Posted originally on CTH on April 2, 2026 | Sundance
In a two-week period right after the 2024 election, the most energy expended by the transition team putting a cabinet together was toward Main Justice or the Dept of Justice. As a consequence, those around Lutnick and Wiles spent an incredible amount of time thinking about the Attorney General pick.
Following an insider discussion, I spoke with several people about positions and appointments, focused on pointing out that the transition’s priorities were misplaced. The AG needed to be someone with exceptional moral character, capable of gathering information and presenting it for public consumption, with the option of supporting criminal referrals if necessary.
The Attorney General wasn’t going to be the tip of the spear in any operation to confront the Deep State, because if Main Justice wanted to confront Lawfare they needed to confront the Intelligence Community first. The IC controls all of the activity within the Dept of Justice.
Read that again for emphasis. For the issues of greatest importance, the Intelligence Community controls all of the activity within Main Justice. The IC is in control of the source material. The IC is above the DOJ. If you don’t strategize a confrontation with the IC first, it doesn’t matter what you do with the Dept of Justice.
The best example I could reference at the time was the Mar-a-Lago documents case and Judge Aileen Cannon. In that example the Executive branch was targeting Trump through the DOJ/FBI, and representing the Judicial branch Judge Cannon was the firewall ensuring the appropriate administration of justice.
Trump’s defense, through Cannon, pushed back against the DOJ (Jack Smith) while Smith leveraged all his Lawfare tools back against Cannon. You might remember the “classified document” issue went to the 11th CCA.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the government position that any documents defined as “classified” by the executive branch that claimed, “national security,” should not be disclosed to the defendant, Trump. The 11th CCA said when it comes to matters of national security, the judicial branch must defer to the determinations of the executive.
Basically, if the intelligence community decides certain information is tied to national security and labels it as classified for the DOJ, that decision can’t be challenged. The U.S. Supreme Court has backed this view. As a result, when it comes to national security issues, the judicial branch has to defer to the executive, giving the IC significant control over the DOJ.
If you drag former CIA Director John Brennan into court and Brennan’s lawyers argue ‘national security’ as a defense against indictment, inquiry or questioning, it’s not the DOJ (Attorney General) who matters – it’s the ‘national security’ determination of the Intelligence Community (Tulsi Gabbard) who controls the outcome.
Over and over, I kept emphasizing this point. If you want to hold the Spygate/Russiagate folks accountable, it’s not going to be the DOJ who matter; not directly. It is the Intelligence Community that matters.
If you seek accountability, and if you want to stop Lawfare from exploiting the silo defenses, it’s the IC that matters; not the Dept of Justice. The transition team was putting emphasis on the wrong syllable. Remember, my emphasis was on the need for institutional accountability on Spygate and Russiagate, and the DOJ is a tool toward the goal but not the ultimate weapon.
♦ Secondly, and specifically because of this issue, if you don’t confront the IC bad actors directly, if you don’t disassemble their power structures, you are going to end up with Main Justice in a constant position of defense, because the DOJ is downstream from the determinations of the Intelligence Community.
Yes, it’s a screwed-up system. Yes, it’s entirely part of the built-out silo defenses. But also yes, if you don’t approach it by beginning with the end in mind, then you get into a battle with Lawfare without the correct strategy. All of these accountability issues touch on ‘national security,’ and that national security will be weaponized as a defense.
Frustrated with my inability to convince, I wrote something in real time that I am going to repost below. Perhaps a revisit now will stimulate a new perspective.
The Attorney General and Main Justice are very important to the establishment of successful domestic policy, deportation objectives, immigration enforcement, criminal investigations, drug trafficking and human smuggling interdictions, election reform, law enforcement, civil order and constitutional protection. But for the sake of accountability, it is the ODNI and CIA Director who really matters.
Nov 11, 2024 – Yes, folks in the transition, I get it.
I totally understand why you approach the weaponization of government as a cancer treatment, and the Dept of Justice is the silo of focus for you to target with the harshest Stage-4 metastatic chemo.
I completely understand why, during this phase, all of your efforts have to be on aggressive treatment. Main Justice carries the badges, and it is only Main Justice that can prosecute corruption. I get it. I understand. However, the cancerous lesion, that first moment when the compromised cells began to die and replicate, will not lead to an origination in the DOJ.
So far, every pathologist who has reviewed the diagnostic biopsy has called this a ‘cancer of unknown primary origin’ or abbreviated a CUP. Having backlight this cell structure for many years, I call tell you with confidence the accurate origin is the United States Intelligence Community.
Please, begin all Term-2 treatment options with this diagnosis in mind.
Please pay attention to the silo structure.
Notice in this first short video how Mary McCord positions the power structure of the DOJ-NSD silo in deference to the Intelligence Community (IC).
This is a critical path within the next step to American’s “great awakening.” In the past we have outlined how the DOJ-NSD weaponizes their Lawfare by using “National Security Information,” or what the insiders call “NSI.”
As an outcome of the way our checks and balances have been modified against our interests, the judicial branch has repeatedly deferred to the DOJ around the issue of “national security.” In fact, if the DOJ labels any Lawfare approach as a national security matter the subsequent evidence therein, the NSI (even when not seen) is accepted by the judicial branch without question. The judicial branch defers to the executive on all matters defined by the executive as “national security.”
This is the area of exploit being discussed by Mary McCord in this segment below. However, PLEASE NOTICE there is an apparatus that can supersede the DOJ-NSD’s ability to weaponize Nat Sec Information, that’s the power of the intelligence apparatus. WATCH:
Do not brush off this important reveal by the foremost voice in exploiting the targeting systems granted by the Intelligence Community.
Mary McCord is telling us the IC is in charge of “the information” that is then weaponized in the lawfare approach.
McCord notes how she and Andrew Weissmann navigate through the process of using National Security Information (NSI) as they move toward their target; the most common reference is their political opposition, Donald J Trump.
The DOJ has to ask the IC for permission to engage.
The IC gives the DOJ-NSD the targeting system; without it, nothing happens.
If you remove Main Justice as a weapon, you are treating a symptom – not the disease itself. You still have not removed the origin of the cancer, the Intelligence Community.
McCord background:
If there is one Lawfare operative who has escaped scrutiny for her corrupt endeavors, it would be Mary McCord. More than any other Lawfare operative within Main Justice, Mary McCord sits at the center of every table in the manufacturing of cases against Donald Trump. {GO DEEP} Mary McCord’s husband is Sheldon Snook; he was the right hand to the legal counsel of Chief Justice John Roberts when the Dobbs decision was leaked.
When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’). That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important. It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.
When the application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin. Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016). John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.
♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.
A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents. The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.
♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.
♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission. Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint. It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules. Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General? Michael Atkinson.
When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to? Mary McCord.
Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment. As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.
♦ During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’), which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith. Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.
When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.
♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith. In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith, and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome. Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.
As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI, in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.
Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus? Mary McCord.
♦ SUMMARY: Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier. Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn. Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee. Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.
You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.
What happened next….
November 3, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)
That’s the context; now I want to go back a little.
First, when did Mary McCord become “amicus” to the FISA court? ANSWER: When the court (Boasberg) discovered IG Michael Horowitz was investigating the fraudulent FISA application. In essence, the FISA Court appointed the person who submitted the fraudulent filing, to advise on any ramifications from the fraudulent filing. See how that works?
Now, let’s go deeper….
When Mary McCord went to the White House with Sally Yates to talk to white house counsel Don McGhan about the Flynn call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, and the subsequent CBS interview with VP Pence, where Pence’s denial of any wrongdoing took place, the background narrative in the attack against Flynn was the Logan Act.
The construct of the Logan Act narrative was pure Lawfare, and DAG Sally Yates with Acting NSD AAG Mary McCord were the architects.
Why was the DOJ National Security Division concerned with a conflict between what Pence said on CBS and what Flynn said about his conversations with Kislyak?
This is where a big mental reset is needed. Flynn did nothing wrong. The incoming National Security Advisor can say anything he wants with the Russian ambassador, short of giving away classified details of any national security issue. In December of 2016, if Michael Flynn wanted to say Obama was an a**hole, and the Trump administration disagreed with everything he ever did, the incoming NSA was free to do so. There was simply nothing wrong with that conversation – regardless of content.
So, why were McCord and Yates so determined to make an issue in media and in confrontation with the White House? Why did the DOJ-NSD even care? This is the part that people overlooked when the media narrative was driving the news cycle. People got too stuck in the weeds and didn’t ask the right questions.
Some entity, we discover later was the FBI counterintelligence division, was monitoring Flynn’s calls. They transcribed a copy of the call between Flynn and Kislyak, and that became known as the “Flynn Cuts” as described within internal documents, and later statements.
After the Flynn/Kislyak conversation was leaked to the media, Obama asked ODNI Clapper how that call got leaked. Clapper went to the FBI on 1/4/17 and asked FBI Director James Comey. Comey gave Clapper a copy of the Flynn Cuts which Clapper then took back to the White House to explain to Obama.
Obama’s White House counsel went bananas, because Clapper had just walked directly into the Oval Office with proof the Obama administration was monitoring the incoming National Security Advisor.
Obama’s plausible deniability of the Trump surveillance was lost as soon as Clapper walked in with the written transcript.
That was the motive for the 1/5/17 Susan Rice memo, and the reason for Obama to emphasize “buy the book” three times.
It wasn’t that Obama didn’t know already; the problem was that a document trail now existed (likely a CYA from Comey) that took away Obama’s plausible deniability of knowledge.
The January 5th meeting documented by Susan Rice was quickly organized to mitigate this issue.
Knowing the Flynn Cuts were created simultaneously with the phone call, and knowing how it was quickly decided to use the Logan Act as a narrative against Flynn and Trump, we can be very sure both McCord and Yates had read that transcript before they went to the White House. [Again, this is the entire purpose of them going to the White House to confront McGhan with their manufactured concerns.]
So, when it comes to ‘who leaked’ the reality of the Flynn/Kislyak call to the media, the entire predicate for the Logan Act violation – in hindsight – I would bet a donut it was Mary McCord.
But wait, there’s more….
Now we go back to McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook.
Sheldon was working for the counsel to John Roberts. The counsel to the Chief Justice has one job, to review the legal implications of issues before the court and advise Justice John Roberts. The counsel to the Chief Justice knows everything happening in the court and is the sounding board for any legal issues impacting the Supreme Court.
In his position as the right hand of the counsel to the chief justice, Sheldon Snook would know everything happening inside the court.
At the time, there was nothing bigger inside the court than the Alito opinion known as the Dobb’s Decision – the returning of abortion law to the states. Without any doubt, the counsel to Chief Justice Roberts would have that decision at the forefront of his advice and counsel. By extension, this puts the actual written Alito opinion in the orbit of Sheldon Snook.
After the Supreme Court launched a heavily publicized internal investigation into the leaking of the Dobbs decision (Alito opinion), something interesting happened. Sheldon Snook left his position. If you look at the timing of the leak, the investigation and the Sheldon Snook exit, the circumstantial evidence looms large.
Of course, given the extremely high stakes, the institutional crisis with the public discovering the office of the legal counsel to the Chief Justice likely leaked the decision, such an outcome would be catastrophic for the institutional credibility. In essence, it would be Robert’s office who leaked the opinion to the media.
If you were Chief Justice John Roberts and desperately needed to protect the integrity of the court, making sure such a thermonuclear discovery was never identified would be paramount. Under the auspices of motive, Sheldon Snook would exit quietly. Which is exactly what happened.
The timeline holds the key.
Remember the stories of the J6 investigative staff all going to work for Jack Smith on the investigation of Donald Trump? Well, Mary McCord was a member of that team [citation]; all indications are that her background efforts continue today as a quiet member of the Special Counsel team that is still attacking Donald Trump.
To give you an idea of the scope of influence of Mary McCord as a key functionary, consider what we can document.
♦ McCord submitted the fraudulent FISA application to spy on Trump campaign.
♦ McCord created the “Logan Act” claim used against Michael Flynn and then went with Sally Yates to confront the White House.
♦ McCord then left the DOJ and went to work for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.
♦ McCord organized the CIA rule changes with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
♦ McCord led and organized the impeachment effort, in the background, using the evidence she helped create.
♦ McCord joined the FISA Court to protect against DOJ IG Michael Horowitz newly gained NSD oversight and FISA review.
♦ McCord joined the J6 Committee helping to create all the lawfare angles they deployed.
♦ McCord then coordinated with DA Fani Willis in Georgia.
♦ McCord is working with Special Counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump.
In short, Mary McCord is the lawfare string that winds through every legal ‘stop Trump’ effort, and her primary partner in this endeavor is Andrew Weissmann. In this next video segment, notice what the “how to use that” quote is referencing.
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Mary McCord is telling us who orchestrates their efforts.
It’s not Jack Smith, any more than it was Robert Mueller.
Mary McCord, Jack Smith, Andrew Weissman, Robert Mueller, etc. are/were simply the front men.
♦ Who assembled the 2016 “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report”? […] “The US intelligence community has concluded that a hack-and-release of Democratic Party and Clinton staff emails was designed to put Trump — a political neophyte who has praised Putin — into the Oval Office.”
♦ Who were the heads of the 17 intelligence agencies who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016?
♦ Who were the 51 names from the IC who said the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation in 2020?
♦ Who are the 60 IC professionals who said Kamala Harris was stronger for National Security?
There’s the backlight picture provided by an accurate pathological diagnosis.
I hope President Donald Trump uses the absolute power of his office to appoint key people who will carry his constitutional, plenary and absolute authority.
The National Security Advisor doesn’t need confirmation for a reason. Use the NatSec Advisor to target the origin of the cancer. Use the DNI to deconstruct the Intelligence Community silo system.
You did not make Tom Homan DHS Secretary because you knew in that role, he would have been weaker on securing the border and carrying out deportations. Great call. Now apply that same level of thinking to the National Security Advisor and ODNI.
Have the NatSec Advisor and Director of National Intelligence secure the Intelligence Community with the same level of ferocity you expect Homan to carry out on the border. Have the NatSec Advisor and ODNI carry the same deportation expectation inwardly, into every silo that makes up the 17 intelligence agencies and purge them just like the criminal aliens. The “Six Ways from Sunday” cartel are far more dangerous.
Destroy the lies. Get rid of the liars.
Get rid of the system control agents who isolate the Office of the President.
Make the Office of the President Great Again.
Centinel2012 