According to the New York Times, one of the main reasons why public K–12 schools are reopening more slowly from Covid-19 lockdowns than private schools is because public schools generally have less money. Times reporter Claire Cain Miller makes this claim three times in a single article, but her assertion is the polar opposite of reality and has been so for decades.
Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) estimated that public K–12 schools spent an average of 43–52% more per student than private schools in the 1991–92 school year. Since then, DOE data shows that inflation-adjusted average spending per public school student has risen by 40%.
Consistent with that DOE data, new research by Just Facts reveals that average public K–12 school funding per student is about 80% higher than private schools. Specifically, the latest DOE data shows that governments spent an average of $14,439 for every student enrolled in K–12 public schools in the 2016–17 school year. In comparison, Just Facts estimates that private schools spent an average of $8,039 per student in the same year.
The figure for private school spending was determined by Just Facts with data from the DOE and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. All methodological details are provided in the footnotes located here, and all data and calculations are shown in this spreadsheet.
Furthermore, DOE’s figure for public school spending per student doesn’t include the costs of state government administration, unfunded pension liabilities, and public worker post-employment benefits (like health insurance). In contrast, Just Facts’ figure for private schools is comprehensive and includes all spending by private consumers, nonprofit organizations, and governments. This means that the full public school funding advantage is greater than 80%.
The Times’ Deception
Miller doesn’t even attempt to document the following claims that she makes in her article, which is titled “In the Same Towns, Private Schools Are Reopening While Public Schools Are Not”:
“Private schools have always had more flexibility, and usually more money” than public schools.
Public schools “tend to have less money” than private schools.
“Public schools typically don’t have the resources that private schools do….”
She also alleges without evidence that “public schools faced a funding crisis even before the pandemic.” In reality, the latest DOE data shows that inflation-adjusted spending per public school student is at an all-time high and has grown by 20% since 2000, 93% since 1980, and 3.8 times since 1960:
As Bernie Sanders has done, one can make it seem like funding has declined by cherry picking certain years in certain states, but the primary trend has been upwards, not downwards. This applies in nearly every state, which experienced anywhere from a 1% decrease to a 114% increase in inflation-adjusted spending per student between 1996 and 2016.
Miller also gives Robert Pianta, the dean of the school of education at the University of Virginia, a platform to claim without proof that Covid-19 “has exposed a great deal of inequity” in the education system. Less than a year ago, the Washington Post issued a correction for an op-ed by Pianta in which he wrote that “public funding for schools has actually decreased since the 1980s, adjusting for constant dollars.” That statement is at blatant odds with DOE data, which shows that the average inflation-adjusted spending per public school student rose from $10,316 in 1989 to $14,439 in 2016, or by 40%.
Just Facts provided documentation of the facts about public and private school spending to Miller and the Times corrections desk on July 17th. Ten days later, they have not responded or issued a correction. This adds to an extensive list of uncorrected falsehoods published by the Times.
HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes appears on Fox Business with Jackie deAngelis to discuss the latest developments in the Michael Flynn case and the John Durham investigation. WATCH:
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Additionally (Hat Tip Techno-fog) who helps connect some dots left during recent comments by DOJ Spokesperson Kerri Kupek about “delays in proceedings” and what might be the most likely cause. Good stuff, that makes buckets of sense.
I cannot (yet) go into details without seriously undermining my own efforts. However, this previous GJ delay completely aligns with my own boots-on-the-ground information; and the previous statements by AG Bill Barr and DOJ Spox Kerri Kupec.
Keep smilin’…
And more importantly, keep living your best life…
I’m back on the road tomorrow… and things are good.
When we originally mapped this out, the mid-August timeline always appeared to be the inflection point. That’s why I made it my own target date to organize massive ‘Phase-2’ sunlight in the event Barr/Durham failed to deliver. Everything is proceeding swimmingly.
Chopper pressers are the best pressers. On his way to Texas, President Trump stopped for a brief press conference with the media prior to departure. [Video and Transcript]
[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. We have a lot of things going on. As you know, we’re heading out to Texas right now.
But Portland — I’ll give you a little report on Portland: We have the courthouse very well secured. Our people have done a fantastic job. You hear all sorts of reports about us leaving. We’re not leaving until they’ve secured their city. We told the governor, we told the mayor: “Secure your city.” If they don’t secure their city soon, we have no choice — we’re going to have to go in and clean it out. We’ll do it very easily. We’re all prepared to do it.
So, in Portland, they either clean out their city and do the job and get rid of the anarchists and agitators, which is what they are. They’re not protesters; they’re anarchists and agitators. We have many in jail. Many of them have been put in jail. It’s going to be a long sentence. They either clean out their city and do it right, or we’re going to have to do it for them.
On CARES, I think — maybe, Steve, would you like to say something on that?
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Well, as of now, we’re very far apart. And because of that, the President and we have discussed a short-term extension to UI and the evictions so that we have some period to negotiate before this runs out. And the President is very (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: We want to work on the evictions so that people don’t get evicted. We’ll work on the payments for the people. And the rest of it, we’re so far apart, we don’t care. We really don’t care. We want to take care of the people. The Democrats aren’t taking care of the people. The payments aren’t enough. The payments aren’t enough. You understand that. They’re not making the payments; they’re not making them high enough. The Democrats are not taking care of the people. Nancy Pelosi takes care of herself, but she doesn’t take care of anyone else.
If you look at what’s going on with Schumer: So when Schumer and Pelosi can get together and take care of the people, we’ll do something. In the meantime, we ought to stop evictions because that expires very soon. So we want to stop the evictions.
Q How do you rate Kamala Harris as a VP? There’s a rumor it’s going to be her.
THE PRESIDENT: I think she’d be a fine choice, Kamala Harris. She’d be a fine choice.
Q Sir, you said you want to pass a short-term bill? A short-term bill. Are you saying you want to pass a short-term bill?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t hear a word you’re saying.
Q Mr. President, are you saying you want to pass a short-term bill?
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Well, we’re looking at a deadline, obviously, of this Friday. The President is very focused on evictions and unemployment. And if we can’t reach an agreement by then, the President wants to look at giving us more time to negotiate this.
THE PRESIDENT: We’re focused on those two things. We want to take care of them now. The rest, we can discuss later. They want big bailout money for Democrats that ran cities terribly. Their cities are going down the tubes. If you look at Portland, if you look at what’s going in Seattle — Democrat-run cities, whether you like it or not, they’re terribly run, and they’re always over-taxed. So they’ve taxed them too much and they run them poorly. And we don’t like that.
And what the Democrats want are bailout funds, and what we want is we want to take care of people. And we should reward most of this country that’s well run. You know, most of the country is very well run. You’re watching a Portland and you’re watching Seattle. You’re watching New York, where they had a 400 percent increase in crime. Four hundred percent. My city that I love, that I left to do this job, and they had a 400 percent increase, and it’s unacceptable.
But most of the country is very well run, and Republican cities are very well run. And it’s a shame to reward badly run, radical-left Democrats, with all of this money that they’re looking for, for cities — to throw it away on cities that are poorly run.
Q Are you confident that Russia did not place bounties on U.S. troops?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t — I told you, I certainly read about it, and since then, I’ve talked about it. Colin Powell says it’s not true. Colin Powell is not exactly somebody that I’m a big fan of. Colin Powell says it’s not true. Other people say it’s not true.
If it were true, I’d be very angry about it. But if you look at Russia, Russia became Russia from the Soviet Union because of Afghanistan. They lost a fortune and a lot of people — a lot of people.
So I don’t know why they’d be doing it. But if you tell me they’re doing it, I will certainly take that under consideration.
Q How would you respond if Russia did turn out to have done that? How would you respond? Would you do sanctions?
THE PRESIDENT: I would respond appropriately. Nobody has been tougher on Russia. Nobody has been tougher on China. Nobody has been tougher on Iran than me, and it’s not even close. And everybody knows this. Nobody has been tougher on Russia, China, or anybody else than me, including our allies — NATO, who I got to pay $140 billion more money — $140 billion. You know what that is?
Q A lot of money.
THE PRESIDENT: And you know why? That’s to hold Russia in check, all right? I did Russia no favor. Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I am.
Q Mr. President, on NATO, you just gave the order to remove U.S. troops from Germany. How does that keep Russia in check?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Germany is delinquent. They haven’t paid their fees. They haven’t paid their NATO fees. And they’re way off, and they’ve been off for years, and they have no intention of paying it. And the United States has been taken advantage of on trade and on military and on everything else for many years, and I’m here and I’ve been straightening it out.
But Germany owes billions and billions of dollars to NATO. And why would we keep all of those troops there? And now Germany is saying it’s bad for their economy. Well, it’s good for our economy. Germany is delinquent. They’re at 1 percent. They should be at 2 percent. And actually, everybody should be at 4 percent, not 2 percent, because 2 percent is too low. But they’re at 1 percent, and they’ve take advantage of us for many years.
And you think that’s bad? They take worse advantage on trade. And I was all set to fix that, and then we got hit with the China plague. But we’ll be fixing it.
And a guy like Biden — this country wouldn’t have a chance. With Biden, our country wouldn’t have a chance.
Go ahead.
Q In terms of China, they closed our consulate in Chengdu. Are you planning a response for that move by China?
THE PRESIDENT: No, we’ll see what happens. That’s all right. We’ll see what happens.
Q Are you dropping the demand for FBI money — the FBI building?
THE PRESIDENT: So the FBI building — they’ve been trying to build a new building for many years — many, many years. They were thinking about going very far away, but you have to be near the Justice Department. You don’t want to be too far away, where they have to drive for an hour, hour and a half — because they had a site way out in Virginia, way out in Maryland. And I said, “The best place is right where it is. It’s the best piece of property in Washington.” I’m very good at real estate.
So I said, “We’ll build a new FBI building.” Let’s build a new FBI building — either a renovation of the existing, or even better would be a new building. So we have that in the bill. It should stay. People have wanted a new FBI building now for 15 or 20 years.
Q But Republicans don’t want it in the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: Then Republicans should go back to school and learn. They need a new building. It’s a bad building. It’s a dangerous building. You have slabs falling off. It’s not a good building from the inside, and it’s a very expensive building. They need a new building, and we can do it very easily. To me, it would be very — super (inaudible). I would make sure you build a great building at a fraction of the cost, and they can have it done quickly. So the FBI building is not new; this is something they’ve been talking about for many, many years, for decades.
Q Mr. President, on TikTok, how close are you to making a decision about banning TikTok?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re looking at TikTok. We’re thinking about making a decision. We’re going to be watching the hearings today very closely, because there is no question that what the big tech companies are doing is very bad.
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Let me just also add on that: CFIUS — TikTok is under CFIUS review, and we’ll be making a recommendation to the President on it this week. So we have lots of alternatives.
Q Do you regret tweeting about that doctor, Mr. President? Do you regret tweeting about that doctor yesterday?
THE PRESIDENT: Regret what?
Q Stella Immanuel, the doctor — do you wish you had not retweeted that?
THE PRESIDENT: I was very impressed with her and other doctors that stood with her. I think she made sense, but I know nothing about her. I just saw her on — you know, making a statement with very respected doctors. She was not alone. She was making a statement about hydroxychloroquine with other doctors that swear by it. They think it’s great. So she was not alone.
Fake news CNN made it like, “Oh, I said this, I said that.” She was with a whole group of people. And you ought to tell your network the reason their ratings are so bad is because the coverage is so false. If CNN would be honest — and that goes for MSDNC also. But your network is so dishonest in its coverage on just about everything, and there’s an example.
I was very impressed by her. Know nothing about her; I had never seen her before. But certainly you can put her up and let her have a voice. So what they did is they took down their voice. Now, they seem to never take down the other side. They only take down conservative voices. It’s a shame.
And with hydroxy, all I want to do is save lives. I don’t care if it’s hydroxy or anything else. All I want to do is save lives. If we can save lives, that’s great.
Now, one thing: We’re doing very well on vaccines and very well on therapeutics. So that’s very important. But I happen to be a believer in hydroxy. I used it. I had no problem. I happen to be a believer. Many, many people agree with me. A great test just came out from the Ford clinic in Michigan — very respected. We’ll see how it is.
Q Mr. President, have you decided how you’re going to give your convention acceptance speech yet?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m thinking about it, but we’re picking a location. Fairly soon we’ll let you know.
Q It won’t be here at the White House? It’ll be somewhere in —
THE PRESIDENT: Might be. It’s something we’re thinking about.
Q Back to Germany: Are those troops — what signal does it send to Russia? Those troops were always there to defend Europe against Russia.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re right. They’re there to protect Europe; they’re there to protect Germany. Right? And Germany is supposed to pay for it. Germany is not paying for it. So why should we leave them if they were not — we don’t want to be the suckers anymore.
The United States has been taken advantage of for 25 years, both on trade and on the military. We are protecting Germany. So we’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bill. It’s very simple: They’re delinquent. Very simple. And there are other NATO countries also.
Right now, you have 8 out of the 28 countries that have paid up. I got them to pay $130 billion a year more, going up to $400 [billion]. Most of them will be up to date. It wasn’t easy. But most of them will be up to date. The one that won’t be up to date is Germany. And we spend a lot of money on Germany. They take advantage of us on trade, and they take advantage on the military, so we’re reducing the force. Now, if they start paying their bills, I could rethink about — I would think about it.
Yeah.
Q Did you talk to Russia about a coronavirus vaccine?
THE PRESIDENT: We talked to Putin about a lot of different things, mostly —
Q About a vaccine?
THE PRESIDENT: — arms control. We’re working on a vaccine. I think we’ll have one. Oxford is doing very well. Pfizer is doing very well. We have a lot of good options.
Q They said Russia was trying to steal information about a vaccine from researchers. Did you talk to them about that?
THE PRESIDENT: You’re going to have to talk up. I can hear everybody but you.
Q Can you come right here?
THE PRESIDENT: I can hear everybody but you.
Q Can you come right here?
Q On arms control, did you make progress? Are there going to be formal negotiations?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. There already are. We’re — we’re in formal negotiations with Russia on arms control — meaning, on nuclear arms control.
Q What about bringing China in?
THE PRESIDENT: We’ll talk about that later. We’re going to work this first and we’ll see. China right now is a much lesser nuclear power — you understand that — than Russia. Right now, we are the great nuclear power. We’ve upgraded our nuclear tremendously since. We have the most power. Russia is second and China is third. China is surging; they’ll be there at some point. And, yeah, we would want to talk to China eventually. Yes. Okay?
Q Why not as part of a trilateral negotiation? Does China not want to be involved?
THE PRESIDENT: We thought that we would do it first. I don’t know if it’s going to work out. But we would do it first and then we go to China together. Okay? Which, I think, works out probably better.
Q Did you talk to O’Brien? Did you talk to Robert O’Brien?
THE PRESIDENT: I did. I wished him well. I haven’t seen him in a while —
Q Why not?
THE PRESIDENT: — but he went on vacation. He came back, he wasn’t well. He tested positive. He’s doing very, very well.
Q Why haven’t you seen him lately?
THE PRESIDENT: He said he’s doing very well. I spoke to him yesterday.
Q Mr. President, are you concerned about reports that a lot of Americans wouldn’t accept a vaccine? And what could the administration do —
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not — I’m not concerned. Well, I’m a therapeutic person, too, you know, to be honest. I love the idea of therapeutics, where you go in, you give somebody a transfusion or a shot, and they get better. I am a big therapeutic person. But we’re doing very well on vaccines and therapeutics. Okay?
And as far as Portland is concerned, we’ve taken a very strong stand. They are anarchists. They’re radical, crazy people. And they’re either going to straighten it out for themselves — Portland, the police — and maybe if the state gets involved; that means the governor and the mayor. But they’re very weak people. They’re very weak people. These radicals, these anarchists are controlling the governor and this mayor.
The mayor went into a rally — it wasn’t accurately reported by CNN, by NBC. The mayor went into a rally. He thought he’d be their buddy. They excoriated him. They excor- — what they did to him was incredible. Lucky he had five bodyguards. But they excoriated him.
NBC — I didn’t see CNN because I don’t watch CNN. NBC absolutely covered it like he was their big buddy. No, he was in great danger of dying. He would have been dead if he didn’t have his bodyguards.
These are bad people. These are anarchists. They’re agitators. And either they do something or we’re going to do it.
In the meantime, our purpose there is only to protect our federal buildings, which we’re doing with no problem. I mean, they’re nasty and they’re vicious people, but our people are very powerful people. Very powerful.
And either they’re going to clean up Portland soon or the federal government is going up and we’re going to do it for them. So either they clean out Portland — the governor and the mayor, who are weak — either they clean out Portland or we’re going in to do it for them.
During a questioning session by Rep. Jim Jordan, AG Bill Barr outlines a secondary, parallel, investigation ongoing by U.S. Attorney John Bash [@01:40 of video]. In his response AG Barr notes the breakout investigation assigned to Bash to review the unlawful unmasking of Donald Trump campaign officials.
Worth noting AG Barr explains the unmasking investigation is not limited to the post election period, transition and incoming administration. The investigation extends further back in the government surveillance of Trump associates in the 2015/2016 campaign. That unmasking could, likely does, include the use of the FBI-NSA database where ‘unmasking’ is an analogous term with”minimization”. {Go Deep}
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AGAIN, there is a name -a key person- that is never mentioned within these stories. One person, who no-one knows, whose name has never appeared, who is doing the larger investigative over-watch. The five member USAO team are on a separate, albeit parallel, track. That one key-person fuels my optimism [and please quit trying to guess – it’s futile].
During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.
On March 9, 2016, oversight personnel doing a review of FBI system access were alerted to thousands of unauthorized search queries of specific U.S. persons within the NSA database.
NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was made aware.
Subsequently NSA Director Rogers initiated a full compliance review of the system to identify who was doing the searches; & what searches were being conducted.
On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 “about”(17) and “to/from”(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.
When you compile the timeline with the people involved; and the specific wording of the resulting review, which was then delivered to the FISA court; and overlay the activity that was taking place in the GOP primary; what we discover is a process where the metadata collected by the NSA was being searched for political opposition research and surveillance.
Additionally, tens-of-thousands of searches were identified by the FISA court as likely extending much further than the compliance review period: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of the non compliant queries since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 period coincided with an unusually high error rate”.
In short, during the Obama administration the NSA database was continually used to conduct surveillance. This is the critical point that leads to understanding the origin of “Spygate”, as it unfolded in the Spring and Summer of 2016.
It was the discovery of the database exploitation and the removal of access as a surveillance tool that created their initial problem. Here’s how we can tell.
Initially in December 2015 there were 17 GOP candidates and all needed to be researched.
However, when Donald Trump won New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina the field was significantly whittled. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Carson remained.
On Super Tuesday, March 2, 2016, Donald Trump won seven states (VT, AR, VA, GA, AL, TN, MA) it was then clear that Trump was the GOP frontrunner with momentum to become the presumptive nominee. On March 5th, Trump won Kentucky and Louisiana; and on March 8th Trump won Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii.
The next day, March 9th, NSA security alerts warned internal oversight personnel that something sketchy was going on.
This timing is not coincidental. As FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer later wrote in her report, “many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges.” Put another way: attributes belonging to a specific individual(s) were being targeted and queried, unlawfully. Given what was later discovered, it seems obvious the primary search target, over multiple date ranges, was Donald Trump.
There were tens-of-thousands of unauthorized search queries; and as Judge Collyer stated in her report, there is no reason to believe the 85% non compliant rate was any different from the abuse of the NSA database going back to 2012.
As you will see below the NSA database was how political surveillance was being conducted during Obama’s second term in office. However, when the system was flagged, and when NSA Director Mike Rogers shut down “contractor” access to the system, the system users needed to develop another way to get access.
Mike Rogers shuts down access on April 18, 2016. On April 19, 2016, Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s wife, Mary Jacoby visits the White House. Immediately thereafter, the DNC and Clinton campaign contract Fusion GPS… who then hire Christopher Steele.
Knowing it was federal “contractors”, outside government with access to the system, doing the unauthorized searches, the question becomes: who were the contractors?
The possibilities are quite vast. Essentially anyone the FBI or intelligence apparatus was using could have participated. Crowdstrike was a known FBI contractor; they were also contracted by the DNC. Shawn Henry was the former head of the FBI office in DC and is now the President of Crowdstrike Services; a rather dubious contractor for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company. James Comey’s special friend Daniel Richman was an unpaid FBI “special employee” with security access to the database. Nellie Ohr began working for Fusion-GPS on the Trump project in November 2015 and she was a CIA contractor; and it’s entirely likely Glenn Simpson or people within his Fusion-GPS network were also contractors for the intelligence community.
Remember the Sharyl Attkisson computer intrusions? It’s all part of this same network; Attkisson even names Shawn Henry as a defendant in her ongoing lawsuit.
All of the aforementioned names, and so many more, held a political agenda in 2016.
It seems likely if the NSA flags were never triggered then the contracted system users would have continued exploiting the NSA database for political opposition research; which would then be funneled to the Clinton team. However, once the unauthorized flags were triggered, the system users (including those inside the official intelligence apparatus) needed to find another back-door to continue… Again, the timing becomes transparent.
Immediately after NSA flags were raised March 9th; the same intelligence agencies began using confidential human sources (CHS’s) to run into the Trump campaign. By activating intelligence assets like Joseph Mifsud and Stefan Halper the IC (CIA, FBI) and system users had now created an authorized way to continue the same political surveillance operations.
When Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort on March 28, 2016, it was a perfect scenario for those doing the surveillance. Manafort was a known entity to the FBI and was previously under investigation. Paul Manafort’s entry into the Trump orbit was perfect for Glenn Simpson to sell his prior research on Manafort as a Trump-Russia collusion script two weeks later.
The shift from “unauthorized exploitation of the NSA database” to legally authorized exploitation of the NSA database was now in place. This was how they continued the political surveillance. This is the confluence of events that originated “spygate”, or what officially blossomed into the FBI investigation known as “Crossfire Hurricane” on July 31.
If the NSA flags were never raised; and if Director Rogers had never initiated the compliance audit; and if the political contractors were never blocked from access to the database; they would never have needed to create a legal back-door, a justification to retain the surveillance. The political operatives/contractors would have just continued the targeted metadata exploitation.
Once they created the surveillance door, Fusion-GPS was then needed to get the FBI known commodity of Chris Steele activated as a pipeline. Into that pipeline all system users pushed opposition research. However, one mistake from the NSA database extraction during an “about” query shows up as a New Yorker named Michael Cohen in Prague.
That misinterpreted data from a FISA-702 “about query” is then piped to Steele and turns up inside the dossier; it was the wrong Michael Cohen. It wasn’t Trump’s lawyer, it was an art dealer from New York City with the same name; the same “identifier”.
A DEEP DIVE – How Did It Work?
Start by reviewing the established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017. Review the details within the FISC opinion.
I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court. In essence, the Obama administration was continually lying to the FISA court about their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information for multiple years.
Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes. That complexity also helps the media avoid discussing it; and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the Obama-era surveillance issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.
For the sake of brevity and common understanding CTH will highlight the most pertinent segments showing just how systemic and troublesome the unlawful electronic surveillance was.
Early in 2016 NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted of a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) “About” queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.
The NSA compliance officer alerted Admiral Mike Rogers who then initiated a full compliance audit on/around March 9th, 2016, for the period of November 1st, 2015, through May 1st, 2016.
While the audit was ongoing, due to the severity of the results that were identified, Admiral Mike Rogers stopped anyone from using the 702(17) “about query” option, and went to the extraordinary step of blocking all FBI contractor access to the database on April 18, 2016 (keep these dates in mind).
Here are some significant segments:
The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or ‘exporting’, the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.
Searching the highly classified NSA database is essentially a function of filling out search boxes to identify the user-initiated search parameter and get a return on the search result.
♦ FISA-702(16) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (“702”); and the “16” is a check box to initiate a search based on “To and From“. Example, if you put in a date and a phone number and check “16” as the search parameter the user will get the returns on everything “To and From” that identified phone number for the specific date. Calls, texts, contacts etc. Including results for the inbound and outbound contacts.
♦ FISA-702(17) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (702); and the “17” is a check box to initiate a search based on everything “About” the search qualifier. Example, if you put a date and a phone number and check “17” as the search parameter the user will get the returns of everything about that phone. Calls, texts, contacts, geolocation (or gps results), account information, user, service provider etc. As a result, 702(17) can actually be used to locate where the phone (and user) was located on a specific date or sequentially over a specific period of time which is simply a matter of changing the date parameters.
And that’s just from a phone number.
Search an ip address “about” and read all data into that server; put in an email address and gain everything about that account. Or use the electronic address of a GPS enabled vehicle (about) and you can withdraw more electronic data and monitor in real time. Search a credit card number and get everything about the account including what was purchased, where, when, etc. Search a bank account number, get everything about transactions and electronic records etc. Just about anything and everything can be electronically searched; everything has an electronic ‘identifier’.
The search parameter is only limited by the originating field filled out. Names, places, numbers, addresses, etc. By using the “About” parameter there may be thousands or millions of returns. Imagine if you put “@realdonaldtrump” into the search parameter? You could extract all following accounts who interacted on Twitter, or Facebook etc. You are only limited by your imagination and the scale of the electronic connectivity.
As you can see below, on March 9th, 2016, internal auditors noted the FBI was sharing “raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information”.
In plain English the raw search returns were being shared with unknown entities without any attempt to “minimize” or redact the results. The person(s) attached to the results were named and obvious. There was no effort to hide their identity or protect their 4th amendment rights of privacy; and database access was from the FBI network:
But what’s the scale here? This is where the story really lies.
Read this next excerpt carefully.
The operators were searching “U.S Persons”. The review of November 1, 2015, to May 1, 2016, showed “eighty-five percent of those queries” were unlawful or “non compliant”.
85% !! “representing [redacted number]”.
We can tell from the space of the redaction the number of searches were between 10,000 and 99,999 [six digits]. If we take the middle number of 50,000 – a non compliant rate of 85 percent means 42,500 unlawful searches out of 50,000.
The [six digit] amount (more than 10,000, less than 99,999), and 85% error rate, was captured in a six month period, November 2015 to April 2016.
Also notice this very important quote: “many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges.” This tells us the system users were searching the same phone number, email address, electronic identifier, repeatedly over different dates.
Specific person(s) were being tracked/monitored.
Additionally, notice the last quote: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of” these non lawful searches “since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 coincided with an unusually high error rate”.
That means the 85% unlawful FISA-702(16)(17) database abuse has likely been happening since 2012.
2012 is an important date in this database abuse because a network of specific interests is assembled that also shows up in 2016/2017:
Who was 2012 FBI Director? Robert Mueller, who was selected by the FBI group to become special prosecutor in 2017.
Who was Mueller’ chief-of-staff? Aaron Zebley, who became one of the lead lawyers on the Mueller special counsel.
Who was 2012 CIA Director? John Brennan (remember the ouster of Gen Petraeus)
Who was ODNI? James Clapper.
Remember, the NSA is inside the Pentagon (Defense Dept) command structure. Who was Defense Secretary? Ash Carter
Who wanted NSA Director Mike Rogers fired in 2016? Brennan, Clapper and Carter.
And finally, who wrote and signed-off-on the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment and then lied about the use of the Steele Dossier? The same John Brennan, and James Clapper along with James Comey.
Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal. The results were extracted for?…. (I believe this is all political opposition use; and I’ll explain why momentarily.)
OK, that’s the stunning scale; but who was involved?
Private contractors with access to “raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI’s requests“:
And as noted, the contractor access was finally halted on April 18th, 2016.
[Coincidentally (or likely not), the wife of Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, goes to the White House the very next day on April 19th, 2016.]
None of this is conspiracy theory.
All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decisionmaking“:
This specific footnote, if declassified, could be a key. Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”, this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.
Note: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, that is important.
Summary: The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system. The database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities.
The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation; and we are not the only one to think that’s what this system is being used for.
Back in 2017 when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was working to reauthorize the FISA legislation, Nunes wrote a letter to ODNI Dan Coats about this specific issue:
SIDEBAR: To solve the issue, well, actually attempt to ensure it never happened again, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers eventually took away the “About” query option permanently in 2017. NSA Director Rogers said the abuse was so inherent there was no way to stop it except to remove the process completely. [SEE HERE] Additionally, the NSA database operates as a function of the Pentagon, so the Trump administration went one step further. On his last day as NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers -together with ODNI Dan Coats- put U.S. cyber-command, the database steward, fully into the U.S. military as a full combatant command. [SEE HERE] Unfortunately it didn’t work as shown by the 2018 FISC opinion rendered by FISC Judge James Boasberg [SEE HERE]
There is little doubt the FISA-702(16)(17) database system was used by Obama-era officials, from 2012 through April 2016, as a way to spy on their political opposition.
Quite simply there is no other intellectually honest explanation for the scale and volume of database abuse that was taking place; and keep in mind these searches were all ruled to be unlawful. Searches for repeated persons over a period time that were not authorized.
When we reconcile what was taking place and who was involved, then the actions of the exact same principle participants take on a jaw-dropping amount of clarity.
All of the action taken by CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, ODNI Clapper and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter make sense. Including their effort to get NSA Director Mike Rogers fired.
Everything after March 9th, 2016, had a dual purpose: (1) done to cover up the weaponization of the FISA database. [Explained Here] Spygate, Russia-Gate, the Steele Dossier, and even the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (drawn from the dossier and signed by the above) were needed to create a cover-story and protect themselves from discovery of this four year weaponization, political surveillance and unlawful spying. Even the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel makes sense; he was FBI Director when this began. And (2) they needed to keep the surveillance going.
The beginning decision to use FISA(702) as a domestic surveillance and political spy mechanism appears to have started in/around 2012. Perhaps sometime shortly before the 2012 presidential election and before John Brennan left the White House and moved to CIA. However, there was an earlier version of data assembly that preceded this effort.
Political spying 1.0 was actually the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term “Secret Research Project” originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:
The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)
Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there’s a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.
The IRS scandal was never really about the IRS, it was always about the DOJ asking the IRS for the database of information. That is why it was transparently a conflict when the same DOJ was tasked with investigating the DOJ/IRS scandal. Additionally, Obama sent his chief-of-staff Jack Lew to become Treasury Secretary; effectively placing an ally to oversee/cover-up any issues. As Treasury Secretary Lew did just that.
Lesson Learned – It would appear the Obama administration learned a lesson from attempting to gather a large opposition research database operation inside a functioning organization large enough to have some good people that might blow the whistle.
The timeline reflects a few months after realizing the “Secret Research Project” was now worthless (June 2012), they focused more deliberately on a smaller network within the intelligence apparatus and began weaponizing the FBI/NSA database. If our hunch is correct, that is what will be visible in footnote #69:
How this all comes together in 2019/2020
Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 just to research Donald Trump. As shown in the evidence provided by the FISC, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The Obama administration already knew everything about the Trump campaign, and were monitoring everything by exploiting the FISA database.
However, after the NSA alerts in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.
That’s why the FBI small group, which later transitioned into the Mueller team, were so strongly committed to and defending the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content.
The Steele Dossier, an outcome of the Fusion contract, contains three insurance policy purposes: (1) the cover-story and justification for the pre-existing surveillance operation (protect Obama); and (2) facilitate the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign (assist Clinton); and (3) continue the operation with a special counsel (protect both).
An insurance policy would be needed. The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into Carter Page. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the FISA warrant and the Dossier in the system {Go Deep}.
The Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion-GPS gave them that justification and evidence for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier.
Ultimately that’s why the Steele Dossier was so important; without it, the FBI would not have a tool that Mueller needed to continue the investigation of President Trump. In essence by renewing the FISA application, despite them knowing the underlying dossier was junk, the FBI was keeping the surveillance gateway open for Team Mueller to exploit later on.
Additionally, without the Steele Dossier the DOJ and FBI are naked with their FISA-702 abuse as outlined by John Ratcliffe.
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Thankfully we know U.S. Attorney John Durham has talked to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In this video Rogers explains how he was notified of what was happening and what he did after the notification.
Now that everyone is familiar with how the Mueller Special Counsel Team took over Main Justice (DOJ and DOJ-NSD) in May 2017, let’s take a look at a critical ten days.
On July 12, 2018, at the apex of the Mueller probe, the DOJ-NSD dispatched a demonstrably manipulative letter to the FISA court informing the FISC that the predicate for the FISA application was still valid. {Go Deep} Nine days later, July 21, 2018, the special counsel released the Carter Page FISA application to fill FOIA requests.
The background context is important. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte was asking Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer for a copy of the FISA application on file in the FISC. Collyer responded saying both Goodlatte and Nunes (Legislative Branch) needed to exhaust all efforts to retrieve from the DOJ (Executive Branch). Congress was questioning the details of the FISA. Unprompted, and needing to keep prop-up the FISA application the special counsel (DOJ-NSD) responded to the FISC saying the predicate was still valid.
Obviously the background of how the FISA application was attained was critical to the special counsel maintaining the validity of their purpose. Hence, despite 18 months of direct FBI evidence that contradicted the primary underpinning document, the Steele Dossier, the special counsel lied to the FISC saying the originating predicate was valid.
The July 12, 2018, letter only surfaced in April 2020 after the FISC reviewed the December 9, 2019, IG report which completely contradicted the July 12, 2018, claims. The FISC responded to the Bill Barr DOJ in 2020 by demanding the 2018 letter be given to congressional oversight via Senator Lindsey Graham. The DOJ submitted the 2018 document and Senator Graham released the letter to the public.
Nine days later, July 21st 2018, the special counsel then released the FISA application to the public under the guise of a FOIA fulfillment. However, what almost everyone missed was that the actual FISA application itself was a very specific version released.
The special counsel released a very specific version of the FISA application. The first two components of the FISA release were from a copy dated March 17, 2017, that was used in an FBI leak investigation. {Go Deep} The special counsel used this version and then added the April 2017 and June 2017 renewals to complete the set.
Take a look at the last page of the first FISA application that was released and there is a much bigger story visible. This page tells us a great deal:
The FISC stamp of 3/17/17 tells us that Robert Mueller’s team released a document that was proprietary to the Washington Field Office FBI, Supervisory Special Agent, Brian Dugan. {Go Deep} FBI Agent Dugan calls this “an FBI equity” in his December 14, 2018, statement under penalty of perjury. The special counsel is releasing Dugan’s evidence.
This release tells us that SSA Brian Dugan turned over his investigative file to the special counsel at the conclusion of his leak investigation; likely because the Mueller probe held primary investigative authority over anything related to Trump-Russia, and the FISA application was a central component to the Mueller probe.
Quite simply: if agent Dugan had not turned over his investigative file; and if the special counsel did not take ownership of his investigative file; then the special counsel would not have this specific copy to release. The DOJ would have, instead, been releasing their own copy of the FISA application from the DOJ-National Security Division.
The simple fact that Mueller released this March 17th stamped version for a FOIA fulfillment meant the special counsel had received Dugan’s investigative file. Hopefully everyone can see that.
When the special counsel released the Dugan copy on July 21st 2018 they redacted the dates. Despite everyone knowing what the dates were from both Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Chuck Grassley releases, the special counsel redacted the dates.
The special counsel redacted the dates because Brian Dugan had changed them in order to track leaks to the media. The unredacted Dugan copy would show origination dates in conflict with actual. The special counsel released the Dugan copy and removed the risk by redacting the dates.
This is one example of how the Special Counsel team controlled, removed and released information that was damaging to their own corrupt intentions. There are many more.
The special counsel needed to remove the evidence that SSCI Security Director James Wolfe leaked the unredacted FISA application to journalist Ali Watkins on March 17, 2017.
By the time Brian Dugan’s investigative file was scrubbed by the Mueller team, it was returned to USAO Jessie Liu with the evidence of the Wolfe FISA leak removed.
This is why the Wolfe grand jury never heard the evidence of “WHAT” James Wolfe released; and this explains why he was only indicted on lying three times to FBI investigators.
On the last sentences (paragraph four); on the last page; on the last court document that SSA Dugan would write; FBI Agent Brian Dugan swore under penalty of perjury that James Wolfe leaked the FISA application….
Long time Treehouse friend Zurich Mike asked some interesting questions earlier. Perhaps there are intervals, metaphors per se’, when we see history repeat.
In June 1945 the Indianapolis received orders to undertake a top-secret mission of the utmost significance to national security. The objective was to proceed to Tinian island carrying the enriched uranium (about half of the world’s supply of uranium-235 at the time) and other parts required for the assembly of the atomic bomb codenamed “Little Boy”, which would be dropped on Hiroshima a few weeks later.
The mission was a success, and the material to assemble the Atomic bomb was delivered in June 1945. However, even the crew of the ship had no idea just how vital their mission was. Due to the sensitivity of the objective, the captain was under strict instructions to keep the mission a total secret. The outcome of their mission was not visible until August 6, 1945 when the atomic bomb was detonated over Hiroshima, Japan.
Given the nature of the toxic tribal environment surrounding current U.S. politics, it is critical for John Durham to protect his mission from even the appearance of impropriety. One can easily imagine how everyone in/around the purposefully tight group would demand utmost confidence and security with any aspect of their investigation.
Certainly, if a special prosecutor like John Durham was to receive critical material to assemble a political “Little Boy”, anyone in/around the delivery process would be required to go completely silent thereafter. It is the only safe way to ensure the objective.
The U.S.S. Indianapolis was vital to the overall mission. However, building “Little Boy” was not the objective; detonating it was.
In the two months since George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, the world has changed significantly. For example, major businesses in America are fully onboard with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as almost 300 top corporations have pledged support for the cause. These corporate leaders have been joined by all the professional sports franchises and political leaders of both parties have expressed solidarity with BLM.
Any expression of “All Lives Matter” has been deemed to be racist. For example, a Sacramento Kings broadcaster lost his job for tweeting “All Lives Matter.” In New Orleans, a Mardi Gras krewe captain faced intense criticism and the defection of members and bands from her parade for issuing a similar message online. A New Orleans area teacher was fired because her husband admitted to painting “We All Matter” and other non-racist slogans on his fence. It seems clear that in the politically correct climate today, everyone must express support for BLM or face a withering backlash.
The problem is that the BLM organization was founded by individuals who admitted to being “trained Marxists”
The problem is that the BLM organization was founded by individuals who admitted to being “trained Marxists.” Of course, all Americans should oppose individuals advocating an ideology that threatens our constitutional republic and our capitalist economic system.
Karl Marx is the founder of communism, a system of government that survives by fully destroying the freedom of its citizens. People living in communist countries have no human rights and exist only to serve the all-powerful state. Today, communist governments endure in North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and China.
All these countries repress their people and deprive them of basic freedoms such as the right to speak, assemble, petition, and practice their religious faith. These barbaric practices have existed in all communist nations since the overthrow of the Czar in Russia in 1917 and the eventual formation of the Soviet Union. Since that time, communist dictators have killed at least 100 million innocent people throughout the world.
Unfortunately, the media does not allow any mention of the Marxist origins of BLM or any criticism of the organization. Any courageous critics will be labeled a racist. Understandably, most people fear being given such a label, so they will refuse to give their honest opinion and just appease the mob to protect their job and their family.
The stampede to support BLM has been seen in every sports league over the last few months. Americans used to be able to enjoy sporting events without being lectured about their political beliefs. It used to be a nice diversion from the pressures of everyday life. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Today, sports are just one more area of life that has been overtaken by social justice warriors.
The NBA has painted Black Lives Matter next to their court in the “bubble” in Orlando. The NFL has expressed support and will play the “Black National Anthem” prior to the National Anthem during the first week of games this season. In Major League Soccer, players raised their fist and knelt in support of BLM at the opening of their season.
The acceptance of this Marxist group has been especially apparent in Major League Baseball. Members of the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants knelt during exhibition games. In Boston, the Red Sox just unveiled a massive Black Lives Matter billboard right outside of Fenway Park.
On Thursday night, before the opening game of the season, all the players with the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals knelt before and during the National Anthem. However, in the San Francisco Giants game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, all the players knelt prior to the National Anthem, except one lonely “Christian.”
The player who refused to kneel was Giants relief pitcher Sam Coonrod, a true hero. In an interview after the game, Coonrod explained his refusal to join his teammates by claiming that he “can’t kneel before anything besides God.”
Such a courageous stand needs to be applauded. Usually, a player, such as Saints Quarterback Drew Brees, who expresses support for standing for the National Anthem, will cave after strong criticism. Eventually, Brees and his wife apologized multiple times.
Coonrod took the road less traveled. He explained his opposition to BLM by noting “I’m a Christian, like I said, and I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean towards Marxism and they have said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can’t get on board with that.”
Fortunately, Gabe Kapler, the manager of the Giants, supported Coonrod’s decision. He said that players were going to be able to “express themselves.” He also noted “We were going to give them the choice on whether they were going to stand, kneel, or do something else. That was a personal decision for Sam.”
This “personal decision” is quite exceptional in the environment we live in today. Congratulations to a rare breed indeed, a player who truly stands alone.
Goldman Sacks agreed to pay Malaysia $3.9 billion in league with the Department of Justice (who always protects Goldman) in return for Malaysia dropping all CRIMINAL charges against Goldman Sachs concerning the 1MDB fraud. I have reported before that when that deal was coming down, no other firm was allowed to quote the project. The entire thing was orchestrated in an illegal fashion and other dealers were prohibited from even quoting.
There will NEVER be a clean up of Wall Street, for the bankers OWN the Justice Department in New York City, the courts, as well as the SEC & CFTC regulators. I maintain that you should never deal with any New York bank, for you will NEVER prevail in any confrontation. They own the entire system.
This settlement is simply because Malaysia was filing criminal charges against Goldman Sachs in its own country. This deal reflects how they own the Department of Justice, for Goldman is only paying a cash settlement of $US2.5 billion while another $US1.4 billion will come from seized 1MDB assets being returned with the help of the US Justice Department.
Trump is oblivious to the real swamp in New York, which funds everything in Washington. They bought the Clintons to make student loans nom-dischargeable in bankruptcy so we have a whole generation with worthless degrees and so much debt that they cannot buy a home. Goldman Sachs not just donated to Hillary exclusively during the 2016 election, but they went as far as prohibiting staff from donating to Trump. Then Trump blindly hires people from Goldman Sachs? Very wrong decision!
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
Centinel2012 