Tag Archives: IG Michael Horowitz

Apr 12 2018

Former Key Defense Intelligence Agency Official Resurfaces in AG Jeff Sessions Top Staff…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 11, 2018 by

Do not get so caught up watching the granules moving at our feet that we forget to look up and notice the landscape is shifting….

A key DIA official from within the White House National Security Council has resurfaced today as reports show Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been hired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assist on issues surrounding counterintelligence and counterterrorism.

WASHINGTON — A former American intelligence official who came under intense scrutiny during a stint at the White House last year is returning to government as the national security adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The official, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, will play an important role at the Justice Department, advising Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence and counterterrorism.  (NYT Link)

Before getting to the big picture of Cohen-Watnick, let’s look at a few recent granules which at first might seem disconnected – but they are not.

♦U.S. Attorney John Lausch was brought on by AG Jeff Sessions to coordinate investigative document releases to congressional oversight.  Specifically, Lausch has been assigned as the point of contact for discussion with congress. This move keeps Federal DOJ Prosecutor John Huber (IG Horowitz’s investigative partner) away from political engagement, and allows Huber to continue culling through potentially criminal evidence without political concerns.

Earlier today Lausch was asked about the two-page “electronic communication” (EC) letter that initiated the 2016 FBI Counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump and his campaign officials.  The “EC” relates to the origin of the surveillance conducted by the corrupt DOJ-NSD and FBI officials; and ties directly to the abuse of FISA(702((16)(17) search abuses – and later to the issues of a fraudulent, potentially criminally misrepresented, FISA Title-1 surveillance application by those same officials.

In responding to the questioning, Attorney Lausch stated the EC document, and as a consequence the FISA documents, are not under his authority for review and release.  So the DOJ has carved out the FISA and EC issues from the investigative releases to congress.

This distinction is important.

♦Remember, previously the Eastern District of Virginia attorney, Dana Boente, was identified as being a problem for the ‘small group’ of co-conspirators during their activity. Following the firing of AAG Sally Yates, April 2017, Boente was put in charge of the DOJ National Security Division.  Acting Attorney General Boente granted IG Horowitz previously denied access to oversight within the DOJ-NSD.  After Jeff Sessions confirmation Boente remained in charge of the DOJ-NSD.

Near the end of 2017 Dana Boente left Main Justice and then resurfaced late in January 2018 when FBI chief legal counsel James Baker was outlined as being a key participant in the 2015, 2016, 2017 anti-trump operation.  Baker was removed from all responsibilities  and replaced with Boente.  Mr. Boente remains the current chief legal counsel of the FBI serving under Christopher Wray.

♦The Head of the FBI Counterintelligence Unit is E.W. “Bill” Priestap.  In ’15, ’16, and 2017 Priestap was Peter Strzok’s boss.  Text messages between Andrew McCabe’s former office lawyer, Lisa Page, and FBI Agent Peter Strzok, during the DOJ/FBI operations against candidate Trump, showed multiple examples of the ‘small group’ working around Priestap.

FBI Agent Peter Strzok was even promoted to #2 without Priestap’s prior knowledge.

On March 20th, 2017, when FBI Director James Comey was asked by congress why he did not inform oversight -as required- about the 2016 counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump, James Comey stated the decision not to inform congress was recommended by his FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.

There is also evidence from Priestap’s statements to investigative officials that contradicts FBI, DOJ-NSD and intelligence community leadership, McCabe, Comey, Brennan (CIA) and Clapper (ODNI); in that the source documents (Clinton/Steele Dossier) for the October 2016 FISA surveillance application were not vetted at the time they were used.

On January 30th, 2018, after Chairman Nunes personally took FBI Director Christopher Wray to view his HPSCI “FISA Memo”, and prior to the House Intel Committee vote to release the memo the next evening, FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a Main Justice official and a “counterintelligence official” to view the content. According to Catherine Herridge reporting: those officials: “could not point to any factual inaccuracies.”

Mr. Bill Priestap, has given statements to ongoing FBI investigators and remains the head of FBI Counterintelligence today.  [Absolutely no change in status, role or responsibility]

♦Responding to the initial results of an NSA FISA audit – on April 28th, 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers shut down the DOJ-NSD and FBI access to the NSA database based on 702(16) “about” search inquiries.  When the full audit was completed, October 2016, Admiral Rogers informed the FISC court of serious FISA search violations, breaches, extraction of raw intelligence information and misrepresentations by FBI and DOJ officials to the FISA court.

(source link)

In April 2017, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, declassified and released a substantive portion of the 99-page response from the FISA court. The FISC reviewed the DOJ-NSD and FBI FISA misrepresentations and the NSA compliance audit reports provided by NSA Director dmiral Mike Rogers.

On June 7th, 2017, Admiral Mike Rogers informed congress the NSA deleted all of the results of those unlawful FISA(702) searches, but also stated he directed “all audit logs of the activity to be preserved/retained”.  (ie. the NSA preserved the evidence of conduct)

♦Early April this month: (Via The Hill) […] Attorney General Jeff Sessions quietly tapped Prosecutor John Huber — apparently last fall — to work in tandem with the Justice Department’s inspector general to determine whether allegations of abuse at the FBI and the Justice Department merit investigation. […]  The Justice Department has declined to comment on his budget or what Sessions meant when he said that Huber is working “in cooperation” with Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz’s office also declined to comment.

♦Back to Today’s News – The IG Horowitz and Prosecutor Huber investigation is ongoing; the FBI has Dana Boente as chief legal counsel; Bill Priestap remains in place as head of Counterintelligence; and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions has added former DIA official Ezra Cohen-Watnick to “advise Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence” matters.

2017: […] “Washington got its first real look at Cohen-Watnick when he was identified as one of two White House sources who provided House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes with evidence that former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the “unmasking” of the names of Trump associates in intelligence documents.” (Atlantic – link)

I think everyone can see how each of these moves and shifts relates to the larger matters at hand.  It is obvious Mr. Cohen-Watnick is part of the dynamic to capture all those who participated in the scheme to destroy the Trump presidency.

You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.  ~SD

Apr 12 2018

Access Granted – DOJ Gives Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy and HPSCI Leadership Access To Intelligence Origination Documents…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 11, 2018 by

Last night House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes threatened to impeach FBI Director Christopher Wray and Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, if not granted access to review the two-page intelligence community origination document that kicked-off the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump.

Today Rosenstein and Wray allowed Chairman Nunes and Trey Gowdy to review the origination document, also known as the “electronic communication” (EC).  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes issued the following statement today:

“After numerous unfulfilled requests for an Electronic Communication (EC) related to the opening of the FBI’s Russia counterintelligence probe, Chairman Trey Gowdy and I met this afternoon with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. During the meeting, we were finally given access to a version of the EC that contained the information necessary to advance the Committee’s ongoing investigation of the Department of Justice and FBI. Although the subpoenas issued by this Committee in August 2017 remain in effect, I’d like to thank Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein for his cooperation today.”   (link)

The two-page electronic communication (EC) is essentially the intelligence report from CIA Director John Brennan, that started the FBI Counterintelligence Operation against the campaign of Donald Trump.

From The Hill: […] According to a Justice Department official, the remaining redactions in the document are “narrowly tailored to protect the name of a foreign country and the name of a foreign agent.” Specifics have been replaced with identifiers like “foreign official” and “foreign government,” the official said.

“These words must remain redacted after determining that revealing the words could harm the national security of the American people by undermining the trust we have with this foreign nation,” the official continued, adding that they appear “only a limited number of times, and do no obstruct the underlying meaning of the document.” (link)

However, thanks to leaks from John Brennan (CIA) and James Clapper (ODNI) to the New York Times we already know the ridiculous content of the redactions.  The “foreign nation” was Australia, and the “foreign agent” was Alexander Downer.

WASHINGTON — During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.

Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.

The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.

If Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and is now a cooperating witness, was the improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the Trump administration, his saga is also a tale of the Trump campaign in miniature. He was brash, boastful and underqualified, yet he exceeded expectations. And, like the campaign itself, he proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation.

The information that Mr. Papadopoulos gave to the Australians answers one of the lingering mysteries of the past year: What so alarmed American officials to provoke the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigationinto the Trump campaign months before the presidential election?

It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies.  (link)

The New York Times leak was specifically structured around the CIA “electronic communication”.  However, the story within the origination document is abject nonsense.

♦If Papadopoulos having a conversation in a London bar in May 2016 was the origination of the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign. Then why did the FBI wait until January 15th 2017 to talk to Papadopoulos for the first time?

♦Further, if a Papadopolous conversation in May 2016 was the origin, the source material, of the FBI counterintelligence operation, then why was the FBI denied a FISA application in June/July 2016?

The far more realistic review says George Papadopoulos talking in May 2016, is likely about this open and public information from April 2016 about Guccifer hacking Hillary Clinton email [LINK].

The intelligence community “EC” was an excuse to start an FBI counterintelligence operation against the candidacy of Donald Trump. The true intent of the counterintel-op was to provide a cover-story for the DOJand FBI “small group” political opposition research and surveillance that was already ongoing.

We’ve previously debunked this Origination Story HERE

 

Apr 12 2018

U.S. Attorney John Lausch Discusses DOJ Responsive Document Release…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 11, 2018 by

U.S. Attorney John Lausch appears on Fox and Friends morning show to discuss the ongoing issue of releasing documents to congress yet retain integrity of potential criminal evidence that may be used in future proceedings.

Lausch notes the FBI two-page document that initiated the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump is not under his authority to release.

Apr 12 2018

Senator Rand Paul Confirms Peter Strzok and Lisa Page Retain FBI Top Secret Security Clearances…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 11, 2018 by

During an interview with Fox News host Harris Faulkner today U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) discussed a response letter he received from FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Senator Paul inquired with the FBI Director about whether reassigned FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ/FBI Attorney Lisa Page still retained their Top Secret FBI clearances.

According to Senator Paul, the FBI director would not respond to specific agent inquiry, however, Wray did affirm that all existing FBI officials retain Top Secret clearances.

In essence, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, despite being removed from investigative authority over their role in the political efforts to target President Trump, retain employment within the DOJ/FBI apparatus in an unknown capacity and thereby their clearances.

This information by Rand Paul dovetails into an increasingly obvious storyline where Lisa Page and Peter Strzok remain employed because they are cooperating with the internal investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz and parallel federal prosecutor John Huber.

Previously we identified Strzok and Page as part of a group of five key FBI and DOJ officials who were at the center of the corrupt operations and remain inside the organization.

In addition to Page and Strzok, former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker and former DOJ-NSD Deputy Bruce Ohr have been removed from their roles yet still remain inside the FBI and DOJ respectively. Those four are joined by the FBI Asst. Director in charge of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.  However, despite Priestap’s centrality to the 2015/2016 corrupt FBI activity -including the Trump operation- Priestap remains untouched.

After FBI Asst Director Andrew McCabe was fired the subsequent information revealed what happened inside the group.  McCabe lied to FBI and IG investigators about his coordinating leaks to media. McCabe’s story conflicted with the account of his office attorney, Lisa Page.  {Go Deep}

To validate the truthfulness of her position Lisa Page provided FBI investigators with access to her text messages which showed conversations about McCabe directing leaks by Page and FBI communications Director Michael Kortan.  After the Page messages confirmed her version of the events; eventually McCabe admitted to misleading investigators.

Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, James Baker and Bruce Ohr have all been removed from responsibilities within the DOJ and FBI yet all still remain inside the organization.  FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, who was Peter Strzok’s’ boss throughout the corrupt group activity, remains in his role today.

Apr 11 2018

Guns, Knives, Facebook and Free Speech


Apr 11 2018

Devin Nunes Delivers 24 Hour Ultimatum: Wray and Rosenstein Deliver EC Origination Documents or Impeachment Vote…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 10, 2018 by

Giddy up…  HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes says either FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein give him the “electronic communication” (EC) documents (initiated the counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump in July 2016) or congress will hold an impeachment vote.

FBI Director Wray and DOJ Deputy Rosenstein have until tomorrow night.

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*Important Note* The person would know everything there is about this July 2016 EC is FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap.

Apr 11 2018

Representative Matt Gaetz is Exactly Right – BIG PICTURE: DOJ Covering FISA Abuse…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 10, 2018 by

Representative Matt Gaetz sent out a tweet today that is absolutely accurate.  You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States…. and that’s what the DOJ is trying to hide.

If you peel the skin off the onion, and get down to the substantive core issue that represents the biggest risk to the entire collective group who worked to subvert the 2016 presidential election, you get to the FISA-702(16)(17) and Title-1 surveillance abuse that was carried out by the Obama Intelligence Community, DOJ-NSD and the FBI.

The actions taken by ‘inside’ government officials and ‘outside’ ideological cohorts is exactly what all of their collective “resistance” activity is about.  Attacking the Office of the Presidency is a strategy to keep sunlight from their previous action.

When we absorb the full scope and scale of the political effort from inside and outside government, then we understand everything happening.  Additionally, I would strongly suggest this is also where Attorney General Sessions is going wrong.

To understand the dynamic it becomes important to separate the FISA/FISC issues from the other issues within the IG Horowitz and Prosecutor Huber investigations.

Inspector General Horowitz, and parallel prosecutor John Huber are deep inside investigations into:

•Clinton email, manipulated DOJ/FBI investigations with predetermined outcomes; •unlawful and coordinated media leaks by DOJ/FBI officials; •false testimony by DOJ/FBI officials to congress and under oath to the IG; •manipulated and potentially falsified FBI 302 investigative reports; •Willful corruption by Asst Director Andrew McCabe and Director James Comey, etc…. and all the myriad of attached scandals.

However, where Attorney General Jeff Sessions is allowing a big mistake is within the FISA-702(16)(17) issues and the fraudulent FISA Title-1 Application used against U.S. person Carter Page.  The FISA issues need to be culled from the politicization issues within the FBI and DOJ-NSD and handled on their own.

There’s no reason to wait on releasing information already outlined in the 99 page opinion of FISA Court Judge Rosemary Collyer which documents the FBI and DOJ abuse:

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/349542716/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-72P5FzpI44KMOuOPZrt1

Additionally, there is no valid reason to keep the FISA Title-1 application used against Carter Page secret.  The DOJ (Jeff Sessions) can declassify this stuff immediately.

The time for handkerchiefs and perfumed manners is over.  This evidence exists in bold typeface regardless of opinion of it.  Release the evidence.  If the content of these documents leads to discoveries of a DOJ and FBI plot to subvert the constitution, then so be it…. lets get down to brass tacks.

If the outcome leads to a need for a specific set of investigations and possible prosecutions, then do it.  Carve out the FISA scandal. None of the FISA issues need to impact the ongoing work of IG Horowitz and Prosecutor Huber who can continue moving forward on all the investigative matters surrounding the internal politicization outcomes of the FBI and DOJ.

Carve out the FISA specifics, put sunlight upon the documents and let’s roll.

Here’s the full three-part video series: Why – How – Who?

“WHY” – The first video highlights the historic backdrop of DOJ/FBI FISA court abuses:

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“HOW” – The second video highlights the specific example of how the DOJ and FBI used false information to the FISA Court to secure a fraudulent ‘Title-1’ surveillance warrant:

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“WHO” – The third video highlights who the primary players were within the scheme:

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