Rep. Doug Collins appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the upcoming testimony of Robert Mueller and the status of multiple inquires into the DOJ and FBI activity in 2016.

On the Horowitz report, remember to ignore all claims of upcoming release until we hear of the ‘Principal Notification’ for the final draft.  We’ll know when the IG submits the draft review to principals because while they are bound by non-disclosure over content, they will be advocating their defense positions in the media on their overall interests.

A lawsuit filed a week ago by Businessman Ed Butowsky, alleged that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News analyst Ellen Ratner the DNC leaked emails were received from Seth Rich and his brother Aaron. [Full Backstory Here]

Due to the scale of ramification, there was some valid skepticism about the Butowsky assertion.  However, recently unearthed footage from Ellen Ratner talking about her visit with Assange in November of 2016 seems to validate what the Butowsky’s lawsuit alleges.

In the video [Full Video Here] taken during a November 9th, 2016, Embry Riddle University symposium, Fox News analyst Ellen Ratner, representing the left, and former Congressman now Fox political analyst John Leboutillier, from the right, discussed the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election.  WATCH EXCERPT:

The excerpt is taken from 01:01:00 of the FULL VIDEO HERE

[h/t Michael Sheridan for the excerpt]  The date of the Ratner symposium November 9, 2016, aligns with the time-frame of Ratner’s travel and meeting with Assange as outlined by Butowsky in his lawsuit.   As noted Mrs. Ratner confirms that she did meet with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and that he did in fact tell her the leaked DNC emails came from inside the DNC.  It was not a Russian hack.

Hopefully this will spur the DOJ under Attorney General Bill Barr to launch an inquiry which must obviously start with the questioning of Ratner.

Accepting some enhanced credibility now exists, the details contained within the lawsuit filing (full pdf below) are stunning.

If this information is true and accurate, now bolstered by the video of Ratner, the DOJ claim of a Russian hack –based on assertions by DNC contractor, Crowdstrike– would be entirely false. Additionally the DC murder of Seth Rich would hold a far more alarming motive.

(Source, lawsuit filing – pdf link, page 13)

Here’s the Full Butowsky Court Filing:

.

The ramifications here are almost too large to describe.

If this information turns out to be true and accurate, the entire narrative around the DNC “hack” will have been proven to be intentionally manufactured.

Despite the FBI’s prior admissions about never reviewing the DNC servers; and despite their recent admissions about never actually seeing the forensic computer analysis, the U.S. Department of Justice, specifically Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann and former DAG Rod Rosenstein, cannot blame a simple investigative ‘mistake‘ for the wrong attribution of who gave the DNC emails to Wikileaks.

The FBI, the DOJ and the Mueller special counsel have each purposefully claimed specific Russian actors were responsible for hacking the DNC in 2016. If it turns out those claims were based on falsehood, the integrity of the DOJ and Special Counsel collapses.

Mr. Butowsky is making a very serious allegation in this court filing.

Additionally, the previously discussed motive to arrest Julian Assange would now be further enhanced. Heck, the reason for Assange’ arrest would be brutally obvious.

♦Dana Boente was head of DOJ-NSD from May 11th, 2017 through end of October 2017 when he officially announced his intent to retire. However, the timeline gets cloudy here because Boente said he was staying on until an official replacement was announced. There’s no indication of when Boente actually left the DOJ-NSD or the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) role.

On January 23rd, 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Dana Boente had shifted over to the FBI to be Chief Legal Counsel (replacing James Baker) where Boente remains today. As Mueller was using 19 lawyers, and 50 FBI investigators, Boente was/is the legal counsel to FBI Director Christopher Wray while the Mueller probe was ongoing.

[Remember, Robert Mueller never interviewed Julian Assange. Additionally, it is worth noting for the U.S. side of the legal framework, the charges against Assange are not related to Russian efforts in a hack of the DNC; nor is Assange charged with anything related to the 2016 U.S. election interference activities, the Podesta email release or anything therein as previously described by the DOJ.]

The April 11th, 2019, Julian Assange indictment stemmed from the Eastern District of Virginia. From a review of the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018: (The DOJ sat on the indictment for 13 months, until Mueller finished)

(Link to pdf)

However, on Tuesday April 15th, 2019, more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to December ’17..

The investigation of Assange took place prior to December 2017, it is coming from the EDVA where Dana Boente was still, presumably, U.S. Attorney. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until April of 2019.

Why was there a delay?

Why did the DOJ wait until the Mueller report was complete?

Here’s where it gets interesting….

The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”

(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)

If you overlay the timing, it would appear the FBI took a keen interest in Assange after this August 2017 meeting and gathered specific evidence for a grand jury by December 2017. Then the DOJ sat on the indictment (sealed in March 2018) while the Mueller probe was ongoing; until April 11th, 2019, when a coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was launched. Assange was arrested, and the indictment was unsealed (link).

To me, as a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, JAR report(needed for Obama – December 29th, ’16), and political ICA (January ’17); this looked like a Deep State move to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes…. AND that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story.

The Weissmann/Mueller/Rosenstein report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview.

Right there is the FBI motive to shut Assange down when the Mueller report was released.

The DNC hack claim is contingent upon analysis by Crowdstrike computer forensics who were paid by the DNC to look into the issue. The FBI was never allowed to review the servers independently, and now we know the FBI never even looked at a full forensics report from Crowdstrike.

Almost all independent research into this DNC hack narrative challenges the claims of a Russia hack of the DNC servers; and now this bombshell court filing, again if accurate, makes the DOJ claim completely collapse.

Lastly, if we are to believe everything that is factually visible; including the admissions by the FBI and DOJ itself; and it is proven that Seth Rich was indeed the source of the DNC emails and there was no hack; well,… what does that say about Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein, who would have had to know they were pushing abject lies in their dubious Russian indictments.

The ramifications of this court filing are huge.

The status of the Eastern District of Virginia case against former partner of Michael Flynn, Bijan Rafiekian is bizarre.

Apparently U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr has not engaged into this case, and the current status is a mess.

The head-scratching FARA case was tenuous from the outset as the prosecution was arguing a rather odd legal interpretation of FARA statutes; and now the DOJ could be handed a dismissal, even if the jury returns a guilty verdict.

Yes, when you stretch legal interpretation beyond evidence, it’s a mess.

The current arguments surround jury instructions where the DOJ is requesting their earlier claims of Rafiekian as an “agent of a foreign government” be dropped (because there is no evidence); and simultaneously arguing that Rafiekian didn’t have to break the law surrounding FARA in order to be found guilty of breaking the DOJ interpretation of the law surrounding FARA.   Confused?  You should be. The judge is too:…

(Source legal motion h/t Techno Fog)

Despite an earlier filing, the DOJ prosecutor never did call Michael Flynn Jr as a witness, nor Michael Flynn himself.  Additionally, after the prosecution finished their presentation, the defense informed Judge Anthony Trenga (in oral arguments) they also have no intention of calling Michael Flynn.

While the case is ongoing, in oral arguments about how to instruct the jury, the entire sketchy construct is being debated by the judge, prosecution and defense.  Like I said, it’s a hot mess; and unfortunately while I have read the oral argument transcript, I can’t share the information (it’s embargoed).

Suffice to say the DOJ is arguing the Flynn Intel Group (FIG) is guilty of doing something even though the DOJ can’t prove the FIG intended to do something unlawful.

The argument around “mens rea” is intent. “Mens rea” is the mental element of a person’s intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one’s action or lack of action would cause a crime to be committed. 

In oral arguments (about jury instructions) the DOJ says they don’t need to prove the Flynn Intel Group was guilty of intent.

Indeed, the DOJ position is that Rafiekian did something wrong, without intending to do something wrong, in filing information about their Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) compliance forms.

The DOJ also admits the government took no action as an outcome of the accidentally wrong information; simply that the information itself was accidentally false – and therefore unlawful.

So the judge (“The Court”) is asking questions:

The government’s position is is tenable at best.

Here’s how Techno Fog sees it:

The DOJ’s position on Section 951(d)(4) is that the “legal commercial transaction” exception does not include (1) illegal activities; and (2) activities that are prohibited but technically not illegal.

Under this theory there is potential 951 criminal culpability for a minor FARA violation, such as late registration or the omission of facts.

Now consider the 2016 OIG report on the NSD’s enforcement of FARA, and how many lobbyists would have been exposed to Section 951 due to their sloppy registrations. (For example, 57% of the new registered agent contracts reviewed by OIG were not registered timely.)

My biggest takeaway is the DOJ’s position that the conduct need only be “prohibited.”

I’m assuming this is consistent with how they’ve applied Section 951 in the past. (If the 951/FARA/FISA theory is correct.) That would have included all the lobbyists doing work on behalf of foreign countries, foreign individuals, or foreign corporations who didn’t have airtight FARA paperwork. Not just the material omissions/lies alleged in the Rafiekian case.

The DOJ prosecutor basically admits this: “any conduct that was in violation of the FARA statute, whether or not prosecuted or prosecutable, renders that conduct not a legal commercial transaction.” [Key point being “whether or not… prosecutable”]

In my opinion the government’s DOJ-NSD position is specific and purposeful because they are trying to avoid later scrutiny about their use of FARA violations to gain FISA surveillance warrants.

That is to say….  the DOJ National Security Division, intentionally never prosecuted for FARA violations because they used the appearance of FARA violations to get FISA electronic surveillance warrants against any DC entity they wanted to watch.  To get a FISA they have to assert evidence of “working as an agent of a foreign power.”

The Obama-era DOJ, applying the Lawfare ideology, used any/all technical FARA violations as the predicate to make claims to the FISA court.  This allowed them to get surveillance authority over any target they identified.  This is how the Obama DOJ and FBI assembled the files on their political opponents.  This prior activity is what the collective “small group”, with the assistance of the Lawfare team, are now trying to justify.

In the event that any internal investigation calls their activity into question, the DOJ is positioning their justification strategy within this Rafiekian case.   Does that make sense?

Now…. You might remember the promoted Special Counsel announcement that started the case against Flynn’s former Flynn Intel Group (FIG) partner Bijan Rafiekian, see below:

Well, on Friday, the day after the prosecution finished delivering all their evidence, the prosecution began arguing to remove that predicate claim.

The DOJ no longer wants any language in the jury instructions that mentions being an “agent of the government of Turkey”?

The reason the DOJ wants to strike the “agent of a foreign power” language is because they presented no evidence to prove it.  Nor did the DOJ present any evidence to prove a conspiracy.

Nothing.

Zippo.

Zilch.

The prosecution is left arguing that any foreign engagement by the Flynn Intel Group, specifically Bijan Rafiekian, would constitute a FARA violation under their interpretation of law.

….”any conduct that was in violation of the FARA statute, whether or not prosecuted or prosecutable, renders that conduct not a legal commercial transaction.”

The action need not be prosecutable in order to define that action as not legal.  Rafiekian didn’t have to break the law surrounding FARA in order to be found guilty of breaking the DOJ interpretation of the law surrounding FARA 951 statute.

Confused?

You should be.

This is Lawfare.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and his staff (two hired from Lawfare) have been coordinating with the aligned DOJ/FBI special counsel group for several months for the upcoming appearance of Robert Mueller on Wednesday of this upcoming week.

The objective of the group’s coordinated plan has been to present a hearing that supports the original goal of the ‘small group’ effort, impeachment.  Toward that goal Mueller has been working closely with Nadler’s staff who are coordinating Mueller’s appearance.

In this interview Nadler outlines the objective of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and himself to frame the Mueller testimony.  However, it also appears that Nadler is generally blind to the amount of information in the public sphere which highlights the known illicit motives and foundation of the Weissmann and Mueller team.