Lou Dobbs interviews defense attorney Sidney Powell to discuss the latest political efforts of DC Judge Emett Sullivan to target her client, Michael Flynn.

The bizarre twists and turns in this case are befuddling.  The prosecution and the defense have agreed to drop the case; however, the judge -signaling he is a member of the resistance- wants to continue the prosecution to generate maximum political damage.

Unsurprisingly when Trey Gowdy said “the Trump family was unmasked on inauguration day”… interviewer Sandra Smith never paused to say: “wait, unmasked in what”?

During his tenure as House Oversight Committee Chair, apparently Trey Gowdy has seen intelligence reports showing the Trump family was unmasked on inauguration day. The logical follow-up question would be: who was generating intelligence reports on the Trump family?

Alas, the dangling participle never had the opportunity to dangle… go figure.

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Follow the bouncing ball. If Gowdy is correct, and he has no vested interest in just making it up, then there was FBI domestic surveillance of the Trump family on inauguration day; which generated an intelligence report. Yet, apparently, no-one seems surprised by that… I digress.

It’s always worthwhile to revisit past assertions and denials when presented with new evidence.  Consider this…

During an interview on April 26, 2019, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, told a journalist the Obama White House didn’t even know there was an FBI investigation into President-elect Trump or Michael Flynn.  WATCH:

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If the White House didn’t know about an FBI investigation into Michael Flynn (per Ben Rhodes), then how does President Obama tell the FBI to conduct their investigation “by the book” according to Ben Rhodes boss, National Security Advisor Susan Rice.  See the problem?

Not coincidentally, on the same date of this pull-aside meeting between President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Vice-President Biden and Susan Rice (January 5, 2017), likely just prior to the meeting….  President Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough had  requested Michael Flynn’s name be unmasked from NSA captures of Russian Ambassador Kislyak surveillance:

Deputy AG Sally Yates testified she didn’t know anything about an intercepted call between Kislyak and Flynn until President Obama told her about it.

… Now Remember Ben, it’s important the FBI conduct the investigation we don’t know about ‘by the book’…

Now we see why that paragraph in the Susan Rice memo is likely redacted.  The paragraph itself is almost certain to contain details about the discussion surrounding incoming Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

It likely takes a lot of main justice approvals to serve a search warrant for the device of the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  The Chairman of the powerful committee also sits on the congressional oversight team known as the gang-of-eight.

According to the Los Angeles Times the FBI served a search warrant on North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr Wednesday. The warrant appears connected to an ongoing investigation on whether or not Burr violated a law that prevents members of Congress from trading insider information they learn from their work.  According to the reportfederal agents seized Burr’s cell phone after they served the warrant at his residence in the Washington DC area.

The sketchy guardian of swamp secrets is retiring at the end of his term so he’s probably just willing to wait out the investigation and negotiate with the DC justice-tier to pay a fine and move on.  DC has a totally different set of laws and outcomes than everywhere else.  Any fine, and any resulting legal expenses, will likely be paid by a lobbying firm or political interest group who previously contracted with, and received benefit from, Senator Burr.

It’s the way of the swamp.

Against the unmasking discussion currently underway, it is worthwhile contrasting the distinctions between: (1) the NSA unmasking of incidental collection; and (2) the FBI unmasking as a result of targeted investigations.

There is a big difference between the two types; and Mike Flynn was a subject of both.

Appearing before a congressional committee on March 20, 2017, FBI Director James Comey outlined the FBI parameters for unmasking U.S. persons who are captured as part of domestic FBI surveillance.

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The distinction between the two unmasking aspects is becoming increasingly important. The FBI is currently claiming the Flynn-Kislyak call was due to “incidental collection”; this is a lie. The New York Times is pushing that lie today:

(New York Times) […] Mr. Flynn’s case grew out of phone calls he made to Mr. Kislyak in the final days of 2016, asking that Moscow refrain from retaliating after the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia as punishment for interfering in the election.

The conversations were captured on routine wiretaps of Mr. Kislyak and prompted concern among the F.B.I. agents investigating Mr. Flynn once they learned of them.

By assigning the conversation to a routine wiretap of Kislyak, the Times, on behalf of the FBI, is attempting to hide the fact the Flynn-Kislyak phone call was captured during FBI surveillance of Flynn.

Apparently, despite the recent records being released which show an investigation, the FBI doesn’t want to admit to domestic surveillance of Michael Flynn as their investigative target.

If the Dec 29th Flynn-Kislyak call was intercepted by the NSA as part of “routine wiretaps” of Mr. Kislyak; and if the FBI was using that intercept as part of their January 4th discussion to keep the Flynn case open; there would have been an unmasking record of that event (released today) showing an FBI unmask request between Dec 29th and Jan 4th:

Note: There wasn’t an unmasking request after the Dec 29th call before January 4th.

There wasn’t a request, because Flynn wasn’t unmasked to the FBI as a result of routine wiretaps of Mr. Kislyak; because the call was simultaneously captured by the FBI as part of the investigation and surveillance of Flynn.

Denis McDonough got the Flynn-Kislyak transcript on January 5th, which is how Obama and Susan Rice discussed the call with DAG Sally Yates on January 5, 2017, that surprised her.  The FBI 7th Floor (Comey and McCabe) already knew about the call.

The issue of how the FBI is explaining their discussion of the Flynn-Kislyak call; which they are now saying (falsely) they discovered via “incidental collection”; is likely why those unmasking records are valuable to, and requested by, John Durham.

I shall not say more than that because it would not be a good idea to tip-off the coup plotters on the direction of an investigation….

Stunning and outrageous doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this move by DC Judge Emett Sullivan in the Flynn case.

Judge Sullivan is requesting retired judge John Gleeson to file an amicus brief outlining why: (a) the charge against Flynn should not be dropped; and (b) frame the argument about how to prosecute Flynn for perjury.

Former Judge John Gleeson (U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of New York) recently penned an op-ed in the Washington post arguing that Flynn should continue to be prosecuted.

May 11, 2020 – […]  There has been nothing regular about the department’s effort to dismiss the Flynn case. The record reeks of improper political influence. Hours after the career prosecutor abruptly withdrew, the department moved to dismiss the indictment in a filing signed only by an interim U.S. attorney, a former aide to Attorney General William P. Barr whom Barr had installed in the position months before.

First things first: ♦Understand Obama’s Surveillance Operation HERE.  ♦Michael Flynn wasn’t under a FISA (Title-1) HERE …. that’s the background.

Devin Nunes appears with Lou Dobbs to discuss the recent list of Obama-era officials who unmasked NSA intercepts of Michael Flynn talking to foreign government officials.  Rep. Nunes reminds the audience that Flynn is only one person within a much larger group of Trump transition team members who were under surveillance by Team Obama.

March 27, 2017, then House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, held a brief press conference and stated he was provided intelligence reports brought to him by unnamed sources including ‘significant information’ about President-Elect Trump and his transition team.

These reports included unmaskings of President Trump campaign officials; and included Donald Trump himself…. You know what that means:

1.) …”On numerous occasions the [Obama] intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

2.) “Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration; details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

3.) “Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition members were unmasked.”

4.) “Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities, or of the Trump team.

“The House Intelligence Committee will thoroughly investigate surveillance and its subsequent dissemination, to determine a few things here that I want to read off:”

• “Who was aware of it?”
• “Why it was not disclosed to congress?”
• “Who requested and authorized the additional unmasking?”
• “Whether anyone directed the intelligence community to focus on Trump associates?”
• “And whether any laws, regulations or procedures were violated?”

“I have asked the Directors of the FBI, NSA and CIA to expeditiously comply with my March 15th letter -that you all received a couple of weeks ago- and to provide a full account of these surveillance activities.”

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A few points on the unmasking before Rand Paul response.  First, the release today is only what the Obama team did regarding unmasking General Flynn.  As Devin Nunes previously outlined, there are many more Trump transition team members who were unmasked as the Obama team conducted surveillance on the incoming administration.

Second, the NSA “reports” are related to actual transcripts, emails and text messages of communication; not just various intelligence interpretations of those communications.

As Senator Rand Paul shares, the effort of the Obama and Biden administration to unmask their political opposition during the transition; and then use widespread distribution and leaks to the media to push a specific one-sided view; is the weaponization of the intelligence apparatus to target political opposition.  That’s the major issue:

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Again, a reminder, these reports surround only NSA intercepts. Simultaneous to this there was an ongoing FBI counterintelligence operation using FISA surveillance (Carter Page) and non-fisa targeted FBI surveillance of Michael Flynn.

For the sake of understanding this specific release, “unmasking” occurs when the NSA, eavesdropping on foreign communications, sweeps up communications with U.S. citizen. That is known as “incidental collection.”

When the intelligence about that communication is shared across the government, the names of U.S. citizens in the communication are typically concealed or masked to protect their identities. However, the names can be unmasked if U.S. officials make the request.

In this release [pdf here], the Obama-era NSA was monitoring various foreign government officials and within their communication they picked up contacts with incoming President-elect Trump’s National Security Advisor Lt. General Michael Flynn.  This release only includes NSA intercepts; not other intelligence agency reports; only the NSA.

The NSA generated [redacted number] of reports based on those foreign contacts. The reports are actual transcripts of the conversations.  The Obama-era officials then asked the NSA to unmask the name of General Flynn so they could see the content and context of the calls.  Current DNI Ric Grenell has assembled a list of who asked the NSA to unmask incoming NSA Michael Flynn from November 8, 2016 through January 31, 2017.

It is important to remember, these intercepts are part of the normal function of monitoring foreign communications.  There is nothing nefarious about the monitoring and there is nothing nefarious about a foreign person contacting the incoming administration, via General Flynn, to begin preparing for the change in administrations.

However, what is completely alarming and disturbing, is the extent to which the Obama administration went to share the contacts and transcripts of the calls with a myriad of government officials.  That’s where the list comes in.

The Obama administration officials obviously wanted to know and disseminate the communication of incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power made 6 requests to the NSA.  DNI James Clapper made 3 requests… and so it goes.

Most of the unmasking happens before the now infamous Michael Flynn phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 29, 2016.  Some unmasking requests were before and after that call.

Again, these are intercepted communications from the NSA monitoring of foreign government officials.  There’s nothing surprising about the capture itself.  Nor is it surprising they would be contacting General Flynn.  The issue is the distribution and leaking…  These NSA “reports” are actually the transcripts of the phone calls.

Note above there are numerous requests in/around mid December.  This is when the “muh Russia” conspiracy narrative was being pushed hardest.  If you reference the Peter Strzok  & Lisa Page text messages at the same timeframe you’ll note they talk about “sister” or sister agencies leaking.

Sister agencies is the CIA specifically but also includes DoD (defense) and DoS (State); all connected to the counterintelligence and foreign intelligence services.

Here’s the CURRENT DNI release:

Below is an important video to help understand the dynamic and the issues.

Note carefully that ADM Mike Rogers is purposefully reminding Senator Graham the FBI actually generates more unmasking due to their surveillance, investigations, and counterintelligence operations.  If you are planning to stay up-to-date please watch this and it will help you not to get lost later.

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We already know Flynn was a target for the counterintelligence operations of the FBI.  The unmasking of Flynn within all of that surveillance and subsequent report assembly is another tranche of intelligence that could be declassified. This part is where John Durham and Bill Barr are presumably focused.

The NSA release today only touches one part of a much bigger intelligence network… the transcripts of calls between Flynn and foreign government officials at certain dates; and the Obama administration wanting to use that information to push a Trump-Russia collusion narrative in the transition period.

There will be more to come… This NSA release is only one tranche.

Fox News analyst Andrew McCarthy discusses the order by Judge Sullivan allowing amicus briefs from third-parties prior to issuing a ruling in the Flynn case. As McCarthy notes Sullivan is allowing an anti-Trump therapy session within his legal proceedings.