An interesting couple of things happened just as Richard Grenell passed the sunlight baton to DNI John Ratcliffe. First, SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner is angered about the sunlight Grenell has delivered. Second, former AAG Matt Whitaker outlines how the Mueller investigation threatened him. Both issues merge (outlined below).

Michael Flynn’s defense attorney Sidney Powell appears on FBN with Liz MacDonald to discuss recent events. WATCH:

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When considering that Robert Mueller was used as a weapon (threat) and a shield (bury information); and when considering Senator Mark Warner’s recent protestations against Grenell; it is well worth going back in history to May 2018 when SSCI Vice-Chairman Warner was demanding the Mueller investigation must not allow congressional oversight.

Yes, it now makes sense, why Senator Mark Warner was demanding DAG Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray must keep records from congress.

(Source Link)

According to Mark Warner in May 2018, it would be “irresponsible” and “potentially illegal” for congressional oversight to keep demanding records from the FBI and DOJ about their spying and surveillance activity against the campaign of Donald Trump.

Now the statements yesterday by AAG Matt Whitaker make sense.

Within an interesting interview conducted by Jan Jekielek of Epoch Times, former AAG Matt Whitaker confirms the Mueller investigation was used by corrupt interests within the special counsel’s office to threaten any/all executive branch and congressional officials with “obstruction of justice” charges if they revealed any exculpatory or counter-narrative information during the Mueller probe. (read more)

Additionally, Senator Mark Warner carried a massive conflict because he was an active participant in the legislative side of the soft coup effort.

You see, when Dianne Feinstein stepped down as Vice-Chair from the Senate Intel Committee after the 2016 election, it was Mark Warner who took her place.  This puts Warner on the Gang-of-Eight starting January 3, 2017.

Coincidentally, the Gang-of-Eight conduct all oversight over DOJ and FBI covert and counterintelligence operations…. including those covert actions that took place in 2016.

It gets better….

Senator Mark Warner was also the guy caught text messaging with DC Lawyer Adam Waldman in the spring of 2017 (his first assignment).   Waldman was the lawyer for the interests of Christopher Steele – the author of the dossier.

While he was working as an intermediary putting Senator Warner and Christopher Steele in contact with each-other.  Simultaneously Adam Waldman was also representing the interests of… wait for it,…. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

Derispaska was the Russian person approached by Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok and asked to assist in creating dirt on the Trump campaign, via Paul Manafort.

Senator Mark Warner holds a vested interest in making sure that no-one ever gets to the bottom of the 2016 political weaponization, spying and surveillance operation.  Hence Mark Warner was/is furious with the efforts of Ric Grenell as DNI.

Senator Mark Warner was a participant in the execution of the “insurance policy” trying to remove President Trump via the Russian Collusion narrative.  Documents that Ric Grenell has declassified and left for DNI Ratcliffe create a trail that encompasses the activity of Warner.

Senator Feinstein’s 2016 senior staffer (with Gang-of-Eight security clearance) was Dan Jones.  It was revealed that Dan Jones contracted with Christopher Steele to continue work on the Russia conspiracy narrative after the 2016 election, and raised over $50 million toward the ideological goals of removing President Trump. {See Here}

Staffer Dan Jones surfaces again in text messages from Feinstein’s replacement on the Gang-of-Eight, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Mark Warner {See Here}

Senator Warner was texting with Adam Waldman about setting up a meeting with Chris Steele.  Waldman is a lobbyist/lawyer with a $40,000 monthly retainer to represent the U.S. interests of Russian billionaire Oleg V. Deripaska.

Senator Mark Warner was trying to set up a covert meeting.  In the text messages Adam Waldman is telling Senator Warner that Chris Steele will not meet with him without a written letter (request) from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator Warner didn’t want the Republican members to know about the meeting.  Chris Steele knew this was a partisan political set-up and was refusing to meet unilaterally with Senator Warner.   His lawyer Adam Waldman was playing the go-between:

That “Dan Jones”, mentioned above, talking with Chris Steele and told to go to see Senator Warner, is the former senate staffer Dan Jones, Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff.

Simultaneously, while working to connect Senator Warner to Christopher Steele, Adam Waldman is representing Oleg Deripaska:

(Source Link) 

Oleg Deripaska was a potential source (highly likely in multiple aspects) of intelligence information within the Steele Dossier; and Deripaska was also well known to the FBI as they attempted to recruit him for the stop Trump effort.

John Solomon – […] Deripaska also appears to be one of the first Russians the FBI asked for help when it began investigating the now-infamous Fusion GPS “Steele Dossier.” Waldman, his American lawyer until the sanctions hit, gave me a detailed account, some of which U.S. officials confirmseparately.

Two months before Trump was elected president, Deripaska was in New York as part of Russia’s United Nations delegation when three FBI agents awakened him in his home; at least one agent had worked with Deripaska on the aborted effort to rescue Levinson. During an hour-long visit, the agents posited a theory that Trump’s campaign was secretly colluding with Russia to hijack the U.S. election. (more)

Now, for more motive for Senator Warner to keep sunlight from the operation, listen carefully to the opening statement from former CIA Director John Brennan May 23rd, 2017, during his testimony to congress.

Pay very close attention to the segment at 13:35 of this video of Brennan’s testimony:

Brennan: [13:35] “Third, through the so-called Gang-of-Eight processwe 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.”…

So when CIA Director John Brennan was providing “individual” briefings to each of the gang-of-eight members (pictured above), they were accompanied by one senior staff.  That means a personal, individualized, briefing to Dianne Feinstein and Dan Jones.

The same Dan Jones who participated in the 2016 Brennan briefings, is the same Dan Jones who continued paying for Christopher Steele’s involvement after the Trump inauguration (ie. payoff); and the same Dan Jones who was a liaison visiting Senator Mark Warner to help continue the effort.

Things making sense now?

Now we see why Senator Mark Warner did not want a “paper trail”…

Lee Smith appears on Lou Dobbs to discuss the latest revelations in the Obama-era surveillance operations.  Mr. Smith calls it “Obama’s culture of espionage.”

After President Trump announced he would veto any FISA reauthorization bill, without a full investigative review of prior FISA abuse so that legislation could be created specifically to fix the severe flaws in the process, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dropped the vote for FISA reauthorization:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives on Thursday dropped consideration of legislation that would have extended U.S. surveillance tools, after President Donald Trump threatened a veto and his fellow Republicans withdrew their support.

“The two-thirds of the Republican Party that voted for this bill in March have indicated they are going to vote against it now,” Representative Steny Hoyer said in a statement on Thursday, after a vote on the measure was unexpectedly postponed late on Wednesday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to members of the Democratic caucus saying she intends to hold negotiations with the Senate on a possible compromise bill that could be passed and sent to Trump.  (read more)

A little background context is needed.  In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.

In Mid-March 2020 the Senate voted to reauthorize the expired FISA provisions with some modest modifications.

However, in late March the office of inspector general published a brutal interim memo highlighting continued abuses within the system.

Within the 17-page-memo the IG notifies Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray that all of the claimed FISA processes, in every FBI field office, are grossly deficient, and in most cases there is zero compliance with FISA standards.  The IG memorandum was presented before the IG even looked at the specifics of the non-compliance.

This IG memo came out March 31st after the senate had voted to reauthorize the provisions and standards the IG reviewed.  The House now holds the senate reauthorization bill, but obviously the FISA problems are bigger than addressed by the small fixes within the Senate bill.

President Trump is committed to seeing that FISA is not reauthorized without “significant” reform. Senator Rand Paul has proposed to significantly change the FISA process by forcing the DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community to apply for search and surveillance warrants to Title-3 courts in order to access any NSA database containing private information of American citizens.

Rand Paul’s proposal seems like a good approach; however, the DOJ does not support having to go to a court every-time they “incidentally” capture records of Americans prior to being able to look at or utilize the results.  It’s a complex issue but history has shown the inherent ‘honor system‘ within the functions of the process simply does not work.

Prior to the December 9, 2019, inspector general report on FISA abuse; and prior to the March 31st interim memo as the IG looks deeper into the FISA process; FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons.  In the Obama-era this included political surveillance.

Americans were, and are, under surveillance as part of the process.  The capture of all electronic metadata belonging to American citizens, in combination with the captured metadata of non-American persons, makes it almost impossible to review the totality of the database without infringing on the privacy rights of Americans.

For the past several years no corrective action taken by the intelligence community has improved the abuses outlined by the FISA court; the surveillance has only worsened.

The U.S. constitution’s fourth amendment is being violated by the continued abuse of bulk metadata collection, particularly when private contractors and government officials illegally access the system. The 2016 FISA review (Judge Collyer partly declassified in 2017) and the 2018 FISA review (Judge Boasberg partly declassified in 2019) both show ongoing and systematic wrongdoing despite all prior corrective action and promises.

Beyond the database search abuses, on the use of fully assembled FISA applications for surveillance warrants against American citizens, there are even more troubling findings.  Below are the stunning top-lines identified by the March 2020 IG memo:

• The IG reviewed 29 FISA applications, surveillance warrants, used against U.S. persons.
• The 29 FISA applications were from eight different field offices.
• The FISA applications were from Oct/2014 through Sept/2019.
• All of the FISA applications reviewed were approved by the FISA court.

The ‘Woods File’ is the mandatory FBI evidence file that contains the documentary proof to verify all statements against U.S. persons that are contained in the FISA application.  Remember, this is a secret court, the FISA applications result in secret surveillance and wiretaps against U.S. persons outside the fourth amendment.

♦ Within the 29 FISA applications reviewed, four were completely missing the Woods File.  Meaning there was zero supportive evidence for any of the FBI claims against U.S. persons underpinning the FISA application.  [ie. The FBI just made stuff up]

♦ Of the remaining 25 FISA applications, 100% of them, all of them, were materially deficient on the woods file requirement; and the average number of deficiencies per file was 20.  Meaning an average of twenty direct statements against the target, supporting the purpose of the FISA application, sworn by the FBI affiant, were unsubstantiated.  [The low was 5, the high was 63, the average per file was 20]

♦ Half of the FISA applications reviewed used Confidential Human Sources (CHS’s).  The memo outlines that “many” of applications containing CHS claims had no supportive documentation attesting to the dependability of the CHS.

♦ Two of the 25 FISA applications reviewed had renewals; meaning the FISA applications were renewed to extended surveillance, wiretaps, etc. beyond the initial 90-days.  None of the renewals had any re-verification.  Both FISAs that used renewals were not compliant.

But wait… it gets worse.

The DOJ and FBI have an internal self-check mechanism.  The DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) chief counsel, and the chief counsel for every FBI field office are required to conduct an “Accuracy Review” of selected FISA applications.  One per field office (25 to 30 field offices),which are also sent to DOJ-NSD (main justice) for general counsel inspection.

Keep in mind, these “accuracy reviews” are known in advance, so the FBI has all the time in the world to select the best FISA file for review.  Additionally, I surmise the OIG wanted to inspect the “accuracy review” FISA’s because they would show the best light on the overall system itself.  The OIG was looking for the best, most compliant, product to report on.

However, when the OIG inspected 42 of these Accuracy Reviews, the IG identified that only three of them had accurately assembled documents (Woods File) supporting the application.  The error rate within the files self-checked was over 93%.

So the best FBI files are selected to undergo the FBI and DOJ-NSD accuracy review.  The accuracy review takes place by FBI legal counsel and DOJ-NSD legal counsel.  However, the IG finds that only three FBI applications in the accuracy reviews were compliant.

The error rate in the files undertaken by the internal accuracy review was over 93% (3 compliant out of 42 reviewed).  These were the FISA files with the greatest possibility of being accurate.   That tells us how flawed the process has always been.

FUBAR!