Posted originally on the CTH on January 16, 2025 | Sundance
Sometimes DC is a fishbowl, and they don’t realize the background of what we know, when they are speaking. Testimony today is a case study of one bubble within that fishbowl.
Former House Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff organized the first impeachment effort against President Donald Trump. Schiff is now a Senator. Schiff’s former lead staff in the impeachment investigation was Mary McCord.
Today, during the question session for AG Pam Bondi’s nomination, Adam Schiff asked Mary McCord about whether AG Bondi should recuse herself from investigating Adam Schiff and Mary McCord. It’s a little funny if you understand the background.
I prompted the video to the part at 01:36:14 when Schiff asks McCord, and Mrs. McCord responds with “yes, Pam Bondi should recuse.” WATCH:
Mary McCord says Pam Bondi must recuse herself from any investigative outcome related to the first impeachment effort. Who was the lead staff working for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler on the first impeachment effort? Mary McCord.
Now, triggering that first impeachment effort… Who worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to change the CIA whistleblower regulations permitting an anonymous complaint? Yep, that would be the same Mary McCord.
In essence, the woman who organized, structured, led and coordinated the first impeachment effort, says Pam Bondi must recuse herself from investigating the organization, structure, leadership and coordination of the first impeachment effort.
You just cannot make this stuff up.
Obviously, doing their ‘pretending not to know routine,” every republican sat on their hands when Mary McCord was testifying about all the terrible attributes and conflicts that surround Pam Bondi. Do not fool yourself, every republican on the judiciary committee knows exactly who Mary McCord is, and her deeply rooted Intelligence Community connections to the Deep State.
It’s a fun intellectual exercise to remind yourself just who Mary McCord is, and how deeply enmeshed in the stop Trump operation she is. Remember, Mary McCord openly said she is currently working with a group to “bring lawsuits” against President Trump in his second term as soon as he takes office:
[…] “We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.
Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look. (more)
So, even if the Trump administration officials do not confront Mary McCord, which they likely will not do – because they genuinely appear to be afraid of her, Mary McCord is going to target them.
The Lawfare operation that Mary McCord represents is going to try and block President Trump, and the Senate is just sitting there listening to Mary McCord speak today, while pretending they don’t know this. Good grief, it’s frustrating to watch.
Just to put some emphasis on this mess, here’s a reminder of who Mary McCord is…
A recent soundbite shared on the Twitter platform aligns with so many aspects about how the IC targets their enemies, and how the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) then weaponizes the opportunities provided by the U.S intelligence apparatus.
Notice in this short video how Mary McCord positions the power structure of the DOJ-NSD silo in deference to the Intelligence Community (IC). This is a critical path within the next step to American’s “great awakening.” In the past we have outlined how the DOJ-NSD weaponizes their Lawfare by using “National Security Information,” or what the insiders call “NSI.”
As an outcome of the way our checks and balances have been modified against our interests, the judicial branch has repeatedly deferred to the DOJ around the issue of “national security.” In fact, if the DOJ labels any Lawfare approach as a national security matter the subsequent evidence therein, the NSI (even when not seen) is accepted by the judicial branch without question. The judicial branch defers to the executive on all matters defined by the executive as “national security.”
This is the area of exploit being discussed by Mary McCord in this segment. However, notice there is one apparatus that can supercede the DOJ-NSD’s ability to weaponize Nat Sec Information, that’s the power of the intelligence apparatus. WATCH:
McCord notes how she and Andrew Weissmann navigate through the process of using NSI as they move toward their target; the most common reference is their political opposition, Donald J Trump.
If there is one Lawfare operative who has escaped scrutiny for her corrupt endeavors, it would be Mary McCord. More than any other Lawfare operative within Main Justice, Mary McCord sits at the center of every table in the manufacturing of cases against Donald Trump. {GO DEEP} Mary McCord’s husband is Sheldon Snook; he was the right hand to the legal counsel of Chief Justice John Roberts when the Dobbs decision was leaked.
When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’). That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important. It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.
When the application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin. Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016). John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.
♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.
A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents. The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.
♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.
♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission. Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint. It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules. Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General? Michael Atkinson.
When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to? Mary McCord.
Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment. As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.
♦ During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’), which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith. Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.
When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.
♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith. In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith, and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome. Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.
As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI, in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.
Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus? Mary McCord.
♦ SUMMARY: Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier. Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn. Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee. Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.
You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.
What happened next….
November 3, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)
That’s the context; now I want to go back a little.
First, when did Mary McCord become “amicus” to the FISA court? ANSWER: When the court (Boasberg) discovered IG Michael Horowitz was investigating the fraudulent FISA application. In essence, the FISA Court appointed the person who submitted the fraudulent filing, to advise on any ramifications from the fraudulent filing. See how that works?
Now, let’s go deeper….
When Mary McCord went to the White House with Sally Yates to talk to white house counsel Don McGhan about the Flynn call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, and the subsequent CBS interview with VP Pence, where Pence’s denial of any wrongdoing took place, the background narrative in the attack against Flynn was the Logan Act.
The construct of the Logan Act narrative was pure Lawfare, and DAG Sally Yates with Acting NSD AAG Mary McCord were the architects.
Why was the DOJ National Security Division concerned with a conflict between what Pence said on CBS and what Flynn said about his conversations with Kislyak?
This is where a big mental reset is needed. Flynn did nothing wrong. The incoming National Security Advisor can say anything he wants with the Russian ambassador, short of giving away classified details of any national security issue. In December of 2016, if Michael Flynn wanted to say Obama was an a**hole, and the Trump administration disagreed with everything he ever did, the incoming NSA was free to do so. There was simply nothing wrong with that conversation – regardless of content.
So, why were McCord and Yates so determined to make an issue in media and in confrontation with the White House? Why did the DOJ-NSD even care? This is the part that people overlooked when the media narrative was driving the news cycle. People got too stuck in the weeds and didn’t ask the right questions.
Some entity, we discover later was the FBI counterintelligence division, was monitoring Flynn’s calls. They transcribed a copy of the call between Flynn and Kislyak, and that became known as the “Flynn Cuts” as described within internal documents, and later statements.
After the Flynn/Kislyak conversation was leaked to the media, Obama asked ODNI Clapper how that call got leaked. Clapper went to the FBI on 1/4/17 and asked FBI Director James Comey. Comey gave Clapper a copy of the Flynn Cuts which Clapper then took back to the White House to explain to Obama.
Obama’s White House counsel went bananas, because Clapper had just walked directly into the Oval Office with proof the Obama administration was monitoring the incoming National Security Advisor.
Obama’s plausible deniability of the Trump surveillance was lost as soon as Clapper walked in with the written transcript.
That was the motive for the 1/5/17 Susan Rice memo, and the reason for Obama to emphasize “buy the book” three times.
It wasn’t that Obama didn’t know already; the problem was that a document trail now existed (likely a CYA from Comey) that took away Obama’s plausible deniability of knowledge.
The January 5th meeting documented by Susan Rice was quickly organized to mitigate this issue.
Knowing the Flynn Cuts were created simultaneously with the phone call, and knowing how it was quickly decided to use the Logan Act as a narrative against Flynn and Trump, we can be very sure both McCord and Yates had read that transcript before they went to the White House. [Again, this is the entire purpose of them going to the White House to confront McGhan with their manufactured concerns.]
So, when it comes to ‘who leaked’ the reality of the Flynn/Kislyak call to the media, the entire predicate for the Logan Act violation – in hindsight – I would bet a donut it was Mary McCord.
But wait, there’s more….
Now we go back to McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook.
Sheldon was working for the counsel to John Roberts. The counsel to the Chief Justice has one job, to review the legal implications of issues before the court and advise Justice John Roberts. The counsel to the Chief Justice knows everything happening in the court and is the sounding board for any legal issues impacting the Supreme Court.
In his position as the right hand of the counsel to the chief justice, Sheldon Snook would know everything happening inside the court.
At the time, there was nothing bigger inside the court than the Alito opinion known as the Dobb’s Decision – the returning of abortion law to the states. Without any doubt, the counsel to Chief Justice Roberts would have that decision at the forefront of his advice and counsel. By extension, this puts the actual written Alito opinion in the orbit of Sheldon Snook.
After the Supreme Court launched a heavily publicized internal investigation into the leaking of the Dobbs decision (Alito opinion), something interesting happened. Sheldon Snook left his position. If you look at the timing of the leak, the investigation and the Sheldon Snook exit, the circumstantial evidence looms large.
Of course, given the extremely high stakes, the institutional crisis with the public discovering the office of the legal counsel to the Chief Justice likely leaked the decision, such an outcome would be catastrophic for the institutional credibility. In essence, it would be Robert’s office who leaked the opinion to the media.
If you were Chief Justice John Roberts and desperately needed to protect the integrity of the court, making sure such a thermonuclear discovery was never identified would be paramount. Under the auspices of motive, Sheldon Snook would exit quietly. Which is exactly what happened.
The timeline holds the key.
Remember the stories of the J6 investigative staff all going to work for Jack Smith on the investigation of Donald Trump? Well, Mary McCord was a member of that team [citation]; all indications are that her background efforts continue today as a quiet member of the Special Counsel team that is still attacking Donald Trump.
To give you an idea of the scope of influence of Mary McCord as a key functionary, consider what we can document.
♦ McCord submitted the fraudulent FISA application to spy on Trump campaign.
♦ McCord created the “Logan Act” claim used against Michael Flynn and then went with Sally Yates to confront the White House.
♦ McCord then left the DOJ and went to work for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.
♦ McCord organized the CIA rule changes with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
♦ McCord led and organized the impeachment effort, in the background, using the evidence she helped create.
♦ McCord joined the FISA Court to protect against DOJ IG Michael Horowitz newly gained NSD oversight and FISA review.
♦ McCord joined the J6 Committee helping to create all the lawfare angles they deployed.
♦ McCord then coordinated with DA Fani Willis in Georgia.
♦ McCord was working with Special Counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump.
♦ McCord is now coordinating a Lawfare attack process against Donald Trump in term #2
In short, Mary McCord is the lawfare string that winds through every legal ‘stop Trump’ effort, and her primary partner in this endeavor is Andrew Weissmann. It wasn’t Jack Smith per se’, any more than it was Robert Mueller.
Jack Smith and Robert Mueller were simply the front men of the Lawfare band.
Centinel2012 