Tag Archives: Samantha Power A Clear and Present Danger

Oct 14 2020

Senators Grassley and Johnson Demand 300 Pages of Hidden McCabe Text Messages – FBI Has Refused Production for Two Years…


Posted originally on The Conservative Tree House on October 13, 2020 by sundance

To provide some context for this letter, even beyond what is stated by Senators Grassley and Johnson, it is worthwhile remembering the 300 pages of text messages between FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and his DOJ lawyer Lisa Page were originally revealed in March of 2019.   Catherine Herridge reported on two of those pages.

Today Grassley and Johnson send a letter [pdf here] asking FBI Director Chris Wray to stop stonewalling congressional oversight and provide the text messages.  Within the letter the senators outline a few examples highlighting how McCabe and Page were coordinating FBI leaks to their media allies during a key and critical time-frame:

(source pdf – also embed below)

Those 2016 text messages were during the time when an internal argument was taking place about the need for McCabe to recuse himself from the reopening of the Clinton email investigation because he tried to bury the Weiner laptop emails for 28-days in October.

Here’s the letter from Grassley and Johnson:https://www.scribd.com/embeds/479918502/content?start_page=1&view_mode&access_key=key-fohKMSiOps0J5xTKGg0kView this document on Scribd

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Here’s the background:

Within this interview below Mr. Comey is questioned about the announcement of re-opening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation on October 28th, 2016.

In his response to why there was a delay between the FBI being notified by New York on September 28th, and waiting until October 28th, James Comey revealed a very important nugget.

The New York U.S. Attorney (SDNY) called Main Justice in DC to ask about why they were not receiving authority for a search warrant. We knew that call took place on October 21st, 2016. Now we know “why” and who New York called at DOJ HQ.

Listen closely to James Comey at 06:06 to 07:30 of the interview (prompted):

Baier: “Did you know that Andrew McCabe, your deputy, had sat on that revelation about the emails”?

Comey: “Yeah, I don’t know that, I don’t know that to be the case. I do know that New York and FBI headquarters became aware that there may be some connection between Weiner’s laptop and the Clinton investigation, weeks before it was brought to me for decision – and as I write in the book I don’t know whether they could have moved faster and why the delay”

Baier: “Was it the threat that New York Agents were going to leak that it existed really what drove you to the ‘not conceal’ part?

Comey: “I don’t think so. I think what actually drove it was the prosecutors in New York who were working the criminal case against Weiner called down to headquarters and said ‘are we getting a search warrant or not for this’? That caused, I’m sorry, Justice Department Headquarters, to then call across the street to the FBI and poke the organization; and they start to move much more quickly. I don’t know why there was, if there was slow activity, why it was slow for those first couple of weeks.”

There’s some really sketchy stuff going on in that answer. Why would SDNY need to get authorization for a search warrant from DC, if this is about Weiner’s laptop? Yes, you could argue it pertains to a tightly held Clinton investigation run out of DC but the Weiner prosecution issues shouldn’t require approval from DC.

But let’s take Comey at face-value…. So there we discover it was justice officials within SDNY (Southern District of New York) who called Main Justice (DOJ in DC) and asked about a needed search warrant for “this”, presumably Weiner’s laptop by inference. Now, let’s go look at the Page/Strzok description of what was going on.

Here are the messages from Lisa Page and Peter Strzok surrounding the original date that New York officials notified Washington DC FBI. It’s important to note the two different entities: DOJ -vs- FBI.

According to the September 28, 2016, messages from FBI Agent Peter Strzok it was the SDNY in New York telling Andrew McCabe in DC about the issue. Pay close attention to the convo:

(pdf source for all messages here)

Notice: “hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s attorney to SDNY”.

Pay super close attention. This is not an outcome of a New York Police Dept. raid on Anthony Weiner. This is Weiner’s attorney going to the U.S. attorney and voluntarily turning over emails. The emails were not turned over to the FBI in New York, the actual emails were turned over to the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District.

Key point here: Weiner’s attorneys turned over “emails”. Actual “emails”.

♦If the U.S. Attorney in New York has the actual physical emails on September 28th, 2016, why would they need a search warrant on October 21st, 2016? (Comey’s call explanation)

♦Why would Weiner’s attorney be handing over evidence?

Think about this carefully. I’ll get back to the importance of it later; but what I suspect is that Weiner had physical material that was his “insurance policy” against anything done to him by Hillary Clinton. Facing a criminal prosecution Weiner’s lawyer went to the U.S. Attorney and attempted to exploit/leverage the content therein on his client’s behalf.

Fast forward three weeks, and we go back to FBI in DC.

On October 21, 2016, this is the call referenced by James Comey in the Bret Baier interview. Someone from New York called “Main Justice” (the DOJ National Security Division in DC) and notified DOJ-NSD Deputy Asst. Attorney General George Toscas of the Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton emails via the “weiner investigation”.

[I would point out again, he’s not being notified of a laptop, Toscas is notified of “emails”]

George Toscas “wanted to ensure information got to Andy“, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe…. so he called FBI Agent Peter Strzok…. who told George Toscas “we know”.

Peter Strzok then tells Bill Priestap.

Of course, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe already knew about the emails since September 28th, 2016, more than three weeks earlier.

In his Bret Baier interview FBI Director James Comey says this call is about a search warrant. There is no indication the call is actually about a search warrant. [Nor would there be a need for a search warrant if the call was actually about the emails that Wiener’s attorney dropped off on 9/21].

However, that phone call kicks off an internal debate about the previously closed Clinton email investigation; and Andrew McCabe sitting on the notification from New York for over three weeks – kicks off an internal FBI discussion about McCabe needing to recuse himself.

Now it’s October 27th, 2016, James Comey chief-of-staff Jim Rybicki wants McCabe to recuse himself. But Rybicki is alone on an island. Lisa Page is furious at such a suggestion, partly because she is McCabe’s legal counsel and if McCabe is recused so too is she.

At the same time as they are debating how to handle the Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton emails, they are leaking to the media to frame a specific narrative.

Important to note here, that at no time is there any conversation -or hint of a conversation- that anyone is reviewing the content of the emails. The discussions don’t mention a single word about content… every scintilla of conversation is about how to handle the issues of the emails themselves. Actually, there’s not a single person mentioned in thousands of text messages that applies to an actual person who is looking at any content.

Quite simply: there is a glaringly transparent lack of an “investigation”.

Within this “tight group” at FBI, as Comey puts it, there is not a single mention of a person who is sitting somewhere looking through the reported “600,000” Clinton emails that was widely reported by media. There’s absolutely ZERO evidence of anyone looking at emails or scouring through laptop data…. and FBI Agent Peter Strzok has no staff under him who he discusses assigned to such a task…. and Strzok damned sure ain’t doing it. So what gives?

Moving on – Note to readers. Click the graphics and read the notes on them too:

It’s still October 27th, 2016, the day before James Comey announces his FBI decision to re-open the Clinton investigation. Jim Rybicki still saying McCabe should be recused from input; everyone else, including FBI Legal Counsel James Baker, is disagreeing with Rybicki and siding with Lisa Page.

Meanwhile the conversation has shifted slightly to “PC”, probable cause. Read:

While Lisa Page is leaking stories to Devlin Barrett (Wall Street Journal), the internal discussion amid the “small group” is about probable cause.

The team is now saying if there was no probable cause when Comey closed the original email investigation in July 2016 (remember the very tight boundaries of review), then there’s no probable cause in October 2016 to reopen the investigation regardless of what the email content might be.

This appears to be how the “small group” or “tight team” justify doing nothing with the content received from New York. They received the emails September 28th and it’s now October 27th, and they haven’t even looked at it. Heck, they are debating if there’s even a need to look at it.

Then on October 28th, 2016, the FBI and Main Justice officials have a conference call about the entire Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton email issue. Here’s where it gets interesting.

George Toscas and David Laufman from DOJ-NSD articulate a position that something needs to happen likely because Main Justice is concerned about the issue of FBI (McCabe) sitting on the emails for over three weeks without any feedback to SDNY (New York).

Thanks to Deputy Director McCabe, Main Justice in DC, specifically DOJ National Security Division, now looks like they are facilitating a cover-up operation being conducted by the FBI “small group”. [which is actually true, but they can’t let that be so glaringly obvious].

As a result of the Top-Tier officials conference call, Strzok is grumpy agent because his opinion appears to be insignificant. The decision is reached to announce the re-opening of the investigation. This sends Lisa Page bananas…

…In rapid response mode Lisa Page reaches out to Devlin Barrett, again to quickly shape the media coverage. Now that the world is aware of the need for a Clinton email investigation 2.0 the internal conversation returns to McCabe’s recusal.

Please note within all of the released communication, emails and texts, at no time is anyone in the FBI directing an actual investigation of the content of the Clinton emails. Every single second of every FBI effort is devoted to shaping the public perception of the need for the investigation.

The FBI group is seeding media with voluminous leaks; every media outlet is being scoured and watched; every article is being read; and the entire apparatus of the FBI small group are shaping coverage by contacting their leak outlets.

GO EVEN DEEPER:

So let’s go back to that Comey interview:

♦What exactly would SDNY need a search warrant for?

♦Anthony Weiner’s lawyer has delivered SDNY actual emails. Why would he do that?

Now lets connect those questions to an earlier report.

According to ABC News Comey writes in “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” that he became the public face of the investigation partly because of a mysterious development which he felt could cast “serious doubt” on Lynch’s independence.

“Had it become public, the unverified material would undoubtedly have been used by political opponents to cast serious doubt on the attorney general’s independence in connection with the Clinton investigation,” Comey writes, according to ABC. He calls the material a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” (ABC Link)

On page six of the IG report on Andrew McCabe (point number 4) we find a conference call between Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe and the FBI field office in New York where the subject of the Weiner/Abedin/Clinton email findings overlap with: the Clinton Foundation (CF) investigation; the Clinton Email investigation; pressure for Asst. Director McCabe to recuse himself, and Washington DC via Loretta Lynch using DOJ Main Justice leverage from the Eric Garner case against the NY FBI office and New York Police Department.

From the OIG report:

4. The Attorney General Expresses Strong Concerns to McCabe and other FBI Officials about Leaks, and McCabe Discusses Recusing Himself from CF Investigation (October 26, 2016)

McCabe told the OIG that during the October 2016 time frame, it was his “perception that there was a lot of information coming out of likely the [FBI’s] New York Field Office” that was ending up in the news. McCabe told the OIG that he “had some heated back-and-forths” with the New York Assistant Director in Charge (“NY-ADIC”) over the issue of media leaks.

On October 26th, 2016, McCabe and NY-ADIC participated in what McCabe described as “a hastily convened conference call with the Attorney General who delivered the same message to us” about leaks, with specific focus being on leaks regarding the high-profile investigation by FBI’s New York Field Office into the death of Eric Garner. McCabe told us that he “never heard her use more forceful language.” NY-ADIC confirmed that the participants got “ripped by the AG on leaks.”

According to NY-ADIC’s testimony and an e-mail he sent to himself on October 31, McCabe indicated to NY-ADIC and a then-FBI Executive Assistant Director (“EAD”) in a conversation after Attorney General Lynch disconnected from the call that McCabe was recusing himself from the CF Investigation.

(Page #6 and #7 – IG Report Link)

What makes this explosive is the timing, and what we now know about what was going on amid the FBI “small group” in DC.

On September 28th, 2016, Andrew McCabe was made aware of emails given to New York U.S. Attorney (SDNY) directly from Anthony Weiner’s lawyer. Again, the information relayed to DC is not about a Weiner laptop, it’s about actual emails delivered by Weiner’s lawyer. The laptop was evidence in the Weiner “sexting” case involving a minor; however, the laptop did, reportedly, also contained thousands of State Department documents from Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, Weiner’s wife.

When Weiner’s lawyer walked into SDNY to deliver his leverage emails, Preet Bharara, a Clinton-Lynch ally, was the United States Attorney.

Again, look at the text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strzok (Inbox) and FBI Special Counsel to Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page (Outbox):

[The letter to “Congress” at the end of the text exchange relates to notification of the re-opening of the Clinton investigation – Actual date of notification 10/28/16]

According to later reporting, FBI Director James Comey was not notified of the emails until after October 21st, 2016. However, in late October and early November, there were reports from people with contacts in New York police and New York FBI, about Washington DOJ officials interfering with the Weiner investigation.

On the same date (October 26th, 2016) as the Lynch, McCabe and NY FBI phone call, former NY Mayor Rudy Giuilani was telling Fox News that an explosive development was forthcoming. Two days later, October 28th, 2016, Congress was notified of the additional Clinton emails.

However, a few more days later, November 4th, 2016, an even more explosive development as Erik Prince appeared on radio and outlined discoveries within the Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner/Hillary Clinton email issues that was being blocked by AG Lynch.

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week.

“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.

“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said.

“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained.

“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago. That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince said. (Link)

An earlier Grand Jury in New York had refused to return an indictment against the NYPD in the Garner case. As an outcome of that grand jury finding, and as an outcome of their own investigation, the local FBI office and Eastern District of New York DOJ office was not trying to pursue criminal charges against the NYPD officers involved. This created a dispute because federal prosecutors (EDNY) and FBI officials in New York opposed bringing charges, while prosecutors with the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department in Washington argued there was clear evidence to do so.

On October 25th, 2016, Loretta Lynch replaced the EDNY New York prosecutors:

New York Times (Oct. 25) – The Justice Department has replaced the New York team of agents and lawyers investigating the death of Eric Garner, officials said, a highly unusual shake-up that could jump-start the long-stalled case and put the government back on track to seek criminal charges.

With that move – on Oct. 25th, 2016, AG Lynch was now in position to threaten criminal prosecutions against the NYPD, and repercussions against the NY FBI and EDNY using the Garner case as leverage, just like Erik Prince outlined in the phone interview above.

Additionally, we see confirmation from the IG report, the Garner case was brought up in the next day (Oct 26, 2016) phone call to the NY FBI field office; just as Erik Prince outlined. Obviously Prince’s sources were close to the events as they unfolded.

The NY FBI and Eastern District of New York (EDNY) were threatened by Washington DC Main Justice and FBI, via Loretta Lynch and Andrew McCabe to drop the Clinton/Abedin/Weiner email investigation matters, or else the Garner DOJ Civil Rights Division would be used as leverage against the NYPD. And Loretta Lynch had SDNY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as the enforcer waiting for her call.

And so it was…

“Had it become public, the unverified material would undoubtedly have been used by political opponents to cast serious doubt on the attorney general’s independence in connection with the Clinton investigation,” Comey writes, according to ABC. He calls the material a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” (ABC Link)

The emails Anthony Weiner’s lawyer brought to Preet Bharara was Weiner’s leverage to escape prosecution. Likely those emails were exactly as Eric Prince sources outlined. However, the SDNY responding to upper level leadership buried those emails.

In DC the FBI (Comey and McCabe) created the appearance of a re-opening of the Clinton investigation to keep control and ensure the investigative outcomes remained out of the hands of the Eastern District (EDNY) and New York FBI field office. They had no choice.

However, once the FBI opened the investigation October 28th, they did exactly the same thing they had done from September 28th to October 28th… they did nothing.

A few days later they declared the second investigation closed, and that was that.

They never expected her to lose.

Donald Trump became an immediate risk…

The Battle to Save The Republic Continues…

Oct 14 2020

Senator Grassley: CIA Cirector Gina Haspel “May be part of this conspiracy as well”…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on October 13, 2020 by sundance

Earlier this morning Senator Chuck Grassley (Senate Finance Committee Chairman), appeared with Maria Bartiromo to discuss conflicts for documents between the legislative oversight committees, and ongoing stonewalling efforts by current FBI Director Christopher Wray and current CIA Director Gina Haspel.

Senator Grassley and Senator Johnson are seeking the communication from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and officials within the DOJ and FBI surrounding the investigative targeting of candidate Trump and President Trump.  [LINK] Additionally, both Grassley and Johnson are seeking internal documents connected to former CIA Director John Brennan and current CIA Director Gina Haspel.

During the interview Grassley states the non-compliance with oversight may be due to former and current officials participating in a conspiracy to target the office of the president:https:

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The proverbial rabbit hole deepens…

Sep 20 2020

WRAY IS WRONG AS FBI DIRECTOR


President Trump fire this FBI Director as soon as possible

Jeff Crouere image

Re-Posted from the Canada Free Press By  —— Bio and Archives—September 19, 2020

WRAY IS WRONG AS FBI DIRECTOR

In May of 2017, President Trump did the right thing and fired FBI Director James Comey, the individual at the center of the attempt to overturn the 2016 election results. Comey orchestrated the spying efforts on President Trump and his campaign, which included the FBI improperly applying for four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to eavesdrop on campaign aide Carter Page. He also authorized a politically motivated investigation into Lt. General Michael Flynn and encouraged the entrapment of Flynn by his FBI agents in an infamous White House interview.

Clearly, Comey was a disastrous FBI Director; however, the President made a terrible choice when he replaced him with Christopher Wray, a bureaucrat who has not reformed the agency in any meaningful way. He also seems to be incapable of identifying the real threats that are facing the country.

Wray is doing the bidding of the Democrats and following their talking points

In testimony on Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray made a series of remarkable claims. He stated that Antifa is not a group but is more of “an ideology or maybe a movement.” He also refused to identify Chinese efforts to interrupt the 2020 election and again focused attention on activities from Russia.

With these remarks, Wray is doing the bidding of the Democrats and following their talking points. Regarding Antifa violence, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), claimed it was a “myth.”

Nadler has been in his congressional cocoon for too long. Antifa has been active for several years, but since the death of George Floyd on May 25, it has intensified its activities around the country. Millions of Americans have seen the frequent and disturbing video footage of rioting and looting throughout the country. According to U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), “there have been more than 550 declared riots, many stoked by extremists, Antifa and the BLM (Black Lives Matter) organization.”

In his comments to Wray at the committee meeting, Crenshaw also noted the rioters have done an extensive amount of damage. He stated that “between one and two billion dollars of insurance claims will be paid out. That doesn’t come close to measuring the actual and true damage to people’s lives, not even close.”

Crenshaw is right as many of our urban areas, such as New York, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland among others have been devastated by a series of violent protests. In the past few months, scores of monuments have been destroyed, and significant damage has been done to businesses and public buildings. The group has also attacked innocent civilians and targeted police officers. As Crenshaw asserted in this rebuttal to Wray, Antifa matches the definition of a domestic terrorist organization.

Wray unwilling to acknowledge the obvious

Incredibly, Wray does not believe there is an organization that is directing these numerous riots across the country. He was unwilling to acknowledge the obvious. As Crenshaw explained to the misguided FBI Director, Antifa, “coordinates regionally and nationally, wears a standardized uniform. It collects funds to buy high powered lasers to blind federal officers, builds homemade explosive devices, feeds their rioters since they clearly aren’t working, and then bails out those who’ve been arrested. This is an ideology that has trained its members, makes shield wall phalanxes to attack federal officers. It formed an autonomous zone in an American city and besieged a federal courthouse in another. So, I mean, it just seems to be more than an ideology.”

Of course, it is much more than a philosophical movement and the FBI should be arresting the primary contributors and organizers of Antifa, but, instead, most of the charges that have been brought against the rioters have been for minor offenses.  America is still waiting for the FBI to treat Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, which is what President Trump has declared many times.

While the President may view Antifa as our major domestic threat, FBI Director Wray declared that white supremacists comprise the largest share of racially motivated terrorism in our country. He also warned the committee about the involvement of Russia in the 2020 election. Wray maintained that “we certainly have seen very active, very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020…to both sow divisiveness and discord and…to denigrate Vice President Biden.”

The President was also troubled by Wray’s focus on Russian electoral interference

Wray’s testimony seemed tailor-made for an upcoming commercial for former Vice President Joe Biden. President Trump was clearly upset at Wray’s comments. Regarding Wray’s view of Antifa, the President said, “The fact is Antifa is a bad group. They’re bad, and when a man doesn’t say that that bothers me. I wonder why he’s not saying that?”

The President was also troubled by Wray’s focus on Russian electoral interference instead of the numerous activities being conducted by the dictatorial communist Chinese regime. According to the President, “the big problem is China, and why he doesn’t want to say that that certainly bothers me.”

The President should not be perplexed by FBI Director Wray’s performance. He is a bureaucrat who is not a reformer. Wray has not made the personnel or policy changes that should have been forthcoming after Comey’s firing. He seems more concerned about maintaining his standing with Democrats in Congress and the media, so he will never validate the President’s viewpoint. On issue after issue, Wray has been a total disappointment.

In his comments to the media, the President noted that he was “looking at a lot of different things” regarding the future of Wray as FBI Director. There should be only one move to consider, firing this FBI Director as soon as possible.

Sep 18 2020

Sidney Powell Discusses Special Counsel Role in Continuing Corrupt DOJ and FBI Effort….


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on September 17, 2020 by 

Michael Flynn’s defense attorney Sidney Powell appears with Liz MacDonald to discuss the ongoing corrupt evidence surfacing against a variety of DOJ and FBI officials to include the special counsel effort to scrub their phone records.

Within the interview Ms. Powell highlights the arc of the investigative effort from the origin of ‘Spygate’ through the term of the special counsel led by Andrew Weissmann, and into the Senate effort to cloud and conceal their own participation.  WATCH:

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We at CTH are not going to let this issue go, regardless of whether Bill Barr, John Durham or Bill Aldenberg take direct action to address it.

Newly released records [SEE HERE] from a FOIA show the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel team “accidentally” wiped at least 27 iPhones of data early in 2018.  Curiously timed at the same time the special counsel was attempting to cover for their coordination with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Vice-Chairman Mark Warner.

Mueller’s lead investigator Andrew Weissmann accidentally wiped two phones himself; through a lengthy process of entering the wrong passcode several times over a period of three hours; removing data to show his activity during the special counsel. Weissmann claimed to have entered the wrong password (takes ten attempts) and that erased all the data. Greg Andre, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, made the same claim.

 

Wiping your phone to hide damaging information only works if the other phone you are communicating with wipes the same data. Guess what happened? Yup, exactly that.

James Quarles III who worked with Mueller in private practice at the Washington office of Wilmer-Hale, claimed his iPhone magically erased itself.

Before joining the special counsel team Rush Atkinson worked under Andrew Weissmann in the DOJ’s criminal fraud section where he specialized in financial fraud. Atkinson claims he too entered the wrong password ten times and accidentally erased all the data.

At least twelve other people assigned to the special counsel investigation had similar “phone wiped/erased” issues which blocked the inspector general from his review.

One “accidental” method used repeatedly was to place the iPhone in airplane mode and then lock it without providing the password. Retrieval attempts then erased all data, and returned to factory settings after unsuccessful passcode entries.

[PDF Link Available Here]

As we have previously mentioned the two-year Weissmann/Mueller special counsel, May 2017 through April 2019, was a continuum of the corrupt DOJ and FBI efforts that originated prior to the 2016 election. Many of the internal FBI and DOJ officials just transferred from the Clinton email investigation, into the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and then into the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel investigation.

The corrupt activity within the special counsel tenure was actually worse than the corrupt activity that preceded it.

To give you an idea how difficult it is to wipe the iPhone, watch this video.

This was not done “accidentally”:

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After the reports of the phone wiping surfaced the republican led Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) refused to provide documents to republican senators from their Russia investigation. Citing archaic justification within senate parliamentary rules current Chairman Marco Rubio (R) and Vice-Chairman Mark Warner are refusing to allow Senator Johnson and Senator Grassley to review the evidence the SSCI assembled to create their report on Russian election interference.

The reason and motives for the denial are simple, yet the majority of Americans have no idea…. The SSCI was the legislative entity, both republicans and democrats, who participated in the unlawful effort to remove President Trump from office. The risk of exposure is exactly why Mitch McConnell put Senator Marco Rubio on the committee as chairman to replace Richard Burr. The Senate was participating in the soft-coup.

WASHINGTON DC – The Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate Intelligence Committee rejected a broad request from two Republican Senate leaders seeking access to the panel’s records to assist in their investigation into the Trump-Russia investigators.

Acting Chairman Marco Rubio of Florida and Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia rejected a late August letter from Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said that they “respect the authority” of the Senate Intelligence Committee to protect its interests, adding that “ultimately, we have the right as United States Senators” to access the records.

“We note that your request of the Committee is made pursuant to Senate Rule 26, but fails to account for the unique authorities and obligations invested in this Committee through Senate Resolution 400 and respected over decades of Senate and Committee practice,” Rubio and Warner responded. “Accordingly, we must reject the absolutist interpretation of Rule 26 that you propose. If this Committee elects to share materials that it has collected and generated in the course of its investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, it will do so pursuant to these long-standing Committee rules, and specifically, the joint agreement of the Chairman and the Vice Chairman.”

Rubio and Warner added: “Independent of whether that agreement is forthcoming, our position on this matter obviously does not preclude you from pursuing your own investigation, using your own authorities, as you see fit, within the confines of your committees’ jurisdictions.” (read more)

I cannot overemphasize the importance of this sunlight avoidance enough.

Back on March 17, 2017, the SSCI secretly received the FISA application used on Carter Page from FBI supervisory special agent Brian Dugan. The ‘review and return’ application was delivered to Senate Security Director James Wolfe, who then placed it in the Senate SCIF to be reviewed by Vice-Chairman Mark Warner (and possibly Chairman Richard Burr). It appears no other senators were informed of this production.

James Wolfe then leaked the FISA application to reporter Ali Watkins. All indications are that Wolfe leaked the application to Watkins as directed by Warner, possibly with Burr’s full knowledge.

FBI Agent Brian Dugan then completed a nine-month leak investigation resulting in James Wolfe admitting to the leak. The leak was Dugan’s FBI equity. Due to the severity of the leak; and specifically because the leak encompassed the FISA application; in/around mid-January 2018 the special counsel in Main Justice was notified of Dugan’s findings and the investigative file was shared with the Weissmann team.

The Weissman team then took apart the investigative file and began running cover for the corrupt background story that included the participation by Senator Mark Warner. Part of that file surfaced when the text messages between Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman were made public on Feb 9, 2018.

In a pre-planned operation, as soon as the explosive Warner/Waldman texts were released Senator Marco Rubio rushed to the microphones to fraudulently state that Warner had informed the committee during his early spring (2017) contacts with Waldman and Chris Steele. This claim by Rubio was a lie. Rubio was running cover for Warner as part of his own affiliation with the origin of the Fusion-GPS opposition research and the subsequent transfer of information to the Clinton campaign and ultimately through Chris Steele to the corrupt FBI investigative unit. [Later to the Weissmann/Mueller crew]

Rubio’s motive to downplay the ramifications of the Warner effort, and the subsequent Wolfe leak, directly ties to his own involvement with the Fusion-GPS effort. Remember, at the time of this obfuscation (late ’17 and early ’18) no-one yet knew the Fusion-GPS fraudulent story (which became the Steele dossier) was originally funded by the Super-PAC funding the Rubio campaign.

Go look at when the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel deleted their iPhone records and history. The scrubbing took place mid-January 2018 as soon as they realized the previously unknown leak investigation by Washington Field Office FBI agent Brian Dugan had bumped into the special counsel operation that was coordinating with the SSCI.

The special counsel warned Warner; took action to remove specific evidence assembled by Dugan (which included the Warner/Waldman text messages); created a fictitious cover story for the SSCI to use; extracted the Dugan version of the FISA application he used to catch Wolfe (which they later released under the guise of FOIA); then sent a deconstructed (now useless) investigative file back to DC USAO Jessie Liu who had nothing left except to present a DC grand jury with James Wolfe lying to investigators.

That corrupt, unlawful and coordinated cover-up effort lies at the heart of why the SSCI will not share any information with GOP senators today.

Senators Johnson and Grassley were asking for the FISA application in 2018, not knowing the original and first renewal were previously provided to the SSCI on March 17, 2017.

When congress (House Intel, House Judiciary, Senate Judiciary and Senate Homeland Security) were writing to FISA Court presiding judge Rosemary Collyer seeking a copy of the FISA application from the court they had no idea one early copy was already provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Chairman Burr and Vice-Chair Warner kept their review and use secret; but the information about their reception came out because James Wolfe leaked it and FBI agent Brian Dugan was awaiting that leak.

FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer never told any of the chairmen about the March 2017 copy of the application that was provided to Brian Dugan to deliver to the SSCI.

Throughout the attempt to remove President Trump from office, which included the impeachment effort, the SSCI was participating and assisting; now they are in cover-up mode. That’s the reason why Mitch McConnell put Marco Rubio in charge of that committee.

There’s a reason why senior staff from Senator Ron Johnson’s committee and senior staff from Chuck Grassley’s committee are asking for SSCI documents. It might not come out before the election, but it will come out…

BACKSTORY: (Read Here – and All Citations)

The sequence is critical:

1. Adam Waldman text messages. (release date Feb 9, 2018)

https://www.scribd.com/document/371101285/TEXTS-Mark-Warner-texted-with-Russian-oligarch-lobbyist-in-effort-to-contact-Christopher-Steele#

2. Justice Dept. Letter to journalist Ali Watkins (release date Feb 13, 2018)

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4498451-Justice-Department-Records-Seizure.html

3. James Wolfe indictment (release date June 8, 2018)

https://www.scribd.com/document/381310366/James-Wolfe-Indictment-Senate-Intelligence-Committee-Leaker#

4. FISC / Senate Judiciary Letter (public release April, 2020 – event date July 12, 2018) The letter from DOJ-NSD (Mueller Special Proseuctors) to the FISC is important.

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2018-doj-letter-to-fisc&download=1

5. Carter Page FISA application (release date July 21, 2018) Only need the first application section. 83 pages of original application.

https://www.scribd.com/document/384380664/2016-FISA-Application-on-Carter-Page#

6. Government Sentencing Wolfe Case memo and recommendation for upward departure and/or variance. Filed December 11, 2018

https://www.scribd.com/document/395499292/James-Wolfe-DOJ-Sentencing-Memo-December-11

7. Govt. Reply to Defendant (Wolfe) sentencing memo (date Dec 14, 2018) Govt. Exhibit #13 (two page attestation is critical).

https://www.scribd.com/document/395775597/Wolfe-Case-DOJ-Response-to-Defense-Sentencing-Memo

Misc:

July 27, 2018, – Wall Street Journal – Wolfe lawyers threaten SSCI subpoenas.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-intelligence-committee-aides-lawyers-want-testimony-from-senators-1532692801?mod=e2tw

Dec 11, 2018 – Politico – Senators seek Leniency:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/11/senate-intelligence-committee-leaking-james-wolfe-1059162

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Sep 12 2020

Tom Fitton: “There Needs to be A Criminal Investigation of the Special Counsel”…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on September 11, 2020 by 

There are a lot of tenuous characters who report on the machinations of the swamp, Lou Dobbs and Tom Fitton are not part of that media system.  In this interview both Dobbs and Fitton deliver brutal honesty, call the baby ugly, and discuss the best approach that President Trump should take to deliver sunlight upon the schemes. WATCH:

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Tom Fitton is exactly correct. There needs to be a criminal investigation of Andrew Weissmann and the entire special counsel crew for their conduct in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The corrupt FBI and DOJ activity in 2015/2016 pales in comparison to the corrupt activity within the special counsel when they held the reigns in Main Justice.

 

Sep 12 2020

Durham DC Investigative “Functionary” Returns to Private Sector Work…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on September 11, 2020 by 

Stories of a top aide to USAO John Durham, Nora Dannehy (good Irish family), leaving the investigative unit have hit the media narrative cycle.   However, here’s a slightly different perspective about her departure you won’t see anywhere else.

CONNECTICUT – Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned from the U.S. Justice Department probe – at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done, colleagues said. (read more)

That highlighted narrative segment is horse-pucky.

Unbeknownst to Ms. Dannehy, we met, we crossed paths in DC.  It was an serendipitous outcome of putting my physical presence in a position to interact.  From our encounter Ms. Dannehy seemed to be a functionary of the investigative process; located in DC as an outcome of her task assignment.

Dannehy, very familiar with the DC national security networks; and carrying a top-secret clearance level; had a role to play where she reached into compartmented silos, retrieved information, conducted interviews and then sent the raw data along with summaries back up the investigative pipeline. Ergo, she seemed to be an investigative “functionary.”

Although she was/is obviously a badge carrying member of the Orange-Man-Bad committee (most of them cannot hide that inherent disposition), she seemed competent and detached emotionally from the work.  That said, obviously this ‘Durham’ investigation touches on several ‘third-rails’ that could negatively impact the financial prospects of any DC insider if their assigned role undermined the position of the administrative state that functions to pay the network.   Did that play a role?  If I were a betting man….

♦ Here’s the way it looks to me.  The Durham probe, actually more like the Aldenberg probe, has slightly shifted direction.  Additional inquires are now being made into the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel conduct.  That explains why the ‘Woods File’ story surfaced; and that explains why the iPhone scrubbing FOIA info was produced; it’s an insiders control-game and it continues.

With any slight shift toward questioning the unquestionable, stuff happens.  Mueller, and his DC enabled career of “public service”, is a protected entity (a third rail of sorts).  Any shift into the disposition of that enterprise is a disconcerting and troubling shift for all of those who operate within the DC administrative state.

It’s a weird inside the bubble dynamic.  Any review of the individual elements within the bubble brings out a certain level of defensive angst from every element inside the bubble.  The system protects itself.  Any slight defect or investigative penetration of the membrane is considered a risk. [Think: ‘first rule of fight club‘ etc.]

If, as I suspect, a series of investigative paths starts to merge upon the operation of the special counsel, any networked official who is dependent on the system is going to want to avoid participating….  Especially if their private sector financial attachment is connected to their ability to reenter the bubble to engage the trough; just like Ms. Dannehy.

In this scenario a bail-out from assignment only reflects an individual choosing to stop traveling in the rabbit hole out of a sense of self-preservation.  That outlook doesn’t define any time-frame within the investigation; nor does it attribute a coming interim report as a consequence of the investigative travels so far.  It’s simply a functionary making a decision to exit and retain private sector access to the same system.  Nothing more.

Warmest best.

PS. Hello fellas.

Sep 12 2020

Flynn Update – Judge Sullivan Appointed Amicus, John Gleeson, Files His Reply to Motion for Dismissal…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on September 11, 2020 by 

As anticipated Judge Sullivan’s court appointed amicus, John Gleeson, a special directive prosecutor appointed by the court, files his brief today [pdf here] arguing the DOJ is attempting to corrupt the court by filing an unopposed motion to dismiss.

The amicus filing itself is based on the severe anti-Flynn sentiment carried by the Lawfare community and their allies in the DC network.  Accordingly, Gleeson having presented himself as a member of this resistance effort, pontificates shallow conspiracy theories about the DOJ bending to political pressure in their decision to drop the case.

As defense attorney Sidney Powell previously shared: …”The defense and the government have agreed we will file no further briefs at all after amicus files whatever diatribe he plans to file. The only document that matters is the government’s motion to dismiss, which stands on its own and must be granted under ALL precedent. Everything amicus files is improper and should even be stricken–were the law being followed.”

It is unknown what Judge Sullivan plans to do with this amicus brief; however, the scheduled hearing for oral argument before the court is September 29th.

 

Here’s the full briefing:

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Worth noting this little aspect as noted by Techno Fog:

 

Sep 11 2020

Understanding the FBI’s Two-Hop FISA Surveillance of The Trump Campaign…


Posted originally on The Conservative Tree house on September 11, 2020 by 

The FBI spied on the inner circle of candidate Donald Trump’s campaign staff in 2016 and during the first 8 months of his administration. Even though Carter Page was the named target of the search warrant, 2-hop spying allowed the FBI to spy on all the people he contacted. John Spiropoulos explains how:

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The Steele Dossier, an outcome of the Fusion contract, contained two 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).

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}.  This also explains all of the issues with the FISA application “Woods File” being created ex post facto.

Senator Johnson’s FISA timeline, citing page 62 of the IG report, states categorically that FBI HQ ordered the New York Field Office to open a Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) investigation of Carter Page on April 1, 2016, and that the NYFO did so on April 6, 2016.

Since Carter Page’s alleged Russian agent status (“an agent of a foreign government”) is the critical predicate for the original and three renewal FISA applications [core of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation], how can Crossfire Hurricane team maintain they did not open investigation until July 31, 2016?

Carter Page joined the Trump campaign March 21, 2016, eleven days before the order, and ten days after the Buryakov press release identified him to the Russians as the (undercover employee) UCE responsible for burning three of their SVR agents.

Not only is is incredibly unlikely that Page — who was still on the witness list for Buryakov’s prosecution until his sentencing on May 25, 2016 — was thought an appropriate subject for recruitment by the Russians, even after associating with the Trump campaign… but even if he was, the opening of the April 6, 2016, FARA investigation by the NYFO almost four months before Crossfire Hurricane “officially” opened meant the FBI’s investigation into a Trump campaign associate began long before they say it did.

Add to that reality the fact the FARA order likely came from FBI HQ via Bill Priestap, and there is no way the FBI could credibly believe a UCE they knew responsible for burning three SVR agents had been recruited by the same SVR due to his recent association with the Trump campaign. It was all smoke and mirrors.

The Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing Trump surveillance and spy operations. Fusion-GPS gave them that justification and evidence for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier.  The Dossier was used to create the FISA application. The Dossier was used as a replacement for a valid Woods File.

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 2017 FBI was keeping the surveillance gateway open for Team Mueller to exploit later on.

Sep 11 2020

BIG PICTURE – Sidney Powell Discusses Weissmann/Mueller Special Counsel Destroying Evidence of Their Conduct…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on September 10, 2020 by 

Michael Flynn defense attorney Sidney Powell appears for an interview with Liz MacDonald to discuss the developments in the Flynn case (note: Sullivan’s court appointed amicus response brief is due tomorrow), and the background information recently highlighted.  As you review this interview, retain the 30,000/ft perspective.

Ms. Powell also discusses the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel erasing evidence by wiping phones and hiding evidence of their corrupt activity.  Additionally, Liz Mac circles back to the 2017 FISA report by Rosemary Collyer to support the most recent 2019 opinion filed by the FISA court showing the NSA database search abuse is ongoing.

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(1) We know to a demonstrable certainty the special counsel took apart the FBI investigative file of Washington Field Office Supervisory Special Agent Brian Dugan in order to protect their corrupt investigation and the collaborative effort of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  And Durham/Aldenberg knows that we know.

(2) We also know with a high degree of certainty the special counsel created a missing Woods File for the Carter Page application when the IG started sniffing around and announced his intent to review the four FISA applications. And Durham/Aldenberg knows that we have strong, very strong, evidence pointing in that direction.

(3) And now today we discover the same special counsel team destroyed their iPhones in an effort to cover their tracks.  These three events all happened within an almost identical time-frame.  C‘mon man… this is not coincidental.

 

I’m reposting a prior research outline below because something odd is happening in the background of this story. I’m not sure what it is, but there are small -seemingly disconnected- issues surfacing, that might tie back to this much bigger and purposefully avoided story.  I have learned to trust my instincts on this.

♦One – The FISA reauthorization legislation was dropped by Nancy Pelosi and all media conversation immediately vaporized.
♦Two – Crowdstrike is very concerned about this story every time it surfaces.
♦Three – If you understand the scale and scope of surveillance… does that explain the behavior of some people today [legislative (politicians), judiciary (judges), Pentagon (military)].

Were  ‘black files‘ created by the Obama Administration?

With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report on the Carter Page FISA, there is a common misconception about how the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign. In this outline we hope to provide some deep source material that will explain the origin, and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community began using Confidential Human Sources.

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 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 head of Crowdstrike; 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.

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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.  The same people were being repeatedly queried.

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 actions 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 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 two 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).

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}.  This also explains all of the issues with the FISA application “Woods File” being created ex post facto.

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.  The Dossier was used to create the FISA application. The Dossier was used as a replacement for a valid Woods File.

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.

Was the Peter Strzok created “EC” that initiated Crossfire Hurricane really just a massive effort to cover-up the Obama-era surveillance network?  {Go Deep}  Is that underlying surveillance network the real threat explaining why Michael Flynn had to be removed?

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Sep 11 2020

Lou Dobbs and Devin Nunes Discuss Ongoing William Aldenberg Investigation…


Posted originally on The Conservative tree house on September 10, 2020 by 

John Durham is a name attached to an internal DOJ investigation; however, it is William Aldenberg who is the real investigative lead.  Aldenberg is the technical center; and Aldenberg provides Durham the results of the investigation he is directing.

Lou Dobbs and Devin Nunes discuss the frustration and slow-pace of the current DOJ probe under the office of USAO John Durham.  Recently AG Bill Barr has inferred that more indictments are possible as an outcome of the background investigation. We’ll see.