidential campaign of his own, and his representatives offered "to pay a shit-ton of money" to get access to Trump and his inaugural events, according to the consultant.

The consultant turned down the work, explaining, "It sounded shady, and we don't want to get in the middle of that kind of stuff."

[May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia

Highly recommended!
Looks like Chalupa was an important player in Steele dossier. That suggests Ukrainian diaspora, and possibly Ukrainian SBU links.
Notable quotes:
"... Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia. ..."
"... That would tend to work against theories that involve Skripal in a significant role in generating the dossier; though it would not rule him out in a more peripheral role ..."
"... We can also conclude neither bruce ohr, or the expat russian living in the us are neutral players in any of this too.. Was someone paid a fee to say something?? ..."
"... Steele is a stranger to the truth in any event so I wouldn't set much store by it – though if the dossier is third hand material at best it certainly explains why it is such rubbish. Steele's ability to get cash by selling steaming nonsense to the gullible is amazing. ..."
"... "A Ukrainian political consultant has revealed to Sputnik that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele sought and paid for researchers in Ukraine to concoct fake stories about Donald Trump prior his election as US president to use in the now-infamous dossier that supposedly contained damning evidence of Russia-Trump collusion. ..."
"... Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan spoke previously with Ukrainian political consultant and former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about his connections to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative named Alexandra Chalupa who also worked for clients in Ukrainian politics. Chalupa told Politico in January 2017 that beginning in 2015, she pulled on a network of sources she'd established in Kiev and Washington to try and turn up dirt on Trump, once his star began to rise in the Republican primary campaign." ..."
Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

Ed Snack , August 27, 2018 at 21:21

Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia.

That would tend to work against theories that involve Skripal in a significant role in generating the dossier; though it would not rule him out in a more peripheral role.

Edward , August 27, 2018 at 22:43

Such faith.

james , August 27, 2018 at 23:34

We can also conclude neither bruce ohr, or the expat russian living in the us are neutral players in any of this too.. Was someone paid a fee to say something?? your last comment-conclusion is very shaky at best..

craig Post author , August 28, 2018 at 07:08

Ed,

Could you give a link to the source of that info? Steele is a stranger to the truth in any event so I wouldn't set much store by it – though if the dossier is third hand material at best it certainly explains why it is such rubbish. Steele's ability to get cash by selling steaming nonsense to the gullible is amazing.

Ed Snack , August 28, 2018 at 09:54

The Hill has an article, can't post a link from my phone, but google Ohr hand written notes. Apparently reliable and sounds very interesting.

I wonder what will get out from his testimony tomorrow.

Ort , August 28, 2018 at 18:52

Craig, FYI I believe that this is the article Ed cites: "The handwritten notes exposing what Fusion GPS told DOJ about Trump"

Jo , August 29, 2018 at 12:03

5103

"A Ukrainian political consultant has revealed to Sputnik that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele sought and paid for researchers in Ukraine to concoct fake stories about Donald Trump prior his election as US president to use in the now-infamous dossier that supposedly contained damning evidence of Russia-Trump collusion.

Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan spoke previously with Ukrainian political consultant and former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about his connections to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative named Alexandra Chalupa who also worked for clients in Ukrainian politics. Chalupa told Politico in January 2017 that beginning in 2015, she pulled on a network of sources she'd established in Kiev and Washington to try and turn up dirt on Trump, once his star began to rise in the Republican primary campaign."

[May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Also note: Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they "discovered" later - https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/12/fancy-frauds-bogus-bears-malware-m ..."
"... And look who else sits on the Atlantic Council - http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/irene-chalupa why it's the sister of Andrea Chalupa, unregistered foreign agent employed by the DNC as a "Consultant", whose entire family is tied to Ukraine Intelligence. ..."
"... Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel Stopfake.org She is a Ukrainian Diaspora leader. The Chalupas are the first family of Ukrainian propaganda. She works with and for Ukrainian Intelligence through the Atlantic Council, Stopfake.org, and her sisters Andrea (EuromaidanPR) and Alexandra. ..."
Mar 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

mc888 Fri, 03/02/2018 - 20:06 Permalink

Thanks Tyler.

Also note: Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they "discovered" later - https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/12/fancy-frauds-bogus-bears-malware-m

(if that's too 'in the weeds' for you, ask your tech guys to read and verify)

And look who else sits on the Atlantic Council - http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/irene-chalupa why it's the sister of Andrea Chalupa, unregistered foreign agent employed by the DNC as a "Consultant", whose entire family is tied to Ukraine Intelligence.

http://theantimedia.org/propornot-2017-biggest-fake-news-story/

Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel Stopfake.org She is a Ukrainian Diaspora leader. The Chalupas are the first family of Ukrainian propaganda. She works with and for Ukrainian Intelligence through the Atlantic Council, Stopfake.org, and her sisters Andrea (EuromaidanPR) and Alexandra.

and lest we forget crazy eyes #1

http://theduran.com/adam-schiffs-collusion-with-oligarch-ukrainian-arms

[May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine has been screaming for the US to start a war with Russia for the past 2 1/2 years. ..."
"... Is Ukrainian Intelligence trying to invent a reason for the US to take a hard-line stance against Russia? Are they using Crowdstrike to carry this out? ..."
"... Meet the real Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, part of the groups that are targeting Ukrainian positions for the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. These people were so tech savvy they didn't know the Ukrainian SBU (Ukrainian CIA/internal security) records every phone call and most internet use in Ukraine and Donbass. Donbass still uses Ukrainian phone and internet services. ..."
"... This is a civil war and people supporting either side are on both sides of the contact line. The SBU is awestruck because there are hundreds if not thousands of people helping to target the private volunteer armies supported by Ukrainian-Americans. ..."
"... If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection. These words mirror Dimitri Alperovitch's identification process in his interview with PBS Judy Woodruff. ..."
"... How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction. ..."
"... According to Esquire.com , Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work. ..."
"... Still, this is not enough to show a conflict of interest. Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers do. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016. ..."
"... According to Robert Parry's article At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. ..."
"... The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign. ..."
"... What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security? ..."
"... Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers. ..."
"... When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually . There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. ..."
"... Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other? ..."
"... Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network ..."
"... In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency." ..."
"... Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list. ..."
"... This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention. ..."
"... Pravy Sektor Hackers and Crowdstrike? ..."
"... What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts. ..."
"... The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated. ..."
"... According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any other way," he told me. "I have." ..."
"... While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine. ..."
Dec 29, 2017 | www.washingtonsblog.com

In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is" statement showing this.

The difference between Dmitri Alperovitch's claims which are reflected in JAR-1620296 and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes.

For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine . How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?

Later in this article you'll meet and know a little more about the real "Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear." The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution.

The article is lengthy because the facts need to be in one place. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?

The December 29th JAR adds a flowchart that shows how a basic phishing hack is performed. It doesn't add anything significant beyond that. Noticeably, they use both their designation APT 28 and APT 29 as well as the Crowdstrike labels of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear separately.

This is important because information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's that every private actor in the information game was radically political.

The Hill.com article about Russia hacking the electric grid is a perfect example of why this intelligence is political and not taken seriously. If any proof of Russian involvement existed, the US would be at war. Under current laws of war, there would be no difference between an attack on the power grid or a missile strike.

According to the Hill "Private security firms provided more detailed forensic analysis, which the FBI and DHS said Thursday correlated with the IC's findings.

"The Joint Analysis Report recognizes the excellent work undertaken by
security companies and private sector network owners and operators, and provides new indicators of compromise and malicious infrastructure
identified during the course of investigations and incident response," read a statement. The report identities two Russian intelligence groups already named by CrowdStrike and other private security firms."

In an interview with Washingtonsblog , William Binney, the creator of the NSA global surveillance system said "I expected to see the IP's or other signatures of APT's 28/29 [the entities which the U.S. claims hacked the Democratic emails] and where they were located and how/when the data got transferred to them from DNC/HRC [i.e. Hillary Rodham Clinton]/etc. They seem to have been following APT 28/29 since at least 2015, so, where are they?"

According to the latest Washington Post story, Crowdstrike's CEO tied a group his company dubbed "Fancy Bear" to targeting Ukrainian artillery positions in Debaltsevo as well as across the Ukrainian civil war front for the past 2 years.

Alperovitch states in many articles the Ukrainians were using an Android app to target the self-proclaimed Republics positions and that hacking this app was what gave targeting data to the armies in Donbass instead.

Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."

How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. " Intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks."

The public evidence never goes beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses. NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant for NBC.

According to NBC the story reads like this." The company, Crowdstrike, was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry, a former senior FBI official who consults for NBC News.

"But the Russians used the app to turn the tables on their foes, Crowdstrike says. Once a Ukrainian soldier downloaded it on his Android phone, the Russians were able to eavesdrop on his communications and determine his position through geo-location.

In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other, known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called the GRU."

The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks."

Because Ukrainian soldiers are using a smartphone app they activate their geolocation to use it. Targeting is from location to location. The app would need the current user location to make it work.

In 2015 I wrote an article that showed many of the available open source tools that geolocate, and track people. They even show street view. This means that using simple means, someone with freeware or an online website, and not a military budget can look at what you are seeing at any given moment.

Where Crowdstrike fails is insisting people believe that the code they see is (a) an advanced way to geolocate and (b) it was how a state with large resources would do it. Would you leave a calling card where you would get caught and fined through sanctions or worse? If you use an anonymous online resource at least Crowdstrike won't believe you are Russian and possibly up to something.

" Using open source tools this has been going on for years in the private sector. For geolocation purposes, your smartphone is one of the greatest tools to use. Finding and following you has never been easier . Let's face it if you are going to stalk someone, "street view" on a map is the next best thing to being there. In the following video, the software hacks your modem. It's only one step from your phone or computer."

If you read that article and watch the video you'll see that using "geo-stalker" is a better choice if you are on a low budget or no budget. Should someone tell the Russians they overpaid?

According to Alperovitch, the smartphone app plotted targets in about 15 seconds . This means that there is only a small window to get information this way.

Using the open source tools I wrote about previously, you could track your targets all-day. In 2014, most Ukrainian forces were using social media regularly. It would be easy to maintain a map of their locations and track them individually.

From my research into those tools, someone using Python scripts would find it easy to take photos, listen to conversations, turn on GPS, or even turn the phone on when they chose to. Going a step further than Alperovitch, without the help of the Russian government, GRU, or FSB, anyone could take control of the drones Ukraine is fond of flying and land them. Or they could download the footage the drones are taking. It's copy and paste at that point. Would you bother the FSB, GRU, or Vladimir Putin with the details or just do it?

In the WaPo article Alperovitch states "The Fancy Bear crew evidently hacked the app, allowing the GRU to use the phone's GPS coordinates to track the Ukrainian troops' position.

In that way, the Russian military could then target the Ukrainian army with artillery and other weaponry. Ukrainian brigades operating in eastern Ukraine were on the front lines of the conflict with Russian-backed separatist forces during the early stages of the conflict in late 2014, CrowdStrike noted. By late 2014, Russian forces in the region numbered about 10,000. The Android app was useful in helping the Russian troops locate Ukrainian artillery positions."

In late 2014, I personally did the only invasive passport and weapons checks that I know of during the Ukrainian civil war. I spent days looking for the Russian army every major publication said were attacking Ukraine. The keyword Cyber Security industry leader Alperovitch used is "evidently." Crowdstrike noted that in late 2014, there were 10,000 Russian forces in the region.

When I did the passport and weapons check, it was under the condition there would be no telephone calls. We went where I wanted to go. We stopped when I said to stop. I checked the documents and the weapons with no obstacles. The weapons check was important because Ukraine was stating that Russia was giving Donbass modern weapons at the time. Each weapon is stamped with a manufacture date. The results are in the articles above.

The government in Kiev agreed with my findings throughout 2014 and 2015. There were and are no Russian troops fighting in Donbass regardless of what Mr. Alperovitch asserts. There are some Russian volunteers which I have covered in detail.

Based on my findings which the CIA would call hard evidence, almost all the fighters had Ukrainian passports. There are volunteers from other countries. In Debaltsevo today, I would question Alperovitch's assertion of Russian troops based on the fact the passports will be Ukrainian and reflect my earlier findings. There is no possibly, could be, might be, about it.

The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment . Although subtitles aren't on it, the former Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine would have been in deep trouble.

How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention? Could the investment made by Google and some very large players have anything to do with the media Crowdstrike is causing?

In an interview with PBS newshour on December 22nd 2016, Dmitri Alperovitch finally produced the hard evidence he has for Russian involvement clearly. To be fair, he did state it several times before. It just didn't resonate or the media and US intelligence agencies weren't listening.

According to Alperovitch, the CEO of a $150 million dollar cyber security company "And when you think about, well, who would be interested in targeting Ukraine artillerymen in eastern Ukraine who has interest in hacking the Democratic Party, Russia government comes to mind, but specifically, Russian military that would have operational over forces in the Ukraine and would target these artillerymen."

That statement is most of the proof of Russian involvement he has. That's it, that's all the CIA, FBI have to go on. It's why they can't certify the intelligence. It's why they can't get beyond the threshold of maybe.

Woodruff then asked two important questions. She asked if Crowdstrike was still working for the DNC. Alperovitch responded "We're protecting them going forward. The investigation is closed in terms of what happened there. But certainly, we've seen the campaigns, political organizations are continued to be targeted, and they continue to hire us and use our technology to protect themselves."

Based on the evidence he presented Woodruff, there is no need to investigate further? Obviously, there is no need, the money is rolling in.

Second and most important Judy Woodruff asked if there were any questions about conflicts of interest, how he would answer? This is where Dmitri Alperovitch's story starts to unwind.

His response was "Well, this report was not about the DNC. This report was about information we uncovered about what these Russian actors were doing in eastern Ukraine in terms of locating these artillery units of the Ukrainian army and then targeting them. So, what we just did is said that it looks exactly as the same to the evidence we've already uncovered from the DNC, linking the two together."

Why is this reasonable statement going to take his story off the rails? First, let's look at the facts surrounding his evidence and then look at the real conflicts of interest involved. While carefully evading the question, he neglects to state his conflicts of interest are worthy of a DOJ investigation. Can you mislead the federal government about national security issues and not get investigated yourself?

If Alperovitch's evidence is all there is, then the US government owes some large apologies to Russia.

After showing who is targeting Ukrainian artillerymen, we'll look at what might be a criminal conspiracy.

Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?

Ukraine has been screaming for the US to start a war with Russia for the past 2 1/2 years. Using facts accepted by leaders on both sides of the conflict, the main proof Crowdstrike shows for evidence doesn't just unravel, it falls apart. Is Ukrainian Intelligence trying to invent a reason for the US to take a hard-line stance against Russia? Are they using Crowdstrike to carry this out?

Real Fancy Bear?

Real Fancy Bear?

Meet the real Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, part of the groups that are targeting Ukrainian positions for the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. These people were so tech savvy they didn't know the Ukrainian SBU (Ukrainian CIA/internal security) records every phone call and most internet use in Ukraine and Donbass. Donbass still uses Ukrainian phone and internet services.

These are normal people fighting back against private volunteer armies that target their homes, schools, and hospitals. The private volunteer armies like Pravy Sektor, Donbas Battalion, Azov, and Aidar have been cited for atrocities like child rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping. That just gets the ball rolling. These are a large swath of the Ukrainian servicemen Crowdstrike hopes to protect.

This story which just aired on Ukrainian news channel TCN shows the SBU questioning and arresting some of what they call an army of people in the Ukrainian-controlled areas. This news video shows people in Toretsk that provided targeting information to Donbass and people probably caught up in the net accidentally.

This is a civil war and people supporting either side are on both sides of the contact line. The SBU is awestruck because there are hundreds if not thousands of people helping to target the private volunteer armies supported by Ukrainian-Americans.

The first person they show on the video is a woman named Olga Lubochka. On the video her voice is heard from a recorded call saying " In the field, on the left about 130 degrees. Aim and you'll get it." and then " Oh, you hit it so hard you leveled it to the ground.""Am I going to get a medal for this?"

Other people caught up in the raid claim and probably were only calling friends they know. It's common for people to call and tell their family about what is going on around them. This has been a staple in the war especially in outlying villages for people aligned with both sides of the conflict. A neighbor calls his friend and says "you won't believe what I just saw."

Another "fancy bear," Alexander Schevchenko was caught calling friends and telling them that armored personnel carriers had just driven by.

Anatoli Prima, father of a DNR(Donetsk People's Republic) soldier was asked to find out what unit was there and how many artillery pieces.

One woman providing information about fuel and incoming equipment has a husband fighting on the opposite side in Gorlovka. Gorlovka is a major city that's been under artillery attack since 2014. For the past 2 1/2 years, she has remained in their home in Toretsk. According to the video, he's vowed to take no prisoners when they rescue the area.

When asked why they hate Ukraine so much, one responded that they just wanted things to go back to what they were like before the coup in February 2014.

Another said they were born in the Soviet Union and didn't like what was going on in Kiev. At the heart of this statement is the anti- OUN, antinationalist sentiment that most people living in Ukraine feel. The OUNb Bandera killed millions of people in Ukraine, including starving 3 million Soviet soldiers to death. The new Ukraine was founded in 1991 by OUN nationalists outside the fledgling country.

Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason are exposed.

In the last article exploring the DNC hacks the focus was on the Chalupas . The article focused on Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa. Their participation in the DNC hack story is what brought it to international attention in the first place.

According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page " After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her to stop her research."" July 25, 2016

If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection. These words mirror Dimitri Alperovitch's identification process in his interview with PBS Judy Woodruff.

How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction.

According to Esquire.com , Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work.

Still, this is not enough to show a conflict of interest. Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers do. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.

In my previous article I showed in detail how the Chalupas fit into this. A brief bullet point review looks like this.

In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.

At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.

Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.

According to Robert Parry's article At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.

What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?

When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.

If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.

Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.

When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually . There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government.

Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other?

Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other?

Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.

ff-twitter-com-2016-12-30-02-24-54

Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers? Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network.

Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network

In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."

In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source. This is something you do when you don't want to be too obvious. Here is another example of that.

Ukrainian Intelligence and the real Fancy Bear?

Ukrainian Intelligence and the real Fancy Bear?

Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.

Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his "Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.

Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter.

Trying to keep it hush hush?

Trying to keep it hush hush?

This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.

These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.

Pravy Sektor Hackers and Crowdstrike?

Pravy Sektor Hackers and Crowdstrike?

When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.

Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say" Let's understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics."

What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.

The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.

According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any other way," he told me. "I have."

While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine.

The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics.

By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of rumor.

From the Observer.com , " Andrea Chalupa -- the sister of DNC research staffer Alexandra Chalupa -- claimed on social media, without any evidence, that despite Clinton conceding the election to Trump, the voting results need to be audited to because Clinton couldn't have lost -- it must have been Russia. Chalupa hysterically tweeted to every politician on Twitter to audit the vote because of Russia and claimed the TV show The Americans , about two KGB spies living in America, is real."

Quite possibly now the former UK Ambassador Craig Murry's admission of being the involved party to "leaks" should be looked at. " Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia . Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling."


[May 11, 2019] Spygate (aka Russiagate) was a program to entrap and smear Trump as a Putin stooge by top officials in the Obama administration, directly interfering in a presidential election.

May 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , 11 May 2019 at 02:05 AM

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

― Upton Sinclair

As more evidence is being uncovered like the the Kathy Kavalec contemporaneous notes & email to FBI on her meeting with Steele, it is getting more & more apparent that there was a program to entrap and smear Trump as a Putin stooge by top officials in the Obama administration, directly interfering in a presidential election.

Mueller was conflicted right from the very beginning. The fact that Strzok, Page & Weisman were on his initial staff points to that conflict. Considering the inherent bias it should be instructive that they could not find any evidence and had to conclude that the Trump campaign did not collude with agents of the Russian government.

[May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan

Highly recommended!
May 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Whitney: Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan

by Tyler Durden Sat, 05/11/2019 - 11:05 48 SHARES Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

Sometime in the next 4 weeks, the Justice Department's inspector general will release an internal review that will reveal the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Among other matters, the IG's report is expected to determine "whether there was sufficient justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place." Critics of the Trump-collusion probe believe that there was never probable cause that a crime had been committed, therefore, there was no legal basis for launching the investigation.

The findings of the Mueller report– that there was no cooperation or collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign– seem to underscore this broader point and suggest that the fictitious Trump-Russia connection was merely a pretext for spying on the campaign of a Beltway outsider whose political views clashed with those of the foreign policy establishment.

In any event, the upcoming release of the Horowitz report will formally end the the first phase of the long-running Russiagate scandal and mark the beginning of Phase 2, in which high-profile officials from the previous administration face criminal prosecution for their role in what looks to be a botched attempt at a coup d'etat.

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Here's a brief summary from political analyst, Larry C. Johnson, who previously worked at the CIA and U.S. State Department:

" The evidence is plain–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the US and UK and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign." ( "How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election" , Larry C. Johnson, Consortium News)

Bingo. Attorney General William Barr has already stated his belief that spying on the Trump campaign "did occur" and that, in his mind, it is "a big deal". He also reiterated his commitment to thoroughly investigate the matter in order to find out whether the spying was adequately "predicated", that is, whether the FBI followed the required protocols for such spying, or not. Barr already knows the answer to this question as he is fully aware of the fact that the FBI used information that they knew was false to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Having no hard evidence of cooperation with the Kremlin, senior-level FBI officials and their counterparts at the Obama Justice Department used parts of an "opposition research" document (The Trump Dossier) that they knew was unreliable to procure warrants that allowed them to treat a presidential campaign the same way the intelligence agencies treat foreign enemies; using electronic surveillance, wiretapping, confidential informants and "honey trap" schemes designed to gather embarrassing or incriminating information on their target. Barr knows all of this already which is why the Democrats are doing everything in their power to discredit him and have him removed from office.

https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855

His determination to "get to the bottom of this" is not just a threat to the FBI, it's a threat to multiple agencies that may have had a hand in this expansive domestic espionage operation including the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the State Department and, perhaps, even the Obama White House. No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes, but Barr appears to be serious about finding out.

Here's Barr again:

"Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant .I would like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop the threat as it's being represented."

In other words, Barr knows that the Trump campaign was riddled with spies and he is going to do his damnedest to find out what happened. He also knows that the FISA warrants were improperly obtained using the shabby disinformation from an opposition research "hit piece" (The Steele Dossier) that was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, just like he knows that government agents had concocted a strategy for leaking classified information to the media to fuel the public hysteria. Barr knows most of what happened already. It's just a matter of compiling the research in the proper format and delivering it in a way that helps to emphasize how trusted government agents abused their power by pursuing a vicious partisan plot to either destroy the president's reputation or force him from office. Like Barr said, that's a "big deal".

The name that seems to feature larger than all others in the ongoing Trump-Russia saga, is James Comey, the former FBI Director who oversaw the spying operations that are now under investigation at the DOJ. But was Comey really the central figure in these felonious hi-jinks or was he a mere lieutenant following directives from someone more powerful than himself? While the preponderance of new evidence suggests that the FBI was deeply involved, it does not answer this crucial question. For example, just this week, a report by veteran journalist John Solomon, showed that former British spy Christopher Steele admitted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec that his "Trump Dossier" was "political research", implying that the contents couldn't be trusted because they were shaped by Steele's political bias. Kavalec passed along this information to the FBI which shrugged it off and then, just days later, used the dossier to obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Think about that for a minute. The FBI had "written proof . that Steele had a political motive", but went ahead and used the dossier to procure the warrants anyway. That's what I'd call a premeditated felony.

But evidence of wrongdoing is not proof that Comey was the ringleader, he was just the hapless sad sack who was left holding the bag. The truth is, Comey was just a reluctant follower. The real architect of the Trump-Russia treachery was the boss-man at the nation's premier intelligence agency, the CIA. That's where the headwaters of this shameful burlesque are located, in Langley. More on that in a minute, but first check out this excerpt from an article at The Hill which sums up Comey's role fairly well:

(There) "will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree head spin.

"There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA director.

In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case." ( "James Comey is in trouble and he knows it" , The Hill)

Why is the Inspector General so curious as to whether Comey "was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director? And why did Comey draw from "a cast of characters " . that "all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources"??

Could it be that Comey was just an unwitting pawn in a domestic regime change operation launched by former CIA Director John Brennan, the one public figure who has expressed greater personal animus towards Trump than all the others combined? Could Trump's promise to normalize relations with Russia have intensified Brennan's visceral hatred of him given the fact that Russia had frustrated Brennan's strategic plans in Ukraine and Syria? Keep in mind, the CIA had been arming, training and providing logistical support to the Sunni militants who were trying to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Putin's intervention crushed the jihadist militias delivering a humiliating defeat to Generalissimo Brennan who, soon after, left office in disgrace. Isn't this at least part of the reason why Brennan hates Trump?

Regular readers of this column know that I have always thought that Brennan was the central figure in the Trump-Russia charade. It was Brennan who first referred the case to Comey, just as it was Brennan who "hand-picked" the analysts who stitched together the dodgy Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which said that "Putin and the Russian government aspired to help Trump's election chances.") It was also Brennan who persuaded Harry Reid to petition Comey to open an investigation in the first place. Brennan was chief instigator of the Trump-Russia fiasco, the omniscient puppet-master who persuaded Clapper and Comey to do his bidding while still-unidentified agents strategically leaked stories to the media to inflame passions and sow social unrest. At every turn, Brennan was there guiding the perfidious project along. According to journalist Philip Giraldi, the CIA may have even assisted in the obtaining of FISA warrants on Trump campaign aids as this excerpt from an article at The Unz Review indicates:

"Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve several requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the British and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan was able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the concerns about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped. And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee." ( "The Conspiracy Against Trump" , Philip Giraldi)

Can you see how important this is? The FBI was having trouble getting warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, so Brennan helped them out by persuading his foreign intelligence allies (the British and other European intelligence services) to come up with bogus "intercepted communications linked to American sources," which helped to secure the FISA warrants. We have no idea of what these foreign agents heard on these alleged intercepted communications, all we know is that they were effectively used to achieve Brennan's ultimate objective, which was to acquire the means of taking down Trump via a relentless and expansive surveillance campaign.

According to a report in The Guardian (where the story first appeared.):

"GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called the British eavesdropping agency the "principal whistleblower". ("British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia ", The Guardian)

Okay, so Brennan twisted a few arms and got his foreign Intel buddies to make uncorroborated claims that got the investigative ball rolling, but then what? If there was any meat to Brennan's foreign intel, then Mueller would have dug it up and used it in his report, right? But he didn't. Why?

Because there was nothing there, the whole thing was a sham from the get go. Brennan probably "sexed up" the intelligence so it would sound like something it really wasn't. (Think: WMD) Again, if there was even a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump's campaign assistants were in bed with Russia, Mueller would have shrieked it from every mountaintop across America. But he didn't, because there wasn't any. There was no cooperation, no conspiracy and no collusion. Trump was falsely accused. End of story.

Here's more from the same article:

"The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow ahead of the US election." (Guardian)

"The extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow"???

Really? This is precisely the type of hyperventilating journalism that fueled the absurd conspiracy theory that the president of the United States was a Russian agent. It's hard to believe that we're even discussing the matter at this point.

There was an interesting aside in John Solomon's article that suggests that he might be thinking along the same lines. He says: "One legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947, which can be used to shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council."

Why would Solomon draw attention to "to shielding communications involving the CIA or the White House", after all, the bulk of his article focused on the State Department and the FBI? Is he suggesting that the CIA and Obama White House may have been involved in these spying shenanigans, is that why Kavalec's damning notes (which stated that Steele's dossier could not be trusted.) have been retroactively classified?

Take a look at this email from the FBI's chief investigator in the Russia collusion probe, Peter Strzok, to his fellow agents in April 2017.

"I'm beginning to think the agency (CIA) got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn't shared it completely with us. Might explain all those weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as source of some leaks." -Peter Strzok.

Ha! So even the FBI's chief investigator was in the dark about the CIA's shadowy machinations behind the scenes. Clearly, Brennan wanted to prevent the other junta leaders from fully knowing what he was up to.

All of this is bound to come out in the inspector general's report sometime in the next month or so. Both Attorney General William Barr and IG Horowitz appear to be fully committed to revealing the criminal leaks, the illegal electronic surveillance, the improperly obtained FISA warrants, and the multiple confidential human sources (spies) that were placed in the Trump campaign. They are going to face withering criticism for their efforts, but they are resolutely moving forward all the same. Bravo, for that.

Bottom line : The agents and officials who conducted this seditious attack on the presidency never thought they'd be held accountable for their crimes. But they were wrong, and now their day of reckoning is fast approaching. The main players in this palace coup are about to be exposed, criminally charged and prosecuted. Some of them will probably wind up in jail.

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."


DocBerg , just now link

Please wake me up from my hibernation if any of these cretins are actually prosecuted effectively, much less punished, as they richly deserve.

JCW Industries , 3 minutes ago link

Nothing will happen. IG report will show nothing. Look who's doing it. (((Horowitz))).....the DS protects its own

notfeelinthebern , 18 minutes ago link

So we should probably be sanctioning GB, instead of Russia? It would be the right thing to do? No?

Gonzogal , 6 minutes ago link

There is ZERO evidence that Russia played ANY role in the 2016 USSA election and yet are sanctioned to the max, threatened with war etc. HOWEVER there IS proof of the UK/GCHQ involvement.

I am waiting to see if Trump still goes to the UK in June or if he tells them he is "busy with more important things at home" aka F...off.

Amy G. Dala , 2 minutes ago link

Remember when Gowdy asked Brennan for evidence, and Brennan does reply with a straight face:

"We don't deal in evidence."

Mister Brennan, thou has dost protest too loudly, for too long . . .

Idaho potato head , 19 minutes ago link

Apocalypse, I would say that word describes it pretty well.

Middle English Apocalipse "Revelation (the New Testament book)," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Late Latin apocalypsis "revelation, the Book of Revelation," borrowed from Greek apokálypsis "uncovering, disclosure, revelation," from apokalyp-, stem of apokalýptein "to uncover, disclose, reveal" (from apo- APO- + kalýptein "to cover, protect, conceal," of uncertain origin) + -sis -SIS

Joebloinvestor , 24 minutes ago link

Anyone notice NO ******* COMMENT from UK intelligence about their ex-spies being involved in a US election?

I kind of expected one "throwaway" to be found with a hole behind his ear.

Idaho potato head , 13 minutes ago link

'highly likely'. would be typical english understatement.

bh2 , 30 minutes ago link

"No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes"

Too kind. We all know it is impossible that Susan Rice did not know -- she would have to authorize the FBI to conduct any foreign spying operations.

And if Susan Rice knew, it is impossible that Barack Obama didn't know. And approved of it, if only by not putting a stop to it.

The string that hasn't been pulled yet is the role of British intelligence. Brennan is obviously not a very bright man. He's a post-turtle, so how a dull-witted former communist ended up as head of the CIA is yet another story that needs looking into.

Was he actually a British mole?

The intersection of British establishment political goals and donated assets in the operation of this plot is nakedly obvious. It will be for Barr to expose that "angle", with the distinct possibility the ultimate origin of this scheme was the Blairite UK civil service who wished to eliminate a potentially powerful political actor who repeatedly and strongly indicated his unreserved support for Brexit.

Philthy_Stacker , 45 minutes ago link

All the things you mentioned were obfuscated by Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Cheney, several Generals, heads of state, foreign intelligence. Do you think someone just snaps a finger and the MIC disappears?

You conflate 'past' leadership with the current. The deep state is crumbling. We need to keep digging and indicting until Rothschild takes a one way rocket off planet Earth.

It will only end when treasonous traitor hang by their necks. I'm still hoping and informing others.

joego1 , 36 minutes ago link

Only the wheels that grind the sheeple work right now.

wadalt , 50 minutes ago link

"I've talked to the members of the Israeli government at the highest levels. I know who they want elected here. It's not Hillary Clinton." – Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani

The TRUMP Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Israhell.

But NO ONE will investigate that.

M.A.G.A. is out

K.A.K.A. is in (Keep America Kabalah Again)

http://cufpa.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/trumps-jewish-agenda/

KJWqonfo7 , 34 minutes ago link

It's difficult to look at him with that repugnant grin on his rat face.

boring_man , 54 minutes ago link

"Some of them will probably wind up in jail."

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longellow

Patience is an integral part of of those interested in true "justice"

man will fail, and at times shirk his duty to God and each other,,,,,,,,,,,,,our Great Judge misses no thing,,,,,,,

- now there's yer dinner -

boring

Dumpster Elite , 1 hour ago link

I know what occurred...it was a coup attempt.

I won't believe that ANYTHING will be done about it. Prove me wrong, Barr. I remain a non-believer that anything bad happens to the Deep State.

Pa Kettle , 1 hour ago link

The definitive exposé:

"CIA Crimes: How John Brennan Weaponized the CIA and FBI, and Conspired with Russia and Harry Reid to Frame Trump"

PART A
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=1362

PART B
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=1443

PART C
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=1525

PART D
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=2241

PART E
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=2423

PART F
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=2463

Philthy_Stacker , 52 minutes ago link

Sorry Ashton, Dan Bongino figured it out 2 years ago. Your book is weak.
https://www.amazon.com/Spygate-Attempted-Sabotage-Donald-Trump/dp/1642930989
Ashton is a day late and a dollar short. Hats off to Dan Bongino, the real 'exposer'.
Investigative reporting by:
John Solomon and Sara Carter.

[May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Breaking news today, courtesy of the New York Times , is that a man with a long history of working with the CIA and a female FBI Informant, traveled to London in September of 2016 and tried unsuccessfully to entrap George Papadopolous. The biggest curiosity is that US intelligence or law enforcement officials fully briefed British intelligence on what they were up to. ..."
"... The FBI disingenuously claims they ran Azra Turk at Papadopolous because they were alarmed ostensibly by Russia's attempts to disrupt the 2016 election. But Papadopolous was not seeking out Russian contacts. He was being baited. It was Mifsud and others tied to British and US intelligence who were bringing up the "opportunity" to work with the Russians. ..."
"... The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine. That is where there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried, to help Hillary Clinton . ..."
"... In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort 's dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress. ..."
"... It's not just the left. I listened to Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos and was stunned to learn about the web of Deep State actors and how our Five Eyes allies were intimately involved in subverting our Presidential election. Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attachés, DIA guys, in on this coup. Listen to this Michael Tracey* interview and you will be shaken: https://youtu.be/ZjGLCCP_lPg ..."
"... Neoliberals and neoconservatives (ie zionists) were behind it and continue to push it. Trump ran to the left of Clinton on both domestic and foreign policy. That's why he won, and why the establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan convergence around both finance driven economic policy and war on terror interventionism that has described elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all types and political persuasions -- and needs to be destroyed root and branch. ..."
"... What's the likelihood that Carter Page was a plant in the Trump campaign? After all, he had a history with the US IC and was used as bait in an FBI case to prove Russian operatives' recruiting efforts. It's thought he's the Under Cover Employee alluded to in this case, which resulted in the successful prosecution of Russian spies: ..."
"... Here's a National Review exclusive report in which a transcript of FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa's testimony reveals several Confidential Human Sources (including Christopher Steele), and more interestingly foreign "liasons" (Mifsud?) were employed by the bureau in this operation: ..."
May 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson

The preponderance of evidence makes this very simple--there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia.

The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign.

Breaking news today, courtesy of the New York Times, is that a man with a long history of working with the CIA and a female FBI Informant, traveled to London in September of 2016 and tried unsuccessfully to entrap George Papadopolous. The biggest curiosity is that US intelligence or law enforcement officials fully briefed British intelligence on what they were up to. Quite understandable given what we now know about British spying on the Trump Campaign.

The Mueller investigation of Trump "collusion" with Russia prior to the 2016 Presidential election focused on eight cases:

  1. Proposed Trump Tower Project in Moscow
  2. George Papadopolous --
  3. Carter Page --
  4. Dimitri Simes --
  5. Veselnetskya Meeting at Trump Tower (June 16, 2016)
  6. Events at Republican Convention
  7. Post-Convention Contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak
  8. Paul Manafort

One simple fact emerges--of the eight cases or incidents of alleged Trump Campaign interaction with the Russians investigated by the Mueller team, the proposals to interact with the Russian Government or Putin originated with FBI informants, MI-6 assets or people paid by Fusion GPS, not Trump or his people. There is not a single instance where Donald Trump or any member of his campaign team initiated contact with the Russians for the purpose of gaining derogatory information on Hillary or obtaining support to boost the Trump campaign. Not one.

Simply put, Trump and his campaign were the target of an elaborate, wide ranging covert action designed to entrap him and members of his team as an agent of Russia.

Let's look in detail at each of the cases.

THE PROPOSED TRUMP TOWER PROJECT IN MOSCOW, according to Mueller's report, originated with an FBI Informant--Felix Sater.

Here's what the Mueller Report states:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov.

Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Mueller, as I have noted previously , is downright dishonest in failing to identify Sater as an FBI informant. Sater was not just a private entrepreneur looking to make some coin. He was a fully signed up FBI informant. Sater's status as an FBI snitch was first exposed in 2012. Sater also was a boyhood chum of Michael Cohen, the target being baited in this operation. Another inconvenient fact excluded from the Mueller report is that one of Mueller's Chief Prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, signed the deal with Felix Sater in December 1998 that put Sater into the FBI Informant business .

All suggestions for meeting with the Russian Government, including Putin, originated with Felix Sater. The use of Sater on this particular project started in September 2015.

[For more on Sater please see my previous posts, Felix Sater--The Rosetta Stone for the FBI/CIA Conspiracy Against Trump? , Felix Sater and the Steele Dossier .]

GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS

Papadopolous was targeted by British and U.S. intelligence starting in late December 2015, when he is offered out of the blue a job with the London Centre of International Law and Practice Limited (LCILP) . The LCILP has all of the hallmarks of an intelligence front company. LCILP began as an offshoot from another company  --  EN Education Group Limited  --  which describes itself as "a global education consultancy, facilitating links between students, education providers and organisations with an interest in education worldwide".

EN Education and LCILP are owned and run by Nagi Khalid Idris, a 48-year-old British citizen of Sudanese origin. For no apparent reason Idris offers Papadopolous a job as the Director of the LCILP's International Energy and Natural Resources Division. Then in March of 2016, Idris and Arvinder Sambei (who acted as an attorney for the FBI on a 9-11 extradition case in the UK), insist on introducing Joseph Mifsud to Papadopolous.

It is Joseph Mifsud who introduces the idea of meeting Putin following a lunch in London:

"The lunch is booked for March 24 at the Grange Holborn Hotel,. . . . "When I get there, Mifsud is waiting for me in the lobby with an attractive, fashionably dressed young woman with dirty blonde hair at his side. He introduces her as Olga Vinogradova." (p. 76)

"Mifsud sells her hard. "Olga is going to be your inside woman to Moscow. She knows everyone." He tells me she was a former official at the Russian Ministry of Trade. Then he waxes on about introducing me to the Russian ambassador in London." (p. 77)

"On April 12, "Olga" writes: "I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. The embassy in London is very much aware of this. As mentioned, we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced."

And it is Mifsud who raises the possibility of getting dirt on Hillary:

"Then Mifsud returns from the Valdai conference. On April 26 we meet for breakfast at the Andaz Hotel, near Liverpool Street Station, one of the busiest train stations in London. He's in an excellent mood and claims he met with high-level Russian government officials. But once again, he's very short on specifics. This is becoming a real pattern with Mifsud. He hasn't offered any names besides Timofeev. Then, he leans across the table in a conspiratorial manner. The Russians have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, he tells me. "Emails of Clinton," he says. "They have thousands of emails."

Here again we encounter the lying and obfuscation of the Mueller team. They falsely characterize Mifsud as an agent of Russia. In fact, he has close and longstanding ties to both British and US intelligence ( Disobedient Media lays out the Mifsud mystery in detail ).

Mifsud was not alone. The FBI and the CIA also were in the game of trying to entrap Papadopolous. In September of 2016, Papadopolous was being wined and dined by Halper (who has longstanding ties to the US intelligence community) and Azra Turk, an FBI Informant/researcher ( see NY Times ).

The FBI disingenuously claims they ran Azra Turk at Papadopolous because they were alarmed ostensibly by Russia's attempts to disrupt the 2016 election. But Papadopolous was not seeking out Russian contacts. He was being baited. It was Mifsud and others tied to British and US intelligence who were bringing up the "opportunity" to work with the Russians.

CARTER PAGE

The section of the Mueller report that deals with Carter Page is a total travesty. Mueller and his team, for example, initially misrepresent Page's status with the Trump campaign--he is described as "working" for the campaign, which implies a paid position, when he was in fact only a volunteer foreign policy advisor. Mueller also paints Page's prior experience and work in Russia as evidence that Page was being used by Russian intelligence, but says nothing about the fact that Page was being regularly debriefed by the CIA and the FBI during the same period. In other words, Page was cooperating with US intelligence and law enforcement. But this fact is omitted in the Mueller report.

Mueller eventually accurately describes Page's role in the Trump campaign as follows:

In January 2016, Page began volunteering on an informal, unpaid basis for the Trump Campaign after Ed Cox, a state Republican Party official, introduced Page to Trump Campaign officials. Page told the Office that his goal in working on the Campaign was to help candidate Trump improve relations with Russia. To that end, Page emailed Campaign officials offering his thoughts on U.S.-Russia relations, prepared talking points and briefing memos on Russia, and proposed that candidate Trump meet with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

In communications with Campaign officials, Page also repeatedly touted his high-level contacts in Russia and his ability to forge connections between candidate Trump and senior Russian governmental officials. For example, on January 30, 2016, Page sent an email to senior Campaign officials stating that he had "spent the past week in Europe and had been in discussions with some individuals with close ties to the Kremlin" who recognized that Trump could have a "game-changing effect . .. in bringing the end of the new Cold War. The email stated that " [t]hrough [his] discussions with these high level contacts," Page believed that "a direct meeting in Moscow between Mr. Trump and Putin could be arranged.

The Mueller presentation portrays Carter Page in a nefarious, negative light. His contacts with Russia are characterized as inappropriate and unjustified. Longstanding business experience in a particular country is not proof of wrong doing. No consideration is given at all to Page's legitimate concerns raising about the dismal state of US/Russia relations following the US backed coup in the Ukraine and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Page's association with the Trump campaign was quite brief--he lasted seven months, being removed as a foreign policy advisor on 24 September. Page was not identified publicly as a Trump foreign policy advisor until March of 2016, but the evidence presented in the Mueller report clearly indicates that Page was already a target of intelligence agencies, in the US and abroad, long before the FISA warrant of October 2016.

While serving on the foreign policy team Page continued his business and social contacts in Russia, but was never tasked by the Trump team to pursue or promote contacts with Putin and his team. In fact, Page's proposals, suggestions and recommendations were either ignored or directly rebuffed.

The timeline reported in the Mueller report regarding Page's trip to Russia in early July raises questions about the intel collected on that trip and the so-called "intel" revealed in the Steele Dossier with respect to Page. Carter admits to meeting with individuals, such as Dmitry Peskov and Igor Sechin, who appear in the Steele Dossier. Page's meetings in Moscow turned out to be innocuous and uneventful. Nothing he did resembled clandestine activity. Yet, the Steele report on that visit suggested just the opposite and used the tactic of guilt by association to imply that Page was up to something dirty.

The bottomline for Mueller is that Page did not do anything wrong and no one in the Trump Campaign embraced his proposals for closer ties with Russia.

DMITRI SIMES

The targeting and investigation of Dmitri Simes is disgusting and an abuse of law enforcement authority. Full disclosure. I know Dmitri. For awhile, in the 2002-2003 time period, I was a regular participant at Nixon Center events. For example, I was at a round table in December 2002 on the imminent invasion of Iraq. Colonel Pat Lang sat on one side of me and Ambassador Joe Wilson on the other. Directly across the table was Charles Krauthammer. Dmitri ran an honest seminar.

The entire section on Dmitri Simes, under other circumstances, could be viewed as something bizarre and amusing. But the mere idea that Simes was somehow an agent of Putin and a vehicle for helping Trump work with the Russians to steal the 2016 election is crazy and idiotic. Those in the FBI who were so stupid as to buy into this nonsense should have their badges and guns taken away. They are too dumb to work in law enforcement.

Dmitri's only sin was to speak calmly, intelligently and rationally about foreign policy dealings with Russia. We now know that in this new hysteria of the 21st Century Russian scare that qualities such as reason and rationality are proof of one's willingness to act as a puppet of Vladimir Putin.

TRUMP TOWER MEETING (JUNE 9, 2016)

This is the clearest example of a plant designed to entrap the Trump team. Mueller, once again, presents a very disingenuous account:

On June 9, 2016, senior representatives of the Trump Campaign met in Trump Tower with a Russian attorney expecting to receive derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. The meeting was proposed to Donald Trump Jr. in an email from Robert Goldstone, at the request of his then-client Emin Agalarov, the son of Russian real-estate developer Aras Agalarov. Goldstone relayed to Trump Jr. that the "Crown prosecutor of Russia ... offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia" as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. immediately responded that "if it's what you say I love it," and arranged the meeting through a series of emails and telephone calls.

The meeting was with a Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

The Russian attorney who spoke at the meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had previously worked for the Russian government and maintained a relationship with that government throughout this period oftime. She claimed that funds derived from illegal activities in Russia were provided to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. Trump Jr. requested evidence to support those claims, but Veselnitskaya did not provide such information.

Ignore for a moment that no information on Hillary was passed or provided (and doing such a thing is not illegal). The real problem is with what Mueller does not say and did not investigate. Mueller conveniently declines to mention the fact that Veselnitskaya was working closely with the firm Hillary Clinton hired to produce the Steele Dossier. NBC News reported on Veselnitskaya:

The information that a Russian lawyer brought with her when she met Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 stemmed from research conducted by Fusion GPS, the same firm that compiled the infamous Trump dossier, according to the lawyer and a source familiar with the matter.

In an interview with NBC News, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says she first received the supposedly incriminating information she brought to Trump Tower -- describing alleged tax evasion and donations to Democrats -- from Glenn Simpson , the Fusion GPS owner, who had been hired to conduct research in a New York federal court case.

Even a mediocre investigator would recognize the problem of the relationship between the lawyer claiming to have dirty, damning info on Hillary with the firm Hillary hired to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. This was another botched set up and the Trump folks did not take the bait.

EVENTS AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

This portion of the Mueller report is complete farce. Foreign Ambassdors, including the Russian (and the Chinese) attend Republican and Democrat Conventions. Presidential candidates and their advisors speak to those Ambassadors. So, where is the beef? Answer. There isn't any. That this "event" was considered something worthy of a counter intelligence investigation is just one more piece of evidence that law enforcement and intelligence were weaponized against the Trump campaign.

POST-CONVENTION CONTACTS WITH RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR KISLYAK

Ditto. As noted in the previous paragraph, trying to criminalize normal diplomatic contacts, especially with a country where we share important, vital national security interests, is but further evidence of the crazy anti-Russian hysteria that has infected the anti-Trumpers. Pathetic.

MANAFORT

If Paul Manafort had rebuffed Trump's offer to run his campaign, he would be walking free today and still buying expensive suits and evading taxes along with his Clinton buddy, Greg Craig. Instead, he became another target for DOJ and intel community and the DNC, which were desperate to portray Trump as a tool of the Kremlin. Thanks to John Solomon of The Hill, we now know the impetus to target Manafort came from the DNC :

The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine. That is where there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried, to help Hillary Clinton .

In its most detailed account yet, Ukraine's embassy in Washington says a Democratic National Committee insider during the 2016 election solicited dirt on Donald Trump's campaign chairman and even tried to enlist the country's president to help.

In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort 's dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress.

Manafort was not colluding, but the Clinton campaign and the Obama Administration most certainly were.

Take these eight events as a whole a very clear picture emerges--US and foreign intelligence (especially the UK) and US law enforcement collaborated in a broad effort to bait the Trump team with ostensible Russian entreaties in order to paint Trump as a tool of the Kremlin. That effort is now being exposed and those culpable will hopefully face justice. This should sicken and alarm every American regardless of political party. Will justice be served?

notlurking , 03 May 2019 at 08:16 AM

we're not in Kansas anymore.....
Joe100 , 03 May 2019 at 08:43 AM
Great work!

I just read the following about special visas approved for some of the FBI "operatives" (from SD at CTH): "It wasn't just the CIA that was using spies to "dirty up" Trump associates. The FBI was doing it too. There was the infamous Natalia Veselnitskaya who is known for her part in the Trump Tower meeting. She had been banned from the country but got a special visa signed off by Preet Bahara of the FBI, Southern District of New York. Henry Greenburg, the known FBI informant who tried to entrap Roger Stone, also got a special visa. And I'm sure there are many more "

Gerard M , 03 May 2019 at 09:06 AM
IMO, there is no coming back from this. Apart from this Deep State coup attempt, we have seen that democracy is a shame, it's all theater. The Establishment (which includes GOP) is constantly working to undermine Trump and thwart his plans to do what the American people want and elected him for. What I've found quite disturbing is that the controlling puppet masters have not let up in trying to remove or neutralize Trump. As if they can't wait even 4 years to again fully stack the deck and regain total control. They are not willing to concede that 2016 was a political black swan event involving a celebrity billionaire American icon. And conceding and allowing this fluke to be rectified I'm 4 short years is worse than their pushback exposing the political system as a rigged game.

The events of the last 2.5 years have radically altered my views. I no longer have any faith in democracy (voting), the government, the federal courts, law enforcement, et al. And I can't see me regaining any faith in them. What I have seen in the past 2.5 years is kind of like finding out my wife of decades, whom I idolized, has been cheating with my friend from childhood, whom I would've laid down my life for. And all the other people close to me not telling me.

I now only have faith in only God and beagles.

Fred -> Gerard M... , 03 May 2019 at 10:40 AM
It's not the black swan event that concerns the guilty but the fear of just retribution by those who see just how black hearted the left has become.
Gerard M said in reply to Fred ... , 03 May 2019 at 12:25 PM
It's not just the left. I listened to Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos and was stunned to learn about the web of Deep State actors and how our Five Eyes allies were intimately involved in subverting our Presidential election. Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attachés, DIA guys, in on this coup. Listen to this Michael Tracey* interview and you will be shaken: https://youtu.be/ZjGLCCP_lPg

*Tracey, btw, is on the left. But like Glenn Greenwald and others on the left he is an honest journalist interested in the truth.

Ligurio said in reply to Fred ... , 03 May 2019 at 02:16 PM
The "left" was not behind and does not buy into this Russia psyop. Neoliberals and neoconservatives (ie zionists) were behind it and continue to push it. Trump ran to the left of Clinton on both domestic and foreign policy. That's why he won, and why the establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan convergence around both finance driven economic policy and war on terror interventionism that has described elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all types and political persuasions -- and needs to be destroyed root and branch.

To see how and why the "left" differs from corporate identity-politicking liberals in the above regard consider how it is that Tulsi Gabbard is both the Dem candidate most respected by principled Trump supporters on this site and others and the Dem candidate most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike.

The enemy to principled conservatives and the left in this country is the bipartisan establishment corporate neoliberalism of the RNC and DNC alike.

Fred -> Ligurio... , 03 May 2019 at 08:53 PM
That's as convenient a lie as any other.
akaPatience , 03 May 2019 at 11:56 AM
What's the likelihood that Carter Page was a plant in the Trump campaign? After all, he had a history with the US IC and was used as bait in an FBI case to prove Russian operatives' recruiting efforts. It's thought he's the Under Cover Employee alluded to in this case, which resulted in the successful prosecution of Russian spies:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/evgeny-buryakov-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-connection-conspiracy-work

Anonymous said in reply to akaPatience ... , 03 May 2019 at 04:05 PM
Page is just a goofball grifter. He's not a plant. That is silly. When they saw names like Page and Manafort the Democrats pounced because they knew the could cast aspersions.

I'm not sure about Mifsud. I think it would be hard for Mueller to knowingly indict Papadop if Mifsud were an asset of the US (or even known to be an asset of allies). I think it is more likely Mifsud was a free agent.

All these guys Mifsud, Page, Papadop were grifters, not doing real work. Just running around trying to make a buck by claiming to facilitate meetings. It's a shame it bit them and not a crime to do what they did. At the same time, I can't help but see some kharmic justice. GET A JOB, you poly sci lightweights!

walrus said in reply to Anonymous... , 03 May 2019 at 06:11 PM
This anonymous commentator has never spent time in senior levels of business or government. There is a whole class of people who do not see themselves as Grifters but more as "ideas men".

The best offer valuable perspectives on the world, can really open doors and otherwise add value. At the other end of the spectrum are con men. Political campaigns and large corporations of any sort attract these people in droves. The skill in management is to sort the wheat from the chaff. Trump is good at that.

akaPatience -> Anonymous... , 03 May 2019 at 06:56 PM
Yes, Page often comes off as a bit crazy and incoherent. But he may be crazy like a fox. In the end he was never charged with ANYTHING and it's my understanding he represented himself legally throughout the investigation, opting not to hire counsel. I find it odd that others were prosecuted for process crimes but he escaped even THAT fate.

His participation in the Trump campaign, limited as it was, was nevertheless KEY in finally obtaining a FISA warrant after other attempts failed.

Consider it silly if you want. I view him at least worthy of suspicion. His hapless demeanor could be his schtick , when his education, experience and IC connections are taken into consideration.

Anonymous said in reply to akaPatience ... , 04 May 2019 at 06:09 PM
Page represents himself poorly even when he knows a lot is on the line. Look at how frustrated Gowdy got with him. Clearly Page didn't learn much from plebe year in terms of 5 basic responses. Compare the difference with Barr for instance.

While the Trident program is a big deal, every now and then USNA has mids that are diligent about getting good grades but not very smart. I knew one my year. Page is clearly in that vein. Don't miss that he didn't get into any elite program after graduation (SWO is the default). And that he was a poly sci major. The saying is "poly sci, QPR high" (QPR is quality point rating or GPA). Of course this is not to say there aren't some good SWOs or poly sci majors. But there's a definite correlation I'm noting. It fits with what his reputation is.

Furthermore, the guy has had an uneventful career, bouncing around. He went to a lower bulge bracket (not Goldman) and didn't seem to stick. And his Russian colleagues said he was an idiot and a boaster. We're not talking i-banker smart. Wouldn't trust him to do an NPV or other economic analysis. And then after that we have the grifting and the shmoozing.

Kid is a lightweight. A slightly less coffee-boy coffee boy.

catherine said in reply to Bill H ... , 03 May 2019 at 07:02 PM
''They cannot convict based on a law that was passed after the act was committed''

Money laundering has always been against the law of course....the NY law just firmed up the due diligence that is suppose to be done in transactions. I don't think there is a statute of limitations on things like fraud, tax evasion and money laundering but I will check it out to see

walrus said in reply to catherine... , 03 May 2019 at 04:37 PM
Catherine, in current PC thinking, merely passing the salt to a Russian guest at a dinner party makes you "an unregistered foreign agent" of Russia bent on implementing Putin's evil plans.

As for certifying real estate deals, the same crowd would view buying someone a MacDonalds hamburger as attempted bribery.

catherine said in reply to walrus ... , 03 May 2019 at 07:34 PM
''As for certifying real estate deals, the same crowd would view buying someone a MacDonalds hamburger as attempted bribery.''

Hardly. 7 million dollar cash deals for a condo thru a shell company is a red flag however..as is buying property for 1 million and selling it unimproved the next year for 2 million...or buying a house in LA 11 million and selling it 9 months later for 8 million. That 'in between money" is someone's pay off....that's how it works.

Money laundering is epidemic in the US and Europe....Israeli mafia, Russian oligarchs, African dictators looting their country's treasury and running it through a real estate washing machine deal. Far be from me to sweep the fairy dust out of Trump supporters eyes but, as I said, Trump's troubles are far from over. We will see what comes out in the future.

VietnamVet , 03 May 2019 at 05:40 PM
The soft coup against Donald Trump failed. He has to run hard and sure to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. Corporate Democrats will do their damnedst again to put forth their weakest pro war candidate like the aged, apparently demented, Joe Biden. This fiasco and the recent coup attempt in Venezuela make the Keystone Cops appear competent.

I put this all down to Washington DC being completely isolated inside their credentialed bubble. It is just like corporate CEOs, who think they know exactly what they are doing. But, in reality, they are destroying the stabilizing middle class by extracting and hording wealth and turning mid-America into their colony. Globalist and nationalist oligarchs are after each other's throat over who controls the flow of money.

We live on a very finite world dependent on one sun in an expanding universe. Just like Boeing, Bayer or Volkswagen, the splintering world is starting to crash all around them. Even as they deny it, this is a multi-polar world now. It is not going back without a world war which would destroy civilization and could make the world uninhabitable for humans.

Bill H -> VietnamVet... , 04 May 2019 at 01:26 AM
And the best that our government can do is warn us not to wash our chicken before cooking it because washing merely spreads the salmonella that our food industry is unable to prevent from infecting it.
English Outsider -> VietnamVet... , 04 May 2019 at 01:15 PM
The trouble is that those CEO's do know exactly what they are doing. Making money the only way possible in a business environment in which outsourcing can sometimes be the only thing that pays.

The idea was that Trump was going to change that environment. Bannon calls its "economic nationalism" but in truth it's now just economic survival. Survival for those whose jobs are outsourced. Survival for the country as a whole, ultimately. That was Trump's core programme. It was the programme that made him different from all other Western politicians, "populist" or status quo. Do you see any sign that it's being implemented, or has that programme too got bogged down in the swamp?

Mad Max_22 , 03 May 2019 at 06:44 PM
Will justice be served? A good question.

If we are speaking about criminal justice, there is some chance that we will see persons such as Jim Comey, who persists in his smug higher calling act, prosecuted for what was a clear cut violation in divulging classified material through a lawyer intermediary to the NYT. I suspect the higher calling bit has been prompted in part because he knows that he screwed up both on the facts and in law and he is justifying his screw up to himself, and possibly also rehearsing his defense, with the rationale that he was only trying to do the right thing. Yeah, he may have had the facts all wrong, the Russians, etc, etc, but the worst that can be said is that he had been competent, there was no intent. That defense doesn't do much for the FBI's once held reputation for competence, but that appears to be gone anyway.

With regard to what will be turned up concerning the actual roots of the travesty, the heavily politicized faux investigation into the Clinton e mails and targeting of the Trump campaign on a predicate that is somewhere between nebulous and non existant, I think a criminal prosecution arising from that investigation, even if it is serious, is unlikely for two main reasons. First, what will be the charged violations? As best I can see right now, they will have to entail some imaginative application of fraud statutes, defrauding the FISC, defrauding the US, informants and assets lying to their handlers, or process crimes like Bob Mueller's partisan posse relied upon (ugly); and second, something like the Comey defense will interpenetrate all the individuals and entities involved: we may have been incredible bunglers, but that is the worst of it. We really believed these charlatans who conned us into this debacle. Sorry, but we thought we were doing the right thing.

Now if we are talking about seeing some kind of political or moral justice, I'm not too optimistic we will get much satisfaction there either and we will probably have to wait for history. The reason is that Barr will conduct this investigation by the rule book. That means that what we see developed through the process, indictment, prosecution, etc, is likely all,that we will ever see. Barr is very unlikely to produce a politcized manifesto to be employed as a smear weapon like the once reputable Mueller did.

Anyway, until we see a special FGJ empanelled, some search warrants executed, some tactical immunities offered, everything is on the come.

Jack , 03 May 2019 at 08:26 PM
All,

What probability do you assign that any top official will be indicted and prosecuted? I mean Brennan, Clapper, Comey & Lynch.

Second, what probability do you assign that Trump will declassify the relevant documents and communications like the FISA application,the originating EC, the tasking orders for FBI/CIA spying, etc.

blue peacock said in reply to Jack... , 04 May 2019 at 12:27 PM
Jack,

The question really comes down to Trump. Does he really want to expose the Swamp and pay the price or just use it for rhetorical & political purposes? When considering probabilities and looking at his track record in office on foreign policy relative to his campaign stance, I would say the probability is less than 30% that Brennan & Clapper will be indicted.

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 04 May 2019 at 03:07 PM
bp,

The question is only very partly what Trump wants, in some abstract sense. Situations like this commonly have a strong escalatory logic. So one needs to ask whether or not he has rational reason to believe that unless he can destroy those who have shown themselves prepared to stop at nothing to destroy him, they will eventually succeed.

If the answer is yes - and while I think it may very well be, I am not prejudging the issue - then a key question becomes whether Trump will conclude that his most promising loption is to go after the conspirators by every means possible.

Involved here are questions about who he is listening to, and how competent they are.

But the escalatory processes are not simply to do with what Trump decides. In particular, a whole range of legal proceedings are involved. The referral in relation to Nellie Ohr is likely to be the fist of a good few. In addition, Ed Butowsky's lawsuits, and those against Steele, have unpredictable potentialities.

blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 May 2019 at 07:11 PM
David

The intelligence & law enforcement apparatus in collusion with the media and the establishment of both parties went after him hard. As Larry notes here, they went to considerable effort to entrap those related to his campaign to impugn him. Mueller spent $35 million trying to find an angle. Even after the Mueller report stated there was no collusion they're sill after him. So that's not going to end any time soon.

Trump may have good instincts but his judgment of people so far to staff his administration is not very inspiring. He had Jeff Sessions as his AG and he let him hang in there for nearly two years while Mueller ran riot. He's surrounded himself with neocons on foreign policy. It seems his only real advisor is Jared. Everyone else he's got around him are from the same establishment that's going after him. He hasn't taken advise from Devin Nunes, who has done more to uncover the sedition than anyone else. If he had he would have by now declassified all the documents & communications. The impression I have is his primary motivation is building his brand & less about governance and wielding power. Take for example his order to withdraw from Syria. Bolton & the Pentagon are thumbing their noses at him.

Well, there have been several criminal referrals prior to the recent one on Nellie Ohr. There's the McCabe referral and the 8 referrals by Devin Nunes. I've not read any report of the empaneling of a grand jury yet. I agree with you that these law suits have the potential for great embarrassment, however to hold those responsible for the sedition accountable will require iron will & intense focus on the part of Trump to get his AG to assign prosecutors who don't have the axe to "protect" the "institution" and to create an opportunity for public awareness of the extent that law enforcement & intelligence became a 4th branch of government. My opinion is that his skill is in his instinctual understanding of the current political zeitgeist and his ability to manipulate the media including social media to project his brand. He's not an operational leader making sure his team executes his vision & strategy.

akaPatience , 04 May 2019 at 07:11 PM
Here's a National Review exclusive report in which a transcript of FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa's testimony reveals several Confidential Human Sources (including Christopher Steele), and more interestingly foreign "liasons" (Mifsud?) were employed by the bureau in this operation:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/fbi-official-testimony-surveillance-trump-campaign/

[May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated]

Highly recommended!
This was clearly an attempt to entrap Trump in connections to Russia and fuel anti-Russian hysteria and defense spending. Both goals were accomplished under Trump without much resistance. Still Russiagate persists. Why?
Notable quotes:
"... 05/03/16 Email from DNC contractor Ali Chalupa states she connected Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News "to the Ukrainians" DNC https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962 ..."
"... 05/15/16 Crowdstrike claims it investigated DNC hacking and that Russians were responsible; FBI still denied access to server to confirm Crowdstrike https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ ..."
Jan 04, 2018 | directorblue.blogspot.com
  1. Date Description Source Link
  2. 07/23/14 House Select Committee on Benghazi reaches agreement with State Dept. to produce Clinton emails relevant to their investigation USNews https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-combetta-computer-specialist-who-deleted-hillary-clinton-emails-may-have-asked-reddit-for-tips
  3. 07/24/14 Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta, using the alias "stonetear", requests assistance on Reddit for deleting VIP email addresses USNews https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-combetta-computer-specialist-who-deleted-hillary-clinton-emails-may-have-asked-reddit-for-tips
  4. 10/15/14 Clinton team instructs Datto to begin purging emails from their backup storage devices, which they apparently failed to do Exam http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clintons-tech-firm-worried-about-involvement-in-cover-up/article/2573526
  5. 03/02/15 News that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private email server for official State Dept. business is disclosed in the New York Times NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html
  6. 03/03/15 Clinton aides call Platte River Networks, which operated her email server, to confirm all emails were deleted per their 2014 order NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html?_r=1&mtrref=undefined
  7. 03/09/15 Clinton associate Terry McCauliffe meets with Andrew McCabe's wife Jill to encourage her to run for office JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-fbi-records-show-fbi-leaderships-conflicts-interest-discussions-clinton-email-investigation/
  8. 03/12/15 Jill McCabe announces her candidacy for the state senate in Virginia JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-fbi-records-show-fbi-leaderships-conflicts-interest-discussions-clinton-email-investigation/
  9. 03/31/15 Clinton IT specialist Paul Combetta realizes he had not deleted all of Clinton's emails, uses BleachBit software to do so Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/best-of-clinton-fbi-report-227692
  10. 05/19/15 DOJ official Peter Kadzik, writing from personal email account, emails John Podesta to warn of House probe into Clinton's emails Wikileaks https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150
  11. 06/24/15 Discovery of classified information on Clinton's private email server announced; the matter is referred to the FBI Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  12. 07/15/15 FBI opens criminal investigation into Clinton's email server and mishandling of classified data led by Andrew McCabe in DC office FBI https://vault.fbi.gov/october-2016-application-affidavit-and-search-warrant-related-to-email-server-investigation/October%202016%20Application%20Affidavit%20and%20Search%20Warrant%20Related%20to%20Email%20Server%20Investigation%20Part%2001%20of%2001
  13. 07/20/15 DOJ DAG Sally Yates writes to Inspector General, saying the National Security Division of DOJ is not subject to IG review DOJ https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/files/files/OLC%20IG%20Act%20Opinion%20-%207-20-15%20.pdf
  14. 07/24/15 State Dept. and other officials make security referral related to classified information possessed by Clinton and associates WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  15. 07/24/15 After complaints from Clinton camp, New York Times edits story about email probe, removing "criminal" references TheWrap https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-alters-hillary-clinton-story-in-response-to-complaints-we-received-from-the-clinton-camp/
  16. 08/15/15 McCabe uses his official FBI email to promote his wife's candidacy for the State Senate in Virginia JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-doj-mccabe-2-production-01494-pg-24-25/
  17. 10/01/15 FBI official Andrew McCabe's wife Jill starts receiving bulk of $700,000 from Clinton associate Gov. Terry McCauliffe's political entities Ballotopedia https://ballotpedia.org/Jill_McCabe https://truepundit.com/fbi-director-lobbied-against-criminal-charges-for-hillary-after-clinton-insider-paid-his-wife-700k/
  18. 10/03/15 FBI seizes the Platte River Networks server as well as the "Pagliano" server, which were used to host Clinton email services Thompson http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/david-kendall/
  19. 10/05/15 FBI's Strzok sends letter to Datto, Inc. demanding the newly discovered backup server be turned over DOJ https://twitter.com/TruthinGov2016/status/945115416736796673
  20. 10/06/15 FBI receives backup of Clinton emails held by Datto, Inc. (possibly claimed by Agent Strzok) McClatchy http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article37968711.html
  21. 10/15/15 On or around this date, McCabe emails investigators that Clinton will get an "HQ Special" (special or lenient treatment) Fox https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/944439946416340992
  22. 10/11/15 On 60 Minutes , President Obama absolves Hillary Clinton of blame for her private email server: did not pose "a national security problem" CNN http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/11/politics/barack-obama-60-minutes-hillary-clinton/index.html
  23. 01/15/16 John Giacalone, head of FBI's National Security Division, retires after reportedly seeing Clinton probe go "sideways" TruePundit https://truepundit.com/fbi-director-lobbied-against-criminal-charges-for-hillary-after-clinton-insider-paid-his-wife-700k/
  24. 01/19/16 Intelligence Community Inspector General reports Clinton's private email server had SAP (highest classification level) data on it Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html
  25. 01/29/16 FBI director James Comey names Andrew McCabe deputy director, with responsibility for oversight of Clinton investigation FBI https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/andrew-mccabe-named-deputy-director-of-the-fbi
  26. 02/15/16 State Dept. finds that 2,115 of the 30,490 emails produced by Clinton were classified and therefore grossly mishandled FBI https://vault.fbi.gov/october-2016-application-affidavit-and-search-warrant-related-to-email-server-investigation/October%202016%20Application%20Affidavit%20and%20Search%20Warrant%20Related%20to%20Email%20Server%20Investigation%20Part%2001%20of%2001
  27. 03/04/16 FBI's Peter Strzok texts his mistress Lisa Page, an FBI attorney, calling Trump "an idiot", whose nomination would be "good for Hillary" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  28. 03/06/16 Former Hillary State Dept. representative George Papadopoulos learns he will join Trump campaign as a low-level foreign policy adviser DOJ https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download
  29. 03/15/16 Between this date and 9/15/16, Papadopoulos tries 6 times to arrange meetings between Trump campaign and Russians, all are rejected ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-russian-businessman-source-key-trump-dossier-claims/story?id=45019603
  30. 03/19/16 Hackers gain access to emails of Democrat operative John Podesta CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/politics/donald-trump-jr-wikileaks-timeline/index.html
  31. 03/28/16 Paul Manafort hired as Trump campaign manager (Fusion GPS's Simpson and wife had reported on Manafort's Russian ties in 2008) Tablet http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate
  32. 04/05/16 FBI's Strzok interviews Clinton aide Huma Abedin DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  33. 04/09/16 FBI's Strzok interviews Clinton aide Cheryl Mills DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  34. 04/12/16 Law firm Perkins Coie, using money from the Clinton campaign and DNC, hires Fusion GPS to find incriminating data on Trump FEC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  35. 04/19/16 Wife of Fusion GPS founder Simpson, Mary Jacoby, visits White House and meets with Obama and/or Obama aides CTH https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/21/oh-dear-trail-of-russian-dossier-origination-now-directly-leads-to-the-obama-white-house/
  36. 04/25/16 Obama campaign organization makes first of its payments to Perkins Coie (OFA payments to firm would total $972,000) FEC http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/29/obamas-campaign-gave-972000-law-firm-funneled-money-fusion-gps/#.WjwY4L_iThg.twitter
  37. 04/25/16 FBI's James Baker and DOJ's FISA attorneys visit White House for two back-to-back meetings White House https://twitter.com/ckadoodldooUS/status/944982488497172482
  38. 04/26/16 Low-level Trump staffer George Papadopoulos meets with Russian contact in London and is reportedly offered "dirt" on Clinton NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453264/donald-trump-george-papadopoulos-indictment-exculpatory-trump
  39. 04/30/16 DNC IT staff reports suspected hacking on its server(s) to FBI, but fails to turn over the server to the agency, instead hires Crowdstrike Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/russian-government-hackers-broke-into-dnc-servers-stole-trump-oppo-224315
  40. 05/02/16 FBI director Comey drafts statement exonerating Clinton before interviewing her or other key witnesses WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  41. 05/03/16 Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the office of president Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93Russia_dossier
  42. 05/03/16 Clinton IT specialist Paul Combetta admits lying to the FBI about erasing emails using BleachBit but is not charged for the crime WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  43. 05/03/16 Email from DNC contractor Ali Chalupa states she connected Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News "to the Ukrainians" DNC https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962
  44. 05/05/16 FBI's Lisa Page and James Baker meet with Obama deputy at White House, likely topic is forthcoming FISA request White House https://twitter.com/ckadoodldooUS/status/944982488497172482
  45. 05/05/16 Washington Post reports there is "scant evidence" of a crime committed by Clinton through her use of a private email server WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  46. 05/15/16 Crowdstrike claims it investigated DNC hacking and that Russians were responsible; FBI still denied access to server to confirm Crowdstrike https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/
  47. 05/16/16 Draft statement by FBI directory Comey exonerating Clinton, before key interviews, is circulated to FBI leadership WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  48. 05/15/16 Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ executive Bruce Ohr, is secretly hired by Fusion GPS, presumably to work on Russian "Dossier" Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/11/wife-demoted-doj-official-worked-for-firm-behind-anti-trump-dossier.html
  49. 05/21/16 According to Mueller investigation, Trump campaign official refuses Papadopoulos offer to broker meetings with Russian officials NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453264/donald-trump-george-papadopoulos-indictment-exculpatory-trump
  50. 05/23/16 Nellie Ohr applies for HAM radio license, presumably to create covert communication channel and avoid government surveillance FCC http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/LicArchive/license.jsp?archive=Y&licKey=12382876
  51. 06/04/16 Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reports, via anonymous sources, that Russians hacked the DNC WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_no-name:page/breaking-news-bar&tid=a_breakingnews&utm_term=.94b04ef12773
  52. 06/09/16 Donald Trump Jr. meets with Russian attorney after being lured by the promise of opposition research NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html
  53. 06/09/16 After meeting with Bernie Sanders in White House, President Obama endorses Hillary Clinton USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/06/09/barack-obama-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-democratic-party/85639104/
  54. 06/12/16 Wikileaks' Assange warns that Clinton emails will be leaked ITV http://www.itv.com/news/update/2016-06-12/assange-on-peston-on-sunday-more-clinton-leaks-to-come/
  55. 06/15/16 Ex-MI-6 agent Christopher Steele is hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign through Fusion GPS, according to UK court filings UK https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgzy2KXyxqtVUxEb2pwRmphOXM/view?usp=sharing
  56. 06/15/16 Romanian hacker "Guccifer" claims to have hacked DNC; analysis indicates faux "Russian" fingerprints were inserted into some files The Nation https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/guccifer-20-claims-credit-for-dnc-hack/2016/06/15/abdcdf48-3366-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?utm_term=.b2fbd3eadc9c
  57. 06/15/16 FBI agent Peter Strzok changes wording of Clinton charges from criminal designation "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless" Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/04/fbi-agent-fired-from-russia-probe-oversaw-flynn-interviews-changed-comey-memos-on-clinton-charges.html
  58. 06/20/16 Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele releases first memo related to Russian "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  59. 06/27/16 A.G. Loretta Lynch secretly meets with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac; they later deny discussing the investigation Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  60. 07/02/16 Clinton interviewed by FBI and Peter Strzok for 3.5 hours; she is not placed under oath nor recorded WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  61. 07/05/16 FISA Court denies FBI request for surveillance of Trump campaign NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443768/obama-fisa-trump-wiretap
  62. 07/05/16 Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele shares Russian "Dossier" with the FBI DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  63. 07/05/16 FBI director Comey announces he does not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for use of her email server Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  64. 07/05/16 Romanian hacker "Guccifer" claims to have hacked DNC again The Nation https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/guccifer-20-claims-credit-for-dnc-hack/2016/06/15/abdcdf48-3366-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?utm_term=.b2fbd3eadc9c
  65. 07/05/16 Date that forensics indicate that DNC emails were copied by an insider via USB and not hacked via external actors The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
  66. 07/06/16 A.G. Loretta Lynch accepts Comey's recommendation not to charge Clinton for mishandling classified information USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/07/james-comey-testimony-a-timeline-fbi/102581874/
  67. 07/10/16 DNC staffer Seth Rich murdered in as yet unsolved case Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich
  68. 07/22/16 Wikileaks releases archive of emails stolen from Democrat National Committee (DNC) that show undermining of Sanders campaign Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak
  69. 07/24/16 Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigns as Chair of DNC due to Wikileaks revelations about Sanders WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hacked-emails-cast-doubt-on-hopes-for-party-unity-at-democratic-convention/2016/07/24/a446c260-51a9-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html?utm_term=.d6ba79f39f23
  70. 07/24/16 Clinton aide Robbie Mook claims Russians hacked DNC and Clinton campaign to aid Trump Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/robby-mook-russians-emails-trump-226084
  71. 07/25/16 Wikileaks' Assange says he timed release of DNC emails to impact convention; says "no one" knows who provided emails NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html
  72. 07/25/16 FBI announces it will investigate the DNC hack revealed by Wikileaks, Peter Strzok handpicked to lead investigation Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak
  73. 07/30/16 FBI opens counterintelligence investigation into possible Russian "collusion" with Trump campaign led bt Peter Strzok DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  74. 08/06/16 FBI investigator Strzok texts mistress about a "menace", presumably meaning Trump DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  75. 08/10/16 Bernie Sanders reported to have purchased a $575,000 lakeside home WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2016/08/10/bernie-sanders-buys-a-half-million-dollar-vacation-home-and-the-internet-cries-hypocrisy/?utm_term=.63d263792364
  76. 08/10/16 Washington Post implies John Brennan may have shared "Dossier" with President Obama around this date WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/?utm_term=.fcda779022f5
  77. 08/15/16 FBI investigator Strzok texts mistress about needing an "insurance policy" against Trump CNN https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/12/politics/peter-strzok-texts-released/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
  78. 08/16/16 FBI writes Congress defending decision not to prosecute Clinton, stating it was 'extreme carelessness' and not 'gross negligence' WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  79. 08/17/16 On this day, NBC's Dilanian, Windrem, Arkin report claim M. Flynn clashed with intel officials during initial briefing with Trump team NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/u-s-official-donald-trump-s-body-language-claim-doesn-n644856
  80. 08/25/16 CIA director James Brennan informs Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid about possible Russian "collusion" with Trump campaign DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  81. 08/27/16 Reid sends a letter to Comey referencing allegations made about Carter Page in the dossier DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  82. 09/05/16 Hillary Clinton accuses Russia of interfering with U.S. election NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-russia.html
  83. 09/08/16 NYT reports that Paul Combetta, Clinton's IT specialist, mass-deleted emails from her server in spite of records preservation request NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html?_r=1&mtrref=undefined
  84. 09/15/16 Papadoulos emails Russian contact Boris Epshteyn trying to connect him with Sergei Millian, author of much of the Fusion GPS "Dossier" WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-low-level-volunteer-papadopoulos-sought-high-profile-as-trump-adviser/2017/10/31/dc737a42-be5f-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html?utm_term=.19bfd4df75f5
  85. 09/15/16 FISA Court approves FBI request for surveillance of Trump campaign based upon Russian "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/03/report-trump-campaign-adviser-was-under-secret-surveillance-much-earlier-than-previously-thought/
  86. 09/21/16 New York Times, Washington Post, and Yahoo News verbally briefed by Steele on Russian "Dossier" according to court filings UK https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgzy2KXyxqtVUxEb2pwRmphOXM/view?usp=sharing
  87. 09/23/16 Yahoo News publishes report based upon Russian "Dossier" and possible Russian collusion with Trump campaign Yahoo http://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_151322062469013&key=e7609c039c08d3ae00aebd97e6f0bffd&libId=jb5p32l3010110e3000DAbwwoz62t&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2017%2F10%2F28%2Ffinally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier%2F&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Fu-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&title=Timeline%20Showing%20When%20Clinton%2C%20DNC%20Started%20Th%20%7C%20The%20Daily%20Caller&txt=an%20article
  88. 09/26/16 DOJ National Security Divison (NSD) admits to FISC that surveillance included Obama's political opponents FISC https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/files/files/OLC%20IG%20Act%20Opinion%20-%207-20-15%20.pdf
  89. 09/27/16 John Carlin, head of DOJ National Security Division and involved with FISA requests, announces he is resigning WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/head-of-justice-departments-national-security-division-to-step-down/2016/09/27/59cb95c4-84e6-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.html?utm_term=.5b0c867c3a69
  90. 09/28/16 Comey claims his decision to exonerate Clinton was not made until after her interview with FBI agents WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  91. 10/03/16 FBI agents seize computer of Anthony Weiner during investigation of his communications with underage females Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-fbi-emails-investigation-20161102-story.html
  92. 10/07/16 Access Hollywood releases graphic audiotape of Donald Trump bragging about hitting on women CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/politics/one-year-access-hollywood-russia-podesta-email/index.html
  93. 10/07/16 Wikileaks releases archive of emails stolen from Clinton operative John Podesta CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/politics/one-year-access-hollywood-russia-podesta-email/index.html
  94. 10/07/16 Obama administration officially accuses Russia of meddling in 2016 presidential election WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  95. 10/12/16 FBI agents tell McCabe and Strzok it's discovers 650,000 emails on Weiner's laptop, many of which were Huma Abedin's WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/laptop-may-include-thousands-of-emails-linked-to-hillary-clintons-private-server-1477854957
  96. 10/13/16 McCabe organizes FBI response to WSJ revelations that his wife's campaign was funded by Clinton associates JWS https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-fbi-records-show-fbi-leaderships-conflicts-interest-discussions-clinton-email-investigation/
  97. 10/14/16 Strzok's wife Melissa Hodgman given a major promotion to deputy director of SEC's Enforcement Division TP https://truepundit.com/insurance-policy-fbis-mccabe-and-strzok-concealed-damaging-hillary-clinton-evidence-for-weeks-just-before-the-election/
  98. 10/15/16 FBI meets with Fusion GPS contractor Steele and offers to pay him for more Russian "Dossier" material DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  99. 10/24/16 NSA director Rogers apprises FISA Court (FISC) of numerous cases where U.S. persons were improperly/illegally surveilled FISC http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Top-Secret-FISA-Court-Order.pdf
  100. 10/24/16 CBS reveals McCabe's wife received $700K in campaign donations from Clinton associate Gov. Terry McCauliffe CBS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/terry-mcauliffes-pac-donated-to-campaign-of-fbi-officials-wife/
  101. 10/27/16 During Comey staff meeting, McCabe and Strzok are asked why they're sitting on the Huma/Weiner email disclosure Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-fbi-emails-investigation-20161102-story.html
  102. 10/28/16 Comey announces he is reopening investigation into Clinton's email server due to information found on Anthony Weiner's computer Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  103. 10/30/16 Judge Kevin Fox grants a search and seizure warrant to the FBI for Clinton emails on Huma Abedin's laptop FBI https://vault.fbi.gov/october-2016-application-affidavit-and-search-warrant-related-to-email-server-investigation/October%202016%20Application%20Affidavit%20and%20Search%20Warrant%20Related%20to%20Email%20Server%20Investigation%20Part%2001%20of%2001
  104. 10/30/16 Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's writes to James Comey asking him to release "explosive" information on Russian "collusion" TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-dossier-timeline-whats-known
  105. 10/31/16 FBI lead counsel James Baker leaks "Dossier" information to David Corn of Mother Jones that ties Trump to Russian "collusion" Mother Jones https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/22/trump-dossier-fbi-james-baker-david-corn-mother-jones-316157
  106. 10/31/16 Clinton campaign issues statement, citing Slate, about server in Trump Tower that secretly communicated with Russia Clinton https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233
  107. 11/01/16 In spite of numerous conflicts of interest, Andrew McCabe waits until this date before recusing himself from Clinton email probe JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-documents-show-fbi-deputy-director-mccabe-not-recuse-clinton-email-scandal-investigation-week-presidential-election/
  108. 11/06/16 Comey exonerates Clinton again after Weiner documents are reviewed "around the clock" WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  109. 11/08/16 Donald Trump is elected President of the United States Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  110. 11/15/16 DOJ official Bruce Ohr meets in secret with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele regarding Russian "Dossier" Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
  111. 11/15/16 FBI agrees to continue funding Steele and his "Dossier" TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-dossier-timeline-whats-known
  112. 11/17/16 NSA Head Mike Rogers travels to Trump Tower (likely warning of illegal surveillance); Trump transition team immediate moves to NJ CTH https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/03/03/occams-razor-did-nsa-admiral-mike-rogers-warn-trump-on-november-17th-2016/
  113. 11/18/16 WaPo reports that James Clapper and other officials want Rogers removed from his post WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-and-intelligence-community-chiefs-have-urged-obama-to-remove-the-head-of-the-nsa/2016/11/19/44de6ea6-adff-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html?utm_term=.b82f16d866de
  114. 11/18/16 Sen. John McCain told of the Russian "Dossier"; a copy is sent to McCain and key aides DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  115. 12/09/16 CIA tells Congress that they believe the Russians hacked the DNC to help defeat Hillary Clinton's campaign WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
  116. 12/09/16 McCain provides a copy of Russian "Dossier" to FBI director James Comey DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  117. 12/09/16 President Obama orders intelligence community to investigate Russian influence on U.S. election Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  118. 01/02/17 Wikileaks' Assange says he guarantees emails did not come from Russia; that Obama administration is trying to undermine Trump Time http://time.com/4620806/julian-assange-russia-hack-fox-hannity/
  119. 01/05/17 FBI says DNC refused to turn over server to determine nature of leaks CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/05/politics/fbi-russia-hacking-dnc-crowdstrike/index.html
  120. 01/06/17 Comey briefs President-Elect Trump on existence of "salacious and unverified" Russian "Dossier" CNS https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/comey-even-though-it-was-salacious-and-unverified-we-knew-media-was-about
  121. 01/06/17 Within hours of Comey's meeting with Trump, existence of "Dossier" leaked by CNN (James Clapper named as possible leaker) FNC https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/31/ron-desantis-nyt-papadopoulos-russia-probe-claim-not-what-fbi-and-doj-told-congressional-investigators/
  122. 01/10/17 U.S. intelligence chiefs Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Rogers brief Obama on Russian "Dossier" and attempts to "influence" Trump CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html
  123. 01/10/17 BuzzFeed releases full Fusion GPS "Dossier" BuzzFeed https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.wao5vgDE6#.io8bXPQ9V
  124. 01/11/17 WSJ identifies author of Russian "Dossier" as Christopher Steele WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/christopher-steele-ex-british-intelligence-officer-said-to-have-prepared-dossier-on-trump-1484162553
  125. 01/12/17 DOJ IG Michael Horowitz announces probe into actions of FBI including McCabe's role in Clinton email scandal DOJ https://oig.justice.gov/press/2017/2017-01-12.pdf
  126. 01/19/17 NYT reports law enforcement officials "intercepted" communications of Trump officials, including Paul Manafort NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html?
  127. 01/22/17 Michael Flynn sworn in as National Security Adviser Moyer http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/
  128. 01/24/17 Michael Flynn gives voluntary interview to FBI regarding Russian "collusion"; interviewer is Peter Strzok NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  129. 01/26/17 Acting A.G. Sally Yates and Bill Priestap inform White House counsel that Flynn was "compromised" by Russian actors NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  130. 01/27/17 Former Clinton State Dept. representative George Papadopoulos interviewed by FBI, which results in his eventual indictment DOJ https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download
  131. 01/30/17 Russian operative Sergei Millian named as source of information for "Dossier" fed to Steele and Fusion GPS ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-russian-businessman-source-key-trump-dossier-claims/story?id=45019603
  132. 01/30/17 Acting A.G. Sally Yates fired by President Trump for refusing to enforce his travel ban orders NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  133. 02/08/17 Jeff Sessions confirmed as Attorney General WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/18/10-things-to-know-about-sen-jeff-sessions-donald-trumps-pick-for-attorney-general/
  134. 02/13/17 Flynn fired by President after leaks claim that the aide has discussed sanctions with Russian actors, which Flynn denies NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  135. 02/14/17 In meeting with Trump, Comey says he was asked by President if he could see fit to "letting Flynn go" NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  136. 03/02/17 A.G. Jeff Sessions recuses himself from Russia "collusion" investigation, citing prior contacts with the Russian Ambassador NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/jeff-sessions-russia-trump-investigation-democrats.html
  137. 03/20/17 Comey testifies before Congress that FBI secretly investigated potential Trump "collusion" and hid that fact from Congress Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  138. 03/20/17 Vanity Fair publishes puff piece on Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS and their work to create the "Dossier" Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/how-the-explosive-russian-dossier-was-compiled-christopher-steele
  139. 03/20/17 Comey denies accusations that the Trump campaign had been wiretapped by the U.S. government WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  140. 03/20/17 Press Secretary Sean Spicer strongly denounces surveillance and unmasking of Trump aides by Obama officials Exam http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/spicer-blasts-unmasking-of-flynn/article/2617884
  141. 03/27/17 Former Obama official Evelyn Farkas admits Obama administration spied on Trump to find Russian "collusion" ties MSNBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=gapRNpEjXUo
  142. 03/28/17 Sen. Chuck Grassley writes to Comey over concern that McCabe's investigation of Clinton was tainted by campaign donations SJC https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-examines-potential-conflicts-top-fbi-official%E2%80%99s-role-russia-collusion
  143. 05/09/17 Trump fires FBI director James Comey Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  144. 05/10/17 Washington Post asserts Comey had requested additional funding and resources for Russia investigation before his firing WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  145. 05/10/17 Huma Abedin husband Anthony Weiner signs plea agreement for crime of transmitting obscene material to a minor Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/news/334255-anthony-weiner-pleads-guilty-i-have-a-sickness
  146. 05/12/17 Trump tweets that Comey better hope there are no tapes of their conversations "before he starts leaking to the press" Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333081-trump-warns-comey-better-hope-there-are-no-tapes-of-our-meeting
  147. 05/17/17 DOJ names Robert Mueller special counsel to investigate Russian influence on election NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html
  148. 06/08/17 Comey admits he leaked records of his conversation in order to spur the naming of a special counsel CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/james-comey-testimony-donald-trump/index.html
  149. 06/15/17 Former DHS head Jeh Johnson tells Congress that the DNC refused to turn over its server so it could throughly investigate "hack" Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/5/dnc-email-server-most-wanted-evidence-for-russia-i/
  150. 06/24/17 Wife of Fusion GPS founder Simpson, Mary Jacoby, writes on Facebook that her husband deserves the credit for "Russia-gate" Tablet http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate
  151. 07/07/17 Comey asserts "Dossier" was "salacious and unverified", but was important because media was prepared to report it CNS https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/comey-even-though-it-was-salacious-and-unverified-we-knew-media-was-about
  152. 07/13/17 CNN reports Strzok is working for Mueller's special counsel investgiation CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/13/politics/peter-strzok-special-counsel-russia-fbi/index.html
  153. 07/14/17 DNC contractor Ali Chalupa denies working with Ukrainians to undermine Trump in spite of her leaked email from 5/3/16 CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/14/politics/dnc-contractor-ukraine-alexandra-chalupa-trump/index.html
  154. 07/20/17 DOJ Inspector General receives compromising texts of Mueller investigator Peter Strzok from FBI DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/new-details-emerge-about-discovery-of-fbi-agents-anti-trump-texts/
  155. 07/24/17 Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (VIPS) reports that there is no evidence that Russians hacked DNC (see 7/5/16) VIPS https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/
  156. 07/27/17 DOJ Inspector General meets with Mueller and Rosenstein to inform them of Strzok's text messages DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/new-details-emerge-about-discovery-of-fbi-agents-anti-trump-texts/
  157. 08/09/17 The Nation reports evidence that DNC insiders, not Russian hackers, compromised Democrat IT systems The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
  158. 08/10/17 DOJ Inspector General requests all communications between Strzok and Page DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/new-details-emerge-about-discovery-of-fbi-agents-anti-trump-texts/
  159. 08/22/17 Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson meets with Senate committee for 10 hours, but refuses to divulge who funded "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  160. 08/24/17 House Intel Chair Nunes subpoenas DOJ and FBI for documents related to "Dossier", which Strzok is believed to be behind DC http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/13/politics/peter-strzok-special-counsel-russia-fbi/index.html
  161. 09/01/17 NBC's Dilanian, believed to be a Fusion GPS flack, misreports on Trump Jr.'s 6/9 meeting with Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya Federalist http://thefederalist.com/2017/12/04/fusion-gps-scandal-implicates-media-possible-pay-publish-scheme/
  162. 09/14/17 Susan Rice admits she surveilled Trump administration after the election and later unmasked the identities of key aides Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/14/susan-rice-reveals-why-she-unmasked-trump-campaign/
  163. 10/18/17 Two Fusion GPS officials plead the Fifth Amendment during House Intelligence Committee interviews DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/18/fusion-gps-partners-plead-the-fifth-during-house-intel-appearance/
  164. 10/24/17 Washington Post reveals Clinton campaign and DNC funded Fusion GPS and Russian "Dossier" TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-dossier-timeline-whats-known
  165. 10/29/17 NBC's Delanian reports upon an illegal leak from the Mueller investigation that the first indictment will be issued Monday NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/grand-jury-approves-first-charges-mueller-s-russia-probe-report-n815246
  166. 10/30/17 Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos indicted as part of Mueller's investigation NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/politics/special-counsel-indictments.html
  167. 10/31/17 FBI refuses House Intel Committee (chaired by Nunez) request to interview Strzok DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  168. 11/30/17 Flynn signs please agreeement with special counsel, admitting he lied about sanctions conversations NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  169. 12/02/17 Washington Post reveals existence of incriminating messages between Peter Strzok revealing anti-Trump biases WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/two-senior-fbi-officials-on-clinton-trump-probes-exchanged-politically-charged-texts-disparaging-trump/2017/12/02/9846421c-d707-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html?utm_term=.2fa2cb13cf0c
  170. 12/04/17 CNN reveals Strzok changed wording of Clinton investigation to avoid criminal charges CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/peter-strzok-james-comey/index.html?sr=twCNNp120417peter-strzok-james-comey0420PMStory&CNNPolitics=Tw
  171. 12/06/17 DOJ executive Bruce Ohr demoted after revelations he secretly met with Fusion GPS, which had secretly employed his wife Nellie Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
  172. 12/06/17 Rep. Adam Schiff accused of leaking privileged notes of meeting between Trump. Jr and House Intelligence Committee to CNN Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/house/365470-republicans-call-for-an-inquiry-into-house-intel-panel-russia-investigation
  173. 12/07/17 Fox News reveals Ohr was in contact with Fusion GPS at the same time the FISA application was submitted and granted Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
  174. 12/07/17 Rep. Jim Jordan grills FBI director Wray: was Dossier used to secure FISA warrant? Wray refuses to answer RCP https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/12/07/rep_jim_jordan_grills_fbi_director_wray_about_peter_strzok.html
  175. 12/07/17 Judge presiding over Michael Flynn criminal case, Rudolph Contreras, is recused, according to court statement for reasons unknown Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn/judge-presiding-over-michael-flynn-criminal-case-is-recused-court-idUSKBN1E202V
  176. 12/11/17 Fox News reveals Ohr's wife was hired by Fusion GPS to create opposition research against Trump Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/11/wife-demoted-doj-official-worked-for-firm-behind-anti-trump-dossier.html
  177. 12/12/17 375 text messages between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page are released CNN https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/12/politics/peter-strzok-texts-released/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
  178. 12/12/17 Deputy FBI director Anrew McCabe cancels testimony before Congress after revelations about Nellie and Bruce Ohr's ties to Fusion GPS Breitbart http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/12/deputy-fbi-director-delays-testimony-after-report-reveals-fusion-gps-paid-officials-wife/
  179. 12/13/17 Deputy A.G. Rosenstein refuses to tell Congress whether the FBI paid for the Fusion GPS "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/deputy-ag-wont-say-whether-the-fbi-paid-for-dossier/
  180. 12/14/17 Rep. Jim Jordan states DOJ/FBI leadership attempted to fix the presidential election by inventing a "Russian Collusion" narrative Fox http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/boom-gop-rep-jim-jordan-proof-fbi-worked-republican-party-election-video/
  181. 12/18/17 Demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr fails to appear before Congress FoxBiz http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/just-incredible-tom-fitton-stunned-bruce-ohr-ditches-senate-intel-committee-hearing-video/
  182. 12/18/17 GOP lawmakers call for investigation into leaks of privileged interview between Trump Jr. and House Intelligence Committee Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/house/365470-republicans-call-for-an-inquiry-into-house-intel-panel-russia-investigation
  183. 12/18/17 Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley calls for the firing of FBI's McCabe Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/19/fbi-s-mccabe-faces-gop-calls-for-ouster-ahead-closed-door-testimony.html
  184. 12/19/17 FBI's McCabe testifies in private to House Intel Commitee a day after and is unable to answer questions about the "Dossier" Exam http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-frustrated-lawmakers-pressed-fbis-mccabe-for-answers-on-trump-dossier-they-got-nothing/article/2644225
  185. 12/21/17 FBI's top General Counsel -- James A. Baker -- said to have leaked "Dossier" to Mother Jones, is reassigned by FBI Director Wray WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbis-top-lawyer-said-to-be-reassigned/2017/12/21/2ac76640-e6b5-11e7-833f-155031558ff4_story.html?utm_term=.418ee85e094c
  186. 12/29/17 State Dept. releases cache of emails found on Weiner-Abedin laptop, several of which contained classified information CNN https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/29/politics/huma-abedin-state-department-email-release/index.html
  187. 12/30/17 Sen. Lindsey Graham cites major concern over how "Dossier" was used by the DOJ, implying it was disguised and presented to FISC Fox http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/12/lindsey-graham-doj-used-anti-trump-dossier-in-court.php?
  188. 12/30/17 DNC-linked NYT's Haberman markets narrative that FBI opened Trump investigation due to George Papadopoulos, not "Dossier" NYT https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/947185141306101760.html
  189. 12/31/17 NY Times reports Clinton associates offered up to $500,000 to females to report sexual harrassment by Trump NYT http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/31/hillary-clinton-backer-paid-500g-to-fund-women-accusing-trump-sexual-misconduct-before-election-day-report-says.html
  190. 01/02/18 Fusion GPS founders write NYT op-ed asserting "Dossier" claims; fail to address funding sources, Nellie Ohr involvement, etc. NYT http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/02/fusion-gps-partners-make-first-public-comments-about-the-dossier/
  191. 01/03/18 Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley writes DAG Rosenstein: did Comey leak classified info to Columbia Professor Daniel Richman? SJC https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-presses-justice-department-about-classification-comey-memos
  192. 01/15/18 Date that DOJ Inspector General expected to turn over 1.2 million documents related to DOJ/FBI handling of Clinton probe CTH https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/28/intelligence-committee-chairman-devin-nunes-gives-doj-until-january-3rd-to-produce-documents/

[May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
A foreign intelligence asset was used to justify surveillance of Trump[ and some of his associates
Notable quotes:
"... What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent? ..."
"... The main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA) and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant"). ..."
"... The bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their hand on the scale. ..."
"... Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power. ..."
"... I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors. ..."
"... if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know? ..."
"... Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost. ..."
"... Don't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance. ..."
"... From the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. ..."
"... He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI. ..."
"... its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered. ..."
"... Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this? ..."
"... A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as 'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies. ..."
"... It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries ..."
"... If, as seems likely, both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary. ..."
"... An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him ..."
"... A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the supposed termination ..."
"... 'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence probes in American history.' ..."
"... I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief. ..."
"... Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it. ..."
"... Apparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense. So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs. ..."
"... Thinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly: ..."
"... Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. ..."
"... One thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get 'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt on Trump...how is this not the same...? ..."
"... What role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this? ..."
"... Why was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation that may have already begun? ..."
"... British intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete), his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy. ..."
"... British Intelligence is verifiably the foreign source with the most extensive and effective meddling in the 2016 election. Perfidious Albion. ..."
"... Or, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? ..."
"... Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, ..."
"... Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, ..."
"... I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws they have that prohibits spying on their people. ..."
"... still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources ..."
"... I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia. ..."
"... Here is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these people think they are. ..."
"... It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things ..."
Aug 08, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The revelations from US Government records about the FBI/Intel Community plot to take out Donald Trump continue to flow thanks to the dogged efforts of Judicial Watch. The latest nugget came last Friday with the release of FBI records detailing their recruitment and management of Britain's ostensibly retired Intelligence Officer, Christopher Steele. He was an officially recruited FBI source and received at least 11 payments during the 9 month period that he was signed up as a Confidential Human Source.

You may find it strange that we can glean so much information from a document dump that is almost entirely redacted . The key is to look at the report forms; there are three types--FD-1023 (Source Reports), FD-209a (Contact Reports) and FD-794b (Payment Requests). There are 15 different 1023s, 13 209a reports and 11 794b payment requests covering the period from 2 February 2016 thru 1 November 2016. That is a total of nine months.

These reports totally destroy the existing meme that Steele only came into contact with the FBI sometime in July 2016. It is important for you to understand that a 1023 Source Report is filled out each time that the FBI source handler has contact with the source. This can be an in person meeting or a phone call. Each report lists the name of the Case Agent; the date, time and location of the meeting; any other people attending the meeting; and a summary of what was discussed.

What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent?


richardstevenhack , a day ago

Indeed we do need more information.

The main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA) and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant").

We can be pretty sure this predates any alleged Russian "hacking" (unless it occurred as a result of alleged Russian hacking of the DNC in 2015).

This needs to be pinned down if anyone is to be successfully prosecuted for creating this treasonous hoax.

chris chuba , 5 hours ago
A very closely related topic, Victor Davis Hanson is onto something but it is darker than he suggests, https://www.nationalreview.... Paraphrasing, he gives the typical, rally around the flag we must stop the Russians intro but then documents how govt flaks abused their power to influence our elections and then makes the point, 'this is why the public is skeptical of their claims'.

The bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their hand on the scale.

Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power.

I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors.

Leonardo Facchin , 20 hours ago
Thanks for the explanation.

What I can't figure out is: if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know?

Publius Tacitus -> Leonardo Facchin , 17 hours ago
Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost.
blue peacock -> Leonardo Facchin , 13 hours ago
Don't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance.

From the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. And of course the media narrative that Rep. Nunes, Goodlatte and others were endangering "national security" by casting aspersions on the "patriotic" law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Paul M -> Leonardo Facchin , 16 hours ago
He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI.

Of course, he had most likely already done so and its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered.

David Habakkuk , 4 hours ago
PT,

Fascinating.

Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this?

The point is not merely a quibble. A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as 'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies.

It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries.

Another related matter has to do with the termination of Steele as a 'Confidential Human Source.'

It has long seemed to me that it was more than possible that this was not to be taken at face value. If, as seems likely, both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary.

An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him.

A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the supposed termination.

(See http://thehill.com/person/d... .)

When on 31 January 2017 – well after the publication of the dossier by BuzzFeed – Ohr provided reassurance that he could continue to help feed information to the FBI, Steele texted back:

"If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can't allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous."

At that point, Solomon tells us that 'Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.' This seems to me a rather important question. It would seem likely, although not certain, that he is talking about another Brit. If he is, would it have been someone else employed by Orbis? Or someone currently working for British intelligence? What is the precise significance of 'forced to go back home', and why would this have been 'disastrous'?

Another crucial paragraph:

'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence probes in American history.'

The earlier contacts may be of little interest, but there again they may not be.

As it happens, it was following Berezovsky's arrival in London in October 2001 that the 'information operations' network he created began to move into high gear. It is moreover clear that this was always a transatlantic operation, and also fragments of evidence suggest that the FBI may have had some involvement from early on.

I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief.

The original attempt came in a radio programme broadcast by the BBC – which was to become known to some of us as the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – on 16 December 2006, presented by Tom Mangold, a familiar 'trusty' for the intelligence services.

(A transcript sent out from the Cabinet Office at the time is available on the archived 'Evidence' page for the Inquiry, at http://webarchive.nationala... , as HMG000513. There is an interesting and rather important question as to whether those who sent it out, and those who received it, knew that it was more or less BS from start to finish.)

The programme was wholly devoted to claims made by the former KGB operative Yuri Shvets, who was presented as an independent 'due diligence' expert, without any mention of the rather major role he had played in the original 'Orange Revolution.'

Back-up was provided by his supposed collaborator in 'due diligence', the former FBI operative Robert 'Bobby' Levinson. No mention was made of the fact that he had been, in the 'Nineties, a, if not the lead FBI investigator into the notorious Ukrainian Jewish mobster Semyon Mogilevich.

The following March Levinson would disappear on the Iranian island of Kish, on what we now know was a covert mission on behalf of elements in the CIA.

Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it.

Jack -> David Habakkuk , 2 hours ago
David

Apparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense. So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs.

Keith Harbaugh , 19 hours ago
Thanks for this informative article.

Thinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly:

Seems rather surprising to me. Anyone have any comment on this?

TTG , an hour ago
Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. His initial contact with old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crime Task Force is awfully similar to his contacting these same friends in 2016 after deciding his initial Trump research was potentially bigger than mere opposition research.
FB , 3 hours ago
One thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get 'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt on Trump...how is this not the same...?

Even worse is that the FBI was using this same foreign agent that a presidential candidate had hired to get dirt on an opponent... Even knowing nothing about legalities this just doesn't look very good...

Wally Courie , 4 hours ago
Stupid question? As the Col. has explained, the President can declassify any document he pleases. So, why doesn't Donaldo unredact the redacted portions of these bullcrap docs? What is he afraid of? That the Intel community will get mad and be out to get him? Isn't time for him to show some cojones?
blue peacock , 16 hours ago
What role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this?
akaPatience , 19 hours ago
Why was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation that may have already begun?
Navstéva يزور 🐐 -> akaPatience , 17 hours ago
British intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete), his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy.
unmitigatedaudacity -> Navstéva يزور 🐐 , 16 hours ago
British Intelligence is verifiably the foreign source with the most extensive and effective meddling in the 2016 election. Perfidious Albion.
Bryn Nykrson -> Navstéva يزور 🐐 , 14 hours ago
Or, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? And therefore without having to mess about with any formal FISA warrant thingy's ... But, then use what might be found (or plausibly alleged) to try to get a proper FISA warrant later on (July 2016)? 'Parallel Discovery' of sorts; with Fusion GPS also a leaky cut-out: channelling media reports to be used as confirmation of Steele's "raw intelligence" in the formal FISA application(s)?
Biggee Mikeee -> akaPatience , 17 hours ago
Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates,

" Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, "

That's a good question, could it legally enable an end run around the FISC until enough evidence was gathered for a FISC surveillance authorization?.

richardstevenhack -> Biggee Mikeee , 13 hours ago
I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws they have that prohibits spying on their people.

Only a matter of time until someone figured out the same method could be used to "meddle" in national affairs.

akaPatience -> Biggee Mikeee , 15 hours ago
I understand, but still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources such as Steele about a very high profile American citizen and businessman -- aren't our intelligence services competent enough to have known and discovered as much if not more about Trump than other countries' intelligence services? I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia.
DianaLC -> akaPatience , 4 hours ago
Here is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these people think they are.

It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things.

[May 11, 2019] Report How Fusion GPS and the Obama Administration Weaponized the Trump Dossier by Kristina Wong

Brennan role in weaponizing dossier now became more clear.
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier. ..."
"... The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product." ..."
"... A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire," Chalupa told CNN in July of this year. ..."
"... Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states: ..."
"... Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists. ..."
"... it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump." ..."
"... The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation. ..."
"... She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only" top secret meetings with President Obama about it. ..."
"... CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference. ..."
"... It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier. ..."
"... Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings. ..."
"... The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad." ..."
"... But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?" ..."
Dec 24, 2017 | www.breitbart.com

Did the Obama administration launch an investigation into the Trump campaign based solely off of unverified political opposition research? And was that "research" dressed up and given more credibility than it should have? It appears that way based on an investigation of open-source information by Tablet.

The outlet's investigation begins with a June 24, 2017, Facebook post by Mary Jacoby, the wife of Glenn Simpson, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who started Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.

Jacoby, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who once shared bylines with Simpson, bragged how her husband was not getting the credit he deserved for the dossier.

"It's come to my attention that some people still don't realize what Glenn's role was in exposing Putin's control of Donald Trump," she wrote on Facebook. "Let's be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn."

Until this day, the dossier is often referred to as the "Steele dossier," named after the former British spy Christopher Steele who is believed to have authored the document.

Steele's background has been used by collusion-believers to argue that the document is credible. But Jacoby's post suggests that Steele might not have played as big of a role in the dossier as he is given credit.

Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier.

The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product."

Tablet also took a look at Simpson and Jacoby's work for the WSJ . In April 2007 -- in the lead-up to the 2008 election -- they co-wrote a story about Republican links to Russians.

In that story, titled "How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington," they detail how prominent Republicans helped open doors for "Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs and other friends of Vladimir Putin."

They reported on Viktor Yanukovich, who had paid political fixer Paul Manafort to introduce Yanukovich to powerful Washington, DC, figures. They later reported on May 14, 2008, that Manafort's lobbying firm was escorting Yanukovich around Washington. Yanukovich would later become president of Ukraine in 2010.

Tablet explains how their reporting may have been the origins of the Trump dossier:

So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson and Jacoby's eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon. In addition to whatever sales pitch Simpson might have offered about Manafort, the Clinton campaign had independent reason to believe that research into Manafort's connections might pay some real political dividends: A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire," Chalupa told CNN in July of this year.

Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states:

Ex-Ukrainian President YANUKOVYCH confides directly to PUTIN that he authorised (sic) kick-back payments to MANAFORT, as alleged in western media Assures Russian President however there is no documentary evidence/trail.

Tablet notes that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would later find corruption by Manafort related to money laundering (before he joined the Trump campaign). It also points out that Tony Podesta -- Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's brother -- worked for Manafort at the time he represented Yanukovich. (The Podesta Group disbanded this year after those connections were made public, and the special counsel is reportedly investigating Podesta too.)

Tablet notes that while Simpson had begun working on the dossier on Trump collusion with Russia, he was also working for a Russian lawyer to undermine an American law called the Magnitsky Act and that Steele may have been hired to disguise that contradiction.

Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists.

Ohr -- Simpson's next hire -- also hadn't lived in Russia for decades and was "not a spy, or even a journalist." "In this world, she was definitely an amateur," Tablet writes.

"Presumably, as a result of all the above, much of the reporting in the dossier is recognizably the kind of patter that locals in closed or semi-closed societies engage in to impress expats -- the kind of thing you hear in a bar, or on the cab ride from the airport to the hotel," it says.

Tablet then goes into the bad shape of U.S. intelligence on Russia -- likely making officials less skeptical of the dossier even though, to date, they have not been able to confirm any of its allegations on collusion.

And Tablet notes that it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."

At that point, a tech firm had attributed the leaks to Russia but was not able to explain why. The FBI was looking at the leak but had not yet publicly determined political motivation.

"But the DNC and Clinton campaign did have an oppo-research firm under contract that was in the middle of putting together a file that would claim that the Russians were trying to get Trump elected," Tablet notes.

The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation.

But by late October, they had not yet found any evidence that showed Russia was working to elect Trump. So, ten days before the election, angry Clinton supporters and unnamed intelligence officials spoke to the New York Times in an October 31, 2016, story about what the investigation had found so far.

Jacoby would post that story in her June 24 Facebook post, slamming the FBI and accusing it of "ineptitude," while the CIA "hopped to and immediately worked to verify" the dossier.

She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only" top secret meetings with President Obama about it.

Thus, while the document could not be verified and was not used in any intelligence assessment because of its inability to be verified, it was now the topic of meetings with the president.

CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference.

Reid then wrote another letter to Comey after he reopened the investigation into Clinton's emails -- accusing him of letting Trump slide.

"It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity," he wrote.

"I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public and yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information."

That "information" Reid was referring to was the dossier, according to Tablet:

According to David Corn's Oct. 31, 2016, article in Mother Jones , the Nevada lawmaker was referencing the findings of "a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence."

Corn now explains that the "former Western intelligence officer -- who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a U.S. firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients" is Christopher Steele. According to Corn, Steele said that "in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump."

It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier.

Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings.

"An envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried 'eyes only' instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides," the Washington Post reported on June 23, 2017.

"So was the Steele dossier in the envelope?" Tablet asks.

The Post writes that inside that envelope "was an intelligence bombshell" -- a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detained Putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the presidential race, defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton, and help elect Donald Trump.

The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad."

But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?"

Tablet writes:

Sources and methods are the crown jewels of the American intelligence community. And yet someone has just told a major American newspaper about a "report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that captured Putin's specific instructions." If the CIA had a human intelligence source that close to Putin, publication of the Post article could have exposed that source -- doing incalculable damage to American national security. He and many of his loved ones would then have presumably died horrible deaths.

Or, as Mary Jacoby surmised, it was her husband's handiwork that landed on the president's desk.

[May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos

Highly recommended!
The public's tax dollars were spent on creating fake "evidence" to tie Trump with Russia, a false narrative that put the planet at heightened risk for nuclear war, for the sake of the Clinton's hurt feelings.
Notable quotes:
"... In other words, the public's tax dollars were spent on creating fake "evidence" to tie Trump with Russia, a false narrative that put the planet at heightened risk for nuclear war, for the sake of the Clinton's hurt feelings. ..."
"... Even more interesting is the close relationship Isikoff had with the DNC during the 2016 Presidential election. According to an email from the DNC released by Wikileaks , Isikoff attended the "Open World Society's forum" as the guest of DNC official Ali Chalupa. In the email, Chalupa states that she was invited to the forum to speak specifically about Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump. Chalupa goes on to state that she has been working with Isikoff for the past few weeks and that at the event, she was able to get him "connected him to the Ukrainians." She adds: ..."
"... "I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of." ..."
Feb 05, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Disobedient Media

On Friday, the much anticipated "Nunes Memo" was finally released to the general public. Disobedient Media previously reported on the push to prevent the memo from being released. While there is much contained in the four pages, the most glaring issue contained in the memo is the FBI's willful concealment of pertinent details of which they were required by law to turn over to the FISA court when seeking the initial surveillance warrant on Carter Page , a former volunteer foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.

According to the memo, former director James Comey signed three FISA applications on behalf of the FBI. Additionally, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, and acting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, each signed one or more applications on behalf of the DOJ.

Under 50 U.S.C. § 1805(d)(1) , a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) every 90 days. In order to protect the rights of Americans, each subsequent renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. This means that the in order to be granted a renewal, the government is required to produce all material and relevant facts to the court, including any information which may be potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application.

On four separate occasions the Obama administration essentially claimed before the FISA court that Page had betrayed his country by working for a hostile foreign nation, and therefore it was necessary that the government violate his Fourth Amendment rights. However, in this case, the government purposely withheld relevant information from the government not once, but four separate times.

According to the memo, at no time during the initial application process for the warrant to surveil Page, or in any of the three renewals of that application, did the government disclose to the FISA Court the nature of their relationship with Christopher Steele, his relationship with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), or his relationship with the Clinton campaign. Instead, the memo simply, yet vaguely states that, "Steele was working for a named U.S. person."

Instead, the government purposefully withheld information from the court that the "dossier" compiled by Steele was done so on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was further withheld from the court that the DNC had paid Steele over $160,000 for his work in compiling this "dossier", and that the money was funneled to Steele through the law firm Perkins Coie, which represents both the Hillary Clinton campaign as well as the DNC in legal matters. According to the National Review , the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid at least $9.1 million to Perkins Coie from mid-2015 to late 2016.

The government further held from the court the fact that the FBI had authorized payments to Steele. According to the New York Post , in October 2016 the FBI contracted to pay Steele $50,000 to "help corroborate the dirt on Trump."

In March of 2017, CNN also reported that the FBI had entered into an arrangement with Steele, whereby they agreed to cover all of his expenses.

While it is extremely disconcerting that the government willfully concealed the existence of their financial relationship with Steele, a foreign national, what is more troubling is the fact that the government used tax payer dollars to do so. In other words, every single American who did not vote for Hillary Clinton, whether they voted for Trump or a third party candidate or did not vote at all – were forced to finance the Clinton campaign-funded opposition research.

In other words, the public's tax dollars were spent on creating fake "evidence" to tie Trump with Russia, a false narrative that put the planet at heightened risk for nuclear war, for the sake of the Clinton's hurt feelings.

Why the media refuses to mention or cover this fact, this author does not know. But this is an extremely important fact that every American, whether left, right, up, down, should remember, as it is the perfect example of the corruption which exists within our tax payer-funded institutions, which we are told to have nothing but the utmost respect for.

According to the memo, in an effort to corroborate Steele's dossier, the FBI extensively cited a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, titled " U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin ", which focuses on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow. However, when presenting this article to the court the FBI falsely assessed that Steele did not provide this information directly to Isikoff. Meaning that the FBI was aware that the article they presented to the court was not corroborating evidence from a separate source, because the information in the article was provided to Isikoff by Steele himself. In fact, as the memo points out, Steele himself has stated in British court filings that in September 2016 he met with Yahoo News , as well as several other outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Yorker.

What's more, in an article published on January 12, 2017, Isikoff reports on a story by the Wall Street Journal in which Christopher Steele is identified as the author of the infamous dossier, and even notes that Steele was an " FBI asset ". However, what is most striking about this article is the fact that despite receiving the underline information which served as the basis for his own article in September, Isikoff pretends have not known that Steele was the source of the dossier.

Even more interesting is the close relationship Isikoff had with the DNC during the 2016 Presidential election. According to an email from the DNC released by Wikileaks , Isikoff attended the "Open World Society's forum" as the guest of DNC official Ali Chalupa. In the email, Chalupa states that she was invited to the forum to speak specifically about Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump. Chalupa goes on to state that she has been working with Isikoff for the past few weeks and that at the event, she was able to get him "connected him to the Ukrainians." She adds:

"I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of."

According to the memo, Steele's relationship with the FBI as a source continued until late October 2016, when he was terminated for what the FBI defines as the most serious violations, "an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI". This unauthorized disclosure occurred in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Corn, the reporter who broke the infamous Mitt Romney "47 Percent" story.

Again, the FBI did not notify the court that Steele was leaking information to media outlets, or that he was terminated by the FBI after doing so for the second time.

Before and after his termination, Steele maintained contact with then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie Ohr, was employed by Fusion GPS. Ohr would later tell the FBI in an interview in September 2016, that Steele had stated that he, "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president."

Lastly, the memo also reveals that the Steele dossier was so crucial to the investigation, that Deputy Director McCabe testified in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information. This admission by the former Deputy Director is damning, as it proves that, if it were not for the Clinton campaign and DNC funded dossier created by a foreign national, there would have been no surveillance of Page, and ultimately there would have never been a special counsel appointed.

At the end of the day, every American, regardless of their position on the political spectrum, should be worried about the fact that the FBI and DOJ sought and were granted a warrant to spy on an opposing political campaign based on a document that the FBI itself had neither verified or corroborated. If the FISA court does in fact employ strict "safeguards" and procedures in order to ensure that the rights of American citizens are not being systematically violated, how is it that the FBI and DOJ were able to obtain a surveillance warrant based on unverified allegations? And why did Congress overwhelmingly vote to reauthorize Section 702? Vote up! 15 Vote down! 0


VWAndy Feb 4, 2018 4:18 PM Permalink

This whole ball of wax should be in the public hands. Straight up clear cut case for a real civilian grand jury. As far removed from the government control as possible. Its a corruption issue. Nobody in government has clean hands.

IvannaHumpalot Feb 4, 2018 6:36 PM Permalink

This is a problem because across the 5-eyes intel agencies are being given extra-judicial powers to do basically whatever they want without oversight and without legal boundaries. This assumes the agencies will never become politicised, and that no individual within the agencies will ever have an axe to grind against an ex, or a petty hatred to pursue, or political agendas of their own. What FISA-gate shows is that this is clearly not the case. We need the reimposition of free speech, transparency and of civilian rule of government.

Only an informed public can really be in charge of its elected government. We need to be in charge again because civilians are fast being kettled into a snare where we have no say in the decisions that our governments take. It's being decided by the deep state bureaucracy

Rex Andrus Feb 4, 2018 6:39 PM Permalink

Start thinking about how, at the grass roots level, to catch them red handed stealing this election.

Joebloinvestor Feb 4, 2018 6:55 PM Permalink

No action(s) from the FISA court about being deceived shows we are all fucked.

Rex Andrus Feb 4, 2018 7:04 PM Permalink

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/7v7avg/i_find_you_guilty_o

Bondo Feb 4, 2018 7:17 PM Permalink

trump needs to appoint a special prosecutor outside of the swamp to investigate the fbi/doj. at this point, I trust Judge Judy more than anyone in dc

Reaper Feb 4, 2018 8:07 PM Permalink

Who protects us from our FBI protectors? The power to lie in court with impunity makes Kangaroo courts our system

Northern Flicker Feb 4, 2018 8:28 PM Permalink

It's a joke the FBI didn't want the memo released to protect their methods and sources.. no wonder, they just make things up.

Arctic Frost Feb 4, 2018 9:23 PM Permalink

WHY DID CONGRESS OVERWHELMINGLY VOTE TO REAUTHORIZE SECTION 702?

bh2 Feb 5, 2018 12:21 AM Permalink

The word "assess" is a spook term of art which means they are either "guessing" or "lying", depending on context.

cwsuisse Feb 5, 2018 1:36 AM Permalink

The FBI can't be considered to be a trustworthy institution.

[May 11, 2019] Paul Craig Roberts Warns A CIA-led Coup Against American Democracy Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes by Paul Craig Roberts

The article is two years old now. Looks like Paul Craig Roberts was right. A very strange thing is that Trump proved to be very good for weapon industry and not so bad for neocons. Still the coup is continuing.
Notable quotes:
"... There is an "elite" coup attempt underway against the U.S. President-elect Trump. ..."
"... The coup is orchestrated by the camp of Hillary Clinton in association with the CIA and neoconservative powers in Congress. ..."
"... The plan is to use the CIA's "Russia made Trump the winner" nonsense to swing the electoral college against him. The case would then be bumped up to Congress. Major neocon and warmonger parts of the Republicans could then move the presidency to Clinton or, if that fails, put Trump's vice president-elect Mike Pence onto the throne. The regular bipartisan war business, which a Trump presidency threatens to interrupt, could continue. ..."
"... The institutional Trump enemies are: ..."
"... The weapons industry which could lose its enormous sales to its major customers in the Persian Gulf should a President Trump reduce U.S. interference in the Middle East and elsewhere. ..."
"... The neoconservatives and Likudniks who want the U.S. as Israel's weapon to strong arm the Middle East to the Zionists' benefit. ..."
"... The general war hawks, military and "humanitarian interventionists" to whom any reduction of the U.S. role as primary power in the world is anathema to their believes. ..."
"... The CIA-controlled European media, the politicians in Washington's European vassal states, NATO officials, and the brainwashed European peoples will support the coup against Trump. ..."
"... PCR has gone senile. Trump IS the elite ..."
"... And Trump will continue the MidEast wars. He made it clear. ..."
"... The CIA, along with Boeing and all the other contractors, banks, insurers, and rabble of the Wall Street machine are the Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... Andrea Chalupa ‏@AndreaChalupa Dec 11 ..."
"... 1.) Electoral College meets Dec. 19. If Electors ignore #StateOfEmergency we're in, & Trump gets elected, we can stop him Jan. 6 in Congress ..."
"... 2.) If any objections to Electoral College vote are made, they must be submitted in writing, signed by at least 1 House member & 1 Senator ..."
"... 3.) If objections are presented, House & Senate withdraw to their chambers to consider their merits under procedures set out in federal law. ..."
Dec 17, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

This article by Moon of Alabama is not conspiracy theory : Read it carefully. Check out the links.

The below theses are thus far only a general outlay...

No general plan has been published. The scheme though is pretty obvious by now. However, the following contains some speculation.

The priority aim is to deny Trump the presidency. He is too independent and a danger for several power centers within the ruling U.S. power circles. The selection of Tillerson as new Secretary of State only reinforces this (Prediction: Bolton will not get the Deputy position.) Tillerson is for profitable stability, not for regime change adventures.

The institutional Trump enemies are:

Read more here...

The article is a documented and accurate description of a coup that is underway. The extraordinary lies that are being perpetrated by the media and by members of the US government have as their obvious purpose the prevention of a Donald Trump presidency. There is no other reason for the extraordinary blatant lies for which there is not a shred of evidence. Indeed, there is massive real evidence to the contrary. Yet the coup proceeds and gathers steam.

President Eisenhower warned us more than a half century ago of the danger that the military/security complex presents to US democracy. In the decades since Eisenhower's warning, the military/security complex has become more powerful than the American people and is demonstrating its power by overturning a presidential election.

Will the coup succeed?

In my opinion, former and present members of the US government and the media would not dare to so obviously and openly participate in a coup against democracy and an elected president unless they expect the coup to succeed.

It is an easy matter for the ruling interests to bribe electors to vote differently than their states. The cost of the bribes is miniscule compared to the wealth and income streams that a trillion dollar annual budget provides to the military/security complex. The fake news of a Putin/Trump election-stealing plot generated by unsupported allegations of present and former members of US intelligence, the lame-duck President Obama, and the presstitute media provide the cover for electors to break with precedent "in order to save America from a Russian stooge."

The CIA-controlled European media, the politicians in Washington's European vassal states, NATO officials, and the brainwashed European peoples will support the coup against Trump.

The only ones speaking against the coup are the voters who elected Trump-all of whom are alleged to have been deceived by Russian fake news -- the Russian government, and the 200 websites falsely described by the Washington Post and the secret organization PropOrNot as Russian agents.

In other words, those objecting to the coup are the ones described by the coup leaders as those who made the coup necessary.

I do not know that the coup will succeed, but looking at the commitment so many high level people have made to the coup, I conclude that those bringing the coup expect it to succeed.

Therefore, we should take very seriously the expectation of success that those who control levers of power are demonstrating.?

abyssinian , Dec 17, 2016 10:17 PM
CIA? You mean Bush?
Mano-A-Mano -> abyssinian , Dec 17, 2016 10:20 PM
PCR has gone senile. Trump IS the elite.
stizazz -> Mano-A-Mano , Dec 17, 2016 10:21 PM
And Trump will continue the MidEast wars. He made it clear.
lock-stock -> stizazz , Dec 17, 2016 10:22 PM
Yes he did. It's right there. http://bit.ly/2flWnRK
Save_America1st -> Moe Hamhead , Dec 17, 2016 10:59 PM
As usual, Paul Craig Roberts is dead-on correct. Just wish Mr. T. would hook him up in some way in the new admin as an economic adivosor of some sorts. He could make a yuuuuuuuge difference.
Mr. Universe -> Save_America1st , Dec 17, 2016 11:33 PM
Above and beyond what is going on behind the scenes they are pushing for all out civil war. If the electors vote for Trump then it's on to Jan.20 where multiple sources are calling out for an outright riot. Michael Moore is calling for a not a protest but a revolution. In response, Trump supporters are now being encouraged to be 2nd amendment patriots to defend against a left wing radical takeover. No matter what happens you can sure you won't hear the truth on the MSM. In fact TPTB are making sure right now they shut down the "alt- right" lest any more muppets awaken.
Perimetr -> techies-r-us , Dec 17, 2016 10:48 PM
A whole group of trolls has been assigned to denigrate PCR's warning, which underlines its importance.

Read also this warning https://www.abqjournal.com/910202/just-who-is-undermining-election-russians-or-cia.html

and this, too http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/12/17/only-a-counter-coup-can-save-...

Paul Kersey -> Perimetr , Dec 17, 2016 10:57 PM
"A whole group of trolls has been assigned to denigrate PCR's warning, which underlines its importance."

Count me in as one of those trolls, because I find PCR to be a sensationalist. In less than two weeks, limp-dick Obama won't have another word to say about the "Russian hack", aka bullshit, and nothing Hillbilery has to say about anything will make any more noise than a goose flying backwards and farting in a thunderstorm.

DaveyJones -> DownWithYogaPants , Dec 17, 2016 11:08 PM
The whole Russian Routine is ALMOST this silly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEWWRbn4zG0

We should all be taking another look at this movie. It's pretty funy and the satire was not only historically planted, it was prescient

when these murderous thieving assholes piss me off, I remember the power of the artist and their license to peel away the absurdity of political power

Déjà view -> Perimetr , Dec 17, 2016 11:01 PM
"In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war"

"If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another"

"Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly".

"Every nation has its war party... It is commercial, imperialistic, ruthless. It tolerates no opposition"

~ Robert M. la Follette Sr.

http://www.azquotes.com/author/25317-Robert_M_La_Follette_Sr

ebworthen -> LetThemEatRand , Dec 17, 2016 10:46 PM
The CIA, along with Boeing and all the other contractors, banks, insurers, and rabble of the Wall Street machine are the Military Industrial Complex.

The Imperial City (D.C.) of Isengard and Mordor (Wall Street) want fresh bodies and blood to enrich themselves. No more pointless wars! No more body bags for blood money!

When the hell will the U.S. Military cut off the head of the beast and restore the Republic?

We can hope Trump can hack his way there, but if not, step up soldiers!

This may be the last chance, tipping point is here.

Blankone -> ebworthen , Dec 17, 2016 11:10 PM
And China keeps buying Boeing planes by the truck load. Why?
Xena fobe -> Blankone , Dec 17, 2016 11:34 PM
They were contracted for already and are partially assembled in China.
adanata -> sysin3 , Dec 17, 2016 10:32 PM

I have believed PCR is controlled opposition for a while now. I also believe the electors will, like the American People, deliver Trump to the Oval Office. I also believe this whole mess is mainly aimed at undermining Trump's mandate from the People so repugs in CONgress can give him a hard time. That won't work either because they'll be inundated with demands from their constituencies. Screw 'em.

natxlaw -> adanata , Dec 18, 2016 12:17 AM
That and convincing Democrat donors not to jump like rats from the sinking ship.
LetThemEatRand , Dec 17, 2016 10:20 PM
I agree with the premise of this article, but disagree that the deep state expects to succeed in a coup via the Electors. Using the tired metaphor, the deep state plays chess. They are merely laying the groundwork for something later.
Mustafa Kemal -> LetThemEatRand , Dec 17, 2016 10:43 PM
Yes, thinking long term, setting a narrative
GracchusBrothers , Dec 17, 2016 10:33 PM

Paul Craig Roberts...the Armed Forces are with Trump. The CIA are a bunch of effete college girly-boys that should be outed and either be arrested or die for crimes against the state.

FUCK THE CIA and their contractors. Whores for sale to the highest bidder. Enemies of the Republic. Death to them all!

DarthVaderMentor , Dec 17, 2016 10:40 PM
If the Defense-Industrial Complex does overturn the election, their victory will be their pyrrhic last stand and it will be the end of its dominance. The American people will totally destroy it.
Right Wing-Nut , Dec 17, 2016 10:49 PM
"Nothing has been published..." and . .. "it's only speculation..." so up to now it's a John LeCarre' novel!
El_Puerco , Dec 17, 2016 10:49 PM
HEY!...people!...are you aware how important is this if is a true story

{ https://youtu.be/wGZds4W1nEs }

I hope its a fake news, just passing through...

A comment:
C/P:

what the United States and NATO are doing on Russia's western frontier is similar to what the German Wehrmacht did in preparation for Operation Barbarossa.

I really hope this is "a Fake NEWS"...

Saludos...

ChaoKrungThep -> SillySalesmanQuestion , Dec 17, 2016 11:00 PM
...but we lost because every POTUS since JFK is a show pony or he goes to the glue factory (and he knows it). The establishment won again so we wait in the shadows for the aging angry beast to die...
King Tut , Dec 17, 2016 10:51 PM
Eisenhower was a SOB and oversaw the genocide of millions of German women, children and elderly at the end of WW2
dexter_morgan , Dec 17, 2016 10:52 PM
So, all indications are that he will receive > 270 electoral votes on 12/19, so the next day of action for this cabal is Jan. 6th when they can again attempt to overturn?

So we will have a lot of propaganda thrown at us yet again trying to influence that, but a) how many people actually pay attention to this crap expecially over the holiday season, and b) how many people pay attention to the MSM anymore anyhow.

That is a large part of their angst - nobody seems to be listening to their bullshit.

Joe A -> dexter_morgan , Dec 17, 2016 11:35 PM
I am not familiar with the American process leading up to the inauguration. What is on Jan. 6th?
dexter_morgan -> Joe A, Dec 17, 2016 11:46 PM
I think that's when the House actual gives there nihil obstat and impramatur to the electoral college votes, and so members can attempt to hang the process up there as per this below which was in the original article.

Andrea Chalupa ‏@AndreaChalupa Dec 11

1.) Electoral College meets Dec. 19. If Electors ignore #StateOfEmergency we're in, & Trump gets elected, we can stop him Jan. 6 in Congress

2.) If any objections to Electoral College vote are made, they must be submitted in writing, signed by at least 1 House member & 1 Senator

3.) If objections are presented, House & Senate withdraw to their chambers to consider their merits under procedures set out in federal law.
...

yellowsub , Dec 17, 2016 10:54 PM
What about Jefferson's warning about the bankers controlling the money supply?
RightLineBacker -> yellowsub, Dec 17, 2016 11:42 PM
Jefferson was right.
DarkPurpleHaze , Dec 17, 2016 10:55 PM
Once Trump gets in office the resultant corruption probe afterwards should be epic! We'll know by Monday if the electoral college stays the course or steers the country towards anarchy.
G-R-U-N-T , Dec 17, 2016 10:56 PM
Seems to me the CIA and the POTUS has made a complete mess of the world. Do the people really have a desire for them to solve the problem when they caused the problem??? I think not!
Atomizer , Dec 17, 2016 11:00 PM
An old book published in 1992. It's called, Snow Crash . Advise you read it.

" Snow Crash " Trailer - YouTube

Clever kids creating their aspersions of book.

DuneCreature , Dec 17, 2016 11:13 PM
I have CIA contacts. They are freaked. .. It is even affecting some of them in the physical health department. (Not enough of them. IMHO.)

Now is NOT the time to fold to intimidation or threats. Now is the time to double down and make them back up threats and/or expose themselves and show exactly which side they are on.

They DO NOT have enough manpower or assets in the states (or anywhere) to silence everyone.

If the Satanic Witch or other Ass Wipes Inc puppet other than Donald Trump (I'm not 100% sure about him but he is the best shot we have, IMO.) gets put into office, shaking off these assholes will be much harder or impossible all together.

And BTW, in case you think you can just close your eyes and tuck back in a hole until the battle is over they have plans well under way to kill you and your family anyway. .. I'm sure if you have read any of my previous posts you know what some of those ways are.

That's my field report and firm recommendations for 12/17/16.

Live Hard, The CIA / CeyeA Are Not The Good Guys Here, Not Even Close, Die Free

~ DC v4.0

samsara , Dec 17, 2016 11:07 PM
I notice Trump has more than a few ex military people around him. A few generals. I wonder if the would call to active military to stand down? Or to counter a coup?
RightLineBacker -> samsara, Dec 17, 2016 11:30 PM
My first thoughts after Trump selected the Generals was to organize a Military-lead counter coup. He has also aligned a massive amount of wealth by his other appointments. I pray & hope I am correct.
Kina , Dec 17, 2016 11:29 PM
The Republican electors their families and the GOP have way too much to lose. Republicans will never get elected again...and all their lives would be in danger. Plus you would get domestic terror groups spring up across the country. Remember Trump won most of the counties so his support is strong and getting stronger.

The soros and clintons of the world will not be able to control the backlash as they think..and you really would then see russia and china stiring up big trouble in america.

luna_man , Dec 17, 2016 11:28 PM
Donald Trump, doesn't strike me as the type of person, that would lay down for such criminality... and if he puts up a fight, like I think he will, anyone that supports him will fight with him. You can count me in that fighting group!

[May 11, 2019] FBI's Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA

May 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"FBI's Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA" [ The Hill ]. "[Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec's] observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and his infamous dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign's contacts with Russia in search of a now debunked collusion theory

[T]he FBI swore on Oct. 21, 2016, to the FISA judges that Steele's 'reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings' and the FBI has determined him to be 'reliable' and was 'unaware of any derogatory information pertaining' to their informant, who simultaneously worked for Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign to find Russian dirt on Trump . She quoted Steele as saying, "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami," according to a copy of her summary memo obtained under open records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United.

Kavalec bluntly debunked that assertion in a bracketed comment: "It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami." Kavalec, two days later and well before the FISA warrant was issued, forwarded her typed summary to other government officials. The State Department has redacted the names and agencies of everyone she alerted. It is unlikely that her concerns failed to reach the FBI." •

"It is unlikely" is doing a lot of work there; surely we can find out of the FBI was on the distribution list of Kavalec's memo? That said, wowsers, does Steele look sketchy.

[May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross

Highly recommended!
This "shadowy Russian" might well be Sergey Skripal. This suggests that Steele dossier was CIA operation with British MI6 as transfer mechanism and Steele as a cover. And implicates Brennan. So this is next level of leaks after "Stormy Daniel"...
Another NYT leak out of a set of well coordinated leans from anonymous intelligence officials ;-) Poor Melania...
Notable quotes:
"... But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to a fascinating report from The New York Times. ..."
"... If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries. ..."
"... More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia is still being stoked no matter what. ..."
"... Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine, McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down. ..."
"... the CIA has to turn America into a criminal totalitarian regime in order to make the world safe for democracy ..."
"... How much you wanna bet that Brennan, Obama's CIA Director, was behind ..."
"... You mean the same Brennan who is the godfather of ISIS? ..."
"... "U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can call off the hounds. ..."
"... Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it... ..."
"... Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big bad russkies tricked us. ..."
"... 'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope. Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a long shot. ..."
"... i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds. this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to trump. ..."
"... Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a cloth." ..."
"... And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works ..."
"... So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers for procurers of hosebags for him to screw? ..."
Feb 10, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

by Chuck Ross of Daily Caller

When they said "Russian collusion", few expected it to be between the CIA and a "shadowy Russian operative." And yet, according to a blockbuster NYT report, that's precisely what happened.

* * *

The CIA paid $100,000 last year to a Russian operative who claimed to have derogatory information about President Trump, including a video tape of the Republican engaged with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. If the video showed Trump, it would support claims made in the infamous Steele dossier, the salacious opposition research report financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to a fascinating report from The New York Times.

American spies made contact with the Russia early in 2017 after he offered to sell the Trump material along with cyber hacking tools that were stolen from the NSA that year, according to The Times. U.S. intelligence officials told The Times they were so desperate to retrieve those tools that they negotiated with the operative for months despite several red flags, including indications that he was working in concert with Russian intelligence.

Another red flag was the Russian's financial request. He initially sought $10 million for the information but dropped the asking price to $1 million.

After months of negotiations, American spies handed over $100,000 in cash in a brief case to the Russian during a meeting in Berlin in September.

The operative also offered documents and emails that purported to implicate other Trump associates, including former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But The Times viewed the documents and reported that they were mostly information that is already in the public domain.

The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers, showed the video purported to be Trump to a Berlin-based American businessman who served as his intermediary to the CIA. But according to the Times, the footage and the location of the viewing raised questions about its authenticity.

The 15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was Trump, and there was no audio. The Russian also showed the video to his American partner at the Russian embassy in Berlin, a sign that the operative had ties to Russian intelligence.

The Russian stonewalled the production of the cyber tools, and U.S. officials eventually cut ties, according to The Times. After the payout in Berlin, the man provided information about Trump and his associates of questionable veracity.

The Americans gave him an ultimatum earlier in 2018 to either play ball, leave Western Europe, or face criminal charges. He left, according to The Times, which interviewed U.S. officials, the American intermediary and the Russian for its article.

The Times' U.S. sources -- who appear to paint the American side in a positive light -- said that they were reluctant to purchase information because they did not want to be seen buying dirt on the president.

The officials also expressed concern that the Russian operative was planting disinformation on behalf of the Russian government. U.S. officials were worried that the Russian government has sought to sow discord between U.S. intelligence agencies and Trump. The revelation that the CIA purchased dirt on him would likely do the trick.

The Times report also has other new details.

Four other Russians with ties to the spy world have surfaced over the past year offering to sell dirt on Trump that closely mirrors allegations made in the dossier, according to the article. But officials have reason to believe that some of sellers have ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

The Times also provides new details on Cody Shearer, a notorious operative close to the Clintons. Shearer was recently revealed to have shopped around a so-called "second dossier" prior to the campaign which mirrored the sex allegations of the Steele report.

According to The Times, he has criss-crossed Europe over the past six months in an attempt to find video footage of Trump from the Moscow hotel room. Shearer claimed to have information from the FSB, Russia's spy service, that a video existed of Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

He shared a memo making the allegations with his friend and fellow Clinton fixer, Sidney Blumenthal. Blumenthal in turn passed the memo to his friend, Jonathan Winer, a Department of State official. Winer then gave the information to Steele who provided it to the FBI in October 2016.

Steele also provided information to Winer, who wrote up a two-page memo that was circulated within the State Department.

Trump has denied allegations that he used prostitutes in Moscow. He has called the dossier a "hoax" and "crap."

* * *

On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that "according to the @nytimes, a Russian sold phony secrets on "Trump" to the U.S. Asking price was $10 million, brought down to $1 million to be paid over time. I hope people are now seeing & understanding what is going on here. It is all now starting to come out - DRAIN THE SWAMP!

Of course, if Trump really wants to "drain the swamp", any such decision would have originate with him. Tags Politics Commercial Banks

InjectTheVenom -> Global Hunter Feb 10, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

DRAIN. THE. SWAMP.

Billy the Poet -> InjectTheVenom Feb 10, 2018 12:04 PM Permalink

Release the pee pee video now! No one pee peed in the $100,000 video in question. The 15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was Trump, and there was no audio. And how can anyone be more fascinated by the prospect of pee pee than by the fact that US intelligence agencies were buying bad information from extremely shady foreigners in an attempt to overthrow the President of the United States?

caconhma -> Billy the Poet Feb 10, 2018 12:42 PM Permalink

Trump is the swamp. If zio-Banking Mafia did not have enough dirt of Trump, he would not be elected.

gatorengineer -> caconhma Feb 10, 2018 1:05 PM Permalink

Trump is starting to assume that the people are dumber than Obowel did. Earth to Don, you sir have the drain pump, you sir have surrounded yourself with Swamp creatures.... You sir are.............

Arrowflinger -> InjectTheVenom Feb 10, 2018 12:18 PM Permalink

According to this, the Russians stole the hacking tools needed to cut through the Swamp levee, which were developed by the NSA, and now the CIA cannot buy them back. Now, since the USA wanted its Swamp, the Russians are more than happy to let the USA drown in its swamp.

What a country!

gatorengineer -> Arrowflinger Feb 10, 2018 1:06 PM Permalink

Anyone have a link for the Qanon posts. I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks since he left 8chan where he was posting. I don't want the Youtube BS, I just want the link... anyone got one. Its strangely not googleable... LOLZ.

El Oregonian -> Global Hunter Feb 10, 2018 11:53 AM Permalink

If you think that the CIA is a U.S. intelligence agency working on the best interests of the United States, you better wake up and smell the treason. They only work for the best interests of themselves.

Bula_Vinaka -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:10 PM Permalink

They are parasites and nothing more.

BurningFuld -> Bula_Vinaka Feb 10, 2018 12:40 PM Permalink

Here is a question. Why does the CIA not come out and clear the air re: Trump?

I mean they were even paying people to come up with dirt. He is now your president and the country is a fucking mess. Should the CIA not come out and say we tried but we got nothing? They do have the ability to fix all this Trump shit and yet crickets.

Ahmeexnal -> caconhma Feb 10, 2018 1:03 PM Permalink

CIA is the covert dirty dealing arm of the VATICAN.

MarshalJimDuncan -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:12 PM Permalink

ooohh... they release this questionable information for all to hear and paid a lot of money for it too. this fucking government is a joke

Posa -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:56 PM Permalink

And the best interests of clients. The CIA started out is the muscle for the Dulles Brothers clients who were being booted out of various countries they were super-exploiting. The Agency hasn't looked back since.

Alfred -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:59 PM Permalink

Seems wrong to call them 'intelligence' agencies. There must be a more descriptive name we can use... Anyone?

Guitarilla -> Global Hunter Feb 10, 2018 12:35 PM Permalink

Nobody got whizzed on. That lurid fantasy came soley out of the head of Hillary Clinton, given to Blumenthal, passed around and made to look like it came from Russia.

DownWithYogaPants -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

CIA killed Kennedy. This pretty much removes all doubt. They are willing to do anything.

Killtruck -> shimmy Feb 10, 2018 12:51 PM Permalink

"Oswald killed Kennedy. That's it."

It IS remarkable the stuff people believe when all logic goes against it. Like Oswald firing magic bullets from an old Italian Carcano...and jet fuel melting steel beams...and a building collapsing through the path of greatest resistance into its own footprint after NOT being hit by an airplane...and Kennedy being shot from behind, but his head snapping backwards from the impact...and Oswald picking the worst possible shooting location, but in front of Kennedy were two intersecting highways going in any direction...and terrorist passports floating gently down from the sky.

It sure is remarkable.
#letsroll

possible band name
OswaldandtheMagicBullets

Able Ape -> shimmy Feb 10, 2018 12:57 PM Permalink

What was Oswald's reason to kill JFK? And yeah, he picked the very building he worked at to commit the crime. He wasn't THAT stupid!...

Posa -> shimmy Feb 10, 2018 1:05 PM Permalink

RFK and Nixon knew immediately the assassination of JFK was a CIA hit job because they had CHAIRED those hit squad operations themselves for Cuban Operations. They saw the CIA- Cuban hit squad fingerprints all over the kill. RFK had personally fired Wm Harvey, Dulles' chief of assassinations. However, RFK was silenced because he and Jack had been tag-teaming Marilyn Monroe.

The reason JFK was killed was a) his openly stated determination to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces so they could no longer operate as a dangerous, renegade private army; and b) in the Spring of '63 JFK delivered his famous American U address calling for the end of the Cold War...

Oswald was always a patsie... the WC documents how his rifle was inoperable... scope needed parts just to be be sited and take aim... even after parts installed the rifle attributed to Oswald remained highly inaccurate... Military sharpshooters couldn't even hit stationary targets reliably.

mobius8curve -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 11:49 AM Permalink

If there is a video you can be sure it was manufactured using these tools:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Nx404VLzw

Lawlessness is arising exponentially:

https://sumofthyword.com/2017/01/18/the-mystery-of-lawlessness/

oDumbo -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 12:19 PM Permalink

Drain the swamp! Townsquare justice for Odumbo and Hitlery! George Soros to bathe in the Amazon River with 1 million Piranha Fish until it completely disappears. Drain the evil Dumorat swamp. Drain the banana republic CIA and FBI. Our tax dollars and constitution did not pay for this shit.

Kelley -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 12:34 PM Permalink

With today's technology, the CIA is most likely working on a fake video for you right now. They might release it on Vimeo or Netflix to cover the costs and give themselves plausible deniability. To add a finishing touch they will make a fake video of Julian Assange claiming he is releasing it. You'll be in hog heaven. Which is where folks like you go just before being slaughtered by your owners and turned into spam.

shovelhead -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 12:55 PM Permalink

10 Million...

1 million...

Ok, How about $9.99

algol_dog Feb 10, 2018 11:38 AM Permalink

Move along. Nothing to see here ...

DosZap -> algol_dog Feb 10, 2018 11:40 AM Permalink

What a load of camel dung, if there was a sex tape of Trump w/Russian hookers, it would have been out while he was RUNNING for the job, FAKE NEWS.

SRV -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 11:54 AM Permalink

Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...

And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!

vulcanraven -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 12:08 PM Permalink

No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.

So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency? You can't have it both ways.

We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all day, where would we be without them?

silvermail -> algol_dog Feb 10, 2018 11:55 AM Permalink

I propose impeachment to any US president for eating, drinking and visiting toilets!

TheWholeYearInn Feb 10, 2018 11:38 AM Permalink

What's the difference between prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room, or prostitutes in the FBI/DOJ?

Global Hunter -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

I can't confirm price, so I will go with hotter (can't really confirm that either but Slavic chicks usually seem hot to me).

SRV -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 11:54 AM Permalink

Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...

And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!

turkey george palmer -> SRV Feb 10, 2018 1:09 PM Permalink

Fuckin eh right. That's probably the closest thing .

A Sentinel -> SRV Feb 10, 2018 1:21 PM Permalink

Damn good point. And the dates are off too. A 6+/- month zh article about the dark web had the nsa software downloadable long before 2017.

Gee. Why would someone date that hack into 2017? What was different between 2016 and 2017?

SMH Trying to figure that out.

vulcanraven -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 12:08 PM Permalink

No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.

So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency? You can't have it both ways.

We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all day, where would we be without them?

Winston Churchill -> buzzsaw99 Feb 10, 2018 12:02 PM Permalink

More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia is still being stoked no matter what.

Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine, McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down.

H-O-W Feb 10, 2018 11:46 AM Permalink

The more we learn,

The more it looks like the Russians set this up perfectly.

They know these scumbags better than we do!

buzzsaw99 Feb 10, 2018 11:48 AM Permalink

the CIA has to turn America into a criminal totalitarian regime in order to make the world safe for democracy.

Give Me Some Truth Feb 10, 2018 11:49 AM Permalink

Good point in the last sentence. If someone is going to "drain the swamp" it is going to have to be the president of the United States. I think I'm correct that he can fire anyone that works in the executive department for cause. He can also order investigations or hire people who will launch real investigations.

Mr. President, if you want to "drain the swamp," drain it.

P.S. You can start with an audit of The Fed.

desertboy -> Give Me Some Truth Feb 10, 2018 12:16 PM Permalink

That last sentence assumes a rather critical fantasy.

Anunnaki -> Thordoom Feb 10, 2018 12:24 PM Permalink

The Tripod of Evil

  1. Deep State
  2. Presstitutes
  3. Corporate Democrats
Dre4dwolf Feb 10, 2018 12:11 PM Permalink

If there was a video it would of been leaked during the election, they have nothing that sticks on the guy.

All the evidence thus far states

Obama Hillary the FBI, DNC, CIA all spied on Trump and colluded with foreign governments (U.K. , Ukraine , Russia) to try and dig up dirt to use against Trump (and they more or less failed).

They turned over every rock they could, look at that stupid hot-mic video in the bus, how many hours of video did they have to go through to dig up that crumb? they went back searching through 30+ years of content and thats all they could come up with.... some locker room talk lol

People have to just face it.

Your government was and still is corrupt and its a weaponized system of control, Your government colluded with the enemy in a desperate attempt to stop Trump from becoming president. Your government started a sham "Russia investigation" to cover up its own crimes. Your government applied a different standard of justice to the clintons than it would have to you or anyone else.

To date ZERO evidence has been brought forward that Trump or anyone in his campaign did anything wrong, and the only people that have done anything wrong so far were picked by "the swamp" to fill positions..... all the others fell into petty perjury Traps on meaningless topics and insignificant factoids.

Lord Raglan Feb 10, 2018 12:12 PM Permalink

How much you wanna bet that Brennan, Obama's CIA Director, was behind buying this and thus, Obama and Hillary?

navy62802 -> Lord Raglan Feb 10, 2018 12:16 PM Permalink

You mean the same Brennan who is the godfather of ISIS?

Kelley Feb 10, 2018 12:16 PM Permalink

Isn't it lovely to find out that your money and mine is being used by government agents to give us the government they want?

It's sort of like a thug robbing you and using part of your money to pay another thug to rough you up from time time to time if you ask any questions with the thugs believing it's for our own good.

Thanks, Hillary, for looking out for us. You and your best buds are the best. Such bighearted givers! Meanwhile, give our regards to your partner in slime Obama, although it must pain you to have been bested by 'Beavis' who thinks so much of himself to balance out how little he impresses anyone who knows him.

desertboy Feb 10, 2018 12:20 PM Permalink

"U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can call off the hounds.

Consuelo Feb 10, 2018 12:22 PM Permalink

Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it...

Kelley Feb 10, 2018 1:05 PM Permalink

As taxpayers can we sue the CIA for misusing our funds? Pretty sure that buying sex videos for commercial release isn't part of the CIA's lawful mandate even at bargain prices.

indaknow Feb 10, 2018 1:13 PM Permalink

Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big bad russkies tricked us.

It's not going to work.

hooligan2009 Feb 10, 2018 11:49 AM Permalink

my sauces tell me that pink pussyhat wearing hollywood types have been called in because they have a doppelganger for trump and access to 30,000 sexually abused victims that can act as Russian prostitutes for just ten bucks each. snapchat has a trump emoji that can be transplanted onto any porn video star - male or female - thus confirming that trump is a serial (serious?) user of ladies of the night

my sauces also tell me that the CIA offers a reward of 100,000 bucks (or 10 BTC) for every photo-shopped (snap-shopped or porn-shopped) material.

of course, the CIA already owns many many porn movie studios and films, but it would prefer third "party" movies - not from epstein's island where its operatives choose to rela with a pizza.

the CIA "pink" budget for such movies is limited to just 5,000 clips or 5 billion of taxpayers funds, whichever is the higher.

awesome sauce hey?

MusicIsYou Feb 10, 2018 1:14 PM Permalink

For only $100,000 that's all? Now I know it's probably not true.

Robert A. Heinlein Feb 10, 2018 1:17 PM Permalink

'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope. Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a long shot.

hannah Feb 10, 2018 1:33 PM Permalink

i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds. this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to trump.

i call bullshit.

RKae -> hannah Feb 10, 2018 1:47 PM Permalink

Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a cloth."

And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works.

Quantify Feb 10, 2018 1:38 PM Permalink

The CIA is at the head of the shadow government.

RKae Feb 10, 2018 1:39 PM Permalink

So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers for procurers of hosebags for him to screw?

I mean if they're so concerned about Trump and a couple of hookers... Better put some ice on that, CIA.

vofreason Feb 10, 2018 1:39 PM Permalink

You all are so ridiculous and fooled with your "drain the swamp" bs. It's a great idea but Trump doing it is a joke, I mean just look at who he has hired, what's wrong with you all are you blind?!!

He can't even fill 1/3 of the government positions he's supposed to and the ones he has have no business holding the positions given to them and are so incompetent, downright criminal or just personally horrendous humans that they can't stay in office more than a few months. All their blatant and moronically concocted lies are backing them into corners every day that they just try and lie out of again. America is over if we really have gotten to the point that a group like Trump's has support, it's just astonishing.

[May 10, 2019] Mueller Report - Expensive Estimations And Elusive Evidence by Adam Carter

Highly recommended!
Looks more and more like Crowdstrike conducted false flag operation to implicate Russians, not a real investigation.
I always assumed that #Guccifer2 was either a Crowdstryke construction at DNC request (that's probably why it was so badly, incompetently done) or a NSA construction (then, we somehow need to explain, why it was so badly done?). In both cases the goal was to implicate Russia in a DNC 'hack' ...
Craig Murray has stated he received the DNC files in Wash DC from a leaker. Mueller failed to interview him, which suggest the Mueller and his team were the part of cover-up, not the part of investigation.
Notable quotes:
"... We are told the GRU obtained files from the DNC network on April 22, 2016, (this is a little different to the Netyksho indictment that states the files were archived on April 22, 2016 and extracted later): ..."
"... The malware samples provided by CrowdStrike show that the earliest compile date of Fancy Bear malware reportedly discovered at the DNC was April 25, 2016 . ..."
"... Whoever was controlling the Guccifer 2.0 persona went out of their way to be perceived as Russian and made specious claims about having already sent WikiLeaks documents, even claiming that WikiLeaks would release them soon (all before Mueller records any initial contact between the parties) . ..."
"... The Special Counsel seems to have been impervious to critical pieces of countervailing evidence (some of which demonstrates that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately manufactured Russian breadcrumbs) and they have failed to accurately account for the acquisition of WikiLeaks' DNC emails (missing the date on which approximately 70% of them were collected) , which is, in itself, a stunning failure for a supposedly thorough investigation costing US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. ..."
"... There should have been a proper, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the Guccifer 2.0 persona. The Special Counsel certainly hasn't done that job and, in retrospect, looks to have been ill-equipped (and perhaps somewhat reluctant) to do so from the outset. ..."
May 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

On April 18, 2019, a redacted version of Robert Mueller's report on "RussiaGate" related activities was released to the public.

This article focuses on Volume I Part III titled "Russian Hacking & Dumping Operations" and provides details of the errors made, critical omissions, lack of conclusive evidence and reliance on assumptions and speculation.

We will also look at problems relating to attribution methods used, countervailing evidence that has clearly been disregarded and other problems that are likely to have affected the quality of the investigation and the report.


The Mueller Report: Context & Contradiction

We start with a read-through of this section of the report, highlighting missing context, contradictions and errors.

Page 36

[To minimize repetition, we'll deal with statements made in this introduction where the basis is explained or details are provided on other pages ahead.]

Page 36

While the Netyksho indictment does provide details of intrusions and infrastructure used, it's still unclear how the infrastructure has been attributed back to individuals in the GRU and no conclusive evidence has been presented to support that in the indictment or the report.

Page 37

Some of the claims relating to state boards of elections are contradicted by the Department of Homeland Security , we'll return to this where it's covered in more detail later in the report.

Page 37

Whatever the sources are the GRU did their "learning" from they seem to have been outdated as many of the phishing emails were bounced due to being for individuals that were not involved in Clinton's 2016 campaign and that no longer had mailboxes on the relevant domains (they were involved in earlier campaigns in previous years) .

Page 39

In the Netyksho indictment it is stated that the "middle-servers" are overseas:

So, what was the point in having a US-based AMS Panel if you're using overseas servers as proxies?

This seems to be a needlessly noisy setup that somewhat defeats the purpose of having a US-based server for the AMS panel.

This setup makes the assets allegedly used by GRU officers subject to US laws, subject to Internet monitoring by US intelligence agencies and prone to being physically seized.

With the GRU using middle-servers, as alleged, there would have been absolutely no reason to have the AMS panel hosted on a server within the US and every reason to have it hosted elsewhere.

It almost seems like they wanted to get caught!

Page 40

We are told the GRU obtained files from the DNC network on April 22, 2016, (this is a little different to the Netyksho indictment that states the files were archived on April 22, 2016 and extracted later):

The problem with this is that it suggests the GRU had their implant on the DNC network earlier than what the available evidence supports.

The malware samples provided by CrowdStrike show that the earliest compile date of Fancy Bear malware reportedly discovered at the DNC was April 25, 2016 .

Perhaps they didn't discover all the malware until later? (Though, with their flagship product installed across the network, one would think they'd have detected all the malware present by the time they reported on discoveries).

Regarding the stolen opposition research, we've only seen the document as an attachment to one of Podesta's emails and a deliberately tainted version of the same document released by Guccifer 2.0.

The implication that this was stolen from the DNC is questionable due to this.

Going further, the story surrounding this changed in November 2017 when the Associated Press published a story titled " How Russians hacked the Democrats' emails " in which they cite an anonymous former DNC official who asserts that Guccifer 2.0's first document (the Trump opposition report) did not originate in the DNC as initially reported.

Another interesting point relating to this is the "HRC_pass.zip" archive released by Guccifer 2.0 on June 21, 2016 ( which also provided another US central timezone indication ) contained files with last modification dates of April 26, 2016. While this fits within the above timeframe, the transfer of the files individually, the apparent transfer speeds involved and the presence of FAT-like 2-second rounding artifacts ( noted elsewhere in Guccifer 2.0's releases ) when the files came from an NTFS system (and the ZIP implementation was not the cause) does not correlate well with what the report outlines.

In spite of its name ("HRC_pass.zip") this archive appears to contain files that can be sourced to the DNC. Out of 200 files, only one showed up as an attachment (in the Podesta emails) .

Regarding the May 25 - June 1 timeframe cited, this seems to exclude the date on which approximately 70% of the DNC's emails published on WikiLeaks' website were acquired (May 23, 2016)

What makes this interesting is that this is apparently being evaluated on evidence that was very likely to have been provided by CrowdStrike:

Page 40

How did Crowdstrike's evidence not inform the FBI and Special Counsel of the real initial acquisition date of WikiLeaks' DNC emails?

Was the May 23, 2016 activity not recorded?

Going back to the Netyksho indictment , we have also been told that Yermakov was searching for Powershell commands between the May 25 - June 1st period:

However, we know 70% of the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks had already been acquired prior to that time, before Yermakov had allegedly researched how to access and manage the Exchange server.

Page 41

We can tell from the use of "appear" here that the Special Counsel does not have conclusive evidence to demonstrate this.

Page 41

While the overlap between reported phishing victims and the output of DCLeaks cannot be denied, it is still unclear how bitcoin pools or leased infrastructure have been definitively tied back to any GRU officers or the GRU itself.

This isn't to say that there isn't evidence of it (I would assume there is some evidence or intelligence that supports the premise to some degree, at the very least) but we have no idea what that could be and there is no explanation of how associations to individual GRU officers were made (perhaps to protect HUMINT but this still leaves us completely in the dark as to how attributions were made) .

We know already that things are assumed by the Special Counsel on the basis of circumstantial evidence, so there is good reason to question whether the attributions made are based on conclusive evidence.

Page 42

This is the first point at which to recall Assange's announcement on 12 June that WikiLeaks was working on a release of "emails related to Hillary Clinton" - two days before the DNC goes public about being hacked by Russians, and three days before the appearance of Guccifer 2.0.

It's also approximately one month before Mueller says Guccifer 2.0 first successfully sent anything to WikiLeaks.

Whoever was controlling the Guccifer 2.0 persona went out of their way to be perceived as Russian and made specious claims about having already sent WikiLeaks documents, even claiming that WikiLeaks would release them soon (all before Mueller records any initial contact between the parties) .

While WikiLeaks did mention this via their Twitter feed on June 16, 2016, they were clearly skeptical of his claims to be a hacker and although they cite his claim about sending material to WikiLeaks, they don't confirm it:

It also seems a little odd that the GRU would do searches for already translated phrases (using Google translate to get English translations would be more understandable) and if it's Guccifer 2.0 doing it why did he not use the VPN he used for his other activities throughout the same day?

Why does the Mueller report not report on the IP address of the Moscow-based server from which searches occurred? It wouldn't really expose sources and methods to disclose it and it's unclear how it was determined to have been used and managed by a unit of the GRU. (Citation #146 references the Netyksho indictment, however, that fails to provide evidence or explanation of this too.)

Also, Guccifer 2.0 did not attribute the hack to a Romanian hacker in his first blog post , he didn't mention nationality until a week later (after he'd already gone out of his way to leave Russian breadcrumbs behind ) .

Page 43

The version of the opposition research document Guccifer 2.0 released was built using a prepared "Russian-tainted" template document .

The template was made by taking an attachment from one of John Podesta's emails (a document originally authored by Warren Flood in 2008) , stripping out the content, adding in Russian language stylesheet entries , altering "Confidential Draft" in the background of the document to "Confidential", altering the footer and then stripping out the body content.

The body content of a Trump Opposition research document (originally authored by Lauren Dillon) that was attached to another of Podesta's emails was then copied into the template document.

The document was saved (with a Russian author name), its body content cleared and this was then re-used to produce two further "Russia-tainted" documents.

It was no accident that led to the documents being tainted in the way that they were and it looks like Guccifer 2.0's version of the Trump opposition research didn't really come from the DNC.

Page 43

The email sent to The Smoking Gun revealed that Guccifer 2.0 appeared to be operating from somewhere in the central (US) time zone . It is one of several inexplicable examples of US timezone indications from Guccifer 2.0.

Page 43

It should be noted that the data referenced above was also unrelated to the general election and didn't have any noticeable impact on it (the 2.5Gb of data Guccifer 2.0 provided to Aaron Nevins was unlikely to have hurt the Clinton campaign or affect the outcome of the general election) .

In the states that the data related to, general election results didn't flip between the time of the publication of the documents and the election:

Page 43

Interesting to note that Guccifer 2.0 lied about DCLeaks being a "sub project" of WikiLeaks.

Page 44

The only materials Mueller alleges that WikiLeaks confirmed receipt of was a "1gb or so" archive, for which, instructions to access were communicated in an attached message (none-too-discreetly titled "wk dnc link1.txt.gpg") and sent by Guccifer 2 via unencrypted email.

It is an assumption that this was an archive of DNC emails (it could have contained other files Guccifer 2.0 subsequently released elsewhere).

We don't even know for sure whether WikiLeaks released what had been sent to them by either entity.

Even if, theoretically, the archive contained the emails, it couldn't have been the whole collection because the whole collection, when compressed, exceeds 2Gb of data .

This, of course, doesn't rule out the possibility of it being a portion of the overall collection but what the persona had sent to WikiLeaks could also easily have been other material relating to the DNC that we know Guccifer 2.0 later released or shared with other parties.

Page 45

This is the second point at which to recall Assange's 12 June TV announcement of upcoming "emails related to Hillary Clinton", coming two days before Guccifer 2.0's colleagues at DCLeaks reach out to WikiLeaks via unencrypted means on 14 June 2016 to offer "sensitive information" on Clinton.

Then, seven days after Guccifer 2 had already claimed to have sent material to WikiLeaks and stated that they'd soon release it (which made it sound as though he'd had confirmation back), we see that WikiLeaks reaches out to Guccifer 2.0 and suggests he sends material to them (as though there's never been any prior contact or provision of materials previously discussed) .

Page 45

How is it "clear" that both the DNC and Podesta documents were transferred from the GRU to WikiLeaks when there is only around a gigabyte of data acknowledged as received (and we don't even know what that data is) and little is known about the rest (and the report just speculates at possibilities) ?

Page 46

We aren't provided the full dialogue between WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. Instead we have just a few words selected from the communication that could easily be out of context. The Netyksho indictment did exactly the same thing. Neither the indictment nor the report provide the full DM conversation in context.

(It certainly wouldn't harm HUMINT resources or expose methods if this evidence was released in full context.)

Would the GRU really engage in internal communications (eg GRU Guccifer 2.0 to GRU DCLeaks) via Twitter DMs? Maybe, but it seems insanely sloppy with regards to operational security of a clandestine organization communicating between its own staff.

The statement that concludes on the following page (see below) also seems a little bizarre. Would WikiLeaks really ask Guccifer 2.0 to DM DCLeaks to pass on such a message on their behalf?

Why doesn't Mueller provide the comms evidence of WikiLeaks asking Guccifer 2.0 for assistance in contacting DCLeaks?

As written, we are expected to take the words of Guccifer 2.0 (stating that the media organisation wished to talk to DCLeaks) at face value.

The problem with this is that we are talking about a persona who lied publicly about when he first sent material to WikiLeaks ( claiming to have done so already on the day appeared ) , lied about the relationship between WikiLeaks and DCLeaks and who had gone to a great deal of trouble to leave false Russian fingerprints in his work output.

Page 47

It was actually the last-modification date, not the creation date that was recorded as 19 September, 2016.

This wasn't necessarily the creation date and is only indicative of the last recorded write/copy operation (unless last modification date is preserved when copying but there's no way to determine that based on the available evidence) .

The gap between email file timestamps and attachment timestamps may simply be explained by WikiLeaks extracting the attachments from the EML files at a later stage. With the DNC emails we observed last-modifications dates as far back as May 23, 2016 but the attachments had last-modification dates that were much later (eg. July 21, 2016).

The wording is also worth noting: "Based on information about Assange's computer and its possible operating system" [emphasis mine] does not sound like it's based on reliable and factual information, it sounds like this is based on assessment/estimation. This also seems to be relying on an assumption that the only person handling files for WikiLeaks is Assange.

How have the Special Counsel cited WikiLeaks metadata for evidence where it's suited them yet, somehow, have managed to miss the May 23, 2016 date on which the DNC emails were initially being collected?

Going further, the report, based on speculation, suggests that the GRU staged releases in July (for DNC emails) and September (for Podesta emails). However, going off the same logic as the Special Counsel, with last-modification dates indicating when the email files are "staged", the evidence would theoretically point to the DNC emails being "staged" in May 2016).

It doesn't seem so reliable when the rule is applied multilaterally.

Of course, if both assumptions about staging dates are true, then we're left wondering what Julian Assange could have been talking about on June 12, 2016 when mentioning having emails relating to Hillary Clinton.

The speculation in the final paragraph of the above section also shows us that the Special Counsel lacks certainty on sources.

Page 48

Really, this correlation of dates (March 21, 2016 and the reported phishing incident relating to March 19, 2016) is one of the best arguments for saying that emails published by WikiLeaks were acquired through phishing or hacking incidents reported.

However, this merely suggests the method of acquisition, it says nothing of how the material got to WikiLeaks. We can make assumptions, but that's all we can do because the available evidence is circumstantial rather than conclusive.

Page 48

Far from "discredit[ing] WikiLeaks' claims about the source of the material it posted", the file transfer evidence doesn't conclusively demonstrate that WikiLeaks published anything sent to it by Guccifer 2.0 or DCLeaks.

Although there are hints that what was sent by Guccifer 2.0 related to the DNC, we don't know if this contained DNC emails or the other DNC related content he later released and shared with others.

"The statements about Seth Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails" is itself a false statement. The reason Assange gave for offering a reward for information leading to the conviction of Seth Rich's killers was "Our sources take risks and they become concerned when they see things occurring like that [the death of DNC worker Seth Rich]... We have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States" ( source ) .

This implies WikiLeaks is offering the reward for info about Seth Rich at the behest of its actual source/s.

Page 49

By the time Trump had made the statements cited above, it was already assumed that Hillary had been hacked by the Russians, so Trump saying he hoped the Russians would find the emails seems more likely to have been in reference to what he assumed was already in their possession.

Finding those 30,000 emails also wouldn't be achieved through hacking at that point in time as the emails had already been deleted by Hillary Clinton's IT consultants in March 2015 .

Page 50

What is being described here is, to a considerable extent, just common exploit scanning on web services, scanning that will almost certainly have come from other nodes based in other nations too .

These scans are typically done via compromised machines, often with machines that are in nations completely separate to the nationality of those running the scanning effort.

The Department of Homeland Security threw cold water on this a long time ago.

DHS would not characterize these efforts as attacks, only "simple scanning ... which occurs all the time".

Page 51

There was no alteration of ballots or results at all anywhere as of a testimony by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson on June 21 2017 nor since that time, according to Brian Krebs, to the date of a hearing on November 27, 2017 .

The remaining pages in this section of the report include a lot of redactions and mostly cover the actions of individuals in the US in relation to communications they had with or in relation to WikiLeaks. As this article is about the technical claims made in relation to hacking and so much is redacted, we'll only look at those really relevant to this.

Page 52

By the time Assange made the announcement referenced above, the Hillary Clinton emails obtained through FOIA had already been published by WikiLeaks.

Considering what WikiLeaks subsequently published, it would seem that Assange was making a reference to at least one of the upcoming leaks.

At this time, there was no record of contact between WikiLeaks and either of the parties alleged to be the GRU.

Page 58

Regarding the timing of the leaks and the Access Hollywood tape, it's important to note that journalist Stefani Maurizi, who had worked with WikiLeaks on the Podesta leaks, has stated publicly that she knew of WikiLeaks intention to publish on that date on the evening prior to it .

WikiLeaks stated the "timing conspiracy theory" was the other way round: " The [Access Hollywood] tape was moved forward to the day of our release, which WikiLeaks had been teasing " and was " well-documented ".

[The remaining pages in this section have little relevance to the technical aspects of this section of the report and/or acquisition of materials that this article is intended to cover.]


Circumstantial Evidence & Understandable Assumptions

While the above does show numerous issues with the report, it's important not to fall into the trap of outright dismissing as false anything for which evidence is lacking or assuming there is no evidence at all to support assertions.

However, without knowing what evidence exists we're left to make assumptions about whether it's conclusive or circumstantial, we don't know if the source of evidence is dependable and it's clear in the report that the Special Counsel has relied on assumptions and made numerous statements on the basis of presuppositions.

There is also a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence that, although it doesn't conclusively prove what the report tries to convince us of, it does at least raise questions about relationships between different entities, especially with regards to any overlaps in resources and infrastructure used.

For example, based on the cited evidence, it is perfectly understandable that people will assume Guccifer 2.0 provided DNC emails to WikiLeaks and will also assume that WikiLeaks published whatever it was that Guccifer 2.0 had sent them (especially with Mueller presenting that conversation in the form of a couple of words devoid of all context) .

The apparent overlap between a VPN service used by Guccifer 2.0 and by DCLeaks does suggest the two could be associated beyond Guccifer 2.0 just being a source of leaks for them.

Also, DCLeaks publishing some DNC emails that later appeared in the DNC email collection (though not necessarily from the same mailboxes) also suggests that DCLeaks and WikiLeaks could have had access to some of the same material and/or sources.

The same is true for Guccifer 2.0 releasing Podesta and DNC email attachments before WikiLeaks released both collections. Unless given good reason to consider any ulterior motive, the implied explanation, on the surface, seems to be that it was this persona that was a source for those emails. If nothing else, that's how it appears based on the little information typically made available to us by the mainstream press.

However, despite all of this, we still have not seen conclusive evidence showing that either of the entities was really controlled by the GRU and, when the countervailing evidence (which seems to have been completely ignored by the Special Counsel's investigation) is considered, there is reason to give consideration to Guccifer 2.0's efforts to not just associate himself with WikiLeaks and DCLeaks but also to associate third parties with each other through false claims.


The Mystery Of The May 23, 2016 Omission

One of the most notable omissions is the date on which emails from several mailboxes (including Luis Miranda's) were originally collected.

We know, from analysis of metadata of files hosted by WikiLeaks that this was May 23, 2016.

Not only is this prior to the May 25, 2016 - June 1, 2016 timeframe given for the DNC's exchange server being hacked, this activity is unmentioned throughout the entire report.

How has this failed to come to the surface when it should have been apparent in evidence CrowdStrike provided to the FBI and also apparent based on the WikiLeaks metadata? How is it the Special Counsel can cite some of the metadata in relation to WikiLeaks releases yet somehow manage to miss this?


Countervailing Evidence

What the Special Counsel's investigation also seems to have completely disregarded is the volume of countervailing evidence that has been discovered by several independent researchers in relation to the Guccifer 2.0 persona.

It's worth considering what evidence the Special Counsel has brought to the surface and comparing it with the evidence that has come to the surface as a result of discoveries being made by independent researchers over the past two years and the differences between the two sets of evidence (especially with regards to falsifiability and verifiability of evidence) .

Some excellent examples are covered in the following articles:


Reliability Of Attribution Methods

Skip Folden (who introduced me to VIPS members and has been a good friend ever since) recently shared with me his assessment of problems with the current attribution methods being relied on by the Special Counsel and others.

It covered several important points and was far more concise than anything I would have written, so, with his permission, I'm publishing his comments on this topic:

No basis whatsoever

APT28, aka Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Strontium, Pawn Storm, Sednit, etc., and APT29, aka Cozy Bear, Cozy Duke, Monkeys, CozyCar,The Dukes, etc., are used as 'proof' of Russia 'hacking' by Russian Intelligence agencies GRU and FSB respectively.

There is no basis whatsoever to attribute the use of known intrusion elements to Russia, not even if they were once reverse routed to Russia, which claim has never been made by NSA or any other of our IC.

On June 15, 2016 Dmitri Alperovitch himself, in an Atlantic Council article, gave only "medium-level of confidence that Fancy Bear is GRU" and "low-level of confidence that Cozy Bear is FSB." These assessments, from the main source himself, that either APT is Russian intelligence, averages 37%-38% [(50 + 25) / 2].

Exclusivity :

None of the technical indicators, e.g., intrusion tools (such as X-Agent, X-Tunnel), facilities, tactics, techniques, or procedures, etc., of the 28 and 29 APTs can be uniquely attributed to Russia, even if one or more had ever been trace routed to Russia. Once an element of a set of intrusion tools is used in the public domain it can be reverse-engineered and used by other groups which precludes the assumption of exclusivity in future use. The proof that any of these tools have never been reverse engineered and used by others is left to the student - or prosecutor.

Using targets

Also, targets have been used as basis for attributing intrusions to Russia, and that is pure nonsense. Both many state and non-state players have deep interests in the same targets and have the technical expertise to launch intrusions. In Grizzly Steppe, page 2, second paragraph, beginning with, "Both groups have historically targeted ...," is there anything in that paragraph which can be claimed as unique to Russia or which excludes all other major state players in the world or any of the non-state organizations? No.

Key Logger Consideration

On the subject of naming specific GRU officers initiating specific actions on GRU Russian facilities on certain dates / times, other than via implanted ID chips under the finger tips of these named GRU officers, the logical assumption would be by installed key logger capabilities, physical or malware, on one or more GRU Russian computers.

The GRU is a highly advanced Russian intelligence unit. It would be very surprising were the GRU open to any method used to install key logger capabilities. It would be even more surprising, if not beyond comprehension that the GRU did not scan all systems upon start-up and in real time, including key logger protection and anomalies of performance degradation and data transmissions.

Foreign intelligence source

Other option would be via a foreign intelligence unit source with local GRU access. Any such would be quite anti-Russian and be another nail in the coffin of any chain of evidence / custody validity at Russian site.


Chain Of Custody - Without An Anchor There Is No Chain

Another big problem with the whole RussiaGate investigation is the reliance on a private firm, hired by the DNC, to be the source of evidence.

As I don't have a good understanding of US law and processes surrounding evidence collection and handling, I will, again, defer to something that my aforementioned contact shared:

Chain of Evidence / Custody at US end, i.e., DNC and related computing facilities

Summary: There is no US end Chain of Evidence / Custody

The anchor of any chain of evidence custody is the on-site crime scene investigation of a jurisdictional law enforcement agency and neutral jurisdictional forensic team which investigate, discover, identify where possible, log, mark, package, seal, or takes images there of, of all identified elements of potential evidence as discovered at the scene of a crime by the authorized teams. The chain of this anchor is then the careful, documented movement of each element of captured evidence from crime scene to court.

In the case of the alleged series of intrusions into the DNC computing facilities, there is no anchor to any chain of evidence / custody.

There has been no claim that any jurisdictional law enforcement agency was allowed access to the DNC computing facilities. The FBI was denied access to DNC facilities, thereby supposedly denying the FBI the ability to conduct any on-site investigation of the alleged crime scene for discovery or collection of evidence.

Nor did the FBI exercise its authority to investigate the crime scene of a purported federal crime. Since when does the FBI need permission to investigate an alleged crime site where it is claimed a foreign government's intelligence attacked political files in order to interfere in a US presidential election?

Instead, the FBI accepted images of purported crime scene evidence from a contractor hired by and, therefore, working for the DNC. On July 05, 2017 a Crowdstrike statement said that they had provided "... forensic images of the DNC system to the FBI." It was not stated when these images were provided. Crowdstrike was working for the DNC as a contractor at the time.

This scenario is analogous to an employee of a crime scene owner telling law enforcement, "Trust me; I have examined the crime scene for you and here's what I've found. It's not necessary for you to see the crime scene."

Crowdstrike cannot be accepted as a neutral forensic organization. It was working for and being paid by the DNC. It is neither a law enforcement agency nor a federal forensic organization. Further Crowdstrike has serious conflicts of interest when it comes to any investigation of Russia.

Crowdstrike co-founder and Director of Technology, Dimitri Alperovitch, is a Nonresident Senior Fellow, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, of the Atlantic Council. Alperovitch has made it clear of his dislike of the government of Putin, and The Atlantic Council can not be considered neutral to Russia, receiving funding from many very staunch and outspoken enemies of Russia.

Summary: Not only was no federal jurisdictional law enforcement agency allowed to investigate the alleged crime scene, but the organization which allegedly collected and provided the 'evidence' was not neutral by being employed by the owner of the alleged crime scene, but seriously compromised by strong anti-Russian links.

This issue of this substitute for an anchor then leads us to our next problem: an apparent conflict of interest from the investigation's outset.


Conflict of Interest Inherent In The Investigation?

Would it seem like a conflict of interest if the person in charge of an investigation were friends with a witness and source of critical evidence relied upon by that investigation?

This is effectively the situation we have with the Special Counsel investigation because Robert Mueller and CrowdStrike's CSO (and President) Shawn Henry are former colleagues and friends.

Their history at the FBI is well known and their continued association after Henry had left the agency ( having dinner together at an executive retreat ) has been noted.

If nothing else, it's understandable for people to feel that the Special Counsel would have struggled to be truly impartial due to such relationships.


Conclusion

The Special Counsel seems to have been impervious to critical pieces of countervailing evidence (some of which demonstrates that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately manufactured Russian breadcrumbs) and they have failed to accurately account for the acquisition of WikiLeaks' DNC emails (missing the date on which approximately 70% of them were collected) , which is, in itself, a stunning failure for a supposedly thorough investigation costing US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

There should have been a proper, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the Guccifer 2.0 persona. The Special Counsel certainly hasn't done that job and, in retrospect, looks to have been ill-equipped (and perhaps somewhat reluctant) to do so from the outset.


This article may be republished/reproduced in part or in full on condition that content above is unaltered and that the author is credited (or, alternatively, that a link to the full article is included).

[May 10, 2019] The role of Clinton Campaign and the DNC in Spygate (aka Russiagate)

Notable quotes:
"... Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff -- the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama administration. Perkins Coie ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Clinton Campaign and the DNC

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.

The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.

Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser to the campaign, took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.

Palmieri helped promote the Russia-collusion narrative.

Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian active measures , in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower.

The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a tweet on the same day the article was published:

"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

Attached to her tweet was a statement from Sullivan:

"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.

This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from the Clinton campaign.

Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia. Chalupa began investigating Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January 2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.

Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff -- the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama administration. Perkins Coie

International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.

Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.

Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele. Sussmann personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.

According to a letter dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign. Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.

Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele. During this same period, Fusion also reportedly hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016, and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.

Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI. Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com
Biden, Obama Officials Stood to Gain From Ukraine Influence By Jeff Carlson ( April 26, 2019 Updated: May 2, 2019 )

Newly released evidence suggests Ukraine played key role in creating Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials

As Ukraine underwent dramatic changes in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama administration's involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign, information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.

Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed Biden's son, Hunter, as a board member.

President Donald Trump 's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, "Keep your eye on Ukraine." In his comments to the Washington Examiner , Giuliani highlighted the "plot to create an investigation of President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016 elections."

Obama Administration's 2014 Involvement

On or shortly before Feb. 4, 2014, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked .

In the call, Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be discussing the ouster of Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister.

Nuland favored opposition leader Yatsenyuk over his main rivals Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok, telling Pyatt: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitschko and Tyahnybok on the outside."

Toward the end of the conversation , then-Vice President Biden was discussed as being willing to help cement the changeover in Ukraine:

Geoffrey Pyatt: "We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych, but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place."

Victoria Nuland: "So, on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [Biden's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden, and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing."

Nuland and Pyatt met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, along with then-President Yanukovych, just days later on Feb. 7, 2014.

Events then moved swiftly. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and fled to Russia. On Feb. 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk, the candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister of Ukraine. Klitschko was left out. Notably, Yatsenyuk would later resign in April 2016 amid corruption accusations.

Biden's Involvement in Ukraine

In April, Biden would get personally involved, as would his son, Hunter. On April 18, 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine.

Four days later, on April 22, 2014, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine , offering his political support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government. Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.

Biden became close to both men and helped Ukraine obtain a four-year, $17.5 billion IMF package in March 2015.

In October 2016, Foreign Policy wrote a lengthy article, " What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe ," which described Biden's role in the removal of Ukraine's general prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Shokin, the choice of Poroshenko, was portrayed as fumbling a major corruption case and "hindering an investigation into two high-ranking state prosecutors arrested on corruption charges."

The United States pushed for Shokin's removal, and Biden led the effort by personally threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. In an interview with The Atlantic, Biden recalled telling Poroshenko: "Petro, you're not getting your billion dollars. It's OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand -- we're not paying if you do." Shokin was removed by Poroshenko shortly thereafter, in early 2016.

But according to reporting by The Hill, at the time of his firing, Shokin had been investigating Burisma. Shokin's investigation into Burisma had previously been disclosed in June 2017, by Front News International.

Burisma is owned by Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky), the former minister of ecology for Ukraine. According to Front News , Zlochevsky issued a "special permit for the extraction of a third of the gas produced in Ukraine" to his own company, Burisma.

According to the Ukrainian nonprofit Anti Corruption Action Center, Zlochevsky owns 38 permits held by 14 different companies -- with Burisma accounting for the majority with 33 of the permits. Zlochevsky left Ukraine after Yanukovych fled to Russia during the Ukrainian Revolution known as Euromaidan.

Investigation Into Burisma

In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations against Zlochevsky and had just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. Shokin, who wasn't appointed as general prosecutor until February 2015, wasn't yet involved in the case.

Ukrainian prosecutors refused to provide the UK with needed documents, and in January 2015, a British court ordered the assets unfrozen. This action was pointedly called out in a speech by Pyatt, who stated, "In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people."

Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they "sent letters to Zlochevsky's attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the UK court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus."

On Feb. 10, 2015, Shokin was appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine, and he picked up the investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his formal resignation in February 2016.

Around the same time that Zlochevsky's assets were being frozen in the UK, Burisma appointed Hunter Biden to its board on April 18, 2014. Hunter's compensation had never been disclosed by Burisma, which is a private company, but Ryan Toohey, a Burisma spokesman, told The New York Times that Biden's compensation was "not out of the ordinary" for similar board positions.

However, according to The Hill's reporting , Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular payments -- "usually more than $166,000 a month" -- from Burisma. The payments ran from the spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.

The Hill article included a written answer from Shokin, who told Solomon that his investigation into Burisma had included plans for "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."

According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, following Shokin's forced dismissal, the Burisma investigation was transferred to Sytnyk's NABU, which then reportedly closed the investigation sometime in 2016.

The Kyiv Post on March 27 published an editorial written by three members of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv that disputed Lutsenko's interview with The Hill. They claim that two cases relating to Burisma are still being investigated by NABU:

"Two cases regarding the extraction of licenses by Zlochevsky's companies and embezzlement of public funds at the ministry's procurements during Zlochevsky's Ministerial tenure remain active and are investigated by NABU."

They also claim that "none of the criminal proceedings against Burisma were closed by NABU." They acknowledged that the case concerning illegal issuance of licenses to extract natural resources were transferred to NABU in December 2015, but claim that SAP missed procedural deadlines for a lawsuit on canceling those licenses.

The politics within Ukraine are extremely complicated, and corruption is endemic, often leading to conflicting accounts of events.

US Pressure to Investigate Manafort

In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in Washington, according to an April 26 article by The Hill.

The meeting, which was reportedly billed as "training," apparently also touched on two other matters -- the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine's Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into Burisma.

According to The Hill's reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held, but said it "had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings."

A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.

At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the White House release , the two leaders agreed "to continue to move forward on Ukraine's anti-corruption agenda."

Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that year.

Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko would publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian "black ledger" to the media, which implicated Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from the campaign.

Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition, Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS -- and its researcher, former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.

Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American, informed an unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016. Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort's involvement in the Trump campaign.

How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn't been in communication for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort's offer.

As The Epoch Times previously reported , on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them of the discovery of the "Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' 'Black Cashbox.'" It was this discovery that led to Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign in August 2016.

On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents' "black box" -- the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later.

NABU Ties to FBI

Following the successful overthrow of Yanukovych, Joe Biden had a direct hand in the formation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as he personally "pushed for the creation of an independent anti-corruption bureau to combat graft," according to an Oct. 30, 2016, article by Foreign Policy .

NABU was formally established in October 2014 in response to pressure from not only the U.S. State Department and Biden, but also by the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

Despite the international push, the fledgling anti-corruption unit took more than a year to actually become a functioning unit. During this time, NABU officials began establishing a relationship with the FBI. In early 2016, NABU Director Sytnyk announced that his bureau was very close to signing a memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by February 2016 , the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices.

On June 5, 2016, Sytnyk met with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt to discuss a more formalized relationship with the FBI and, on June 30, 2016, NABU and the FBI entered into a memorandum of understanding that allowed for an FBI office onsite at NABU offices to focus on international money laundering cases. The relationship was renewed for an additional two years in June 2017.

NABU has repeatedly refused to make the memorandum of understanding with the FBI public and went to court in 2018 to prevent its release. After receiving an unfavorable opinion from the Kyiv District Administrative Court, NABU appealed the ruling, which was overturned in its favor by the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.

Sytnyk, along with parliamentarian Leshchenko, became the subject of an investigation in Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court ruled that both men "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort's surname and signature were found in the so-called black ledger of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post reported on Dec. 12, 2018.

The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release "led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state."

Leshchenko had publicly adopted a strong anti-Trump stance, telling the Financial Times in August 2016 that "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy" and that it was "important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." Leschenko noted that the majority of Ukrainian politicians were "on Hillary Clinton's side."

In December 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko accused Sytnyk of allowing the FBI to conduct illegal operations in Ukraine, claiming that the "U.S. law enforcers were allegedly invited without the permission required and in breach of the necessary procedures." Lutsenko continued by asking, "Who actually let the foreign special service act in Ukraine?"

Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst, also questioned the FBI's activities, writing that "some kind of undercover operations are being conducted in Ukraine with direct participation (or even under control) of the FBI. This means the FBI operatives could have access to classified data or confidential information."

Lutsenko called for an audit of NABU, claiming to "possess information of interest to the auditors" and was pushing for Sytnyk's resignation, along with that of Nazar Kholodnitskiy, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). According to reporting by Euromaidan Press, Lutsenko's efforts failed "thanks to the reaction from Ukraine's American partners."

Michael Carpenter, an adviser to Joe Biden, personally issued a public warning to Lutsenko and others pushing for Sytnyk's removal, stating, "If the Rada votes to dismiss the head of the Anticorruption Committee and the head of the NABU, I will recommend cutting all U.S. government assistance to #Ukraine , including security assistance."

Sytnyk remains in his position as NABU's director.

Pinchuk's Ties to Leshchenko, Clintons

On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama's former White House counsel and a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with Manafort, was paid more than $4 million to produce an "independent" report justifying Ukraine's trial and conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig's name was not included in the "Black Ledger" leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.

The indictment notes that "a wealthy private Ukrainian" was fully funding the report. In a recent YouTube video , Craig publicly stated that "it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who helped to fund the project."

"The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk," Skadden wrote in recent FARA filings .

Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:

"Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report."

Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank, several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at severely below-market prices through political favoritism.

Between April 4 and April 12, 2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had four meetings , with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

FARA documents filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5) -- in part to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It's unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.

Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons continued. According to the Kyiv Post :

"Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist."

Although exact numbers aren't clear, reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's donations went to the Clinton organization.

Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast , a traditional private event held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.

[May 10, 2019] The key role of British intelligence in Spydate (aka Russiagate)

Notable quotes:
"... Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration. ..."
"... Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove. ..."
"... Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend. ..."
"... Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services. ..."
"... Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. ..."
"... Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations. ..."
"... Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Intelligence

UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.

Britain's GCHQ was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to meet personally with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.

Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.

As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove.

Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend.

Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services.

Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books.

Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.

The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.

Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.

Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?

Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.

Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele

Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

<img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/10/Glenn-Simpson.jpg" alt="" width="185" height="220" /> Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.

Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele maintains contact with British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove , and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.

Steele appears to have been represented by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:

"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week."

Steele also appears to have lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently disclosed by the Washington Examiner:

"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool' of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."

Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which she discussed the Magnitsky Act .

Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.

A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.

Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.

Nellie Ohr
<img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/10/Nellie-Ohr-.jpg" alt="Nellie Ohr" width="185" height="252" />
Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.

Bruce and Nellie Ohr have known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr before and after the 2016 election.

Bruce Ohr had been in contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s -- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.

Spy Traps

In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.

Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly joined LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016, in Italy.

Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.

Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.

Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened to be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit remains unknown.

The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.

George Papadopoulos
<img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/10/George-Papadopoulos-1028769226-1200x1497.jpg" alt="George Papadopoulos" width="187" height="234" /> Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."

Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.

Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017, BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended target of these failed FISAs.

Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.

Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.

After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct. 21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.

Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.

Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case.

Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.

If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.

Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page

Highly recommended!
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.

McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."

An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.

On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

[May 10, 2019] George Papadopoulos says he believes the UK helped spy on him by By Emily Crane and Geoff Earle

Notable quotes:
"... The FBI opened a counterintelligence probe after learning of Papadopoulos' encounter with another shadowy figure, a Maltese professor called Joseph Mifsud who said he had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton and claimed to be accompanied by Russian President Vladimir Putin's niece. Mifsud has now vanished. ..."
"... Papadopoulos described her in his book as attractive, and said soon after they met she started asking him questions about Trump and Russia. 'There is no way this is a Cambridge professor's research assistant,' Papadopoulos recalled thinking. He wrote in his book, 'Deep State Target' about meeting her: 'Azra Turk is a vision right out of central casting for a spy flick. She's a sexy bottle blonde in her thirties, and she isn't shy about showing her curves -- as if anyone could miss them. She's a fantasy's fantasy. 'If this is what academic researchers look like, I've been going to the wrong school,' I laugh to myself.' ..."
"... Papadoulos remembers that her initial approach began with the email: 'Let's meet for a drink. I'm looking forward to meeting you.' At the meeting, he says he told her: 'I have nothing to do with Russia, and I don't know anyone else who has anything to do with Russia, either. 'But she keeps pushing. She puts her hand on my arm. She says I'm more attractive in person than in my pictures. She says I've been doing important work. It's all a come-on,' he writes. ..."
May 03, 2019 | dailymail.co.uk
'I don't think she was FBI, I think she was CIA': George Papadopoulos recounts how 'curvy blonde' agent posing as a researcher tried to extract Trump-Russia information from him in London - and he believes British spooks helped plan it

By Emily Crane and Geoff Earle Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 01:49 EDT, 3 May 2019 | Updated: 03:15 EDT, 3 May 2019

Former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos says he believes Britain helped the U.S. spy on him when a 'curvy blonde' agent posing as a researcher approached him to try and determine if the Trump campaign was working with Russia. The FBI arranged for an 'attractive' woman to approach Papadopoulos for information after he made contact with a government informant back in 2016, it emerged on Thursday. Papadopoulos' contact with academic Stefan Halper, a Cambridge University professor who has served as an informant, had already come to light amid the Mueller probe.

But it was revealed on Thursday that the FBI also dispatched an investigator, who said she was a researcher called Azra Turk, to accompany Halper as part of its counterintelligence probe. The investigator met with Papadopoulos at a London bar in September 2016 - two months before the election that brought Trump to office.

Following a New York Times report about the meeting on Thursday, Papadopoulos went on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight to describe how he was approached by the investigator and to claim the the UK was in on it too. Former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos says he believes Britain helped the U.S. spy on him when a 'curvy blonde' agent posing as a researcher approached him to try and determine if the Trump campaign was working with Russia

Papadopoulos, who has written about his encounter with the 'sexy bottle blonde in her thirties' in a new book, ended up serving 12 days in prison after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI when he was questioned by investigators during the Mueller probe.

'I received an unsolicited email in September of 2016 from a man who was suggesting that he wanted to pay me $3,000 to write a report on energy security questions and I was an expert on it at the time and Israel, Turkey and Cyprus,' Papadopoulos told Fox News.

'I looked him up because I'd never heard of him. I saw that he had worked in four administrations and he was a professor at Cambridge so accepted his offer and he flew me to London where he paid for my five-star hotel and he said before I meet with you I want you to meet my assistant.'

Papadopoulos said he was immediately suspicious because he recognize the name - Azra Turk - as being Turkish. He said some of his passed work wasn't viewed favorably by Turkey.

'I went and I met with her and she was very suggestive as you can understand, younger, very flirtatious,' he said of their meeting.

'I right away understood this wasn't a Cambridge assistant and she barely spoke English and she was very flirty and was trying to do two things, want to extract information about my professional connections in the Middle East and two to see if I had any information that she could potentially extract from meat on a Trump Russia which is nonsense.

'From that moment I knew there was something wrong and I was laughing about it but now of course The New York Times reported that she was some sort of agent but I don't think she was FBI, I think she was CIA.'

Papadopoulos went on to say that he didn't think it was a coincidence that Trump started tweeting about UK interference last week.

'The day I met with them in London, I was invited by the British ministry of foreign affairs to meet with them at their offices,' he said.

'I believe the British actively were spying on me as well and I believe part of what President Trump was tweeting last week about the British spying was about this involvement in this operation.'

Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos had an encounter with a woman named 'Azra' Turk who the FBI dispatched to seek information from him. He described as a curvaceous 'sexy bottle blonde in her thirties' and writes that he discerned she was part of a 'honey trap'

The revelations in the Times report on Thursday came amid mounting questions over the origins of the Russian collusion claims, which eventually led to the commissioning of the Mueller inquiry - and which Bill Barr, Trump's attorney general, says he is actively investigating.

According to the Times, 'Turk' was a government investigator posing as Halper's research assistant. She was not operating under her real name.

President Trump has fumed that the early days of the Russia probe amounted to 'Spygate,' and his attorney general used the term 'spying' to what went on, testifying on Wednesday that he didn't consider the word a 'pejorative.'

'I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,' Barr had earlier testified, saying the question was whether it was 'adequately predicated.'

The FBI opened a counterintelligence probe after learning of Papadopoulos' encounter with another shadowy figure, a Maltese professor called Joseph Mifsud who said he had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton and claimed to be accompanied by Russian President Vladimir Putin's niece. Mifsud has now vanished.

Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page also raised suspicions with his Russia contacts and campaign trip to Moscow, and became the subject of a secret surveillance warrant.

Papadopoulos described her in his book as attractive, and said soon after they met she started asking him questions about Trump and Russia. 'There is no way this is a Cambridge professor's research assistant,' Papadopoulos recalled thinking. He wrote in his book, 'Deep State Target' about meeting her: 'Azra Turk is a vision right out of central casting for a spy flick. She's a sexy bottle blonde in her thirties, and she isn't shy about showing her curves -- as if anyone could miss them. She's a fantasy's fantasy. 'If this is what academic researchers look like, I've been going to the wrong school,' I laugh to myself.'

When Papadopoulos landed in London on September 15, 2016, the woman invited him out for drinks. They met up at the Sofitel St. James.

Papadoulos remembers that her initial approach began with the email: 'Let's meet for a drink. I'm looking forward to meeting you.' At the meeting, he says he told her: 'I have nothing to do with Russia, and I don't know anyone else who has anything to do with Russia, either. 'But she keeps pushing. She puts her hand on my arm. She says I'm more attractive in person than in my pictures. She says I've been doing important work. It's all a come-on,' he writes.

She attended a subsequent meeting with Papadopoulos and Halper at the exclusive private Travellers Club, an institution frequented by British diplomats and - reputedly - members of Britain's foreign spy agency, MI6.

Halper would later ask Papadopoulos about hacked Democratic emails and whether Wikileaks was helping the Trump camp. He says he was angry over the line of questioning and ended the meeting. In an email following their encounter, Turk called their meeting the 'highlight of my trip.' She wrote him a message saying: 'I am excited about what the future holds for us :)' – ending with an emoji.

Papadapoulos served 12 days in jail for lying to the FBI when he was questioned by investigators during the Mueller probe.

[May 10, 2019] Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a key role in Spygate

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.

However, a series of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject to prosecution.

The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.

The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security Division, was actively involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.

To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.

David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean, the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school. McLean was also employed by the FBI for 24 years.

Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a key role in Spygate. Ohr held two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney general's drug strategy."

Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.

According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least 12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October or early November 2016.

John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] Stefan Halper was instrumental in entrapment of Carter Page

Notable quotes:
"... After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

FBI's formal involvement with the Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016, when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.

Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance to the FBI's investigation into the FIFA corruption scandal .

Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele several weeks earlier. "In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information started to reach the bureau in Washington."

It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.

For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources."

In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting included several other FBI officials as well. According to a House Intelligence Committee minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's September trip to Rome.

The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.

Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office, finally expiring in September 2017.

The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant on Page

After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread intelligence community leaks as facts.

But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern extending back decades?

The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as Spygate.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] I Will Not Yield - In Epic Rant, Jim Jordan Accuses Dems Of Sweeping Spygate Coverup

Jordan speech is informative enough to watch. He summaries "spygate" pretty well.
Notable quotes:
"... During his speech, Jordan cited a 2017 interview with Senator Chuck Schumer on the Rachel Maddow show where he said "if you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday for getting back at you." ..."
"... "I don't know if the FBI went after Trump in six ways, but they sure went after him in two ways. One was the dossier...the FBI used one party's oppo research to get a warrant from a secret court to spy on another campaign." ..."
"... "Second, just last Thursday, New York Times story, the FBI sent an investigator pretending to be somebody else to talk with George Papadopoulos who was working with the Trump campaign. You know what they call that? It's called spying. Think about the term he used: Political surveillance." ..."
"... Unfortunately, Republicans weren't able to stop the contempt vote from moving forward, but now that Trump has invoked executive privilege to protect the unredacted Mueller report and any related materials - which Democrats had demanded Barr release to them. ..."
"... Bill Barr is following the law. What's his reward? Democrats are going to hold him in contempt. ..."
May 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

As Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee - led by Chairman Jerry Nadler - voted to hold AG William Barr in contempt on Wednesday , one Republican wasn't having it.

During a heated diatribe during the vote, Jordan refused to yield and instead accused Democrats of trying to punish Barr for vowing to expose skullduggery by the Democrats and the Deep State during the campaign - particularly as it pertains to the provenance of the Russia collusion probe.

When it came his turn to speak, Jordan laid out everything Barr had said about his efforts to investigate exactly how the Russia probe was initiated, and look into suspicions that senior FBI and DoJ officials colluded with the Democrats to create an "insurance policy" to stop Trump. Jordan accused the Democrats of trying to punish Barr for simply following the law, while covering up for the FBI's malfeasance and politically motivated interference.

"He's going to get to the bottom of everything, he's going to find out how and why this investigation started in the first place. Never mind what he said three and a half weeks ago when he testified before the Senate Finance Committee. He said four very interest things: First he said there was a failure of leadership at the upper echelon of the FBI."

Out of everything Barr has said during his appearances before Congress over the last month, Jordan focused on one: Barr's claim that he has found evidence suggesting that "spying did occur," and that said spying may have been politically motivated - a reference to what has become known as "spygate".

"Second thing he said...spying did occur. Third, he said, there's a basis for my concern about the spying that took place. And maybe the most interest thing - two terms he used that frankly I find frightening - he said in his judgment that it looks like there might have been unauthorized surveillance and political surveillance."

During his speech, Jordan cited a 2017 interview with Senator Chuck Schumer on the Rachel Maddow show where he said "if you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday for getting back at you."

As far as Jordan can tell, the intelligence community took two concrete steps to try and get back at Trump for all of his deep state rhetoric.

"I don't know if the FBI went after Trump in six ways, but they sure went after him in two ways. One was the dossier...the FBI used one party's oppo research to get a warrant from a secret court to spy on another campaign."

"When they went to the court they didn't tell the court important things like who paid for it, that Christopher Steele had said he was desperate to stop Trump, and they didn't tell them that Steele had been fired by the FBI because he was out talking to the press."

The second was spying on the Trump campaign. To support this, Jordan referenced a New York Times story recounting an example of FBI spying on the Trump campaign.

"Second, just last Thursday, New York Times story, the FBI sent an investigator pretending to be somebody else to talk with George Papadopoulos who was working with the Trump campaign. You know what they call that? It's called spying. Think about the term he used: Political surveillance."

Asked to yield his time, Jordan replied "I will not yield."

Unfortunately, Republicans weren't able to stop the contempt vote from moving forward, but now that Trump has invoked executive privilege to protect the unredacted Mueller report and any related materials - which Democrats had demanded Barr release to them.

Watch Jordan's speech below:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-10/i-will-not-yield-epic-rant-jim-jordan-accuses-dems-sweeping-spygate-coverup

Rep. Jim Jordan 11:39 AM - May 8, 2019

✔ @Jim_Jordan

Bill Barr is following the law. What's his reward? Democrats are going to hold him in contempt.

[May 10, 2019] In some respects, the neoliberal MSMs has played the most disingenuous of roles is Spygate (aka Russiagate)

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Media

In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a series of payments to several as-of-yet- unnamed reporters .

The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In September 2016 , he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.

In mid-October 2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.

On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article " A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in court documents relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, " FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA warrant.

The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.

Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.

It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application.

According to the indictment , Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call.

The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.

In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.

Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly stated that evidence within the FISA application shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.

Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit their complicity.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] The role of Obama administration in spygate (aka Russiagate)

May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )

Obama Administration

The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.

Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.

An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017, MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the attorney general's office. According to congressional testimony by Horowitz:

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information."

These new restrictions were put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters.

The New York Times recently disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.

At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The Intelligence Community assessment was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview why:

"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump that CNN reported on the dossier. It was later revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.

The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of intelligence unmaskings , the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.

The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, led that effort .

Executive Order 13762

President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ. The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.

Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership. The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.

Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips, after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming under intense scrutiny.

The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian ambassador.

Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.

Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.

On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings appear to have been unexpected.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 09, 2019] James Comey Donald Trump indictment possible after presidency by Victor Morton

May 09, 2019 | m.washingtontimes.com

- The Washington Times
Updated: 8:38 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, 2019


Former FBI director James Comey said Thursday that he thinks President Trump likely has committed crimes that could be cause for indictment once he leaves office and, were he not president, likely would already have been.

In a CNN town-hall-style meeting, Mr. Comey was asked by host Anderson Cooper whether Mr. Trump acted with corrupt intent to interfere with an ongoing investigation.


"It sure looks that way," Mr. Comey replied, saying he based that judgment on his reading of special counsel Robert Mueller's report and leaning most heavily on Mr. Trump's order to White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mr. Mueller.

[May 09, 2019] FBI s Steele Story Unravels - Claims Debunked, Leaks Suspected Before FISA Application

Notable quotes:
"... As we noted yesterday based on an earlier Hill report on the Kavalec-Steele notes, Steele was flagged for admitting that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline, as his client was "keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8." ..."
"... Kavalec also flagged several places in her notes in which she suspected that Steele might be leaking information to the press . "June -- reporting started," she wrote. "NYT and WP have," she added, in an apparent reference to The New York Times and The Washington Post. ..."
"... She then quoted Steele as indicating that he was "managing" four priorities -- "Client needs, FBI, WashPo/NYT, source protection," - a clear indication that media outreach was part of his job. ..."
"... Except that the FBI's FISA request from October 2016 - which relied almost entirely on Steele's work - was marked "verified application" prior to the FBI's submission to the court. ..."
May 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

According to newly unearthed memos which were retroactively classified by the DOJ, a high-ranking government official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that information in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate , and likely leaked to the media, according to The Hill 's John Solomon.

Ten days before the FBI used the now-discredited dossier to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who took handwritten notes of the encounter.

Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami."

Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami. "

Kavalec, two days later and well before the FISA warrant was issued, forwarded her typed summary to other government officials. The State Department has redacted the names and agencies of everyone she alerted.

But it is almost certain the FBI knew of Steele's contact with State and his partisan motive . That's because former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says she instructed her staff to send the information they got from Steele to the bureau immediately and to cease contact with the informer because "this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act." - The Hill

What makes this particularly damning is that the FBI swore on October 21, 2016 to the FISA judges that Steele's "reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings," and that the FBI deemed him to be "reliable" and was "unaware of any derogatory information pertaining" to the former British spy who was working for Fusion GPS - the firm paid by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to come up with dirt on Donald Trump.

As we noted yesterday based on an earlier Hill report on the Kavalec-Steele notes, Steele was flagged for admitting that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline, as his client was "keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8."

Notes and testimony from senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr make clear Steele admitted early on that he was "desperate" to get Trump defeated in the election, was working in some capacity for the GOP candidate's opponent, and considered his intelligence raw and untested. Ohr testified that he alerted FBI and other senior Justice officials to these concerns in August 2016. - The Hill

Kavalec also flagged several places in her notes in which she suspected that Steele might be leaking information to the press . "June -- reporting started," she wrote. "NYT and WP have," she added, in an apparent reference to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

She then quoted Steele as indicating that he was "managing" four priorities -- "Client needs, FBI, WashPo/NYT, source protection," - a clear indication that media outreach was part of his job.

Those same notes suggest Steele spun some wild theories to State, including one that the Russians had a "plant in DNC" and had assembled an "HRC dossier," apparent references to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton.

She expounded in her typed memo. "The Russians have succeeded in placing an agent inside the DNC," she quoted Steele as saying.

Steele offered Kavalec other wild information that easily could have been debunked before the FISA application -- and eventually was, in many cases, after the media reported the allegations -- including that:

Those rumors were debunked by Special counsel Robert Mueller's April report, despite barely mentioning Steele and a passing reference to his infamous dossier being "unverified."

Except that the FBI's FISA request from October 2016 - which relied almost entirely on Steele's work - was marked "verified application" prior to the FBI's submission to the court.

Eventually, Steele was fired to the FBI for leaking to the media and then lying about it - however that happend after the FISA warrant was approved - and according to The Hill , the court was not notified about it until a few months later, well after the election.

In short, the FBI undoubtedly lied to their teeth to the FISA court in order to obtain a warrant to surveil Carter Page and the Trump campaign.


San Pedro , 28 minutes ago link

The FBI..the enforcer of the "Just Us" system. "Justice" is dead thanks to the ooobama.

booboo , 28 minutes ago link

The Woods Procedure will reveal how it was vetted, who signed off on the verification and how it moved up the chain. Declassify it all Mr. Trump.

https://ethicsalarms.com/2018/02/07/the-woods-procedures/

" This is no "nothingburger," and any official, pundit or Facebook friend who says otherwise is spinning, in denial, not too bright, or James Comey. There has to be an independent investigation of the conduct of the FBI now. Every American should support that.

alter , 29 minutes ago link

The FBI tried their best to illegally bring down the US President....if they are not stopped, what else will they do?

Dumpster Elite , 31 minutes ago link

The FBI..this Country's Secret Police, Gestapo, KGB...whatever you prefer. The Deep State enforcement arm. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a complete fool.

brokebackbuck , 31 minutes ago link

The USA is such a shitshow right now. A month ago hillary suggested that china hack trumps tax returns, then this week they leaked. Surprise? russia, china; america is its own worst enemy. watch.

ebworthen , 33 minutes ago link

Obama and the Clinton's behind the Witch Hunt, guaranteed.

Not to mention the deep state members of K Street and the M.I.C.

alter , 34 minutes ago link

The FBI is anti-American and completely corrupt, the entire agency should be disbanded. Nobody will ever trust it again. It is just another corrupt arm of the DNC.

Equinox7 , 35 minutes ago link

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been awake to the truth and not listening to the Deep State propaganda on the fake news media outlets.

Yes, what was described above is definitely treason. The real question is not Did it happen , but instead, At who's direction did all of this conspire and occur ?

In my opinion, this goes all the way to the top in the Obama regime. The collusion angle in all of this I believe occurred between the 5 Eyes Network of countries controlled by the Deep State. So I believe foreign allies where attempting to interfere in US elections.

Anunnaki , 36 minutes ago link

Another smoking gun. The FBI refused to pay Steele bc the stuff he was giving them was unsubstantiated garbage.

Equinox7 , 27 minutes ago link

Sure..... Anunnaki.

It is so unsubstantiated , that Comey and the FBI decided to use the garbage to lie to a FISA judge in the FISA court to get a warrant to spy on citizen and candidate Trump. Then the spying was being reported back to Obama in daily FBI briefings about his political adversary. I find it doubtful that Comey and company didn't pay Steele under the table for lies, knowing the whole time Steele was lying.

brokebackbuck , 21 minutes ago link

of course steele got paid, because they needed to make sure nelly got paid

sanctificado , 45 minutes ago link

"I've talked to the members of the Israeli government at the highest levels. I know who they want elected here. It's not Hillary Clinton." – Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani

The Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Israhell.

But NO ONE will investigate that.

M.A.G.A. is out

K.A.K.A. is in (Keep America Kabalah Again)

http://cufpa.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/trumps-jewish-agenda/

yatri99 , 45 minutes ago link

"Ten days before the FBI used the now-discredited dossier to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who took handwritten notes of the encounter." Kavalec worked under Nuland, and Nuland worked under John Kerry, who has been suspiciously below the radar in all this. I'd like to see his testimony before congress.

Hadenough1000 , 49 minutes ago link

Comey sounds exactly like avenatti and cohen

doesn't he??

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/9/james-comey-donald-trump-indictment-possible-after/

I cant wait for the no knock raid at this illegal leakers house

fersur , 52 minutes ago link

Steele may be still collecting payments, he may have been involved with writing 'The Mueller Report' !

Just interesting gossip from an attractively rabbit-hole, soon we will know more none-the-less !

[May 09, 2019] Russiagate Zealotry Continues to Endanger American National Security by Stephen F. Cohen

Notable quotes:
"... Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. ..."
"... What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the 1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812 ..."
"... I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take them out. ..."
"... Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it. ..."
"... Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States. But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that. Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for the beltway and their imperial pretensions. ..."
"... If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign, would you denounce that act? If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do such? ..."
May 09, 2019 | www.thenation.com
N ow in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at TheNation.com and my recent book War With Russia? -- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.

Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of journalistic malpractice in modern times .

But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example in July 2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president had done since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy, Trump was widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another alarming example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of Russiagate zealots.

On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report. (As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of its members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.) A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.

To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. To take some random examples:

§ Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN's Chris Cuomo rhetorically on May 3, "Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our democracy?" while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.

§ The same evening, CNN's Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: "The president of the United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn't tell him not to interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he is planning to do again in 2020 . You just don't seem to want us to know exactly what was said . Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an enemy nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again." (Lemon did not say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against Trump or his allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won, or his foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded Russia an "enemy nation.")

§ We might expect something more exalted from James Risen , once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that "Trump and Putin were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them," even for the sake of needed diplomacy.

§ Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.)

§ Not surprisingly, a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant "Trump is counting on Russian help to get reelected."

None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military confrontation over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War. Indeed, retired admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and formerly associated with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyberattacks.

Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper.

Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."

It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.

This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition.


Phillip Sawicki says: May 9, 2019 at 7:52 pm

What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the 1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812.

In case people have forgotten, The US sought to annex Canada. The Canadians resisted, and so then the US set up a false flag attack in 1845 to start the Mexican-American War. Hundreds of interventions in other countries, but if someone is alleged to have done so to us, it's a capital crime. What arrogance!

Victor Sciamarelli says: May 9, 2019 at 4:17 pm

I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take them out.

Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it.

Another point is that the downside of the policy elites' belief in "American exceptionalism" is that it is also a trap. They claim our "indispensable nation" rests upon values and principles such as the rule of law, respect for human rights, and freedom of speech, even though reality often tells us something different.

Thus, if Putin is a thug, if not a murderer, who attacked the US, undermined our democracy, and is an autocrat who cares nothing about our values and principles, then what place is there for diplomacy because you can't negotiate or compromise our immutable principles and values.
Another observation is we often hear the statement that, "All options are on the table." This sounds tough to an American mind because it includes nuclear weapons. All options means all options. Nonetheless, someone else might interpret this to mean you are not confident or certain that your conventional forces are capable of doing the mission and you are more likely or willing to resort to a nuclear weapon. This can make any confrontation whether in Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, or Iran more dangerous that it needs to be.

In addition, Trump has sent an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East. The Guardian on May 6, 2019, stated that according to one report, information passed on by Israeli intelligence contributed to the US threat assessment.

If we are now approaching war based on Israeli intelligence then I think we are also approaching our Dr. Strangelove moment.

Jeffrey Harrison says: May 9, 2019 at 11:55 am

Arrogance, myopia. Those two words define the US today.

Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States. But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that. Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for the beltway and their imperial pretensions.

This Stavridis bozo is a prime example. "all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyber attacks." I realize that we are in a post proof world where any claim, no matter how inane, is automatically taken as proven. No actual proof required. The "attack on our democracy" is based on this totally bogus claim (never proven) that Russia hacked into the DNC's e-mails (on a server that no law enforcement agency ever inspected to prove the claim of hacking) that undermined our democracy by revealing how corrupt and slimy the DNC actually is. All the while we're so myopic that we don't see the Republican party destroying our democracy from within with voter ID requirements for a non-existent problem, gerrymandering themselves into a permanent majority of a minority, voter suppression schemes such as purging voter rolls, closing polling places, and generally making it difficult for people to vote.

But this Stavridis bozo wasn't done yet. The Russians he claims perpetrated unprecedented measures such as cyber attacks. Really? The only cyber attacks that I'm actually aware of in the US were actually perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security who was playing bureaucratic turf games. The admiral's ignorance is in full display when he forgets the STUXTNET worm that absolutely was a cyber attack on Iran by the US and Israel, and that the NSA hacked the personal cell phone of Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany, and the trick revealed by Ed Snowden that the NSA would open computer boxes destined for certain countries and install chips that would allow us to control the server, or that the only known backdoor in a piece of Hauwei equipment was installed there by the NSA.

I'm suspecting that we need to clean up our act a lot more that most of the rest of the world.

J McCormick says: May 8, 2019 at 11:57 pm

So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media and what I hear here is a call for respect for and deference to the office of the presidency.

If there is cause for concern and worry , and I fervently believe that there is , I leave it to others to offer up what they believe that cause might be.

History records that that the Congress relinquished powers that were properly theirs (trade, war powers) and now they so far appear impotent in the face of executive overreach when an effective check on the executive branch is critically needed.

Even if your opinion runs counter to mine I am reasonably certain we agree that dysfunction and chaos rule the day in Washington and beyond.

Clark Shanahan says: May 9, 2019 at 6:26 pm

"So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media"
Tell me, J., do you believe Russia is our adversary?
If so, when did they become such?

If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign, would you denounce that act? If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do such?

[May 09, 2019] Christopher Steele Made Damning Pre-FISA Confession; FBI Retroactively Classified

May 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Christopher Steele Made Damning Pre-FISA Confession; FBI Retroactively Classified

by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/08/2019 - 10:19 357 SHARES

Former British spy Christopher Steele made a stunning admission during an October 11, 2016 meeting with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, just 10 days before the FBI used his now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page and the campaign's ties to Russia, according to The Hill 's John Solomon.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec's written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline . - The Hill

According a typed summary of the meeting - which sat buried for over 2 1/2 years until an open-records litigation by Citizens United - Steele said that his client "is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8," the date of the 2016 US election. Also attending the meeting was an employee of Steele's Orbis Security firm, Tatyana Duran.

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And according to The Hill , Kavalec's notes of the meeting - including this stunning admission - do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee for its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA).

https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855

"They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there's a reason for it," Nunes told The Hill 's Solomon, who notes that One member of Congress had transmitted the memos to the DOJ's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz out of concern that the IG's office had never seen it either.

The FBI has retroactively classified Kavalec's notes on 4/25/2019, despite the fact that it was originally marked unclassified in 2016. It is set to "Declassify on 12/31/2041," 25 years after the 2016 election.

The apparent effort to hide Kavalec's notes from her contact with Steele has persisted for some time.

State officials acknowledged a year ago they received a copy of the Steele dossier in July 2016, and got a more detailed briefing in October 2016 and referred the information to the FBI.

But what was discussed was not revealed. Sources told me more than a year ago that Kavalec had the most important (and memorialized) interaction with Steele before the FISA warrant was issued, but FBI and State officials refused to discuss it, or even confirm it .

The encounter, and Kavalec's memos, were forced into public view through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Citizens United. Yet, all but a few lines have been redacted after the fact. Officials are citing as the reason national security, in the name of the FBI and a half-century-old intelligence law. - The Hill

"This new information proves why the attorney general must conduct a thorough investigation of the investigators," said Citizens United president and informal Trump adviser David Bossie, adding that Kavalec's notes suggest there was an illegal effort to "frame" Trump with bogus collusion allegations

According to one source who has seen the notes, they also contain information on Steele's political ties which have not been given to Congress. "There's a connection to Hillary Clinton in the notes," said the source.

Two days after the meeting with Steele, Kavalec sent an email alerting others - with the only unredacted portion of import reading: "You may already have this information but wanted to pass it on just in case."

Meanwhile, the memo also sheds light on the DNC's role in hiring Steele:

The three sentences visible in her memo show that U.S. officials had good reason to suspect Steele's client and motive in alleging Trump-Russia collusion because they were election-related and facilitated by the Clinton-funded Fusion GPS founder , Glenn Simpson.

"Orbis undertook the investigation into the Russia/Trump connection at the behest of an institution he declined to identify that had been hacked," Kavalec wrote.

At the time, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was the highest-profile victim of election-year hacking .

"The institution approached them based on the recommendation of Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch (specialists in economic crime, formerly of the WSJ) and is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8 ," Kavalec wrote. "Orbis undertook the investigation in June of 2016." Steele's firm Orbis was a subcontractor to Fusion GPS, and WSJ refers to The Wall Street Journal. - The Hill

The significance of Kavalec's notes is monumental, even with redactions, as it is definitive proof that the US government had full knowledge that the foundation of their FISA warrant had a political motive and an Election Day deadline to make public. We also know, according to the report, that this information was transmitted before the Page FISA warrant to people whose job is so sensitive their identity had to be protected. In short, there's virtually no way the FBI didn't know what they were dealing with.

Documents and testimony from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS , show he told the FBI in August 2016 that Steele was "desperate" to defeat Trump and his work had something to do with Clinton's campaign.

Kavalec's notes make clear the DNC was a likely client and the election was Steele's deadline to smear Trump.

Likewise, there is little chance the FBI didn't know that Steele, then a bureau informant, had broken protocol and gone to the State Department in an effort to make the Trump dirt public. - The Hill

Meanwhile, former FBI Director James Comey continues to maintain his pious routine as he peddles his lucrative book, while his Deputy Andrew McCabe's book deal just went to print in February.


Dickweed Wang , 8 minutes ago link

Meanwhile, former FBI Director James Comey continues to maintain his pious routine as he peddles his lucrative book, while his Deputy Andrew McCabe's book deal just went to print in February.

Where are the asset forfeiture laws when you need 'em??

Dagney , 22 minutes ago link

Binney & Johnson Shred Mueller's Hack Fable

DarthVaderMentor , 26 minutes ago link

So who ultimately retroactively classified the information? Whoever did it should start looking at what tree they want to hang from.....or start singing like a canary! LOL

Ergo I.C. , 45 minutes ago link

Former Asst. AG (Head of the NSD National Security Division) John Carlin knew Carter Page was not a Russian agent , yet that did not stop Carlin from preparing a FISA warrant in October 2016 to hoax the FISA court into believing that Carter Page was an agent of Russia.

Carlin essentially did a "kamikaze dive" in assuring the Obama administration's "insurance policy" against the election of Donald Trump would move forward. Carlin withheld from the FISA court critical details of an NSA Inspector General report, and an ongoing Compliance review, that the FBI and its contractors were engaged in Fourth Amendment violations of the rights of Americans.

Carlin quit just days before the FISA warrant on Carter Page was submitted and approved. Two days later, the NSA informed the Court that the Obama Department of Justice and FBI had been abusing the FISA process since at least 2011.

John Carlin, interestingly, was Robert Mueller's Chief of Staff when Mueller was Director of the FBI.

Where's John P. Carlin today?

[May 08, 2019] Clapper admits FBI's actions 'meet the dictionary definition' of 'spying'

Notable quotes:
"... But in a widely-overlooked interview on CNN on May 3, Clapper admitted that spying had occurred. When asked by Wolf Blitzer whether spying had occurred, Clapper said that "it's not a term of art used by intelligence people" but admitted that "I guess it meets the dictionary definition of surveillance or spying, a term I don't particularly like." ..."
"... Going by the alias Azra Turk, this yet-unknown woman was reportedly sent to meet with Papadopoulos by one of the FBI agents who had previously spoken at Halper's Cambridge Intelligence Seminars." Washington Examiner ..."
"... I have suggested before that Clapper and the FISA court judges are the weakest spots in the array of Russiagate conspirators. The FISA judges are suggested to the Chief Justice by the DoJ for appointment. This occurs after close vetting for probable compliance with anything communicated by DoJ as desired outcomes in cases brought to them. After all, who knows them better than the DoJ lawyers who argue in the courts they come from? ..."
"... Clapper is a weakling filled boundless ambition and handicapped by limited intelligence. He has no particular allegiance to anything or anyone except himself and will seek forgiveness for his misdeeds if pressed hard. ..."
May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"James Clapper admits FBI's actions 'meet the dictionary definition' of 'spying'" Wash Examiner

""I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing," Clapper said. "The term 'spying' has all kinds of negative connotations and I have to believe he chose that term deliberately."

But in a widely-overlooked interview on CNN on May 3, Clapper admitted that spying had occurred. When asked by Wolf Blitzer whether spying had occurred, Clapper said that "it's not a term of art used by intelligence people" but admitted that "I guess it meets the dictionary definition of surveillance or spying, a term I don't particularly like."

Clapper conceded this point following a May 2 story in the New York Times that revealed that a woman who had been posing as the assistant of Stefan Halper, a Cambridge University professor who himself had worked as a Trump campaign informant on behalf of the FBI, was herself working undercover for the FBI. Going by the alias Azra Turk, this yet-unknown woman was reportedly sent to meet with Papadopoulos by one of the FBI agents who had previously spoken at Halper's Cambridge Intelligence Seminars." Washington Examiner

------------

I have suggested before that Clapper and the FISA court judges are the weakest spots in the array of Russiagate conspirators. The FISA judges are suggested to the Chief Justice by the DoJ for appointment. This occurs after close vetting for probable compliance with anything communicated by DoJ as desired outcomes in cases brought to them. After all, who knows them better than the DoJ lawyers who argue in the courts they come from?

Clapper is a weakling filled boundless ambition and handicapped by limited intelligence. He has no particular allegiance to anything or anyone except himself and will seek forgiveness for his misdeeds if pressed hard.

If Lindsay Graham needs initial targets for his very own "witchhunt," he should start with these people. pl

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/james-clapper-admits-fbis-actions-meet-the-dictionary-definition-of-spying


Jack , 08 May 2019 at 12:50 AM

Sir

I don't think Lindsey is gonna do much other than showboat. The only person who should have the motive and has the power to take action is Trump. I'm skeptical he has the wherewithal to push it through. He'll likely delegate to Barr and who knows if Barr really wants to rock the boat.

Robert , 08 May 2019 at 09:30 AM
The way the South Korean's pronounced Clapper's name was priceless--"Crapper"--and appropriate, too. Always broke me up.
walrus , 08 May 2019 at 12:09 PM
The smoking gun; FBI conspired with HRC;

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/442592-steeles-stunning-pre-fisa-confession-informant-needed-to-air-trump-dirt#.XNIAVvr8PT0.twitter

Fluesterwitz , 08 May 2019 at 12:09 PM
The dictionary definition of 'spying':

"to watch secretly usually for hostile purposes"

I suppose the legal definition is somewhat different, otherwise this seems to be a confession, doesn't it?

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS) by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.

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

One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.

This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this. For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:

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

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

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

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

The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research. This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets-- Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "

I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported.

Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

Posted at 05:33 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink | Comments (9)


turcopolier , 07 May 2019 at 09:53 AM

Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
blue peacock said in reply to turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 11:19 AM
Col. Lang

I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 07 May 2019 at 01:31 PM
bp,

The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but, there again, they may 'compose', which is not.

Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.

Alcatraz, perhaps?

blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 08 May 2019 at 12:17 AM
David,

Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution" to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance. But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.

I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-pt-1/

akaPatience -> turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 05:27 PM
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos' ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved. No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Rick Merlotti , 07 May 2019 at 12:14 PM
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front.
O'Shawnessey , 07 May 2019 at 02:44 PM
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
sandra adie , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
akaPatience , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?

[May 07, 2019] James Comey is in trouble and he knows it

Notable quotes:
"... This is problematic for Comey in light of Mueller's findings. There are strict guidelines governing when the FBI can task a confidential source or a government undercover operative to collect against a U.S. citizen. Normally this is restricted to a full investigation, and normally restricted to the United States, not overseas. ..."
"... There is a sense that Comey's team was not checking the boxes, did not have adequate predication, and may have tasked sources before an investigation was even officially opened. Barr should pull case files and dig in on this. ..."
"... In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case ..."
"... James Comey is right to be apprehensive. He himself ate away at the soul of the FBI, not in small bites but in dangerously large ones. ..."
May 07, 2019 | thehill.com

Comey adjudged the president as "amoral." He declared the attorney general to be "formidable" but "lacking inner strength" unlike -- the inference is clear -- Comey himself. A strategy of insulting the executioner right before he swings his ax is an odd one but, then, Comey has a long record of odd decisions and questionable judgment.

"Amoral leaders [referring to the president] have a way of revealing the character of those around them," wrote Comey without a hint of irony or self-awareness. Those whom the former FBI director assembled around him probably rue the day they ever met the man. Most are now fired or disgraced for appalling behaviors that Comey found easy to manipulate to advance his decisions.

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Then, just to make sure his op-ed was odd-salted to the max, Comey mused that the president "eats your soul in small bites." OK, let's step back for a moment: James Comey appears to be in trouble. His strange, desperate statements and behaviors betray his nervousness and apprehension. In a way, it's hard to watch.

Comey will claim that everything he did in the FBI was by the book. But after the investigations by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney John Huber , along with Barr's promised examination, are completed, Comey's mishandling of the FBI and legal processes likely will be fully exposed.

Ideally, Barr's examination will aggregate information that addresses three primary streams.

The first will be whether the investigations into both presidential nominees and the Trump campaign were adequately, in Barr's words, "predicated." This means he will examine whether there was sufficient justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place.

The Mueller report's conclusions make this a fair question for the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. Comey's own pronouncement, that the Clinton email case was unprosecutable, makes it a fair question for that investigation.

The second will be whether Comey's team obeyed long-established investigative guidelines while conducting the investigations and, specifically, if there was sufficient, truthful justification to lawfully conduct electronic surveillance of an American citizen.

The third will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree head spins.

There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA director.

Without diving into the weeds, it's important to understand that FBI counterintelligence investigations generally proceed sequentially from what is called a preliminary investigation or inquiry (PI) to a full investigation (FI). To move from a PI to an FI requires substantial information -- predication -- indicating investigative targets acted as agents of a foreign power.

This is problematic for Comey in light of Mueller's findings. There are strict guidelines governing when the FBI can task a confidential source or a government undercover operative to collect against a U.S. citizen. Normally this is restricted to a full investigation, and normally restricted to the United States, not overseas.

There is a sense that Comey's team was not checking the boxes, did not have adequate predication, and may have tasked sources before an investigation was even officially opened. Barr should pull case files and dig in on this.

In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case.

Some in the media have suggested that the Times article was an attempt by the FBI to justify its early confidential source actions. But current FBI Director Christopher Wray has shown that he would like to excise the cancerous tumor that grew during Comey's time and not just keep smoking. It's hard to imagine current FBI executives trying to justify past malfeasance.

James Comey is right to be apprehensive. He himself ate away at the soul of the FBI, not in small bites but in dangerously large ones. It was a dinner for one, though: His actions are not indicative of the real FBI. The attorney general's comprehensive examination is welcome and, if done honestly and dispassionately, it will protect future presidential candidates of both parties and redeem the valuable soul of the FBI.

Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet Global Solutions , which consults with private companies and public-safety agencies on strategic mission technologies.

Bryan Hinnen Guest 6 hours ago

Peter Strzok, his little girlfriend Lisa Page, Andy McCabe, John Brennan, Sally Yates & Bruce Ohr immediately come to mind. Horowitz is investigating those FISA warrant applications & Barr is investigating the origins of the Russia collusion delusion.

Investigate them, arrest them the same way Roger Stone was arrested & interrogate them the same way Michael Flynn was interrogated. Then offer them a deal.

If they flip on their lords & masters at the DNC, they get one weekend in a country club prison. If they don't flip, they get 20 years in a real prison.

The next 18 months are going to be fascinating.

  • Neal Stephen an hour ago

    This report reads, in fact, as if Trump was supposed to cooperate in his own obstruction. And because he didn’t, he’s guilty of obstruction. ‘Donald Trump attempted to obstruct our coup,’ is how this should read. ‘Donald Trump attempted to obstruct our effort to throw him out of office,’ is how this report should read.
    It’s made to order for people who want to continue running this operation to get rid of Trump. … The report itself says there was no collusion.
    We have a representative republic, and the popular vote doesn’t matter and it never has, by design. So all these are just exercises in mathematics.
    Hillary winning the popular vote by three million doesn’t mean anything, period.
    If you want to have fun and if you’ve got some time, go to YouTube or wherever you go to find videos and find election night coverage and start at 6 or 7 p.m. Eastern, any network, and watch it for a couple hours. And as you get close to 9 o’clock, you will see a 180 degree shift from an attitude of jocularity and confidence and happiness.” Because this was it, this was the glass ceiling being shattered or cracked, however you look at it, the first female president, Hillary Clinton, walking away with it in a landslide.
    But then as they get close to 9 o’clock, panic begins to settle in, and they shortly thereafter realize that it ain’t falling out the way they thought it was going to. And as they start fearing and realizing that Hillary is gonna lose, it’s one of the greatest things you can watch. Go back and relive that.
    Liberals must be defeated not convinced
  • [May 07, 2019] There's A Glaring Contradiction In The Mueller Report by Ashe Schow

    May 06, 2019 | www.dailywire.com

    One of the central figures to the Russian-collusion narrative is Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud. He is the man that helped allegedly jumpstart the counterintelligence investigation into then-candidate Donald Trump's 2016 campaign when he allegedly told Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, including her emails.

    In Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report on the investigation, Mifsud is portrayed as being intimately connected to the Putin regime in Russia. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have similarly portrayed Mifsud as a "cutout" who gave Papadopoulos information on behalf of the Russians in order to influence the 2016 election.

    But as Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) wrote in a letter sent to the U.S. State Department and the CIA last Friday, if Mifsud is the dangerous liaison Mueller made him out to be, then many more Western politicians have been compromised, as many have had their own contact with the professor.

    "Alternatively, if Mifsud is not in fact a counterintelligence threat, then that would cast doubt on the Special Counsel's fundamental depiction of him and his activities, and raise questions about the veracity of the Special Counsel's statements and affirmations," Nunes wrote.

    "It should be noted that the Special Counsel declined to charge Mifsud with any crime even though, to justify seeking a prison sentence for Papadopoulos, the Special Counsel claimed Papadopoulos' untruthful testimony 'undermined investigators' ability to challenge the Professor [Mifsud] or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States,'" Nunes continued. "Furthermore, it's still a mystery how the FBI knew to ask Papadopoulos specifically about Hillary Clinton's emails, on multiple occasions throughout 2016-17 before having interviewed Mifsud, if the FBI hadn't already somehow received this information directly or indirectly from Mifsud himself."

    Nunes included in his letter photos of Mifsud with British politician Boris Johnson, member of the Italian military, and a former member of the United Kingdom's Joint Intelligence Committee. Mueller's report also explains that Mifsud met Papadopoulos at Link Campus University, described as "a for-profit institution headed by a former Italian government official." As Nunes wrote, the report "omits" additional information about the university, which a Guardian report cited by Mueller's team claimed the school "had a reputation for being closely connected to some elements within the Italian intelligence services." Mifsud, the article quoted someone saying, collaborated regularly with the university.

    This contradiction in Mueller's report should remind us of another problem with the final report, as described by The Federalist's Margot Cleveland (full disclosure: I also have a byline at The Federalist). Cleveland pointed out that "Not once in the 448-page tome does Mueller mention an investigation into whether Russia interfered with the U.S. presidential election by feeding dossier author Christopher Steele misinformation." That dossier has been the "evidence" for many of the media and Democrats' claims of collusion between Trump and Russia.

    Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to providing false statements to the FBI when he told him in January 2017 that he had the meeting with Mifsud before he joined the Trump campaign. It was Papadopoulos' April 26, 2016 meeting with Mifsud -- which he told FBI agents about -- where he learned the Russians allegedly had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Weeks later, Papadopoulos would tell Australian diplomate Alexander Downer about this gossip, which has been reported as the event that sparked the investigation into the campaign.

    The Daily Caller reported that Papadopoulos has said he never told anyone on Trump's campaign about what Mifsud told him, and Mueller's report makes clear there's no evidence to contradict those claims.

    [May 07, 2019] Steele's stunning pre-FISA confession Informant needed to air Trump dirt before election TheHill

    Notable quotes:
    "... The encounter, and Kavalec's memos, were forced into public view through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Citizens United. Yet, all but a few lines have been redacted after the fact. Officials are citing as the reason national security, in the name of the FBI and a half-century-old intelligence law. ..."
    "... the documents suggest there was an illegal effort to "frame" the future president with bogus Russia collusion allegations. "This new information proves why the attorney general must conduct a thorough investigation of the investigators," he said. ..."
    "... we have written proof the U.S. government knew well before the FBI secured the FISA warrant that Steele had a political motive and Election Day deadline to make his dossier public. ..."
    "... Documents and testimony from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS , show he told the FBI in August 2016 that Steele was "desperate" to defeat Trump and his work had something to do with Clinton's campaign. ..."
    "... Kavalec's notes make clear the DNC was a likely client and the election was Steele's deadline to smear Trump. ..."
    "... That makes the FBI's failure to disclose to the FISA judges the information about Steele's political bias and motive all the more stunning. And it makes the agents' use of his unverified dossier to support the warrant all the more shameful. ..."
    May 07, 2019 | thehill.com

    If ever there were an admission that taints the FBI's secret warrant to surveil Donald Trump 's campaign, it sat buried for more than two-and-a-half years in the files of a high-ranking State Department official.

    Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec's written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline.

    State officials acknowledged a year ago they received a copy of the Steele dossier in July 2016, and got a more detailed briefing in October 2016 and referred the information to the FBI.

    But what was discussed was not revealed. Sources told me more than a year ago that Kavalec had the most important (and memorialized) interaction with Steele before the FISA warrant was issued, but FBI and State officials refused to discuss it, or even confirm it.

    The encounter, and Kavalec's memos, were forced into public view through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Citizens United. Yet, all but a few lines have been redacted after the fact. Officials are citing as the reason national security, in the name of the FBI and a half-century-old intelligence law.

    David Bossie, head of Citizens United and an informal Trump adviser, said the documents suggest there was an illegal effort to "frame" the future president with bogus Russia collusion allegations. "This new information proves why the attorney general must conduct a thorough investigation of the investigators," he said.

    Sources tell me there also are handwritten notes from the meeting, with information about Steele's political ties, that have not been given to Congress. "There's a connection to Hillary Clinton in the notes," said one source who has seen them.

    Perhaps those will come to light soon.

    The mere four sentences that the FBI allowed State to release, unredacted, show that Kavalec sent an email two days after her encounter with Steele, alerting others.

    "You may already have this information but wanted to pass it on just in case," Kavalec wrote in the lone sentence the FBI and State released from that email . The names of the recipients, the subject line and the attachments are blacked out.

    Interestingly, one legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947 , which can be used to shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council.

    The three other sentences visible in her memo show that U.S. officials had good reason to suspect Steele's client and motive in alleging Trump-Russia collusion because they were election-related and facilitated by the Clinton-funded Fusion GPS founder, Glenn Simpson.

    "Orbis undertook the investigation into the Russia/Trump connection at the behest of an institution he declined to identify that had been hacked," Kavalec wrote.

    At the time, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was the highest-profile victim of election-year hacking .

    "The institution approached them based on the recommendation of Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch (specialists in economic crime, formerly of the WSJ) and is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8," Kavalec wrote. "Orbis undertook the investigation in June of 2016." Steele's firm Orbis was a subcontractor to Fusion GPS, and WSJ refers to the Wall Street Journal.

    Everything else in the memo was blacked out. The FOIA notes contain this explanation for the redactions: "Classified by FBI on 4/25/2019 -- Class: SECRET."

    In other words, the FBI under Director Christopher Wray classified the document as "secret" just a few days ago. To add injury to insult, the FBI added this hopeful note: "Declassify on 12/31/2041." That would be 25 years after the 2016 election.

    Despite the heavy redactions, Kavalec's notes have momentous consequence.

    For the first time, we have written proof the U.S. government knew well before the FBI secured the FISA warrant that Steele had a political motive and Election Day deadline to make his dossier public.

    And we know that information was transmitted before the Carter Page FISA warrant to one or more people whose job is so sensitive that their identity had to be protected. That means there is little chance the FBI didn't know about Steele's political client, or the Election Day deadline, before requesting the FISA warrant.

    Documents and testimony from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS , show he told the FBI in August 2016 that Steele was "desperate" to defeat Trump and his work had something to do with Clinton's campaign.

    Kavalec's notes make clear the DNC was a likely client and the election was Steele's deadline to smear Trump.

    Likewise, there is little chance the FBI didn't know that Steele, then a bureau informant, had broken protocol and gone to the State Department in an effort to make the Trump dirt public.

    That makes the FBI's failure to disclose to the FISA judges the information about Steele's political bias and motive all the more stunning. And it makes the agents' use of his unverified dossier to support the warrant all the more shameful.

    Kavalec's notes shed light on another mystery from the text messages between the FBI's Pete Strzok and Lisa Page, which first revealed the politically-biased nature of the Trump collusion probe.

    Strzok, the lead FBI agent on the case, and Page, a lawyer working for the FBI deputy director, repeatedly messaged each other in October 2016 about efforts to pressure and speed the review of the FISA warrant.

    For instance, on Oct. 11, 2016, Strzok texted Page that he was "fighting with Stu for this FISA," an apparent reference to then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stu Evans in DOJ's national security division.

    A few days later, on Oct. 14, Strzok emailed Page he needed some "hurry the F up pressure" to get the FISA approved.

    If the evidence is good and the FISA request solid, why did the FBI need to apply pressure?

    The real reason may be the FBI was trying to keep a lid on the political origins, motives and Election Day deadline of its star informant Steele.

    And that would be the ultimate abuse of the FBI's FISA powers.

    John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .

    [May 06, 2019] CIA Director Gina Haspel is Complicit with the Attempted Overthrow of Trump

    May 06, 2019 | aim4truth.org

    When we saw these tweets from George Papadopoulos, we thought we could help him out with some answers. If you can get them to George, please do.

    Has congress figured out why Peter Strzok's former boss, Bill Priestap, was in London (of all places) the days before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and lie about our meeting? If not, time to get a move on it.

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 12, 2019

    Britain is in a political crisis. To push Brexit hard, declassifying the spy role of the David Cameron government on Trump and his team is paramount. Congress can not overlook the vital importance of London as the center of the coup attempt.

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 12, 2019

    What was I REALLY under surveillance for then? Explosive https://t.co/AVGlfwi5ld

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 13, 2019

    Our reply to George:

    preistap bill.JPGBill Priestap was the Director of the FBI national security division and would have gone to the London CIA "office" for a meeting. There he would have met with Stefan Halper and Gina Haspel who was, at the time, head of the London CIA office and would have been in charge of the connections with Robert Hannigan (British GCHQ) and John Brennan who planned and executed the wiretapping of Trump Team at Trump Towers. Haspel's communications, when released, will reveal the full scope of the CIA led international attack on the 2016 presidential election.

    Gina Haspel would have known about the coup. If she has not reported all of this to the President Trump, she is complicit in the overthrow attempt and is guilty of HIGH TREASON.
    Gina haspel 2
    Pictured: Evil SES Conspirator

    Keep in mind, Peter Strzok was a CIA Regional Director who John Brennan appointed as the head of Crossfire Hurricane, the CIA counter-intelligence operation to "take out" candidate Trump – later it became the Mueller Witch Hunt after 13 different iterations spanning:

    the CIA (John Brennan),

    FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, etc.),

    DoJ (Loretta Lynn, Sally Yates, Andrew Weisseman),

    State Department (Victoria Nuland, Jonathon Winer, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry),

    ODNS (James Clapper),

    NSA (Admiral Mike Rogers)

    and the White House senior staff (directly to Obama, Biden, Jarret, Rice, Powers, etc.).

    Bill Preistap was the supervisor for Strzok and Lisa Page who also worked for John Carlin in the Department of Justice National Security Division under Sally Yates. Then Strozk and Page continued their CIA operation as they were appointed to Mueller's Special Council Investigation.

    Gina Haspel worked directly for the instigator of the Crossfire Hurricane operation – John Brennan. It would have been impossible for Haspel not to have known about the British spying from London since it was reported in UK newspaper on a weekly basis. She certainly was controlling Stefan Halper , Josef Mifsud , Stephan Roh , Alexander Downer, Andrew Wood, John McCain, Mark Warner, Adam Schiff and the other conspirators.

    All of these facts are well known and reported in open source documents. As the 53 testimonies of the House Intelligence Committee are released, we will see the house of cards all fall down and Gina Haspel will go with it.

    Keep in mind Haspel was Michael Gaeta's handler. Michael Gaeta handled the frame-up of George Papadopoulos .

    [May 06, 2019] Major Mueller Report Omissions Suggest Incompetence Or A Coverup

    Mueller Mifsud blunder is indicative of the quality of this "Investigation". The final results desired were established before any investigating took place.
    This is definitely a cover up. Mueller could call Jina Haspel and get all the information about Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud who tried to tie George Papadopoulos to Russia. It is definitely available via regular CIA channels as CIA Director Gina Haspel is Complicit with the Attempted Overthrow of Trump .
    Bill Priestap was the Director of the FBI national security division and would have gone to the London CIA "office" for a meeting. There he would have met with Stefan Halper and Gina Haspel who was, at the time, head of the London CIA office and would have been in charge of the connections with Robert Hannigan (British GCHQ) and John Brennan who planned and executed the wiretapping of Trump Team at Trump Towers. Haspel's communications, when released, will reveal the full scope of the CIA led international attack on the 2016 presidential election.
    On May 3, 2019 Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) requested information on Friday from the State Department, CIA, FBI and NSA on operative Joseph Mifsud ( May3, 2019)
    Notable quotes:
    "... So how many companies or agencies that you know of, when you say, hey, I'm quitting, and they say, hey, what about a free four-to-five-day vacation in Rome? We're going to fly you there. We're going to put you up for free. We're going to give you food... And all you have to do is meet this guy Mifsud, right... We're trying to get to the bottom of Mifsud . So, as we talked about it on the last segment, this guy originates the investigation. We know that the Mueller team wrote this Mueller dossier. They used a lot of these news stories that, in fact, sometimes were generated by leaks from the FBI. ..."
    "... Robert Mueller never inquired about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's "insurance policy" when he fired Strzok. When Mueller testifies in front of the House Judiciary Committee, I'm going to ask why he never even asked about what evidence might have been polluted by Strzok and Page. ..."
    "... Come ON! YOU KNOW THIS is ********! There was no Russian disinformation and that sounds just like out of the Integrity Initiative in the UK and sponsored by the foreign office that seeks to quell Russian disinformation. ..."
    "... This whole thing is DELIBERATE to demonize Russia.. ..."
    "... Hillarys conflicts of interests never reveled as Secretary of State can and should be investigated by House Democrats instead of magical fabrications of obstruction of justice by Barr..... ..."
    "... Mueller and the other intel guys were there to be an exit strategy for the dems, hide the bodies, and make sure to bungle or destroy any evidence that could be used against them. no duh ..."
    "... Steele was a Confidential Human Source on the FBI payroll back in 2016. Steele had a handling agent. I'd sure like to know who the handler was. So, how directly the **** is Steele not a liar? ..."
    May 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Barr replied that he had yet to "go through the full scope of [Mueller's] investigation to determine whether he did address or look at all into those issues," but that he would "try to assemble all the existing information out there about it, not only for the Hill investigations and the OIG, but also to see what the Special Counsel looked into. So I really couldn't say what he looked into."

    Meanwhile, Barr said that he has assembled a DOJ team to examine Mueller's investigation, findings, and whether the spying conducted by the FBI against the Trump campaign in 2016 was improper.

    Mueller's second major oversight - which we have touched on repeatedly - is the special counsel's portrayal of Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud was a Russian agent - when available evidence suggests he may have been a Western agent. Weeks after returning from Moscow, Mifsud - a self-described Clinton Foundation member - 'seeded' the rumor that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos on April 26, 2016, according to the Mueller report.

    As Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) noted on Fox News on Sunday, " how is it that we spend 30-plus-million dollars on this, as taxpayers and they can't even tell us who Joseph Mifsud is? "

    "...this is important, because, in the Mueller dossier, they use a fake news story to describe Mifsud. In one of those stories, they cherry- pick it," Nunes added.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/D8EyqAq1Q3k

    BARTIROMO: Then he's working for Trump. So how come somebody from Britain, Australia, Italy, they're all reaching out to him? And, by the way, how come this London Center of International Law reached out to Papadopoulos on LinkedIn to go work there, after Ben Carson withdrew?

    NUNES: And I think a better question is, is that -- so, Papadopoulos claims that he was quitting this London Center.

    So how many companies or agencies that you know of, when you say, hey, I'm quitting, and they say, hey, what about a free four-to-five-day vacation in Rome? We're going to fly you there. We're going to put you up for free. We're going to give you food... And all you have to do is meet this guy Mifsud, right... We're trying to get to the bottom of Mifsud . So, as we talked about it on the last segment, this guy originates the investigation. We know that the Mueller team wrote this Mueller dossier. They used a lot of these news stories that, in fact, sometimes were generated by leaks from the FBI.

    Now, I don't think the American people expect 20 DOJ lawyers and 40 FBI agents to write a 450-page report that's built off of news stories that in many cases they generated.

    Why I particularly have a problem with this is -- with one of the stories is because they pick a news story, and then they cherry-pick from it. So they use it partly to describe where Mifsud worked, but then they fail to say in that same story that they have given support to by using it in the Mueller dossier , they cherry-pick it. -Via RealClearPolitics

    As conservative commentator and former US Secret Service agent Dan Bongino notes of Mifsud, "either we have a Russian asset who's infiltrated the highest echelons of friendly Intelligence Services, or we have a friendly who was setting up George Papadopoulos."

    Perhaps Mueller's reportedly scheduled testimony next week will shed more light on why he failed to question the possible role of Russian disinformation with the Steele Dossier , and why he didn't flush out who Joseph Mifsud really is .

    Other omissions, meanwhile, are on the table as well...

    Rep. Matt Gaetz ✔ @RepMattGaetz

    Robert Mueller never inquired about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's "insurance policy" when he fired Strzok. When Mueller testifies in front of the House Judiciary Committee, I'm going to ask why he never even asked about what evidence might have been polluted by Strzok and Page.


    pippi68 , 6 minutes ago link

    Hillary paid Perkins Coie to pay Fusion GPS to write a fake dossier and then paid Christopher Steele to try to infuse what they wrote with a little authenticity. To anyone who is not brain dead, the whole dossier read like 4chan fan fiction and was laughable from the very start. The whole thing was an obvious set up to all observers (even the Dems though they will cling to their lies to the very end and continue to double down). Most people are growing tired of their antics and their virtue signalling and moralizing.

    pippi68 , 12 minutes ago link

    The House Committee will just mute the microphones and prevent anyone from asking a worthwhile probing question to Mueller during the hearing. It will be the usual circus, but totally transparent to all who do not suffer from chronic TDS.

    Lord Raglan , 14 minutes ago link

    If Mifsud turns out to be a CIA operative or paid FBI agent, all to set up the Trump Campaign, there are probably going to be 50 indictments at least.

    MrButtoMcFarty , 15 minutes ago link

    SPYGATE trials start in the fall/winter... FBI Departures:

    DOJ Departures:

    Don't forget the popcorn...it's going to be a beautiful thing.

    CatInTheHat , 16 minutes ago link

    'why he failed to question the possible role of Russian disinformation with the Steele Dossier , and why he didn't flush out who Joseph Mifsud really is .".

    Come ON! YOU KNOW THIS is ********! There was no Russian disinformation and that sounds just like out of the Integrity Initiative in the UK and sponsored by the foreign office that seeks to quell Russian disinformation.

    This whole thing is DELIBERATE to demonize Russia..

    The only "Russian disinfo came from SKRIPAL who has now been poisoned and taken to a secret location to serve out the remainder of his life so that he never talks again!

    LOL123 , 16 minutes ago link

    Here is your Hillary Russian agent connected to 2016 election and the true obstruction of justice pirate :

    "

    CHELSEA CLINTON

    On Sep. 22, 2011 , Barry Diller appointed Chelsea Clinton, then a college student, to be a director of IAC/Interactivecorp which has a current market value of $10 billion. At the same time, Diller appointed Sonali De Rycker of Accel Partners LLP London and formerly Goldman Sachs. Accel is the largest inside shareholder in Facebook after Mark Zuckerberg.

    See the Dec. 13, 2016 verified SEC list of IAC/Interactivecorp media holdings . It includes many leading dating sites in North America and Europe including:

    It should also be noted that on Mar. 11, 2009 , IAC/Interactivecorp received what has been, in effect, a PERMANENT CONFIDENTIALITY EXEMPTION from the SEC from reporting its Google AdSense revenue numbers in its public reporting. This is totally outrageous. See the redacted revenue numbers from Google AdSense on IAC/Interactivecorp's 10-K, Exhibit 10-25 on Mar. 11, 2009 .

    As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had an ethical duty to disclose to the public her conflicts of interest in Chelsea Clinton's appointment as director of IAC/Interactivecorp in 2011. Given Chelsea's ties to Facebook director and venture capitalist Accel Partners, the Clinton's engaged in obstruction of justice in the Leader v. Facebook patent infringement lawsuit as well as the Ceglia v. Zuckerberg contract dispute. Also, Chelsea's relationship to Barry Diller shows that mainstream media was engaging in undisclosed bias for the Clintons and against Donald Trump."

    Hillary paid Facebook starting on Nov. 26, 2009 to write a " Template for winning elections" directed by RUSSIAN Dmitry Schevelenko of FACEBOOK.

    Hillarys conflicts of interests never reveled as Secretary of State can and should be investigated by House Democrats instead of magical fabrications of obstruction of justice by Barr.....

    If this wasn't such comic relief for conservatives it would be written as a template for losers.👎😄🌾

    TaxesLiterallyAreTheft , 18 minutes ago link

    Mueller and the other intel guys were there to be an exit strategy for the dems, hide the bodies, and make sure to bungle or destroy any evidence that could be used against them. no duh

    AK Refugee , 20 minutes ago link

    So... if we investigate The Mueller Report, is that a Special-Special Counsel, or a Super-Special Counsel?

    Either way, the target is a Counsel investigation that was not so special (read corrupted).

    Competent counter-intelligence guards against being caught... these fools were already in over their heads by the time it dawned on them that victory was not assured.

    And to that end, there is no one in the intelligence community that would have had an early inkling that HRC could blow (poor choice of words, sorry to creep you out) the election (against any Republican nominee) save for someone with authority (executive), motivation (legacy), and accurate polling. Gee... who could that have possibly been?

    King of Ruperts Land , 24 minutes ago link

    Mueller and his guys were the cleanup men. They disolved all the bodies with acid and lye and then wiped up with bleach.

    Goodsport 1945 , 25 minutes ago link

    It's hardly incompetence. There was only one goal - take Trump down. To Hell with the facts.

    Golden Showers , 26 minutes ago link

    Steele was a Confidential Human Source on the FBI payroll back in 2016. Steele had a handling agent. I'd sure like to know who the handler was. So, how directly the **** is Steele not a liar? The FBI apparently stopped their relationship with Steele as a CHS when Steele told a 3rd party he was an FBI source. Check it out: https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-fbi-records-show-dossier-author-deemed-not-suitable-for-use-as-source-show-several-fbi-payments-in-2016/

    I'd say that Mueller didn't want to go into it and would rather not talk about it. How fucked up is that?

    steve golf , 31 minutes ago link

    Duh! Meuller is protecting the cabal that tried to oust Trump.

    mc888 , 38 minutes ago link

    Mueller's appointment by Rosenstein was illegal and the stated purpose of said investigation was outside the scope of a Special Counsel.

    The purpose of the report is to propagate and lend some credibility to the lies that Russia somehow interfered in our elections, hacked the DNC, and Mifsud was a Russian agent.

    These claims have already been conclusively disproven by multiple sources. Mifsud is MI6 hiding in Italy so he doesn't get Skripal'ed.

    JethroBodien , 40 minutes ago link

    Hmmm. You would think Mueller and his team would vet the authenticity of Steele dossier and look into the bleach biting of Hitlery's e-mail server since both were prima facie evidence in this whole charade. The fact this wasn't done is quite damning in and of itself and suggests the Mueller team was complicit in the entire "Russian Collusion" hoax.

    SmittyinLA , 45 minutes ago link

    What about the Anthony Weiner "insurance"? https://www.dvcinquirer.com/opinion/2016/11/17/anthony-weiners-life-insurance-file-opens-fbi-investigation-on-the-clinton-foundation/

    OLD-Pipe , 43 minutes ago link

    "confided that the Kremlin had been feeding Trump and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton."

    And how is this different from the Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Iran False Flags ???????? Not one time has Hit-Lary personnel written or spoken that the leaked intel about the DNC and Clinton 2019 presidential campaign was False....the whole Russia-Gate is a Cover-up of the Crimes of the DNC and Deep State during the Obozo Administration, during the electoral Process for the 2019 Presidential Elections, by the DNC, Clinton's, and the Deep State - NeoCon's.......Thats why Trump won the Election.... We the People are tired of the never ending **** show in D.C., and We the People voted for anyone running on the Novel Idea of Change!!!!

    Bobportlandor , 43 minutes ago link

    I wonder when the FBI investigates crimes against the United States and find a nothing burger do they all ways write up a 448 report?

    Boris Gudonov , 43 minutes ago link

    Everyone in America knows that the Mueller investigation was a fraud predicated on fabricated evidence, that Obama used government intelligence agencies to spy on and entrap the political opposition, and that Crooked Hillary Clinton and her minions are guilty of numerous crimes, mishandling of classified information being the least of these offenses.

    The only thing the whole country is waiting for is to find out what these ******* criminals are going to get away with.

    [May 05, 2019] Will Comey, Strzok, Lowrenta, Priestap, McCabe be sacrificed to protect the "Deep State"

    May 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    nmewn , 33 minutes ago link

    Very close I think.

    In my view it's come down to, we will have one law for ALL or we will have no law at ALL.

    Personally, knowing what all governments are (or Deep State(s) if one prefers)..."it" will defend itself at all costs. No one or group is more important than "it". "It" relies the public's perception of "it's" fairness, stability and security...anything that threatens that is completely expendable to the survival of "it".

    Watch and see, "it" will chunk underlings like Comey, Strzok, Lowrenta, Priestap, McCabe etc. under the bus so fast it will make your head spin...

    lol...

    ObaMao, Hillary, Clapper and Brennan will need "some negotiation" but it's doable if we want it...for the survival of "it" ;-)

    [May 05, 2019] FBI sent undercover investigator to meet Trump adviser, report says

    May 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    The New York Times reports that two months before the 2016 presidential election Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos sat down with an undercover investigator for the FBI who was trying to probe whether the Trump campaign was working with Russia. The FBI declined comment, according to the paper.

    #CNN #News

    [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
    "... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
    "... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
    May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

    Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC) writes:

    "I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind. Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy, arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:

    https://youtu.be/E96084YuYyE?t=812 .

    His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).

    I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"

    "The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed doing in the Golan Heights!

    "P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."

    Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT

    THE WHOLE MUELLER INVESTIGATION WAS A SCAM.

    The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats, Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called contacts with Russians.

    They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens before the election, so it is illegal.

    What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?

    They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was allegedly broken itself is illegal.

    It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act

    This law is a joke, because Trump never “negotiated” with any foreign govt. on behalf of the USA, and Russia is not having a dispute with the USA.

    Most importantly, the Logan Act is unconstitutional.

    That is why nobody has been prosecuted under it–for decades!

    So any American who posts on rt.com or on an Iranian website suggesting peace is technically violating the Logan Act.

    Any newspapers that publishes articles about Iran or Russia or Syria and suggesting peace or war is technically violating the Logan Act.

    So why are all they not in jail?

    Because the Logan Act is unconstitutional and it violates the first amendment.

    Go, say, “I will talk to the Russian govt. all I want and promote world peace.”

    Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

    Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
    ADDENDUM: NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN CONVICTED UNDER THE LOGAN ACT.

    This is stated in the wikipedia article I put the link for above.

    In fact, the wikipedia article also talks about its unconstitutionality.

    Sin City Milla , says: May 2, 2019 at 5:11 am GMT
    @Rational

    Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

    While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been ‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.

    One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being ‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”

    The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say.

    [May 05, 2019] Here is my take on this entire Russiagate running in Washington DC for the last two years

    Notable quotes:
    "... Then the Russians leaked the COLLUSION story to the CIA controlled MSM such as New York Time, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, etc . . ., so they would predictably kicked a storm of controversy over the COLLUSION, and demand the DOJ to appoint a Special Prosecutor to initial an investigation. ..."
    May 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Asoka_The_Great , 2 hours ago link

    Rational explanations, can not explain, the absurdity of the SH*TSHOW, that is going on in Washington DC. Here is my take, on this entire Sh*tshow, running in Washington DC, for the last two years.

    1. All the evidences are pointing the most likely scenario that Donald Trump is a Manchurian Candidate ordered by the Kremelin to run for Office, in 2016.

    2. Then, Donald Trump COLLUDED with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service to win the Presidency of United States, with shocking easy.

    3. This was because Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden, was bribed by Putin, through the Ukrainians, with hundred of millions of dollars, so she would purposely lose the "sure win" race, to a political nobody, Donald Trump.

    4. Then, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, produced the Steele Dossier, a political disinformation tool, in collaboration with Britain's Mi6 and CIA.

    5. Then the Russians leaked the COLLUSION story to the CIA controlled MSM such as New York Time, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, etc . . ., so they would predictably kicked a storm of controversy over the COLLUSION, and demand the DOJ to appoint a Special Prosecutor to initial an investigation.

    6. This diabolically devilish Special PsyOps by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has succeeded in tying up Washington DC, in a Sh*tshow, for the last two years, and divided the Country in bitter controversy.

    7. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and Chinese Communists' Intelligence Service have thoroughly infiltrated America's Department of Justice, FBI, and CIA, and NSA, and use their high levels agents, such as O'bomer, Hitlery, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, and Rosenstein to stirred up this COLLUSION storm, to paralyze America's political system for as long as possible.

    In Summary, the entire sh*tshow is a production of a Special PsyOps by the Russkies and ChiComs' Intelligence Services. It has nothing to do with America's dysfunctional government...

    [May 04, 2019] Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attach s, DIA guys, in on this coup.

    Notable quotes:
    "... It's not just the left. I listened to Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos and was stunned to learn about the web of Deep State actors and how our Five Eyes allies were intimately involved in subverting our Presidential election. Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attachés, DIA guys, in on this coup. Listen to this Michael Tracey* interview and you will be shaken: https://youtu.be/ZjGLCCP_lPg ..."
    "... The question really comes down to Trump. Does he really want to expose the Swamp and pay the price or just use it for rhetorical & political purposes? When considering probabilities and looking at his track record in office on foreign policy relative to his campaign stance, I would say the probability is less than 30% that Brennan & Clapper will be indicted. ..."
    "... Situations like this commonly have a strong escalatory logic. So one needs to ask whether or not he has rational reason to believe that unless he can destroy those who have shown themselves prepared to stop at nothing to destroy him, they will eventually succeed. ..."
    "... But the escalatory processes are not simply to do with what Trump decides. In particular, a whole range of legal proceedings are involved. The referral in relation to Nellie Ohr is likely to be the fist of a good few. In addition, Ed Butowsky's lawsuits, and those against Steele, have unpredictable potentialities. ..."
    "... The intelligence & law enforcement apparatus in collusion with the media and the establishment of both parties went after him hard. As Larry notes here, they went to considerable effort to entrap those related to his campaign to impugn him. Mueller spent $35 million trying to find an angle. Even after the Mueller report stated there was no collusion they're sill after him. So that's not going to end any time soon. ..."
    "... Here's a National Review exclusive report in which a transcript of FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa's testimony reveals several Confidential Human Sources (including Christopher Steele), and more interestingly foreign "liasons" (Mifsud?) were employed by the bureau in this operation: ..."
    May 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
    Gerard M , 03 May 2019 at 09:06 AM
    IMO, there is no coming back from this. Apart from this Deep State coup attempt, we have seen that democracy is a shame, it's all theater. The Establishment (which includes GOP) is constantly working to undermine Trump and thwart his plans to do what the American people want and elected him for.

    What I've found quite disturbing is that the controlling puppet masters have not let up in trying to remove or neutralize Trump. As if they can't wait even 4 years to again fully stack the deck and regain total control. They are not willing to concede that 2016 was a political black swan event involving a celebrity billionaire American icon.

    And conceding and allowing this fluke to be rectified I'm 4 short years is worse than their pushback exposing the political system as a rigged game.

    The events of the last 2.5 years have radically altered my views. I no longer have any faith in democracy (voting), the government, the federal courts, law enforcement, et al. And I can't see me regaining any faith in them. What I have seen in the past 2.5 years is kind of like finding out my wife of decades, whom I idolized, has been cheating with my friend from childhood, whom I would've laid down my life for. And all the other people close to me not telling me.

    I now only have faith in only God and beagles.

    Fred -> Gerard M... , 03 May 2019 at 10:40 AM
    It's not the black swan event that concerns the guilty but the fear of just retribution by those who see just how black hearted the left has become.
    Gerard M said in reply to Fred ... , 03 May 2019 at 12:25 PM
    It's not just the left. I listened to Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos and was stunned to learn about the web of Deep State actors and how our Five Eyes allies were intimately involved in subverting our Presidential election. Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attachés, DIA guys, in on this coup. Listen to this Michael Tracey* interview and you will be shaken: https://youtu.be/ZjGLCCP_lPg

    *Tracey, btw, is on the left. But like Glenn Greenwald and others on the left he is an honest journalist interested in the truth.

    Ligurio said in reply to Fred ... , 03 May 2019 at 02:16 PM
    The "left" was not behind and does not buy into this Russia psyop. Neoliberals and neoconservatives (ie zionists) were behind it and continue to push it. Trump ran to the left of Clinton on both domestic and foreign policy. That's why he won, and why the establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan convergence around both finance driven economic policy and war on terror interventionism that has described elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all types and political persuasions -- and needs to be destroyed root and branch.

    To see how and why the "left" differs from corporate identity-politicking liberals in the above regard consider how it is that Tulsi Gabbard is both the Dem candidate most respected by principled Trump supporters on this site and others and the Dem candidate most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike.

    The enemy to principled conservatives and the left in this country is the bipartisan establishment corporate neoliberalism of the RNC and DNC alike.

    VietnamVet , 03 May 2019 at 05:40 PM
    The soft coup against Donald Trump failed. He has to run hard and sure to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. Corporate Democrats will do their damnedst again to put forth their weakest pro war candidate like the aged, apparently demented, Joe Biden. This fiasco and the recent coup attempt in Venezuela make the Keystone Cops appear competent.

    I put this all down to Washington DC being completely isolated inside their credentialed bubble. It is just like corporate CEOs, who think they know exactly what they are doing. But, in reality, they are destroying the stabilizing middle class by extracting and hording wealth and turning mid-America into their colony. Globalist and nationalist oligarchs are after each other's throat over who controls the flow of money.

    We live on a very finite world dependent on one sun in an expanding universe. Just like Boeing, Bayer or Volkswagen, the splintering world is starting to crash all around them. Even as they deny it, this is a multi-polar world now. It is not going back without a world war which would destroy civilization and could make the world uninhabitable for humans.

    English Outsider -> VietnamVet... , 04 May 2019 at 01:15 PM
    The trouble is that those CEO's do know exactly what they are doing. Making money the only way possible in a business environment in which outsourcing can sometimes be the only thing that pays.

    The idea was that Trump was going to change that environment. Bannon calls its "economic nationalism" but in truth it's now just economic survival. Survival for those whose jobs are outsourced. Survival for the country as a whole, ultimately.

    That was Trump's core programme. It was the programme that made him different from all other Western politicians, "populist" or status quo. Do you see any sign that it's being implemented, or has that programme too got bogged down in the swamp?

    Mad Max_22 , 03 May 2019 at 06:44 PM
    Will justice be served? A good question.

    If we are speaking about criminal justice, there is some chance that we will see persons such as Jim Comey, who persists in his smug higher calling act, prosecuted for what was a clear cut violation in divulging classified material through a lawyer intermediary to the NYT. I suspect the higher calling bit has been prompted in part because he knows that he screwed up both on the facts and in law and he is justifying his screw up to himself, and possibly also rehearsing his defense, with the rationale that he was only trying to do the right thing. Yeah, he may have had the facts all wrong, the Russians, etc, etc, but the worst that can be said is that he had been competent, there was no intent. That defense doesn't do much for the FBI's once held reputation for competence, but that appears to be gone anyway.

    With regard to what will be turned up concerning the actual roots of the travesty, the heavily politicized faux investigation into the Clinton e mails and targeting of the Trump campaign on a predicate that is somewhere between nebulous and non existant, I think a criminal prosecution arising from that investigation, even if it is serious, is unlikely for two main reasons. First, what will be the charged violations? As best I can see right now, they will have to entail some imaginative application of fraud statutes, defrauding the FISC, defrauding the US, informants and assets lying to their handlers, or process crimes like Bob Mueller's partisan posse relied upon (ugly); and second, something like the Comey defense will interpenetrate all the individuals and entities involved: we may have been incredible bunglers, but that is the worst of it. We really believed these charlatans who conned us into this debacle. Sorry, but we thought we were doing the right thing.

    Now if we are talking about seeing some kind of political or moral justice, I'm not too optimistic we will get much satisfaction there either and we will probably have to wait for history. The reason is that Barr will conduct this investigation by the rule book. That means that what we see developed through the process, indictment, prosecution, etc, is likely all,that we will ever see. Barr is very unlikely to produce a politcized manifesto to be employed as a smear weapon like the once reputable Mueller did.

    Anyway, until we see a special FGJ empanelled, some search warrants executed, some tactical immunities offered, everything is on the come.

    blue peacock said in reply to Jack... , 04 May 2019 at 12:27 PM
    Jack,

    The question really comes down to Trump. Does he really want to expose the Swamp and pay the price or just use it for rhetorical & political purposes? When considering probabilities and looking at his track record in office on foreign policy relative to his campaign stance, I would say the probability is less than 30% that Brennan & Clapper will be indicted.

    David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 04 May 2019 at 03:07 PM
    bp,

    The question is only very partly what Trump wants, in some abstract sense. Situations like this commonly have a strong escalatory logic. So one needs to ask whether or not he has rational reason to believe that unless he can destroy those who have shown themselves prepared to stop at nothing to destroy him, they will eventually succeed.

    If the answer is yes - and while I think it may very well be, I am not prejudging the issue - then a key question becomes whether Trump will conclude that his most promising loption is to go after the conspirators by every means possible.

    Involved here are questions about who he is listening to, and how competent they are.

    But the escalatory processes are not simply to do with what Trump decides. In particular, a whole range of legal proceedings are involved. The referral in relation to Nellie Ohr is likely to be the fist of a good few. In addition, Ed Butowsky's lawsuits, and those against Steele, have unpredictable potentialities.

    blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 May 2019 at 07:11 PM
    David

    The intelligence & law enforcement apparatus in collusion with the media and the establishment of both parties went after him hard. As Larry notes here, they went to considerable effort to entrap those related to his campaign to impugn him. Mueller spent $35 million trying to find an angle. Even after the Mueller report stated there was no collusion they're sill after him. So that's not going to end any time soon.

    Trump may have good instincts but his judgment of people so far to staff his administration is not very inspiring. He had Jeff Sessions as his AG and he let him hang in there for nearly two years while Mueller ran riot. He's surrounded himself with neocons on foreign policy. It seems his only real advisor is Jared. Everyone else he's got around him are from the same establishment that's going after him. He hasn't taken advise from Devin Nunes, who has done more to uncover the sedition than anyone else. If he had he would have by now declassified all the documents & communications. The impression I have is his primary motivation is building his brand & less about governance and wielding power. Take for example his order to withdraw from Syria. Bolton & the Pentagon are thumbing their noses at him.

    Well, there have been several criminal referrals prior to the recent one on Nellie Ohr. There's the McCabe referral and the 8 referrals by Devin Nunes. I've not read any report of the empaneling of a grand jury yet. I agree with you that these law suits have the potential for great embarrassment, however to hold those responsible for the sedition accountable will require iron will & intense focus on the part of Trump to get his AG to assign prosecutors who don't have the axe to "protect" the "institution" and to create an opportunity for public awareness of the extent that law enforcement & intelligence became a 4th branch of government. My opinion is that his skill is in his instinctual understanding of the current political zeitgeist and his ability to manipulate the media including social media to project his brand. He's not an operational leader making sure his team executes his vision & strategy.

    akaPatience , 04 May 2019 at 07:11 PM
    Here's a National Review exclusive report in which a transcript of FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa's testimony reveals several Confidential Human Sources (including Christopher Steele), and more interestingly foreign "liasons" (Mifsud?) were employed by the bureau in this operation:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/fbi-official-testimony-surveillance-trump-campaign/

    [May 04, 2019] This Was Not Spying, It Was Entrapment Bongino Spits Fire As Nunes Demands Mifsud Docs

    Notable quotes:
    "... As Bongino lays out, there are two working theories about Mifsud . The first is that he's a Russian asset who tried to bait the Trump campaign . The second is that Mifsud was working for US intelligence services and seeded Papadopoulos with the 'dirt' rumor in order to kick off the FBI's counterintelligence operation. ..."
    May 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    For over two years, anyone who suggested that the Russia investigation was a sham was harshly ridiculed by establishment mouthpieces as a conspiracy theorist. The notion that the Obama Justice Department (led by Eric " wingman " Holder and then Loretta " tarmac " Lynch) could have conspired with other US intel agencies and foreigners to paint Donald Trump as a Russian stooge was considered beyond the pale.

    Then we found out that virtually the entire FBI's top brass absolutely hate Donald Trump and supported Hillary Clinton; the former of whom the FBI launched a counterintelligence investigation against, while giving Hillary a pass despite the fact that she destroyed evidence from her homebrew basement server while under subpoena. We were asked to believe that the FBI's extreme biases played no role in their investigations, while the left insisted that special counsel Robert Mueller was going to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton-funded dossier.

    And then the Mueller report came out - blowing the Russian collusion narrative out of the water, while painting a damning picture that suggests the entire genesis of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, Crossfire Hurricane , was a setup .

    One of those brave enough to risk his reputation laying out what was going on before the Mueller report dropped is conservative commentator and former US Secret Service agent Dan Bongino - who has repeatedly mentioned the suspicious role of self-described Clinton Foundation member Joseph Mifsud, who seeded the rumor that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton to Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos on April 26, 2016 - shortly after returning from Moscow, according to the Mueller report.

    Two weeks later , Papadopoulos would be bilked for information by Australian diplomat (another Clinton ally ) Alexander Downer at a London bar, who relayed the Kremlin 'dirt' rumor to Australian authorities, which alerted the FBI (as the story goes), and operation Crossfire Hurricane was thus hatched.

    We have now pinned Peter Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap, in London the week of May 6th, 2016 and on the 9th. The day before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and record our meeting. Congress must release the transcripts and embarrass the deep state.

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) April 20, 2019

    Back to Mifsud...

    As Bongino lays out, there are two working theories about Mifsud . The first is that he's a Russian asset who tried to bait the Trump campaign . The second is that Mifsud was working for US intelligence services and seeded Papadopoulos with the 'dirt' rumor in order to kick off the FBI's counterintelligence operation.

    . @dbongino on why Mifsud is key in Spygate:

    "So either we have a Russian asset who's infiltrated the highest echelons of friendly Intelligence Services, or we have a friendly who was setting up @GeorgePapa19 - That's the real scandal. This was not spying, this was entrapment." pic.twitter.com/wGnV8HHur1

    -- M3thods (@M2Madness) May 4, 2019

    Bongino went into greater detail last month on Fox News - including that Mifsud's lawyer says he's connected to western, "friendly" intelligence :

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/2oNPsRGxNhg

    We know that Papadopoulos met multiple times with Mifsud in the first half of 2016:

    Note: Papadopoulos and Mifsud reportedly both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice. - The Markets Work

    In short - based on what we know, it appears that Joseph Mifsud was part of a setup by Western intelligence services on then-candidate Donald Trump.

    Did You Know:

    A Company Whose Director Represents Joseph Mifsud Changed Its Name To "No Vichok Ltd" After The Salisbury Attack

    "Novichok" was the nerve agent used to poison fmr GRU agent Sergei Skripal when the UK govt was caught lying about the analysis from Porton Down

    -- Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 4, 2019

    ( it's true )

    Great claims require great evidence, however, which is why Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has requested a wide swath of documents about Mifsud from several federal agencies.

    As the Washington Examiner reports, Nunes - the House Intelligence Committee ranking member, " seeks information about who Mifsud was working for at the time and wrote in a letter that special counsel Robert Mueller "omits any mention of a wide range of contacts Mifsud had with Western political institutions and individuals" in his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election."

    As part of Mueller's Russia investigation, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October 2017 to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russians and served 12 days in prison late last year.

    The special counsel's sentencing memo to the District Court for the District of Columbia said Papadopoulos hindered the FBI's ability to get to Mifsud. "The defendant's lies undermined investigators' ability to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States. The government understands that the Professor left the United States on February 11, 2017 and he has not returned to the United States since then," the memo said.

    In his letter, Nunes says it is " still a mystery how the FBI knew to ask Papadopoulos specifically about Hillary Clinton's emails " if the bureau had not spoken with Mifsud. - Washington Examiner

    "If he is in fact a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals for not only the United States , but also our allies like the Italians and the Brits and others. Because if Mifsud is a Russian agent, he would know all kinds of our intelligence agents throughout the globe," said Nunes during a recent interview with Fox News ' Sean Hannity.

    Look deeper at the Report re: Mifsud. One interesting omission --

    Why are there zero citations to Mifsud's 302 in the Mueller Report?

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) May 4, 2019

    [May 04, 2019] This Was Not Spying, It Was Entrapment : Bongino Spits Fire As Nunes Demands Mifsud Docs by Dan Bongino

    Notable quotes:
    "... For over two years, anyone who suggested that the Russia investigation was a sham was harshly ridiculed by establishment mouthpieces as a conspiracy theorist. The notion that the Obama Justice Department (led by Eric " wingman " Holder and then Loretta " tarmac " Lynch) could have conspired with other US intel agencies and foreigners to paint Donald Trump as a Russian stooge was considered beyond the pale. ..."
    "... Then we found out that virtually the entire FBI's top brass absolutely hate Donald Trump and supported Hillary Clinton; the former of whom the FBI launched a counterintelligence investigation against, while giving Hillary a pass despite the fact that she destroyed evidence from her homebrew basement server while under subpoena. We were asked to believe that the FBI's extreme biases played no role in their investigations, while the left insisted that special counsel Robert Mueller was going to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton-funded dossier. ..."
    "... And then the Mueller report came out - blowing the Russian collusion narrative out of the water, while painting a damning picture that suggests the entire genesis of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, Crossfire Hurricane , was a setup ..."
    "... We have now pinned Peter Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap, in London the week of May 6th, 2016 and on the 9th. The day before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and record our meeting. Congress must release the transcripts and embarrass the deep state. ..."
    "... Mifsud was working for US intelligence services and seeded Papadopoulos with the 'dirt' rumor in order to kick off the FBI's counterintelligence operation. ..."
    "... In short - based on what we know, it appears that Joseph Mifsud was part of a setup by Western intelligence services on then-candidate Donald Trump. ..."
    "... A Company Whose Director Represents Joseph Mifsud Changed Its Name To "No Vichok Ltd" After The Salisbury Attack. "Novichok" was the nerve agent used to poison fmr GRU agent Sergei Skripal when the UK govt was caught lying about the analysis from Porton Down ..."
    "... In his letter, Nunes says it is " still a mystery how the FBI knew to ask Papadopoulos specifically about Hillary Clinton's emails " if the bureau had not spoken with Mifsud. - Washington Examiner ..."
    "... "If he is in fact a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals for not only the United States, but also our allies like the Italians and the Brits and others. Because if Mifsud is a Russian agent, he would know all kinds of our intelligence agents throughout the globe," said Nunes during a recent interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. ..."
    "... Why are there zero citations to Mifsud's 302 in the Mueller Report? ..."
    May 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    For over two years, anyone who suggested that the Russia investigation was a sham was harshly ridiculed by establishment mouthpieces as a conspiracy theorist. The notion that the Obama Justice Department (led by Eric " wingman " Holder and then Loretta " tarmac " Lynch) could have conspired with other US intel agencies and foreigners to paint Donald Trump as a Russian stooge was considered beyond the pale.

    Then we found out that virtually the entire FBI's top brass absolutely hate Donald Trump and supported Hillary Clinton; the former of whom the FBI launched a counterintelligence investigation against, while giving Hillary a pass despite the fact that she destroyed evidence from her homebrew basement server while under subpoena. We were asked to believe that the FBI's extreme biases played no role in their investigations, while the left insisted that special counsel Robert Mueller was going to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton-funded dossier.

    And then the Mueller report came out - blowing the Russian collusion narrative out of the water, while painting a damning picture that suggests the entire genesis of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, Crossfire Hurricane , was a setup .

    One of those brave enough to risk his reputation laying out what was going on before the Mueller report dropped is conservative commentator and former US Secret Service agent Dan Bongino - who has repeatedly mentioned the suspicious role of self-described Clinton Foundation member Joseph Mifsud, who seeded the rumor that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton to Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos on April 26, 2016 - shortly after returning from Moscow, according to the Mueller report.

    Two weeks later , Papadopoulos would be bilked for information by Australian diplomat (another Clinton ally ) Alexander Downer at a London bar, who relayed the Kremlin 'dirt' rumor to Australian authorities, which alerted the FBI (as the story goes), and operation Crossfire Hurricane was thus hatched.

    We have now pinned Peter Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap, in London the week of May 6th, 2016 and on the 9th. The day before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and record our meeting. Congress must release the transcripts and embarrass the deep state.

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) April 20, 2019

    Back to Mifsud...

    As Bongino lays out, there are two working theories about Mifsud . The first is that he's a Russian asset who tried to bait the Trump campaign . The second is that Mifsud was working for US intelligence services and seeded Papadopoulos with the 'dirt' rumor in order to kick off the FBI's counterintelligence operation.

    . @dbongino on why Mifsud is key in Spygate:

    "So either we have a Russian asset who's infiltrated the highest echelons of friendly Intelligence Services, or we have a friendly who was setting up @GeorgePapa19 - That's the real scandal. This was not spying, this was entrapment." pic.twitter.com/wGnV8HHur1

    -- M3thods (@M2Madness) May 4, 2019

    Bongino went into greater detail last month on Fox News - including that Mifsud's lawyer says he's connected to western, "friendly" intelligence :

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/2oNPsRGxNhg

    We know that Papadopoulos met multiple times with Mifsud in the first half of 2016:

    Note: Papadopoulos and Mifsud reportedly both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice. - The Markets Work

    In short - based on what we know, it appears that Joseph Mifsud was part of a setup by Western intelligence services on then-candidate Donald Trump.

    Did You Know:

    A Company Whose Director Represents Joseph Mifsud Changed Its Name To "No Vichok Ltd" After The Salisbury Attack. "Novichok" was the nerve agent used to poison fmr GRU agent Sergei Skripal when the UK govt was caught lying about the analysis from Porton Down

    -- Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 4, 2019

    ( it's true )

    Great claims require great evidence, however, which is why Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has requested a wide swath of documents about Mifsud from several federal agencies.

    As the Washington Examiner reports, Nunes - the House Intelligence Committee ranking member, " seeks information about who Mifsud was working for at the time and wrote in a letter that special counsel Robert Mueller "omits any mention of a wide range of contacts Mifsud had with Western political institutions and individuals" in his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election."

    As part of Mueller's Russia investigation, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October 2017 to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russians and served 12 days in prison late last year.

    The special counsel's sentencing memo to the District Court for the District of Columbia said Papadopoulos hindered the FBI's ability to get to Mifsud. "The defendant's lies undermined investigators' ability to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States. The government understands that the Professor left the United States on February 11, 2017 and he has not returned to the United States since then," the memo said.

    In his letter, Nunes says it is " still a mystery how the FBI knew to ask Papadopoulos specifically about Hillary Clinton's emails " if the bureau had not spoken with Mifsud. - Washington Examiner

    "If he is in fact a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals for not only the United States, but also our allies like the Italians and the Brits and others. Because if Mifsud is a Russian agent, he would know all kinds of our intelligence agents throughout the globe," said Nunes during a recent interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

    Look deeper at the Report re: Mifsud. One interesting omission --

    Why are there zero citations to Mifsud's 302 in the Mueller Report?

    -- Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) May 4, 2019

    [May 04, 2019] "Trump Was Not Just Spied Upon, It Was Entrapment"

    Notable quotes:
    "... The Senate minority leader–Deep Stater par excellence –knew whereof he spoke. But Trump somehow survived the storm, although sometimes it seemed as if he wouldn't. Now, some of the obvious parties –John K. Brennan and James Clapper with their apparatchik miens -- have suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs, as the Washington Times notes: ..."
    "... Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also leveled up highly publicized comments that President Trump could even be an "asset" of Russian President Vladimir Putin , part of a slew of remarks that critics say went far beyond the usual partisan sniping that can accompany a change of administrations. ..."
    "... More's afoot here, however, considerably more because the entire American intelligence system and the unique power referred to by Schumer are also now in those same crosshairs, as they should be. But many of the men and women involved are less overtly Stalinist in their style than Mssrs. Brennan and Clapper and slip more easily under the radar. ..."
    "... A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper – a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election. ..."
    "... "Crossfire Hurricane," as most know, is the codename the wannabe hipsters at the FBI gave the Trump-Russia investigation. But more important is the word "before" in Ms. Cleveland's title. ..."
    "... Papadopoulos and Page are the two naifs of the most obvious sort (sorry, guys) we have all seen on television who spent the last couple of years having to defend themselves against absurd charges. Considering the timing, it's pretty obvious they were being set up (i. e. entrapped) on some level well back during the Obama administration. ..."
    "... I suggest that an attempt was being made to implant Halper in the Trump campaign, one way or another, not just for spying purposes but actually to help create this collusion of the campaign with Russia–that is, to help manufacture it. ..."
    "... Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election , in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush – got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering. ..."
    "... We need Halper, under oath and unredacted. Whether that's possible is another question. ..."
    www.youtube.com
    Apr 02, 2019 | rawconservativeopinions.com

    Authored by Roger Simon via PJMedia.com,

    It's bad enough, as has been evident for some time, that Donald Trump and his campaign were being spied upon by our own government, but it's highly likely they were also subject to literal entrapment–at least a serious attempt was made.

    I don't mean the entrapment of promulgating the salacious Steele dossier both to the public and the FISA court as if it were the truth. That was more of a smear to justify a phony investigation. I mean something more subtle and LeCarré-like coming from the depths of our intelligence communities. It raises once more the question of the power of such agencies in a free society, a conundrum with no easy answers but of great significance to our lives.

    For all his New York rough-and-tumble, Trump was an innocent abroad when he arrived in Washington. Way back in January 2017, he was warned by old-timer Chuck Schumer that "intel officials have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

    The Senate minority leader–Deep Stater par excellence –knew whereof he spoke. But Trump somehow survived the storm, although sometimes it seemed as if he wouldn't. Now, some of the obvious parties –John K. Brennan and James Clapper with their apparatchik miens -- have suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs, as the Washington Times notes:

    Special counsel Robert Mueller's finding that there was no Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia to steal the 2016 election has unleashed a tsunami of outrage toward Obama-era intelligence chiefs, particularly former CIA Director John O. Brennan and former FBI Director James B. Comey, who are accused of pushing the allegation during congressional hearings, in social media posts and in highly charged interviews on television over the past two years.

    Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also leveled up highly publicized comments that President Trump could even be an "asset" of Russian President Vladimir Putin , part of a slew of remarks that critics say went far beyond the usual partisan sniping that can accompany a change of administrations.

    More's afoot here, however, considerably more because the entire American intelligence system and the unique power referred to by Schumer are also now in those same crosshairs, as they should be. But many of the men and women involved are less overtly Stalinist in their style than Mssrs. Brennan and Clapper and slip more easily under the radar.

    Notable among these, and perhaps able to reveal much of the McGuffin to the mystery of where this all started and how, is Stefan Halper. Mr. Halper is "an American foreign policy scholar and Senior Fellow at the University of Cambridge where he is a Life Fellow at Magdalene College and directs the Department of Politics and International Studies ." He is also a spook who worked for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, no less, and was a principle American connection to the UK's MI-6.

    Mr. Halper has (ahem) other connections :

    A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper – a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election.

    Hmm . The perspicacious Margot Cleveland had more to say the other day at The Federalist in " Who Launched An Investigation Into Trump's Campaign Before Crossfire Hurricane. "

    "Crossfire Hurricane," as most know, is the codename the wannabe hipsters at the FBI gave the Trump-Russia investigation. But more important is the word "before" in Ms. Cleveland's title.

    The Post further noted that the academic, since identified as Stefan Halper, first met with Trump campaign advisor Carter Page "a few weeks before the opening of the investigation," and then after Crossfire Hurricane's July 31, 2016, start, he met again with Carter Page and "with Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis," offering the latter his "foreign-policy expertise" for the Trump team. Then in September, Halper "reached out to George Papadopoulos, an unpaid foreign-policy adviser for the campaign, inviting him to London to work on a research paper."

    Papadopoulos and Page are the two naifs of the most obvious sort (sorry, guys) we have all seen on television who spent the last couple of years having to defend themselves against absurd charges. Considering the timing, it's pretty obvious they were being set up (i. e. entrapped) on some level well back during the Obama administration.

    Who ordered it is the obvious question, but I'm not going to leave it there.

    I suggest that an attempt was being made to implant Halper in the Trump campaign, one way or another, not just for spying purposes but actually to help create this collusion of the campaign with Russia–that is, to help manufacture it.

    Putting it another way, someone or some group wanted to create -- or, more subtly, to encourage the creation -- of Trump-Russia collusion from the inside in order to destroy Trump before, or failing that, after he was elected.

    How's that for a nefarious plot? Worthy of LeCarré or maybe even Graham Greene. But is it true? I wouldn't bet against it. Something close anyway.

    By the way, if I am right, this won't be the first time for Halper. And unfortunately for Republicans, the shoe was then on the proverbial other foot. As Glenn Greenwald wrote last year:

    Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election , in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush – got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.

    Republicans can console themselves that their malfeasance was more benign, relatively. This new one was outright sedition involving a foreign power. It is a blow to the heart of our democratic republic. We need Halper, under oath and unredacted. Whether that's possible is another question.

    [May 04, 2019] Geraldo Were investigators trying to entrap Trump

    May 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    Robert Mueller reportedly knew a year ago that there was no Russia collusion but left President Trump dangling, Geraldo Rivera says. #FoxandFriends #FoxNews

    Dion Peterson , 15 hours ago

    it was coup d'etat against America the voters the president and Constitution

    Spacecoastz , 15 hours ago

    The "Russia election interference" was an excuse to cover their spying. The real interference was the DNC, CIA, FBI, and DOJ...all weaponized agencies under Obama. The Mueller investigation knew day one there was no Trump/Russia collusion...their goal was to hide, cover, and obstruct for the Deep State. I have no doubt that trying to pin obstruction on Trump became one of their goals.

    Plutot Crever , 14 hours ago

    The FBI "meddled with our elections". Particularly the midterms. Mueller knew 19 months ago that there was no collusion. Thats almost two years. He and his team didnt tell anybody. He let Trump getting destroyed by CNN, NBC 24/7. The DNC stole the House.

    Gordon LeCroy , 15 hours ago

    Geraldo, Mueller was waiting until after the 2018 midterm election to disclose his report. In other words, Mueller interfered with the 2018 midterms and gave the Dems a huge win in Congress. When he testifies to Congress, I hope some Republicans rip him apart on this point.

    [May 03, 2019] Jim Jordan to Lou Dobbs Andrew McCabe can't be trusted

    You can't trust any word for McCabe.
    Comey stated that they have no information about collision with Russia but McCabe managed pushed Rosenstein to appoint the Special Prosecutor.
    Notable quotes:
    "... In March of 2017 Both Comey and McCabe testified under oath to Congress that they did not inform Congress they were investigating the President. If McCabe is now saying he did inform the Gang of Eight, then Comey and McCabe committed perjury in March of 2017. ..."
    Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) discusses how former FBI Director Andrew McCabe claimed that there were discussions within the DOJ on whether the 25th Amendment should be invoked to remove President Trump from office.


    Bob Beckel , 2 months ago

    In March of 2017 Both Comey and McCabe testified under oath to Congress that they did not inform Congress they were investigating the President. If McCabe is now saying he did inform the Gang of Eight, then Comey and McCabe committed perjury in March of 2017.

    tom p , 2 months ago

    They got caught with their pants down. All of them.

    CORYSart , 2 months ago

    McCabe for shackles 2019

    Ronald Torres , 2 months ago

    Gotta love Lou Dobbs!

    K T , 2 months ago (edited)

    I swear, Lou Dobbs, you are one of the rare people with any intelligence in everything to do with the corruption surrounding Trump and his administration, thank you! You are also the one who is also as disgusted by Rosenstein as I am, the worst.. a pathetic, wimpy psychopath! I have a question, though.. and this goes to you, Jim Jordan, too. It makes no sense to me that there is so much focus being put on the fact that McCabe lied.. Actually, this is totally irrelevant, in reality, because we also have evidence from both Baker and Page (in addition to McCabe, with his prior written memos) that Rosenstein wanted to secretly record Trump as an action to remove Trump under the 25th amendment! (And Rosenrat simply said he never AUTHORIZED anyone to wear a wire!) But bottom line, why isn't the focus on taking action against all of those involved with the very treasonous plot against Trump instead of getting caught up in a minor detail? It is as if no one can connect the dots except for you, Lou, and a few others! I hope that Barr follows thru.. I do have to say I have my concerns about his loyalty to Trump...


    Karl DeWeese , 2 months ago

    McCabe is sleaze however, another sleaze, senior bureaucrat Lois Lerner, used the power of the IRS to punish those who didn't share the political indoctrination she believes in. Her punishment, retirement with pay. Not holding my breath that anything of consequence, no FBI SWAT team, no perp walk, none of what the deep state has done to Trump supporters will happen to McCabe.

    christopher jones , 2 months ago

    The underlings who know the truth, DOJ, FBI, & other departments, agencies etc. are terrified of the consequences if they come forward. Add to this the legacy of the Hoover files, you can bet the dirt they have on the insiders demands they stay the course, or pay the consequences..,

    Kathie Logan , 2 months ago

    No matter how you look at it McCabe is guilty of treason! The whiny little vengeful Criminal who decided within 24 hours to take Vengeance against our president for firing a known Criminal!

    Jason Stinson , 2 months ago (edited)

    McCabe is a crook... he’s selling books if he was legit he’d still have a job. Follow the money 💰...We knew Trump was NOT involved with Russia. Pull their financial records going back ten years and cross reference it with who had the most to gain from a Clinton presidency. It’s time for freedom and transparency. We the People of the United States 🇺🇸 of America deserve justice for the treason that has been and is still being committed against us.

    Jessica Greene , 2 months ago

    These intelligence agencies have become too powerful and are now acting on their own and that is dangerous. The FBI and DOJ will investigate local police corruption but who is their to investigate when they are in fact corrupt? Obviously Congress has no teeth as subpoenas are ignored, people lie under oath and nothing happens to them. If nothing comes of this, never expect too see another strong Republican outside leader like Trump. It won't matter D or R as they are all the same and we will be a banana republic.

    Harry V , 2 months ago (edited)

    Andrew McCabe is a sick puppy! He doesn't know his job. Hillary and Bill Clinton's gang: Obama, John Brennan, James Clapper, Jim Baker, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissman, James Comey, Christopher Wray, Andrew McCabe, James Rybicki, Lisa Page, Peter Stzrock, Bruce Ohr, Nelly Ohr, Loretta Lynch, Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Samantha Powers, Susan Rice, Christopher Steele are all criminals. They protected and worked to exonerate Hillary of her crimes when ,in fact, she should be indicted, and then spied, lied, smear, try to convict President Trump without factual evidence. This has been a very coordinated conspiracy with backing of the fake press CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS, and democratic pundits! American's are being brain washed with a propaganda bullhorn!

    BeLL LoBee , 2 months ago

    What McCabe is doing is a public stunt to promote his new baseless book not worth reading. We have constantly heard the term Russia collusion zillion times from Democrats and all the fake news outlets, but we the American people haven't seen any solid evidence presented by Dems and fake news to prove the Russia collusion is real. The 2 year long investigation that costs American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, not mention lots of effort and time, has ended up leading to nothing. That huge amount of money could have been used to benefit our dying sick American veterans or children. After all, the Russia collusion is not real, it existed only in the heads of Dems and fake news reporters, who dementedly refused to call it, a hoax. Well, we the American people from now on can call the Russia collusion, a fairy tale, instead.

    [May 03, 2019] Strzok-gate: here are some recent sources of good investigative journalism on the subject

    May 03, 2019 | caucus99percent.com

    Linda Wood on Fri, 05/03/2019 - 11:28am

    Here are some recent

    sources of good investigative journalism on the subject, which I think you've probably read, but just to have them here:

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/spygate-the-inside-story-behind-the-allege...

    Spygate: The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump
    BY JEFF CARLSON
    March 28, 2019 Updated: April 11, 2019

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/05/02/big-puzzle-pieces-connec...

    Big Puzzle Pieces Connecting -- The CIA, FBI, and 2016 Political Surveillance is Merging
    Posted on May 2, 2019 by sundance

    The admissions within the New York Times story today -outlining how President Obama's intelligence apparatus ran simultaneous intelligence operations against the Trump campaign- are starting to merge the FBI and CIA operations. CTH anticipated this.

    With new information about the "U.K. operation" using Stefan Halper (CIA asset and FBI informant); and the details of the contacts by U.S. intelligence operative Azra Turk; we can overlay the timeline and see a clear picture

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/05/02/papadopoulos-responds-to...

    Papadopoulos Responds to Admissions the FBI/CIA Ran "Operations" Against Him .
    Posted on May 2, 2019 by sundance

    Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos appears on Fox with Tucker Carlson to discuss the revelations of the FBI/CIA running spy operations against him during the 2016 election. Papadopoulos says the FBI spy wanted him to slip up and say something; however, he had no information...

    [May 03, 2019] Trish Regan Obama's intel ops may have been weaponized

    May 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    FBN's Trish Regan and Trump 2020 Strategic Communications Director Marc Lotter discuss a new report that the Obama administration sent spies to gather dirt on the Trump campaign in 2016.

    FOX Business Network (FBN) is a financial news channel delivering real-time information across all platforms that impact both Main Street and Wall Street. Headquartered in New York -- the business capital of the world -- FBN launched in October 2007 and is the leading business network on television, topping CNBC in Business Day viewers for the second consecutive year. The network is available in more than 80 million homes in all markets across the United States. Owned by FOX, FBN has bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and London.


    Jan Blackman , 2 hours ago

    I hope Biden doesn't get away with his and his sons actions and all the illegal things they did in the Ukraine

    TheCladi8or , 2 hours ago

    When is that cockroach Obama gonna be squashed ? Really???? WHEN?

    Rowdy , 2 hours ago (edited)

    Barack Hussein O gave the order to Spy on the Trump Campaign and on President Trump. BHO is up to his Ears with all this Spying, Russia Gate, and making dirty deals with Ukraine.

    jpm5243 , 2 hours ago

    We already know Obama weaponized the IRS, the CIA and the DOJ... the Obamanation is corrupt to the core, so why would it be a surprise that he also weaponized the FBI?

    MEDiAgamer , 2 hours ago (edited)

    This is truly bigger than Watergate. Planned and order by the Clinton's. And for that I am sure!

    Rowdy , 2 hours ago

    Pencil Neck Adam Schiff is cleaning up all the CRAP left over from Barack Hussein O. This weasel is running interference and making all the noise he can against A.G. William Barr who is a good and decent man. God Bless A.G. Barr and his Family.

    William D Smith , 2 hours ago (edited)

    Obama weaponized just about all departments during his term. He used the EPA against farmers and land-owners. He used the IRS against conservative groups. He used the Intelligence groups against the American people, and the FBI and DOJ against anyone else that annoyed him. Obama and his people need to be investigated and if warranted, charged. But, this is what the left does.

    Samuel I , 1 hour ago

    Good Lord!! Obama.. Hillary.. Biden.. The FBI.. Then we have Omar, and Tlaib, and AOC getting all of the new praise. The media CONTINUES to cover it up. Amazing that the NYT ran it.

    Joe Friday 2 hours ago

    "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

    DEM's think, 'Obama anti-Trump crimes in Ukraine STAY IN UKRAINE'.

    [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
    "... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
    "... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
    "... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
    "... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
    "... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
    "... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
    "... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
    "... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
    "... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
    Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.


    tom p , 2 months ago (edited)

    FBI agents selling books about their sedition. Only in America.

    TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

    Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.

    TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

    Anybody who has read the Strzok-Page text messages can see why Trump was investigated... The reason was BIAS.

    Unknown Texan , 2 months ago

    Conspiracy to overthrow a setting President and nothing will happen.

    XIEXIE , 2 months ago

    Why he didn't think the same about Hilary about all the obvious evidences! Such a embarrassment of FBI and DOJ!

    G1 Sokool , 2 months ago

    The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI.

    Master Of Darkness , 2 months ago

    HIGH TREASON !!!

    R Coyote , 2 months ago (edited)

    Bunch of narcissists in charge running a mock!

    c17360 , 2 months ago

    McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within!

    ryvr madduck , 2 months ago (edited)

    When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own.

    Mile high P , 2 months ago

    Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours.

    SanAntonioSlim , 2 months ago (edited)

    The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.

    Keith McCormick , 2 months ago

    America's first attempted coup. Pure sedition.

    Steve Jones , 2 months ago

    Time to sweep the leg of the corruption in the FBI

    Ronald Cates , 2 months ago

    IT All LEADS BACK TO HILLARY

    MegaRudyray , 2 months ago

    When you fire the director, then tell people "I believe Putin".....yes, they are going to start investigating you.

    Phillip Sumpter , 2 months ago

    May the pendulum finally, please swing the other way into combating the true collusion happening on the Left.

    billsd13 , 2 months ago

    No questions from 60 Minutes regarding the FISA warrant and how that was a product of the Clinton campaign, and no questions along those lines.

    tmc che , 2 months ago (edited)

    Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.

    MWV , 2 months ago (edited)

    Well, I believe McCabe was questioned during hearings and didn't he deny all this under oath??? How has he not been Roger Stoned yet?

    Brian P , 2 months ago

    Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts.

    James Christianson , 2 months ago

    Former deep state Berryboma crony. One of many slated for hanging. One of many. Along with Berryboma.

    noemi barrios , 2 months ago

    oh so we should believe the liar McCabe who lied to congress and is under grand jury indictment! throw him in jail with comey!

    tamimerkaz , 2 months ago

    McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe, Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.

    bigwaverider , 2 months ago

    McCabe is still at it. He's got Russian derangement syndrome.

    Otie Brown , 2 months ago

    So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? That is dangerous to a demoncracy. It is not legal at all.

    Tobias Forge , 2 months ago

    Just image if Hillary was able to steal the election ... We'd still have an FBI and Justice Department full of traitors to America.

    [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor

    Highly recommended!
    McCabe came out of this interview as pretty capable and dangerous person
    This is a soft-gloves interview by NYT presstitute who was instrument in sustaining Russiagate color revolution.
    McCabe in this interview admits that he pushed for the appointment of the special prosecutor.
    McCabe applied double standard to Hillary investigation. Before that he run politically charges investigation of FIFA
    This can be classified as McCabe led coup d'état. See also Alan Dershowitz Talks about Andrew McCabe's 60 Minuets Interview - YouTube
    Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    Andrew McCabe intervied by NYT´s Adam Goldman After Words C-span Feb 26 2019 - YouTube

    Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.

    [May 03, 2019] Sen. Hawley to Barr: If Unelected Bureaucrats Can Start Partisan Probes We Don t Have A Democracy Anymore

    May 03, 2019 | www.realclearpolitics.com

    Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) asked Attorney General William Barr about the unprecedented counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaign at Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

    HAWLEY: Let's talk a little more about spying. Counterintelligence investigations like the one we now know the FBI launched against candidate Trump and President Trump, those are designed to thwart spying and sabotage, is that correct?
    BARR: That's correct.

    HAWLEY: To your knowledge has the FBI ever launch aid counterintelligence investigation of another president that you're aware of?

    BARR: Not to my knowledge.

    HAWLEY: So it's safe to say that to your knowledge this move was completely unprecedented?

    BARR: to my knowledge.

    Hawley asks Barr about the hatred investigators had for Trump supporters:
    HAWLEY: Speaking of particular individuals who were involved, I have to say I've listened to this testimony all day today, and to me, maybe the most shocking thing I've heard is this. The chairman read it earlier. August 26, 2016 -- this is a text message from Peter Strzok, a top counterintelligence investigator, who we now know started this counter-spy investigation against the president of the United States.

    Peter Strzok says, "Just went to a southern Virginia Wal-Mart. I could Smell the Trump support." Smell is capitalized. "Just went to a southern Virginia Wal-Mart. I could Smell the Trump support."

    In my view, do you want to know what's really going on here? Do you want to know why the counterintelligence investigation really happened? Do you want to know why we're all really sitting here today? That's why, right there, is because an unelected bureaucrat, an unelected official in this government who clearly has open disdain, if not outright hatred for Trump voters like the people of my state, for instance. I could "Smell" the Trump support? Then tried to overturn the results of a democratic election. That's what's really going on here. That's the story. That's why we're here today.

    I cannot believe that a top official of this government with the kind of power that these people had would try to exercise their own prejudices, and that's what this is, it's open, blatant prejudice, would try to use that in order to overturn a democratic election. And to my mind, that's the real crisis here, and it is a crisis. If there is not accountability, if this can go on in the United States of America, then my goodness gracious, we don't have a democracy anymore.

    [May 03, 2019] Lindsey Graham: When The Mueller Report Is Put To Bed, We re Going To Investigate How All Of This Started

    May 03, 2019 | www.realclearpolitics.com

    "Once the Mueller report is put to bed, and it will be soon, this committee is going to look long and hard at how all of this started," Graham said. "We're going to look at the FISA warrant process. Did Russia provide Christopher Steele the information about Trump, that turned out to be garbage, that was used to get a warrant on an American citizen and if so, how did the system fail? Was there a real effort between Papadopoulos and anybody in Russia to use the Clinton e-mails stolen by the Russians, or is that thought planted in his mind? I don't know, but we're going to look."

    [May 03, 2019] WaPo, CNN Virtually Silent After NYT Reveals 2nd FBI Spy Sent To Infiltrate Trump Campaign

    I don't want to say # AGBarr is positively engaged on the Dem(on)rats. His mere level headed and professionalism exposed the Dem(on)rats' circus act.
    Notable quotes:
    "... You might remember that McCabe picked Goldman of all people to interview him about the use of 'Confidential Human Sources' in Operation Crossfire Hurricane - funny that! ..."
    "... Goldman's (McCabe's) argument is that the President was a national security risk because he fired Comey. "Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security." ..."
    "... 3 years and at least 33 million have been wasted in attempt to link Trump campaign to Russian intelligence ..."
    "... Brennan used any Russian talking to a U.S. person as a reason to surveillance the U.S. person. Red scare...the century old excuse used by the FBI to illegally spy on Americans. The history books won't describe his actions as honorable ..."
    "... What was it that prompted Goldman (ie McCabe) to publish his latest article on the FBI Russia investigation? Answer: Barr's criticism's of the FBI. ..."
    "... CIA/FBI helping each other out. Informally of course. Standard off the books quid pro quo. ..."
    "... The F.B.I. received the information from the Australian government on July 26, 2016, the special counsel's report said, and the bureau code-named its investigation Crossfire Hurricane . ..."
    May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Both the Washington Post and CNN - which breathlessly reported on their peers' anonymously-sourced anti-Trump propaganda for two years - have somehow failed to write a single article mentioning Azra Turk . As the Times revealed on Thursday, the FBI operative who went by the name Azra Turk repeatedly flirted with Trump aide George Papadopoulos during their encounters as well as in email exchanges according to an October, 2018 Daily Caller report, confirmed by the Times.

    While in London in 2016, Ms. Turk exchanged emails with Mr. Papadopoulos, saying meeting him had been the " highlight of my trip ," according to messages provided by Mr. Papadopoulos.

    " I am excited about what the future holds for us :), " she wrote. - New York Times

    And as the Times makes clear, "the FBI sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer" to investigate the Trump campaign. Verified account @ ByronYork May 2 Follow Follow @ ByronYork Following Following @ ByronYork Unfollow Unfollow @ ByronYork Blocked Blocked @ ByronYork Unblock Unblock @ ByronYork Pending Pending follow request from @ ByronYork Cancel Cancel your follow request to @ ByronYork More

    In his House testimony, George Papadopoulos described undercover FBI informant Stefan Halper introducing him to undercover FBI informant 'Azra Turk.' pic.twitter.com/8jO4lK6Ldt

    So I get there. I get to London. And he introduces -- or he does not introduce me to, but I can't remember exactly how I came into contact with his assistant, this young lady named Azra Turk, which I think is a fake name, by the way. My --

    Mr. Meadows. Why do you believe it's a fake name?

    Mr. Papadopoulos. Reading -- reading Twitter and people saying that Azra in Turkish means pure and then Turk. So unless she has the name of pure Turk. I don't know. Maybe that's -- those are common names in Turkey. I don't know. But it just seems that it was probably a fake alias.

    Another beautiful young lady -- you know, I had many young beautiful ladies coming into my life with Joseph Mifsud and now another professor. The professors liked to introduce me to young beautiful women.

    And we're sitting there, and she didn't strike me as a Cambridge associate at all. So right away, I was suspicious that there was something not right here. She -- her English was very bad. She spoke with -- I think she was a Turkish national, but she also might have been a dual American citizen. I'm not sure. And she took me to -- out for drinks in London and was probing me a lot.

    Meanwhile, a Russian-born academic falsely accused of being a Kremlin 'honeypot' operative against Mike Flynn, Svetlana Lokhova, has an interesting theory as to why the Times published the '2nd spy' revelation in the first place.

    Svetlana Lokhova ‏ @ RealSLokhova 8h 8 hours ago More

    I am a 'veteran' of reading Adam Goldman (NYT) articles about Halper's role with the FBI so here are pointers. You always have to ask: 1) Why did he write the article? 2) When did he write the article? 3) What is the narrative he is placing? 4) What has he left out? THREAD

    Svetlana Lokhova @RealSLokhova

    Follow ) v

    2/ You might remember that McCabe picked Goldman of all people to interview him about the use of 'Confidential Human Sources' in
    Operation Crossfire Hurricane - funny that!

    Andrew McCabe intervied by NYT's Adam Goldma...

    Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Go...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYUWZ9AF0M

    4/ Goldman's (McCabe's) argument is that the President was a national security risk because he fired Comey. "Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security."

    3 years and at least 33 million have been wasted in attempt to link Trump campaign to Russian intelligence. As I stated 2 years ago, I am not A Russian honeytrap for Gen Flynn.

    RG ‏ @ rgreader 15h 15 hours ago More

    Replying to @ RealSLokhova

    Brennan used any Russian talking to a U.S. person as a reason to surveillance the U.S. person. Red scare...the century old excuse used by the FBI to illegally spy on Americans. The history books won't describe his actions as honorable

    Svetlana Lokhova @RealSLokhova • 7h v

    7/ This is Goldman's implausible explanation for spying. The President is portrayed as nuts, nytimes.com/2018/05/18/us/...

    President Trump accused the without evidence, of planting a mole inside his campaign to undermine his presidential run. But the F.B.I. in fact dispatched a confidential informant to meet with Trump campaign advisers as it began its investigation into possible links between his campaign and Russia.

    8/ What was it that prompted Goldman (ie McCabe) to publish his latest article on the FBI Russia investigation? Answer: Barr's criticism's of the FBI.

    Barr: One of the things I want to look -- there are people -- many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a FISA warrant. I would like to find out whether that is, in fact, true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop the threat as it's being represented.

    9/ The message by NYT (McCabe) is that the FBI threw their best guys at this, hence sudden reference to Operation 'Ghost Stories'.

    10/ The main message is that the Russia investigation was legally predicated,

    CNN law enforcement analyst and retired FBI agent James A. Gagliano opined on Twitter that perhaps the Times was helping the intelligence community get out in front of the upcoming Inspector General report on the FBI's conduct during the 2016 election.

    James A. Gagliano @JamesAGagliano

    Must caveat with -- would have had to have been a "CERTIFIED" FBI Undercover Agent (UCA), who had passed the UCA course, been pre-screened (psychologicals) and been handpicked by FBI HQ for a high-profile overseas assignment. Also, Legat London would've assuredly coordinated w/MI5.

    James A. Gagliano @JamesAGagliano

    Unless it was foreign intelligence service supplying the "honey trap.'' Papadopoulos argued *Azra Turk* had thick accent -- which wouldn't preclude her from FBI service, if US citizen. Some argue Agency employee. Surmise, absent heavy redaction, pending IG report lays this bare.

    James A. Gagliano @JamesAGagliano

    MAYBE this is why @nytimes helped get out in front of the news cycle that will roil following IG report that may be released this month or next.

    Yog Soggoth , 1 hour ago link

    Papadapoulos was smart enough to get pictures of her with his phone ... Right?

    malek , 1 hour ago link

    Who is Azra Turk?

    RightLineBacker , 4 minutes ago link

    An FBI spy.

    Thought Processor , 1 hour ago link

    CIA/FBI helping each other out. Informally of course. Standard off the books quid pro quo.

    11b40 , 2 hours ago link

    As I understand it, the CIA is not supposed to be involved with spying on American citizens, but the FBI has wide ranging latitude. This article says she was presumed to be FBI, but Papadoploulos says he thinks she was CIA. So, it would be a graver offense if she was CIA and busy performing illegal spying activities on an American citizen.

    If I am fuzzy on this, maybe someone can clarify who knows the rules a little better.

    surf@jm , 2 hours ago link

    New York Slimes in collusion with the CIA and FBI deepstate.......

    No **** Sherlock...........

    my new username , 2 hours ago link

    Will she disappear like Mifsud...

    C.J. , 2 hours ago link

    MSM burying the truth? Well imagine my shock. I'm surprised the likes of CNN and Facebook are still trying to hide their ban on truth and just openly claim truth is hate speech.

    HideTheWeenie , 2 hours ago link

    If you work at the CIA, do you get "honeypot" privileges ?

    They must have a lot of downtime.

    Wonder if "honeypot" is a line item in the CIA budget and how they forecast that. Do their rates decline over time, maybe with an associated depletion account set up like for petroleum reserves. Lots of questions here.

    Northbridge , 4 hours ago link

    Here's a link to the actual article.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/politics/fbi-government-investigator-trump.html?searchResultPosition=1

    [quote]

    "Mr. Barr reignited the controversy last month when he told Congress , "I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal." He backed off the charged declaration later in the same hearing, saying: "I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting that it wasn't adequately predicated. But I need to explore that." "

    ......

    Mr. Barr again defended his use of the term "spying" at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, saying he wanted to know more about the F.B.I.'s investigative efforts during 2016 and explained that the early inquiry most likely went beyond the use of an informant and a court-authorized wiretap of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, who had interacted with a Russian intelligence officer.

    .....

    Weeks before Mr. Papadopoulos met with Ms. Turk and Mr. Halper, the F.B.I. had opened its investigation into the Russia effort -- based largely on information that Mr. Papadopoulos had relayed to an Australian diplomat about a Russian offer to help the Trump campaign by releasing thousands of hacked Democratic emails.

    The F.B.I. received the information from the Australian government on July 26, 2016, the special counsel's report said, and the bureau code-named its investigation Crossfire Hurricane .

    Investigators scrambled to determine whether Mr. Papadopoulos had any Russian contacts while deciding to scrutinize three additional Trump campaign aides who had concerning ties to Russia: Paul Manafort, its chairman; Michael T. Flynn, who went on to be the president's first national security adviser; and Mr. Page.

    [/quote]

    AntiLeMaire , 4 hours ago link

    His response: "I'm just going to leave it right now as a 'government investigator.' I use that wording for a reason, and I'm going to leave it at that."

    Priceless!

    Not FBI, just a 'government investigator.' and "I use that wording for a reason," and people on Twitter all trying to solve that complicated puzzle ! LOL.

    [May 03, 2019] Barr Launches Wide-Ranging Probe Into 2016 FBI Spying

    There is definite some split in the US elite. That's why Trump survived the color revolution. This is actually debate about future for the USA neoliberal socisty and referendum of "Full spectrum Dominance" policies.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Attorney General William Barr told the Senate Judiciary Panel this week that he has assembled a team at the Justice Department to probe whether the spying conducted by the FBI against the Trump campaign in 2016 was improper, reports Bloomberg . ..."
    "... Barr suggested that he would focus on former senior leaders at the FBI and Justice Department. ..."
    "... As Bloomberg notes, Barr's review could receive a boost by a Thursday New York Times article acknowledging that the FBI sent a 'honeypot' spy to London in 2016 to pose as a research assistant and gather intelligence from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos over possible Trump campaign links to Russia. ..."
    "... During Barr's Wednesday testimony, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) told Barr " It appears to me that the Obama administration, Justice Department and FBI decided to place their bets on Hillary Clinton and focus their efforts" when it came to investigating the Trump campaign. ..."
    "... On Thursday, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) issued a criminal referral for Nellie Ohr - a former Fusion GPS contractor who passed anti-Trump research to her husband, then the #4 official at the DOJ. ..."
    "... The FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign after a self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, Joseph Mifsud, fed Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia had "dirt" on Clinton. That rumor would be coaxed out of the former Trump aide by another Clinton-connected individual - Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who would notify authorities of Papadopoulos' admission, officially launching the investigation. ..."
    "... They all play for the same (((Globalist))) team. NO ONE is going to jail. They are performers, vamping until the 'event(s)' come to pass, which will 'change the ******* subject,' bigly. NO ONE is going to jail. ..."
    "... The Mueller/Russia charade has been obvious to anyone with half a brain for over two years. If you still believed it after it was exposed that Hillary paid for the dossier, then you are truly an idiot. ..."
    "... It makes no difference what you think of Trump. I think he is a Zionist tool. But if you have not yet seen that the Mueller/Russia nonsense is 100% Hillary's butthurt doing then you are truly an idiot. ..."
    "... Bathtub Barry did nothing about “Russian” interference. Absolutely nothing. Why oh why did Obama do absolutely nothing? Because he inserted spies into the campaign and the administration. And you think trump would trust a staff member at that point? And if he would of brought Kushner who he thinks he could trust you would of skewered him. Please keep making the point for all of us. https://youtu.be/ybvmu7kM8z0 ..."
    "... We shall see. I'm not getting my hopes up that justice will be served. For one thing, Barr is keeping alive the RU meddled narrative. Now that could be either to pin it on Barry for not stopping it, but it could also be to keep Mueller et al. out of prison by lending legitimacy to the SC. ..."
    "... Barr, Huber and Horowitz ..... We shall see. The fact that Sessions chose Huber and Horowitz does not make me confident that justice will be served. ..."
    May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    Attorney General William Barr told the Senate Judiciary Panel this week that he has assembled a team at the Justice Department to probe whether the spying conducted by the FBI against the Trump campaign in 2016 was improper, reports Bloomberg . Barr suggested that he would focus on former senior leaders at the FBI and Justice Department.

    "To the extent there was overreach, what we have to be concerned about is a few people at the top getting it into their heads that they know better than the American people," said Barr.

    Barr will also review whether the infamous Steele dossier - a collection of salacious and unverified claims against Donald Trump, assembled by a former British spy and paid for by the Clinton campaign - was fabricated by the Russian government to trick the FBI and other US agencies. (Will Barr investigate whether Steele made the whole thing up for his client, Fusion GPS?)

    "We now know that he was being falsely accused," Barr said of Trump. "We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon."

    Mueller's report didn't say there were false accusations against Trump. It said the evidence of cooperation between the campaign and Russia "was not sufficient to support criminal charges." Investigators were unable to get a complete picture of the activities of some relevant people, the special counsel found.

    Although Barr's review has only begun, it's helping to fuel a narrative long embraced by Trump and some of his Republican supporters: that the Russia investigation was politically motivated and concocted from false allegations in order to spy on Trump's campaign and ultimately undermine his presidency . - Bloomberg

    As Bloomberg notes, Barr's review could receive a boost by a Thursday New York Times article acknowledging that the FBI sent a 'honeypot' spy to London in 2016 to pose as a research assistant and gather intelligence from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos over possible Trump campaign links to Russia.

    The Trump re-election campaign immediately seized on the Times report as evidence that improper spying did occur. "As President Trump has said, it is high time to investigate the investigators," said Trump campaign manager, Brad Parscale in a statement.

    During Barr's Wednesday testimony, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) told Barr " It appears to me that the Obama administration, Justice Department and FBI decided to place their bets on Hillary Clinton and focus their efforts" when it came to investigating the Trump campaign.

    Depending on what Barr finds, his review of the Russia probe could give Trump ammunition to defend himself in continuing congressional inquiries -- and in a potential impeachment for obstructing justice. Barr told senators that Trump's actions can't be seen as obstruction if he was exercising his constitutional authority as president to put an end to an illegitimate investigation.

    Barr's efforts follow two years of work by a group of House Republicans who have been conducting dozens of interviews regarding the FBI's and Justice Department's conduct in the early stages of investigation of Trump and his campaign. - Bloomberg

    On Thursday, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) issued a criminal referral for Nellie Ohr - a former Fusion GPS contractor who passed anti-Trump research to her husband, then the #4 official at the DOJ.

    On Thursday, Meadows said that Barr's "willingness to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation is the first step in putting the questionable practices of the past behind us," and that the AG's "tenacity is sure to be rewarded."

    The FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign after a self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, Joseph Mifsud, fed Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia had "dirt" on Clinton. That rumor would be coaxed out of the former Trump aide by another Clinton-connected individual - Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who would notify authorities of Papadopoulos' admission, officially launching the investigation.

    Barr says he wants to get to the bottom of it.

    His review will examine the above chain of events that set the investigation into motion, and whether any US agencies were engaged in spying on or investigating the Trump campaign before the probe was officially launched .

    Barr said he's working with FBI Director Christopher Wray "to reconstruct exactly what went down." He said he has "people in the department helping me review the activities over the summer of 2016."

    Notably, Barr said his aides will be "working very closely" with the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz.

    Horowitz is conducting his own investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and whether there were abuses when the FBI obtained a secret warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in October 2016 to spy on another foreign policy adviser to the campaign, Carter Page. - Bloomberg

    Barr will also investigate when the DOJ and FBI knew that the Democratic Party and Clinton was Steele .

    More subterfuge, or is this really happening?


    Rich Monk , 21 minutes ago link

    Behind closed doors all of these republicans, and democrats are laughing together, drinking, having their steak and lobster dinners while the masses think that something is happening for their side. More theater, more wasting time and money, always taking down America from within, one day at a time! Government means force, violence, lying, thieving, murdering, and those are it's best qualities.

    J S Bach , 24 minutes ago link

    So whom does the "probe" consist of? Who's investigating the investigators? This is kinda like the mafia policing itself. In my opinion, this is all show just to make the plebs think some form of justice is afoot. When lengthy prison sentences and executions for treason begin, then we'll KNOW justice is being served. Same thing with the banksters.

    ENDGAME8 , 20 minutes ago link

    id imagine the replacements are investigating the outgoing “investigators” but that’s just logic.

    FEDERAL BUREAU OF "INVESTIGATION"

    The Alliance , 27 minutes ago link

    They all play for the same (((Globalist))) team. NO ONE is going to jail. They are performers, vamping until the 'event(s)' come to pass, which will 'change the ******* subject,' bigly. NO ONE is going to jail.

    Schooey , 34 minutes ago link

    The Mueller/Russia charade has been obvious to anyone with half a brain for over two years. If you still believed it after it was exposed that Hillary paid for the dossier, then you are truly an idiot.

    It makes no difference what you think of Trump. I think he is a Zionist tool. But if you have not yet seen that the Mueller/Russia nonsense is 100% Hillary's butthurt doing then you are truly an idiot.

    If Justice is not served in this case (and truly served, i.e. Obama impeached and imprisoned) and some scum bag like any of the democrat candidates become president, it is going to be the dark ages in the US, economically, morally and psychologically.

    Obamaroid Ointment , 36 minutes ago link

    Oberführer Müeller, McCabe, Moochie, McAuliffe, Moussaoui, MSNBC, Mad Maxipad, Matthews and Madcow Maddow, Maduro, Milano, Mittens, Mao, Merkel, Maher, Marx, McCainiac, McConnell, MS-13, MSM-13, MI6, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mexico, Musk, Moffa, Moscow, Moonbats, Martha’s Vineyard, Meathead Reiner, Michael Moron, Malcolm X, Mica and her Moron Joe show, Michael Sussmann, Malaria Obama, Mullah & Ilhan Omars, OWS, Rosie O’Donuts, Moochelle & Barry H Obama, Obamaphones, Obamacare, Oprah, OJ, Oswald, Omarosa, Oakland, Open Borders, DNC, DPRK Kims, Detroit, Democrats, Deep State, David Corn, Dohrn, Dunham, Dorsey, Donald Young, “Butch” Kagan, Debra Katz, Karaffa, KGB, Kalifornia, Kwanzaa, Kaepernick, Khomeini, Khamenei, Khalidi, Kortan, Kristol, Kristallnacht, Kasich, Khan, Kaine, Kennedy, Kwamme Kilpatrick, Khobar Towers, Kevin Jennings, Tsarnaev Bros, TSA, TDS, Torricelli, Tinkles, Tina Tchen, Tesla, Tlaib, Twitter, Tehran, Trayvon, Toscas, Tapper, Dead (finally) Ted Kennedy, Nadler, Nizich, Northam, NEA, NKVD, NPR, NYT, NYC, NBC, NSA, Ninth Circuit, Nine Eleven, Napolitano, NAMBLA, NJ, NFL kneelers, NFL, Slick Willy Hildabeast Chelsea Hubbell-Clintons, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Crime Family, Clinton Body Count, Justin Cooper, Chlamydia, Colbert, Clooney, Clyburn, Conyers, Cummings, Cash For Clunkers, Carter Page, Canada, Clapper, Crowley, China, Caracas, Citgo, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, Janet Reno, Jimmies Carter Comey and Carey, Chasten, CNN, CBS, CBC, Cartels, Caliphate, Cali, Canada, California, Client 9, Climate Change, Communists, Crowley, Couric, Cuomo, Colbert, Costa Rica, Cantor, Castro, Ché, Chowdhury, Chavez, Chicago, Chelsea Handler, Chris Stevens, Chuck Todd, Chris Matthews, Cheryl Mills, Christine Ford, Ceausescu, Cloward, Piven, Penn, Priestap, Pravda, Prius, Pizzagate, PDVSA, Pelosi, Pagliano, Papadopoulos, Philadelphia, Keith X Ellison, Erdogan, Emanuel, EU, EBT, EPA, Vince Foster, FBI, FSB, FISA, Fake News, Ferguson, Feminazis, Fonda, Feinstein, Facebook, Fairfax, Food Stamps, Frank Marshall Davis, Father Pfleger, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Federal Reserve, Fast & Furious, Fistgate, Farrakhan, Farzad Fazeli, Flake, Flint, Foxx, Free Government Cheese, Fire Island, Jennifer Flowers, Fusion GPS, GRU, Google, Gaddafi, Gestapo, Gutiérrez, Gulag, Gacy, Gruber, Gonorrhea, Geithner, Goebbels, Griffin, Grahamnesty, Ginsberg, Greg Craig, Government Motors, Glenn Simpson, Boston Globe, Global Warming, Jamie Gorelick, Wasserman-Schultz, Sandy Berger, Jacob Sullivan, Russell Simmons, Nate Spencer, Stasi, Scarborough, Smollett, Soros, Souter, Solyndra, Skolkovo, Swalwell, Subramanian, Syphilis, Steele, Strzok, Streisand, Sarandon, Sandinistas, Sharia, Sharia Obama, Spike Lee, Samantha Bee, San Francisco, Stalin, Struthers, Sharpton, Simpson, Sh¡+holes, Seattle, Siberia, Somalia, Sinaloa, SNL, Safe School Czar Kevin Jennings, Schiff heads, Shemp Smith, Samuel Jackson, Sarah Backus, Sergei Millian, Sanctuary Cities, San Bernadino, Shoe Bomber, Boxer, Booker, Blitzer, Bushes, bin Laden, Ben Rhodes, butt plugged Buttigieg, Bernie Schwartz, Bernie Sanders, Sandy Berger, Slick Willie Brown, de Blasio, Bernake, Bernstein, Behar, Boehner, Brennan, Brzezinski, Breyer, Beto, Bozo, Biden,Bezos, Baldwin, Buffoons, Borat, Boko Harem, Benghazi, Blind Sheik, BLM, Boston Bombers, Bathhouse Barry, Baltimore, Ron Brown, Michael Brown, Michael Mann, Moonbeam Brown, Brokeback Mountain, Barney Frank, WTC, Rev Wright, Bob Woodward, Woodrow Wilson, Wheatley, Weissmann, Weiner, Wray, Warren, WaPo, Waco, Whoopi, Weinberg, Warner, Wahhaj, Waters, Whitewater, Willey, Webb Hubbell, Wise Latina, Lauer, Lisa Page, PBS, Portland, Pol Pot, Perkins Coie, LBJ, Lois Lerner, Lynch, Lewinsky, Leshchenko, Lieawatha, Lenin, Lennon, Lemon, Lindsay Graham, Los Zetas, Los Angeles, LGBTQ, Larry Bland, Larry Sinclair, Lanny Davis, Loral Space Corp, Susan Rice, Reggie Love, Rahm, RINOs, Ryan, Romney, Rubio, Reuters, Rose Law Firm, Ruemmler, Rybicki, Ruby Ridge, Red Hen, Ramadan, Denise Rich, Marc Rich, Seth Rich, Tony Rezko, Rangel, Rosenstein, Richard Nixon, Joy Reid, Richard Reid, Van Hollen, Harry Reid, HIV, Halper, Hamptons, Uncle Ho, Heather Samuelson, HillaryTheHildabeast, Herpes, Herring, Honecker, Holtyn, Holton, Holder, Hostin, Havana, Himmler, Hirono, Hawaii, Honduras, Hollyweirds, Huma Weiner, Iran, Iraq, IRS, ISIS, Vermont, Vick, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Jesse Jackson, Juárez, Juncker, Jihad, James Baker, EU, El Salvador, UN, USS Cole, Underwear Bomber, UraniumOne, Zuckerberg, Zarif, ABC, ADC, ATF, AIDS, AOC, AP, Acosta, Amnesty, Ayers, Antifa, Ayatollahs, Arafat, Ahmadinejad, Afghanistan, Amazon, Arkansas, Adolf, Allred, Alinsky, Abedin, Atta, Awan, Allison Hrabar, Alcee Hastings, Al Qaida, Al Sharpton, al-Awlaki, al-Zawahiri, Abdulmutallab, Anita Hill, Andrew Weissmann, Andrew Goldstein, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, and more, we’ve seen this national socialist show before.

    Sandiegoman2 , 45 minutes ago link

    And the gullible ZH crowd eats it up and shouts "lock them up"

    ENDGAME8 , 27 minutes ago link

    Because he didn’t trust any one because Bathtub Barry did nothing about “Russian” interference. Absolutely nothing. Why oh why did Obama do absolutely nothing? Because he inserted spies into the campaign and the administration. And you think trump would trust a staff member at that point? And if he would of brought Kushner who he thinks he could trust you would of skewered him. Please keep making the point for all of us. https://youtu.be/ybvmu7kM8z0

    Schooey , 49 minutes ago link

    We shall see. I'm not getting my hopes up that justice will be served. For one thing, Barr is keeping alive the RU meddled narrative. Now that could be either to pin it on Barry for not stopping it, but it could also be to keep Mueller et al. out of prison by lending legitimacy to the SC.

    Barr, Huber and Horowitz ..... We shall see. The fact that Sessions chose Huber and Horowitz does not make me confident that justice will be served. We shall see, shortly I hope.

    If justice is not served the Republic is truly dead.

    [May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move...

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Mr. Barr's stolid demeanor during the Wednesday session was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be not insane in the long-running lunatic degeneration of national politics. ..."
    "... In short and in effect, the Democratic Party itself is headed to trial on a vector that takes it straight into November next year. How do you imagine it will look to voters when Mr. Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, his NSA Director James Clapper, a baker's dozen of former Obama top FBI and DOJ officials, including former AG Loretta Lynch, and sundry additional players in the great game of RussiaGate Gotcha end up 'splainin' their guts out to a whole different cast of federal prosecutors? It's hardly out of the question that Barack Obama himself and Mrs. Clinton may face charges in all this mischief and depravity. ..."
    "... It's a further irony of the moment that the suddenly leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, is neck-deep in that spilled garbage, the story unspooling even as I write that then-Veep Uncle Joe strong-armed the Ukraine government to fire its equivalent of Attorney General to quash an investigation of his son, Hunter, who received large sums of money from the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, which had mystifyingly appointed the young American to its board of directors after the US-sponsored overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych. ..."
    May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    "Impeachment is too good for him," Nancy Pelosi declared of the president on Thursday after "his lapdog" - as she styled Attorney General William Barr - refused to be whipped by grandstanding Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. What did Madam Speaker have in mind then? Dragging Mr. Trump behind a Chevy Tahoe over four miles of broken light bulbs? Staking him onto a nest of fire ants? How about a beheading at the capable hands of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)?

    Mr. Barr's stolid demeanor during the Wednesday session was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be not insane in the long-running lunatic degeneration of national politics.

    Of course, the reason for the continued hysteria among Democrats is that the two-year solemn inquiry by the august former FBI Director, Mr. Mueller, is being revealed daily as a mendacious fraud with criminal overtones running clear through Democratic ranks beyond even the wicked Hillary Clinton to the sainted former president Obama, who may have supervised his party's collusion with foreign officials to interfere in the 2016 election.

    Mr. Barr's hints that he intends to tip this dumpster of political subterfuge, to find out what was at the bottom of it, is being taken as a death threat to the Democratic Party, as well it should be. A lot of familiar names and faces will be rolling out of that dumpster into the grand juries and federal courtrooms just as the big pack of White House aspirants jets around the primary states as though 2020 might be anything like a normal election.

    In short and in effect, the Democratic Party itself is headed to trial on a vector that takes it straight into November next year. How do you imagine it will look to voters when Mr. Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, his NSA Director James Clapper, a baker's dozen of former Obama top FBI and DOJ officials, including former AG Loretta Lynch, and sundry additional players in the great game of RussiaGate Gotcha end up 'splainin' their guts out to a whole different cast of federal prosecutors? It's hardly out of the question that Barack Obama himself and Mrs. Clinton may face charges in all this mischief and depravity.

    It's surely true that the public is sick of the RussiaGate spectacle. (I know readers of this blog complain about it.) But it's no exaggeration to say that this is the worst and most tangled scandal that the US government has ever seen, and that failing to resolve it successfully really is an existential threat to the project of being a republic. I was a young newspaper reporter during Watergate and that was like a game of animal lotto compared to this garbage barge of malfeasance.

    It's a further irony of the moment that the suddenly leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, is neck-deep in that spilled garbage, the story unspooling even as I write that then-Veep Uncle Joe strong-armed the Ukraine government to fire its equivalent of Attorney General to quash an investigation of his son, Hunter, who received large sums of money from the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, which had mystifyingly appointed the young American to its board of directors after the US-sponsored overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych.

    That nasty bit of business comes immediately on top of information that the Hillary campaign was using its connections in Ukraine -- from her years at the State Department -- to traffic in political dirt on Mr. Trump, plus an additional intrigue that included payments to the Clinton Foundation of $25 million by Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. That was on top of contributions of $150 million that the Clinton Foundation had received earlier from Russian oligarchs around 2012.

    Did they suppose that no one would ever notice? Or is it just a symptom of the desperation that has gripped the Democratic Party since the stunning election loss of 2016 made it impossible to suppress this titanic, bubbling vessel of fermented misdeeds? It seems more than merely possible that the entire Mueller Investigation was a ruse from the start to conceal all this nefarious activity. It is even more astounding to see exactly what a lame document the Mueller Report turned out to be. It was such a dud that even the Democratic senators and congresspersons who are complaining the loudest have not bothered to visit the special parlor set up at the Department of Justice for their convenience to read a much more lightly redacted edition of the report.

    The mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. The wheels are in motion now and it's unlikely they will be stopped by mere tantrums. But the next move by the desperate Resistance may be to create so much political disorder in the system that they manage to delegitimize the 2020 election before it is even held, and plunge the nation deeper into unnecessary crisis just to try and save their asses.

    [May 03, 2019] Obama Slammed Clinton's Scripted, Soulless Campaign For Loss To Cartoon Character Trump

    Obama launched and coordinated the color revolution against Trump. He appointed Hillary as the Secreaty of Sate. He is a CIA-connected neocon scoundrel
    Notable quotes:
    "... Projection: Obama escalated the war on Russia with regime change in Ukraine in 2014. Is he ******* kidding here? ..."
    "... Another projection. Clinton rigged the primary against Sanders. Obama tried to overthrow Trump. ..."
    "... And they DID reject it soundly. Clinton is the same scummy NEOLIBERAL warmonger that Obama was. After 8 years of Citigroup, & other banksters that filled his cabinet as well as Obama's war crimes, accelerating wars in the Middle East, the American people finally realized what they do not want . ..."
    "... I hope he lives with that REJECTION the rest of his miserable life! ..."
    "... It is difficult to understand Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy, when he seemed to allow himself to be manipulated by her all along, ever since he worked out the deal to have her as his Secretary of State in 2008. ..."
    "... Obama really allowed Clinton a lot of free reign, when she was Secretary of State too, something most other presidents would not have done. Maybe he knew something about her penchant for rage and revenge and didn't want to end up in her body bag count? ..."
    "... Hillary was certainly very ill-suited for the diplomatic job as U.S. Secretary of State, and that was so well demonstrated during her first year of office ..."
    May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker has published an updated edition of his book "Obama: The Call of History", and it includes several embarrassing details about President Obama's reaction to Donald Trump's historic electoral triumph, as well as Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy.

    According to the Daily Mail, which published some of the excerpts on Friday, Obama interpreted Trump's victory as a "personal insult", and whined to his aides and family that the loss "stings" and that the American people had "turned on him" while bashing Clinton for "bringing her many troubles on herself."

    As Baker wrote, as Obama saw it, the "real blame" for Clinton's loss "lay squarely with Clinton" - despite her many well-documented attempts to make every conceivable excuse, from blaming Bernie Sanders and his misogynistic "Bernie Bros" to misogynistic Trump supporters.

    But as Obama vented, nobody forced Clinton to take money from Goldman Sachs, or set up an illicit private email server at her house in Chappaqua.

    In a stinging passage Baker writes: 'To Obama and his team, however, the real blame lay squarely with Clinton.

    'She was the one who could not translate his strong record and healthy economy into a winning message.

    'Never mind that Trump essentially ran the same playbook against Clinton that Obama did eight years earlier, portraying her as a corrupt exemplar of the status quo.

    'She brought many of her troubles on herself. No one forced her to underestimate the danger in the Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan.

    'No one forced her to set up a private email server that would come back to haunt her.

    'No one forced her to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other pillars of Wall Street for speeches.

    'No one forced her to run a scripted, soulless campaign that tested eighty-five slogans before coming up with 'Stronger Together'.

    Feeling secure in Clinton's impending victory, Obama and his top aide Valerie Jarrett retreated to the White House movie theater to watch the Marvel Movie Dr. Strange. Michelle Obama went to bed early that night, but later in the evening, as results from Florida started coming in, Obama checked the results, and was suddenly struck by a sinking feeling.

    He watched in abject horror as Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania - formerly Democratic strongholds.

    In the weeks after Trump's victory, Obama vacillated from philosophical contemplation to rage, and complained to his speech writer Ben Rhodes that he was about to hand the nuclear codes over to a "cartoon character" and a "huckster straight out of Huckleberry Finn".

    Obama tried to keep his cool in the weeks afterwards and texted his speechwriter Ben Rhodes: 'There are more stars in the sky than sand on the earth'.

    But soon he was unable to contain his rage which escalated after he met Trump in the Oval Office.

    Baker writes that despite being cordial in public he afterwards summoned Rhodes who told him that Trump 'peddles in b*******'

    Rhodes said: 'That character has always been part of the American story. You can see it right back to some of the characters in Huckleberry Finn'.

    Obama replied: 'Maybe that's the best we can hope for'.

    As the weeks went by Obama went through 'multiple emotional stages', at times being philosophical and other times he 'flashed anger'.

    He also showed a rare self-doubt and wondered if 'maybe this is what people want', Baker writes.

    Obama told one aide: 'I've got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon'.

    Of particular interest considering the Mueller report's findings, which have been endlessly relitigated since the redacted report was released last month, Baker explains Obama's decision not to come out harder against Russia during the campaign, after US intelligence warned about the Kremlin's attempts to 'interfere' in the US election.

    As Baker tells it, Obama's "don't-do-stupid-shit" instincts made him reluctant to bash Russia over the meddling, as did his confidence that Clinton would surely prevail. As Obama saw it, if he made a big deal about Russian interference, Trump would simply complain to his voters that the whole election was rigged.

    Baker's book also gives new insight into why Obama was so hesitant about criticizing Russia for meddling in the 2016 election before vote took place.

    Obama was led by his 'cautious don't-do-stupid-s**t instincts' and feared that a forceful response would make Russia 'escalate' its operation.

    Then there was the question of how Trump would react and Obama admitted that 'if I speak out more, he'll just say it's rigged'.

    Obama wrongly assumed that Clinton would win the election and Obama said in one meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'backed the wrong horse'.

    When it came time to meet his successor and start planning the transition, Obama was cordial. But he never could get past the unshakeable feeling that the American people had rejected his legacy.

    Something that, given his continued sniping at Trump , probably stings to this very day.


    Sparehead , 36 minutes ago link

    Hmmm, first the NYT reports the story about the CIA's Papadopoulos "honey pot" spy, which they've been sitting on for two years while insisting the Trump campaign wasn't spied upon. They had to get the story out now, ahead of Horowitz' report. And now they're essentially giving permission to take out the knives against the Clintons to save the Obamas. The next few weeks or even years are going to be fun.

    KingTut , 48 minutes ago link

    Obama simply can't see himself clearly. He had no real talent for the job. He was the first black president, and everybody cut him slack because of that. His speeches to 'folks', delivered in a phony southern preacher accent were disingenuous at best. He compromimsed too far, until his programs didn't even make sense. He lived at an intellectual level, not even realizing now that the world does not run on theories or philosophies. It runs on actions.

    His biggest error was indulging his a soft spot for Islam. As a complete social order that is religious, moral, financial, governmental and miltary, Islam has more in common with Marxism than Christianity.

    Obama failed to understand that America has been set by history squarely against the Islamic social order. This is not about religion, it's about the correct way to run the world. We have the better way, the more successful way and it's going to stay that way.

    That is why the people actually want Trump. Trump is deliberately not an intellectual, and focuses on direct uncompromsing action. And he tells you what he's doing a couple of times a day.

    CatInTheHat , 1 hour ago link

    "Baker's book also gives new insight into why Obama was so hesitant about criticizing Russia for meddling in the 2016 election before vote took place.

    BECAUSE HE KNEW IT NEVER HAPPENED.

    Obama was led by his 'cautious don't-do-stupid-s**t instincts' and feared that a forceful response would make Russia 'escalate' its operation.

    Projection: Obama escalated the war on Russia with regime change in Ukraine in 2014. Is he ******* kidding here?

    Then there was the question of how Trump would react and Obama admitted that 'if I speak out more, he'll just say it's rigged'.

    Another projection. Clinton rigged the primary against Sanders. Obama tried to overthrow Trump.

    Obama wrongly assumed that Clinton would win the election and Obama said in one meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'backed the wrong horse'.

    No way he could believe that ****

    "When it came time to meet his successor and start planning the transition, Obama was cordial. But he never could get past the unshakeable feeling that the American people had rejected his legacy."

    And they DID reject it soundly. Clinton is the same scummy NEOLIBERAL warmonger that Obama was. After 8 years of Citigroup, & other banksters that filled his cabinet as well as Obama's war crimes, accelerating wars in the Middle East, the American people finally realized what they do not want .

    I hope he lives with that REJECTION the rest of his miserable life!

    LibertarianRevolutionary

    Another book of lies to feed the sheeple. Author thinks we're all just plain stupid, and the people at the head of the demoncrat party are just 'good folks'.

    He–Mene Mox Mox

    It is difficult to understand Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy, when he seemed to allow himself to be manipulated by her all along, ever since he worked out the deal to have her as his Secretary of State in 2008.

    It was reported 11 years ago that Obama was pressured to give Hillary an important paying job in his administration, because of her 2008 presidential campaign owed $8.7 million in unpaid debts. Didn't he have a strong enough character to know otherwise and resist her, or was he politically owing to her in someway? Obama really allowed Clinton a lot of free reign, when she was Secretary of State too, something most other presidents would not have done. Maybe he knew something about her penchant for rage and revenge and didn't want to end up in her body bag count?

    Hillary was certainly very ill-suited for the diplomatic job as U.S. Secretary of State, and that was so well demonstrated during her first year of office in August 2009, when she opened up on an African-Congolese Boy's question to her: See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEMX_iuCXE ...

    Obama should have fired Hillary right then and there for that outburst......but didn't have the strong character to do it.

    [May 03, 2019] There Was Spying NYT Admits Obama Admin Used 'Honeypot' To Spy Against Trump Campaign In 2016

    May 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    A mysterious Turkish woman who "assisted" FBI spy Stefan Halper in a London operation targeting Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos has been revealed as yet another FBI operative sent to spy on the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election, according to the New York Times .

    The woman, who went by the name Azra Turk, repeatedly flirted with Papadopoulos during their encounters as well as in email exchanges according to an October, 2018 Daily Caller report, confirmed today by the Times. "Turk," posed as Halper's assistant according to the report.

    While in London in 2016, Ms. Turk exchanged emails with Mr. Papadopoulos, saying meeting him had been the " highlight of my trip ," according to messages provided by Mr. Papadopoulos.

    " I am excited about what the future holds for us :), " she wrote. - New York Times

    And as the Times makes clear, "the FBI sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer" to investigate the Trump campaign.

    The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?

    ...

    Ms. Turk went to London to help oversee the politically sensitive operation, working alongside a longtime informant, the Cambridge professor Stefan A. Halper. The move was a sign that the bureau wanted in place a trained investigator for a layer of oversight , as well as someone who could gather information for or serve as a credible witness in any potential prosecution that emerged from the case. - New York Times

    Halper - who was paid more than $1 million by the Pentagon while Obama was president - contacted Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 according to The Caller - and would later fly him out to London under the guise of working on a policy paper on energy issues in Turkey, Cyprus and Israel - for which he was ultimately paid $3,000. Papadopoulos met Halper several times during his stay, "having dinner one night at the Travellers Club, and Old London gentleman's club frequented by international diplomats."

    As the Times notes, the London operation "yielded no fruitful information," while the FBI has called their activities in the months before the 2016 election as both "legal and carefully considered under extraordinary circumstances," according to the report.

    Mr. Papadopoulos was baffled. " There is no way this is a Cambridge professor's research assistant ," he recalled thinking, according to his book. In recent weeks, he has said in tweets that he believes Ms. Turk may have been working for Turkish intelligence but provided no evidence.

    The day after meeting Ms. Turk, Mr. Papadopoulos met briefly with Mr. Halper at a private London club, and Ms. Turk joined them. The two men agreed to meet again, arranging a drink at the Sofitel hotel in London's posh West End.

    During that conversation, Mr. Halper immediately asked about hacked emails and whether Russia was helping the campaign , according to Mr. Papadopoulos's book. Angry over the accusatory questions, Mr. Papadopoulos ended the meeting . - New York Times

    Also of interest, the British government was informed of the spy operation on their soil , according to the Times , however it is unclear whether they participated.

    As for the FBI, the agency's actions are now under investigation by the Justice Department's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.

    He could make the results public in May or June, Attorney General William P. Barr has said. Some of the findings are likely to be classified.

    It is unclear whether Mr. Horowitz will find fault with the F.B.I.'s decision to have Ms. Turk, whose real name is not publicly known, meet with Mr. Papadopoulos. Mr. Horowitz has focused among other things on the activities of Mr. Halper, who accompanied Ms. Turk in one of her meetings with Mr. Papadopoulos and also met with him and other campaign aides separately. The bureau might also have seen Ms. Turk's role as essential for protecting Mr. Halper's identity as an informant if prosecutors ever needed court testimony about their activities. - New York Times

    During Congressional testimony last month, Attorney General Barr told Congress "I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal," adding "I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting that it wasn't adequately predicated. But I need to explore that."

    Maybe he could explore the role of Joseph Mifsud - a Maltese professor and self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, who reportedly seeded Papadopoulos with the rumor that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

    It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that Mifsud seeded the information with Papadopoulos, who was pumped for that same information during a "drunken" encounter at a London Bar with Clinton-associate and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer - who told authorities about the "dirt" rumor, which launched the FBI/DOJ counterintelligence operation that included Halper and "Azra Turk" spying on Papadopoulos .

    Mr. Barr again defended his use of the term "spying" at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, saying he wanted to know more about the F.B.I.'s investigative efforts during 2016 and explained that the early inquiry likely went beyond the use of an informant and a court-authorized wiretap of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, who had interacted with a Russian intelligence officer. - New York Times

    "Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant," and the warrant to surveil Carter Page, said Barr. "I would like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop the threat as it's being represented ."

    Nice hedge, Barr, but what happened appears to be anything but "fairly anemic."

    Teamtc321 , 42 minutes ago link

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

    =========================================

    Ukrainian embassy confirms DNC contractor solicited Trump dirt in 2016

    BY JOHN SOLOMON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR -- 05/02/19 07:00 PM EDT 397

    THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

    The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine. That is where there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried, to help Hillary Clinton .

    In its most detailed account yet, Ukraine's embassy in Washington says a Democratic National Committee insider during the 2016 election solicited dirt on Donald Trump's campaign chairman and even tried to enlist the country's president to help.

    "She said the DNC wanted to collect evidence that Trump, his organization and Manafort were Russian assets, working to hurt the U.S. and working with Putin against the U.S. interests. She indicated if we could find the evidence they would introduce it in Congress in September and try to build a case that Trump should be removed from the ballot, from the election," he recalled.

    After the meeting, Telizhenko said he became concerned about the legality of using his country's assets to help an American political party win an U.S. election. But he proceeded with his assignment.

    Telizhenko said that, as he began his research, he discovered that Fusion GPS was nosing around Ukraine, seeking similar information, and he believed they, too, worked for the Democrats.

    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/441892-ukrainian-embassy-confirms-dnc-contractor-solicited-trump-dirt-in-2016

    gypsywoman , 1 hour ago link

    One of the biggest revelations to understanding the news related to the Trump-Russia Collusion narrative is the status of Donald J. Trump as a long-time undercover asset of the Federal Bureau of Investigation!

    Myself and my friends on Twitter have uncovered evidence showing that President Trump & the Trump organization have helped the FBI in sting operations going back to at least 1981 & probably earlier. Many scratched their heads and said it wasn't possible when I published threads on the topic almost one year ago. Fortunately, the evidence for this has continued to build with much of it based on FBI documents released under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

    More... https://butnothingshappening.com/

    gypsywoman , 1 hour ago link

    Interesting theory...

    http://butnothingshappening.com/

    General Titus , 1 hour ago link

    The illegal spying of the anti-American Obozo Admin goes all the way back to the 2012 campaign when they spied on the Globalist Neocon fraud Romney's campaign. Fire up the electric chairs! Traitor Brennen first to Ride the Lightning!

    Asoka_The_Great , 1 hour ago link

    Despite Robert Muller's (one the US DARK STATE/WAR STATE 's special Hatchet man) 2 years, 50 millions dollar extensive investigations effort, he has not uncovered any evidences that will exonerate Donald Trump, and prove his innocence, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Donald Trump did not colluded with the Russians and did not obstructed justice.

    This means undeniable complicity in Donald Trump's part, in colluding with the Russians and obstructing justice.

    Attorney General Barr should extend Special Hatchetman Robert Muller's mandate to Investigate Donald Trump's collusion with Communist Leaders to influence the 2020 Election.

    There is a vast amount of evidences that Trump has COLLUDED the communists countries such China, N. Korea, Vietnam and Russia, during his two years in Office, in order, to influence public opinions and attempt to swing the results of 2020 elections.

    Trump has frequently visited those COMMUNIST countries, and meet with North Korean Dictator Kim Jun-En for multiple times.

    Trump has dinner with the Commie Emperor/Dictator Xi, in Argentina, and talk with him on the phones many times.

    And Trump has meet in Russian Dictator Putin, many times.

    In short, the overwhelming evidences of Trump's COLLUSION with those COMMUNIST countries to influence the 2020 election, leaves NO room for doubt.

    Therefore, the IMPEACHMENT of Donald Trump must proceed, immediately, from Muller's conclusion of his investigations.

    A length JAIL TERM is appropriate for his BRUTAL BETRAYAL of THE TRUST, the American People, has placed upon him.

    And it is time to restore Hitlery as our lawfully elected POTUS, in the White House.

    * * *

    For the Trumpards, who might be too stupid, to get this post as a Satire , let me state explicitly that this a Sarcastic Satire . So no more stupid comments on my state of mind.

    Sarcastic - Someone, who is sarcastic says or does, the opposite, of what they really mean, in order, to mock or insult someone.

    Satire - a technique used by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles.

    Teamtc321 , 1 hour ago link

    The FISA court is their unraveling, it's already underway...............

    Here is a short take away.......

    ==================

    Joe diGenova: John Brennan Isn't Going to Need One Lawyer, He's Going to Need Five

    In an appearance on FNC's "The Ingraham Angle" last week, former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova claimed that evidence of widespread FISA abuse by members of the Obama administration is forthcoming and that "there are going to be indictments; there's going to be grand juries."

    Former CIA Director "John Brennan isn't going to need one lawyer, he's going to need five," diGenova said.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/02/joe_digenova_john_brennan_isnt_going_to_need_one_lawyer_hes_going_to_need_five.html

    And a full report on zero hedge. Locate the podcast with Joe D. well worth the 15 minutes and all coming out now..........Just as Dan Bongino and others have been saying all along.

    Joe DiGenova Explains Where The Russia Hoax Is Headed

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-24/joe-digenova-explains-where-russia-hoax-headed

    iSage , 1 hour ago link

    this is the turk lady

    https://mobile.twitter.com/GeorgePapa19/media/grid?idx=1

    iSage , 1 hour ago link

    or

    https://mobile.twitter.com/azra_turk?p=i

    she is a blonde

    CORNWALLISTHEFIRST , 1 hour ago link

    & a natural blonde,too! So rare for a turk!

    [May 03, 2019] Halper introduced her as his "assistant", he should have no problem telling everybody where this lady who tried to seduce Papadopoulos is now

    May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Cheap Chinese Crap , 16 minutes ago link

    There's a very easy way to pin this down. Since Halper introduced her as his "assistant", he should have no problem telling everybody where she is now.

    If he is unable to produce her or show any proof that she was his own assistant-- he's a spy. period.

    Real Estate Guru , 18 minutes ago link

    UPDATE:

    X-22 Report just out

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKPXiUXzNDo

    Rod Rosenstein is toast!! .....another one bites the dust!

    Rosenstein resigns yesterday...

    ... ... ..

    TRUMP confirms all of this on Hannity right here...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2-r0Y9bLwQ

    Q said tonight that this is the order of the tsunami of documents/testimony coming out in the next few days/weeks:

    1. AG BARR testifies in front of Congress on MAY 1,2
    2. The Comey Investigation is coming out in less than 14 days...indictments are coming
    3. The FISA declass comes out after that in May. This will take down Obama and everyone else
    4. The Horrowitz IG Report comes out right after that....it will be devastating to all the players in this mess

    ... ... ...

    Here is the lineup of what happened by the traitors in the coup

    ... ... ...

    -The democrats were involved in all of this...from Schiff to the rest of them in Congress.

    The FISA declass coming out Monday?...

    Hannity, Tucker, and Laura Ingrahm were all out on Friday. Something BIG is up, folks!!!

    Stay tuned...!!!

    Obama, Biden, and Hillary are TOAST!! OBAMA RAN THE WHOLE SHOW FROM THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!

    "IT'S HANGIN' TIME!!"

    " New Spygate Revelation: The Corruption Is Leading Right Back To The 'Scandal-Free' Obama White House!!"

    ObamaGate: No Misdemeanors, Only High Crimes

    Sens. Charles Grassley & Ron Johnson Release Letter to Attorney General William Barr, Demand Details About Investigation Into Obama's Illegal Spying on Trump Campaign [FULL LETTER]

    "Those that yell the loudest are the ones going down" -Q

    : Schiff, Waters, BRENNAN , Comey, Hillery, etc!!

    Here it is folks, for those who have not seen it...the full interview of Trump last night where Trump himself lays it all out. "When do birds sing? Springtime!" - Q

    That means right now!!

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/26/full_video_sean_hannity_interviews_trump_on_biden_russia_probe_fisa_abuse_comey.html

    These people are going to hang. The coup has been stopped. The deep state is surrounded. OUR BORDER IS BEING MANNED WITH OUR MILITARY EVEN AS YOU READ THIS! Trump is building the Wall! The entire thing is going to be seen on public TV this summer. Trump said you will see:

    The FISA declass...which will take down the House! That means Obama, Hillary, Comey, Lynch, Rosenstein, Biden, all of the perps who you already know in the FBI, Brennan , Clapper, McCabe, Mueller, the democrats, Waters, Schiff, Nadler, Swalowswell, Nadler, Pelosi, the lousy lying MSM...all of them! And lots more!

    Trump said he is going to declass everything! The FISA, AND A WHOLE LOT MORE!!!

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/26/full_video_sean_hannity_interviews_trump_on_biden_russia_probe_fisa_abuse_comey.html

    Everything! Trump is going after them, and they are surrounded. No place to hide, Hillary! No place to hide, Obama and all of your creeps. You are going to jail, or the hanging tree. One way or another, you are done!

    FISA declass.

    OIG Report Horrowitz.

    302's

    *HUGE COMEY REPORT COMING OUT IN TWO WEEKS! INDICTMENTS COMING!!- Prosecutor Joe Digenova! Leaking classified information to the press, lying to the FISA COURT!!

    Gang of 8 documents

    Documents and testimony from 53 closed door investigations.

    Senate Intel investigations

    House Intel investigations

    The AG Barr report

    Huber's leaking report and the 90,000 sealed indictments

    3 large prison barges are going back and forth from New York to Gitmo... WHY?

    Barr's testimony on March 1, 2 that will be a bombshell

    Q was right all along!

    The FISA court Judges have just turned over the documents showing that they were lied to by Comey, Rosenstein, etc.

    New Spygate Revelation: The Corruption Is Leading Right Back To The 'Scandal-Free' Obama White House

    Trump is closing every avenue of escape, money laundering, pedo stuff, criminal CEO's, politicians, etc.

    Trump has ALL of Hillary's emails, including those that Obama had

    Trump will declass 911, JFK, aliens, who Obama really is, his citizenship status of the country he was born in, everything!

    Trump has Wikileaks sources....; )) ...soon he will have Assange

    Trump has all of their communications....; )) ALL OF THEM!

    Obama had thousand of Hillary's emails (49,000) and ran the entire op from his office in the White House

    Hillary-"if Trump gets in we will all hang!", as she screamed at everybody on election night!

    Trump has the NSA and the other 17 intel orgs that nobody knows about that have everything.... ; )))

    Trump has it all! Trump also has clawed back $Trillions of stolen funds they took

    The dems will be retiring en masse soon...Trump will take back the House in 2020

    Court TV is coming back this summer. Hillary wanted that. Now you will be watching HER being indicted!

    The libtard morons are going to go berserk folks! The show is beginning officially as of last night. There is no place to hide for them. The MSM is in full meltdown and the perps are panicking all over the planet!

    *Bill Maher just turned on Adam Schiff....says "he is stalking Trump!"...

    *Washington Times reporter Bob Woodward says "the Steele Dossier is a bunch of garbage!"

    ... ... ...

    Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 1 minute ago link

    Real Estate Guru: Great compilation of really bad news for the globalist traitors who sold the US out to the Chicoms and really good news for the Patriots!

    But beware cornered and desperate enemies

    They are the most vicious and unpredictable

    Great segment today on Infowars about being ready for war https://www.infowars.com/watch/?video=5ccb7b6ef9b2ae001264aedb

    The war on Zero Hedge against the Chicom trolls will soon go to the next level On a gut level the Steverino999's , his other screen names and the reset of the trolls know that when Patriots fully regain control of the US government it won't be pretty for them

    Yes, Real Estate Guru and other fellow Patriots it is wonderful to see the battle turning for liberty and against globalist chicom tyranny ( and their henchmen) but Please do not be complacent there is much yet to be done before these sewer rats are flushed away from body politic of the US

    Stand up for liberty!

    LEEPERMAX , 21 minutes ago link

    JOHN BRENNAN'S CIA WAS BEHIND EVERY MOVE IN THIS ATTEMPTED COUP

    (and everyone will soon know it)

    [May 03, 2019] The Obama administration for more than four years before the 2016 election allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil American citizens

    Notable quotes:
    "... That report is going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and there are going to be criminal referrals in it. ..."
    "... The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it... ..."
    "... He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to [Attorney General] Bill Barr already. ..."
    May 01, 2019 | www.realclearpolitics.com

    It is about the rule of law and privacy. The Obama administration for more than four years before the 2016 election allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil American citizens -- illegally. The FISA court has already found that. There is the Horowitz report coming out in May or possibly early June. There's another report that everyone has forgotten about involving James Comey alone. That will be out in two weeks. That report is going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and there are going to be criminal referrals in it.

    The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it...

    There's a hero in this story and it is not a lawyer. There is a hero. His name is Admiral Mike Rogers. He was the head of the National Security Agency.

    He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to [Attorney General] Bill Barr already.

    [May 03, 2019] These reporters and networks have been named in the WikiLeaks to have colluded with the DNC or Hillary campaign during the 2016 election cycle

    May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    GUS100CORRINA , 23 minutes ago link

    There Was Spying: NYT Admits Obama Admin Used 'Honeypot' To Spy Against Trump Campaign In 2016

    My response: Why would the MSM want to get out in front of what is coming by issuing this news story? May be they are implicated as well! Below is the list of MSM career criminals who are facing the real possibility of jail time.

    === List of MSM Career Criminals Guilty of TREASON, SEDITION and/or SUBVERSIVE activities!! ===

    These reporters and networks have been named in the WikiLeaks to have colluded with the DNC or Hillary campaign during the 2016 election cycle:

    ABC – Cecilia Vega
    ABC - David Muir
    ABC – Diane Sawyer
    ABC – George Stephanoplous
    ABC – Jon Karl
    ABC – Liz Kreutz
    AP – Julie Pace
    AP – Ken Thomas
    AP – Lisa Lerer
    AURN – April Ryan
    Bloomberg – Jennifer Epstein
    Bloomberg – John Heillman
    Bloomberg/MSNBC – Jonathan Alter
    Bloomberg – Mark Halperin
    Buzzfeed – Ben Smith
    Buzzfeed – Ruby Cramer
    CBS – Gayle King
    CBS – John Dickerson
    CBS – Norah O'Donnell
    CBS – Steve Chagaris
    CBS – Vicki Gordon
    CNBC – John Harwood
    CNN – Brianna Keilar
    CNN – Dan Merica
    CNN – David Chailan
    CNN – Erin Burnett
    CNN – Gloria Borger
    CNN – Jake Tapper
    CNN – Jeff Zeleny
    CNN - Jeff Zucker
    CNN – John Berman
    CNN – Kate Bouldan
    CNN – Maria Cardona
    CNN – Mark Preston
    CNN – Sam Feist
    Daily Beast – Jackie Kucinich
    GPG – Mike Feldman
    HuffPo – Amanda Terkel
    HuffPo – Arianna Huffington
    HuffPo – Sam Stein
    HuffPo – Whitney Snyder
    LAT – Evan Handler
    LAT – Mike Memoli
    McClatchy – Anita Kumar
    MORE – Betsy Fisher Martin
    MSNBC – Alex Seitz-Wald
    MSNBC – Alex Wagner
    MSNBC – Andrea Mitchell
    MSNBC - Beth Fouhy
    MSNBC – Ed Schultz
    MSNBC – Joe Scarborough
    MSNBC – Mika Brzezinski
    MSNBC – Phil Griffin
    MSNBC – Rachel Maddow
    MSNBC – Rachel Racusen
    MSNBC – Thomas Roberts
    National Journal – Emily Schultheis
    NBC – Chuck Todd
    NBC – Mark Murray
    NBC – Savannah Gutherie
    New Yorker – David Remnick
    New Yorker – Ryan Liza
    NPR – Mike Oreskes
    NPR – Tamara Keith
    NY Post – Geofe Earl
    NYT – Amy Chozik
    NYT – Carolyn Ryan
    NYT – Gail Collins
    NYT – John Harwoodje
    NYT – Jonathan Martin
    NYT – Maggie Haberman
    NYT – Pat Healey
    PBS – Charlie Rose
    People – Sandra Sobieraj Westfall
    Politico – Annie Karni
    Politico – Gabe Debenedetti
    Politico – Glenn Thrush
    Politico – Kenneth Vogel
    Politico – Mike Allen
    Reuters – Amanda Becker
    Tina Brown – Tina Brown
    The Hill – Amie Parnes
    Univision – Maria-Elena Salinas
    Vice – Alyssa Mastramonoco
    Vox – Jon Allen
    WaPo – Anne Gearan
    WaPo – Greg Sargent
    WSJ – Laura Meckler
    WSJ – Peter Nicholas
    WSJ – Colleen McCain Nelson
    Yahoo – Matt Bai

    [May 02, 2019] Mueller's Own Mysteries

    The investigation was weak and biased: the real McCarthyism witch hunt. Mueller Mifsud blunder now will be played by Nunes and other republicans to the fullest extent possible, althouth this is only a tip of the iceberg of Mueller corruption. Other parts are too dangerous to expose and will be swiped under the carpet.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Mueller begins, on Page 1, with this assertion: "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion." Maybe so, but Mueller, who is not averse to editorializing and contextualizing elsewhere in the report, gives readers no historical background or context for this large generalization. ..."
    "... Readers might wonder if, had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, there even would have been a Russiagate and Mueller investigation. ..."
    "... Mueller repeatedly attributes to Trump campaign members and Russians who interacted in 2016, potentially in sinister or even criminal ways, a desire for "improved U.S.-Russian relations," for "bringing the end of the new Cold War," for a "new beginning with Russia." ..."
    "... As reflected in the text and footnotes, Mueller relies heavily on reports by US intelligence agencies , but without treating the recorded misdeeds of those agencies, particularly the CIA under John Brennan , in promoting the Russiagate saga. ..."
    "... Mueller reports that Mifsud "had connections to Russia" (p. 5), although a simple Google search suggests that Mifsud was indeed an "agent" but not a Russian one, as widely alleged in media accounts. ..."
    "... Toward the end of the first volume (pp. 144, 146), Mueller produces a truly stunning revelation, though he seems unaware of it. After the 2016 US presidential election, the Kremlin "appeared not to have preexisting contacts with senior officials around the President-Elect." Even more, "Putin spoke of the difficulty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch with the incoming Trump Administration . Putin indicated that he did not know with whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect." ..."
    "... So much for all the shameful Russiagate allegations of Trump-Putin collusion, conspiracy, even treason. Surely it means the United States needs another, different investigation, one into the actual origins and meaning of this fraudulent, corrosive, exceedingly dangerous, and still unending American political scandal. ..."
    May 01, 2019 | www.thenation.com

    Special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller III's two-volume " Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election " is not an easy read -- not unlike those manuals that come boxed with "easy to assemble" multipart children's toys on Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, considering the exceedingly damaging effects Russiagate has had on America at home and abroad for nearly three years, the report will long be studied for what it reveals and does not reveal, what it includes and does not include.

    Because of my own special interest in Russia, I read carefully the first volume, which focuses on that country's purported role in the scandal. I came away with as many questions about the report as about the role of Moscow and that of candidate and then President Donald Trump. To note a few:

    So much for all the shameful Russiagate allegations of Trump-Putin collusion, conspiracy, even treason. Surely it means the United States needs another, different investigation, one into the actual origins and meaning of this fraudulent, corrosive, exceedingly dangerous, and still unending American political scandal.

    This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .

    [May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain

    Highly recommended!
    May 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Will Chamberlain via HumanEvents.com,

    In June 2018, Bill Barr, then in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, wrote a detailed legal memorandum to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This memo came to light in December, when Barr was nominated for Attorney General.

    Reading Barr's June 2018 memo alongside the last twenty pages of the Mueller Report is a curious experience.

    Together, they read like dueling legal briefs on the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) ; the type of material one would expect to see from adversarial appellate litigators.

    So-why did Robert Mueller dedicate 20 pages of his report to a seemingly obscure question of statutory interpretation? Why did Bill Barr write a detailed legal memorandum to Rod Rosenstein about that very same statute?

    And how, exactly, did Bill Barr know that that § 1512(c)(2) was central to Mueller's obstruction theory – in June 2018, when he was still in private practice at Kirkland?

    After some consideration, I arrived at a theory that I believe answers these three questions, and others as well. For example – why was AG Jeff Sessions asked for his resignation the day after the midterms? Why was Bill Barr the only name ever seriously floated for AG? And is it merely a coincidence that six weeks after Barr's confirmation, the Mueller probe came to an end?

    ...

    This is a story about a legal chess match played for the highest stakes imaginable: Trump's Presidency – and whether it would be under the cloud of an endless special counsel investigation – hinged on the result.

    John Dowd, Ty Cobb, Jay Sekulow, and the rest of President Trump's personal legal team were on one side. Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, and the Special Counsel's office were on the other.

    The dispute was a year-long struggle over the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).

    No judge ever ruled on who was right about the meaning of this obstruction statute. No formal decision was ever rendered.

    All the same, Trump's legal team prevailed on February 14, 2019.

    That's the day William Pelham Barr was confirmed as United States Attorney General.

    So why, exactly, was the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) so contested?

    Let's start by looking the statute, excerpted here:

    (c) Whoever corruptly --

    (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

    (2) otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so [is guilty of the crime of obstruction]. (Emphasis added).

    Why was this so important to Mueller?

    ...

    In hindsight, however, it's clear that Barr was the assassin Democrats feared.

    Within six weeks of his confirmation, the Mueller probe was over...

    Read the full story here...

    [May 01, 2019] Nellie Ohr Criminal Referral Being 'Finalized' According To Jim Jordan

    May 01, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    Congressional Republicans are "working to finalize" a criminal referral of Russiagate lynchpin Nellie Ohr, the wife of the Justice Department's former #4 official Bruce Ohr.

    Nellie was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, where she conducted extensive opposition research on Trump family members and campaign aides , which she passed along to Bruce on a memory stick .

    Of note, the Hillary Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to produce the salacious and unverified "Steele Dossier," which was created by former UK spy Christopher Steele and used Kremlin sources .

    Meanwhile, today we learn from The Hill 's John Solomon that Nellie Ohr exchanged 339 pages of emails with DOJ officials, including her husband Bruce, and met with DOJ prosecutors while working for Fusion GPS .

    Now, a series of "Hi Honey" emails from Nellie Ohr to her high-ranking federal prosecutor-husband and his colleagues raise the prospect that Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research was being funneled into the Justice Department during the 2016 election through a back-door marital channel. It's a tale that raises questions of both conflict of interest and possible false testimony.

    Ohr has admitted to Congress that, during the 2016 presidential election, she worked for Fusion GPS -- the firm hired by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to perform political opposition research -- on a project specifically trying to connect Donald Trump and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to Russian organized crime.

    Now, 339 pages of emails, from her private account to Department of Justice (DOJ) email accounts, have been released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. - The Hill

    And according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. Mark Meadows "is working to finalize" a criminal referral of Nellie .

    https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855

    "Hi Honey, if you ever get a moment you might find the penultimate article interesting -- especially the summary in the final paragraph," Nellie emailed Bruce on July 6, 2016 according to the release. The article in question suggested that Trump was a Putin stooge . "If Putin wanted to concoct the ideal candidate to service his purposes, his laboratory creation would look like Donald Trump," Nellie bolded for emphasis.

    As Solomon writes, "Such overt political content flowing into the email accounts of a DOJ charged with the nonpartisan mission of prosecuting crimes is jarring enough. It raises additional questions about potential conflicts of interest when it is being injected by a spouse working as a Democratic contractor trying to defeat Trump, and she is forwarding her own research to his department and co-workers ."

    House GOP investigators who reviewed Nellie Ohr's emails believe that their timing may be essential to understanding how the false Russian narrative -- special counsel Robert Mueller recently concluded there was no evidence of Trump-Putin collusion -- may have gotten such credence inside DOJ and intelligence circles despite its overtly political origins.

    For instance, just 24 days after the anti-Trump screed was emailed, both Ohrs met in Washington with British intelligence operative Christopher Steele. Nellie Ohr testified that she had known Steele from past encounters and learned at that July 31, 2016, meeting at the Mayflower Hotel that Steele, like herself, was working for Fusion GPS on Trump-Russia research. She said she learned that Steele had concerns that he hoped the DOJ or FBI would investigate, with help from her husband. - The Hill

    Nellie, who speaks fluent Russian, worked with Fusion GPS between October 2015 and September 2016. She also admitted during her October 19, 2018 congressional testimony that she favored Hillary Clinton as a candidate, and would have been less comfortable researching Clinton's Russia ties (P. 105).

    In 2010, she represented the CIA's "Open Source Works" group in a 2010 " expert working group report on international organized crime" along with Bruce Ohr and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.

    Ohr confirmed her work for the CIA during her October testimony.

    ***

    As we reported in March ,

    some have wondered if Nellie's late-life attraction to Ham radios was in fact a method of covertly communicating with others about the Trump-Russia investigation , in a way which wouldn't be surveilled by the NSA or other agencies.

    was Nellie Ohr's late-in-life foray into ham radio an effort to evade the Rogers-led NSA detecting her participation in compiling the Russian-sourced Steele dossier ? Just as her husband's omissions on his DOJ ethics forms raise an inference of improper motive, any competent prosecutor could use the circumstantial evidence of her taking up ham radio while digging for dirt on Trump to prove her consciousness of guilt and intention to conceal illegal activities. - The Federalist

    Bruce Ohr was demoted twice after the DOJ's Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with Simpson - who employed dossier author and former British spy, Christopher Steele.

    Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced that his panel would do a "deep dive" into the "other side" of the Trump-Russia investigation. He also called for the appointment of a new special counsel to look into abuse between the DOJ and Obama administration while investigating Donald Trump and his campaign.

    Are heads actually going to roll?


    YHWH is greater , 1 minute ago link

    Thanks to Huma & Wiener, the first squeelers

    LEEPERMAX , 1 minute ago link

    Nellie Ohr = The First Domino to Fall

    Stay Tuned Mr Brennan

    LA.Patriot , 3 minutes ago link

    One would be foolish to think NSA doesn't monitor radio communications! I know for a fact the Military does, and assume they share this with NSA or the other 15 (FIFTEEN!) US ***** agencies. In the case of Amateur ("HAM") radio, fewer & fewer people are taking time to study, learn and use it. Too bad. When SHTF and landlines & cell phones don't work radio will be the ONLY means of communication.

    anduka , 11 minutes ago link

    A criminal referral as I understand it, is just a suggestion to please start a criminal investigation. What a farce. Why wasn't a criminal investigation started 2 years ago? It's past time for an indictment.

    Son of Loki , 16 minutes ago link

    "Mrs Ohr, can you please clarify for the Committee what role you played in attempting to overthrow our legitimately elected President?"

    Twee Surgeon , 18 minutes ago link

    I just don't get it. An Ex-spy is hired (or the company he works for) to generate **** about Trump, Any **** will do. All fictional and all paid for fair and square with Hillary Bucks ? And then an entire cohort of deeply embedded 'government officials' spreads, promotes and pursues, stands behind, backs up and insistently advances a complete fabrication as a 'probably true story ?" which is shot to **** after two years of wasting how many millions on Mueller **** juggling and delays all while under oath to uphold the Constitution of these United States ? I'm just utterly flabbergasted by this state of affairs. I knew the .gov was corrupt but I had no idea these people were this despicable and can only assume they must truly be 'fighting for their lives'. In Any other 'pretending to be a fair government' society, these creepy ****'s would be sitting in No-Bail Jail with access to only their Attorney but not a ******* One of consequence has been seen in cuff's. It's not like it's fine points of Law or anything like that, this whole affair has been unsophisticated, unimaginative and pretty much juvenile make-believe play acting , as if the head of the FBI and CIA were pretty dense people when push comes to shove. What a shitty paragraph in a future history book the Clinton Cabal will turn out to be.

    just the tip , 13 minutes ago link

    every one in deecee is married to some other person in some other agency.

    ****.

    that dumbshit blonde state dept. spokeshole for the HNIC, the one who said jobs for the ragheads would eliminate terrorism is the spokeshole for the CIA present day.

    little roddie rosenstein's wife, lisa barsoomian is a perfect example

    https://heavy.com/news/2018/05/lisa-barsoomian-rod-rosenstein-wife-spouse/

    that priestrap ****** at the FIBs' wife is the manager of the largest private investigator company in deecee. surely there is no part time or recycling going on there. surely.

    if you want to compare dual citizenship members of congress, find out how many members of congress have people on their staffs who are married to CIA/FIB/NSA employees.

    [May 01, 2019] FBI Peter Strzok Worked For The CIA Under Obama

    Jul 17, 2018 | caucus99percent.com

    Sean Adl-Tabatabai Editor's Picks , News , US 9

    Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who led " Operation Crossfire Hurricane " designed to bring down President Trump, was an undercover CIA agent planted in the bureau by CIA director John Brennan.

    According to a bombshell FBI memo , Strzok only held a ceremonial title at the bureau.

    Intellihub reports:

    "A sheep-dipped Peter Strzok has been covertly operating as the Section Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterespionage Group during his secret 24 year tenure with the agency while masquerading as Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counterintelligence Division where he was in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server along with the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

    The bombshell information published first on BrassBalls.blog reveals that the "joint CIA/FBI position was created by Congress in 1996" which allowed Strzok to hold both posts.

    A unclassified document printed on FBI letterhead dated January 20, 2016, which contains the subject line "Supplemental Classification Review and Determination" was addressed to the Bureau of National Security's

    Assistant Secretary Gregory B. Starr from Peter Strzok who is listed as "Section Chief" of the "Counterespionage Section" in reference to Strzok's CIA post. Keep in mind, this is not an FBI post as Strzok's position at the FBI is "Deputy Assistant Director Counterintelligence Division" not "Section Chief" which is a CIA post.

    Peter Strzok was the central figure involved in trying to oust President Trump. Now we know he's a CIA Brennan/Obama asset.

    [May 01, 2019] Russians, Russians, Russians. Now under each bed

    May 01, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Asoka_The_Great , 4 minutes ago link

    Here is my take, on this entire Sh*tshow, running in Washington DC, for the last two years.

    1. All the evidences are pointing the most likely scenario that Donald Trump is a Manchurian Candidate ordered by the Kremelin to run for Office, in 2016.

    2. Then, Donald Trump COLLUDED with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service to win the Presidency of United States, with shocking easy.

    3. This was because Hitlery Clinton and Joe Biden , was bribed by Putin, through the Ukrainians, with hundred of millions of dollars, so she would purposely lose the "sure win" race, to a political nobody, Donald Trump.

    4. Then, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, produced the Steele Dossier, a political disinformation tool, in collaboration with Britain's Mi6 and CIA.

    5. Then the Russians leaked the COLLUSION story to the CIA controlled MSM such as New York Time, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, etc . . ., so they would predictably kicked a storm of controversy over the COLLUSION, and demand the DOJ to appoint a Special Prosecutor to initial an investigation.

    6. This diabolically devilish Special PsyOps by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has succeeded in tying up Washington DC, in a Sh*tshow, for the last two years, and divided the Country in bitter controversy.

    7. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and Chinese Communists' Intelligence Service have thoroughly infiltrated America's Department of Justice, FBI, and CIA, and NSA, and use their high levels agents, such as O'bomer, Hitlery, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, and rosenstein to stirred up this COLLUSION storm, to paralyze America's political system for as long as possible.

    In Summary, the entire sh*tshow is a production of a Special PsyOps by the Russkies and ChiComs' Intelligence Services. It has nothing to do with America's dysfunctional government, called DemoCrazy .

    [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté

    Highly recommended!
    "Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such is was a great success.
    The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
    In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
    It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
    Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
    Notable quotes:
    "... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
    Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

    For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the traitor / puppet / asset in the White House .

    The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction. It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton, and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.

    1. Russiagate Without Russia

    The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the report's release, The New York Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin intermediaries and the Trump campaign."

    Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).

    It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect." If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with, perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.

    To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track every known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit interacted with " the Russians ," or someone who can be linked to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic about implying as much.

    2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere

    The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation. During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an intermediary between Trump and Russia .

    But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections. Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.

    3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp

    Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

    After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's much ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention, Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."

    The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions" in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an election-related payoff or " quid pro quo " with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."

    4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow

    The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy, for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that " Trump is compromised by Russia ," " full stop ."

    But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen, the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office identify any evidence of direct follow-up."

    5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It

    The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an acknowledgment of Mueller's conclusion .

    6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"

    The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was widely dubbed the " Smoking Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure the meeting, because in reality, as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."

    Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]." The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."

    7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election

    In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller, the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed " the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion " and even the " Russian collusion smoking gun ."

    Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated by proving his financial value to former and future clients.

    Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First, Mueller did not join media pundits in asserting such about Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.

    8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction

    The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent politicians , pundits , and media outlets promoted it as credible .

    The Mueller report, The New York Times noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."

    The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."

    After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that" the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."

    9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks

    In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone had no communications with WikiLeaks before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.

    Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign, and Stone -- and came up empty. New reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing, cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."

    10. There Was No Cover-Up

    The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years; it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence , while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.

    One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does "not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees, it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged, extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the report's contents.

    In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and media establishments to be a work of fiction . The American public was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.

    It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.

    [Apr 29, 2019] Russiagate vs Watergate

    Notable quotes:
    "... In the case of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser, acting Attorney General Sally Yates used the archaic Logan Act of 1799 to create a predicate for the FBI to interrogate Flynn about a Dec. 29, 2016 conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, i.e., after Trump's election but before the Inauguration. ..."
    "... Yates also concocted a bizarre argument that the discrepancies between Flynn's account of the call and the transcript left him open to Russian blackmail although how that would work – since the Russians surely assumed that Kislyak's calls would be monitored by U.S. intelligence and thus offered them no leverage with Flynn – was never explained. ..."
    "... So, perhaps the biggest similarity between Russia-gate and Watergate is that Richard Nixon and Donald Trump were both highly unpopular with the Washington establishment and thus had few influential defenders, while an important contrast with Iran-Contra was that Reagan and Bush were very well liked, especially among news executives such as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham who, by all accounts, did not care for the uncouth Nixon. Today, the senior executives of The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major news outlets have made no secret of their disdain for the buffoonish Trump and their hostility toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
    "... In other words, what is driving Russia-gate – for both the mainstream news media and the Democrats – appears to be a political agenda, i.e., the desire to remove Trump from office while also ratcheting up a New Cold War with Russia, a priority for Washington's neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks. ..."
    "... If this political drama were playing out in some other country, we would be talking about a "soft coup" in which the "oligarchy" or some other "deep state" force was using semi-constitutional means to engineer a disfavored leader's removal. ..."
    Apr 29, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    Originally from: Consortium News’ Record on Russiagate—How CN Covered the ‘Scandal’ No. 7 ‘Russiagate Is No Watergate or Iran-Contra’

    ... ... ...

    Railroading Flynn

    In the case of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser, acting Attorney General Sally Yates used the archaic Logan Act of 1799 to create a predicate for the FBI to interrogate Flynn about a Dec. 29, 2016 conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, i.e., after Trump's election but before the Inauguration.

    The Logan Act, which has never resulted in a prosecution in 218 years, was enacted during the period of the Alien and Sedition Acts to bar private citizens from negotiating on their own with foreign governments. It was never intended to apply to a national security adviser of an elected President, albeit before he was sworn in.

    But it became the predicate for the FBI interrogation -- and the FBI agents were armed with a transcript of the intercepted Kislyak-Flynn phone call so they could catch Flynn on any gaps in his recollection, which might have been made even hazier because he was on vacation in the Dominican Republic when Kislyak called.

    Yates also concocted a bizarre argument that the discrepancies between Flynn's account of the call and the transcript left him open to Russian blackmail although how that would work – since the Russians surely assumed that Kislyak's calls would be monitored by U.S. intelligence and thus offered them no leverage with Flynn – was never explained.

    Still, Flynn's failure to recount the phone call precisely and the controversy stirred up around it became the basis for an obstruction of justice investigation of Flynn and led to President Trump's firing Flynn on Feb. 13.

    Trump may have thought that tossing Flynn overboard to the circling sharks would calm down the sharks but the blood in the water only excited them more. According to then-FBI Director James Comey, Trump talked to him one-on-one the next day, Feb. 14, and said, "'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

    Trump's "hope" and the fact that he later fired Comey have reportedly led special prosecutor Mueller to look at a possible obstruction of justice case against Trump. In other words, Trump could be accused of obstructing what appears to have been a trumped-up case against Flynn.

    Of course, there remains the possibility that evidence might surface of Trump or his campaign colluding with the Russians, but such evidence has so far not been presented. Or Mueller's investigation might turn over some rock and reveal some unrelated crime, possibly financial wrongdoing by Trump or an associate.

    (Something similar happened in the Republican investigation of the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, a largely fruitless inquiry except that it revealed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent and received official emails over a private server, which Comey decried during last year's campaign as "extremely careless" but not criminal.)

    Curb the Enthusiasm

    Another contrast between the earlier scandals (Watergate and Iran-Contra) and Russia-gate is the degree of enthusiasm and excitement that the U.S. mainstream media and congressional Democrats have shown today as opposed to 1972 and 1986.

    The Washington Post's Watergate team, including from left to right, publisher Katharine Graham, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Howard Simons, and executive editor Ben Bradlee.

    Though The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein aggressively pursued the Watergate scandal, there was much less interest elsewhere in major news outlets until Nixon's criminality became obvious in 1973. Many national Democrats, including DNC Chairman Bob Strauss , were extremely hesitant to pursue the scandal if not outright against it.

    Similarly, although Brian Barger and I at The Associated Press were pursuing aspects of Iran-Contra since early 1985, the big newspapers and networks consistently gave the Reagan administration the benefit of the doubt – at least before the scandal finally burst into view in fall 1986 (when a Contra-supply plane crashed inside Nicaragua and a Lebanese newspaper revealed U.S. arms shipments to Iran).

    For several months, there was a flurry of attention to the complex Iran-Contra scandal, but the big media still ignored evidence of a White House cover-up and soon lost interest in the difficult work of unraveling the convoluted networks for arms smuggling, money laundering and cocaine trafficking.

    Congressional Democrats also shied away from a constitutional confrontation with the popular Reagan and his well-connected Vice President George H.W. Bush.

    After moving from AP to Newsweek in early 1987, I learned that the senior executives at Newsweek, then part of The Washington Post Company, didn't want "another Watergate"; they felt another such scandal was not "good for the country" and wanted Iran-Contra to go away as soon as possible. I was even told not to read the congressional Iran-Contra report when it was published in October 1987 (although I ignored that order and kept trying to keep my own investigation going in defiance of the wishes of the Newsweek brass until those repeated clashes led to my departure in June 1990).

    So, perhaps the biggest similarity between Russia-gate and Watergate is that Richard Nixon and Donald Trump were both highly unpopular with the Washington establishment and thus had few influential defenders, while an important contrast with Iran-Contra was that Reagan and Bush were very well liked, especially among news executives such as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham who, by all accounts, did not care for the uncouth Nixon. Today, the senior executives of The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major news outlets have made no secret of their disdain for the buffoonish Trump and their hostility toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    In other words, what is driving Russia-gate – for both the mainstream news media and the Democrats – appears to be a political agenda, i.e., the desire to remove Trump from office while also ratcheting up a New Cold War with Russia, a priority for Washington's neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks.

    If this political drama were playing out in some other country, we would be talking about a "soft coup" in which the "oligarchy" or some other "deep state" force was using semi-constitutional means to engineer a disfavored leader's removal.

    Of course, since the ongoing campaign to remove Trump is happening in the United States, it must be presented as a principled pursuit of truth and a righteous application of the rule of law. But the comparisons to Watergate and Iran-Contra are a stretch.

    The late investigative reporter Robert Parry, the founder of Consortium News, broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

    [Apr 29, 2019] Deputy AG Rosenstein Submits Resignation Letter Our Nation Is Safer

    Apr 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    While long-expected, amid two chaos-ridden years as the Justice Department's No.2, the day has finally come when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has reportedly sent his resignation letter to President Donald Trump, will leave post May 11.

    "I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve; for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations; and for the goals you set in your inaugural address: patriotism, unity, safety, education and prosperity," Mr. Rosenstein wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

    ... ... ...

    wdg , 1 minute ago link

    "Our Nation Is Safer"

    Sure is now that he has resigned. But where are the indictments for traitors like Rosenstein?

    [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
    "... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
    "... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
    "... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
    "... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
    "... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
    "... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
    "... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
    "... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
    "... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
    "... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
    "... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
    "... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
    "... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
    "... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
    "... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
    "... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
    Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019 20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States, including to this day, will be exposed.

    The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.

    "It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."

    The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians. It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth, or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.

    Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done.

    A New Cultural Paradigm

    The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.

    The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:

    "I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the working level are great."

    There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects for world peace, stated:

    "Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."

    This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.

    It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.

    The Truth Set Free

    President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free.

    The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence,

    "The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."


    DOCUMENTATION

    While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.

    The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here can be found on our website.

    The Russian Hack That Wasn't

    The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak, rather than a hack conducted over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency, becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0, who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.

    Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.

    The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab (DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.

    The British Target Trump

    According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence, the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's direction.

    This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control.

    Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum. Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.

    In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.

    In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend" of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.

    A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations, and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.

    Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier. They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare

    On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst. He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes and misdemeanors.

    Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the friend were having coffee.

    The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.

    Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.

    As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.

    Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia.

    The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.

    This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.

    Sign the Petition: President Trump, Declassify the Docs on the British Role in Russiagate


    Robert , April 24, 2019 at 14:35

    "in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"

    Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.

    David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14

    "This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."

    Absolutely correct.

    Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University, my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent that dark "art".

    Eileen Kuch , April 24, 2019 at 18:13

    Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University – his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
    Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.

    CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15

    Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.

    There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since she could be bought. Trump can't.

    What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.

    Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.

    Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly as possible.

    So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.

    The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.

    They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.

    In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they needed to try and hide what really happened.

    So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.

    'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.

    Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.

    The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.

    1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.

    2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.

    Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with the elections. NONE.

    They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.

    So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion, Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..

    Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?

    Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.

    There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.

    That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!

    So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?

    He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.

    The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.

    His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.

    Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.

    They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.

    The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.

    It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.

    The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

    "Russia'.

    So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?

    A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.

    And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)

    B: Russians hacked the DNC.

    That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.

    Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.

    It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the Presidency.

    That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!

    In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.

    That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.

    Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump Campaign'.

    Let's go a bit deeper still.

    Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?

    After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.

    If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP the real crime', what would happen?

    They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.

    They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all THEY were the criminals.

    They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.

    That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all that.

    They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created LIE.

    That LIE = the Insurance Policy.

    What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.

    Although true, that is only A.

    They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying on him!

    The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.

    What's the punishment for Treason?

    About Assange and Seth Rich.

    Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.

    Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.

    If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.

    No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.

    Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48

    While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.

    Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.

    boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13

    RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
    :::

    Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
    JUL 30, 2007

    I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:

    O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed, O'Neal said

    In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
    The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:

    News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.

    If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.

    Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as snipers, too.

    If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire until the family forced them to do otherwise.
    This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:

    As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself, but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like, 'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'

    (Maybe the Congress can )

    ////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force / and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.

    \\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life" they've been alleged/assigned.

    /// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
    (WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???

    !!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
    WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????

    AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
    that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover

    Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
    In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.

    "Capitalism and Altruism
    are incompatible
    capitalism and altruism
    cannot coexist in man,
    or in the same society".

    President Trump represents
    Stark & Total Capitalism
    Just as "Conservative Party"
    Core is in The Confederacy
    AKA; The RIGHT WING

    The Right Wing of US Gov't
    Is All About PRESERVING
    Confederate States' Laws
    Written by Thomas Jefferson

    Prior to The Constitution, which
    became the Received/Judicial
    Constitutional Law of the Land in
    The Republic of the "United States"

    Elizabeth K. Burton , April 23, 2019 at 12:50

    It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them down? They get weapons and start killing people.

    There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit. Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation". Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.

    The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters, the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."

    In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.

    Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14

    Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner

    Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38

    Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know:
    1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
    2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
    3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
    4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the campaign.

    -daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.

    Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36

    The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.

    It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.

    War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.

    Herman , April 22, 2019 at 11:09

    The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory truth effect will include this truth.

    Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00

    >>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."

    The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.

    Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?

    Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55

    That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers.

    All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.

    Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21

    I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.

    [Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney

    Highly recommended!
    It's a dog & pony show. Trump folded very quickly, in april 2017 or three moth after inauguration. He proved to be no fighter, a weakling, a marionette. Appointment of Bolton and Pompeo just added insult to injury. this is classic bait and switch similar to what was executed by Obama after then election. In a way Trump is a Republican version of Obama.
    I wonder if he did not want to fight to the death and sacrifice himself for the course, why he entered the Presidential race at all ? He is not stupid enough not to understand the he will be covered with dirt and all skeletons in his closet will be dug out for display by the US intelligence agencies, which protect that interest of Wall Street and MIC (Israel is a part of the US MIC -- its biggest lobbyist and beneficiary) , not the USA as a sovereign state.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. ..."
    "... To help sabotage Trump's political agenda ..."
    "... To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election ..."
    "... And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia. ..."
    "... These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor. ..."
    "... The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington. ..."
    "... "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will." ..."
    "... Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., ..."
    "... Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her? ..."
    "... War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!" ..."
    "... Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face? ..."
    "... Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"? ..."
    "... There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized. ..."
    "... Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose. ..."
    "... It's a dog & pony show. ..."
    Apr 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

    Why did Robert Mueller end the Russia investigation when he did? He could have let it drag it out for another year or so and severely hurt Trump's chances for reelection. But he didn't do that. Why?

    Of course, we're assuming that the investigation was never intended to uncover the truth. If it was, then Mueller would have interviewed Julian Assange, Craig Murray and retired members of the Intelligence Community (Ray McGovern, Bill Binney) who have shown that the Podesta emails were leaked by an insider (on a thumbdrive) not hacked by foreign agents. Mueller would have also seized the servers at DNC headquarters and done the necessary forensic investigation, which he never did.

    He also would have indicted senior-level agents at the FBI and DOJ who improperly obtained FISA warrants by withholding critical information from the FISA court. He didn't do that either.

    Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. So, here they are:

    1. To help sabotage Trump's political agenda
    2. To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election
    3. And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia.

    These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor.

    The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington.

    My question is simply this: Why did Mueller give up all that power when he did?

    I think I can answer that, but first, we need a little more background. Check out this quote from candidate Trump in 2016:

    "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will."

    Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., and now this upstart, New York real estate tycoon is promising to do a complete 180 and move in another direction altogether. No more destabilizing coups, no more bloody military interventions, instead, we're going to work collaboratively with countries like Russia and China to see if we can settle regional disputes and fight terrorism together? Really?

    At the same time Trump was promising this new era of "peace, understanding, and good will," Hillary Clinton was issuing her war whoop at every opportunity. Here's candidate Hillary trying to drum up support for taking on the Russians in Syria:

    "The situation in Syria is catastrophic. And every day that goes by, we see the results of the Assad regime in partnership with the Iranians on the ground, and the Russians in the air When I was Secretary of State, I advocated and I advocate today a no-fly zone and safe zones."

    Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her?

    "We have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground," boomed Hillary, meaning that she fully supported the continued use of jihadist proxies in the fight against Assad. "I do think the use of special forces, the use of enablers and trainers in Iraq, which has had some positive effects, are very much in our interests, and so I do support what is happening."

    War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!"

    So, what changed? Trump changed.

    Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face?

    The same thing happened in Korea. For a while it looked like Trump was serious about cutting a deal with Kim Jong un. But then, sometime after the first summit, he began to backpeddle. He never honored any of his commitments under the Panmunjom Declaration and he never reciprocated for Kim's cessation of all nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing. Trump has made no effort to "build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula" or to strengthen trust between the two leaders. Then, at the Hanoi Summit, Trump blindsided Kim by making demands that had never even been previously discussed. Kim was told that the North must destroy all of its chemical and biological weapons as well as its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs before the US will take reciprocal steps. In other words, Trump demanded that Kim completely and irreversibly disarm with the feint hope that the US would eventually lift sanctions.

    Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"?

    Yes, that was Trump's campaign promise. So, what happened?

    There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized.

    Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose.

    Is that why Mueller let Trump off the hook? Was there a quid pro quo: "You follow our foreign policy directives and we'll make Mueller disappear?

    It sure looks like it. play_arrow 2 Reply Report


    Ajax-1 , 24 minutes ago link

    Why? Because logical clear thinking Americans have Russia fatigue. The Deep State knows that the longer the Witch Hunt lasts, the stronger Trump gets.

    stant , 24 minutes ago link

    the report was finished last august. hed got all the juice in that squeeze. but i also guess he got a call from somebodys in the GOG mafia[continuity of .gov] deepstate after all is their little bitch

    youshallnotkill , 27 minutes ago link

    Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook? Why did Epstein only get a slap on the wrist? Why is his lawyer defending Trump on air ? Why did the MSM never look into the credible allegations against Clinton and Trump with regards to Epstein ?

    I have an inkling that the answer to these questions is all one and the same.

    PopeRatzo , 30 minutes ago link

    Donald Trump sure isn't acting like someone who's been "let off the hook".

    Francis Marx , 38 minutes ago link

    Maybe it just worked out the way it did and there is no conspiracy on Mueller's part.

    nmewn , 28 minutes ago link

    Likely.

    He had to stop before he implicated himself. For instance, still waiting on "the why" he never put Steele or McCabe or Hillary or Perkins Coie or Rosenstein or Comey etc under oath when it was...THEY... who supplied false evidence to a FISA court , "evidence gathered" (according to Steele) from...ta daaah!...Russians ;-)

    LetThemEatRand , 36 minutes ago link

    You can drive yourself crazy wondering whether it was all theater from the start, or whether they put a gun to the head of the guy who was going to expose it was theater until he started playing along. End result, theater.

    Stop buying tickets.

    Lord Raglan , 2 minutes ago link

    exactly. Just like you can wonder why Justice John Roberts turned on Obamacare and **** on conservatives. Was he sincere or did he get a 3:00 am phone call that if he didn't uphold it, his wife and kids would die in an unfortunate accident?

    Anonymous_Beneficiary , 38 minutes ago link

    If you have to ask...perhaps you're a moron. It's a dog & pony show.

    nmewn , 33 minutes ago link

    "Let Him Off The Hook?"

    Oh, I dunno...maybe because even with a crack team of demoncraft operatives, Deep State Hillary deadenders and a limitless supply of federal funding even they couldn't come up with "Russian collusion" because...none ever existed? ;-)

    [Apr 28, 2019] Sounds like Brennan's CIA laundered information to EX-CIA Nellie Ohr when she was working for Fusion GPS who then laundered this info to Steele

    Apr 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Sam , 28 April 2019 at 04:31 PM

    While I knew about Nellie Ohr and her DOJ husband , what I didn't know was that while she worked for Fusion GPS , fusion was a FBI contractor that had access to NSA database until Admiral Rogers shut it down .

    Sounds Like Brennan's CIA laundered information to EX-CIA Nellie Ohr when she was working for Fusion GPS who then laundered this info to Steele , another person employed by Fusion who then gave this back to Bruce Ohr of DOJ who then gave it to the FBI . And they all got paid for their " research " . This then was used to deceive the FISA court . But Admiral Rogers went to this court and warned Trump of the spying and violations of constitutional rights . Shortly after Obama fired admiral Rogers . Sounds fishy to me ? what do you think ?

    [Apr 28, 2019] Did The Russians Really Interfere In US Elections

    Notable quotes:
    "... Significantly, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 11th, 2018 that "ad accounts linked to Russia" spent about $4,700 in advertising" to politically influence Americans during the 2016 presidential election season. ..."
    Apr 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Boyd Cathey via The Unz Review,

    The Mueller Report is now public, and our Mainstream Media have filled the airways with all sorts of commentaries and interpretations. We know that - despite the very best efforts of the dedicated Leftist attorneys on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's staff - there was absolutely no coordination between members of the Trump campaign, or any of his staffers, with Russians. No additional charges have come as a result, other than accusations made earlier of "process crimes" (e.g. failure to report earnings on tax forms, failure to report lobbying work, or not telling investigators what they demanded to hear -- "crimes" that practically every politician in Washington has been guilty of at one time or another and would normally not cause much of a stir). None of these involved Russia.

    Of course, that finding has not satisfied many Democrats or the unhinged Leftist crazies in the media, who continue to have visions of "collusion" -- a kind of communications Alzheimers that has poisoned our media now for years. Thus, Representative Eric Swalwell (who is one of nearly two dozen Democrats running for president) continues to assert that there was "collusion," as does the irrepressible (and irresponsible) Adam Schiff: "it's there in plain sight," they insist, "if you just look hard enough, and maybe squint just a bit -- or maybe have those specialized 3-D Russia glasses!"

    Such political leaders -- along with those further out in the Leftist loonysphere like Representatives Maxine Waters and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes -- continue down their Primrose path of post-Marxist madness.

    But beyond the collusion/coordination issue, the past couple of weeks have been filled with a swirling controversy concerning what is called "obstruction of justice." And once again, the fundamental issues have been incredibly politicized. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had an obligation, if he and his minions discovered "obstruction of justice," that is, concerted and illegal attempts to obstruct the investigations by the president or his staff, to present charges to the Department of Justice. Yet, all he was able to do was assemble a farrago of "he said/she said" instances, none of which rose to the level of criminal activity. Apparently President Trump told a subaltern "I wish would you fire Mueller," or he wished in a speech in his joking style that "if the Russians had Hillary's emails, they would release them," or he had a private conversation with Vladimir Putin when they met (as all national leaders do!), or his son met with a Russian attorney who supposedly had some "dirt" on the Hillary Clinton campaign (which did not turn out to be the reason for the Trump Tower meeting at all).

    None of the ten or eleven cited instances came anywhere close to being actionable or criminal under settled law. In each instance cited, the president's actions (or desires) fell within his purview and authority under Article II of the Constitution. And regarding Trump's desire to fire Mueller, he was on solid legal ground; the Supreme Court in its 1997 decision, Edmonds vs. the United States , declared that "inferior" officials, including an independent counsel, could be removed by presidential action as part of his delegated powers . And, in any case, Mueller was not dismissed.

    Mueller had an obligation after examining these situations to make a finding; he did not. By so doing, by avoiding decisions and stringing out such instances in an obviously political sense, he abdicated his responsibility and did his best to impugn Donald Trump and his administration and thus offer grist for continued Democrat attacks on the president all the way through the 2020 election.

    Mueller left it up to the Attorney General William Barr and Congress to decide how to proceed. And that is where we are today.

    The one issue that both Democrats and most Republicans seem to agree on, the issue which both say is "proven conclusively" by Mueller is that the Russians "attempted to interfere and did interfere" in our 2016 election.

    Interesting, is it not, that the Republicans who zealously defend the president and attack the obviously political nature of the Mueller Report would accept, as if on faith and without question, the accusations of Russian interference, also contained in the report?

    Turn on Fox and watch, say, Martha MacCallum (e.g., "The Story," April 24, 2019) declare "we all know now without doubt that the Russians tried to interfere" in our elections, or listen to most any GOP congressman repeat that same narrative with unquestioning certitude.

    But that assertion - is it truly backed up factually? Where is the evidence, other than largely questionable information sourced from our largely discredited intelligence agencies which, as we know, had a determined goal of overthrowing the president by any means possible?

    Almost three years have passed from the first fake news that appeared in the media on the subject of "Russian collusion," a concerted effort launched to discredit at first the Donald Trump candidacy and then sabotage his presidency, including his efforts to stabilize Russian-American relations.

    As proof of Russian actions, the Mueller Report cites the indictments against twenty-five Russian citizens who were indicted for attempted "interference" (those Russians are, let us add, quite conveniently out of the country and thus not prosecutable). When those indictments were issued, Russia pointed out the flimsy, unsupported and transparently made-up nature of the charges, and demanded that American authorities provide conclusive proof. Such requests were rebuffed.

    In order to evaluate the evidence, the Russian government proposed reestablishing the bilateral expert group on information security that the Obama Administration had terminated, which could have served as a platform for conversation on these matters. The American side was also invited to send Justice Department officials to Russia to attend the proposed public questioning of the Russian citizens named by Mueller. Additionally, Russia offered to publicize the exchanges between the two countries following the publication of the accusations of cyberattacks, exchanges which were conducted through existing channels between October 2016 and January 2017.

    Our government refused every offer.

    A careful analysis, in fact, fails to show any substantial evidence of Russian cyberattacks and attempts to "subvert democracy." By some estimates, possibly $160,000 -- a paltry sum -- was spent by the Russians during 2016 on social media activities in the United States. Does anyone wish to discover and compare the amount the Chinese Communists or the Saudis would have expended during the same period, for their continued influence and power in Washington and inside-the-Beltway?

    It is helpful to examine the charges that have been made, some included in the Mueller Report and accepted blindly by most pundits and politicians, both on the Left and by establishment conservatives.

    The Russian government, via their embassy in Washington, has published a 120 page "white paper," The Russiagate Hysteria: A Case of Severe Russiaphobia , responding to the accusations made against them since 2016. Obviously, the Russian document has a particular viewpoint and very specific goal, but that should not deter us from examining it and evaluating its arguments. (I have written on Russia and its relations with the United States on a number of occasions since 2015 and had pieces published by The Unz Review , Communities Digital News , and elsewhere. On my blog , "MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey," I have authored a dozen columns addressing this question).

    Here following I list twenty-one claims made regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election and in American domestic affairs. I follow each claim with the Russian response and how others, as noted, have also responded. In most cases I retain the original text, at times with my editing, but, in every case, with all the referenced sources.

    These twenty-one claims should be examined more closely and more calmly, and the "Russophobic" hysteria we have experienced during the past several years needs to be put aside for the sake of rational investigative inquiry -- and discovering how the Managerial State and global elites have attempted a "silent coup" against what's left of our republic.

    These claims and the responses deserve respectful consideration and detailed responses:

    1. CLAIM: Russia "meddled" in the U.S. elections by conducting influence operations, including through social media.

      FACT

      All of the claims of Russian trolls that surfaced over the last few years (such as Russians using the Pokémon Go mobile game and sex toy ads to meddle in the elections – ) are so preposterous and contradictory that they virtually disprove themselves.

      Not to mention the absurdity of the whole notion of 13 persons and 3 organizations (whichever country they might represent) charged on February 16, 2018, by Robert Mueller with criminally interfering with the elections, affecting in any way electoral processes in a country of more than 300 million people.

      It is telling that when pressed about the scope of the alleged influence campaign, representatives of American social media companies give numbers, that even if they were valid (and there's no evidence of a connection to the Russian government), are so minuscule as to be basically non-existent. For example, Facebook has identified 3,000 Russia-linked ads costing a total of about $100,000. That's a miniscule number of ads and a fraction of Facebook's revenues, which totaled $28 billion. Facebook estimates that 126 million people might – the emphasis is on the word "might" – have seen this content. But this number represents just 0.004% of the content those people saw on the Facebook platform.

      Significantly, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 11th, 2018 that "ad accounts linked to Russia" spent about $4,700 in advertising" to politically influence Americans during the 2016 presidential election season.

      To further cast doubt on the allegations, an American watchdog group "Campaign for Accountability" ("CFA") admitted on September 4th, 2018, that it deliberately posted propaganda materials on Google disguised as "Russian hackers from the Internet Research Agency" to check how they would be filtered for "foreign interference". Google officials then accused the CFA as having ties to a rival tech company "Oracle". In other words, corporate intrigues disguised as "Russian interference".

      As American media has admitted, out of several dozen pre-election rallies supposedly organized by Russians, Special Counsel Mueller mentions in his indictment that only a couple actually appear to have successfully attracted anyone, and those that did were sparsely attended and, almost without exception, in deep-red enclaves that would have voted for Trump anyway .

      Amidst all the hysteria about the alleged Russian meddling it is worth reading various research studies which show, quoting "The Washington Post", that it is Americans, in particular our intelligence service, that peddle disinformation and hate speech.

      According to Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, the scale and scope of domestic disinformation is much larger than any foreign influence operation. And academics from the Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy document in their study that there had been major spikes in outright fabrication and misleading information proliferating online before the 2018 U.S. election. A "significant portion" of the disinformation appeared to come from Americans, not foreigners, the Harvard researchers said.

    2. CLAIM:Russian hackers accessed computer servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and leaked materials through Wikileaks and other intermediaries

      FACT

      As President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin noted in his interview with NBC on June 5, 2017, when flatly denying any allegations of Russia interfering in internal affairs of the U.S., that today's technology is such that the final internet address can be masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one will be able to understand the origin of that address. It is possible to set up any entity that may indicate one source when, in fact, the source is completely different .

      No evidence has been presented linking Russia to leaked emails. In fact, there are credible studies arguing that DNC servers are much more likely to have been breached by someone with immediate and physical access. In 2017 a group of former officers of the U.S. intelligence community, members of the "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity" (VIPS), met with then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo to present their findings.

      Those findings demonstrated using forensic analysis that the DNC data was copied at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack ( , , ), thus suggesting that it was more likely a removable storage device used.

      Another counterargument to the "Russian hackers" claim is that the DNC files published by Wikileaks were initially stored under the FAT (File Allocation System) method which is not related to internet transfers and can only be forwarded to an external device such as a thumb drive.

      It is also suspicious that the DNC prohibited the FBI from examining the servers. Instead, a third-party tech firm was hired, "Crowd Strike", which is known for peddling the "Russian interference" claims. And soon enough it, indeed, announced that "Russian malware" has been found, but again no solid evidence was produced.

      According to the respected former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, the indictment by the Mueller team on July 13, 2018 of the 12 supposed Russian operatives was a politically motivated fraud . As Ritter explains, Mueller seems to have borrowed his list from an organizational chart of a supposed Russian military intelligence unit, contained in a classified document from the NSA titled "Spear-Phishing Campaign TTPs Used Against U.S. And Foreign Government Political Entities", which was published by The Intercept online. As stated in that document, this is just a subjective judgement, not a known fact. Ritter concludes, that this is a far cry from the kind of incontrovertible proof that Mueller's team suggests as existing to support its indictment.

      Moreover, it is telling that the indictment was released just before the meeting between President Putin and Trump in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, seemingly as if the aim was to intentionally derail the bilateral summit.

    3. CLAIM: Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.

      FACT

      As concluded in the summary of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, the investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia

      If the Mueller team, having all the resources of the U.S. government, after 22 months of work, many millions of dollars spent , more than 2800 subpoenas issued, nearly 500 search warrants and 500 witness interviews, didn't find any evidence of "collusion", it is simply because there was never any. The whole claim of collusion was launched and peddled by the same group of Democrats, liberal-leaning media and the so-called "Never Trump Republicans", as it became clear that Donald Trump had real chances of winning the election. And later it morphed into a campaign to derail the newly-elected President agenda, including his efforts to mitigate the damage done to U.S.-Russian relations.

    4. CLAIM: Hacking of American political institutions was personally ordered by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

      FACT

      This claim is based on nothing else but the infamous fraudulent "Steele Dossier" , paid for by political opponents [i.e., the Hilary Clinton campaign] of Donald Trump, and wild conjectures that "nothing in Russia happens without Putin's approval" .

      Needless to say, zero proof is presented. By the same logic, nothing in the U.S. happens without the President's approval. For example, is he also responsible for Edward Snowden? After all, Mr. Snowden was doing work for the U.S. intelligence services. Or the deaths of all the civilians killed abroad by U.S. drone strikes? Every minute detail approved by the President?

    5. CLAIM: Russia did not cooperate with the U.S. in tracing the source of the alleged hacking.

      FACT

      Russia has repeatedly offered to set up a professional and de-politicized dialogue on international information security only to be rebuffed by the U.S. State Department. For instance, following the discussion between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Hamburg on July 7, 2017, Russia forwarded to the U.S. a proposal to reestablish a bilateral working group on cyber threats which would have been a perfect medium to discuss American concerns. Moreover, during his meeting with Donald Trump in Helsinki on July 17, 2018, Vladimir Putin offered to allow U.S. representatives to be present at an interrogation of the Russian citizens who were previously accused by the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller of being guilty of electoral interference. Furthermore, in February 2019 the Russian government suggested publishing bilateral correspondence on the subject of unsanctioned access to U.S. electronic networks, which was conducted between Washington and Moscow through the Nuclear Threat Reduction Centers in the period from October 2016 to the end of January 2017.

      Needless to say, all Russian offers were rejected. A conclusion is naturally reached that American State Department officials have little interest in hearing anything that contradicts their own narrative or the discredited version of the CIA.

    6. CLAIM: Russia is interfering in elections all over the world

      FACT

      No credible evidence has been produced not only of Russia's supposed meddling in the U.S. political processes, but to support similar allegations made by the U.S. in respect to other countries. For example, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster insinuated that Russia was interfering in the Mexican presidential elections of 2018. However, Mexican officials, including the president of the Mexican Senate Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, and Ambassador to Russia Norma Pensado during a press conference in Moscow in February, 2018, debunked this baseless claim.

      Another example of fake news were reports saying that U.S. was increasingly convinced that Russia hacked French election on May 9, 2017. However, on June 1, 2017, the head of the French government's cyber security agency said no trace was found of the claimed Russian hacking group behind the attack. On the other hand, the history of U.S. interfering in other countries' elections is well documented by American sources (see: ).

      For example, a Carnegie Mellon scholar, Dov H. Levin, has scoured the historical record and found 81 examples of U.S. election influence operations from 1946- to 2000. Often cited examples include Chile in 1964, Guyana in 1968, Nicaragua in 1990, Yugoslavia in 2000, Afghanistan in 2009, Ukraine in 2014, not to mention Russia in 1996! And how else could the current situation in Ukraine and Venezuela be described, with U.S. representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker openly pressuring Ukrainian voters to support the incumbent , and Washington possibly plotting a coup in Caracas?

    7. CLAIM: The lawsuit of the Democratic National Committee against the Russian Federation related to "interference in the election" has a legal standing.

      FACT

      The DNC filed a civil lawsuit on April 20, 2018 against the Russian Federation and other entities and individuals. Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the Russian Federation; the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU); the GRU operative using the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0"; Aras Iskenerovich Agalarov; Emin Araz Agalarov; Joseph Mifsud; WikiLeaks; Julian Assange; the Trump campaign (formally "Donald J. Trump for President, Inc."); Donald Trump, Jr.; Paul Manafort; Roger Stone; Jared Kushner; George Papadopoulos; Richard W. Gates; and unnamed defendants sued as John Does 1–10. The DNC's complaint accuses the Trump campaign of engaging in a racketeering enterprise in conjunction with Russia and WikiLeaks.

      Even irrespective of the fact that there was no "interference" in the first place, the case has no legal standing. Exercise of U.S. jurisdiction over the pending case with respect to the Russian Federation is a violation of the international law, specifically, violation of jurisdictional immunities of the Russian Federation arising from the principle of the sovereign equality of states.

    8. CLAIM: Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak was a spy.

      FACT

      In March of 2017 U.S. media began libeling Sergey Kislyak a "top spy and spy-recruiter" This preposterous claim was based on nothing but his contacts with Trump confidant Senator Jeff Sessions – carrying out work any ambassador would do. Per the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, among core diplomatic functions is ascertaining by all lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving state, and that certainly includes openly meeting leaders of Congress on Capitol Hill. Even former CIA Director John McLaughlin noted that Mr. Kislyak is an experienced diplomat, not a spy.

    9. CLAIM: Russian Embassy retreat in Maryland was an intelligence base

      FACT.

      Among the unlawful acts that U.S. administrations undertook was the expropriation of a legal Russian property in Maryland, a summer retreat near the Chesapeake Bay under the pretext it was used for intelligence gathering. But where is the supposed-treasure trove of alleged spy equipment that U.S. authorities reportedly found there? Why not show them publicly to back up the claim? After the expropriation and the claims, not a word – silence.

      The retreat, "dacha" as Russians would call it, was bought by the former Soviet Union in 1972. Since then, it was used for recreation, including hosting a children's summer camp and regularly entertaining American visitors. One of the more popular events was the stop-over during the annual Chesapeake Regatta, completed with an expansive tour of the property. Presumably U.S. intelligence services could have used this for years to inspect the property. Why was nothing ever mentioned before the Obama Administration action?

    10. CLAIM: The meeting in Trump Tower in New York on June 9, 2016 between Trump campaign officials and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was to discuss compromising materials that Russian had on Hillary Clinton.

      FACT

      According to testimony provided to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Veselnitskaya focused on explaining the illicit activities of U.S.-British investor Bill Browder, wanted in Russia for crimes, and brought attention to the adverse effects of the so-called "Magnitskiy Act", adopted by U.S. Congress in 2012 and lobbied for by Browder.

    11. CLAIM: Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, met with Russians in Prague to "collude".

      FACT

      It was reported in American media that the Justice Department special counsel had evidence that Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly made a trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign to meet with Russian representatives, a fact also mentioned in the discredited "Steele Dossier". This was given as further evidence of "collusion". But Cohen vehemently denied this – under oath. Passport records indicate that he never was in Prague. He was actually on vacation with his son at the supposed time. Given that he publicly turned on his former boss and still denied the fact of ever going to Prague disproves this claim further.

    12. CLAIM: Former member of the Trump campaign team Carter Page was a Russian intelligence asset.

      FACT

      According to members of Congress and journalistic investigations, the redacted declassified documents of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court) show that the main source used by U.S. counterintelligence to justify spying on Mr. Page was the fraudulent so-called "Steele Dossier".

      Thus, Mr. Page for obvious reasons was not accused by the team of Robert Mueller of being involved in a "Russian conspiracy".

    13. CLAIM: On August 22, 2018, The Democratic National Committee filed a claim with the FBI, accusing the "Russian hackers" of infiltrating its electoral database.

      FACT

      Several days later members of the Democratic Party admitted that it was a "false alarm", as it was simply a security check-up performed at the initiative of the Democratic Party's affiliate in Michigan.

    14. CLAIM: On August 8, 2018 U.S. Senator Bill Nelson accused Russia of breaching the infrastructure of the voter registration systems in several local election offices of Florida.

      FACT

      Florida's Department of State spokesperson, Sarah Revell, stated on August 9, 2018, that Florida's government had not received any evidence from competent authorities that Florida's voting systems or election records had been compromised. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI also could not confirm in any manner the accusations.

    15. CLAIM: In September, 2017 the U.S. media, referring to the Department of Homeland Security, accused Russia of "cyberattacks" on electoral infrastructure in 21 states during the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.

      FACT

      On September 27, 2017, Wisconsin and California authorities stated that their electoral systems were not targeted by cyberattacks. On November 12, 2017, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a CBS interview that the "hackers' activity" had no significant consequences and did not influence the outcome of the elections. And, indeed, the source of those attacks was not clear.

    16. CLAIM: Russia meddled in the Alabama 2017 Senate elections to help the Republican candidate.

      FACT

      Despite the initial claims , it turned out that a group of Democratic tech experts decided to imitate so-called "Russian tactics" in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate racе. Even more jarring is the fact that one participant in the "Alabama project", Jonathon Morgan, is chief executive of "New Knowledge", a cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia's social media operations in the 2016 election that was released in 2018 by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Once again, we have one of the main private sector players in hyping the Russian threat caught red-handed.

    17. CLAIM: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's presidential campaign chairman, was a secret link to Russian intelligence.

      FACT

      Trump's former campaign chairman was hit with two indictments from Mueller's office. However, even as American media notes, both cases have nothing to do with Russia and stemmed from his years as a political consultant for the Ukrainian government and his failure to pay taxes on the millions he earned, his failure to report the foreign bank accounts he used to stash that money, and his failure to report his work to the US government. In his second case in Virginia, he was also charged with committing bank fraud to boost his assets when the Ukraine work dried up.

      In fact, serious concerns have been raised in the U.S. that it was Ukrainian officials who tried to influence the 2016 elections by leaking compromising materials on Mr. Manafort.

      The Ukrainian connection is also prevalent in the case of money transferred to accounts of American politicians. For instance, according to a "New York Times" article, Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk donated over 10 million dollars to the "Clinton Foundation while just 150 thousand dollars to the "Trump Foundation".

    18. CLAIM: Russia compromised the Vermont power grid.

      FACT

      On December 31, 2016, "The Washington Post", accused "Russian hackers" of compromising the Vermont power grid. The local company, "Burlington Electric", allegedly traced a malware code in a laptop of one of its employees. It was stated that the same "code" was used to hack the Democratic Party servers in 2016. However, the "Wordfence" cybersecurity firm checked "Burlington Electric" for hacking, and said that the malware code was openly available, for instance, on a web-site of Ukrainian hackers . The attackers were using IP-addresses from across the world. "The Washington Post" later admitted that conclusions on Russia's involvement were false.

    19. CLAIM: Russian Alfa Bank was used as a secret communication link with the Trump campaign .

      FACT

      In October 2016 a new "accusation" appeared, alleging that a message exchange between the Alfa Bank server and Trump organizations indicated a "secret" Trump – Russia communication channel.

      However, the FBI concluded the supposed messaging was marketing newsletters and/or spam .

    20. CLAIM: Russia cracked voter registration systems during the 2016 U.S. elections.

      FACT

      In July 2016 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security accused Russia of gaining unauthorized access to electronic voter registration systems in Arizona. But on April 8, 2018, "Reuters", referring to a high-ranking U.S. administration official, wrote there was no proof Russia had anything to do with the mentioned cyberattack.

    21. CLAIM: Russian Embassy bank transactions were linked to "election interference".

      FACT

      American publication "Buzzfeed" repeatedly claimed that U.S. authorities flagged Russian Embassy financial transfers as suspicious, many of them dated around the 2016 election. In reality, the media outlet, by twisting the facts and placing them out of context, made routine banking transactions – salary transfers, payments to contractors – look nefarious.

      It is not uncommon for embassy personnel to receive larger payouts, transfer or withdraw larger sums of money at the end of their work. Furthermore, leaking of confidential banking information of persons and organizations protected by diplomatic immunity raised concerns about the likely involvement of security services.

      The arrest in October 2018 of a U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network official, charged with leaking information both about the Russian Embassy accounts and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, provides further proof to the theory of political skullduggery.

    * * *

    Most of these responses have not been fully examined or addressed by major media, nor, for that matter, by Fox News, dominated as it is by an almost instinctive Neoconservative Russophobia (the one possible exception being Tucker Carlson).

    For the American Left, since the collapse of Communism and the growth of a traditionalist nationalism (under Vladimir Putin), Russia has become a convenient target. When the Soviets were in power prior to 1991, the USSR was seen as a "progressive" presence in the world, even if by the requirements of American politics the Left was forced to make ritualistic condemnations of the more extreme elements of Soviet statecraft. Now that post-Communist Russia bans same sex marriage, glorifies the traditional family, and the conservative Russian Orthodox Church occupies a special position of esteem and prominence, that admiration has turned to fear and loathing. And that Russia and its president have been viewed as favorable to the hated Donald Trump doubly confirms that hostility and targeting.

    For the dominant Neoconservatives and many Republicans, contemporary Russia is seen as "anti-democratic," "reactionary," and a threat to American world hegemony (and the refusal to bow to that hegemony, whether economically, politically, or culturally). Indeed, as a major intellectual force, Neoconservatism owes much of its origins to Eastern European and Russia Jews, many of whose ancestors were at direct odds with the old pre-1917 Tsarist state. That animus, those nightmares of pogroms and oppression, have never completely subsided. A modern traditionalist, Orthodox Russia is viewed as antithetical to their more liberal, even Leftwing ideas (e.g., increasing "conservative" acceptance of same sex marriage, "moderate" feminism, and a whole panoply of "forward looking" views on civil rights issues -- all of which are present on Fox News.)

    Memory of "the bad old days" has never disappeared.

    None of this history should prevent a close examination of the current accusations against Russia, nor our search for the truth. Much -- perhaps the future of Western civilization itself -- depends on it.

    [Apr 27, 2019] The Noose Tightens on the British Empire

    Notable quotes:
    "... Deerlove was also directly involved in setting up several Trump Campaign operatives for fake links to Russia (George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Gen. Flynn), together with British intelligence assets Joseph Mifsud and CIA asset Stefan Halper, a close ally of Deerlove at Cambridge. ..."
    "... Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Tuesday that he will immediately investigate three cases of suspected "set ups," efforts to create fake connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, all directly run by British operatives: the Mifsud role with Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer in falsely connecting George Papadopoulos to Russian spies; Halper and Deerlove setting up Gen. Flynn with fake Russian connections; and the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, set up by the slimy British operative Rob Goldstone. ..."
    Apr 18, 2019 | larouchepac.com

    On Thursday morning, Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to release the Mueller report, with redactions, according to laws regarding security and the privacy of Grand Jury proceedings. While the Trump haters and conspirators are preparing various operations to keep Russiagate going, despite the report's exoneration of Trump's imagined "collusion," the reality that the British ran the entire operation, as identified from the beginning by EIR, is now bursting out into the open, and is threatening to be the subject of criminal investigations in the Department of Justice and in the Congress.

    The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross on Tuesday ran an article titled: "Former British Spymaster Has Flown Under the Radar in Russia Probe, Despite Links to Key Figures." He names Richard Deerlove, MI6 chief from 1999 to 2004, as a key operative working with fellow MI6 operative Christopher Steele, the author of the now discredited dossier on Trump's supposed collusion with Russia. Deerlove was also directly involved in setting up several Trump Campaign operatives for fake links to Russia (George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Gen. Flynn), together with British intelligence assets Joseph Mifsud and CIA asset Stefan Halper, a close ally of Deerlove at Cambridge.

    Meanwhile, Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Tuesday that he will immediately investigate three cases of suspected "set ups," efforts to create fake connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, all directly run by British operatives: the Mifsud role with Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer in falsely connecting George Papadopoulos to Russian spies; Halper and Deerlove setting up Gen. Flynn with fake Russian connections; and the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, set up by the slimy British operative Rob Goldstone.

    What's more, the VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) issued a public Memorandum for President Trump on Tuesday, called "The Fly in the Mueller Ointment," warning him that the Mueller report, despite finding no evidence of collusion, maintains the lie that the Russians hacked leading Democratic Party computers and provided their emails to Wikileaks, falsely described as a Russian front. Detailing their forensic proof that the emails were downloaded, not hacked, the VIPS warn the President that if these lies are allowed to stand, the idea that Trump was elected due to Russian "interference" in the election will remain, "and that melody will linger on for the rest of your presidency, unless you seize the moment.... You are the President, and there may be no better time than now to face them down." (see Bill Binney interview with LPAC.)

    ... ... ...

    [Apr 27, 2019] Mueller s $35 Million Gaslighting of the American People

    Notable quotes:
    "... As Attorney General Barr has pointed out, including in his testimony on Capitol Hill, investigating an American presidential candidate is "a very big deal" and the Mifsud/Papadopoulos/Australian Ambassador hearsay hardly serves as adequate justification or predication. This is particularly egregious since the FBI knew that Papadopoulos never repeated to anyone in the Trump Campaign what Mifsud told him. And Mifsud is also a British intelligence asset, not a Russian intelligence asset, as suggested by Mueller's rambling legal partisans. ..."
    "... Mueller, of course, never references the fact that Russiagate actually started way back in late 2015 when the British government started demanding Donald Trump's head because of his sane view of Russia, a fact acknowledged by Obama CIA chief John Brennan in his Congressional testimony ..."
    "... MI6's Christopher Steele's dirty dossier was the driver of Russiagate and that Steele was a joint MI6, U.S. State Department, and FBI asset dating back to collaboration on the 2014 Ukraine coup conducted jointly by the Obama State Department, CIA, and British intelligence ..."
    "... the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, were transparent British/State Department operations designed to plant and fabricate evidence, namely, Russian generated "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. ..."
    "... Mueller completely avoided the real story, despite its public availability, in order to concoct his hit job. Each of these operations involved British intelligence personnel collaborating with Obama White House, the CIA and State Department. These entrapment efforts were designed as the pretext for creating and maintaining an FBI investigation. The FBI investigation in turn made the preposterous claims in Christopher Steele's dirty dossier, that Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russians, palatable to the journalists who repeated Steele's claims both before and after the election ..."
    "... The Moscow Trump Tower project also consumes hundreds of words in Mueller's screed. It was created by long-time FBI and CIA informant Felix Sater and his childhood friend, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and was presented in emails by Sater in September of 2015 as a Russian project which would help elect Donald Trump President with Putin's assistance. ..."
    "... Instead, Mueller's argument is essentially this: "if you take all of this together, maybe it amounts to something, but I can't decide, so Congress should just stick the knife in already." There is not sufficient evidence to charge a crime, Mueller says, but Trump has also not proved his innocence. ..."
    "... Here's the CliffsNotes summary of the entire 448 pages: The President was under constant attack, including from within his own White House, in an obvious attempt to frame him up while claiming he was committing treason. He got angry and didn't sit silently by while Mueller and his minions tried to frame him up. He complained loudly. Sometimes he even asked his staff to figure out how to proclaim his innocence. Under no conceivable construction is that obstruction of justice. ..."
    "... When Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in the waning days of his Administration, in retaliation for what his intelligence chiefs claimed was Russian "interference" in the 2016 election, the sanctions included implantation of a Stuxnet type worm in Russian state infrastructure. This might be considered by the Russians as a very hot potential act of war. ..."
    "... First, someone from a tight circle who had viewed these transcripts, leaked the classified transcripts to the Washington Post's David Ignatius who wrote a loud column about Flynn colluding with the Russians to undermine Obama. That leak was a felony. McCabe then called Flynn as the article hit, saying that he was sending over two agents to talk to him about what this was about and telling him that involving any lawyers would be an encumbrance to a relaxed conversation. ..."
    "... each time Comey met with the President he returned to compose contemporaneous memos of his conversations and to plan future encounters with a close group of associates who he characterized as a "murder board." Such activities clearly indicate that Comey was engaged in attempting to set the President up. ..."
    "... Furthermore, the firestorm following Comey's firing illuminated the level of plotting against the President at the top levels of the Department of Justice -- Rod Rosenstein seriously offered to wear a wire to record the President and participated in discussions centered on organizing the cabinet to orchestrate the President's removal. ..."
    "... Trump called White House Counsel Don McGahn and told him to raise Mueller's conflicts of interest with the Department of Justice and -- according to McGahn -- that Mueller could not be Special Counsel. ..."
    Apr 22, 2019 | larouchepac.com

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller has written a 448-page fictional novel, grounded in treason, about the British/Obama Administration intelligence hoax known as Russiagate. It is intended to preoccupy your mind for the next two years, at least through the 2020 elections. It is intended to stir your passions to support your absolutely mad Representative or Senator in enacting further sanctions and supporting the British drive to overthrow Putin's government in Russia based on fictional events which, for the most part, never happened.

    The British sponsored and oriented intelligence services that sponsored this hoax have also started a campaign to ensure that the same mad passions will destroy Donald Trump's quest for new and peaceful relationships with China. Congressional investigations based on the "road map" provided by Robert Mueller are supposed to provide, on your taxpayer dollar, possible impeachment and, at the very least, opposition research for the 2020 Presidential campaign. This would fulfill the British vow, openly set forth in the December 2018 House of Lords Report, "British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order," that Donald Trump must not have a second term.

    But, most of all, it is intended to get you to doubt what is coming next. The President's allies have promised an investigation of the investigators and a full accounting of how this sordid affair came to be. As Conrad Black explains in the National Interest , what is now known is that

    "senior intelligence and FBI and Justice Department officials lied under oath to Congress, or lied to federal officials in order to influence the result, and then reverse the result, of a presidential election. In terms of subversion of the highest constitutional process, the selection of the president and vice president of the United States, this sort of activity, that Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, former attorney general Loretta Lynch and others appear to have engaged in, is the last stop before there are tanks on the White House lawn and military control of the media outlets. Mueller, having failed to do anything to address the real crisis that threatened the country, failed altogether, and compounded his failure by his sadistic entrapment of General Michael Flynn, and hounding of Paul Manafort and others, far beyond what was necessary or excusable, in an effort to extort a false inculpation of the president."

    As most know by now, the first part of the Mueller report concludes that there was no collusion between the Russian government and Donald Trump's campaign to swing the election to Donald Trump. This conclusion occurred despite thousands upon thousands of hours of fake media claims, fed by British and American intelligence leaks, which made it an article of fanatical religious faith to many, that Donald Trump was a Putin dupe. According to Mueller's report, while the Russians tried endlessly to infiltrate and steer the Trump Campaign, they didn't succeed. Undaunted, Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared on television on April 18 to claim that Mueller found "passive collusion." That is not an unfair characterization of the McCarthyite premises of Mueller's report. According to Mueller, investigation of an American Presidential campaign was justified because Trump refused to toe the British line on Putin and Russia.

    Here is how Mueller blithely reports it:

    "On June 16, 2015 Donald J. Trump declared his intent to seek nomination as the Republican candidate for President. By early 2016, he distinguished himself among Republican candidates by speaking of closer ties with Russia, saying he would get along well with Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioning whether the NATO alliance was obsolete, and praising Putin as a 'strong leader.' The press reported that Russian political analysts and commentators perceived Trump as favorable to Russia."

    Beginning in February 2016, the Report continues, the "press" began to report the connections of various campaign figures with Russia, namely, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page. According to Mueller's report, Trump pursued WikiLeaks during the campaign regarding the timing of further releases of Clinton Campaign and State Department documents, he said that he doubted that the Russians hacked the DNC and John Podesta, he falsely claimed that he had no business dealings in Russia, and the Campaign was involved in changing a plank in the Republican Party platform about providing lethal assistance to Ukraine. Contrary to this lying account by Saint Mueller, we know that the "press" were being steered by a British intelligence originated propaganda campaign aimed at preventing any U.S. accommodation with Russia.

    See Barbara Boyd's 3-Part Series on the British Role in Russiagate

    Now that we know that the President is not a traitor, can we move on to address the thousands of opioid deaths, adolescent and other suicides, flooded farmlands, and crumbling infrastructure which have been pushed aside as we were trapped within the walls of this British created delusion? Well, no, according to Mueller and his Congressional toadies, Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff. Nadler, who looks and acts like a venomous toad, stuffing himself into over-sized suits which have that oh so subtle Manhattan mafia cut, vows to spend from now until 2020 redoing the Russiagate investigation. Schiff, who has constantly propounded the most fictitious crap possible about Russiagate, is just too invested to ever be sane, if he ever was. Thus, the second part of Mueller's report attempts to seamlessly switch the anti-Trump political narrative by presenting an entirely novel theory of obstruction of justice in which the President knew he was innocent, while those investigating him, knowing he was innocent, sought to exploit Trump's emotions as they rolled a full scale coup right over him, hoping he would cross the line into illegal acts. He did not, according to both Attorney General Barr and Mueller's boss throughout this escapade, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Mueller also acknowledges this by saying he can't charge Trump with obstruction of justice. But Mueller also takes a cheap shot, designed to inflame the Congress and the public, saying he cannot "exonerate" the President either. In doing so, he impermissibly shifts the burden of proof, under our Constitution, to imply that Trump must now prove his innocence. This is, of course, reminiscent of the Star Chamber.

    When Donald Trump was informed by Jeff Sessions that a Special Counsel was being appointed, he said, according to Mueller,

    "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked. Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won't be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me."

    Perversely, this absolutely true statement by the President, borne out by months of an insane inquisition which crippled his ability to act, is cited by Robert Mueller's crew of biased prosecutors for the proposition that the President repeatedly skirted obstructing justice. On April 17, Attorney General Barr said that Donald Trump confronted an unprecedented situation at the beginning of his presidency. The President was attempting to form an administration, while his own intelligence community was investigating him as an agent of a foreign power. Barr might have added that Trump knew -- and everyone else knew -- that "collusion" nonsense was just that. They knew it all along. In such circumstances, there was never any ability, in reality, to charge obstruction of justice, which requires a corrupt intent or motive. There can be no corrupt intent or motive where a President believes, rightly, that he is innocent, that he is being framed up, and that a coup is underway. He fights back, to preserve both the Presidency and the Constitution itself, breaking the rules of what Saint Robert Mueller considers to be appropriate conduct by those he targets – don't say or do anything, just let us slice you up. All the while, the Mueller report makes clear, Trump's emotions about the coup are being recorded and/or falsely portrayed, minute by minute by those who would sell him out -- some as traitors within, others, if only to save themselves. That is the reality. It was never obstruction of justice. It was a psyop against the President attempting to drive him mad.

    The British, Not the Russians, Tried to Swing the 2016 Election

    Mueller makes three significant claims about Russian interference in the 2016 election. First, page after page of his report attempts to paint an amateurish and small bore social media campaign conducted by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian internet marketing and click bait operation, as exercising a hugely powerful lure on the American mind. Despite Mueller's indictment of the IRA, which is pending now in Washington, D.C., and despite British intelligence's five year fixation on the IRA as the essence of newfound Russian powers in hybrid warfare, this is a hoax. Aaron Maté , Gareth Porter and others have demonstrated, conclusively, that the IRA spent minimal amounts of money on Facebook and Google in 2016, for a campaign which barely mentioned either candidate. Only 11% of the IRA activity even occurred during the election period.

    The IRA effort spent a grand total of $46,000 on Facebook Ads, compared to $81 million by the Trump and Clinton campaigns combined, and $4,700 on Google platforms. Its most liked Facebook post was a gun-toting image of Yosemite Sam; its most shared Instagram post said, "Click here if you like Jesus." Another favored meme featured Jesus counseling a young man how to stop masturbating. Otherwise, the IRA's campaign was dedicated to creating revenue from themed t-shirts and LGBT positive sex toys. Mueller never explains how this ad content impacted the election in any way, nor could he.

    Mueller next focuses on the alleged Russian military intelligence hacks of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, for which he has indicted 12 Russian GRU officers, secure in the knowledge that they will never appear in a U.S. courtroom to contest the charges. The first fact lost in the sauce here is the fact that the files the Russians allegedly sent to WikiLeaks for publication demonstrated, truthfully, that Hillary Clinton was a craven tool of Wall Street and that her campaign was illegally rigging the Democratic primaries against Bernie Sanders's insurgent campaign. Further, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, led by former NSA Technical Director William Binney and former NSA cryptologist Ed Loomis, have exploded Mueller's entire theory that the Russians hacked the DNC. They conducted forensic studies demonstrating that what Mueller says about Guccifer 2.0 is fraudulent and that the claim that a GRU hack of the DNC computers resulted in the WikiLeaks releases does not square with any science known currently to man. The download speeds and file metadata point to a thumb drive or similar storage device and a human source, rather than a Russian cyber attack conducted over the internet.

    You might also ask why Julian Assange and/or WikiLeaks were not indicted in Mueller's grand GRU conspiracy indictment . Instead, Assange was indicted on a highly dubious charge involving the 2010 Chelsea Manning leaks which may not even survive a challenge under the statute of limitations. Obviously, Mueller's proof of his indicted Russiagate conspiracy falls short. Indicting Assange for the claimed DNC and Podesta hack conspiracy would necessarily allow Assange to prove that the Russian hack never happened, as he has long contended. It would expose how James Comey and Senator Mark Warner intervened in Assange's early 2017 negotiations with the Justice Department, to ensure that the truth would never come out. It was Comey, after all, who never secured the DNC servers for FBI forensic analysis, relying instead on the forensics provided to him by Atlantic Council's Russia-hating CrowdStrike, the unreliable vendor to the DNC and the Clinton Campaign. And it was Comey, it is reliably claimed, who relentlessly pushed the Russiagate narrative even after his lead case agent told him after months of investigation, "there is no there, there." If Mueller pursued the logic of his own indictment and included Assange in his fabricated GRU conspiracy, it would also have exposed exactly what happened after Bill Binney met with then CIA Director Mike Pompeo at Donald Trump's direction on October 24, 2017, explaining exactly how the intelligence community was lying to the American President. Binney's offer to collaborate in demonstrating what actually happened with the DNC and John Podesta has been successfully blocked to date.

    The last prong of Mueller's Russiagate plot involves all sorts of contacts with Russians who allegedly unsuccessfully reached out to the Trump campaign, in order to seduce them. Here the report just lies egregiously. We are told that Russiagate started as the result of a July 2016 report by the Australian Ambassador to London, Alexander Downer, to the FBI about a conversation he had with a 28 year old Trump campaign volunteer, George Papadopoulos, in London. According to Mueller, Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor with "connections to Russia" told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton's State Department emails, and Papadopoulos repeated this information in a meeting initiated by Downer. According to Mueller, when the DNC's computers were hacked, the former Australian Ambassador to London remembered his early 2016 meeting with Papadopoulos in which Papadopoulos recounted Mifsud's claim about Clinton's emails. This tidbit, according to Mueller, launched a full scale FBI counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. presidential nominee. As Attorney General Barr has pointed out, including in his testimony on Capitol Hill, investigating an American presidential candidate is "a very big deal" and the Mifsud/Papadopoulos/Australian Ambassador hearsay hardly serves as adequate justification or predication. This is particularly egregious since the FBI knew that Papadopoulos never repeated to anyone in the Trump Campaign what Mifsud told him. And Mifsud is also a British intelligence asset, not a Russian intelligence asset, as suggested by Mueller's rambling legal partisans.

    Mueller, of course, never references the fact that Russiagate actually started way back in late 2015 when the British government started demanding Donald Trump's head because of his sane view of Russia, a fact acknowledged by Obama CIA chief John Brennan in his Congressional testimony.

    Nor does Mueller reference the fact that MI6's Christopher Steele's dirty dossier was the driver of Russiagate and that Steele was a joint MI6, U.S. State Department, and FBI asset dating back to collaboration on the 2014 Ukraine coup conducted jointly by the Obama State Department, CIA, and British intelligence. The Ukraine coup began a British march toward regime change in Russia, risking nuclear war, a march which was rudely interrupted by the Brexit vote in Britain and by the candidacy and election of Donald Trump.

    The real story, the one now being promised by Trump's allies and others, is that many of the alleged Russian outreach efforts cited in Mueller's report, such as multiple entrapment efforts conducted against Papadopoulos and Carter Page, as well as the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, were transparent British/State Department operations designed to plant and fabricate evidence, namely, Russian generated "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

    Mueller completely avoided the real story, despite its public availability, in order to concoct his hit job. Each of these operations involved British intelligence personnel collaborating with Obama White House, the CIA and State Department. These entrapment efforts were designed as the pretext for creating and maintaining an FBI investigation. The FBI investigation in turn made the preposterous claims in Christopher Steele's dirty dossier, that Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russians, palatable to the journalists who repeated Steele's claims both before and after the election.

    Like the Steele dossier itself, the dirt and allegedly Russian-sourced information about Putin and Trump did not originate with actual Russian "dirt" or with actual Russian sources. According to well-placed Congressional sources, Christopher Steele's main source for his dodgy dossier is a former Russian intelligence officer living in the United States. But, no former Russian intelligence officer lives in the United States without reporting to the CIA. That is just a simple fact. There is also evidence that the Trump Campaign was being flooded with FBI informants acting as "pretend" Russian agents as early as May. Mike Caputo has documented just such as approach by FBI informant and Russian criminal Henry Greenberg to himself and Roger Stone offering "dirt on Hillary Clinton." Papadopoulos claims that Sergei Millian, the alleged source of the infamous Ritz Hotel prostitute claim in Steele's dirty dossier, sat silently as Millian's friend told Papadopoulos that Millian was working for the FBI.

    The Moscow Trump Tower project also consumes hundreds of words in Mueller's screed. It was created by long-time FBI and CIA informant Felix Sater and his childhood friend, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and was presented in emails by Sater in September of 2015 as a Russian project which would help elect Donald Trump President with Putin's assistance. It was pushed, and pushed, and pushed by Sater, whose agreement to become an informant, was signed by none other than Andrew Weissman, Mueller's chief henchman. Former CIA and State Department analyst Larry Johnson has fully demonstrated this chain of fabrications .

    As for the last portion of Part I of Mueller's Report, portraying efforts to secure peace with Russia and in Ukraine during the transition as some sort of diabolical plot -- wow, just think about that. Can you seriously join Grand Inquisitor Robert Mueller in treating efforts to establish the foundations for peace with Russia, as some form of criminal act? Or, as crazy former DNI Jim Clapper calls it, "passive collusion"? This is, of course, the same Jim Clapper who claims that Russians are genetically predisposed to attack the United States. As Professor Stephen Cohen, of NYU and Princeton, continues to reiterate, there are immense nuclear dangers in stoking hatred of Russia rather than seeking a just accommodation. Professor Cohen noted recently that in the history of election interventions by the United States into Russia, even if you accept all of Mueller's preposterous claims, what the Russians are accused of doing here is equivalent to jay-walking. Compare the publication of truthful information about Hillary Clinton rigging the Democratic primaries, a juvenile and largely ineffective social media campaign, and numerous attempts to improve U.S. Russian relations, with the $10 billion the Clinton Administration provided to re-elect Boris Yeltsin, in 1996, for example.

    Obstruction of Justice

    Mueller's 250 page plus screed about obstruction of justice focuses on 10 "episodes" where he says the President almost crossed the line into what he considers to be obstructive conduct. Mind you, he admits that as opposed to most obstruction cases, there was no underlying crime which the President was trying to cover up. There were also never ever any acts like those Hillary Clinton's crew committed, such as smashing cell phones with hammers and BleachBitting computers. In fact, the White House gave the Special Counsel everything he asked for, including notes of President Trump's discussions with White House Counsel Don McGahn, over which Executive Privilege could rightly have been claimed -- and many lawyers believe such privilege should have been exercised. Mueller interviewed just about everyone in the White House and on the Trump Campaign, with the President's blessing and his urging them to "cooperate." From this cooperation, Mueller's minions concocted a hit job, designed to portray the President as unstable and irrational and out solely to protect himself, concealing derogatory facts from the American people in statements on his Twitter account and to the press. Nowhere, however, even in this entire rabid prosecutor's screed is there any act which the courts have recognized as obstruction of justice.

    Instead, Mueller's argument is essentially this: "if you take all of this together, maybe it amounts to something, but I can't decide, so Congress should just stick the knife in already." There is not sufficient evidence to charge a crime, Mueller says, but Trump has also not proved his innocence.

    Here's the CliffsNotes summary of the entire 448 pages: The President was under constant attack, including from within his own White House, in an obvious attempt to frame him up while claiming he was committing treason. He got angry and didn't sit silently by while Mueller and his minions tried to frame him up. He complained loudly. Sometimes he even asked his staff to figure out how to proclaim his innocence. Under no conceivable construction is that obstruction of justice.

    Three incidents make the fraud in Mueller's tedious novel very clear. First, Mueller babbles on about the President's conduct concerning Michael Flynn's firing, but he never references that Michael Flynn had been targeted by the British authors of the Russiagate hoax, the circles of Sir Richard Dearlove and his friend Stefan Halper, way back in 2014. They falsely accused Flynn of a dalliance with Russian historian Svetlana Lokhova at a Cambridge event both attended. What really flipped the British out about Flynn, however, was his exposure of support for Al Qaeda and similar groups in Syria by both the U.S. and British governments. Flynn had been a target of FBI investigation and surveillance based on British demands for his head since early 2016, if not much earlier.

    When Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in the waning days of his Administration, in retaliation for what his intelligence chiefs claimed was Russian "interference" in the 2016 election, the sanctions included implantation of a Stuxnet type worm in Russian state infrastructure. This might be considered by the Russians as a very hot potential act of war. Flynn, the incoming National Security Adviser, had conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak to the effect that the Russians should not overreact to Obama's sanctions, among other things. These conversations were intercepted, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Mary McCord of the National Security Division at DOJ, along with Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, plotted how to set Flynn up for undermining Obama's dangerous threats and actions.

    First, someone from a tight circle who had viewed these transcripts, leaked the classified transcripts to the Washington Post's David Ignatius who wrote a loud column about Flynn colluding with the Russians to undermine Obama. That leak was a felony. McCabe then called Flynn as the article hit, saying that he was sending over two agents to talk to him about what this was about and telling him that involving any lawyers would be an encumbrance to a relaxed conversation. Flynn couldn't remember certain things the agents asked him about. They had the transcript of Flynn's conversation and never showed it to him. In the course of the interview, Flynn made statements at variance with what he was known to have said in the transcripts. Nonetheless, the agents themselves said that Flynn had not deliberately lied to them when they reported back to the FBI.

    After Flynn was fired for lying to Vice President Pence and others about the Kisylak conversations, FBI Director James Comey claims that President Trump pulled him aside and said he "hoped" Comey would let the Flynn thing go because Flynn was a good guy. The maniacal Comey insists that the President's "hope" was an "order." Comey, the fabricator, had previously insisted that the President's alleged request for "loyalty," at a point where all of Washington was talking about RESIST members covertly acting against the President from within his Administration, was somehow equivalent to a mafia induction ceremony. Michael Flynn was subsequently convicted by Mueller of lying to the FBI in his White House interview despite the fact that the original agents concluded that no such lying even occurred. This was part of a coerced plea deal resulting from the fact that Flynn was bankrupted by the legal fees necessary to defend himself against Mueller's inquisition, and threats by Mueller to indict Flynn's son.

    Then there is the Comey firing itself. Comey's Congressional testimony, which Mueller never mentions, lays out that each time Comey met with the President he returned to compose contemporaneous memos of his conversations and to plan future encounters with a close group of associates who he characterized as a "murder board." Such activities clearly indicate that Comey was engaged in attempting to set the President up. Comey told Congress and Trump that he was not under investigation in Russiagate but refused to tell the public that, knowing full well that the President felt it was completely hindering his ability to act, particularly with respect to Russia.

    Mueller does disclose that, from the beginning, Trump railed against Comey because he was blocking what Trump he wanted to do with Russia on trade and ISIS. In fact, Trump dictated a letter to Steven Miller firing Comey because he would not tell the public the truth about Russiagate and because it was hindering his ability to deal with Russia. Trump's letter was rejected by White House staff, including White House Counsel Don McGahn, who came up with the idea of firing Comey based on Comey's misconduct in the Clinton investigation. The President repeated the real reasons he was firing Comey publicly and almost immediately after Rod Rosenstein's letter detailing Comey's misconduct in the Clinton investigation was released, and did so again, in an oval office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak. This is hardly the concealment associated with obstruction of justice.

    Furthermore, the firestorm following Comey's firing illuminated the level of plotting against the President at the top levels of the Department of Justice -- Rod Rosenstein seriously offered to wear a wire to record the President and participated in discussions centered on organizing the cabinet to orchestrate the President's removal. Mueller never mentions any of this in his report. Instead he adopts, wholesale, James Comey's claim that Trump fired him to hinder the Russia investigation, despite the fact that the investigation was never hindered. Mueller also never references Comey's leaks of classified materials to a friend for media publication, in order to trigger Mueller's own appointment as Special Counsel, or that everyone already knew, at that point, that there was "no there, there" with respect to collusion with Russia.

    Instead, the game was on to frame the President, to build the case Comey had not been able to make about obstruction of justice. This proceeded through a series of calculated provocations and media leaks all designed to provoke the President into overreaction.

    One of these is found in the episode involving the so-called attempt to "fire Mueller" which the media and Congress are salivating about. According to Mueller's report, Trump called White House Counsel Don McGahn and told him to raise Mueller's conflicts of interest with the Department of Justice and -- according to McGahn -- that Mueller could not be Special Counsel.

    This call occurred soon after the Washington Post published a leak that the President himself was under investigation by Mueller for obstruction of justice. McGahn construed Trump's words as an order to fire Mueller, even though, by his own account, no such order to fire Mueller was stated. McGahn claims that he immediately decided to resign, although he never informed the President of this. No call was ever placed to the Justice Department, Mueller was not fired, and Trump never repeated what he allegedly said on one heated occasion to Don McGahn. Based on his drama queen account of this alleged aborted attempt at some undetermined act of obstruction, however, McGahn is being hailed by the anti-Trump media as a modern Sir Thomas More.

    The President denies ever saying anything like this and there is considerable evidence in the Mueller report itself demonstrating that Trump's repeatedly pronounced distrust of McGahn was fully justified. The kicker here is that even if Trump had followed through and fired Mueller, he would have been within his Constitutional powers to do so. There would have been plenty of political heat, but no obstruction of justice, despite McGahn's ridiculous fantasy that he was being asked to re-enact Nixon's Saturday night massacre. Mueller's report otherwise shows White House Counsel McGahn, a total creature of the Washington Republican establishment who attached himself to Trump early in the campaign, keeping book on the President and taking notes on everything the President allegedly said -- hardly something typical of normal lawyering.

    So, despite this weekend's huffing and puffing of the Democrats and the media about the Mueller Report, it is important to remember, first and foremost, that they suffered a bone-crushing defeat when Saint Robert Mueller's magical curtain was pulled back, revealing a tale, full of sound and fury, but signifying absolutely nothing. Attorney General Barr will conduct a seminar for the children in Congress when he testifies about the actual law shortly.

    The real story, the one about the attempted coup and treason against this President and its perpetrators is coming, and it will come fast. A big opportunity is presenting itself to crush the British apparatus which has haunted this country since the end of World War II.

    Act now, don't get confused by the heat of battle, and we can take the country back.

    This kind of reporting is only possible with support from YOU. Make a donation to LaRouchePAC today so we can fully defeat this coup against the President!

    [Apr 26, 2019] How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost by John Solomon

    Notable quotes:
    "... Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine's chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016 Washington meetings and couldn't remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed. ..."
    "... But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election . Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort -- a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions -- was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly NABU, after Manafort was named Trump's campaign chairman: "Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious." ..."
    "... "I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort." ..."
    "... Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures , such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych's party. But the Americans weren't interested: "They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else." ..."
    "... According to Telizhenko, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukraine's chief prosecutor in March 2016, as I previously reported. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down. ..."
    "... The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions. ..."
    "... But Telizhenko's claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ's own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
    "... DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband and two DOJ prosecutors specializing in international crimes to the discovery of the "black ledger" documents that led to Manafort's prosecution. ..."
    "... The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous. ..."
    "... Now we have more concrete evidence that the larger Ukrainian government also was being pressed by the Obama administration to help build the Russia collusion narrative. And that onion is only beginning to be peeled. ..."
    "... But what is already confirmed by Ukrainians looks a lot more like assertive collusion with a foreign power than anything detailed in the Mueller report . ..."
    Apr 26, 2019 | thehill.com

    As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia's most critical neighbor.

    The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine's top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).

    That makes the January 2016 meeting one of the earliest documented efforts to build the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative and one of the first to involve the Obama administration's intervention.

    Spokespeople for the NSC, DOJ and FBI declined to comment. A representative for former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice did not return emails seeking comment.

    Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine's chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016 Washington meetings and couldn't remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed.

    But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election . Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort -- a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions -- was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly NABU, after Manafort was named Trump's campaign chairman: "Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious."

    Kholodnytskyy said he explicitly instructed NABU investigators who were working with American authorities not to share the ledger with the media. "Look, Manafort's case is one of the cases that hurt me a lot," he said.

    "I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort."

    "For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial," he added.

    Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general's international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions case.

    "Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public," he recalled.

    Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures , such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych's party. But the Americans weren't interested: "They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else."

    Manafort joined Trump's campaign on March 29, 2016, and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016.

    NABU leaked the existence of the ledgers on May 29, 2016. Later that summer, it told U.S. media the ledgers showed payments to Manafort, a revelation that forced him to resign from the campaign in August 2016.

    A Ukrainian court in December concluded NABU's release of the ledger was an illegal attempt to influence the U.S. election. And a member of Ukraine's parliament has released a recording of a NABU official saying the agency released the ledger to help Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign.

    The other case raised at the January 2016 meeting, Telizhenko said, involved Burisma Holdings , a Ukrainian energy company under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was paying then-Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter as both a board member and a consultant. More than $3 million flowed from Ukraine to an American firm tied to Hunter Biden in 2014-15, bank records show .

    According to Telizhenko, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukraine's chief prosecutor in March 2016, as I previously reported. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down.

    The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions.

    "Unfortunately, the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., was not invited to join the DOJ and other law enforcement-sector meetings," it said. It said it had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings it did attend.

    Ukraine is riddled with corruption, Russian meddling and intense political conflicts, so one must carefully consider any Ukrainian accounts.

    But Telizhenko's claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ's own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele.

    Nellie Ohr and Steele worked in 2016 for the research firm, Fusion GPS, that was hired by Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to find Russia dirt on Trump. Steele wrote the famous dossier for Fusion that the FBI used to gain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Nellie Ohr admitted to Congress that she routed Russia dirt on Trump from Fusion to the DOJ through her husband during the election.

    DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband and two DOJ prosecutors specializing in international crimes to the discovery of the "black ledger" documents that led to Manafort's prosecution.

    "Reported Trove of documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' Black Cashbox," Nellie Ohr wrote to her husband and federal prosecutors Lisa Holtyn and Joseph Wheatley, attaching a news article on the announcement of NABU's release of the documents.

    Bruce Ohr and Steele worked on their own effort to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who had a soured business relationship with him. Deripaska was "almost ready to talk" to U.S. government officials regarding the money that "Manafort stole," Bruce Ohr wrote in notes from his conversations with Steele.

    The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous.

    Previously, Politico reported that the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington assisted Clinton's campaign through a DNC contractor. The Ukrainian Embassy acknowledges it got requests for assistance from the DNC staffer to find dirt on Manafort but denies it provided any improper assistance.

    Now we have more concrete evidence that the larger Ukrainian government also was being pressed by the Obama administration to help build the Russia collusion narrative. And that onion is only beginning to be peeled.

    But what is already confirmed by Ukrainians looks a lot more like assertive collusion with a foreign power than anything detailed in the Mueller report .

    John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports

    [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
    "... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
    "... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
    "... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
    Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
    The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's cooperation with it."

    Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale and basically ineffective.

    One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would be taking a very hard line against Moscow.

    The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be sentenced tomorrow .

    Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy. Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.

    Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and return home.

    FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing."

    Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment, hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities, turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal investigators before and after her guilty plea.

    Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.

    Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.

    Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.

    Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it.

    As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel. Noam Chomsky described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."

    Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.

    Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

    [Apr 25, 2019] Much of CrowdStrike's role is not really to provide any sort of relevant technical expertise or investigation, but to serve as an outside "expert" to provides the "correct" claims to form the basis of a desired media narrative

    Apr 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

    James Forrestal , says: April 24, 2019 at 10:59 pm GMT

    @annamaria

    Your whole tirade was triggered by a reference to CrowdStrike.

    Interesting observation -- and appears to be true.

    needless defiant

    The word choice is quite revealing here. His objection has nothing to do with truth. He views you as " defying " the officially-endorsed narrative; committing the unpardonable crime of unauthorized noticing .

    All that the notorious "17 intelligence agencies" canard ever amounted to was the heads of the 3 major inteligence agencies lining up and chanting "We believe Alperovitch!" in unison. Kind of ironic that the entire "Russian hackers" trope was based on the unsupported claim of an actual Russian hacker.

    Regardless of how the Trump administration is working out, the simple fact that no US law enforcement agency ever examined the DNC's servers -- and that the officially-promoted media narrative skips over this fact, and minimizes the role of Alperovitch and CrowdStrike, demonstrates the extent of the deception involved in that narrative.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-24/what-crowdstrike-firm-hired-dnc-has-ties-hillary-clinton-ukrainian-billionaire-and-g

    "The firm's CTO and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with openly anti-Russian sentiments that is funded by Ukrainian billionaire (((Victor Pinchuk))), who also happened to donate at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation."

    CrowdStrike was pretty tight with Obama as well as Hillary.

    https://archive.fo/6PEuq

    "CrowdStrike Inc. today announced that Steven Chabinsky, CrowdStrike's general counsel and chief risk officer, has been appointed by the President to the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity."

    Crowdstrike has never made a profit, and does not disclose sales figures, but seems to have little difficulty in raising venture capital, and somehow reached a (private) valuation of $1B in 2017 -- and $3B a year later:

    http://fortune.com/2018/06/19/cybersecurity-crowdstrike-funding-value/

    Their first major round of investment was in 2015, with Google Capital, Warburg Pincus, and Rackspace as the major investors.

    CrowdStrike and Alperovitch have promoted some other rather strange and improbable allegations about alleged "hackers" and "hacking":

    https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/the-gru-ukraine-artillery-hack-that-may-never-have-happened-820960bbb02d
    https://www.voanews.com/a/crowdstrike-comey-russia-hack-dnc-clinton-trump/3776067.html
    http://themillenniumreport.com/2017/01/dnc-russian-hackers-found/

    Look at the cover of the Crowdstrike "report" on the imaginary "Fancy Bear" Ukrainian artillery hack that they tried to promote:

    https://www.crowdstrike.com/wp-content/brochures/FancyBearTracksUkrainianArtillery.pdf

    Looks like a comic book cover. Clown world.

    It's also interesting to note that the metadata for the Guccifer 2.0 files is not consistent with a "hack" over the interwebz from Romania -- since it was transferred at 23 MB/s:

    https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-metadata-analysis/

    that's thumb drive or LAN -- an internal leak, not a "hack."

    CrowdStrike's role in the Russia conspiracy theory hacking/ meddling/ colluding allegations was minimized in favor of the even more authoritative-sounding "37 intelligence agencies" claim, but a large part of their usual role seems to to serve as a sort of "SPLC" for hacking attributions. Just as the SPLC provides the appearance of an "independent," "authoritative" source to designate so-called "hate groups" and "hate crimes," much of CrowdStrike's role is not really to provide any sort of relevant technical expertise or investigation, but to serve as an outside "expert" to provides the "correct" claims to form the basis of a desired media narrative.

    See also the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights," the "White Helmets," Rita Katz's "SITE Intelligence," etc

    [Apr 25, 2019] Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire Crowd Strike

    Most probably because there was no hack: it was created by Crowdstrike out of plain cloth to fuel Russiagate.
    Apr 25, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38

    Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire Crowd Strike did you know:
    1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
    2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
    3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers -- that is a lie.
    4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the campaign.

    -daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.

    [Apr 25, 2019] It goes without saying that Trump would covet an opportunity to settle scores with the Democratic Party over that witch hunt, which, in cahoots with the mainstream media, stalked the US leader and his administration for two painstaking years.

    Apr 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    There is also the question of Russiagate. It goes without saying that Trump would covet an opportunity to settle scores with the Democratic Party over that witch hunt, which, in cahoots with the mainstream media, stalked the US leader and his administration for two painstaking years. And even now, after the release of the Mueller Report, the Democrats refuse to throw in the towel and are plotting to interrogate the interrogator himself, Robert Mueller. This is where Julian Assange might help halt the madness, although that is not to suggest, of course, that he is necessarily predisposed to such an opportunity. Yet he may find himself with no choice in the matter. Before continuing with that line of discussion, there are some rather strange things about the Assange case that need mentioning.

    For those who may have forgotten, and it seems that many have, Rich, 27, was the Director of Voter Expansion Data at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the time of his death. In other words, he would have been in the loop to view emails showing foul play inside of the DNC. What kind of foul play? Well, for starters, deliberate efforts to marginalize Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton, who responded to the arrest of Julian Assange with her trademark cackle before remarking, "The bottom line is that he has to answer for what he has done, at least as it has been charged." For Hillary Clinton that means wrecking her chances at the White House.

    Incidentally, it was at this time in history, in July 2016 during the release of the incriminating DNC emails, when the perennial bogeyman Russia was wheeled out as not only the source of the emails, but the kingmaker in the US election as well.

    At this point, it is important to emphasize that there is no proof to suggest that Rich had anything to with leaking the DNC emails to WikiLeaks. In fact, to merely suggest such a thing has been given the 'conspiracy theory' stamp of disapproval by the establishment. Yet that has not stopped the flow of mysteries. For example, Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family to investigate the death of their son, said he had sources at the FBI who "absolutely" confirmed that there was evidence on Rich's laptop that indicates he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death. However, just days after divulging this explosive information, Wheeler backtracked on his statement, calling his on-air comments a "miscommunication."

    For what it is worth, Snopes has called the claims that Rich leaked the emails as "false."

    Yet, there remains the circumstantial evidence, namely Rich's untimely death, as well as its uncanny timing. There also remains the question of his supervisory position inside of the DNC, and the assertion that the DNC emails were not discovered by hackers, but rather a leaker. In other words, an internal source at the DNC. Whether or not Mr. Rich was that source remains questionable, however, Julian Assange not only referred to Seth Rich during an interview, he offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of his killer or killers.

    "Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks," Assange said in an interview with a Dutch television station. "There's a 27-year-old who works for the DNC, who was shot in the back, murdered, just two weeks ago, for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington."

    When pressed for more information, he said, "I'm suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that."

    On the basis of that comment, Assange could potentially be called to testify as a witness should the authorities decide to reopen the case of Seth Rich's murder.

    This leads us to the million-dollar question: were the DNC computers hacked by the Russians or was the data leaked by an internal source at the organization and forwarded to WikiLeaks? The answer to that question would not only settle the 'Russian meddling' mystery once and for all, it would determine how the DNC/Clinton emails were compromised.

    me title=

    Many people are of the opinion it was not the Russians.

    William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower and member of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), co-authored a report (entitled, "Why the DNC was not hacked by the Russians") that says the WikiLeaks dump was the result of a leak by "a person with physical access to the DNC's computer system."

    "The NSA had an opportunity to make it clear that there was irrefutable proof of Russian meddling, particularly with regard to the DNC hack, when it signed on to the January 2017 'Intelligence Community Assessment,'" Binney wrote.

    Instead, the NSA could only say it has "moderate confidence," which means, in intelligence speak, "we have no hard evidence," the pair concluded.

    Meanwhile, there remains the question as to how any conclusion could have been made when the DNC refused to hand over the compromised computer servers to the FBI.

    "We'd always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that's possible," former FBI head James Comey told lawmakers in October 2017. He added that he didn't know why the DNC refused the FBI, which was forced to rely on data provided by CrowdStrike, a private security firm hired by the DNC.

    Following the release of the Mueller Report, which failed to find any proof that Trump colluded with the Russians, there remains a glaring yet unproven accusation that needs addressed: that is the allegation that the Russians somehow fixed the election in Trump's favor.

    Although the mainstream media may be ignoring Binney's findings, that doesn't mean everyone is. In October 2017, Binney paid a visit to CIA headquarters, at the invitation of Donald Trump, where he met with then agency director Mike Pompeo, as cited by The Intercept.

    Any guesses whose name was brought up in the course of the meeting between Binney and Pompeo? Yes, that of Seth Rich. Again, whether or not that proves to be significant remains an open question.

    But make no mistake. Donald Trump would like nothing more than to remove the ugly footnote that the Democrats have tacked to his presidency that says the Russians "succeeded beyond their wildest dreams," to quote former intelligence chief James Clapper, by stealing the White House from Hillary Clinton. In other words, Trump does not deserve to be president, the Democrats continue to chant mindlessly. And even after the Mueller Report talk of impeachment continues to hang in the air. The only way to confront the insanity is to have Mr. Assange testify in the United States, possibly as the result of a plea bargain, about his knowledge of Russiagate.

    In fact, such an arrangement had been made before. In January 2017, Assange's lawyer Adam Waldman "negotiated with the Justice Department on a possible deal to get the WikiLeaks founder limited immunity and safe passage out of a London embassy to talk with U.S. officials," according to a report by The Hill.

    me title=

    Among other things, Assange would have been expected to "provide technical information to the U.S. ruling out certain suspects in the release of hacked DNC emails key to the Russia case "

    But the negotiations hit a snag and – according to a source cited by John Solomon of The Hill – James Comey told Assange's lawyer to "stand down" on the offer.

    Now, considering that many of the 'old Obama guard' – like James Comey, the fired FBI director, and Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr – are no longer steering the investigation, there remains the possibility that the Trump administration will be willing to hear what WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has to say about the greatest witch hunt in the history of US politics . Assange's testimony, should it happen, may even help solve the mystery of the Seth Rich murder.

    In other words, don't believe that Russiagate has concluded. Indeed, it may have only just begun.


    tonye , 2 minutes ago link

    Or, if the British keep holding onto him, it might be the Deep Estate and the Obola/Clinton cabals want to keep Assange on ice so that he won't put the kabosh on the Russia Gate narrative.

    Right Wing-Nut , 7 minutes ago link

    The real Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy right within the bowels of the US Government.

    And we have this from August 2017:

    Republican California Representative Dana Rohrabacher met with WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London this week.

    According to Rohrabacher, Assange "reaffirmed his aggressive denial that the Russians had anything to do with the hacking of the DNC during the election," in the meeting, adding, "He has given us a lot of information. He said there's more to come. We don't have the entire picture yet."

    Rohrabacher further claimed that the information he received would have "an earth-shattering political impact."

    https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/17/report-gop-rep-dana-rohrbracher-meets-julian-assange/

    archie bird , 22 minutes ago link

    I believe its been determined that the DNC emails were leaked, not hacked by Russians. According to different reports the emails were downloaded to a thumbdrive as a fantastic speed, much to fast for it to be a hack.

    PeaceForWorld , 27 minutes ago link

    I was running one of the largest Bernie Groups and I was Bernie or Bust. I really believe that Seth Reich did leak the info to Julian Assange and he was killed as a hero. DWS who is a criminal was definitely involved and I wouldn't doubt about Mossad's involvement. Mossad is very sneaky and professional in killing. All we need is DNC Fraud Lawsuit. But even Becks were threatened and the case didn't go anywhere.

    Trump is just extremely selfish and he used Wikileaks in his campaign by defending him. But he doesn't give a damn about Julian Assange.

    I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 50 minutes ago link

    Unless the Republican leader's declared intention along the campaign trail to 'drain the swamp' was mere rhetorical bombast...

    Jesus ******* Christ. 😣

    look there are people, who if Trump appointed Bill Kristol chief of staff, would still insist Trump is draining the swamp.

    these people are incorrigible morons, and should be disallowed sharp objects and plastic bags.

    Bolton, Haley, Pompeo, Abramson.... helloooo!! McFuckingFlyyyyyy!!!

    Dr. Acula , 48 minutes ago link

    The stupid... It burns

    shortingurass , 36 minutes ago link

    I agree. I'm ******* tired of dumbasses trying to paint Trump as a swamp-drainer when he has already proven he's a swamp creature himself, surrounded by zios and neocons.

    Keter , 7 minutes ago link

    The neocons are bad, but it is the failure on the border, with hundreds of thousands of visa overstays, and legal immigration increases of third world refugees, h1bs, and h2bs that most egregious of the Trump administration.

    CatInTheHat , 50 minutes ago link

    "This leads us to the million-dollar question: were the DNC computers hacked by the Russians or was the data leaked by an internal source at the organization and forwarded to WikiLeaks? The answer to that question would not only settle the 'Russian meddling' mystery once and for all, it would determine how the DNC/Clinton emails were compromised."

    This author is off his nut

    This is exactly why Julian is being shut down. Unable to see even his lawyers, being denied medical treatment and likely being tortured.

    This is why Comey sabotaged the deal..

    Russia hack = IRAQI WMD. The elite are determined to manufacture public consent for war on Russia.

    They know Julian would not only destroy this narrative but that he would create a mass back lash for all of US who knew Russiagate was ******** in the first place.

    Trump is a Zionist stooge is arming and funding the NEONAZI THUGS in Ukraine right along with Israhsll.

    He has ZERO intention of doing what the author suggest. This is pure fantasy with absolutely ZERO to back it up.

    [Apr 24, 2019] The HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC was the Insurance Policy

    Notable quotes:
    "... While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC. ..."
    "... In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November. ..."
    "... I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create. ..."
    "... Thus began the official demonization of Russia. A demonization very convenient to the necessity of having an implacable enemy always ready to pounce on the good, moral, humanitarian, and freely enterprising United States. ..."
    "... Now, conflating any individual with Russia, will always immediately result in that person becoming, in the US, in the U.K. and in other US-kept vassal nations totally tarred with all sorts of nefarious and always unexamined assumptions. ..."
    "... Thanks to the intelligence community, the political elite, notably in the Democratic "wing" of the War Party, but with the support of the Republican wing of that party, and certain individual players aligned with the US policy "Full Spectrum Dominance" which, of course, is compassionate goodness and not to be confused with the vile aims of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and a whole host of other "bad guy" nations or amorphous groups known as "terrorists. ..."
    "... Clearly, the consensus opinion is shaped, not inside the minds of millions of people, all projecting their very worst fears or even their own worst proclivities on individuals like Putin or whoever is the "Hitler" of the convenient moment, but rather on the efforts of, let us call them "entities" who plan to benefit from a populous aroused to anxiety or even fear itself. ..."
    "... the British ruling elites have hated the Russians for well over a hundred years. ..."
    "... The truth is Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, Rachel Maddow, and the rest if the Scooby Doo gang handed Agent Orange the victimhood script he needs to feed his Trumpets to win the 2020 election. ..."
    "... They've also guaranteed no matter what heinous gangster scam shit he has done in the past or will do in the future, none of it will stick because he'll play the falsely accused card. ..."
    "... There is an inability to accept the fact that people in DC and NYC and Boston and San Francisco and other Financial/ MIC-driven areas were doing well relative to the bulk of Americans and life was wonderful until the 2016 Election. For these people "America Has Never Stopped Being Great!" (Similar to the "I've got mine, Jack! " attitude of Great Britain, as their labor unions lost unity with rest of the working class.) ..."
    Apr 24, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15

    Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.

    There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since she could be bought. Trump can't.

    What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.

    Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.

    Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly as possible.

    So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.

    The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.

    They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.

    In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they needed to try and hide what really happened.

    So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.

    'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.

    Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.

    The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.

    1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.

    2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.

    Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with the elections. NONE.

    They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.

    So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion, Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..

    Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?

    Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.

    There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.

    That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!

    So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?

    He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.

    The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.

    His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.

    Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.

    They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.

    The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.

    It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.

    The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

    "Russia'.

    So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?

    A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.

    And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)

    B: Russians hacked the DNC.

    That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.

    Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.

    It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the Presidency.

    That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!

    In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.

    That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.

    Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump Campaign'.

    Let's go a bit deeper still.

    Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?

    After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.

    If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP the real crime', what would happen?

    They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.

    They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all THEY were the criminals.

    They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.

    That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all that.

    They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created LIE. That LIE = the Insurance Policy.

    What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.

    Although true, that is only A.

    They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying on him!

    The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.

    What's the punishment for Treason?

    About Assange and Seth Rich.

    Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.

    Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.

    If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.

    No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.


    Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48

    While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.

    Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.

    Elizabeth K. Burton , April 23, 2019 at 12:50

    It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them down? They get weapons and start killing people.

    There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit. Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation". Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.

    The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters, the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."

    In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.

    Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21

    I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.

    Jeff Harrison , April 22, 2019 at 10:50

    Thank you, Three Names. The so-called "most qualified presidential candidate ever" who's only actual qualifications are the destruction of what had formerly been a peaceful, secular state into a failed state riven with religious rivalry and racking up a billion frequent flyer miles has left us with a Gordian knot of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies that will bedevil the country and our relations with other countries for some time to come.

    There's a special place in hell for people like you.

    Charron , April 22, 2019 at 10:04

    I see that the very liberal Noam Chomsky has recently stated that he was sure the Russians did not to do the hacking of the DNC emails and that accusing Trump of being a party to this was only going to help him in the 2020 elations because it wasn't true.

    AnneR , April 22, 2019 at 09:20

    Thank you Caitlin for providing a most necessary corrective to the incessant drone that I – unwillingly but have no other radio station available (and it is, however nauseating and rant inducing, necessary to know what propaganda the corporate-capitalist-imperialist state media are disseminating) – hear on both the BBC World Service and NPR. (We refused to pay to watch television and I have continued that partnership tradition since my husband died. So thankfully I've not seen the Maddow money raking insanity.)

    And thank you for suggesting some clear ways to counter the Kool Aid infected codswallop. It amazes just how much even the highly educated have completely accepted the corporate-capitalist-imperialist propaganda, just as I am amazed that the same people (friends of my husband, though what he'd think about their swallowing it all ) really seem to be completely unconcerned about what the US has done and is doing to other peoples in other countries (you know, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine – ah yes that coup – Yemen and so on and on). And they clearly are more afraid of Russia than of their (our) own military-deep state-police

    DW Bartoo , April 22, 2019 at 08:16

    Julian Assange is a vilified human being.

    When vilification occurs a very necessary question that critical thought must ponder is who benefits from such scapegoating?

    However, for the moment, let us ponder, again in service to actual critical thought, why aligning Assange with Russia is expected by those who will and intend to benefit from that association. Why is suggesting that Assange is "a Russian agent" expected to convince millions of USians that Assange is "a bad person"?

    Why would millions accept that assertion without questioning it at all?

    Caitlin suggest that those millions are "herd animals", implying that they are led into believing two things. The first is that Russia and the Russian people are "bad", we have even recently had a much trusted official suggest that Russians are "genetically" predisposed to badness with a malignant tendency to single out the innocent, and one indispensable nation, the United States for the most nefarious of Russian "interventions", amounting, according to a famous Hollywood actor, who occasionally portrays a certain deity in the movies, to "an attack".

    In the meager interest of context and history, stretching back a bit more than a century, some USians who are aware of that history, recognize that the US, under President Woodrow Wilson sent US military troops into Russia in order to end the rise of the Bolshevik rebellion/revolution.

    Thus began the official demonization of Russia. A demonization very convenient to the necessity of having an implacable enemy always ready to pounce on the good, moral, humanitarian, and freely enterprising United States.

    Now, conflating any individual with Russia, will always immediately result in that person becoming, in the US, in the U.K. and in other US-kept vassal nations totally tarred with all sorts of nefarious and always unexamined assumptions.

    Mark Twain once suggested that the deity created war that USians might learn geography. Clearly, it is a laborious process and has failed to create much global geographical awareness among the millions, most of whom are content to think whatever nation is correctly being ministered to or in the sights of "everything is on the table" as simply being, vaguely, "over there".

    That is why the US must strike "them" "over there" so as to avoid the frightening thought of having "them" have to be dealt with "here" in the "Homeland" of "the free and the brave".

    This suggests that the "herd" has to be led to certain conclusions.

    Unlike horses, the herd HAS to drink.

    If the herd does not consume the elixir, then it may not be willing to joyfully send the "flower of its youth" off to become cannon fodder should the Table of Everything so demand.

    I grew up in the nineteen fifties when the first Cold War was in full blossom. We school students were told and taught that Russia hated us, wanted to attack and kill us all, intended to rule the world with an iron hand and ruthless godlessness.

    Thanks to the intelligence community, the political elite, notably in the Democratic "wing" of the War Party, but with the support of the Republican wing of that party, and certain individual players aligned with the US policy "Full Spectrum Dominance" which, of course, is compassionate goodness and not to be confused with the vile aims of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and a whole host of other "bad guy" nations or amorphous groups known as "terrorists.

    Now, by tying Assange to that hodge-podge of baddies, the many may rest assured that he has been put in his proper place.

    Clearly, the consensus opinion is shaped, not inside the minds of millions of people, all projecting their very worst fears or even their own worst proclivities on individuals like Putin or whoever is the "Hitler" of the convenient moment, but rather on the efforts of, let us call them "entities" who plan to benefit from a populous aroused to anxiety or even fear itself.

    The list of beneficiaries includes the financial elites who always profit from war and "confusion", the political elites who serve those monied interests, the media, academia, the military, intelligence, weapons manufacturers, energy producers, military contractors and so on.

    Assange, to his great and everlasting credit, exposed a very large amount of this including, with the invaluable efforts
    of Chelsea Manning, actual war crimes perpetrated by the US, even beyond beginning wars based on lies.

    Fortunately, the media, having overplayed it hand in the manipulation has exposed itself to many as being but a propaganda industry.

    A very real question for those concerned with engaging critical thought processes is just how many humans are still being led, rather easily, around by the fallacious and very dangerous concoctions of the opinion "shapers" in think tanks, media echo chambers, corporate boardrooms, and academic snake pits?

    Perhaps there comes a time for humanity, if it is not to trot along in the footsteps of the dodo bird to look not where the fingers of deceit are pointing, but at those to whom the fingers are attached?

    AnneR , April 22, 2019 at 09:33

    DWB – as a USian of English birth (of about the same age, I would imagine) I am amazed at the fear the US had of the USSR back in the 1950s. When my husband told me, in the 1980s, about how he and his schoolmates had had nuclear air raid attack drills (sheltering under desks and so on!) I'm sure that I gawped, fly-catchingly. What??? Nowt remotely similar occurred in the UK during the 1950s in schools or elsewhere.

    It was only since I began studying history (late in life) that I learnt that the British ruling elites have hated the Russians for well over a hundred years. Still not quite sure why, nor yet why whatever the Russians did (Crimean War in the 1850s?) that pissed them off so royally should have any bearing on Russia-UK relations nowadays. But that could be because I'm dim. And because I've no hatred, dislike, fear of Russians (or Chinese or Iranians) at all. My fears revolve around the hubris-arrogance and determination to retain economic and more general world domination by the US and its poodles in the UK-FR-NATO and Israel (though their status as dog or leash is debatable). These are the countries to be afraid of.

    Sam F , April 22, 2019 at 20:34

    Yes, the remarkably unprovoked hatred of Russia among the UK aristocracy, regardless of era or government there, is a great wonder. They did not even have eras of invasion threats, colonial competition, or competing navies, as with France, Spain, and Portugal. Britain's 19th century invasions of Afghanistan were apparently provoked by nothing but fear, and their several lost wars there apparently did not even engage Russians. Even complete transitions of Russian government from monarchy to communism to capitalism failed to affect UK's fears. If the cause were mere cultural difference, they would have feared the orient.

    Perhaps their aristocracy was not polite enough, or those backwards Ns, upside down Rs, and Pi symbols terrified the British.

    geeyp , April 22, 2019 at 23:49

    Anne R. – For more on your second paragraph, visit Larouchepac.org The late Lyndon Larouche's site has a lot of info on this.

    Zhu , April 23, 2019 at 00:50

    Britain & Russia were rivals for empire. Both were expanding in Asia – The Great Game. Russia got Turkestan, Britain got India, both wanted China. Hence the elite's hatred, although now it's probably traditional and automatic.

    Keep studying history – it's ales ts enlightening!

    AnneR , April 23, 2019 at 09:22

    Yes Zhu – I do continue with history, although of course no historian and thus history is ever free (as with all scholars) of their personal worldview. And yes I realize that the UK, when an imperial power, viewed the world pretty much as the US does now: its domain. So obviously any and all contenders were up for vitriolic loathing and war. But it still doesn't explain the particularly vicious attitude toward Russia on the part of the British ruling elites. After all the Brits also had France, Holland and Germany (earlier Spain and Portugal) as competitors, admittedly at different time periods, and no they weren't "liked" and were often at war with each other. But there was never the same bitterness toward western European rivals as there was and continues to be toward Russia.

    That the USSR provoked deep, undying hatred among the aristos and their hangers' on does not surprise: can't have anything remotely similar happening in our cushy backyard, can't have the unwashed, ignorant, prole herd actually learning any lessons from the Soviets.

    Yet even so – no nuclear air raid drills in schools or anywhere during red-baiting season. Nothing kindred.

    O Society , April 22, 2019 at 08:07

    The truth is Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, Rachel Maddow, and the rest if the Scooby Doo gang handed Agent Orange the victimhood script he needs to feed his Trumpets to win the 2020 election.

    They've also guaranteed no matter what heinous gangster scam shit he has done in the past or will do in the future, none of it will stick because he'll play the falsely accused card.

    For the idiot Americans watching White House reality TV at home, this means celebrity Trump now has immunity and can't be voted off the island this season or next.

    https://opensociet.org/2019/04/20/chomsky-by-focusing-on-russia-democrats-handed-trump-a-huge-gift-possibly-the-2020-election/

    Skip Scott , April 22, 2019 at 12:01

    Ah yes, the evil Rooskies. From the article you obviously didn't read: In fact, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents pertaining to Russia, has made critical comments about the Russian government and defended dissident Russian activists, and in 2017 published an entire trove called the Spy Files Russia exposing Russian surveillance practices. wikileaks russia files: https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/

    I think we can tell who the "tool" is.

    AnneR , April 22, 2019 at 12:30

    Did you not actually read Caitlin's article? And other similar ones? YES Wikileaks has published thousands of documents regarding Russian secret activities – and the Russian government has not been at all happy about it. However, unlike the USian government it hasn't trampled all over people's rights under international law to persecute Assange.

    Frankly – if the USian government and its "comrades" in the UK don't like their filthy linen being revealed for what it is – perhaps they should stop creating it in the first place.

    Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:08

    >>> " Do they publish anything on Russia?"

    Yes, as you and all of the many, many others who ignorantly and endlessly repeat this question would know, if you had ever bothered to review WikiLeaks' work. In this case, you would know if you had even bothered to read the article above your comment.

    WikiLeaks: The Spy Files Russia
    https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/

    Zhu , April 23, 2019 at 00:57

    Likewise, the sky is green, the grass is blue and the sun rises in the West

    michael , April 22, 2019 at 07:06

    "People take this repetition as a substitute for proof due to a glitch in human psychology known as the illusory truth effect, a phenomenon which causes our brains to tend to interpret things we've heard before as known truths." I think it is a deeper phenomenon than repetition of lies (which have been legal since 2014 with the 'modernization' of Smith-Mundt, our anti-propaganda law).

    The #resistence seems to fulfill people who have never accepted any religions whole-heartedly; there is something in the human psyche which demands an intuitive evidence-free, faith-based acceptance of beliefs which go beyond facts and evidence. This is a powerful dream world where their illusions are more powerful than reality.

    There is an inability to accept the fact that people in DC and NYC and Boston and San Francisco and other Financial/ MIC-driven areas were doing well relative to the bulk of Americans and life was wonderful until the 2016 Election. For these people "America Has Never Stopped Being Great!" (Similar to the "I've got mine, Jack! " attitude of Great Britain, as their labor unions lost unity with rest of the working class.)

    Their comments have moved away from ad hominem "You are a Putin stooge!" arguments to appeals to Authority fallacies: "All our Intelligence Agencies Know that Assange worked with Russians to embarrass Hillary and cost her the Election". Religiosity is largely Authority-driven, and avoids the angst of critical thinking and putting facts together that (thanks to our Intelligence Agencies!) don't fit together.

    OlyaPola , April 22, 2019 at 03:23

    "The only people claiming that Assange is a Russian agent are those who are unhappy with the things that WikiLeaks publications have exposed, whether that be U.S. war crimes or the corrupt manipulations of Democratic Party leaders."

    Perhaps fuller understanding would be gained by considering the following pathway.

    People who who think that "Assange is a Russian agent" is a plausible belief are the audience encouraged in the view that "Assange is a Russian agent".

    Much of this notion of plausible belief is founded on the creation of holograms consisting in large part of projections of the believer's expectations/experiences of the evaluation criteria used in choosing agents to recruit (for the public largely projected from their experience of creating resumes and attending job interviews) , what motivates an agent to be recruited, how such motivation can facilitate the purpose of the recruiter of the agent, what are the potential dangers of recruiting the agent, and most importantly what is the purpose of and reasons why the recruiter considers recruiting an agent to achieve her/his purpose.

    On projection catalysing plausible belief you will be aware that some encourage the belief that Mr. Putin is the richest man on the planet since in all societies there are assumptions/expectations on motivations.

    However in the presently self-designated "The United States of America" as functions of "exceptionalism", "we the people hold these truths to be self-evident" and lack of direct experience of foreign cultures by many, the population are particulrly prone to projection giving rise to the paradox of "exceptionalists" engaging in the them/us conflation.

    [Apr 23, 2019] Crowdstrike and the reprise of the Iraq-WMD Fiasco

    Notable quotes:
    "... In May, the company, Crowdstrike, determined that the hack was the work of the Russians. As one unnamed intelligence official told BuzzFeed, "CrowdStrike is pretty good. There's no reason to believe that anything that they have concluded is not accurate ..."
    "... Perhaps not. Yet Crowdstrike is hardly a disinterested party when it comes to Russia. Crowdstrike's founder and chief technology officer, Dmitri Alperovitch , is also a senior fellow at the Washington think tank, The Atlantic Council, which has been at the forefront of escalating tensions with Russia. ..."
    "... As I reported in The Nation in early January , the connection between Alperovitch and the Atlantic Council is highly relevant given that the Atlantic Council is funded in part by the State Department, NATO, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania, the Ukrainian World Congress, and the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. In recent years, it has emerged as a leading voice calling for a new Cold War with Russia. ..."
    "... But meanwhile the steady drumbeat of "blame Russia" is having an effect. According to a recent you.gov/Economist poll, 58 percent of Americans view Russia as "unfriendly/enemy" while also finding that 52 percent of Democrats believed Russia "tampered with vote tallies." ..."
    Feb 03, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

    Originally from: A Reprise of the Iraq-WMD Fiasco -- Consortiumnews

    ... ... ...

    A Dangerous Replay?

    Today something eerily similar to the pre-war debate over Iraq is taking place regarding the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. Assurances from the intelligence community and from anonymous Obama administration "senior officials" about the existence of evidence is being treated as, well, actual evidence.

    State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN that he is "100% certain" of the role that Russia played in U.S. election. The administration's expressions of certainty are then uncritically echoed by the mainstream media. Skeptics are likewise written off, slandered as " Kremlin cheerleaders " or worse.

    Unsurprisingly, The Washington Post is reviving its Bush-era role as principal publicist for the government's case. Yet in its haste to do the government's bidding, the Post has published two widely debunked stories relating to Russia (one on the scourge of Russian inspired "fake news", the other on a non-existent Russian hack of a Vermont electric utility) onto which the paper has had to append "editor's notes" to correct the original stories.

    Yet, those misguided stories have not deterred the Post's opinion page from being equally aggressive in its depiction of Russian malfeasance. In late December, the Post published an op-ed by Rep. Adam Schiff and former Rep. Jane Harmon claiming "Russia's theft and strategic leaking of emails and documents from the Democratic Party and other officials present a challenge to the U.S. political system unlike anything we've experienced."

    On Dec. 30, the Post editorial board chastised President-elect Trump for seeming to dismiss "a brazen and unprecedented attempt by a hostile power to covertly sway the outcome of a U.S. presidential election." The Post described Russia's actions as a "cyber-Pearl Harbor."

    On Jan. 1, the neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin told readers that the recent announcement of sanctions against Russia "brought home a shocking realization that Russia is using hybrid warfare in an aggressive attempt to disrupt and undermine our democracy."

    Meanwhile, many of the same voices who were among the loudest cheerleaders for the war in Iraq have also been reprising their Bush-era roles in vouching for the solidity of the government's case.

    Jonathan Chait, now a columnist for New York magazine, is clearly convinced by what the government has thus far provided. "That Russia wanted Trump to win has been obvious for months," writes Chait.

    "Of course it all came from the Russians, I'm sure it's all there in the intel," Charles Krauthammer told Fox News on Jan. 2. Krauthammer is certain.

    And Andrew Sullivan is certain as to the motive. "Trump and Putin's bromance," Sullivan told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Jan. 2, "has one goal this year: to destroy the European Union and to undermine democracy in Western Europe."

    David Frum, writing in The Atlantic , believes Trump "owes his office in considerable part to illegal clandestine activities in his favor conducted by a hostile, foreign spy service."

    Jacob Weisberg agrees, tweeting: "Russian covert action threw the election to Donald Trump. It's that simple." Back in 2008, Weisberg wrote that "the first thing I hope I've learned from this experience of being wrong about Iraq is to be less trusting of expert opinion and received wisdom." So much for that.

    Foreign Special Interests

    Another, equally remarkable similarity to the period of 2002-3 is the role foreign lobbyists have played in helping to whip up a war fever. As readers will no doubt recall, Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which served, in effect as an Iraqi government-in-exile, worked hand in hand with the Washington lobbying firm Black, Kelly, Scruggs & Healey (BKSH) to sell Bush's war on television and on the op-ed pages of major American newspapers.

    Chalabi was also a trusted source of Judy Miller of the Times, which, in an apology to its readers on May 26, 2004, wrote : "The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles." The pro-war lobbying of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has also been exhaustively documented .

    Though we do not know how widespread the practice has been as of yet, something similar is taking place today. Articles calling for confrontation with Russia over its alleged "hybrid war" with the West are appearing with increasing regularity . Perhaps the most egregious example of this newly popular genre appeared on Jan. 1 in Politico magazine. That essay, which claims, among many other things, that "we're in a war" with Russia comes courtesy of one Molly McKew.

    McKew is seemingly qualified to make such a pronouncement because she, according to her bio on the Politico website, served as an "adviser to Georgian President Saakashvili's government from 2009-2013, and to former Moldovan Prime Minister Filat in 2014-2015." Seems reasonable enough. That is until one discovers that McKew is actually registered with the Department of Justice as a lobbyist for two anti-Russian political parties, Georgia's UMN and Moldova's PLDM.

    Records show her work for the consulting firm Fianna Strategies frequently takes her to Capitol Hill to lobby U.S. Senate and Congressional staffers, as well as prominent U.S. journalists at The Washington Post and The New York Times, on behalf of her Georgian and Moldovan clients.

    "The truth," writes McKew, "is that fighting a new Cold War would be in America's interest. Russia teaches us a very important lesson: losing an ideological war without a fight will ruin you as a nation. The fight is the American way." Or, put another way: the truth is that fighting a new Cold War would be in McKew's interest -- but perhaps not America's.

    While you wouldn't know it from the media coverage (or from reading deeply disingenuous pieces like McKew's) as things now stand, the case against Russia is far from certain. New developments are emerging almost daily. One of the latest is a report from the cyber-engineering company Wordfence, which concluded that "The IP addresses that DHS [Department of Homeland Security] provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don't appear to provide any association with Russia."

    Indeed, according to Wordfence, "The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website."

    On Jan. 4, BuzzFeed reported that, according to the DNC, the FBI never carried out a forensic examination on the email servers that were allegedly hacked by the Russian government. "The FBI," said DNC spokesman Eric Walker, "never requested access to the DNC's computer servers."

    What the agency did do was rely on the findings of a private-sector, third-party vendor that was brought in by the DNC after the initial hack was discovered. In May, the company, Crowdstrike, determined that the hack was the work of the Russians. As one unnamed intelligence official told BuzzFeed, "CrowdStrike is pretty good. There's no reason to believe that anything that they have concluded is not accurate . "

    Perhaps not. Yet Crowdstrike is hardly a disinterested party when it comes to Russia. Crowdstrike's founder and chief technology officer, Dmitri Alperovitch , is also a senior fellow at the Washington think tank, The Atlantic Council, which has been at the forefront of escalating tensions with Russia.

    As I reported in The Nation in early January , the connection between Alperovitch and the Atlantic Council is highly relevant given that the Atlantic Council is funded in part by the State Department, NATO, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania, the Ukrainian World Congress, and the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. In recent years, it has emerged as a leading voice calling for a new Cold War with Russia.

    Time to Rethink the 'Group Think'

    And given the rather thin nature of the declassified evidence provided by the Obama administration, might it be time to consider an alternative theory of the case? William Binney, a 36-year veteran of the National Security Agency and the man responsible for creating many of its collection systems, thinks so. Binney believes that the DNC emails were leaked, not hacked, writing that "it is puzzling why NSA cannot produce hard evidence implicating the Russian government and WikiLeaks. Unless we are dealing with a leak from an insider, not a hack."

    None of this is to say, of course, that Russia did not and could not have attempted to influence the U.S. presidential election. The intelligence community may have intercepted damning evidence of the Russian government's culpability. The government's hesitation to provide the public with more convincing evidence may stem from an understandable and wholly appropriate desire to protect the intelligence community's sources and methods. But as it now stands the publicly available evidence is open to question.

    But meanwhile the steady drumbeat of "blame Russia" is having an effect. According to a recent you.gov/Economist poll, 58 percent of Americans view Russia as "unfriendly/enemy" while also finding that 52 percent of Democrats believed Russia "tampered with vote tallies."

    With Congress back in session, Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain is set to hold a series of hearings focusing on Russian malfeasance, and the steady drip-drip-drip of allegations regarding Trump and Putin is only serving to box in the new President when it comes to pursuing a much-needed detente with Russia.

    It also does not appear that a congressional inquiry will start from scratch and critically examine the evidence. On Friday, two senators -- Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse -- announced a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigation into Russian interference in elections in the U.S. and elsewhere. But they already seemed to have made up their minds about the conclusion: "Our goal is simple," the senators said in a joint statement "To the fullest extent possible we want to shine a light on Russian activities to undermine democracy."

    So, before the next round of Cold War posturing commences, now might be the time to stop, take a deep breath and ask: Could the rush into a new Cold War with Russia be as disastrous and consequential -- if not more so -- as was the rush to war with Iraq nearly 15 years ago? We may, unfortunately, find out.

    James W Carden is a contributing writer for The Nation and editor of The American Committee for East-West Accord's eastwestaccord.com. He previously served as an advisor on Russia to the Special Representative for Global Inter-governmental Affairs at the US State Department.


    Don G. , February 5, 2017 at 14:29

    Questioning whether the Russians hacked or didn’t hack is playing into the US narrative to demonize Russia. (Putin)
    It simple doesn’t matter as all nations hack as much as possible to enhance and protect their national interests. Surely Russia has hacked against the US no more than a tenth of what the US had done against Russia.

    The narrative is nothing but a propaganda lie but it’s been accepted by the American people and mostly because of the fight that goes on due to domestic politics, one major party against the other.

    There’s a very good reason to stop promoting the narrative because it only helps to bring Americans onside with more efforts to demonize Putin and to keep all sides in the US promoting their aggression worldwide. Americans are likely easily 90% prowar now and will show little or no resistance to the coming war on Iran. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f05d2bb98b641e9e9ab8f3dc738e31a0?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f05d2bb98b641e9e9ab8f3dc738e31a0?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

    yugo , February 4, 2017 at 13:54

    Hysteria has reached fever pitch. Russia’s fake news is apparently so beguiling that it even threatens western democratic discourse. Combine this with its cyber weaponry and Moscow, so we are told, may interfere in this year’s German elections to benefit the hard-right. Such incessant fear mongering has already prompted calls for the censorship of Russian propaganda. It won’t be long before a witch-hunt emerges, directed against ‘fellow travellers’, those who dare to doubt the Russian threat.

    They insist the west made matters worse in Ukraine by not acknowledging that it was a classic example of a young state that didn’t naturally command the allegiance of all its peoples. Other examples are Georgia’s Abkhazians and South Ossetians, Moldova’s Trans-Dniester Slavs and Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians.

    They also doubt the Russian threat to the Baltic states. What is amazing is Moscow’s temperate response to Estonia and Latvia’s gross violation of international norms in denying citizenship to those of its Russian minority who are not conversant in Estonian and Latvian respectively. Nato and the EU turned a blind eye when membership was granted to these two states.

    Fellow travellers furthermore claim the west will keep on floundering in the Middle East as long as it persists in treating Saudi Arabia as a valued ally, while viewing Iran as a permanent enemy. We have for far too long ignored Saudi Arabia’s promotion of Wahhabism and its playing of the destructive sectarian card against ‘apostate’ Shiites. Take the merciless attacks on Shiite worshippers by Sunni jihadis of a Wahhabist persuasion. It occurs with sickening regularity throughout the Middle East. The terrorists attacking westerners are invariably Sunni jihadis, not Shiites. Worse still, Saudi Arabia together with Nato member Turkey facilitated the emergence of Isis. We bizarrely gave priority to toppling Syria’s secular regime.

    The first loyalty of these fellow travellers is to their nation state rather than unfettered globalism. No wonder the western elite disparage their national patriotism, calling it populism. It was, after all, the Achilles Heel of Homo Sovieticus. The elite fear the same fate awaits Homo Europaeus and globalist Homo Economicus.

    Michael K Rohde , February 3, 2017 at 15:12

    This is beginning to look exactly like Iraq 2 and why the same players that led us into that fake war which is still not paid for because the initiators made sure and get themselves a tax cut before they launched it are still being listened to makes it clear. Even with a change in administrations and party our government continues in the same wrong headed direction, to war with the enemies of Israel. When will it stop? When will we take back control of our foreign policy and destiny. <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/cc900a84653501242923790946494dbc?s=60&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/cc900a84653501242923790946494dbc?s=120&#038;d=identicon&#038;r=pg 2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />

    Michael Hoefler , February 3, 2017 at 23:29

    As Ray McGovern said several times (not quoting): that Israel is the elephant in the room. Netayahu will not rest until he has all of the Arab states fighting among themselves. IMO he thinks that that will guarantee Israel protection.
    IMO – all that does is put Israel into a continuing worse situation. There will always be someone stronger to come along to overcome them – someday – sometime. If they made peace with those nations and worked with them, traded with them – they would be much safer in the long run.

    Banger , February 3, 2017 at 14:22

    The mainstream media in th USA and, increasingly in the rest of the West are vehicles for propaganda from various factions within the Imperial Deep State. All these outlets are good for is to map the power relations between these factions at least this the case in the major issues of the day.

    This misbehavior going on right now. One factions close to Trump wants to go to war with Iran because, of course there has to be war or the Deep State as a whole stuffers and the people will begin to look at their shakles. The other faction wishes to go to a brinksmanship sort of Cold War situation. The Trumpists believe that making friends with Russia and then destroying Iranian power is the best approach to controlling the MENA region by creating a loose alliance of KSA, Israel, Turkey and Russia in which a weak Iran would be forced to enter the Empire and Russia in return would be given more control of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. I suspect Trump may also want to undercut NATO and the EU. That is my guess. To put it another way, Russia is strong and well led and Iran is not.

    stan , February 3, 2017 at 14:17

    You can read chapter 6 of Mein Kampf if you want to see how this war propaganda stuff works. It is not group think or mistaken ideas. It is deliberate lies to scare you and a carefully crafted false narrative to make it all seem reasonable. People cannot believe that their leaders would tell such a big lie, and that’s why it works. The goal is murder and conquest to get territory, natural resources, and control of business and commerce. Controlling markets for drugs, gambling, and prostitution is for nickel and dime crooks. Controlling markets for natural resources, banking, and consumer and industrial goods is where the real money is. Think of governments as criminal business syndicates and you aren’t far off. Remember, President Obama had a hit list, flew around plane loads of secret cash to make illegal payoffs, and bragged about offing his opponent in the head and dumping his body in the river.

    Jeremy , February 4, 2017 at 11:33

    Yes, Stan,well put! you will never see this sort of talk in the articles here, as the consipiracy theorist label is always one to avoid, but I agree that when we think in terms of a group of people trying to attain “security” the same way any other gangster does, it becomes much less far fetched. George Carlin said, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!” Men and women of power and wealth will always do what they have to in order to preserve that power and wealth for their children. There is really no conspiracy needed, just a bunch of people at the top looking after themselves and their families.

    Tania Messina , February 3, 2017 at 14:13

    Ah, yes, we’ve always needed a boogeyman to keep us all crazed with fear and the neocons busy with their destruction of society. If there is a crazy out there today, it is those neocons and their puppets who were so intent on destroying “seven countries in five years” and not being able to achieve that diabolical end as so neatly planned. And, now, they’re throwing temper tantrums, because, surprise of surprises! a non career politician comes along who uses common sense for a change and dares to say, “Why can’t we be friends with Russia?” With that comment many exhausted Americans perked up and listened while the Dulles boys turned somersaults in their graves!

    The arrogance and superiority of those who constantly blame Russia for their alleged expansionist ambitions seem blinded to our own aggressions. Fifteen years in Iraq? We finally have a president who talks of peace and we demonize him as the warmonger ready to press the button, while I seem to remember that it was the other candidate who arrogantly referred to Putin as Hitler!

    It is articles like this one by James Carden that we should be teaching in our schools, researching the facts and discussing in our classrooms so that hopefully a new generation might grow up with intelligent exchange rather than the brainwash that has been strangling our society for too many years.

    Mark Thomason , February 3, 2017 at 13:04

    This controversy is driven by Democratic denial of defeat, and infighting in which those defeated seek to hang on to power inside the Democratic Party. It is the Hillary crowd. It can be evidence free because it is driven by political calculation of private power needs, not truth.

    And the WMD fiasco is a perfect comparison, because the same people drove the same sort of fact-free theme for private reasons, as Wolfowitz put it, the story around which varying separate interests could be rallied.

    [Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda

    Highly recommended!
    "Carnage needs to destroyed" mentality is dominant among the USA neoliberal elite and drives the policy toward Russia.
    They all supported neoconservative extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda directed on weakening Russian and establishing of world dominance. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
    Notable quotes:
    "... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
    "... This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya. ..."
    "... And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. ..."
    "... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
    "... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
    "... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
    "... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
    "... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
    "... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
    "... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
    "... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
    "... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
    "... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
    "... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
    "... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
    "... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
    "... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
    "... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
    "... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
    "... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
    "... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
    Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'

    In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background, which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'

    There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.

    This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.

    And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area.

    Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.

    The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.

    In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry – the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.

    Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier, which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.

    (See http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/what-really-happened-robert-levinson-cia-iran-454803.html .)

    Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.

    The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.

    Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.

    What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest a sale had been completed.

    (See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

    As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.

    All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.

    (On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews both with Mogilevich and Levinson at

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_06_12_99.txt )

    In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.

    Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions north of the Litani.

    These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.

    What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.

    Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking 'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.

    Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.

    So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.

    All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'

    (See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

    In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.

    (See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

    At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate Russia in supplying materials.

    There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)

    It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional, Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.

    It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.

    Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.

    In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.

    Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain, but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)

    That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:

    'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear limited life components and you can read for weeks).'

    (For this and other articles by Kaszeta, as also his bio, see http://strongpointsecurity.co.uk ')

    What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility, in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of ones which lasted longer.

    For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.

    What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.

    In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'

    According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?

    As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.

    In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties, and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another day.

    A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.

    Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.

    Posted at 03:42 PM in As The Borg Turns , Habakkuk , Russia , Russiagate | Permalink


    james , 03 February 2018 at 04:33 PM

    thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..

    it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..

    JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM
    David,

    Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.

    turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM
    james

    It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl

    Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 03 February 2018 at 06:10 PM
    I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
    The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
    catherine , 03 February 2018 at 06:22 PM
    That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.

    Re: Levinson

    # Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.

    # Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson went to Jablonski with it.

    # And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson? The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing came of it.

    I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.

    Ishmael Zechariah , 03 February 2018 at 06:54 PM
    DH,

    As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.

    I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".

    Be safe.

    Ishmael Zechariah

    Rd , 03 February 2018 at 07:31 PM
    Babak Makkinejad said in reply to turcopolier...

    The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
    ..and US is the one who has been paying for it since 1979!!!

    kooshy said in reply to Ishmael Zechariah... , 03 February 2018 at 08:21 PM
    IZ
    My guess is, that he is unpredictable, instantaneous and therefore can't be consistent and reliable, useful idiot needs to be predictable.
    kooshy , 03 February 2018 at 08:43 PM
    "There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. "

    David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making. Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

    different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM
    Ishmael Zechariah,

    ( reply to comment 6),

    I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

    It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

    And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

    So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

    Jack , 03 February 2018 at 08:54 PM
    David,

    Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.

    In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.

    Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century endorsed her.

    Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in. Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling the Borg pundits.

    SmoothieX12 -> kooshy... , 03 February 2018 at 09:51 PM
    So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

    Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.

    Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:10 PM
    They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.
    kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:24 PM
    You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier on atlantic side.
    catherine said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:21 AM
    ''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''

    The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.

    '1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'

    In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]

    'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'

    State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union

    aleksandar , 04 February 2018 at 04:41 AM
    David,

    About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS.

    Fred said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 08:40 AM
    Babak,

    "they got US to bail them out during WWII" And how would things have worked out had we not done so?

    Fred , 04 February 2018 at 08:46 AM
    David,

    "There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time."

    Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.

    Anna said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 08:48 AM
    "They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
    -- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
    turcopolier , 04 February 2018 at 08:54 AM
    Anna

    The powerful are often remarkably ignorant. pl

    Babak Makkinejad -> Fred... , 04 February 2018 at 10:08 AM
    England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion, did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
    jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 11:53 AM
    "unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental people. Just general impressions, mind you.
    Kooshy said in reply to catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
    Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting, even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such an escalation.
    Phodges said in reply to turcopolier ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:23 PM
    Sir

    It seems we are being defeated by Cicero's enemy within. Zion is achieving what no one could hope to achieve by force of arms.

    David Habakkuk -> catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 01:17 PM
    catherine,

    In response to comment 5.

    I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain more pointers.

    It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.

    An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian attempts to get hold of him. An extract:

    'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'

    (See http://defiancethebook.com/legal/habeas/petition.htm .)

    Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.

    Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:

    'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'

    (See http://konanykhin.com/news/the-konanykhine-case.html .)

    So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has changed.

    For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:

    '"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [£1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign passports for its "very, very special clients".

    'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".

    (For a 'Guardian report, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/23/julianborger ; for the actual testimony, see http://archives-financialservices.house.gov/banking/92299ger.pdf .)

    Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:

    'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'

    (For the transcript presented in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ )

    When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.

    (For the first part of the exchanges of comments, the second apparently having become unavailable, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2008/07/litvinenko_killing_had_state_i.html )

    She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator, David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.

    Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.

    What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary claim about Shvets:

    'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.

    'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.

    'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'

    Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling her as to the side for which he was working.

    It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.

    An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria' was actually credible.

    This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking, and for similar action against Syria.

    Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.

    There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.

    A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing. This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High') might be a start.

    Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')

    The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one feel as though one wanted to throw up.

    Thomas , 04 February 2018 at 01:24 PM
    "They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.}

    No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.

    SmoothieX12 -> Anna... , 04 February 2018 at 01:39 PM
    - If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.

    My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.

    Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.

    Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.

    james said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 February 2018 at 03:01 PM
    there seems to be no shortage of money for these blatant propaganda exercises..
    Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 04:14 PM
    I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914. Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
    begob , 04 February 2018 at 05:20 PM
    I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
    kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 06:20 PM
    IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.

    The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.

    spy killer , 04 February 2018 at 06:55 PM
    Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
    English Outsider -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 07:23 AM
    Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google also allows searches with more than one term. This link -

    https://twitter.com/pat_lang

    - gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories" on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.

    If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.

    "Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.

    The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations" (hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many of the contributors know it from inside.

    In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible, but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.

    jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 08:11 AM
    Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for the most part, Labor was Left.
    Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.

    So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.

    Babak Makkinejad -> jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 08:29 AM
    All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
    Sid Finster said in reply to Jack... , 05 February 2018 at 10:26 AM
    Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.

    The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.

    Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.

    Sid Finster said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 05 February 2018 at 10:31 AM
    Explain Marshall Miller's role in this, please. He is someone I know quite well. I also know one of the Chalupas.
    begob said in reply to jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 10:56 AM
    jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat of the BEF.
    turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 11:18 AM
    FM
    What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break - David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
    Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 11:19 AM
    Yes, I am Iranian. All "Babak"s are Iranians - except some obscure ones that are Rus - Babakov.
    Anna , 05 February 2018 at 02:07 PM
    The hard, blinding truth: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
    "In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
    Thomas said in reply to turcopolier ... , 05 February 2018 at 02:08 PM
    Colonel,

    This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.

    Richardstevenhack , 05 February 2018 at 02:36 PM
    Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.

    And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.

    Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."

    Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.

    Seriously, read this! The whole thing!

    Rampant abuse and possible contempt of Court: what you need to know about the GOP memo
    http://theduran.com/rampant-abuse-contempt-court-analysis-gop-memorandum/

    blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 03:25 PM
    Sen Grassley releases memo heavily redacted by DOJ/FBI.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-05/grassley-graham-blast-fbi-censoring-memo-calling-criminal-probe-trump-dossier

    "Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "

    I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI is lying.

    What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that are based on classified documents.

    turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 04:38 PM
    FM

    We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status. You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

    Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are, in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you. You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl

    Kooshy said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 04:46 PM
    Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from Northeestern
    blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 04:55 PM
    ...would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

    Aye. Aye. Sir!

    +1

    That is why some of us believe the Patriot Act and FISA are both unpatriotic and unconstitutional. SCOTUS disagrees with the few of us.

    Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 05:03 PM
    I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist. I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians - they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
    English Outsider , 05 February 2018 at 06:31 PM
    Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.

    David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because of that.

    The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as "salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling around unsupervised?

    The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but for the general public, that bit more untenable.

    So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.

    I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?

    kooshy , 05 February 2018 at 07:49 PM
    Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type, they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
    turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 07:59 PM
    EO

    Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to pay him until he left UK service. pl

    English Outsider , 06 February 2018 at 05:10 AM
    Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.

    Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK side.

    English Outsider -> Cortes... , 06 February 2018 at 05:53 AM
    Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about the "golden showers"? "

    I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.

    So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.

    Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.

    But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK get mixed up in it?

    David Habakkuk -> Sid Finster... , 06 February 2018 at 06:19 AM
    Sid Finster,

    In response to comment 53.

    When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.

    A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella.

    When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.

    His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques, and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.

    So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'

    The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.

    (This initial post by me, and later posts by me on that site, are at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/uid:1857/diary. Three posts David Loepp and I produced jointly in December 2012, which have a lot on Scaramella and Shvets, are on his page there, at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/de%20Gondi/diary .)

    The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December 2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:

    'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic- Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'

    Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:

    '12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them [presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'

    The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':

    'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI. Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini. Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'

    In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography – which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella which had been described in the wiretap request.

    As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.

    In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.

    Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.

    'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with him.'

    From a fax dated 7 November 2005:

    'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re: Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'

    From a fax dated 5 December 2005:

    'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'

    In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be in a chaotic state.

    However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus justifications.

    Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.

    (I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)

    And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence in the Inquiry.

    (See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

    Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.

    Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.

    The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')

    Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 09:40 AM
    Thank you David Habakkuk. Truly sordid and deplorable. WWIII to be initiated on basis of lies.
    Jack , 06 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
    David

    You may already know this but Steele was a no show in a UK court for a deposition on the libel suit.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/05/christopher-steele-is-no-show-in-london-court-in-civil-case-over-dossier.amp.html

    Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 01:18 PM
    I know something of spectroscopy. The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis itself or its instrumentation. The paragraph that you have quoted:

    "To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."

    And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics - which did not and could not exist in this situation.

    LeaNder , 07 February 2018 at 09:16 AM
    David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there is to know?

    I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.

    Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.

    By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.

    According to Google search there are no other links then your articles here:
    http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf

    **********

    JAN RICHARD BÆRUG
    The Collapsing Wall. Hybrid Journalism. A Comparative Study of Newspapers and Magazines in Eight Countries in Europe

    Available online. Haven't read it yet, but journalism as hidden public relations transfer belt would be one of my minor obsessions. ...

    Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 07 February 2018 at 11:23 AM
    I wonder too; their command of the English idiom is very au currant - noticed "opt in/opt out" reference? Too American.

    They clearly are not native speakers of German.

    LeaNder said in reply to kooshy... , 07 February 2018 at 12:30 PM
    why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island#Economy

    Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.

    Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those? The German link is different. How about the Iranian? or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?

    LeaNder said in reply to LeaNder... , 07 February 2018 at 01:14 PM
    correcting myself #94:

    another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s

    I see Sergei seems to share my interest in the literary genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ivanov#Personal

    [Apr 22, 2019] Mueller's Lies About George Papadopolous by Larry C Johnson

    Apr 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Mueller's Lies About George Papadopolous by Larry C Johnson

    This article provides a comprehensive presentation of facts and an analysis that demonstrates the disengenuity and dishonestly of the Mueller Report with respect to George Papadopolous.

    The egregious, dishonest misreprensentation about Papadopolous is introduced on page 1 on page 1 of the Mueller report:

    In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks's first release of stolen documents, a foreign government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to

    Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.

    The claim that Papadopoulos had information from a source representing Russia is demonstrably false. As I noted in my previous article, Special Counsel Mueller--Disingenuous and Dishonest , the FBI was going after the Trump team as early as September 2015. Let's take a look at George Papadopolous' account: ( The following are excerpts from: George Papadopolous. "Deep State Target." Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/deep-state-target/id1446495998 )

    "I really like Energy Stream, but three months into the job, I am approached by a man named Nagi Khalid Idris who offers me a position at the London Centre of International Law Practice.

    Idris is an interesting figure. As it turns out, he is the first in a handful of interesting figures I am about to meet. A Sudanese-born UK citizen, he's the founder of EN Education Group Limited -- an education consultancy operation that's core business seems to be placing students from Arab countries in international settings. " (p. 50)

    "I really like Energy Stream, but three months into the job, I am approached by a man named Nagi Khalid Idris who offers me a position at the London Centre of International Law Practice.

    Idris is an interesting figure. As it turns out, he is the first in a handful of interesting figures I am about to meet. A Sudanese-born UK citizen, he's the founder of EN Education Group Limited -- an education consultancy operation that's core business seems to be placing students from Arab countries in international settings. " (p. 61)

    "I really like Energy Stream, but three months into the job, I am approached by a man named Nagi Khalid Idris who offers me a position at the London Centre of International Law Practice.

    Idris is an interesting figure. As it turns out, he is the first in a handful of interesting figures I am about to meet. A Sudanese-born UK citizen, he's the founder of EN Education Group Limited -- an education consultancy operation that's core business seems to be placing students from Arab countries in international settings. " (p. 62)

    The next day, . . . . "Nagi comes by my office again. His attitude has suddenly changed. It's a night-and-day difference. He starts telling me that there is someone I have to meet, a very important person who will be "very useful to me during my time with Trump. I remember Nagi telling me, "He's a man who knows many people." Then he insists I join him at a conference at Link Campus University in Rome.

    And he calls in a director with the LCILP whom I've never laid eyes on.

    "You have to meet her," he tells me while we wait. "Her name is Arvinder Sambei. She's setting up our team at the conference, and she can help arrange the introduction." (pp 64-65)

    "[Nagi] keeps at me, insisting I had to go to Rome. "It's a three-day conference. It will help you with Trump."

    "After that session, I'm sitting in a conference room when Nagi Idris approaches. At his side is a well-dressed man in his mid-fifties.

    "George," Nagi says. "This is Professor Joseph Mifsud, and you should talk."

    Joseph Mifsud is the man Nagi had planned for me to meet, the man Nagi had asked Arvinder Sambei to contact, and the man Nagi had portrayed as a major player, a guy with diplomatic experience and "extensive contacts. A man, in other words, who can change my life.

    It turns out Mifsud has a PhD in Education from Queen's University, Belfast, which isn't exactly what I'd expect from a guy reputed to be politically connected. But Mifsud spins himself as a worldly insider, a guy with an I-have-connections-everywhere arrogance. He offsets that by flashing warmth and interest in me. He asks about my background. He asks if I have Russian contacts. I shake my head.

    "I heard you have connections," I say. "And that you might be able to help me with the campaign."

    "Oh yes, absolutely. Let's talk tonight. Let's go to dinner." (pp. 70-71)

    [At dinner] "Mifsud says: "I'm going introduce you to everyone and set up a meeting between Trump and Putin."

    "That's an excellent idea," I say. "You really think it can be arranged?"

    "Oh, yes. I can do it."

    "That would be amazing." (p. 74)

    "Mifsud emails me a few days later when I'm back in London to tell me he wants to introduce me to somebody very important. When am I available?

    I respond with some possible dates. Then I head to the LCILP offices where I run into Nagi Idris. He's very excited. He tells me I'm going to meet Putin's niece. That Mifsud knows her and is going to introduce us." (p. 75)

    "The lunch is booked for March 24 at the Grange Holborn Hotel,. . . . "When I get there, Mifsud is waiting for me in the lobby with an attractive, fashionably dressed young woman with dirty blonde hair at his side. He introduces her as Olga Vinogradova." (p. 76)

    "Mifsud sells her hard. "Olga is going to be your inside woman to Moscow. She knows everyone." He tells me she was a former official at the Russian Ministry of Trade. Then he waxes on about introducing me to the Russian ambassador in London." (p. 77)

    "on April 12, "Olga" writes: "I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. The embassy in London is very much aware of this. As mentioned, we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced."

    So I have no choice but to hurry up and wait. I communicate this back to the campaign managers, primarily Stephen Miller." (p. 101)

    "Then Mifsud returns from the Valdai conference. On April 26 we meet for breakfast at the Andaz Hotel, near Liverpool Street Station, one of the busiest train stations in London. He's in an excellent mood and claims he met with high-level Russian government officials. But once again, he's very short on specifics. This is becoming a real pattern with Mifsud. He hasn't offered any names besides Timofeev. Then, he leans across the table in a conspiratorial manner. The Russians have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, he tells me. "Emails of Clinton," he says. "They have thousands of emails." (p. 104)

    [In early May 2016] "two military attachés at the US embassy in London, Terrence Dudley and Gregory Baker, reach out to me to set up a meeting. "

    (NOTE -- this meeting comes in the wake of controversial comments Papadopolous made to a reporter criticizing UK Prime Minister Cameron). (p. 117).

    "They take me to a private club known far and wide as The Rag -- the same place we hosted the 2015 Energy Stream Conference. Its real name is The Army and Navy Club" (p. 117)

    "They spare no expense during our meeting, dropping at least $500. They ask me what I'm doing in London." (p.118)

    "IT'S A WET, ugly London evening on May 10, 2016, when I go meet Erika Thompson and her boss, Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer." (p. 125)

    "Downer is oozing aggression by comparison. After our introduction, the first thing he says is, "Tell your boss he needs to leave my friend David Cameron alone, and you should leave him alone too.'" (p. 127)

    "Downer starts talking: He tells me he's connected to a British security firm called Hakluyt. He boasts about being a board member and that the firm has a great presence in London and close ties to the Obama administration. "We advise many governments," he says." (p. 128)

    "And then something happens.

    Or more accurately, Downer later claims something happens.

    In his version of events, he asks me a question about Russia and Trump.

    I then tell him that the Russians have a surprise or some damaging material related to Hillary Clinton.

    I have no memory of this. None. Zero. Nada." (p. 130)

    The Papadopolous account reveals several things. First, George is an earnest but naïve young man. He did not realize he was being set up.

    Second, George's multiple emails to Corey Lewandowski were intercepted by both GCHQ and the NSA. It is clear now, with the benefit of hindsight, that these communications were transmitted as SIGINT Intelligence Reports. Investigation by Attorney Bill Barr will show that these reports were "unmasked."

    Third, the people who brokered the contacts with Mifsud -- Nagi and Arvinder Sambei -- have ties to British and US intelligence organizations and the FBI.

    Arvinder Sambei's ties, for example, are reported by Disobedient Media :

    " Mifsud and Papadopoulos's co-director Arvinder Sambei was also the former FBI British counsel working 9/11 cases for Robert Mueller. She also runs a consultancy which deals with Special Investigative Measure (SIMs) which is just a posh description for covert espionage and evidence gathering. She has worked for major intelligence and national law agencies in the past. She wore two hats as a director of London Centre and a consultant for the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), a counter-terrorism think tank which is sponsored by the Australia, Canada, UK and US governments. Alexander Downer's former Chief of Staff while at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now works for the Global Center. Mifsud was also due to meet with Australian private intelligence figures in Adelaide in March 2016. So. Australia is certainly a major focus for the investigation."

    Sambei's critical role in introducing Papadopolous to Joseph Mifsud is not, in my view, a mere coincidence.

    Joseph Mifsud bears all the hallmarks of an MI-6 intelligence asset (please refer to my previous article, Special Counsel Mueller: Disingenuous and Dishonest . Introducing Papadopolous to Mifsud is a classic humint covert action. In this case the plan was to select an individual -- a naïve, inexperienced eager soul--who had access to the Trump campaign, who could be fed compromising information and put into an incriminating situations that would feed the concocted meme that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians.

    The entire concept of working with the Russians and having Trump meet with Putin was a meme introduced and encouraged by Joseph Mifsud. George Papadopolous was an unwitting, albeit eager, patsy.

    Then we have Alexander Downer. He is closely tied to the Clintons. Bill and Alexander signed a deal that produced millions of dollars for the Clinton Foundation. Downer, despite his credentials and pedigree, was not an honest actor. I believe that he was engaged in a pre-planned political dirty trick, to feed the lie that the Trump campaign was working with the Russians to "steal" Hillary's emails.

    Remember. The critical meeting with Downer took place while the Russians were ostensibly hacking the DNC. This is not a tin-foil hatted conspiracy theory. The facts are clear.

    [Apr 22, 2019] Did Strzok recruited Halper for infiltration in the Trump campaign staff?

    Apr 12, 2019 | community.oilprice.com

    Originally from: Mueller Report Brings Into Focus Obama's Attempted Coup Against Trump

    shadowkin , 04/12/2019 09:51 PM

    For those not aware Peter Strzok was the FBI agent who initiated the Trump investigation. As part of this he recruited Stefan Halper, a University of Cambridge professor with long standing ties to the CIA and Britain's MI6. Halper offered up his services to the Trump campaign as a foreign policy advisor, which apparently was his in.

    In the aftermath of Strzok's role in this fiasco and his anti-Trump texts to his lover Lisa Page, he was initially only demoted and suspended by the FBI. This was later overruled and he was fired. Now, rightly I think, his actions are being investigated.

    Strzok should have known from the beginning he was always going to be the fall guy if things went sideways. He's lucky this is the US. In many other countries he would have been found dead.

    Edited April 12 by shadowkin

    [Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender. That would explain Sater's early attempts at apparent entrapment. Since that didn't work, a different strategy had to be devised to deny the presidency to someone over whom the intelligence services lacked sufficient leverage. ..."
    "... Hillary gladly cooperated and raised the specter of collusion with Russia, which she trumpeted in the debates, downplaying other issues that could have resonated more with voters. Since she thought she was a slam dunk, she thought she could afford to cooperate. It could only help ingratiate her with the borg. ..."
    "... On the other hand, Brennan and others in the borg used their allies in the media to promote and propagate the story, which mushroomed when Trump defied the odds and won. Hillary was eager to play the victim as a way to excuse her failure. And the borg began hyping the story to cripple Trump unless he heeled. Initially Trump resisted, firing Comey. But with Bolton now ensconced as the National Security Advisor, it is clear that the borg has won, and the lack of any conspiracy could now be revealed. ..."
    "... IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position. ..."
    "... Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss. ..."
    "... Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation. ..."
    "... both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference. ..."
    "... It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team. ..."
    "... The most farcical thing in the Mueller report is that he did not fill obstruction charges or even recommend that it should be filled, but yet he did not "exonerate" Trump. ..."
    "... In other words, Mueller did not think that he had enough to make an obstruction case in the courts of justice, and keep in mind that an indictment requires only "probable cause", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction, but nevertheless he went out of his way to leave the obstruction sword hanging over Trump`s head so the political infighting does not end. ..."
    Apr 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
    JohnH , 21 April 2019 at 12:38 AM
    Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender. That would explain Sater's early attempts at apparent entrapment. Since that didn't work, a different strategy had to be devised to deny the presidency to someone over whom the intelligence services lacked sufficient leverage.

    Hillary gladly cooperated and raised the specter of collusion with Russia, which she trumpeted in the debates, downplaying other issues that could have resonated more with voters. Since she thought she was a slam dunk, she thought she could afford to cooperate. It could only help ingratiate her with the borg.

    On the other hand, Brennan and others in the borg used their allies in the media to promote and propagate the story, which mushroomed when Trump defied the odds and won. Hillary was eager to play the victim as a way to excuse her failure. And the borg began hyping the story to cripple Trump unless he heeled. Initially Trump resisted, firing Comey. But with Bolton now ensconced as the National Security Advisor, it is clear that the borg has won, and the lack of any conspiracy could now be revealed.

    Such a scenario would explain why Sater, Mufid, Steele and apparent attempts at entrapment got buried. And, with obstruction still hanging over Trump's head, the borg's leverage is still there if needed.

    turcopolier , 20 April 2019 at 10:44 PM

    IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position.
    falcemartello , 20 April 2019 at 11:28 PM
    Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss.

    It was obvious from way back in June 2016 when most of the fabricated /novella known as the Steele Dossier was floating around and the role Fusion GPS played in the Clinton POTUS machine. There is a lot out there but as per usual smokey mirrors and deception.

    I live you with this one thought.

    Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation.

    THe IRGC being labeled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference.

    Mahmood Saadi said in reply to falcemartello ... , 21 April 2019 at 07:53 AM
    Indeed, dishonesty seems somewhat institutionalized at this height.. https://twitter.com/JonathanLalon12/status/1119251603716894720

    Trump is not free from illegal use of US institutions against political "opponents", see the last by Wayne Madsen.

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/21/trump-attempt-weaponize-nsa-against-his-enemies.html

    Rick Merlotti , 20 April 2019 at 11:51 PM
    The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson.
    English Outsider -> Rick Merlotti ... , 21 April 2019 at 09:32 AM
    Special Relationship? All it's possible for the outsider to see in that are questions.

    The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with the US in repelling the Russian threat. Also, along with France, helps with any R2P that needs doing. That's a consistent if by now bedraggled story.

    But Europe, including the UK, is now going hell for leather at the "European Army" project. How long will it be before that becomes a respectable independent force? A decade?

    https://www.dw.com/en/limited-number-of-weapons-in-german-military-ready-for-action-report/a-42752070

    In the meantime all recognise that the US is the only significant European defence force. It's not just the money. The US ties the European components of NATO together and provides the big reserves of men and equipment. Even Mr Blair accepts that reality. I've been listening to his talk at the Munich Security Conference.

    So the US is to hold the fort in Europe while the Europeans prepare to supplant NATO? Do the Europeans plan to be a military superpower themselves eventually?

    And where does Trump fit in? Trumpphobia is as strong as Russophobia in the UK and stronger than Russophobia in continental Europe. So Trump is supposed to sit there placidly defending Europe until the Europeans are strong enough to dispense with the American alliance, and that while the Europeans, including the UK, throw mud at him?

    Neither in neocon terms nor in terms of sensible defence are these various stories compatible. Is there any sort of coherent defense policy in this respect on either side of the Atlantic? Or are they all just winging it and ignoring the inconsistencies?

    likbez , 21 April 2019 at 12:24 AM
    Bravo ! One word "Bravo!!!" This is a very good, probably the best so far in depth analysis of Mueller's final report. And your phase "disingenuous and dishonest" is like a stamp on Mueller's hatchet job:
    A careful reading of the report reveals that Mueller has issued findings that are both disingenuous and dishonest. The report is a failed hatchet job.

    Part of the failure can be attributed to the amount of material that Attorney General Barr allowed to be released.

    It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team.

    Alves , 21 April 2019 at 04:00 AM
    The most farcical thing in the Mueller report is that he did not fill obstruction charges or even recommend that it should be filled, but yet he did not "exonerate" Trump.

    In other words, Mueller did not think that he had enough to make an obstruction case in the courts of justice, and keep in mind that an indictment requires only "probable cause", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction, but nevertheless he went out of his way to leave the obstruction sword hanging over Trump`s head so the political infighting does not end.

    IMO, that is the biggest evidence that the whole thing was an attempt at facilitating a political power grab instead of a serious criminal investigation.

    [Apr 21, 2019] George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie

    Highly recommended!
    Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    And there is more. George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie:

    In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud 's return from a trip to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, on May 6, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton.

    Papadopoulos shared information about Russian "dirt " with people outside of the Campaign, and the Office investigated whether he also provided it to a Campaign official. Papadopoulos and the Campaign officials with whom he interacted told the Office that they did · not recall that Papadopoulos passed them the information. Throughout the relevant period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. That meeting never came to pass.

    Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular .

    Mifsud's alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud's LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor's name and biography had been removed from the campus' website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for "years."

    WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: "[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo]."

    The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: " Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy." The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.

    This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating honestly they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three -- Sater and Greenber -- alleged Russian stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community.

    [Apr 21, 2019] The FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Elections by Glenn Greenwald

    Notable quotes:
    "... So as it turns out, the informant used by the FBI in 2016 to gather information on the Trump campaign was not some previously unknown, top-secret asset whose exposure as an operative could jeopardize lives. Quite the contrary: his decades of work for the CIA -- including his role in an obviously unethical if not criminal spying operation during the 1980 presidential campaign -- is quite publicly known. ..."
    "... In any event, publication of those articles by the NYT and Post last night made it completely obvious who the FBI informant was, because the Daily Caller's investigative reporter Chuck Ross on Thursday had published an article reporting that a long-time CIA operative who is now a professor at Cambridge repeatedly met with Papadopoulos and Page. The article, in its opening paragraph, named the professor, Stefan Halper, and described him as "a University of Cambridge professor with CIA and MI6 contacts." ..."
    "... Ross' article, using public information, recounted at length Halper's long-standing ties to the CIA, including the fact that his father-in-law, Ray Cline, was a top CIA official during the Cold War, and that Halper himself had long worked with both the CIA and its British counterpart, the MI6. As Ross wrote: "at Cambridge, Halper has worked closely with Dearlove, the former chief of MI6. In recent years they have directed the Cambridge Security Initiative , a non-profit intelligence consulting group that lists 'UK and US government agencies' among its clients." ..."
    "... The professor who met with both Page and Papadopoulos is Stefan Halper, a former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations who has been a paid consultant to an internal Pentagon think tank known as the Office of Net Assessment, consulting on Russia and China issues, according to public records. ..."
    "... Then there are questions about what appear to be some fairly substantial government payments to Halper throughout 2016. Halper continues to be listed as a "vendor" by websites that track payments by the federal government to private contractors. ..."
    "... Whatever else is true, the CIA operative and FBI informant used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation in the 1980 presidential election. For that reason, it's easy to understand why many people in Washington were so desperate to conceal his identity, but that desperation had nothing to do with the lofty and noble concerns for national security they claimed were motivating them. ..."
    May 19, 2018 | theintercept.com

    The FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Election Glenn Greenwald
    May 19 2018, 10:27 a.m. An extremely strange episode that has engulfed official Washington over the last two weeks came to a truly bizarre conclusion on Friday night. And it revolves around a long-time, highly sketchy CIA operative, Stefan Halper.

    Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election , in which the Reagan campaign -- using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush -- got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.

    Over the past several weeks, House Republicans have been claiming that the FBI during the 2016 election used an operative to spy on the Trump campaign, and they triggered outrage within the FBI by trying to learn his identity. The controversy escalated when President Trump joined the fray on Friday morning. "Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president," Trump tweeted , adding: "It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a "hot" Fake News story. If true -- all time biggest political scandal!"

    In response, the DOJ and the FBI's various media spokespeople did not deny the core accusation, but quibbled with the language (the FBI used an "informant," not a "spy"), and then began using increasingly strident language to warn that exposing his name would jeopardize his life and those of others, and also put American national security at grave risk. On May 8, the Washington Post described the informant as "a top-secret intelligence source" and cited DOJ officials as arguing that disclosure of his name "could risk lives by potentially exposing the source, a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI."

    The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who spent much of last week working to ensure confirmation of Trump's choice to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, actually threatened his own colleagues in Congress with criminal prosecution if they tried to obtain the identity of the informant. "Anyone who is entrusted with our nation's highest secrets should act with the gravity and seriousness of purpose that knowledge deserves," Warner said.

    But now, as a result of some very odd choices by the nation's largest media outlets, everyone knows the name of the FBI's informant: Stefan Halper. And Halper's history is quite troubling, particularly his central role in the scandal in the 1980 election. Equally troubling are the DOJ and FBI's highly inflammatory and, at best, misleading claims that they made to try to prevent Halper's identity from being reported.

    To begin with, it's obviously notable that the person the FBI used to monitor the Trump campaign is the same person who worked as a CIA operative running that 1980 Presidential election spying campaign.

    It was not until several years after Reagan's victory over Carter did this scandal emerge. It was leaked by right-wing officials inside the Reagan administration who wanted to undermine officials they regarded as too moderate, including then White House Chief of Staff James Baker, who was a Bush loyalist.

    The NYT in 1983 said the Reagan campaign spying operation "involved a number of retired Central Intelligence Agency officials and was highly secretive." The article, by then-NYT reporter Leslie Gelb, added that its "sources identified Stefan A. Halper, a campaign aide involved in providing 24-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, as the person in charge." Halper, now 73, had also worked with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Alexander Haig as part of the Nixon administration.

    When the scandal first broke in 1983, the UPI suggested that Halper's handler for this operation was Reagan's Vice Presidential candidate, George H.W. Bush, who had been the CIA Director and worked there with Halper's father-in-law, former CIA Deputy Director Ray Cline, who worked on Bush's 1980 presidential campaign before Bush ultimately became Reagan's Vice President. It quoted a former Reagan campaign official as blaming the leak on "conservatives [who] are trying to manipulate the Jimmy Carter papers controversy to force the ouster of White House Chief of Staff James Baker."

    Halper, through his CIA work, has extensive ties to the Bush family. Few remember that the CIA's perceived meddling in the 1980 election -- its open support for its former Director, George H.W. Bush to become President -- was a somewhat serious political controversy. And Halper was in that middle of that, too.

    In 1980, the Washington Post published an article reporting on the extremely unusual and quite aggressive involvement of the CIA in the 1980 presidential campaign. "Simply put, no presidential campaign in recent memory -- perhaps ever -- has attracted as much support from the intelligence community as the campaign of former CIA director Bush," the article said.

    Though there was nothing illegal about ex-CIA officials uniting to put a former CIA Director in the Oval Office, the paper said "there are some rumblings of uneasiness in the intelligence network." It specifically identified Cline as one of the most prominent CIA official working openly for Bush, noting that he "recommended his son-in-law, Stefan A. Halper, a former Nixon White House aide, be hired as Bush's director of policy development and research."

    In 2016, top officials from the intelligence community similarly rallied around Hillary Clinton. As The Intercept has previously documented :

    Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell not only endorsed Clinton in the New York Times but claimed that "Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." George W. Bush's CIA and NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, pronounced Trump a "clear and present danger" to U.S. national security and then, less than a week before the election, went to the Washington Post to warn that "Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin" and said Trump is "the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."

    So as it turns out, the informant used by the FBI in 2016 to gather information on the Trump campaign was not some previously unknown, top-secret asset whose exposure as an operative could jeopardize lives. Quite the contrary: his decades of work for the CIA -- including his role in an obviously unethical if not criminal spying operation during the 1980 presidential campaign -- is quite publicly known.

    And now, as a result of some baffling choices by the nation's largest news organizations as well as their anonymous sources inside the U.S. Government, Stefan Halper's work for the FBI during the 2016 is also publicly known

    Last night, both the Washington Post and New York Times -- whose reporters, like pretty much everyone in Washington, knew exactly who the FBI informant is -- published articles that, while deferring to the FBI's demands by not naming him, provided so many details about him that it made it extremely easy to know exactly who it is. The NYT described the FBI informant as "an American academic who teaches in Britain" and who "made contact late that summer with" George Papadopoulos and "also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page." The Post similarly called him "a retired American professor" who met with Page "at a symposium about the White House race held at a British university."

    In contrast to the picture purposely painted by the DOJ and its allies that this informant was some of sort super-secret, high-level, covert intelligence asset, the NYT described him as what he actually is: "the informant is well known in Washington circles, having served in previous Republican administrations and as a source of information for the C.I.A. in past years."

    Despite how "well known" he is in Washington, and despite publishing so many details about him that anyone with Google would be able to instantly know his name, the Post and the NYT nonetheless bizarrely refused to identity him, with the Post justifying its decision that it "is not reporting his name following warnings from U.S. intelligence officials that exposing him could endanger him or his contacts." The NYT was less melodramatic about it, citing a general policy: the NYT "has learned the source's identity but typically does not name informants to preserve their safety," it said.

    In other words, both the NYT and the Post chose to provide so many details about the FBI informant that everyone would know exactly who it was, while coyly pretending that they were obeying FBI demands not to name him. How does that make sense? Either these newspapers believe the FBI's grave warnings that national security and lives would be endangered if it were known who they used as their informant (in which case those papers should not publish any details that would make his exposure likely), or they believe that the FBI (as usual) was just invoking false national security justifications to hide information it unjustly wants to keep from the public (in which case the newspapers should name him).

    In any event, publication of those articles by the NYT and Post last night made it completely obvious who the FBI informant was, because the Daily Caller's investigative reporter Chuck Ross on Thursday had published an article reporting that a long-time CIA operative who is now a professor at Cambridge repeatedly met with Papadopoulos and Page. The article, in its opening paragraph, named the professor, Stefan Halper, and described him as "a University of Cambridge professor with CIA and MI6 contacts."

    Ross' article, using public information, recounted at length Halper's long-standing ties to the CIA, including the fact that his father-in-law, Ray Cline, was a top CIA official during the Cold War, and that Halper himself had long worked with both the CIA and its British counterpart, the MI6. As Ross wrote: "at Cambridge, Halper has worked closely with Dearlove, the former chief of MI6. In recent years they have directed the Cambridge Security Initiative , a non-profit intelligence consulting group that lists 'UK and US government agencies' among its clients."

    Both the NYT and Washington Post reporters boasted , with seeming pride, about the fact that they did not name the informant even as they published all the details which made it simple to identify him. But NBC News -- citing Ross' report and other public information -- decided to name him , while stressing that it has not confirmed that he actually worked as an FBI informant:

    The professor who met with both Page and Papadopoulos is Stefan Halper, a former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations who has been a paid consultant to an internal Pentagon think tank known as the Office of Net Assessment, consulting on Russia and China issues, according to public records.

    There is nothing inherently untoward, or even unusual, about the FBI using informants in an investigation. One would expect them to do so. But the use of Halper in this case, and the bizarre claims made to conceal his identity, do raise some questions that merit further inquiry.

    To begin with, the New York Times reported in December of last year that the FBI investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia began when George Papadopoulos drunkenly boasted to an Australian diplomat about Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was the disclosure of this episode by the Australians that "led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," the NYT claimed.

    But it now seems clear that Halper's attempts to gather information for the FBI began before that. "The professor's interactions with Trump advisers began a few weeks before the opening of the investigation, when Page met the professor at the British symposium," the Post reported. While it's not rare for the FBI to gather information before formally opening an investigation, Halper's earlier snooping does call into question the accuracy of the NYT's claim that it was the drunken Papadopoulos ramblings that first prompted the FBI's interest in these possible connections. And it suggests that CIA operatives, apparently working with at least some factions within the FBI, were trying to gather information about the Trump campaign earlier than had been previously reported.

    Then there are questions about what appear to be some fairly substantial government payments to Halper throughout 2016. Halper continues to be listed as a "vendor" by websites that track payments by the federal government to private contractors.

    Earlier this week, records of payments were found that were made during 2016 to Halper by the Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, though it not possible from these records to know the exact work for which these payments were made. The Pentagon office that paid Halper in 2016, according to a 2015 Washington Post story on its new duties , "reports directly to Secretary of Defense and focuses heavily on future threats, has a $10 million budget."

    It is difficult to understand how identifying someone whose connections to the CIA is a matter of such public record, and who has a long and well-known history of working on spying programs involving presidential elections on behalf of the intelligence community, could possibly endanger lives or lead to grave national security harm. It isn't as though Halper has been some sort of covert, stealth undercover asset for the CIA who just got exposed. Quite the contrary: that he's a spy embedded in the U.S. intelligence community would be known to anyone with internet access.

    Equally strange are the semantic games which journalists are playing in order to claim that this revelation disproves, rather than proves, Trump's allegation that the FBI "spied" on his campaign. This bizarre exchange between CNN's Andrew Kaczynski and the New York Times' Trip Gabriel vividly illustrates the strange machinations used by journalists to justify how all of this is being characterized:

    Despite what Halper actually is, the FBI and its dutiful mouthpieces have spent weeks using the most desperate language to try to hide Halper's identity and the work he performed as part of the 2016 election. Here was the deeply emotional reaction to last night's story from Brookings' Benjamin Wittes, who has become a social media star by parlaying his status as Jim Comey's best friend and long-time loyalist to security state agencies into a leading role in pushing the Trump/Russia story:

    Wittes' claim that all of this resulted in the "outing" of some sort of sensitive "intelligence source" is preposterous given how publicly known Halper's role as a CIA operative has been for decades. But this is the scam that the FBI and people like Mark Warner have been running for two weeks: deceiving people into believing that exposing Halper's identity would create grave national security harm by revealing some previously unknown intelligence asset.

    Wittes also implies that it was Trump and Devin Nunes who are responsible for Halper's exposure but he almost certainly has no idea of who the sources are for the NYT or the Washington Post. And note that Wittes is too cowardly to blame the institutions that actually made it easy to identify Halper -- the New York Times and Washington Post -- preferring instead to exploit the opportunity to depict the enemies of his friend Jim Comey as traitors.

    Whatever else is true, the CIA operative and FBI informant used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation in the 1980 presidential election. For that reason, it's easy to understand why many people in Washington were so desperate to conceal his identity, but that desperation had nothing to do with the lofty and noble concerns for national security they claimed were motivating them.

    [Apr 21, 2019] It is stunning that the entirety of federal law enforcement, intelligence, and State department embraced and fortified Russian misinformation in their jihad against Trump

    Notable quotes:
    "... Nevertheless, while it appeared to the Clinton partisans in the Obama White House, in the DoJ, the CIA, the FBI and overseas in the UK, that the e-mail case had been quashed sufficiently to preserve the likelihood of Clinton's accession, they had enough reservations to exploit a garbage pail of political dirt to take out an "insurance policy." ..."
    Apr 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    blue peacock , 21 April 2019 at 12:15 PM

    Who is taking the over/under on whether Barr will actually investigate the origins of the attempted entrapment of Trump in Russia collusion and the roles played by key players in US law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well as the Brits & Aussie government agencies therein?

    I'm willing to bet that it will all be swept under the rug and that Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Lynch & Rice will not be testifying to any grand jury. Barr has received multiple criminal & conspiracy referrals from Rep. Devin Nunes. However, Trump himself disregarded Nunes recommendation to declassify several documents & communications including the FISA application on Carter Page. The question is does Trump want to get to the bottom of the conspiracy? So far all he's done is tweet. IMO, Barr is the epitome of a Swamp Rat.

    Tom22ndState -> blue peacock... , 21 April 2019 at 05:43 PM
    "Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." – Sun Tzu

    I have a feeling that President Trump will declassify and release the relevant documents in a manner that they will have maximum effect. It is stunning that the entirety of federal law enforcement, intelligence, and State department embraced and fortified Russian misinformation in their jihad against Trump.

    This must never happen again. At least the operation was run by political hacks, former analysts who fancied themselves as operators. Their ham- fisted prints are over this shit storm. Thank you God for Comey, Brennan, and Clapper -- the three stooges of espionage.

    Mad Max_22 , 21 April 2019 at 06:17 PM
    I suppose that it's possible that AG Barr's DoJ will mount a serious investigation into the many tentacles ongoing governmental debacle that began with the Lynch DoJ providing political direction and cover for Comey's FBI to lie down on the Clinton e-mail investigation. Which came first, the cover up, or the capitulation, is not completely clear. Perhaps it was a hand in glove affair. Suffice it to say that by any standard of competence, it was a faux effort.

    In my opinion, what was not done should constitute the elements of an obstruction violation. It would be a difficult charge to argue before a jury. Was the level of incompetence such that a reasonable person could not believe that it could not exist in the FBI, that there had to be malicious intent?

    Nevertheless, while it appeared to the Clinton partisans in the Obama White House, in the DoJ, the CIA, the FBI and overseas in the UK, that the e-mail case had been quashed sufficiently to preserve the likelihood of Clinton's accession, they had enough reservations to exploit a garbage pail of political dirt to take out an "insurance policy."

    Once again the question, could they possibly have been so incompetent. "What the heck" appears to have been the launching pad; Clinton's going to win anyway, Trump will be crushed under the unmaskings, leaks, and innuendo; and no one will ever find out.

    But Trump wins, and the unwholesome political cabal is now stuck with an investigation of an incoming President whom they had tried to frag on the skimpiest evidentiary grounds imaginable. And worse, he appears to be sensing there is something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Cardinal Jim Comey is a shitty liar, and now he's out, and what is going to happen to this garbage scow they've launched, now with Comey gone. How do they kill this thing? Worse, how do they kill the political riot this thing has caused. They can't; they double down; they take out another insurance policy - Jim Comey's good bud, Bob Mueller with a posse of partisan attorneys, many vets of the Obama DoJ, a couple of squads of FBI Agents, including two who were prominent in the e mail case and the Steele inquiry, and a set up akin to a shadow DoJ. What could go wrong? They would hound the bastard out of office.

    Which returns us to the question of whether Barr will mount a serious investigation into the political scandal of the last 100 years, at least. I suppose it is possible, but right now I'm not optimistic. For one thing Barr appeared at the big press conference with Rod Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein is at minimum a critical witness. There is every reason to suspect that Comey, McCabe, Mueller, and Rosenstein conferred before Comey's leak to the NYT via a lawyer friend in furtherance of Mueller's appointment.

    Going side by side with Rosenstein at this juncture doesn't augur well.

    On the other hand, the continuing lunatic behavior of the demented left may give Barr no other choice but to sort the mess out once and for all for the good of the country. We'll see.

    jdledell , 21 April 2019 at 06:28 PM
    The biggest take I got out of the Mueller report is that Trump is a sleazy character and that is not what I want from the president, the Face of America to the rest of the world. Whether the Deep State went after Trump in an organized fashion is just noise in my ears. To me that is just normal political infighting the same as Trump and other Republicans went after Obama for being an illegitimate President as a non-citizen.
    turcopolier , 21 April 2019 at 06:28 PM
    Sorry, but it IS NOT "normal political infighting" for the cabal to have sought and still to seek the overthrow of of the legitimate head of state and government.

    [Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.

    Highly recommended!
    Apr 21, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

    likbez , April 20, 2019 2:30 am

    "Within approximately five hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton's personal office. "
    The report shows that Russia coordinated with Trump even if he was unaware of it.

    Do you understand that you implicate Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.

    So all our three letter agencies with their enormous budgets and staff including NSA which intercepts all incoming/outgoing communications (and probably most internal communications) can't protect the USA elections from interference that they knew about ? Why they did not warn Trump?

    Or NSA assumed that it was yet another CIA "training exercise" imposing as Russian hackers?

    It not clear why Russia need such a crude methods as, for example, hacking Podesta email via spearfishing (NSA has all the recodings in this case), as you can buy, say a couple of Google engineers for less then a million dollars (many Google engineers hate Google with its cult of performance reviews and know that they are getting much less then their Facebook counterparts, so this might well be not that difficult) and get all you want without extra noise.

    Historically Soviet and, especially, East German intelligence were real experts in utilizing "humint". With the crash of neoliberal ideology that probably is easier for Russians now then it was for Soviets or East Germans in 60th-80th.

    For example, from my admittedly nonprofessional point of view, the most logical assumption about DNC hack is that it was a mixture of the internal leak (download of the files to the UCB drive) and Crowdstrike false flag operation (cover up operation which included implanting Russian (or Ukrainian) malware from Vault 7 to blame Russians.

    And that Gussifer 2.0 was most probably a fake personality created specifically to increase credibility of this false flag operation (see for example http://g-2.space/ and https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/guccifer-2-clinton-foundation-hack-leak/ )

    likbez , April 20, 2019 1:12 pm

    Arne,

    April 20, 2019 11:15 am

    "Do you understand that you implicate Obama administration"

    They did screw up.

    Wrong. The fact that they did not warn/brief Trump suggests that this was an a deliberate and pre-planned attempt to entrap him by initiating Russian contacts by FBI/CIA/MI6 moles

    We have some cursory evidence of at least four attempts to link Trump to Russians supposedly conducted by intelligence services ( https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/russiagate/ ):

    1. Moscow Trump Tower set up (via FBI mole Felix Saters), https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/the-fbi-tried-and-failed-to-entrap-trump-by-larry-c-johnson.html
    2. DNC email setup (via CIA and FBI contractor Crowdstrike ) https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/test-it-yourself-the-2-second-rounding-fact-pattern-in-the-dnc-emails-by-william-binney-and-larry-jo.html
    3. Veselnitskaya Trump tower meeting set up (via MI6 mole Rob Goldstone). https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/httpstruepunditcomexclusive-six-u-s-agencies-conspired-to-illegally-wiretap-trump-british-intel-used-as-fr.html
    4. Papadopoulos set up ( via Josef Misfud (MI6) and Stefan Halper (CIA) ). At the time Halper probably was reporting to the current CIA director Gina Haspel who was at this time CIA station chief in GB. She is a Brennan protégé, of recent Skripals dead ducks hoax fame.

    Surveillance was specifically established to collect compromising material on Trump and his associates with high level official in Obama administration (and probably Obama himself) playing coordinating role.

    Colonel Lang's blog is a good source of information on those issues with posts by former intelligence specialists.

    And please note that I am not a Trump supporter. I resent him and his policies.

    [Apr 21, 2019] Man Cited As Trump's Russian Link Actually Works For The FBI Zero Hedge

    Notable quotes:
    "... Meanwhile, Sater is still working for the FBI , according to two current FBI agents. Moreover, he has relationships with at least six members of Robert Mueller's team, "some going back more than 10 years." ..."
    Mar 12, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

    Felix Sater, the man at the center of a controversial email "tying" President Trump to Russia while trying to work a business deal, has come forward in a comprehensive BuzzFeed News Exposé, which if Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony Cormier and co-author Jason Leopold hadn't verified - nobody would believe.

    Sater went from a "Wall Street wunderkind" working at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, to getting barred from the securities industry over a barroom brawl which led to a year in prison, to facilitating a $40 million pump-and-dump stock scheme for the New York mafia, to working telecom deals in Russia - where the FBI and CIA tapped him as an undercover intelligence asset who was told by his handler " I want you to understand: If you're caught, the USA is going to disavow you and, at best, you get a bullet in the head ."

    ... ... ...

    Meanwhile, Sater is still working for the FBI , according to two current FBI agents. Moreover, he has relationships with at least six members of Robert Mueller's team, "some going back more than 10 years."

    To this day, Sater continues to cooperate with the FBI and Justice Department, he said in his statement to the House Intelligence Committee. He wouldn't disclose additional details, except to say that he works on "international matters." Two US officials confirmed Sater continues to be a reliable asset.

    As for his regular life, when he relocated back to the US in 2010, he recalled, "Donald said, 'Where have you been?'" Sater said Trump asked him to join the Trump Organization. "That's when I became senior advisor to him," he said. The Trump Organization and the White House declined to comment. - BuzzFeed

    In effect, Sater - at least according to BuzzFeed , is more or less a rockstar opportunist spy with a shady past, who redeemed himself as an asset for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the FBI. During the course of his work for the agencies, all unpaid, BuzzFeed confirmed the following exploits:

    [Apr 21, 2019] Death Of Russiagate Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud's Network – Disobedient Media

    Apr 21, 2019 | disobedientmedia.com

    Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud's Network January 21, 2019 January 21, 2019 Elizabeth Vos In April last year, Disobedient Media broke coverage of the British involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, asking why All Russiagate Roads Lead To London , via the quasi-scholar Joseph Mifsud and others.

    The issue was also raised by WikiLeaks's Julian Assange , just days before the Ecuadorian government silenced him last March. Assange's Twitter thread cited research by Chris Blackburn , who spoke with Disobedient Media on multiple occasions covering Joseph Mifsud's ties to British intelligence figures and organizations, as well as his links to Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign, the FBI, CIA and the private cyber-security firm Crowdstrike.

    We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller's investigation. What we are left with is an indication of collusion between factions of the US and UK intelligence community in fabricating evidence of Trump-Russia collusion: a scandal that would have rocked the legacy press to its core, if Western establishment-backed media had a spine.

    In Disobedient Media's previous coverage of Blackburn's work, he described his experience in intelligence:

    "I've been involved in numerous investigations that involve counter-intelligence techniques in the past. I used to work for the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism , one of the biggest tort actions in American history. I helped build a profile of Osama bin Laden's financial and political network, which was slightly different to the one that had been built by the CIA's Alec Station , a dedicated task force which was focused on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Alec Station designed its profile to hunt Osama bin Laden and disrupt his network. I thought it was flawed. It had failed to take into account Osama's historical links to Pakistan's main political parties or that he was the figurehead for a couple of organizations, not just Al-Qaeda."

    "I also ran a few conferences for US intelligence leaders during the Bush administration. After the 9/11 Commission published its report into the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon it created a public outreach program. The US National Intelligence Conference and Exposition ( Intelcon ) was one of the avenues it used. I was responsible for creating the 'View from Abroad' track. We had guidance from former Senator Slade Gorton and Jamie Gorelick, who both sat on the 9/11 Commission. We got leaders such as Sir John Chilcot and Baroness Pauline Neville Jones to come and help share their experiences on how the US would be able to heal the rifts after 9/11."

    "The US intelligence community was suffering from severe turf wars and firewalls, which were hampering counter-terrorism efforts. They were concentrating on undermining each other rather than tackling terrorism. I had mainly concentrated on the Middle East, but in 2003 I switched my focus to terrorism in South Asia."

    Counter Terrorism, Not Counter Intelligence, Sparked Probe

    In an article published by The Telegraph last November, the paper acknowledged the following:

    "It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI's investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin Mr. Trump's allies and former advisers are raising questions about the UK's role in the start of the probe, given many of the key figures and meetings were located in Britain One former top White House adviser to Mr. Trump made similar insinuations, telling this newspaper: "You know the Brits are up to their neck." The source added on the Page wiretap application: "I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don't want to be implicated in, along with FBI, counter-terrorism and the CIA. " [Emphasis Added]

    The article cites George Papadopoulos, who asked why the "British intelligence apparatus was weaponized against Trump and his advisers." Papadopoulos has also addressed the issue at length via Twitter. In response to the Telegraph's coverage of the issue, Chris Blackburn wrote via Twitter : "The Telegraph story on Trump Russia acknowledges that activities involving counter-terrorism are at the heart of the scandal not counter-intelligence. If the [London Centre for International Law Practice] was British state, not private, some Commonwealth countries are going to be seriously pissed off."

    Blackburn spoke with Disobedient Media, saying: "If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice. A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." [Emphasis Added]

    Blackburn discussed this differentiation with Disobedient Media: "Counter-terrorism is obviously involved in more kinetic, violent political actions-concerning mass casualty events, bombings, assassinations, poisonings, and hacking. But, the lines are blurring between them. Counter-intelligence cases have been known to stretch for decades- often relying on nothing more than paranoia and suspicion to fuel investigations. Counter-terrorism is also a broader discipline as it involves tactical elements like hostage rescue, crime scene investigations, and explosive specialists. Counter-Terrorism is a collaborative effort with counter-terrorism officers working closely with local and regional police forces and civic organizations. There is also a wider academic field around countering violent, and radical ideology which promotes terrorism and insurgencies. Cybersecurity has become the third major discipline in intelligence. The London Center of International Law Practice, the mysterious intelligence company that employed both Papadopoulos and Mifsud , had also been working in that area."

    Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look like they were something else. As counter-terrorism and counterintelligence are close in tactics and methods, it would seem that they were used because they share the same skill sets – covert evidence gathering and deception. It's basically sleight of hand. A piece of theatre would be more precise. However, we don't know if the FBI knew it was real or make-believe. It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency."

    Mueller's Team And Joseph Mifsud

    Zainab Ahmad , a member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017. In recent days, Blackburn wrote via Twitter : "Zainab Ahmad is a major player in the Russiagate scandal at the DOJ. Does she work for SC Mueller? She was at a GCCS event in May 2017. Arvinder Sambei, a co-director of the [London Centre of International Law Practice], worked with Joseph Mifsud, [George Papadopoulos] and [Simona Mangiante]. She's a GCCS consultant."

    Blackburn told this author: "Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia."

    <img src="https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/zainab-work.png?resize=295%2C300&#038;ssl=1" alt="" width="295" height="300" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/zainab-work.png?resize=295%2C300&amp;ssl=1 295w, https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/zainab-work.png?resize=768%2C782&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/zainab-work.png?resize=1006%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1006w, https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/zainab-work.png?w=1560&amp;ssl=1 1560w" sizes="(max-width: 295px) 100vw, 295px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
    Zainab Ahmad (AHMAD). Image via the Combatting Terrorism Center, West Point

    "Richard Barrett, the Former Chief of Counter-Terrorism at MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence department traveled with Mifsud to Saudi Arabia to give a talk on terrorism in 2017. Ex-CIA officers, US Defense, and US Treasury officials were also there. The London Centre of International Law Practice's relationship to the Global Center had been established in 2014. The Global Center on Cooperative Security made Martin Polaine and Arvinder Sambei consultants, they then became directors at the London Centre of International Law Practice."

    "The Global Center on Cooperative Security's first major UK conference was at Joseph Mifsud's London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD). Mifsud then followed Arvinder Sambei and Nagi Idris over to the London Centre of International Law Practice. Sources have told me that Mifsud was moonlighting as a specialist on counter-terrorism and Islamism while working at LAD which explains why he went to work in counter-terrorism after LAD folded."

    "I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling."

    Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons. Critically, The Hill writes:

    "Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ's fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ's international operations, and Zainab Ahmad , an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor. Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe." [Emphasis Added]

    This point is essential, as it not only describes Ahmad's role in Mueller's team but places her at a crucial pre-investigation meeting.

    Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too."

    Sambei has been described elsewhere as a "Former practising barrister, Senior Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service of England & Wales, and Legal Adviser at the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), Ministry of Defence." [British spelling has been retained]

    <img src="https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/AS-2016-cut.jpg?resize=300%2C296&#038;ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="296" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/AS-2016-cut.jpg?resize=300%2C296&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/AS-2016-cut.jpg?w=455&amp;ssl=1 455w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
    Arvinder Sambei. Image via the Public International Law Advisory Group

    That Sambei has been so thoroughly linked to organizations where Mifsud was a central figure is yet another cause of suspicion regarding allegations that Joseph Mifsud was a shadowy, unknown Russian agent until the summer of 2016. She is also a direct link between Robert Mueller and Mifsud.

    Blackburn wrote via Twitter : "Arvinder Sambei helped to organize LCILP's counter-terrorism and corruption events. She used her contacts in the US to bring in Middle Eastern government officials that were seen to be vulnerable to graft. Lisa Osofsky, former FBI Deputy General Counsel, was working with her." Below, Arvinder is pictured at a London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) event.

    <img src="https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sambeilcilp.jpg?resize=720%2C566&#038;ssl=1" alt="" width="720" height="566" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sambeilcilp.jpg?w=720&amp;ssl=1 720w, https://i2.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sambeilcilp.jpg?resize=300%2C236&amp;ssl=1 300w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
    Arvinder Sambei, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

    As Chris Blackburn told this author: " Mifsud and Papadopoulos's co-director Arvinder Sambei was also the former FBI British counsel working 9/11 cases for Robert Mueller. She also runs a consultancy which deals with Special Investigative Measure (SIMs) which is just a posh description for covert espionage and evidence gathering. She has worked for major intelligence and national law agencies in the past. She wore two hats as a director of London Centre and a consultant for the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), a counter-terrorism think tank which is sponsored by the Australia, Canada, UK and US governments. Alexander Downer's former Chief of Staff while at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now works for the Global Center. Mifsud was also due to meet with Australian private intelligence figures in Adelaide in March 2016. So. Australia is certainly a major focus for the investigation." [Emphasis Added]

    Below, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Lisa Osofsky is pictured at a London Centre for International Law Practice event . Osofsky also served as the Money Laundering Reporting Officer with Goldman Sachs International. Since 2018, she has served as the Director of the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

    <img src="https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Lisa-Osofsky.jpg?resize=720%2C524&#038;ssl=1" alt="" width="720" height="524" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Lisa-Osofsky.jpg?w=720&amp;ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Lisa-Osofsky.jpg?resize=300%2C218&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/disobedientmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Lisa-Osofsky.jpg?resize=370%2C270&amp;ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
    Lisa Osofsky, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

    An Embarrassment For John Brennan?

    Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that " The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner."

    Blackburn told Disobedient Media: "Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, who has seen most of the information gathered by Congress from the intelligence community concerning the Russia investigation, said that if President Trump were to declassify files and present the truth to the American public, it would " embarrass John Brennan ." I think that is pretty concrete for me, but it's not definitive. I know the polarization and spin in Washington has become perverse, but that statement is pretty specific for me. If Brennan is involved, it is most probably through Papadopoulos who sparked off the 'official' investigation at the FBI. He also made sure the Steele dossier was spread through the US government."

    Blackburn added: "Chris Steele was also working on FIFA projects, and a source has told me that he was working to investigate the Russian and Qatari World Cup bids. The London Centre of International Law Practice has been working with Majed Garoub, the former Saudi legal representative of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer. He's also been working against the Qatari bid. Steele likes to get paid twice for his investigations."

    "Mifsud has also been associated with Prince Turki the former Saudi intelligence chief, Mifsud and the London Academy of Diplomacy used to train Saudi diplomats and intelligence figures while Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to London. Turki is a close friend of Bill Clinton and John Brennan. Nawaf Obaid was also courting Mifsud and tried to get him a cushy job working with CNN's Freedom Project at Link Campus in Rome. He also knows John Brennan. Intelligence agencies like to give out professional gifts like this plum academic position for completing missions. In the US, it is widely known that intelligence agencies gift the children of assets to get them into prestigious Ivy League schools."

    At minimum, we can surmise that Mifsud was not a Russian agent, but was an asset of Western intelligence agencies. We are left with the impression that the Mifsud saga served as a ploy, whether he participated knowingly or not. It seems reasonable to conclude that the gambit was initially developed with participation of John Brennan and UK intelligence. Following this, Mueller inherited and developed the Mifsud narrative thread into the collusion soap opera we know today.

    Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power.

    [Apr 21, 2019] All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud's Links To UK Intelligence – Disobedient Media by Elizabeth Vos

    Notable quotes:
    "... evidence has surfaced that suggests Mifsud was anything but a Russian spy, and may have actually worked for British intelligence. ..."
    "... This new evidence culminates in the ground-breaking conclusion that the UK and its intelligence apparatus may be responsible for the invention of key pillars of the Trump-Russia scandal. ..."
    "... Mifsud strongly denied claims that he was associated with Russian intelligence, telling Italian newspaper Repubblica that he was a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Clinton Foundation, adding that his political outlook was "left-leaning." Last month, Slate reported Mifsud had 'disappeared', as did some of the other figures linking the UK to the Trump-Russia scandal. This aspect will be discussed in more detail below. ..."
    "... WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: "[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo] ..."
    "... A particularly compelling factor indicating that Mifsud's working relationship with Claire Smith suggests his direct connection with UK intelligence is Smith's membership of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) , a supervisory body overseeing all UK intelligence agencies. The JIC is part of the Cabinet Office and reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Committee also sets the collection and analysis priorities for all of the agencies it supervises. Claire Smith also served as a member of the UK's Cabinet Office. ..."
    "... In summary, Mifsud's appearance with Claire Smith at the LINK campus, in addition to her discussion on intelligence at yet another university where Mifsud was also employed, as well as her long-standing role in UK intelligence vetting and her position as a member of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee, would suggest that the roving scholar is not a Russian agent, but is actually a UK intelligence asset. ..."
    "... Claire Smith is not the only British official associated with Mifsud. He was a speaker at an event by the Central European Initiative alongside former British diplomat Charles Crawford, whose postings included Moscow, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. Crawford is listed as a visiting Professor with the same London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD) where Mifsud served as Director, associated with Stirling University. This adds more weight to the idea that Mifsud is a familiar figure among the upper echelons of the UK intelligence and foreign policy establishment. ..."
    Apr 04, 2018 | disobedientmedia.com

    Over the last few months, Professor Joseph Mifsud has become a feather in the cap for those pushing the Trump-Russia narrative. He is characterized as a "Russian" intelligence asset in mainstream press, despite his declarations to the contrary. However, evidence has surfaced that suggests Mifsud was anything but a Russian spy, and may have actually worked for British intelligence.

    This new evidence culminates in the ground-breaking conclusion that the UK and its intelligence apparatus may be responsible for the invention of key pillars of the Trump-Russia scandal. If true, this would essentially turn the entire RussiaGate debacle on its head.

    To give an idea of the scope of this report, a few central points showing the UK connections with the central pillars of the Trump-Russia claims are included here, in the order of discussion in this article:

    1. Mifsud allegedly discussed that Russia has 'dirt' on Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails' with George Papadopoulos in London in April 2016.
    2. The following month, Papadopoulos spoke with Alexander Downer, Australia's ambassador to the UK, about the alleged Russian dirt on Clinton while they were drinking at a swanky Kensington bar, according to The Times. In late July 2016, Downer shared his tip with Australian intelligence officials who forwarded it to the FBI.
    3. Robert Goldstone, a key figure in the 'Trump Tower' part of the RussiaGate narrative, sent Donald Trump Jr. an email claiming Russia wanted to help the Trump campaign. He is a British music promoter.
    4. Christopher Steele, ex-MI6, who worked as an MI6 agent in Moscow until 1993 and ran the Russia desk at MI6 HQ in London between 2006 and 2009. He produced the totally unsubstantiated 'Steele Dossier' of Trump-Russia allegations, with funding from the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
    5. Robert Hannigan, the head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan.

    Each of these strands of UK-tied elements of the Russiagate narrative can be substantially dismantled on close inspection. This untangling process leads to the surprising conclusion that UK intelligence services fabricated evidence of collusion in order to create the appearance of a Trump-Russia connection.

    This trend begins with Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese scholar with an eclectic academic history who Quartz described as an "enigma," while legacy press has enthusiastically characterized him as a central personality in the Trump-Russia scandal. The New York Times described Mifsud as an "enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia", citing his regular involvement in the annual meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club , a Russian-based think-tank, as well as three short articles he wrote in support of Russian policies.

    Mifsud strongly denied claims that he was associated with Russian intelligence, telling Italian newspaper Repubblica that he was a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Clinton Foundation, adding that his political outlook was "left-leaning." Last month, Slate reported Mifsud had 'disappeared', as did some of the other figures linking the UK to the Trump-Russia scandal. This aspect will be discussed in more detail below.

    To contextualize Mifsud's eclectic academic career in terms of intelligence service, it is helpful to note that research undertaken by this author and Suzie Dawson as part of the Decipher You project has repeatedly shown the close ties – an outright merger in many cases – between the intelligence community and academia. This enmeshment also takes place with think-tanks, NGOs, and in the corporate sphere. In this light, Mifsud's brand of 'scholarship' becomes far less mysterious.

    Mifsud's alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud's LINK campus in Rome . Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor's name and biography had been removed from the campus' website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for "years."

    WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: "[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo]."

    The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com , where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: " Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy ." The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.

    (Image deleted) Claire Smith standing with Joseph Mifsud, on the left side of the back row.

    First, the training program Smith attended with high-ranking members of the Italian military was organized by the London Academy of Diplomacy , where Joseph Mifsud served as Director, as noted by The Washington Post. That Claire Smith was training military and law enforcement officials alongside Mifsud in 2012 during her tenure as a member of the UK Cabinet Office Security Vetting Appeals Panel , which oversees the vetting process for UK intelligence placement, strongly suggests that Mifsud has been incorrectly characterized as a Russian intelligence asset. It is extremely unlikely that Claire Smith's role in vetting UK intelligence personnel would lead to her accidentally working with a Russian agent.

    The connection between Mifsud and Smith does not end at bumped elbows in a photograph. Mifsud's LinkedIn profile lists the University of Stirling as a place of occupation in connection with his service as Director of the London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD), where Claire Smith served as a visiting professor from 2013-2014 according to her LinkedIn profile . This adds yet another verifiable connection between a man who is at the center of already-flimsy Trump-Russia allegations and a high-ranking British intelligence figure.

    (Picture deleted) Claire Smith's LinkedIn profile details her service on the Security Vetting Appeals
    Panel while also occupied as a visiting Professor at Stirling University

    Claire Smith also hosted a seminar titled " Making Sense of Intelligence " at the University of Stirling. The event registration form describes her career, including her service as Deputy Chief of Assessments Staff in the Cabinet Office, as a member of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and her completion of an eight-year term as a member of the UK Security Vetting and Appeals Panel.

    A particularly compelling factor indicating that Mifsud's working relationship with Claire Smith suggests his direct connection with UK intelligence is Smith's membership of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) , a supervisory body overseeing all UK intelligence agencies. The JIC is part of the Cabinet Office and reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Committee also sets the collection and analysis priorities for all of the agencies it supervises. Claire Smith also served as a member of the UK's Cabinet Office.

    In summary, Mifsud's appearance with Claire Smith at the LINK campus, in addition to her discussion on intelligence at yet another university where Mifsud was also employed, as well as her long-standing role in UK intelligence vetting and her position as a member of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee, would suggest that the roving scholar is not a Russian agent, but is actually a UK intelligence asset. The possibility that such a high-ranking member of this extremely powerful intelligence supervisory group was photographed standing next to a "Russian" asset unknowingly is patently absurd.

    This finding knocks the first pillar out from under the edifice of the Trump-Russia allegations. It provides an initial suggestion of the UK's involvement in procuring the 'evidence' that fueled the debacle.

    Claire Smith is not the only British official associated with Mifsud. He was a speaker at an event by the Central European Initiative alongside former British diplomat Charles Crawford, whose postings included Moscow, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. Crawford is listed as a visiting Professor with the same London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD) where Mifsud served as Director, associated with Stirling University. This adds more weight to the idea that Mifsud is a familiar figure among the upper echelons of the UK intelligence and foreign policy establishment.

    The final nail in the coffin of the theory that Mifsud is a Russian spy is this photograph of Mifsud standing next to Boris Johnson, the UK Foreign Secretary, as reported by The Guardian. The photograph, taken in October 2017 – nearly a full year after the US Presidential election and nine months after Mifsud's name appeared in newspaper headlines worldwide as allegedly involved in Russian meddling in that election – is either highly embarrassing for the hapless Mr Johnson, or it's not, because Joseph Mifsud is actually a valued and security-vetted asset to the United Kingdom.

    Image via The Guardian (deleted): Boris Johnson pictured at the dinner with the 'London professor',
    Joseph Mifsud (left) and Prasenjit Kumar Singh.

    Another aspect of the RussiaGate claims tied to the UK includes the reported conversation between George Papadopoulos and Alexander Downer, Australia's High Commissioner to the UK who was based in London. The pair reportedly spoke about the alleged Russian 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton while they were drinking at a swanky bar in London. According to Lifezette , Downer is closely tied with The Clinton Foundation via his role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS.

    He is also a member of the advisory board of London-based Hakluyt & Co , an opposition research and intelligence firm set up in 1995 by three former UK intelligence officials and described as " a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers , but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking". Whereas opposition research group Fusion GPS has received all the media attention so far, Lifezette states that Hakluyt is "a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign".

    Yet another UK link to a central pillar of the Trump-Russia narrative is British music promoter Robert Goldstone, who was reported to have organized a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian nationals in June 2016. In the email chain setting up the Trump Tower meeting, both before and after the meeting, the only real 'evidence' of collusion with Russia come from Goldstone's own emails; none-too-subtle heavy hints about 'Russian help' dropped by Goldstone but later – after the emails became public – walked back by him as " hyping the message and using hot-button language to puff up the information I had been given."

    Some have speculated that Goldstone was also involved with British or US intelligence efforts to concoct the RussiaGate narrative. As soon as his name emerged in the press, Goldstone – like Christopher Steele and Joseph Mifsud – went into 'hiding'. Multiple press reports claimed he had done so out of fear for his safety, a claim also made about Christopher Steele when his name first became public. Indeed, the UK government issued a DA Notice (a press suppression advisory notice) to the British press to suppress the ex-spy Steele's name. It is notable that, of all the people swept up into the ever-burgeoning RussiaGate investigation, it is only the UK-linked witnesses – Mifsud, Steele, Goldstone – who have felt the need to go into hiding when their role has been exposed.

    The New York Times summed up the contents of Christopher Steele's dossier: "Mr. Steele produced a series of memos that alleged a broad conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election on behalf of Mr. Trump. The memos also contained unsubstantiated accounts of encounters between Mr. Trump and Russian prostitutes, and real estate deals that were intended as bribes."

    Press reports also relate that Steele was ordered by an English court to appear for a videotaped deposition in London as part of an ongoing civil litigation against Buzzfeed for publishing the unverified dossier, for which Steele was paid $168,000 by Glenn Simpson's company Fusion GPS, who were in turn paid by Mark Elias of law firm Perkins Coie, lawyers to both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.

    In his thread on the role of UK intelligence interference in the 2016 US Presidential race, Assange also noted how Christopher Steele used another former UK ambassador to Moscow, Sir Andrew Wood, to funnel the dossier to Senator John McCain in a way that moved the handover out of London, to Canada. It's often said that no one ever really leaves the UK security services when they retire – many 'former' MI6 or MI5 officers' private intelligence businesses are dependent on maintaining good contacts among their ex-colleagues – so it is interesting to note that Sir Andrew Wood says he was "instructed" -- by former British spy Christopher Steele -- to reach out to the senior Republican, whom Wood called "a good man," about the unverified document.

    Lastly, Robert Hannigan, former head of British intelligence agency GCHQ, is another personality of note in the formation of the RussiaGate narrative and its surprisingly deep links to the UK. The Guardian noted that Hannigan announced he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. Jane Mayer in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

    What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner.

    The central supporting pillars of the RussiaGate allegations hinge on figures with close ties to British intelligence and UK nationals. Even establishment media like The Guardian reported that British spies from GCHQ were the first to alert US authorities to so-called Russian interference. Did the entire narrative originate with UK intelligence groups in an effort to create the appearance of Russian collusion with the Trump Presidential campaign, much as the Guccifer 2.0 persona was used in the US to discredit WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails?

    If it was not Russia at the heart of a complex operation to topple the Clinton campaign in 2016, then was British Intelligence responsible for creating false narratives and mirage-like 'evidence' on which the Trump-Russia scandal could hinge?

    Put another way, if UK intelligence is responsible for manufacturing the Trump-Russia allegations, it suggests that the UK's efforts formed an international arm running concurrently with domestic US 'Deep State' efforts to sabotage Trump's presidential campaign and/or oust him once he had been elected.

    Is British intelligence involvement in RussiaGate, as outlined above, the international version of CrowdStrike and former FBI figures manufacturing the Guccifer 2.0 persona specifically to smear WikiLeaks via false allegations of a Russian hack of the DNC? Have we been looking in the wrong place – at the wrong country – to unearth the so-called 'foreign meddling' in the 2016 US election all along?

    Kenneth Whittle contributed to this report.

    [Apr 21, 2019] Stefan Halper: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

    May 20, 2018 | heavy.com

    Stefan Halper the University of Cambridge professor identified in multiple media outlets as the alleged FBI informant who made contact with Donald Trump campaign aides during the 2016 presidential election, has long-standing ties to both the CIA and former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

    Halper has been paid over $1 million by the U.S. government from 2012 through 2017, this official government database shows. He praised Hillary Clinton in a Russian news source during the presidential election, saying she would be a better choice for the UK and European Union than Trump. Halper's father-in-law was a long-time CIA man.

    Halper was once caught up in a scandal over allegations that he led an operation within the Reagan campaign to dig up information on Jimmy Carter. In 1983, The New York Times reported that Halper was in charge of "an operation to collect inside information on Carter Administration foreign policy" that was "run in Ronald Reagan's campaign headquarters in the 1980 presidential campaign."

    Some news outlets did not name Halper, such as The New York Times , but gave details about his background that were so specific that other media sources have named Halper as the alleged informant, whom Trump supporters are referring to as a "plant" or "mole" within the campaign. Heavy is naming Halper because his name has already been widely reported. He has not confirmed that he was an alleged informant, nor have authorities.

    Trump has highlighted the informant in tweets without naming him. "I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" the president wrote.

    On May 19, 2018, Trump also wrote, "If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal. Only the release or review of documents that the House Intelligence Committee (also, Senate Judiciary) is asking for can give the conclusive answers. Drain the Swamp!"

    The DOJ's Rod Rosenstein then ordered the Inspector General to look into those claims, saying, that if "anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action."

    Who is Stefan Halper?

    Here's what you need to know:


    1. Halper, a Professor, Made Contact With Three Trump Campaign Officials During the Election & Has Provided Information to the CIA & FBI for Years, Reports Say

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/2ljks9Mat_M

    The New York Times described the academic, but didn't name him, as "an American academic who teaches in Britain" and who "made contact" in summer 2016 with Trump campaign aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. Halper is an University of Cambridge Professor with "ties to American and British intelligence," according to The Washington Times.

    "Halper's sit-downs with Page reportedly started in early July 2016, undermining fired FBI Director James Comey's previous claim that the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign began at the end of that month," The New York Post reported.

    People close to Papadopoulos told NBC that "he has described being summoned to England in September 2016 by Halper, who was offering to pay him to discuss energy issues involving Turkey, Israel and Cyprus, which was his area of expertise."

    Getty Carter Page arrives at the courthouse on the same day as a hearing regarding Michael Cohen, longtime personal lawyer and confidante for President Donald Trump, at the United States District Court Southern District of New York, April 16, 2018 in New York City.

    Papadopoulos told these sources, according to NBC, "that Halper attended the meetings with his assistant, a young Turkish woman. Papadopoulos said he found Halper's demeanor odd, and in retrospect believes Halper was working on behalf of an intelligence or law enforcement agency."

    Page told NBC he met Halper several times on his farm but didn't find it suspicious at the time. He wrote the same on Twitter, saying, "Reporters keep asking me about my interactions with Prof. Halper. I found all our interactions to be cordial. Like this email I received about a year after I first met him. He never seemed suspicious. Just a few scholars exchanging ideas. He had interests in policy, and politics."

    An email that Page posted was written by Halper to him in 2017 – after Trump was already president. Page said on Fox News that he was giving Halper the benefit of the doubt until more confirmation comes out.

    The Washington Post reported that the professor (whom the Post didn't name) approached Carter Page at a symposium in England in mid-July 2016. The Post described him as a "longtime U.S. intelligence source." According to The Post, "the source in question engaged in a months-long pattern of seeking out and meeting three different Trump campaign officials."

    The Post reported that the professor also met Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis "for coffee in Northern Virginia, offering to provide foreign-policy expertise to the Trump effort." According to the Post, he invited Papadopoulos to "London to work on a research paper."

    "For years, the professor has provided information to the FBI and the CIA," reports The Post.

    The FBI "formally opened its counterintelligence investigation" into possible Russia collusion on July 31, 2016, the Post reported, after Papadopoulos "boasted to an Australian diplomat" that he knew Russia had information damaging to Hillary Clinton. As for Page, The Post reports he'd been on the "FBI's radar since at least 2013" because the FBI heard Russian spies "discussing their attempts to recruit him" on a wiretap.

    Halper has been a professor at Cambridge in the Department of Politics and International Studies as Director of American Studies since 2001, according to the Institute for World Politics.

    Stefan Halper "was appointed Senior Fellow at the Centre of International Studies and Director of The American Studies Programme in 2001. Professor Halper lectures on latter 20th and early 21st Century U.S. foreign policy, US-China relations, China in the World, Anglo-American relations, and contemporary international security issues," the bio reads.

    During March 2016, Sputnik News reported that Halper believed "The victory of Hillary Clinton, who is more experienced and predictable than her Republican rival Donald Trump, in the US presidential elections will be more beneficial for the US-UK relations."

    The exact quote per Sputnik News, which is controlled by the Russian government, reads, "I believe [Hillary] Clinton would be best for US-UK relations and for relations with the European Union. Clinton is well-known, deeply experienced and predictable. US-UK relations will remain steady regardless of the winner although Clinton will be less disruptive over time."


    2. Halper's Father-in-Law, Ray Cline, Worked for the CIA During the Cuban Missile Crisis & Halper Advised George H.W. Bush's Presidential Campaign

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/mRPjxK3Sl-Y?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

    Stefan Halper has a strong connection to the Central Intelligence Agency through his father-in-law, Ray Cline.

    A 1980 story in The Washington Post mentions Cline. It says that the intelligence community was strongly supporting the then-presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, who had been CIA director. One of those people was identified as Ray Cline, the father-in-law of Stefan Halper and a legendary figure within intelligence circles. "One top foreign policy and defense adviser is Ray Cline, a former deputy director of the CIA and director of intelligence and research at the State Department," The Post reported.

    Bush ran for president that year but withdrew during the primaries, and Ronald Reagan became the party's nominee and eventual victor; George H.W. Bush then served as Reagan's vice president.

    The Post reported at the time that Cline, who was "director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, had been delivering pro-CIA lectures on college campuses and elsewhere since 1973 when he left the government in disgust 'over what they were doing to the intelligence agencies.'" He was heckled at many of the stops, according to The Post.

    The article says that Cline recommended Stefan Halper "a former Nixon White House aide, be hired as Bush's director of policy development and research."

    NBC News reports that Cline "was the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban missile crisis."

    According to a book on the Iran-Contra scandal, Cline's other son-in-law Roger Fontaine "made at least two visits to Guatemala in 1980 (with General Sumner) drafting the May 1980 Santa Fe Statement, which said that World War III was already underway in Central America against the Soviets and that Nicauragua was the enemy." The book alleges that some former Reagan aides felt that Halper "was receiving information from the CIA."

    Palmer National Bank, where Halper worked for a time, was described in one book as "the DC hub by which Lt. Col. Oliver North sent arms and money to the anti-Sandinista guerrilla Contras in Nicaragua. One of Palmer's founders, Stefan Halper, had no previous banking experience but was George H.W. Bush's foreign policy director during Bush's unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign." The book describes Halper as an "accomplished political operative."

    Halper was on the board of directors of the National Intelligence Center alongside Ray Cline in the early 1980s.

    Cline died at age 77 in 1996. Cline's obituary in The New York Times said he was survived by his wife of 54 years, Marjorie Wilson, and two daughters Sibyl MacKenzie and Judith Fontaine, of Arlington, Virginia. The obituary describes Cline as "the Central Intelligence Agency's chief analyst during the Cuban missile crisis and in retirement a fierce defender of the agency."


    3. Halper Was Accused of Being in Charge of a Reagan Operation Digging Up Information on Jimmy Carter & Received Over $1 Million in Contracts With the U.S. Government

    The operation into Jimmy Carter was described as "highly secretive" and involving a "number of retired Central Intelligence Agency officials," The New York Times reported at the time.

    "The sources identified Stefan A. Halper, a campaign aide involved in providing 24-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, as the person in charge," according to the 1983 Times article. Halper adamantly denied the accusations, telling UPI , "I never knew or talked to anyone in the Carter White House, the Carter administration or the Carter campaign throughout the course of the campaign and I never asked anybody to talk to anybody from the Carter camp or to get any information."

    The newspaper identified Halper as "until recently deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs and now chairman of the Palmer National Bank in Washington."

    Cline told the newspaper that the story was "romantic fallacy" and rejected any theories about "an old CIA network." The Times reported there was already a "furor over revelations that Reagan campaign officials came into possession of Carter debate strategy papers" before the debate.

    A Reagan campaign aide told the Times of Halper that "people talked about his having a network that was keeping track of things inside the Government, mostly in relation to the October surprise." The same article said that Halper worked "closely with David R. Gergen on the staff of George Bush." James A. Baker and Gergen were responsible for bringing Halper into the campaign, the story reports.

    The old UPI article also contains this paragraph: "The former campaign official said the next step in the strategy would be to attempt to establish that the Carter campaign materials reached the Reagan camp through the vice presidential campaign staff of George Bush -- who was CIA director under President Ford."

    In totality, Stefan Halper has ties to three Republican administrations. "The American-born academic previously served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations," reports The New York Post. Halper is 73-years-old.

    However, he also received a lot of money from the U.S. government during the Obama administration.

    NBC News reports that Halper has worked as "a paid consultant to an internal Pentagon think tank known as the Office of Net Assessment, consulting on Russia and China issues." According to Gov.Tribe , Halper has been paid in recent years by the federal government for things including a Russa/China relationship study. Some of the money came from "defense agencies." Other large payments date back to 2012. According to an official U.S. government database, contracts with Stefan Halper from 2012 through 2017 total $1,058,160.

    Some of the contracts are coded as "SPECIAL STUDIES/ANALYSIS- FOREIGN/NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY" and others as "SUPPORT- PROFESSIONAL: OTHER."


    4. Halper Worked in Republican Administrations & for the Campaigns of Reagan & Bush Sr.

    The Institute for World Politics' biography reports that Halper served from 1971 to 1977 in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Among the positions he has held include the White House Domestic Counsel; assistant director of the White House Office of Management and Budget; and Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff.

    He also served as "Legislative Assistant to Senator William Roth (R-Del.) and Special Counsel to the Joint Economic Committee" and was the national director for policy development for George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign from 1979-80 and national director of policy coordination for the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign in 1980.

    Halper also served in the 1980s as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs. His portfolio "included China-US relations, Taiwan, non-proliferation, technology transfer, unconventional warfare," the bio reads.

    He spent six years working for three prominent banks in the 1980s. From 1984 through 2001, he served as "Senior Advisor to the Department of Defense and a Senior Advisor to the Department of Justice," the bio reads. He was a distinguished fellow at the Nixon Center, wrote a newspaper column, and wrote a research document into the Iraq War, according to the biography, which says he was educated at Stanford University and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The site says that Halper graduated from Oxford in 1971 with a doctor of Philosophy. (Bill Clinton was at Oxford from 1968 through spring 1970.)

    In December 2016, The Telegraph reported, Halper was one of several academics who "unexpectedly resigned from their positions at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar (CIS), an academic forum on the Western spy world." His reason for stepping down? "Unacceptable Russian influence" on the group, according to UK Telegraph .

    According to The Telegraph, the group "was set up by official MI5 historian Professor Christopher Andrew" and holds seminars that previously were attended by Michael Flynn, among others. The concern about Russia derives from claims that a digital publishing host covering some of the group's costs "may be acting as a front for the Russian intelligence services," Telegraph reports.


    5. The FBI Operation Was Dubbed 'Crossfire Hurricane' & Halper Is an Author

    The New York Times reported that "FBI agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign."

    Papadopoulous pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last year, and a federal surveillance warrant into Page has caused great controversy because of revelations that it was at least in part obtained through an unverified and salacious dossier funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee through a law firm and research firm. That dossier was compiled by a former member of British intelligence named Christopher Steele.

    Republicans in Congress have demanded that the FBI turn over documents about the informant, but the officials have refused.

    The Times reports that the operation was called Crossfire Hurricane and was launched after the FBI learned information that Papadopoulos "was told that Moscow had compromising information on (Hillary) Clinton in the forms of 'thousands of emails'" before WikiLeaks released hacked emails. The FBI also started investigating Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, ,who later became his National Security adviser.

    Halper is the author of several books, including America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order , The Silence of the Rational Centre: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing , and The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism in our Time .

    [Apr 21, 2019] NYT The Tables Have Turned -- Time To Investigate The FBI, Steele And The Rest Of The Witch Hunters

    The country was divided before Mueller Report. Now it is even more divided.
    Notable quotes:
    "... We wouldn't know that a Clinton-linked operative, Joseph Mifsud, seeded Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos with the rumor that Russia had 'Dirt' on Hillary Clinton - which would later be coaxed out of Papadopoulos by a Clinton-linked Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, and that this apparent 'setup' would be the genesis of the FBI's " operation crossfire hurricane " operation against the Trump campaign. ..."
    "... We wouldn't know about the role of Fusion GPS - the opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign to commission the Steele dossier. Fusion is also linked to the infamous Trump Tower meeting , and hired Nellie Ohr - the CIA-linked wife of the DOJ's then-#4 employee, Bruce Ohr. Nellie fed her husband Bruce intelligence she had gathered against Trump while working for Fusion , according to transcripts of her closed-door Congressional testimony. ..."
    "... Now the dossier -- financed by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee , and compiled by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele -- is likely to face new, possibly harsh scrutiny from multiple inquiries . - NYT ..."
    "... The report was debunked after internet sleuths traced the IP address to a marketing server located outside Philadelphia, leading Alfa Bank executives to file a lawsuit against Fusion GPS in October 2017, claiming their reputations were harmed by the Steele Dossier. ..."
    "... And who placed the Trump-Alfa theory with various media outlets? None other than former FBI counterintelligence officer and Dianne Feinstein aide Dan Jones - who is currently working with Fusion GPS and Steele to continue their Trump-Russia investigation funded in part by George Soros . ..."
    "... Of course, when one stops painting with broad brush strokes, it's clear that the dossier was fabricated bullshit. ..."
    "... after a nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and roughly 40 FBI agents and other specialists, no evidence was found to support the dossier's wild claims of "DNC moles, Romanian hackers, Russian pensioners, or years of Trump-Putin intelligence trading ," as the Times puts it. ..."
    "... As there was spying, there must necessarily also have been channels to get the information thus gathered back to its original buyer - the Clinton campaign. Who passed the information back to Clinton, and what got passed? ..."
    "... the NYTt prints all the news a scumbag would. remember Judith Miller, the Zionazi reporter the NYT ..."
    "... There was no 'hack.' That is the big, anti-Russia, pro-MIC lie which all the other lies serve. ..."
    "... Seth Rich had the means and the motive. So did Imran Awan, but it would make no sense for Awan to turn anything over to wikileaks . . .he would have kept them as insurance. ..."
    "... Until the real criminals are processed and the media can be restored you don't have a United States. This corruption is beyond comprehension. You had the (((media)) providing kickbacks to the FBI for leaked information. These bribes are how CNN was on site during Roger Stones invasion. ..."
    "... So now the narrative is, "We were wrong about Russian collusion, and that's Russia's fault"?! ..."
    Apr 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    As we now shift from the "witch hunt" against Trump to 'investigating the investigators' who spied on him - remember this; Donald Trump was supposed to lose the 2016 election by almost all accounts. And had Hillary won, as expected, none of this would have seen the light of day .

    We wouldn't know that a hyper-partisan FBI had spied on the Trump campaign , as Attorney General William Barr put it during his April 10 Congressional testimony .

    We wouldn't know that a Clinton-linked operative, Joseph Mifsud, seeded Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos with the rumor that Russia had 'Dirt' on Hillary Clinton - which would later be coaxed out of Papadopoulos by a Clinton-linked Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, and that this apparent 'setup' would be the genesis of the FBI's " operation crossfire hurricane " operation against the Trump campaign.

    We wouldn't know about the role of Fusion GPS - the opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign to commission the Steele dossier. Fusion is also linked to the infamous Trump Tower meeting , and hired Nellie Ohr - the CIA-linked wife of the DOJ's then-#4 employee, Bruce Ohr. Nellie fed her husband Bruce intelligence she had gathered against Trump while working for Fusion , according to transcripts of her closed-door Congressional testimony.

    And if not for reporting by the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross and others, we wouldn't know that the FBI sent a longtime spook, Stefan Halper, to infiltrate and spy on the Trump campaign - after the Obama DOJ paid him over $400,000 right before the 2016 US election (out of more than $1 million he received while Obama was president).

    According to the New York Times , the tables are turning, starting with the Steele Dossier.

    [T]he release on Thursday of the report by the special counsel , Robert S. Mueller III, underscored what had grown clearer for months -- that while many Trump aides had welcomed contacts with the Russians, some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove . Mr. Mueller's report contained over a dozen passing references to the document's claims but no overall assessment of why so much did not check out.

    Now the dossier -- financed by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee , and compiled by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele -- is likely to face new, possibly harsh scrutiny from multiple inquiries . - NYT

    While Congressional Republicans have vowed to investigate, the DOJ's Inspector General is considering whether the FBI improperly relied on the dossier when they used it to apply for a surveillance warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The IG also wants to know about Steele's sources and whether the FBI disclosed any doubts as to the veracity of the dossier .

    Attorney General Barr, meanwhile, said he will review the FBI's conduct in the Russia investigation after saying the agency spied on the Trump campaign .

    Doubts over the dossier

    The FBI's scramble to vet the dossier's claims are well known. According to an April, 2017 NYT report , the FBI agreed to pay Steele $50,000 for "solid corroboration" of his claims . Steele was apparently unable to produce satisfactory evidence - and was ultimately not paid for his efforts:

    Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October, bringing a stack of new intelligence reports. One, dated Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing "fallout" over his apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was receiving "conflicting advice" on what to do.

    The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid . - NYT

    Still, the FBI used the dossier to obtain the FISA warrant on Page - while the document itself was heavily shopped around to various media outlets . The late Sen. John McCain provided a copy to Former FBI Director James Comey, who already had a version, and briefed President Trump on the salacious document. Comey's briefing to Trump was then used by CNN and BuzzFeed to justify reporting on and publishing the dossier following the election.

    Let's not forget that in October, 2016, both Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta promoted the conspiracy theory that a secret Russian server was communicating with Trump Tower.

    The report was debunked after internet sleuths traced the IP address to a marketing server located outside Philadelphia, leading Alfa Bank executives to file a lawsuit against Fusion GPS in October 2017, claiming their reputations were harmed by the Steele Dossier.

    And who placed the Trump-Alfa theory with various media outlets? None other than former FBI counterintelligence officer and Dianne Feinstein aide Dan Jones - who is currently working with Fusion GPS and Steele to continue their Trump-Russia investigation funded in part by George Soros .

    Dan Jones, George Soros, Glenn Simpson

    Russian tricks? The Times notes that Steele "has not ruled out" that he may have been fed Russian disinformation while assembling his dossier.

    That would mean that in addition to carrying out an effective attack on the Clinton campaign, Russian spymasters hedged their bets and placed a few land mines under Mr. Trump's presidency as well.

    Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who now lives outside Washington, saw that as plausible. "Russia has huge experience in spreading false information," he said. - NYT

    In short, Steele is being given an 'out' with this admission.

    A lawyer for Fusion GPS, Joshua Levy, says that the Mueller report substantiated the "core reporting" in the Steele memos - namely that "Trump campaign figures were secretly meeting Kremlin figures," and that Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, had directed "a covert operation to elect Donald J. Trump."

    Of course, when one stops painting with broad brush strokes, it's clear that the dossier was fabricated bullshit.

    The dossier tantalized Mr. Trump's opponents with a worst-case account of the president's conduct. And for those trying to make sense of the Trump-Russia saga, the dossier infused the quest for understanding with urgency.

    In blunt prose, it suggested that a foreign power had fully compromised the man who would become the next president of the United States.

    The Russians, it asserted, had tried winning over Mr. Trump with real estate deals in Moscow -- which he had not taken up -- and set him up with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013, filming the proceedings for future exploitation. A handful of aides were described as conspiring with the Russians at every turn.

    Mr. Trump, it said, had moles inside the D.N.C. The memos claimed that he and the Kremlin had been exchanging intelligence for eight years and were using Romanian hackers against the Democrats , and that Russian pensioners in the United States were running a covert communications network . - NYT

    And after a nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and roughly 40 FBI agents and other specialists, no evidence was found to support the dossier's wild claims of "DNC moles, Romanian hackers, Russian pensioners, or years of Trump-Putin intelligence trading ," as the Times puts it.

    Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and key Democrats backing away from talks of impeachment, let's see if lady justice will follow the rest of us down the rabbit hole.


    Yippie21 , 2 minutes ago link

    This is why the whole FISA court is a joke. What is their remedy if their power is abused? What happens. Well,... the FISA courts was lied to and found out about it in the early 2000's. Mueller was FBI chief. So they got a strongly worded dressing-down, a mark in their permanent record from high school, and NO ONE was fired... no one was sanctioned, no agent was transferred to Alaska.

    Fast forward 10 or 12 years and the FBI is doing this **** again. Lying to the court... you know the court where there are no Democrat judges or Republican judges.. they are all super awesome.... and what is the remedy when the FISA court is told they've been lied to by the FBI and used in a intel operation with MI6, inserting assets, into a freaking domestic Presidential campaign!!! and then they WON. Good god.

    And what do we hear from our court? Nadda. Do we hear of some Federal Judges hauling FBI and DOJ folks in front of them and throwing them in jail? Nope. It appears from here... that our Federal Justices are corrupt and have no problem letting illegal police-state actions go on with ZERO accountability or recourse. They could care less evidently. It's all secret you know... trust us they say.. Why aren't these judges publicly making loud noises about how the judiciary is complicit , with the press, in wholesale spying and leaking for political reasons AND a coup attempt when the wrong guy won.???

    Where is awesome Justice Roberts? Why isn't he throwing down some truth on just how compromised the rule of law in his courts clearly are in the last 10 years? The FISA court is his baby. It does no good for them to assure us they are concerned too, and they've taken action and sent strongly worded letters. Pisses me off. ? Right? heck of rant...

    San Pedro , 2 minutes ago link

    When did Russians interfere in our elections?? 2016. Who was president when Russians interfered with elections?? oobama. Who was head of the CIA?? Brennan. Who was National Intelligence director?? Clapper. Who was head of the FBI when the Russians interfered in our elections?? Comey. The pattern is obvious. When Trump was a private citizen the oobama and all his cabinet appointees and Intel Managers had their hands on all the levers and instruments of Government..and did nothing . Your oobama is guilty of treason and failing his Oath Of Office...everybody knows this.

    Scipio Africanuz , 4 minutes ago link

    This article is still a roundabout gambit to blame Russia.

    Fair enough, where's Bill Browder? In England. Browder's allegations were utilized to try and damage Russia, even though Russia (not the USSR), is about the most reliable friend America has.

    Russia helped Lincoln, and were it not for that crucial help, there'd be no America to sanction Russia today. The Tsar paid for that help with his dynasty, when Nicholas II was murdered, and dethroned.

    Americans are truly ungrateful brutes..

    Now, sanctions, opprobrium, and hatred are heaped on Russia, most cogently by chauvinistic racists, who look down their noses at Rus (Russ) and yet, cannot sacrifice 25 millions of their own people, for the sake of others.

    Russians are considered subhuman, and yet, the divine spark of humanity resides solely in their breasts. The zionists claim a false figure of 6 million for a faux holocaust, and yet, nobody pays attention to the true holocaust of 25 millions, or the many millions before that disastrous instigated war.

    That the Russians are childlike, believing others to be like them, loyal, self sacrificing, and generous, has now brought the world to the brink of armageddon, and still, they bear the burden of proof, though their accusers, who ought provide the evidence, are bereft of any..

    Thomas Jefferson it was, who observing whatever he observed, exclaimed in cogent agitation, that "I fear for my countrymen, when I remember that God is Just, and His Justice does not repose forever".

    Investigate Jared and Ivanka Kushner, along with Charles Kushner, and much ought be clear, no cheers...

    King of Ruperts Land , 5 minutes ago link

    I don't buy that "Few bad apples at the top", "Good rank and file" Argument. I have never seen one. We should assume everyone from the top to the bottom of FBI, DOJ, and State, just to get started, probably every other three better agency is bad. At least incompotent, at worst treasonous.

    Sanity Bear , 15 minutes ago link

    As there was spying, there must necessarily also have been channels to get the information thus gathered back to its original buyer - the Clinton campaign. Who passed the information back to Clinton, and what got passed?

    besnook , 20 minutes ago link

    the NYTt prints all the news a scumbag would. remember Judith Miller, the Zionazi reporter the NYT used to push the Iraq war with all sorts of ********? after the war was determined to be started under a false premise and became common knowledge there were no wmds in iraq the nyt came forward and reported the war was ******** as if they were reporting breaking news.

    they have done the same thing here. they pushed the russiagate story with both barrels even though the informed populace knew it was ******** before trump was sworn in as potus. now that the all the holes in the story are readily apparent the nyt comes forward with breaking revelation that something is wrong with the story.

    ClickNLook , 23 minutes ago link

    Now we will have another 2 years of investigation and another expensive and meaningless report. WWE Soup Opera continues. Plot sickens.

    I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 30 minutes ago link

    There was no 'hack.' That is the big, anti-Russia, pro-MIC lie which all the other lies serve.

    I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 30 minutes ago link

    There was no 'hack.' That is the big, anti-Russia, pro-MIC lie which all the other lies serve.

    His name is Seth Rich.

    DaBard51 , 24 minutes ago link

    The Seth Rich investigation; where is it now? Murder of a campaign staffer; tampering with or influencing an election, is it not? Hmmm... When nine hundred years old you become, look this good you will not.

    ClickNLook , 19 minutes ago link

    Once upon a time there was a Bernie supporter. And his name was Seth Rich. Then there was a "botched robbery", which evidence that was concluded on, I have no idea. Do you? Anyhow, The End.

    Amy G. Dala , 22 minutes ago link

    Seth Rich had the means and the motive. So did Imran Awan, but it would make no sense for Awan to turn anything over to wikileaks . . .he would have kept them as insurance.

    Why wouldn't Assange name the source for the DNC emails? Is this a future bargaining chip? And what if he did name Seth Rich? He would have to prove it. Could he?

    ComeAndTakeIt , 10 minutes ago link

    They've got Assange now...Maybe they should ask him if it was Seth Rich who gave him the emails?

    Maybe even do it under oath and on national television. I don't think it's still considered "burning a source" if your source has already been murdered....

    Bricker , 32 minutes ago link

    Until the real criminals are processed and the media can be restored you don't have a United States. This corruption is beyond comprehension. You had the (((media)) providing kickbacks to the FBI for leaked information. These bribes are how CNN was on site during Roger Stones invasion.

    Treason and Sedition is rampant in America and all SPY roads lead to Clapper, Brennan and Obama...This needs attention.

    The media is abusive and narrating attacks on a dully elected president

    Mike Rotsch , 35 minutes ago link

    Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who now lives outside Washington, saw that as plausible. "Russia has huge experience in spreading false information," he said. - NYT

    You have got to be ******* kidding me. So now the narrative is, "We were wrong about Russian collusion, and that's Russia's fault"?!

    [Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... As I noted in my previous piece-- The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump --Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. ..."
    "... An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to cozy up to Russia. Mueller does not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on the carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia. Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple disingenuity. It is a conscious lie. ..."
    "... The circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We do not yet know who they are. ..."
    "... We also have the case of Michael Caputo and Roger Stone being approached by a Russian gangster named Henry Greenberg. ..."
    "... How does a guy like Vorkretsov/Greenberg, with an extensive criminal record and circumstantial ties to the Russian mob gain entrance into the United States? Very simple answer. He too was an FBI informant : ..."
    "... Please take time to read the full dossier at democrat dossier . This is more than an odd coincidence. This is a pattern. The FBI was targeting the Trump campaign and personnel in a deliberate effort to implicate them in wanting to work with Russians. ..."
    "... Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular . ..."
    "... A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud’s LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor’s name and biography had been removed from the campus’ website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for “years.” ..."
    "... WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: “[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo].” ..."
    "... This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating honestly they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three--Sater and Greenber--alleged Russian stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community. ..."
    "... Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss. ..."
    "... Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation . THe IRGC being labelled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. ..."
    "... You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference. ..."
    "... The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson. ..."
    Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    While President Trump is correct to celebrate the Mueller Report’s conclusion that no one on Trump’s side of the ledger attempted to or succeeded in collaborating or colluding with the Russian Government or Russian spies, there remains a dark cloud behind the silver lining. And I am not referring to the claims of alleged obstruction of justice. A careful reading of the report reveals that Mueller has issued findings that are both disingenuous and dishonest. The report is a failed hatchet job. Part of the failure can be attributed to the amount of material that Attorney General Barr allowed to be released. It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team.

    Let us start with the case of trying to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. If you were to believe that the Steele Dossier accurately reported Vladimir Putin's attitude towards Trump, then a Trump real estate deal in Moscow was a slam dunk. According to one of Steele's breathless reports:
    The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.
    Then there is reality. The impetus, the encouragement for the Moscow project came from one man--Felix Sater.
    In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov.J07 Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City.30S Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
    To reiterate--if the Steele Dossier was based on truthful intelligence then the Trump organization only had to sit back, stretch out their hands and seize the moment. Instead, little Felix Sater keeps coming back to the well. In January 2016, according to the Mueller report,
    Sater then sent a draft invitation for Cohen to visit Moscow to discuss the Trump Moscow project,along with a note to "[t]ell me if the letter is good as amended by me or make whatever changes you want and send it back to me."

    After a further round of edits, on January 25, 2016, Sater sent Cohen an invitation -- signed by Andrey Ryabinskiy of the company MHJ -- to travel to "Moscow for a working visit" about the "prospects of development and the construction business in Russia," "the various land plots available suited for construction of this enormous Tower," and "the opportunity to co-ordinate a follow up visit to Moscow by Mr. Donald Trump..

    This produced nothing. No deal, no trip. But Sater persisted:

    Beginning in late 2015, Sater repeatedly tried to arrange for Cohen and candidate Trump, as representatives of the Trump Organization, to travel to Russia to meet with Russian government officials and possible financing partners. . . .

    Into the spring of 2016, Sater and Cohen continued to discuss a trip to Moscow in connection with the Trump Moscow project. On April 20, 2016, Sater wrote Cohen, " [t)he People wanted to know when you are coming?,,

    On May 4, 2016, Sater followed up:

    “I had a chat with Moscow. ASSUMING the trip does happen the question is before or after the convention. I said I believe, but don't know for sure, that's it's probably after the convention. Obviously the pre-meeting trip (you only) can happen anytime you want but he 2 big guys where [sic) the question. I said I would confirm and revert.”

    On May 5, 2016, Sater wrote to Cohen:

    “Peskov would like to invite you as his guest to the St. Petersburg Forum which is Russia's Davos it's June 16-19. He wants to meet there with you and possibly introduce you to either Putin or Medvedev, as they are not sure if 1 or both will be there. This is perfect. The entire business class of Russia will be there as well.”

    On June 14, 2016, Cohen met Sater in the lobby of the Trump Tower in New York and informed him that he would not be traveling at that time.

    Why was Felix Sater the one repeatedly identified pushing to arrange deals with the Russians and yet did not face any subsequent charges by the Mueller team? Sater had been working as part of the Trump team since 2003. Why is it that the proposed deals and travel to Moscow came predominantly from Felix Sater?

    As I noted in my previous piece--The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump--Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. He had been working with the FBI since 1998. When he agreed to start working as an undercover informant aka cooperator in December 1998 guess who signed off on the deal? Andrew Weissman. You can see the deal here. It was signed 10 December 1998.

    An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to cozy up to Russia. Mueller does not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on the carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia. Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple disingenuity. It is a conscious lie.

    The circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We do not yet know who they are.

    But Sater's behavior and status as an FBI Informant was not an isolated incident. We also have the case of Michael Caputo and Roger Stone being approached by a Russian gangster named Henry Greenberg. According to democratdossier.com:

    Greenberg's birth name is Gennady Vasilievich Vostretsov, the son of Yekatrina Vostretsova and Vasliy Vostretsov. He later adopted new names twice as a result of two different marriages and became Gennady V. Arzhanik and later Henry Oknyansky. Henry Greenberg is not a legal alias, but he uses it quite commonly in recent years.
    But you would not know this from reading the Mueller report. Mr. Disingenuous strikes again:
    In the spring of 2016, Trump Campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Florida-based Russian business partner that another Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky (who also went by the name Henry Greenberg), claimed to have information pertaining to Hillary Clinton . Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky.

    Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting. 260 Oknyansky was accompanied to the meeting by Alexei Rasin, a Ukrainian associate involved in Florida real estate. At the meeting, Rasin offered to sell Stone derogatory information on Clinton that Rasin claimed to have obtained while working for Clinton. Rasin claimed to possess financial statements demonstrating Clinton's involvement in money laundering with Rasin's companies. According to Oknyansky, Stone asked if the amounts in question totaled millions of dollars but was told it was closer to hundreds of thousands. Stone refused the offer, stating that Trump would not pay for opposition research.

    How does a guy like Vorkretsov/Greenberg, with an extensive criminal record and circumstantial ties to the Russian mob gain entrance into the United States? Very simple answer. He too was an FBI informant:

    In an affidavit, Vostretsov explained to an immigration judge he worked for the FBI for 17 years throughout the world, including in the US, Iran and North Korea. He explained in the same paperwork the FBI granted him several temporary visas to visit the US in exchange for information about criminal activities.

    Please take time to read the full dossier at democrat dossier. This is more than an odd coincidence. This is a pattern. The FBI was targeting the Trump campaign and personnel in a deliberate effort to implicate them in wanting to work with Russians.

    And there is more. George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie:

    In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud 's return from a trip to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, on May 6, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton.

    Papadopoulos shared information about Russian "dirt " with people outside of the Campaign, and the Office investigated whether he also provided it to a Campaign official. Papadopoulos and the Campaign officials with whom he interacted told the Office that they did · not recall that Papadopoulos passed them the information. Throughout the relevant period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. That meeting never came to pass.

    Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular.

    Mifsud’s alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud’s LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor’s name and biography had been removed from the campus’ website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for “years.”

    WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: “[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo].”

    The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: “…Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy.” The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.

    This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating honestly they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three--Sater and Greenber--alleged Russian stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community.

    When you put these facts together it is clear that there is real meat on the bone for Barr's upcoming investigation of the "spying" that was being done on the Trump campaign by law enforcement and intelligence. These facts must become a part of the public consciousness. The foreign country that worked feverishly to meddle in the 2016 Presidential election and the subsequent rule of Donald Trump is the United Kingdom. Russia is the patsy.

    turcopolier, 20 April 2019 at 10:44 PM

    IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position.

    falcemartello, 20 April 2019 at 11:28 PM

    Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss.

    It was obvious from way back in June 2016 when most of the fabricated /novella known as the Steele Dossier was floating around and the role Fusion GPS played in the Clinton POTUS machine. There is a lot out there but as per usual smokey mirrors and deception.

    I live you with this one thought.

    Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation . THe IRGC being labelled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism.

    You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference.

    Rick Merlotti

    The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson.

    [Apr 20, 2019] It wasn't just Mifsud and Halper, it was everyone -- the head of the London law firm where Papadopoulos was working, as well as his immediate boss at the firm -- everyone was working to set George Papadopoulos up as "Trump's liason with the Russians".

    Notable quotes:
    "... It wasn't just Mifsud and Halper, it was everyone -- the head of the London law firm where Papadopoulos was working, as well as his immediate boss at the firm -- everyone was working to set him up as "Trump's liason with the Russians". ..."
    Apr 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    S , Apr 20, 2019 5:40:42 PM | link

    Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos is also available on YouTube (for those who have difficulty playing it on Patreon). It's two hours long, but if you have any interest in the Russiagate, you should listen to it.

    It wasn't just Mifsud and Halper, it was everyone -- the head of the London law firm where Papadopoulos was working, as well as his immediate boss at the firm -- everyone was working to set him up as "Trump's liason with the Russians".

    [Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse.

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... It is quite distressing that in may so called “progessive” or “left liberal” – self designated of course – circles in the USA and the UK such a statement will lead to your being labelled a Russian Troll or the suggestion you are being on Putin’s payrol ..."
    "... “…In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons -- Putin announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they’re real -- that can elude any missile defense. .. ..."
    "... Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, ‘It’s time to negotiate an end to this new arms race,’ and he’s 100 percent right. ..."
    "... So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced… ..."
    "... When I see the right-of-center DNC supporters saying, “Our democracy has been attacked,” I an reminded of the interview Hermann Goering gave while he was waiting to be executed. ..."
    "... Perhaps the assumption of Russia meddling in our election is a simple case of projection. As has been documented, the USA has frequently meddled in other countries’ elections or election outcomes (Iran, Russia, Chile, Central America). ..."
    "... To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, “Democracy is for little people”, not for the meddling-in-foreign-democracies policymakers of the Boston-Washington corridor. ..."
    "... We live in a multi-polar world and if Washington can’t get used to it, we are the ones who may pay for their willful stubborn blindness, their inability to come to terms with a perfectly obvious developing reality. ..."
    "... The neocons have not had a new idea in 30 years. I continue to be baffled by their obsession with Iran. Iran is a fact; the enmity goes back to our support for the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 and only made worse by our support of the Shah as our-guy-in-Tehran. ..."
    "... The USA is in disarray internally and in its approach to the rest of the world. ..."
    Apr 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    flora , , April 19, 2019 at 10:38 am

    The DNC had the biggest influence on the 2016 outcome; they insisted on running a disliked candidate who was a terrible campaigner so disliked the DNC cleared the field for her ahead of time (got Biden and others to not declare in 2016) and had to club dissenters in their own party to make sure she got the nomination. imo. But sure, blame "those guys over there". That's the ultimate "the dog ate my homework" excuse. meh.

    Susan the other` , April 19, 2019 at 10:43 am

    Good analysis. This even makes the insanity of “Russiagate” seem strategic. (But as overwrought as saying ‘give us liberty or give us death’. The solution to everything is somewhere in the middle.) We know that such dedicated souls as the very fatuous Mr. Brennan cooked it all up and pretended it was because Trump was “treasonous”.

    Brennan in his dotage might actually be thinking that.

    I’ve always thought that Putin, like Yeltsin, was pro West. Possibly an atlanticist. Tho’ being as chauvinistic as an atlanticist today is a little offensive to the rest of the world. Cohen’s statement that Putin is pro Russian-anti communism might be a simplification. Russia is certainly positioning itself to be safe from our aggression. I think there are remnants of good social management that the commies learned over the years that Russia/Putin still employs.

    It’s too simplistic to say Putin is anti-communist. He’s just a realist. And he’s a nationalist. Being a nationalist-protectionist is the worst sin against neoliberal advancement. That’s another propaganda bullet point – you never hear a rational discussion of nationalism – it’s all trash, “Marine LePen is a fascist” exaggeration.

    Peter , April 19, 2019 at 11:04 am

    It is quite distressing to see the Mueller report take up as if it were settled fact the idea that Russia influenced the 2016 Presidential election, particularly since his investigation didn’t provide any information that supported this theory.

    It is quite distressing that in may so called “progessive” or “left liberal” – self designated of course – circles in the USA and the UK such a statement will lead to your being labelled a Russian Troll or the suggestion you are being on Putin’s payroll. That is the level of rational discussion in many those circles today when it comes to the discussion about the west's relationship to Russia.

    This of course led in Russia to the conclusion that to engage with the west at present in an attempt to ease the tensions is futile and rather counterproductive.

    juliania , April 19, 2019 at 11:15 am

    I think Professor Cohen has a real point in the following statements:

    “…In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons -- Putin announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they’re real -- that can elude any missile defense. ..

    Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, ‘It’s time to negotiate an end to this new arms race,’ and he’s 100 percent right.

    So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced…

    So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia…”

    Then, when he goes on to elaborate on China’s weaponry and posit including them in the next round of draw-down negotiations, as far off as that may look – that to me is what Trump can use for his re-election. I do believe his attitude towards Russia won him his first term.

    Those Russia-gate kooks need to focus on the American people, not on Trump. Well, maybe they did, and still do. It’s really about us, not him.

    Procopius , April 19, 2019 at 7:56 pm

    When I see the right-of-center DNC supporters saying, “Our democracy has been attacked,” I an reminded of the interview Hermann Goering gave while he was waiting to be executed.

    Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

    John Wright , April 19, 2019 at 11:20 am

    Perhaps the assumption of Russia meddling in our election is a simple case of projection. As has been documented, the USA has frequently meddled in other countries’ elections or election outcomes (Iran, Russia, Chile, Central America).

    One recent Democratic presidential candidate was taped asserting “we should not have held the election unless we could determine the outcome” in another foreign country.

    If Russia did not meddle significantly in the US election, the political class may have had to ponder that possibly the Russians believed that the decline of the US in the world stage did not merit the effort.

    To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, “Democracy is for little people”, not for the meddling-in-foreign-democracies policymakers of the Boston-Washington corridor.

    John , April 19, 2019 at 11:45 am

    The thrust of Cohen’s position is correct. Quibble all you wish with the details. We live in a multi-polar world and if Washington can’t get used to it, we are the ones who may pay for their willful stubborn blindness, their inability to come to terms with a perfectly obvious developing reality.

    The neocons have not had a new idea in 30 years. I continue to be baffled by their obsession with Iran. Iran is a fact; the enmity goes back to our support for the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 and only made worse by our support of the Shah as our-guy-in-Tehran.

    The Russians really do have a new generation of weapons. The Chinese are re-assuming a leading position in the world that has been theirs most of the time for two thousand years.

    Europe is not a rising power.

    The USA is in disarray internally and in its approach to the rest of the world. I do not consider these to be opinions but objective statements. I am not prepared to suffer for illusions and vanity among the “elite.”

    [Apr 20, 2019] Did Assange lied about Seth Rich?

    Assange actually undermined the key pre-condition of the Deep state existence -- secrecy.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Robert Mueller, who helped the Bush administration deceive the world about WMD in Iraq, has claimed that the GRU was the source of WikiLeaks' 2016 drops, and claimed in his report that WikiLeaks deceived its audience by implying that its source was the murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich. ..."
    "... The smear is that Assange knew his source was actually the Russian government, and he implied it was Seth Rich to throw people off the scent. Mueller asserted that something happened, and it's interpreted as hard fact instead of assertion. There's no evidence for any of this, and there's no reason to go believing the WMD guy on faith about a narrative which incriminates yet another government which refuses to obey the dictates of the US empire. ..."
    "... HItchen's Razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." ..."
    Apr 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    I'm just going to toss this one here at the end because I'm seeing it go around a lot in the wake of the Mueller report.

    Robert Mueller, who helped the Bush administration deceive the world about WMD in Iraq, has claimed that the GRU was the source of WikiLeaks' 2016 drops, and claimed in his report that WikiLeaks deceived its audience by implying that its source was the murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich.

    This claim is unsubstantiated because, as we discussed in Smear 4, the public has not seen a shred of evidence proving who was or was not WikiLeaks' source, so there's no way to know there was any deception happening there. We've never seen any hard proof, nor indeed anything besides official narrative, connecting the Russian government to Guccifer 2.0 and Guccifer 2.0 to WikiLeaks, and Daniel Lazare for Consortium News documents that there are in fact some major plot holes in Mueller's timeline. Longtime Assange friend and WikiLeaks ally Craig Murray maintains that he knows the source of the DNC Leaks and Podesta Emails were two different Americans, not Russians, and hints that one of them was a DNC insider. There is exactly as much publicly available evidence for Murray's claim as there is for Mueller's.

    Mainstream media has been blaring day after day for years that it is an absolute known fact that the Russian government was WikiLeaks' source, and the only reason people scoff and roll their eyes at anyone who makes the indisputably factual claim that we've seen no evidence for this is because the illusory truth effect causes the human brain to mistake repetition for fact.

    The smear is that Assange knew his source was actually the Russian government, and he implied it was Seth Rich to throw people off the scent. Mueller asserted that something happened, and it's interpreted as hard fact instead of assertion. There's no evidence for any of this, and there's no reason to go believing the WMD guy on faith about a narrative which incriminates yet another government which refuses to obey the dictates of the US empire.

    And I guess that's it for now. Again, this article is an ongoing project, so I'll be updating it and adding to it regularly as new information comes in and new smears need refutation. If I missed something or got something wrong, or even if you spotted a typo, please email me at [email protected] and let me know. I'm trying to create the best possible tool for people to refute Assange smears, so I'll keep sharpening this baby to make sure it cuts like a razor. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who helped! Phew! That was long.


    motherjones , 52 minutes ago link

    We don't have to like Julian Assange, but the release of the "Collateral Damage" video alone is enough to justify defending Assange and the freedom of the press.

    Ozymandiasssss , 1 hour ago link

    She really didn't debunk the thing about Seth Rich very well. Basically just said that whatever Mueller said wasn't true, which doesn't go very far for me. He definitely did imply that he got at least some of his info from Rich so if there is some sort of proof of that, it needs to be supplied; otherwise Mueller's story is the only one.

    bh2 , 1 hour ago link

    HItchen's Razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

    beemasters , 2 hours ago link

    I have recently seen a political cartoon with Dotard then saying: "I love Wikileaks" + " I will throw her in jail" and now saying: "I know nothing about Wikileaks" + "I will throw him in jail"

    It summed up perfectly that swine's lack of integrity.

    Downtoolong , 2 hours ago link

    It's so simple. Assange and Wikileaks exposed Hillary, Podesta, and the entire DNC to be lying, deceiving, hypocritical, disingenuous, elitist bastards. His crimes are miniscule compared to that, and all who attempt to condemn Assange only show us that they are members of that foul group.

    beemasters , 1 hour ago link

    Yet Dotard didn't push hard at all to get Killary, Podesta & friends charged...not even tweets calling for it since he got elected.

    TotalMachineFail , 3 hours ago link

    Excellent thorough content. And Kim Schmitz pointed out they'll drag things on for as long as possible and try to add additional things as they go. Such a bunch of sad, pathetic control freaks. Covering up their own failures, crimes and short comings with a highly publicized distraction putting the screws to a single journalist.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBs1dgYL-7w

    When the next world leader is Kashoggied nobody is going to care.

    freedommusic , 3 hours ago link

    “ Ty Clevenger has FOIAed information from NSA asking for any data that involved both Seth Rich and also Julian Assange .

    And they responded by saying we’ve got 15 files , 32 pages , but they’re all classified in accordance with executive order 13526 covering classification, and therefore you can’t have them.

    That says that NSA has records of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange. I mean, that’s the only business that NSA is in — copying communications between people and devices.”

    —Bill Binney (NSA 30 year vet)

    ( source )

    RussianSniper , 3 hours ago link

    Long story!

    Important topic!!

    Assange and Snowden are freedom fighters, exposing the duplicitous, corrupt, and criminals to the entire world.

    The hundreds of millions of mindless zombies are so brainwashed by the fake news industry, that if Assange and Snowden are not spies, they are criminal in some capacity.

    I have liberal, conservative, and libertarian leaning friends, and virtually every one of them believe Assange and Snowden are traitors to America, got innocent people killed, are rapists, or too cowardly to stand trial in the USA.

    What has happened to common sense and some necessary cynicism?

    Dugald , 2 hours ago link

    The trouble with Common Sense is it's not all that common.....

    LetThemEatRand , 3 hours ago link

    Why even bother arguing with these people. Assange gave up his liberty to reveal the truth, and the American public said in essence "so what." No one except the leakers and whistle-blowers faced any punishment, and I can't think of a single national politician who even talks about doing anything about the misconduct that was revealed. Yeah, a small percentage of the population is outraged at what was revealed, but the vast majority literally don't give a ****.

    fezline , 3 hours ago link

    Hehe... I guess you will find out how wrong you are in 2020 :-) His release of Hillary's emails gave Trump 2016... and him turning his back on Assange took away his chances in 2020

    chunga , 3 hours ago link

    Most regular readers on ZH know but this is an echo chamber for "Always Trumpers" so there won't be many commenters on this article. Rather than defend his DOJ's extradition attempts with implausible theories they'll be chattering back and forth about the Mueller Report.

    /winning

    LetThemEatRand , 2 hours ago link

    Agreed. It's amazing to me that people who claim to be believers of the MAGA message don't see the harm associated with the arrest of Assange, and all of the other uniparty **** Trump is perpetuating. A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.

    ZENDOG , 3 hours ago link

    Whole lot of yadda yadda yadda about someone 99.9% of Americans don't know.

    And even less who give a ****.

    Hillary dead yet?

    fezline , 3 hours ago link

    Yeah and yet.... everyone seemed to credit Hillary's loss to the release of her emails on wikileaks... Hmm that narrative that seems to be trying to minimize the impact on Trumps chances in 2020 really breaks down in the face of that fact doesn't it?? Trump has no hope... just stop... get behind a republican that has a chance... Trump doesn't... he lost half of his base... get over it...

    [Apr 19, 2019] HARPER RUSSIAGATERS IN IG CROSSHAIRS

    Notable quotes:
    "... While criminal referrals from Congress are often ignored at the DOJ, referrals from the Department's own Inspector General can hardly be ignored altogether. I anticipate that the release of the Horowitz report, expected in four-to-six weeks will be a bombshell. ..."
    "... Cleanout of the corrupt, inept and ultra-partisan elements of the FBI and DOJ is long, long overdue. ..."
    "... Maybe Assange was arrested to prevent him from testifying that he did not get the DNC emails from the Russians. He has always claimed that he did not get it from the Russians. ..."
    "... http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51442.htm : VIPS Fault Mueller Probe, Criticize Refusal To Interview Assange ..."
    "... There is much evidence suggesting an insider leak as opposed to a hack and the VIPS examination has the forensics to assert it, unlike Mueller who declared, without forensic examination, the emails to be hacked. ..."
    "... There are 1000's of real reasons to take down Trump for his financial crimes. Defending the pathetic loss by Hillary Clinton on "Russia" and "Russians" is xenophobic, indeed racist, cold war propaganda. I suggest you stop drinking the kool-aid. ..."
    "... In 2015 the DOJ-OIG (office of inspector general) requested oversight of the DOJ National Security Division. It was Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58 page legal explanation saying, essentially, 'nope – not allowed.' All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the DOJ-NSD. ..."
    "... Larry Johnson's separate comment is quite true. Just as gentlemen DO read other people's mail, governments have historically used their covert resources to interfere in other nations' elections to their benefit. Nothing new under the Sun in this. Fully agree that VIPS has made a strong case, along with others, that the DNC emails were just as likely obtained from someone on the premises. ..."
    "... I recall Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign, when a small army of American political campaign experts flooded Moscow and virtually ran Boris' campaign from a Moscow hotel. ..."
    Apr 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    With all the attention focused on tomorrow's release of the redacted version of the Mueller final report, more attention should be directed at the upcoming report of Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, who is looking into misconduct by those who foisted the Russiagate/Trump collusion tale. In recent meeting with two House Republican allies of Trump--Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows--Horowitz indicated that he would be making criminal referrals, presumably against FBI and DOJ officials.

    While criminal referrals from Congress are often ignored at the DOJ, referrals from the Department's own Inspector General can hardly be ignored altogether. I anticipate that the release of the Horowitz report, expected in four-to-six weeks will be a bombshell.

    Cleanout of the corrupt, inept and ultra-partisan elements of the FBI and DOJ is long, long overdue. Horowitz is respected for his professionalism. He nailed the bias by some of the FBI and DOJ people who totally blew it in the Hillary Clinton email probe.

    It may take years--perhaps a generation--to do a genuine house cleaning at the FBI and DOJ. But look for Horowitz to move that process ahead. Much more worthwhile reading than the Mueller report when it is released.

    Posted at 01:15 PM | Permalink


    Tom Wonacott , 17 April 2019 at 03:44 PM

    Mr. Harper

    William Barr's summary of the Mueller report included this section from the report:

    "......The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election. But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign ......."

    It should be noted that WikiLeaks is under indictment by the DOJ for allegedly helping Chelsea Manning hack into intelligence files - and potentially more charges may be pending against Assange for his 2016 election interference and/or the release of Vault 7. The indictment of the GRU which worked to undermine the Hillary campaign and elect Trump is an important part of the Mueller report.

    I'm not disputing that the FBI may have broken the law while investigating the Trump campaign (as you indicate) - and may need to be overhauled.

    blue peacock said in reply to Tom Wonacott... , 17 April 2019 at 05:58 PM
    Maybe Assange was arrested to prevent him from testifying that he did not get the DNC emails from the Russians. He has always claimed that he did not get it from the Russians.

    In any case it will be interesting to see the actual evidence on the basis of which Mueller has come to these conclusions or assertions - that Russia successfully hacked and disseminated through Wikileaks.

    Fred -> Tom Wonacott... , 17 April 2019 at 07:01 PM
    Nice job Tom, I don't recall any of that highlighting. Did you purposely leave off highlighinging

    "did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government"?

    chris trakas said in reply to Tom Wonacott... , 18 April 2019 at 07:44 AM
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51442.htm : VIPS Fault Mueller Probe, Criticize Refusal To Interview Assange

    There is much evidence suggesting an insider leak as opposed to a hack and the VIPS examination has the forensics to assert it, unlike Mueller who declared, without forensic examination, the emails to be hacked. It's the lynchpin of the entire investigation.

    One need not be a Trump supporter in order to want the truth to be told because what can be done to Trump can AND WILL be done to the next Democratic president (assuming there will ever be another in my lifetime, not an assumption one should make without caution).

    There are 1000's of real reasons to take down Trump for his financial crimes. Defending the pathetic loss by Hillary Clinton on "Russia" and "Russians" is xenophobic, indeed racist, cold war propaganda. I suggest you stop drinking the kool-aid.

    Phillip Allen said in reply to Tom Wonacott... , 18 April 2019 at 08:29 AM
    Why on earth do you credit any Russian involvement in the Clinton/DNC email affair, when VIPS have conclusively demonstrated that those emails had to have been leaked by someone with physical access, and that they were downloaded to a flash drive and therefore physically taken away and then passed on to Wikileaks. There is no credible evidence yet presented that would support a story of Russian involvement in that leak or its dissemination. FBI/CIA/NSA are all partisan actors in this farce, and any credit given to their statements about anything regarding this affair is profoundly misplaced.

    As to Assange, the DOJ can indict a random dairy cow on any allegation they care to invent, and it would have exactly as much meaning as the Assange indictment. Not saying that powerful factions among our owners and masters don't yearn to kill him or at least lock him away forever, but this stupid kabuki they are using to accomplish their end is vastly insulting to even a minimal intelligence.

    Keith Harbaugh , 17 April 2019 at 07:49 PM
    Anyone have any comment on this?:

    "The DOJ and FBI Influence of Dana Boente " , by sundance, 2019-04-17

    In 2015 the DOJ-OIG (office of inspector general) requested oversight of the DOJ National Security Division. It was Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58 page legal explanation saying, essentially, 'nope – not allowed.' All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the DOJ-NSD.
    BTW, on the Disquis vs. Typepad comment issue, I like very much the ability Typepad gives to preview comments.
    Harper , 18 April 2019 at 08:50 AM
    Larry Johnson's separate comment is quite true. Just as gentlemen DO read other people's mail, governments have historically used their covert resources to interfere in other nations' elections to their benefit. Nothing new under the Sun in this. Fully agree that VIPS has made a strong case, along with others, that the DNC emails were just as likely obtained from someone on the premises.

    Everything I've seen about the level of Russian interference in the 2016 elections was low-budget, low-level and given the controversial nature of the Trump-Clinton election, I do not believe evidence can ever be established that the Russian actions tilted the outcome.

    A contact in the USIC told me at the outset of the so-called Russiagate probe that there would be hyperbolic outrage and exaggeration of what the Russians did to make it more difficult for foreign powers to do it in the future. Issue was not 2016, but 2018 and onward.

    I recall Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign, when a small army of American political campaign experts flooded Moscow and virtually ran Boris' campaign from a Moscow hotel.

    I hope the Democrats are collectively wise enough to let the Mueller report land and move on. As one reader commented, the backlash down the line will further damage our already hyper-partisan political climate and make bipartisan governance an impossibility for at least the duration of this generation.

    The Beaver , 18 April 2019 at 08:50 AM
    The SCO's report:

    https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

    448 pages

    [Apr 18, 2019] Cover-Up Smoking Guns on Clinton Emails

    Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    TJ , Apr 17, 2019 3:29:42 PM | link

    From Judicial Watch

    Cover-Up Smoking Guns on Clinton Emails

    COVER-UP! Smoking Gun Documents on #ClintonEmailScandal

    [Apr 18, 2019] Were FBI honchos on drugs when they went to such an extent to entrap Trump and smear him as Putin's bitch?

    Apr 18, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    He's turned out to be a ziocon and Bibi's bitch instead. He's surrounded himself with neocons. And he's also Wall St's bitch as his primary concern is stock prices. He wants the Fed to lower already low rates and grow its multi-trillion dollar "emergency" balance sheet even more. The federal government will add a trillion dollars to the national debt each year of his term. Isn't this exactly what the establishment of both parties want?

    In any case, the hammer needs to come down hard on the putschists, so that law enforcement & the intelligence agencies don't become an extra-constitutional 4th branch of government accountable only to themselves. We'll see how far the Trump administration will go in holding these seditionists to account?

    [Apr 18, 2019] The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson

    Notable quotes:
    "... One of the many critical questions that need to be asked is who at the FBI directed Felix Sater to try to bait the Trump team with the Putin/Moscow opportunity. Felix Sater, given his long track record with the FBI, did not come up with this idea on his own. He was put into play as part of a fishing expedition to hook Trump into a Russian collusion narrative. Fortunately for Trump, he did not take the bait. ..."
    "... This certainly appears to be part of a broader, orchestrated effort to ensnare Trump. As I noted with respect to the Steele Dossier, the theme of Russian Real Estate deals appeared early on: ..."
    "... Thanks to Mueller, we now know that the cultivation operation did not originate in Moscow nor the Kremlin. It came via Felix Sater who was working for the FBI. Do you think that is a mere coincidence? Jack said... Since I don't plan to read the Mueller report, I would like to ask a question of those SST correspondents who have read the report? What evidence was provided that the Russians hacked the DNC servers and provided the contents to Wikileaks? ..."
    "... If the Russian interference in the election was of the magnitude asserted to change the election, then the failure to prevent this interference belongs to the Obama administration under whose watch it took place. That would imply that Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Lynch and Rogers failed in their jobs. Why are there no calls to investigate this failure? ..."
    "... I think you are on to something important. I suspect the Brits collected on them as well, just in case. When it became clear that Trump was on the road to the nomination, the effort focused on him. ..."
    Apr 18, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    The Mueller Report is damning of the FBI and reveals circumstantial evidence that the FBI was engaged actively as early as September 2015 in trying to entrap Donald Trump in a web of Russian conspiracy. Let's go to the report and you can read the evidence yourself .

    In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater , a New York based real estate advisor, contacted Michael Cohen, then-executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald J. Trump. Sater had previously worked with the Trump Organization and advised it on a number of domestic and international projects. Sater had explored the possibility of a Trump Tower project in Moscow while working with the Trump Organization and therefore knew of the organization 's general interest in completing a deal there. Sater had also served as an informal agent of the Trump Organization in Moscow previously and had accompanied Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. to Moscow in the mid-2000s.

    Sater contacted Cohen on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert.

    Cohen was the only Trump Organization representative to negotiate directly with I.C. Expert or its agents.

    Please pay attention. It was not Trump that directed Felix Sater to go get a deal in Russia. IT WAS SATER BRINGING THE DEAL (or trying to) to Donald Trump. A key fact not included in this paragraph was the fact--yes, established fact--that Sater was a fully signed up FBI informant. He helped the FBI make multiple cases against the Russian mob and Russian spies. Please go back and re-read the pieces I wrote on Sater:

    Felix Sater--The Rosetta Stone for the FBI/CIA Conspiracy Against Trump? Felix Sater and the Steele Dossier

    My eyes bugged out with the next revelation from Mueller. Here is what Sater says to Michael Cohen, his old childhood buddy:

    On November 3,2015, the day after the Trump Organization transmitted the LOI (i.e., Letter Of Intent), Sater emailed Cohen suggesting that the Trump Moscow project could be used to increase candidate Trump's chances at being elected, writing:

    Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process .... Michael, Putin gets on stage with Donald for a ribbon cutting for Trump Moscow, and Donald owns the republican nomination. And possibly beats Hillary and our boy is in . ... We will manage this process better than anyone. You and I will get Donald and Vladimir on a stage together very shortly. That the game changer.

    One of the many critical questions that need to be asked is who at the FBI directed Felix Sater to try to bait the Trump team with the Putin/Moscow opportunity. Felix Sater, given his long track record with the FBI, did not come up with this idea on his own. He was put into play as part of a fishing expedition to hook Trump into a Russian collusion narrative. Fortunately for Trump, he did not take the bait.

    This certainly appears to be part of a broader, orchestrated effort to ensnare Trump. As I noted with respect to the Steele Dossier, the theme of Russian Real Estate deals appeared early on:

    The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. However, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.

    Thanks to Mueller, we now know that the cultivation operation did not originate in Moscow nor the Kremlin. It came via Felix Sater who was working for the FBI. Do you think that is a mere coincidence? Jack said... Since I don't plan to read the Mueller report, I would like to ask a question of those SST correspondents who have read the report? What evidence was provided that the Russians hacked the DNC servers and provided the contents to Wikileaks?

    Jack said... 18 April 2019 at 05:47 PM

    Since I don't plan to read the Mueller report, I would like to ask a question of those SST correspondents who have read the report? What evidence was provided that the Russians hacked the DNC servers and provided the contents to Wikileaks?

    If the Russian interference in the election was of the magnitude asserted to change the election, then the failure to prevent this interference belongs to the Obama administration under whose watch it took place. That would imply that Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Lynch and Rogers failed in their jobs. Why are there no calls to investigate this failure?

    Larry Johnson said in reply to Jack... 18 April 2019 at 06:25 PM

    Read the VIPS memo I posted yesterday. It will answer your question.

    akaPatience said... 18 April 2019 at 05:47 PM

    Wow, what an absolutely smarmy, laughable proposal made to Cohen by Felix Sater. If Cohen didn't stand to personally profit from services rendered to facilitate such a deal, I'd consider it very suspicious that he promoted it to Trump for as long as he did. As it is, knowing how much money lawyers can make in matters like this, the potential for profit can't be discounted enough as motivation.

    I recall a strategy of the Clinton campaign called "Pied Piper", revealed in Wikileaks' Podesta dump, in which an email dated April 7, 2015 discussed the goal of "elevating" Trump's candidacy (along with Ted Cruz and Ben Carson), thinking they would be easiest for Hillary to beat. I wonder if we'll ever learn of a connection with efforts to entrap Trump like this Sater offer, the Trump Tower meeting, etc?

    ambrit (ex Britam) said in reply to akaPatience ... 18 April 2019 at 09:09 PM

    Sirs;

    In mentioning the inclusion of Cruz and Carson in the 'Pied Piper' scheme, akaPatience rightly brings up the question as to whether those persons experienced anything similar to Trump regarding 'entrapment.' Are there 'compromising' files in the FBI archives relating to those other politicians? If so, a broad strategy to 'foam the runway' for the presumed Democrat Party candidate in 2016 could be surmised and the "case" for Trump Russian "collusion" as a specific and sinister plot will be demolished. (At least as far as persons with some shreds of attachment to rationality are concerned.)

    Larry Johnson said in reply to ambrit (ex Britam)... 18 April 2019 at 11:13 PM

    I think you are on to something important. I suspect the Brits collected on them as well, just in case. When it became clear that Trump was on the road to the nomination, the effort focused on him.

    Steven Athearn said... 18 April 2019 at 06:02 PM

    Given the absence of evidence of the Kremlin trying to cultivate Trump or offer lucrative real estate development deals - Irecall hearing that one of the Cohen trial documents had him emailing the Kremlin with regard to the Trump Tower idea at an email address taken from its public website, and the Kremlin replying with a pro forma "thank you for your interest in doing business in Russia" and an offer of two free tickets to Valdai - and given the abundance of evidence for a wide-ranging FBI entrapment operation in coordination with foreign intelligence operatives, the association between the latter and the specific form the disinformation took is practically obvious.

    I haven't read the Papadopoulos book yet (though I have it on hand), but in lieu of that I would recommend the long interview Michael Tracey did with him the other day for an overview of another large chunk of these entrapment operations. Reply

    walrus said... 18 April 2019 at 07:57 PM

    And the characters in this hall of mirrors; Steele, Mifsud and Sater. What of them?

    The entire report is a chronicle of the grubby dealings of the courtiers surrounding any great man, nothing more. My opinion is that President Trump and his organisation successfully navigated through the Russian collusion mine field with only minimal casualties. A minefield laid by Hilary Clinton and her acolytes.

    It almost succeeded - Trump, the Republican Presidential nominee, appearing on stage with his good friend Putin? Imagine what Clinton would have done with that...

    blue peacock said... 18 April 2019 at 08:45 PM

    What were they so concerned about Trump that they'd go to such an extent to entrap him and smear him as Putin's bitch?

    He's turned out to be a ziocon and Bibi's bitch instead. He's surrounded himself with neocons. And he's also Wall St's bitch as his primary concern is stock prices. He wants the Fed to lower already low rates and grow its multi-trillion dollar "emergency" balance sheet even more. The federal government will add a trillion dollars to the national debt each year of his term. Isn't this exactly what the establishment of both parties want?

    In any case, the hammer needs to come down hard on the putschists, so that law enforcement & the intelligence agencies don't become an extra-constitutional 4th branch of government accountable only to themselves. We'll see how far the Trump administration will go in holding these seditionists to account?

    [Apr 17, 2019] If you had watched Skripal's saga you might have noticed something: The UK s propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.

    Notable quotes:
    "... The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on. ..."
    "... The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. ..."
    Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    S.O. , Apr 17, 2019 9:48:02 AM | link

    @75

    The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on.

    You'd think someone might have noticed something of a trend by now.

    Gravatomic , Apr 17, 2019 10:07:57 AM | link

    They just don't bother anymore, the level of double black psy-ops and gaslighting is a mine field of disinformation. That's what you get when Washington - Obama, gives the green light to propagandizing their people. It's escalated, like we haven't noticed, under Trump despite his pathetic attempts at assuring folks it's fake news.
    Gravatomic , Apr 17, 2019 10:20:02 AM | link
    The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. I watched about 10 minutes of a documentary about Easter Island, as an example, and it was revisionist to the nth degree. Just absolute rubbish insinuating that white European travelers destroyed the Island. This is what British kids are now being marinated in, "He who controls the past"

    [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation

    Highly recommended!
    Intelligence agencies, once created, has their own development dynamics and tend to escape from the control of civilians and in turn control them. Such an interesting dynamics. In any case, the intelligence agencies and first of all top brass of those agencies constitute the the core of the "deep state". Unlike civiliant emplorres they are protected by the veil of secrecy and has access to large funds. Bush the elder was probably the first deep state creature who became the president of the USA, but "special relationship" of Obama and Brennan is also not a secret.
    Another problem is that secrecy and access to surveillance, Which gives intelligence agencies the ability to blackmail politicians.
    Availability of unaccounted financial resources make them real kingmakers. In a sense, as soon as such agencies were created the tail started waging the dog.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer? ..."
    "... One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb. ..."
    "... JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House. ..."
    "... However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day. ..."
    "... But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career. ..."
    "... Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others ..."
    Feb 23, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

    No other individual in modern US history has a more sinister legacy than John Edgar Hoover, the founder and lifetime director of the FBI. He founded the bureau in 1924 and was its director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77.

    Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer?

    J Edgar Hoover and his henchmen kept files on thousands of politicians, judges, journalists and other public figures, according to biographer Anthony Summers. Hoover ruthlessly used those files on the secret and often sordid private lives of senior public figures to control their career conduct and official decisions so as to serve his interests.

    And Hoover's interests were of a rightwing, anti-communist, racist bigot.

    Ironically, his own suppressed homosexuality also manifested in witch-hunts against homosexuals in public life.

    It was Hoover's secret files that largely informed the McCarthyite anti-communist inquisitions of the 1950s, whose baleful legacy on American democracy, foreign policy and freedom of expression continues to this day.

    One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb.

    Absurdly, the FBI chief maintained that there was "no such thing as the Mafia" in public statements.

    Two notorious cases of how FBI wiretapping worked under Hoover can be seen in the presidencies of John F Kennedy (1961-63) and Richard Nixon (1969-74).

    As recounted by Laurent Guyénot in his 2013 book , 'JFK to 9/11: 50 Years of Deep State', Hoover made a point of letting each new president know of compromising information he had on them. It wouldn't be brandished overtly as blackmail; the president would be briefed subtly, "Sir, if someone were to have copies of this it would be damaging to your career". Enough said.

    JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House.

    However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day.

    As for Richard Nixon, it is believed that "Tricky Dicky" engaged in secret communications with the US-backed South Vietnamese regime on the cusp of the presidential elections in 1968. Nixon promised the South Vietnamese stronger military support if they held off entering peace talks with communist North Vietnam, which incumbent President Johnson was trying to organize. LBJ wanted to claim a peace process was underway in order to boost the election chances of his vice president Hubert Humphrey.

    Nixon's scheming prevailed. The Vietnam peace gambit was scuttled, the Vietnam war raged on, and so the Democrat candidate lost. Nixon finally got into the White House, which he had long coveted from the time he lost out to JFK back in 1960.

    But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career.

    These are but only two examples of how Deep State politics works in controlling and subverting American democracy. The notion that lawmakers and presidents are free to serve the people is a quaintly naive one. For the US media to pretend otherwise, and to hail the FBI as some kind of benign bastion of justice, while also deprecating claims of "Deep State" intrusion as "conspiracy theory", is either impossibly ignorant of history – or a sign of the media's own compromised complicity.

    Nonetheless, to blame this culture of institutionalized blackmail and corruption on one individual – J Edgar Hoover – is not fair either.

    Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others.

    Once formed, the Deep State – as an alternate, unaccountable, unelected government – does not surrender its immense power willingly. It has learnt to hold on to its power through blackmail, media control, incitement of wars, and, even ultimately, assassination of American dissenters.

    The illegal tapping of private communications is an oxygen supply for the depredations of the American Deep State.

    Thinking that such agencies are not actively warping and working the electoral system to fix the figurehead in the White House is a dangerous delusion.

    So too are claims that American democracy is being "influenced" by malign Russian enemies, as the US intelligence chiefs once again chorused in front of the Senate this past week. The consummate irony of it!

    The real "influence campaigns" corrupting American democracy are those of the "All-American" agencies who claim to be law enforcers and defenders of national security.

    US citizens would do well to refresh on the untold history of their country to appreciate how they are being manipulated.

    We might even surmise that a good number of citizens are already aware, if only vaguely, of the elite corruption – and that is why Washington DC is viewed with increasing contempt by the people.

    [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
    "... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
    "... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
    "... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
    "... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
    "... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
    "... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
    "... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
    "... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
    Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    John, says: April 13, 2019 at 3:18 am

    With all due respect, Iraq didn't wreck you. The US wrecked Iraq, and the US wrecked you.
    Uncle Billy , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:00 am
    The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
    JohnT , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:06 am
    @Ken Zaretzke.

    For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???

    I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.

    Bob , says: April 13, 2019 at 9:57 am
    The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send someone else's sons to war."
    Ken Zaretzke , says: April 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
    @JohnT,

    You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.

    You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.

    To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president.

    More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that as well as a special counsel's report.

    Sarto , says: April 13, 2019 at 5:02 pm
    Remember, 75% of Americans wanted Bush to invade Iraq. War is the force that gives America its meaning.
    Lee Green , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:11 pm
    Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.

    The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors.

    Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.

    George Hoffman , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:09 pm
    I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
    Talltale , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
    "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands."

    Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?

    The navel gazing never stops.

    Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side.

    Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times!

    Craig Morris , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:59 am
    The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible.

    [Apr 14, 2019] The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape from 1993

    Jul 07, 2018 | www.unz.com

    renfro , July 5, 2018 at 7:41 pm GMT

    Why I am all for wire tapping and all other spying by the CIA and FBI ...get all the uber Jews and all the politicians and make it public. Would be delighted if all the news channels did nothing but play the tapes on the daily news.

    The Complete Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape

    https://www.wrmea.org/1992-december/january-1993/the-complete-unexpurgated-aipac-tape.html

    Following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.

    (sample)

    HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in real trouble? He's been there forever. . .

    DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I can't believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood, and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear . . .

    HK: Right.

    DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about .

    HK: Such as?

    DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going to give to Israel; $200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put them in the global warning protection system; so when if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced notification that the U.S., is notified, joint military exercises -- I've got a whole shopping list of things .

    HK: So this is from Baker?

    DS: From Baker and from the Pentagon.

    [Apr 14, 2019] 'Boom!' an autopsy of the media after the Mueller bombshell by Michael Tracey

    That was Neo-McCarthyim hysteria plain and simple; and it still is continuing as "FullOfSchiff" fqrse.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Can you think of a more vulgar and disgraceful manifestation of Trump-Russia media malfeasance than Rachel Maddow? Her deluded nightly conspiratorial rants may have been lucrative for MSNBC, but she fed viewers a complete fraud for three years. Now her show is undergoing a genuine existential crisis after Robert Mueller's exoneration of Trump . ..."
    "... The harm Maddow inflicted is unforgivable and she should obviously resign, go into exile, and take up some other line of work: perhaps gardening. That said, she has also become something of a scapegoat. ..."
    "... As contemptible as Rachel undoubtedly is, dwelling on her absolves the rest of the industry from acknowledging what really happened: a structural calamity of epic proportions, implicating almost all of them, which has utterly destroyed the reputation of the media writ large. And for good reason. ..."
    "... (Brennan infamously declared Trump guilty of treason on Twitter following the Helsinki summit). ..."
    "... Last week, Wheeler finally admitted her suspicion that the FBI may have just decided she is 'crazy.' Yes, sounds plausible. ..."
    "... Sadly, all the media figures who might have been assigned to legitimate evidence-based inquiries were wrapped up in the never-ending Russia melodrama, based on the hunch that it would result in the revelation of treasonous collusion, followed by the arrest of Trump's family and his swift impeachment. None of this happened. So what was the point? ..."
    "... Most disturbing of all is how otherwise-smart journalists and commentators lost their minds and integrity throughout the debacle. It was all a joke, a scam, and I've barely even scratched the surface here. It will take years to fully sift through the wreckage ..."
    Apr 04, 2019 | spectator.us
    'Boom!': an autopsy of the media after the Mueller bombshell Dunking on Rachel Maddow may be fun, but she's far from the sole perpetrator Michael Tracey Rachel Maddow

    Can you think of a more vulgar and disgraceful manifestation of Trump-Russia media malfeasance than Rachel Maddow? Her deluded nightly conspiratorial rants may have been lucrative for MSNBC, but she fed viewers a complete fraud for three years. Now her show is undergoing a genuine existential crisis after Robert Mueller's exoneration of Trump .

    The harm Maddow inflicted is unforgivable and she should obviously resign, go into exile, and take up some other line of work: perhaps gardening. That said, she has also become something of a scapegoat. It's convenient to disavow Maddow's excesses if you're a journalist who wants to pretend that the media failures which gave rise to Trump-Russia weren't a full-scale indictment of their entire profession. To act as though the misconduct was somehow confined to one unhinged cable news personality would be a gross distortion.

    As contemptible as Rachel undoubtedly is, dwelling on her absolves the rest of the industry from acknowledging what really happened: a structural calamity of epic proportions, implicating almost all of them, which has utterly destroyed the reputation of the media writ large. And for good reason.

    Easy as it might be to pooh-pooh Maddow as some zany outlier, the undeniable reality is that the sick conspiratorial mindset she embodied was thoroughly mainstream: it infected virtually every sector of elite American culture, from journalism, to entertainment, to the professional political class. Rachel is just the tip of the rotten iceberg.

    Take, for instance, Keith Olbermann. Keith was the most influential host on MSNBC during the George W. Bush years, when audiences ate up his furious denunciations of the Iraq War, which scratched a genuine itch because of the prevailing pro-war media conformity of the time. Olbermann gave voice to frustrated liberals who felt that their well-founded grievances were not being represented in the popular media, and his style came to be emulated across the industry (including by the host he recruited for a top spot on the network, Rachel Maddow.)

    Then came the Trump era, when Olbermann's brain appeared to explode. He began recording short video rants for GQ magazine, which rank among the most mind-bendingly deranged content produced throughout the entire Russiagate ordeal. Please, just watch this unbelievable screed from December 2016:

    'We are at war with Russia,' Olbermann gravely proclaims. The inauguration of Donald Trump, he prophesies, will mark 'the end of the United States as an independent country.' Anyone who rejects this analysis is a 'traitor' says Olbermann, and in league with 'Russian scum.' His recommendation is to thwart Trump via some harebrained Electoral College scheme where electors are intimidated into violating their duty to vote according to the election outcome in their respective states and districts. I covered this attempted coup at the time, which failed, but was supported by leading Democrats ranging from Hillary Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri to Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe; as well as Michael Moore, Lawrence Lessig, Peter Beinart, DeRay McKesson, Paul Krugman, and Neera Tanden. Prominent liberals had been melodramatically whinging for months about how appalled they were by Trump's alleged propensity to violate 'norms,' but the next minute they turned around and demanded that all norms governing the centuries-old Electoral College process be thrown out the window. The wild propaganda promoted by Olbermann had become the standard, mainstream view among American liberals: fundamentally corrupting their capacity to view subsequent political events with any semblance of rationality.

    Despite their truly insane offerings, focusing solely on demented opinionators like Olbermann and Maddow still lets ostensibly 'neutral' journalists off the hook. The amount of journalistic resources squandered on the Trump-Russia boondoggle, for instance by the New York Times and the Washington Post , will never be fully quantified. Both newspapers were lavished with Pulitzer Prizes and every other pointless accolade for their supposedly intrepid journalism. Their constant 'bombshell scoops' routinely ricocheted across Twitter before they were injected into the rest of the turbocharged media ecosystem, each one breathlessly touted on cable news for hours at a time. The harsh truth is that most all of these 'scoops' were predicated on a fiction. There was supposed to be a core conspiracy, which was meant to explain why Trump associates kept getting caught in lies – why their communications were extrajudicially intercepted, why they were surveilled on dubious pretenses. But no underlying conspiracy was ever revealed. The whole thing was based on a fairytale. Shouldn't the Times and WaPo therefore apologize and give back their Pulitzers? Or at very least toss them in the dumpster.

    Benjamin Wittes, the LawFare website guru and arguably the most lauded Twitter authority on the Trump-Russia scam, became well-known for his fun slogan, 'BOOM!,' which he would gleefully tweet every time a supposed bombshell article burst on the scene. Here's a Washington Post story from October 21 last year headlined 'Special counsel examines conflicting accounts as scrutiny of Roger Stone and WikiLeaks deepens,' which got the Wittes 'boom' treatment. Wow, very dramatic! Sounds a lot like Mueller and his squad were closing in on Stone as the evil mastermind behind some grand Trump-Russia conspiracy plot, given his suspicious ties to WikiLeaks, right? The only problem is, when Stone was indicted three months later, Mueller not only brought zero charges alleging Stone as party to any conspiracy, he dispelled such notions.

    All the correspondence cited in Mueller's indictment showed that Stone had no advanced knowledge of WikiLeaks releases or any privileged access to its operations. Roger Stone was just doing what Roger Stone does best: bullshitting.

    Stone was eventually charged by Mueller for making false statements, but again: none of those statements pertained to a conspiracy cover-up. They pertained to the dirty trickster being who he's been for decades: a fabulist who frequently misrepresents himself and gets in stupid feuds with fellow political hucksters. The October 2018 story about which Wittes tweeted 'boom' ultimately had no real significance. Like so many other stories touted at the time as an incredible BOMBSHELL, everyone got amped up over a total fantasy. The story had no serious value, other than to temporarily scintillate now-discredited obsessives like Wittes.

    Special scorn should be reserved for those in prominent media positions who ought to have known better, but indulged day after day in conspiratorial nonsense anyway. Take Chris Hayes, the popular 8pm MSNBC host, who unlike Maddow has a journalistic background (he was formerly the Washington Editor of The Nation magazine). Theoretically, Hayes should have been imbued with a greater sense of ingrained skepticism regarding CIA and FBI claims, which are what drove the entire Trump-Russia investigation to begin with. He is also a genuinely intelligent person, having (ironically) written the excellent Twilight of the Elites (2012), a book which examined the propensity for upper-crust society to engage in self-defeating groupthink.

    But Hayes too ended up witlessly amplifying the most obscene Russiagate antics – no doubt influenced by the pressure of having to turn in big ratings every night. His shows were always brimming with security state spooks like John Brennan , the former CIA Director and proven fantasist . Brennan was eventually hired by NBC, becoming one of Hayes's colleagues despite having played a central role in instigating the original Trump-Russia investigation in 2016 and inflaming its most incendiary elements (Brennan infamously declared Trump guilty of treason on Twitter following the Helsinki summit).

    For further insight on the subject, Hayes generally turned to pseudo-journalistic figures like Natasha Bertrand of The Atlantic , whose frenetically conspiratorial Russia coverage has also proven to have been total bunk – as well as former prosecutors and FBI officials like Chuck Rosenberg, disreputable security state apparatchiks like former NSA lawyer Susan Hennessey, and outright charlatans like purported 'intelligence expert' Malcolm Nance. (Here's an example from 2016 of the esteemed Nance getting tricked by a Twitter troll.)

    Hayes even went so far as to promote the theory that Trump had been colluding with Russia since 1987, a story somehow featured on the cover of New York magazine despite drawing on source material that literally originated with the recently deceased, notorious madman Lyndon LaRouche. Hayes's descent into fact-free mania culminated with his declaration to Stephen Colbert on March 8 last year that Trump and his associates were 'super guilty' of collusion. Whoops!

    While many once-respectable media figures like Hayes have seen their reputations inserted directly into the toilet, maybe the most bizarre case of all is Marcy Wheeler, the independent journalist known as @emptywheel . Wheeler appeared on Hayes's first show after Mueller decisively cleared Trump of collusion – you know, the central tenet of the Special Counsel's mandate. The fact that Hayes would have Wheeler on at that moment – after the entire Trump-Russia drama was definitively exposed as a ludicrous fantasy – showed that Hayes was committed to perpetuating the deceit even in the face of all countervailing evidence, whether unconsciously or consciously. That's because Marcy Wheeler is almost certainly a deluded basket case.

    The most obvious evidence for this is Wheeler's sensational admission in July 2018 that she burned a source to the FBI, voluntarily and proactively, thereby committing one of journalism's mortal sins. Wheeler justified her demented action on numerous fronts. First, she claimed that she possessed bombshell, smoking gun info that proved a Trump-Russia conspiracy, and felt a patriotic duty to hand this over to the FBI – in retribution for what she called Russia's 'attack' on the United States. Let's remember, shall we, that said attack at most amounted to some Twitter bots, goofy Facebook memes, and spear-phished Gmail accounts: John Podesta famously clicked on a phony link, which led to his emails being swiped. Hardly 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, wouldn't you say? However, those comparisons have been seriously made by various prominent elected officials, including Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who would have presided over impeachment proceedings had things panned out differently.

    When pressed – even after the Mueller clearly asserted that no such Trump-Russia conspiracy ever existed – Wheeler still refuses to divulge any details about the extraordinary dispositive evidence she mysteriously claims to possess. Second, Wheeler further justified her insane conduct by insisting she could literally be killed by some unknown sinister alliance of Russians and Trump-backed mafia figures, or something ( I'm not making this up .). Shamefully, Wheeler's outlandish assertions were treated as gospel by members of the media who failed to apply even a modicum of critical scrutiny; Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post heralded Wheeler as following her conscience and wrote this about the supposed Russian hit squad out to get her: 'Overly dramatic? Not really. The Russians do have a penchant for disposing of people they find threatening.' Utter lunacy. Since the Mueller finding, Wheeler has strangely not revealed any additional information about the nature of these would-be assassins.

    Think about it. For months, Wheeler dangled cryptic hints about the explosive info that she alone supposedly knew about, enthralling blog readers and Twitter followers – and earning her major platforms not just on MSNBC but even the New York Times , where she contributed columns that contained blatant falsehoods. In the pages of the world's most influential newspaper, she claimed that Mueller had been 'hiding' evidence showing Trump's participation in a Russia conspiracy, and it would all come out once Mueller issued his final verdict. No dice.

    Last week, Wheeler finally admitted her suspicion that the FBI may have just decided she is 'crazy.' Yes, sounds plausible.

    So much journalistic energy was wasted chronicling the ins-and-outs of the Russiagate non-story. Imagine if instead that time was devoted to reporting in the public interest: like, say, I don't know – investigating the militaristic think tanks which attempted to undermine Trump's key diplomatic initiatives (such as North Korea), or how Trump was co-opted by the Republican donor class, or his various actual corruptions that didn't happen to involve any international espionage conspiracy.

    Sadly, all the media figures who might have been assigned to legitimate evidence-based inquiries were wrapped up in the never-ending Russia melodrama, based on the hunch that it would result in the revelation of treasonous collusion, followed by the arrest of Trump's family and his swift impeachment. None of this happened. So what was the point?

    Most disturbing of all is how otherwise-smart journalists and commentators lost their minds and integrity throughout the debacle. It was all a joke, a scam, and I've barely even scratched the surface here. It will take years to fully sift through the wreckage.

    See other Michael Tracy articles Michael Tracey, Author at Spectator USA

    [Apr 14, 2019] The FBI/CIA gang is also very stupid. From Halper-the-spy and his incompetent handler Brennan to the obnoxious Zionists of Ledeen kind they, the members of the "gang", show incompetence and the self-endangering and stupid amorality.

    Apr 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

    annamaria , says: April 13, 2019 at 1:19 pm GMT

    @Carlton Meyer 'This gang is so powerful "

    -- The gang is also very stupid. From Halper-the-spy and his incompetent handler Brennan to the obnoxious zionists of Ledeen kind they, the members of the "gang", show incompetence and the self-endangering and stupid amorality.

    By destroying whatever decent has been in the western civilization so far, and by spreading the rot around, the gangsters have been destroying their children's & grandchildren's future.

    [Apr 12, 2019] The main goal of those who started Russia probe was to unleash neo-McCarthyism compaign, not so much to attack Trump who provided to the Deep State everything they wanted: he expanded the military budget, cut taxes, reduced regulations

    Notable quotes:
    "... Those who started Russia probe were attempting a 'coup', AG must start investigation – Trump ..."
    "... The coup happened in earnest on 9/11 and the people who started the Russia probe were just doing what they do: sow division and strife within the domestic population to allow them to continue operating in an unfettered manner in service to their master, Zionism. ..."
    "... "When the Mueller report is released, it would be wonderful if he explained why neither he, the senate, nor any one of the federal law or intelligence agencies who have all given opinions on the matter, has ever taken the simple first step of examining the DNC servers. He won't." ..."
    "... Friends and associates of all of these 'ringleaders' (in single-quotes because my suppositions are based on indirect evidence) have gotten key positions in the Trump Administration. ..."
    Apr 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    james , Apr 10, 2019 12:14:58 PM | link

    thoughts on how far this will go?

    Those who started Russia probe were attempting a 'coup', AG must start investigation – Trump

    SlapHappy , Apr 10, 2019 12:29:20 PM | link

    The coup happened in earnest on 9/11 and the people who started the Russia probe were just doing what they do: sow division and strife within the domestic population to allow them to continue operating in an unfettered manner in service to their master, Zionism.
    PJB , Apr 10, 2019 4:04:00 PM | link
    The absurdity of two official mainstream conspiracy theories.

    Nice satire: https://consentfactory.org/2019/04/02/a-russiagate-requiem/

    karlof1 , Apr 10, 2019 7:25:22 PM | link
    Good thread discussion:

    "When the Mueller report is released, it would be wonderful if he explained why neither he, the senate, nor any one of the federal law or intelligence agencies who have all given opinions on the matter, has ever taken the simple first step of examining the DNC servers.
    He won't."

    Nor will there be any answer to the unasked questions that after Murray's open statement about he knowing the leaker and the revelation of the metadata why none of the people involved were questioned.

    karlof1 , Apr 10, 2019 8:13:38 PM | link
    Excellent thread by Aaron Mate! "With Trump, Barr now on offense..."

    "Dems face an awkward choice: continue to defend those who gave them a discredited (& self-defeating) conspiracy theory, or acknowledge that those people, including intel officials, acted improperly."

    I'm sure we'll be discussing what Ray McGovern has dubbed Deep State Gate now that Russiagate's ended. I linked to Ray's essay earlier, which focused on BigLie media's roll.

    Jackrabbit , Apr 10, 2019 11:30:41 PM | link
    karlof1 @49

    IMO the notion that a few senior Intelligence officials (mostly FBI) tried to overthrow Trump is silly to the point of being laughable. But that is the fall-back position that is being ... ur, Trumped up. The fact is, Trump has done everything that the Deep State and establishment could have wanted: expanded the military budget, cut taxes, reduced regulations, etc.

    While some will complain loudly (for now), the whole affair will slowly fade away because, as I've previously noted, the best explanation for Russiagate is that the Deep State selected Trump and ran an anti-Russia psyop to spur neo-McCarthyism. As part of that effort, it seems highly likely that they attempted to settle scores with Wikileaks/Assange and Michael Flynn.

    FBI failures - to follow investigative procedures; to include important information to the FISA court, etc. - are best explained as part of the bi-partisan Deep State consensus to pursue an anti-Russia agenda.

    Anyone that thinks that senior people would participate in such activities without the cover of higher-ups is smoking something. Brennan, Mueller, Hillary, McCain, and Kissinger have the collective power to form and initiate a strategy to meet the challenge from Russia and China.

    It all goes back to the 2014 surprise realization that Russia had grown a backbone and that the Russia-China Alliance was a serious threat to AZ Empire's NWO. That point of view was described by Kissinger in August 2014, in which Kissinger ALSO called for MAGA.

    Trump entered the race for President 10 months later as the only MAGA candidate.

    Jackrabbit | Apr 10, 2019 11:46:30 PM | 69

    @67

    Friends and associates of all of these 'ringleaders' (in single-quotes because my suppositions are based on indirect evidence) have gotten key positions in the Trump Administration.

    [Apr 11, 2019] Interview transcripts from Congress on FBI officials Bill Priestap and James Baker by Robert Willmann

    Apr 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Congressman Doug Collins (Repub. Georgia) has released two more transcripts of committee interviews of people about the attempt to de-legitimize the election and inauguration of an elected president, and to create conditions for his removal. They can be viewed and downloaded for reading.

    ... ... ...

    Representative Collins previously released transcripts of interviews of Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, George Papadopolous, and Bruce and Nellie Ohr. Those transcripts were cited here at SST on 29 March 2019--

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/03/interview-transcripts-from-congress-on-peter-strzok-lisa-page-g-papadopoulos-and-b-and-n-ohr.html

    [Apr 11, 2019] Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok Could Face Serious Charges, Sources Say

    We write Strzok and mean McCabe...
    Notable quotes:
    "... Strzok who has already been investigated by Horowitz for his role in the FBI's Clinton investigation is also expected to be named in the IG's upcoming report on how the Russia investigation was handled by the FBI. He was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team in 2017 and then fired from the FBI in August, 2018. ..."
    "... The official did not reveal what Strzok's "actions or inactions" may have been but said "obstruction, is a serious concern." Strzok "is in hot water," said another government official, with knowledge. "I'm certain he's not the only one." ..."
    Apr 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    Authored by Sara Carter,

    Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok could face 'serious' charges for his involvement and actions in the bureau's probe of Hillary Clinton's use of a private server to send classified emails, as well as the FBI's investigation into President Trump's campaign, multiple sources with knowledge of Strzok's actions told SaraACarter.com .

    Further, sources contend that the nearly year long investigation by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, will reveal explosive information and shed light on alleged malfeasance by FBI and DOJ officials directly involved in the Russia investigation. The Inspector General's report may be completed as early as May or June, according to testimony provided this week by Attorney General William Barr.

    Strzok who has already been investigated by Horowitz for his role in the FBI's Clinton investigation is also expected to be named in the IG's upcoming report on how the Russia investigation was handled by the FBI. He was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team in 2017 and then fired from the FBI in August, 2018. He was fired by the FBI after an extensive review by Horowitz's office into the FBI's handling of the Clinton investigation and was removed from Mueller's team after the IG discovered his anti-Trump text messages to his paramour former FBI Attorney Lisa Page.

    "There are a number of individuals who are looking at Peter Strzok's actions and inactions and how those actions affected both of the investigations he was involved in," said a U.S. official, with knowledge.

    "Further evaluation of what Peter Strzok did or did not do needs to be evaluated thoroughly."

    The official did not reveal what Strzok's "actions or inactions" may have been but said "obstruction, is a serious concern." Strzok "is in hot water," said another government official, with knowledge. "I'm certain he's not the only one."


    progro , 11 minutes ago link

    Sociopaths are not usually physically violent. A typical sociopath never kills anybody and doesn't look like Charles Manson - they look like you and me and everybody else. You're not looking for someone who's recognizably evil or scary-looking, but rather someone who looks normal. Another lynchpin is dishonesty. Lying for the sake of lying. Lying just to see whether you can trick people. And sometimes telling larger lies to get larger effects.

    freedommusic , 18 minutes ago link

    §2384. Seditious conspiracy

    If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow , put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States , or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years , or both.

    g speed , 6 minutes ago link

    I think the problem here is to decide who is the government of the US if the Deepstate is then Trump and people who voted for him are traitors If on the other hand the elected by rules and laws representatives are the acting government then the Deepstate and it's actors are traitors can't be any other option other than that some dully elected representatives decide to join with appointees and hires of the Deepstate to remove by criminal action others of the legitimate gov't then they are also traitors

    KarlGDenninger , 20 minutes ago link

    I am willing to be this sort of abuse of the FISA process goes all the way back to 2008. There were reports that Romney's campaign in 2012 was infiltrated by Fusion GPS and similar setup, in what seemed like acts of Sabotage of certain regional campaigns and misdirection and a video of a private dinner about 47%

    [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

    Highly recommended!
    Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
    Notable quotes:
    "... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
    "... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
    "... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
    "... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
    "... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
    "... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
    "... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
    "... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
    "... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
    "... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
    "... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
    "... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
    Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

    Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

    "Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.

    I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming out about the British end of the conspiracy.

    An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.

    (See https://dailycaller.com/201... ; https://www.foxnews.com/pol... .)

    At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.

    Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’

    This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.

    Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .)

    Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them.

    Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:

    ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’

    (See https://twitter.com/RealSLo... .)

    Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as ‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:

    ‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc https://www.openinformation...

    (See https://twitter.com/EliotHi... )

    There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.

    (See https://www.theyworkforyou.... )

    In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves ‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.

    (See https://www.cyberguerrilla .... )

    The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.

    A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.

    An interesting paragraph reads as follows:

    ‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’

    They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The ‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.

    In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)

    Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.

    A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’, where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’

    It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’ done by their own people.

    There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation.

    To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.

    The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.

    There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."


    chris chuba , a day ago

    OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.

    Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were going to be mass defections.

    It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
    [not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]

    Karl Kolchak -> chris chuba , a day ago
    Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right to meddle in their internal affairs.
    Jack -> Karl Kolchak , 15 hours ago
    Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens the US.
    Mad_Max22 , 17 hours ago
    "There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation.
    To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."

    True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
    The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
    Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly unbelievable.

    Jack , 15 hours ago
    David

    In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?

    There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting. Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.

    john fletcher , a day ago

    I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.

    And yet the chatterati continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was no more.

    I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.

    VietnamVet , 12 hours ago
    The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.

    There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate.

    [Apr 10, 2019] Interview transcripts from Congress on Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, G. Papadopoulos, and B. and N. Ohr by Robert Willmann

    Notable quotes:
    "... Rhetorical question: if Nellie Ohr and Stephan Halper are/were associated with the CIA (just saw an item claiming Halper's father-in-law was in the CIA during the Cuban Missile Crisis), what sour-visaged BIG DOT could they be connected to??? ..."
    "... One of the biggest revelations seems to be that the Ohrs met with Steele on July 30, 2016, where Steele relayed his concerns and showed them some of his reports. Bruce Ohr says he reached out to the FBI immediately to relay Steele's information. The investigation was started at the FBI on July 31, and this investigation targeted Carter Page of Steele Dossier fame. ..."
    Mar 31, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Courtesy of U.S. Representative Doug Collins (Repub. Georgia), transcripts have been released of committee interviews of five people about the attempt to de-legitimize the election and inauguration of an elected president, and to create conditions for his removal. They can be viewed and downloaded for reading.

    Interview on 27 June 2018 of Peter Strzok, former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, 312 pages--

    Interview on 13 and 16 July 2018 of former FBI in-house attorney Lisa Page, 165 pages on day one and 205 pages on day two--

    Interview on 28 August 2018 of Justice Department attorney Bruce Ohr, 268 pages--

    Interview on 19 October 2018 of Nellie Ohr (wife of Bruce Ohr), 137 pages--

    Interview on 25 October 2018 of George Papadopoulos, 239 pages--

    Bruce Ohr is still an attorney in the Department of Justice. In 2010 he was the chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division. This June 2010 paper from the National Institute of Justice and the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, "Expert Working Group on International Organized Crime", lists on page 30 (pdf page 34) that Bruce Ohr had that position at the DOJ and Nellie Ohr was a researcher at Open Source Works in Washington DC--

    https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/230846.pdf

    The beginning of a CIA paper from 16 November 2010 entitled "Russia: Security Concerns About Iran's Space Program Growing", describes the Open Source Works--

    "This report was prepared by the Open Source Works, which was charged by the Director for Intelligence with drawing on language-trained analysts to mine open-source information for new or alternative insights on intelligence issues. Open Source Works' products, based only on open source information, do not represent the coordinated views of the Central Intelligence Agency."

    https://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iran-space.pdf

    Despite the open source evidence that the Open Source Works was "charged by the Director for Intelligence with drawing on language-trained analysts to mine open-source information", there was a little tap dancing during Nellie Ohr's interview about her work for the CIA and others. During questions by Congressman Jim Jordan (Repub. Ohio), on page 17--

    "Mr. Jordan: Walk me through the clients you did contract work for. Was this U.S. Government?
    Ms. Ohr: U.S. Government.
    Mr. Jordan: Various agencies in the United States Government.
    Ms. Ohr: Yes.
    Mr. Jordan: Tell me the agencies?
    Mr. Berman [Nellie Ohr's lawyer]: I'm not sure how to address this. I'm not sure
    what the U.S. Government agencies' positions are, given various agreements she signed as parts of her independent contracting relationships. So she's willing to answer questions, I just don't know -- don't want to put her at risk of violating employment agreements she had at the time, especially with U.S. Government
    agencies.
    Mr. Jordan: Is it fair to say you worked with some of the intelligence-based agencies in the United States Government.
    Ms. Ohr: Yes.
    Mr. Jordan: Did you work for the CIA?

    Mr. Berman: Again, I would raise the same concerns, sir, if we're going to get into specifics."

    Nellie Ohr then said on page 18--

    "Ms. Ohr: Mitre. Mitre Corporation, which in turn had contracts with U.S. Government clients.

    Mr. Jordan: Got it.

    Ms. Ohr: Through most of 2008. And then starting in 2008, I worked for Open Source Works."

    A Washington Post newspaper article of 16 August 2018 about Bruce Ohr says-- "Ohr was associate deputy attorney general until late 2017, when the DOJ learned of his contacts with Steele. He briefly continued as head of Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) but then lost that job, too. It's unclear what role he plays now at the DOJ."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/16/who-is-bruce-ohr-why-does-trump-keep-tweeting-about-him/?noredirect=on

    At his interview with the Congressional committees on 28 August 2018, he stated his current position: "Mr. Ohr: Good morning. My name is Bruce Ohr. I am a senior counsel in the Office of International Affairs in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice."

    akaPatience , 3 days ago

    Rhetorical question: if Nellie Ohr and Stephan Halper are/were associated with the CIA (just saw an item claiming Halper's father-in-law was in the CIA during the Cuban Missile Crisis), what sour-visaged BIG DOT could they be connected to???
    Dan , 3 days ago
    For what its worth, Jeff Carlson from the Epoch Times somehow got access to most of these transcripts a bit earlier this year, and did some analysis that is worth checking out. HIs knowledge of the whole situation and ability to put pieces together is very impressive.

    One of the biggest revelations seems to be that the Ohrs met with Steele on July 30, 2016, where Steele relayed his concerns and showed them some of his reports. Bruce Ohr says he reached out to the FBI immediately to relay Steele's information. The investigation was started at the FBI on July 31, and this investigation targeted Carter Page of Steele Dossier fame.

    They have been trying to say it was the Papadopoulos information, which they got in April or May, that initiated the investigation. That seems unlikely to me, and instead a blatant cover-up. People who have been paying close attention to the case would remember that we didn't hear anything about Papadopoulos until well into the case.....first Google results seem to be August 2017.

    I think they started employing that as a cover story after the dossier was outed and became obviously dubious.

    [Apr 09, 2019] Ukrainian Prosecutors Why Doesn t the U.S. Dept. of Justice Want Our Evidence on Democrats naked capitalism

    Apr 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    Wheels within wheels. This is from longtime investigative reporter John Solomon, writing in The Hill (emphasis mine throughout):

    Ukrainian to US prosecutors: Why don't you want our evidence on Democrats?

    Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have evidence of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes . But, they say, they've been thwarted in trying to get the Trump Justice Department to act.

    Here is some of what Ukrainian investigators have found. Solomon again:

    Ukraine is infamous for corruption and disinformation operations; its police agencies fight over what is considered evidence of wrongdoing. Kulyk and his bosses even have political fights over who should and shouldn't be prosecuted. Consequently, allegations emanating from Kiev usually are taken with a grain a salt.

    But many of the allegations shared with me by more than a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials are supported by evidence that emerged in recent U.S. court filings and intelligence reports. The Ukrainians told me their evidence includes:

    Sworn statements from two Ukrainian officials admitting that their agency tried to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton . The effort included leaking an alleged ledger showing payments to then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort ; Contacts between Democratic figures in Washington and Ukrainian officials that involved passing along dirt on Donald Trump; Financial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden, younger son of then-Vice President Joe Biden , who managed U.S.-Ukrainian relations for the Obama administration. Biden's son served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings; Records that Vice President Biden pressured Ukrainian officials in March 2016 to fire the prosecutor who oversaw an investigation of Burisma Holdings and who planned to interview Hunter Biden about the financial transfers; Correspondence showing members of the State Department and U.S. embassy in Kiev interfered or applied pressure in criminal cases on Ukrainian soil; Disbursements of as much as $7 billion in Ukrainian funds that prosecutors believe may have been misappropriated or taken out of the country, including to the United States.

    [Apr 08, 2019] Tape recorded evidence of Clinton-Ukraine meddling in US election surfaces (Video)

    Notable quotes:
    "... T]he main spokesman for these accusations was Serhiy Leshchenko , a Ukrainian politician and journalist who works closely with both top Hillary Clinton donors George Soros and Victor Pinchuk, as well as to the US Embassy in Kyiv. ..."
    "... The New York Times should also explain why they didn't mention that Leshchenko had direct connections to two of Hillary Clinton biggest financial backers. Victor Pinchuk, the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation at a staggering $8.6 million also happened to have paid for Leshchenko's expenses to go to international conferences. George Soros, whose also founded the International Renaissance Foundationthat worked closely with Hillary Clinton's State Department in Ukraine, also contributed at least $8 million to Hillary affiliated super PACs in the 2016 campaign cycle . – Lee Stranahan via Medium ..."
    "... Meanwhile, according to former Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr, Leshchenko was a source for opposition research firm Fusion GPS , which commissioned the infamous Trump-Russia dossier. ..."
    "... Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for the Washington, D.C.-based Fusion GPS, testified on Oct. 19 that Serhiy Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist turned Ukrainian lawmaker, was a source for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign. ..."
    Apr 08, 2019 | theduran.com

    RT CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle and The Duran's Alex Christoforou take a look at new evidence to surface from Ukraine that exposes a plot by the US Embassy in Kiev and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to leak Paul Manafort's corrupt dealings in the country, all for the benefit of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Via Zerohedge


    Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has launched an investigation into the head of the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau for allegedly attempting to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump during the 2016 US election by releasing damaging information about a " black ledger " of illegal business dealings by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

    "Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this and we will give legal assessment of this information," Lutsenko said last week, according to The Hill .

    Lutsenko is probing a claim from a member of the Ukrainian parliament that the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Artem Sytnyk, attempted to the benefit of the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of Hillary Clinton .

    A State Department spokesman told Hill.TV that officials aware of news reports regarding Sytnyk. – The Hill

    "According to the member of parliament of Ukraine, he got the court decision that the NABU official conducted an illegal intrusion into the American election campaign," said Lutsenko, speaking with The Hill's John Solomon about the anti-corruption bureau chief, Artem Sytnyk.

    "It means that we think Mr. Sytnyk, the NABU director, officially talked about criminal investigation with Mr. [Paul] Manafort, and at the same time, Mr. Sytnyk stressed that in such a way, he wanted to assist the campaign of Ms. Clinton ," Lutsenko continued.

    Solomon asked Lutsenko about reports that a member of Ukraine's parliament obtained a tape of the current head of the NABU saying that he was attempting to help Clinton win the 2016 presidential election, as well as connections that helped release the black-ledger files that exposed Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort 's wrongdoing in Ukraine .

    "This member of parliament even attached the audio tape where several men, one of which had a voice similar to the voice of Mr. Sytnyk, discussed the matter." – The Hill

    What The Hill doesn't mention is that Sytnyk released Manafort's Black Book with Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko – discussed in great length by former Breitbart investigator Lee Stranahan , who has been closely monitoring this case.

    Serhiy Leshchenko

    T]he main spokesman for these accusations was Serhiy Leshchenko , a Ukrainian politician and journalist who works closely with both top Hillary Clinton donors George Soros and Victor Pinchuk, as well as to the US Embassy in Kyiv.

    James Comey should be asked about this source that Leshchenko would not identify. Was the source someone connected to US government, either the State Department or the Department of Justice?

    The New York Times should also explain why they didn't mention that Leshchenko had direct connections to two of Hillary Clinton biggest financial backers. Victor Pinchuk, the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation at a staggering $8.6 million also happened to have paid for Leshchenko's expenses to go to international conferences. George Soros, whose also founded the International Renaissance Foundationthat worked closely with Hillary Clinton's State Department in Ukraine, also contributed at least $8 million to Hillary affiliated super PACs in the 2016 campaign cycle . – Lee Stranahan via Medium

    Meanwhile, according to former Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr, Leshchenko was a source for opposition research firm Fusion GPS , which commissioned the infamous Trump-Russia dossier.

    Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for the Washington, D.C.-based Fusion GPS, testified on Oct. 19 that Serhiy Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist turned Ukrainian lawmaker, was a source for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign.

    "I recall they were mentioning someone named Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian," Ohr said when asked who Fusion GPS's sources were, according to portions of Ohr's testimony confirmed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. – Daily Caller

    Also absent from The Hill report is the fact that Leshchenko was convicted in December by a Kiev court of interfering in the 2016 US election .

    A Kyiv court said that a Ukrainian lawmaker and a top anticorruption official's decision in 2016 to publish documents linked to President Donald Trump's then-campaign chairman amounted to interference in the U.S. presidential election .

    The December 11 finding came in response to a complaint filed by another Ukrainian lawmaker, who alleged that Serhiy Leshchenko and Artem Sytnyk illegally released the documents in August 2016, showing payments by a Ukrainian political party to Trump's then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

    The documents, excerpts from a secret ledger of payments by the Party of Regions, led to Manafort being fired by Trump's election campaign.

    The Kyiv court said that the documents published by Leshchenko and Sytnyk were part of an ongoing pretrial investigation in Ukraine into the operations of the pro-Russian Party of Regions . The party's head had been President Viktor Yanukovych until he fled the country amid mass protests two years earlier.

    -RadioFreeEurope/Radio Liberty (funded by the US govt.).

    So while Lutsenko – Solomon's guest and Ukrainian Prosecutor is currently going after Artem Sytnyk, it should be noted that Leshchenko was already found to have meddled in the 2016 US election.

    [Apr 07, 2019] The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect

    Selection of Crowdstrike is highly suspect; the behaviour of FBI is highly suspect (why they allowed the contractor to handle the evidence), the behaviour of MSM is highly suspect (they came with the predefined notion -- Russia), the murder of Seth Rich and subsequent investigation (or the lack of thereof ) are highly suspect. Add to this mix incredible Awan brothers story and Debbie Wasserman behaviour after Imran Awan arrest
    This all points in the direction of the false flag.
    Notable quotes:
    "... There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation . ..."
    "... The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect. IMO it's likely to be a CIA/Mossad op to portray Wikileaks as an agent of Russia (AFAIK, Seth Rich was Jewish; and his family has acted strangely about the whole affair). And this 'op' fits well with use of the 2016 Presidential campaign to prepare for McCarthyist 'Russiagate' - for which CIA seems to have joined with MI6. ..."
    "... If the publication of the DNC emails was in fact a false flag then to support Assange that fact needs to be proven, and the persons responsible exposed for staging a false "framing of Assange" event.. ..."
    "... The Zionist "take the oil from the Ottoman" project involved weaponizing Jewish immigration and and redirecting European Jewish immigration from locating in Argentina ..."
    Apr 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Jackrabbit , Apr 7, 2019 11:25:38 AM | link

    Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

    It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the 'digital forensics' done by their own people.

    There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation .

    To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous.

    The clear close integration of other cyber people from the 'Atlantic Council' into Orwellian 'information operations' sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.

    There has to be a strong possible 'prima facie' case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the 'digital forensics' from 'CrowdStrike' is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."

    IMO The suggestion that Crowdstrike called it a hack instead of a leak to absolve themselves [as per the bolded phrase] is specious. But Habbuk (thankfully) rightly puts the onus on the FBI for not doing their job.

    The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect. IMO it's likely to be a CIA/Mossad op to portray Wikileaks as an agent of Russia (AFAIK, Seth Rich was Jewish; and his family has acted strangely about the whole affair). And this 'op' fits well with use of the 2016 Presidential campaign to prepare for McCarthyist 'Russiagate' - for which CIA seems to have joined with MI6.

    snake , Apr 7, 2019 1:39:35 PM | link

    The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect. IMO it's likely to be a CIA/Mossad op to portray Wikileaks as an agent of Russia (AFAIK, Seth Rich was Jewish; and his family has acted strangely about the whole affair). And this 'op' fits well with use of the 2016 Presidential campaign to prepare for McCarthyist 'Russiagate' - for which CIA seems to have joined with MI6.

    by: Jackrabbit @7

    Seems to me this could be that place to start donkeytale @ 3 asks is there a way to save Julian Assange..

    If the publication of the DNC emails was in fact a false flag then to support Assange that fact needs to be proven, and the persons responsible exposed for staging a false "framing of Assange" event..

    The Jews immigrated to NYC from Salonika (the other half went to Russia) after the failure to use a corrupted CUP to over throw the Ottomans ( Ottomans discovered, and burned the Jews out) in 1908-1912 the dominate political majority in NYC became Jewish, dwarfing the previous majority, who were the Irish.

    So when the POTUS needed stronger support to force governed Americans into WWI, Those in charge of the banker backed "take the oil and land from the Ottomans" project in banker controlled Europe directed the new NYC immigrants to send letters to the POTUS urging USA entry into the war in Europe.. within a week over a million letters arrived, which were designed to strengthen POTUS efforts to force Americans and the congress critters into WWI (abuse of American human rights by sending soldiers, creating a tax law, that had been rule unconstitutional every year since 1865 to (1912-13) diverting the domestic budget to a foreign war budget, and organizing and directing the industrial might of America to assist in the WWI Zionist movement in Europe to take the oil from the Ottoman.

    WWI was planned before 1896, (Read: Roland Green Usher Pan-Germanism 1913-14 and My Memoirs 1878-1918 by Ex-Kaiser William, II< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor) and organized at Zionist Congress (1897) in Europe (Russia signed a contain Germany Agreement with France in 1896 to deny Germany) and in 1897 the USA secretly agreed to support France and England against Germany agreement (why? Germany relations with Ottomans gave Germans access to the Ottoman oil, which the British, French and USA bankers and the corporations they sponsored would not stand for.

    The Zionist "take the oil from the Ottoman" project involved weaponizing Jewish immigration and and redirecting European Jewish immigration from locating in Argentina [ http://www.billgladstone.ca/?p=3197] to locating in Ottoman-Palestine-Israel locations <=object to: occupy and eventually displace the Ottomans (WWI divided the Ottoman empire into British Palestine, and French Syria) from their land and their oil.

    So letters (in answer to donkeytale @ 3) with return receipt, sent directly to the POTUS might be a means to support Julian Assange?

    I can imagine what it might be like to see 10 million return receipts posted somewhere!

    [Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Nice group shot of the three stooges. The most dishonest, disloyal, dipshitted psychopaths a country should never have to endure. ..."
    "... The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried. ..."
    "... There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc. ..."
    "... This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time. ..."
    Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Rep. Devin Nunes, op-ed via The Washington Examiner,

    As the Russia collusion hoax hurtles toward its demise, it's important to consider how this destructive information operation rampaged through vital American institutions for more than two years , and what can be done to stop such a damaging episode from recurring.

    While the hoax was fueled by a wide array of false accusations, misleading leaks of ostensibly classified information, and bad-faith investigative actions by government officials, one vital element was indispensable to the overall operation: the Steele dossier.

    <

    Funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee, which hid their payments from disclosure by funneling them through the law firm Perkins Coie, the dossier was a collection of false and often absurd accusations of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials. These allegations, which relied heavily on Russian sources cultivated by Christopher Steele, were spoon-fed to Trump opponents in the U.S. government, including officials in law enforcement and intelligence.

    The efforts to feed the dossier's allegations into top levels of the U.S. government, particularly intelligence agencies, were championed by Steele, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, and various intermediaries. These allegations were given directly to the FBI and Justice Department, while similar allegations were fed into the State Department by long-time Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.

    Their efforts were remarkably effective. Officials within the FBI and DOJ, whether knowingly or unintentionally, provided essential support to the hoax conspirators, bypassing normal procedures and steering the information away from those who would view it critically. The dossier soon metastasized within the government, was cloaked in secrecy, and evaded serious scrutiny.

    High-ranking officials such as then-FBI general counsel James Baker and then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr were among those whose actions advanced the hoax. Ohr, one of the most senior officials within the DOJ, took the unprecedented step of providing to Steele a back door into the FBI investigation. This enabled the former British spy to continue to feed information to investigators, even though he had been terminated by the FBI for leaking to the press and was no longer a valid source. Even worse, Ohr directly briefed Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad, two DOJ officials who were later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. In short, the investigation was marked by glaring irregularities that would normally be deemed intolerable.

    According to Ohr's congressional testimony, he told top-level FBI officials as early as August or September 2016 that Steele was biased against Trump, that Steele's work was connected to the Clinton campaign, and that Steele's material was of questionable reliability. Steele himself confirmed that last point in a British court case in which he acknowledged his allegations included unverified information. Yet even after this revelation, intelligence leaders continued to cite the Steele dossier in applications to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

    It is astonishing that intelligence leaders did not immediately recognize they were being manipulated in an information operation or understand the danger that the dossier could contain deliberate disinformation from Steele's Russian sources . In fact, it is impossible to believe in light of everything we now know about the FBI's conduct of this investigation, including the astounding level of anti-Trump animus shown by high-level FBI figures like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as the inspector general's discovery of a shocking number of leaks by FBI officials.

    It's now clear that top intelligence officials were perfectly well aware of the dubiousness of the dossier, but they embraced it anyway because it justified actions they wanted to take - turning the full force of our intelligence agencies first against a political candidate and then against a sitting president.

    The hoax itself was a gift to our nation's adversaries, most notably Russia. The abuse of intelligence for political purposes is insidious in any democracy. It undermines trust in democratic institutions, and it damages the reputation of the brave men and women who are working to keep us safe. This unethical conduct has had major repercussions on America's body politic, creating a yearslong political crisis whose full effects remain to be seen.

    Having extensively investigated this abuse, House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in these matters.

    These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future. The men and women of our intelligence community perform an essential service defending American national security, and their ability to carry out their mission cannot be compromised by biased actors who seek to transform the intelligence agencies into weapons of political warfare.


    -320 for Money , 2 hours ago link

    Nice group shot of the three stooges. The most dishonest, disloyal, dipshitted psychopaths a country should never have to endure.

    I certainly do not know the cure for all the nations ills, but these 3 ***** could do more by dying than they ever did by living.

    Fall on your swords swine, save a smidgen of face, you are a disgrace.

    Real Estate Guru , 2 hours ago link

    All 3 of them have been confirmed to by lying through their teeth by their own people. They are all going down. We just need the Mueller report to come out to get the ball rolling. Can't do it before the report comes out as they would call it obstruction. So we wait another 9 days, or less, according to AG Barr.

    Jackprong , 4 hours ago link

    Could be, PapaGeorge. Maybe this time it's different because it could be argued that the TPTB don't want Trump pulling the same thing on the DNC--and get away with it like the Usual Suspects just did. In legal terms, a bar has been set. BARR? Get it? Buwhahahahahahahahahha!!!

    The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried. There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc.

    This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time

    papageorgeo , 5 hours ago link

    The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried.

    There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc.

    This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time.

    Fred box , 5 hours ago link

    <<<House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in these matters<<< We shall see now, won't we? I won't believe this, till I see It!

    [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader

    Highly recommended!
    Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader?

    by Tyler Durden Thu, 04/04/2019 - 21:25 550 SHARES Authored by Monica Crowley, op-ed via The Washington Times,

    The best defense, the saying goes, is a good offense.

    The key orchestrators of the Big Trump-Russia Collusion Lie seem to have hewed tightly to that tactical advice.

    Over the past two years, one of their biggest "tells" has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president. Given that special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.

    By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

    We now know that former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, are hip-deep in the conspiracy. Both wrote supposed "tell-all" books and carpet-bombed the media with interviews in which they regularly flung criminal accusations against the president. Whenever asked about their own roles, they reverted to denouncing Mr. Trump .

    With Mr. Mueller 's findings, Mr. Comey 's and Mr. McCabe's media benders look increasingly suspicious.

    As do those of their comrades in the Obama national security apparatus, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his partner in possible crime, former CIA Director John Brennan , who, apart from former President Barack Obama himself, may be the biggest player of them all.

    Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr. Brennan , whose job as the nation's chief spook would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.

    Of course, the law didn't stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.

    Once out of Langley, Mr. Brennan tore into Mr. Trump, accusing him of "treason" (among other crimes) in countless television appearances and bitter tweets. It got so vicious that Mr. Trump pulled his security clearance.

    Consider a few critical data points.

    The Obama Department of Justice and FBI targeting of two low-level Trump aides, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, was carried out in the spring of 2016 because they wanted to spy on the Trump campaign but needed a way in. They enlisted an American academic and shadowy FBI informant named Stefan Halper to repeatedly sidle up to both Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page. But complementing his work for the FBI , Mr. Halper had a side gig as an intelligence operative with longstanding ties to the CIA and British intelligence MI6.

    Another foreign professor, Joseph Mifsud, who played an important early part in targeting Papadopoulos, also had abiding ties to the CIA , MI6 and the British foreign secretary.

    A third operative, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, targeted Mr. Papadopoulos in a London bar. It was Mr. Downer's "tip" to the FBI that provided the justification for the start of Russia counterintelligence investigation, complete with fraudulently-obtained FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

    All of these interactions reek of entrapment. Mr. Papadopoulos now says, "I believe Australian and UK intelligence were involved in an active operation to target Trump and his associates." Like Mr. Halper and Mr. Mifsud, Mr. Downer had ties to the CIA , MI6 and (surprise!) the Clintons.

    Given the deep intelligence backgrounds of these folks, it's difficult to believe that former DOJ/ FBI officials such as Peter Strzok or even James Comey and Andrew McCabe on their own devised the plan to deploy them.

    So: who did? How did the relationships with Messrs. Halper, Mifsud and Downer come about? Who suggested them for these tasks? To whom did they report? How were they compensated?

    Any investigation must follow the money -- and the personnel. There were plenty of DOJ/ FBI officials involved, but what about intelligence officials? Was Mr. Brennan a central player in the hoax, which would help explain the participation of Mr. Halper, Mr. Mifsud and Mr. Downer? Intel officials are likely to draw on other intelligence operatives.

    There is also a glimpse of a paper trail.

    Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported last week that "in a Dec. 12, 2016 text, [ FBI lawyer Lisa] Page wrote to McCabe: "Btw, Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just FYSA [for your situational awareness ]."

    "Within a minute, McCabe replied, "OK."

    Ms. Herridge notes that those named are likely Peter Strzok and Mr. Brennan 's then-deputy, David Cohen. Ms. Herridge also notes that while we don't yet know what was discussed during the dinner, government sources thought it "irregular" for Mr. Clapper to be in contact with the more junior-level Mr. Strzok. She also points out that the text came "during a critical time for the Russia probe."

    Indeed. It was right before the publication of the ICA, the official Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian 2016 election interference.

    As Paul Sperry has reported, "A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok.

    "Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and Comey , and he was one of the authors of the ICA," according to the source." Recall that the dossier-based ICA was briefed to Obama , Trump and Congress ahead of Trump's inauguration.

    Post- Mueller report, Mr. Brennan is spinning wildly that perhaps his early condemnations of Mr. Trump were based on "bad information."

    These are just some of the threads suggesting Mr. Brennan may be one of the Masters of the Big Lie, requiring full investigation.

    If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan is all over the details.

    No wonder he -- and his fellow caballers -- have been so loud. They doth protest too much.


    Luau , 6 minutes ago link

    Obama was the ringleader. Brennan's just the fall guy.

    Yars Revenge , 7 minutes ago link

    Trying to frame a sitting President is treason.

    Which under the law is punishable by death.

    outofnowhere , 12 minutes ago link

    Yes, yes he was. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Brennan was and is the darkest of evil. He is insane.

    MoreFreedom , 27 minutes ago link

    By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

    Hillary setup a unsecured server and had confidential government information on it, including 20 emails with Obama suspiciously using an alias. If you're in law enforcement, and get a tip that Papadopolous may get some of those emails from Russians, what crime has been committed by Papadopolous? Isn't Papadopolous doing the US a favor by obtaining those emails from those who hacked her server?

    If you believe Hillary that her server wasn't hacked (and you don't have any evidence because Obama's people allowed practically all the evidence to be destroyed) then there's no reason to investigate Papadopolous. If you think Hillary's server was hacked, shouldn't you be investigating her and examining her server to see who hacked her and what damage was done, such as blackmailing her and Obama into appeasement and flexibility, like selling 20% of the US's uranium reserves to Russians just before an election?

    ... ... ...

    American2 , 1 hour ago link

    John Brennan, James Clapper, Strozk, Ohr, Page were only some of Obama's political pythons operating in the jungle of Washington. Obama orchestrated a symphony of harmful actions that will take the US a generation to recover from. That is if Obama's criminal actions can be undone and then we get to recover.

    [Mar 29, 2019] America is a banana republic! FBI chief agrees with CIA on Russia alleged election help for Trump

    Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
    Notable quotes:
    "... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
    "... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
    www.sott.net
    Reprinted from RT

    FBI and National Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.

    FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.

    "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it.

    "The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.

    Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election to help Trump win, calling info "fuzzy and ambiguous"

    ... ... ...

    [Mar 28, 2019] Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury Lolita Express scandal

    Notable quotes:
    "... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
    "... "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked. ..."
    "... Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance. ..."
    "... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." ..."
    "... THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " ..."
    "... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail? ..."
    "... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
    "... Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control. ..."
    Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Judge Rules Plea Deal For Orgy Island Billionaire Broke Federal Law

    youshallnotkill , 1 hour ago link

    Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.

    While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.

    "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

    Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the comment curious.

    "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.

    SOURCE: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20170512/will-president-trump-be-used-as-witness-in-sex-offender-epstein-case

    Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

    Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance.

    zeezrom2point0, 2 hours ago link

    Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no, that was probably Bill.

    TeraByte , 2 hours ago link

    Manford´s life time vs a slap on the wrist. I does not matter, what you do, but whom you know.

    loop , 2 hours ago link

    "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..."

    THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... "

    WARNING: Graphic Images

    DFGTC , 2 hours ago link

    Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail?


    William Dorritt , 2 hours ago link


    Billionaire Palm Beach serial sex offender allowed to serve time in luxurious milieu | Fred Grimm

    ... ... ...

    https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-fred-grimm-jeffrey-epste ...
    2 of 2 2/7/2019, 10:41 AM

    4 wheel drift , 3 hours ago link

    The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI .

    LOLOLOL.... THAT explains a lot...

    ******* criminals the entire lot of them

    Baron Samedi , 3 hours ago link

    I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.'

    I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition country - ASAP.

    Reaper , 3 hours ago link

    The DOJ can prosecute now for the conspiracy of prosecutors and Epstein.

    https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

    dirty fingernails , 3 hours ago link

    Don't hold your breath.

    William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
    Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389654/-Dennis-Hastert-as-the-Tip-of-the-Iceberg

    [Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. ..."
    "... What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too. ..."
    "... Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. ..."
    "... What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate. ..."
    "... Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness ..."
    "... The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate. ..."
    "... The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted. ..."
    "... Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics. ..."
    "... The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges. ..."
    "... Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be. ..."
    Mar 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
    Here are three important lessons for the progressive left to consider now that it is clear the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russiagate is never going to uncover collusion between Donald Trump's camp and the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.

    Painting the pig's face

    The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig's face remains painted, the other is happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.

    Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism.

    The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.

    It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

    Mired in corruption

    What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too.

    An anti-corruption investigation would have run much deeper and exposed far more. It would have highlighted the Clinton Foundation, and the role of mega-donors like James Simons, George Soros and Haim Saban who funded Hillary's campaign with one aim in mind: to get their issues into a paid-for national "consensus".

    Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. It was the leaking / hacking of those emails that provided the rationale for Mueller's investigations. What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate.

    So, in short, Russiagate has been two years of wasted energy by the left, energy that could have been spent both targeting Trump for what he is really doing rather than what it is imagined he has done, and targeting the Democratic leadership for its own, equally corrupt practices.

    Trump empowered

    But it's far worse than that. It is not just that the left wasted two years of political energy on Russiagate. At the same time, they empowered Trump, breathing life into his phony arguments that he is the anti-establishment president, a people's president the elites are determined to destroy.

    Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness. And he is doing so not because he wants to reform or overthrow turbo-charged capitalism but because he wants to remove the last, largely cosmetic constraints on the system so that he and his friends can plunder with greater abandon – and destroy the planet more quickly.

    The other wing of the neoliberal establishment, the one represented by the Democratic party leadership, fears that exposing capitalism in this way – making explicit its inherently brutal, wrist-slitting tendencies – will awaken the masses, that over time it will risk turning them into revolutionaries. Democratic party leaders fear Trump chiefly because of the threat he poses to the image of the political and economic system they have so lovingly crafted so that they can continue enriching themselves and their children.

    Trump's genius – his only genius – is to have appropriated, and misappropriated, some of the language of the left to advance the interests of the 1 per cent. When he attacks the corporate "liberal" media for having a harmful agenda, for serving as propagandists, he is not wrong. When he rails against the identity politics cultivated by "liberal" elites over the past two decades – suggesting that it has weakened the US – he is not wrong. But he is right for the wrong reasons.

    TV's version of clickbait

    The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate.

    The handful of corporations that own the US media – and much of corporate America besides – are there both to make ever-more money by expanding profits and to maintain the credibility of a political and economic system that lets them make ever more money.

    The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted.

    So Trump is right that the "liberal" media is undemocratic and that it is now propagandising against him. But he is wrong about why. In fact, all corporate media – whether "liberal" or not, whether against Trump or for him – is undemocratic. All of the media propagandises for a rotten system that keeps the vast majority of Americans impoverished. All of the media cares more for Trump and the elites he belongs to than it cares for the 99 per cent.

    Gorging on the main course

    Similarly, with identity politics. Trump says he wants to make (a white) America great again, and uses the left's obsession with identity as a way to energize a backlash from his own supporters.

    Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics.

    Just as Mueller put the left on standby, into waiting-for-the-Messiah mode, so simple-minded, pussy-hat-wearing identity politics has been cultivated in the supposedly liberal bastions of the corporate media and Ivy League universities – the same universities that have turned out generations of Muellers and Clintons – to deplete the left's political energies. While we argue over who is most entitled and most victimised, the establishment has carried on raping and pillaging Third World countries, destroying the planet and siphoning off the wealth produced by the rest of us.

    These liberal elites long ago worked out that if we could be made to squabble among ourselves about who was most entitled to scraps from the table, they could keep gorging on the main course.

    The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges.

    The Corbyn experience

    3. But the most important lesson of all for the left is that support among its ranks for the Mueller inquiry against Trump was foolhardy in the extreme.

    Not only was the inquiry doomed to failure – in fact, not only was it designed to fail – but it has set a precedent for future politicised investigations that will be used against the progressive left should it make any significant political gains. And an inquiry against the real left will be far more aggressive and far more "productive" than Mueller was.

    If there is any doubt about that look to the UK. Britain now has within reach of power the first truly progressive politician in living memory, someone seeking to represent the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent. But Jeremy Corbyn's experience as the leader of the Labour party – massively swelling the membership's ranks to make it the largest political party in Europe – has been eye-popping.

    I have documented Corbyn's travails regularly in this blog over the past four years at the hands of the British political and media establishment. You can find many examples here.

    Corbyn, even more so than the small, new wave of insurgency politicians in the US Congress, has faced a relentless barrage of criticism from across the UK's similarly narrow political spectrum. He has been attacked by both the rightwing media and the supposedly "liberal" media. He has been savaged by the ruling Conservative party, as was to be expected, and by his own parliamentary Labour party. The UK's two-party system has been exposed as just as hollow as the US one.

    The ferocity of the attacks has been necessary because, unlike the Democratic party's success in keeping a progressive leftwinger away from the presidential campaign, the UK system accidentally allowed a socialist to slip past the gatekeepers. All hell has broken out ever since.

    Simple-minded identity politics

    What is so noticeable is that Corbyn is rarely attacked over his policies – mainly because they have wide popular appeal. Instead he has been hounded over fanciful claims that, despite being a life-long and very visible anti-racism campaigner, he suddenly morphed into an outright anti-semite the moment party members elected him leader.

    I will not rehearse again how implausible these claims are. Simply look through these previous blog posts should you be in any doubt.

    But what is amazing is that, just as with the Mueller inquiry, much of the British left – including prominent figures like Owen Jones and the supposedly countercultural Novara Media – have sapped their political energies in trying to placate or support those leading the preposterous claims that Labour under Corbyn has become "institutionally anti-semitic". Again, the promotion of a simple-minded identity politics – which pits the rights of Palestinians against the sensitivities of Zionist Jews about Israel – was exploited to divide the left.

    The more the left has conceded to this campaign, the angrier, the more implacable, the more self-righteous Corbyn's opponents have become – to the point that the Labour party is now in serious danger of imploding.

    A clarifying moment

    Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be.

    That is not because a leftwing US president would be more corrupt or more likely to have colluded with a foreign power. As the UK example shows, it would be because the entire media system – from the New York Times to Fox News – would be against such a president. And as the UK example also shows, it would be because the leaderships of both the Republican and Democratic parties would work as one to finish off such a president.

    In the combined success-failure of the Mueller inquiry, the left has an opportunity to understand in a much more sophisticated way how real power works and in whose favour it is exercised. It is moment that should be clarifying – if we are willing to open our eyes to Mueller's real lessons.

    Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are " Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and " Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair " (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jonathan-cook.net/

    [Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate Revisited by Jackson Lears

    This article is over a year old, but it really explains what this with hunt was about -- to deflect real interference in the US election as well as exonerate Hillary fiasco. The way Russian were selected is a typical "projected" Anti-Semitism -- persecution on the base on national origin without any solid fact, but with plenty of prejudices due to Russia Soviet past. What a gang of scamsters the US neoliberal elite became !
    Feb 22, 2018 | lrb.co.uk
    Russiagate Revisited 35 The anti-Russian hysteria in Washington has slipped beyond self-parody. We now have front-row seats in a theatre of the absurd, watching the media furor explode after Robert Mueller's 'indictments' of 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in the 2016 presidential elections.

    Mueller's actions deserve the scare quotes because they are not really indictments at all. The accused parties will never be extradited or brought to trial. Nor is it clear that their actions rise to the level of crimes. The supposed indictments are merely dramatic accusations, a giant publicity stunt.

    Even if they were real indictments, they would not be convictions. American journalists seem to have forgotten that distinction. In contemporary American jurisprudence, prosecutors routinely get rubber stamps from grand juries. A grand jury, the adage goes, will indict a ham sandwich. For a g-man on a white horse like Mueller, universally lionised in the mainstream media, a grand jury would probably indict a peanut butter sandwich.

    One of the most bizarre aspects of Russiagate is the magical transformation of intelligence agency heads into paragons of truth-telling – a trick performed not by reactionary apologists for domestic spying, as one would expect, but by people who consider themselves liberals. There is something genuinely absurd about a former director of the FBI – which along with the CIA and NSA has long been one of the gravest threats to democracy in America – solemnly warning of the threat to democracy posed by Russian meddling in the election.

    And what was the nature of that alleged meddling? The pseudo-indictments are clear: the meddlers had nothing to do with the Russian government and nothing to do with the Trump campaign – except that they sometimes 'communicated with unwitting individuals' associated with it. And the Russians' activities had no impact on the outcome of the election. Mueller's assignment was to investigate whether the Russian government colluded with the Trump campaign to promote his victory over Hillary Clinton. None of the current charges has anything to do with this. (Nor does Mueller's recent indictment of Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney and associate of Trump's crony Paul Manafort.) The pseudo-indictments merely add to the billowing clouds of innuendo that have characterised the Russiagate narrative from the beginning.

    According to Mueller's accusations, the meddlers began their operations long before the campaign began and certainly before anyone thought Trump had a snowball's chance in hell; they posed as Muslims, black activists, white Southerners, among other social types, all posting slogans and invective on social media. After the election, they staged pro-Trump and anti-Trump rallies. Somehow the media have made this mishmash fit the Russiagate narrative, assuming it reveals a coherent Kremlin plan to elect Trump.

    So what is the point of these sham indictments? It is fair to speculate that there is more going on here than a simple search for truth. Early on in the 37-page document that was released to such fanfare, the FBI makes a revealing assertion, claiming that the Russians aimed 'to sow discord in the US political system' – as if vigorous debate were not an appropriate state of affairs for a democratic polity; as if the normal expression of democracy is bland conformity to policies fashioned by elites. By explicitly linking the Russians with support for the Sanders and Trump campaigns, Mueller's pseudo-indictments identify dissent from the Washington consensus with foreign subversion. They reinforce the reigning orthodoxy and tighten the boundaries of permissible public discourse.

    The consequences are potentially catastrophic. By focusing on the manufactured menace of Russiagate, the Democratic Party leadership can continue to ignore its own failures as well as the actual menace posed by Trump. And by fostering the fantasy of a vast Russian plot against America, the mainstream media can shut down reasonable foreign policy debate and promote a dangerous, unnecessary confrontation with a rival power. The final act in Washington's theatre of the absurd has yet to be written, but the denouement looks dark.

    [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson

    Highly recommended!
    This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
    Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first time, I think.
    Notable quotes:
    "... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
    "... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
    "... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
    "... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
    "... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
    "... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
    "... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
    "... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
    Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com
    Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President Donald Trump

    Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:

    1. CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
    2. The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
    3. The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of nondisclosure.
    4. The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
    5. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
    6. Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
    7. The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.

    Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.

    Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established political system.

    The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.

    Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy, regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union. He questioned everything.

    Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

    Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and particularly foolhardy.

    Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates -- primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.

    Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove , former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm Hakluyt all played a role.

    In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to meet with Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration -- Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement. The Guardian openly speculated that Hannigan's resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.

    One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized. The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.

    Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and Page.

    Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency (NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.

    Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed later at Brennan's urging.

    During this time, Brennan also employed the use of reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen. This effort was uncovered and made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017 press conference :

    "I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.

    "From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying to get to the bottom of it."

    As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :

    "I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."

    Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish the FBI investigation:

    "I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."

    This admission is important, as no official intelligence was used to open the FBI's investigation.

    Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts to block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.

    The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports and greater participation from Clapper. The first report, the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017.

    This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump. Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/bMcNbum93cU?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

    Federal Bureau of Investigation

    Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as separate entities, each with its own related ties.

    The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.

    The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016. Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation during congressional testimony.

    Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier. This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.

    Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
    Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation remains ongoing.

    The FBI's formal involvement with the Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016, when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.

    Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance to the FBI's investigation into the FIFA corruption scandal .

    Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele several weeks earlier. "In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information started to reach the bureau in Washington."

    It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.

    For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources."

    In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting included several other FBI officials as well. According to a House Intelligence Committee minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's September trip to Rome.

    The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.

    Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office, finally expiring in September 2017.

    Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant on Page.

    After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

    Peter Strzok and Lisa Page

    Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

    Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."

    Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those meetings.

    Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later, he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.

    Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly authorized Page to share information with Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization to do so.

    McCabe would later initially deny providing such authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement. It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.

    The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made public . The series comes to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."

    On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:

    Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"

    Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."

    On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":

    "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

    The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.

    Department of Justice

    The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.

    However, a series of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject to prosecution.

    The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.

    DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.

    The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security Division, was actively involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.

    To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.

    David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean, the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school. McLean was also employed by the FBI for 24 years.

    Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a key role in Spygate. Ohr held two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney general's drug strategy."

    Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.

    According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

    Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least 12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October or early November 2016.

    John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.

    The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

    Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

    McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

    On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

    Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

    On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

    On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

    At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

    In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

    Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

    On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

    The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

    Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

    The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

    Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

    On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

    On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

    Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

    That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

    On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

    State Department

    The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

    Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

    Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

    In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

    "In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

    Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

    "In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

    In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

    Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

    Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

    "The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

    If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

    Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

    "A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

    Clinton Campaign and the DNC

    The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.

    The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.

    Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser to the campaign, took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.

    Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian active measures , in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower.

    The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a tweet on the same day the article was published:

    "Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

    Attached to her tweet was a statement from Sullivan:

    "This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

    "This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

    These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.

    This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from the Clinton campaign.

    Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia. Chalupa began investigating Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January 2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.

    Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff -- the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama administration.

    Perkins Coie

    International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.

    Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.

    Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele. Sussmann personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.

    Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)

    According to a letter dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign. Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.

    Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele. During this same period, Fusion also reportedly hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016, and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.

    Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI. Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

    The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."

    Obama Administration

    The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.

    Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

    The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.

    An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017, MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

    "I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

    "The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

    Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.

    DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the attorney general's office. According to congressional testimony by Horowitz:

    "We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information."

    These new restrictions were put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

    On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters.

    The New York Times recently disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.

    At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The Intelligence Community assessment was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

    The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.

    Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview why:

    "Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."

    Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:

    "Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

    Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump that CNN reported on the dossier. It was later revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.

    The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of intelligence unmaskings , the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.

    The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, led that effort .

    Executive Order 13762

    President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ. The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.

    Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.

    Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership. The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.

    Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips, after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

    It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming under intense scrutiny.

    The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian ambassador.

    Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.

    Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.

    On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings appear to have been unexpected.

    Media

    In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a series of payments to several as-of-yet- unnamed reporters .

    The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

    Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In September 2016 , he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.

    In mid-October 2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

    Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.

    On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article " A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in court documents relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, " FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA warrant.

    The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.

    Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
    It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the indictment , Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.

    In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.

    Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly stated that evidence within the FISA application shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.

    Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit their complicity.

    Foreign Intelligence

    UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.

    Britain's GCHQ was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to meet personally with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.

    Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)

    Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.

    As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

    Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove.

    Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend.

    Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services.

    Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books.

    Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.

    The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.

    Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

    In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.

    Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?

    Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.

    Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele

    Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

    The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.

    Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele maintains contact with British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove , and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.

    Steele appears to have been represented by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:

    "Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week."

    Steele also appears to have lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently disclosed by the Washington Examiner:

    "Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool' of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."

    Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which she discussed the Magnitsky Act .

    Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.

    A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.

    Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.


    Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.

    Bruce and Nellie Ohr have known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr before and after the 2016 election.

    Bruce Ohr had been in contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s -- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.

    Spy Traps

    In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.

    Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly joined LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016, in Italy.

    Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.

    Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.

    Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

    Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened to be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit remains unknown.

    The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.

    Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

    According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

    "During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."

    Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.

    Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017, BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended target of these failed FISAs.

    Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.

    Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.

    After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct. 21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.

    Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.

    Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case.

    Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia.

    FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.

    If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.

    Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.

    FISA Abuse

    Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

    "The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

    "Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

    "Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

    The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

    "The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

    The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

    In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

    On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

    Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

    DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

    The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

    After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

    On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

    At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

    On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

    The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

    Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

    The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

    While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

    The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

    The Insurance Policy

    Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

    Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

    The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.

    It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

    The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

    The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

    The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

    This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

    Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

    Spygate

    Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread intelligence community leaks as facts.

    But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern extending back decades?

    The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as Spygate.

    Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

    [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy. ..."
    "... Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported. ..."
    Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

    Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic]

    The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

    Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

    Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

    In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

    "In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

    Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

    "In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

    In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

    Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

    Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

    "The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

    If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

    Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

    "A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

    [Mar 24, 2019] The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate by Dennis J Bernstein

    Notable quotes:
    "... At Netanyahu's behest, Flynn and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly took the lead in the lobbying to derail the U.N. resolution, which Flynn discussed in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (in which the Russian diplomat rebuffed Flynn's appeal to block the resolution). ..."
    "... In this case, what Flynn and Kushner were doing was going directly against US foreign policy, because Obama wanted the resolution to pass; He just didn't want to vote for it because that would cross the Israel lobby in the United States. The US finally ended up abstaining on the resolution and it passed 14-0. ..."
    "... But before that happened, Flynn went to the Russians and to Egypt, both members of the Security Council, and tried to get the resolution delayed. But all of Israel's machinations to derail this resolution failed and that is what Mueller was investigating, the intervention and disruption of American foreign policy by private citizens who had no official role. ..."
    "... While I think Bibi is an idiot, I also think the Logan Act is overinvoked, overstated, probably of dubious legal value and also of dubious constitutional value. ..."
    "... In short, especially because Trump had been elected, though not yet inaugurated, I think he is not at all guilty of a Logan Act violation. This is nothing close to Spiro Agnew calling Anna Chenault from the airplane in August 1968. ..."
    "... Probably true, although evidence of extreme collusion with Israel eliminates any case against Russia, with whom we have far more reasons for amity. Bringing out the Israel collusion greatly improves public understanding of political corruption. Perhaps it will awaken some to the Agnew-Chennault betrayal of the people of the US. ..."
    "... It's ironic that Russia-gate is turning out to be Israel's effort to distract attention from its complete control over the Democratic party in 2016. From Israeli billionaires behind the scenes to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the helm. ..."
    "... "Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state." So that is how it works, the White House says it is an enemy state and therefore it is. The so called declaration is the hammer used for trying to make contact with Russia a criminal offense. We are not at war with Russia although we see our leaders doing their best to provoke Russia into one. ..."
    "... The Israel connection disclosed by the malpracticer hack Mueller in the recent Flynn-flam just made Trump bullet-proof (so to speak). ..."
    "... So Mueller caught Kushner and Flynn red-handed, sabotaging the Obama administration? What of it? He can't use that evidence, because it would inculpate the Zionist neocons that are orchestrating his farcical, Stalinist witchhunt. And Mueller, being an efficient terminator bot, knows that his target is Russia, not Israel. ..."
    "... So Mueller will just have to continue swamp-fishing for potential perjurers ahem witnesses, for the upcoming show trials (to further inflame public opinion against Russia and Russia sympathizers). And continue he will, because (as we all know from Schwarzenegger's flicks), the only way to stop the terminator is to terminate him/it first. ..."
    "... Trump and Kushner have nothing to worry about, even if a smoking gun is found that proves their collusion with Israel. That's because the entire political and media establishment will simply ignore the Israeli connection. ..."
    "... Journalists and politicians will even continue to present Mike Flynn's contacts as evidence of collusion with Russia. They'll keep on repeating that "Flynn lied about his phone call to the Russian ambassador". But there will be no mention of the fact that the purpose of this contact was to support Israel and not any alleged Russian interference. ..."
    "... I think you have it right Brendan. The MSM, Intelligence Community, and Mueller would never go down any path that popularized undue Israeli influence on US foreign policy. "Nothing to see here folks, move along." ..."
    "... The Nice Zionists responsible for the thefts and murders for the past 69 years along with the "Jewish Community" in the rest of the world will resolve the matter so as to be fair to both parties. This is mind-boggling fantasy. ..."
    "... FFS, Netanyahu aired a political commercial in Florida for Romney saying vote for this guy (against Obama)! I mean, it doesn't get any more overtly manipulative than that. Period. End of story. ..."
    "... God, I hate to go all "Israel controls the media" but there it is. Not even a discussion. Just a fact. ..."
    "... I also have to point out that he "fist pumped" Hillary Clinton at Mohammed Ali's eulogy. If he's as astute as he purports to be, he has to know that Hillary would have invaded Syria and killed a few hundred thousand more Syrians for the simple act of defiantly preserving their country. By almost any read of Ali's history, he would have been adamantly ("killing brown people") against that. But there was Silverstein using the platform to promote, arguably, perpetual war. ..."
    "... Yeah I found a couple of Silverstein's statements to be closer to neocon propaganda than reality: "Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby . . ." "Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead." My impression was that the whole "terrible relationship between Obama and Netanyahu" was manufactured by the Israel lobby to bully Obama. However these are small blips within an otherwise solid critique of the Israel lobby's influence. ..."
    Dec 25, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

    The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate December 23, 2017

    While unproven claims of Russian meddling in U.S. politics have whipped Official Washington into a frenzy, much less attention has been paid to real evidence of Israeli interference in U.S. politics, as Dennis J Bernstein describes.

    In investigating Russia's alleged meddling in U.S. politics, special prosecutor Robert Mueller uncovered evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressured the Trump transition team to undermine President Obama's plans to permit the United Nations to censure Israel over its illegal settlement building on the Palestinian West Bank, a discovery referenced in the plea deal with President Trump's first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

    At Netanyahu's behest, Flynn and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly took the lead in the lobbying to derail the U.N. resolution, which Flynn discussed in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (in which the Russian diplomat rebuffed Flynn's appeal to block the resolution).

    I spoke on Dec, 18 with independent journalist and blogger Richard Silverstein, who writes on national security and other issues for a number of blogs at Tikun Olam .

    Dennis Bernstein: A part of Michael Flynn's plea had to do with some actions he took before coming to power regarding Israel and the United Nations. Please explain.

    Richard Silverstein:

    The Obama administration was negotiating in the [UN] Security Council just before he left office about a resolution that would condemn Israeli settlements. Obviously, the Israeli government did not want this resolution to be passed. Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead. They approached Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner became involved in this. While they were in the transition and before having any official capacity, they negotiated with various members of the Security Council to try to quash the settlement resolution.

    One of the issues here which is little known is the Logan Act, which was passed at the foundation of our republic and was designed to prevent private citizens from usurping the foreign policy prerogatives of the executive. It criminalized any private citizen who attempted to negotiate with an enemy country over any foreign policy issue.

    In this case, what Flynn and Kushner were doing was going directly against US foreign policy, because Obama wanted the resolution to pass; He just didn't want to vote for it because that would cross the Israel lobby in the United States. The US finally ended up abstaining on the resolution and it passed 14-0.

    But before that happened, Flynn went to the Russians and to Egypt, both members of the Security Council, and tried to get the resolution delayed. But all of Israel's machinations to derail this resolution failed and that is what Mueller was investigating, the intervention and disruption of American foreign policy by private citizens who had no official role.

    This speaks to the power of the Israel lobby and of Israel itself to disrupt our foreign policy. Very few people have ever been charged with committing an illegal act by advocating on behalf of Israel. That is one of the reasons why this is such an important development. Until now, the lobby has really ruled supreme on the issue of Israel and Palestine in US foreign policy. Now it is possible that a private citizen will actually be made to pay a price for that.

    This is an important development because the lobby till now has run roughshod over our foreign policy in this area and this may act as a restraining order against blatant disruption of US foreign policy by people like this.

    Bernstein: So this information is a part of Michael Flynn's plea. Anyone studying this would learn something about Michael Flynn and it would be part of the prosecution's investigation.

    Silverstein:

    That's absolutely right. One thing to note here is that it is reporters who have raised the issue of the Logan Act, not Mueller or Flynn's people or anyone in the Trump administration. But I do think that Logan is a very important part of this plea deal, even if it is not mentioned explicitly.

    Bernstein: If the special prosecutor had smoking-gun information that the Trump administration colluded with Russia, in the way they colluded with Israel before coming to power, this would be a huge revelation. But it is definitely collusion when it comes to Israel.

    Silverstein: Absolutely. If this were Russia, it would be on the front page of every major newspaper in the United States and the leading story on the TV news. Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby and they have so much influence on US policy concerning Israel, it has managed to stay on the back burner. Only two or three media outlets besides mine have raised this issue of Logan and collusion. Kushner and Flynn may be the first American citizens charged under the Logan Act for interfering on behalf of Israel in our foreign policy. This is a huge issue and it has hardly been raised at all.

    Bernstein: As you know, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has made a career out of investigating the Russia-gate charges. She says that she has read all this material carefully, so she must have read about Flynn and Israel, but I haven't heard her on this issue at all.

    Silverstein:

    Even progressive journalists, who you'd think would be going after this with a vengeance, are frightened off by the fact the lobby really bites back. So, aside from outlets like the Intercept and the Electronic Intifada, there is a lot of hesitation about going after the Israel lobby. People are afraid because they know that there is a high price to be paid. It goes from being purely journalism to being a personal and political vendetta when they get you in their sights. In fact, one of the reasons I feel my blog is so important is that what I do is challenge Israeli policy and Israeli intervention in places where it doesn't belong.

    Bernstein: Jared Kushner is the point man for the Trump administration on Israel. He has talked about having a "vision for peace." Do you think it is a problem that this is someone with a long, close relationship with the prime minister of Israel and, in fact, runs a foundation that invests in the building of illegal Israeli settlements? Might this be problematic?

    Silverstein:

    It is quite nefarious, actually. When Jared Kushner was a teenager, Netanyahu used to stay at the Kushner family home when he visited the United States. This relationship with one of the most extreme right political figures in Israel goes back decades. And it is not just Kushner himself, but all the administration personnel dealing with these so-called peace negotiations, including Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, the ambassador. These are all orthodox Jews who tend to have very nationalist views when it comes to Israel. They all support settlements financially through foundations. These are not honest brokers.

    We could talk at length about the history of US personnel who have been negotiators for Middle East peace. All of them have been favorable to Israel and answerable to the Israel lobby, including Dennis Ross and Makovsky, who served in the last administration. These people are dyed-in-the-wool ultra-nationalist supporters of [Israeli] settlements. They have no business playing any role in negotiating a peace deal.

    My prediction all along has been that these peace negotiations will come to naught, even though they seem to have bought the cooperation of Saudi Arabia, which is something new in the process. The Palestinians can never accept a deal that has been negotiated by Kushner and company because it will be far too favorable to Israel and it will totally neglect the interests of the Palestinians.

    Bernstein: It has been revealed that Kushner supports the building of settlements in the West Bank. Most people don't understand the politics of what is going on there, but it appears to be part of an ethnic cleansing.

    Silverstein:

    The settlements have always been a violation of international law, ever since Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967. The Geneva Conventions direct an occupying power to withdraw from territory that was not its own. In 1967 Israel invaded Arab states and conquered the West Bank and Gaza but this has never been recognized or accepted by any nation until now.

    The fact that Kushner and his family are intimately involved in supporting settlements–as are David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt–is completely outrageous. No member of any previous US administration would have been allowed to participate with these kinds of financial investments in support of settlements. Of course, Trump doesn't understand the concept of conflict of interest because he is heavily involved in such conflicts himself. But no party in the Middle East except Israel is going to consider the US an honest broker and acceptable as a mediator.

    When they announce this deal next January, no one in the Arab World is going to accept it, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia because they have other fish to fry in terms of Iran. The next three years are going to be interesting, supposing Trump lasts out his term. My prediction is that the peace plan will fail and that it will lead to greater violence in the Middle East. It will not simply lead to a vacuum, it will lead to a deterioration in conditions there.

    Bernstein: The Trump transition team was actually approached directly by the Israeli government to try to intercede at the United Nations.

    Silverstein:

    I'm assuming it was Netanyahu who went directly to Kushner and Trump. Now, we haven't yet found out that Trump directly knew about this but it is very hard to believe that Trump didn't endorse this. Now that we know that Mueller has access to all of the emails of the transition team, there is little doubt that they have been able to find their smoking gun. Flynn's plea meant that they basically had him dead to rights. It remains to be seen what will happen with Kushner but I would think that this would play some role in either the prosecution of Kushner or some plea deal.

    Bernstein: The other big story, of course, is the decision by the Trump administration to move the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. Was there any pre-election collusion in that regard and what are the implications?

    Silverstein:

    Well, it's a terrible decision which goes against forty to fifty years of US foreign policy. It also breaches all international understanding. All of our allies in the European Union and elsewhere are aghast at this development. There is now a campaign in the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the announcement, which we will veto, but the next step will be to go to the General Assembly, where such a resolution will pass easily.

    The question is how much anger, violence and disruption this is going to cause around the world, especially in the Arab and Muslim world. This is a slow-burning fuse. It is not going to explode right now. The issue of Jerusalem is so vital that this is not something that is simply going to go away. This is going to be a festering sore in the Muslim world and among Palestinians. We have already seen attacks on Israeli soldiers and citizens and there will be many more.

    As to collusion in all of this, since Trump always said during the campaign that this was what he was going to do, it might be difficult to treat this in the same way as the UN resolution. The UN resolution was never on anybody's radar and nobody knew the role that Trump was playing behind the scenes with that–as opposed to Trump saying right from the get-go that Jerusalem was going to be recognized as the capital of Jerusalem.

    By doing that, they have completely abrogated any Palestinian interest in Jerusalem. This is a catastrophic decision that really excludes the United States from being an honest broker here and shows our true colors in terms of how pro-Israel we are.

    Dennis J Bernstein is a host of "Flashpoints" on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom . You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net .

    Drew Hunkins , December 23, 2017 at 5:37 pm

    As most regular readers of CN already know, some dynamite books on the inordinate amount of influence pro-Israel zealots have on Washington:

    1.) 'The Host and the Parasite' by Greg Felton
    2.) 'Power of Israel in the United States' by James Petras
    3.) 'They Dare to Speak Out' by Paul Findley
    4.) 'The Israel Lobby' by Mearsheimer and Walt
    5.) 'Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power' by James Petras

    I suggest that anyone relatively knew to this neglected topic peruse a few of the aforementioned titles. An inevitable backlash by the citizens of the United States is eventually forthcoming against the Zionist Power Configuration. It's crucial that this impending backlash remain democratic, non-violent, eschews anti-Semitism, and travels in a progressive in direction.

    Annie , December 23, 2017 at 5:47 pm

    Which one would you suggest? I already read "The Israel Lobby."

    Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    Findley and Mearsheimer are certainly worthwhile. I will look for Petras.

    Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:38 pm

    If you haven't already read them, the end/footnotes in "The Israel Lobby" are more illuminating.

    SocraticGadfly , December 23, 2017 at 6:10 pm

    That influence is also shown, of course, by the fact that Obama waited until the midnight hours of his tenure and after the 2016 election to even start working on this resolution.

    SocraticGadfly , December 23, 2017 at 6:05 pm

    While I think Bibi is an idiot, I also think the Logan Act is overinvoked, overstated, probably of dubious legal value and also of dubious constitutional value.

    In short, especially because Trump had been elected, though not yet inaugurated, I think he is not at all guilty of a Logan Act violation. This is nothing close to Spiro Agnew calling Anna Chenault from the airplane in August 1968.

    Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    Probably true, although evidence of extreme collusion with Israel eliminates any case against Russia, with whom we have far more reasons for amity. Bringing out the Israel collusion greatly improves public understanding of political corruption. Perhaps it will awaken some to the Agnew-Chennault betrayal of the people of the US.

    JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:32 am

    It's ironic that Russia-gate is turning out to be Israel's effort to distract attention from its complete control over the Democratic party in 2016. From Israeli billionaires behind the scenes to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the helm.

    The leaked emails showed the corruption plainly, and based on the ACTUAL evidence (recorded download time), most likely came from a highly disgruntled insider. The picture was starting to spill into public view. I'd estimate the real huge worry was that if this stuff came out, it could bring out other Israeli secrets, like their involvement in 9/11. That would mean actual jail time. Might be hard to buy your way out of that no matter how much money you have.

    Annie , December 23, 2017 at 10:48 pm

    The Logan act states that anyone who negotiates with an enemy of the US, and Israel is not defined as an enemy.

    Annie , December 23, 2017 at 6:59 pm

    The Logan act would not apply here, although I wish it would. I don't think anyone has been convicted based on this act, and they were part of a transition team not to mention the Logan act clearly states a private citizen who attempts to negotiate with an enemy state, and that certainly doesn't apply to Israel. In this administration their bias is so blatant that they can install Kushner as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestine peace process while his family has a close relationship with Netanyahu, and he runs a foundation that invests in the building of illegal settlements which goes against the Geneva conventions. Hopefully Trump's blatant siding with Israel will receive a lot of backlash as did his plan to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

    I also found that so called progressive internet sites don't cover this the way they should.

    Al Pinto , December 24, 2017 at 9:16 am

    @Annie

    "The Logan act would not apply here, although I wish it would."

    You and me both .

    From the point of starting to read this article, it has been in my mind that the Logan act would not apply here. After reading most of the comments, it became clear that not many people viewed this as such. Yes, Joe Tedesky did as well

    The UN is the "clearing house" for international politics, where countries freely contact each other's for getting support for their cause behind the scene. The support sought after could be voting for or against the resolution on hand. At times, as Israel did, countries reach out to perceived enemies as well, if they could not secure sufficient support for their cause. This is the normal activity of the UN diplomacy.

    Knowing that the outgoing administration would not support its cause, Israel reached out to the incoming administration to delay the vote on the UN resolution. I fail to see anything wrong with Israel's action even in this case; Israel is not an enemy state to the US. As such, there has been no violation of any acts by the incoming administration, even if they tried to secure veto vote for Israel. I do not like it, but no action by Mueller in this case is correct.

    People, just like the article in itself, implying that the Logan Act applies in this case are just plain wrong. Not just wrong, but their anti-Israel bias is in plain view.

    Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state. Even then, Russia contacting the incoming administration is not a violation of the Logan Act. That is just normal diplomacy in the background between countries. What would be a violation is that the contacted official acted on the behalf of Russia and tried to influence the outgoing administration's decision. That is what the Mueller investigation tries to prove hopelessly

    Herman , December 24, 2017 at 10:54 am

    "Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state." So that is how it works, the White House says it is an enemy state and therefore it is. The so called declaration is the hammer used for trying to make contact with Russia a criminal offense. We are not at war with Russia although we see our leaders doing their best to provoke Russia into one.

    Annie , December 24, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    Thanks for your reply. When I read the article and it referenced the Logan Act, which I am familiar with in that I've read about it before, I was surprised that Bernstein and Silverstein even brought it up because it so obviously does not apply in this case, since Israel is not considered an enemy state. Many have even referenced it as flimsy when it comes to convictions against those in Trump's transition team who had contacts with Russia. No one has ever been convicted under the Logan Act.

    Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:41 pm

    The Logan Act either should apply equally, or not apply at all. This "Russia-gate" hype seems to apply it selectively.

    mrtmbrnmn , December 23, 2017 at 7:36 pm

    You guys are blinded by the light. The Israel connection disclosed by the malpracticer hack Mueller in the recent Flynn-flam just made Trump bullet-proof (so to speak).

    There is no doubt that Trump is Bibi's and the Saudi's ventriloquist dummy and Jared has been an Israel agent of influence since he was 12.

    But half the Dementedcrat Sore Loser Brigade will withdraw from the field of battle (not to mention most of the GOP living dead too) if publically and noisily tying Israel to Trump's tail becomes the only route to his removal. Which it would have to be, as there is no there there regarding the yearlong trumped-up PutinPutinPutin waterboarding of Trump.

    Immediately (if not sooner) the mighty (pro-Israel) Donor Bank of Singer (Paul), Saban (Haim), Sachs (Goldman) & Adelson (Sheldon), would change their passwords and leave these politicians/beggars with empty begging bowls. End of $ordid $tory.

    alley cat , December 23, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    So Mueller caught Kushner and Flynn red-handed, sabotaging the Obama administration? What of it? He can't use that evidence, because it would inculpate the Zionist neocons that are orchestrating his farcical, Stalinist witchhunt. And Mueller, being an efficient terminator bot, knows that his target is Russia, not Israel.

    Mueller can use that evidence of sabotage and/or obstruction of justice to try to coerce false confessions from Kushner and Flynn. But what are the chances of that, barring short stayovers for them at some CIA black site?

    So Mueller will just have to continue swamp-fishing for potential perjurers ahem witnesses, for the upcoming show trials (to further inflame public opinion against Russia and Russia sympathizers). And continue he will, because (as we all know from Schwarzenegger's flicks), the only way to stop the terminator is to terminate him/it first.

    Leslie F. , December 23, 2017 at 8:28 pm

    He used it, along with other info, to turn flip Flynn and possibly can use it the same way again Kusher. Not all evidence has end up in court to be useful.

    JWalters , December 23, 2017 at 8:40 pm

    This is an extremely important story, excellently reported. All the main "facts" Americans think they know about Israel are, amazingly, flat-out lies.

    1. Israel was NOT victimized by powerful Arab armies. Israel overpowered and victimized a defenseless, civilian Arab population. Military analysts knew the Arab armies were in poor shape and would not be able to resist the zionist army.

    2. Muslim "citizens" of Israel do NOT have all the same rights as Jews.

    3. Israelis are NOT under threat from the indigineous Palestinians, but Palestinians are under constant threats of theft and death from the Israelis.

    4. Israel does NOT share America's most fundamental values, which rest on the principle of equal human rights for all.

    Maintaining such a blanket of major lies for decades requires immense power. And this power would have to be exercised "under the radar" to be effective. That requires even more power. Both Congress and the press have to be controlled. How much power does it take to turn "Progressive Rachel" into "Tel Aviv Rachel"? To turn "It Takes a Village" Hillary into "Slaughter a Village" Hillary? It takes immense power AND ruthlessness.

    War profiteers have exactly this combination of immense war profits and the ruthlessness to victimize millions of people.
    "War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror"
    http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

    Vast war profits easily afford to buy the mainstream media. And controlling campaign contributions for members of Congress is amazingly cheap in the big picture. Such a squalid sale of souls.

    And when simple bribery is not enough, they ruin a person's life through blackmail or false character assassination. And if those don't work they use death threats, including to family members, and finally murder. Their ruthlessness is unrestrained. John Perkins has described these tactics in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".

    For readers who haven't seen it, here is an excellent riff on the absurdly overwhelming evidence for Israel's influence compared to that of Russia, at a highly professional news and analysis website run by Jewish anti-Zionists.
    "Let's talk about Russian influence"
    http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/about-russian-influence/

    mike k , December 23, 2017 at 8:44 pm

    Hitler and Mussolini, Trump and Netanyahoo – matches made in Hell. These characters are so obviously, blatantly evil that it is deeply disturbing that people fail to see that, and instead go to great lengths to find some complicated flaws in these monsters.

    mike k , December 23, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    Keep it simple folks. No need for complex analyses. Just remember that these characters as simply as evil as it gets, and proceed from there. These asinine shows that portray mobsters as complex human beings are dangerously deluding. If you want to be victimized by these types, this kind of overthinking is just the way to go.

    Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 9:00 pm

    There is a modern theory of fiction that insists upon the portrayal of inconsistency in characters, both among the good guys and the bad guys. It is useful to show how those who do wrongs have made specific kinds of errors that make them abnormal, and that those who do right are not perfect but nonetheless did the right thing. Instead it is used by commercial writers to argue that the good are really bad, and the bad are really good, which is of course the philosophy of oligarchy-controlled mass publishers.

    Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:54 pm

    A very important article by Dennis Bernstein, and it is very appropriate that non-zionist Jews are active against the extreme zionist corruption of our federal government. I am sure that they are reviled by the zionists for interfering with the false denunciations of racism against the opponents of zionism. Indeed critics face a very nearly totalitarian power of zionism, which in league with MIC/WallSt opportunism has displaced democracy altogether in the US.

    backwardsevolution , December 23, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    A nice little set-up by the Obama administration. Perhaps it was entrapment? Who set it up? Flynn and Kushner should have known better to fall for it. So at the end of his Presidency, Obama suddenly gets balls and wants to slap down Israel? Yeah, right.

    Nice to have leverage over people, though, isn't it? If you're lucky and play your cards right, you might even be lucky enough to land an impeachment.

    Of course, I'm just being cynical. No one would want to overturn democracy, would they?

    Certainly people like Comey, Brenner, Clinton, Clapper, Mueller, Rosenstein wouldn't want that, would they?

    Joe Tedesky , December 23, 2017 at 10:33 pm

    I just can't see any special prosecutor investigating Israel-Gate. Between what the Zionist donors donate to these creepy politicians, too what goods they have on these same mischievous politicians, I just can't see any investigation into Israel's collusion with the Trump Administration going anywhere. Netanyahu isn't Putin, and Russia isn't Israel. Plus, Israel is considered a U.S. ally, while Russia is being marked as a Washington rival. Sorry, this news regarding Israel isn't going to be ranted on about for the next 18 months, like the MSM has done with Russia, because our dear old Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, or so they tell us. So, don't get your hopes up.

    JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:33 am

    It's true the Israelis have America's politicians by the ears and the balls. But as this story gets better known, politicians will start getting questions at their town meetings. Increasingly the politicians will gag on what Israel is force-feeding them, until finally they reach a critical mass of vomit in Congress.

    Joe Tedesky , December 24, 2017 at 11:12 am

    I hope you are right JWalters. Although relying on a Zionist controlled MSM doesn't give hope for the news getting out properly. Again I hope you are right JWalters. Joe

    Jeff Blankfort , December 24, 2017 at 12:18 am

    Actually, Netanyahu was so desperate to have the resolution pulled and not voted on that he reached out to any country that might help him after the foreign minister of New Zealand, one of its co-sponsors refused to pull the plug after a testy phone exchange with the Israeli PM ending up threatening an Israeli boycott oturnef the KIwis.

    He then turned to his buddy, Vladimir Putin, who owed him a favor for having Israel's UN delegate absent himself for the UNGA vote on sanctioning Russia after its annexation of Crimea.

    Putin then called Russia's UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, since deceased, and asked him to get the other UNSC ambassadors to postpone the vote until Trump took over the White House but the other ambassadors weren't buying it. Given Russia's historic public position regarding the settlements, Churkin had no choice to vote Yes with the others.

    This story was reported in detail in the Israeli press but blacked out in the US which, due to Zionist influence on the media, does not want the American public to know about the close ties between Putin and Netanyahu which has led to the Israeli PM making five state visits there in the last year and a half.

    Had Clinton won the White House we can assume that there would have been no US veto. That Netanyahu apparently knew in advance that the US planned to veto the resolution was, I suspect, leaked to the Israelis by US delegate Samantha Power, who was clearly unhappy at having to abstain.

    Abe , December 24, 2017 at 12:39 am

    The Israeli Prime Minister made five state visits to Russia in the last year and a half to make sure the Russians don't accidentally on purpose blast Israeli warplanes from the sky over Syria (like they oughtta). Putin tries not to snicker when Netanyahu bloviates ad nauseum about the purported "threat" posed by Iran.

    argos , December 24, 2017 at 7:00 am

    He thinks Putin is a RATS ASS like the yankee government

    JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:34 am

    "This story was reported in detail in the Israeli press but blacked out in the US"

    We've just had a whole cluster of big stories involving Israel that have all been essentially blacked out in the US press. e.g.
    "Dionne and Shields ignore the Adelson in the room"
    http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/jerusalem-israels-capital

    This is not due to chance. There is no doubt that the US mainstream media is wholly controlled by the Israelis.

    alley cat , December 24, 2017 at 4:49 am

    "He [Netanyahu] then turned to his buddy, Vladimir Putin "

    Jeff, that characterization of Putin and Netanyahu's relationship makes no sense, since the Russians have consistently opposed Zionism and Putin has been no exception, having spoiled Zionist plans for the destruction of Syria.

    "Had Clinton won the White House we can assume that there would have been no US veto."

    Not sure where you're going with that, since the US vote was up to Obama, who wanted to get some payback for all of Bibi's efforts to sabotage Obama's treaty with Iran.

    For the record, Zionism has had no more rabid supporter than the Dragon Lady. If we're going to make assumptions, we could start by assuming that if she had won the White House we'd all be dead by now, thanks to her obsession (at the instigation of her Zionist/neocon sponsors) with declaring no-fly zones in Syria.

    Brendan , December 24, 2017 at 6:18 am

    Trump and Kushner have nothing to worry about, even if a smoking gun is found that proves their collusion with Israel. That's because the entire political and media establishment will simply ignore the Israeli connection.

    Journalists and politicians will even continue to present Mike Flynn's contacts as evidence of collusion with Russia. They'll keep on repeating that "Flynn lied about his phone call to the Russian ambassador". But there will be no mention of the fact that the purpose of this contact was to support Israel and not any alleged Russian interference.

    Skip Scott , December 24, 2017 at 7:59 am

    I think you have it right Brendan. The MSM, Intelligence Community, and Mueller would never go down any path that popularized undue Israeli influence on US foreign policy. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."

    argos , December 24, 2017 at 6:57 am

    The zionist will stop at nothing to control the middle east with American taxpayers money/military equiptment its a win win for the zionist they control America lock stock and barrel a pity though it is a great country to be led by a jewish entity.

    Herman , December 24, 2017 at 10:47 am

    What will Israel-Palestine look like twenty years from now? Will it remain an apartheid regime, a regime without any Palestinians, or something different. The Trump decision, which the world rejects, brings the issue of "final" settlement to the fore. In a way we can go back to the thirties and the British Mandate. Jewish were fleeing Europe, many coming to Palestine. The British, on behalf of the Zionists, were delaying declaring Palestine a state with control of its own affairs. Seeing the mass immigration and chafing at British foot dragging, the Arabs rebelled, What happened then was that the British, responding to numerous pressures notably war with Germany, acted by granting independence and granting Palestine control of its borders.

    With American pressure and the mass exodus of Jews from Europe, Jews defied the British resulting in Jewish resistance. What followed then was a UN plan to divide the land with a Jerusalem an international city administered by the UN. The Arabs rebelled and lost much of what the UN plan provided and Jerusalem as an international city was scrapped.

    Will there be a second serious attempt to settle the issue of the land and the status of Jerusalem? Will there be a serious move toward a single state? How will the matter of Jerusalem be resolved. The two state solution has always been a fantasy and acquiescence of Palestinians to engage in this charade exposes their leaders to charges of posturing for perks. Imagined options could go on and on but will there be serious options placed before the world community or will the boots on the ground Israeli policies continue?

    As I have commented before, it will most probably be the Jewish community in Israel and the world that shapes the future and if the matter is to be resolved that is fair to both parties, it will be they that starts the ball rolling.

    Zachary Smith , December 24, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    As I have commented before, it will most probably be the Jewish community in Israel and the world that shapes the future and if the matter is to be resolved that is fair to both parties, it will be they that starts the ball rolling.

    The Nice Zionists responsible for the thefts and murders for the past 69 years along with the "Jewish Community" in the rest of the world will resolve the matter so as to be fair to both parties. This is mind-boggling fantasy.

    Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 5:56 pm

    Truly mind-boggling. Ahistorical, and as you say, fantasy.

    Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 5:48 pm

    FFS, Netanyahu aired a political commercial in Florida for Romney saying vote for this guy (against Obama)! I mean, it doesn't get any more overtly manipulative than that. Period. End of story.

    $50K of Facebook ads about puppies pales in comparison to that blatant, prima facia, public manipulation. God, I hate to go all "Israel controls the media" but there it is. Not even a discussion. Just a fact.

    Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:11 pm

    Just for the record, Richard Silverstein blocked me on Twitter because I pointed out that he slammed someone who was suggesting that the Assad government was fighting for its (Syria's) life by fighting terrorists. Actually, more specifically, because of that he read my "Free Palestine" bio on Twitter and called me a Hamas supporter (no Hamas mentioned) and a "moron" for some seeming contradiction.

    I also have to point out that he "fist pumped" Hillary Clinton at Mohammed Ali's eulogy. If he's as astute as he purports to be, he has to know that Hillary would have invaded Syria and killed a few hundred thousand more Syrians for the simple act of defiantly preserving their country. By almost any read of Ali's history, he would have been adamantly ("killing brown people") against that. But there was Silverstein using the platform to promote, arguably, perpetual war.

    Silverstein is probably not a good (ie. consistent) arbiter of Israeli impact on US politics. Just sayin'.

    I wish it were otherwise.

    Taras 77 , December 24, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    https://www.therussophile.org/virus-found-inside-dnc-server-is-linked-to-a-company-based-in-pakistan.html/

    This may be a tad ot but it relates to the alleged hacking of the DNC, the role debbie wasserman schultz plays in the spy ring (awan bros) in house of rep servers: I have long suspected that mossad has their fingers in this entire mess. FWIW

    Good site, BTW.

    Zachary Smith , December 24, 2017 at 7:35 pm

    I can't recall why I removed the Tikun Olam site from my bookmarks – it happened quite a while back. Generally I do that when I feel the blogger crossed some kind of personal red line. Something Mr. Silverstein wrote put him over that line with me.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/us/06leak.html?hp

    In the course of a search I found that at the neocon NYT. Mr. Silverstein claims several things I find unbelievable, and from that alone I wonder about his ultimate motives. I may be excessively touchy about this, but that's how it is.

    Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    Yeah Zachary, "wondering about ultimate motives" is probably a good way to put it/his views. He's obviously conflicted, if not deferential in some aspects of Israeli policy. He really was a hero of mine, but now I just don't get whether what he says is masking something or a true belief. He says some good stuff, but, but, but .

    P. Michael Garber , December 24, 2017 at 11:54 pm

    Yeah I found a couple of Silverstein's statements to be closer to neocon propaganda than reality: "Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby . . ." "Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead." My impression was that the whole "terrible relationship between Obama and Netanyahu" was manufactured by the Israel lobby to bully Obama. However these are small blips within an otherwise solid critique of the Israel lobby's influence.

    [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
    "... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
    "... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
    "... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
    "... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
    "... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
    "... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
    "... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
    "... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
    Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
    1. President Trump was not indicted, nor did Mueller recommend an indictment against him for collusion or obstruction.
    2. There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
    3. The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
    4. While nearly three dozen people were charged , including a few close to the president or who worked for his campaign, no one in proximity to the president was formally charged with colluding with Russia. Most, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn or campaign adviser George Papadopoulos , were charged with process crimes or felonies unrelated to the main case, as in Paul Manafort 's secretive, multimillion-dollar foreign lobbying spree through Ukraine.

    *********

    Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.

    An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill

    ------------

    Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been defeated.

    The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections.

    At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.

    The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search through Trump's life trying to find criminality.

    AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin. pl

    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435394-the-wisdom-of-trumps-lawyers-and-the-accountability-that-must-follow

    Posted at 09:00 AM in government , Justice , Politics | Permalink | 20 Comments


    David Habakkuk , 14 hours ago

    I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy.

    It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.

    The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this side.

    In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.

    Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years it patently has not been.

    Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.

    English Outsider -> David Habakkuk , 12 hours ago
    Mr Habakkuk,

    I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -

    "They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. "

    What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?

    Mark Logan -> David Habakkuk , 9 hours ago

    The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated. The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
    English Outsider -> Mark Logan , 6 hours ago
    I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.

    Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.

    With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.

    Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 6 hours ago
    Ex?
    Mad_Max22 , 11 hours ago
    An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC 1001.

    The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would figure it out.

    Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.

    They couldn't know that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted" positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."

    Perhaps this defense could be overcome by demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible be so stupid... maybe.

    And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings, all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.

    So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the country is so uncertain.

    I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right. It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!

    Eric Newhill , 12 hours ago
    I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or somehow intimated by Trump.

    The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;

    and that + all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the criminal cases under way?

    robt willmann , 3 hours ago
    seesee2468,

    On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6 minute, 5 second mark, he says--

    "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result."

    https://www.c-span.org/vide...

    Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.

    However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.

    Divadab Newton , 10 hours ago
    It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)

    I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?

    Walrus , 13 hours ago
    Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?

    I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs to be restitution.

    To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in suicide or worse - so far.

    ugluk2 , 3 hours ago
    Matt Taibbi on how the press has destroyed its credibility.

    https://taibbi.substack.com...

    Taras77 , 8 hours ago
    I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.

    I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!

    Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.

    And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.

    MP98 , 12 hours ago
    Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting? The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the Democrat-media party. Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
    Greco , 12 hours ago
    The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
    Fred W , 12 hours ago
    Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report. It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the campaign.

    That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp of the real nature of normal political process.

    Fred -> Fred W , 4 hours ago
    "The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."

    Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?

    seesee2468 -> Fred W , 6 hours ago
    Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
    Pat Lang Mod -> seesee2468 , 6 hours ago
    I cannot.
    peter hodges , 12 hours ago
    Nothing will happen. In fact, the way things have been going, Trump will make Mueller the next AG.

    [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
    "... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
    "... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
    "... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
    "... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
    "... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
    "... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
    "... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
    Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Ken , Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | link

    Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

    The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup.

    This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.
    https://consentfactory.org/2019/03/21/mueller-dammerung/

    GeorgeV , Mar 23, 2019 2:13:42 PM | link

    It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be barred from public office or the media forever.

    As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!

    the pair , Mar 23, 2019 2:14:43 PM | link
    sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.

    i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.

    ger , Mar 23, 2019 2:16:08 PM | link
    I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends). No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
    DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM | link
    @dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
    That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)

    Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)

    Nathan Mulcahy , Mar 23, 2019 2:31:06 PM | link
    "very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".

    I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit (about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is chanting "give me more, give me more...".

    Disgusting! sorry for the pessimistic rant.

    renfro , Mar 23, 2019 2:56:18 PM | link
    The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.

    However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
    And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC, EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn.

    The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and political circles.

    The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.

    BraveNewWorld , Mar 23, 2019 3:00:34 PM | link
    b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing this.

    I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.

    Lozion , Mar 23, 2019 3:09:29 PM | link
    One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis, etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
    Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM | link
    The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier, moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
    dh-mtl , Mar 23, 2019 3:11:13 PM | link
    Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.

    Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole, are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.

    Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason of the highest order.

    Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved. None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved. Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually societal collapse.

    In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:

    - The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent 737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry, in an industry where reputation is everything.

    - The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover from that crisis.

    - This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions, (the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and the ability to maintain peace.

    The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears, and societal decline sets in.

    It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators.

    English Outsider , Mar 23, 2019 3:27:38 PM | link
    The pair @ 3.

    Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of the BBC news, we're in information control territory.

    But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.

    In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media. Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the shifting currents within that political elite.

    So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think. In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing and what they intend to do.

    worldblee , Mar 23, 2019 3:28:20 PM | link
    The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty, supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their daily fodder for conversation...
    ben , Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | link
    renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."

    Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues the
    American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an infrastructure
    plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.

    The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to distract, and they've done it well.

    The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same ilk.

    Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...

    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | link
    I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
    1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.

    2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary for over 25 years.

    3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.

    When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card industry.

    4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her campaign.

    5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters activist; and she called whites "deplorables".

    Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.

    6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.

    IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:

    > hiring Manafort;

    > calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;

    > talking about Putin in a admiring way.

    And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:

    > served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;

    > distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;

    > served as a device for settling scores:

    - Assange isolated
    (Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");

    - Michael Flynn forced to resign
    (because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).

    hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM | link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
    Jen , Mar 23, 2019 4:01:43 PM | link
    BraveNewWorld @ 11:

    If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases. This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 - 2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.

    The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.

    As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.

    james , Mar 23, 2019 4:16:03 PM | link
    thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath @2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."

    the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance.. instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is still on track...

    @19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..

    WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 4:36:17 PM | link
    What Difference Does it Make?
    They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their deals for civilian projects in the Med.
    Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
    Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:37:43 PM | link
    What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes about Trump, Russia.
    Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!

    But remember folks, we here was always right...
    The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right.
    https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-mueller-report-is-in-they-were-wrong-we-were-right-a915d23a6d82

    iv> also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

    Posted by: Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

    also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

    Posted by: Zanon | Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

    Russ , Mar 23, 2019 4:41:30 PM | link
    People are forgetting to call Dembot agent Wheeler "FBI rat Wheeler", or just Rat Wheeler. Or EmptySqueal.
    karlof1 , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:23 PM | link
    Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!

    During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen. Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.

    Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM | link
    The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.

    Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room yelling that the house is on fire.

    Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?

    Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:52:41 PM | link
    Scotch Bingeington

    Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing happend:

    If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves

    defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity. Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.


    https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1109235461430657026
    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:00:23 PM | link
    Who will say that the King has no clothes?

    The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong.

    Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already know.

    It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.

    And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.

    WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 5:08:16 PM | link
    The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years

    Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4

    You people don't get it do you?
    'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell swoop....

    steve , Mar 23, 2019 5:11:08 PM | link
    Deep state makes the warren commish seem authoritative
    john , Mar 23, 2019 5:13:37 PM | link
    the rot in DC is palpable. this whole russiagate fiasco's been like some kind of really bad audition for deeper state kabuki...what's next?

    keeping brand Trump alive.

    Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 5:22:08 PM | link
    Matt Taibbi:

    It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD
    The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it

    https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

    Pft , Mar 23, 2019 5:38:41 PM | link
    Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel) and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.

    That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want something covered up? Put Mueller on it.

    To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont believe. Lol

    Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China trademarks .

    The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.

    tuyzentfloot , Mar 23, 2019 5:46:31 PM | link
    The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it onto cable tv?
    It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
    and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will become true after all.
    JOHN CHUCKMAN , Mar 23, 2019 5:48:55 PM | link

    "Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.

    When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight, you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar, one with a great deal of blood on her hands.

    My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new credibility.

    The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.

    And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.


    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-americas-democrats-launch-lawsuit-against-trump-and-russia-and-wiki-leaks-over-election-hilarious-this-is-a-country-fit-to-dominate-the-earth-they-cant-manage-their-own/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/john-chuckman-comment-yet-more-ignorant-gossip-and-innuendo-about-trump-and-russia-this-all-reminds-me-of-insane-past-american-campaigns-against-procter-gamble-or-harry-potter-charging-devil/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/john-chuckman-comment-what-americas-neocons-represent-for-arms-control-agreements-such-as-the-inf-with-russia-and-heres-the-deadly-weakness-in-trumps-psychology-that-has-allowed-neocons-to-ta/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/john-chuckman-comment-a-comment-rightly-asks-with-trump-doing-everything-the-establishment-wants-why-do-they-still-want-to-get-rid-of-him-i-think-these-are-the-essential-reasons/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/john-chuckman-comment-some-very-dark-thoughts-of-where-america-is-going-in-its-relations-with-russia-and-iran-i-do-think-we-live-in-dangerous-times-and-they-are-deliberately-manufactured/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/john-chuckman-comment-complete-degradation-of-a-self-styled-great-nation-which-allows-paid-thugs-to-use-poison-gas-to-give-it-an-excuse-for-still-more-killing-the-dark-place-we-are-brought-to-by-tr/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-strange-phenomenon-of-trump-and-americas-neocons-a-man-who-imagines-himself-a-great-leader-leading-nothing-and-he-still-has-pathetic-followers-who-think-hes-fi/

    https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-new-phony-book-on-trump-and-russia-whats-really-going-on-with-all-the-mumbo-jumbo-insanity-in-america-the-real-target-aint-trump-neocons-and-russia/


    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:59:03 PM | link
    Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.

    No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.

    It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.

    So funny.

    Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his Administration.

    Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.

    The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate. Lets just blame it all on Hillary.

    Welcome to the rabbithole.

    Copeland , Mar 23, 2019 6:23:41 PM | link
    Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have succumbed.

    As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."

    Jonathan , Mar 23, 2019 7:02:54 PM | link
    @37 Jackrabbit,

    Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for .

    Arioch , Mar 23, 2019 7:06:26 PM | link
    Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment, then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!

    It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited from it", highly likely!

    Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly likely.

    fast freddy , Mar 23, 2019 7:12:20 PM | link
    There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
    Peter , Mar 23, 2019 7:16:00 PM | link
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHo6cW0HVkQ DISGRACEFUL WILL WE EVER SAY NO?
    vk , Mar 23, 2019 7:24:32 PM | link
    @ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | 18

    We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.

    It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.

    If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win because the DNC threw all its weight against him.

    Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one: if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the bits you want.

    I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment" acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American people (or a signficant part of it).

    But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.

    It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and can be balkanized.

    Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 7:30:58 PM | link
    counterpoint: If the Mueller report does not EXPLICITLY exonerate Trump, it does NOT exonerate Trump.
    wagelaborer , Mar 23, 2019 7:43:06 PM | link
    There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
    Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
    The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only spun onto new hysteria.
    Rob , Mar 23, 2019 7:58:15 PM | link
    As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and Republicans.
    Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 8:08:59 PM | link
    "...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."

    Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.

    Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 23, 2019 8:10:36 PM | link
    Ben nails it in "Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | 17".

    Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.

    A case of divide and conquer against the population

    This time it was a fabricated scandal.

    Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements, wearing down relations.

    The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like that).

    Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.

    Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and effort.

    Management by crisis

    The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through spam.

    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 8:11:22 PM | link
    Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.

    Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.

    I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was (mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .

    <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

    And we have seen other 'shows' also, like:

    > White Helmets;

    >> Skripal;

    >> the Kavanaugh hearings;

    >> pulling troops out of Syria.

    aspnaz , Mar 23, 2019 8:19:24 PM | link
    My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
    mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 8:50:48 PM | link
    Jackrabbit @18
    So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do nationalist.
    I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
    Cortes , Mar 23, 2019 8:51:27 PM | link
    As usual, a fine essay. Thank you.

    A couple of suggestions?

    The headline would be better worded "Russiagate really is finished."

    And the reaction at Colonel Lang's site makes interesting reading.

    Les , Mar 23, 2019 8:55:52 PM | link
    They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration, the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
    paul , Mar 23, 2019 8:56:02 PM | link
    The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:00:35 PM | link
    vk @43

    We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
    Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

    If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
    Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

    Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

    Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

    The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

    Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns). Bernie refused.

    Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
    Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

    What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

    Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

    And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:02:11 PM | link
    Sorry, here's a more readable version:

    We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
    Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

    If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
    Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

    Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

    Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

    The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

    Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns) . Bernie refused.

    Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
    Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

    What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

    Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

    And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

    mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:06:00 PM | link
    Jonathan @39
    Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.
    Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:13:59 PM | link
    mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.

    Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a thin margin.

    Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 23, 2019 9:14:04 PM | link
    Gosh and Blimey!
    Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
    Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...

    From Xymphora March 21, 2019.

    "Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):

    "Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
    Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34 percent from gentiles.
    Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50 donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
    Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from Jewish givers.
    So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about it: 76 percent is a lot."

    Erelis , Mar 23, 2019 9:35:12 PM | link
    Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state. And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in 2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is not confronting Putin"...
    daffyDuct , Mar 23, 2019 9:40:02 PM | link

    Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow, troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.

    mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:54:13 PM | link
    Jackrabbit,

    I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.

    I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other problems, but it still wasn't enough.

    I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.

    jadan , Mar 23, 2019 9:56:37 PM | link

    Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove.

    It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.

    It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better.

    [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
    "... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
    "... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
    "... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
    "... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
    "... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
    "... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
    "... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
    "... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
    "... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
    "... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
    "... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
    "... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
    "... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
    "... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
    Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all roads lead to Hillary Clinton.

    Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including 'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.

    Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of nothing. It did this admirably.

    It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of their neoliberal, globalist agenda.

    Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant land.

    Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry list of purposes to cover it:

    1. Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
    2. Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect the outcome of the election
    3. Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
    4. Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our political system
    5. Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
    6. Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
    7. Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them against him through prosecutor overreach.

    Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.

    Burnin' Down da House

    Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has, the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/efHCdKb5UWc

    Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.

    Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.

    And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.

    Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.

    Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other politicians.

    Vote Your Pocketbook

    With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.

    And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless.

    They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after they get over their denial.

    Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands for re-election.

    The Wolves Beckon

    The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk. Oops....

    ... ... ...

    The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."

    It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down led to this moment.

    The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms. But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.

    Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.

    We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.

    And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.


    Jdhank , 27 minutes ago link

    Hillary ain't enough!

    We demand Comey, Brennan, Bill, the Podesta's, and the prancing little effiminate pony himself.

    consider me gone , 29 minutes ago link

    I'm surprised Donna Brazier and Pedo Podesta are still breathing. Maybe Hillary got God. Or gin.

    Koba the Dread , 32 minutes ago link

    Hillary is the epitome of envy.

    Your spelling is atrocious. Let me correct it.

    Hillary is the epitome of evil.

    There, that does it.

    KnitDame , 1 hour ago link

    I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?

    And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be bankrupted by legal fees.

    According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.

    This insanity and abuse of power has got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship, tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating methods, and NOTHING is being done.

    2willies , 1 hour ago link

    You forgot Rachel

    TeraByte , 1 hour ago link

    "all roads lead to Hillary Clinton"

    Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected.

    Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected".

    Dragon HAwk , 1 hour ago link

    Hillary is expendable.

    God I Love Feel Good Stories.

    East Indian , 1 hour ago link

    And, oh, I almost forgot.

    HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH

    Neochrome , 1 hour ago link

    It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible.

    When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.

    [Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

    Highly recommended!
    Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    "The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: `[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.' |"

    From page one of the Barr letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. https://www.scribd.com/document/402973432/AG-March-24-2019-Letter-to-House-and-Senate-Judiciary-Committees#from_embed Some call this merely the "end of the beginning." Further revelations will be emerging, including from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. " J ustice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday his office is still investigating possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and FBI in their investigation into President Trump and associates of his 2016 campaign," reported the Washington Examiner this week.

    Decameron , 32 minutes ago

    However, AG Barr's letter retells the tale of Russian Interference in our elections, according to Mr. Mueller and his team's investigation and indictments. So, the anti-Trump camp will undoubtedly continue to question the 2016 election results, and blame the defeat of HRC on the "Reds." One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

    [Mar 20, 2019] John McCain Associate Provided Dossier to Obama National Security Council Breitbart

    Mar 20, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

    David Kramer, a long-time advisor to late Senator John McCain, revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.

    In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander.

    In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department. Senator McCain asked me to meet with both of them to see if this was being taken seriously in the government," Kramer said.

    "And Senator McCain asked you to meet with them?" Kramer was asked to clarify.

    "Yes, just to see if this was being taken seriously. I think he wanted to do -- this was his kind of due diligence before he went to Director Comey."

    Kramer testified that in his conversations with Nuland and Wallander he was told by both of them that each were aware of the dossier and that Nuland "thought Steele was a serious person."

    Kramer revealed that he gave a copy of the dossier to Wallander, who was familiar with the contents but did not have a copy.

    "I had a subsequent conversation with Ms. Wallander in which I gave her a copy of the document. That was probably around New Year's," he said.

    "She had not seen it herself until I had shown it to her," Kramer added. "She had heard about it. And she didn't know the status of it."

    In the same testimony, the McCain associate revealed that he held a meeting about the dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.

    BuzzFeed infamously published Steele's full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

    Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey but he refused repeated requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office by this reporter.

    In his book published last year, McCain maintained he had an "obligation" to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he would even do it again. "Anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell," McCain exclaimed.

    Kramer, meanwhile, also said that he briefed others reporters on the dossier contents, including CNN's Carl Bernstein, in an effort to have the anti-Trump charges verified.

    The same day BuzzFeed released the full dossier, CNN first reported the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified documents presented one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.

    Kramer said that he believed McCain was sought out in order to provide credibility to the dossier claims.

    "I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat, I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack," Kramer stated.

    The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm.

    Kramer's testimony sheds a new light on the role of the Obama administration in disseminating the largely-discredited dossier that was reportedly involved in the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump campaign and unsubstantiated claims of Russian collusion. Also Comey cited the dossier as evidence in a successful FISA application to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a former adviser to President Trump's 2016 campaign. The testimony also revealed how McCain was utilized to give the wild dossier charges a credibility boost.

    Nuland and dossier

    Nuland's specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.

    In their book , "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," authors and reporters by Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier's claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.

    Steele sought out Rome-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, with whom he had worked on a previous case. Before Gaeta met with Steele on July 5, 2016, the book relates that the FBI first secured the support of Nuland, who at the time was assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs specializing in Russia.

    Regarding the arrangements for Steele's initial meeting with the FBI about the dossier claims, Isikoff and Corn report:

    There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria Nuland's office at the State Department : Do you support this meeting ? Nuland, having found Steele's reports on Ukraine to have been generally credible, gave the green light.

    Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele's office near Victoria station . Steele handed him a copy of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read . He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing . Then he remarked, "I have to report this to headquarters."

    The book documents that Nuland previously received Steele's reports on the Ukrainian crisis and had been familiar with Steele's general work.

    Nuland faced confirmation questions prior to her appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her reported changes sought to protect Clinton's State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi.

    Nuland's name surfaced in a flurry of news media reports last year about the dossier and Kerry's State Department.

    Sidney Blumenthal

    An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named another former official from Kerry's State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The magazine reported that Kerry's chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.

    Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

    After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

    Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an "old friend." Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.

    Nuland, Winer Give Conflicting Accounts

    There are seeming discrepancies between Winer and Nuland about actions taken involving the dossier.

    Nuland described in a Politico podcast interview what she claimed was her reaction when she was presented with Steele's dossier information at the State Department.

    She said that she offered advice to "those who were interfacing with" Steele, immediately telling the intermediary or intermediaries that Steele "should get this information to the FBI." She further explained that a career employee at the State Department could not get involved with the dossier charges since such actions could violate the Hatch Act, which prevents employees in the executive branch of the federal government from engaging in certain kinds of political activities.

    In a second interview, this one with CBS's Face The Nation, Nuland also stated that her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.

    Here is a transcript of the relevant section of her February 5 interview with Susan B. Glasser, who described Nuland as "my friend" and referred to her by her nickname "Toria":

    Glasser: When did you first hear about his dossier?

    Nuland: I first heard -- and I didn't know who his client was until much later, until 2017, I think, when it came out. I first heard that he had done work for a client asserting these linkages -- I think it was late July, something like that.

    Glasser: That's very interesting. And you would have taken him seriously just because you knew that he knew what he was talking about on Russia?

    Nuland: What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics. So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate whether they thought it was credible.

    Glasser: Did you ever talk about it with anyone else higher up at the department? With Secretary Kerry or anybody else?

    Nuland: Secretary Kerry was also aware. I think he's on the record and he had the same advice.

    Nuland stated that Kerry "was also aware" of the dossier, but she did not describe how he was made aware. She made clear that she told "those who were interfacing" with Steele to go to the FBI since any State Department involvement could violate the Hatch Act.

    Her Politico podcast interview was not the only time she claimed that her reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.

    On Face The Nation on February 4, Nuland engaged in the following exchange in which she stated her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI (emphasis added):

    MARGARET BRENNAN: The dossier.

    VICTORIA NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction to that was, "This is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

    And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- we can't evaluate this. And frankly, if every member of the campaign who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess we're in today.

    Nuland gave the two interviews after her name started surfacing in news media reports involving Kerry's State Department and the dossier. Her name also came up in relation to a criminal referral of Steele to the Justice Department in the form of a letter authored last year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

    The Grassley-Graham criminal referral contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in contact with a "foreign sub-source" who was in touch with a redacted name described as a "friend of the Clintons."

    Numerous media reports have since stated that the source of information provided to the State Department that was in turn passed on to Steele was Cody Shearer, a controversial figure tied to the Clintons who is also an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal. According to sources who spoke to CNN, Shearer's information was passed from Blumenthal to Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya working under Kerry. Winer says that Kerry personally recruited him to work at the State Department.

    It is Winer's version of events that seems to conflict with Nuland's.

    In an oped published in the Washington Post, Winer identified Nuland as the State Department official with whom he shared Steele's information. Winer writes that Nuland's reaction was that "she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material." He does not relate any further reaction from Nuland.

    Winer wrote in the Washington Post (emphasis added):

    In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

    In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

    I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

    That was the extent of Winer's description of Nuland's reaction upon being presented with Steele's dossier claims. Nuland's public claim that her "immediate" response was to refer Steele to the FBI since State involvement could violate the Hatch Act seems to conflict with the only reaction that Winer relates from Nuland – that she felt Kerry should be made aware of the dossier information.

    In Winer's Washington Post oped, he writes that Steele had a larger relationship with the State Department, passing over 100 reports relating to Russia to the U.S. government agency through Winer. Winer wrote that Nuland found Steele's reports to be "useful" and asked Winer to "continue to send them."

    He wrote:

    In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it. I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters, and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of events in Russia.

    Kramer and the dossier

    In his book, "The Restless Wave," McCain provided an inside account of how he says he came across the dossier.

    He wrote that he was told about the claims in the document at a security conference in Canada in November 2016, where he was approached by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow and friend of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.

    McCain wrote that Wood told him Steele "had been commissioned to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian agents as well as potentially compromising information about the President-elect that Putin allegedly possessed."

    McCain, however, did not address the obvious question of whether he was told exactly who "commissioned" Steele to "investigate" the alleged Russian ties. The dossier was paid for by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.

    McCain goes on to describe Wood as telling him Steele's work "was mostly raw, unverified intelligence, but that the author strongly believed merited a thorough examination by counterintelligence experts."

    The politician says the dossier claims described to him were "too strange a scenario to believe, something out of a le Carré novel, not the kind of thing anyone has ever actually had to worry about with a new President, no matter what other concerns."

    Still, McCain says he reasoned that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian extortion had to be investigated."

    McCain concedes Wood told him he had not actually read the dossier himself, and writes that he wasn't sure if he ever met Wood before and couldn't recall previously having a conversation with Wood. Still, McCain took Wood's word for it when Wood vouched for Steele's credibility. "Steele was a respected professional, Wood assured us, who had good Russian contacts and long experience collecting and analyzing intelligence on the Kremlin," McCain wrote.

    Present at the meeting with Wood and McCain was Kramer, who McCain writes agreed to "go to London to meet Steele, confirm his credibility and report back to me."

    McCain doesn't detail Kramer's visit to London beyond simply writing, "When David returned, and shared his impression that the former spy was, as Sir Andrew had vouched, a respected professional, and not to outward appearances given to hyperbole or hysteria, I agreed to receive a copy of what is now referred to as 'the dossier.'''

    McCain leaves out exactly where Kramer obtained his dossier copy.

    The Washington Post reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it. Those details marked the clearest indication that McCain may have known that the dossier originated with Fusion GPS, meaning that he may have knowingly passed on political material to the FBI.

    Also, in a New York Times oped in January, GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritch wrote that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence community via an unnamed "emissary."

    In his own testimony, Kramer relates conversations with Simpson about the dossier.

    Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

    [Mar 20, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson

    Credibility of the US government and Justice system was greatly undermined, if not destroyed by the Russiagate. Inability to investigate more plausible election interference by British an, Saudi and Israeli actors by Mueller paints him as a despicable political operative working for Clintons, not an independent Prosecutor, who diligently investigate the foreign interference in elections.
    The role of Rosenstein is the role of co-conspirator in a plot to deprive Trump of the Presidency or, at least, for force him to pursue the Deep State foreign policy, which is totally bankrupt policy. And they succeeded in this. Trump wet kiss with neocons was probably the part of the deal.
    Notable quotes:
    "... When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to account? ..."
    "... I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation. ..."
    Mar 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    blue peacock , a day ago

    When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to account?
    MP98 , 2 days ago
    No one is going to face any consequences - legal or other. Hell, most of them will make money from writing books about their "dedicated service." When was the last time the swamp applied the laws to one of it's own. Answer: never.

    The laws are enforced on us - the "deplorables out there," not the swamp creature "elite." We are not governed, we are ruled.

    And sadly that situation is as much the result of an indifferent and ignorant populace as the behavior of the ruling class.

    Nobby Stiles , 2 days ago
    In case you had not seen. I think it does connect well with the piece above.

    https://www.americanthinker...

    English Outsider -> Nobby Stiles , 2 days ago
    "One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy."

    I see Steele's surfacing again. Might I put in a minor query. Does this longstanding agreement cover retired personnel?

    Bill Gaydon -> English Outsider , 8 hours ago
    Same question....^
    TTG -> English Outsider , a day ago
    I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation.

    "Steele might have been expected to move on once his investigation of the bidding was concluded. But he had discovered that the corruption at FIFA was global, and he felt that it should be addressed. The only organization that could handle an investigation of such scope, he felt, was the F.B.I. In 2011, Steele contacted an American agent he'd met who headed the Bureau's division for serious crimes in Eurasia. Steele introduced him to his sources, who proved essential to the ensuing investigation. In 2015, the Justice Department indicted fourteen people in connection with a hundred and fifty million dollars in bribes and kickbacks."

    The second instance of Steele's cooperation with the FBI even had a peripheral relationship with Trump. "Several years ago, the FBI hired Steele to help crack an international gambling and money-laundering ring purportedly run by a suspected Russian organized-crime figure named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov. The syndicate was based in an apartment in Trump Tower. Eventually, federal officials indicted more than thirty co-conspirators for financial crimes. Tokhtakhounov, though, eluded arrest, becoming a fugitive. Interpol issued a "red notice" calling for his arrest. But, in the fall of 2013, he showed up at the Miss Universe contest in Moscow -- and sat near the pageant's owner, Donald Trump."

    According to the New Yorker magazine article, it was standard Orbis procedure to warn authorities about national security threats. Steele warned German authorities about IS militants using the refugee flow to infiltrate Europe. "When Steele took his suspicions about Trump to the FBI in the summer of 2016, it was in keeping with Orbis protocol, rather than a politically driven aberration."

    Within the FBI, I'm sure Steele was coded as a source in some way as a standard procedure to use his information. We did the same with our non-asset sources in DOD. Hell, I was even coded as an intelligence asset when I was a SMU operative/case officer. This was different from the reporter number all case officers are given.

    https://www.newyorker.com/m...

    Tidewater -> TTG , 11 hours ago
    Philip Giraldi, on March 13, 2018, has an essay about this New Yorker article: 'Christopher Steele as seen by the New Yorker. Liberal fantasies beatify the messenger.' This is in the Unz Review. www.unz.com/pgiraldi/christ... .

    Mayer doesn't mention that Steele was almost certainly identified as MI6 during the years (possibly 1990-1993) that he was stationed in Moscow under diplomatic cover. Russian counterintelligence agents broke into his apartment, used the toilet, left it unflushed; they stole his wife's best shoes. He was definitely identified by 1999 when he was in Paris. There was a DSMA notice. Too late. Then, in 2006, when Steele is said to have had the Russia desk, there was the highly embarrassing electronic spy rock in a Moscow park. Surely he held some responsibility for that? And if Steele was a Russian expert why were his talents being wasted in Afghanistan?

    John Helmer quotes some old intelligence hands who deny that he was a particularly impressive agent or was deeply knowledgeable about Russia. Steele never went back to Russia after 1992 or 1993. Mayer, in the New Yorker article, makes no mention of what surely were setbacks for British intelligence regarding Russia in which Steele likely was playing a large part.

    We've been here before in this discussion. The question remains-- was Steele an unwitting puppet of a Russian master counterstrike, an aikido throw which has badly shaken and distracted America? DH, we await your comments. Has TTG gone wobbly?

    TTG -> Tidewater , an hour ago
    I'm also fairly certain RIS was aware of Steele's status as an MI6 officer when he was stationed in Moscow. I would think anyone working out of a diplomatic embassy is first assumed to be an intelligence officer by the host nation. I stayed away from embassies and other government facilities just to avoid that taint. The one time I was summoned to an embassy, I conducted extensive surveillance detection measures both before and after the visit and I wore a disguise.

    It was a normal matter for intelligence officers to be cycled through Afghanistan and Iraq post 9-11, no matter what their former expertise. I did my turn. CIA's "Russia House" was bitter about their fall from the pinnacle to be replaced by all things CT during that time.

    Was some of the raw information in Steele's dossier planted by RIS? That's very possible. Several experienced former US intelligence officers have voiced that possibility, especially about the more salacious bits of the dossier.

    Fred -> TTG , 15 hours ago
    That's a nice piece in the New Yorker. They mention the golden shower episode in Moscow, however, left out Loretta Lynch. "In was in her role as district attorney that her involvement in the Fifa investigation began. Over the course of five years in Brooklyn..." See the BBC article on FIFA from 2015: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32912118

    So did Loretta Lynch talk to Christopher Steele during this case or did Steele just talk to the FBI agent who was years later in London? When did then US attorney for New York's Eastern District Lorretta Lynch get informed and by which FBI agent? Who did that agent tell about the Steele dossier, when did it get to the AG's ears, and when did she tell Obama?

    "On January 5, 2017, it became clear that at least two Washingtonians remained in the dark about the dossier: the President and the Vice-President. " Oh, apparently AG Lynch never told Obama, because????????

    Another New Yorker Enigma: "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.) "

    So the UK has been spying on US Presidential candidates? Oh, they said they were "illicit" communications. What does that mean? Who was communicating with Whom? And how did G.C.H.Q. decide these communications were "illicit" but others, well they'd have to have them all to make a comparison, wouldn't they? Put a ribbon on top of that one. DId they also intercept any of Hilary's communications?

    TTG -> Fred , 13 hours ago
    Given that Steele played an important role in at least two major FBI investigations leading to multiple indictments, I would assume Lynch knew about Steele. Whether they ever conversed, I don't know.

    Comey was not at all sure about Lynch's impartiality. It would not surprise me if he kept details of the Russian investigation, including the dossier, from her. She probably learned about it shortly before Obama and Trump were briefed on the dossier. Obama knew enough about the Russian investigation, without the dossier, to warn Putin to knock it off in September 2016.

    I don't know if the Brits spied on our Presidential candidates. I wouldn't doubt it. We bugged Merkel's phone. What I am sure of is that the Brits spy on every Russian of importance within their capabilities. If Trump's campaign was in contact with those Russians, the Brits would know about it. They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform their US counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign. They wouldn't have done that just for shits and giggles.

    Fred -> TTG , 2 hours ago
    "They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform their US counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign."

    They thought it illicit? Listening is one thing, giving information to aid your country's government's preferred candidate is interference in an election process - ours. How many times has our ally the UK interfered with US elections? They had plenty of help from the FBI and DOJ here in the US in 2016. Who elected GCHQ to be arbiters of US elections? I can't find them in the US Constitution. Using the FBI and DOJ to sabatouge your party's political opponents, that's third world government standards.

    TTG -> Fred , 34 minutes ago
    If the Brits wanted to directly influence the election, they would have publicly released their information about "illicit' contacts. Keeping it within intelligence channels does nothing to influence an election. I would hope the Brits would never hold back on information concerning a possible CI threat.
    English Outsider -> TTG , 4 hours ago
    TTG - thank you for your reply above. The picture one gets of Steele is no longer that of a loose canon who somehow got himself involved in a presidential election campaign. It is that of an experienced and respected professional working in tandem, if perhaps unconventionally, with other professionals.

    And perhaps thinking that he or his contacts back home had stumbled over important information showing that a presidential candidate was compromised. That information possibly being the tip of the iceberg and urgently demanding further investigation.

    But that makes what happened all the more unusual -

    1. Why didn't the further investigation happen? Surely the fact that such an important matter wasn't thoroughly investigated, and that using all possible resources in the States and abroad, shows that it was no serious investigation in the first place?

    And more to the point here -

    2. If those involved were professionals working away soberly at a necessary investigation, what were they doing suddenly branching out into a smear campaign?

    For none, even the originators of the dossier, are claiming that the more discreditable part of the Steele dossier is true. That is not Intelligence material. It is sensationalised smear material.

    This objection has been met in part with the claim that the dossier was all raw unsifted Intelligence and therefore was released as is.

    But surely experienced Intelligence professionals don't suddenly pitch raw unsifted Intelligence into the middle of the political arena while they are supposed to be still assessing that intelligence?

    Irrespective of the question of whether Trump was compromised the question therefore arises - what were American officials doing running a smear campaign against a presidential candidate?

    Which leads back to the original question. What officials this side of the Atlantic were also involved, and how high did the authorisation for their involvement go in England.

    .

    On a matter I'm better informed about, I don't see the Colonel quietly farming away in Kent. I see him striding across the limitless expanse of a Scottish grouse moor. If our lot had known their business they'd have worked that into their offer.

    But if that farm in Kent is still going spare ...

    .

    Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 3 hours ago
    I could have been Glubb's neighbor. I could have been a contender ... I thought the whole thing showed a surprising lack of judgment on their part.
    TTG -> English Outsider , an hour ago
    The counterintelligence investigation was in progress through the lead up to the 2016 election and is still in progress. Through 2016, it was done in a remarkably quiet fashion. That's how these investigations are supposed to work. No one hears about them until there is an arrest or indictment. That's how Mueller is running his investigation. We hear nothing from him except for the indictments already issued. And they are characteristically slow and methodical, usually spanning years before an arrest is made.

    None of this investigation, including Steele's reporting was used in a pre-election smear campaign. In my opinion, the reason the Obama administration did not publicize the idea of Russian interference with the election and possible involvement of Trump campaign officials is that it would surely have been seen as a partisan smear campaign. The public did not hear of the Steele dossier until well after the election was over.

    It was not just British intelligence involved in collecting on Russian interference in the election. The Estonians, the Dutch, the Australians and probably others contributed to the intelligence picture. We may not learn the full extent of that cooperation for many years. Given the changing nature of information warfare and social media manipulation, I sincerely wish the full extent of that intelligence is made public quickly. Sure that would probably also cramp Western media manipulation capabilities, of which we are far from innocent, but the sunlight would help inoculate all of us against this malignant phenomenon.

    Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , a day ago
    MI-6 tried to recruit me. I reported it to the COS at my post. Please don't tell me we and our liaison services love each other.
    TTG -> Pat Lang , a day ago
    Not surprised. What a duplicitous business we rolled around in.
    Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , a day ago
    They offered me a retirement farm in Kent, lifetime membership in one of the best clubs, a big stipend and"career assistance". It was funny.
    TTG -> Pat Lang , a day ago
    The retirement farm and the big stipend sounds pretty good. I could do without the best club and the career assistance. Sounds like they appreciated you a lot more than DIA.
    Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , 18 hours ago
    DIA made me an SES-4 with presidential rank (Distinguished). Looks like the Brits expected me to have a lot of access. They claimed these guys were off the reservation. and that they were not authorized to pitch me.
    TTG -> Pat Lang , 13 hours ago
    Off the reservation my ass. I would say those Brits were a bunch of cheeky blokes who did not do a thorough enough job of assessing your susceptibility to recruitment.
    Pat Lang Mod -> TTG , 3 hours ago
    You seem more upset over this than I was. We accepted their false statements of innocence betrayed by their own and went right on working with them. Why would they try this? Simple. As we do they wanted to know what we were not telling them. everyone does it. A basic principle. Recruit your liaison.
    TTG -> Pat Lang , 29 minutes ago
    You're right. I never worked out of an embassy or in any long term liaison function. If I was the target of such a pitch, it would have meant that I was blown along with any operations I was involved with. For me, it would have been life altering.
    Boris -> English Outsider , a day ago
    Been wondering about that too.
    MarcotheLombard , 2 days ago
    Thanks for this. I am wondering what Larry Johnson and the other members of this Committee of Correspondence make of the possible connection between Christopher Steele, Pablo Miller, and Sergei Skripal?

    Some of Craig Murray's speculations in his latest post on the Skripal incident regarding the coordinated role of Orbis Intelligence, the BBC, and the British state (which issued a DSMA notice prohibiting press mention of Pablo Miller) are quite plausible. Murray is, like the members of this committee, a veteran of the game....

    Was Skripal coerced/encouraged by Miller to serve as one of Steele's unattributed Russian "sources"? Did he later get cold feet? Or did he later attempt to buy his way back into Russia with the claim that he could provide proof that the Dossier was a fraud? Or was he working as a triple agent the whole time? Were the two sightseeing Russians "Borishov" and "Petrov" sent to retrieve something from Skripal?

    https://www.craigmurray.org...

    Patrick Armstrong -> MarcotheLombard , a day ago
    Try this. This theory ties together all the incoherencies of the official explanation better than anything I have seen. And, I'm pleased to see it is getting reprinted here and there.
    https://michaelantonyblog.w...
    Nobby Stiles -> Patrick Armstrong , 20 hours ago
    Yes, it made a lot of sense to me. The only thing it doesn't explain is the roof. Was somebody keeping some WMD in the attic?
    Barbara Ann -> Patrick Armstrong , a day ago
    I concur. This is the most plausible explanation of what really happened in Salisbury that I have read so far.

    Colonel - might this theory be worth a dedicated SST post? It is 5,000 words, so perhaps Patrick, David Habakkuk, or another interested member of the committee would be happy to summarize the salient details (e.g. that Borisov & Petrov intended to return to Russia with Sergei Skripal). The author's contact details are in the comments section re reprint rights.

    [Mar 20, 2019] The Mysterious Collapse of WTC Building 7

    Is this a plan of the elite to introduce national security state in action. Are they afraid of the collapse of neoliberal social order and try to take precautions?
    Notable quotes:
    "... These factors would have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full structural integrity, i.e., strength and stiffness. ..."
    "... the superstructure above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. ..."
    "... Nevertheless, the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper floors to one side-much like the topping of a tall redwood tree-not a concentric, vertical collapse. ..."
    "... no molten metal ..."
    "... A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." ..."
    "... Please remember that firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires, and also applied high-tech fire retardants. Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories : ..."
    "... Why would the Insiders bother blowing Building 7? Indeed, why would the Insiders bother with WTC at all? Exactly what were the motivations of the Insiders supposed to be? ..."
    "... Larry Silverstein had a magic ball that told him to insure the buildings for "terrorist attacks". In February of 2002, Silverstein was awarded $861,000,000 for his insurance claims from Industrial Risk Insurers. His initial investment in WTC 7 was only $386,000,000. ..."
    "... Perhaps after the first couple of attempted attacks on the WTC in the 90's they had a good look at what would happen if an attack was successful. Perhaps they then decided that the massive collateral damage from a partial or messy collapse could be greatly reduced by having the buildings ready to be brought down in a controlled way. ..."
    "... All this would have to be kept secret as noone would work in a building lined with explosives. However the insurance companies, and the owner of the building would know, and this would explain the comments made by silverstein (comments that he himself never clarified). ..."
    "... This may all be completely wrong, but lets face it, explosives did bring these buildings down. ..."
    "... http://topdocumentaryfilms.com ...How about a 5 hour video that methodically refutes and explains the flaws of virtually every aspect of the 'official story', in particular the shamefully flawed NIST report ..."
    "... There were no pyroclastic flows at WTC. That's obvious by the fact that pieces of intact paper lay everywhere, something that would be impossible if a hot cloud covered the area. ..."
    "... The reason that you have to resort to esoteric explanations for what happened at WTC is that you believe lies about what happened at WTC. ..."
    "... If you really believe that this was done by hydrocarbon based fires begun by burning jet fuel you are beyond hopeless. ..."
    "... Why do you trust the government so much? That to me is idiotic. History has proven pretty much every government to be corrupt. It's sheep like you that allow them to get away with it. Just keep walking sheep, don't want to fall back from the mob. ..."
    "... The "accepted scholarship" is conducted almost entirely by government shills for the benefit of dumbed down Americans whose information intake is limited to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. ..."
    Sep 15, 2012 | WashingtonsBlog

    ... ... ...

    What Do the Experts Say?

    What does the evidence show about the Solomon Brothers Building in Manhattan?

    Numerous structural engineers – the people who know the most about office building vulnerabilities and accidents – say that the official explanation of why building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11 is "impossible", "defies common logic" and "violates the law of physics":

    The collapse of WTC7 looks like it may have been the result of a controlled demolition. This should have been looked into as part of the original investigation

    Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well planned and controlled demolition

    In my view, the chances of the three buildings collapsing symmetrically into their own footprint, at freefall speed, by any other means than by controlled demolition, are so remote that there is no other plausible explanation

    Near-freefall collapse violates laws of physics. Fire induced collapse is not consistent with observed collapse mode . . . .

    How did the structures collapse in near symmetrical fashion when the apparent precipitating causes were asymmetrical loading? The collapses defies common logic from an elementary structural engineering perspective.

    ***

    Heat transmission (diffusion) through the steel members would have been irregular owing to differing sizes of the individual members; and, the temperature in the members would have dropped off precipitously the further away the steel was from the flames-just as the handle on a frying pan doesn't get hot at the same rate as the pan on the burner of the stove. These factors would have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full structural integrity, i.e., strength and stiffness.

    Structural steel is highly ductile, when subjected to compression and bending it buckles and bends long before reaching its tensile or shear capacity. Under the given assumptions, "if" the structure in the vicinity started to weaken, the superstructure above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. The opposite, intact, side of the building would resist toppling until the ultimate capacity of the structure was reached, at which point, a weak-link failure would undoubtedly occur. Nevertheless, the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper floors to one side-much like the topping of a tall redwood tree-not a concentric, vertical collapse.

    For this reason alone, I rejected the official explanation for the collapse .

    We design and analyze buildings for the overturning stability to resist the lateral loads with the combination of the gravity loads. Any tall structure failure mode would be a fall over to its side. It is impossible that heavy steel columns could collapse at the fraction of the second within each story and subsequently at each floor below.We do not know the phenomenon of the high rise building to disintegrate internally faster than the free fall of the debris coming down from the top.

    The engineering science and the law of physics simply doesn't know such possibility. Only very sophisticated controlled demolition can achieve such result, eliminating the natural dampening effect of the structural framing huge mass that should normally stop the partial collapse. The pancake theory is a fallacy, telling us that more and more energy would be generated to accelerate the collapse. Where would such energy would be coming from?

    Fire and impact were insignificant in all three buildings [Again, please ignore any reference to the Twin Towers this essay focuses solely on WTC7]. Impossible for the three to collapse at free-fall speed. Laws of physics were not suspended on 9/11, unless proven otherwise

    The symmetrical "collapse" due to asymmetrical damage is at odds with the principles of structural mechanics

    It is virtually impossible for WTC building 7 to collapse as it did with the influence of sporadic fires. This collapse HAD to be planned

    It is very suspicious that fire brought down Building 7 yet the Madrid hotel fire was still standing after 24 hours of fire. This is very suspicious to me because I design buildings for a living

    The above is just a sample. Many other structural engineers have questioned the collapse of Building 7, as have numerous top experts in other relevant disciplines, including:

    The collapse was too symmetrical to have been eccentrically generated. The destruction was symmetrically initiated to cause the buildings to implode as they did

    Watch this short video on Building 7 by Architects and Engineers (ignore any reference to the Twin Towers, deaths on 9/11, or any other topics other than WTC7):

    Fish In a Barrel

    Poking holes in the government's spin on Building 7 is so easy that it is like shooting fish in a barrel.

    As just one example, the spokesman for the government agency which says that the building collapsed due to fire said there was no molten metal at ground zero:


    The facts are a wee bit different:

    Please remember that firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires, and also applied high-tech fire retardants. Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories:

    Approximately three million gallons of water were hosed on site in the fire-fighting efforts, and 1 million gallons fell as rainwater, between 9/11 and 9/21 .

    The spraying continued for months afterward (the 10 day period was simply the timeframe in which the DOE was sampling). Enormous amounts of water were hosed on Ground Zero continuously, day and night:

    "Firetrucks [sprayed] a nearly constant jet of water on [ground zero]. You couldn't even begin to imagine how much water was pumped in there," said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. "It was like you were creating a giant lake."

    This photograph may capture a sense of how wet the ground became due to the constant spraying:

    murphy Arguments Regarding the Collapse of the World Trade Center Evaporate Upon Inspection
    In addition, the fires were sprayed with thousands of gallons of high tech fire-retardants.

    The fact that there were raging fires and molten metal even after the application of massive quantities of water and fire retardants shows how silly the government spokesman's claim is.

    Again, this has nothing to do with "inside job" no one was killed in the collapse of Building 7, no wars were launched based on a rallying cry of "remember the Solomon Brothers building", and no civil liberties were lost based on a claim that we have to prevent future WTC7 tragedies.

    It is merely meant to show that government folks sometimes lie even about issues tangentially related to 9/11.

    Pooua > Wolfen Batroach • 2 years ago

    Why would the Insiders bother blowing Building 7? Indeed, why would the Insiders bother with WTC at all? Exactly what were the motivations of the Insiders supposed to be?

    JusticeFor911 > Pooua

    Larry Silverstein had a magic ball that told him to insure the buildings for "terrorist attacks". In February of 2002, Silverstein was awarded $861,000,000 for his insurance claims from Industrial Risk Insurers. His initial investment in WTC 7 was only $386,000,000.

    I'd say nearly half of $1,000,000,000.00 was the primary cause to include this building with the towers. Keep in mind that President Bush's brother Marvin was a principal in the company Securacom that provided security for the WTC, United Airlines and Dulles International Airport. Are dots connecting yet?

    Pooua > JusticeFor911

    If you buy a new car, you take out full coverage insurance on it. Insuring billion-dollar buildings is standard procedure, especially when one had already suffered a terrorist attack. You insinuation is nothing but gossip and suggestion.

    No, Securacom did not provide security for WTC; that's the job of the Port Authority of NY & NJ. Securacom had a contract to perform a limited service for PANYNJ, and Marvin Bush was only a bit player (he was on the board of directors) in the company. Your paranoid ramblings are lies.

    IBSHILLIN > Pooua

    Perhaps after the first couple of attempted attacks on the WTC in the 90's they had a good look at what would happen if an attack was successful. Perhaps they then decided that the massive collateral damage from a partial or messy collapse could be greatly reduced by having the buildings ready to be brought down in a controlled way.

    All this would have to be kept secret as noone would work in a building lined with explosives. However the insurance companies, and the owner of the building would know, and this would explain the comments made by silverstein (comments that he himself never clarified).

    This may all be completely wrong, but lets face it, explosives did bring these buildings down.

    Pooua > IBSHILLIN

    I find it amazing that you consider yourself such an unquestionable expert that you not only feel qualified to insist that explosives brought down the WTC buildings, even in contradiction to scores of scientists, engineers and investigators of NIST, FEMA, FBI and MIT who say otherwise, and you do so without offering any evidence at all to support your bizarre claim.

    No building the size of any of the WTC buildings has ever been brought down by controlled demolition, but of those that come closest, the planning took years, and the rigging took months of hard work by teams of experts working around the clock. This is not something that can be hidden.

    Your suggestion is entirely preposterous and without merit.

    ihaveabrain > Pooua

    explain this? You are smarter than these experts? http://www.hulu.com/watch/4120...

    NIST, FEMA, FBI and MIT are worthless entities! What about the experts in that documentary? Nanothermite brought them down smart guy!

    Pooua > ihaveabrain • 25 days ago

    You posted a 1.5-hour video. I am not here to watch a 1.5-hour video; I'm here to discuss the topic of the collapse of WTC 7. If you have something to say, say it here.

    NIST has been the premier standards body used by the US government for a century, covering virtually every aspect of engineering and public safety in this country. It employes thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians. For you to claim that it is a worthless entity is idiocy on your part.

    linked1 > Pooua • 24 days ago

    http://topdocumentaryfilms.com ...How about a 5 hour video that methodically refutes and explains the flaws of virtually every aspect of the 'official story', in particular the shamefully flawed NIST report

    You claim to want to discuss the topic of the collapse of WTC-7 but you can't be bothered to watch painstakingly researched documentaries that include thousands of witnesses, victims, scientists, and structural professionals.

    You ought to educate yourself before calling other's claims 'worthless idiocy'. You are wrong, and history will prove you wrong.

    Pooua > linked1

    I've been reading arguments about 9/11 for two years. I've been arguing about other issues for the last 25 years, at least since I took a class in classical logic. What you need to understand is, you aren't arguing anything when you send me off to listen to someone else. The other guy might be arguing something, but you aren't doing anything. And, the fact that I've spent two years reading everything I could find on the subject makes me strongly suspect that this five-hour video would be just a waste of my time.

    If you want to discuss this matter, then discuss it. Don't send me off to spend hours of my time listening to someone else. You explain it. If you can't explain it, then you don't understand it, and you are wasting everyone's time.

    mulegino1 . > Pooua

    The levels of energy required to turn most of the Twin Towers and WTC7 into nanoparticles (thus the pyrocastic flow which only occurs in volcanic eruptions and nuclear detonations) would be thousands of orders of magnitude greater than airliner impacts and hydrocarbon based office fires, which are claimed to have initiated a "gravity collapse".

    How could a "gravity collapse" perfectly mimic the detonation of a small tactical nuclear device or devices-electromagnetic pulse, molten lava and a mushroom cloud?

    Pooua > mulegino1

    I want you to look at this image from the WTC on 9/11. It shows the debris after the Towers collapsed. Does this look like nanoparticles to you? Most of the debris was bigger than a man's fist.

    Thumbnail

    There were no pyroclastic flows at WTC. That's obvious by the fact that pieces of intact paper lay everywhere, something that would be impossible if a hot cloud covered the area.

    The reason that you have to resort to esoteric explanations for what happened at WTC is that you believe lies about what happened at WTC.

    mulegino1 . > Pooua

    If you really believe that this was done by hydrocarbon based fires begun by burning jet fuel you are beyond hopeless.

    There was indeed a pyroclasticas flow as anyone with youtube can determine for themselves.

    Pooua > WilliamBinney • a year ago

    It is your job to do more than make idiotic, speculative assertions and pretend that constitutes a reason for disregarding the government's account of the event. Yet, you all have completely failed to do anything except expose your own inability to account for the events of that day.

    Dizzer13 > Pooua • a year ago

    Why do you trust the government so much? That to me is idiotic. History has proven pretty much every government to be corrupt. It's sheep like you that allow them to get away with it. Just keep walking sheep, don't want to fall back from the mob.

    mulegino1 . > Pooua • 2 years ago

    The "accepted scholarship" is conducted almost entirely by government shills for the benefit of dumbed down Americans whose information intake is limited to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.

    The official narrative is so ludicrous from any standpoint that the "debunkers" resort to wildly implausible scenarios in order to convince the above cited demographic that the government and the major national media were reporting factual information when in fact they were reading from a script. And it was a very poorly written script. The Bin Laden bogeyman was already being invoked before the buildings exploded.

    What you've got here is a pseudo-religious narrative designed to so enrage the dumbed down sheeple that they will lash out in their fury against virtually anyone designated by the powers that be as the enemy- a Sorelian myth.

    Like any false narrative, the official story breaks down at the level of discrete facts and can only survive as a holistic mythologized, meta-historical events.

    [Mar 20, 2019] Customer reviews The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump

    First of all the modern Russian mafia was created by the USA as the result of Clinton policies of decimation Russia economically after the dissolution of the USA. In a way Bill Clinton (who is as close to Mafioso as one can get) is the godfather of Russian mafia (with CIA and FBI as instruments of the Clinton administration). The goal of the USA elite always was to weaken, and, if possible, to dismember Russia. So the rise of organized crime in Russia was the direct result of their weakening of Russian state under drunkard Yeltsin. Jewish gangster (along with Harvard mafia) were instrumental in economic rape of Russia (Berezovsky, Gusinsky, Khodorkovsky, etc)
    So McCabe (with Steele) was the guy who participated in politicizing investigation of corruption in sport investigation in order to "get Russia." So he firmly belongs to the neocon, imperial wing of the USA political establishment. So first and foremost he is a "dirty cop" himself. And later he naturally became part of intelligence serves junta which along with DemoRats (Clinton wing of the Democratic Party) and neocons run color revolution against Trump to block any changes in the USA foreign policy. Imperial policy of world domination to be more more correct.
    In essence McCabe documents how FBI became political police and later Praetoria Guarl who selects the President of the USA. All in defense of Constitution and to protect every citizen ;-) Of course. But protect from whom ? From influence of people who oppose the US imperial policies ? That's what political police does.
    Also ethnical composition of Russian mafia is really multinational and is dominated by with Jewish gangsters (see List of post-Soviet mobsters - Wikipedia) of the USSR origin like Semion Mogilevich. who was born in 1946 to a Jewish family in Kiev's Podol neighborhood. They are not necessary from Russia, but from Ukraine and other former USSR republics as well. Especially prominent their USA branch (so called The Odessa Mafia with headquarters in Brighton Beach) They have Israel as a cover to escape to, so they tend to be more brazen then other national groups in Russian mafia. Some Caucasian nationalities (Chechen mafia is the most brutal and Georgian mafia is regarded as one of the biggest, powerful and influential criminal networks in Europe, which has produced the biggest number of "thieves in law" in all former USSR countries. ) prominently represented as well. Russian are probably a minority in it, at least of senior level ;-)
    In the past CIA and FBI infiltrated and used for their purposes Italian mafia (look at JFK assasination). It is plausible that they infiltrated and used for their purposes Russian Jewish mafia too.
    Notable quotes:
    "... 2.0 out of 5 stars "Oh, what a tangled web we weave...." ~ Sir Walter Scott ..."
    "... I absolutely can not see any reason that a member of the FBI would be in a discussion with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concerning this amendment. None at all. Totally inappropriate. ..."
    "... There is another incident about the wearing of a wire tap which I won't discuss here. ..."
    "... There is a saying in the US Navy (and probably elsewhere) that 'one oh crap takes away one thousand atta boys' ..."
    "... 2.0 out of 5 stars ..."
    "... He tells us what we already know and can see for ourselves about Donald Trump: he disrespects and undermines the constitutional order, the rule of law, and the government institutions that are empowered to contain or investigate him. But that is virtually all he tells us. ..."
    "... 3.0 out of 5 stars ..."
    "... 3.0 out of 5 stars ..."
    Mar 20, 2019 | www.amazon.com

    Serenity

    2.0 out of 5 stars "Oh, what a tangled web we weave...." ~ Sir Walter Scott

    There is no doubt in my mind that the author, Andrew McCabe, had a truly outstanding career in the FBI. Otherwise, he would not have risen to the number 2 spot ...(FBI Deputy Director) . His service started in 1996 and ended less than 2 days prior to his retirement for being 'less than truthful'. Actually twenty-six hours...

    Does he have an ax to grind? Absolutely, without a doubt. Who wouldn't be upset with being fired that close to retirement?

    And, no, I did not listen to the interview on 60 Minutes Sunday night...I did, however hear snippets of the conversation on the major news stations. I did refresh my mind on Mr. McCabe, Mr. Rosenstein, the 25th amendment and a few other points.

    In the blurb for this book it is stated 'President Trump and his administration... 'undermine the US Constitution that protects every citizen'.. It appears to me that the author has indeed stepped over that line in the discussion of this amendment with Mr. Rosenstein (if in fact this did happen) .... this is my largest problem I have with this book.. Is not the 25th Amendment part of our Constitution?

    I absolutely can not see any reason that a member of the FBI would be in a discussion with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concerning this amendment. None at all. Totally inappropriate. There is no FBI listed in the Cabinet of the President of the United States. So, now the 25th amendment has been propelled into this conversation....This conversation should have been halted at the first mention of it..and I do mean a screeching halt, not a slow one, but at absolute warp speed....

    And, Mr Rosenstein has denied that this discussion took place although the author insists that it did in fact occur. So, now Senator Lindsey Graham, (R -SC), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has said that his committee will investigate. One more time, let the subpoenas fly and two more go into the hornet's nest. There is another incident about the wearing of a wire tap which I won't discuss here.

    There is a saying in the US Navy (and probably elsewhere) that 'one oh crap takes away one thousand atta boys' . So, despite an outstanding career in the FBI, if one has told an 'untruth', it is difficult to rise to the top of the heap again.

    And, in Mr. McCabe's recent past there were 4 incidents and now this one with the discussion of the 25th amendment which has not been resolved yet. Up until now it is still, 'he said, he said'....

    And, for anyone that may be wondering...I am neither a Democrat or a Republican. In my 50+ years of voting, I have always voted for the person I felt was most qualified for the office being sought. And, this past election for President was the only one I have not voted for either candidate.

    Yes, Mr. McCabe had an outstanding career at the FBI albeit short a couple of days of his retirement.. Do I put much credence in this book? No, but I will give him an extra star for his service...

    rusty day 2.0 out of 5 stars February 25, 2019

    What is the Threat? McCabe does not say.

    The Threat is deeply disturbing, far more for what it does not say or grasp.

    In the game of chess, checkmate occurs when your opponent captures or paralyzes your king. Much evidence indicates that America's most dangerous adversary has not only captured or paralyzed our President, but much if not all of the Republican leadership and wealthy oligarchy that surrounds him. Is this "The Threat" that we confront? Andy McCabe, the former Acting Director of the FBI, does not tell us.

    At the outset, McCabe does tell us that the FBI is the principal law enforcement agency in America, whose mission is "to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution." He tells us that "organized criminal networks from other countries target the United States," that "dirty money corrupts business and politics," and that "our own government officials use the power of public office to undermine legal authority and to denigrate law enforcement." He tells us what we already know and can see for ourselves about Donald Trump: he disrespects and undermines the constitutional order, the rule of law, and the government institutions that are empowered to contain or investigate him. But that is virtually all he tells us.

    For 21 years, McCabe rose rapidly through the ranks of the FBI, rising ultimately to become the Bureau's Acting Director. He began his FBI career in New York, confronting the penetration and expansion of the Russian Mafia in the United States. In 2001 the shock and horror of 9/11 then redirected his career from the Russian Mafia to anti-terrorism, to which he devoted extraordinary energy and focus for the next 15 years, which he details at length.

    As Deputy Director and then Acting Director, McCabe presumably had complete insight into the threats confronting our nation, as well as the responsibility to assess their relative gravity and prioritize and direct the resources needed to combat them. McCabe tells us that the Russian Mafia is particularly dangerous precisely because it works to corrupt and appropriate the organs and assets of government for its criminal benefit. Is that what is happening in this country? Has the Russian state or the Russian Mafia captured our presidency and/or part of our ruling oligarchy? Are we in checkmate? In retrospect, was that ultimately his, and our, greatest mistake: the failure to perceive and counter the threat posed by the Russian government or its criminal elements to our survival as a just, self-governing society? McCabe does not say. Is our principal law enforcement agency focused on this threat and organized to defeat it? Again, McCabe does not say. Judging by the very little we are told in this book about that threat, the answer would seem to be No. And that is truly disturbing.

    Charles TOP 100 REVIEWER 3.0 out of 5 stars Not Quite What I Expected February 21, 2019

    The only reason anyone has ever heard of Andrew McCabe is because of James Comey. As everyone knows, Comey was fired by Donald Trump from his position as Director of the FBI. As a result, McCabe was, for three crucial months, from May 2017 to August 2017, in charge of the FBI. It is those months that are the core of this book, supplemented by the fifteen months prior in which McCabe also found himself subjected to the Trump administration, and by some thoughts on the FBI's role more generally. All of this is grouped into the sections of "How We Work" -- though all anyone cares about is what McCabe has to say about Trump and his team.

    While the book is interesting, my major complaint about it is that McCabe, who by his own account had numerous opportunities to do so, never stood up to the men who he now says were destroying the Republic. Now, though, when it benefits him and they have no power over him, he is very bold. This suggests weakness of character and undercuts his claims to truth-telling. Nor is McCabe politically neutral. But neither of those things necessarily mean he's wrong, so let's examine the book itself.

    It is often misunderstood that the FBI is not independent; it is an arm of the Executive Branch, that is, of the Office of the President. The FBI Director's immediate superior is the Attorney General, who is answerable to, and can be fired by, the President. Thus, McCabe's boss was Jeff Sessions -- and both Trump and Sessions are the focus of the criticism in this book, taking alternating blows from the pugilistic McCabe. In fact, it is Sessions who gets the most attacks in this book; he is mostly portrayed as a racist halfwit (and the President is portrayed as perpetually angry and thin-skinned, among other vices). That may be fair, but the odd thing about McCabe's book is that, whatever the truth of it, what he tells us ironically strengthens his most vigorous opponents -- those who claim there is a Deep State, out to get Donald Trump and his allies. You can simultaneously believe that Trump is an undisciplined buffoon and that his enemies form a vast and strong cabal out to get rid of him by any means necessary, and McCabe's book is going to be Exhibit A in support of that latter claim. I'm not sure that's what he intended.

    Anyway, all that said, I was somewhat surprised that this book does not contain any of the details that McCabe has revealed in recent days in other forums. For example, McCabe claimed on "60 Minutes" that high-ranking officials, including more than one Cabinet officer, actively discussed removing Trump from office as unfit under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. They contemplated tape recording Trump, as well. You'd think McCabe would lead with his strongest and most engaging, or interesting, claims. Unfortunately, we don't get any such details in this book, which annoyed me somewhat, given that I paid good money for what I thought was a complete story. Actually, the book is quite short, and openly ghostwritten, which doubled my disappointment. The reader is, or at least this reader was, also annoyed by the vagueness and lack of detail of many of the stories told. We get sonorous pronouncements about the rule of law and its claimed erosion, but not many specifics to back that up.

    And the reader is also left with the feeling that much of McCabe's account is score-settling. McCabe, who went back to being plain Deputy Director when Christopher Wray became the Director in August, 2017, was fired in March, 2018 by Sessions. (McCabe wasn't actually working -- he had stepped down in January and was scheduled to retire later in March; like a good bureaucrat he was running out his vacation pay.) McCabe was fired because he lied to the inspector general of his own FBI.

    What about? Well, that depends on whom you ask, but whatever exactly it was, it was about Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, two FBI employees. Strzok was McCabe's highest-ranking legal advisor. They were having an affair, and as part of that exchanged text messages that, read from a certain angle, imply that they, in combination with others, were taking illegal action to get rid of Trump. McCabe denied to the FBI's inspector general that he knew of Strzok's leaks to the press, presumably in furtherance of that program, when, in fact, he did. McCabe addresses all this with what is, basically, a vague "I forgot to mention it" excuse, which is not very convincing. Again, this undermines the points McCabe is trying to make.

    The rest of the book, which as I say is short, covers a grab bag of topics, including a minor sort-of apology for the FBI's handling of the criminal allegations against Hillary Clinton. I don't think reader learns much new in any of these areas, though. So should you read it? Maybe -- but given that the reader doesn't really get a sense of confidence in McCabe, probably only if this is the sort of thing you're very interested in.

    Joel Hammer , February 25, 2019

    3.0 out of 5 stars Good description of government dysfunction

    Just finished this book. The author had a long career in the FBI as a Special Agent. He started out investigating organized crime in NY City (Russian mobs mainly) and after 9/11 went into counter terrorism and did that mainly until he rose in the ranks and became Deputy Director and then Acting Director after Comey was fired. He himself was fired just before he reached full retirement age. The grounds for his firing were "lack of candor" during interviews with the Inspector General about the handling of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server when she was Sec. of State.

    McCabe was a newly minted lawyer but decided he wanted to be an FBI guy. So, he became a Special Agent. He spent his entire career at the FBI. In this he was very unlike Comey, whose background was that of a lawyer, Federal prosecutor, corporate counsel, law professor, and then FBI director.

    The book covers his entire career at the FBI. It is quite interesting in its description of the Russian mob in NYC. In keeping with the Russian threat we face to our democracy, he ends up saying that Russian dark money is a threat to our country and its institutions. I guess dark money from China is no problem for him, since he never discusses Chinese organized crime or political payoffs in his book.

    Russia has an economy 1/15th of America's. China has a GNP which rivals ours. Who do you think has more potential to influence American institutions? Yet, not a word about China. This seems typical the Deep State. James Clapper was also obsessed with Russia but wasn't worried at all about China.

    After 9/11, the FBI changed gears from organized crime to counter-terrorism. He went into counter-terrorism.

    It is interesting how he describes the events of 9/11. He leaves out the FBI misses and court maneuvers which allowed the attack to take place. He talks only about his job of rounding up potential suspects in NY City. These were people reported to the FBI who looked suspicious. They were several hundred such people reported to the FBI. They were mainly Middle Eastern men working in this country illegally. McCabe felt bad for them, since their only crime was illegal residence in this country and illegally holding jobs in this country. " most of them were guilty of nothing other than violating immigration laws that typically had not been enforced. " McCabe in many parts of his book stresses how important law enforcement is and how we should respect laws, etc. Reflect.

    He was Deputy Director when the Boston marathon bombing happened. He was mortified when they realized that the Russian secret service had warned the FBI that this family of immigrants were radical Muslims.

    He was so relieved when they checked their records and could confirm that the lead was followed up on. They had investigated the family and found nothing wrong and the file on the family was closed. So there! Wasn't our fault. He also says that since the source of this tip was Russia, you never could really trust them. He does not give a single example of Russian misinformation on terrorism. He leaves out that the older brother later went back to Russia and spent 6 months with a violent and radical Muslim cleric and the FBI was unaware of this.

    He absolves the FBI of any responsibility for this bombing. I guess going through the motions absolves you of blame in a bureaucracy. He also left out the fact the the Muslim friends of these bombers immediately after the bombing offered them help to escape. McCabe is politically correct. See below.

    He despised Jeff Sessions, who he describes as an incompetent person. Once at a briefing on terrorism Session said all this was due to Islam and immigrants. McCabe took strong exception to this, saying that Islam is not violent and that immigration status was not anything the FBI worried about. Yet, with one exception, all the acts of terror he talks about his his book were Islamic inspired and most were carried out my immigrants or their children.

    He hates Congress. He says he has no objection to oversight but accuses the Congress of gross politics. This means that they attack the FBI, not help it. He has no qualms about lying to Congress. I find this sort of admission surprising. But, here is what he said. After Obama became President, he directed the FBI to set up a system to interrogate high value suspects which did not involve "enhanced" techniques or Guantanamo.

    They set up HIG, high value interrogation unit, under his direction. The only description of its use in this book was to interrogate the underwear bomber.

    McCabe claimed it worked very well until the bomber decided to stop cooperating for unstated reasons. The bomber is now in the SuperMax prision in Utah. That is how McCabe thinks we should handle such people. I don't think he has done the math. There are thousands of terrorists who are hoping to kill Americans. They can't all be housed in the SuperMax prison after months of tender FBI interrogation.

    Now, about the lying to Congress part. A high value target held by the Pakistani's was interrogated by the CIA overseas. He was not allowed to be interrogated by the FBI. Typical interagency BS. When this became known, McCabe was asked by one of those awful Republican congressmen, who opposed HIG, why the FBI didn't interrogate the target. This comes right from his book: "To expose all the details of interagency tension would have been a mistake. Frustrated as I was with my reluctant CIA partners, calling the to account in front of Congress would have only made things worse."

    Recall that McCabe was fired for multiple instances of "lack of candor" to the inspector general regarding the Clinton email investigation. This is a pattern with him.

    Reflect. He mislead Congress deliberately. Congress has the duty to provide oversight to the FBI and CIA. This is the Deep State in action.

    This book also supports the image of Mueller as a dominating persona who impedes investigations. In the Mirage Man, the book about the anthrax letters, Mueller was demanding daily briefings about the investigation. It got to the point that the investigators were spending all their time just doing stuff to brief Mueller about, not really doing a good investigation. Only because of an internal audit by the FBI did this behavior cease, and the new investigators told Mueller not to expect briefings unless there was anything significant to report. Only then did the investigation make progress. Same thing with counter terrorism. Mueller would demand briefings 2x per day, morning and night, in detail. Mueller would tell them what to do in detail. A control freak. Again, they spent all their time getting ready to brief Mueller.

    McCabe was closely involved in the Hillary email server investigation.

    Here is an amazing fact that hit me hard. After the Benghazi attack (that subject again!), Republican congressmen demanded to see emails by the Sec of State regarding this matter. That was when the Dept of State "realized" for the first time it did not have a copy of even a SINGLE email sent by or sent to Hillary when she was Sec of State. Let that sink in. They claimed they didn't realize this. (Of course, that was a lie. Read the OIG report about the FBI in 2016. It was all on her private server and the Dept of State knew it.) She had 60,000 emails on that server. Hillary had her own people review them, and she deleted 30,000 emails and gave the other 30,000 to the Dept of State. She carefully bit cleaned her server after that. The FBI then had to spend months and big bucks to try to recover those 30,000 emails from other servers which had been used to transmit those emails, etc.

    The take home lesson is the the Dept of State is corrupt.

    During the investigation of the server, the FBI tried to do its usual thing. They usually had two FBI people interview the subject, with or without their lawyer present. In this investigation, the Dept of Justice strongly intervened, which is highly unusual. McCabe points out that there is only one political appointee in the FBI, the director. However, in the DOJ there are many political appointees. All of them owed their jobs to Obama, and all of them knew Obama was supporting Hillary for President. Not mentioned is that all of them would be out of a job if Hillary lost. McCabe thought that all the political appointees should have kept well away from the investigation, if not outright recused themselves, but they did neither.

    So, during a typical interview, the DOJ would send four lawyers to observe and comment. The FBI then would send four of their lawyers. The witness had a lawyer or two. Sometimes a witness one day was a lawyer the next day. The FBI was told when they could or could not talk about sometimes. McCabe thought this was awful. He began to wonder about DOJ's motives, and certainly the optics were bad. But, in the end he says he can't believe that the DOJ was really trying to alter the outcome of the investigation, such is his faith in political appointees.

    The debacle of Comey's press conference to say he would not recommend indictment is well known. McCabe says Comey did it because Lynch had ruined her credibility by meeting with Bill on the tarmac and then refusing to recuse herself. Comey felt he had to salvage the credibility of the investigation. By the time, the FBI and the DOJ were hardly talking to each other, such was the "interagency tension."

    Well, that's about all I have the energy to write. Read the book. But, one caveat. I have read books by James Clapper, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe, and others. If you read just one of these books, you would be highly mislead. Each author in his book crafts a narrative, and twists words to mislead the reader, or just leaves out facts that would contradict the narrative. Here are two examples from this book:

    Benghazi again. We now know it was a terrorist attack carried out by a splinter militia group. The leader of that group was found guilty in Federal court and sent to jail. James Clapper insisted that based on the video footage, it was just a mob looting the place. No evidence of a planned attack. McCabe says that it was never clear if it was an attack or just mob violence, but later says that the ring leader was arrested and sent to prison. Now, when you hear the words "mob" and "ringleader", what do you conclude? Right, you conclude it was just a mob. We know that is simply a lie. And, it was the FBI who built the legal case against him.

    Another example from his book. McCabe disputes that Islam and immigrants are the main source of terror in this country. So, he described the shootings in San Bernardino as carried out by "an American couple influenced by ISIS." This is what he leaves out. This American couple consisted of a son of Pakistani immigrants and his wife, who came from Pakistan. Not mentioned in the book was his accomplice who bought the guns and discussed how to carry out terror attacks, an illegal Mexican immigrant. His accomplice's two associates were illegal immigrants who had engaged in marriage fraud to get legal residency.

    Read the book. Read other books. And don't trust news stories based on anonymous sources.

    [Mar 18, 2019] Christopher Steele s Former MI6 Boss Calls Dossier Overrated

    Mar 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    In yet another stunning blow to the so-called "Steele Dossier" assembled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the former chief of the (MI6) said the hastily cobbled-together report by his former employee is "overrated" and its salacious claims against Donald Trump unlikely to be verified, as the Daily Wire 's Ashe Schow reports.

    Following an appearance at the Jamestown Foundation's 12th annual terrorism conference in Washington D.C., Sir John Scarlett - who headed the British Secret Intelligence Service from 2004 to 2009, fielded a question from journalist Nicholas Ballasy, who asked Scarlett what he thought of the dossier and if he believed what was written in it.

    "Well, no," said Scarlett, adding "I looked at it and I thought these are commercial intelligence reports; I don't know about the sources -- they might be right, they might be wrong and they'll probably be overrated and they've been overrated. "

    When asked if the dossier could ever be verified, Steele's former boss said "No."

    Ballasy then asked Scarlett if he was surprised that Steele would produce the dossier using unverified information, to which the former MI6 head replied:

    "Well, they were commercial intelligence reports and they were visibly that so there's a question of why they were there and where they came from and who commissioned them and so on," adding" So, I've tended to see them in that context and never quite of political significance for obvious reasons and actually if you think about it, people have talked about them in a really big way a year or so ago and they haven't really made that much of a difference. "

    "As I said, I suspect, all I can say, is they are overrated. "

    When asked about what Steele was like to work with, Scarlett replied: " I'm not going to comment ," before walking away. We're guessing he's probably tired of MI6 having been mentioned in the same breath as Steele for the last several years.

    Listen:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/hSxBL86YuVY

    [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies

    Highly recommended!
    Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
    Notable quotes:
    "... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
    "... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
    "... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
    "... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
    "... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
    "... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
    Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

    Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from an article at the excellent Medialens

    http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060303_hacks_and_spooks.php

    HACKS AND SPOOKS

    By Professor Richard Keeble

    And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...

    I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources) on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.

    As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:

    "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."

    Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.

    And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.

    In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.

    As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career".

    Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.

    A brief history

    Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.

    Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.

    The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.

    According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.

    And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.

    In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives' Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.

    And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.

    David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody in every office in Fleet Street"

    Leaker King

    And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".

    Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".

    Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.

    Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.

    David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

    Maxwell and Mossad

    According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the 1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.

    In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6 were equally as strong.

    Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks were fascinating.

    For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse during the Cold War."

    The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms of first-hand knowledge."

    And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.

    Lawson strongly denied the allegations.

    Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)

    Growing power of secret state

    Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.

    But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.

    Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.

    According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by the Rockingham cell within the MoD.

    A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.

    Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.

    Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group, the Iraqi National Congress.

    Sexed up – and missed out

    During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government (in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.

    The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition? But those facts will be forever secret.

    Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was ignored by the inquiry.

    Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.

    Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures, especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."

    Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.

    ~

    Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.

    [Mar 18, 2019] Trump Rips Steele For Using Low Ratings CNN 'Citizen Journalist' Article As Dossier Source

    Notable quotes:
    "... President Trump ripped Christopher Steele after it was revealed that the former British spy used a 'citizen journalist' article from CNN's now-defunct 'iReports' website as part of his research. ..."
    "... it was actually Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos telling Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton which reportedly launched the "Witch Hunt." ..."
    Mar 18, 2019 | theduran.com

    President Trump ripped Christopher Steele after it was revealed that the former British spy used a 'citizen journalist' article from CNN's now-defunct 'iReports' website as part of his research.

    "Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from "send in watchers" of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt!"

    Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from "send in watchers" of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt!

    -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019

    Of note, it was actually Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos telling Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton which reportedly launched the "Witch Hunt." That said, let's also remember that it was Maltese professor and self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, Joseph Mifsud, who told Papadopoulos of the supposed Russian intel in the first place . Some have referred to it as an entrapment scheme .

    CNN iReport?

    Steele made the awkward revelation during a deposition last year in a case involving Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who claims his companies Webzilla and XBT Holdings were defamed by Steele after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed.

    Steele was asked during the deposition how he verified allegations about Gubarev's companies and whether he found "anything of relevance concerning Webzilla," according to the newly released transcripts of the deposition.

    "We did. It was an article I have got here which was posted on July 28, 2009, on something called CNN iReport ," Steele said. – Fox News

    CNN iReport, which is long gone, was clearly disclaimed as a " user-generated site ," warning that " the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post ."

    As Fox notes, even the site's banner included the slogan "Unedited. Unfiltered. News." and made clear that users who submit content do not work for CNN.

    Except super-spy Steele apparently missed that fact, or didn't care, as part of his 'extensive' research

    "Do you understand that CNN iReports are or were nothing more than any random individuals' assertions on the internet?" an examiner asked Steele.

    "No, I obviously presume that if it is on a CNN site that it may has [sic] some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site," Steele replied.

    [Mar 18, 2019] Newly released Bruce Ohr testimony exposes more Deep State lies targeting Trump (Video) by Alex Christoforou

    Notable quotes:
    "... Ohr stated in his testimony: "What I had said, I think, to Mr. Rosenstein in October of 2017 was that my wife was working for Fusion GPS The dossier, as I understand it, is the collection of reports that Chris Steele has prepared for Fusion. ..."
    "... Ohr added: "My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS But I don't believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS." ..."
    "... Rep. Mark Meadows asked Ohr during testimony "Did Chris Steele get paid by the Department of Justice? Ohr's response: "My understanding is that for a time he was a source for the FBI, a paid source. ..."
    Mar 15, 2019 | theduran.com

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/UfIy3iaN39s

    Department of Justice senior official Bruce Ohr's testimony contradicts testimony given by other senior government officials and key witnesses who testified before Congress regarding the FBI's investigation into President Trump's 2016 campaign and alleged collusion with the Russian government, according to the full transcripts released Friday.

    Ohr's 268-page testimony, released by Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, reveals inconsistency and contradiction in testimony given by Glenn Simpson, founder of embattled research firm Fusion GPS and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is set to leave his post sometime this month.

    It also reveals that many questions are still left unanswered.

    The Contradictions and The Revelations

    1. Glenn Simpson suggests in his testimony to the Senate that he never spoke to anyone at the FBI about Christopher Steele, the former British spy he hired to investigate the Trump campaign during the election. However, Ohr suggest otherwise telling former Rep.Trey Gowdy under questioning "As I recall, and this is after checking with my notes, Mr. Simpson and I spoke in August of 2016. I met with him, and he provided some information on possible intermediaries between the Russian government and the Trump campaign."

    2. In another instance, Simpson's testimony also contradicts notes taken by Ohr after a meeting they had in December, 2016. Unverified allegations were decimated among the media that the Trump campaign had a computer server that was linked to a Russian bank in Moscow: Alpha Bank. Simpson suggested to the Senate that he knew very little about the Trump -Alpha Bank server story and couldn't provide information. But Bruce Ohr's own handwritten notes state that when he met with Simpson in December 2016, Simpson was concerned over the Alpha Bank story in the New York Times. "The New York Times story on Oct. 31 downplaying the connection between Alfa servers and the Trump campaign was incorrect. There was communication and it wasn't spam," stated Ohr's notes. This suggests that Simpson was well aware of the story, which was believed by congressional investigators to have started from his research firm.

    3. Ohr testified to lawmakers that Simpson provided information to federal officials that was false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a well-known Republican campaign finance lawyer, and information regarding the National Rifle Association. Sean Davis, with the Federalist pointed this out in a tweet today. Read one of those stories here.

    Bruce Ohr testified that Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS provided to federal officials information we know to be false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a Republican campaign finance attorney, and the NRA. Giving false statements to federal officials is a crime under 18 U.S.C. 1001. pic.twitter.com/vm0tc4ft5R

    - Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 8, 2019

    4. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would not answer questions to lawmakers during testimony about when he learned that Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Fusion GPS. Just check this out from Rep. Matt Gaetz's interview with Judge Jeanine on Fox News.

    "Rod Rosenstein won't tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS," said Gaetz, in August, 2018. "So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife's occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I've asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there's a real smoking gun there."

    However, in Ohr's testimony he says he told the FBI about his wife's role at Fusion GPS but only divulged his role to one person at the DOJ: Rosenstein. At the time, Rosenstein was overseeing the Trump-Russia probe, and had taken the information from Ohr and gave it to the FBI. Just read The Hill's John Solomon full story here for the full background on Ohr's testimony. I highlighted an important date below: remember Rosenstein wouldn't answer lawmakers questions as to when he knew about Nellie Ohr. It also appears he failed to tell lawmakers about the information he delivered to the FBI.

    Ohr stated in his testimony: "What I had said, I think, to Mr. Rosenstein in October of 2017 was that my wife was working for Fusion GPS The dossier, as I understand it, is the collection of reports that Chris Steele has prepared for Fusion.

    Ohr added: "My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS But I don't believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS."

    5. Ohr also told lawmakers in his testimony that the former British spy, Christopher Steele was being paid by the FBI at the same time he was getting paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. However, there was another player paying Steele and it was a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, a tycoon connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had well known animus toward his former friend Paul Manafort.

    Rep. Mark Meadows asked Ohr during testimony "Did Chris Steele get paid by the Department of Justice? Ohr's response: "My understanding is that for a time he was a source for the FBI, a paid source.

    In the testimony Ohr also revealed that Steele had told him details about his work with Deripaska saying Deripaska's attorney Paul Hauser "had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with" Deripaska. Ohr said Manafort "had stolen a large amount of money from" the Russian Oligarch and that Hauser was "trying to gather information that would show that."

    [Mar 17, 2019] Epstein, Clinton and Trump are all connected to Lolita Express scandal

    Notable quotes:
    "... Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results. ..."
    "... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
    "... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images ..."
    "... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. ..."
    "... The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI . ..."
    "... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again . The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
    Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Judge Rules Plea Deal For Orgy Island Billionaire Broke Federal Law

    youshallnotkill, 1 hour ago link

    Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.

    While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.

    "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

    Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the comment curious.

    "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.

    SOURCE: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20170512/will-president-trump-be-used-as-witness-in-sex-offender-epstein-case

    Justin Case, 1 hour ago link

    Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance.

    zeezrom2point0, 2 hours ago link

    Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no, that was probably Bill.

    TeraByte, 2 hours ago link

    Manford´s life time vs a slap on the wrist. I does not matter, what you do, but whom you know.

    loop, 2 hours ago link

    "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images

    DFGTC , 2 hours ago link

    Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat.

    And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail?

    William Dorritt , 2 hours ago link

    Billionaire Palm Beach serial sex offender allowed to serve time in luxurious milieu | Fred Grimm

    ... ... ...

    https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-fred-grimm-jeffrey-epste ...

    2 of 2 2/7/2019, 10:41 AM

    4 wheel drift , 3 hours ago link

    The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI .

    LOLOLOL.... THAT explains a lot... ******* criminals the entire lot of them

    Baron Samedi , 3 hours ago link

    I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.'

    I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition country - ASAP.

    Reaper , 3 hours ago link

    The DOJ can prosecute now for the conspiracy of prosecutors and Epstein: https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

    dirty fingernails , 3 hours ago link

    Don't hold your breath.

    William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
    Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/
    As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389654/-Dennis-Hastert-as-the-Tip-of-the-Iceberg

    [Mar 17, 2019] Operation Crossfire Hurricane FBI Sent Strzok On Secret Mission To London Before Election

    May 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

    The New York Times is out with a puff piece ahead of the highly anticipated DOJ Inspector General report expected any day now detailing the FBI's (mis)conduct during the 2016 US election. The Times piece is brought to you by yet more leaks from the FBI, with their account of the operation against the Trump campaign prior to former Director Comey's firing and the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.

    Key takeaways:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/iFXVHu0vdI8

    Fearful of leaks, they kept details from political appointees across the street at the Justice Department. Peter Strzok, a senior F.B.I. agent, explained in a text that Justice Department officials would find it too "tasty" to resist sharing. "I'm not worried about our side," he wrote. - NYT

    It was an assignment so secretive that Peter Strzok giddily texted his side piece about it on an unsecured line. It's also weird for NYT to characterize the meeting as "not yet reported" seeing as how Strzok's texts about it have been out for months. https://t.co/lbvTZksLJr pic.twitter.com/QSA7TedpTM

    -- Sean Davis (@seanmdav) May 16, 2018

    The F.B.I. bureaucracy did agents no favors. In July, a retired British spy named Christopher Steele approached a friend in the F.B.I. overseas and provided reports linking Trump campaign officials to Russia. But the documents meandered around the F.B.I. organizational chart, former officials said. Only in mid-September, congressional investigators say, did the records reach the Crossfire Hurricane team .

    "I cannot believe we are seriously looking at these allegations and the pervasive connections," Mr. Strzok wrote soon after returning from London.

    " A year and a half later, no public evidence has surfaced connecting Mr. Trump's advisers to the hacking or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government's disruptive efforts. "

    "It's like the deep state all got together to try to orchestrate a palace coup," Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, said in January on Fox Business Network.

    [Mar 17, 2019] Nellie Ohr Has Ties to the Clinton Foundation

    Mar 10, 2019 | patriots4truth.org
    Bruce Ohr. (Aug. 28, 2018) . TRANSCRIPT of Interview before an Executive Session jointly between the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, p. 184. U.S. Congress.

    Bruce Ohr speaking about Nellie Ohr, TRANSCRIPT p. 184

    https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/2018-08-28-Bruce-Ohr-Interview-TRANSCRIPT-Executive-Session-of-Judiciary-Committee-jointly-with-House-Oversight-Committee-US-Congress-Aug-28-2018.pdf

    ohr testimony 1

    One month before the 2016 Nov. election, Nellie Ohr moved from the DOJ and FusionGPS that was paid by the DNC and Clinton Foundation via hers and Obama's law firm Perkins Coie LLP to created the "Steele dossier". Then she went to work for Clinton Foundation donor/Clinton Speech sponsor VeriSign, Inc.

    https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/2015-08-15-Hillary-and-Bill-Clinton-MASTER-SPEAKING-SUMMARY-2001-2015-OGE-Financial-Disclosures-prepared-Aug-15-2015.xlsx

    verisign

    .

    [Mar 17, 2019] CIA Director Gina Haspel is Complicit with the Coup

    Notable quotes:
    "... Bill Preistap was the supervisor for Strzok and Lisa Page who also worked for John Carlin in the Department of Justice National Security Division under Sally Yates. Then Strozk and Page continued their CIA operation as they were appointed to Mueller's Special Council Investigation. ..."
    "... Gina Haspel worked directly for the instigator of the Crossfire Hurricane operation – John Brennan. It would have been impossible for Haspel not to have known about the British spying from London since it was reported in UK newspaper on a weekly basis. She certainly was controlling Stefan Halper , Josef Mifsud , Stephan Roh , Alexander Downer, Andrew Wood, John McCain, Mark Warner, Adam Schiff and the other conspirators. ..."
    "... Keep in mind Haspel was Michael Gaeta's handler. Gaeta handled the frame-up of George Papadopoulos. ..."
    Mar 13, 2019 | patriots4truth.org

    When we saw these tweets from George Papadopoulos, we thought we could help him out with some answers. If you can get them to George, please do.

    Has congress figured out why Peter Strzok's former boss, Bill Priestap, was in London (of all places) the days before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and lie about our meeting? If not, time to get a move on it.

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 12, 2019

    Britain is in a political crisis. To push Brexit hard, declassifying the spy role of the David Cameron government on Trump and his team is paramount. Congress can not overlook the vital importance of London as the center of the coup attempt.

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 12, 2019

    What was I REALLY under surveillance for then? Explosive https://t.co/AVGlfwi5ld

    -- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 13, 2019

    Our reply to George:

    Bill Priestap was the Director of the FBI national security division and would have gone to the London CIA "office" for a meeting. There he would have met with Stefan Halper and Gina Haspel who was, at the time, head of the London CIA office and would have been in charge of the connections with Robert Hannigan (British GCHQ) and John Brennan who planned and executed the wiretapping of Trump Team at Trump Towers. Haspel's communications, when released, will reveal the full scope of the CIA led international attack on the 2016 presidential election.

    Gina Haspel would have known about the coup. If she has not reported all of this to the President Trump, she is complicit in the coup attempt and is guilty of HIGH TREASON.

    Keep in mind, Peter Strzok was a CIA Regional Director who John Brennan appointed as the head of Crossfire Hurricane, the CIA counter-intelligence operation to "take out" candidate Trump – later it became the Mueller Witch Hunt after 13 different iterations spanning:

    1. the CIA (John Brennan),
    2. FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, etc.),
    3. DoJ (Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, Andrew Weisseman),
    4. State Department (Victoria Nuland, Jonathon Winer, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry),
    5. ODNS (James Clapper),
    6. NSA (Admiral Mike Rogers)
    7. and the White House senior staff (directly to Obama, Biden, Jarret, Rice, Powers, etc.).

    Bill Preistap was the supervisor for Strzok and Lisa Page who also worked for John Carlin in the Department of Justice National Security Division under Sally Yates. Then Strozk and Page continued their CIA operation as they were appointed to Mueller's Special Council Investigation.

    Gina Haspel worked directly for the instigator of the Crossfire Hurricane operation – John Brennan. It would have been impossible for Haspel not to have known about the British spying from London since it was reported in UK newspaper on a weekly basis. She certainly was controlling Stefan Halper , Josef Mifsud , Stephan Roh , Alexander Downer, Andrew Wood, John McCain, Mark Warner, Adam Schiff and the other conspirators.

    All of these facts are well known and reported in open source documents. As the 53 testimonies of the House Intelligence Committee are released, we will see the house of cards all fall down and Gina Haspel will go with it.

    Keep in mind Haspel was Michael Gaeta's handler. Gaeta handled the frame-up of George Papadopoulos.

    [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
    "... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
    "... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
    "... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
    "... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
    "... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
    "... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
    "... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
    "... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
    "... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
    "... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
    "... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
    "... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
    "... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
    Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    O Society , March 16, 2019 at 7:55 am

    The Truth is Out There. I Want to Believe!

    Same old scams, different packaging. That's New & Improved for you.

    http://opensociet.org/2019/03/16/the-return-of-the-hidden-persuaders

    Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:35 pm

    I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.

    For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!

    The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA. Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS! Mueller should be jailed.

    Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am

    This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing, we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an effort to harm President Trump.

    It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians.

    B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector

    vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am

    Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.

    A non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And taxation without representation takes a new twist.

    ... ... ...

    Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm

    What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE Party which Represents DEEP STATE".

    DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am

    Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation.

    Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm

    EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their Criminal Governments tell them.

    Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!

    KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm

    What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?

    If you can't get him out via a Election, try & try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts absolutely?

    Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am

    Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation.

    If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some vestige of his balls.

    DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm

    By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something." presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.

    mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm

    From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.

    DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm

    Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over again.

    Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm

    The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.

    LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm

    Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a barf bag.

    Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm

    Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.

    hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am

    Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like Pence as opposition for 2020.

    James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:17 am

    We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks.

    We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.

    hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm

    Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.

    Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am

    It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to connect A to B.

    DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm

    Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class, for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.

    hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm

    Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say), whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent ordinary people's interests.

    Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am

    She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or eliminated.

    Cindy Haddix , March 14, 2019 at 8:04 am

    Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!

    torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am

    According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect on me as ipecac.

    Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am

    People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a scapegoat is a way out.

    O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am

    Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of intelligence and computer forensics.

    This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune.

    It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic journalists at every turn.

    DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm

    But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts their claims.

    O Society , March 15, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.

    The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs, isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.

    Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?

    Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.

    T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe, oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear, there's an app for that or is it a pill?

    I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.

    https://opensociet.org/2018/12/18/the-disneyfication-of-america/

    Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 6:45 pm

    Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the transmission speeds.

    Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be "reported in."

    Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm

    It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/ determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?) Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking of the DNC emails/ servers.

    DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm

    Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150 indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political) crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.

    Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm

    Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.

    Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am

    You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics" and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the "undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so funny.

    And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some "free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods for the American public! So there!

    As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.

    Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm

    Realist,

    I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying. It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the plan anyway.

    https://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/

    Realist , March 15, 2019 at 10:38 pm

    right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose. that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.

    i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry on, sir.

    Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm

    Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c

    DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm

    Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.

    Howard , March 13, 2019 at 4:36 pm

    Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for "shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued leadership!

    James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:28 am

    Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.

    DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm

    Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion" allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.

    Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm

    Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled media!

    I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".

    Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm

    We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never know what was on the servers.

    Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm

    As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:

    The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th – after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.

    And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.

    https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/muellers-new-indictment-do-the-feds-take-us-for-idiots-5406ef955406

    https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/how-did-crowdstrike-guccifer-2-0-know-that-wikileaks-was-planning-to-release-dnc-emails-42e6db334053

    Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was, as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich. Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows that it was not Rich.

    James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:40 am

    View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.

    Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.

    Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm

    Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that they were personal.

    But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.

    But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server. This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in for her to get off.

    robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm

    I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!

    Just ask billy barr.

    More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.

    Apparently the rule of law is not!

    You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a dogdamned side and stand for something,.

    Thank You VIPS!

    Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.

    Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.

    I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.

    Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm

    The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.

    Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm

    Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm

    A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source, but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.

    And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a complete sham.

    Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm

    It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!

    LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm

    A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report, It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?

    After Bill and Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.

    Mueller looks just like what he is. He has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting themselves. This has already gone on way too long.

    Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 11:59 am

    Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians.

    Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

    So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.

    Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a divisive idiot.

    Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm

    Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished.

    Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 2:12 pm

    @Jack,
    Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and feed half-truths to the people.

    You're failing Jack, in more ways than you know.

    Gregory Herr , March 13, 2019 at 9:13 pm

    https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/liberals-are-digging-their-own-grave-with-russiagate-2019-03-08

    Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

    Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am

    Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats, have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president. This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct. The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though, even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.

    Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:30 pm

    Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on America and tortured some folks.

    George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm

    QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.

    I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.

    Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am

    How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!

    Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am

    "We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions."

    I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint before throwing the knockout punch.

    If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily, I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of venues like CN.

    I pray to God I'm wrong.

    Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm

    My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98% of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone, deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond any real evidence.

    Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above you.

    The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA, FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil service careers.

    Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little idea of where to go from there.

    Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am

    I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to establish truth in reporting

    Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am

    Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration: "we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .

    Gary Weglarz , March 13, 2019 at 10:21 am

    Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values the truth.

    Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep at night unless he's starving his own people."

    The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with "Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.

    Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am

    I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive? And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive? That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was under the control of some faraway agent?

    Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am

    Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX). The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question, yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates wouldn't line up.

    Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am

    Jeff-

    Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata for the most recent move?

    David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm

    Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks?"

    I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that question elsewhere.

    To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)

    Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm

    I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had "moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig Murray.

    David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm

    Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.

    But I think the question Marc posed stands.

    Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am

    Hi David-

    I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.

    As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney directly answer it.

    [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

    Highly recommended!
    Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

    The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.

    MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General

    FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

    SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

    Executive Summary

    Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump. If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."

    Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We stand ready to help.

    We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story, we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

    There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions. We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

    We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.

    This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.

    We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments, however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring that you hear that directly from us.

    If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.

    In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again, we are at your disposal.

    Discussion

    The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light, rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."

    The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:

    " When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."

    To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution." They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]

    Forensics

    The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.

    Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.

    In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."

    The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.

    Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens that conclusion.

    We Do Forensics

    Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive, before WikiLeaks posted them.

    FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.

    Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.

    We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the World Wide Web.

    This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.

    Role of NSA

    For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so. We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks -- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.

    Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show the routes that trace the packets.)

    The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."

    Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment," which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.

    Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?

    There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.

    There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement, claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."

    Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS reported in a wrap-up Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three days before the Democratic convention.

    As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S. This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.

    Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb drive.

    The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5, 2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.

    Presidential Interest

    After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."

    Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA. Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.

    Confronting James Clapper on Forensics

    We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:

    " Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]

    Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."

    (A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found here and a commentary on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is here .)

    Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance. To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."

    The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12, 2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."

    Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before Mueller completes his investigation.

    For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

    Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

    image_pdf image_print 9280

    Tags: Bill Binney Donald Trump Hillary Clinton James Clapper James Comey Mike Pompeo Robert Mueller Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity VIPS WikiLeaks


    [Mar 15, 2019] What the Strzok-Page 'insurance policy' text was actually about - The Washington Post

    Mar 15, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com

    What the Strzok-Page 'insurance policy' text was actually about - The Washington Post

    With the release of testimony from those two employees -- attorney Lisa Page and agent Peter Strzok -- the "insurance policy" argument for the illegitimacy of the Russia investigation gained new energy. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted a Fox News story about Page's testimony.

    "This deserves more attention!" he wrote . "FBI Mistress, Lisa Page, confirmed to House Judiciary, there was an anti-Trump Insurance Policy and it's the fake Russian investigation! She admits there was almost no evidence on collusion, yet they continued with WITCH HUNT!"

    Trump tweeted Paul's message to his followers, adding, "I agree with Rand Paul. This is a total disgrace and should NEVER happen to another President!"

    [Mar 15, 2019] DOJ ... Department of Obstruction of Justice.

    Mar 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    The Justice Department and Hillary Clinton's legal team "negotiated" an agreement that blocked the FBI from accessing emails on Clinton's homebrew server related to the Clinton Foundation, according to a transcript of recently released testimony from last summer by former FBI special agent Peter Strzok.

    [Mar 13, 2019] Sic Semper Tyrannis The Paul Manafort sentence and the notorious and diabolical federal sentencing guidelines

    Mar 13, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    The Paul Manafort sentence and the notorious and diabolical federal sentencing guidelines Ussc_logo
    By Robert Willmann

    Crime is a legal definition. This means that to commit big crime you make it legal. Or, you can try to enhance your commercial business or money making organization by getting conduct made into a crime that is competition to your activity, like is found in copyright law, and is done by state governments that make gambling illegal but have state-run lotteries in which the odds of winning are so remote they make the negative percentage in Las Vegas casino games look like a paragon of virtue. This also means that the concept of a crime is created by a government, even though it is commonly thought to be bad behavior (or a failure to act), as described by social relations, culture, religion, and human biology (with murder opposed by the instinctive act of self defense). Conduct that is said to be bad enough is defined as a crime and involves the government using force directly against the actor at least in the form initially of an arrest, possible imprisonment, or later if an order from a criminal court case is not followed.

    The ongoing jabbering in the mass media -- starting in November 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president -- declared that all sorts of conduct was illegal, as a civil or criminal case, or should be the subject of charges for impeachment. A lot of that talk can be described as horse manure, but it has had a real effect on the public, which effect has been and is the intent. It reached a fever pitch last week when Judge T.S. Ellis III, an American hero, in a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, sentenced Paul Manafort in one of his two criminal cases to 47 months in prison, which was noticeably below the "sentencing guidelines range" of 235 to 293 months--

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/manafort_court_sentencing_minutes.pdf

    Television talkers expressed shock and dismay that Manafort received such a "low" sentence below the guidelines and they look forward with glee to his second sentencing on 13 March, beginning at 9:30 a.m., eastern time, in federal court in Washington DC, with Judge Amy Berman Jackson presiding. Her rulings can be described as statistically matching to a degree those requested by government prosecutors in cases brought by "special counsel" Robert Mueller, who was tasked to investigate "interference" in the 2016 presidential election by the Russian government, with attention to "collusion" by the Trump campaign, but mysteriously not involving possible collusion with Russia by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

    Just as important as the definition of a crime are the rules of procedure and evidence that govern a criminal justice system from start to finish, such as: detaining and arresting a person, questioning a suspect, confinement or release before a trial (if any), pretrial court hearings, a trial itself by a jury or otherwise, any appeal of a trial's verdict, ordering a sentence of punishment or a consequence to the finding of guilt, suspending a sentence through probation, operating a prison, the power of a president or governor to pardon a person's conviction or commute the sentence, and so forth.

    This brings us to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, a deceptive name if there ever was one. They are part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (CCCA), disguised inside House Joint Resolution 648, "A joint resolution making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1985, and for other purposes", which became Public Law 98-473 and which president Ronald Reagan signed on 12 October 1984. That legislation shifted the existing federal criminal law so extensively that it can accurately be described as a radical change. Whether becoming a law in 1984 was a coincidence or an arrogant expression by implementing some of the meaning in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-four" (published in 1949) is not known.

    The so-called guidelines came from the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (Dem. Massachusetts), and they became part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which in turn was Title 2 of the continuing appropriations bill, Public Law 98-473. In the legislation, Congress created the United States Sentencing Commission, and it would write the new sentencing rules, and federal judges would have to sentence someone within the "guideline range" set by the commission. This smaller "guideline range" was within the regular "range of punishment" set by Congress as a possible minimum to maximum sentence for each particular crime Congress defined. Before the CCCA, if a defendant was found guilty, the federal judge had the power and discretion to sentence the person to anything within the regular range of punishment established by Congress, and order probation if allowed in that instance. But the sentencing guidelines took that discretion away from the federal judge, and required the sentence to be within the guideline range. The self-righteous language that supposedly allowed a judge to "depart" from the guideline range in a certain way was laughable as a practical matter.

    When the sentencing guidelines became law, the sentencing commission magically was said to become part of the judicial branch of government, where it resides today [1].

    When the sentencing guidelines kicked in and became operational, a court challenge followed. The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, as United States v. Mistretta, 488 U.S. 361 (1989), and even though at that time "liberals" such as Judges William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and John Paul Stevens were on the court, the decision was 8 to 1 that the guidelines were constitutional, with the lone dissenter being none other than Antonin Scalia [2]. Sometimes Judge Scalia would pull back covering language about an issue and shine a light on what was really going on. He did so at the start of his dissent--

    "While the products of the Sentencing Commission's labors have been given the modest name 'Guidelines,' see 28 U.S.C. 994(a)(1) (1982 ed., Supp. IV); United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual (June 15, 1988), they have the force and effect of laws, prescribing the sentences criminal defendants are to receive. A judge who disregards them will be reversed, 18 U.S.C. 3742 (1982 ed., Supp. IV). I dissent from today's decision because I can find no place within our constitutional system for an agency created by Congress to exercise no governmental power other than the making of laws."

    As some sort of smiling rationale is always given for a new law or governmental action, the sentencing guidelines were promoted as providing certainty and fairness in sentencing and avoiding unwarranted disparities among defendants with similar records found guilty of similar offenses. Never mind that the differences between individual human beings, their backgrounds, and behavior are basically unlimited and disparate in reality. The existence of reality was not part of the new game, and "disparity" was claimed to be a bad thing. Asserted to be just as bad was the difference between federal judges and the sentences they imposed. Surprisingly, one of the original members of the sentencing commission, Paul Robinson, objected to what was created as a final product, and Judge Scalia quoted him--

    " ' Under the guidelines, the judge could give the same sentence for abusive sexual contact that puts the child in fear as for unlawfully entering or remaining in the United States. Similarly, the guidelines permit equivalent sentences for the following pairs of offenses: drug trafficking and a violation of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act; arson with a destructive device and failure to surrender a cancelled naturalization certificate; operation of a common carrier under the influence of drugs that causes injury and alteration of one motor vehicle identification number; illegal trafficking in explosives and trespass; interference with a flight attendant and unlawful conduct relating to contraband cigarettes; aggravated assault and smuggling $11,000 worth of fish.' Dissenting View of Commissioner Paul H. Robinson on the Promulgation of the Sentencing Guidelines by the United States Sentencing Commission 6-7 (May 1, 1987) (citations omitted)".

    The point was and is that laws are to be made by Congress, and not from scratch by delegating the power to a type of commission, which Judge Scalia called "a sort of junior-varsity Congress". This context also raises thoughts about the separation of powers in the structure of the federal government.

    Sentencing in federal court became a process of assigning a certain number of points to certain factors, and adding them up and subtracting some to reach a numerical score, and after that looking at a grid and finding the pigeon hole telling you, and the handcuffed judge, what the sentence within the new, smaller range of punishment could be. If you think that such a process is surreal, it is. The sentencing scheme with its new commission became a sprawling monster, not only in its text and procedures, but also in its expenditure of time and money and court litigation, which continues to this day. Here is the current version of the sentencing guidelines manual, in excess of 500 pages, which you can read if your stomach can stand it--

    https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manual/2018/GLMFull.pdf

    After the guidelines became effective in 1987 and the Mistretta opinion was handed down in 1989, the problems generated by the new system became more and more obvious and acute. Despite dissatisfaction expressed in the legal community, Congress did nothing, and it took 15 years until 2004 for another case with some substance to be accepted by the Supreme Court for review, called United States vs. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). It produced an unusual decision consisting of two separate majority opinions, with each one made up of a different group of five judges, and several dissenting opinions [3].

    One opinion ruled that two sections of the Sentencing Reform Act that made the guidelines mandatory had to be severed and excised from that law because a conflict existed between facts that might be found by a jury through a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, and what could be done under the mandatory aspects of the sentencing guidelines. Invalidating the two sections made the guidelines effectively advisory , but the "[federal] district courts, while not bound to apply the Guidelines, must consult those Guidelines and take them into account when sentencing", and the "courts of appeals review sentencing decisions for unreasonableness" (see pages 246-267, pdf pages 448-469). The supreme court did not have the intestinal fortitude to strike down the entire sentencing guidelines regime, and instead wrote around the problems, split hairs, and kept the system mostly in place, requiring the trial judge to still consider the "numerous factors that guide sentencing", and a court of appeals can review the judge's sentence and decide whether it is "unreasonable".

    Judge Stephen Breyer is the author of that particular majority opinion in the Booker case that kept the guidelines mostly in place; Supreme Court Judge John Paul Stevens wrote the other majority opinion. One of the original members of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1985-1989 was a judge on the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals named Stephen Breyer, who was on that court from 1980-1994. He was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by president Bill Clinton and took his seat on 3 August 1994.

    The world is indeed small, for in the Booker case before the supreme court in 2004, two lawyers involved in writing the brief (the written argument) for the Justice Department to support the guidelines were Christopher Wray, now the FBI Director, and Michael Drebeen, who has been in the Solicitor General's office in the Justice Department and who has been working at least part time since 2017 for -- you guessed it -- special counsel Robert Mueller [4]. In this New York Times newspaper story from 6 June 2017 about Christopher Wray being nominated to be FBI Director, at the beginning of the story is a photograph from February 2004 of three men standing together -- James Comey (the Deputy Attorney General), Robert Mueller (FBI Director), and Christopher Wray (Chief of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department) [5]. To slightly modify the immortal words of comedian George Carlin, "It's a small club, and you're not in it".

    The growing mutation of the sentencing system continues, with endless quibbling among lawyers in court, judges, and the sentencing commission through litigation over detailed bureaucratic parts of the guidelines attempting to identify and pull under control every conceivable variation of a person, the person's conduct, and different factors that might be considered in a sentence, and assign a number to it, ultimately producing your guideline and criminal history levels. The sentencing commission has published a selected annotation of 85 supreme court cases from the Mistretta decision in 1989 to one from 2018, with a brief discussion of each opinion [6].

    You can now see and understand the real reason for the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the carefully crafted system of assigning numbers to points and designing strict categories to include and control every possible factor about ordering a sentence for a crime.

    This system removes the sentencing power and discretion from the courts and judges in the judicial branch and gives them to the prosecuting attorneys in the executive branch, through the Department of Justice and the offices of U.S. Attorneys. It has been and is a clever and diabolical transfer to the prosecuting authority of one of the most important functions in a criminal justice system: the sentencing punishment or consequence given to a defendant.

    I, the federal prosecutor, will decide what your sentence will be by the offenses I decide to charge you with. All I have to do is get a guilty verdict from a jury trial or from a trial to the judge if you agree to have a judge alone hear and decide the trial. Or obtain a guilty plea from you to a charge and on terms that I agree to, whether that guilty plea results from your objective decision about your conduct, or whether you are coerced into pleading guilty by the sheer number of charges with possible sentences I have filed against you, or you plead guilty because you have run out of money and cannot afford a trial, or I threaten to charge your wife or family members also if you do not plead guilty to what I agree you can plead to. The judge is so constrained and limited by the sentencing guideline scheme that I am not worried at all about the sentence you will get; I have no downside risk there.

    The presentence investigation report (PSI) about Paul Manafort from the federal probation office was filed on 6 March and is not publicly available, as is standard practice. Manafort's sentencing hearing on 13 March is taking on the aura of a spectacle, boosted by the government's allegation that he violated the terms of his plea agreement, and after the courageous departure downward from the sentencing guidelines by Judge T.S. Ellis III last week. Whether Judge Ellis's sentence may be the subject of review by appeal is another dense issue.

    Meanwhile, in the pending case of Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.), a status report by the lawyers was filed on 12 March. It requested that his sentencing hearing be rescheduled--

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_status_report_20190312.pdf

    Politicians, the press, and candidates announcing a year before the presidential primaries begin are blathering on clownlike about who has verbally offended whom, which newly invented group should have new "rights", whether someone is cis-gender, whether the president had sexual contact with a floozy pornographic movie performer and whether a legal payment to her to keep it confidential violated campaign finance laws (it did not), and on and on.

    All the while, they are blithely unaware that playing out right in front of their faces is a radical transformation of federal criminal law, consolidating the ultimate governmental power in the branch that executes the police power, while federal judges with a lifetime appointment and all office facilities and perks paid for by taxpayers, dither and refuse to honestly describe and resist what has been happening. All federal judges except for two. One, Antonin Scalia, left this world in 2016, but was the only one on the supreme court standing against the slick usurpation of the democratic process and sentencing discretion. The other one, T.S. Ellis III, is still with us, and he not only understands what the sentencing guidelines really are, but he also assessed a sentence as it used to be done, without the double meaning of 1984.

    [1] The United States Sentencing Commission--

    http://www.ussc.gov

    [2] The official version of a Supreme Court opinion is in a book called the United States Reports. The Supreme Court has a digital version of its opinions in the pdf computer format going back only to volume 509, and the Mistretta opinion is in volume 488. Other internet websites have reproduced the opinion.

    https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/488/361.html

    [3] The supreme court opinion is in a bound volume on the court's website, but I do not have the software at hand to pull it out as a separate document. The full volume of 1,259 pages in the pdf computer format is 3.9 megabytes in size and can be viewed or downloaded. The Booker opinion is on pdf pages 422 to 536, and on book pages 220 to 334.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/543bv.pdf

    [4] Justice Department lawyers for the government in the Booker appeal--

    https://www.justice.gov/osg/brief/united-states-v-booker-brief-merits

    Michael Drebeen in the Booker appeal is hired by Mueller in the Russia investigation--

    https://jonathanturley.org/2017/06/12/mueller-hires-justice-official-with-history-of-arguing-for-expansive-interpretation-of-obstruction-of-justice/

    [5] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/politics/christopher-wray-bio.html

    [6] https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/case-law-documents/2018-supreme-court-cases.pdf

    blue peacock , 9 hours ago

    Thank you Robert for the education. Most people, even educated ones don't grasp the scale, scope and intricacies of our governmental apparatus. I know the more I learn, the more I become convinced we have a leviathan that is manipulated, twisted, overly complex and one that is working only for the ruling elites. We have to cut this behemoth down to size. And follow Taleb's maxims of "Skin in the Game" and "Anti-fragile" meaning simplicity.
    Bill H , 10 hours ago
    "The point was and is that laws are to be made by Congress, and not from
    scratch by delegating the power to a type of commission, which Judge
    Scalia called 'a sort of junior-varsity Congress' ".
    Such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    [Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr s Testimony Contradicts Testimony Provided By Rosenstein And Simpson by Sara Carter

    Notable quotes:
    "... Bruce Ohr testified that Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS provided to federal officials information we know to be false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a Republican campaign finance attorney, and the NRA. Giving false statements to federal officials is a crime under 18 U.S.C. 1001. pic.twitter.com/vm0tc4ft5R ..."
    "... "Rod Rosenstein won't tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS," said Gaetz, in August, 2018. "So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife's occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I've asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there's a real smoking gun there." ..."
    "... in Ohr's testimony he says he told the FBI about his wife's role at Fusion GPS but only divulged his role to one person at the DOJ: Rosenstein. ..."
    "... It also appears he failed to tell lawmakers about the information he delivered to the FBI. ..."
    "... Ohr added: "My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS But I don't believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS." ..."
    "... In the testimony Ohr also revealed that Steele had told him details about his work with Deripaska saying Deripaska's attorney Paul Hauser "had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with" Deripaska. Ohr said Manafort "had stolen a large amount of money from" the Russian Oligarch and that Hauser was "trying to gather information that would show that." ..."
    Mar 08, 2019 | saraacarter.com

    Department of Justice senior official Bruce Ohr's testimony contradicts testimony given by other senior government officials and key witnesses who testified before Congress regarding the FBI's investigation into President Trump's 2016 campaign and alleged collusion with the Russian government, according to the full transcripts released Friday.

    Ohr's 268-page testimony, released by Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, reveals inconsistency and contradiction in testimony given by Glenn Simpson, founder of embattled research firm Fusion GPS and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is set to leave his post sometime this month.

    It also reveals that many questions are still left unanswered.

    The Contradictions and The Revelations
    1. Glenn Simpson suggests in his testimony to the Senate that he never spoke to anyone at the FBI about Christopher Steele, the former British spy he hired to investigate the Trump campaign during the election. However, Ohr suggest otherwise telling former Rep.Trey Gowdy under questioning "As I recall, and this is after checking with my notes, Mr. Simpson and I spoke in August of 2016. I met with him, and he provided some information on possible intermediaries between the Russian government and the Trump campaign."
    2. In another instance, Simpson's testimony also contradicts notes taken by Ohr after a meeting they had in December, 2016. Unverified allegations were decimated among the media that the Trump campaign had a computer server that was linked to a Russian bank in Moscow: Alpha Bank. Simpson suggested to the Senate that he knew very little about the Trump -Alpha Bank server story and couldn't provide information. But Bruce Ohr's own handwritten notes state that when he met with Simpson in December 2016, Simpson was concerned over the Alpha Bank story in the New York Times. "The New York Times story on Oct. 31 downplaying the connection between Alfa servers and the Trump campaign was incorrect. There was communication and it wasn't spam," stated Ohr's notes. This suggests that Simpson was well aware of the story, which was believed by congressional investigators to have started from his research firm.
    3. Ohr testified to lawmakers that Simpson provided information to federal officials that was false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a well-known Republican campaign finance lawyer, and information regarding the National Rifle Association. Sean Davis, with the Federalist pointed this out in a tweet today. Read one of those stories here.

    Bruce Ohr testified that Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS provided to federal officials information we know to be false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a Republican campaign finance attorney, and the NRA. Giving false statements to federal officials is a crime under 18 U.S.C. 1001. pic.twitter.com/vm0tc4ft5R

    -- Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 8, 2019

    4. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would not answer questions to lawmakers during testimony about when he learned that Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Fusion GPS. Just check this out from Rep. Matt Gaetz's interview with Judge Jeanine on Fox News .

    "Rod Rosenstein won't tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS," said Gaetz, in August, 2018. "So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife's occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I've asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there's a real smoking gun there."

    However, in Ohr's testimony he says he told the FBI about his wife's role at Fusion GPS but only divulged his role to one person at the DOJ: Rosenstein. At the time, Rosenstein was overseeing the Trump-Russia probe, and had taken the information from Ohr and gave it to the FBI. Just read The Hill's John Solomon full story here for the full background on Ohr's testimony. I highlighted an important date below: remember Rosenstein wouldn't answer lawmakers questions as to when he knew about Nellie Ohr. It also appears he failed to tell lawmakers about the information he delivered to the FBI.

    Ohr stated in his testimony: "What I had said, I think, to Mr. Rosenstein in October of 2017 was that my wife was working for Fusion GPS The dossier, as I understand it, is the collection of reports that Chris Steele has prepared for Fusion GPS."

    Ohr added: "My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS But I don't believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS."

    5. Ohr also told lawmakers in his testimony that the former British spy, Christopher Steele was being paid by the FBI at the same time he was getting paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. However, there was another player paying Steele and it was a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, a tycoon connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had well known animus toward his former friend Paul Manafort.

    Rep. Mark Meadows asked Ohr during testimony "Did Chris Steele get paid by the Department of Justice?

    Ohr's response: "My understanding is that for a time he was a source for the FBI, a paid source.

    In the testimony Ohr also revealed that Steele had told him details about his work with Deripaska saying Deripaska's attorney Paul Hauser "had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with" Deripaska. Ohr said Manafort "had stolen a large amount of money from" the Russian Oligarch and that Hauser was "trying to gather information that would show that."

    [Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson

    Highly recommended!
    Looks like Orr was one of the central figures of the conspiracy against Trump in Justice Department. And it was Orr wife who probably had written parts of the dossier at the request of CIA Brennan and other conspirators in CIA (who were acting via controlled by them counterintelligence division at FBI)
    Notable quotes:
    "... Christopher Steele, a "former" MI-6 officer, had been a paid FBI informant for several years. ..."
    "... Bruce Ohr met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, which totally contradicts Simpson's previous sworn testimony that he did not meet with Ohr until after the 2016 election. ..."
    "... Ohr informed FBI and senior DOJ officials, who signed off on the FISA application in October 2016 to spy on Carter Page, that the "dossier" had a tainted political history. ..."
    "... What is truly remarkable about Ohr's testimony is that his explanation for repeated meetings and contacts with Christopher Steele do not make sense. I am referring specifically to Ohr's claim that Steele wanted him, Ohr, to pass info to the FBI. ..."
    "... This guy is a senior DOJ official. He is a former prosecutor. He knows that the minute he accepts anything from Steele and then passes it on to the FBI that he, Ohr, became a fact witness. He is part of the chain of custody. More importantly, Ohr, knowing that Steele is on the FBI payroll, should have refused to accept any information and direct Steele to talk to his Agent/handler. Period. ..."
    "... One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. ..."
    "... In light of all of this one can only conclude that Bruce Ohr is lying about the real reason for meeting with Steele or that he is a complete moron. There is no other possible explanation or excuse. I do not think that Ohr is a moron. He does not strike me as a man of limited intelligence. I think he is lying. I believe that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump. ..."
    "... As more transcripts and documents come into the sunlight, we will get a clearer picture of the corruption at both the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA applications to spy on a US citizen, Carter Page, are without foundation. I am sure that William Barr appreciates this point and will press for action against those who willingly engaged in such despicable actions. ..."
    Mar 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Sorry to have been out of pocket (I've fled the wintry north for a new home in Florida). I am back, so to speak, and ready to write a bit. Last week's release by Congressman Collins of the interview transcript of Bruce Ohr, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last year is quite damning of the FBI and the DOJ. If our system of justice is truly blind and committed to fairness, there is little doubt that former FBI and DOJ officials--Comey, McCabe, Yates and Rosenstein--will be facing serious legal jeopardy. They have lied.

    The biggest "revelations" from Ohr are as follows:

    1. Christopher Steele, a "former" MI-6 officer, had been a paid FBI informant for several years.
    2. Bruce Ohr met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, which totally contradicts Simpson's previous sworn testimony that he did not meet with Ohr until after the 2016 election.
    3. Ohr informed FBI and senior DOJ officials, who signed off on the FISA application in October 2016 to spy on Carter Page, that the "dossier" had a tainted political history.

    I put "revelations" in quotations because we already knew most of this--specifically Steele's status as a paid informant and the failure of the FBI and DOJ to verify the accuracy of the so-called dossier. The new meat on the bone is Ohr's claim that he met with Simpson in August 2016. Simpson swore under oath that no such meeting took place. That's a substantive lie and, if the Flynn case is a guide, Mr. Simpson will be looking at prison.

    What is truly remarkable about Ohr's testimony is that his explanation for repeated meetings and contacts with Christopher Steele do not make sense. I am referring specifically to Ohr's claim that Steele wanted him, Ohr, to pass info to the FBI. Think about this for a moment--Ohr knows that Steele is a paid FBI informant. That means Steele has an FBI agent who is his conduit into the FBI. That Agent handles interviews and writes up reports. Why in the hell would Steele approach Ohr and not his FBI handler? Because Steele did not want to create a record, i.e., a 302, that would have been generated if he had followed protocol and gone thru normal channels.

    And Ohr? This guy is a senior DOJ official. He is a former prosecutor. He knows that the minute he accepts anything from Steele and then passes it on to the FBI that he, Ohr, became a fact witness. He is part of the chain of custody. More importantly, Ohr, knowing that Steele is on the FBI payroll, should have refused to accept any information and direct Steele to talk to his Agent/handler. Period.

    One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy.

    In light of all of this one can only conclude that Bruce Ohr is lying about the real reason for meeting with Steele or that he is a complete moron. There is no other possible explanation or excuse. I do not think that Ohr is a moron. He does not strike me as a man of limited intelligence. I think he is lying. I believe that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump.

    As more transcripts and documents come into the sunlight, we will get a clearer picture of the corruption at both the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA applications to spy on a US citizen, Carter Page, are without foundation. I am sure that William Barr appreciates this point and will press for action against those who willingly engaged in such despicable actions.

    [Mar 09, 2019] Bruce Ohr's Testimony Contradicts Testimony Provided By Rosenstein And Simpson

    Mar 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Department of Justice senior official Bruce Ohr's testimony contradicts testimony given by other senior government officials and key witnesses who testified before Congress regarding the FBI's investigation into President Trump's 2016 campaign and alleged collusion with the Russian government, according to the full transcripts released Friday.

    Ohr's 268-page testimony, released by Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, reveals inconsistency and contradiction in testimony given by Glenn Simpson, founder of embattled research firm Fusion GPS and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is set to leave his post sometime this month.

    It also reveals that many questions are still left unanswered.

    The Contradictions and The Revelations

    1. Glenn Simpson suggests in his testimony to the Senate that he never spoke to anyone at the FBI about Christopher Steele, the former British spy he hired to investigate the Trump campaign during the election. However, Ohr suggests otherwise telling former Rep.Trey Gowdy under questioning "As I recall, and this is after checking with my notes, Mr. Simpson and I spoke in August of 2016. I met with him, and he provided some information on possible intermediaries between the Russian government and the Trump campaign."

    2. In another instance, Simpson's testimony also contradicts notes taken by Ohr after a meeting they had in December, 2016. Unverified allegations were decimated among the media that the Trump campaign had a computer server that was linked to a Russian bank in Moscow: Alpha Bank. Simpson suggested to the Senate that he knew very little about the Trump -Alpha Bank server story and couldn't provide information. But Bruce Ohr's own handwritten notes state that when he met with Simpson in December 2016, Simpson was concerned over the Alpha Bank story in the New York Times. "The New York Times story on Oct. 31 downplaying the connection between Alfa servers and the Trump campaign was incorrect. There was communication and it wasn't spam," stated Ohr's notes. This suggests that Simpson was well aware of the story, which was believed by congressional investigators to have started from his research firm.

    3. Ohr testified to lawmakers that Simpson provided information to federal officials that was false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a well-known Republican campaign finance lawyer, and information regarding the National Rifle Association. Sean Davis, with the Federalist pointed this out in a tweet today. Read one of those stories here.

    4. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would not answer questions to lawmakers during testimony about when he learned that Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Fusion GPS. Just check this out from Rep. Matt Gaetz's interview with Judge Jeanine on Fox News .

    "Rod Rosenstein won't tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS," said Gaetz, in August, 2018.

    "So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife's occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I've asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there's a real smoking gun there."

    However, in Ohr's testimony he says he told the FBI about his wife's role at Fusion GPS but only divulged his role to one person at the DOJ: Rosenstein. At the time, Rosenstein was overseeing the Trump-Russia probe, and had taken the information from Ohr and gave it to the FBI. Just read The Hill's John Solomon full story here for the full background on Ohr's testimony. I highlighted an important date below: remember Rosenstein wouldn't answer lawmakers questions as to when he knew about Nellie Ohr. It also appears he failed to tell lawmakers about the information he delivered to the FBI.

    Ohr stated in his testimony: "What I had said, I think, to Mr. Rosenstein in October of 2017 was that my wife was working for Fusion GPS The dossier, as I understand it, is the collection of reports that Chris Steele has prepared for Fusion GPS."

    Ohr added: "My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS But I don't believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS."

    5. Ohr also told lawmakers in his testimony that the former British spy, Christopher Steele was being paid by the FBI at the same time he was getting paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. However, there was another player paying Steele and it was a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, a tycoon connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had well known animus toward his former friend Paul Manafort.

    Rep. Mark Meadows asked Ohr during testimony "Did Chris Steele get paid by the Department of Justice?

    Ohr's response: "My understanding is that for a time he was a source for the FBI, a paid source.

    In the testimony Ohr also revealed that Steele had told him details about his work with Deripaska saying Deripaska's attorney Paul Hauser "had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with" Deripaska. Ohr said Manafort "had stolen a large amount of money from" the Russian Oligarch and that Hauser was "trying to gather information that would show that."

    [Mar 06, 2019] The decision by the U.S. intelligence community to include in an official report some unverified and salacious accusations against President-elect Donald Trump resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail

    Notable quotes:
    "... The stories about Russian intelligence supposedly filming Trump in a high-end Moscow hotel with prostitutes have been circulating around Washington for months. I was briefed about them by a Hillary Clinton associate who was clearly hopeful that the accusations would be released before the election and thus further damage Trump's chances. But the alleged video never seemed to surface and the claims had all the earmarks of a campaign dirty trick. ..."
    "... However, now the tales of illicit frolic have been elevated to another level. They have been inserted into an official U.S. intelligence report, the details of which were leaked first to CNN and then to other mainstream U.S. news media outlets. ..."
    "... In American history, legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was infamous for using his agency to develop negative information on a political figure and then letting the person know that the FBI had the dirt and certainly would not want it to become public – if only the person would do what the FBI wanted, whether that was to reappoint Hoover to another term or to boost the FBI's budget or – in the infamous case of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – perhaps to commit suicide. ..."
    "... Still, perhaps the more troubling issue is whether the U.S. intelligence community has entered a new phase of politicization in which its leadership feels that it has the responsibility to weed out "unfit" contenders for the presidency. During the general election campaign, a well-placed intelligence source told me that the intelligence community disdained both Clinton and Trump and hoped to discredit both of them with the hope that a more "acceptable" person could move into the White House for the next four years. ..."
    "... Then, after the election, President Obama's CIA began leaking allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin had orchestrated the hacking of Democratic emails and provided them to WikiLeaks to reveal how the DNC undermined Sen. Bernie Sanders's campaign and what Clinton had told Wall Street bigwigs in paid speeches that she had sought to keep secret from the American people. ..."
    "... Now, we are seeing what looks like a new phase in this "stop (or damage) Trump" strategy, the inclusion of anti-Trump dirt in an official intelligence report that was then leaked to the major media. ..."
    "... America's Stolen Narrative, ..."
    "... There are moments in history when it seems almost the entire population of a nation has been struck with deafness and blindess. This maybe one such moment for the United States as a political elite begins the process of tearing the Union apart. ..."
    "... The Craft of Intelligence, by Allen Dulles, (1965, if memory serves; alas, that book's text seems unavailable on the internet) ..."
    "... At Kent State the National Guard was quite willing to shoot "their own people". The increasingly militarized Police of the US have been getting lots of practice shooting at "their own people". ..."
    "... I'm wondering if we are seeing the beginnings of a President Pence. ..."
    "... Why are you in the US so keen on destroying any credibility of your government? ..."
    Jan 12, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

    Exclusive: President-elect Trump is fending off a US intelligence leak of unproven allegations that he cavorted with Russian prostitutes, but the darker story might be the CIA's intervention in U.S. politics, reports Robert Parry.

    The decision by the U.S. intelligence community to include in an official report some unverified and salacious accusations against President-elect Donald Trump resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press.

    Legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

    In this case, as leaders of the U.S. intelligence community were pressing Trump to accept their assessment that the Russian government had tried to bolster Trump's campaign by stealing and leaking actual emails harmful to Hillary Clinton's campaign, Trump was confronted with this classified "appendix" describing claims about him cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

    Supposedly, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan included the unproven allegations in the report under the rationale that the Russian government might have videotaped Trump's misbehavior and thus could use it to blackmail him. But the U.S. intelligence community also had reasons to want to threaten Trump who has been critical of its performance and who has expressed doubts about its analysis of the Russian "hacking."

    After the briefing last Friday, Trump and his incoming administration did shift their position, accepting the intelligence community's assessment that the Russian government hacked the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign chief John Podesta. But I'm told Trump saw no evidence that Russia then leaked the material to WikiLeaks and has avoided making that concession.

    Still, Trump's change in tone was noted by the mainstream media and was treated as an admission that he was abandoning his earlier skepticism. In other words, he was finally getting onboard the intelligence community's Russia-did-it bandwagon. Now, however, we know that Trump simultaneously had been confronted with the possibility that the unproven stories about him engaging in unorthodox sex acts with prostitutes could be released, embarrassing him barely a week before his inauguration.

    The classified report, with the explosive appendix, was also given to President Obama and the so-called "Gang of Eight," bipartisan senior members of Congress responsible for oversight of the intelligence community, which increased chances that the Trump accusations would be leaked to the press, which indeed did happen.

    Circulating Rumors

    The stories about Russian intelligence supposedly filming Trump in a high-end Moscow hotel with prostitutes have been circulating around Washington for months. I was briefed about them by a Hillary Clinton associate who was clearly hopeful that the accusations would be released before the election and thus further damage Trump's chances. But the alleged video never seemed to surface and the claims had all the earmarks of a campaign dirty trick.

    However, now the tales of illicit frolic have been elevated to another level. They have been inserted into an official U.S. intelligence report, the details of which were leaked first to CNN and then to other mainstream U.S. news media outlets.

    Trump has denounced the story as "fake news" and it is certainly true that the juicy details – reportedly assembled by a former British MI-6 spy named Christopher Steele – have yet to check out. But the placement of the rumors in a U.S. government document gave the mainstream media an excuse to publicize the material.

    It's also allowed the media to again trot out the Russian word "kompromat" as if the Russians invented the game of assembling derogatory information about someone and then using it to discredit or blackmail the person.

    In American history, legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was infamous for using his agency to develop negative information on a political figure and then letting the person know that the FBI had the dirt and certainly would not want it to become public – if only the person would do what the FBI wanted, whether that was to reappoint Hoover to another term or to boost the FBI's budget or – in the infamous case of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – perhaps to commit suicide.

    However, in this case, it is not even known whether the Russians have any dirt on Trump. It could just be rumors concocted in the middle of a hard-fought campaign, first among Republicans battling Trump for the nomination (this opposition research was reportedly initiated by backers of Sen. Marco Rubio in the GOP race) before being picked up by Clinton supporters for use in the general election.

    Still, perhaps the more troubling issue is whether the U.S. intelligence community has entered a new phase of politicization in which its leadership feels that it has the responsibility to weed out "unfit" contenders for the presidency. During the general election campaign, a well-placed intelligence source told me that the intelligence community disdained both Clinton and Trump and hoped to discredit both of them with the hope that a more "acceptable" person could move into the White House for the next four years.

    Hurting Both Candidates

    Though I was skeptical of that information, it did turn out that FBI Director James Comey, one of the top officials in the intelligence community, badly damaged Clinton's campaign by deeming her handling of her emails as Secretary of State "extremely careless" but deciding not to prosecute her – and then in the last week of the campaign briefly reopening and then re-closing the investigation.

    Then, after the election, President Obama's CIA began leaking allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin had orchestrated the hacking of Democratic emails and provided them to WikiLeaks to reveal how the DNC undermined Sen. Bernie Sanders's campaign and what Clinton had told Wall Street bigwigs in paid speeches that she had sought to keep secret from the American people.

    The intelligence community's assessment set the stage for what could have been a revolt by the Electoral College in which enough Trump delegates could have refused to vote for him to send the election into the House of Representatives, where the states would choose the President from one of the top three vote-getters in the Electoral College. The third-place finisher turned out to be former Secretary of State Colin Powell who got four votes from Clinton delegates in Washington State. But the Electoral College ploy failed when Trump's delegates proved overwhelmingly faithful to the GOP candidate.

    Now, we are seeing what looks like a new phase in this "stop (or damage) Trump" strategy, the inclusion of anti-Trump dirt in an official intelligence report that was then leaked to the major media.

    Whether this move was meant to soften up Trump or whether the intelligence community genuinely thought that the accusations might be true and deserved inclusion in a report on alleged Russian interference in U.S. politics or whether it was some combination of the two, we are witnessing a historic moment when the U.S. intelligence community has deployed its extraordinary powers within the domain of U.S. politics. J. Edgar Hoover would be proud.

    Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).

    Bryan Hemming , January 12, 2017 at 11:06 am

    Excuse the mixed metaphors, but this looks like another entirely predictable nail in the coffin of US democracy, as the chickens come home to roost. For some time it has been quite obvious the CIA has been pulling strings from behind the scenes to make whatever puppet occupies the White House dance to its tune. But it won't end there. Only when the CIA climbs completely out of the coffin can the epic finale between the CIA, FBI and NSA begin.

    The big question is as to how long the people of states like Texas and Florida stand by in the wings as the theater catches fire.

    There are moments in history when it seems almost the entire population of a nation has been struck with deafness and blindess. This maybe one such moment for the United States as a political elite begins the process of tearing the Union apart.

    Jean-David , January 12, 2017 at 11:22 am

    Don't mix your metaphors before they are hatched. ;-) Reply

    Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    There are moments in history when it seems almost the entire population of a nation has been struck with deafness and blindess. This maybe one such moment for the United States as a political elite begins the process of tearing the Union apart.

    The United States has been accused of decadence for decades by Americans and non-Americans without much concern being shown by anyone not in a certain minority. The great tragedy of a decadent way of life is its durability.

    In 1961 William Lederer's book, "A Nation of Sheep" revealed the abuse of American power and the ignorance of the American people regarding this misrule. Nothing much has changed since then except the names of the aggressors and their primary geographic areas of intended domination. The mass of people are essentially clueless and content to believe whatever lies and salacious tales are told them from the nation's Towers of Babel. This is in line with human history that shows people of authoritarian dispositions tend to be more aggressive and dominant in politics and commerce and the masses accept their lot as long as they get enough crumbs from establishment's plate..

    (The title of the book was also an insult to sheep, but that is another story.)

    Common Tater , January 12, 2017 at 4:59 pm

    The saying goes, "power corrupts," but i believe that it is the corrupt who seek power to begin with.
    Most people are content to live and let live, to live by the golden rule, mind their own and reciprocate kindness etc., etc.
    Then there are those who get a thrill from exercising control over others. Those are the ones who shoot straight to the top.

    Jack Flanigan , January 14, 2017 at 1:47 am

    An interesting and clear observation. As an australian I note our system is dominated by two major parties (and I mean dominated) similar to the US. The two parties are vehicles for ambitious and corrupt individuals to fast track political careers. The power rests in these organizations and attracts the corrupt like bees to honey. Reply

    Curious , January 12, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    Bill, regarding your sense of human history I might add that for many centuries people couldn't read, except for the aristocracy and the religious sects mostly. The reformation produced a 100 year war and literacy was at an all time low in Luthers time but something motivated them to fight for such a long time, and it wasn't information nor intellect.

    Where has our literacy gone which would prevent a repeat of endless war and violence these days? Oh yes, corporate controlled media hiring people who are certain to have no critical thinking skills, no moral rudder, nor worldly experience to shed the scales from their eyes. We are almost in pre-Gutenberg times of short attention spans and 140 character 'news truths' covering the landscape of the ignorant. One can only hope the Tower of the oligarchs Babel has rapidly decaying clay feet. We certainly know how to reduce cultures more ancient than ours to ashes without so much as a second thought regarding the sanctity of life. Where are all the pro-lifers now? Oh yeh, that's only in the womb, and after the umbilical cord is cut they are fair game for destruction. The US values we rave about will really hurt when other cultures treat us as they have been treated.

    Curious , January 12, 2017 at 6:32 pm

    Or better yet, we are in Gutenberg times where the "type" is set by the big players and the papers around the country keep the same type and only add ink. It's their only function now at the national level to inhibit discourse, excluding this site of course. Reply

    Curious , January 12, 2017 at 6:34 pm

    Or better yet, we are in times of the early press machines, where the "type" is set by the big players and the papers around the country keep the same type and only add ink. It's their only function now at the national level, meant to inhibit discourse and ideas. (excluding this site of course) Reply

    Wendi , January 12, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    In its Hoover relation, this article reprises the passage in The Craft of Intelligence, by Allen Dulles, (1965, if memory serves; alas, that book's text seems unavailable on the internet).

    It describes the power struggle involved post-FDR, during-HST 1946-48, at the institution of the CIA (The Agency was not legislatively enacted, only instituted through Executive Order.)
    Hoover opposed the creation of an intelligence collection that would compete with the FBI's monopoly of spies snoops and snitches.

    The compromise settlement set the FBI with domestic coverage and the CIA with international haunts for its spooks.

    Come the the present day, they still have turf wars in power rivalry for budget money.
    However, in effect, after the budget shuffle the two legions merge their 'assets' - making each one double its real size. They join in advocating for (the oxymoronic) 'authoritarian morality,' gaining both the unlawfulness funded in the Judiciary with same unlawfulness, (or, being 'outlaw,' 'above the law'), funded by the Executive.

    You can depend that they employ the same techniques. Coercion, extortion, blackmail, assassination, torture, defamation, slander and Press Release aspersion. The polity is hung pendant on those strings the outlaws pull. Or, 'hanged' pendant.

    As Hoover, so Clapper et al.

    Trump seems to have reconsided, maybe recanted, his defiance of 'intelligence' after he has seen some truth in it regarding things he knows he did in places he knows he was. He knows he dare not let the public see him through the cyclopian 'eye' of the intelligentia illumination.
    _____
    My wit sez, Lo! That explains his undocumented wife - he heard about Russian mail-order brides and flew off to visit the showroom. And brought back some capital equipment, manufactured in foreign lands.

    Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:04 pm

    The Craft of Intelligence, by Allen Dulles, (1965, if memory serves; alas, that book's text seems unavailable on the internet)

    Try alibris or abebooks dot coms. They have copies.

    Joe Lauria , January 14, 2017 at 9:08 am

    There's a Kindle edition available. Reply

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 8:34 am

    Good comment Bryan, but I wonder if we should pay attention at all to this decline of everything, not only of democracy. Yet, I wish to highlight two humorous comments which best characterise the situation.

    The first one was a title I saw on Russia-Insider website: "Trump watch out! John Brennan throws even a kitchen sink at Trump in desperation."

    The other was a comment by a zero-hedge reader: "Trump could have had sex with a goat in a Moscow hotel room and be videod as much as I care if he only delivers on his election promises. I voted based on his policy promises, not on his sexual preferences."

    The sexual smear is so 20th century, the same as the CIA – obsolete.

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 11:39 am

    To continue on the humorous side, the vile RT has one on the Pornhub reporting a huge increase in searches for "Golden Showers". Perhaps the kiddies are adding a new term to their vocabularies.

    https://www.rt.com/viral/373545-pornhub-golden-showers-trump/ Reply

    rosemerry , January 13, 2017 at 5:10 pm

    It seems that Trump supporters are many and varied, and very loyal. To pretend that all these shenanigans were needed to help elect him against such a faulty candidate as Hillary is pathetic in the extreme. The terrible results, when we see how the new Administration is being gently helped by the Senate including Democrats, will be bad for us all if their warlike statements lead to facts. However, Obama's sending of 2800 tanks and 4000 troops to help Germany(!) and Poland against "Russian aggression" right now, plus Hillary's promises, do not give a hopeful alternative scenario for the "land of the free" or peace on earth. Reply

    W. R. Knight , January 12, 2017 at 11:06 am

    The saddest part of this entire debacle is that the intelligence agencies, as well as main stream media, the president and most members of Congress have destroyed their own credibility. Lacking credibility, they cannot be believed; and when they cannot be believed, they cannot be trusted; and a government that cannot be trusted is doomed.

    J. D. , January 12, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    Trump proved more feisty than expected at his first press conference as President-Elect, hitting back at both Buzzfeed ('You're fake news" and CNN ("you're organization is terrible") And went on to say that "If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a liability," describing the urgency of cooperation in defeating terrorism. Lost in the shuffle however was the source of the lies - British intelligence agencies.In fact, the NYTimes reported Jan. 6 that the official report released last week by the US intelligence agencies, which accused Putin of subverting the U.S. election, also came from British intelligence, which "raised an alarm that Moscow had hacked into the Democratic National Committee's computer servers, and alerted their American counterparts.Talk about foreign interference.

    Anna , January 12, 2017 at 9:52 pm

    friends of Israel in action in the UK Reply

    Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:40 pm

    A 4 chan blogger wrote it as a hoax Reply

    Steve Abbott , January 12, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    Get with the program! We are supposed to believe that all we have heard from and about the CIA in this century was pure and innocent incompetence, and should therefore continue to put all of our faith in their motives and methods. Reply

    Godfree Roberts , January 13, 2017 at 4:55 am

    Do you know which major government is the most trusted by its citizens?
    The Edelman Corporation does. They've been doing 'government trust' surveys for decades. Check it out. http://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanAPAC/2016-edelman-trust-barometer-china-english .
    Hint: China Reply

    Dan Kuhn , January 12, 2017 at 11:08 am

    The entire sordid mess needs to be dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt from the ground up. Washington should be razed to the ground. It is beyond rescuing. it is beyond saving. It is rotten from the foundations to the pinicle of the obilisk. The American People should declare war on Washington DC and invade the place and clean house. Bring the Guillotine along with them and the baskets for the heads.

    The stench is overwhelming. It needs to be cleaned up. No it needs to be wiped from the face of the earth. One of the founding fathers said that periodically, the tree of democracy had to be watered with blood. That time has arrived. Reply

    Znam Svashta , January 12, 2017 at 11:22 am

    George Orwell predicted our current mess in his classic, "1984". Interestingly, that was the year that the neocons took over the Pentagon's Office of Risk Assessment, the State Department, and the whore-house American media. Reply

    Lin Cleveland , January 12, 2017 at 11:50 am

    What's going on here? I think Julian Assange may be on to something. ( my bold )

    "Hillary Clinton's election would have been a consolidation of power in the existing ruling class of the United States. Donald Trump is not a D.C. insider , he is part of the wealthy ruling elite of the United States, and he is gathering around him a spectrum of other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities. They do not by themselves form an existing structure, so it is a weak structure which is displacing and destabilizing the pre-existing central power network within D.C. It is a new patronage structure which will evolve rapidly, but at the moment its looseness means there are opportunities for change in the United States: change for the worse and change for the better."–Julian Assange

    floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    Thanks, Lin [for your 'bold.' Assange and Snowden are two voices "in the wilderness" always worth listening to. Reply

    Jessejean , January 12, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    Brilliant– as always. No matter how vilified JA is and no matter how much he's lied about, he still is a force for reason and subversion, both of which we desparately need. Thanks for the quote. Reply

    D5-5 , January 12, 2017 at 4:50 pm

    Curious to me in the two-pronged attack on Trump (a. demonizing to delegitimize and replace with Pence coming from the political establishment; b. hysterical fear of Trump coming from left wing journalism sources including left-oriented alternative news sites) is why the hysteria in the left continues so virulently. Assange's comment, to me, is balanced and sober. We don't know what will happen out of Trump and his collection of "idiosyncratic personalities," we don't know what will turn out "change for the worse and change for the better," and all the fear-mongering from people like Robert Reich, appearing regularly in Truthdig, is entirely speculative. I then question–would these same people on the left, that I once thought to be colleagues, prefer Hillary Clinton and "consolidation of power in the existing ruling class"? This fracturing in what I had thought was an intelligent left opposition is disturbing.

    floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    As an "old leftie" myself, I'd have to agree with Paul Craig Roberts that there IS no left anymore. It was co-opted and bought by Big Money. Maybe we need to forget about "left" and "right" and operate according to our own minds rather tha taking our cues from apologists for the establishment like Robert Reich. But it sounds like you're already doing that. Reply

    Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 5:10 pm

    Change that will undoubtedly benefit the privileged in a big way.

    I don't give a crap about if Trump had prostitutes. That's between he and his wife. What I do care about is if there are Trump financial threads to Russia and if his team had illegal meetings with Moscow before the election. There are too many questions that need to be answered.

    Why does Trump continue to dote on Putin? He's a vicious killer who has no qualms of eliminating his opponents. Those are facts.

    Why won't he release his tax returns? It could only mean he is hiding something.

    What benefit does the world intelligence community gain in smearing a president elect? Is it financial? idealogical? Power? Are they not tied and beholdened more to the entrenched financial hierarchies then to the ever changing political landscape?

    What advantage did this operative from British intelligence gain from compiling this info? Money, fame, a 2nd home in Portugal?

    How does anyone watching that press conference not come away with the chilly realization that our president-elect is psychologically impaired? My god you don't have to be a trained psychologist to see the guy has some serious mental health issues.

    Anna , January 12, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    "He's a vicious killer " – this is a music for the Kagans' clan Reply

    JayHobeSound , January 13, 2017 at 4:10 am

    "What advantage did this operative from British intelligence gain from compiling this info?"

    Reportedly he asked his neighbours to feed his cats and he went into hiding. Bizarre.

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article126129709.html Reply

    Godfree Roberts , January 13, 2017 at 4:59 am

    'Why does Trump continue to dote on Putin? He's a vicious killer who has no qualms of eliminating his opponents. Those are facts.'
    Facts? I'm pretty familiar with Putin's career and I've seen nothing to suggest that Putin is a killer at all.
    Can you provide links to evidence? Not just links to other people making assertions without evidence, please. Reply

    Truth First , January 13, 2017 at 6:20 pm

    "Why does Trump continue to dote on Putin? He's a vicious killer who has no qualms of eliminating his opponents. Those are facts."
    You talking about Trump or Putin? In any case has Russia or Putin killed as many people as America or Obama. The "facts" say no, not even close. Reply

    stinky rafsanjani , January 16, 2017 at 9:36 am

    vicious killer? since when is that a bad thing? jinkies, obama of nobel fame
    sends missiles and drones around the planet, bombing and killing for fun and
    profit. why, he even orders the assassination of citizens of his own country,
    without trial even. meanwhile, putin has, umm look! a squirrel!

    James van Oosterom , January 16, 2017 at 11:45 am

    Nobody said it was a bad thing. You're inferring things. Stick to squirrels . Ah yes, the door . Reply

    Andreas Wirsén , January 12, 2017 at 11:54 am

    A "new phase" in Intelligence meddling with presidential candidates, yes – but only in how openly they stand behind it as the source. Campaigns to scandalize unwanted primary challengers have been alleged before. Senator Gary Hart, for one, has said in interviews he believes he was caught in a honey trap, which cost him his candidacy.

    floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    Gary Hart, a potentially strong contender, was also [like Trump] not up to Deep State's standards in Russophobia. Reply

    LongGoneJohn , January 12, 2017 at 12:04 pm

    Didn't Trump just acknowledge that attacks on cyber US infrastructure including the DNC takes place, in a general way? That is what his statement read and to me that does not sound like "Trump acknowledges Russian DNC hack" at all.

    So is it me, or ?

    floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    No, LGJ, it's not just you who can read through MSMB[ullsh t.] Reply

    Michael Morrissey , January 12, 2017 at 12:05 pm

    If Trump & Co. accept "the intelligence community's assessment that the Russian government hacked the emails," they are only saying that, as is common knowledge, everybody hacks everybody. This is not, as Parry says, an acceptance of the intelligence "assessment" that Putin or Russian hackers released the emails, or even got them. Assange and Murray have said unequivocally that the source was inside the DNC, which means it cannot have been the Russians.

    Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    Assange and Murray have said unequivocally that the source was inside the DNC, which means it cannot have been the Russians.

    Assange and Murray might be right, and they might not. There is a term being tossed around – "cutout". Just because an intermediary claims to be a DNC leaker doesn't mean he actually was such.

    Under the circumstances I just don't care. Now if the Russians or Chinese or Ugandans or anybody else had done more than facilitate the release of true information useful to voters, I'd be agitated myself. Not that I'd expect anybody else to be. US votes have been hacked ever since the no-verify touchscreen devices were first introduced, and nobody in authority has given a hoot about it.

    Jessejean , January 12, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    Zachary–you are so right. It drives me crazy that Bush got away with stealing the voting system and all the Damn Dems care about is using it themselves. And now it drives me crazy that the Clintonistas took down Bernie and are getting away with it. With that cat's paw Obusha hanging around to "work" on rebuilding the DNC, we'll never see democracy again.

    Sam F , January 13, 2017 at 6:52 am

    We must indeed Dump the Dems. We need a progressive party.

    There is a strong progressive majority everywhere which is being deliberately fragmented by the Dems. In the US, Clinton supporters must unify not only with the critics of Dem warmongering for Israel and KSA, but also with the Trumpers who want economic security in a rapacious oligarchic state. Clinton supporters will have to admit their mistake and abandon the Dems as a scam of oligarchy serving only as a backstop for the Repubs.

    The solution is for a third party to align moderate progressives (national health care, no wars of choice, income security) with parts of the traditional right (fundamentalists, flag-wavers, make America great) leaving out only the extreme right (wars, discrimination, big business imperialism), use individual funding, and rely upon broad platform appeal to marginalize the Dems as the third party.

    RMDC , January 13, 2017 at 9:28 am

    Sam F. I agree with you but you have to stop using the term "progressive." The Clinton faction of the demo party owns that term. It arose with John Podesta's Center for American Progress. Podesta is the ideologue of contemporary progressivism. It has nothing to do with the Progressive movement of the early 20th century.

    The right term is Sander's term: Democratic Socialism. I know socialism is a problematic term, too, but at least it is now claimed by the right people.

    Sam F , January 13, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    RMDC: Do you think "Progressive" can be brought back to its original meaning, or given a better one, despite people falsely claiming to be progressive? Sanders' term might be incorporated into that. It would be nice to deny the fakers the use of it.

    Truth First , January 13, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    "we'll never see democracy again."

    Humm? When did we last see that "democracy" thing? Reply

    Bill Cash , January 12, 2017 at 12:08 pm

    Trump could end all this by releasing his tax returns but he won't do it. I believe the intelligence community had fears that once inaugurated, Trump would squash the whole thing. The Russian connection is the only theory that connects all the dots. I'm waiting t see what happens with Assange. Will he suddenly be able to go to Sweden?
    As far as Trump's behavior, don't forget he was accused of raping a 13 year old girl but the woman had to withdraw the suit because her life was threatened.

    Anna , January 12, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    Why is your post such a strong reminder of Pizzagate? Reply

    Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:48 pm

    Wont make any difference what t he does. He's an outsider. There's no escape except trying & convicting the traitors running obama. Reply

    Wm. Boyce , January 12, 2017 at 12:14 pm

    Very interesting column. I guess Mr. Trump is getting a lesson in who really runs things around here. Reply

    Patricia Victour , January 12, 2017 at 12:22 pm

    Unless Trump killed a prostitute on film, how could whatever is on the alleged video be any worse than the pussy-grabbing debacle and all the other accusations of sexual predation? I don't think you can embarrass Trump. He would just brush it off, and his base would probably think he was a super stud.

    Wm. Boyce , January 12, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    Oh, I don't know, they could well have much worse stuff to leak, given Mr. Trump's complete lack of control of his desires.

    Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    I collected a lot of "stuff" on Trump from the internet in the past year, and was surprised to see virtually none of it used against him. My best guess is that Hillary & Co. didn't think it was necessary against their carefully selected "easiest" opponent. That "stuff" is still available, and might well be used to buttress wilder and unverifiable claims.

    col from oz , January 12, 2017 at 7:49 pm

    Yesterday on anther site i wrote how Hillary was complicit in a very serious charge.
    Please watch video titles, where is Eric braverman on you tube . I have watched some and most of the material gives you the reality of what is occurring. A example is this. A fact is Gaddafi wanted to have some kind of gold backed Dina money policy. Fact. So Libya had a lot of gold maybe hundreds of tons. Where is it now. Did the "invaders' get it with their usual cut out Libyan man?
    In the spirit of trying to make a better world i put this up, it seems political unbiased however it shows the Clinton as they are?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vam6qxfQrgA

    day 70

    Gregory Herr , January 12, 2017 at 8:48 pm

    "For over four decades, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi's rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans."
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/20/libya-from-africas-wealthiest-democracy-under-gaddafi-to-terrorist-haven-after-us-intervention/

    "Libya's Qadhafi (African Union 2009 Chair) conceived and financed a plan to unify the sovereign States of Africa with one gold currency (United States of Africa). In 2004, a pan-African Parliament (53 nations) laid plans for the African Economic Community – with a single gold currency by 2023.

    "African oil-producing nations were planning to abandon the petro-dollar, and demand gold payment for oil/gas Qaddafi had done more than organize an African monetary coup. He had demonstrated that financial independence could be achieved. His greatest infrastructure project, the Great Man-made River, was turning arid regions into a breadbasket for Libya; and the $33 billion project was being funded interest-free without foreign debt, through Libya's own state-owned bank.
    That could explain why this critical piece of infrastructure was destroyed in 2011. NATO not only bombed the pipeline but finished off the project by bombing the factory producing the pipes necessary to repair it."

    http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987399/why_qaddafi_had_to_go_african_gold_oil_and_the_challenge_to_monetary_imperialism.html

    dave , January 12, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    Speaking of "leaks", isn't the specific accusation in this case that Trump paid a prostitute to "take a leak" on the bed where he believed the Obamas had spent the night? (So I guess it was the prostitute that had "worse stuff to leak"!)

    Gregory Herr , January 12, 2017 at 8:58 pm

    And while no one at Trump's press conference mentioned the specifics, Trump stated, "Does anyone really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way, believe me."

    Anna , January 12, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    Check Chan4

    Gregory Herr , January 12, 2017 at 11:04 pm

    Anna, do you mean the British television programme?

    Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:48 pm

    What? Dim wit. Reply

    backwardsevolution , January 12, 2017 at 12:36 pm

    The Saker writes in "The Neocon's Declaration of War Against Trump":

    "After several rather lame false starts, the Neocons have now taken a step which can only be called a declaration of war against Donald Trump. [ ] All of the above further confirms to me what I have been saying over the past weeks: if Trump ever makes it into the White House (I write 'if' because I think that the Neocons are perfectly capable of assassinating him), his first priority should be to ruthlessly crack down as hard as he legally can against those in the US "deep state" (which very much includes the media) who have now declared war on him. I am sorry to say that, but it will be either him or them – one of the parties here will be crushed. [ ]

    As I predicted it before the election, the USA are about to enter the worst crisis in their history. We are entering extraordinarily dangerous times. If the danger of a thermonuclear war between Russia and the USA had dramatically receded with the election of Trump, the Neocon total war on Trump put the United States at very grave risk, including civil war (should the Neocon controlled Congress impeach Trump I believe that uprisings will spontaneously happen, especially in the South, and especially in Florida and Texas). At the risk of sounding over the top, I will say that what is happening now is putting the very existence of the United States in danger almost regardless of what Trump will personally do. Whatever we may think of Trump as a person and about his potential as a President, what is certain is that millions of American patriots have voted for him to "clear the swamp", give the boot to the Washington-based plutocracy and restore what they see as fundamental American values. If the Neocons now manage to stage a coup d'etat against Trump, I predict that these millions of Americans will turn to violence to protect what they see as their way of life

    If a coup is staged against Trump and some wannabe President à la Hillary or McCain gives the order to the National Guard or even the US Army to put down a local insurrection, we could see what we saw in Russia in 1991: a categorical refusal of the security services to shoot at their own people. That is the biggest and ultimate danger for the Neocons: the risk that if they give the order to crack down on the population the police, security and military services might simply refuse to take action. If that could happen in the "KGB-controlled country" (to use a Cold War cliché) this can also happen in the USA."

    Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 12:54 pm

    If a coup is staged against Trump and some wannabe President à la Hillary or McCain gives the order to the National Guard or even the US Army to put down a local insurrection, we could see what we saw in Russia in 1991: a categorical refusal of the security services to shoot at their own people.

    At Kent State the National Guard was quite willing to shoot "their own people". The increasingly militarized Police of the US have been getting lots of practice shooting at "their own people". I suspect that's why a great many of them joined up in the first place. Finally, carefully chosen drone operators thousands or tens of thousands of miles away won't have the slightest problem slaughtering evildoers. That's what they do all the time in their regular jobs.

    Brad Owen , January 12, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    Don't forget veterans, millions of them. When THEY stepped up to the North Dakota pipeline, security forces backed off. Backwards' described scenario could be our "1991" moment to break free and break the Deep State, and reinstating Glass-Steagall would break their Imperial paymasters in The City and The Street. A new World could suddenly come about, faster than even the USSR/Warsaw Pact disappeared. Reply

    Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:14 pm

    At Kent State the National Guard was quite willing to shoot "their own people". The increasingly militarized Police of the US have been getting lots of practice shooting at "their own people".

    Police departments all over the U.S. and other nations have a long history of acting as goon squads and occasional firing squads for their local establishments. Lots of examples in labor histories. Reply

    Peter Loeb , January 13, 2017 at 8:23 am

    KILLING OUR OWN PEOPLE .

    Special thanks to Zachary Smith.

    In the US it's called "heroism", patriotism" and the rest. But if we are
    inconvenienced to kill our own people, we can kill other peoples'
    people. Gigantic weapons deals to Saudi Arabia and Israel
    are proof of that.

    By the way, did anyone happen to notice in the NDAA (Defense Authorization
    Act) the increase of funds to rebels in another country whose goal is to
    defeat the Syrian Government?

    -Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA

    PS For those who object to our killing our own people in the US join
    Black Lives Matter. Reply

    Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 2:53 am

    At the very least, the US should get rid of this prolonged waiting period between the elections and actual assuming power by the president-elect. It was meant to facilitate the orderly transition of power, but as we see now it is serving just the opposite goals. I cannot believe Obama is so keen on hurting Trump he is ready to badly hurt his own country as well. Reply

    Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 12:37 pm

    Whether this move was meant to soften up Trump

    The motive I see is to "soften" him up for his impeachment. Given Trump's temperament, it could be a winning strategy for the people who prefer President Pence. In my barely informed opinion, that would include a majority of both parties in both houses of the US congress.

    Joe Tedesky , January 12, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    Read section 4 of the 25th amendment .

    "Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."

    I'm wondering if we are seeing the beginnings of a President Pence. Although Donald Trump may give one some consternation to his being a qualified person to sit in the Oval Office, Mike Pence may bring down the house with his religious leanings inside of his political philosophy. Either way we Americans are in for a most interesting time of it in our country's brief history. We should all probably prepare ourselves for the worst, and hope that the best will happen.

    Zachary wasn't Mike Pense your governor, or do I have you in the wrong state?

    Realist , January 12, 2017 at 4:27 pm

    Fascinating and disturbing at the same time. That section was surely MEANT to apply to the president's health and physical capacity to do the job. However, a declaration by the VP (supported only by a simple majority of the cabinet or the congress) "that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" can be based in an insurrection, a coup, or simply the erosion of political capital. Gerald Ford could have argued that Richard Nixon no longer had the support to govern (which is what Nixon himself conceded as the basis for his resignation). It basically gives the VP and whatever insurgents he can muster the ability to quickly overthrow the sitting president without the inconvenience of an impeachment and trial in the Senate. It could be the Maidan without the messy blood all over the pavement. How wonderful.

    Very resourceful of you in looking that up, Joe. I would never have imagined the seeds for a coup existed right in the constitution.

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 9:16 am

    I have a saying: For the people in law-enforcement, law is a fringe benefit. Those who control law always use it as a tool. Have you ever heard of a coup which was not based on some law, even if it was the one written post-festum by the coup plotters? In other words, a coup is never difficult to justify by the winners.

    I have no doubt that the coup that Joe describes is possible. But the issue for the coup plotters has always been: what happens with all the Trump voters after such a coup, the millions of them? Will they sit and just watch the destruction of their social contract?

    To some extent such US coup dilemma is not dissimilar to the nuclear war dilemma: easy to start, difficult to finish.

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 10:53 am

    KIza, nice to hear from you it's been awhile.

    Read this link. Trump got 26.8% of the total citizenry to vote for him. In all honesty I haven't seen any polls on how the American populace shakes out on these controversies such as this most recent fake news story, but I would imagine that a clever beat down campaign would be able to soften the blowback .but then again I agree with you to some extent, that by pushing Trump out of office this would have to have some kind of consequence that would not be pretty.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/12/bringing-trump-nation-down-to-size/

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 11:20 am

    Joe, in general I am trying to highlight that it is one thing to bamboozle sheeple with a talk of democracy (which does not exist) and another to openly crush even this reassuring lie. I just cannot see the end game of a US coup and Trump is but a minor obstacle if they want to start it.

    Therefore, they really want to make a Trump a lame and controllable President, not to take over. Maintaining a reassuring lie of democracy is a much more sophisticated and efficient control mechanism than direct control. I may we wrong but I do believe that Trump is just being house trained/broken by TPTB in front of our eyes.

    You write: I have not seen any polls how American populace shakes out on these controversies.
    My reading of the online beat is that the Trump voters are not swayed, whilst the Clinton voters use the "controversy" as confirmation that they were right all along about Trump. But then Clinton voters would receive a confirmation even from an oily rag thrown in their direction. In other words, a mountain shook and a mouse was born – almost no change at all on either side.

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    KIza your comparing Trump's attackers to how the MH17 story was spun is right on.

    http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/11/trump-and-mh17-just-one-step-too-far/

    Trump is an easy target since his nature is certainly different than that of the usual norm of our politico class who are cookie cutter politicians on the whole. I'm disappointed by how people such as Michael Moore are going out of their way attacking Trump, while they completely ignore how corrupt and dishonest the Clinton's are.

    I wouldn't go so far as to predict that Trump supporters won't rebel against his impeachment, but there again I believe the Trump supporters would be out numbered due to an over aggressive media who could sway the majority into believing we must get Trump out of office. Any other method other than impeachment is to horrible to even contemplate, so let's hope that all of our concerns turn to ashes, and that for the good or bad of it that Trump finishes out his first term in good health.

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    Yes, Joe, those 26.8% of citizenry who voted for Trump are built into 75-76% of citizenry who do not believe in the MSM any more and in the John Brennan's two kitchen sinks, that is, his two top secret but leakable kompromat dossiers on Trump – the first one apparently from an MI6 agent and the second one promoted by the BBC (source unknown yet).

    But this is not about Clintons any more, this is about the owners of the Clintons training/braking Trump to be like the Clintons. If they cannot have a Clinton as a President, they want to have a President as Clinton. If kompromat does not work, maybe a billet will, their patience is limited.

    Always enjoyable to exchange thoughts with you Joe.

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 11:14 am

    Realist, considering how our country's founders were a bunch of slave owners declaring how all men are created equally well need I say more?

    Words are just words, that is until lawyers interpret these legal words into a reality, which doesn't always fit into our own personal definition of a certain word usage. You and I deal with this stuff all the time. Whether it be a traffic ticket, or an ordinance summons, we read one thing, and the judge administers another thing. Prisons are filled with people who swear with, 'yeah but' explanations which give these prisoners no relief what so ever so I do think these crafty legislators could pull a fast one, and install Mike Pence into the White House. Let's you and I hope that I'm the one out in left field with my 25th amendment comment, and that we won't end up with a Christian whack job as our president. Reply

    Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 5:23 pm

    Yeah, Pence was elected Governor of Indiana. But despite this state being one of the most conservative in the nation, Pence was too "nutty" and "far-right" for Mississippi North, and would have surely been defeated. Now the man is one heartbeat/one impeachment conviction from becoming President of the United States.

    Quote: "From his denial of climate change to his belief in creationism, Pence is the most hard-right radical to ever appear on a national ticket. Just this week a federal court had to block his atrocious bill barring Syrian refugees from his state because his reasoning that Syrians scare him is discriminatory."

    Quote: "it is a literal truth, Mr. Speaker, to say that I am in Congress today because of Rush Limbaugh, and not because of some tangential impact on my career or his effect on the national debate; but because in fact after my first run for Congress in 1988, it was the new national voice emerging in 1989 across the heartland of Indiana of one Rush Hudson Limbaugh, III, that captured my imagination.""

    It's a fact we are very, very close to having a Rush 'druggie' Limpaugh clone as President. In my opinion, Pence is Trump's worst mistake up till now. If they can't have Hillary, for the neocons and neo-liberals and the Christian End-Timers there remains Worse-Than-Hillary Mike Pence.

    Trump is a Trojan horse for a cabal of vicious zealots who have long craved an extremist Christian theocracy, and Pence is one of its most prized warriors. With Republican control of the House and Senate and the prospect of dramatically and decisively tilting the balance of the Supreme Court to the far right, the incoming administration will have a real shot at bringing the fire and brimstone of the second coming to Washington.

    "The enemy, to them, is secularism. They want a God-led government. That's the only legitimate government," contends Jeff Sharlet, author of two books on the radical religious right, including "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power." "So when they speak of business, they're speaking not of something separate from God, but they're speaking of what, in Mike Pence's circles, would be called biblical capitalism, the idea that this economic system is God-ordained."

    https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/mike-pence-will-be-the-most-powerful-christian-supremacist-in-us-history/

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 12:36 pm

    Zachary I looked forward to your reply, since you always have references to your level headed comments .so thanks for getting back to me.

    In my world I don't even like bringing up the word God, or religion, since I believe a government should be governed in a truly secular way. Who I pray to, and who I pay taxes to, are two completely different things. My devotion to God is a very private matter, and I don't need some politician interpreting God's greatness to me in anyway. So with that if Mike Pense wants to preach the gospel to me, then he should resign from public office and become a full fledged preacher and even then I will not go to his mean spirited church. Amen.

    Realist , January 13, 2017 at 3:13 pm

    What a troubling coincidence that Hulu is releasing its production of "the Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood this April, which tells the story of the United States government being taken over by extreme Christian fundamentalists and the consequences, especially to women and religious dissenters. Read the book by Atwood and you'll see where Isis/Daesh got many of their ideas on punishment and control of the masses. The Spanish Inquisition was six hundred years ago, but its urges lie just beneath the veneer of our civilised modern world. Human nature hasn't changed, only technology has. I thought this country was in danger of playing out the novel during Dubya's administration, as 9-11 was exactly the kind of pretext for such a takeover in the book's plot narrative and the Islamic world was portrayed as the great global adversary just as many Americans believe in the real world. Trump has never struck me as a religious man, certainly not a zealot, but Pence, with a little help from the Deep State, he could bring this disturbing novel to life.

    Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:16 pm

    I'm wondering if we are seeing the beginnings of a President Pence.

    A very plausible and ominous possibility.

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 12:53 am

    Seriously Bill even taking into consideration how some like Glenn Beck along with Rick Santelli ridiculed an early President Obama back in 2009, I can't recall a more hostile media such as the likes of how this current day corporate media is going after Trump. True, that Donald Trump by just being Donald Trump can be an outrageous person with his words and actions, but still I just can't get over the 24/7 media coverage, and how most of it isn't good coverage at that. This leaves me to wonder if we all are not being setup for something big.

    With Trump's winning streak putting away a whole herd of Republican primary candidates, and how he sent 'low energy Jeb' packing, and then to go on and beat Hillary by his winning the Electoral vote, he has had a great run. Now Donald Trump is battling not only the CIA/FBI/NSA, but he is also bumping up against the congressional establishment. You know that McCain and Graham hate him, but you can only bet that there is yet much more to come.

    I'm sorry, but I don't sense there is much good to come with all of this. Thanks for the reply.

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 9:57 am

    Joe, I wonder if people missed the crazy similarity of the media campaign on the Trump "report" and the one on MH17 ?

    It appears that the TPTB have decided that if they generate enough media screaming, the lack of proof does not matter any more.

    Thus, I have become a strong proponent of the theory that whatever TPTB use outside, it is only a practice for what they will use (more productively) inside. Drones anyone?

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    KIza read my comment above, it pertains to what you brought up here.

    Gregory Herr , January 13, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    Weaponized drones anyone?

    http://youtu.be/1sK5mDTCNEU

    Pablo Diablo , January 12, 2017 at 12:42 pm

    All this turmoil and a dysfunctional Congress insures that nothing will change. The 1% loves the status quo and will do anything to preserve it. Simply a smokescreen to keep US from dealing with the corporate stranglehold on our government.
    An Empire in decline. Reply

    Mike Flores , January 12, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    While others laugh and make jokes, those of us who study Intel know that what just happened with the leaked report was that the CIA has involved itself in U.S. politics, which it is forbidden to do. How did the alliance between the Democratic Party and CIA begin? President Truman had allowed 200 Nazi Intel agents to come into the U.S. – including the men who created the blueprint for the holocaust. Fearing Joe McCarthy would discover this, the CIA faked an Intel report and has spent decades ever since lying about Joe. They actually confessed that his 2 lists were correct, so they had to fool him with a fake dossier right before the Army hearings to shake his confidence. Just search CIA AND THE POND and you will find on their website STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE in the last third of the article a full confession of framing Joe. This Facebook photo album THE REAL JOSEPH McCARTHY is packed with forbidden information and can be viewed with this link by anyone whether they are on FB or not. The alliance between the Democratic Party and CIA began by hiding the people responsible for the holocaust. ( We should keep in mind Truman was KKK and forbade the bombing of the train tracks to the death camps. The reason soldiers were not prepared for the camps was that none had been told about them. Truman did not want our troops wasting time on them). Interesting to note that absolutely no one has ever done an article or book on the impact of the beliefs of the KKK on the 5 Democrats who were Presidents and Klansmen in the 20th century. That would reveal the true nature of the Democratic Party.
    https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153995222685986.1073741929.695490985&type=1&l=6dd1544b9d Reply

    Bill , January 12, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    You don't mention President Obama, but it certainly seems likely that he's involved with this. Who told Brennan and Clapper to go on TV to hype the intelligence reports and bad-mouth the next President?

    And were the leakers within the agencies acting on their own, or were they given orders from above? There's a conspiracy going on and it's not my imagination.

    Does the behavior rise to the level of treason or espionage?

    Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:58 pm

    Obama is a deadhead it is Brennan who instructs him. But who instructs Brennan? Reply

    Michael Morrissey , January 12, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    As I have just learned from another reader's comment on another article, David Spring has augmented his earlier article to an 85-page expose. Seems it was both a leak and a hack, but in neither case by "the Russians."

    I hope Ray McGovern and especially Wm Binney (and some Trump guy) read this and tell us what they think!

    https://turningpointnews.org/hack-everything-special-report

    Lois Gagnon , January 13, 2017 at 11:04 am

    I read it last night. Very much worth the couple of hours it took. Reply

    Realist , January 14, 2017 at 3:42 am

    Well, that's THE comprehensive treatment in a nutshell. Everything documented chronologically. Nothing important left out. Everything explained clearly and concisely. As organised as possible and argued like a philosopher rather than a lawyer. The man has exceptional writing skills as well as incredible computer knowledge. I'd like to see him question Clapper on the witness stand. I hope that President Trump puts the Justice Department on this case to do a thorough investigation, including potential indictments of spooks that perjured themselves and/or engaged in partisan activities during the election and its ugly aftermath. Reply

    Oleg , January 12, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    I am really surprised to no end. Why are you in the US so keen on destroying any credibility of your government? I do not really know what would happen in the US but in Russia there would be riots. Any leader in Russia can govern only until he/she is trusted. Think Tsar Nicholas II, Gorbachev I hope it will not get to this and some sanity will prevail in your country.

    Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:22 pm

    Why are you in the US so keen on destroying any credibility of your government?

    What credibility? Oleg, if you check the graphic at the top of the right sidebar on this page you will see a reference to "I. F. Stone" who was one of this nation's great journalists of the 20th Century. He is noted for a dictum that says, "All governments lie." All governments certainly include the U.S. government. You can get plenty of examples of lies with a little effort.

    Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 11:12 pm

    Lies out of government agencies and elected politicians are not the only problem. Hypocrisy is another and has been part of American governance since the writing of the Declaration of Independence by slave owners who said that all men are created equal with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now hypocrisy is rampant with politicians decrying alleged Russian intervention is U.S. elections with the claim that it is wrong for any nation to interfere in the elections of another nation. There is no nation on the planet that interferes in the governments of other nations than the United States. Reply

    Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 3:02 am

    Well, I certainly agree, but a government can still be largely trusted even if they resort to some petty lies. As we all do too sometimes. But this this is not a petty thing, this is an intentional attack on the whole institution of elections and democracy when they try to impeach the elected President because some part of the establishment, not the people, dislike him. This has a potential to really get very dangerous, and having any kind of uprisings (as was also mentioned by other commenters above) in a country like the US is extremely dangerous for the whole world. Reply

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    Anyone in Washington seeking a golden shower from a couple of Russian prostitutes just has to hop on one of those all-expenses-paid AIPAC junkets to Israel.

    It's truly amazing how streams of urine help elevate one's anxiety about Iran's nuclear energy program.

    Adam , January 13, 2017 at 3:11 am

    Best comment, Abe! Reply

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 3:25 pm

    American journalist and activist Chris Hedges noted a key purpose of the declassified report "Russia's Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election" from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI):

    "to justify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization beyond Germany, a violation of the promise Ronald Reagan made to the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Expanding NATO in Eastern Europe opened up an arms market for the war industry. It made those businesses billions of dollars. New NATO members must buy Western arms that can be integrated into the NATO arsenal. These sales, which are bleeding the strained budgets of countries such as Poland, are predicated on potential hostilities with Russia. If Russia is not a threat, the arms sales plummet. War is a racket."

    The Real Purpose of the U.S. Government's Report on Alleged Hacking by Russia
    By Chris Hedges
    http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_real_purpose_of_the_us_governments_report_on_alleged_hacking_by_russi

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 4:54 pm

    Israeli arms sales to Europe more than doubled from $724 million in 2014 to $1.63 billion in 2015. http://jfjfp.com/?p=83806

    Israel is the leading arms exporter in the world per capita (2014), and ranks 11th among the top 20 exporters of military equipment and systems (2011-15).

    75-80% of Israeli military exports are generated by just three companies - the state-owned Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries and the publicly traded Elbit Systems.

    The largest categories of Israeli military exports are upgrading aircraft and aerospace systems (14%), radar and electronic systems (12%), drones (11%), and intelligence and information systems (10%).

    In 2015, the Russian government described Israel's delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine as "counterproductive". There is a close arms trade and production co-operation between Israel and Poland. Israeli companies have invested in building arms manufacturing facilities in Poland. Reply

    jfl , January 12, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    However, in this case, it is not even known whether the Russians have any dirt on Trump.

    If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

    - said to have been said by redhat richelieu

    what is known is that the nsa/cia/fbi have all the dirt on everyone, and that they use it on the leaders of the eu, for instance.

    if the only thing that comes out of this filthy little exercise is the death of the nsa/cia/fbi – superpower america's superstazi – by executive fiat it will have been worth trump's election.

    it's either that or another dead president. with pence playing lbj. Reply

    F. G. Sanford , January 12, 2017 at 3:41 pm

    Funny how these "leaks" work, isn't it? If there really were an "insider" able to provide insight on the deepest, darkest secrets that had been gathered by Russian intelligence, why would any responsible intelligence agency completely destroy that asset only to expose a mundane fetish like "golden showers"? But don't anybody dare leak "The Torture Report". Don't even consider leaking information about war crimes, election fraud, financial crimes, murder, state corruption or state sponsorship of terrorism.

    Just my opinion, but here's how it really went. The "hack" scenario is a diversion from the "leak" scenario. The "deep state" didn't really want Hillary. While she may superficially represent their interests, the Clinton machine is too knowledgeable, too experienced and too selfish and self-centered to predictably execute their programs. The Clintons have plenty of dirt on them. But they had enough dirt on her to compromise her electability. They don't want Trump either, but they can manufacture or dig up enough dirt to compromise his Presidency. Their first choice was Jeb Bush. Their second choice is Mike Pence.

    The DNC stuff was leaked by an insider, and the Podesta stuff was hacked by the NSA. The only plausible alternative points to hacking attempts by the neo-Nazi Ukrainian hacking outfit "RuH8", not the Russians.

    A bunch of recent articles seek to analyze Barack Obama's legacy, personality and motivations. That's all superfluous. The "real deal" has been well documented. His grandparents were CIA His mother was CIA His first job after law school was with Banking international Corporation, a CIA "front company". He was groomed and thoroughly vetted.

    Nobody wants to hear the truth or look at real evidence. The circumstantial – though well documented – evidence connecting Ted Cruz's father to the anti-Castro Cubans, the CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald is actually much more plausible and substantial than the evidence for "Russian hacking" of the election, yet the general public has no problem dismissing that as a "conspiracy theory".

    Between the two, Trump was perceived – mistakenly – as the lesser threat to the "deep state". Just a guess, but we may be about to see all hell break loose.

    It's about time some journalists and researchers started naming names and making lists. The "New McCarthyism" uses lists to good advantage. It creates the perception of a vast subversive network dedicated to destroying our "democracy". Until some names are named and fingers pointed, the "deep state" and its intelligence community enforcement arm will continue to control the "democracy" we don't really have. Blackmail is just one of their methods, and it's far from the worst.

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 4:14 pm

    Funny how these "streams," er, "leaks" work:

    http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.764452

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 10:17 pm

    Buzzfeed's "explosive and unverified" golden shower (guess that's not highlighter on the documents):
    https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf

    Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 4:42 am

    And someone has been paying for this crap? If anything, this report exposes its authors much more than anybody else. Reply

    Abe , January 13, 2017 at 1:00 pm

    The "authors" dominate a post-truth regime that demands popular attention to and participation in its discursive games.

    Are you not entertained?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsqJFIJ5lLs Reply

    F. G. Sanford , January 13, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    My favorite quotes from the "Company Intelligence Report":

    "However, he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow " (Is this a pun?)

    "PUTIN angry with senior officials who "overpromised" on TRUMP and further heads likely to roll as result. Foreign minister LAVROV may be next" (What Putin is going to make him change the sheets in Trump's hotel room?)

    " TRUMP has paid bribes and engaged in sexual activities there but key witnesses silenced and evidence hard to obtain" (Were the "key" witnesses the same ones that claim Putin shot down MH-17?)

    I think they dug up the script writers from "The Man from Uncle" and put them back to work. This sounds like a Quinn Martin Production straight out of a Hollywood "B Movie". Reply

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 10:24 pm

    First Draft coalition "partner" BuzzFeed is leading the charge to make fake news, hybrid war propaganda, and hoaxes "more shareable and more social"

    https://firstdraftnews.com/buzzfeed-wants-use-social-media-might-take-hoaxers/ Reply

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 5:09 pm

    Funny how that "leak" worked:

    http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb565-Was-U.S.-Nuclear-Weapons-Fuel-Diverted-to-Israel/

    "OK, but I doubt advisability of getting into this (redacted)." – FBI Director J. Edgard Hoover Reply

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 5:17 pm

    Funny how that other "leak" worked:

    http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/ Reply

    Gregory Kruse , January 12, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    FG, I'm not gay, but I always scroll down to find your comment. You are always looking into the big picture, not the big illusion.

    backwardsevolution , January 13, 2017 at 1:44 am

    Gregory – I agree. His comments are always very good. Reply

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    Me three.

    F. G. Sanford , January 13, 2017 at 6:41 pm

    Thanks to all – sometimes I wonder if it's worth putting in my two cents. We're probably a statistically insignificant group of readers on the world's stage, but I like to think at least it's worth a try. Reply

    Jessica K , January 12, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    We must organize beyond cyberspace as this is a coup in action. CIA is greatest meddler of all nations, coups and assassinations well documented. DC is the Aegean stable that must be cleaned, a truly Herculean task and We the People have to get organized because this planet is imperiled. Agree with Dan that whole sordid mess is beyond a swamp, a stinking pit and pitchforks are necessary! Reply

    LJ , January 12, 2017 at 4:36 pm

    It's more doublethink logic from the Intelligence heads. It would require a tremendous leap of faith for anyone with a brain to think that Russia/Putin/Lavrov would use this info, if it existed at all, in public manner. To do so wouldn't help them achieve a goal and it would only hurt Russia .. The tape would never become public even if it existed. That means this rumor is clearly slander and was aimed at some political end. . Where is the smoking gun?, sorry. By the way , Putin is friends with Bertoloscini , Sarkozy and other notorious womanizers and is known to like women himself. This is not something he would do. He is not a mobster. This is puerile and it is coming from the Democrats although the word is that George Bush initially hired the guy, the former MI5 spy, who wrote the dossier/smear piece on Trump in the first place. . Hoover would have kept it in shop and tried to leverage Trump himself. Reply

    Bernie , January 12, 2017 at 5:09 pm

    There's an article at ABC News today about US tanks rolling into Poland. This reminds me of Nazis rolling into Austria in 1938 and then Poland on Sept 1, 1941 to start WWII. "American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have U.S. troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia. Some people waved and held up American flags as U.S. troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based. "

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 6:32 pm

    Like Poland, Ukraine is eager to express its devotion to the Reich, er, its "Euro-Atlantic aspirations".

    If only for the sake of NATO "cooperation" and "capacity building", Poland and Ukraine have much to forgive and forget:

    http://observer.com/2016/09/from-friends-to-bitter-rivals-poland-and-ukraine-accuse-each-other-of-genocide/

    Of course, reports of Russian "euphoria" remain "unconfirmed". Reply

    Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 5:36 pm

    Absurd. Who is this "they" everyone is talking about? How many are/is this 'they'? 5, 10 20? Who is in control of 'they'? Who's in charge? The political elite? Do they have a club and do they meet for bridge every Tuesday? Do they have a secret handshake? Are they all really Mason's?

    This conspiracy holds no credibility because 'they' is just an 'idea'. That is all. Until someone can give names of those who are responsible and running this political elite then its all storybook conjecture. We should be more concerned with the obvious psychological dementia affecting the president elect. He was a total looney tune in that press conference.

    Wendi , January 12, 2017 at 5:52 pm

    Here are the names.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet-the-80-people-who-are-as-rich-as-half-the-world/

    Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 7:09 pm

    What you are saying with this list then, Wendi, it is not the political elites, intelligence agencies or career politicians whoTrump continuously rails against as the cause for the end of the American Empire. It is the financial hierarchies that Trump so desperately wants to be a part of. Putin is obviously at the top of this list and Trump sees him as a way to become a player in this club. That makes sense to me. Reply

    Dr. Ibrahim Soudy , January 12, 2017 at 6:14 pm

    "THEY" are the people who control the MONEY. They are referred to as the BANKERS. Those are a mafia that runs the political circus BEHIND the scene. The parties and elections are a diversion to keep the idiots busy arguing with each other like the crazy fans of sports teams. The BANKERS always make sure that the "idiots" are choosing between alternatives that ultimately BOW to the BANKERS. Read for example the following:

    – "All the President's Bankers" by Naomi Prins.

    – "Memoirs" by David Rockefeller.

    – "The Crisis of Democracy" a publication of the Tri-Lateral Commission on their website.

    -Here's How Goldman Sachs Became the Overlord of the Trump Administration
    http://wallstreetonparade.com/

    -Goldman, Wall Street and Financial Terrorism | The Inline image 2
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-whetten/goldman-wall-street-and-f_b.. .
    Jun 19, 2010 · The most disturbing aspect of the recent Goldman Sachs lawsuit isn't just the legal violations involved Goldman, Wall Street and Financial Terrorism.

    -Goldman Sachs Are Financial Terrorists | FacebookInline image 1
    http://www.facebook.com/Stop.Goldman
    Goldman Sachs Are Financial Terrorists. 95,662 likes · 6,188 talking about this. Get the Honest truth on the economy, this page sponsors no organization

    Those will give you a good start ..Good Luck. Reply

    Sam F , January 13, 2017 at 7:29 am

    Perhaps you do not mean the ridicule you suggest. The effects of economic aristocracy and political conspiracy are of course not "storybook conjecture" but the combined deductions of experienced observers. That would become conjecture only if specific persons were accused, which is seldom done without evidence.

    The demand for detailed evidence of an old-fashioned conspiracy to effect societal trends is not valid. It becomes propaganda when used to attack the means by which we all deduce that events are driven by cabals, or loose organizations of interested parties. While we are occasionally surprised by the detailed evidence that emerges long after events, even that is incomplete and not very relevant.

    The means of ridicule shows its invalidity. There is no reason to speculate upon clubs, meetings, or handshakes, as there is no need for such specific or antiquated organization. No modern organization works that way, no one has suggested that, and no one here has reasoned from such nonsense, but rather from well documented effects of cabals. So I hope that you merely overstated a wish for more evidence.

    Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 9:49 am

    Bravo. Reply

    Howard Mettee , January 12, 2017 at 6:27 pm

    Robert, Could it not be true that the real losers in the neocon push to extend the American dominion might actually be the intelligence services? They have become so politicized in domestic politics since the Iraq War build up (a la Rice, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Powell) that they figure they can shape American public opinion to support any war, no matter how "unthreatening" the enemy (say Russia) might actually be. Originally they were basically "fact collectors" (objective) – at first from around the world, but since 9/11's Patriot Act, at home also. Then, they became "interpreters and analyzers of motives" which takes a bit of a weed-gee board (subjective!) on the part of the "experienced eye". When whatever these very effective (and appreciated) fact collectors opine suddenly becomes gospel in their "estimates" (interpretation), we have lost the ability to even influence the fate of our nation. Is this the country I grew up in? Or, has it been this way since we were led so effectively to support World War I? Take care, HM Reply

    Thurgle , January 12, 2017 at 6:44 pm

    The NYT skirts around the issue of who paid the huge sums for the research that produced the story of Trump's alleged sexcapades in Moscow. They never say the funders are unknown, but instead use devices like the passive tense to avoid saying. But it would be very interesting to know who signed the checks. Apparently, there was a Republican funder during the primaries who stopped payment when Trump prevailed, whereupon Fusion found a Clinton backer to write their checks. It would be very interesting to know who these funders were and why the MSM seems so keen to avoid saying. Reply

    BlackPete , January 12, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    When it comes to cavorting with prostitutes JFK was the undisputed champion. Given the high regard JFK is held in in some circles maybe Trump's alleged misbehaviour is a positive sign. Also, now that Trump's behaviour has been made public isn't the Russian threat to expose him now worthless and their alleged hold/influence gone?

    Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 8:01 pm

    Its not about the hookers. That's useless drivel. It's about the potential of illegal financial dealings with Russia prior to the election. Just show the damn tax returns. What the hell is he afraid of? What could possibly go wrong?

    Anna , January 12, 2017 at 10:03 pm

    Are you keen on asking Clintons to reveal their financial dealings with Saudis, the sponsors of 9/11?
    How about the Kagans' clan being currently "supported" financially by Qatari?
    And this is much more interesting than tax return: "The NYT skirts around the issue of who paid the huge sums for the research that produced the story of Trump's alleged sexcapades in Moscow. They never say the funders are unknown, but instead use devices like the passive tense to avoid saying. But it would be very interesting to know who signed the checks. Apparently, there was a Republican funder during the primaries who stopped payment when Trump prevailed, whereupon Fusion found a Clinton backer to write their checks. It would be very interesting to know who these funders were and why the MSM seems so keen to avoid saying."

    col from oz , January 12, 2017 at 10:25 pm

    I read it was Rubio commissioned the dirt.
    Look at day 69 of eric braverman.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwKhbsASDhI Reply

    akech , January 12, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    Is this the face of the "DEEP STATE"?

    It is controlling, deceptive, organized, bloody and does not give a "rat ass" about the needs of any other human being on earth who does not belong to it!

    It neither tolerates opposing views from anybody who does not belong to its members nor allows the outsiders to organize . It is determined to be the lens through which everybody under its control see the rest of the world; any conclusion drawn by the besieged population, based on what it is forced to see, must conform to the "DEEP STATE" norms; otherwise, you are in deep trouble. The POTUS or the Congress must toe lines dictated by the members of this organization, (the Deep State). We are observing that no effort is being spared to see to it that President-Elect toes the "DEEP STATE" line; it is deep and scary indeed! Reply

    John , January 12, 2017 at 8:40 pm

    Russia is the half naked female in the magic show The real slight of hand is the relationship with the American oligarch and china .wow !!! . talking about messing with the bottom line some of you big brain folks will get this in 4 ..3 2 ..lol Reply

    Abe , January 12, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    What I Learned From the Intelligence Report on "Russian Hacking"
    By James Corbett
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecxu7EStgs Reply

    CitizenOne , January 12, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    There is little doubt that the obvious blackmail will never be covered in that light by main stream media. To those of us who are historians or are natural skeptics or have actually lived through those times, this is all fairly obvious. They are trying to put Donald Trump in a corner so he can be controlled.

    I suspect that is why Trump retained Steve Bannon for. Not just a house racist but someone who can get down and dirty on those that dish up dirt on Trump. We'll have to see if it works. Headlines: "Donald unleashes TwitterBomb on CIA". But he'll have to go on the internet since the CIA owns the press in the USA.

    He has two choices. Listen to the CIA and do their bidding which is the requirement to start WWIII with Russia or resist and be smeared in the press. It's an uphill battle too. Unlike Silvio Berlusconi or Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump does not actually own the press. That will make it especially hard to do.

    This thing is shaping up to be a geopolitical oil war. Rex and the Russians vs the Saudi/CIA Team USA.

    All I can say is fine America. Don't give a damn about privacy. Don't give a damn about anything. But one of these days this massive spying ring gathering every shred of any and all traces of your life and filing them away forever cannot be good. It will most certainly not end well.

    When AI has us all pinned up against a wall threatening to out all of us if we do not do exactly what it wants then what will we do?

    We need some privacy laws. Also we need to throw the main stream media out with the trash. It is pure evil. Back in the day, the press wouldn't run the stories about MLKs extramarital affairs it recorded secretly. The press demanded to know the source of the B.S. and the FBI did not want to tip their hand so the Mexican standoff led to the suicide letter which said "if you accept the Nobel Prize, we will shame you and ruin you and you should consider preserving you legacy by killing yourself instead. At least the MSM had some ethical standards and smelled a rat and refused to run the stories. Imagine that. If MLK was alive today we and we still had segregation, people and the media would fight to keep it! MLK would be a portrayed in the press as a philandering bad guy. A sexual predator. The Civil Rights movement would end in a quagmire of gossip surrounding its leader.

    The Republicans have certainly had their fun with it too making Monica Lewinsky describe to a court the distinctive features of the president's privates. I bet they were rolling in the aisles when that happened. Now it's their turn. Will they defend Trump or will they hope that perhaps Mike Pence would make a better leader.

    All this tawdry B.S. really gets old fast. I could care less what people do in private as long as nobody gets hurt.

    One person abroad when asked what they thought about Bill Clinton's circumstances replied they were confused since after all we were not electing the Pope. Amen. I feel the same way about Trump. It's all B.S.

    The problem is America can't remember what happened yesterday. We are collectively like terminal Alzheimer patients. Two seconds after we see something, we forget it and are completely susceptible to B.S.in two seconds after we forgot what just happened which ignores the facts which occurred a mere two seconds earlier but we are none the wiser since we can't remember what happened more than two seconds ago. That means there are a lot of opportunities each day to fool us.

    What ever happened to the story about James Comey influencing the election? We just forgot it. What ever happened to all of the other historically "likely suspects" thought to have been likely suspects in vote rigging schemes. They are all absent and not presented as possible influencers of the election by our CIA owned press. Instead we are presented with a fake narrative filled with salacious gossip and naughty bits designed to turn public opinion into a weapon for further increases in militarization and military spending while preserving foreign relationships which benefit wealthy investors.

    We need to wake up and start taking some strong medicine to ward off the Alzheimer disease that is affecting us in order to put the daily snow job presented by the MSM and the CIA into perspective. That perspective would include what just happened two seconds ago.

    Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen since the medication would have to include administering it to the MSM too.

    The ability of the MSM to erase our collective memory and present us with a new fake narrative on any given day should ring alarm bells that we are obviously vulnerable to being fooled.

    We are being fooled. Every day. Time to start taking the meds. Reply

    Jurgen , January 12, 2017 at 10:01 pm

    This is no "deep state" this is rather in-plain-sight US Government at work.
    Trivial task:
    1) Create a dense smoke screen by broadcasting on every single TV channel non-stop anti-Russian and anti-Trump*** hysteria (they know it can't go wrong – they know Trump would try to reply to every single fake thus making their task easier and the picture even more colorful)
    2) Behind that smoke screen ship few thousands of US troops and tanks over to Poland and to those parasitic micro quasi-states in Baltic and by doing that de-facto lay foundation for 4-5 new military bases,
    which (yet another NATO expansion) otherwise would not be approved and likely axed by Trump. But now it went through s-m-o-u-ht-ly, like a butter. Highest class of the old Shell Game. Where CIA, FBI and other spook shops are used as shills and the population of the US are total losers (everyone's taxes will be used to pay for that yet another NATO expansion).
    3) Behind the same smoke screen Obamacare has just been demolished late last night, congrats 20 million of poor folks!

    *** Just wait till grainy videos surface showing some naked figures – one of them would be vaguely resembling Trump.
    That'd be no hard task for talented movie makers from either PSYOP or/and PAG (just remember their masterpieces featuring Jessica Lynch and other ones featuring fat "Osama bin Laden"-looking dude).

    Note: Authorization to create and finance state Propaganda apparatus, S.2943, was quietly passed late Friday night Dec.23 behind the smoke screen of the same anti-Russian and anti-Trump hysteria, thus what we are seeing now is perfectly lawful – propaganda machine at full throttle, who said bureaucracy is slow(?)

    Anna , January 12, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    is not it nice that Obama is leaving office while being decorated with salacious fake stories which he is promoting Petty and dishonest in everything.

    Gregory Herr , January 12, 2017 at 11:17 pm

    I tried to watch his good riddance speech last night, but couldn't get through the half of it. For relief I turned to this video:

    http://youtu.be/F5K7UmYkD1I Reply

    Franz Rock , January 12, 2017 at 10:11 pm

    As a non-citicen one has to wonder about the mind boggling machination the US politic is capable of.
    After WW2 the European countries looked upon the USA as the beacon of democratic values.
    How bitter for the young generation to find, bit by bit, that behind the American facade lurked a system
    of smoke and mirrors. As ruthless as the very system they replaced in Europe. Slowly sugarcoating
    their deep aims of domination. Under words like freedom,liberty and equality there is the underlying
    unbelievable lust for money and with it power. From a human point of view, and the thinking person,
    the politics and aims of the United States of America is an abomination for all the worlds people.

    Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 3:27 am

    I certainly agree with you, but also I am really saddened that this pattern is far from being unique and repeats itself all over and over again. The power corrupts, and it is true for states as well as for people. But the US are indeed a sad champion in hypocrisy. Their predecessors were not as skilled in hiding their true intentions behind the screen of freedom and all other very attractive values. This makes it especially hard to accept. Reply

    Brad Owen , January 13, 2017 at 5:08 am

    You've fingered the wrong culprits, or rather indicted fellow victims. It's the same bloody, titled ruling class and their managerial elites in business and banking from old-line European/British families who've been playing their Imperial games and still are. THEY created the late 19th century Synachist Movement for Empire (SME) that gave birth to Fascism and its' feverish twin NAZIism,really just movements to update the workings of the old-fashioned European Empires. It's also the Cecil Rhodes/Milner RoundTable Group that dove-tailed with SME machinations to update old Empires, campaigning strenuously, through their managerial elites on Wall Street, to recapture their "rogue colony" USA and bring it into the British version of Empire. Right at the moment of FDR's death (may have been assassination), the tables were turned on us, with Churchill leading stupid Truman around by the nose speaking of iron curtains and Red Scares and Cold Wars. FDR's intelligence community was taken over by Anglophile RoundTable allies in the post-war 40s. Having helped win the battles, we lost the War to the fascist/NAZI SME and RoundTable groups who never received so much as a scratch from all the bombs and bullets. Have you seen the show Hunting Hitler? WWII never ended, the methods of fighting just changed.

    Brad Owen , January 13, 2017 at 5:44 am

    P.S. Not only did WWII never end, just a change in fighting methods, BUT the SME/RoundTable Groups managed to get the two most powerful allies turned against each other: USSR and USA, so that we, together, couldn't focus on the REAL enemy; SME/RoundTable group of elites (which would have happened under FDR in post-war. He would have been President until January 1949 if he hadn't died/been killed, Stalin told FDRs son that "that Churchill gang killed him" been trying to do the same to Stalin) and THIS is why Trumps' Russophilia is such a grave and real threat to our Establishment.

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    Brad you hit the nail on the head with your comments here .bravo! Reply

    John P , January 14, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    Where on earth did you get this fable. Roosevelt had polio and needed a wheelchair, he was a heavy smoker, had high blood pressure, angina followed by congestive heart failure all finalized by a stoke. He had been weakening over a long period. This is all before the days of polonium the USSR uses to kill its foes today.
    Russia wasn't following the agreements drawn up in Yalta and fair free elections were not provided in Poland and many Poles who fought for the allies in the war felt betrayed. The Soviets went their own way, so were we to tell the Poles, tough.
    Allied convoys, mainly British, at great cost in ships and men, supplied the Russians with war supplies. They faced U-boats and heavily armed German battle-cruisers in freezing arctic waters. After the war Germany got assistance in rebuilding, but the British were held to paying off debts for US build liberty ships used to replace ships lost on the Atlantic convoys. I had an uncle who's ship was sunk and very luckily, after much time in a life boat, was picked up. Many Americans sat back and watched until Pearl Harbour. The British had warned the Americans some time before, that they had lost contact with one of the Japanese fleets they were following, and you can guess the consequences.
    Britain saw what was coming when Germany attacked Poland and declared war on Germany. We didn't have much. My father was almost killed assisting surgeon in a Liverpool hospital and luckily had to leave to go out in an ambulance. When he came back the OR was gone. Bombed out. Luckily on another occasion, the day staff had been told to stay on duty with the night staff and the nursing residence was flattened. We had rationing until 1950, and had to grow food in our small back garden, sprouts, peas, cabbage. We had 6 chickens and a rooster, a source of much needed nutrition from eggs. I remember my mother weeping terribly after telling the police she had lost her ration books. As a young lad I went on a search and eventually found them in the folds of a chair. You may never have had to live through something like that.
    And if you think America is any better than others, read "What is America?" by Ronald Wright. Learn about the Trail of Tears and traders knowingly giving natives blankets used by whites with small-pox.

    Brad Owen , January 15, 2017 at 6:47 am

    You relate the manufactured cover story, thanks to the anglophile Intel community that took over in post-war forties, and did their typical change of the narration, much like they do today with the phony crap about Russian aggression. This kind of sh!t has been going on since the revolution, as the wealthy and powerful Imperial Tories never left and never relented. I got this"fable" from EIR and Tarpley.net. It makes more sense to me than the current fable we call history. Check it out for yourself, it amounts to mountains of articles and essays. It took me years to piece it all together and relay it adequately in brief paragraphs. Choose to believe there is no over-arching Imperial ruling class inimical to the interests of commoners if you want. I refuse to be blind to it anymore.

    David F., N.A. , January 12, 2017 at 10:18 pm

    What if the intelligence community wasn't choosing between HRC and Trump, but, in stead, between HRC and Pence. So no matter who won, wouldn't this hedged election mean business as usual?

    Sorry, HRC, but for this downward neoliberal/fascist spiral thingy to work, you lesser-of-2-evil conservaDems are just going to have to learn to share with the equally-corrupt conservatives. See ya in 4 (or maybe 8 (naw, 4)).

    Hail to the de facto Chief. da dada da dada dada dada da. Reply

    Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:36 pm

    You forgot to declare who is the drag queen in this matter?

    Let's warn these evil psychopaths that a JFK OUTCOME IS OFF LIMITS.
    That is the inference of your article.

    By the way, Trump NEVER READ THE REPORT PRIVATELY. THERE WAS AN ORAL PRESENTATION, & CLAPPER & Brennan took the CLASSIFIED documents back with them. Trump never read the 2 pg libel nor was it discussed in the presentation.

    Carl Rising-Moore , January 13, 2017 at 2:38 am

    This is also reminiscent of Hoover and JFK. When JFK attended Hoover's office, he was handed the President's file. JFK read some of the file while Hoover waited. When JFK stood up to leave, Hoover told the President that the file remains with him. No wonder JFK and Bobby hated this dangerous psychopath. Reply

    John P , January 12, 2017 at 11:43 pm

    It's all slime, Americans let their political system fall into the trap of big money (lobbying system and PACs) and neo-liberalism. I have no faith that Trump has the capabilities to be a good president. His dialogue is simple, his temper easily aroused as are his feelings of hurt. He shows little historical knowledge or political skills and speaks in a petty childish way. Who is going to pay for the southern border wall ?! What is going to replace Obama's medical care programs, more big business institutions ?! To me it looks like the Palestinians are on the Titanic run by captain Trump and his son-in law, and only minutes to go. What real in depth policies has Trump ever stated ?! Look out because Trump has a habit of passing on the bills be it cash, broken promises or a road you never thought he would take.
    And yes we need a calming down and discussion between the US, Russia and China, but I don't see any hope in the line of folks Trump has chosen or Clinton. To me, Trump is like passenger on an aircraft in which the pilot has expired and he is relying on others to tell him what to do because he has no idea or understanding.
    I think this and a world where jobs have been taken by microprocessors and robots, is a very dangerous place and we don't need a blind narcissist leading the way. Sadly Bernie Sanders got burnt on the stake. Reply

    Carl Rising-Moore , January 13, 2017 at 2:28 am

    At times like this I miss the wise words of the late Chalmers Johnson. Chalmers was not encouraged by the possibility of America stepping back from her efforts to control the entire world. He felt the deep state was too committed to America's Full Spectrum Dominance. Is this the sloppy end to the legacy of the Sole Super Power? Or, is this just the middle of the play before curtain call?
    When Russia came to the aid of Syria, I believed that we were entering the Multipolar World Order. Hopefully that is still possible but better sooner than later before we enter the No World Order of endless chaos. Does the American deep state really want to play Russian Roulette with live nucs?

    Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    I wish Chalmers Johnson were still with us, and able to comment on our current events good of you to bring his name up. Reply

    John P , January 15, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    I'm sorry Brad. With your EIR's reference, the first story I saw concerned Obama-care connected to some Nazi policies. Next they claim global warming is fake. The US was the only western nation without a national health program. People die because they haven't the money to pay for drugs or health care. The health of a labourer is more important to them that a rich bloke sitting at a desk. And excuse me but back in the late 60s I studied astronomy besides my major, another science, and even then learned that both CO2 and methane each trap the sun's energy and cause temperatures to rise. That was long before global warming came to peoples attention. Sorry, your story is pure fiction.

    Also, Trump hasn't a clue what he's talking about as far as global warming is concerned. Take a look at the temperatures in the far north. They have been warmer than ever while we down here are having huge cycles of heat and cold and are experiencing the fury that those changes can induce.

    Dieter Heymann , January 16, 2017 at 2:23 pm

    As a scientist you ought to know that CO2 and methane do not trap the sun's energy but absorb upward IR radiation from Earth part of which they radiate back towards Earth's surface part out into space. The blanket I use on my bed at night does not trap the heat generated by me either. If it did it might catch fire?

    John P , January 16, 2017 at 4:13 pm

    Dieter I was just trying to make it simple, not write an article for Nature. The point being so many people don't believe that we are altering the earths climate through burning fossil fuels. We take down our forests, and plants are a big reason we are here as they take in carbon dioxide, utilize the suns energy through photosynthesis and create organic compounds thus setting the stage for further developments. There is so much irrationality out there brought on by job losses through technology, and this creates huge divisions within society and that can lead to awful consequences as history has shown.
    I not sure some would understand the true science behind it. The subject was a reliance on a web site that promoted climate change denial and a mentioned link between Obamacare and Nazism. Is that a firm foundation of reliance ?

    John P , January 16, 2017 at 4:33 pm

    Just to clarify, I said astronomy wasn't my major, it was microbiology and medical sciences. I had an interest in star gazing and following the planets. Reply

    Jamie , January 16, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    Many liberals fail to understand that Hillary was the chosen candidate of the deep-state and international finance capital. Unlike the unwashed masses - these forces don't care if politician has a 'D' or 'R' next to their name. It is how well they will serve capital.

    [Mar 04, 2019] Spooked Christopher Steele Cancels Appearance After Cohen Testimony Destroys Dossier Allegation

    Notable quotes:
    "... Who needs enemies when he has British "friends"? ..."
    "... Nellie Ohr, via her earlier FISA 702 searches (illegally done while acting as a contractor), wrote most of the dossier which she sent to Christopher Steele. Steele then laundered the product to make it look legit. That's why he was paid chump change for his 'work.' He basically took Ohr's work, put it on his letterhead, and collected his check. ..."
    Mar 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Former MI6 spy Christopher Steele has suddenly backed out of a planned video appearance at a pro-democracy gathering in Baltimore next week for a group founded by Trump-hating chess champ Garry Kasparov, according to Politico .

    The author of the largely unverified Trump-Russia dossier had been scheduled to discuss disinformation on a panel moderated by Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum, which is set to include Atlantic Council fellow Evelyn Farkas - a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who notably slipped up on live TV and admitted in March 2017 that the Obama administration had been spying on the Trump campaign.

    Applebaum said that Steele had gotten "cold feet" last week and canceled on the advice of his legal counsel . As the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross notes, this would have been Steele's first public remarks in the nearly two years since BuzzFeed published his dossier.

    Perhaps Steele was 'spooked' by testimony last week from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen , who debunked a key claim in the dossier that he traveled to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials in order to arrange clandestine payments to hackers who stole emails from the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

    Cohen only denied the Prague allegation during his open testimony, but GOP California Rep. Devin Nunes suggested on Monday that the former Trump fixer disputed all of the dossier's allegations during a closed-door hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last Thursday. - Daily Caller

    Steele's dossier was commissioned by Hillary Clinton's campaign through law firm Perkins Coie, which paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn commissioned Steele to assemble the collection of reports which relied heavily on Kremlin officials.

    The dossier was used by the US intelligence community to obtain a FISA surveillance warrant on Trump campaign aide Carter Page - along with anyone he was in communication with. Steele's report claimed that there was a "well-developed conspiracy of co-operation" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

    The reports, which circulated among U.S. intelligence officials beginning in the summer of 2016 and were later published by BuzzFeed, helped set off a chain of events that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. In the years since Steele authored his reports, evidence has emerged of extensive contacts between Trump's aides and various Russian state-aligned actors, while many of the most salacious allegations in Steele's reports remain unconfirmed or at least partially debunked. - Politico

    The conference Steele backed out of will continue without him - and "will examine and wrestle with the underlying threats to liberal democracy and propose strategies to reinvigorate it," according to promotional materials.

    Also in attendance will be Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), former Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and former undersecretary of defense for George W. Bush Paul Wolfowitz, per Politico . It is being organized by the Renew Democracy Initiative chaired by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.


    Emergency Ward , 8 minutes ago link

    The unholy matrimony of neo-cons and neo-progressives.

    MaxThrust , 13 minutes ago link

    Steele never had any intention to attend. This is all smoke and mirrors.

    Stud Duck , 19 minutes ago link

    You mean that war monger Wolfowitz is still around and the Democripts are using him now?? One of the main players in the big lie to invade Iraq and the liberal dem's are hosting him, Jesus ******* sheep, I have see it all now!

    teharr , 20 minutes ago link

    Also in attendance will be Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), former Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and former undersecretary of defense for George W. Bush Paul Wolfowitz, per Politico. It is being organized by the Renew Democracy Initiative chaired by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.

    How the hell do you skip out on this list of rock stars?

    This **** is so obvious. We have known all of this for months and the media drops it out like it is some sort of new development.

    Wow, really? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo. Trump was framed? No ****!

    Jackprong , 20 minutes ago link

    Steele should be WATERBOARDED! Let's find out what he knows. What goes around comes around to Mr. MI6 and his foreign interference with the U. S. elections and the Trump campaign.

    Concertedmaniac , 23 minutes ago link

    Sounds like a leftist-neocon-rino confab to appeal to the non-thinking sheep. Wolfowitz is more dangerous and has caused more death and destruction than el chapo. See wolfowitz doctrine..

    snatchpounder , 36 minutes ago link

    Opposition research paid for by a known gangster Hillary Clinton and disguised as an "investigation" attempted to remove a sitting U.S president. A thoroughly corrupt FBI participated in said attempted coup and no conspirators have been brought to justice to date. Corruption top to bottom and all conspirators need to be arrested tried and convicted. Executions are in order for Obama and Clinton and the rest should be allowed to die of old age in prison.

    romanmoment , 26 minutes ago link

    And not one ******* thing has happened to any of them, not a single one. And, I sadly suspect, this will be the case 10 years from now too. Nobody is going to be held accountable and the only ones who will suffer are the American people due to the treasonous behavior of the last administration and the deep state. **** 'em.

    Mike Rotsch , 36 minutes ago link

    "The conference Steele backed out of will continue without him - and "will examine and wrestle with the underlying threats to liberal democracy and propose strategies to reinvigorate it ," according to promotional materials."

    So basically, they'll be proposing strategies on how to further destroy it.

    wolf pup , 38 minutes ago link

    Bezos' CIA-pandering Washington Post and an Atlantic Counsel fellow on a panel to address.. disinformation.Disinformation; indeed.

    Sci-fi as documentary.

    bh2 , 43 minutes ago link

    "the collection of reports which relied heavily on Kremlin officials."

    No, they did not . At least not until there is some independent verification that any "Kremlin officials" actually had a hand in Steele's fabalist work of art. That he had any outside help from Russians of any sort (or anyone else for that matter) remains an utterly meritless claim. If he did have help, it was more likely from British intelligence officials having a good laugh at the gullibility of the American ones.

    There is no way to know if Steele wrote his "dossier" extemporaneously while curled up with his favorite lady and smoking dope in his London flat. Continuing to present this claim as if it's an established fact bars inquiry into other explanations which may prove far more .... intriguing.

    iSage , 44 minutes ago link

    This is open collusion against a sitting President. This is a travesty of justice, and we sit on our thumbs???

    ScalpelSharp , 44 minutes ago link

    Did anyone ever bother to ask for the manifest of any possible flights to Prague. Maybe easier, before Mueller deposed him...anyone check with American Airlines to see if he bought tickets? And this Steele guy, how did he ever work for MI6 and not learn to encrypt files, set up shell organizations, false identities to not be tied to the dossier? Did he perform an online home request for a FEDex pickup/drop off with signature required accompanied w/ DL and passport?

    hooligan2009 , 47 minutes ago link

    the senate intel committee should EXTRADITE STEELE and force him to testify under oath that he is a piece of ****.

    why didn't that happen in the last two years? is/was he immune from givign testimony?

    Koba the Dread , 14 minutes ago link

    Moron! The Senate Intelligence Committee has no legal authority under international law to extradite him. He must first be charged with a felony under domestic law before extradition is even a possibility. However, once he is charged with a felony and extradited, he has a right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent.

    Footnote: The right to remain silent before your accusers is based historically on Jesus of Nazareth's remaining silent before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate when asked if he was the Messiah. It worked its way into western law when the west was a Christian homeland.

    cracker16 , 52 minutes ago link

    Who needs enemies when he has British "friends"?

    Anno Domini , 53 minutes ago link

    Nellie Ohr, via her earlier FISA 702 searches (illegally done while acting as a contractor), wrote most of the dossier which she sent to Christopher Steele. Steele then laundered the product to make it look legit. That's why he was paid chump change for his 'work.' He basically took Ohr's work, put it on his letterhead, and collected his check.

    Winston Churchill , 14 minutes ago link

    Except Nellie was working for Brennan and it was fed thru' Ukraine to Steele. There are multiple cover ups going on here,whatever is simple isn't close to the truth.

    brokebackbuck , 41 minutes ago link

    To do that, the "adults" in DC would have to go down for pedophilia, racism, racketeering, and a cornucopia of other malfeasance.

    So, no. there isnt.

    theory , 54 minutes ago link

    I WONDER WHY HE GOT COLD FEET.......????

    The only thing he was trying to do was to help Hillary, Bin-Hossain and their Mob Syndicate to satage a Coup -- -And overthrow the dully elected president....!!!!

    [Mar 01, 2019] ...a nation divided against itself ...

    Feb 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    "For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives: that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result by falsely propagating the first narrative. It is now obvious and indisputable that the second narrative is the correct one.

    The authors, accomplices, and dupes of this attempted overthrow of constitutional government are now well along in reciting their misconduct without embarrassment or remorse because -- in fired FBI Director James Comey's formulation -- a "higher duty" than the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution compelled them.

    Or -- in fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's words -- "the threat" was too great. Nevermind that the nature of "the threat" was that the people might elect someone he and Comey disapproved of as president, and that that person might actually serve his term, as elected." Black

    ----------

    Baron Black of Crossharbour, is an interesting fellow. In this piece he (or someone) makes the case for the reality of the "soft coup" that the Borg (foreign policy establishment) and the Deep State mandarins (SES ers) scattered across the Executive Branch undertook and for which they only now are being driven back into their dens. Black reminds me of Lord Beaverbrook, another Canadian who was a member of the War Cabinet in WW2?

    The caste of US general and admirals are not I think part of the coup plot. They have their own game as a group and it is not a neocon game except for a few outliers like Jack Keane, a priest of the neocon cult.

    Nevertheless, IMO Black is wrong when he thinks that the present situation is the worst constitutional crisis since the outbreak of the WBS. No, IMO, this is far worse than that. It is the worst ever. In 1860 the seceding states did not seek to overthrow Lincoln, the legally elected president of the US, even though he had been elected by a plurality in the popular vote and not a single electoral vote from the South. They simply wished to depart what they saw as a voluntary union of the states.

    In this case the forces arrayed against Trump wish to overthrow the constitutional order. That is much worse. pl

    http://www.conradmblack.com/1449/the-greatest-constitutional-crisis-since?fbclid=IwAR2qWyKRRnX94rYAZ4xBeWE8yscLdMA8U-bWfPYirVfCXjFiigyUcf_nIM4

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black


    MP98 , 5 hours ago

    Unfortunately nothing will happen to these people.
    No one will be charged, much less tried..
    The swamp is above the law - "laws are for little people."
    We are not governed, we are ruled.
    Pat Lang Mod -> MP98 , 3 hours ago
    Ok. I will quit.
    Keith Harbaugh , 7 hours ago
    "In this case the forces arrayed against Trump wish to overthrow the constitutional order. That is much worse. pl"

    Just want to point out someone who seems to agree with you on many issues, such as this: David A. Stockman .
    For a sample of his thinking and writing, see
    "The New Gray Lady – Comfort Woman for the War Party" , 2019-01-16

    The Donald has been on a red hot twitter rampage, and he's completely justified. Actually, we didn't think the Russian Collusion Hoax could get any stupider until we saw the New York Times' Friday evening bushwhack. ...

    And for lots of his columns, see his archive at antiwar.com . There you will find not only the titles of his articles, but also short summaries.

    Interesting (actually quite disappointing) how little he is quoted in the MSM. What an echo chamber it is!

    [Feb 23, 2019] FBI EXTENSIVE ILLEGAL SURVAILANCE PROGRAM

    Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link

    CREATION OF CONTROL FILES TRANSFERRED FROM FBI TO NSA

    "But by then, it was already too late. The FBI's surveillance was messy and involved too many agents who could potentially blow the whistle. In the wake of 9/11, the internal surveillance program was shifted from the Bureau to the NSA, and it was not long before those surveillance powers were being directed against politicians and officials in yet another attempt to gather dirt and find blackmail-worthy material on these individuals.

    As NSA whistleblower Russell Tice told The Corbett Report in 2013, he had first-hand knowledge of this surveillance, which included politicians, judges, military personnel, and even the future President of the United States.

    In short, this scandal is too deep, too dark, and covers too many people from both sides of the political aisle for it to ever proceed in public. If it were to be exposed it would uncover a tale of surveillance, scandal, drug money, child prostitution and blackmail that could blow up all over Washington and make Watergate look like a minor footnote in the history of political scandal."

    https://www.corbettreport.com/the-real-hastert-scandal-pedophilia-drug-money-and-blackmail/

    FBI EXTENSIVE ILLEGAL SURVAILANCE PROGRAM

    "In 2002 Gilbert Graham, a Special Agent in the Washington Field Office of the FBI, blew the whistle on an illegal surveillance program being conducted out of the Bureau's Washington headquarters. According to the unclassified version of his complaint, obtained by the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition in 2007, Graham alleged violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act "in conducting electronic surveillance as a subterfuge to acquire evidence of criminal activity."

    These allegations were backed up by a former FBI Counterintelligence Specialist in the Washington Field Office, who told the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition: " you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure."

    According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, revealing the details of this program for the first time in a series of podcasts in the wake of the Hastert revelations, this illegal surveillance program -- dubbed COINTELPRO II by the agents who were asked to implement it -- dates back to the mid-1990s, when the Clinton White House was being rocked by a series of sex scandals."

    https://www.corbettreport.com/the-real-hastert-scandal-pedophilia-drug-money-and-blackmail/

    The main objective of the plan was to:

    [SOURCE: Probable Cause Podcast #23 | BoilingFrogsPost.com ]

    [Feb 22, 2019] FBI Official Admits To Infiltrating Trump Campaign - Just Don't Call It Spying

    Notable quotes:
    "... Halper is reportedly a longtime CIA and FBI informant, and has been involved in US politics at the highest levels for decades, becoming George H.W. Bush's National Director for Policy Development during his presidential campaign. After Bush lost to Reagan, Halper worked as Reagan's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State - where he served under three different Secretaries . ..."
    "... He then became a senior advisor to the Department of Defense and DOJ between 1984 and 2001. Halper's former father-in-law was Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA . He also allegedly spied on the Carter administration - collecting information on foreign policy (an account disputed by Ray Cline). ..."
    Feb 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper - a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election.

    According to portions of transcripts published on Tuesday by the Epoch Times of a Aug. 31, 2018 deposition by Trisha Anderson, the FBI relied on sources who "already had campaign contacts" in order to surveil the Trump team.

    "To my knowledge, the FBI did not place anybody within a campaign but, rather, relied upon its network of sources, some of whom already had campaign contacts, including the source that has been discussed in the media at some length beyond Christopher Steele ," said Anderson - who was the #2 attorney at the FBI's Office of General Counsel, and had extensive involvement with the Trump counterintelligence investigation.

    Halper is reportedly a longtime CIA and FBI informant, and has been involved in US politics at the highest levels for decades, becoming George H.W. Bush's National Director for Policy Development during his presidential campaign. After Bush lost to Reagan, Halper worked as Reagan's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State - where he served under three different Secretaries .

    He then became a senior advisor to the Department of Defense and DOJ between 1984 and 2001. Halper's former father-in-law was Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA . He also allegedly spied on the Carter administration - collecting information on foreign policy (an account disputed by Ray Cline).

    Halper's involvement in surveilling the Trump campaign was exposed by the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross, who reported that the 74-year-old spook was enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election .

    Halper received a DoD contract from the Obama administration for $411,575 - made in two payments, and had a start date of September 26, 2016 - three days after a September 23 Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information fed to Isikoff by "pissgate" dossier creator Christopher Steele . The FBI would use the Yahoo! article along with the unverified "pissgate" dossier as supporting evidence in an FISA warrant application for Page. Halper approached Page during an election-themed conference at Cambridge on July 11, 2016, six weeks after the September 26 DoD award start date. The two would stay in contact for the next 14 months, frequently meeting and exchanging emails .

    He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. - New York Times

    And as the Daily Caller reports, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page.

    In September 2016, the FBI would send Halper to further probe Trump aide George Papadopoulos on an allegation he made that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. According to Papadopoulos in an interview with Dan Bongino, Halper angrily accused him of working with Russia before storming out of a meeting.

    Halper essentially began interrogating Papadopoulos, saying that it's "obviously in your interest to be working with the Russians" and to "hack emails." " You're complicit with Russia in this, isn't that right George " Halper told him. Halper also inquired about Hillary's hacked emails, insinuating that Papadopoulos possessed them. Papadopoulos denied knowing anything about this and asked to be left alone. - Bongino.com

    https://youtu.be/45m5DP1xfRg

    Just don't call Halper a spy...


    hugin-o-munin , 1 hour ago link

    All of these blatant crimes done by the Democrat cheerleading swamp creatures NEVER get investigated and I am starting to wonder what the hell Trump is doing. Is he stupid or is all of this just a charade and they are all on the same team. How could this creep Rod Rosenstein have been left at his position until this time? It makes no sense to me. Sure all of these rodents have control files on each other but come on how scared are they? It's ridiculous. If Trump soon gets impeached I'll hold him responsible himself for not doing anything.

    schroedingersrat , 59 minutes ago link

    They are all on the same team. Trump was never your saviour. He was designed to be a distraction so the 0.01% that own both parties can rape you some more.

    hugin-o-munin , 57 minutes ago link

    Correct. It's all a big lie and show for the uninformed masses. God help these liars when all the Qanon followers wake up to this truth. All this 'tremendous winning' bs will boomerang back big time.

    donkey_shot , 5 hours ago link

    The above Halper story has been circulating for about a year now, so this isn`t actually big news. As for the FBI and the CIA subverting just about every political campaign or social movement in existence: Well, duh. The deep state and its satanic minions will remain in control as long as such "intelligence" and State Security agencies (the FBI is essentially nothing but a US version of the SS) are allowed to exist.

    youshallnotkill , 5 hours ago link

    Not a word on here on the breaking news in the Epstein case.

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5745926-Epstein-Order.html

    Typical.

    punchasocialist , 1 hour ago link

    Alex Acosta works out an illegal deal for Epstein = Trump gives Acosta a cabinet position = Trump is a protector of Pedo protectors = Trump doesn't give 2 shits about Pedos

    [Feb 22, 2019] Trump vs. the FBI Who are the good guys by Joe Jarvis

    With Trump incoherence, impulsivity and appointment of Pompeo and Bolton it is really unclear who are the good guys and and who are bad guys.
    Color revolution against Trump failed and that's a good sign, the sign of healthy political system. But it might well be that "The moor has done his duty, the moor can go"
    Trump already undermined the credibility of neoliberal MSM and we should be glad to him for that. He also withdrawing troops from Syria (which were in the country illegally) but only after bombing Assad air forces half-dozen times on false premises.
    Looks like he reached some progress in talks with China and Chine will buy more agricultural production from the USA. But the question to him is: if China already has the capacity to produce all those goods, how he think manufacturing will return to the USA.
    He still is warmongering about Iran. And he initiated the regime change in Venezuela.
    On domestic front he positioned himself as a clear neoliberal and bully -- king of "national neoliberalism" instead of national socialism of the past (what is funny is that many point of NSDAP program of 1920 are now far left to the Democratic Party platform, to say nothing about Trump.
    Notable quotes:
    "... "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." -Frank Herbert, Author of Dune ..."
    Feb 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    by TDB Thu, 02/21/2019 - 12:24 5 SHARES By Joe Jarvis via The Daily Bell

    The bad guys wear black hats. We're programmed to see things in black or white, right or wrong, good or evil. From what we are shown in movies and books from an early age, there is a protagonist and an antagonist.

    Clever writers make it a little more complex, with the Boo Radleys and Snapes who are thought to be villains but turn out to be heroes. But generally, the characters fit largely into extremes: good guys or bad guys with little overlap: Harry Potter versus Voldemort.

    But it's those characters on the edge who people can't get enough of. Like Walter White, the cancer patient who starts producing meth to leave some money behind for his family in the TV show Breaking Bad .

    And that's probably because its an often unspoken truth that life is mostly gray, and not so black and white.

    But the binary two choice meme has a function. It makes things a hell of a lot easier. And it prevents us from being crippled by indecision and inaction.

    Of course, this is also easily exploited by bad guys

    When I hear that the FBI considered attempting to oust Trump from the oval office, I am tempted to think, hey, Trump must not be such a bad guy.

    According to a new book by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, top FBI brass discussed using the 25th amendment to remove Trump, even though as the Wall Street Journal explains:

    A President exercises his constitutional prerogative to fire the FBI director, and Mr. Comey's associates immediately talked about deposing him in what would amount to a coup?

    The 25th Amendment was passed after JFK's assassination to allow for a transfer of power when a President is "unable" to discharge his duties. It is intended to be used only after demonstrated evidence of impairment that is witnessed by those closest to the Commander in Chief. It doesn't exist to settle political differences, or to let scheming bureaucrats imagine they are saving the country from someone they fear is a Manchurian candidate. The constitutional process for that is impeachment.

    So if the horribly corrupt FBI doesn't like Trump, he must have something to offer. But this is only true in the binary world or pure good and evil. In the real world, evil often opposes evil, because they are different factions fighting for the same territory.

    "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." -Frank Herbert, Author of Dune

    We usually end up supporting who we see as the lesser of two evils.

    That's sort of like Walter White. He starts off as a timid science geek and devoted father and husband. He is attracted to the drug industry for apparently noble purposes. And he ends up poisoning a child, causing another child to be murdered, ordering an innocent assistant killed, and causing the death of his brother-in-law. Ultimately, Walter White admits he didn't become a massive meth producer for his family. He did it for the thrill, the glory, the power that came with it . We live in a world of Walter Whites, not Voldemorts.

    J.K. Rowling made Voldemort pure evil. But to her credit, she demonstrated how easy it was for him to seize the reigns of power at the Ministry of Magic, and how all the bureaucrats and ministers simply started serving a new master. Some even rejoiced in their new authority, relishing the newfound power.

    When it comes to Trump versus the FBI, the Wall Street Journal editorial laments, "This is all corrosive to public trust in American democracy."

    So what do we do about it?

    Rejoice!

    The less trust we put in the political system, the better. All we can do is separate ourselves to the best of our abilities from far off bureaucrats and politicians.

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb says in his book Skin in the Game , paraphrasing brothers Geoff and Vince Graham:

    I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist.

    ... ... ...

    [Feb 22, 2019] Sic Semper Tyrannis A seditious conspiracy ...

    Notable quotes:
    "... It is not at all clear that Steele wrote the dossier attributed to him. Maybe Nellie Ohr wrote some of it and Steele was used to "launder" it as he was a "reliable" FBI asset. ..."
    "... In any case Trump has shown that he doesn't want to get to the bottom of it either. He got to the declassification brink at the behest of Nunes, Meadows and Jordan but then quickly walked it back. It seems he prefers to tweet witch hunt. That makes sense as Brad Parscale has noted that the way they have built the database of potential Trump voters is by getting them to respond to social media provocations. ..."
    "... As the past 2 years have marched on, the seditious conspiracy theory has grown more stronger while the Russian collusion theory is looking much more as pure propaganda. And the Mueller probe seems a vehicle to inflict as much damage on Trump and those that worked for him. ..."
    "... Corruption at the highest levels of our law enforcement and intelligence apparatus could possibly be at banana republic levels. ..."
    "... When Rosy according to McCabe brought up the 25th amendment discussion most would expect the Acting Director of the FBI to shut the conversation down providing the advice that the discussion was moving into the Sedition area. That did not occur.....I suspect Rosy is being set up. ..."
    Feb 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    "McCabe blithely went about meeting with the president, continued to do his normal work, and said nothing about it publicly. Is it reasonable to believe a career law officer wouldn't shout from the rooftops, and even risk his job, to blow the whistle on such a catastrophic potential national security risk? McCabe and his cabal knew that the entire Russia collusion narrative was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign. We know McCabe knew this from the congressional testimony of former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr, who swore under oath (and he, unlike McCabe, was not fired for lying) that he told McCabe and others at the FBI that the Steele dossier was being pushed by a Trump-hater and should be relied upon with caution.

    By May 2017, McCabe implies he was in a state of panic on behalf of the gullible nation led by a Russian asset -- but as Ohr said, McCabe and his cronies were aware that the explosive claims in the dossier were unverified. How could there be panic about unverified allegations? " The Hill

    *********

    "If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down , or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years , or both.

    For a seditious conspiracy charge to be effected, a crime need only be planned, it need not be actually attempted ." wiki on seditious conspiracy.

    ---------------

    20 years, pilgrims, 20 years AND a fine perhaps. McCabe is an interesting case, a senior civil servant who believes that he and his fellow mandarins ARE the government of the United States in much the same way that many Catholic clergy believe that THEY are the church rather than the people in the pews, the actual People of God.

    Club Fed won't be all that bad. There are lots of opportunities for self-improvement. McCabe and Rosenstein could study American Government in a seminar made up of their fellow conspirators with a few Bubbas and Bros thrown in for "seasoning." That would be a good way to meet new friends to help pass the time in jail.

    If McCabe is truthful in this the studied arrogance involved is memorable, but .. I remember much the same kind of attitude, the "Yes Minister" mindset from the time when I was an SES.

    The former priest Theodore McCarrick has been laicized (de-frocked) by Pope Francis. What took so long? It has been widely known for a long time among the clergy, hierarchy, and lay hangers-on of the RC church apparat that Teddy was madly, wildly gay. I sat in a number of meetings that he chaired and must say that it was a very creepy experience. The leprechaun act was painful to watch.

    Let's see if the new AG has as much, or hopefully more guts about this as Francis. pl

    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/430318-mccabes-shocking-claims-prove-the-bloodless-coup-rolls-on

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seditious_conspiracy

    VietnamVet , 3 days ago

    Colonel,

    In response to the Great Recession, rather than jail the crooks, the Obama Administration political appointees and senior executives were complicit in making the ruling elite whole again. They also looked the other way at the Great Enablers' (the Clinton family) shenanigans. They were wedded to the need for Hillary Clinton to be the President. When she failed, it was so dastardly, it had to have been the Russians; not their own failings.

    The real problem is that the Republicans with Democrats assistance have flushed government down the toilet. There is no government by or for the people; only connected cronies. Ann Coulter's epitaph "Idiot" is appropriate for them all. The condition has also seized Great Britain and French governments; indicating that this is a global plague.

    Mad_Max22 , 3 days ago
    "How could there be panic about unverified allegations?"

    The inexorable momentum of bureacracy. Once in, all in. Their political proclivities by now should be obvious. They tanked the Clinton e mail investigation, they blew past the Clinton Foundation corruption case that was staring at them in plain view, and when Steele gave them a hook, despite not only being unverified but unverifiable by conventual means of investigation, they swallowed it whole because he was telling them something they wanted to hear...and Steele traded on that. Steele also leaked to the media to create a feedback mechanism to reinforce the faux atmosphere of Russian menace that had them straining at the leashes. Incompetence? Malice? Both? Who at this point knows?

    When Trump fired Comey, the fuse was lit. Comey further inflamed the situation with his leak to the NYT with the expressed purpose of triggering a SC. McCabe was suddenly in a decision making position he was in no way prepared for, ditto Rosenstein, there was no authority above them to rein them in, Sessions having stupidly and unnecessarily recused himself, except for Trump that is, and sadly enough there was no one below them either to talk sense into them; so yes, they panicked. They thought they had hit a Solomon like decision bringing in Mueller. I wonder who was in on that decision, talk about collusion.

    I read today that Steele continues to resist testifying before the Senate. How about that for a glaring hole in the effort to find out who did what to whom, and why.

    blue peacock -> Mad_Max22 , 2 days ago
    It is not at all clear that Steele wrote the dossier attributed to him. Maybe Nellie Ohr wrote some of it and Steele was used to "launder" it as he was a "reliable" FBI asset.

    In any case Trump has shown that he doesn't want to get to the bottom of it either. He got to the declassification brink at the behest of Nunes, Meadows and Jordan but then quickly walked it back. It seems he prefers to tweet witch hunt. That makes sense as Brad Parscale has noted that the way they have built the database of potential Trump voters is by getting them to respond to social media provocations.

    This is the gift that will keep giving. Conspiracy writers will keep the tales going for many a moon as the convoluted nature of it all is perfect for so many tales.

    blue peacock , 4 days ago
    Col. Lang

    As the past 2 years have marched on, the seditious conspiracy theory has grown more stronger while the Russian collusion theory is looking much more as pure propaganda. And the Mueller probe seems a vehicle to inflict as much damage on Trump and those that worked for him.

    Roger Stone has been indicted for lying to Congress and arrested with a pre-dawn FBI SWAT team raid televised by CNN. Brennan & Clapper who are known to have lied to Congress are treated with reverence by the media.

    Manafort has been convicted of money laundering which took place years ago. But the Podesta brothers and the legions of political consultants in DC for who money laundering is a way of life are not prosecuted.

    Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI and threatened with not registering under FARA for his Turkish money. AIPAC spends hundred of millions on American politics and the Chinese, Saudis and other Arabs also spend hundreds of millions on DC think-tanks, politicians and US media.

    Corruption at the highest levels of our law enforcement and intelligence apparatus could possibly be at banana republic levels.

    Pat Lang Mod -> blue peacock , 3 days ago
    I suspect that DJT will pardon these people.
    akaPatience , 3 days ago
    It's frightening to read many of the comments on the article in The Hill . I've noticed that leftists, trolls, and [possible] bots seem to come out of the woodwork en force to comment on articles of this sort -- articles that turn the spotlight on the possibility of sedition.

    These rare articles are in such opposition to the barrage of anti-Trump commentary that's broadcast daily that I wonder if the MSM may even employ some of those who so quickly and assiduously refute anything that contradicts their anti-Trump fare.

    DianaLC -> akaPatience , 3 days ago
    The leftist progressives don't need to pay anyone to make those comments against Trump and anyone who is a bit conservative. The NEA has made sure the organizations that pass for public education systems are training up those mindless but nasty comment trolls.
    Mike Ring , 3 days ago
    When Rosy according to McCabe brought up the 25th amendment discussion most would expect the Acting Director of the FBI to shut the conversation down providing the advice that the discussion was moving into the Sedition area. That did not occur.....I suspect Rosy is being set up.

    McCabe's book and TV appearances are his attempt at his cleansing prior to the coming onslaught. Interesting that the Justice Dept. SES executives make up 10% of the total SES executives in the government a percentage that should definitely come down. Unfortunately the SES should be the managers of the nuts and bolts of our government but they have become too highly politicized which is turning younger and brighter individuals away from that career path.

    Seems the Old Grey Lady has an article out today that further condemns the actions of a few (actually too many) of our priests and unfortunately our nuns. One priest in talking about the makeup of the priesthood says " one third are gay, one third are straight and the other third who knows" he did indicatate they were all celibate.

    My four year old grandson from Central America has a saying when he does not like something "Que Asco" which literally means "That is Disgusting" thus a pox on those miscreants in the FBI and the Priesthood.
    Que Asco!

    MP98 -> billy roche , 3 days ago
    Don't get your hopes up about Barr. He is a personal friend of Mueller and a swamp creature in good standing.
    Keith Harbaugh , 2 days ago
    The revelation that McCarrick's homosexuality was widely known in certain circles, but not to, AFAIK, the general public
    emboldens me to ask a question I have long wanted to ask, but been afraid to:

    What is the sexual orientation and family status of the Executive Editor of the Washington Post, Martin Baron ?

    I know the answer to such personal questions often is, and should be, that "It's none of your business". That certainly does apply to most people in America. However Baron plays such a significant role in " The Fourth Estate ", shaping opinion and framing issues, that I think the answers to those questions should be a matter of public record. After all, as his newspaper constantly states, "Democracy Dies in Darkness". So too do traditional values.

    I think the question can and should be expanded to: which of the Post 's opinion leaders and reporters are homosexual? Again, the reason is that all of them, like Baron, are shaping our opinions and framing issues. Surely the public has a right to know if they are doing so in pursuit of their own, personal, agenda. In other words, do they have a conflict of interest on this matter? A comparison: If a reporter owned shares in, say, General Electric, and also reported on it, that would clearly be a conflict of interest.
    So, too, if a reporter is homosexual and writing about it, is that not also a conflict of interest? I think it is.

    jonst , 2 days ago
    I would like to flesh out the actions behind the statement by McCabe, or cryptic illusion, anyway, that perhaps "two" cabinet officers may have been inclined to go along with the 25th Amendment plan. Who in the cabinet was sounded out? By who were they sounded out? What precisely was their response? That would make for interesting reading.
    Pat Lang Mod -> jonst , 2 days ago
    My SWAG would be Tillerson and Sessions.
    jonst -> Pat Lang , 2 days ago
    Those would be my top two candidates as well. With Mnuchin as dark horse. But it would take a grand jury to have even a chance to get to the facts. Congressional hearings won't do it. Not in any 5 minute questioning format, with interruptions by the 'other side'. .
    Dan M , 3 days ago
    A seditious conspiracy charge sounds dubious to me. If discussing the removal of a president via the 25th amendment is sedition, then why wouldn't calling for impeachment be sedition as well?
    Pat Lang Mod -> Dan M , 2 days ago
    Impeachment is part of the constitution and the procedure is clear. A conspiracy by the political police to overthrow the president because they do not like him is not in the 25th Amendment where the action has to be among the cabinet and the VP.
    Fred , 3 days ago
    It looks like a lot of folks need to beware the ides of March. Rosenstein to leave in the middle of the month.
    https://abcnews.go.com/Poli...
    Bag Man -> Fred , 3 days ago
    Love to hear what Rosenstein has to saw now that McCabe through him under the bus. So it was Rosenstein's idea of using the 25th Amendment? Nobody knew of this plan before this interview. McCabe mentions this out of the blue and makes sure to say that it wasn't his idea but Rosenstein. Why?
    Fred -> Bag Man , 2 days ago
    "Nobody knew of this plan before this interview. " That is not true. There has been a widespread and ongoing effort to discredit the Trump administration and remove him from office. Here's an example from 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/m...

    [Feb 21, 2019] FBI s Top Lawyer Thought Hillary Clinton Should Be Criminally Prosecuted - Was Persuaded To Change His Mind

    When CIA does not want that FBI does not prosecute somebody they usually have their way.
    Robert Mueller is not only about Trump, he is also about scrubbing all the crimes committed by Clintons and Obama. That's a lot of crimes.
    Notable quotes:
    "... I think ultimately, the coverup of Clinton's emails was not to protect Clinton but to protect Obama, as he had communicated with her on the server ..."
    Feb 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    The FBI's top lawyer, General Counsel James Baker, initially thought that Hillary Clinton should face criminal charges for transmitting classified information over her insecure, private email server, according to transcripts from a 2018 closed-door Congressional testimony reviewed by The Hill 's John Solomon.

    While being questioned by Rep. John Radcliffe (R-TX), Baker was clear that he thought Clinton should face criminal charges.

    "I have reason to believe that you originally believed it was appropriate to charge Hillary Clinton with regard to violations of law - various laws, with regard to mishandling of classified information. Is that accurate?" asked Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor.

    After a brief pause to consult with his attorney, Baker responded: "Yes."

    Baker later explained how he arrived at his conclusion, and how he was "persuaded" to change his mind.

    "So, I had that belief initially after reviewing, you know, a large binder of her emails that had classified information in them," said Baker. "And I discussed it internally with a number of different folks, and eventually became persuaded that charging her was not appropriate because we could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that - we, the government, could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that - she had the intent necessary to violate (the law). "

    Baker says he was persuaded to change his mind "pretty late in the process, because we were arguing about it, I think, up until the end. "

    Recall that in December, 2017 we learned that James Comey's original exoneration letter was drafted in a way that would have required criminal charges - changing Clinton's conduct from the legally significant "gross negligence" to "extremely careless" - which is not a legal term of art. This language - along with several other incriminating components was altered by former FBI counterintelligence agent and attorney, Peter Strzok.

    Baker made clear that he did not like the activity Clinton had engaged in: "My original belief after - well, after having conducted the investigation and towards the end of it, then sitting down and reading a binder of her materials - I thought that it was alarming, appalling, whatever words I said, and argued with others about why they thought she shouldn't be charged. "

    His boss, Comey, announced on July 5, 2016, that he would not recommend criminal charges. He did so without consulting the Department of Justice, a decision the department's inspector general (IG) later concluded was misguided and likely usurped the power of the attorney general to make prosecutorial decisions. Comey has said, in retrospect, he accepts that finding but took the actions he did because he thought "they were in the country's best interest." - The Hill

    Baker noted that had he been more convinced that there was evidence that Clinton intended to violate the law, "I would have argued that vociferously with him [Comey] and maybe changed his view."

    Justapleb , 2 minutes ago link

    Talk about old news.

    Comey made this announcement before election day 2016. We knew this excuse was obstruction of justice.

    They wanted to see if the public would stand for it, which they did. Most democrats are fine with a seditious, treasonous felon being president.

    A lot of Republicans are cool with it too, so long as they get their brand in there for Federal Pork.

    Navy62802 28 minutes ago

    I think ultimately, the coverup of Clinton's emails was not to protect Clinton but to protect Obama, as he had communicated with her on the server (even using an alias email, himself) even though he claimed to have learned of the server when everyone else did ... an obvious lie. So in order to avoid being a co-conspirator with someone violating the Espionage Act, Baker was "persuaded" not to charge Clinton.

    [Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry

    Highly recommended!
    Feb 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    Be afraid. Be very afraid.

    That's a natural reaction to the revelation of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy FBI director, that top Justice Department officials, alarmed by Donald Trump's firing of former Bureau director James Comey, explored a plan to invoke the 25th Amendment and kick the duly elected president out of office.

    According to New York Times reporters Adam Goldman and Matthew Haag, McCabe made the statement in an NBC 60 Minutes interview to be aired on Sunday. He also reportedly said that McCabe wanted the so-called Russia collusion investigation to go after Trump for obstructing justice in firing Comey and for any instances they could turn up of his working in behalf of Russia.

    The idea of invoking the 25th Amendment was discussed, it seems, at two meetings on May 16, 2017. According to McCabe, top law enforcement officials pondered how they might recruit Vice President Pence and a majority of cabinet members to declare in writing, to the Senate's president pro tempore and the House speaker, that the president was "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." That would be enough, under the 25th Amendment, to install the vice president as acting president, pushing aside Trump.

    But to understand what kind of constitutional crisis this would unleash and the precedent it would set, it's necessary to ponder the rest of this section of the 25th Amendment. The text prescribes that, if the president, after being removed, transmits to the same congressional figures that he is indeed capable of discharging his duties, he shall once again be president after four days. But if the vice president and the cabinet majority reiterate their declaration within those four days that the guy can't govern, Congress is charged with deciding the issue. It then takes a two-thirds vote of both houses to keep the president removed, which would have to be done within 21 days, during which time the elected president would be sidelined and the vice president would govern. If Congress can't muster the two-thirds majority within the prescribed time period, the president "shall resume the powers and duties of his office."

    It's almost impossible to contemplate the political conflagration that would ensue under this plan. Citizens would watch those in Washington struggle with the monumental question of the fate of their elected leader under an initiative that had never before been invoked, or even considered, in such circumstances. Debates would flare up over whether this comported with the original intent of the amendment; whether it was crafted to deal with physical or mental "incapacitation," as opposed to controversial actions or unsubstantiated allegations or even erratic decision making; whether such an action, if established as precedent, would destabilize the American republic for all time; and whether unelected bureaucrats should arrogate to themselves the power to set in motion the downfall of a president, circumventing the impeachment language of the Constitution.

    For the past two years, the country has been struggling to understand the two competing narratives of the criminal investigation of the president.

    One narrative -- let's call it Narrative A -- has it that honorable and dedicated federal law enforcement officials developed concerns over a tainted election in which nefarious Russian agents had sought to tilt the balloting towards the candidate who wanted to improve U.S.-Russian relations and who seemed generally unseemly. Thus did the notion emerge, quite understandably, that Trump had "colluded" with Russian officials to cadge a victory that otherwise would have gone to his opponent. This narrative is supported and protected by Democratic figures and organizations, by adherents of the "Russia as Threat" preoccupation, and by anti-Trumpers everywhere, particularly news outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post , and The New York Times .

    Trump, the FBI, and the Final Debasement of American Politics Unlike Nixon, Trump Will Not Go Quietly

    The other view -- Narrative B -- posits that certain bureaucratic mandarins of the national security state and the outgoing Obama administration resolved early on to thwart Trump's candidacy. After his election, they determined to undermine his political standing, and particularly his proposed policy toward Russia, through a relentless and expansive investigation characterized by initial misrepresentations, selective media leaks, brutal law enforcement tactics, and a barrage of innuendo. This is the narrative of most Trump supporters, conservative commentators, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, notably columnist Kimberley Strassel.

    The McCabe revelation won't affect the battle of the two narratives. As ominous and outrageous as this "deep state" behavior may seem to those who embrace Narrative B, it will be seen by Narrative A adherents as evidence that those law enforcement officials were out there heroically on the front lines protecting the republic from Donald J. Trump.

    And those Narrative A folks won't have any difficulty tossing aside the fact that McCabe was fired as deputy FBI director for violating agency policy in leaking unauthorized information to the news media. He then allegedly violated the law in lying about it to federal investigators on four occasions, including three times while under oath.

    Indeed, Narrative A people have no difficulty at all brushing aside serious questions posed by Narrative B people. McCabe is a likely liar and perjurer? Doesn't matter. Peter Strzok, head of the FBI's counterespionage section, demonstrated his anti-Trump animus in tweets and emails to Justice official Lisa Page? Irrelevant. Christopher Steele's dossier of dirt on Trump, including an allegation that the Russians were seeking to blackmail and bribe him, was compiled by a man who had demonstrated to a Justice Department official that he was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and passionate about him not being president"? Not important. The dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party? Immaterial. Nothing in the dossier was ever substantiated? So what?

    Now we have a report from a participant of those meetings that top officials of the country's premier law enforcement entity sat around and pondered how to bring down a sitting president they didn't like. The Times even says that McCabe "confirmed" an earlier report that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire in meetings with Trump to incriminate him and make him more vulnerable to the plot.

    There is no suggestion in McCabe's interview pronouncements or in the words of Scott Pelley, who conducted the interview and spoke to CBS This Morning about it, that these federal officials ever took action to further the aim of unseating the president. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that they approached cabinet members or the vice president about it. "They were speculating, 'This person would be with us, this person would not be,' and they were counting noses in that effort," said Pelley. He added, apparently in response to Rosenstein's insistence that his comments about wearing a wire were meant as a joke, "This was not perceived to be a joke."

    What are we to make of this? Around the time of the meetings to discuss the 25th Amendment plot, senior FBI officials also discussed initiating a national security investigation of the president as a stooge of the Russians or perhaps even a Russian agent. These talks were revealed by The New York Times and CNN in January, based on closed-door congressional testimony by former FBI general counsel James Baker. You don't have to read very carefully to see that the reporters on these stories brought to them a Narrative A sensibility. The Times headline: "F.B.I. Opened Inquiry into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia." CNN's: "Transcripts detail how FBI debated whether Trump was 'following directions' of Russia." And of course, whoever leaked those hearing transcripts almost surely did so to bolster the Narrative A version of events.

    The independent journalist Gareth Porter, writing at Consortium News, offers a penetrating exposition of the inconsistencies, fallacies, and fatuities of the Narrative A matrix, as reflected in how the Times and CNN handled the stories that resulted from what were clearly self-interested leaks.

    Porter notes that a particularly sinister expression in May 2017 by former CIA director John O. Brennan, a leading Trump antagonist, has precipitated echoes in the news media ever since, particularly in the Times . Asked in a committee hearing if he had intelligence indicating that anyone in the Trump campaign was "colluding with Moscow," Brennan dodged the question. He said his experience had taught him that "the Russians try to suborn individuals, and they try to get them to act on their behalf either wittingly or unwittingly."

    Of course you can't collude with anybody unwittingly. But Brennan's fancy expression has the effect of expanding what can be thrown at political adversaries, to include not just conscious and nefarious collaboration but also policy advocacy that could be viewed as wrongheaded or injurious to U.S. interests. As Porter puts it, "The real purpose is to confer on national security officials and their media allies the power to cast suspicion on individuals on the basis of undesirable policy views of Russia rather than on any evidence of actual collaboration with the Russian government."

    That seems to be what's going on here. There's no doubt that McCabe and Rosenstein and Strzok and Brennan and Page and many others despised Trump and his resolve to thaw relations with Russia. They viewed him as a president "who needed to be reined in," as a CNN report described the sentiment among top FBI officials after the Comey firing.

    So they expanded the definition of collusion to include "unwitting" collaboration in order to justify their machinations. It's difficult to believe that people in such positions would take such a cavalier attitude toward the kind of damage they could wreak on the body politic.

    Now we learn that they actually sat around and plotted how to distort the Constitution, just as they distorted the rules of official behavior designed to hold them in check, in order to destroy a presidential administration placed in power by the American people. It's getting more and more difficult to dismiss Narrative B.

    Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

    Alternative Facts at the NYT James Polk's Realpolitik Hide 52 comments 52 Responses to Do You Believe in the Deep State Now? ← Older Comments

    Ken Zaretzke February 16, 2019 at 4:57 pm

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-russia-collusion-investigation-criminalization-policy-disputes/

    Also very good is the blunt force trauma inflicted on the FBI in yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Kimberly Strassel.

    Fran Macadam , , February 15, 2019 at 2:19 pm
    You're right, it didn't change a thing in the full-throated support to depose an elected President they disagree with. The bureaucratic cabal has long had a more informal absolute veto over who can even run for President. This guy challenged that hegemony of insider power brokers, and caused the revelation that we have morphed into a Potemkin-style, managed democracy, in which we don't choose who gets to run, just which of their choices we are allowed to approve.

    Such is the decadent trajectory, of republics that transition into empires, where democratic accountabilty to the governed, domestic and foreign, decays in favor of empire administrators and their elite beneficiaries and their sinecures at the expense of the majority.

    People rail against Trump as some sort of would-be Caesar, but he is elected, while those permanent unaccountable "national security" czars acting in secrecy they are willing to transfer all power to, are not.

    No form of popular government can survive when secret police recording everything and spying on the population become the real power.

    This is a coup, in slow motion.

    Kent , , February 15, 2019 at 2:26 pm
    "It's difficult to believe that people in such positions would take such a cavalier attitude toward the kind of damage they could wreak on the body politic."

    What we don't want to recognize is that people in such positions are, in fact, just that dumb. It is unfortunately true. While not a Trump supporter, I would be out on the streets with them if these jacka$$es had tried to pull this off. They should ALL be immediately terminated and any benefits revoked.

    Kurt Gayle , , February 15, 2019 at 2:32 pm
    Last night (Feb 14, 2019) Tucker Carlson interviewed retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (1:04-3:36):

    Carlson: "Professor, thanks very much for coming on. So now the suspicions of many are confirmed by one of the players in it. The Department of Justice discussed trying to remove the President using the 25 Amendment. What's your reaction to that?

    Dershowitz: "Well, if that's true, it is clearly an attempt at a coup d'état. Relating to what your former guest said, let's take the worst case scenario: Let's assume the President of the United States was in bed with the Russians, committed treason, committed obstruction of justice -- the 25 Amendment simply is irrelevant to that. That's why you have an impeachment provision. The 25th amendment is about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke. It's about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office. It's not about the most fundamental disagreements. It's not about impeachable offenses. And any Justice Department official who even mentioned the 25th Amendment in the context of President Trump has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution. The framers of the 25th amendment had in mind something very specific. And trying to use the 25th amendment to circumvent the impeachment provisions, or to circumvent an election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power-grabbing. And you were right when you said it reminded me of what happens in third world countries. Look, these people may have been well-intentioned. They may believe that they were serving the interests of the United States. But you have to obey the law and the law is the Constitution and the 25th Amendment is as clear as could be: incapacity, unable to perform office. That's what you need. That's why you need 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate agreeing. And it has to be on the basis of a medical or psychological incapacity. Not on the basis of even the most extreme crimes -- which there is no evidence were committed -- but even if they were, that would not be basis for invoking the 25th Amendment. And I challenge any left-wing person to get on television and to defend the use of the 25th Amendment. I challenge any of my colleagues who are in the "Get Trump At Any Cost" camp to come on television and justify the use of the 25 Amendment other than for physical or psychiatric incapacity.

    Carlson: I bet they're doing that right now. This is an attack on our system, I would say, not just the President. Alan Dershowitz, thank you very much.

    Dershowitz: It is an attack on our system. It's an attack on the constitution. Thank you.

    Carlson: Scary.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q9OlUaeiQjQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

    Bluestem , , February 15, 2019 at 2:42 pm
    How many millions of dollars did Bill and Hill receive from Russians? How much of America's uranium deposits did Hillary sell to Russians during her time in the Obama administration? The New York Times informs us:

    " . . . the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

    "As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One's chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

    "And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

    "At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company's assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show."

    (end of NY Times excerpt. Full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html )

    I wonder how much howling and how many allegations of "collusion" with Russia we'd be hearing if the name Clinton were removed from the NY Times article and the name Trump were inserted?

    curri , , February 15, 2019 at 3:08 pm

    Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency.

    Oh, they just knew . Maybe they just knew he wasn't an obvious reliable puppet like W and Obama.

    Sid Finster , , February 15, 2019 at 3:16 pm
    https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/11/27/leaked-transcript-proves-russiagaters-have-been-right-all-along/

    About Those Russians.

    Stephen J. , , February 15, 2019 at 4:01 pm
    The article states: " top officials of the country's premier law enforcement entity sat around and pondered how to bring down a sitting president they didn't like."
    -- -- -- --
    Which makes one wonder if "The rule of law" is becoming the rule of outlaws? When the non-elected in the justice profession appear to have their own agenda.
    WorkingClass , , February 15, 2019 at 4:10 pm
    Y'all Never Trump Republicans have NO future in American electoral politics.
    Gerard , , February 15, 2019 at 4:22 pm
    Trump is an idiot, but his enemies in the lib-Dem-media Establishment are far worse: corrupt, deceitful, arrogant, and lawless. Exhibit A is Andrew McCabe.

    That's why I'll vote for the Idiot-in-Chief (again) in 2020. Because the alternative makes me vomit.

    polistra , , February 15, 2019 at 4:43 pm
    FBI has been destroying and paralyzing unwanted presidents forever. Lady Edgar did it far more effectively than her modern successors.
    aristotle , , February 15, 2019 at 5:19 pm
    "The pages of this publication drift further and further into utter insanity and despicable defense of Trump. Stand up for the values of the Constitution, or something, but not for this man who is no more than a self-enriching demagogue with no understanding of the reactionary politics he uses to delude the rubes and attract asinine threadbare pieces like this one."

    Actually no. Consider me the inverse of Peter. I didn't vote for Trump due to the character weaknesses Peter describes. However, what I see is a seriously flawed man who has served the useful purpose of revealing an echo chamber of flawed and self-serving biases shared by the media and political establishment of this country. I see CNN, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and even some key leaders of our security services in a completely different light than I did two years ago. I am thankful for the clarity. I consider Merry's article to be a contribution in that direction.

    Kouros , , February 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm
    Cannot agree more with Fran Macadam.

    On that note an interesting article by one of Mr. Putin's ideologues about Putinism and why Putinism might have more viability than the smoke and mirror exercise provided in established democracies:
    https://russia-insider.com/en/vladislav-surkovs-hugely-important-new-article-about-what-putinism-full-translation/ri26259

    The article admits that these bureaucracies are at times a nuisance and need to be dealt with appropriately...

    Arthur Sido , , February 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm
    "Peter" sez: "Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency."

    Weird but no one has shown any actual criminal behavior by said President. Two years later still no charges. But Peter and these "career law enforcement officials" KNEW he was a criminal. Then Peter appeals to the Constitution, apparently oblivious to the fact that the Constitution doesn't make any provisions for plotting to remove the lawfully elected President because you don't like just because you "know" he is a "criminal", in spite of any actual evidence.

    JeffK , , February 15, 2019 at 5:53 pm
    "After his election, they (the deep state) determined to undermine his political standing, and particularly his proposed policy toward Russia, through a relentless and expansive investigation characterized by initial misrepresentations, selective media leaks, brutal law enforcement tactics, and a barrage of innuendo. This is the narrative of most Trump supporters, conservative commentators, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, notably columnist Kimberley Strassel."

    The trouble with that is it completely ignores the ton of evidence pointing to really nefarious stuff.

    Lots of times, when there's smoke, there's fire. And when the smoke is overwhelming there probably is a fire. A big one.

    Sid , , February 15, 2019 at 9:19 pm
    Trump has been going after the Russians since his inauguration. Therefore, those trying to remove him from office are likely the actual Russian agents. Of course they would need smoke and mirrors to hide that fact and deflect attention from themselves. It just so happens that Russian spies are trained by the FSB to accuse others of being a spy, for just this purpose. I'm looking at you, John O. (Oleg?) Brennan
    Sheila , , February 15, 2019 at 11:03 pm
    No matter who the President is, there is some group of people in Washington is ALWAYS trying to bring him down. Who those people are, and how large and powerful the group is, depends on a variety of factors. But a competent president manages to enact his agenda while staying one step ahead of his intriguers. Obama and GWB accomplished both, more or less because they were intelligent men of good character (though Obama was much smarter and better man than W)

    While Bill Clinton's character was too low to avoid impeachment he was a smart and able administrator. Trump has both low character and low intellect so it is not surprising A. that many people want to bring him down and B. that they have been pretty effective.

    Politics may be a blood sport in Washington but that's not the same as a "deep state". And Trump can't compete and win with anyone in Washington who doesn't grovel before him like the supine Senate Republicans. And that is no one's fault but his.

    You wanting Trump to be a Russian agent does not make him one. It never will. Get over it. , , February 16, 2019 at 12:08 am
    "If it turns out that Trump IS a Russian asset, will you apologize, Robert Merry? Because he certainly acts like one. And, as REAL Republicans used to say, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, maybe it's a duck."

    @One Guy Yeah, because sending deadly aid to Ukraine is so pro-Russian. What an idiot you are!

    VikingLS , , February 16, 2019 at 12:10 am
    "Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency. Shame on them!"

    They also "knew" Martin Luther King Jr. was a Soviet agent.

    Just Curiosity , , February 16, 2019 at 12:38 am
    This article must have hit a nerve. Media Matters/Soros have sent out their "goons".

    {BTW, isn't it amazing that Media Matters/Soros never have to worry about having any advertisers boycotted.}

    {smirk}

    JK , , February 16, 2019 at 3:14 am
    The issue with the 25th amendment, is that the President's character flaws or mental deficiency were known and very visible before the election. Is it constitutionally proper for Congress to suspend a President for a preexisting condition that was known to and unhidden from voters? If Congress did that, it means Congress has a veto over who the public is allowed to vote in as President.
    Frank LaSaracina , , February 16, 2019 at 10:19 am
    Clear and convincing evidence of a silent coup by rogue IC / law enforcement community, the genesis of which was the Obama admin. Prima facie
    Oleg Gark , , February 16, 2019 at 10:40 am
    Forget the Covington students, Andrew McCabe and his lady co-workers have some pretty punchable faces. (Ok, I'm enough of a sexist to not punch a lady. I'd use eye-rolling and mocking gestures instead.)
    tjoe , , February 16, 2019 at 11:18 am
    These are the peeps that did 9.11 and took down 3 towers with 2 planes. or maybe you believe guys with box-cutters did it.
    Contra1789 , , February 16, 2019 at 12:07 pm
    The problem is not the existence of the deep state. It's inevitable that there will be unelected officials who will continue to shape policy regardless of who is elected President. The problem is that the deep state is blatantly working to undermine its elected leadership. If you can't in good conscience work with your President, the honorable thing to do is resign as some undoubtedly have. It's not an excuse for insubordination.

    [Feb 18, 2019] See the real connection between the fake Steele Dossier and the Skipal hoax

    Feb 18, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    war is coming , February 17, 2019 at 9:37 pm

    See the real connection between the fake Steele Dossier and the Skipal hoax.

    The UK MI6 is behind everything with Australia and Nato. War with Russia is coming to avoid the Brexit. It has been planned 5 years ago. The Brexit is just a good excuse.

    The continued NATO harassment, sanctions and campaigns of lies and false accusations against Russia, including the blatant war rhetoric of the British Defence Secretary, do not bode well for the future. For the US to tear up nuclear arms treaties and then blame Russia is beyond shameful: it is destroying all possibility of negotiations to avert war. The Kerch Strait incident staged by the puppet regime in Kiev, sending gunboats into the Kerch Strait without observing the 2003 Protocol requiring them to notify in advance the Port of Kerch (a protocol observed by the dozens of ships that go through the Strait peacefully every day) was clearly part of a NATO plan to set up a major naval clash in the Black Sea.

    That clash (followed by an attempt to recapture Crimea or at least blow up its magnificent bridge, a reproach to a man who cannot even build a wall) may be expected in coming months, perhaps as a distraction from Brexit or a way of derailing it. NATO, in short, is on a clear trajectory towards war with Russia, which their deluded worldview convinces them they can win.

    Their initial use of Russia as a scapegoat and bogeyman to unite the NATO vassals against a common threat, keeping Europe in subjection to America, has got out of hand, and is heading, under the impetus of hysterical rhetoric, towards actual war. Unless decent people unite to stop this escalation then the nuclear catastrophe will occur.

    Exposing the barefaced lie of the Skripal false flag attack may be a step towards averting that global cataclysm.

    http://thesaker.is/the-alternative-skripal-narrative/

    [Feb 17, 2019] Two Trump Cabinet Officials Were Ready To Support 25th Amendment Coup As Rosenstein Tallied Votes

    Notable quotes:
    "... Baker said McCabe was cool, calm and collected throughout the discussions, telling lawmakers: "At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably confident and squared away. I don't know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time." ..."
    "... According to McCabe, Rosenstein "raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," adding that Rosenstein was "definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time." ..."
    Feb 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Two Trump Cabinet officials were "ready to support" a DOJ scheme to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump , according to Bloomberg and Fox News , citing closed-door testimony from the FBI's former top lawyer, James Baker - who said that the claim came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

    The testimony was delivered last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Fox News has confirmed portions of the transcript. It provides additional insight into discussions that have returned to the spotlight in Washington as fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe revisits the matter during interviews promoting his forthcoming book. - Fox News

    While Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials, he says that McCabe and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page approached him to relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including their discussions of the 25th Amendment scheme. "I was being told by some combination of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, he had stated that he -- this was what was related to me -- that he had at least two members of the president's Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it, an action under the 25th Amendment," Baker told the Congressional committees.

    The 25th Amendment allows for the removal of a sitting president from office through various mechanisms - including the majority of a president's Cabinet agreeing that the commander-in-chief is incapable of performing his duties.

    Rosenstein - who is slated to leave the Justice Department in the near future, has denied the claims. Baker said McCabe was cool, calm and collected throughout the discussions, telling lawmakers: "At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably confident and squared away. I don't know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time."

    McCabe, meanwhile told "60 Minutes" in an interview set to air Sunday night that Rosenstein was concerned about Trump's "capacity."

    According to McCabe, Rosenstein "raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," adding that Rosenstein was "definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time."

    "Rosenstein was actually openly talking about whether there was a majority of the cabinet who would vote to remove the president?" asks CBS News anchor Scott Pelly, to which McCabe replied: " That's correct. Counting votes or possible votes. "

    The New York Times first reported last year that McCabe alleged in memos that Rosenstein had talked about using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump -- or wearing a wire to surreptitiously monitor the president -- in the hectic days in May 2017 after Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director. At the time, Rosenstein disputed the reporting. - WaPo

    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the 25th Amendment scheme a " bureaucratic coup " led by enemies of President Trump. On Sunday morning, Graham said he would subpoena McCabe and Rosenstein "if that's what it takes" to get to the bottom of the 25th Amendment claim.

    On Thursday, the DOJ issued a statement claiming that Rosenstein rejects McCabe's version of events "as inaccurate and factually incorrect," and also denied that Rosenstein ever approved wearing a "wire" to record Trump.

    "The deputy attorney general never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references," reads the DOJ statement. "As the deputy attorney general previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."

    McCabe, meanwhile, walked back some of his "60 Minutes" statements . On Friday a spokeswoman for the former Deputy Director said: "Certain statements made by Mr. McCabe, in interviews associated with the release of his book, have been taken out of context and misrepresented," adding "To clarify, at no time did Mr. McCabe participate in any extended discussions about the use of the 25th Amendment, nor is he aware of any such discussions."

    Baker acknowledged during his testimony that he was not directly involved in the May 2017 discussions, rather, McCabe and Page approached him contemporaneously following a meeting with Rosenstein in the days following former FBI Director James Comey's firing.

    "I had the impression that the deputy attorney general had already discussed this with two members in the president's Cabinet and that they were onboard with this concept already," said Baker.

    Question: "Do you know what direction that went? Was it Mr. Rosenstein seeking out members of the Cabinet looking to pursue this 25th Amendment approach or was it the other way around?"

    Baker: "What I recall being said was that the Deputy Attorney General had two members of the Cabinet. So he – how they came to be had, I don't know, but "

    Question: "So he had two members, almost like he was taking the initiative and getting the members?"

    Baker: "That would be speculation on my part." - Via Fox News

    Baker also suggested that "Lisa and Andy" did not know the names of the Cabinet officials who were on board with the 25th Amendment scheme.

    Baker testified in October that the alleged discussions took place during an uncertain and anxious time at the FBI and DOJ after Comey's termination, and that the mood was "pretty dark":

    Question: "Did people tell you that the DAG (Deputy Attorney General) was upset?"

    Baker: "Yes."

    Question: "Did they tell you that he was making jokes?"

    Baker: "No."

    Question: "Did they tell you that..."

    Baker: " This was not a joking sort of time. This was pretty dark. " - Via Fox News

    Pretty dark indeed.


    Moneycircus , 6 minutes ago link

    John Judge, executive director of the Coalition on Political Assassinations , was the most insightful political analyst besides Mae Brussell.

    Speaking less than 6 months after 911, he understood more then than most commentators do now:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrFm1E74wYU

    "Our choice now seems to be between a "new war" and a new world. As always, the forces of reaction and wealth are telling us we have no choice but war, and no right or power to decide. They are calling for a secret investigation, a secret conviction, a secret method of execution, and a totally secret war abroad.

    "The American people as a whole are the only ones in the world who have the right to decide on a national response to this tragedy, and it must be one that takes into account the rights of all the other peoples and nations of the world."

    -- John Judge , 9/23/01

    https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/

    loop , 16 minutes ago link

    Funny to think that ***-lover Trump, with a JEWISH AGENDA , could have been brought down in a Jewish-led coup.

    Priceless.

    Sanity Bear , 24 minutes ago link

    "the claim came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein"

    and we know that the claim was not a baldfaced lie... how?

    Moneycircus , 33 minutes ago link

    Always like this. Way Washington works. It's an oligarchy. Power = carrot and stick. Carrot = money to buy and bribe. Stick = kompromat and blackmail.

    Why was J. Edgar Hoover the most powerful man in America? Did FBI cease to be the political police when he died?

    Why are institutions like the CIA more influential than any politician? How was the public so easily misled about the coup that was Watergate?

    Mae Brussell laid it all out on the table 40 years ago. Understanding is within reach if you want it.

    http://www.worldwatchers.info/

    [Feb 17, 2019] There's No Denying It; It Was Never Anything But a Coup!

    Notable quotes:
    "... In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well. ..."
    Feb 17, 2019 | larouchepub.com

    In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well.

    Now, after its own two years of investigation and 200 interviews, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) has said, "There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia." Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) said he disagrees with the way Burr characterized the evidence, but declined to give his own assessment.

    Veteran criminal attorney John Dowd, a member of Trump's legal team from June 2017 to March 2018, said,

    "I know exactly what he [Mueller] has. I know exactly what every witness said, what every document said. I know exactly what he asked. And I know what the conclusion or the result is."

    What will be the result of the probe?

    "It's been a terrible waste of time.... This is one of the greatest frauds the country has ever seen. I'm just shocked that Bob Mueller didn't call it that way and say, 'I'm being used.' I would've done that.

    "I'd have gone to [then Attorney General] Sessions and Rosenstein and said, 'Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the FBI to get even.' "

    Asked about Mueller's final report, he responded, "I will be shocked if anything regarding the President is made public, other than, 'We're done.' "

    At the same time, former NSA Technical Director William Binney has published new evidence which shows that the DNC documents posted by WikiLeaks in July 2016, were probably not hacked over the internet, by Russians or anyone else -- rather, the only available forensic evidence indicates that they were downloaded from within the DNC's network. His evidence is summarized in an article he co-authored with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Col. Pat Lang's "Sic Semper Tyrannis" blog yesterday.

    [Feb 16, 2019] On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump, but this was not announced to the (presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet

    Notable quotes:
    "... There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the unlikely event that he went on to win. ..."
    Jun 09, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

    Vivian O'Blivion , June 8, 2018 at 8:22 am

    An earlier time line.

    March 14th. Popadopoulos has first encounter with Mifsud. April 26th.

    Mifsud tells Popadopoulos that Russians have "dirt" on Clinton, including "thousands of e-mails". May 4th. Trump last man standing in Republican primary. May 10th. Popadopoulos gets drunk with London based Australian diplomat and talks about "dirt" but not specifically e-mails. June 9th. Don. Jr meets in Trump tower with Russians promising "dirt" but not specifically in form of e-mails.

    It all comes down to who Mifsud is, who he is working for and why he has been "off grid" to journalists (but not presumably Intelligence services) for > 6 months.

    Specific points.

    On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump, but this was not announced to the (presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet.

    The Australian diplomat broke chain of command by reporting the drunken conversation to the State Department as opposed to his domestic Intelligence service. If Mifsud was a western asset, Australian Intelligence would likely be aware of his status.

    If Mifsud was a Russian asset why would demonstrably genuine Russians be trying to dish up the dirt on Clinton in June?

    There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the unlikely event that he went on to win.

    [Feb 16, 2019] MI6's middle-man who introduced Trump campaign official to 'Putin's niece' and offered dirt on Hillary is London-based European Union expert who trains diplomats

    Feb 16, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk

    PERMINDEX , August 27, 2018 at 18:40

    John Paul Jones being a reference to the American Revolution. Glad you're catching on, Craig! Mifsud is Mi6. "The Great Game".

    Revealed: Russia's middle-man who introduced Trump campaign official to 'Putin's niece' and offered dirt on Hillary is London-based European Union expert who trains diplomats http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5033411/Russia-s-man-connected-Trump-aide-Putin-s-niece.html

    Donald Trump Jr. explains his infamous initial response to possibly getting dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians
    https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-explains-love-it-response-to-russia-hillary-clinton-dirt-2018-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T

    [Feb 16, 2019] MI6 entrapped Papadopoulos via Joseph Mifsud who as it turns out was "director of the London Academy of Diplomacy"

    Feb 16, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    james , 25 February 2018 at 08:53 PM

    from page 2 of the pdf - https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_redacted_minority_memo.pdf

    "George Papadopoulos revealed [redacted] that individuals linked to Russia, who took interest in Papadopoulos as a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, informed him in late April 2016 that Russia [two lines redacted].

    Papadopoulos's disclosure, moreover, occurred against the backdrop of Russia's aggressive covert campaign to influence our elections, which the FBI was already monitoring.

    We would later learn in Papadopoulos's plea that the information the Russians could assist by anonymously releasing were thousands of Hillary Clinton emails."

    my problem with this is wikileaks released the e mails via a search-able archive on march 16th 2016...

    I still don't see how anything papadopolous said is relevant time wise.. what am i missing here, other then the obvious fact papadopolous looks like a lousy liar.. apparently he got this from Joseph Mifsud who as it turns out was 'director of the London Academy of Diplomacy' and etc - according to the nyt here - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/europe/russia-us-election-joseph-mifsud.html

    and from the nyt article "Mr. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the "professor." Mr. Mifsud is referred to in the papers only as "the professor," based in London, but a Senate aide familiar with emails involving Mr. Mifsud -- lawmakers in both the Senate and the House are investigating Russia's role in the election -- confirmed that he was the person cited."

    the whole thing of Russia influencing the usa election seems built on via a number of sketchy characters at best..

    at any rate - this is what emptywheel thinks is relevant in an otherwise irrelevant memo from schiff... i don't get how it is!

    [Feb 13, 2019] Congress Has Not "By Law" Vested The Attorney General With Authority to Appoint the Special Counsel

    Notable quotes:
    "... Congress Has Not "By Law" Vested The Attorney General With Authority to Appoint the Special Counsel as an Inferior Officer. ..."
    Feb 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    col from oz , Feb 13, 2019 12:23:44 AM | link

    B you check out the brief awaiting adjudication, whereby they state that they will appeal to to SCOTUS. Mueller is unconstitutional and plausible criminal.
    67 pages

    ARGUMENT I.

    Congress Has Not "By Law" Vested The Attorney General With Authority to Appoint the Special Counsel as an Inferior Officer.

    The principal question before this Court is whether there is any statute that clearly conveys power to the Attorney General to appoint a private attorney as Special Counsel at the level of an inferior officer. The Special Counsel claims that §§ 515 and 533(1) do the job. But the Spe
    cial Counsel's "plain-text" analysis redrafts both provisions in material ways.

    He also places extensive reliance on historic practice and predecessor versions of § 515 to aid his redrafting.

    None of this squares with controlling and settled law. Here, the plain text of §§ 515 and 533(1) does not clearly confer authority to appoint any special counsel, much less one as an inferior officer.

    http://nlpc.org/2018/10/11/reply-brief-filed-in-constitutional-challenge-to-mueller/

    [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions. ..."
    "... At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start. ..."
    Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

    RJJCDA , says: February 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT

    Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books. Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.

    At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.

    Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.

    [Feb 06, 2019] Senate Investigating Mueller FBI's Prosecution Of Orgy Island Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein

    Feb 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    by Tyler Durden Wed, 02/06/2019 - 19:44 251 SHARES

    Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced New York financier who served 13 months in prison for soliciting an underaged girl for prostitution, has served his time, and despite all of the negative press surrounding his "Lolita Express" and the many celebrities and politicians - including former President Bill Clinton and disgraced actor Kevin Spacey - who have reportedly traveled to his "orgy island", he will likely live out his life as a free man (unless new offenses are committed).

    But thanks to a series published by the Miami Herald last year that delved into how prosecutors worked with powerful defense attorneys to ensure Epstein received such a lenient sentence. The expose shed a light on the role played by Alex Acosta, who went on to become Trump's Secretary of Labour, in handing down the light sentence. Acosta was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida at the time Epstein's sentence was handed down.

    Now, thanks to those stories, the DOJ has reportedly opened an investigation into the conduct of DOJ attorneys in the case, and whether they committed "professional misconduct" in their working relationship with Epstein's attorneys.

    The probe was opened in response to a request lodged by Sen. Ben Sasse, a a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who raised questions about the case after reading the Herald's stories about how Acosta and other DOJ attorneys worked with defense attorneys to cut a lenient plea deal for Epstein back in 2008, per the Herald.

    At the time, the FBI was run by Robert Mueller.

    Though the reasons for the lenient deal could be rooted in the natural advantages of the wealthy, one Twitter user who did a deep dive into a cache of redacted FBI Vault documents released last year raised the possibility that Epstein could have been an informant for the FBI, providing information on executives from failed investment bank Bear Stearns in exchange for the lenient sentence (though there's nothing in his guilty plea that suggested he provided information).

    To be sure, records show that Epstein passed a polygraph test showing that he didn't know any of the girls he solicited were under the age of 18 at the time. Also, the case has taken on renewed importance since opposition research shops tried to link President Trump to Epstein during the campaign.

    While that hasn't been conclusively proven, it could have been part of a separate agreement that has yet to be disclosed.


    PeaceForWorld , 24 seconds ago link

    It is very sad that FBI has decided to just prosecute this EVIL MAN and Child Pedophilia enabler, just because Muller is investigating Trump. They are all in on it. They are sick.

    If I was one of the victims or the mother, I would do anything to destroy this man. Yes, I know that Catholic church is also as guilty. But this sick faced Epstein with his evil smile, has ruined many lives for his famous clients.

    Child pedophilia is a disease wired in the brain and the only way to get rid of them, is to execute them. There is no other solution. Imagine about the father who walked into his house and witnessed his son getting raped by his sitter (man).

    From a personal experience, when a burglar came to rub our house "As a minor not even a teenage, I woke up with this stranger molesting me.". I had no idea what he was doing, but that event gave me insomnia for the rest of my life.

    Baron von Bud , 1 minute ago link

    So did Epstein provide the FBI with information for prosecutions? Doesn't seem like it. Epstein knows the Clintons, Prince Andrew, Trump, and many others and they pressured the govt to back off. Without any facts, the FBI cooperation story is just spin. His connected friends have a lot to lose if he talks. I doubt that Mr. Epstein will live a long life.

    East Indian , 2 minutes ago link

    Remember all those people on Clinton team who were interviewed by the FBI and granted immunity? I remember. The crowd here was excited - oh, they are going to indict her today, oh, they are going to drag her off tomorrow first thing... Turned out, all those immunities were granted to protect them from future prosecutions.

    Nothing may come out of this. Nothing, perhaps, will ever come out of this. The victim of all these witch hunting is sitting in the President's chair; and when he is not interested in getting justice for himself, or to uphold justice for the people, why should I worry about justice for this world?

    Know thy enemy , 20 minutes ago link

    Failed Bureau of Investigation. Once a political organization, always a political organization. I feel for the rank and file who's lives are determined by a few!

    Pendolino , 22 minutes ago link

    " Alex Acosta, who went on to become Trump's Secretary of Labour "

    Yeah, draining that ole swamp...

    MsCreant , 41 minutes ago link

    If this happened, if they focused on just WHAT THE **** HAPPENED in the Epstein case, I might be a believer in our justice system. Even if it was just a minute. It could sweep up Trump. It could flush the Clintons straight to hell.

    Got The Wrong No , 39 minutes ago link

    Trump threw Epstein out of Mar largo for messing with young girls. Fusion GPS tried to link Trump with Epstein ans failed.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/fusion-gps-tried-and-failed-link-trump-jeffrey-epstein

    [Feb 06, 2019] Trump dirty dossier's source asked for protection Daily Mail Online

    Notable quotes:
    "... The 38-year-old Soviet-born businessman now lives in the United States. He trained as a military interpreter at university and changed his name when he entered the U.S., his father said ..."
    "... And Millian - real name Sergei Kukut or, in Belarussian, Siarhei Kukuts - has hinted that he could be in danger, blaming shadowy forces in London. He said that thanked God he was 'alive and healthy' and is able to 'tell the truth' that he had no involvement in the allegations against Trump, with whom he has claimed to have a business relationship. Trump has angrily denied any sexual impropriety in Moscow, and also dismissed claims from Millian that the pair had a business link, while Putin has denied holding 'kompromat' on the new U.S. president. ..."
    "... his father Milediy Kukut revealed: 'He has asked the US government for protection - but was told he had to sort it all himself.' ..."
    Jan 31, 2017 | dailymail.co.uk
    EXCLUSIVE: Russian businessman named as source for spy's dossier of filthy claims about Trump has asked for U.S. government protection - and was refused

    By Will Stewart In Moscow For Dailymail.com and Valeria Sukhova In Sharkaushchyna, Belarus, For Dailymail.com

    Published: 15:49 EST, 31 January 2017 | Updated: 18:10 EST, 31 January 2017

    The mysterious 'source' of explosive and unsubstantiated allegations that Donald Trump cavorted with Russian prostitutes asked for 'protection' from the US government, but was turned down, his father has disclosed.

    Soviet-born businessman Sergei Millian, 38, who Dailymail.com can reveal was trained as a military interpreter before moving to the U.S., allegedly boasted to third parties that Moscow had compromising video of the US president engaging in lewd sexual acts that could be used to blackmail him.

    These dynamite assertions were then - it has been claimed - passed without his knowledge by at least one intermediary to British ex-MI6 agent Christoper Steele.

    Those allegations formed the purported basis of the former spy's 'dirty dossier' which rocked Washington when its contents became public.

    Now it can be disclosed that Millian has voiced fears for his own safety, at the same time as denying that he was in any way the source for the dossier.

    Protection: Sergei Millian asked for the U.S. government to protect him after he was named as the source of the most salacious claims in the dirty dossier. He denies having information on Trump, whom he is now thought to have first met in 2007

    Defiant: The 38-year-old Soviet-born businessman now lives in the United States. He trained as a military interpreter at university and changed his name when he entered the U.S., his father said

    Back home: Sergei Millian (right) remains a frequent visitor to his family in a dilapidated village in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, his father Milediy Kukut (left) told DailyMail.com +17

    Impoverished: One-party state Belarus is impoverished and Sharkaŭshchyna, a town 125 miles from the capital of Minsk, is among its most economically troubled areas

    Upbringing: Millian's parents still live at the second-floor, Soviet-era apartment where he was brought up. His father drives the red Lada car (left), another Soviet-era h

    Location: Belarus is a key ally of Vladimir Putin's Russia and Millian's native town of Sharkaŭshchyna is 125 miles from its capital, Minsk

    His father told DailyMail.com that the businessman had requested protection in the U.S., where he has lived since 2001.

    And Millian - real name Sergei Kukut or, in Belarussian, Siarhei Kukuts - has hinted that he could be in danger, blaming shadowy forces in London. He said that thanked God he was 'alive and healthy' and is able to 'tell the truth' that he had no involvement in the allegations against Trump, with whom he has claimed to have a business relationship. Trump has angrily denied any sexual impropriety in Moscow, and also dismissed claims from Millian that the pair had a business link, while Putin has denied holding 'kompromat' on the new U.S. president.

    With Steele in hiding, and Millian last seen in Atlanta, DailyMail.com went to his native Belarus, an economic basket case labeled the last dictatorship in Europe under strongman Alexander Lukashenko, a longstanding Putin ally.

    At the dilapidated town where Milliam was brought up, his father Milediy Kukut revealed: 'He has asked the US government for protection - but was told he had to sort it all himself.'

    Kukut, 63, said he did not know if his son had approached the FBI or another US law enforcement agency after he was 'besieged' in the wake of The Wall Street Journal linking him to the dossier.

    [Feb 06, 2019] What about Sergei Millian?

    Notable quotes:
    "... Who provided former British spy Christopher Steele with the salacious and unverified information in the dossier? That's one question I'd like clarity on ..."
    "... And it would also be interesting to hear from Sergei Millian, who is widely reported to be an unwitting source of information contained in the dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
    "... There is a reason why Republicans did not do so when they controlled the house. Think Uniparty! The Dems and Reps are two faces of the same party! The Uniparty did not want this to happen! Now that the Reps are minority, they can act like Reps because majority Dems won't grant their request! See how that works!!!! ..."
    "... Think Uniparty! Then everything will suddenly start to make sense to you! ..."
    "... Democrat politicians are lying to the people who care about MUH RUSSIA. These politicians don't care about it. They never did. From the start it was nothing more than a way to keep a certain powerful faction of their party in line by dangling MUH RUSSIA keys in front of them. ..."
    "... They can't stop because the mindless rage monsters they whipped up (aka the shrieking base of the ever-growing left wing of the Party that lives on Cuntbook and Twatter) will turn on them if they do ..."
    Feb 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Originally from: Adam Schiff Showboats, Republicans Call His Bluff On Russia Probe

    The Witnesses

    Making matters more interesting, Republicans today also put forward a motion to subpoena around a dozen witnesses. Those people, including officials involved in the FBI's Russia investigation as well as people likely to be familiar with the compilation of the Steele dossier. Of course, those people may not say what the Democrats want to hear so the Democrats rejected the motion.

    It's actually a brilliant idea – we need more interviews. I think the Republicans should pounce on this opportunity to question these witnesses. Hopefully, they will ask some poignant questions we still don't have answers to.

    Who provided former British spy Christopher Steele with the salacious and unverified information in the dossier? That's one question I'd like clarity on.

    "Since the Democrats previously sought testimony from these individuals, such as James Baker and Sergei Millian, we assume they still want to speak to them," said Jack Langer, spokesman for committee Republican Rep. Devin Nunes.

    "It's even possible some witnesses can help explain the 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion that the Democrats claimed to have found two years ago but, inexplicably, never revealed to Committee Republicans or anyone else."

    James Baker is the former FBI General Counsel who was close friends with former FBI Director James Comey. Baker is now the subject of a leak investigation. He reportedly accepted documents from Perkins Coie, the law firm used by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to pay for the unverified dossier.

    What about Sergei Millian?

    And it would also be interesting to hear from Sergei Millian, who is widely reported to be an unwitting source of information contained in the dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

    These witnesses would surely have some interesting information to share if they were under questioned by the committee. I'm not sure it's information that would benefit Schiff's claim that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. But I'm certain it would shed light on what really happened with the dossier and the internal machinations of the FBI's probe into the campaign.

    Read the press release below from the House Intelligence Committee:

    Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued the following statement today on sending the transcripts of interviews from the committee's Russia investigation to the Special Counsel's office.

    artichoke , 39 minutes ago link

    ... Republicans today also put forward a motion to subpoena around a dozen witnesses. Those people, including officials involved in the FBI's Russia investigation as well as people likely to be familiar with the compilation of the Steele dossier. ...

    It's a damn shame they didn't make that motion a month ago when they were in the majority on the committee.

    Burnt To A Crisp , 23 minutes ago link

    There is a reason why Republicans did not do so when they controlled the house. Think Uniparty! The Dems and Reps are two faces of the same party! The Uniparty did not want this to happen! Now that the Reps are minority, they can act like Reps because majority Dems won't grant their request! See how that works!!!!

    This is how deep state protects it crime family members Rep and Dems! Think Uniparty! Then everything will suddenly start to make sense to you!

    freedommusic

    Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security Submit Joint Report on Impact of Foreign Interference on Election and Political/Campaign Infrastructure in 2018 Elections

    https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/02/05/acting-attorney-general-and-secretary-homeland-security-submit-joint-report-impact

    Although the specific conclusions within the joint report must remain classified, the Departments have concluded there is no evidence to date that any identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent had a material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/campaign infrastructure used in the 2018 midterm elections for the United States Congress.

    So no Russian interference in the 2018 election. What about any domestic interference? I don't see that mentioned...

    deepelemblues

    MUH RUSSIA has been a never-ending chain of diminishing returns for two and three quarter years

    Democrat politicians are lying to the people who care about MUH RUSSIA. These politicians don't care about it. They never did. From the start it was nothing more than a way to keep a certain powerful faction of their party in line by dangling MUH RUSSIA keys in front of them. Jingle-jangle, jingle-jangle...

    They can't stop because the mindless rage monsters they whipped up (aka the shrieking base of the ever-growing left wing of the Party that lives on Cuntbook and Twatter) will turn on them if they do with a tantrum of historic proportions

    Only the hyperpoliticized REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE machines whose entire lives are wrapped up in DUH STRUGGLE care about this MUH RUSSIA ********

    TeraByte

    I can only refer to history
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription
    In the Roman Empire enemies of the state were blacklisted and they simply vanished.

    [Jan 29, 2019] Once Barr is installed in office, stand by. The Department of Justice and the FBI will received the equivalent of a high powered enema. Both are sick institutions and need to have the feces flushed out

    Notable quotes:
    "... Then a funny thing happened. Robert Mueller's press guy issued an unprecedented statement calling the Buzzfeed story pure, unadulterated bullshit. Whoops!! ..."
    "... How many of of the FBI and DOJ's top leadership from the Obama administration have gotten fired and are being investigated for criminal conduct? ..."
    "... Enema works for me but reading reports on the analysis of Ohr's transcript, I'm not even sure an enema is going to be enough for the fbi. I think the only solution is liquidation. ..."
    "... Bill Barr clean out the DOJ? I wouldn't count on it. He is a member in good standing of the swamp ..."
    Jan 19, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Remember when Dan Rather self-immolated his credibility in a desperate attempt to take out George W. Bush? The Killian documents controversy (also referred to as Memogate or Rathergate) involved six purported documents critical of U.S. President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972–73.

    Four of these documents[1] were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes II broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 presidential election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents.[2][3][4] Subsequently, several typewriter and typography experts concluded the documents were forgeries.[5][6]

    Well, looks like Buzzfeed did not learn from history. Buzzfeed set the media world on fire on Friday with a story that appeared well sourced that claimed Donald Trump had directed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal that never came to fruition. The mainstream media went into hyper impeachment drive.

    This was the nail in the Trump coffin as far as they were concerned. Trump was as good as dead.

    Then a funny thing happened. Robert Mueller's press guy issued an unprecedented statement calling the Buzzfeed story pure, unadulterated bullshit. Whoops!!

    The Trump is dead meme quickly evaporated. Why did Mueller do this? The answer is simple. Bill Barr.

    The soon to be new Attorney General is known as a man of impeccable integrity with a minimal tolerance for bullshit. Mueller, as an old friend of Barr, knew that he had to do something dramatic to distance himself and his staff from this toxic story.

    Once Barr is installed in office, stand by. The Department of Justice and the FBI will received the equivalent of a high powered enema. Both are sick institutions and need to have the feces flushed out.


    Jack , 19 hours ago

    "...Bill Barr. The soon to be new Attorney General is known as a man of impeccable integrity with a minimal tolerance for bullshit."

    Mr. Barr seems as swampy as they get. He played a key role in the mass surveillance of all Americans and is the classic beltway sophist who has done much to reinterpret the constitution eviscerating the Bill of Rights. His past actions don't make him a man of integrity unless of course being in service to the national security state is considered virtuous.

    I believe Mr. Johnson's optimism of Barr's nomination leading to a "high powered enema" at the DOJ & FBI is unfounded. IMO, none of the seditionists will be held to account. In any case POTUS Trump seems quite content with tweeting witch hunt rather than declassifying and ordering a prosecutor convene a grand jury and have Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and all the other putschists testify.

    Fred -> Jack , 12 hours ago
    "He played a key role in the mass surveillance of all Americans"

    He served under H.W. Bush who lost to Clinton. Obama did just what, beside get great protection from Brennan, Clapper, Comey and a list of others you haven't named yet. How many of of the FBI and DOJ's top leadership from the Obama administration have gotten fired and are being investigated for criminal conduct? What kind of support do you think the Trump administration was getting from those outstanding civil servants for the past two years?

    blue peacock -> Fred , 9 hours ago
    "What kind of support do you think the Trump administration was getting from those outstanding civil servants for the past two years?"

    Well, it is the Trump administration that nominated Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray and now Barr. How many of those fired have testified to a grand jury? They're nicely ensconced with their lucrative sinecures until the next Borg administration. Mueller has spent tens of millions in going after Trump campaign minions. Where is the witch hunt against Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Lynch, et al? Of course its not that POTUS has no agency here. He can order declassification and the appointment of a prosecutor with a stroke of pen. Tweeting however is more like his pace.

    Pat Lang Mod , a day ago
    Rather interviewed me in the library of the Army and Navy Club in DC at the height of the excitement over the obviously approaching US invasion of Iraq in 2002. At one point he asked me if the Bushies were going to invade Iraq. I told himthat should not even be a question. He did not believe me.
    Bill H , 10 hours ago
    The only difference is that Rather had some small degree of credibility before the incident in question. I don't believe that Buzzfeed has ever had a shred of credibility to anyone with the slightest ability to think.
    Taras77 , a day ago
    Enema works for me but reading reports on the analysis of Ohr's transcript, I'm not even sure an enema is going to be enough for the fbi. I think the only solution is liquidation.

    This is a tragedy for past good /honest fbi agents but the fbi currently is a pestilence on this country which claims to be a nation of laws.

    MP98 , a day ago
    Bill Barr clean out the DOJ? I wouldn't count on it. He is a member in good standing of the swamp

    [Jan 29, 2019] Scheer The Illegal CIA Operation That Brought Us 9-11

    Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Scheer: The Illegal CIA Operation That Brought Us 9/11

    by Tyler Durden Sun, 01/27/2019 - 23:50 360 SHARES Authored by Robert Scheer via TruthDig.com,

    Was it conspiracy or idiocy that led to the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to detect and prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon headquarters? That's one of the questions at the heart of "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror," by John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. In their careful and thorough investigation of the events leading up to the attacks, the authors uncover a story about the Central Intelligence Agency's neglect, possible criminal activities and a cover-up that may have allowed al-Qaida to carry out its plans uninhibited by government officials.

    In the latest installment of "Scheer Intelligence," the journalists tell Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer how an interview with Richard Clarke, the counterterror adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, led them to a jaw-dropping revelation regarding two hijackers involved in the infamous attacks. As it turns out, Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two men linked to al-Qaida, were staying at an FBI informant's home in San Diego in 2000, and they were being tracked by the National Security Agency. Despite knowledge of the men's ties to the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11, neither was investigated by the FBI. Clarke and others believe that this may have had to do with a CIA attempt to turn the two men into agency informants.

    "When we sat down with Clarke he told us he couldn't see any other explanation but that there was an op [and] that it never made it to the White House because it would have had to go through him," says Nowosielski.

    "And his friend [then CIA Director] George Tenet was responsible for malfeasance and misfeasance in the runup to 9/11."

    Once the plans for the 9/11 attack must have become clear to the CIA, why didn't the agency prevent it from taking place? Duffy and Nowosielski come to the simple, shocking conclusion that because the CIA is prohibited from operating on U.S. soil, those involved in the operation chose to avoid prosecution rather than come clean.

    In a well-documented case study that touches senior government officials, including current special counsel Robert Mueller and other high-level individuals, crucial questions arise about who is responsible for allowing "a plot that resulted in 3,000 murders" and led to ongoing U.S. military entanglements in the Middle East to move forward.

    However, our country's recent crimes and the people behind them, including President Bush, are currently being "whitewashed" by our national obsession with Donald Trump, the authors warn.

    "All the crimes of the war on terror, the torture, Abu Ghraib, it's all just gone -- the unnecessary invasion of the war in Iraq, it's all just sort of under the rug now because of Trump," Duffy says.

    Listen to their discussion to learn more about the stunning investigation into the tragedy that changed the course of our nation's history and the Americans who could have thwarted the attacks but decided to cover their own backs instead. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player .

    https://www.kcrw.com/embed-player?api_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kcrw.com%2Fculture%2Fshows%2Fscheer-intelligence%2Fthe-illegal-cia-operation-that-brought-us-9-11%2Fplayer.json&autoplay=false

    RS : Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of "Scheer Intelligence," where the intelligence comes from my guests. And the title is really appropriate for the book we're going to talk about today, "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror." And the authors are John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. And they are investigative reporters, and the watchdogs here are the people in our intelligence agencies that are supposed to be protecting the nation. And this book cuts very deeply into the unsolved mystery of how 9/11 happened. Why weren't we better prepared to prevent it? It's one of the most important events in American history; it certainly has shaped our lives in terms of a surveillance state, our rights and everything else, up to the present. And this book, I think, represents the most exhaustive and well-documented effort to get to the bottom of the whole thing. You're very careful in what you do and do not assert about 9/11, what we don't know about it, and particularly the role of George Tenet, who was then head of the CIA, and the role of the CIA in -- what is the right word? -- obscuring the story, even keeping information from the White House, from the FBI. So give me the gist of the book.

    RN : This is Ray. The book is largely about looking at this case study of the failure leading up to 9/11, the people who were involved in that failure, how that came about, and how they were successful, to the present day, in managing to obscure the public from really fully understanding that this was, in the words of one of our sources, really just a handful of people. And the most jarring thing is that they're still, in some cases, working today in I guess Trump's CIA. And we sort of document through the second half of the book what damage was done to America because they remained in their positions.

    JD: This is John. And intelligence was gathered around the time of the millennium that led people in the Bin Laden unit at the CIA to monitor a meeting in Malaysia that was a gathering of these al-Qaida figures. In monitoring this --

    RS : That was in the year 2000, right?

    JD : Yes. Right at the outset of the year. In monitoring this meeting, they became aware of the fact that one of the attendees had a multiple-entry visa to the United States. That man's name was Khalid al-Mihdhar. He would eventually be on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon; he was one of the hijackers. So this starts the whole thing there, the fact that the CIA becomes aware of this information; the Bin Laden unit, counterterror center, and then all the way up to George Tenet are aware of this information. There's a lot of ins, outs, and what-have-yous about where that information goes, but it ultimately does not go over to the FBI's counterterror division in New York, much to the protest of the FBI agents who were detailed to the CIA's Bin Laden unit. And it did not make it to the White House counterterror czar, Richard Clarke, who very much finds this to be, like, the crux of the whole story -- the fact that this information was kept from his office for basically a year and eight months, up until the success of the attacks. The crux is there, that they had this information, these guys were coming into the country, they had just left the terror planning summit, and this information was being held close by the Bin Laden unit, by the counterterror center, and by George Tenet. The reason for that is unknown; the speculation that Richard Clarke has was that George Tenet and these people in the Bin Laden unit and counterterror center thought having these al-Qaida people in the United States, they could possibly go through Allied proxies in the Saudi intelligence to try to get close to these guys, monitor them, potentially find out information from them or even try to flip them. That's Richard Clarke's speculation as to why this was kept from him for so long. Ultimately, the attack was successful; that they all just did their best to bury all this and, you know, hope no one noticed.

    RS : Let me just start off with something that was confusing to me in reading your book. Because the FBI generally comes off looking pretty good in your book, and the real problem is with the CIA, and to a lesser degree, with the NSA. And in the San Diego story, and this is covered in the 9/11 Commission Report and others, the two San Diego guys -- they are staying at the home of an FBI informant at first. So when you say the FBI was not informed, weren't some of these calls actually made from the home of an FBI asset?

    RN : It's interesting when you know, A, that according to our NSA sources they were able to be pinged every time that Mihdhar and Hazmi, the two hijackers, called from that house that you mentioned in San Diego, back to Yemen. That somebody in the NSA was getting an alert as that was happening each time, and was aware of those connections. But that the house that was being used for the phone call was that of an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh. And Abdussattar was somebody the FBI recruited who was inside a popular mosque in San Diego, and who they thought might be able to feed them warnings of anybody who might be a radical Muslim terrorist. And Abdussattar claims that he simply missed the warning signs of the two tenants that he had in his home. I mean, it's kind of interesting. He's also, he's not just an FBI informant, he's also a Saudi, which kind of points to Richard Clarke's conjecture, which he first laid out to us when we sat down in his office in 2009. And that was that once the CIA monitored the meeting in Malaysia, knew that these two guys were connected to Bin Laden and were of interest, and saw that they were heading to the United States, in Clarke's words, they might well have thought that the best way to try to recruit these guys to feed information was not to send a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, American CIA agent to go to meet them. But, instead, to use our partners in Saudi Arabia and Saudi intelligence -- which George Tenet, the head of the CIA, happened to be very close with -- to try to recruit them. So I actually focus more on the fact that this guy was introduced to this house by a gentleman who's been determined to be a Saudi agent, a guy named Omar al-Bayoumi, and that this guy then was perhaps working dually for Saudi intel and as an FBI asset. And everyone sort of focuses on, oh, Abdussattar Shaikh was an FBI asset, so that seems to put blame at the feet of the FBI. Could be; could be, but I would also focus on that Saudi angle, because it recurs so often.

    RS : Well, it also goes to the question of the efficiency of the surveillance society. Because after all, these phone calls could be intercepted. You know, they did; they could follow this trail. And phone calls are being made back to a suspect residence in Yemen and so forth, from the home of an FBI recruit. And I'm just wondering, there's been a lot of discussion, some of the people that you quote in your book have made this point -- you collect this haystack of information that doesn't lead you to the needle in the haystack. And so here these phone calls were, clearly could be intercepted. They didn't require any special act of Congress or anything else. This was not a case of their arms being tied, the intelligence agencies. But they're not even looking at their own data. Isn't that the takeaway from the first part of this story? These guys are acting suspiciously in San Diego, they have a suspicious background, they've participated in a suspicious conference, they're staying at the home of an FBI informant, and they're making calls that would basically outline what was going to happen in this disastrous attack -- and no one noticed. Or the ones who noticed didn't tell other people.

    JD : I think what is likely to have happened there is, so those calls were going back, and I think it was about seven or eight calls. And Khalid al-Mihdhar's wife still lived at that house, and he was calling her from San Diego. So I don't think any deep operational details were being discussed in those calls, but that doesn't really matter; the fact that they're calling that home from America is a big deal. And how that would work at the NSA is there's someone who is tasked all day with basically monitoring the electronic signals going into and out of this house in Yemen, and when they see this coming in from the United States, that should ring a really big alarm bell. Now, that person working that desk would have to seek approval from the chop chain, which are these NSA managers. In order for anything to happen with that information, it has to get passed up and then brought to a FISA court, brought to the FBI. And if these managers within the NSA basically say, don't worry about it, sit on it, just collect it, sit on it -- and if they don't allow any action, then there will be no action. And it's just going to stay housed right there, in that particular data stovepipe at the NSA. If Richard Clarke's speculation is true, that there was this attempt to recruit these guys in the U.S. with Saudi proxies, part of that plan would have been George Tenet speaking to someone at the NSA, or one of George Tenet's people speaking to someone at the NSA. Basically saying, hey, before you go out getting any FISA warrants or chasing anything down regarding this specific house, come to us first. So if there is some operation going on, it would stand to reason that part of that operation would be not allowing these pings at this particular desk to turn into any action.

    RS : For people listening, let me make clear, this is an incredibly detailed, researched book, which relies very heavily on intelligence veterans. No one less so than Richard Clarke, who's come up so far; another is former colonel Larry Wilkerson, obviously a key person. And what is very dramatic in your book is, where your story really comes to life for you guys as journalists, is when Richard Clarke -- you say you go in there to interview him, and you tell your crew, put the sound on as we go in. And you go in, and you think you're going to have to ask a lot of questions to get -- and for people who don't know, Richard Clarke ever since the early '70s was a major figure in the intelligence community. And at this point, when you're talking to him, he's been around the block, he's seen everything. And he was a close friend of George Tenet, who was head of the CIA; they considered themselves allies. And you're going in to get this interview, and you think you're going to have to weasel information out of him. And he just hits you over the head with an assertion that, really, is the thrust of this book. So why don't you take us to that moment?

    RN : What we discovered on the day that we walked into Richard Clarke's conference room was that he'd been ready for probably about a year to talk about this, and no major journalists had called him up to ask him about this subject. Nobody had ever asked him. So going back, you know, he started in the Reagan State Department; he worked under George H.W.; Clinton, when these Al Qaeda terrorist attacks began in the early nineties, recognized that there needed to be a new position within his Cabinet, and he called it the counterterror czar, the counterterror adviser. And he created that position for Richard Clarke. As you mentioned, Clarke was close friends with George Tenet, who also was sort of on the National Security Council under Clinton early on, and then got named the head of the CIA in the midst of Clinton's first term. George W. Bush and company come in, early 2001; as it turned out, nine months ahead of this ticking clock towards 9/11. And Richard Clarke is told that he's essentially being demoted. He's still going to be the counterterror advisor, but it's not a Cabinet-level position. And so now he's kind of essentially going through the extra layer of Condoleezza Rice. But George Tenet still very much has Bush's ear. And that's kind of the back story there; then after, you know, on 9/11 Richard Clarke by nearly all accounts was running the response that morning, on that critical day; he was the top man for counterterror. Over time, he starts to get rubbed the wrong way by the fact that the Bush administration inexplicably is not really terribly still concerned about Al Qaeda after 9/11. But then Clarke leaves, and he writes a bestselling book. And he testifies before the 9/11 commission and becomes the only person to apologize to the families, to admit that there was a failure at all. But cut to a few years down the line, and he releases another book in 2008 that doesn't become a bestseller. And it's called "Your Government Failed You." And it includes a section on Mihdhar and Hazmi that he calls "Straining Credulity," in which he says that he does not believe in conspiracy theories, but in this one particular case, he's weighed it every which way and he can't see another way to explain it but by. But he sort of saved us speculation, and so we saw that part in his book and we thought, well, we've been itching -- we'd collected enough info by that time, and talked with enough people, that we thought: something happened here with these two hijackers that flew over to the U.S. Something happened when they arrived. And the big question was, if this was an operation by the CIA, did they let Clinton know? Did they then let Bush know when he came in? What was the deal there? And Richard Clarke would be the man in a position to answer that. And so you're right, that's where our journey really -- that's where we launched. Because we'd been looking into it for a few years, but when we sat down with Clarke, that was when he told us he couldn't see any other explanation but that there was an op, that it never made it to the White House because it would have had to go through him. And his friend George Tenet was responsible for malfeasance and misfeasance in the runup to 9/11.

    JD : And he also, in part of that description, said that a lot of the CIA reports that would have, any other day, come directly to his computer -- when he flicked it on in the morning, it would be right there waiting for him -- just on this specific case with these two individuals, he was removed from the chain of information. And so he felt that he was getting minutiae concerning terrorism from around the world in, like, tiny micro-detail on everything except this, and that must have meant he was intentionally pulled out of the chain by someone. And that that would have taken high-level order. And when asked, you know, how high level, he said that it must have come from the director, referring to George Tenet.

    RS : So let's cut to the chase here. There's an old caution, don't attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by ordinary stupidity. Or laziness, or incompetence. Is this a case where George Tenet, the admired at that time head of the CIA, was just incompetent, stupid, indifferent? Is there something more at work? Did the CIA welcome such an attack as a boon for the military-industrial complex, as some people allege? What's going on here? How could this major tragedy event be visited upon the United States, the head of our intelligence agency knows that there are these suspect characters there, and he doesn't bother to tip off the FBI, let alone the White House? And after all, the FBI is in charge of domestic surveillance; they're the ones that have to go arrest these guys, you know, at least confront them, see what they're doing. I have to tell people listening to this, this is a very careful, indeed conservative, in the best sense of the word, book. This is not a book you can just dismiss by saying it's got some wild, interesting theory. No -- you err, I would say, on the side of caution, in a way.

    JD : We err on the side of caution all the time, and we're not going to try to say something that we can't really, really defend. If we start from a position that there's some level of merit to what Clarke is suggesting, that there is this operation going on to try to monitor these hijackers domestically by the CIA, as opposed to handing it off to the FBI -- presuming he's right on that, there is this --

    RS : Can I just add a little note that Wilkerson actually goes further.

    JD : Wilkerson later suggests that he heard it mentioned after the fact, in about 2003 or 2004, when he is at the CIA. The invasion of Iraq has begun, and they're waiting for updated satellite information, everyone's kind of standing around just kind of BS'ing. And he basically overhears a conversation about how, oh man, Tenet tried to flip these guys in the U.S. and then had to hide it because it all went wrong, and it would have come back to bite him. And yeah, Wilkerson basically claims to have overheard high-level people speaking about that, just sort of in a B.S. session.

    RN : Well, and not really, not overheard; it's more like, he claimed multiple, very high-level under Tenet sources, that he was close with at that time, who were in these "yak-yak sessions," that he calls them. And they each claimed to be aware of the reality of this, supposedly.

    JD : You're asking, like, how nefarious it is. In the first period of all this, presuming that it's true, presuming that there's this operation going on to try to flip these guys or follow them or whatever, gather information on them domestically, you can imagine that, OK, they're going to have some sort of setup in which to monitor these guys, or they're using Saudi proxies perhaps, or other proxies, and they're following them. Then we get to this point where, well, the attack succeeds on September 11, so how the heck does that happen? If you have this, if you're monitoring these guys and then they do this, where does the ball get dropped? And our book does go into that a bit, and we definitely say, like, there's this moment where they must have said: OK. This isn't working, it's not happening, there has got to be a point where they say, abandon ship. But what do they do? How do they abandon ship? They need to somehow turn this over to the FBI to wrap it up for them. And the way they seem to do this is not by being honest and saying, hey, we were trying to do this and it didn't work, but here's the information -- go get 'em. They definitely don't do that.

    RS : The "trying to do this" -- you mean to turn these terrorists into agents for themselves? --

    JD : So what I'm saying is, if at some point when it's not working, when the flip hasn't happened, when whatever goal they set for themselves, when they haven't achieved it, a time must come for them to wrap up this operation. A time must -- you can't just let them go all the way and succeed in their attack, you would think.

    RN : But I think what you're asking is the intention of the operation, which would seem -- well, the CIA was created in order to prevent future Pearl Harbors. So I guess, giving them the benefit of the doubt, the intention of the operation would theoretically have been to monitor these guys so as to figure out what they're doing here in the U.S.

    JD : Yes, yes. We're giving them the benefit of the doubt there. And then we look at the emails and cable traffic we can find in that summer, and we watch as -- there's no search for these guys, there's no FBI search for these guys until August 23rd of 2001. And that's the point where, surreptitiously, someone stationed at Alec Station, the Bin Laden unit, CIA, who's going through old cable traffic, goes: Oh my gosh! I found a cable that these guys came to the United States. And she alerts the FBI, and the FBI begins their domestic search. I guess what I'm suggesting is, a time would have come when they, when whoever is running this operation at the CIA, whatever the architecture of that operation looks like, they would have seen these things happening. They would have seen the connections they were making with these other guys coming to the United States. And a time would have come for them to say: OK. We have to pass this off to the FBI to shut it down. And it does --

    RS : But wait a minute. When you say OK, and they've seen things -- they see people who are identified as terrorists, part of this terrorist network, traces back to Al Qaeda. And they are learning about airplanes and how to fly them, and flight paths, and everything. And you're telling me that they say, well, you know, maybe we're not going to actually recruit them, maybe we're -- we better do something. Why aren't they saying, holy cow, these guys can do great damage to this country! We got to call, what, the local San Diego police, at least, to get them to check them out! No?

    RN : OK, so these guys arrive in early 2000. What happens in October 2000? The U.S.S. Cole is attacked in Yemen. FBI agents working that from top levels of the New York office of the FBI find a very direct connection not only to Al Qaeda, but to that same planning meeting that the CIA monitored. The same one where Mihdhar and Hazmi were at that planning meeting. So not only do you have an inclination -- oh, these guys are Al Qaeda, they're probably not here to, in the words of one person, go to f'ing Disneyland. They're here for something nefarious -- but now, after October 2000, for the entire year up to 9/11, the CIA has the knowledge that these two individuals that were at this meeting, that the meeting spawned the U.S.S. Cole attack, which killed 17 dead servicemen. So I think at that point, yeah, calling the local San Diego police would probably make a lot of sense.

    RS : OK, and what about the FBI informant who was their link in San Diego? Why isn't he telling anyone, or why doesn't the FBI know?

    JD : You have to be careful to separate what's going on at different agencies. An FBI informant's not necessarily reporting to the CIA, and the CIA informant's not reporting to the FBI. And then you also have to understand that the FBI has national headquarters and then a bunch of different field offices throughout the country. And you have field office reports coming in, like the Phoenix memo from Ken Williams mentioning that there's these, all these Muslim guys trying to learn to fly. You've got what Coleen Rowley exposes out of Minnesota, when they bust Zacarias Moussaoui, and how they're trying to get into his laptop, and they're being hampered by FBI headquarters. So I mean, you don't know what came from Abdussattar. But I don't want to move too far into the weeds and off the general thrust of your original question. And I think what you come down to is a fork in the road. At some point, either the CIA running this operation has to wrap it up, or this major attack is going to succeed. If you ask yourself, well, why didn't they wrap it up -- because obviously they didn't, and the attack did succeed–so if you ask yourself why didn't they, there's one potential answer, which is that they were afraid of being prosecuted. Because they had been running an illegal operation in the United States. So their own fear for their own lives, freedom, careers, all that stuff–

    RS : For people who don't understand the law, you have to explain, the CIA was prevented from running this kind of operation domestically. This is supposed to be up to the FBI.

    JD : It is a crime for them to operate within the United States.

    RN : And what Richard Clarke told us, we don't know how much of the information, like the Phoenix memo and these other things that Duffy just mentioned, got to George Tenet. But what we do know, the existence of Mihdhar and Hazmi in this country should have made it to him by that point. Because his own CIA counterterror office had informed the FBI in August, and a search had begun. So that information should have been in Tenet's head. We know that he was briefed about Zacarias Moussaoui acting weird at a flight school in Minnesota. And he comes to the -- oh, man --

    JD : September 4th principals meeting.

    RN : -- September 4th principals meeting in the White House. Clarke has been pushing the entire Bush administration, the entire eight, nine months, to be able to brief them on Al Qaeda and make the case for why the administration should take this seriously. And he's finally got that meeting, and George Tenet is sitting there, and he doesn't say a word. And he was later asked by investigators why not, and he gave this really bizarre non-answer, which was just like: it just wasn't the right time, right place, I just can't take you any further than that. And they let him get away with leaving it at that, but Richard Clarke says the reason he doesn't tell us at that point, he believes, is because Clarke would have had him brought up on charges that day for malfeasance and misfeasance in withholding that information. Because remember, that would also make his people culpable for the Cole, because they would have known about the planning session for the Cole nine months before that one happened, too. So it looks like --

    JD : And then they would have been guilty of obstruction of justice for all of the hiding of these figures once the FBI investigation into the Cole happened. So they have a long list of things they become guilty of should they just turn this over and say, like: Ah, hey guys, there's these guys, you should probably go do something about it. Now, that's one explanation. Other people have other explanations. But as I said, we don't make accusations that we cannot really, firmly back up. So this time, that's pretty much the one we typically go with.

    RS : Two people in your book who take it further are Richard Clarke and Larry Wilkerson. Two of the most highly experienced, knowledgeable individuals to come out of our whole military intelligence complex. And they, put it in human terms, they say they don't know how these people sleep at night. Wilkerson, even more than Clarke, suggests that these people could have prevented 9/11, and knew about it. Now, I just want to ask you about one other person. Again, the book is devastating; it's called "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror," John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. But let me push it one step further to the contemporary moment. The book is kind of easy on the FBI. But the fact is the FBI was really the agency that should have been following these terrorists when they're in the United States. But one guy who comes up in current making of history, and who was head of the FBI at a critical point, is Mueller, who's now running the Russian, interference in our election investigation. What was his role? I'd like to conclude on that, because he's a major figure right now, the head of this special investigation. What was his role in this?

    RN : I mean, it is important to remember that the guy came in, I think it was maybe 10 days before 9/11, and took over the FBI. So he was, among the CIA, NSA, and FBI, he was able to be the only one at the leadership helm in the post-9/11 days and months who you couldn't really lay any culpability at his door for any kind of failure. Remember, the CIA director George Tenet, he's right at the table with the President; he's a Cabinet-level guy. The FBI director, it's not the same way. The FBI director reports to the Attorney General in the Department of Justice, and the Attorney General gets the direct seat. We make the case in the book that when George Tenet, in the week after 9/11, made the big play, the big power grab for the CIA, what we call the wish list of every CIA director accumulated over the whole history of the agency, and essentially puts it out there to Bush and says, these are the powers we need now to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen -- he gets his green light. Mueller, on the other hand -- well, a couple things happen. For one thing, the stories–the CIA is better at keeping their skeletons hidden, for a while. So the first stories that come out that start to paint a picture of blame regarding 9/11, they're all pointing towards the FBI. Coleen Rowley comes out, and she points a finger at Mueller in May of 2002, and that sort of gets the ball rolling on the "it was the FBI's fault" story, which really didn't get corrected for quite a number of years. So our sources tell us Mueller was playing defense, he was willing to kind of go along as the Bush administration pushed that–we kind of know what happened here, so we don't need to investigate this much further; you should be putting your FBI resources towards preventing future attacks. And I can certainly understand why a man like Robert Mueller in that position would say, would not want to be the guy that missed the next one. So from what we can tell, and from what our sources told us, it does seem that he sort of wrapped up the 9/11 investigation, or just ended it midway. But what was happening was, we talked with Pat DeMoro -- he was one of our sources -- and he took us inside, he ran the 9/11 criminal investigation; remember, this was a crime, right. At least 19 guys, probably a lot more, were involved in a plot that resulted in 3,000 murders. So he was investigating that, and he was finding over about a two-year period, there would be leads that would point towards Saudi facilitators to the hijackers, Saudi helpers, Saudi royal money coming over. And every time he found these, he had to report them up to Bob Mueller. Bob Mueller would theoretically report them to the Attorney General, who would theoretically report them to Bush. And yet the end result of this was that Bush invades Iraq, and the U.S. public never heard about these Saudi connections until, officially, until just a couple of years ago, really.

    JD : And you have said that our book comes off pretty light on the FBI, and I think the crucial difference to make clear is that most of the people we're talking about within the FBI are from particularly one field office. We're talking about John O'Neill's people out of New York, who are counterterror investigators. That's most of the people we're dealing -- we're not, we mention a few other people from FBI headquarters, but we don't necessarily mention them in the best light. And one of the big failures of the FBI is the search to find al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, once they are made aware that they're in the country a couple weeks before 9/11. And that is a huge story there, and we could only write so much book. So we don't want to just sit here and say, like, oh, the FBI is great and did everything right; we focus specifically on a handful of people who did do their damnedest to unearth the conspirators behind the Cole attack, and to pass information about the presence of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi over to FBI investigators in New York in the runup to 9/11. So we don't want to necessarily sit here and say the FBI was perfect and did everything right; we're talking about a handful of individuals.

    RS : And as you've just indicated, your style and the character of this book is quite scholarly. It's very thoughtful, it's incredibly well documented. And you got people really on the inside, in the know, to trust you and to talk honestly about it. You've done the gumshoe journalism, you took 10 years, you checked every record. What has been the critical response?

    RN : Well, we should have put Trump's picture on the cover. [Laughs] I think that would have helped.

    RS : That's a pretty profound observation, in a way. Because there's a whole bunch of people now who think all of our troubles in this country started and will end with Trump. And it really whitewashes everybody else.

    JD : It's whitewashing a lot of people. There's, all of a sudden people who a few years ago we were like, this is the worst person on earth! -- like George W. Bush, is now just being embraced by Democrats as some, like, affable guy. All the crimes of the war on terror, the torture, Abu-Ghraib, it's all just gone -- the unnecessary invasion of the war in Iraq, it's all just sort of under the rug now because of Trump.

    RS : Yeah, those were the adults watching the store. Everybody is angry that Trump doesn't have adults watching the store, and now he just got in trouble with his Secretary of Defense, pushing him out, and now that guy is whitewashed, right? He was considered a mad dog at one point. So you're right; your book has run into a head storm of indifference to anything that happened before Trump. But I'm asking a very pointed question. What happens? You guys spent over 10 years on this, right?

    RN : Yeah. And you know, our goal was not to get famous. [Laughs] We really did want accountability for this small group of people that we thought, these people cannot stay in the CIA, right? We're not going to keep letting them run the War on Terror, are we? And maybe if people just know about this, or if we can just prove it–if we talk with enough insiders, if we get enough documents together, if we write a book. It turns out, no. There's going to be no accountability, and they're going to, the few that remain now at high levels of the CIA are going to continue to do what they do, and no one's going to know about it except for folks that listen to your show, so thank you.

    RS : Well, they're going to write the history. I mean, the amazing thing–you think of a movie like "Zero Dark Thirty," you know; and you quote John Kiriakou in your book, and he was in the CIA; he was actually very successful in being involved with the capture of the highest person connected with al-Qaida, and so forth. And they spun a myth that the torture worked, and you needed torture, and blah blah blah. And it basically went unchallenged. So these people who either lied, or just lied by not talking, even to the FBI or the White House -- they get to control the narrative. And then a book like yours comes out, and -- I'm asking a very serious question. What has been the response of The New York Times, The Washington Post?

    JD : [Laughing] We're still waiting to hear what The Washington Post and The New York Times think. We've gotten a lot of praise from people who have read it, but we're not getting any really major national or international reviews. Well, one thing we like to do, you mentioned "Zero Dark Thirty." And the main character, played by Jessica Chastain, is sort of an amalgamation of a handful of people who did work at the CIA, most prominently a woman by the name of Alfreda Bikowsky, who is mentioned very prominently in our book. We want people to know her name, Alfreda Bikowsky, because it's a name that was sort of an open secret in the media in, you know, New York, Washington, for many, many years. Her involvement goes from the pre-9/11 period there at Alec Station through torture and drone killings, and we want to make sure that her name gets out there so she can't hide in the shadows.

    RN : Her name was never mentioned in any media until it came out on our website. It was 11 years, 10 months from the first alleged crime she'd committed that we documented, until her name came out on our website.

    JD : We just like to throw her name out there every once in a while, and make sure more and more people hear it.

    RS : Ah, that should be enough to inspire people to get a copy of "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror." It's written by John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. It's a very, very important book. This is the yeoman journalistic work on the story, and it's informed by people on the inside who really witnessed it, and were shocked by what they saw, high-level people. So I recommend the book. I want to thank you guys for coming on. OK, that's it for this edition of Scheer Intelligence. Our engineers at KCRW are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. Our producers are Joshua Scheer and Isabel Carreon. I'm Robert Scheer, and we're doing this broadcast from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where Sebastian Grubaugh, as he often does, has made the show work, and I want to thank him.

    [Jan 29, 2019] FBI, CIA [supposedly] Told WaPo They Doubted Key Allegation In Steele Dossier but Wapo still run their own anti-Trump campaign popularizing Steele dossier.

    Hand of Brennan? Hand of MI6?
    From comments: "Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims. " What?!?
    Notable quotes:
    "... FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn't believe a key claim contained in the "Steele Dossier ..."
    "... The Post 's Greg Miller told an audience at an October event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross. ..."
    "... Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims. ..."
    "... Steele, using Kremlin sources, claimed in his dossier that Cohen and three associates went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials for the purpose of discussing "deniable cash payments" made in secret so as to cover up "Moscow's secret liaison with the TRUMP team." ..."
    Dec 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

    FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn't believe a key claim contained in the "Steele Dossier," the document the Obama FBI relied on to obtain a surveillance warrant on a member of the Trump campaign.

    The Post 's Greg Miller told an audience at an October event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.

    "We've talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere -- they don't believe that ever happened," said Miller during the October event which aired Saturday on C-SPAN.

    We literally spent weeks and months trying to run down... there's an assertion in there that Michael Cohen went to Prague to settle payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters to every hotel in Prague, to all over the place trying to - just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty . -Greg Miller

    Ross notes that WaPo somehow failed to report this information, nor did Miller include this tidbit of narrative-killing information in his recent book, "The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy."

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/7GvXI61p21k

    Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims.

    Steele, using Kremlin sources, claimed in his dossier that Cohen and three associates went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials for the purpose of discussing "deniable cash payments" made in secret so as to cover up "Moscow's secret liaison with the TRUMP team."

    Cohen's alleged Prague visit captured attention largely because the former Trump fixer has vehemently denied it, and also because it would seem to be one of the easier claims in Steele's 35-page report to validate or invalidate.

    Debate over the salacious document was reignited when McClatchy reported April 15 that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence Cohen visited Prague. No other news outlets have verified the reporting, and Cohen denied it at the time.

    Cohen last denied the dossier's allegations in late June, a period of time when he was gearing up to cooperate with prosecutors against President Donald Trump . Cohen served as a cooperating witness for prosecutors in both New York and the special counsel's office. - Daily Caller

    Cohen's attorney and longtime Clinton pal Lanny Davis vehemently denied on August 22, one day after Cohen pleaded guilty in his New York case - that Cohen had never been to Prague, telling Bloomberg " Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life ."

    youshallnotkill , 19 minutes ago link

    Trump never ceases to crack me up. While his (terrible) current lawyer, declares on TV that there was collusion but it just didn't last long, Trump calls his former lawyer/fixer at "Rat".

    This is just too funny, I mean this is the President of the United States calling his former personal lawyer a "Rat" which of course is a common mob term for a witness testifying against you.

    monkeyshine

    Of course it never happened, just like Manafort didn't make 3 trips to London to meet Julian Assange. These fictions were just used as a pretext for diving into the backgrounds of Trump's political supporters and find crimes to charge them with.

    The Cohen raid was particularly egregious, a likely violation of attorney-client privilege. Not suprisingly the American Bar Association is silent.

    brewing_it

    So here is a WaPo reporter saying they sent reporters to every hotel in Prague to find out if Cohen had been there, they spent weeks and weeks researching, interviewing, and nothing. What they are not saying is that they also spent shitloads of Bezo's money exploring all the other fake dossier claims.

    And nothing.....all you hillarytards have been completely scammed by, your pulses sent aflutter with clickbait and page views and thats it. So sorry you losers.

    Demologos

    Yeah, like rubles are worth anything outside of Russia. Gold on the other hand ...

    But seriously, you two should get a room. If you can't see the conspiracy in the Strzok/Page texts, the setup of Papadapoulous by the Brits, the phony FISA warrant using the FBI informant, the setup of General Flynn, and the seedy cast of characters in the DOJ breaking laws right and left, you should be checked for brain wave activity. You probably think the Russians paid for all of the above too. Go suck a bag of Russian dicks.

    [Jan 24, 2019] Intelligence agency officials carefully monitor the activities of the two main parties, keeping a vigilant eye out for any deviations from the national security consensus in Washington

    Essentially they are trying to control the US foreign policy. That's a sign of the slide to neofascism as under neofascism intelligence agencies have a political role and are instrumental in crashing the dissent.
    Notable quotes:
    "... The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency "watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia." That is, the nation's top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment. ..."
    "... By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist NKVD. ..."
    "... The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times , recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." ..."
    "... Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news. ..."
    "... But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials." ..."
    Jan 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    The Times claims that Trump "had caught the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton." Given that this was a sarcastic campaign remark directed against Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and delivered at a public news conference, Trump's sally can hardly be construed as evidence of a conspiracy.

    The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency "watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia." That is, the nation's top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment.

    By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist NKVD.

    The agency also investigated four of Trump's campaign aides over possible ties to Russia, and even made use of the notorious Steele dossier, consisting of anti-Trump gossip collated from Russian sources by a former British intelligence agent on the payroll of the Democratic Party.

    After Trump fired Comey, according to the Times , "law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence."

    The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times , recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy."

    Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news.

    But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials."

    While there is no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Moscow, the Times report itself is evidence of a conspiracy involving the intelligence agencies and the corporate media to overturn the 2016 presidential election - which Trump won, albeit within the undemocratic framework of the Electoral College - and install a government that would differ from Trump's chiefly in being more committed to military confrontation with Russia in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

    A secret security investigation by a powerful police agency directed against an elected president or prime minister can be described as nothing other than the antechamber to a coup by the military or intelligence services.

    Historically, the FBI has been at the center of such dangers in the United States. Its founding director, J. Edgar Hoover, was notorious for his unchecked power, particularly during the period of the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt, when he accumulated dossiers on virtually every Democratic and Republican politician and authorized widespread spying on civil rights and antiwar groups.

    President John F. Kennedy was so concerned that he installed his brother Robert as attorney general - and nominal superior to Hoover - to keep watch over the bureau. That did not save Kennedy from assassination in 1963 , an event linked in still undisclosed ways to ultra-right circles, including Cuban exiles embittered by the Bay of Pigs disaster, Southern segregationists, and sections of the military-intelligence apparatus up in arms over Kennedy's signing of a nuclear test ban treaty with Moscow.

    The New York Times report - and a companion piece published Sunday in the Washington Post claiming that Trump has kept secret key details of his private conversations with Putin - serve to legitimize antidemocratic and unconstitutional conduct by the military-intelligence apparatus .

    These reports shed light on the striking complacency in the "mainstream" media over Trump's threats to declare a national emergency, using the pretext of his conflict with congressional Democrats over funding of a border wall, which has led to a three-week-long partial shutdown of the federal government.

    If one takes for good coin the main contention of the reports by the two newspapers, their acquiescence in a potential Trump declaration of emergency rule is inexplicable. After all, if Trump is Putin's agent, then a Trump declaration of a state of emergency, giving him sweeping, near-absolute authority, would put the United States under the control of Moscow.

    The explanation is that the Times and the Post welcome the discussion of emergency rule, to prepare the forces of the state for coming conflicts with the working class. Their only disagreement with Trump is over which faction of the ruling elite, Trump or his opponents in the Democratic Party, should direct the repression.

    One thing is certain: if Trump declares a national emergency, or if, as the Post suggested in an editorial, his opponents in the ruling elite declare a national emergency over alleged Russian "meddling" as part an effort to remove him, it will represent an irrevocable break with democracy.

    It is impossible to determine which side in this sordid conflict is more reactionary. The working class is confronted with two alternatives :

    [Jan 21, 2019] Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy by Stephen F. Cohen

    The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
    Notable quotes:
    "... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
    Jan 16, 2019 | www.thenation.com

    Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia. Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship -- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

    Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.

    And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times ' own recent "bombshells," published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump] had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual, the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")

    Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott, President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution. According to Talbott , "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated suspicions and allegations.

    In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth, Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.) For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless, the Times quotes Page at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals." Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.

    Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because, according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018.

    It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation with Russia.")

    That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.

    Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result, in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)

    And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.

    The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.

    Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com . )

    [Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

    Highly recommended!
    Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via The Intercept,

    Buzzfeed was once notorious for traffic-generating "listicles" , but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims "inaccurate."

    But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

    Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

    10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

    On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false :

    9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

    On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S. electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:

    8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

    On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."

    Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note in memory appended to the top of the article (but not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the media ecosystem):

    7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

    On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.

    6. Russia Attacked U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

    On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea what to make of it.

    But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds" the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean male cricket during mating season.

    5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

    4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

    On November 27, 2018, the Guardian published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators exploded.

    Seven weeks later, no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged; the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:

    3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

    On July 27, 2018, CNN published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that "contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however, to this date has refused to do either:

    2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

    1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

    The morning of December 9, 2017, launched one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here ).

    There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before. Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.

    To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple, independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating – and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.

    Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously is:

    Dishonorable Mention:

    Special mention:

    As I've said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing extreme indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to turn the U.S. media into their main adversary; and when people turn to "fake news" sites.

    If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to examining their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that politicians and news consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.

    [Jan 20, 2019] This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously and using smears

    Notable quotes:
    "... Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity. ..."
    "... I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people ..."
    Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Anne Jaclard , Jan 20, 2019 6:02:29 PM | link

    On Integrity Initiative Endgame:

    From Consortium News

    It should be pointed out that the Integrity Initiative recently claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch #4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.

    It doesn't really matter, though: all that we know, anti-socialist shills writing propaganda on behalf of II (Nimmo, Cohen, Reid-Ross) have confirmed their own roles, and the Twitter account was proven to have pushed out slanderous material on Jeremy Corbyn.

    Note that "misrepresented" could have referred to the inclusion of the Corbyn slide show document which was presented at but created by the II.

    This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously and using smears,

    -Yellow Vests
    – Jill Stein
    -Jeremy Corbyn
    -George Galloway
    -Seuams Milne
    -German Left Party
    -French Left Party
    -French Communist Party
    -Greek Communist Party
    -Podemos
    -Norwegian Red Party
    -Norwegian Socialist Left Party
    -Swedish Left Party
    -Swedish Greens
    -International Anti-NATO Groups
    -Greyzone Project
    -Julian Assange
    -MintPressNews

    Via

    -Infiltrating Corbyn and Sanders campaigns
    -Inserting propaganda anonymously into local media including the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, The Times, the Guardian, and more
    -Using social media to orchestrate hate and dismissal campaigns against those mentioned above
    -Hosting events for collaboration between members
    -Building online "clusters" to deploy and shape discourse in the media and elsewhere

    By repeating or openly collaborating with:

    -Ben Nimmo
    -Oz Katergi
    -Anne Applebaum
    -Peter Pomerantsev
    -Bellingcat
    -Atlantic Council
    -Carole Cadwalladr
    -David Aaronovitch
    -Center For A Stateless Society
    -PropOrNot
    -Alexander Reid-Ross
    -Nick Cohen
    -Michael Weiss
    -Jamie Fly
    -Jamie Kirchick

    Directed by:

    -Tory Government
    -NATO
    -Facebook
    -German Multinationals

    uncle tungsten | Jan 20, 2019 6:18:59 PM | 16

    Thank you Anne Jaclard @ | 14

    Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity.

    I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people.

    [Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever.

    Highly recommended!
    Now it looks like all this scene was staged by British government and is connected to the Integrity initiative... Poor cat and guinea pigs ...
    See also The desperate efforts of the Western neoliberal establishment to build a new propaganda machine by globinfo freexchange
    Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
    PavewayIV , Jan 20, 2019 11:15:51 AM | 1 ">link

    And, one last bit from the BBC report on March 8, 2018:

    "...Meanwhile, a doctor who was one of the first people at the scene has described how she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting and fitting. She had also lost control of her bodily functions.

    The woman, who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father.

    She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripal's face or body.

    The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added that she "feels fine"

    Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever...

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43326734

    [Jan 20, 2019] The desperate efforts of the Western neoliberal establishment to build a new propaganda machine by globinfo freexchange

    Notable quotes:
    "... Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament. ..."
    Dec 25, 2018 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

    propaganda machine

    The UK government and other Western governments and the US in recent years have had increasing difficulties persuading enough of their populations as to the legitimacy of the foreign policies that they have been pursuing. And at the same time, Western countries have been going through a period of political crisis and economic crisis.

    Piers Robinson, Chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism at the University of Sheffield, further explains:

    I think a lot of this drive is as much about trying to shore up shaky official narratives and trying to shore up political systems in a situation of political crisis, as it is actually about countering Russian propaganda. I would suspect that that's a little bit of an excuse here to really what's going on of problems much closer to home.
    This is not just to do to UK, this is Europe-wide. And there are also indications from the documents that they are intending to start to have some kind of impact within the United States. So, it's a very wide-ranging network that seems to be established. The reason why it needs to be covert, of course, is that if a media organization, or if a journalist is to let on that he, or she, is involved in a program, which quite clearly is pushing a particular agenda, then the credibility of that journalist will be damaged.

    And this is really what is very deceptive about the Integrity Initiative . It's about co-opting journalists and academics into, essentially, a campaign, which appears to be a propaganda campaign, in order to manipulate opinions. And the only way that can really work effectively, is if readers and viewers don't know that what they're reading is something which has emerged from a particular political agenda.

    Integrity Initiative 'Army of propagandists disguised as anti-propagandists' - YouTube

    Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament.

    So, it's not accidental that the organized and systematic propaganda campaign against labour party has actually started under Corbyn's leadership. And that the campaign contains a lot of personal attacks against the leader of the Labour party. That's because, of course, Jeremy Corbyn is driving the party out of the neoliberal machine that has been dominating the UK politics for decades.

    But it seems that the agents of the neoliberal establishment are really desperate as they see that the new narratives are not particularly successful.
    It would not be exaggerating to suggest that the attacks against Leftist leaders like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders essentially bring the opposite effect. That's because especially the younger generations have turned their back to the mainstream media.

    And they understand that the more the media attack Corbyn and Sanders, the stronger the indication that these leaders are not part of the neoliberal establishment that ruined their lives becomes.

    [Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... But Abby's mum now feels the time is right for her daughter to be recognised for the "incredible" way she dealt with the scenario. Alison nominated her for the Lifesaver Award at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards, and the judges were unanimous in their decision that Abigail was a very worthy winner. ..."
    "... Colonel McCourt was appointed Chief Nursing Officer on February 1 2018, just one month before the Skripal incident happened. Colonel McCourt lives in Larkhill, a garrison town some 11 miles from Salisbury. She is known to visit elsewhere. ..."
    "... That is such a great article b. I have had a great wry chuckle at the folly of human hubris. Fancy setting up your own daughter for an award. Certainly looks less and less like novichok and more like novifraud with every passing day. ..."
    "... Not only is the military mother Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola , she is also the last line of defence for the Army medics and other healthcare workers fighting the deadly disease ..."
    "... what a stroke of luck Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola was there, arguably the most qualified person in all of Britain to attend to the Skripals. ..."
    "... The story of the heroic Abigail McCourt in helping to save the Skripals must be too good for the likes of The Fraudian and other so-called "progressive" MSM outlets to resist. Strange that such a narrative was not brought up until now, coming close to the anniversary of the poisoning and the deadline for Britain's exit from the EU. ..."
    "... Curious that Abigail McCourt received basic first aid training at school (in which she would have been taught CPR) yet when Spire FM hosts spoke to her, she says that her training was not needed. In almost the same sentence, she says Julia Skripal was not breathing. ..."
    "... Off-Guardian on Twitter wonders if Alison McCourt had been involved in Exercise Toxic Dagger (chemical weapons training exercise) staged by The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Royal Marines in February 2018: ..."
    "... The main area for shoppers to park in Salisbury is just north of the Maltings (site of the alleged attack) so it's not surprising that someone shopping in Salisbury would pass the bench the Skripals were found on. What is surprising it that none of the family seems to have suffered any effects from the Novichok. ..."
    "... The Skirpal case, the Maidan coup and the related MH17 downing, the various gas attacks in Syria, the most recent bombing incident also in Syria, the Mueller investigation in its entirety - the sheer incompetence shown by the US and British deep states is simply staggering, and in sharp contrast to the investigative ability of this and other sites. ..."
    "... It all adds up to stasi state bullshit. They are so arrogant and cocksure of the controlled media that they can even draw attention to the provocation by seeking an award for a family member despite the prominence of the mother and her role in the power structure. Knowledge, of course, will remain limited to those who are canny enough not to believe the received propaganda wisdom of the five eyes spy state. ..."
    "... So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army? ..."
    "... Even though this could have gone a long, long way to explaining the biggest discrepancy in the government narrative (i.e. Novicock is way, way deadly only, err, umm, they didn't die). How odd. How very, very odd. You'd almost think that the government considered that acknowledging that fact would open up more questions than it would answer. Hard to see why..... ..."
    "... Recall that it was recently established and published that the Steele Dossier was compiled to act as an Insurance Policy in the event Trump won the election. See here . I posted this news as a comment and b picked up on it too, but that aspect of the Dossier is omitted from his essay above. We can see that the Dossier--like Blair's Dodgy Dossier to sell the illegal war on Iraq--has had a massive impact on Trump's presidency, which, whether you like Trump or not, is a matter of grave concern for the institutions of governance of the USA, and IMO is very close to treason. ..."
    "... Sure, the nurse revelation is curious to say the least, but I'm far more interested in the entire disinformation network built by the British along with previous and current versions operated by CIA here in USA. Think back to what Bill Casey said, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," then Rove's boast: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
    "... Add those to all the 100% evidence free accusations made against Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, other nations and private individuals--the "universal sports doping" by Russian athletes was a massive smear proven to be 100% false--and you can understand why I call it BigLie Media. Clearly, the Skripal story's utter fantasy. But the Brits will kill their own to insure the story isn't compromised--Dr. David Kelly, Dawn Sturgess, and quite likely Sergei Skripal, and likely others from incidents in the further past. ..."
    "... The Integrity Initiative was also heavily involved in promoting an anti-Russian agenda such as the Skripal affair. ..."
    "... reminds me of the kuwaiti ambassador's daughter in the runup to the first gulf war. ..."
    "... 'So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?' And how embarrassing for our 'fearless' journalists and tabloid truth seekers! Let the crowd cry out 'shame'! ..."
    Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    On March 4 2018 the British/Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found incapacitated on a bench in Salisbury. The British government asserts that they were affected by a chemical poison of the so called Novichok group. The case led to a diplomatic conflict as Britain accused Russia of an attempt to kill the Skripals. No evidence was provided by the British government to support those accusations. The Skripals have since been vanished.

    Today an intriguing new detail of the case came to light. Spire FM , a local radio station in Salisbury, reports of a young woman, Abigail McCourt, who was given a 'Lifesaver Award' for her involvement in the Skripal case:

    The 16 year old, from Larkhill, was the first to spot two people collapsed on a bench in the Maltings on March 4th and didn't hesitate to help. Abigail quickly alerted her mum, a qualified nurse, who was nearby and together they gave first aid to the victims until paramedics arrived.

    It soon became clear this was no ordinary medical incident, but the poisoning of a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, with Novichok.

    ...

    Immediately following the incident and with the world's media focused on Salisbury, the pair didn't want any want press attention and kept their involvement quiet.

    But Abby's mum now feels the time is right for her daughter to be recognised for the "incredible" way she dealt with the scenario. Alison nominated her for the Lifesaver Award at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards, and the judges were unanimous in their decision that Abigail was a very worthy winner.

    Earlier reports mentioned that a 'military nurse' had attended to the Skripals. Following the above report Elena Evdokimova checked the name of the young women's mothers and found a curiosity:

    Elena Evdokimova @elenaevdokimov7 - 10:50 utc - 19 Jan 2019

    We were right, it was Alison McCourt who was that"unknown military nurse" who, absolutely randomly, happened to be near the bench where #Skripals collapsed . Spire FM alleges that it was her daughter Abigail alerted her, but no one mentioned her before ...

    Here is the thing. Alison McCourt is not just one random 'military nurse'. She is the Chief Nursing Officer for the British Army in the rank of Colonel:

    Colonel A L McCourt OBE ARRC QHN - Assistant Head Health Strategy / Chief Nursing Officer (Army) - Senior Health Advisor (Army) Department.

    Colonel McCourt was appointed Chief Nursing Officer on February 1 2018, just one month before the Skripal incident happened. Colonel McCourt lives in Larkhill, a garrison town some 11 miles from Salisbury. She is known to visit elsewhere.


    Petri Krohn , Jan 19, 2019 3:12:45 PM | link

    Dig deep enough and you will find that Alison McCourt is married to Pablo Miller

    c1ue , Jan 19, 2019 3:16:12 PM | link

    Lark Hill - as in "V for Vendetta" Lark Hill? Hrmph.
    Zachary Smith , Jan 19, 2019 3:17:00 PM | link
    As I read this I had two thoughts. The first one is that the Brits have lost the competence they once had with this stuff. "Operation Mincemeat" was, according to all accounts, a marvel in planning, execution, and getting the desired reactions from the German High Command. The "Double-Cross System" turned the extremely risky invasion at Normandy into a success. The recent stuff is a comedy by comparison.

    ... ... ...

    Jetpack , Jan 19, 2019 3:39:34 PM | link
    Here's one way she could have made it on time:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/RoyalNavy/status/1086623282831523840?s=09
    snake , Jan 19, 2019 3:39:49 PM | link
    excellent reporting.. still we have little written collaborative evidence.. just as in 9/11 just top dogs saying improbable things.

    What seems to me important now is to develop as you have done a set of hypotheses. and to hack at them until we hit the ones which all evidence cannot dispute. Using your summary I rewrite in hypothesis form,

    uncle tungsten , Jan 19, 2019 3:44:37 PM | link
    Too good. That is such a great article b. I have had a great wry chuckle at the folly of human hubris. Fancy setting up your own daughter for an award. Certainly looks less and less like novichok and more like novifraud with every passing day.
    annie , Jan 19, 2019 4:06:54 PM | link
    from the Daily Mail:
    Not only is the military mother Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola , she is also the last line of defence for the Army medics and other healthcare workers fighting the deadly disease.

    what a stroke of luck Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola was there, arguably the most qualified person in all of Britain to attend to the Skripals.

    brook trout , Jan 19, 2019 4:10:57 PM | link
    Coincidence? Probably like most here, I think not. But isn't this something of an own goal? If indeed things are as we suspect, why would you put the daughter up for an award? Wouldn't you want the can of worms this presents to remain unopened? Can they be this incompetent? Well, looking at the Brexit process, I guess we know the answer to that last by now rhetorical question.
    Jen , Jan 19, 2019 4:22:07 PM | link
    The story of the heroic Abigail McCourt in helping to save the Skripals must be too good for the likes of The Fraudian and other so-called "progressive" MSM outlets to resist. Strange that such a narrative was not brought up until now, coming close to the anniversary of the poisoning and the deadline for Britain's exit from the EU.

    Curious that Abigail McCourt received basic first aid training at school (in which she would have been taught CPR) yet when Spire FM hosts spoke to her, she says that her training was not needed. In almost the same sentence, she says Julia Skripal was not breathing.
    https://www.spirefm.co.uk/news/local-news/2782928/exclusive-teenage-girl-describes-moment-she-found-collapsed-skripals/

    Off-Guardian on Twitter wonders if Alison McCourt had been involved in Exercise Toxic Dagger (chemical weapons training exercise) staged by The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Royal Marines in February 2018:
    https://twitter.com/OffGuardian0
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/exercise-toxic-dagger-the-sharp-end-of-chemical-warfare

    Bobby Peru , Jan 19, 2019 4:29:53 PM | link
    Say cheese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MGsqbRXuRc
    Bobby Peru , Jan 19, 2019 4:40:30 PM | link
    My dog barks some https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9SrbPkpQHA
    Robert Snefjella , Jan 19, 2019 5:10:41 PM | link
    b, you are too suspicious. Nothing to see here. Clearly way beyond a serious matter, this dastardly attack on Skripals by the Soviets, er, the Russians, er, Putin.

    In Canada our eloquent foreign Minister, in a barrage of outraged talking the talk that was accompanied by making four Russian diplomats walk the walk home, said in words that will surely take their high place in the history of inspired speeches, along with Churchill's 'Never have so many done so much for so few', and MLK's 'I have a nightmare':

    Robert Snefjella , Jan 19, 2019 5:11:39 PM | link
    And her words re the March 4 nerve agent attack on a close ally and partner of Canada "a despicable, heinous and reckless act" that potentially endangered the lives of hundreds"
    Ghost Ship , Jan 19, 2019 5:26:11 PM | link
    Strange - no military hospital in Salisbury but then there aren't military hospitals in Britain anymore. Instead the military use civilian hospitals with a Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit attached but none near Salisbury. The Ministry of Defence Hospital Units do not treat operational casualties who are treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Birmingham. You'd think the Chief Nursing Officer for the British Army, Colonel McCourt would work out off the most important site for defence medicine in the UK (QEH in Birmingham) but instead she's based at Larkhill which from memory is where the Royal Artillery is located.

    Not so strange - The area inhabited by the British Army north of Salisbury (more specifically north of the A303 road was classified as deprived because of the lack of shopping facilities, so most residents of this area do their shopping in Salisbury which has the best shopping in the area. There are now a Tesco superstore and a branch of Lidl in Tidworth so perhaps it's not so deprived anymore.

    The main area for shoppers to park in Salisbury is just north of the Maltings (site of the alleged attack) so it's not surprising that someone shopping in Salisbury would pass the bench the Skripals were found on. What is surprising it that none of the family seems to have suffered any effects from the Novichok.

    Hal Duell , Jan 19, 2019 5:39:14 PM | link
    The Skirpal case, the Maidan coup and the related MH17 downing, the various gas attacks in Syria, the most recent bombing incident also in Syria, the Mueller investigation in its entirety - the sheer incompetence shown by the US and British deep states is simply staggering, and in sharp contrast to the investigative ability of this and other sites.

    The US is fracturing, the EU is fracturing, and therein lies the greatest danger. With the overplayed sanctions only making the sanctioned effect work arounds to the point that the primacy of the US dollar is threatened, with the contain China train having left the station and recently pulling into a station purpose built on the dark side of the moon, their only options look to be to either go nuclear or go away.

    2019 looks to be a most interesting year!

    exiled off mainstreet , Jan 19, 2019 6:05:32 PM | link
    It all adds up to stasi state bullshit. They are so arrogant and cocksure of the controlled media that they can even draw attention to the provocation by seeking an award for a family member despite the prominence of the mother and her role in the power structure. Knowledge, of course, will remain limited to those who are canny enough not to believe the received propaganda wisdom of the five eyes spy state.
    Yeah, Right , Jan 19, 2019 6:12:12 PM | link
    So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?

    Even though this could have gone a long, long way to explaining the biggest discrepancy in the government narrative (i.e. Novicock is way, way deadly only, err, umm, they didn't die). How odd. How very, very odd. You'd almost think that the government considered that acknowledging that fact would open up more questions than it would answer. Hard to see why.....

    somebody , Jan 19, 2019 6:17:21 PM | link
    Posted by: Ghost Ship | Jan 19, 2019 5:26:11 PM | 20

    She lives in Aldershot like Sergeant Bailey. There is a field hospital based there, she is the chief officer

    somebody , Jan 19, 2019 6:37:39 PM | link
    Posted by: somebody | Jan 19, 2019 6:17:21 PM | 26

    Bailey lives in Alderholt. Aldershot is an hour by car from Salisbury.

    Tom Welsh , Jan 19, 2019 6:38:44 PM | link
    I am beginning to wonder if Sir Humphrey Appleby and some of his colleagues are conducting a deliberate hoax, piling impossibility upon impossibility and contradiction upon contradiction, just to see how long it takes the unbelievably gullible British public to get the joke and start throwing cabbages and rotten fruit. Not so funny for the poor woman who died - but then, as Sir Humphrey has often been heard to remark, one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.
    karlof1 , Jan 19, 2019 6:57:19 PM | link
    Recall that it was recently established and published that the Steele Dossier was compiled to act as an Insurance Policy in the event Trump won the election. See here . I posted this news as a comment and b picked up on it too, but that aspect of the Dossier is omitted from his essay above. We can see that the Dossier--like Blair's Dodgy Dossier to sell the illegal war on Iraq--has had a massive impact on Trump's presidency, which, whether you like Trump or not, is a matter of grave concern for the institutions of governance of the USA, and IMO is very close to treason.

    Sure, the nurse revelation is curious to say the least, but I'm far more interested in the entire disinformation network built by the British along with previous and current versions operated by CIA here in USA. Think back to what Bill Casey said, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," then Rove's boast: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

    Add those to all the 100% evidence free accusations made against Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, other nations and private individuals--the "universal sports doping" by Russian athletes was a massive smear proven to be 100% false--and you can understand why I call it BigLie Media. Clearly, the Skripal story's utter fantasy. But the Brits will kill their own to insure the story isn't compromised--Dr. David Kelly, Dawn Sturgess, and quite likely Sergei Skripal, and likely others from incidents in the further past.

    So, while it seems comical, this is all deadly serious.

    Krollchem , Jan 19, 2019 7:03:58 PM | link
    The Integrity Initiative was also heavily involved in promoting an anti-Russian agenda such as the Skripal affair.

    Either Chris Donnelly of the Institute for Statecraft (IoS), (formally of the British Army's Soviet Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst), or UK General Sir Richard Barrons reportedly stated that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space."

    UK: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/07/inte-j07.html

    james , Jan 19, 2019 7:51:44 PM | link
    great coverage b.. thank you... it's either a coincidence theory, or a conspiracy theory... no other choices, until the uk gets down to doing an open investigation on integrity initiative...the investigators investigating the investigators.. ain't going to happen... similar deal in the usa now.. basically this will be when hell freezes over - a very long time if ever.. meanwhile the skripals are persona non grata... it would be very interesting to find out where they are kept... it looks like their is no chance for any type of normal life for them here on out... even if the novihoax didn't kill them, the uk has done the equivalent.. it is hard not to tie operation toxic dagger into all of this... the coincidences are just too great..

    @ petri.. thanks for the that.. how did you manage to figure that one out? does that mean that allison mccourt is the daughter of pablo miller, or was allison from another relationship/marriage? of course m16 and some folks know the answer to this amazing coincidences and probably are unable to openly say..

    psychohistorian , Jan 19, 2019 7:58:50 PM | link
    @ Glen Brown and bevin with their correction to my comment.....thanks

    I was not in my best of mind and along with misspelling his name I projected my desire for more movement by the UK opposition in light of having the government paying folks to work against them.....my bad idealism........

    If it is true that Alison McCourt is married to Pablo Miller as Petri Kohn asserts in comment #1 then it looks like the daughter is being groomed for big things in the UK government.....16 years old and already an award for criminal complicity.

    pretzelattack , Jan 19, 2019 8:02:08 PM | link
    reminds me of the kuwaiti ambassador's daughter in the runup to the first gulf war.
    PavewayIV , Jan 19, 2019 8:10:51 PM | link
    Petri Krohn@1 - ? Only thing I could find is a reference to her husband Hugh - a prison officer - and her two kids, Abagail (now 16) and Cameron (now 14). That was from a DailyMail article (I know...) from Dec. 20, 2014. She was spending time away from them during Christmas when she was sent to Sierra Leone for the Ebola outbreak. The article also mentions time away from Hugh and Abagail in 2003 when she was deployed to Iraq. Couldn't find anything about Pablo Miller being married or having kids, but many mentions of his home in Salisbury.
    karlof1 , Jan 19, 2019 8:11:20 PM | link
    bevin @32--

    Nice conjecture, except that those who devised the Dossier specifically said it was to be used as insurance in case Trump won. Please see article I linked to in my comment.

    Bart Hansen , Jan 19, 2019 8:30:25 PM | link
    The daughter is what's know as a "cutout". You can't have the "nurse of all nurses" be the first on the scene. But, they didn't even bother with the daughter having to call mama at home. She was luckily "nearby", presumably lurking behind a tree.
    Ghost Ship , Jan 19, 2019 8:43:51 PM | link
    >>>>: somebody | Jan 19, 2019 6:17:21 PM | 26

    She might have been the commanding officer of 22 Field Hospital but now she's moved on.

    From the QARANC website:

    Following promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in 2011, Alison attended the Advanced Command and Staff Course. Her initial SO1 appointment was as Chief of Staff, Headquarters 2nd Medical Brigade in York in Aug 2012. Alison assumed Command of 22 Field Hospital in July 2013 and deployed the Unit to Sierra Leone on Op GRITROCK in Oct 14. She was awarded an OBE for her leadership of 22 Field during Op GRITROCK.

    On promotion to Colonel in Dec 2015 she assumed an appointment in the newly established Senior Health Advisors department and has been the lead for Assurance and now Health Strategy in that area.

    Alison assumed the appointment of Chief Nursing Officer for the Army on 1 Feb 18.

    james , Jan 19, 2019 8:57:41 PM | link
    @1 petri... unless they hooked up after 2014, your theory doesn't look very likely...

    further to @36 paveways comment from the daily mail dec 20 2014 article - Even though Lieut Col McCourt is a veteran of campaigns in Iraq and the Balkans, she admits this tour of duty has taken a toll, and that she has depended on the support of her husband Hugh, a prison officer, to help her through it. While this is her first Christmas apart from her children, she is accustomed to leaving them and her husband behind. In 2003, she left Abigail, then aged just eight months, in Hugh's arms while she went to Iraq to treat British soldiers wounded in the Gulf War. She returned there in 2008 for a second tour of duty.

    Lieut Col McCourt said: 'I have a very supportive husband. On both occasions I went to Iraq he took sabbaticals from his job to ensure that our family life was maintained. Yes, it was hard to say goodbye so soon after having my first child but you immerse yourself in your work, and on an operational tour everyone is missing someone. This Christmas he'll be with the children and my mum will join them at the family home in Aldershot. Of course I miss them all but our focus has to be saving lives here.'

    ADKC , Jan 19, 2019 8:58:24 PM | link
    brook trout @11

    Suppose you were Russian and believed that the west would not attack because of the checks and controls that exist in western democracy. Suppose a deadly incident occurred and Russia was blamed and an attack became more likely. Suppose that (as a Russian) you knew Russia wasn't involved and that the evidence was very sketchy and didn't make sense. Suppose this was was all in the public domain but instead of the incident being questioned it was just accepted and Russia was sanctioned and other western and allied countries (despite knowing it was nonsense) joined in.

    You might as a Russian come to believe that evidence didn't matter, that the west could manipulate their populations at will and the idea that there was some "restraint" on western attacks would be shown to be fanciful. You might, as a Russian, become very concerned that you might be attacked and there was a lack of restraint on the west.

    The west are blaming Russia for something they didn't do but, also, showing that they know that Russia didn't do it and, more, letting Russia know they framed them, and showing Russia that the evidence doesn't matter. Perhaps, not UK incompetence, maybe, it's all psyops.

    ...

    Ric G , Jan 19, 2019 9:23:12 PM | link
    Mr Moon, you have excelled yourself! A brilliant article, worthy of a standing ovation!

    'So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?' And how embarrassing for our 'fearless' journalists and tabloid truth seekers! Let the crowd cry out 'shame'!

    Tom , Jan 19, 2019 9:50:14 PM | link
    John Helmer raises an important question, why does the roof of Sergei's house need to be removed? Tongue firmly planted in cheek. The air leakage through the front door of Sergei's house must be through the roof! How else does the fumes from novichok get from the front door handle to the roof? Sure hope they do a proper energy efficient rebuild. Can't go wasting that soon to be arriving at Perfidious Albion's shores horror of horrors, Russian gas. North Sea gas wont last much longer.

    http://johnhelmer.net/british-government-demolishes-skripal-house-because-sergei-skripal-poisoned-himself-roof-falls-in-on-theresa-may/

    Roy G , Jan 19, 2019 10:53:35 PM | link
    So, where are the Skirpals these days? Inquiring minds want to know!

    [Jan 18, 2019] Everybody Knew WSJ Exposes Bruce Ohr's Shocking Admission To The FBI

    Jan 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    The Wall Street Journal continues to counter the liberal mainstream media's Trump Derangement Syndrome , dropping uncomfortable truth-bombs and refusing to back off its intense pressure to get to the truth and hold those responsible, accountable (in a forum that is hard for the establishment to shrug off as 'Alt-Right' or 'Nazi' or be 'punished' by search- and social-media-giants) .

    And once again Kimberley Strassel - who by now has become the focus of social media attacks for her truth-seeking reporting - does it again. Confirming what we detailed yesterday - that The Justice Department was fully aware that the notorious Steele Dossier was connected to Hillary Clinton and might be biased, a crucial detail which was omitted just weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant used to spy on the Trump campaign - Strassel makes the aggressive and correct statement that the Justice Department official's testimony raises new doubts about the bureau's honesty. Via The Wall Street Journal,

    Everybody knew.

    Everybody of consequence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department understood fully in the middle of 2016 - as the FBI embarked on its counterintelligence probe of Donald Trump - that it was doing so based on disinformation provided by Hillary Clinton's campaign.

    That's the big revelation from the transcript of the testimony Justice Department official Bruce Ohr gave Congress in August. The transcripts haven't been released, but parts were confirmed for me by congressional sources. Mr. Ohr testified that he sat down with dossier author Christopher Steele on July 30, 2016, and received salacious information the opposition researcher had compiled on Mr. Trump. Mr. Ohr immediately took that to the FBI's then-Deputy Director Andy McCabe and lawyer Lisa Page. In August he took it to Peter Strzok, the bureau's lead investigator. In the same month, Mr. Ohr believes, he briefed senior personnel in the Justice Department's criminal division: Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz, lawyer Zainab Ahmad and fraud unit head Andrew Weissman. The last two now work for special counsel Robert Mueller.

    More important, Mr. Ohr told this team the information came from the Clinton camp and warned that it was likely biased, certainly unproven.

    "When I provided [the Steele information] to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information," he testified.

    "I don't know how reliable it is. You're going to have to check it out and be aware. These guys were hired by somebody relating to -- who's related to the Clinton campaign, and be aware."

    He said he told them that Mr. Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected," and that his own wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS, which compiled the dossier. He confirmed sounding all these warnings before the FBI filed its October application for a surveillance warrant against Carter Page. We broke some of this in August, though the transcript provides new detail.

    The FBI and Justice Department have gone to extraordinary lengths to muddy these details, with cover from Democrats and friendly journalists.

    A January 2017 memo from Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, flatly (and incorrectly) insisted "the FBI's closely-held investigative team only received Steele's reporting in mid-September."

    A May 2018 New York Times report repeated that claim, s aying Mr. Steele's reports didn't reach the "Crossfire Hurricane team," which ran the counterintelligence investigation, until "mid-September."

    This line was essential for upholding the claim that the dossier played no role in the unprecedented July 31, 2016, decision to investigate a presidential campaign. Former officials have insisted they rushed to take this dramatic step on the basis of a conversation involving a low-level campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, which took place in May, before the dossier officially came into the picture. And maybe that is the case. Yet now Mr. Ohr has testified that top personnel had dossier details around the time they opened the probe.

    The Ohr testimony is also further evidence that the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in its Page warrant application. We already knew the bureau failed to inform the court it knew the dossier had come from a rival campaign. But the FISA application additionally claimed the FBI was "unaware of any derogatory information pertaining" to Mr. Steele, that he was "reliable," that his "reporting" in this case was "credible," and that the FBI only "speculates" that Mr. Steele's bosses "likely" wanted to "discredit" Mr. Trump.

    Speculates? Likely? Mr. Ohr makes clear FBI and Justice officials knew from the earliest days that Mr. Steele was working for the Clinton campaign, which had an obvious desire to discredit Mr. Trump. And Mr. Ohr specifically told investigators that they had every reason to worry Mr. Steele's work product was tainted.

    Strassel concludes succinctly - and ominously for anyone who still believes that 'we, the people' have any freedom left, that the testimony has three other implications.

    First, it further demonstrates the accuracy of the House Intelligence Committee Republicans' memo of 2018 - which noted Mr. Ohr's role and pointed out that the FBI had not been honest about its knowledge of the dossier and failed to inform the court of Mrs. Ohr's employment at Fusion GPS.

    Second, the testimony also destroys any remaining credibility of the Democratic response, in which Mr. Schiff and his colleagues claimed Mr. Ohr hadn't met with the FBI or told them anything about his wife or about Mr. Steele's bias until after the election.

    And third, the testimony raises new concerns about Mr. Mueller's team . Critics have noted Mr. Weissman's donations to Mrs. Clinton and his unseemly support of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates's obstruction of Trump orders. It now turns out that senior Mueller players were central to the dossier scandal. The conflicts of interest boggle the mind.

    And Strassel concludes unequivocally, the Ohr testimony is evidence the FBI itself knows how seriously it erred. The FBI has been hiding and twisting facts from the start.


    the French bitch , 8 minutes ago link

    This is the country we live in. Better hope you never get in the crosshairs of any of these malefactors.

    Angry Panda , 9 minutes ago link

    Unless people are going to prison for this B.S, this is none news.

    Just Another Vietnam Vet , 15 minutes ago link

    ..."EVERYBODY KNEW" .... ... "The conflicts of interest boggle the mind" .....


    that is unless you are willfully blind, and your mind is as completely boggled and f***ed up

    as some of the sociopath Dims without any conscious or honor,

    and or the ones engaged in the attempted treasonous coup,

    and or the Dims engaging in felonies and treasonous collusion.

    consider me gone , 1 hour ago link

    Correct me if I'm wrong but let's see if I've got this right. The so-called "information" looked like ****, smelled like **** and tasted like **** and the world's premier investigative organization took that ****, knowing full well it was shitty, to the FISA Court to begin their treasonous pursuit of an American president contrary to the Constitution they vowed to protect. And they're still at it today because they can't admit their actions are far more illegal than what they falsely allege Trump did. Did I miss anything?

    Kidbuck , 1 hour ago link

    So general Flynn gives a few questionable statements to the FBI and he's prosecuted. Hillary gives a whole ******* false dossier to the FBI and the whole FBI and Justice Department lick her *******?

    Celotex , 1 hour ago link

    The general statute of limitations for noncapital federal crimes is five years. (18 U.S.C. § 3282.) This statute of limitations applies to perjury, filing a false bankruptcy form, embezzlement, bribery, and destroying records, and all other bankruptcy crimes.

    Dickweed Wang , 1 hour ago link

    The conflicts of interest boggle the mind.

    And those conflicts of interest have pretty much been public knowledge for over a year. Yet nothing is done and the Mewliar ****-show just keeps chugging along. When you look at it objectively there is really one primary reason for that . . . because the MSM (other than the WSJ) refuses to cover those conflict of interest issues (among many other issues that would be detrimental to the 'Russian collusion' investigation). Enemy of the people indeed.

    CarthaginemDelendamEsse , 1 hour ago link

    I'm tired of thes e ******** stories. When are heads finally going to roll? If not, these articles are a waste of 1s and zeros.

    Neochrome , 1 hour ago link

    " The FBI has been hiding and twisting facts from the start."

    Yet Nixon was a "crook" for 7 min. of missing tape records?

    How about we have a discussion about expelling Schiff from the Senate instead?

    mrjinx007 , 1 hour ago link

    I am not sure if it can happen as these agency's control and power is greater than rule of law but to really get back to the original principles of our constitution, we have to do away with just about all of them. Those trator Clintonite, Bushites and Obamaite clans were hellbent on destroying this country and they sure have done a good job of it. One more globalist presidents and that is it; adios gringos.

    East Indian , 1 hour ago link

    If he is unable to punish those employees, Pres. Trump should at least change the name of the organisation to Federal Investigation Bureau.

    Leguran , 1 hour ago link

    The FBI did not err. The FBI did nothing wrong. People within the FBI broke laws. People within the FBI committed fraud, abuse of power under color of authority. Lets not let these rotten apples hide behind the facad of the FBI

    Kidbuck , 55 minutes ago link

    ********. Many rank and file FBI agents knew what was going and did and said nothing. They are sworn to uphold the Constitution not to obey every **** sucker in their chain of command. They all put their personal ease and comfort ahead of doing the right and leagal thing. Shitcan the lot of them.

    XWeatherman , 1 hour ago link

    9/11-Traitor Robert Mueller is covering up Hillary Clinton's crimes by misdirection.

    [Jan 17, 2019] FISA shocker: DOJ official Bruce Ohr warned Steele dossier was connected to Clinton, might be biased by John Solomon

    Jan 17, 2019 | thehill.com

    FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in zeal to obtain warrant targeting Carter Page just weeks before Election Day

    When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI's Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.

    The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele's Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative's work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton's campaign and might be biased.

    Ohr's briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.

    Read more

    [Jan 15, 2019] The man behind the Russiagate hoax set to resign (Video)

    Jan 15, 2019 | theduran.com

    A source close to Rosenstein said he intends to stay on until Mueller submits a report to the Justice Department on the Russian meddling investigation. The source said that would mean Rosenstein would remain until early March. Several legal sources have said they expect the Mueller team to submit its report by mid-to-late February, although they said that timeline could change based on unforeseen investigative developments.

    Rosenstein had long intended to serve about two years as the Justice Department's No. 2 official, these officials say. They add that this is his own plan and that he is not being forced out by the White House. That's despite the fact that he's been a frequent target of criticism from President Donald Trump on Twitter.

    The administration officials say he plans to remain on the job until after a new attorney general is confirmed. After pushing out Jeff Sessions in November, Trump nominated William Barr, who planned to be at the Capitol on Wednesday, beginning a round of courtesy calls with senators ahead of his confirmation hearing, which begins Jan. 15.

    White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday on Fox News: "I know the deputy attorney general has always planned to roughly stay around two years. My guess is that he is making room for the new attorney general to build a team that he wants around him."

    Rosenstein's intentions were first reported by ABC News. He did not respond to questions Wednesday morning.

    Rosenstein considered resigning last fall, after a report surfaced that he had advocated secretly recording Trump, but he decided to stay on the job. Aides said he made a comment about having someone "wear a wire" around the president as a joke during a meeting.

    Rosenstein had been overseeing the Mueller's investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice because Sessions recused himself because of his role in the Trump campaign. And even with the arrival of acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who took over the probe, Rosenstein has continued to help supervise it.

    If Barr is confirmed, as seems likely, he will fully take over the investigation. Several legal sources have said it appears that the Mueller investigation is entering its final stages. But Barr would play a key role in deciding whether and how to share Mueller's expected report with Congress and whether to make all or part of it public.

    Responding to news of Rosenstein's impending departure, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told CNN's "New Day" that he has "deep concern" about how Barr will handle the Mueller probe. He referred to a memo Barr wrote in which he was critical of the investigation.

    "William Barr was sending freelance memos to the Trump administration making a case to undercut the Mueller investigation," Kaine said. "So the deep concern will be if he comes in and Rosenstein is gone, is this just a preface to either undercutting the investigation or trying to keep the results of it hidden from the American public."

    Rosenstein has been a consistent defender of Mueller and the Justice Department, responding to attacks from Republicans in Congress. He told a Law Day conference last May that the department "is not going to be extorted," after some House Republicans raised the prospect of seeking Rosenstein's impeachment.

    The attacks from Congress and the White House were a jolt for Rosenstein, who enjoyed bipartisan support for most of his three decades as a federal prosecutor. But his congressional support faltered when he wrote a memo providing a rationale for Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.

    By appointing Mueller to take over the Russia investigation as a special counsel, Rosenstein won back Democrats but angered the president, who tweeted, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."

    [Jan 14, 2019] The British Role In Initiating Russiagate

    Notable quotes:
    "... "Democratic hopes for a wave election that could carry them to a significant House majority have been tempered in recent weeks amid a shifting political landscape ." ..."
    Jan 14, 2019 | www.shiftfrequency.com

    Harley Schlanger – After months of hyping the prospects for a Democratic Party sweep into control of the U.S. House in the November 6 midterm elections, the anti-Trump fanatics in the "Fake News" mainstream media seem to be recognizing that the dramatic change in thinking among Americans, which led to Donald Trump's victory in November 2016, was not a momentary phenomenon.

    The lead election story in the {Washington Post} on October 21 reflects this recognition, in its opening sentence:; "Democratic hopes for a wave election that could carry them to a significant House majority have been tempered in recent weeks amid a shifting political landscape ." While the rest of the article is full of the usual slanders against the President and his supporters, the underlying tone reflects the fear of those behind the coup attempt to topple Trump, that Americans have awakened to the fact that the British, and their allies among the Obama-Clinton Democrats, Bush Republicans, and lying media, remain committed to overturning the result of the 2016 election.

    Trump has been holding election rallies across the country, with large, wildly enthusiastic crowds greeting him, cheering his charge that his opponents are conducting a witch hunt against him, due to their fear that he -- and they -- are taking the country back from the free-trading, war-mongering, anti-growth globalists who drove the nation into a ditch during the Bush and Obama administrations. That the media continues to distort his comments, and to push instead the largely-rejected fake narrative of "Russian meddling-Trump collusion" as being responsible for his election, only serves to strengthen the anti-establishment mood of the voters, which does not always show up in the polls.

    To fully defeat the coup, it is essential that the British role in initiating "Russiagate" be exposed , as it also explains the slavish devotion to British imperial geopolitics that characterized the approach of the Bush and Obama administrations, and was embraced by his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump won his election by ruthlessly exposing how those policies risked triggering World War III and a global economic crash, and voters responded to his promise to work for peaceful cooperation with Russia and China, and against the predatory City of London/Wall Street financial system.

    It is therefore highly significant that the former U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Joseph DiGenova, identified the British role explicitly in an interview with that city's radio station, WMAL, on October 15. Asked about the delay in declassifying documents related to the secret FISA Court warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, DiGenova identified the hand of British intelligence, in collaboration with the Obama Administration, which would be proven once those documents become public. The British and the Australian governments begged for Trump to delay the declassification.

    The release of these documents is what scares the British, he said. "British MI6 conducted illegal electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens at the request of the FBI and [CIA's] Brennan .Illegal spying by the Brits. That's why the Brits are going crazy."

    "That's a remarkable issue," he continued. "We talk about domestic surveillance all the time. But when you stretch out to work with foreign governments–read 'collude'–to spy on an American citizen, that really opens up an entirely different can of worms. It opens up a huge criminal liability on the part of American intelligence officials, especially Brennan. Brennan actually visited London, before all this started, and visited MI6 and GCHQ before it started ."

    After speaking further about the complicity of Obama intelligence officials in illegal spying and involvement in the coup attempt, DiGenova explained how they planted the Russiagate story through a typical FBI sting operation. The documents "will show Halper [a joint asset of the CIA and MI6] used a CIA agent to entrap Papadopoulos and Page [two low-level Trump campaign advisers], and funnel back to U.S. [lies about Russian involvement], to the FBI, to get the FISA warrant. [To get] MI6 and GCHQ to do illegal overseas surveillance of the these people–totally illegal! The application [for a FISA warrant] presents [Page] as in cahoots. They knew it was all fabricated." He characterized the entire operation as "so much worse than Watergate."

    DiGenova warned that "if Republicans lose the House, these investigations are over because [Senate Intelligence Chair] Burr is a chicken–the only way it will come out is through a criminal investigation by DOJ, and that won't happen unless Sessions and Rosenstein are gone after the election. If we lose the House, all of the investigations come to an end. Every one of them."

    President Trump is well aware of this, and that is why he is making it a theme of his campaign rallies. As the [Washington Post] story reveals, this strategy is having an effect, and threatens to derail the hopes of the anti-Trumpers for taking over the Congress on November 6, as winning a Democratic majority is a pre-condition for an impeachment of the President.

    SF Source Dave Janda Oct 2018

    [Jan 14, 2019] The Russia Hoax The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump by Gregg Jarrett

    The books does not answer the key question: if it was not Russian influence, who of forign powers tried to influence the election: GB, Israel, Saudi, or all three. We have solid evidence of interference of British intelligence services into the election. Which means May government interference.
    Also important to understand that FBI from the very beginning was apolitical tool. Nothing new here.
    This dirty political witch hunt has one major goal to cement the cracks in neoliberal society that appear after 2008 Financial crash. This attempt failed and Pateigenosse Mueller is unable to change that. Confidence in the ruling neoliberal oligarchy collapsed and problem with the inequality laid now bare.
    Jan 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com

    KB from Illinois 5.0 out of 5 stars Very detailed. Raises many questions about politically motivated investigations. September 14, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

    My interest in this book occurred by chance. Over the past couple years reading news stories on sites like Yahoo News I sensed a very overt stance against President Trump. It appeared very obvious to me, but I wanted some confirmation whether these views may have validity, or perhaps not. So I started to investigate other opinions via some of the conservative talk radio shows. Up until this time, I rarely listened to them. One was the Sean Hannity Show and Gregg Jarrett was sitting in for Sean on one of the shows. He mentioned his book and I thought it sounded interesting. My basic assumption even prior to reading this book was I never felt there was any illegal Trump/Russian collusion in our recent election. I couldn't see how it would ever be done in such a way that would actually affect the voting outcome (other than if it were some kind of ballot box type fraud). So I had doubts about all the related investigations. When this book was mentioned I figured it would offer some factual information to help me understand the investigations better. It did accomplish that. And much more awareness.

    One of the major items about this book is that it is well researched and documented. This made me feel somewhat comfortable about its content. There is so much misinformation making its rounds today that knowing what is truthful and what isn't can become a real guessing game. I could even ask 'Did Mr. Jarrett fabricate his sources'? At this point I will go on faith that they are real.

    Based on that assumption, he presents a very hard case about the Russian collusion investigation as not being quite what the U.S.A. people are being led to believe by the media outlets. So much so, I hope this book could be a catalyst for other investigations (assuming that isn't already being planned). As summarized in this book, a major point is about federal investigative departments having integrity in performing their duties, and doing so legally and without prejudice or political partisanship. This book does raise some real concerns.

    The author states at the end of the book "The people who should read this book, probably won't". Unfortunately he is probably correct. As a country we seem so divided today politically. It is my impression that anti-Trumpers will probably not want to acknowledge any conflicting thoughts or facts to their beliefs. But this book could be a great exercise in broadening one's knowledge regarding the investigations on Trump. It would show a different viewpoint than that being touted by much of the media, and has the facts backing it up. At the very least, it can provide some food for thought.

    Grady T. Birdsong 5.0 out of 5 stars Tells the honest truth about corruption in our Government November 23, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

    As Gregg Jarrett states in the Epilogue of this book, "The people who should read this book, probably won't... they are intellectually dishonest in believing that the president must have committed some crime in connection with Russia...There was never any plausible evidence that Trump or his campaign collaborated with Russia to win the presidency... Comey's scheme to trigger the appointment of his friend as special counsel was a devious maneuver by an unscrupulous man..."
    As many of these events unfolded I have watched closely and performed my own "tests of reasonableness" from facts presented. Utilizing logic and common sense I often wondered if I was missing something? What crystal ball would have predicted that Donald Trump would run for the presidency? One example: The press told us he had been a political asset for many years and had been exchanging Intel with the Russians...
    Then I heard about this book, purchased it and began reading it... I could hardly put it down... The information in it is astonishing! It is all to clear now...
    Jarrett has researched, compiled and formatted an almost air-tight legal case (within this book) for prosecuting these "weasels." The astonishing levels of corruption and crimes committed by those in the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI are unprecedented. He has compiled an extraordinary amount of source information to back up his many claims throughout the book. I am totally perplexed that our so-called leaders in Congress are allowing this abuse to go unpunished... baffling? This disgraceful abuse of power documented by Jarrett will come back to haunt us! A well written expose by Mr. Jarrett!

    E. Christine Hess 5.0 out of 5 stars Mueller, Rosenstein & the members of the Special Council SHOULD be on trial! November 24, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

    Gregg Jarrett's research leaves NO DOUBT that drastic action needs to be taken to hold these people- PRETENDING to represent the law- accountable & end their "assassination" tactics on our tax dollar.
    This is not Halloween, not a play. This is REALITY with our laws running amok!
    And our Congress - our elected officials, supposedly servants of We, the People, - is not taking action?
    How is this possible?

    Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars The deep bias rooted in the Deep State, better known now as The Swamp October 8, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

    Incredibly well researched and well written book which explains methodically in an easy to read style the undeniable deep seated bias against President Trump at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI. They tried to first prevent him from being elected by exonerating Hillary Clinton of a long list of crimes committed during her tenure as Secretary of State and then smearing him with a politically motivated fake "Dossier". When that didn't work, they have tried to undermine his presidency from the start with an equally politically motivated Special Prosecutor investigating "Collusion with Russia" in an investigation which had no crime to investigate from the start. A must read for all Americans.

    Andrew Maile 5.0 out of 5 stars A very informative, but yet digestible, read........ September 30, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

    This author writes with a very smooth, easy, but detailed style. The book brings in much law for the reader to digest, but, somehow, does not get a reader tangled up in the weeds. As for the thrust of the book: A detailed 'tick tock' of the day by day events that have taken America to the point we are today on this entire question of Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election.
    This book really is vivid proof that the 'deep state' does emphatically exist. Not as a structure or organization with secret meetings,rituals or handshakes. But as a mentality, or common political/social view of government, stemming from the longevity of bureaucracy to feel invulnerable to popular will because of their simple edict that 'we'll still be here after you're long gone'. And from this, these bureaucrats build liaisons with favoring political elites that lead to deep, hidden, obscure --shall we say 'deep state'-- actions to pervert the popular will for the ends of a few.
    This book vividly displays why bureaucrats (whose lifeblood is to promote more government) so turn their collective hand to supporting Democrats, the party of government. Yates covering for Comey and the blackmailing of Gen. Flynn, Comey leaking to a friend in Academia that provokes the appointment of his (Comey's) close associate --indeed, his mentor-- Robert Mueller. Senior bureaucrats (McCabe, Strzok) playing inside baseball to maneuver themselves for promotion in the expected new (Democratic) administration that they so much support and wish for. Indeed friendships with FISA judges to assure bogus warrants can be obtained against political enemies.
    Where money and power are traded as coin of the realm in a way that is so antiseptic and hidden. Nobody says 'How much money will it take'; instead it's 'I can help you fund raise'. Rod Blagojevich was foolish enough to call a bribe a bribe...well, he's in jail, but Strzok's wife isn't.
    It just goes on and on................it's simple corruption!!! And the band plays on......the human comedy continues........

    JG Kuhl 5.0 out of 5 stars How about a media complicity sequel? September 3, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

    Excellent detailed and researched book that simply amazes me. Lynch, Comey, Clinton, Stzrok, Orr, Rosenstein, McCabe, Reid and Brennen all worked seamlessly to install Hillary and have a backup plan B to lay the groundwork to impeach Trump in case she doesn't make it. All under the oversight of Obama. Neat trick, but what follows is even more orchestrated: MEDIA COMPLICITY! You can't pull this off unless you have the full cooperation willingly or otherwise of: NBC, CBS, NPR, ABC, MSNBC, and most of all CNN, the New York Times, and Washington Post! Here's where the real story lies. The media and the Democrat party are simpatico, joint at the brain and mouth and one other orifice. This is the real story that Jarrett only pays passing attention to. Sequel maybe, I hope so. Jon Kuhl Papillion, NE & New England

    Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars The Deep State Is Real September 14, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

    This book is very thorough and completely exposes the Deep State. If there were any doubts about the conspiracy to depose President Trump before reading this book, there certainly aren't any afterwards. After reading the book, I am very disappointed and discouraged to find that our government has such liars and criminals in the FBI, the DOJ, and the Congress. I have completely lost any confidence I had in the U.S. government and will never believe in it again, unless there is a complete house-cleaning in the FBI and the DOJ.

    S. Martin Shelton 4.0 out of 5 stars This attack to undermine our democracy is unparalleled in the history of our republic. October 1, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

    Jarrett pens a comprehensive review of the Deep State's inordinate fraud on our Constitution -- perhaps the greatest attack on our constitutional republic in the history of our country. He writes in clear and empathetic style. His narrative evolves in a coherent and logical progression that details the conspirators' skullduggery in an "ABC" type of progression. He cites exactly who violated the relevant federal statute and why and how it was violated. Unfortunately, as of 30 September 2018 -- the date I'm preparing the review -- none of the miscreants have been indicted even though the documentation of evidence is ponderous.

    Larry A. Whited 4.0 out of 5 stars One Less than Five Stars August 8, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

    Gregg Jarrett's study -- and that is what this book is, a study -- covers two main aspects of recent history. First and foremost it is an in-depth look at the tactics and forces arrayed against President Trump. Intertwined with this comes by necessity a parallel look at Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, her presidential run, as well as a broader look at the activities of the Clintons with the nearly full support of those same forces that are now aligned against the presidency of Donald Trump. The nature of the often overlapping issues and the personnel involved has resulted in a fair amount of repetition of key points. This was not a lazy attempt to achieve a book-length manuscript, as Jarrett's original copy by his own admission in the acknowledgments was a hefty 100,000 words before the publisher encouraged him to trim things down.

    It is unfortunate that this book will be dismissed by so many who are unwilling to understand and accept that the pervasive high-level animosity against President Trump has evolved into a direct and active threat against our country -- and this threat is compounded by a complicit media that is eager to pounce. The rule of law has been twisted and contorted if not completely abandoned. Trump is the primary target, but whether by design or happenstance it is the U.S. Constitution that is being the most assaulted. The danger of this cannot be overemphasized -- we are at a critical crossroads. Gregg Jarret understands this and was motivated to bring this truth to light. He is no sycophant of President Trump. His loyalty is to the rule of law and to our Constitution rather than to political agendas on either side.

    I withheld one star because a great opportunity was lost. This book will never appear in classrooms, and it will likely be stocked in few law libraries. It most certainly should be, and it needs to be read and studied. The flagrant abuses of power by the DOJ, the FBI, and others need to be brought out into a bright light and the corruption purged. As a people we need to get our head out of the sand and realize what has been going on behind closed doors -- our future is most definitely at stake. The lost opportunity that I am alluding to comes down to the expressed (albeit well deserved) disdain and disgust that Gregg Jarrett now has towards those who are participating in this hoax that he has so thoroughly revealed. I fear even the preface itself will turn away those who most need to read this book.

    What will be perceived as bias before the facts are presented and developed will allow or even cause those who need to read this book to close their minds, giving them the excuse they want to dismiss the evidence. If strictly the evidence and history had alone been presented with Jarrett's (again, well-deserved) animosity being held in check and edited out, then perhaps this book could have become a classic for later generations to study assuming that we survive these perilously subversive times. I did the math, and there are 771 supporting references -- an average of 70 per chapter -- documenting Jarrett's research, plus 12 references even in the epilogue. Obviously, we are not talking about willfully blind opinion with no basis in fact.

    The antagonists who post their 1-star reviews with almost all of them having obviously never read the book (Re. few verified purchases) reveal a dangerous willful ignorance that they are happy to embrace. Their mindset should concern us all.

    [Jan 13, 2019] Deep State neutered Trump: I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President

    He essentially became a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a Deep State controlled republican. In any case he betrayed his voters in a way that resembles Obama betrayal. One has a fake slogan "change we can believe in" that other equally fake "Make [middle] America Great Again" (which means restoration of well-being of middle class and working class in my book, not the continuation of Obama foreign wars, and tax cuts for for corporations and super rich.
    And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters. He might do good and not to try to run in 2020. He definitely is no economic nationalist. Compare his policies with Tucker Carlson Jan 2, 2019 speech to see the difference. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties.
    And his "fight" with the Deep State resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two.
    Most of his appointees would make Hillary proud. That that extends beyond rabid neocons like Haley, Mattis, Bolton and Pompeo.
    Notable quotes:
    "... The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them. ..."
    "... Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. ..."
    "... It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG, fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors. ..."
    "... They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them. ..."
    "... The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement. ..."
    "... It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way ..."
    Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
    Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in Helsinki last summer.

    "I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."

    "I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.

    The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."

    "I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I do it with all countries." - Politico

    In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans.

    "The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said.

    When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?"

    "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."

    Trump went on an epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!"

    rumcho

    Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for Washington Post, five years later he gets a government contract with the CIA for $600 million. Are you connecting the dots? You do the numbers. This is how fascism works. Bezos is a crony capitalist joker.

    Anunnaki

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/the-trump-russia-scam-how-obama-enabled-the-fbi-to-spy-on-trump.html#more

    is Trump waiting for Mueller to lay down his cards? Head him off at the pass and arrest Obama, Rice, Jarrett, Lynch, Comey, Rosenstein and McCabe all on day 1

    best defense is a good offense. Make the narrative about Dem sedition not impending House impeachment hearings.

    You are President, start acting like it. Make them fear you.

    your re-election depends on Mike Obama not being your opponent.

    Let it Go

    WaPo, again?

    The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them.

    Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. The article below delves into how WaPo is behind many of the big stories that manipulate America and moves the needle of public opinion in huge ways.

    http://Washington-post-influence-and-power.html

    MoralsAreEssential

    It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG, fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors.

    shadow54

    They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them.

    The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement.

    It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way.

    Then there is the news that Fusion GPS worked with the Democracy Integrity Project and Knew Knowledge to run a fake Russian bots campaign against Roy Moore. The Democracy Integrity Project was started by Feinstein's aide and with New Knowledge wrote a report on Russian bots for the Senate Intelligence Committee. So the Senate Intelligence Committee hired creators of fake Russian bots to write a report on Russian bots.

    [Jan 13, 2019] The Trump-Russia Scam - How Obama Enabled The FBI To Spy On Trump

    Notable quotes:
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... There is a major flaw in reasoning here. Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system. Trump's election was almost certainly arranged ..."
    "... Sanders was a 'sheepdog' and Hillary ran a terrible campaign in which she made obvious mistakes that a seasoned campaigner like herself would never make; ..."
    "... British involvement in the election (Fusion GPS, Cambridge Analytica, a Brit 'spy' in the Sanders campaign, etc.) suggests CIA-MI6 working together; ..."
    "... MAGA is a POLICY CHOICE as much as it is a campaign slogan. It is designed to meet the challenge posed by Russia and China and 'turn the page' on the deceit and duplicity of the Obama Administration just as Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" was designed to turn the page on the the militarism of the Bush Administration. These BI-PARTISAN page-turnings ensure that there is no accountability and provides each new Administration with a new sly story line that the public readily swallows. Each new Presidential charade entertains and misdirects as the interests of the Empire are advanced with a refreshed box of tricks and dishonest narratives. ..."
    "... Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton? ..."
    "... And I don't buy the theory that Hillary is hell bent on war. The Clinton's are very rational and calculating and no President has the freedom that your theory suggests. IMO what the Deep State has done under their man Trump is very similar to what the Deep State would have done if they had selected Clinton instead. The fact is, a populist nationalist is what was deemed necessary to meet the challenge from Russia and China. And that is what we got (surprise!). ..."
    "... I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people ..."
    "... This pretty well sums it up for me. Being old enough to remember FDR and the brief rise of the middle class in the 40's, 50's and 60's (and having benefited from that attempt at leveling the playing field), I am more than saddened at the downward spiral of our nation ..."
    "... Whether this will lead to badly needed fixes for the heinous wealth inequality (started with Reagan) is doubtful but at least the conversation is now underway (started with Bernie) which is the first step. Tax increases, social security stabilization, re-funneling wasted MIC billions to domestic programs for the poor, etc. It is a start. Will it become a solution or a revolution in time? That is up to the people who are still under the yoke of neoliberalism and global capital flight. ..."
    "... What is quite remarkable, despite all the investigative effort, is how clean Trump has managed to keep himself despite building a fortune in one of the toughest cities in the world, building himself up through the eras of the five families, junk bonds and ponzi schemes and soviet union mobsters, not to mention the corruption of the poltical classes and regulatory abuses and unionised labor. ..."
    "... For the world's he moves in, the only explanation that gives him enough protection is that for a long time Trump has been a protected FBI asset for one of the field offices, possibly now senior service figures. ..."
    "... One thing the US deep state and their Mueller proxy would have on Trump, and most if not all of Trump's team, is collusion with Israel (can this convert into charges of treason as threats). ..."
    "... Pat Lang has a post up "What is wrong with Trump?" "But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or some thing in Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump, something that he fears to unleash through decisive action? pl" ..."
    "... Collusion with Israel is something neither side - team Trump and the deep state - would wish to bring into the open, but this may be the only thing they have on Trump. ..."
    "... Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy. ..."
    Jan 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
    The Trump-Russia Scam - How Obama Enabled The FBI To Spy On Trump Jose Garcia , Jan 13, 2019 1:51:10 PM | link

    Despite the loss of major narratives, the war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated. The main of tool in this war are allegations of relations between Trump and anything Russia. The war runs along several parallel paths.

    The narrative war in the media is most visible one. When any of the fake stories about Trump and Russia gets debunked and disposed, new ones are created or others intensified.

    In parallel to these propaganda efforts the deep state created an investigation that Trump has no way to escape from. Enabled by one of the Obama administrations last acts the investigation is using signal intelligence to entrap and flip the people surrounding Trump (see section three below). The big price will be Trump himself. Here we take a look at what transpired during the last weeks.


    One major anti-Trump narrative was that 'Russian influence' helped to put him into office. This was based on the alleged nefarious influence a Russian clickbait company, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Peterburg, had on the U.S. electorate. That explanation never made sense. Little of the IRA activities had to do with the election. It used sockpuppets on Facebook and Twitter to attract people to websites filled with puppy pictures or similar nonsense. The IRA would then sell advertisement and promotions on these sites.

    This was obvious for anyone following the factual content of the news instead of the 'opinions' a whole bunch of anti-Trump 'experts' and the media formed around them.

    That the Mueller investigation finally indicted several of the IRA's officers over minor financial transactions was seen as a confirmation of the political aspects of the IRA activities. But nearly all the reporting left out that Mueller confirmed the commercial intent behind the IRA and its activities. There is nothing political in the accusations. Indeed point 95 of the Mueller indictment of the IRA says:

    Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts , including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.

    Part of the false narrative of a political influence campaign was the claim that the $100,000 the IRA spent for advertisement to promote its clickbait webpages through Facebook ads somehow moved people to vote for Trump. But 56% of the IRA ads ran after the election, 25% of all its ads were never seen by anyone. How a few $10,000 for ads only few saw moved an election that was fought with several billions spent by each candidate's campaign was left unexplained.

    This week, only fifteen month after this site came to the conclusion that IRA was a commercial clickbait business , the Washington Post finally admitted that the alleged political targeting of voters by the IRA never happened:

    [T]he common understanding is that Russia's interference efforts included sophisticated targeting of specific voting groups on Facebook, which could have made the difference in states that Trump narrowly won on his way to an electoral-vote victory.

    That understanding about Russia's sophisticated targeting, though, is not supported by the evidence -- if it's not flat-out wrong.
    ...
    Most of the ads purchased by the Russians didn't specify a geographic target smaller than the United States on the whole, according to a Post review of the ads released by the House Intelligence Committee. Those that did target specific states heavily targeted those that weren't really considered targets of the 2016 election, such as Missouri and Maryland. And of those ads that did target specific states, most happened well before or well after the final weeks of the campaign.

    All the claims that some Russian sockpuppets influenced the 2016 elections were and are nonsense.The IRA sockpuppets never had any political intent.

    Likewise the allegations that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and Clinton crony Podesta's email are mere assertions for which no hard evidence was ever provided. The only known fact is that the emails and papers were real, and that there content revealed the shoddiness of Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her campaign.


    Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. Last week the New York Times claimed that Paul Manafort, who for some time ran the Trump election campaign, gave public and internal polling data to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska: Manafort Accused of Sharing Trump Polling Data With Russian Associate . A day after that sensational claim made a large splash throughout U.S. media the New York Times recanted:

    Kenneth P. Vogel @kenvogel - 18:39 utc - 9 Jan 2019

    CORRECTION: PAUL MANAFORT asked KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK to pass TRUMP polling to the Ukrainian oligarchs SERHIY LYOVOCHKIN & RINAT AKHMETOV, & not to OLEG DERIPASKA, as originally reported. We have corrected the story & I deleted a tweet repeating the error.

    Duh. Manafort gave polling data to his Ukrainian fixer Konstantin Kilimnik with the request to pass it along to Ukrainian oligarchs for who he had worked before joining the Trump campaign. Kilimnik had long worked for the International Republican Institute office in Moscow. The IRI is a CIA offshot under Republican Party tutelage that is used to influence politics abroad. Its long time head was the deceased hawkish Senator John McCain. While he worked with Kilimnik in the Ukraine, Manafort concentrated on moving the Ukraine towards the European Union and away from Russia. His and Kilimnik efforts were always opposed to Russian interests. But the NYT and others falsely try to pass them off as the opposite with the sole purpose of feeding the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign.


    Another anti-Trump/anti-Russian propaganda effort is a new sensational NYT piece on obvious misbehavior in the upper rows of the FBI :

    In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests , according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

    The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence.

    The NYT lets it seem as if the decision to launch a counter-intelligence investigation related to Trump was as based on some reasonable suspicion the FBI had. It was not. This was an act of revenge by the upper anti-Trump echelons in the FBI with which they attempted to undermine Trump's presidency. Note what the claimed suspicion was based on:

    Mr. Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.

    Other factors fueled the F.B.I.'s concerns, according to the people familiar with the inquiry. Christopher Steele, a former British spy who worked as an F.B.I. informant, had compiled memos in mid-2016 containing unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail and bribe him.

    Trump made a joke during the election campaign asking Russia to release the 30,000 emails Hillary Clinton had deleted from her illegal private email server. There is no requirement, as far as I know, for any candidate to criticize this or that country. How can not following the non existing requirement to criticize Russia be suspicious? The Republican Party did not soften its convention platform on Ukraine. It rejected an amendment that would have further sharpened it. Overall the Republican platform was more hawkish than the Democratic one. The Steele dossier was of course from A to Z made up nonsense paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

    It is non sensible to claim that these were reasonable suspicions sufficient to open a counter-intelligence investigation. The hasty FBI move to launch a counter-intelligence operation obviously had a different motive and aim.

    After Trump fired FBI director Comey, the FBI was led by Andrew McCabe, later also fired for leaking to the media and lying about it. His legal council was Lisa Page who exchange tons of anti-Trump SMS messages with her lover, the FBI agent Peter Strozk. These are the people who initiated the counter-intelligence investigation :

    Strzok and Page sent other text messages that raise the possibility they were discussing opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Trump before Comey's firing.

    "And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok wrote to Page on the day of Comey's ouster.

    Andy is Andrew McCabe, who served as deputy FBI director.

    Page gave some indication in her congressional testimony in July 2018 that the text message was a reference to an investigation separate from the obstruction probe that has already been reported.

    Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it did not do so at all :

    In the case of the investigation into Trump, the FBI's decision to open a file on the president so quickly after Comey's firing in May 2017 was a source of concern for some officials at the Justice Department because the FBI acted without first consulting leadership at the department . But those worries were allayed when, days later, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was appointed to oversee the Russia probe ...

    After Comey was fired, the FBI made a very hasty move, without reasonable suspicion and without informing the Justice Department, to launch a counter-intelligence operation involving the sitting president and his administration. What was the real purpose of this move?

    Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation, unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates.

    It was the Obama administration which had given the FBI access to this tool :

    The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer - 4:05 utc - 12 Jan 2019

    On his way out the door, we all were wallowing in our winter of discontent, Obama signed an executive order...
    ...
    The order revised the rules around intelligence sharing among our intel community. Specifically, it made the firehose of raw intelligence collected by the NSA directly accessible to the FBI and CIA. Instead of having to ask for intel and getting what they filtered down the FBI and CIA could directly access the unfiltered "SigInt" or signals intelligence. Intercepted phone calls, emails, raw intel from human sources. Everything our vast intelligence vacuum hoovers up, available directly... but only for counterintel and foreign intel purposes .

    The NSA can sit on virtually every communication into and out of the U.S. that takes place over networks. Obama made it possible for the FBI to directly access everything they had on Trump, et al. Obama supercharged the FBI's ability to investigate Trump.

    The Obama administration enacted the executive order EO 12333 in early January 2017, shortly before Trump took over:

    Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.'s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

    Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for "minimizing" privacy intrusions.
    ...
    [T]he 12333 sharing procedures allow analysts, including those at the F.B.I., to search the raw data using an American's identifying information only for the purpose of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigations , not for ordinary criminal cases. And they may do so only if one of several other conditions are met, such as a finding that the American is an agent of a foreign power.

    However, under the rules, if analysts stumble across evidence that an American has committed any crime, they will send it to the Justice Department.

    At that time Peter Lee, aka Chinahand, already had the suspicion that Obama was behind the FBI campaign against Trump.

    With issuing EO 12333 Obama gave the FBI the ability to launch a world wide snooping operation against the incoming Trump administration under the guise of a 'counter-intelligence' operation. The hasty FBI move after Comey was fired activated this instrument. The Mueller investigation has since used it extensively. 'Crimes' revealed through the snooping operation are turned over to the Justice Department.

    The NYT claim that the counter-intelligence investigation was initiated because of reasonable suspicion of Russian influence over Trump is nonsense. It was initiated to get access to a set of tools that would allow unlimited access to communication of Trump and anyone related to him. It was Obama who on his way out of the door gave the FBI these capabilities.

    There are signs that the unlimited access the FBI and Mueller investigation have to signal intelligence is used to create prosecutions via ' parallel construction ':

    The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer - 18:50 utc - 12 Jan 2019

    An active counterintel investigation means the Trump Administration's crimes were only as secure as the weakest link in their weakest moment. We got hints of this early. Our intelligence folks picked up "signals intelligence" or SigInt from Russians talking to Russians.
    Those "signals" aren't the kind of evidence that finds its way into a courtroom. In fact, it's important that it doesn't. It would burn sources and methods. It lays out the crimes and the players though... and then prosecutors find ways to make triable cases other ways .
    The public sees cases for specific charges carrying significant prison time without ever knowing that the NSA and prosecutors knew so much more than they ever revealed. Now, apply those principles to the cases we've seen Mueller bring forward so far.

    Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was confronted with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd be no escape.

    By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn goes down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do is make the case.
    ...

    The 'crime' that di Flynn in was misremembering a phone call he had with the Russian ambassador. Similar happened with Rick Gates, Paul Manafort's righthand man and a member of Trump's transition team. Then it happened to Paul Manafort himself and to George Papadopoulos.

    The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat and email any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites people as witnesses and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller has the transcript ready. A crime has been created and an indiction for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to Flynn and the others the Mueller investigation entrapped and convicted.

    Because of the counter-intelligence investigation the anti-Trump gang in the FBI hastened to initiate, the investigators got hands on signal intelligence - phone calls, chats and emails - that allowed them to indict minor people for petty crimes and to flip them to talk to the investigation.

    The aim, in the end, was and is to build a prosecution case against President Trump for whatever minor and petty half-backed illegal doing there may be.


    To make such a prosecution and an indictment publicly palpable the media is assigned with launching story after story about nefarious relations between Trump and anything Russia.

    As we have seen above with the IRA story, the retracted NYT 's Manafort bang, and the NYT's false claims about the motive of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation, none of these stories hold up to diligent scrutiny. Today's Washington Post adds another example of no-beef stories that insinuate mystic 'Russian influence' over Trump:

    Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration .

    The first graph claims:

    President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin , including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

    The rest of the story largely refutes the claim made in its headline and very first sentence:

    Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
    ...
    Trump generally has allowed aides to listen to his phone conversations with Putin ..
    ...
    In an email, Tillerson said that he " was present for the entirety of the two presidents' official bilateral meeting in Hamburg,"...

    After Trump had a first White House meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Washington, lots of leaks about the talk appeared in the DC media. Trump was accused of giving information about an ISIS plot to the Russians that was allegedly secret. It was not . Since then Trump clamped down on the number of participants, briefings and readouts for such talks. That is simply a necessary and laudable behavior. Now the media try to construct that into 'Trump is concealing details' about talks with Russia even when the U.S. Secretary of State and others are present in these.


    Ever since Trump won the Republican primaries, the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration and the U.S. and British intelligence services prepared to prevent a successful Trump presidency. The Steele dossier, created by 'former' British intelligence agents and paid for by the Clinton campaign, was the basis for an FBI investigation that was seen as an insurance against a Trump win. Any possible Russia relations Trump might have came under scrutiny. This prevented him from fulfilling his campaign promise of coming to better relations with Russia.

    Shortly before Obama left the office he created the tool the FBI needed to put its investigation on steroids. When Trump fired Comey for his handling of the Clinton email affair, the FBI put that tool into action. With unfettered access to signal intelligence the Mueller investigation was able to entrap a number of Trump related people and to flip them to its side. It will use any information they give up to find some angle under which Trump can be prosecuted and eventually impeached. Even if nothing comes off this investigations, the media reports and slander all this created may well be enough to prevent an election of Trump for a second term.

    I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people. Unfortunately I see no way that Trump could escape from the hold it has gained over him. Exposing it as much as possible might well be his best defense.

    Posted by b on January 13, 2019 at 01:15 PM | Permalink

    Comments It is information that is put out there that is never cross checked by the American people. They are too busy, too involved with other things or too stupid to find out the true facts. It is hard to predict what will occur next year. I
    feel it all depends who wins the primary on the Democrat side.


    Zachary Smith , Jan 13, 2019 2:24:28 PM | link

    Quibble time:
    The Steele dossier, created by 'former' British intelligence agents and paid for by the Clinton campaign, was the basis for an FBI investigation that was seen as an insurance against a Trump win.

    In my opinion the "insurance" theory is wrong. Hillary was going to win in 2016. She knew it. Trump knew it. Hell's bells, even I knew it. EVERYBODY knew it. What the murderous bit¢h was doing with her Steele dossier was laying the groundwork for the coming campaign - or even war - against Russia. Russia invading Crimea. Russia shooting down the MH17 airliner. Russia breaking INF treaty. Russian attempts to destroy the US electrical grid. After her coronation, she would begin to wave around "proof" supplied by the slimy Brits that the evil Russians had attempted to put the unspeakable Trump into the White House.

    Of course there were also all the dead babies in Syria - murdered by Russia. Putin's use of the incredibly deadly nerve agent in Britain to try to kill the Skripals. No doubt there would have been more - say a discovery that Russia was also behind the disappearance of the MH370 flight in the Pacific.

    Hillary is not in good health - mental or otherwise. I've got a nagging suspicion the woman is a stealth End Timer. No matter the reason, she has demonstrated she doesn't mind slaughtering people wholesale. War with Russia was on her immediate agenda upon taking office.

    So I just don't buy into the "insurance" theory.

    Jackrabbit , Jan 13, 2019 2:32:02 PM | link
    I have to take issue with a few points, b.

    [Trump] ... was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people.

    There is a major flaw in reasoning here. Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system. Trump's election was almost certainly arranged:

    - The anti-Russia campaign began in earnest in 2014 (well before the 2016 election);

    - Trump's pre-election relationship to the Clinton's is highly suspect: they were likely to be much closer than we have been led to believe;

    - An FBI informant worked for Trump for over 10 years - during the time that Mueller was FBI director;

    - Trump was the ONLY populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!);

    - Sanders was a 'sheepdog' and Hillary ran a terrible campaign in which she made obvious mistakes that a seasoned campaigner like herself would never make;

    - British involvement in the election (Fusion GPS, Cambridge Analytica, a Brit 'spy' in the Sanders campaign, etc.) suggests CIA-MI6 working together;

    - Trump Administration policies are consistent those of Clinton-Bush-Obama:

    > Obamacare was not repealed "on day one" - it has been strengthened by not defending coverage for prior conditions;

    > Trump put TPP provisions into his new North American trade deal;

    > Trump continues ME meddling;

    > Trump continues militarism and tax cutting;

    > Etc.

    The only major "difference" that I can think of are Trump's Wall and China tariffs. But these are consistent with the 'Deep State' goals.
    Surveys show that the "will of the people" is very different than the neoliberal, neoconservative policies that the establishment fosters upon us.

    MAGA is a POLICY CHOICE as much as it is a campaign slogan. It is designed to meet the challenge posed by Russia and China and 'turn the page' on the deceit and duplicity of the Obama Administration just as Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" was designed to turn the page on the the militarism of the Bush Administration. These BI-PARTISAN page-turnings ensure that there is no accountability and provides each new Administration with a new sly story line that the public readily swallows. Each new Presidential charade entertains and misdirects as the interests of the Empire are advanced with a refreshed box of tricks and dishonest narratives.

    ...war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated.

    Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton?

    The war of the Deep State is a psyop to crush dissent as the butt-hurt Deep State continues to pursue their dream of global hegemony. Anyone that believes that Trump is no part of that psyop is delusional.

    Jackrabbit , Jan 13, 2019 2:43:34 PM | link
    Zachary Smith @2: ... I just don't buy into the "insurance" theory.

    And I don't buy the theory that Hillary is hell bent on war. The Clinton's are very rational and calculating and no President has the freedom that your theory suggests. IMO what the Deep State has done under their man Trump is very similar to what the Deep State would have done if they had selected Clinton instead. The fact is, a populist nationalist is what was deemed necessary to meet the challenge from Russia and China. And that is what we got (surprise!).

    <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

    Furthermore, focusing on personality and Party is just what they want. "Watch what they do, not what they say" has a corollary: pay attention to the polices, not the politicians.

    jacktheokie , Jan 13, 2019 3:01:49 PM | link
    MoA's final paragraph is just about how I feel.

    "I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people."

    This pretty well sums it up for me. Being old enough to remember FDR and the brief rise of the middle class in the 40's, 50's and 60's (and having benefited from that attempt at leveling the playing field), I am more than saddened at the downward spiral of our nation. Politics have obviously never been clean and fair, but the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us.

    donkeytale , Jan 13, 2019 3:19:32 PM | link
    Of course b you have nothing here to offer except your opinion. Your views regarding the relentlessness of the US criminal justice system are on target, just ask the underclass about that. Once in view, you are never let be and in the US everyone can be found guilty of something. Rather nice to see the pampered son of inherited tax-free wealth on the receiving end for once, in my opinion.

    Trump is a crook. Russian collusion is his smokescreen. His crimes have already been demonstrated through what little we already know and there is still much we don't know and probably never will know. This essay reads something like a veiled mea culpa from you.

    You were wrong about Trump from the get go. Why not just admit it and move along? Why remain steadfastly in thrall to any shred of rightwing, authoritarianism of the elite masquerading as populism?

    Whatever Trump gets from the criminal justice system, Congress or the voters appears to be well-deserved. He has brought this on himself and really there is no one else to blame even as he never will accept responsibility. He is stupid at best, dishonest at best, a useful idiot at best.

    Trump saved his ass financially after a series of disastrous business bankruptcies by accepting what appears by all indications to be laundered money from literally hundreds of anonymous shell companies investing in his condos since at least 2008. He has run roughshod over the emoluments clause quite openly. I do believe, knowing what we know now, he will probably avoid indictment and escape impeachment, maybe only through resignation/pardon but more likely the old fashioned way: defeat at the polls in 2020.

    In many ways Trump has done some good by reinvigorating the US left (such as it is) and bringing at least enough cohesion in the ranks of a badly splintered populace mainly among white females and white college educated voters who now reject the GOP, or at least the GOP of Trump.

    Whether this will lead to badly needed fixes for the heinous wealth inequality (started with Reagan) is doubtful but at least the conversation is now underway (started with Bernie) which is the first step. Tax increases, social security stabilization, re-funneling wasted MIC billions to domestic programs for the poor, etc. It is a start. Will it become a solution or a revolution in time? That is up to the people who are still under the yoke of neoliberalism and global capital flight.

    Don Bacon , Jan 13, 2019 3:29:06 PM | link
    re:
    Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was confronted with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd be no escape. By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn goes down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do is make the case.

    So the situation is worse than I thought. The clear inference is that (1) Flynn (and others) really did commit some major crimes, and then (2) got off easy by admitting to a memory lapse (3) while cooking a bunch of other gooses. Flynn does the easy (2) and gets away with (1) and (3), both very serious. This is justice?

    Zachary Smith , Jan 13, 2019 3:42:11 PM | link
    @ Jackrabbit #6

    Well sir, opinions certainly do vary on this issue. As you may recall, the woman threatened conflict on cyberattacks.

    "As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses."

    Regarding the Deep State and Trump, Syria is in the process of winning against the neocons. And Iran has not yet been attacked. Hillary has a record, and for the most part hasn't even tried to run away from it. Hillary Clinton's War Record – 100% For Genocide If you know of any instances of the woman speaking against the War Solution to problems, kindly tell me about them. Trump is an incomparable jerk, but perhaps not quite as bad as HRC.

    james , Jan 13, 2019 3:43:30 PM | link
    thanks b... the topic is so very tiring.. i am sick of hearing about it.. If the usa fell off a cliff and never came back again - i would be fine with that.. thank you regardless, for taking it apart and trying ti dispel the bullshite.. it is so thick, it defies logic.. i agree with @1 jose garcia, and @4 radiator...

    trump is a crook... so what? most of the business class in the west are at this point! politics and crookery go hand in hand... i would be surprised if it was any different at this point in time.. how about the intel agencies? you want to sleep with them? lol..

    Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 13, 2019 3:57:17 PM | link
    There's either something wrong with this assumption, or something we're not being told...

    The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat and email any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites people as witnesses and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller has the transcript ready. A crime has been created and an indiction for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to Flynn and the others the Mueller investigation entrapped and convicted.

    Option 1. Something wrong? If you're being cross-examined in a court or pseudo-legal forum about things you may or may not remember, you have the right to decline to answer a question, or to preface any and every answer with the phrase "If I remember correctly blah blah blah..."

    Option 2. Something we're not being told? If the interrogators were able to ambush Flynn, then it's probably because they didn't acquaint him with all of his rights, or he didn't have a lawyer with him.

    Trump's not stupid. He won't blunder into a situation bereft of any semblance of legal Human Rights protections designed to ambush him. And if he can't have a lawyer with him when the questions start, then he can probably refuse to attend without breaking any law.

    Tess Ting , Jan 13, 2019 3:57:41 PM | link
    @donkeytale There has been close to three years of serious investigative intent to lay a glove on Trump (HRC's team, the FBI and Mueller) and there is only the merest scratch of a womaniser (which with three marriages doesn't come as a surprise). What is quite remarkable, despite all the investigative effort, is how clean Trump has managed to keep himself despite building a fortune in one of the toughest cities in the world, building himself up through the eras of the five families, junk bonds and ponzi schemes and soviet union mobsters, not to mention the corruption of the poltical classes and regulatory abuses and unionised labor.

    For the world's he moves in, the only explanation that gives him enough protection is that for a long time Trump has been a protected FBI asset for one of the field offices, possibly now senior service figures. And it's this deep relationship with well connected parts of the FBI or other secret services that has given him the ability to steer past the various attempts by the deep state. Why, for instance, do we have such a lot of leakage of the inner workings of the anti-Trump FBI? Some part of the deep state has become disgusted at the spying (eg on congress), the blackmailing, the warmongering, and deep corruption of the anti-constitutionalists, and Trump is their vengeance. You just have to decide which side you are on...

    Peter AU 1 , Jan 13, 2019 4:11:46 PM | link
    Hoarsewhisperer 13 I think it unlikely that the likes of Flynn would not know their basic legal rights.
    brian , Jan 13, 2019 4:17:24 PM | link
    meanwhile..trump and his appointees attack legitimacy of Venezuela govt. Trump is in bad odor at home while seeking to attack other govts. ' Washington has explicitly expressed its support for a potential coup against the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, by offering its backing to the opposition and stating outright it was time for a "new government." "The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will continue ... to work diligently to restore a real democracy" to Venezuela, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on his trip to the Middle East on Saturday, adding that Washington would attempt to make the Latin American nations "come together to deliver that."'
    https://www.rt.com/news/448673-us-venezuela-time-new-government/
    Peter AU 1 , Jan 13, 2019 4:25:14 PM | link
    One thing the US deep state and their Mueller proxy would have on Trump, and most if not all of Trump's team, is collusion with Israel (can this convert into charges of treason as threats). A weapon that is good for threats against and turning those around Trump, and possibly used in as a last resort to remove Trump.
    Peter AU 1 , Jan 13, 2019 4:33:00 PM | link
    Adding to my post @ 18 Pat Lang has a post up "What is wrong with Trump?" "But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or some thing in Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump, something that he fears to unleash through decisive action? pl"

    Collusion with Israel is something neither side - team Trump and the deep state - would wish to bring into the open, but this may be the only thing they have on Trump.

    juliania , Jan 13, 2019 5:17:56 PM | link
    Thank you, b. I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around. A very rotten duopoly has taken over the US government, all based on the premise that money is speech and money runs government, the people be damned. Hence the shutdown being orchestrated by money, with Trump in the crosshairs.

    I also very much adhere to your final paragraph's sentences. Let no one be in any doubt - what is underway is no less than traitorous activity, a clear violation of the US Constitution, motivated by corrupt individuals whose meanness is beyond dispute. How it can be redressed at this very late stage beggars the mind; I can only hope it be done as peacefully as possible.

    vk , Jan 13, 2019 5:19:18 PM | link
    If this is really true, then it's a clear sign of decline: Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy.
    Hal Duell , Jan 13, 2019 6:27:54 PM | link
    Shortly after the USSR's experiment with communism collapsed, I read an article which suggested that if the noise from that fall was loud, even louder will be the noise when the second shoe (the American experiment with capitalism) falls. And this is the crux of why I appreciate The Donald. His is the most honest face the US can present to the world at this point in time. So look at it closely, and marvel at where we have come to.

    [Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

    Highly recommended!
    All links are going to Brennan and CIA. Rosenstein was just a tool, necessary to appoint the Special Prosecutor. And launching the prove was the meaning of "insurance" that Strock mentioned to his mistress. Both Strzok and McCabe have their liasons (read bosses) at CIA, so in essence they were "CIA infiltration group" within the FBI. And it is also important to understand that Obama was just a CIA snowperson.
    There is Stalin's NKVD chief Beria shadow over CIA and FBI now. He famously said "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."
    Notable quotes:
    "... The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation. ..."
    "... Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe ..."
    "... As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump. ..."
    Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    As FBI Ramped Up "Witch Hunt" When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

    A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have backfired - especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in question.

    The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation.

    Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ "sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia," Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there. "

    It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that Comey's firing and Trump's subsequent comments marked a tipping point.

    ...

    A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok's concern that the FBI would not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia . - Daily Caller

    The Times' explanation for the FBI's rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset consists of Trump's call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton's emails an election debate, and allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note that Trump may have "unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence," to temper the accusation that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.

    It's no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller's team.

    Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.

    As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump.

    " And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.

    Meanwhile, Page - who served as McCabe's deputy, provided some additional color on the text messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the "case we've been waiting on" text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew about.

    "Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?" one lawmaker asked Page in her interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.

    " I can't answer that, sir. I'm sorry ," she replied.

    "If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I would," she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction of justice investigation or something more. - Daily Caller

    That said, Page admitted that Comey's firing prompted the text exchange.

    "So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the Director's office?" asked one lawmaker.

    "Yes, that's correct," replied Page.

    Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their ratcheted-up collusion investigation - failing to mention who started the probe, who led it, and more importantly - waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up nothing .

    "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel's office both declined to comment."

    VideoEng_NC

    "It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation."

    Should be pretty simple with one question. "Was it Hillary who was the responsible party to open an investigation on Trump?". About as direct as it gets & we already know the answer.

    adampeart

    TDS sufferers hate Trump so bad that they have become (at 70%) pro-warmonger. Pathetic. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised. They were fine with Black Jesus starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing brown people for 8 years.

    Teeter

    McCabe initiated the investigation. Nobody likes McCabe, so he is likely to be the one guy that gets thrown under the bus. Of course what he knows may protect him to some extent... they won't want a trial.

    Duc888

    Sedition? Treason?

    Yippie21

    7 Days in May.... except for current version we use the DOJ and FBI! Interesting times.

    [Jan 13, 2019] Until we have more action on this than just some furious tweets, it doesn't matter

    Notable quotes:
    "... Yes, plus they could have at least tied in the Rosenstein attempt to wear a wire to trap Trump via the 25th amendment as hatched by McCabe too. Lousy article. ..."
    Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    navy62802 , 1 hour ago link

    Until we have more action on this than just some furious tweets, it doesn't matter.

    notfeelinthebern , 1 hour ago link

    OLD news. This was established long ago by looking at the time line of events.

    SDShack , 1 hour ago link

    Yes, plus they could have at least tied in the Rosenstein attempt to wear a wire to trap Trump via the 25th amendment as hatched by McCabe too. Lousy article.

    [Jan 11, 2019] Rosenstein expected to leave Justice Department; Barr tells lawmakers he won't interfere with Mueller

    Notable quotes:
    "... Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the most visible Justice Department protector of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and a frequent target of President Donald Trump's wrath, is expected to leave his position soon after Trump's nominee for attorney general is confirmed. ..."
    "... In September, Rosenstein went to the White House expecting to be fired after news reports that he had discussed secretly recording Trump and invoking a constitutional amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office. He was ultimately allowed to stay on after private conversations with Trump and John Kelly, then chief of staff. ..."
    "... Trump also shared a photo on Twitter in November showing Rosenstein and others criticized by the president behind bars, calling for them to be tried for "treason." ..."
    Jan 11, 2019 | www.chicagotribune.com
    Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the most visible Justice Department protector of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and a frequent target of President Donald Trump's wrath, is expected to leave his position soon after Trump's nominee for attorney general is confirmed.

    The departure creates uncertainty about the oversight of Mueller's team as it enters what may be its final months of work. But the attorney general nominee, William Barr, moved quickly Wednesday to quell concerns that his arrival could endanger the probe, telling lawmakers during Capitol Hill visits ahead of his confirmation hearing that he has a high opinion of Mueller.

    "He had absolutely no indication he was going to tell Bob Mueller what to do or how to do it," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will question Barr next Tuesday.

    If confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, Barr could be in place at the Justice Department by February. Rosenstein is expected to leave his position soon after that, though he is not being forced out, said a person familiar with the plans who was not authorized to discuss them on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

    The departure is not surprising given that Rosenstein has been deputy for almost two years. It is common for new attorneys general to have their own deputies and Barr has told people close to him that he wanted his own No. 2.

    It was unclear who might replace Rosenstein, though Barr has some ideas for a selection, Graham said, without elaborating. The deputy position requires Senate confirmation. It was also not immediately clear whether Rosenstein's top deputy, Edward O'Callaghan, who has a prominent role overseeing Mueller's investigation, might remain in his role.

    Rosenstein's departure is noteworthy given his appointment of Mueller and close supervision of his work. He's also endured a tenuous relationship with Trump, who has repeatedly decried Rosenstein's decision to appoint Mueller, and with congressional Republicans who accused him of withholding documents from them and not investigating aggressively enough what they contend was political bias within the FBI.

    In September, Rosenstein went to the White House expecting to be fired after news reports that he had discussed secretly recording Trump and invoking a constitutional amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office. He was ultimately allowed to stay on after private conversations with Trump and John Kelly, then chief of staff.

    Trump also shared a photo on Twitter in November showing Rosenstein and others criticized by the president behind bars, calling for them to be tried for "treason."

    Mueller is investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and contacts with the Trump campaign. Rosenstein and his chief deputy have continued to maintain day-to-day oversight over the probe, a senior Justice Department official told reporters last month.

    [Jan 10, 2019] Rosenstein Protected Mueller by Bending Justice Department Rules

    Rosenstein was a puppet on more powerful forces, which were hell-bent on deposing Trump. And those included Intelligence agencies brass, Clinton clan and UK government.
    Jan 10, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com
    leave as expected when a new U.S. attorney general is confirmed. Rosenstein broke the normal rules to save a shred of normality. Usually that kind of compromise doesn't work. In this case, it did -- mostly.

    Rosenstein is going to be remembered first for naming Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions was recused from anything Russia related, because of his false statements to Congress during his confirmation process about his Russian contacts, Rosenstein also had the task of supervising Mueller. Rosenstein's second important accomplishment was to successfully protect Mueller from being fired by President Donald Trump, despite repeated threats and attacks on the investigation from the White House.

    But Rosenstein should never have been in a position either to appoint Mueller or to supervise his investigation. He should've been recused from both tasks.

    To begin with, the event that triggered Mueller's appointment was Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey. Rosenstein played a central role in that process: He drafted a memo providing reasons to fire Comey that Trump relied on, whether in good faith or otherwise.

    If you've advised the president on how to perform an act that is going to come under investigation, you really shouldn't choose the investigator or supervise the investigation. That's classic grounds for recusal. Indeed, back in June 2017, when Trump tweeted that he was effectively being investigated by Rosenstein for conduct Rosenstein had advised, it seemed obvious to me that Rosenstein would have to recuse himself.

    He didn't.

    Then, in September 2018, it came out that Rosenstein was so troubled by Trump's conduct around the Comey firing that he had discussed wearing a wire to record the president. He had also reportedly discussed having the cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment and declare the president unfit for office. This made it clearer still that Rosenstein should recuse himself.

    Once again, he didn't.

    Under normal circumstances, Rosenstein's failure to recuse himself would stand as a serious blot on his otherwise excellent reputation as a nonpartisan career prosecutor and Department of Justice professional. Prosecutors especially, but also other top Justice Department officials, gain their professional and moral authority from following the rules all the time, not some of the time.

    Prosecutors hold tremendous power, greater than any other actor within our federal system, including judges. If you're prosecuted, your life is going to change drastically. Guilty or innocent, you're going to have to spend all your resources on defense. Most of the time, you will be guilty of something. The U.S. code criminalizes so much activity that prosecutors can typically find some area where you've broken some law -- and hold you accountable.

    Given that prosecutors have extraordinarily broad discretion to decide whom to charge and what crimes to charge them with, prosecutors need to be paragons of rule-following. In other areas of life, bending the rules is sometimes necessary or desirable. In a prosecutor, it's the cardinal sin. And Rosenstein definitely bent the rules by not recusing himself.

    Yet, from the perspective of two years, Rosenstein's rule-bending was probably justified -- because Mueller's investigation is necessary to assuring that the rule of law plays a role in making sense of Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

    Without Rosenstein's appointment of Mueller, there might have been no special prosecutor at all. Or the person appointed might have been weaker or less competent than Mueller. Or the person appointed might have been more susceptible to pressure from the Trump White House.

    It's also easy to imagine that without Rosenstein, another Justice Department official might have interfered with Mueller's investigation at the urging of the White House or even fired Mueller. Ask yourself: Do you have any faith that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker would have resisted Trump's pressure for two years?

    Now that Mueller has been able to operate for two years, and a new attorney general has been nominated, it's totally reasonable for Rosenstein to plan to step down.

    If confirmed, William Barr will take over supervision of Mueller. Technically, Trump handed over that supervisory role to Whitaker after Sessions was fired -- but Rosenstein needed to stick around because Whitaker's appointment was itself legally questionable and because Whitaker isn't especially trustworthy as an independent actor.

    In contrast, Barr, whatever his views on executive power and the Mueller investigation, would at least be a credible attorney general. He served in that role under President George H.W. Bush. At that time, there was no serious talk of firing independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, whose investigation of the Iran-Contra affair was getting close to the president.

    A new attorney general should be able to recommend his own deputy. Rosenstein is free to step down because, in essence, his job is done. Mueller survived. The ends arguably justified the means. That's not a sentence I'm very happy to write when it comes to prosecution and the Department of Justice. But that will probably be the judgment of history this time.

    [Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the Skripal attack? -- ..."
    "... The Skripal Files ..."
    Jan 08, 2019 | sputniknews.com

    Hacking syndicate Anonymous has just released its fourth tranche of documents hacked from the internal servers of the Institute for Statecraft and its subsidiary, the Integrity Initiative. Several explosive files raise serious questions about the shadowy British state and NATO-funded 'think tank' and its connections with the Skripal affair.

    The files were released just after 2:30pm GMT on January 4 -- I've barely scratched the surface of the content, but what I've seen so far contains a panoply of bombshell revelations -- to say the least, the organization(s) now have serious questions to answer about what role they played in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in March, and its aftermath both nationally and internationally.

    Sinister Timeline

    One file apparently dating to "early 2015" -- "Russian Federation Sanctions" -- written by the Institute's Victor Madeira outlines "potential levers" to achieve Russian "behaviour change", "peace with Ukraine", "return [of] Crimea", "regime change" or "other?". The suggested "levers" span almost every conceivable area, including "civil society", "sports", "finance" and "technology".

    In the section marked "intelligence", Madeira suggests simultaneously expelling "every RF [Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attache from as many countries as possible". In parentheses, it references 'Operation Foot' , the expulsion of over 1000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971, the largest expulsion of intelligence officials by any government in history.

    The section on sports also suggests "advocating the view [Russia] is unworthy of hosting [sporting] events" -- and the section marked "information" recommends the sanctioning of 'Russian' media "in West for not complying with regulators' standards".

    2015 File Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions 2015 File Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions

    In April that year, Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly was promoted to Honorary Colonel of SGMI (Specialist Group Military Intelligence), and in October he met with General Sir Richard Barrons. Notes from the meeting don't make clear who said what, but one despaired that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space."

    "We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the 1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost," they said.

    Operation IRIS Begins

    On 4 March 2018, former Russian military officer and double agent for MI6 Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England.

    Within days, the Institute had submitted a proposal to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, "to study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.

    The bid was accepted, and the Initiative's 'Operation Iris' was launched. Under its auspices, the Institute employed 'global investigative solutions' firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity related to Skripal the world over.

    It also conducted media monitoring of its own, with Institute 'research fellow' Simon Bracey-Lane producing regular 'roundups' of media coverage overseas, based on insights submitted by individuals connected to the Initiative living in several countries. One submission, from an unnamed source in Moldova, says they "cannot firmly say" whether the country's media had its "own point of view" on the issue, or whether news organizations had taken "an obvious pro-Russian or pro-Western position", strongly suggesting these were key questions for the Initiative.

    Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal Incident Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal Incident

    Moreover though, there are clear indications the Institute sought to shape the news narrative on the attack -- and indeed the UK government's response. One file dated March 11 appears to be a briefing document on the affair to date, with key messages bolded throughout.

    It opens by setting out "The Narrative" of the incident -- namely "Russia has carried out yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in Britain".

    "Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been carried out in the UK 14 deaths are believed to be attributable to the Kremlin Russia has poisoned its enemies abroad on other occasions, most notably then-candidate for the Presidency of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2004. Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been poisoned twice; and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also poisoned and later shot dead. Since Putin has been running Russia, the Kremlin has a history of poisoning its opponents in a gruesome way," the "narrative" reads.

    The file goes on to declare the British response has been "far too weak it's essential the government makes a much stronger response this time" -- and then lists "possible, realistic, first actions", including banning RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK, boycotting the 2018 World Cup, withdrawing the UK ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador to the UK, and refusing/revoking visas to leading Russians within Vladimir Putin's "circle", and their families.

    Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative

    It's not clear who the document was distributed to -- but it may have been given to journalists within the Initiative's UK 'cluster', if not others. This may explain why the Institute's "narrative", and its various recommended "responses" utterly dominated mainstream media reporting of the affair for months afterwards, despite the glaring lack of evidence of Russian state involvement in the attack.

    It's extremely curious so many of the briefing document's recommendations almost exactly -- if not exactly -- echo several of the suggested "levers" outlined in the 2015 document. It's also somewhat troubling the "Global Operation Foot" spoken of in that file duly came to pass on March 28 2018, with over 20 countries expelling over 100 Russian diplomats.

    Likewise, it's striking Victor Madeira, the Institute staffer who made the recommendations in 2015, made many media appearances discussing the poisoning following the incident routinely documented by the Institute. Security consultant Dan Kaszeta also wrote a number of articles for the Integrity Initiative website about chemical weapons following the attack -- including a July 14 article, How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the Skripal attack? -- receiving 40 pence per word .

    Invoice submitted to Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Invoice submitted to Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections

    The Institute's bizarrely intimate connections with the incident don't end there. Another document apparently dating to July 2018 contains the contact details of Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and -- unbelievably -- neighbor in Salisbury. Anonymous claims the document is an invitee list for a meeting the Institute convened between a number of individuals and Syria's highly controversial White Helmets group, but this is yet to be verified.

    Whatever the truth of the matter, the latest document dump raises yet further questions about how and why it was BBC Diplomatic and Defense Editor Mark Urban -- who was in the same tank regiment as Miller after leaving University -- came to meet with Skripal in the year before his poisoning. When I attended the launch of his book on the affair in October -- The Skripal Files -- he was evasive on whether he played a role in connecting him with Skripal, and denied Miller was Skripal's recruiter.

    The latest trove also raises yet further questions about the activities of the Institute for Statecraft and Integrity Initiative. In light of these revelations, reading the record of Donnelly's meeting with General Barrons takes on an acutely chilling quality. It may be that purely serendipitously the pair got their "catastrophe", their "something dreadful", which "[woke] people up" and made the government "realise the problem" posed by Russia -- or it could be they one way or another played a facilitative role of some kind.

    After months of refusing to answer the vast number of questions I and thousands of others have submitted to the paired organizations, it's high time for them to break cover, and be honest with the public.

    [Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative

    Highly recommended!
    Images removed. Please brose the original to view them.
    Notable quotes:
    "... "Russian disinformation." ..."
    "... "network of networks" ..."
    "... It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence. ..."
    "... "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" ..."
    "... "global investigative solutions" ..."
    "... What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... ..."
    "... "pro-Russia troll accounts" ..."
    "... "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case." ..."
    "... Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" ..."
    "... These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
    "... "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" ..."
    "... "threat Russia poses." ..."
    "... This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning ..."
    "... One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. ..."
    "... "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history." ..."
    "... "Makes you think " ..."
    "... The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. ..."
    "... It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. ..."
    "... £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019 ..."
    "... It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance. ..."
    Jan 05, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

    The Integrity Initiative, a UK-funded group exposed in leaked files as psyop network, played a key role in monitoring and molding media narratives after the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, newly-dumped documents reveal. Created by the NATO-affiliated, UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was unmasked in November after hackers released documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly fighting "Russian disinformation."

    The secretive, government-bankrolled "network of networks" has found itself under scrutiny for smearing UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Kremlin stooge – ostensibly as part of its noble crusade against anti-Russian disinformation. Now, new leaks show that the organization played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March.

    It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.

    Operation Iris

    Days after the Skripals were poisoned, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offering to "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.

    After receiving the government's blessing, the Integrity Initiative (II) launched 'Operation Iris,' enlisting "global investigative solutions" firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity related to Skripal.

    Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg

    What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow....

    264 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

    However, Harod's confidential report did more than just parse social media reactions to the Skripal affair: It compiled a list of alleged "pro-Russia troll accounts" accused of "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case."

    Among those who found themselves listed as nefarious thought-criminals were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a gentleman from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.

    Ian56 @Ian56789 · Jan 4, 2019 # IntegrityInitiative "

    Top Kremlin Trolls" aka Truth Tellers. Congratulations if you made the list.

    https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring/appendix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring.pdf

    Neocon Fascist, al-Qaeda Supporting Treasonous Scumbag @ Benimmo is having a laugh with £2m of Taxpayers money. Nimmo should be IN JAIL for Fraud & Treason

    Ian56 @Ian56789 # IntegrityInitiative

    examples of Logical, Critical Thinking & Objective Analysis by yours truly Ian56.

    https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-r---ian56789-example-tweets/appendix-r---ian56789-example-tweets.pdf

    They didn't even include my best ones and they didn't show the pic that went with each tweet. I wonder why?

    # Skripal # Novichok # FalseFlag pic.twitter.com/Zq8W9iJshk 41 1:39 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

    34 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy
    Moon of Alabama @MoonofA · Jan 4, 2019 @ Ian56789 @ MarkSleboda1 @ Malinka1102 @ ValLisitsa @ NinaByzantina

    Folks, you are all noted as "trolls" in some of the files of the new # IntegrityInitiative release

    https://www. cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation -integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all-part-4/ https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring/appendix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring.pdf https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-p---troll-accounts-mutual-connections-graph/appendix-p---troll-accounts-mutual-connections-graph.pdf https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-q---troll-geolocation-graph/appendix-q---troll-geolocation-graph.pdf

    Operation 'Integrity Initiative': British informational war against all. Part 4

    Greetings! We are Anonymous.We have warned the UK government that it must conduct an honest and transparent investigation into the activity of the Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statec cyberguerrilla.org

    Ruslana Boshirova @ValLisitsa

    Wanna see something funny?

    "The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents" - has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not.

    https:// twitter.com/Antifake_Russi a/status/1073112488072437760?s=19 Antifake @Antifake_Russia СМИ выдали за манифест "желтых жилетов" твиты украинской пианистки с ником "Руслана Боширова" https:// theins.ru/antifake/131804 116 3:21 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

    94 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

    Pushing a narrative

    Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" of the Skripal incident, which blames Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, as well as containing a number of recommended actions.

    These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK."

    Other suggestions included propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" and getting members of parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses." It's not clear who the document was drawn up for, but it may have been provided to II-affiliated journalists in the UK and other countries.

    This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning – which the UK and its allies unanimously blamed on Moscow.

    Ahead of its time?

    One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot.

    Coincidentally, more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from 20 Western countries in an apparently show of solidarity with the UK following the Skripal attack. At the time, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed what she said was "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history."

    Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents, written long before the Salisbury events, also call for the arrest of RT and Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding: "Makes you think "

    George Galloway @georgegalloway

    So: # IntegrityInitiative funded by the British Govt called for the arrest of people like me like @ afshinrattansi @ JohnWight1 @ NeilClark66 et al in the event of an "incident" like the # Skripal affair.

    Written incidentally before the # Salisbury events. Makes you think...

    @ RT_com 688 12:53 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

    606 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

    A curious connection

    The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute.

    Moon of Alabama @MoonofA

    It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair.

    # SergeiSkripal # Disinformation # Propaganda # InformationWar 283 2:38 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

    241 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy
    Fvnk @WhatTheFvnk

    EXPLOSIVE: @ DanKaszeta of @ Strongpoint_UK invoiced @ InitIntegrity # IntegrityInitiative

    £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019

    188 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

    It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance.

    Read also:

    [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
    "... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
    "... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
    "... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
    "... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
    Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Pat Lang Mod -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago

    After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.

    In re "Our man in Havana" I think there are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.

    David Habakkuk -> Pat Lang , 2 months ago
    Colonel Lang,

    The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.

    Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.

    If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another.

    The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'

    Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate' -- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.

    And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about it..

    johnf -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago
    DH

    I agree with this.

    There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.

    As the Colonel eloquently asks:

    "I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"

    I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

    Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.

    (I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).

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    [May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd Published on May 04, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

    [May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia Published on Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

    [May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later Published on Mar 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear Published on Dec 29, 2017 | www.washingtonsblog.com

    [May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan Published on May 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson Published on May 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated] Published on Jan 04, 2018 | directorblue.blogspot.com

    [May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus Published on Aug 08, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos Published on Feb 05, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross Published on Feb 10, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 10, 2019] Mueller Report - Expensive Estimations And Elusive Evidence by Adam Carter Published on May 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson Published on May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

    [May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

    [May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

    [May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

    [May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson Published on May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report Published on May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

    [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions Published on Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor Published on Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

    [May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move... Published on May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain Published on May 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté Published on Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

    [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed Published on Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    [Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney Published on Apr 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi Published on Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

    [Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda Published on Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender Published on Apr 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Apr 21, 2019] George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie Published on Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak. Published on Apr 21, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

    [Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson Published on Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse. Published on Apr 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation Published on Feb 23, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

    [Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning. Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times Published on Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

    [Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End Published on Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader Published on Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook Published on Mar 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

    [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson Published on Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com

    [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate Published on Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

    [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report Published on Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr. Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle. Published on Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies Published on Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

    [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings Published on Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

    [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings Published on Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

    [Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson Published on Mar 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    [Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry Published on Feb 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

    [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library Published on Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

    [Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald Published on Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever. Published on Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene Published on Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

    [Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke Published on Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

    [Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International Published on Jan 08, 2019 | sputniknews.com

    [Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative Published on Jan 05, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

    [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. Published on Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

    Oldies But Goodies

    [Jul 11, 2016] 5 Reasons The Comey Hearing Was The Worst Education In Criminal Justice The American Public Has Ever Had by Seth Abramson

    [Jul 06, 2016] FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook by Andrew C. McCarthy

    [Nov 30, 2019] CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy by Oleg Atbashian

    [Nov 28, 2019] WSJ story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton.

    [Nov 22, 2019] CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward because, it is not going away.

    [Nov 03, 2019] Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

    [Sep 15, 2019] How the UK Security Services neutralised the country s leading liberal newspaper by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis

    [Sep 11, 2019] John Brennan's and Jim Clappers' Last Gasp by Larry C Johnson

    [Sep 10, 2019] Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein by Larry C Johnsons

    [Aug 23, 2019] Spygate The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump by Jeff Carlson

    [Aug 21, 2019] Solomon If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed

    [Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson

    [Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

    [Aug 12, 2019] Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized

    [Jul 29, 2019] Looks like Epstein turned informant for Mueller s FBI in 2008. Likely earlier

    [Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson

    [Jul 09, 2019] Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern

    [Jun 30, 2019] USG's Bizarre Change of Position in the Roger Stone Case by Larry C Johnson

    [Jun 19, 2019] Investigation Nation Mueller, Russiagate, and Fake Politics by Jim Kavanagh

    [Jun 16, 2019] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput

    [Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir

    [May 30, 2019] Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth

    [May 27, 2019] The Campaign to Paint Trump as a Russian Stooge Started on May 4, 2016 by Larry C Johnson

    [May 20, 2019] The dirty art of politicians entrapment: Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers, gay sex, pedophilia, or what-have-you, all or in combination

    [May 19, 2019] Intel agencies of the UK and US are guilty of fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing fake analysis and operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity

    [May 15, 2019] Barr s Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller In A Shocking Case

    [May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd

    [May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia

    [May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later

    [May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear

    [May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan

    [May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson

    [May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated]

    [May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus

    [May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos

    [May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross

    [May 10, 2019] Mueller Report - Expensive Estimations And Elusive Evidence by Adam Carter

    [May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson

    [May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation

    [May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page

    [May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

    [May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson

    [May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

    [May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions

    [May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor

    [May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move...

    [May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain

    [Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté

    [Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed

    [Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney

    [Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

    [Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda

    [Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender

    [Apr 21, 2019] George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie

    [Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.

    [Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson

    [Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse.

    [Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation

    [Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

    [Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End

    [Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader

    [Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook

    [Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson

    [Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate

    [Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report

    [Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.

    [Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary

    [Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

    [Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies

    [Mar 18, 2019] Doublethink and Newspeak Do We Have a Choice by Greg Guma

    [Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings

    [Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

    [Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson

    [Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry

    [Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

    [Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

    [Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever.

    [Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene

    [Jan 15, 2019] Apparently, the FBI, and not the CIA, are the real government.

    [Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

    [Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International

    [Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative

    [Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

    Sites



    Etc

    Society

    Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

    Quotes

    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

    Most popular humor pages:

    Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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