Devin Nunes appears for an interview with Lou Dobbs to discuss his perspective on the latest stunning revelations around the Flynn case. Nunes outlines the importance of looking at the big picture and also considering how the same FBI that was investigating Flynn was purposefully leaking to allies in the media.
Nunes is pretty fired-up in this interview about the scale of corruption the recently released documents highlight.
FARA was always the way the Obama Administration IC apparatus, writ large, would legally justify political surveillance. [FARA = FISA] Hence Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, knowing purpose of DOJ-NSD, who ran FARA/FISA operations, would not allow an inspector general.
This is why Flynn had to be removed at all costs.
Obama-era political surveillance was being done through the intelligence apparatus (including FBI contractors) since 2012; with FARA as a justification for FISA abuse when needed. Flynn’s mere existence in the administration would have exposed that background surveillance network.
This afternoon Judge Emmet Sullivan unsealed an additional 11-pages of documents showing more background information about how the FBI was targeting former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn. [Court pdf Here] Also embedded below.
The release today is even more revealing than the handwritten notes released last night; and specifically President Obama’s “by the book” statement on January 5, 2017, takes on an entirely new light. They may not realize it yet, but this release implicates Obama.
(L-R) Peter Strzok, James Comey, President Obama, Andrew McCabe and Bill Priestap
Within the release we discover an “Electronic Communication” or “EC” from the Washington FBI field office recommending to close the FBI investigation of General Flynn on January 4, 2017, due to “no derogatory information.” However, FBI Agent Peter Strzok immediately responds to the FBI team [main headquarters] saying: “don’t do it yet’… and the plot unfolds.
There are FBI codenames within the release that need some explanation prior to review:
Crossfire Hurricane (CH) is the overall investigation that began in July 2016
Crossfire Typhoon (CT) is George Papadopoulos.
Crossfire Razor (CR) is Michael Flynn.
Cross Wind is still unknown. [Could be a person, or a subset of the case]
Let’s take a walk through the information starting with the FBI electronic communication.
First it is valuable to note three points from the first page:
“DOJSCO” – The Special Counsel Office had this information from the outset. That means everyone in/around the Mueller investigation already knew this information. That also means that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was aware of it.
Pay close attention to the dates. This EC was written on January 4, 2017. Dates are critical. When you compare the text messages and emails from Peter Strzok and other participants always refer to the dates to tell the big story.
Note the framework for the investigation itself was centered around Michael Flynn violating FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) laws based on a fraudulent premise of Flynn working for Russian interests. The FBI using FARA is a critical point. FARA was used as the primary justification by the DOJ and FBI for all political surveillance.
The FBI Washington Field Office says they are going to close the investigation of General Flynn because there is no derogatory information as a result of multiple investigative inquires:
The EC document then describes their work with Confidential Human Source (CHS) Stefan Halper. Interestingly, Halper lied to the FBI and told them he had attended an event with Michael Flynn in Moscow and was a direct eye-witness. “During the debriefing the CTH relayed an incident s/he witnessed”…. Halper never attended the Moscow event; he lied to the FBI.
The EC notes the FBI is closing this investigation. However, Peter Strzok goes bananas and immediately starts texting FBI officials to keep the investigation open….
Which leads to a 2:22pm message where Peter Strzok notes “7th floor involved”. That means FBI Director James Comey is now engaged on the issue.
James Comey being actively engaged is important. Previously Comey said he was unaware of what they were doing… Additionally this text and activity is January 4, 2017.
The very next day, January 5th, James Comey goes to the White House for a meeting with President Obama and Vice-President Biden.
January 5th is the White House meeting where National Security Advisor Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey (Crossfire Hurricane), and Deputy AG Sally Yates (Flynn FARA) are talking to President Obama about the status of the Flynn FBI investigation and President Obama says “by the book”.
1/4/17 – FBI wants to close investigation.
1/4/17 – Peter Strzok says no wait… I have a plan.
1/4/17 – James Comey involved. “7th Floor Involved”
1/5/17 – James Comey goes to White House.
1/5/17 – President Obama says: OK, but make sure “by the book”. [Susan Rice Memo]
“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book“.”
“The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would, “by the book.””
1/6/17 – James Comey briefs President-elect Trump in Trump Tower on the Steele Dossier. [Comey Memos]
1/6/17 – Christopher Steele deletes all files relating to his Trump Dossier.
It doesn’t take an investigative genius to see what took place here.
SIDEBAR on THIS ISSUE: This long forgotten letter from Susan Rice’s lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler (who was also the former White House Counsel to President Obama). Notice that in Ruemmler’s letter she specifically says the January 5th meeting was about Flynn:
[Feb 23, 2018] The memorandum to file drafted by Ambassador Rice memorialized an important national security discussion between President Obama and the FBI Director and the Deputy Attorney General. President Obama and his national security team were justifiably concerned about potential risks to the Nation’s security from sharing highly classified information about Russia with certain members of the Trump transition team, particularly Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
[…] While serving as National Security Advisor, Ambassador Rice was not briefed on the existence of any FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, and she later learned of the fact of this investigation from Director Comey’s subsequent public testimony.
How could Ms. Susan Rice be aware of a “national security compromise”, “particularly surrounding Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn” after a “briefing by the FBI”, if she was “not briefed on the existence of an FBI investigation”? With all of this information, these stories are falling apart.
There is a lot breaking today and we will have MUCH more on breaking developments which includes a release today of the additional 11 pages of information to the Flynn defense team. The release, when put together with all previously released information, clearly and directly implicates President Obama in the Flynn operation.
In the interim, listen to President Trump remark on the current developments:
Jim Jordan appears on Fox News to discuss the unsealed documents released yesterday showing the FBI “small group” framing a case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Rep. Jordan rightly puts the recent release into context by asking why Robert Mueller and Chris Wray did not bring out this exculpatory information. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team knew Flynn was framed. Rod Rosenstein knew Flynn was framed. Chris Wray and Dana Boente knew Flynn was framed. Yet no-one did anything. WATCH:
Michael Flynn’s defense attorney appears for a brief interview with Sean Hannity to discuss the recently unsealed documents showing FBI strategic planning to target Lt. Gen Flynn prior to their interview on January 24, 2017. WATCH:
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A few notes of caution. Don’t fall into the outrage trap; the DOJ will certainly justify the FBI notes as a valid discussion on investigative strategy, nothing more.
Second, Bill Barr did not appoint Missouri Attorney Jensen in an effort to support General Flynn. AG Barr was ordered by the FISA court to review every case and all evidence that touched upon the fraudulent Carter Page FISA application. Be careful about projecting a motive onto Bill Barr around these revelations. Without that FISC ordered sequestration review order; the DOJ/FBI may not have moved on this.
Lastly, despite the known corruption within the existing FBI leadership {outlined here}, and we can now add the FBI hiding these documents for 3 years, AG Bill Barr continues to pour effusive praise upon the FBI. That reality doesn’t reconcile with a good intent.
When the FISA Court responded to the DOJ Inspector General report in December and January 2020 they requested an action plan from the DOJ and FBI to respond to the issues raised about misrepresentations to the court.
The DOJ/FBI replied to the FISA Court admitting the last two FISA renewals (April, June ’17) used against Carter Page were insufficiency predicated while withholding opinion on the original application (Oct ’16) and first renewal (Jan ’17).
To address the consequences of fraudulently obtained FISA warrants the DOJ and FBI informed the court they would begin a process to “sequester” all collected evidence from all four FISA warrants. [FISA COURT LINK]
Sequestering the evidence is essentially a search for what investigative material the FISA warrants were used to obtain; ie. the search for the fruit of the poisoned tree; and then a review of all DOJ/FBI cases that may have utilized that investigative material.
In late January the DOJ contacted the FISA court and asked for an extension to the deadline. The FISA court granted an extension until February 5th [LINK] The final response from the DOJ has not been declassified or released by the FISC for public review.
However, with media reporting of AG Barr using “outside prosecutors” to review current, former and ongoing cases, it simply makes sense this ‘outsider’ effort is part of the DOJ/FBI sequestration review.
If you consider that several DOJ offices may be involved with the material under review, including the Southern District of New York; The Eastern District of New York; The Eastern District of Virginia; The Washington DC District, and even Main Justice itself; it makes sense that outside DOJ personnel would be needed for this review.
Additionally, all of the various FBI field offices who may have used the FISA authorizations as the underpinning evidence to gain separate Title-1 and/or Title-3 warrants, wiretaps or National Security Letters, in their various investigative cases would also need to be reviewed. This is an aspect the media is not discussing while they write opinions about AG Bill Barr bringing in outside DOJ attorneys.
The media are framing the use of outside attorneys as Bill Barr working on behalf of President Trump to undermine current and former prosecutions. However, understanding the FISC order requiring the sequestration effort, the use of outsiders is absolutely necessary.
The same U.S. Attorneys, prosecutors and FBI agents who used evidence gathered from the FISA warrants cannot be the same attorneys, agents and prosecutors making decisions about what parts of the warrants were used to gather evidence and how each part of any case was assembled by the use therein. It is a simple matter of a conflict of interest.
Additionally, the Robert Mueller team of FBI investigators and special counsel prosecutors certainly used the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants as part of their investigative evidence collection. Common sense would tell us this had to be the case or the FBI and Mueller team would not have requested renewals of the FISA warrant.
If the FBI & Special Counsel were not using the FISA warrant(s) to capture information, they would not have needed them renewed. Despite media spin to the contrary, the simple truth of renewals holding investigative value is evident in the renewal itself (ie. common sense).
Under this rather extensive effort to find exactly which investigations -over the course of three years- were touched directly, or indirectly, by the four FISA warrants; and/or which investigative paths may have been influenced downstream or enhanced -by varying degrees of importance- by evidence stemming from the FISA warrants; a reasonable person could see how AG Bill Barr would need to put a team together to retrace the investigative steps and make the sequestration determinations.
Obviously, for reasons of biased intent, corporate left-wing media would like to ignore why outside prosecutors are needed under this framework. Ignored in part because honest reporting would require an admission the FISA warrants were fraudulently obtained; and in part because the left-wing media have never informed the public of the DOJ/FBI sequestration effort in the first place. Likely more than half the country has no idea the DOJ and FBI have been told to go find the material.
There have been numerous articles, thousands of words, and endless hours of pundit protestations about Bill Barr using outside DC lawyers to review all of the previous DOJ Attorney activities; yet not a single time have they ever acknowledged the originating order from the FISA court requiring the DOJ/FBI to conduct the review. Imagine that?
New York Times – Mr. Barr has also installed a handful of outside prosecutors to broadly review the handling of other politically sensitive national-security cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, the people said. The team includes at least one prosecutor from the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, who is handling the Flynn matter, as well as prosecutors from the office of the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen. (more)
Likewise, considering AG Barr has been ordered by the court to review all the targets, cases and evidence, we should not be projecting an altruistic “clean up” effort… Arguably, one could say Barr is being forced to reopen, and revisit, all of this material. Certainly Bill Barr would not willingly expose the corrupt intents of his friends Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein…. So we should watch carefully.
It would certainly be ironic if the FISA court ends-up in 2020 as the least corrupt institution within a DC network fraught with institutional corruption.
When it comes to DC politics, we cannot be too cynical.
Many people forget that Senator Chuck Grassley has skin in this investigation. Grassley has always suspected Flynn was framed. Back in June of 2018, Senator Grassley was very suspicious of what Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was doing to facilitate the targeting of Michael Flynn when he said:
…”If the facts are inconsistent with the plea agreement, that would be an entirely different kettle of fish.”… (more)
Earlier today Grassley reacted to the previously hidden FBI documents showing that Michael Flynn was targeted for removal by the FBI “small group”. WATCH:
“If the facts are inconsistent with the plea agreement, that would be an entirely different kettle of fish.”
JUNE 2018 – The Department’s reply to my May 11, 2018 letter seeking information about the circumstances surrounding Lt. General Michael Flynn’s reported conversations with the Russian ambassador and FBI records related to those conversations is insufficient. The letter only recounts a series of publicly known facts about Lt. General Flynn’s plea agreement and relies on improper excuses in refusing to provide the requested information. The Committee requires this information to fulfill its Constitutional function and its charge under Senate Rules to conduct oversight of the Department of Justice.
First, as you know, some of that information was first requested on a bipartisan basis before your confirmation. The Committee has waited patiently for much more than a year for the criminal inquiry related to Lt. General Flynn to conclude. It has been more than five months since his guilty plea. Thus, there is no longer any legitimate reason to withhold facts from the Senate about the circumstances of his conversations with the Russian ambassador and his FBI interview.
Second, the Department’s letter erroneously suggests that complying with Congressional oversight would result in “the reality or the appearance of political interference” in a “pending criminal prosecution.” There is no pending prosecution. The guilty plea was more than five months ago.
The Department’s letter describes in detail what everyone already knows. Lt. General Flynn admitted to the Statement of Offense with the able assistance of counsel. All that remains is for Lt. General Flynn to be sentenced. Simply disclosing facts to the Committee could not possibly “interfere” with the case at this late date, assuming those facts are consistent with the representations that prosecutors arranged for Lt. General Flynn to swear to in federal court.
If the facts are inconsistent with the plea agreement, that would be an entirely different kettle of fish. (more pdf link)
The first of the sealed documents provided to the Flynn defense have been unsealed. The documents include emails between: FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, his FBI counsel Lisa Page, as well as FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka in the lead-up to the January 24, 2017 interview of Michael Flynn.
This specific release is the court filing of five pages that was initially turned-over to the Flynn defense team last Friday. [The pdf is here] [There are an additional 11 pages of documents from another production earlier today; those are not in this release]
The documents today also include handwritten notes taken by FBI counterintelligence chief William “Bill” Priestap; which show him both questioning and outlining the purpose of the interview: to remove National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
According to the Priestap notes it appears the position of the FBI on January 23, 2017, was that Michael Flynn had violated the Logan Act by having a conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 29, 2016, prior to the inauguration.
This was a ridiculous position, there was no violation of the Logan Act; however, it was this position from which the questioning the next day, January 24 2017, would be based.
The next page of notes discusses the “Afterwards”:
The redactions are likely “the transcript“; where the FBI has the transcript of the call between Michael Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak. The redaction would be continued to protect the source of the material (“sources and methods”).
Interestingly, on the second day, the actual day of the interview, it appears Bill Priestap had second thoughts and was questioning the goal of the interview: “I thought about it last night and I believe we should rethink this”…
FBI Asst. Director for Counterintelligence Bill Priestap then asks the question: “what is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”
The premise of “wrongdoing” vis-a-vis a Logan Act violation was ridiculous. As the incoming National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn would be talking to many counterparts throughout the globe. Even Priestap started to realize what they were doing was “playing games.”
[…] Multiple officials confirmed to Just the News that the author of the notes is William Priestap, the now-retired FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and the ultimate supervisor for fired agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia probe.
[…] A special prosecutor is reviewing DOJ’s and the FBI’s handling of the Flynn prosecution, which led to the former Trump adviser and retired general pleading guilty to lying to the FBI under a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia case.
Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell filed a court motion last week saying new evidence has emerged showing Flynn was “framed” and his conviction should be dismissed. The officials said the notes are part of that new evidence and had been withheld from Flynn’s defense team for years even though they were potential evidence of innocence.
More evidence is being produced in the next few days that will further illuminate the FBI’s conduct in the case that is now at the center of the DOJ investigation, officials said. (more)
Keep in mind, the Mueller special counsel knew this all along…
Keep in mind, former DAG Rod Rosenstein knew this all along…
Also keep in mind, current FBI Director Chris Wray and current FBI Legal Counsel Dana Boente knew this all along….
These documents have been inside the DOJ and FBI for more than three years; while they prosecuted him and drove his family into bankruptcy.
NOTE: Just before this was published the court has released the notes. More will follow…
It appears U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen from Missouri, who was brought in to review all of the DOJ case files surrounding Michael Flynn, has provided an additional eleven pages of exculpatory FBI notes. Michael Flynn’s defense counsel Sidney Powell describes the latest notes as: “even more appalling than the Friday production“.
The Flynn defense and the DOJ (likely Jensen) have filed a joint motion with the court asking for the documents to be unsealed after a classification review. However, as Techno Fog noted looking at the cover letter, it appears these notes were already in the custody of the Special Counsels Office (“DOJSCO”)
Breaking…. As this was being assembled, the court has unsealed some of the notes.
Earlier this evening Fox Business News host Lou Dobbs interviewed Michael Flynn’s defense attorney Sidney Powell about the status of the case. Great Interview:
Interesting timing all things considered…. Michael Flynn removed and replaced his prior legal defense counsel, Covington & Burling, after asserting their ineffective and legally conflicted representation. [NOTE: former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is a partner at Covington & Burling.] As a result of Sidney Powell taking over the Flynn defense, his prior counsel was supposed to turn over all client materials and evidence in the case.
After some recent jaw-dropping revelations in the case; which may include evidence highlighting how the FBI participated in framing Michael Flynn; and certainly contains evidence of an unethical prosecutorial agreement with the former defense counsel, to coerce a guilty plea by threatening to arrest Michael Flynn Jr; suddenly today Covington & Burling discover an additional 6,800 pages of evidence they conspicuously omitted.
The timing is very sketchy and Judge Sullivan does not appear amused. After receiving the supplemental notice of case material transfer (full pdf below) Judge Sullivan issues an order to the Covington law firm to re-re-review all of their case files and file a notice of compliance by Monday May 4th.
Judge Sullivan has been very favorable to the position of the justice department throughout the case, but it appears even he is starting to question all of these “unintentional” miscommunications and material coincidences that paint a very challenging picture for the prosecution to explain.
Here’s the filing from the Covington law firm where they attempt to explain their new discovery and why they failed to present this material over the past ten months.
Oh, whoopsie daisy…. There was a “miscommunication“.
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Ms. Sidney Powell’s outlook on this case appears to be gaining momentum.
Lt. General Michael Flynn’s plea was based on: (1) a framing by the FBI; and (2) a threat against Michael Flynn Jr. if his father didn’t sign the plea.
If the reports are accurate it is very likely Judge Sullivan will allow the plea to be removed. If the documents are as strong as outlined the entire case could be dismissed.
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