This is disturbing: “This is the third case in less than a year in which a former US intelligence officer has pled or been found guilty of conspiring with Chinese intelligence services to pass them national defense information.”
VIA DOJ – A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer pleaded guilty today to conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia, Assistant Director for Counterintelligence John Brown of the FBI and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III accepted the plea.
According to court documents, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 54, left the CIA in 2007 and began residing in Hong Kong. In April 2010, two Chinese intelligence officers (IOs) approached Lee and offered to pay him for national defense information he had acquired as a CIA case officer. The IOs also told Lee they had prepared for him a gift of $100,000 cash, and they offered to take care of him “for life” in exchange for his cooperation.
Beginning sometime in May 2010 and continuing into at least 2011, Lee received requests for information, or taskings, from the Chinese IOs. The majority of the taskings asked Lee to reveal sensitive information about the CIA, including national defense information. On May 14, 2010, Lee made or caused to be made a cash deposit of $138,000 HKD (approximately $17,468 in USD) into his personal bank account in Hong Kong. This would be the first of hundreds of thousands of dollars (USD equivalent) in cash deposits Lee made or caused to be made into his personal HSBC account from May 2010 through December 2013. (read more)
Unrelated. I’m wondering if “Assistant Director for Counterintelligence John Brownof the FBI” is the “John” in this text exchange:
“Andy” is Andrew McCabe (Former FBI Deputy Director)
“Bill” is Bill Priestap (Former FBI Director of Counterintelligence)
“Jen” is Jennifer Boone (FBI Counterproliferation unit)
“John” might very well be John Brown. Asst. Director for Counterintelligence
The case of Claas Relotius, an award winning Spiegel writer, who was caught writing fiction and selling it as true stories, seemed to be a game changer in the world of journalism. Yet it soon became just yesterday’s news. And, as Thomas Beschorner of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, wrote, it was surprising in the first place that people found the lying in the media so surprising. “Scientists manipulate results of research, managers lie. We know all that happens. Everywhere, but not in journalism?”
Somewhat paradoxically, given his suggestion that lying was routine and common, the same Prof. Beschorner continued: “Whether this is an isolated case, or the problem is systemic and therefore widespread, we don’t know yet.”
Then a similar case was discovered. An award winning contributor to Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, Dirk Gieselmann, had invented a main protagonist in a story he wrote. The SZ stated the forgery had taken place, but revealed few details, while suggesting the case was not as severe as that of Relotius.
One way or another, do two known recent cases of fictitious journalism in Germany make the problem systemic?
But what about the infamous fake news? And alternative facts? Those have been around for a while. Is that something totally different from making up plots and characters as in the above mentioned cases?
Even though it was Donald Trump who was credited with creating the fake-news brand, it was largely applied to his own statements, as well as various stories, posts and tweets coming out of Russia, on its behalf, in favour of its perceived friends, and against its perceived enemies.
Yet, has the fake news era really started with Trump and his collusion with Russia, that never actually was? While some call the Trump era “post-truth”, how should we refer to the times when, for example, a Labour prime minister was lying blatantly to justify a war that was to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians? Or what was the director of National Intelligence in the administration of a progressive predecessor of President Trump doing as he denied NSA were spying on Americans? He was lying, as it became obvious from Edward Snowden’s revelations a little later, but it was a lie before the post-truth era kicked off “officially”.
I had to do my fair share of pondering on the fake news issue while dealing with the story of Sergei Magnitsky and William Browder. I started investigating the story well before the Trump era, but the consequences of my findings revealed in a film played out fully in the context of the new ideological war between Russia and the West.
In the course of the preparations for a new film I am to shoot this year, I wrote to Frederik Obermaier, a Munich based journalist known for the investigation of the famous Panama Papers leak. Obermaier won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the Panama Papers, as part of an ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) team. Mr Obermaier was one of the authors of the article “The Cellist and the dead Lawyer” (in the English version: “The Magnitsky Case“) published by Suedeutsche on 27 April 2016.
My new film deals, inter alia, with the ways money is laundered, and I wanted to interview Mr Obermeier, who, along with his ICIJ colleagues, has become an authority on the subject. The article Mr Obermeier co-wrote was of a particular interest to me as it appeared to have traced the money stolen in the fraud associated with the name of Sergei Magnitsky. ICIJ has recently reminded its subscribers of the great investigative article by the German colleagues, published exactly three years ago.
The article seems to have established a connection between the Magnitsky Affair (which my previous film was about) and a friend of Vladimir Putin, Sergei Roldugin. My forthcoming film is in many ways a sequel to the film about the fraud at the centre of the Magnitsky Case.
While studying Frederik Obermaier’s article and its sources I realised that it was full of mistakes. I made a list of the most obvious ones and emailed it to Mr Obermaier on the 23 October 2018. Having not heard back I sent another email on 21 November attaching an updated list of mistakes complete with explanations and links to documents disproving the majority of the claims in the article. The first time round I asked Mr Obermaier for an interview, but then I suggested we discuss the matter off the record. Anyone can make mistakes, but the ability to admit them is as important as the talent for authoring good stories, in my humble opinion. I got no response from Frederik Obermaier whatsoever.
Illustration: Sueddeutsche Zeitung
His Sueddeutsche Zeitung article seems to have essentially re-transmitted the false story of Sergei Magntisky, told by Bill Browder, a hedge fund manager, for whom Magnitsky worked as an accountant.
Browder is wanted by Russia for tax evasion. He claims that the Russian criminal charges are politically motivated. Yet, the tax evasion (as well as a number of related crimes) Browder is being accused of happened in 2001, the criminal probe into it starting in 2004. It is well known, and easily evidenced, that Browder was an outspoken supporter of Putin and his government until at least 2005.
“
But investor William F. Browder sees it differently. Never mind the arguments about a creeping coup by Putin’s KGB colleagues, the war in Chechnya, the state takeover of television or even the jailing of Russia’s richest man. To Browder, Putin is a true reformer, “the one ally” of Western capitalists who have come to Russia to create a new market economy but have found themselves adrift “in a sea of corrupt bullies.”
Instead of pushing the country back, Putin has implemented a reform program that is far more liberal than anything that could have been cooked up at the most radical think tank in Washington. (…)
Putin understood that the country would never succeed with seven oligarchs at the helm — particularly since their interests were so counter to those of the nation. He has set clear limits to the oligarchs’ power and their meddling in the affairs of state. While there may be some things about Putin that we disagree with, we should give him the benefit of the doubt in this area and fully support him in his task of taking back control of the country from the oligarchs.
In 2007, as a result of an elaborate tax rebate scam 230 million dollars were paid into the accounts of three Browder’s companies in Russia. No one (neither Browder nor the Russian authorities) deny the tax rebate fraud took place, except that Browder claims he had lost control of his companies before the money was paid out. I investigated Browder’s claims, and found that they were false.
To divert attention from the the proven 2001-2004 tax evasion case, as well as the suspicion that he may have been involved in the 230 million dollar tax rebate, Browder invented a figure of the crusading anti-corruption lawyer, whistleblower, Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky existed of course, but he was Browder’s accountant, not a lawyer, and he never blew whistle on anything.
Tragically, Magnitsky died while in pre-trial detention. Browder claims he was beaten to death by eight “riot guards”. Browder presents no evidence for that, apart from selective quotations from Russian documents. Studied in full those documents, as well as an American report commissioned by Browder himself, make no mention of a murder, let alone a murder by beating. The author of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe report on Magnitsky, Andreas Gross told me on camera that Magnitsky had not been murdered but died of the “lack of care”.
The investigative journalists at Sueddeutsche Zeitung claim to have traced money flows from the Magnitsky affair, but appear unwilling to recognise that they had uncritically embraced the affair’s interpretation by someone with a vested interest in it.
It is also highly ironic that the journalists, writing about Browder’s Russian business, chose to ignore that Browder himself used off-shore schemes extensively, with the help of his Russian staff that included Magnitsky. Companies controlled by Browder have also appeared in Panama papers, e.g Berkeley Advisors and Starcliff.
In the spring of 2016 my film was secretly, and possibly illegally, seen by U.S. government officials before its premiere at the European parliament was stopped on the 27th of April, and the ARTE transmission cancelled on the 3rd of May. One of those officials was Robert Otto, a top intelligence officer at the State Department who wrote in one of many e-mails that were later leaked online. “I am beginning to feel we are all just part of the Browder P.R. machine.” – Mr Otto wrote.
Another of those emails concerned Sueddeutsche Zeitung, my film and myself:
I recently managed to find out who the recipient of the email about me and my film was: Hubert Wetzel. The email was received at the time of the publication of the “The Cellist and the dead Lawyer“. Mr Wetzel had clearly passed the information to Browder’s acolyte Elena Servettaz, or to another “colleague from Suddeutsche Zeitung” (sic), who then swiftly passed it to Elena Servettaz.
I was not contacted by the SZ, either before the cancelled European Parliament screening or thereafter.
On 13 June 2018 Telepolis organised a screening of my film in Munich, with a following discussion. Frederik Obermaier and Tim Neshitov, who had written about the Magntisky case for the SZ were invited. No-one turned up, nor replied to the invitation.
The “money tracing” SZ/Panama Papers used trying to connect the Magnitsky fraud to Sergei Roldugin, was in its main part presented in the U.S. case against Prevezon Holdings Ltd (2013-2017). After almost five years of trying to prove that Prevezon received and laundered money from the Magnitsky fraud, the American government decided to avoid the litigation and to settle the case with no guilt admitted by Prevezon.
Prevezon lawyers questioned Browder as a witness under oath. It was Browder (as he himself admitted) who had personally handed Preet Bharara, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the version of the Magnitsky story that I disprove in my film. William Felix Browder was the source of the whole sprawling, costly case. And it’s his Magnitsky story that was essentially disproved in a court of law.
Yet the mainstream media, including the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, had no interest in taking another look at their articles which had faithfully re-transmitted Browder’s false story. And a stony, arrogant silence was all I got trying politely and tactfully to point out serious mistakes.
Panama papers became a brand name for the press standing up to corruption and wrongful secrecy of those in the position of power, whether financial or political. It would be paradoxical and particularly regrettable if a journalist, a colleague, would use a power he has acquired through a reputation for openness and association with mainstream German and international investigative networks, to obfuscate legitimate questions and documented objections.
“
Q.: What steps did you take in finding Mr. Browder to be credible?
A.: Well, we reviewed his documentation, we reviewed some of his statements and verified some of his statements via the internet.
Q.: What did he tell you?
A.: Well, he told us the story of Sergei Magnitsky.
Q.: What public source documents did he refer you to?
A.: He referred me on his website, he referred me to a Russian language newspaper.
Q.: What else?
A.: And the documents that he provided.
Q.: What documents did he provide?
A.: Copies of the bank records, copies of wire transactions
Q.: Did you get in touch with the banks to see if they were accurate?
A.: No, I did not.
Q.: And you obtained flow charts; is that correct?
A.: That’s correct.
Q.: And those were also from Hermitage that you obtained them?
A.: Correct.
Q.: So every transfer here is based on copies that are not authenticated, of records that are incomplete, based on an accounting assumption. Is that right?
A.: That would be correct.
—a scene from the film “The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes”: Deposition of Todd Hymann, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (United States District Court Southern District of New York)
Andrei Nekrasov has put out an article on the fake news that was behind the Magnitsky Case. He documents how there was never any evidence behind Bill Browder’s claims. Nevertheless, we are left with a question. Was all of this created fraud by Bill Browder or was there those in power who could care less if the story was true, they have been able to use it to create isolation of Russia and paint Putin as an evil warlord.
Western powers immediate moved nukes into place and pushed up against the borders of Russia. The neocons hate Trump and for whatever reason, they simply want war without purpose other than they seem to want to dominate the world and they accuse others. Every president before Trump strived for world peace. Here they are desperate to tie Trump to Putin to maintain a cold war if not turn it hot.
The Magnitsky Case is a great film. It has been banned and that is why it is the real story. If it was fake, they would let it air. But they are desperate to ban the Magnitsky Case as they were with our movie the Forecaster. There is something sinister behind the curtain and you can bet it is more than the Democrats – it involved the neocons as well.
At 10:00am EDT today U.S. Attorney General William Barr will deliver testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee following the publication of the special counsel report on the 2016 election. There will be a separate discussion thread at 9:00am EDT which will include multiple options to the view the testimony live.
Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing discuss the latest ebbs and flows amid the fraudulent Weissmann/Rosenstein report, the testimony of AG Bill Barr, and the potential to expose the weaponization of the intelligence apparatus for political surveillance and spying.
The entire leftist political apparatus is not going to give on their strategy. They have been planning this exploitation since November of 2018. This is what they do; this is all they do.
In a strategic set of rolled-out narratives today democrats, together with their leak sources inside the Mueller/Rosenstein group; and in close coordination with their media allies and Lawfare community; timed a series of events to target AG Bill Barr ahead of his senate testimony tomorrow. The timing of all this stuff is transparent.
It began with a letter from Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), to the inspector general demanding an immediate investigation of AG Barr for not agreeing to the carefully constructed narrative by Weissman, Mueller and Rosenstein. [Details Here] A group of 12 democrats demand the DOJ-OIG start investigating Attorney General Barr.
Hours later, the Washington Post and New York Times, simultaneously release dual timed articles, outlining their reception of a March 27th letter; leaked from inside the Weissmann/Mueller/Rosenstein operation; showing special counsel group were unhappy with Barr’s four-page summary of the Weissmann/Mueller report because it diluted the intended efforts of Weissmann, Mueller and Rosenstein.
(WaPo) […] “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller wrote. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”
The letter made a key request: that Barr release the 448-page report’s introductions and executive summaries, and made some initial suggested redactions for doing so, according to Justice Department officials. (read more)
The coordination between ¹corrupt democrat politicians, ²corrupt DOJ officials, and ³corrupt media entities is both transparent and seamless. AG Bill Barr is set to deliver testimony tomorrow to the Senate. So tonight they launch their proactive narrative assault to set the stage for the context of Barr’s appearance.
If they are so damned concerned about “Mueller’s” investigative intent being diluted, then why don’t they subpoena Robert Mueller?
Mueller complained that Barr’s letter did not capture ‘context’ of Trump probe
In a letter and phone call, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and Attorney General William P. Barr went back and forth over Mueller’s concerns. “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress…
Mueller complained that Barr’s letter did not capture ‘context’ of Trump probe
In a letter and phone call, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and Attorney General William P. Barr went back and forth over Mueller’s concerns. “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress…
Mueller Objected to Barr’s Description of Russia Investigation’s Findings
The special counsel laid out his objections in a letter to the attorney general in March.
nytimes.com
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This is all scripted folks. I know it’s repetitious to keep saying it, but this stuff is all coordinated by ideological allies in congress, the DOJ and FBI, and their media allies.
All of this is following a plan; a predetermined plan; established by a leftist group of fellow travelers; and yes that includes current DOJ and FBI officials like Rod Rosenstein, Chris Wray, David Bowditch and Dana Boente. Check the timing:
Former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, says any investigation of prior administration “will find nothing” that shows former President Obama or White House staff had any “involvement” in the origins of the surveillance of Trump campaign and Russia collusion investigation.
Prior to March 9th, 2016, the Obama-era political surveillance and spy operations consisted of using the FBI and NSA database to track/monitor their opposition. However, once the NSA compliance officer began initiating an internal review of who was accessing the system, the CIA and FBI moved to create ex post facto justification for their endeavors. [Full Backstory] Everything after March 9, 2016, became a cover-story.
Looking at White House engagement in the last half of 2016, The War Economy has done some excellent research on this period to contrast the reference of Ben Rhodes:
[Via TWE] […] On July 31, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ran by Director James Comey, opened an investigation into the Trump campaign titled “Crossfire Hurricane”, named after the Rolling Stones documentary of the same name. It focused on the actions of four members of the Trump campaign:
As such, this was an incredibly important time… for Director John Brennan of the Central Intelligence Agency.
As noted previously, the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation was partially triggered by information received by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterintelligence Mission Center, which served as a conduit to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by using contacts developed by the intelligence agency between Russian individuals and members of the Trump campaign.
“The CIA breakthrough came at a stage of the presidential campaign when Trump had secured the GOP nomination but was still regarded as a distance long shot. Clinton held comfortable leads in major polls, and Obama expected that he would be transferring power to someone who had served in his Cabinet.” — The Washington Post
“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.” — Sara Carter, Circa
In the first week of August — directly after the creation of Crossfire Hurricane — Director Brennan contacted Avril Haines via telephone, as he had received intelligence in relation to President Vladimir Putin.
“Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.
But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objects — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.” —The Washington Post
As a result of this, Director Brennan created a secret task force at the Central Intelligence Agency’s Headquarters, which was composed of several dozen analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Working Group reported to two different groups.
President Barack Obama and less than 14 senior United States Government officials.
A team of operations specialists at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Also in early August 2016 — presumably the same week — agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, where they questioned her about a letter they had received in early March 2016 from a foreign source, supposedly written by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations regarding the Midyear Exam investigation.
During this meeting, the agents offered to give Attorney General Lynch a “defensive briefing”. Shortly after this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that the Benardo letter was an unreliable document.
President Obama ordered his aides to determine ways to retaliate or deter against the Russian Government through three steps:
Gain a high-confidence assessment from the United States intelligence agencies on Russia’s role and intent.
Check vulnerabilities in state-run election systems.
Seek bipartisan support from Congressional leaders for a statement condemning Moscow and urging states to accept federal assistance.
The same week, Rice, Haines and Lisa Monaco convened meetings in the White House Situation Room, which would later be referred to as “Deputies Meetings”. These meetings were initially attended by:
Director John Brennan, Central Intelligence Agency
Director James Clapper, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Director James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, United States Department of Justice
As time passed, another Cabinet member joined the Deputies Meetings: Vice President Joe Biden.
The Deputies Meetings needed to defend against any potential leaks, and therefore followed the same protocols taken during the planning stages of the raid of Osama bin Laden.
At a later time, agendas were directly sent to Cabinet secretaries, including Secretary John Kerry and Secretary Ashton Carter. When an agenda was received, their subordinates were ordered never to open the envelopes. Further to this, some agendas were withheld until the participants had arrived in the Situation Room and sat down.
Ordinarily, a video feed from the White House Situation Room is fed into various National Security Council offices to allow senior aides to view the events with zero sound. However, during the Deputies Meetings, the video feeds were switched off.
One of these Deputies Meetings was hosted by Haines, where the attendees of the meetings argued that any deliberative attempt to strike back against Russia would become a tool of propaganda for President Vladimir Putin, while another was concerned about the potential effect any action may have on Election Day 2016.
Haines would later note she was “very concerned” during this time about the potential of Russians gaining influence within the Trump campaign, although she apparently remained unaware of the existence of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
As an aspect, or an offshoot, of one of these meetings, Susan Rice informedboth Michael Daniel and Celeste Wallander (who would later gain access to the Steele memos) to cease their planning of retaliation against Russia for their cyber attacks on companies and political campaigns and to stand down from the efforts.
The retaliation efforts were carried out by the Cyber Response Group, a unit within the National Security Council which featured representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the United States Department of State and the Pentagon.
One of these individuals was Anthony Ferrante, who was in charge of coordinating the United States Government’s response to Russian attempts to meddle in the presidential election as the top cybersecurity official from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the present day, Ferrante is investigating the Steele memos on behalf of BuzzFeed News. Anyway, back to the first week of August 2016…
Director Comey also met with President Obama in the Oval Office for a one-on-one meeting, where Director Comey suggested that he write an opinion piece for The New York Times about the potential for Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Director Comey planned to avoid mentioning the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in the opinion piece.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: “W– we– we know that– there were s– there were strong objections in– by Republicans in the Senate to being public about this. But at one point, you actually volunteered to put it all on paper?”
JAMES COMEY: “Yeah– I think it was in August, I volunteered that– that I would be– I remember saying that I’m a little tired of being the independent voice on things, after the beating I’d taken after the July 5th announcement. But I said in a meeting with the president, ‘I’m willing to be the voice on this and help inoculate the American people. But I also recognize why this is such a hard question, because if you announce that the Russians are trying to mess with our election, do you accomplish their goal for them? Do you undermine confidence in our election by having the president of the United States, or one of his senior people, say this publicly? Will the Russians be happy that you did that?’ And so I– I wrote an op-ed, was going to go in a major newspaper that laid out what was going on.Not the investigation, ’cause that was too sensitive to reveal, but that, ‘The Russians are here and they’re screwing with us. And this is consistent with what they’ve done in the past,’ and they never took me up on it. The Obama administration deliberated until the beginning of October.”
On August 1, 2016, Director Clapper attended the Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems Worldwide Conference in Atlanta, GA.
On August 4, 2016, Director Brennan contacted Director Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service (FSB), where he warned Director Bortnikov against future interference in the United States presidential election.
“When Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s internal security service, told me during an early August 2016 phone call that Russia wasn’t interfering in our presidential election, I knew he was lying. Over the previous several years I had grown weary of Mr. Bortnikov’s denials of Russia’s perfidy — about its mistreatment of American diplomats and citizens in Moscow, its repeated failure to adhere to cease-fire agreements in Syria and its paramilitary intervention in eastern Ukraine, to name just a few issues. When I warned Mr. Bortnikov that Russian interference in our election was intolerable and would roil United States-Russia relations for many years, he denied Russian involvement in any election, in America or elsewhere, with a feigned sincerity that I had heard many times before. President Vladimir Putin of Russia reiterated those denials numerous times over the past two years, often to Donald Trump’s seeming approval.” — John Brennan, The New York Times
The next day, on August 6, 2016, Hillary Clinton tweeted: “Seriously, what is going on with Trump and Russia?” with a 1 minute, 45 second video attached. The same day, President Obama and the First Family left for their vacation at Martha’s Vineyard.
Two days later, on August 8, 2016, Special Agent Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page about a joint intelligence piece for Director Comey to prepare for him to brief Denis McDonough on August 10, 2016.
In mid-August 2016, Director Brennan shared intelligence with Director Comey, which showed that the Russian Government was actively interfering in the 2016 United States presidential election.
Starting from August 11, 2016, Director Brennan started to personally brief — in consultation with the White House — each member of the “Gang of Eight” about the Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election.
JOHN BRENNAN: “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, 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.”
As noted by Director Brennan, the “Gang of Eight” at the time were:
Senator Richard Burr
Senator Dianne Feinstein
Senator Mitch McConnell
Representative Devin Nunes
Representative Nancy Pelosi
Senator Harry Reid
Speaker Paul Ryan
Representative Adam Schiff
On the day the briefings started — August 11 — Representative Pelosi declared that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee was a modern version of the Watergate scandal, conducted by the Russians. At the same time, Director Clapper visited Estonia in person.
Director Clapper worked on preparing the classified briefings for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as being the nominees of both the Republican Party and Democratic Party allowed them access to some classified information.
Around this time, counterintelligence specialists at the Federal Bureau of Investigation briefed Donald Trump and his surrogates and leadership, and Hillary Clinton and her surrogates and leadership, about the Russian Government’s interference of the 2016 United States presidential election, and issues surrounding cybersecurity.
On August 15, 2016, Special Agent Strzok texted 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…”
Meanwhile, Secretary Jeh Johnson arranged a conference call with dozens of state officials in an attempt to enlist their support in the White House’s election defence campaign, with one of the officials called being Brian Kemp.
On August 19, 2016, Special Agent Strzok texted Page that he was preparing for a meeting with Director Clapper, who then after the meeting contacted Director Comey.
Two days later, on August 21, 2016, President Obama and the First Family left Martha’s Vineyard to return to Washington, DC.
On August 24, 2016, Director Brennan and Director Clapper shared the stage together for a symposium at the Nixon Library, where they discussed the Presidential Daily Brief.
It was the next day, August 25, 2016, that Director Brennan contacted Senator Reid through a secure telephone line as part of his classified “Gang of Eight” briefings. During the conversation, Senator Reid was informed that Russia was attempting to assist Trump with winning the election, and that members of the Trump campaign may be working with Russians to achieve this. Director Brennan also advised Senator Reid that, as the Central Intelligence Agency focused on foreign affairs, he would have to speak with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to discuss further.
Another two days later, on August 27, 2016, Senator Reid sent a letter to Director Comey, where he expressed concern and questioned the range of Russian interference. Senator Reid also requested for an investigation to be opened, unaware of the existence of Crossfire Hurricane. In the letter, Carter Page was cited. However, Director Comey later informed the Crossfire Hurricane team that he was contacted by Senator Reid prior and was warned that a letter would be sent.
On the same day, Senator McConnell received his own personal briefing from Director Brennan, where he questioned the underpinnings of the intelligence gathered. Senator McConnell agreed during the briefing to sign a letter to state election officials about potential election interference, requesting that altered language be used for it.
Hillary Clinton then received her first classified briefing — alone, for 2 hours — from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence at a Federal Bureau of Investigation facility in White Plains, NY.
In late August 2016, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation team learned of the memoswritten by Christopher Steele from Special Agent Michael Gaeta, where they then briefed Director Comey and deputies on their existence.
Around this time, Admiral Rogers pushed for a counter-cyber-strike against Russia for their actions, proposing a number of potential scenarios, although none of them were presented to President Obama.
As August 2016 was coming to a close, Director Brennan became more concerned over Russia’s cyber attacks on the United States during the presidential election.
On September 2, 2016, Special Agent Strzok and Lisa Page prepared a set of talking points for Director Comey, as he was preparing for a meeting with President Obama, who wanted to know everything they were doing. Shortly after this, Strzok and Page then discussed their authorship of the opinion piece — this is most likely the same opinion piece Director Comey discussed with President Obama in August 2016.
During this meeting, they tried to arrange a bipartisan letter to be sent to State Governors to defend the election infrastructure. The Republican Party members of the United States Congress disagreed with the plan, as they viewed the request as partisan.
The day after, on September 6, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence held a classified briefing with Congressional staff members about Russian hacking and interference in the presidential election, while Director Brennan completed his own personal briefings with the “Gang of Eight”.
Between September 7–8, 2016, the Intelligence and National Security Summit was held, which was attended by Director Clapper, Shawn Henry, Representative Schiff, Deputy Director McCabe, John Carlin, Stuart Evans, Admiral Rogers, William Evanina, Director Comey and Director Brennan.
“Gotta figure that out tomorrow. Insider threat perhaps. Maybe Electoral shenanigans. I’m between Clapper and Evanina and another person or two.” — Peter Strzok, September 5, 2016
Three days later, on September 11, 2016, Director Brennan was interviewed on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, where he warned about Russia’s capabilities in the cyber-realm. Director Brennan also noted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails.
“CIA Director John Brennan warned on Sunday that Russia has ‘exceptionally capable and sophisticated’ computer capabilities and that the U.S. must be on guard.
When asked in a television interview whether Russia is trying to manipulate the American presidential election, Brennan didn’t say. But he noted that the FBI is investigating the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, and he cited Moscow’s aggressive intelligence collection and its focus on high-tech snooping. ‘I think that we have to be very, very wary of what the Russians might be trying to do in terms of collecting information in a cyber realm, as well as what they might want to do with it,’ he told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.” — CBS News
The next day, on September 12, 2016, Representative Pelosi, Senator McConnell, Senator Reid and Speaker Ryan met with President Obama in the Oval Office to discuss Zika funding.
It was during this Oval Office meeting that President Obama requested for the Senators and Representatives to join him in asking the states to work the White House on protecting the election network infrastructure, which included the development of a bipartisan statement. Senator McConnell pushed for the statement to be “watered down” from the original request.
On September 14, 2016, Monaco attended a Center For Strategic and International Studies conference, where she warned that there would be retaliation from the United States for the hacking of political organisations. Other attendees at the conference includedJames A. Baker and George Toscas.
“They come as the FBI is probing the extent to which Moscow is carrying out an unprecedented digital campaign to potentially undermine confidence in the political process here. The nation’s top national security officials warned Wednesdaythat the United States is prepared to respond to whoever is behind the hacks of political organizations such as the Democratic National Committee. ‘Nobody should think that there’s a free pass,’ said Lisa Monaco, President Obama’s adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, when asked at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference about the hacks linked to Russia.” — The Washington Post
Monaco then spoke at the 10-year anniversary of the United States Department of Justice’s National Security Division, where she said that it would be very difficult for Russia to hack the elections. Meanwhile, Special Agent Strzok was briefed by the National Security Agency.
In mid-September 2016, the Steele memo provided by Special Agent Gaeta reached the Crossfire Hurricane investigation team.
On September 22, 2016, Senator Feinstein and Representative Schiff released a joint statement about Russian interference in the presidential election, where they mentioned the briefings they had received from Director Brennan.
“But sources tell BuzzFeed News that the White House — which has stayed silent despite mounting pressure to call out its Moscow adversaries — tried to delay the statement’s release. The public accusation was of such concern to the administration that White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was personally involved in the negotiations over releasing it, according to a congressional source.
Feinstein and Schiff, both Democrats, agreed to omit part of their original statement for security reasons, according to another congressional source. That request, which stemmed from concerns over classification, came from the CIA, a congressional source added Wednesday.” — Ali Watkins, BuzzFeed News
In late September 2016, Director Comey ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterintelligence Division — headed by Bill Priestap — to protect the 2016 United States presidential election from foreign interference.
On September 28, 2016, Senator McConnell, Senator Reid, Speaker Ryan and Representative Pelosi sent a bipartisan joint letter to Todd Valentine to warn him about potential cyber-attacks which may affect the presidential election. On the same day, Director Comey testified before the House Judiciary Committee, where he discussed the attempted intrusions into voter database registrations in July, August and beyond.
In October 2016, the Obama Administration officially ruled out moving forward on Director Comey’s plan to write and publish an opinion piece for The New York Times.
JAMES COMEY: “And so I– I wrote an op-ed, was going to go in a major newspaper that laid out what was going on. Not the investigation, ’cause that was too sensitive to reveal, but that, ‘The Russians are here and they’re screwing with us. And this is consistent with what they’ve done in the past,’ and they never took me up on it. The Obama administration deliberated until the beginning of October.”
However, an alternative plan was created in its place by the Obama Administration: in the event Hillary Clinton was defeated on Election Day, then the White House would co-ordinate with Congressional Republicans, former Presidents of the United States, and former Cabinet-level officials — which included both Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell — to verify the election, which included confirmation that Russia pushed for Trump to win over Hillary. This plan was discussed with Ben Rhodes.
“In October 2016, senior staff in the Obama White House discussed what they should do if Hillary Clinton won the November election and Donald Trump refused to accept the result as legitimate. They had cause to be worried. At that time, Trump had openly speculated that the election might be ‘rigged.’ During his final debate with Clinton on October 19, he said that his opponent ‘should never have been allowed to run’ and declined to answer the question of whether he would concede. ‘I’ll keep you in suspense,’ the Republican nominee said.”
“The Obama White House plan, according to interviews with Rhodes and Jen Psaki, Obama’s communications director, called for congressional Republicans, former presidents, and former Cabinet-level officials including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, to try and forestall a political crisis by validating the election result. In the event that Trump tried to dispute a Clinton victory, they would affirm the result as well as the conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence community that Russian interference in the election sought to favor Trump, and not Clinton. Some Republicans were already aware of Russian interference from intelligence briefings given to leaders from both parties during the chaotic months before the election. ‘We wanted to handle the Russia information in a way that was as bipartisan as possible,’ Rhodes said.” — New York Magazine
TWE has a fifteen part series of information, assembling more than a year of research, relating to the 2016 election and the intelligence community involvement therein. If you enjoy reading fully cited background material on multiple break-out aspects, his research is a terrific resource. SEE HERE
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has written his resignation letter to President Trump (link to pdf). His resignation is effective May 11th, 2019:
National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox Business to discuss the latest strong economic numbers including GDP growth, rising wages, low inflation, and strong capital investment. Additionally, Kudlow discusses current status of U.S. trade negotiations with China and a looming battle against the Decpeticons for USMCA.
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On the latest Op-ed by Iowa Decepticon Senator Chuck Grassley. As I mentioned last week, the Grassley/Johnson letter to AG Bill Barr is exhibit “A” in how DC attempts to leverage their own financial interests against the outsider that is Donald Trump.
Senate Finance Chairman Grassley’s move last week was a shot across the bow, but generally only noticed by those who travel the deep weeds of corrupt DC leverage strategy. Essentially, Grassley saying he won’t allow Trump to expose the deep state corruption unless Trump concedes to Wall Street’s demands on trade deals.
It only took a few days for the evidence of this leverage move to surface as Grassley, acting on behalf of his K-Street donors, writes an Op-ed stating if Trump doesn’t drop the Steel and Aluminum tariffs, then he can consider the USMCA “dead”. An absolutely typical Decepticon move.
The op-ed itself is a clear example of pure globalist trade BS for many reasons. Forgive me if my language turns curt, but CTH has been battling this exact issue for a long time.
Chuck Grassley – […] The Constitution assigns Congress the task of regulating foreign commerce. The House and Senate must pass legislation implementing USMCA. As chairman of the Finance Committee, I’m leading the Senate effort. I’ve been involved in the passage of every U.S. free-trade agreement, and it’s never easy. Reorganizing a massive economic relationship affects many constituencies, and that’s inevitably complicated.
I’ve met with congressional colleagues, as well as U.S., Canadian and Mexican trade officials, to discuss how our nations will secure legislative approval of USMCA. A significant roadblock is the administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminum and retaliatory Canadian and Mexican tariffs on U.S. products. These levies are a tax on Americans, and they jeopardize USMCA’s prospects of passage in the Mexican Congress, Canadian Parliament and U.S. Congress.
Canadian and Mexican trade officials may be more delicate in their language, but they’re diplomats. I’m not. If these tariffs aren’t lifted, USMCA is dead. There is no appetite in Congress to debate USMCA with these tariffs in place.
Many Americans have been harmed by retaliatory tariffs. Mexican tariffs on U.S. pork, to take one example, have lowered the value of live hogs by $12 an animal. Iowa is the top pork-producing state in the country. That means jobs, wages and communities are hurt every day these tariffs continue—as I hear directly from Iowans. It’s time for the tariffs to go. (more)
Hogwash ! The #1 contract owner of pork is Smithfield; now a Chinese company. The price of pork is more related to the ongoing U.S-China trade negotiation than any Mexican reciprocal tariff.
Additionally, the USMCA terms were negotiated with Mexico agreeing to them as constructed. Grassley is being intentionally obtuse; it’s not Mexico taking exception to the Steel and Aluminum tariffs, it is the U.S, specifically the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ie. Wall Street.
Sure Mexico and Canada would love to keep their access to the U.S. market as open as possible and water-down any position that increases the U.S. economy. However, it is congress who are currently positioning themselves to eliminate the U.S. benefit, not Mexico and Canada. These Decepticons are doing the bidding of the multinationals that control Wall Street, and attempting to keep their place at the K-Street donor trough.
Iowa Senator Grassley is 100% owned by BigAG and President Trump has already given Grassley a big win with the continuance of a ridiculous ethanol subsidy. Now Grassley wants more on behalf of his benefactors.
This is what we are up against. Purchased politicians doing the bidding of multinational corporate interests and simultaneously trying to hide their motives. These are the worst of the Decepticons. This is why they can never be trusted.
…“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
♦POTUS Trump is disrupting the global order of things in order to protect and preserve the shrinking interests of the U.S. He is fighting, almost single-handed, at the threshold of the abyss. Our interests, our position, is zero-sum. Our opposition seeks to repel and retain the status-quo. They were on the cusp of full economic victory over the U.S.
Summary of Action: President Trump structuring a plan to break up multinational BIG-AG, and their “controlled markets.” STOP In the interim, to return to supply-side principles, POTUS Trump proposes a bridge-subsidy approach to wean farmers off exploitative, globalist, multinational “contract farming”. STOP In this endeavor President Trump and Mexican President Lopez Obrador will be brothers-in-arms. FULLSTOP
President Trump is disrupting decades of multinational financial interests who use the U.S. as a host for their ideological endeavors. President Trump is confronting multinational corporations and the global constructs of economic systems that were put in place to the detriment of the host (USA) ie. YOU; or in this example the U.S. farmer. There are trillions at stake; it is all about the economics; all else is chaff and countermeasures.
Familiar faces, perhaps faces you previously thought were decent, are now revealing their alignment with larger entities that are our abusers. In an effort to awaken the victim to the cycle of self-destructive codependent behavior, allow me to cue a recent audio visual example from U.S. Senator John Thune. WATCH:
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What South Dakota Senator John Thune is showcasing here is his full alignment with big multinational corporate agriculture (BIG AG). Big AG is not supporting local farmers. Big AG does not support “free and fair markets.” Big AG supports the interests of multinational corporations and multinational financial interests.
For those interests the U.S. is the host; from our perspective they are the parasite.
It is critical to think of BIG AG in the same way we already are familiar with multinational manufacturing of durable goods.
We are already familiar how China, Mexico and ASEAN nations export our raw materials (ore, coking coal, rare earth minerals etc.). The raw materials are used to manufacture goods overseas, the cheap durable goods are then shipped back into the U.S. for purchase.
It is within this decades-long process where we lost the manufacturing base, and the multinational economic planners (World Trade Organization) put us on a path to being a “service driven” economy.
The road to a “service-driven economy” is paved with a great disparity between financial classes. The wealth gap is directly related to the inability of the middle-class to thrive.
Elite financial interests, including those within Washington DC, gain wealth and power, the U.S. workforce is reduced to servitude, “service”, of their affluent needs.
The destruction of the U.S. industrial and manufacturing base is EXACTLY WHY the wealth gap has exploded in the past 30 years.
With that familiarity, did you think the multinationals would stop with only “DURABLE GOODS”?
They don’t.
They didn’t.
The exact same exfiltration and exploitation has been happening, with increased speed, over the past 15-20 years with “CONSUMABLE GOODS“, ie food.
Raw material foodstuff is exported to China, ASEAN nations and Mexico, processed and shipped back into the U.S. as a finished product.
Recent example: Salmonella Ritz Bits (whey); Nabisco shuts New Jersey manufacturing plant, moves food production to Mexico… the result: Salmonella crackers. This is the same design-flow with food as previously exploited by other economic sectors, including auto manufacturing.
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Monsanto, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Bunge, Potash Corp, Cargill or Wilmar, stay out of the public eye by design. Most megafood conglomerates have roots going back a century or more, but ever-increasing consolidation means that their current corporate owners may have been established only a few years ago. Welcome to the complex world of Big Ag:
Start with the so-called Big Six [PDF]. Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Bayer, and BASF produce roughly three-quarters of the pesticides used in the world. The first five also sell more than half the name-brand seeds that farmers plant, including varieties modified for resistance to the very pesticides they also sell. Meanwhile, if farmers want fertilizer, a list of 10 other companies, starting with PotashCorp, account for about two-thirds of the world market.
Once the plowing, planting, nurturing, and harvesting are done, around 80 percent of major crops pass through the hands of four traders: ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus. These companies aren’t just financiers, of course—Cargill, for example, produces animal feed and many other products, and it supplies more than a fifth of all meat sold in the United States.
And if you ever had any ideas about going vegetarian to avoid the conglomerates, forget about it: ADM processes about a third of all soybeans in the United States and a sixth of those grown around the globe. It also brews more than 5.6 billion liters of ethanol for gasoline and pours more than 2 million metric tons of high-fructose corn syrup every year. And it produces a sixth of the world’s chocolate. {Continue – and go Deep}
Multinational corporations, BIG AG, are now invested in controlling the outputs of U.S. agricultural industry and farmers. This process is why food prices have risen exponentially in the past decade.
The free market is not determining price; there is no “supply and demand” influence within this modern agricultural dynamic. Food commodities are now a controlled market just like durable goods. The raw material (harvests writ large) are exploited by the financial interests of massive multinational corporations. This is “contract farming”.
Again, if we were to pull out of NAFTA our food bill would drop 25% (or more) within the first year. Further, if U.S. supply and demand were part of the domestic market price for food, we would see the prices of aggregate food products drop by half almost immediately. Some perishable food products would predictably drop so dramatically in price it is unfathomable how far the prices would fall.
Behind this dynamic we find the international corporate and financial interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s “America-First” economic and trade platform. Believe it or not, President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.
When we understand how trade works in the modern era we understand why the agents within the system are so adamantly opposed to U.S. President Trump.
♦The biggest lie in modern economics, willingly spread and maintained by corporate media, is that a system of global markets still exists.
It doesn’t.
Every element of global economic trade is controlled and exploited by massive institutions, multinational banks and multinational corporations. Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank control trillions of dollars in economic activity. Underneath that economic activity there are people who hold the reigns of power over the outcomes. These individuals and groups are the stakeholders in direct opposition to principles of America-First national economics.
The modern financial constructs of these entities have been established over the course of the past three decades. When you understand how they manipulate the economic system of individual nations you begin to understand understand why they are so fundamentally opposed to President Trump.
In the Western World, separate from communist control perspectives (ie. China), “Global markets” are a modern myth; nothing more than a talking point meant to keep people satiated with sound bites they might find familiar. Global markets have been destroyed over the past three decades by multinational corporations who control the productsformerly contained within global markets.
The same is true for “Commodities Markets”. The multinational trade and economic system, run by corporations and multinational banks, now controls the product outputs of independent nations. The free market economic system has been usurped by entities who create what is best described as ‘controlled markets’.
U.S. President Trump smartly understands what has taken place. Additionally he uses economic leverage as part of a broader national security policy; and to understand who opposes President Trump specifically because of the economic leverage he creates, it becomes important to understand the objectives of the global and financial elite who run and operate the institutions. The Big Club.
Understanding how trillions of trade dollars influence geopolitical policy we begin to understand the three-decade global financial construct they seek to protect.
That is, global financial exploitation of national markets.
FOUR BASIC ELEMENTS:
♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national outputs (harvests an raw materials), and ancillary industries, of developed industrial western nations. {example}
♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks. (*note* in China it is the communist government underwriting the purchase)
♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.
Against the backdrop of President Trump confronting China; and against the backdrop of NAFTA being renegotiated, likely to exit; and against the necessary need to support the key U.S. steel industry; revisiting the economic influences within the modern import/export dynamic will help conceptualize the issues at the heart of the matter.
There are a myriad of interests within each trade sector that make specific explanation very challenging; however, here’s the basic outline.
For three decades economic “globalism” has advanced, quickly. Everyone accepts this statement, yet few actually stop to ask who and what are behind this – and why?
Influential people with vested financial interests in the process have sold a narrative that global manufacturing, global sourcing, and global production was the inherent way of the future. The same voices claimed the American economy was consigned to become a “service-driven economy.”
What was always missed in these discussions is that advocates selling this global-economy message have a vested financial and ideological interest in convincing the information consumer it is all just a natural outcome of economic progress.
It’s not.
It’s not natural at all. It is a process that is entirely controlled, promoted and utilized by large conglomerates, lobbyists, purchased politicians and massive financial corporations.
Again, I’ll try to retain the larger altitude perspective without falling into the traps of the esoteric weeds. I freely admit this is tough to explain and I may not be successful.
Bulletpoint #1:♦ Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.
This is perhaps the most challenging to understand. In essence, thanks specifically to the way the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995, national companies expanded their influence into multiple nations, across a myriad of industries and economic sectors (energy, agriculture, raw earth minerals, etc.). This is the basic underpinning of national companies becoming multinational corporations.
Think of these multinational corporations as global entities now powerful enough to reach into multiple nations -simultaneously- and purchase controlling interests in a single economic commodity.
A historic reference point might be the original multinational enterprise, energy via oil production. (Exxon, Mobil, BP, etc.)
However, in the modern global world, it’s not just oil; the resource and product procurement extends to virtually every possible commodity and industry. From the very visible (wheat/corn) to the obscure (small minerals, and even flowers).
Bulletpoint #2 ♦ The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.
During the past several decades national companies merged. The largest lemon producer company in Brazil, merges with the largest lemon company in Mexico, merges with the largest lemon company in Argentina, merges with the largest lemon company in the U.S., etc. etc. National companies, formerly of one nation, become “continental” companies with control over an entire continent of nations.
…. or it could be over several continents or even the entire world market of Lemon/Widget production. These are now multinational corporations. They hold interests in specific segments (this example lemons) across a broad variety of individual nations.
National laws on Monopoly building are not the same in all nations. Most are not as structured as the U.S.A or other more developed nations (with more laws). During the acquisition phase, when encountering a highly developed nation with monopoly laws, the process of an umbrella corporation might be needed to purchase the targeted interests within a specific nation. The example of Monsanto applies here.
Bulletpoint #3 ♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
With control of the majority of actual lemons the multinational corporation now holds a different set of financial values than a local farmer or national market. This is why commodities exchanges are essentially dead. In the aggregate the mercantile exchange is no longer a free or supply-based market; it is now a controlled market exploited by mega-sized multinational corporations.
Instead of the traditional ‘supply/demand’ equation determining prices, the corporations look to see what nations can afford what prices. The supply of the controlled product is then distributed to the country according to their ability to afford the price. This is essentially the bastardized and politicized function of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is also how the corporations controlling WTO policy maximize profits.
Back to the lemons. A corporation might hold the rights to the majority of the lemon production in Brazil, Argentina and California/Florida. The price the U.S. consumer pays for the lemons is directed by the amount of inventory (distribution) the controlling corporation allows in the U.S.
If the U.S. lemon harvest is abundant, the controlling interests will export the product to keep the U.S. consumer spending at peak or optimal price. A U.S. customer might pay $2 for a lemon, a Mexican customer might pay .50¢, and a Canadian $1.25.
The bottom line issue is the national supply (in this example ‘harvest/yield’) is not driving the national price because the supply is now controlled by massive multinational corporations.
The mistake people often make is calling this a “global commodity” process. In the modern era this “global commodity” phrase is particularly nonsense.
A true global commodity is a process of individual nations harvesting/creating a similar product and bringing that product to a global market. Individual nations each independently engaged in creating a similar product.
Under modern globalism this process no longer takes place. It’s a complete fraud. Massive multinational corporations control the majority of production inside each nation and therefore control the global product market and price. It is a controlled system.
EXAMPLE: Part of the lobbying in the food industry is to advocate for the expansion of U.S. taxpayer benefits to underwrite the costs of the domestic food products they control. By lobbying DC these multinational corporations get congress and policy-makers to expand the basis of who can use EBT and SNAP benefits (state reimbursement rates).
Expanding the federal subsidy for food purchases is part of the corporate profit dynamic.
With increased taxpayer subsidies, the food price controllers can charge more domestically and export more of the product internationally. Taxes, via subsidies, go into their profit margins. The corporations then use a portion of those enhanced profits in contributions to the politicians. It’s a circle of money.
In highly developed nations this multinational corporate process requires the corporation to purchase the domestic political process (as above) with individual nations allowing the exploitation in varying degrees. As such, the corporate lobbyists pay hundreds of millions to politicians for changes in policies and regulations; one sector, one product, or one industry at a time. These are specialized lobbyists.
EXAMPLE: The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
CFIUS is an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person (“covered transactions”), in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.
CFIUS operates pursuant to section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended by the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA) (section 721) and as implemented by Executive Order 11858, as amended, and regulations at 31 C.F.R. Part 800.
The CFIUS process has been the subject of significant reforms over the past several years. These include numerous improvements in internal CFIUS procedures, enactment of FINSA in July 2007, amendment of Executive Order 11858 in January 2008, revision of the CFIUS regulations in November 2008, and publication of guidance on CFIUS’s national security considerations in December 2008 (more)
Bulletpoint #4 ♦ With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.
The process of charging the U.S. consumer more for a product, that under normal national market conditions would cost less, is a process called exfiltration of wealth. This is the basic premise, the cornerstone, behind the catch-phrase ‘globalism’.
It is never discussed.
To control the market price some contracted product may even be secured and shipped with the intent to allow it to sit idle (or rot). It’s all about controlling the price and maximizing the profit equation. To gain the same $1 profit a widget multinational might have to sell 20 widgets in El-Salvador (.25¢ each), or two widgets in the U.S. ($2.50/each).
Think of the process like the historic reference of OPEC (Oil Producing Economic Countries). Only in the modern era massive corporations are playing the role of OPEC and it’s not oil being controlled, thanks to the WTO it’s almost everything.
Again, this is highlighted in the example of taxpayers subsidizing the food sector (EBT, SNAP etc.), the corporations can charge U.S. consumers more. Ex. more beef is exported, red meat prices remain high at the grocery store, but subsidized U.S. consumers can better afford the high prices.
Of course, if you are not receiving food payment assistance (middle-class) you can’t eat the steaks because you can’t afford them. (Not accidentally, it’s the same scheme in the ObamaCare healthcare system)
Agriculturally, multinational corporate Monsanto says: ‘all your harvests are belong to us‘. Contract with us, or you lose because we can control the market price of your end product. Downside is that once you sign that contract, you agree to terms that are entirely created by the financial interests of the larger corporation; not your farm.
The multinational agriculture lobby is massive. We willingly feed the world as part of the system; but you as a grocery customer pay more per unit at the grocery store because domestic supply no longer determines domestic price.
Within the agriculture community the (feed-the-world) production export factor also drives the need for labor. Labor is a cost. The multinational corps have a vested interest in low labor costs. Ergo, open border policies. (ie. willingly purchased republicans not supporting border wall etc.).
This corrupt economic manipulation/exploitation applies over multiple sectors, and even in the sub-sector of an industry like steel. China/India purchases the raw material, coking coal, then sells the finished good (rolled steel) back to the global market at a discount. Or it could be rubber, or concrete, or plastic, or frozen chicken parts etc.
The ‘America First’ Trump-Trade Doctrine upsets the entire construct of this multinational export/control dynamic. Team Trump focus exclusively on bilateral trade deals, with specific trade agreements targeted toward individual nations (not national corporations).
‘America-First’ is also specific policy at a granular product level looking out for the national interests of the United States, U.S. workers, U.S. companies and U.S. consumers.
Under President Trump’s Trade positions, balanced and fair trade with strong regulatory control over national assets, exfiltration of U.S. national wealth is essentially stopped.
This puts many current multinational corporations, globalists who previously took a stake-hold in the U.S. economy with intention to export the wealth, in a position of holding contracted interest of an asset they can no longer exploit.
Perhaps now we understand better how massive multi-billion multinational corporations and institutions are aligned against President Trump.
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
Countries that have treated us unfairly on trade for years are all coming to Washington to negotiate. This should have taken place many years ago but,
as the saying goes, better late than never!
Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that – and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being robbed. All will be Great!
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
This is disturbing: “This is the third case in less than a year in which a former US intelligence officer has pled or been found guilty of conspiring with Chinese intelligence services to pass them national defense information.”
Centinel2012 